Glitch

housing
    unit and slide my brother’s door open gently and watch him
    sleep, his face relaxed, his arm slung over his head. Watching
    him made this stinging sensation come from behind my eyes
    and my chest would tighten until I could barely breathe. It
    wasn’t happiness and it wasn’t sadness. I still didn’t know what
    to call it. It made me feel like I needed to make sure he was
    safe.
    But safe from what? The Community was the safest place
    that ever existed. The only danger in this world was me. The
    guilt of glitching was like a shadow, following me every-
    where.
    I stepped forward in line as the subject ahead of me moved.
    The barbaric Old World was once full of people like me.
    There was a whole race of humanity full of all the emotions
    and desires that I felt, people who almost destroyed the Earth
    with greed and anger and hate and indiff erence. They warred
    14

    G L I TC H
    until the clouds rained toxic ash, the chemicals making peo-
    ple’s eyes boil in their sockets and their skin peel off like
    cooked potato skins. So much toxic material that we could
    never go back. Our history texts showed detailed pictures of
    the pro cess, a detailed reminder of the horrors of the Old
    World.
    Those who had foreseen had begun the tunneling down,
    the orderly planning of humanity’s future. Only a small per-
    centage survived. We were a logical, orderly race— the de-
    scendants of survivors who had seen the worst of human
    emotion and destruction. We had learned the lessons of the
    past and fi nally scrubbed out the animal in man. We pro-
    tected ourselves, blotted out the things that made us danger-
    ous, and rebuilt. The First Chancellor called us Humanity
    Sublime. We lived by order and logic alone. We lived in
    Community.
    And here I was, a traitor tucked secretly within the safe
    walls of the Community. A single person cultivating the
    same emotions that destroyed the Surface forever. I was like a
    ticking bomb, and it was just a matter of time before the evil-
    ness of human emotion took control. How much would I
    destroy before they caught and stopped me? I should go re-
    port myself.
    Right now.
    Right this instant.
    I looked around. The Regulators were only ten paces
    away, rotating slowly and effi
    ciently as they patrolled the
    crowds in their thick metal boots. Just a few words and I’d be
    free of all the secrets and lies.
    15

    Heather Anastasiu
    It would be easy. It was the right thing to do. I’d be free
    from these weighty secrets. I could become a functioning
    member of the Community again.
    My hands dropped from the cart handle. My legs took a
    few steps toward the closest Regulator, mechanically, almost
    as if they had been waiting for this moment to fi nally arrive.
    But, wait. I couldn’t.
    There was a reason I didn’t want to. A very important
    reason. I blinked several times until I remembered. There
    was the thing — the one thing they couldn’t fi nd out about, or
    else they would destroy me, deactivate me.
    But the Community always comes fi rst. . . .
    I was an anomaly, a danger to the Community. I needed
    to be repaired. I turned again toward the Regulators, wait-
    ing to catch their attention and report myself. There was a
    murmur of dissent in the back of my mind, but it was too
    quiet compared to the strong clear stream of information
    fl owing through the Link.
    A Regulator had reached the end of a dispensary line and
    was turning slowly back to head in my direction. In a few
    paces, his head would sweep in my direction. I would calmly
    catch his attention and report myself for diagnostics. Just a
    few paces more.
    But suddenly the quiet voice inside my mind was scream-
    ing. And then, like being underwater and then breaking to
    the surface, I was suddenly glitching.
    The ret i na display fl ickered and disappeared from view,
    and the sound echoing through my mind stopped, mid-
    stream, and I was left in silence. I could breathe again. I felt
    16

    G L I TC H
    myself expand in the same moment, color and sound and
    sense fl ooding back in, overwhelming me with a rush of
    smells and sounds.
    Beside me, I heard a loud crash.
    I turned in surprise and saw that two full carts nearby
    had toppled over sideways, knocking into an aisle of stacked
    boxes. A stack tipped over, the boxes breaking open and spill-
    ing rice all over a nearby subject’s shoes. He looked down for
    a moment before moving out of the way dispassionately.
    No one else registered surprise. They weren’t