Glitch

by Laura Martin

  Regan opened her mouth to say something but then snapped it shut again as the realization hit home.

  “Did your brain just fall off the same cliff as mine?” I asked. “Because I’ll warn you, the landing really hurts.”

  “No way,” Regan said, sitting down on my bed and flopping backward so she could stare up at the ceiling.

  “Way,” I said, plopping down in my desk chair so I could face her.

  She sat up with a jerk a second later and stared at me. “Do you think the Lewis and Clark program was why we got the Cocoon in the first place?”

  I shrugged. “Who knows.”

  “So maybe we already did what the letter wanted us to do,” Regan said, biting her lip. “Maybe whatever bad thing was going to happen won’t happen now because I went all out to ruin your test.”

  “You went all out, all right,” I grumbled. “How in the world did you spot that Butterfly so fast?” I asked, because if I was honest with myself, it had been eating at me that she got the jump on me like that. It was uncanny.

  To my surprise, I saw a blush spread across her face, turning her ears a bright red.

  “Um,” she said, biting her lip. “I may have had some help with that one.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “The bullet points on the Cocoon,” she said, pulling a wadded-up piece of paper out of her pocket and flattening it in front of me. I glanced down at her list of bullet points, and froze when I saw the one that mentioned a deck, because there had been a list of bullet points on that letter. How in the world had I forgotten about that?

  “You cheated,” I said, pointing my finger in her face. “You knew the Butterfly was going to be belowdecks. That’s not fair.”

  “Really?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Because I’m pretty sure you had access to the exact same information.” I opened my mouth to protest, but, of course, she was right. I glanced back down at the list and frowned. “This is all you could remember?”

  She nodded. “But I know I’m missing one.”

  “You’re missing two,” I said, reaching over to snag a pen off my desk. I sat down, pulling her crumbled piece of paper over, and fixed the list, adding the two points she’d forgotten.

  Behind the curtain.

  Something about under a deck? Belowdecks.

  Break a window? When the window breaks, grab me.

  Trust the door will open when it needs to.

  The prototypes are a bust.

  Grab a key card when you have the chance. (What am I supposed to grab it off of?)

  Don’t forget about the one in his a pocket.

  That done, I put a big check next to the point next to belowdecks.

  “Put a check next to the one about the curtain too,” she said, and I looked up at her, eyebrow raised.

  “The Lincoln assassination simulation,” she said, sounding sheepish. “I had to pass it in order to hijack your test. The Butterfly was hiding behind the curtain in Lincoln’s theater box.”

  I thought about calling her out for cheating again, but honestly, what was the point? The damage was done. Together we looked down at the last few bullet points on the list, a list that I’d disregarded in my single-minded focus to level up. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

  “So, what now?” she said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “You won. Now we have to wait to see how the rest of those bullet points play out.”

  Regan grimaced. “I’m not sure if I’d consider this one a win for me. I mean, you’re my new partner.”

  “So?” I shot back.

  “I mean, have you met you?” she asked. “When you thought that Cocoon didn’t affect you, you totally ditched me. You’re a little self-centered.”

  “Driven,” I said. “The word you are looking for is driven. That Cocoon put everything I’d worked so hard for in jeopardy, so it was pretty easy to shrug off.”

  “And now?” she asked.

  I sighed. “And now I guess we are stuck together. Whether I like it or not.” I suddenly felt exhausted. I shut my eyes. Maybe if I didn’t look at her, she’d magically disappear.

  “Hmm,” Regan murmured. “That doesn’t sound like the Elliot Mason I know. Did you hit your head a little hard when I tackled you?”

  “Don’t be dumb. You know any injury in the simulation stays in the simulation,” I said, rubbing at a pain in my temples as I willed Regan to leave.

  “That’s the problem,” Regan said.

  I opened one eye to peer at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m dumb,” she said. “You practically said it in my mom’s office, and I know you thought it when you saw my pathetic attempt at remembering that list, and if that wasn’t bad enough, Professor Callaway practically spelled it out.” She twisted her face and puffed out her chest in a pretty spot-on imitation of Callaway. “Elliot has the academic knowledge, but Regan has the intuition.” She relaxed back into her normal posture and threw her hands in the air in exasperation. “He might as well have said Elliot has real smarts and Regan has similar talents to a really good German shepherd.”

  “I’d rather have a German shepherd as a partner,” I said. I glanced over at Regan and shrugged. “No offense.”

  She flipped her hand dismissively. “None taken. I’d trade you for a gerbil.”

  “You’re impossible,” I grumbled. “And annoying. I hope you know that.”

  “I’ve been told,” she said.

  “Queen Obnoxious and the Grade-A Jerk,” I said. “What a team.”

  “Either that or a really delightful children’s book,” she said. With that she turned, clambered back out the window, and disappeared.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Regan

  If anyone thought I’d be reluctant to move out of the mansion on the hill and into student housing, they’d be wrong. I’d been begging, literally begging, my mom for most of my life to let me live in one of the dorms. All the other kids at the Academy had a camaraderie with one another that I just hadn’t been able to achieve, and I was pretty sure it was because I wasn’t a part of their inside jokes about the cold showers or the tiny closets. Or, I reminded myself, it could be that I really was the queen of being obnoxious, like Elliot said. Either way, I was getting my wish and moving into student housing at last. I knew I wouldn’t make friends right away, especially since I was saddled with Elliot, but maybe eventually. A girl could hope.

  Mom had insisted on helping me with the move, but I’d have given anything to make this walk across the misty early-morning campus by myself. I’d really wanted to begin this fresh start, well, fresh. I shivered despite my warm cadet jacket. A glance out of the corner of my eye showed that my mom was just as preoccupied as I was. She’d gotten called away for an emergency meeting right after I’d gotten home from my visit to Elliot’s room, and the dark circles under her eyes were more pronounced than ever.

  “So, what happened last night?” I asked in an attempt to break the silence.

  “Nothing I can talk about,” Mom said with a distracted half smile.

  “Oh,” I said, and pressed my lips together. Seeing my reaction, she sighed and put an arm around my shoulders and squeezed.

  “Besides,” she said. “The last thing I want to talk about on the day my daughter moves out is work. I’ll miss you, you know.”

  “Now I’ll be just like every other cadet,” I said, “only seeing my mom every now and then.”

  “You, my dear, are not just like every other cadet,” she said, but before she could go on, there was a shuffling noise to our right, and Elliot came around the corner, his blue regulation duffel bag slung over shoulders that were hunched against the cold.

  “Hello, Cadet Mason,” Mom said, her voice too loud in the early-morning stillness. Elliot jumped about a foot and looked up in surprise.

  “Right,” Elliot said, and glanced at me. “Good morning.”

  “I know this situation isn’t what either of you wanted
, but I hope you both make the best of it,” Mom said. “The Academy needs every good Glitcher we can get, especially if those Glitchers come as a package deal.”

  Elliot winced at the words package deal, and I knew it was because I was part of that particular package.

  “A secret package,” I said, turning to my mom as something occurred to me. “Why are we still a secret if the program has been approved?”

  Mom smiled a grim smile. “Security reasons,” she said. “The board thought that it was best to diversify our program.”

  “Diversify?” Elliot asked, eyebrow raised.

  “Maybe diversify is the wrong word,” she said. “What I mean is more along the lines of keeping all your eggs in one basket. For security reasons, the board decided we should keep at least a few eggs in a basket no one knows about.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “What basket. What eggs?”

  “We’re the eggs,” Elliot said. “And I’m guessing that’s the basket,” he said, pointing to the large border wall where security officers stood by an open door, the blue of the ocean showing just behind them. I came to such an abrupt stop that Mom almost ran into me, catching herself just in time.

  “The Lewis and Clark partner program is off campus?” I said, not believing what I was seeing. I’d spent my entire life within the safety of the Academy walls, and I’d expected to spend the rest of it here as well. I turned to my mom in disbelief.

  “The L and C program is on an outlier island about a ten-minute boat ride away,” she said. “Don’t worry—the security there is a tad unorthodox, but you will be just as safe there as you are here.”

  “But—” I said, turning to see the same shock on Elliot’s face. He hadn’t had a clue either.

  “But nothing,” Mom said. “You were chosen for this program, and you will do your very best to excel at it, regardless of its location. Now let’s get moving; the extra security detail for this transfer is needed elsewhere by nine o’clock.”

  Still in utter shock, I trailed behind my mom as she walked up to the security transfer.

  “Have you ever been off the island?” Elliot asked as he came to stand next to me.

  “Never,” I whispered. “You?”

  “I came over when I was a baby, just like everyone else,” Elliot said. “So yeah, I guess I was off the island once upon a time, but I don’t remember it.” His shoulder pressed against mine and I leaned into it a little in some kind of unspoken solidarity.

  “The ocean looks bluer than it did from the wall observation platforms,” I said. “Can that be right?”

  “I have no idea,” Elliot said. His brow furrowed, and he turned to look at me. “The only reason the board would need to put their eggs, or us, or whatever, in separate baskets would be if the Academy was vulnerable. But that’s impossible, isn’t it?”

  I shrugged as I watched my mom talk to the transfer security officer. I thought about mentioning the emergency meeting Mom had been called away to or the way Officer Salzburg had hinted at a threat from Mayhem, but decided against it. “The Academy is one of the safest places on earth,” I said. But even as the words left my mouth, I wasn’t sure which of us I was trying to convince.

  “Liar,” he said, and I stiffened and looked over at him.

  “What did you call me?” I asked.

  “A liar,” he said. “That was the phoniest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Was not,” I said.

  Elliot rolled his eyes. “If that were true, would we even be standing here right now?”

  “I don’t follow,” I said.

  “Shocking,” Elliot muttered, ignoring my glare.

  “Just spit it out,” I said as all the solidarity I’d felt a moment before washed away, and I took a step to the left so our shoulders weren’t touching anymore and blinked hard. Grade-A jerk, I reminded myself. What did I expect? For him to warm up to me after years of being at each other’s throats just because we’d been forced together?

  “Think about it, Fitz,” he said. “If everything was peachy, we’d never have gotten the you know what that landed us in this stupid program in the first place.”

  Not trusting myself to say anything else, I just nodded as I looked back toward the ocean, where a small powerboat was pulling up with more security transfers on board as well as a beaming Professor Callaway. He waved to us excitedly as the boat docked, and despite the tight coil of nerves in my stomach, I smiled back. It was hard not to. He was wearing an orange life jacket across his wide chest, the buckles stretched so tight they reminded me of rubber bands about to bust.

  “Here you go,” Mom said, walking up to hand us each our own orange life jacket.

  “Where’s yours?” I asked.

  “I’m not going any farther,” she said. “Professor Callaway will take you from here.”

  “Really?” I said, turning away from the ocean to look at her. I was going to get my wish and enter this new program alone? I waited to feel the rush of relief, but it didn’t come. Instead, a knot of anxiety tightened in my stomach. Faced with all this brand-new territory, I wanted nothing more than my mom at my side, and if I didn’t care so much about Elliot thinking I was a baby, I would have said as much. But as it was, I just nodded and squeezed a little tighter when she wrapped her arms around me for one last hug.

  “You’ll be fine,” she whispered in my ear. “More than fine. You’ll be great. You’re my girl, after all.”

  I nodded again and bit my lip.

  “Good morning,” said Callaway. “How are my newest recruits?”

  “Surprised,” I said.

  He chuckled. “I was too the first time I left the Academy, but you’ll love the mountain. So if you’ve said your goodbyes, it’s time for us to be off.” We nodded and followed him onto the dock. The wind whipped off the water and almost took my breath away as it brought with it the salty smells of the sea. I looked back at the Academy walls, feeling like a turtle suddenly deprived of its shell. Resigned, I stepped onto a real boat for the first time in my life.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Elliot

  The Academy was all that I knew. All I’d ever known, and now it wasn’t much more than a spot on the horizon.

  “Do you see it!” called Callaway over the roaring of the wind. Regan and I turned to see the small speck of brown in the distance that was getting larger by the minute. “It’s much smaller than the Academy,” Callaway said. “But that makes it easier to secure and hide.”

  Five minutes later we were coasting up to a small dock on an island that was almost completely taken up by a large craggy mountain. Where the Academy had the polished and manicured look of a college campus, this looked every inch the uninhabited wilderness.

  “Where’s the wall?” Regan asked, and I turned to her in surprise. Why in the world hadn’t that been my first question? Where was the wall?

  “We don’t need a wall,” Callaway said, coming to stand next to us.

  “I don’t understand,” Regan said. “Mom said the security here was just as good as at the Academy. How do you not need a wall?”

  “Because we have a mountain,” Callaway said.

  “I’d still like a wall,” I said under my breath, glancing around at the vast ocean surrounding us on all sides.

  Callaway chuckled and motioned with his hand for us to follow him as he climbed out of the boat and onto the rock-covered shore. Regan followed, looking just as leery about all this as I felt.

  “What in the world have we gotten ourselves into?” she whispered as the security officers climbed out of the boat to flank us on either side.

  “I’d like to point out that I wanted nothing to do with this,” I hissed back.

  “Hurry up, cadets!” Callaway called over his shoulder as he headed down a thin dirt trail that appeared to lead straight into the woods. One of the security officers handed me my duffel, and I swung it over my shoulder, the weight comfortingly familiar. Regan already had her things and was hurr
ying to catch up with Callaway.

  The path was really nothing more than a thin slice of trodden-down dirt between waist-high underbrush that sloped continually upward. As we followed Callaway over rougher and rougher terrain, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was all some kind of joke. Maybe it was a hazing ritual done to cadets who were in too big of a hurry to level up. But as I watched the security officers walk beside us, their heads on a swivel as though someone was lurking behind every tree or bush, I knew this was for real.

  Callaway stopped beside a large outcropping of rocks at the base of the mountain and turned to the security patrol. “Is the coast clear?” he asked.

  The officer closest to me nodded.

  “Very good,” Callaway said, and then he turned back, took two large steps forward, and disappeared into the rock.

  Regan gasped in surprise, and my jaw dropped as my brain fought to make sense of what I was seeing. The security detail smirked at one another, and then the guard closest to me stepped forward, disappearing just as seamlessly. It reminded me of the way the Cocoon had dissolved in water, like it had never even been there.

  Suddenly Callaway’s head popped back through the rock, a wide grin on his face. “I love seeing people’s reactions the first time I do that,” he said. “Please, step right on through. The rock is an optical illusion, a very well-crafted hologram.” To prove his point, he popped his head back inside the rock and then back out again like some kind of deranged jack-in-the-box.

  “Step lively now,” said the security detail behind me. “We don’t like having anyone loitering around the entrance.” I nodded and was just reaching my hand out toward the holographic rock when Regan shouldered past me and walked right through.

  Not wanting to be outdone, I leaped after her. Part of me still expected to ram face-first into solid rock, and I closed my eyes in anticipation of impact. When no impact came, I opened my eyes to discover that I was standing in front of a large steel door. Turning, I saw the shimmering image of the rock, thrown up by multiple projectors mounted to the surrounding mountain.