Glitch

not
    wanting to distract him, but I couldn’t keep my legs from
    shaking ner vous ly as I paced around the room. There was
    no telling how long we had until the techs came back.
    “All right. The video fi les of this hallway have been de-
    leted and replaced with a loop of empty hallway. No one
    scanning the camera feeds will know we were here.” He
    zoomed in on an object fi le. Molla’s profi le spun along the
    side of the projection cube.
    “How long have they been watching her?” I whispered
    leaning in to look.
    “A few weeks now. She’s been cited for six anomalous
    incidents.” He pointed to the screen to show me. “When a
    subject gets to eight reports, they get hauled in for a diag-
    nostic. Or if there’s a terminal event, like what was about to
    happen to Molla today, they skip straight to deactivation.”
    “I hope Max was able to get there in time.”
    “I don’t see any fl ags in the system,” he said. “That’s a
    good sign.”
    I breathed out in relief.
    “Okay, so let’s just adjust this fi le,” he paused, fi ngers mov-
    ing rapidly. Then he smiled. “There, down to two anomaly
    citations.”
    I felt like jumping up and down with happiness. We’d
    done it. I felt a rush of good feelings swarming my chest.
    Molla was okay, and I had no doubt Max would be able to
    234

    G L I TC H
    fi nd a way to give her the upgrade so she wouldn’t be in as
    much danger in the future. Everyone I cared about was safe.
    Adrien was clicking on the interface again, backing out
    of the amended fi le, when he stopped and leaned in. “Wait,
    what’s that?”
    “What?” I asked, leaning in as well. I peered at the green
    column of stacked directories in the interface cube. Most of
    the fi les in the column were solid green, but a few glowed
    brighter. “You mean that directory collection there?”
    Adrien clicked a few times, and both of our eyes widened.
    He slid the column sideways, and we saw several more stu-
    dent profi les come into view. Each of their anomaly cita-
    tions were well beyond twenty.
    “Six more?” I whispered. “What does that mean? Are
    they all glitchers?”
    “This doesn’t make sense,” Adrien said, shaking his head.
    “There shouldn’t be this many glitchers at the Academy.
    And why weren’t they taken in for diagnostics and repairs
    ages ago?”
    He bit his lip and clicked on the surrounding fi les. “I
    wonder . . .” His fi ngers moved at rapid speed and I saw sev-
    eral columns fi ll the cube.
    “What are you looking at?” I whispered.
    “The history of anomalous activity for this district. Hmm.”
    He clicked and typed in more code. I watched as he worked.
    He came to a new directory. Only a few fi les glowed in these
    columns.
    “What is that?”
    “Anomalous activity to date. There hasn’t been a lot of
    235

    Heather Anastasiu
    history of anomalous activity,” he said. “But all of the sud-
    den, the numbers have jumped.”
    I looked at him quizzically. “Could something be happen-
    ing to trigger the glitches?”
    “There have been more glitchers in this generation than
    ever before, it’s true.” Adrien’s forehead was wrinkled with
    concern. “But this is more than just unusual.” He paused,
    eyes widening.
    “Shunting hell, Zoe, look at this.” He’d been pulling up
    the glowing fi les and fl ipping through them, but he’d stopped
    on one in par tic u lar.
    A profi le rose up and spun in the cube in front of us. It
    was me. All the air in my lungs seemed to exit at once. But
    it wasn’t me that had caught Adrien’s attention. At the bot-
    tom of my profi le there was a list of profi les linked to
    mine. Four of them. He opened up the one blinking
    yellow.
    It was my little brother Markan. But at the same time, it
    wasn’t quite him. This boy was older, leaner, wearing an out-
    dated uniform. It was the boy from my dreams.
    I read the data set in the sidebar.
    Subject: Q-24, Daavd. DEACTIVATION 4/12/2274.
    Summary of Incident Report: After eleven anomalous
    incidents and attempted hardware rehabilitation, sub-
    ject D. Q-24 attempted escape. Apprehended when ac-
    companying sibling, Zoel, alerted Regulators at surface
    coordinates 9.103.23. Resolution: Prompt deactivation
    236

    G L I TC H
    of D. Q-24 upon apprehension. Subject Z. Q-24 rein-
    tegrated into family unit after memory scrub.
    “No,” I whispered, reaching into the interface cube,
    searching for more information. I struggled to breathe. I felt
    like someone had