Glitch

by Laura Martin

  “You didn’t need to be such a jerk,” I said, shouldering past him as my stomach rumbled, reminding me of my priorities.

  “Couldn’t help myself,” he said, hurrying to keep up with me. I walked faster, but Elliot just adjusted his stride and kept pace.

  “Where was your recap, by the way?” I said, whirling to face him so quickly he almost ran into me.

  Elliot shrugged. “I didn’t have one. I like to sit in on the recap sessions. I find them helpful.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said. “You go through that voluntarily?” He nodded.

  I shook my head. “You really are a freak, Mason.”

  “A freak that’s at the top of our class,” he shot back. “Last I checked, Fitz, you weren’t even in the top fifty percent. That must sting a little.” It did sting, but it was also an inarguable fact. If my brain was a colander, Elliot’s was a steel trap.

  “Doesn’t change the freak status,” I muttered as I hurried down the hall, but Elliot just sped up to keep pace with me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. “Don’t you have somewhere better to be?”

  “Not particularly,” he said. “I was just wondering if you’re competing in the sim test tomorrow.”

  “No,” I said.

  “You know,” he went on as though I hadn’t said anything, “the test where they pit us against one another? The test you have to win ten times before you are eligible to move up to the next level of the Academy? That sim test? But wait,” he said, pausing with an overly dramatic hand to his chin, “you haven’t even won once? Have you?”

  “I said no,” I snapped back, walking so fast he practically had to jog to keep up. It was hard to win something you’d never attempted, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. If I couldn’t pass the Lincoln simulation, I didn’t have a shot of winning a sim test. I turned left down the corridor, my access badge lighting up on my chest as the large metal door slid open to let us through.

  “I’ve been prepping for the test for weeks,” Elliot went on. “I’ve already won nine times, which I’m sure you know, but I heard they really make it tough for your tenth try. They don’t like kids leveling up too young.” He paused and looked at me expectantly. I knew Elliot well enough to know that this wasn’t going to end until he made whatever point it was he was trying to make, so I stopped and turned to face him again, arms crossed tight over my chest.

  “What’s your point?” I said.

  He smiled. “No point. Just thought that you should know that I’m about to be the youngest cadet to level up. Your mom currently holds that record, right?”

  I didn’t say anything because the question had been 100 percent rhetorical. He knew, just like the entire Academy knew, that my mom held almost every record worth holding. What was he trying to do? Bait me? I glanced up and down the corridor, but we were alone, everyone else having already abandoned the simulation wing for the mess hall and their dinners.

  “Bet she’d have loved it if you’d been the one to beat it,” Elliot said with a fake disappointment that set my teeth on edge. “Anyways,” he went on as though he wasn’t the biggest creep on the planet, “I just wanted you to know so you wouldn’t miss me.”

  “No one has ever missed you,” I shot back, and he winced. That wince brought me up short. Elliot never winced; he never showed any sort of emotion besides cocky self-assuredness peppered with the occasional temper spike. Whatever I’d said had struck a nerve, and I studied his face. And then it hit me.

  Just like every other Academy kid, Elliot’s family had given him up for training. But unlike every other kid, Elliot had never had anyone come on a family visitation day because his parents had both died shortly after he was born. While everyone else spent time on the lawn catching up with family, he was always off by himself, usually in the library. A fact I’d found out the hard way when I’d run into him a few years back and asked where his family was. The simple question had set him off, and we’d both ended up with our first detentions. It wasn’t until after my mom chewed me out for the detention that I found out why Elliot hadn’t been with his family. I’d felt like a complete jerk, especially since I knew what it was to walk in those particularly painful shoes. I’d never apologized, though. Maybe it was because I wasn’t necessarily supposed to know about Elliot’s parents, or maybe it was because I’d just been too embarrassed to do it. Either way, I’d made sure to steer clear of the library on visitation days from then on out because, of course, I was never part of family visitation days either. I couldn’t believe that I was back in the same awful position, acting the jerk by running my mouth off to Elliot Mason. Part of me wanted to blame him, like he’d dragged me down to his level somehow, but really there was no excuse. I was just as big of a grade-A jerk as he was. Maybe even worse, I realized.

  “Sorry,” I said. “That was out of line.” Elliot and I had disliked each other practically since we were babies in Academy day care. I had a very clear memory of three-year-old Elliot shoving Play-Doh up his nose, a memory I made a habit to remind him of every time the opportunity presented itself. Which, as it turned out, happened quite a lot. In my defense, he tossed around the story of that unfortunate field trip where I wet my pants like it was confetti, so he had it coming. I wasn’t sure why we didn’t get along, but I had a feeling that it was because my mom was the commander in chief, and he was just another Academy kid. Or maybe he really did have the personality of a constipated toad. The jury was still out.

  Elliot forced a grin, showing off two rows of perfect white teeth. “It’s fine. The only reason someone would miss you would be if your mom required it, Fitz.”

  I swallowed down what I wanted to say and raised an eyebrow at him, curious despite myself. “So you think you’re ready to move up to level six?” I asked. The very idea made my chest tight. At that level, you actually time traveled. Not to anything major, of course, but you were put on a Glitch platform and sent to a deserted field somewhere in the past to get used to the whole experience.

  The rare gene that allowed a select few to Glitch couldn’t be activated at will. Thank goodness. It lay dormant, hidden inside the very DNA of a Glitcher until it was triggered by a Glitch platform in ways I still didn’t completely understand. I wasn’t sure how I’d handle that step when it came, but I’d have to find a way. If it ever came, I thought ruefully, and I hoped that thought hadn’t shown on my face. The last thing I needed was to give Elliot Mason ammunition, thank you very much.

  The Glitch gene was so rare that I wasn’t in danger of getting kicked out of the Academy, especially with my mom being who she was, but that didn’t mean I’d get to be a Glitcher. Only about 20 percent of the Academy students made it that far. The mental strain broke some, and others opted out of the program due to the overwhelming stress and pressure of it all and chose to work on campus in some other role. They weren’t considered failures, just reassignments. You could label it however you wanted to, but if the daughter of the first ever female commander in chief didn’t make it through, I would be a big fat failure.

  “Hey,” Elliot said suddenly, the mocking tone gone from his voice. “What’s this?” Turning, I saw him bend down and scoop up a small white envelope off the ground. Deciding to capitalize on his distraction, I hurried down the hall, relieved not to feel his leering presence at my side anymore.

  “Hey, Fitz!” Elliot called. “It has your name on it!”

  I ignored him and kept walking. This was just one of Elliot’s tricks. He’d get me to walk back there, and then he’d say something stupid, and I’d lose whatever cool I was managing to maintain.

  “Hey!” Elliot called again. “I’m serious. It has your name on it!” I heard him jogging to catch up to me, and I quickened my pace. I was almost to the door that would take me out of the simulation building and into the sunshine. Tomorrow he’d ace that test, like he aced every test, and he’d move across campus to start the next phase of the Academy. With any luck, I wouldn’t see his sneering face aga
in until I moved up myself. I was about to put my hand on the wall sensor that would open the door and let me out, but something stopped me.

  Someday, I would look back at this moment and wonder what it was that kept me from walking away from Elliot Mason forever. But whatever it was, I stopped, and I turned, arms crossed, to face him. Seeing me turn, Elliot slowed down and walked the last few feet to catch up to me. Without a word, he handed me the envelope. The envelope’s paper felt unusually thick, much better quality than the thin stuff our assignments were usually printed on. I flipped it over and felt my stomach flop sickeningly. He was right. My name was scrawled across the front, but that wasn’t what made me feel ill. It’s that the name was written in my handwriting. I’d recognize it anywhere, the way the loop of my g was always just a tad too large. But I knew I’d never held this envelope before.

  “Open it,” Elliot prompted me impatiently.

  I shook my head as I turned the envelope back over in my hands. My brain felt muddled as I tried to remember a time that I’d written my name on this, but I kept coming up short. It felt like trying to remember a dream after waking up, like the memory was there, but just out of reach.

  “Come on,” Elliot said, “open it. I want to see who wrote you a letter. Do you have a secret admirer no one knows about?”

  “Don’t be dumb,” I said as I rubbed the paper between my fingers, noting a texture and weight to it that was completely foreign. Suddenly it clicked like a bolt in a lock.

  This was a Cocoon, the equivalent of a time-traveling bomb. It was something dropped by a Butterfly to change the future in some way, usually by revealing something that was about to happen so it could be changed. I felt my blood go icy in my veins, and I turned the letter back over, looking again at my name in my handwriting. If this was a Cocoon, and I knew that it was, that meant that I was the Butterfly. My mind immediately recoiled from the idea. Me? A Butterfly? It was so absurd a thought that my brain refused to accept it. Never, not in my wildest of wild dreams, had that possibility ever occurred to me. I’d been raised to hate Butterflies with every fiber of my being, but the evidence in my hand was almost undeniable. There was my name, in my own handwriting, on a piece of strange paper I’d never felt before in my life. Which meant that in the future I was going to write this letter and drop it here, in this exact moment, so that I could change the future in some way. If that didn’t make me a Butterfly, I didn’t know what did. Snapping my head up, I looked left and right, but the corridor was empty except for a very impatient Elliot Mason and me, and despite the panic that had frozen me to the spot, I couldn’t help but wonder why in the world my future self would choose a moment that included Elliot Mason. Apparently, future me was an idiot.

  Looking back down at the letter, I felt fear creep up my spine like a spider up a web. If this was found out, I’d be imprisoned for life and my mom would lose her job. It wouldn’t matter that I’d done the crime in some unknown future or that current me had no flying clue what was going on. The condemning evidence was sitting in my hand. But despite all that, all I could manage to do was stand there, reeling at what this meant.

  “Why do you look like you just saw a ghost?” Elliot asked, peering at me. “What’s in that thing?” I’d just put together that I needed to hide the letter, and fast, when his hand shot out to grab it. I jerked back reflexively, but it was too late.

  My blood fizzled angrily in my veins. “What do you think you’re doing!” I yelled, trying in vain to snatch back the envelope. With a smirk he stuck an arm out to stop me while simultaneously dangling it just out of my reach. I glared at it for a moment, and then lunged forward, slamming my shoulder hard into Elliot’s chin as I made a mad grab for the envelope. My hand closed around his, and I started prying his fingers loose without worrying overly much about how far back I yanked them in the process. Elliot cried out and twisted so we stumbled sideways. A second later a sharp whistle ripped through the air, and we both froze.

  “Cadets!” boomed a voice that made that one word into a command. We jumped apart like we’d been electrocuted, and I felt a stab of fear as I saw my envelope still grasped tightly in Elliot’s sweaty hand.

  The sound of heavy boots resounded down the corridor, and I didn’t need to glance to my left to know that it was an officer. I stepped my foot to the left and brought my heel down on the toes of Elliot’s boot and pressed. His eyes darted angrily over to mine and I frantically flicked my eyes down to where the letter was clutched in his hand and then back to him, trying desperately to communicate that he needed to hide it. Now! He narrowed his eyes at me, and for a gut-wrenching heartbeat, I was sure that he was going to do the exact opposite just to spite me. But then he shocked me and balled his hand into a fist, successfully hiding the envelope.

  “Cadets?” asked the sharp male voice.

  “Professor, sir!” Elliot and I barked in unison. I cheated my eyes to the left to see that it was Professor Green. Well, I sighed inwardly, it could have been worse; it could have been Treebaun again. Green was one of the oldest professors on campus, with gray hair that bushed out above his ears like the cheeks of a chipmunk. He’d taught my mother back when she was a cadet, but he’d never once compared me to her. Which wasn’t something I could say about any other professor on campus. He studied us now out of faded blue eyes in a way that let us know we weren’t the first unruly cadets he’d ever dealt with, and we most certainly wouldn’t be his last.

  “The last recap session ended ten minutes ago,” Green said. “What are you both still doing in the building?”

  “I was just saying my goodbyes, sir,” Elliot barked. “I am testing for the upper Academy tomorrow, and not to brag, sir, but I’m pretty confident of my advancement.”

  Professor Green raised a skeptical eyebrow as he looked from Elliot to me and back again, probably thinking of the multiple discipline reports that had found their way onto his desk over the years with the names Elliot Mason and Regan Fitz written across the top.

  “Is that so?” Green said. “That certainly didn’t look like a goodbye, at least not one that I’d ever want to take part in.”

  At any other time, I would have laughed at the way Green made Elliot squirm. You can’t butter this one up, you great big brown-noser, I thought as Green looked at Elliot like he was something interesting he’d found on the bottom of his shoe.

  “I think you’d better come with me, Cadet Mason,” Green finally said. “There are a few boxes of old World War Two uniforms in my classroom that need to be put into storage, and you look like just the man for the job. But before you do that, I would like to see you extend a proper goodbye to Cadet Fitz. It will do you no good to move up in the Academy if you retain the manners of a first year.” Elliot’s face twitched, but he nodded and turned to me, his hand extended for the customary handshake exchanged between cadets. I stared at that hand for a half second before acting on instinct and harebrained desperation. Taking a step forward, I threw my arms around him in a tight hug. He froze, because that’s what you do when the universe turns upside down.

  “I need that letter back,” I hissed in his ear, just loud enough for him to hear me.

  “What’s in it for me?” he whispered back, his arms wrapping around me in what was probably the most awkward and weird hug of my life as he kept up the bizarre charade.

  “Whatever you want,” I said in desperation, although I had no clue what I could possibly do for Elliot Mason that he’d care about.

  “Maybe,” he said, raising an eyebrow as he took a step back and out of my arms. “Goodbye, Cadet Fitz,” he said, the epitome of good manners.

  “Much better,” Green said. “Now move along to my classroom. I will meet you there momentarily.” Elliot nodded and pivoted sharply on the spot. I watched him go, wishing I could bore holes into his back with my glare alone.

  Green turned to me, a look of concern on his face. “Cadet Fitz?” he asked. “Anything you want to tell me?”

  I shook my head, mak
ing an effort to smile, but it felt too stretched and tight on my face.

  Green raised one of his thick gray eyebrows that always reminded me of a fat furry caterpillar. “Are you sure, Cadet Fitz?” he asked.

  “Positive, sir,” I said. “It’s just that Cadet Mason makes me want to scrub my skin with sandpaper, sir.”

  Green snorted out a laugh. “That was an enthusiastic goodbye for someone who makes you feel that way.”

  My mouth went dry as I realized my mistake. “I’m just really excited that he’s moving on tomorrow,” I said, which was 100 percent the truth. “That’s all.”

  Green chuckled. “Cadet Mason is incredibly focused and goal oriented, and people that driven have a tendency to grate on others.” When I didn’t say anything, he sighed. “You know,” he said. “I’ve taught you both for years now, and if each of you would relax a little, you might just become friends.”

  “Friends?” I said, barely hiding the disgust in my voice.

  Green nodded. “Friends. The life you are training for is one of extreme stress and strain. Friends can help with that.” Green considered me again for a long moment before nodding his head as though he’d just figured something out. “I assume you aren’t participating in the sim test tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Correct, sir,” I said.

  “May I ask why you never participate in sim tests?” he said, and I felt my insides shrivel a bit.

  “I don’t want to fail,” I said, deciding that honesty was the best policy when it came to Professor Green. He’d been around so long he could sniff out a lame cadet excuse from a mile away.