Glitch

cautious.
    I kept one eye on the door, ready to dart past him and escape.
    It did look like him, but still, what he was suggesting . . .
    “This is—”
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    “Impossible?” he said, smiling now, his face relaxing. “I
    know. But it’s true.”
    I sat down on the chair by Max and reached up tenta-
    tively to touch his face, still half afraid. “Do it again,” I said,
    my voice shaky. “But not the Chancellor this time.”
    He grinned, and a second later a girl was sitting in front
    of me with pale skin and dark curly hair pulled up into a
    hair clip. It took me a second for recognition to register.
    “It’s me!” I fi nally exclaimed. I watched my face break
    into a smile. I leaned forward in curiosity. We had little use
    for mirrors in the Community. My lips were fuller than I’d
    imagined and my cheeks were rounded. But my nose was
    bigger too. I frowned, leaning in to examine myself more
    closely. Max changed back to himself, grinning widely.
    I lifted a hand to my cheek and nose without thinking,
    still lost for a second in the memory of my face. Then I real-
    ized the ramifi cations of what Max said he could do and
    looked up at him sharply.
    “But how?” I asked. “What I can do with my mind, it’s
    improbable, but it still feels like it’s within the realm of pos-
    sibility, at least if you stretch certain theories on the trans-
    ference of energy. But this.” I shook my head and traced the
    line of his blond eyebrow with my forefi nger. “Your body
    actually changes shape? How is that possible? The amount
    of energy necessary for the cellular reproduction—”
    “I seem to project a mental fi eld that aff ects anyone around
    me,” Max cut in.
    “But it looked exactly like her! How were you able to
    control such detail?”
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    “I’m not projecting an image— I’m literally aff ecting
    what and who you see. I make it so that you expect to see
    the Chancellor and boom, that’s what you see. To myself
    in the mirror, I look the same. But to everyone else, even
    the mirror would refl ect who I wanted to them to see.”
    “Crackin’ hell,” I whispered in awe.
    “What?” Max asked.
    “Nothing.” I frowned, not knowing where the strange
    phrase had come from. I shook my head. There were bigger
    things to focus on here.
    “So,” I said slowly, trying to puzzle it out. “You, what,
    think of the person you want the people in your . . . your
    projected area to see? And then, it just happens? Do you feel
    anything?”
    He nodded. “Yeah, I guess I kind of hear this high-
    pitched buzzing noise in my ears. And then I will it to hap-
    pen and it just does. It wasn’t as easy at the beginning. I’ve
    been practicing.”
    “I can barely believe this,” I whispered, still in shock. “Do
    you have the dreams, too?”
    His eyes widened and he smiled. “Yeah, I do. I mean, at
    least that’s one good part of all this.”
    “Good part?” I asked, confused. “You think the dreams
    are good ?”
    He looked uncertain. “Are we talking about two diff er-
    ent things again?”
    “My dreams are terrifying. Aren’t yours?”
    He smiled, a slow grin that edged across his face. “I’ve had
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    a couple of the bad dreams. But for the most part, it’s the
    other kind.”
    “Other kind?”
    “You know,” he said. “The good- feeling kind. Pleas ur-
    able.”
    Pleas ur able. I’d only heard the word used to talk about the
    destruction of the world. “I’m not sure I know what you
    mean. Plea sure is wrong.”
    “No!” His eyes opened wide. “Plea sure is wonderful.
    Really. I’m surprised you haven’t found it out on your own.
    I thought for sure anyone glitching would discover it right
    away like I did. Can I look at your genitalia?”
    “What?” My voice hitched up an octave.
    “Aren’t you curious? I could try to show you what I mean.”
    He moved closer so that our legs were touching. He leaned
    down and put a hand on my knee. “I’ve thought about you
    for so long.”
    “You have?” I looked down at his hand on my knee in
    confusion.
    “Do you even know how beautiful you are?” he whis-
    pered. He moved his hand from my knee to my hair; push-
    ing away a stray strand and then reaching back to undo the
    clip keeping the rest in place. My hair tumbled around my
    face and he leaned in and inhaled. His face was so close to
    mine, it made my breathing erratic.
    “Do you ever think about me?” He pulled me close