Glitch

by Laura Martin

  “You saved one,” I said, motioning with my chin to where Agent Chris was getting helped to her feet. “Where was she anyway?”

  “On the ground,” she said. “After you disappeared with the Butterfly, I spotted her pinned underneath a fallen beam. I didn’t think I’d be able to get her out, especially since that pill ran out about ten seconds before you disappeared, but I did.”

  “Nice work,” I said, and Regan raised a surprised eyebrow at me.

  “I’m serious,” I said. “I have no clue how you spotted that Butterfly and Agent Chris in that mess.”

  “It didn’t help that I Glitched to the wrong floor,” she said, brow furrowed. “I wonder why you and I got separated.”

  I shrugged. “No idea. But it’s probably because you and I are the worst partners in the history of ever.”

  “I don’t know,” Regan said. “I think we did okay, all things considered.” Before I could respond, Callaway was there, herding us off the platform.

  “Are you both all right?” he asked as the rest of the partner pairs joined us.

  “We are,” Regan said. “But something went wrong. We didn’t Glitch together like we were supposed to.”

  Callaway furrowed his brow. “That’s extremely odd,” he said. “Were you holding hands?”

  “Were we supposed to hold hands?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Callaway said, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “Don’t tell me that was never covered in your training?!” When we both just stared at him, he waved a hand. “Well, now you know. That was an atrocious oversight on our part, but of course, since it only applies to actual Glitch jumps, your professors may never have mentioned it in the short time you’ve been here.”

  “Do we have to watch our recap?” I asked, my still-queasy stomach rolling a little at the thought of reliving any of it.

  Callaway shook his head. “There are no recaps in a real Glitch,” he said.

  “Oh,” I said, feeling supremely stupid because of course there wasn’t a recap. Nothing about what I’d seen was computer generated, and if I hadn’t already thrown up everything I’d ever eaten, I’d have done it again now.

  “Any news about the Academy?” Serina asked, hurrying to walk next to us.

  Regan’s face went white, and the relief I’d felt upon her safe return evaporated instantly. I’d forgotten about the Academy.

  Callaway sighed, like he was a tire someone had just punctured, and turned to face us. We all stopped, taking in his expression, and it was like he didn’t even have to tell us. That look alone confirmed everyone’s worst fear. The Academy was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Regan

  It didn’t make any sense. The world couldn’t just go on without the Academy. It was impossible. It was like the earth continuing to revolve after the sun had disappeared. I’d stood there listening to Callaway explain that Mayhem had discovered the location of the Academy and at one o’clock this morning had discharged enough explosives to wipe out the entire campus. No survivors.

  The entire mountain was in shock and mourning. Every single person there had grown up within the Academy walls. I was not the only one who had lost something or someone, but I was pretty sure I was the only one who had lost their mom. But even that felt unreal, because I couldn’t imagine a life where my mom didn’t exist. She was too tough, too strong, too in control to let something like this happen. It couldn’t be true. But it was.

  As the early hours of the morning turned into the late hours of the afternoon, I sat with everyone else in the atrium as reports trickled in. Even though none of the adults said it, we all knew they were scared. We were all too aware that the only thing protecting the last people with the equipment and training to Glitch for the United States was a hidden door in the side of a mountain.

  I remembered again what my mom had said about putting all their eggs in one basket. Had she known? Glitching to the future was impossible, but she must have had some idea that things could go wrong. I sat beside Elliot, wrestling with emotions so big I thought they might suffocate me.

  “We need to talk,” Elliot said in my ear, jolting me from my own thoughts. I looked up to see that someone had put food on our table, but no one was touching the sad-looking sandwiches. Glancing around the table at my classmates, I noticed that, like us, they were still in full costume and makeup. It made for a very weird table dynamic.

  “Why?” I said, quiet enough that only Elliot could hear.

  “Because I just figured something out,” he said. I stared at him for a moment, trying to read his expression. What could he have possibly figured out? There was nothing left to figure out. The Academy was gone. Game over.

  “Good for you,” I said, my voice sounding dead and flat in my own ears.

  Elliot’s elbow dug painfully into my ribs, and I glared at him. If he kept digging his elbow into my ribs like that, I was going to dig mine into his nose. Today was not the day to mess with me.

  My anger fizzled slightly as I watched Elliot open his eyes wide and jerk his head toward the far exit and then back to me. He was either trying to tell me something or he was having a seizure.

  “Just say it,” I said. “No one is paying any attention to us.”

  With an exasperated huff, Elliot leaned in so that his mouth was practically on my ear and whispered, “I wanted to say this somewhere, I don’t know, not here, but you are utter garbage at taking a hint.”

  “Thank you,” I said, straight-faced. “Spit it out.”

  Elliot scowled and then leaned in even closer, his voice so quiet I could barely hear it. “I think this is why you and I got that Cocoon,” he said. His words were like lightning to my system, and I sat bolt upright so fast that my shoulder cracked Elliot in the chin. He jerked back, clutching his jaw, but I couldn’t have cared less. The Cocoon. The letter that had pulled all the strings to get Elliot and me here in the first place—was this why?

  We’d been given strict instructions not to leave the main atrium until further notice, but this couldn’t wait. “Follow my lead,” I whispered, and shot my hand into the air. Professor Tramble walked over, his eyebrows raised questioningly.

  “I need to use the restroom,” I said.

  “Me too,” Elliot said quickly. Too quickly. I groaned inwardly. Smooth, Elliot. Real smooth.

  “We aren’t supposed to allow more than one student at a time to leave the atrium,” Professor Tramble said, thankfully too distracted to notice that Elliot looked like the proverbial kid with his hand in the cookie jar. “Can you wait?”

  Elliot shook his head. Professor Tramble turned to me, and I shook my head as well. Tramble sighed and motioned for us to go. “Be quick about it,” he said. I leaped out of my chair, and it tipped backward and hit the stone floor with an earsplitting bang. Everyone in the atrium jumped and turned to look at us. My face burned, and I muttered an apology and righted the chair before sheepishly following Elliot toward the bathrooms.

  I was barely around the corner when Elliot grabbed me and yanked me the last few steps out of sight.

  “So much for a discreet exit,” he hissed in my ear.

  “You should talk,” I shot back. “You were practically twitching when you asked Tramble to use the bathroom; way to play it cool.”

  “Whatever,” Elliot said, waving his hand. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But to be honest, I think I’m a few steps behind you. I feel like my brain stopped working the minute Callaway told us about the Academy. I’ve been sitting in that atrium stuck inside my own head, where nothing makes sense.”

  “I was too,” Elliot said. “At first, but then I started thinking about how lucky we were to be here and not there, and then it all clicked into place.”

  “Remember?” I said. “I’m a few steps behind. Catch me up.”

  “The Cocoon,” Elliot said, his voice dropping so low I had to lean in to hear him. “This was the reason we were sent here. Not to
be the worst partner team in the history of forever, but because you and I are supposed to fix this.”

  “How?” I asked, wanting more than anything for what he was saying to be true. “If we travel to the past, we become criminals. You know what happens to Butterflies who get caught.”

  Elliot leaned forward. “Haven’t you realized it yet? Almost all the US Glitchers who catch Butterflies are dead.”

  His words brought it all home again, and I sank down to sit with my back against the wall. Elliot joined me, and we sat shoulder to shoulder in silence for a minute.

  “Sorry,” Elliot finally whispered. “That was really crummy of me to say.”

  “It’s the truth, though,” I said.

  “Yeah. Doesn’t make it any less crummy,” Elliot said.

  I turned to look at Elliot as I searched for the right words. “You were so dead set against this when we first found that letter. You swore you’d never become a Butterfly, no matter what. You lectured me over and over again about how history cannot be changed.”

  “Right,” Elliot said, but then he paused, biting his lip. “But what if we are supposed to change it?”

  “Explain,” I said.

  “In the future,” Elliot said, “you and I travel back through time to leave that Cocoon. If we hadn’t, you and I would have been at the Academy when the attack happened. Right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  “So,” Elliot said, his brow furrowed, “if I’m understanding this right, we already fixed this.”

  I stared at him a second, my thoughts in tangled knots. “Are you saying that me and you, in the future, made sure that we survived so we could save the Academy?”

  Elliot nodded. “Have you thought about what the future looks like without the Academy? I mean, really thought about it?”

  “I’ve been trying not to,” I said, grimacing as the tears I’d been holding back swelled in my throat again. I swallowed hard, wiping at my eyes with the backs of my hands.

  “I’m sorry about your mom,” Elliot said. “But if we can figure this out, maybe we can save her.”

  “Right,” I said, unconsciously squaring my shoulders in the way my mom had taught me. Successful people don’t slouch.

  “Take a second and think about it,” Elliot said. “What happens without the Academy?”

  “Butterflies happen,” I said automatically. “A lot of them, I’d imagine.”

  “It will be a free-for-all,” Elliot said. “When news gets out, every time-traveling criminal with the ability to Glitch will be jumping into the past and doing who knows how much damage. That’s on top of whatever Mayhem is planning to do now that the Academy is gone.”

  I felt the blood drain from my face to puddle somewhere by my toes, because what Elliot was saying was absolutely true. I’d been in such a fog over losing my mom that I hadn’t thought through what losing the Academy was going to mean for the world.

  “That’s not even the half of it,” I said as my brain raced with horrible possibility after horrible possibility. “We have to do something.”

  “That,” Elliot said, “is the biggest understatement I’ve ever heard.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Elliot

  I lay in bed that night with my eyes wide open. The mountain was still in major lockdown since we didn’t know who we could trust, and the professors had set up a schedule to patrol the corridors twenty-four hours a day. Every hour or so I could hear one of them open our door to check that four boys were safe and sound in their bunks before continuing on down the hall. It was going to make everything that much harder.

  Regan had insisted that we make our move tonight, arguing that the longer we waited, the more we could potentially mess up the future. Because, she argued, the future hadn’t really happened yet. As of right now, all the reports were that no one knew the Academy was gone except us, Mayhem, and a few high-ranking government officials. But we knew all too well that any minute it could get out and the whole landscape of the future would shift. The sweet spot—Regan’s words, not mine—was now, when things were essentially in limbo, and we could make the jump back in time untethered by a future that was already set in stone. The problem was, how in the world were we going to make this jump?

  The longer I lay there, the more my brain churned. If my thoughts were milk, they would have turned into butter a long time ago. Around me I could hear the other boys shifting restlessly in their bunks, and I knew that I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep. I glanced again at the clock and groaned inwardly when I discovered that while it felt like I’d been lying here for a lifetime, it had really only been two hours. In exasperation, I threw my arms over my face, because if I stared at the stone ceiling of my bunk much longer I was going to punch it. The movement made me grimace. Every inch of me was sore from my Glitch jump today, and I had more than a few bruises and burns to show for my romp through 1911. After years of simulations that felt real but never left a mark, this was something that would definitely take some getting used to.

  Finally, just when I thought I couldn’t lie there for one more second, the clock ticked to eleven p.m., and I snuck out of bed and out the door like a shadow.

  As I entered the dark corridor, I felt an irrational surge of anger at my future self, and for the first time it wasn’t because Regan was my partner. It was because future me had held all the cards, known all the answers, and still chosen to only hand out bits and pieces of information, leaving almost everything up to chance and luck. I knew Regan had been the one to write the actual letter, but it was clear now that I’d known about it. That bullet point about the window had sealed that for me. There was no way Regan would have known to put that on there. But I was a detail person who left nothing to chance if I could help it. What happened to me in the future that threw all that out the window?

  I stood there mulling this over outside the girls’ dormitory while I waited for Regan. I thought back to the Cocoon, wishing for the first time that it hadn’t dissolved in the fountain. I was almost positive I remembered everything it had said, but what if I’d forgotten something? I mentally went down the list of bullet points at the bottom of the list. The last one we’d checked off was about the window. If the list was in order, and it sure seemed to be so far, then the next one on the list was about a door opening. It was on this bullet point that we had hinged our entire plan. If you could call winging it a plan, I thought glumly. A second later, Regan tiptoed out of the girls’ dormitory. She paused a second outside the door, scanning the dark hallway before she finally spotted me. With a quick glance left and right, she was across the hall and next to me. Together we stood there, our backs pressed against the cold stone of the mountain.

  “It’s not too late to go back,” I said, not really sure where the words had come from. I sure hadn’t meant to say them out loud.

  “It is for me,” she said, and before I could protest she was heading down the hallway at a jog. I realized that I already knew what had happened to change me in the future. Regan happened.

  The fastest way to the Glitch room was straight through the atrium, but even at this time of night, it probably still contained a handful of professors and staff desperately trying to figure out the mountain’s next move. So we took the long way around, winding through the hallways and corridors that led us around the atrium and toward the hallway with that thick metal door I had no idea how we’d get through. As we slunk through the shadows, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being watched. The hairs on my neck were permanently at attention and the goose bumps on my arms and legs were big enough to hatch into actual geese. I thought about mentioning this to Regan, but she was the picture of cool, calm, and collected, and I decided against it. Even though I was learning that this was just a facade she put on and took off like a well-worn coat, it was comforting to pretend she had everything under control. I was probably just paranoid. People about to break about a hundred laws were bound to be a little twitchy. Right?

&nbs
p; Finally, after almost getting spotted twice by two different professors, we made it. There in front of us was the thick metal door with its three different locks and safeguards that we had no way of getting through. We both stood there, staring at it as the clock crept toward midnight.

  “We are never going to get through that door,” I finally said, so softly I wasn’t even sure if Regan had heard me.

  “We have to,” she said. “And we both know that we do, or we wouldn’t be standing here. All of the bullet points have been spot on so far, this one will be too.”

  “Bullet point number four said to trust that the door would open when it needed to. It didn’t say what door. What if this isn’t the door?” I said.

  “Well.” Regan shrugged. “Let’s hope this is the door.”

  “Future us are not my favorite people,” I said. “In fact, we stink.”

  Regan covered her mouth to muffle her surprised snort as she turned to me, the intensity of her face lifting for a brief second. “What?” she said.

  “We do,” I said, gesturing toward the door. “How hard would it have been to include the door combination and a key in that stupid letter?”

  “Not hard,” Regan admitted. “Except we’d also need Callaway’s hand, and I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty thankful I didn’t find that.”

  “Didn’t find what?” said a voice behind us, and we both jumped and whirled to see Callaway emerge from the shadows like a ghost. We were busted.