Glitch

seat and didn’t say anything for a
    moment.
    “Tell me, Adrien.”
    “I have seen visions of her as the leader of the Re sis tance.”
    Adrien’s voice sounded oddly stilted.
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    “You are helping her learn to control her powers?”
    “Yes.”
    “Does she suspect that you have been talking to me?”
    “No.”
    “She trusts you, then?”
    “Yes. She tells me things she tells no one else.”
    “Such as?”
    “She’s afraid for her brother, Markan. She fears he will be
    captured just like her other brother and that it will be her
    fault again.”
    The Chancellor nodded. “Good. If the visions of her are
    true . . . We will bide our time. It will be diffi
    cult, so stay
    near her. Keep her trust by what ever means necessary.”
    “Yes, Chancellor.”
    “And you administered the switched tube I gave you for
    her last allergy injection, correct?”
    “Yes, Chancellor.”
    “Excellent.” The Chancellor’s thin lips twisted into a smile.
    “Thank you. You are dismissed.”
    The video feed stopped and the screen went blank.
    My legs felt frozen.
    “It’s not true,” I whispered. “It’s not real. They just digi-
    tized Adrien’s image and voice and then manipulated it. It
    would be so easy for them to do.”
    “What about the things he was telling her?” Max said.
    “Did you know he was giving you injections, or did he dis-
    able you to do it?”
    I looked at Max in disbelief at what I’d just seen. “Yes, I
    knew about them,” I said. “They were for my allergy. So
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    Heather Anastasiu
    that I could survive on the Surface when we escaped. But
    this is all wrong. Adrien wouldn’t do that to me. He wouldn’t
    hurt me.”
    “Don’t you get it?” Max said angrily. “He’s the Chancel-
    lor’s tool. She’s using his visions to learn all about us. He’s a
    Monitor. Maybe they caught him out at his last Academy
    and made a bargain with him. Maybe he joined her volun-
    tarily. Either way, we’ve got to get the hell out of here.”
    “No!” I said. “If you knew Adrien, you’d know this
    couldn’t be real.”
    “What about the other things he told her?” Max asked,
    looking angry but also pained, as if he knew he was hurting
    me but had to do it anyway. “The things you’ve told only
    him? About your allergies, your dreams, and about your
    brother? No one else knew that, Zoe. Not even me.”
    I shook my head, violently. “Then they must have cam-
    eras or audio devices in my room.”
    He pulled away from me angrily. “Why are you refusing
    to see what’s right in front of your face! He tricked you. He
    used you. He played on the fact that you’re naïve, that you’ve
    never felt those kinds of emotions before. That you’re so
    damned trusting!
    “It’s all a lie, he just told you what you wanted to hear.
    And if we don’t make a break for it right now before they
    know we’ve fi gured them out, they’ll deactivate us or turn
    us back into drones. They’ve already got Molla, and I only
    barely managed to escape to come fi nd you. Come with me,
    Zoe. Let’s get the hell out of here before it’s too late!”
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    “No . . .” My voice broke and tears brimmed over. No,
    no, no. I paused, torn. I trusted Adrien without question, ab-
    solutely. I loved him.
    But what if I couldn’t trust my feelings? What if Max was
    right and Adrien had been manipulating me? There was still
    so much I didn’t know about him, so much I didn’t know
    about this world, let alone the world that might or might
    not exist outside it. What could I trust?
    “What about when I went missing?” I asked, still trying
    to work things out. “He helped me escape.”
    “You can’t even remember that time clearly, Zoe,” Max
    said. “They probably took you away to run some tests and
    experiments on you. They could’ve implanted false memo-
    ries so you’d trust him. You know they can do that.”
    His eyes opened wide as if he just thought of something.
    “Zoe, he must have had a vision of me trying to get the two
    of you out. That’s why all this is happening now.”
    My resolve began to crack. Liquid hot fi re rose inside of
    me, a tide of hurt and pain and confusion. I didn’t know
    what to believe, but I knew everything was wrong. My
    power buzzed in my chest, but I held it still. This was a pain
    I had to keep inside.
    Max tossed the projection pyramid in his tablet case and
    swung it over his shoulder. He stood up, dragging me with
    him. I followed