Glitch

bottle
    of it next time, you gotta try it.”
    “Max,” I said, worry growing heavy in the pit of my
    stomach. He seemed to think it was all so great, but didn’t
    he realize the danger he was putting himself in? All the feel-
    ings from the last week rushed back over me. They felt even
    heavier in contrast to the momentary lightness of forgetting
    myself with Max for a few minutes. I couldn’t lose another
    person I cared about.
    I put a hand on his arm. “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself,
    but you shouldn’t go back. It’s not worth it. Just one moment
    faltering, and they’d fi gure out what you are. What you can
    do. And they’d take you away from me. I’d lose you like I
    lost . . .” The words felt stuck in my throat. “Like my brother.”
    Max shook his head and waved his hand like he was
    sweeping all my concerns away. “Zoe, it’s not like that.
    There’s no danger. Don’t you see? We don’t have to escape.
    We can be safe right here. We can stay and eat cake every
    night and drink wine till it’s coming out our ears!”
    246

    G L I TC H
    “What about the Regulators? The Monitors? The Chan-
    cellor? Every moment we stay here in the Community, we
    risk getting caught.”
    “That’s for me to worry about. I’ve spent time around
    these Uppers, and the Chancellor. It will be a lot easier to
    work around them than you might think.”
    He took both my hands in his and the light shining out
    of his eyes was infectious. He was so confi dent, so sure of
    himself. His charisma was almost enough to sweep me away
    in spite of all my sadness and guilt.
    “You and me, babe,” he whispered, his glowing eyes
    searching mine. “We can make a life for ourselves. Just you
    and me. With the Rez, we’d be scraping by. On the run,
    fi ghting a battle we know we can’t win. But with what I can
    do, this can be our life. We can have what ever we want. We
    can be happy.”
    I could almost believe him. Maybe I did believe him.
    Maybe there was some strange world that he could disap-
    pear into with his powers, and maybe there was even a way
    he could whisk me along with him to that world of choco-
    late cake and real meat and sparkling drinks that made you
    laugh all night. Wasn’t that better than the suff ocating worry
    and guilt? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to lose myself like that,
    to let Max take care of everything? To pretend pain and sad-
    ness didn’t exist?
    “But what about all the other people?” I fi nally asked.
    “Mmm?” he asked, still smiling and gazing into my eyes.
    “All the other people who are left stuck being drones?
    247

    Heather Anastasiu
    How can we sit around eating cake when they’re still in dan-
    ger, still slaves?”
    His brow furrowed. “There’s nothing we can do about
    the drones.” He shrugged. “We can only save ourselves. But
    the important thing is that we can save ourselves. We can be
    safe. Together. And happy.” He took my hands again.
    The cake in my stomach suddenly felt like a weight, sink-
    ing me further and further down. I pulled away from him.
    “It sounds like a nice life, Max. Really. But I don’t think I
    could live with myself, surrounded by people who have noth-
    ing while we have everything. I think the Rez can help us
    escape and be safe, and more important— we can help others.
    We need to have a real plan, for all of us. I’ll talk to Adrien
    about it to night and then maybe we could all meet.” I picked
    up my tablet case and slung the strap over my shoulder.
    “Adrien?” Max said with a voice so cold I looked up in
    alarm. He didn’t sound right. He didn’t look right, either.
    His face was mottled red, he had a pinched expression in his
    eyes, and his nostrils fl ared.
    “Adrien?” he growled through gritted teeth. “You’re meet-
    ing him to night?”
    “Yes.” My voice trembled at the sudden change in him.
    “We need to all be together in this.”
    “Not with him,” Max exploded. “Together is you and me.
    Not him!” He slammed the wall angrily, making me fl inch.
    “What is wrong with you lately?” I said, raising my voice
    too. “Stop hitting things. Stop yelling. Every time I see you
    we end up having a fi ght.”
    He breathed out hard, and ran his hands through his
    248

    G L I TC H
    hair roughly. “Everything was fi ne before that bastard
    showed up.”
    “You’re the one taking useless risks for no reason, sneaking
    into offi
    cials’ rooms and going to events and eating cake!” I
    felt bad as soon