Glitch

confi dent— like he’d done this hundreds of times
    before. Maybe he had. I watched him, wondering what he
    must have seen in his life to make him able to stay so un-
    afraid and calm as he crouched there in a hallway with me.
    “There,” he fi nally whispered, pulling back. I heard a door
    open somewhere down the hall, and then voices. Adrien
    quickly pushed me farther into the shadow of the alcove
    corner, covering his body with mine. My eyes fl icked up
    anxiously at him. He was so tall he had to crane his neck at
    an awkward angle to look down at me. We stood close with
    our chests pressed together, breathing at the same time. I
    watched a droplet of sweat trace its way down the side of his
    neck. Maybe he was more ner vous than he let on.
    The voices came closer and I instinctively leaned into his
    chest, wishing one of us had the power of invisibility. We
    didn’t even dare to breathe as the footsteps came closer and
    closer. We were standing in a corner, hidden, but by no
    means completely out of sight. And there was nowhere to
    run if we were caught.
    One set of footsteps seemed to falter near us. There was a
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    clatter like some small device had been dropped. The steps
    paused. I could see the small black scanner on the ground,
    inches away from the shadow of our hiding spot. The systems
    tech walked over, bending slowly to retrieve the device.
    I gripped a handful of Adrien’s shirt tightly in my fi st,
    willing myself to silence the high- pitched ring pounding in
    my ears and the hum vibrating down my forearms. No. This
    was not the time to lose control. I repeated the Community
    Creed over and over in my head, but I couldn’t completely
    still the tremor in my hand. I looked into Adrien’s eyes and
    could tell by his panicked expression that he felt my power
    was threatening to break loose.
    The tech paused, as if sensing it, too. He had crouched
    down to retrieve the device, the scanner in his hand, but he
    remained still for a moment. Down the hallway, the other
    footsteps had stopped, and I heard a muffl
    ed voice call out.
    The tech straightened abruptly, placing the device in his belt
    and proceeding methodically down the hallway.
    My hands continued to tremble, and I felt a stinging prick
    behind my eyes as I fought to quiet the shaking all through
    my body. Adrien held me close for another few seconds.
    When my hands had fi nally stilled, he pulled gently away,
    holding a hand up to wait. He peeked around the alcove
    corner, then motioned me to follow behind him.
    I looked both ways down the empty hallway. When I
    caught up to Adrien, he’d pulled out another small device
    and put it directly in front of the thumbprint scanner.
    “Stay back till I call you,” he whispered. The door hissed
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    open and he slid inside. I waited for several anxious seconds
    outside.
    “It’s clear,” he called quietly, and I came in. Stacks of two-
    and three- dimensional monitors fi lled the small room. There
    appeared to be three diff erent work stations, but the chairs
    were empty.
    “Where are all the systems engineers and techs?”
    Adrien raised the thumbprint machine to close the door
    behind us, then sat at one of the consoles and started typ-
    ing rapidly in the 3- D interface cube. “I caused a system mal-
    function in the Academy mainframe server hub on Sub
    level Four. It’s protocol for these three techs to cover Sub
    levels Three through Eight. If there’s one thing you can
    count on Link drones for, it’s to obey protocol. Plus”— he
    smiled—“I saw in my vision that we got in here without
    any problem.”
    “But did you see if we get out okay?”
    “Don’t worry.” He waved a hand. He continued typing.
    “Just a little bit further.” His thick eyebrows bunched up
    in concentration as he went deeper into the directory ob-
    ject fi les. Lightning- fast code fl ashed across the interface as
    he hacked his way past security wall after security wall.
    He was good. All Academy students learned some advanced
    programming. I was one of the best in my class, but I could
    still barely follow Adrien’s code.
    “How do you know how to do that?” I whispered out
    in awe.
    He grinned, his face illuminated in the orange light
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    Heather Anastasiu
    of the interface. “I’ve been hacking Community security
    tech since I could walk and talk. That’s life in the Rez for
    you.”
    He bit his lip as he came to denser code. I quieted,