Glitch

Class 1 and 2. This wasn’t
    just an ordinary diagnostic appointment.
    “Have a seat.” He motioned to a chair beside the equip-
    ment.
    I swallowed, trying not to let my fear show. An offi
    cial
    here for an impromptu diagnostic check. Something was se-
    riously wrong. That moment on the train platform, the boy
    with the aqua eyes— someone must have seen what I had
    done and ordered an instant deactivation. That had to be it.
    They probably wouldn’t even try to fi x me. It was all over.
    I forced my feet toward the gray chair and sat down.
    “They said you were pretty.” He smiled at me and dabbed
    at his forehead with a cloth as he came toward my chair. He
    took a small metal instrument off the equipment table.
    “Excuse me, sir?” I didn’t understand his words and I
    didn’t understand the look on his face. “Sir?”
    “Sir.” He smoothed down his sweat- slicked hair and or-
    ga nized the tools prepped and aligned on the desk. “So re-
    spectful.”
    38

    G L I TC H
    Involuntarily, I frowned. For some reason I couldn’t pin
    down, he made me feel uneasy. His behavior seemed anom-
    alous too, but then, I’d never met an offi
    cial before. Obedi-
    ence to offi
    cials was a Community duty. Offi
    cials couldn’t
    be anomalous . . . could they?
    I had the strangest desire to get out of the chair and run
    back down the hallway to get away from him, no matter the
    consequences.
    “You aren’t in trouble. This is all quite routine.”
    I tried to breathe normally so I wouldn’t set off my heart
    monitor. Something felt wrong. What ever he said, this was
    defi nitely not routine. The urge to run welled up again, but
    I forced myself to sit still. He was an offi
    cial. I had to obey.
    But the uneasy feeling only worsened as he moved be-
    hind me and lifted my curly ponytail. I knew what he was
    looking for— the access port at the back of my neck. My
    chest constricted, cutting off my air. If there was anything
    wrong with my port, he was going to be able to see it. And
    if not, he would run the diagnostic and the scans would tell
    him everything.
    This must be what happens right before a subject gets deactivated.
    I glanced back at him and saw him take a tiny data drive off
    the table.
    “I just need to run a quick program, girlie- girl. You won’t
    remember a thing.”
    I didn’t like the way he said girlie- girl. I didn’t like the tone
    of his voice or the look on his wide, red face. In fact, noth-
    ing about this felt right. Suddenly, obedience and duty were
    forgotten— I knew I had to get out of here. Now. But just as
    39

    Heather Anastasiu
    I moved to get up from the chair and pull away from him, the
    man grabbed my ponytail roughly and inserted the drive into
    my neck port. “Voice- activate program 181,” the man said in
    a breathy voice, coming back around to face me.
    I tried to reach around to yank the drive out of my neck
    but I couldn’t move. I was completely immobile. I could still
    feel everything— I could feel my arms and legs but I couldn’t
    move them.
    He reached out and put a sweaty hand on my face, then
    moved it slowly down to my neck. What was going on? I
    tried to pull back or yell but my lips didn’t move and no
    sound came out. He started laughing, A chill ran down my
    still spine.
    No , I tried to yell. I knew he could deactivate me in an
    instant, and I could do nothing to stop him. He could upload
    anything through that drive and break my programming
    and hurt me in so many diff erent ways— ways I couldn’t
    even imagine. I could only sit in mute horror, and my eyes
    stung in the strange way they did when I was scared or sad.
    I was suddenly sure that even though I didn’t know exactly
    what was going on, something very bad was about to hap-
    pen. And I was powerless to stop it.
    My heart was hammering in my chest but the monitor
    was silent— another result of what ever horrible hardware
    he’d invaded me with. Out of all the things I’d feared, this,
    what ever this was, hadn’t even been on my list.
    My eyes were the only part of me that wasn’t completely
    paralyzed, and I looked frantically around the room. There
    had to be something I could do, but all I could see was my-
    40

    G L I TC H
    self, alone and frozen in the room with a stranger who had
    absolute control. A stranger who was getting close to me,
    wielding tools I had never seen before.
    I heard the high- pitched hum in my head— the same as
    when I’d seen the girl falling from