Glitch

gone slower. It had been a
    gradual awakening to feeling and sensation and emotion.
    This time I felt like I’d just been dumped in a tub of ice
    water. I didn’t know if it was just because it had come back
    all at once, or if something had gotten knocked loose in me
    while I was away. The glitches were sudden, random, and
    more intense than anything I’d felt before. I had no idea
    why, which made it all the more terrifying. I couldn’t aff ord
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    Heather Anastasiu
    to attract any more attention then I already did, but I couldn’t
    even trust my own body not to betray me.
    The train ride back to my quarters set my teeth on edge.
    The screeching as the train rounded each corner made me
    jolt in surprise. It felt like the train was skidding and spark-
    ing on the edge of my jarred nerves. Bodies were all packed
    in tightly together, swaying in unison to the rhythm of the
    train. It was suff ocating. I wanted to close my eyes and stop
    up my ears. I needed to escape, to hide. But there was no-
    where I could go. Nowhere I was truly safe.
    Home.
    I was surprised at the overwhelming emotion I felt at
    the word. Walking in the door, I felt the stinging in my
    eyes and leaned my head back against the doorframe for a
    moment, taking in a breath of relief before heading to my
    quarters.
    “Greetings, Zoel,” my brother said when I passed by his
    room.
    “Greetings, Markan,” I said, stopping at his door. He’d
    been sitting in the chair at his desk underneath his loft bed,
    staring blankly at the wall. I recognized the pose. It was the
    default position for Scheduled Subject Downtime. In the
    afternoons after Academy, calming Link harmonic sounds
    played, putting subjects in a kind of trance, a scheduled break
    to support effi
    ciency and productivity. Looking at him made
    me swallow hard. He looked peaceful. But at what price?
    I barely stopped myself from going into the room and
    putting my arms around him. The impulse made me pause.
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    G L I TC H
    I didn’t know why I thought that touching a person could
    bring comfort, but I felt sure of it.
    “Are Mother and Father home?” I asked, wanting any ex-
    cuse to linger and talk to him.
    “No. They don’t arrive home until ten p.m. You should
    know that.”
    I nodded. “Of course.” I couldn’t stop looking at him.
    He seemed to have grown in the past month. His shoulders
    seemed wider. At thirteen, I supposed I could expect his
    physical appearance to change rapidly as he entered puberty.
    But no sign of any glitches yet, and no guarantee they would
    ever come. Each year edged him closer to adulthood, and the
    impossibility of ever glitching or feeling emotion. And then
    he’d turn eigh teen and be lost forever. The thought pulled at
    something in my chest.
    “Do you require something?” Markan asked.
    “No,” I said. “I’ll let you know when I fi nish with the
    treadmill so you can do your eve ning session before dinner.”
    He nodded and then moved his attention back to the
    wall, or rather, the Link. I took one last lingering look, then
    went into my tiny, compact room and changed.
    Before I headed out to the treadmill, I shut the door to
    my room and reached my fi ngers into the slit in my mat-
    tress.
    My drawings were gone.
    Panic spiked in my chest. They couldn’t be gone! I hadn’t
    been deactivated, or taken away. I reached farther into the
    mattress. Still nothing. I frantically lifted the mattress to look
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    Heather Anastasiu
    underneath, all the while my mind racing, each thought
    worse than the last. If they’d been found—
    There they were! My searching fi ngers grabbed on to the
    crinkling papers that were piled under the mattress at the foot
    of the bed. I slumped against the wall in relief, then felt like
    laughing and crying at the same time.
    But my relief was short- lived—it was the wrong spot for
    my drawings. I was always so careful to hide them in the
    mattress. I strained to remember my last drawing session. I
    was almost sure I’d put them back in the right place. What
    if . . . what if someone had found them?
    I shook my head and banished the thought. That was ri-
    diculous. I wouldn’t be here if any of my drawings had been
    found. There was no way they’d have allowed me to live. I
    must have been careless somehow. All this fear and pressure
    and strain was making me crack around the edges.
    I took several deep breaths, hoping to stop the panic from
    setting off my heart monitor, but I couldn’t stop