Glitch

here,
    just a normal subject waiting for a train. He paused, hesitat-
    ing, then looked away.
    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the little blond girl still
    bouncing around as the train neared. Her mother motioned
    with her hand for the girl to come. When she didn’t re-
    spond, the woman called her name.
    I couldn’t hear the mother’s voice over the roar of the ap-
    proaching train, and apparently, the girl couldn’t either. She
    23

    Heather Anastasiu
    kept dancing. She was very close to the edge of the plat-
    form. Too close. I risked another glance at the nearby Reg-
    ulators, but they hadn’t moved. They weren’t programmed
    to prevent accidents, and glitching children did not pose
    immediate grounds for removal. I looked back at the girl,
    a frantic feeling growing in my chest. She twirled closer to
    the ledge, arms out and eyes closed.
    The train came around the corner. The mother reached
    out and almost managed to grasp the girl’s little jacket. But
    the girl hopped just out of reach and landed with one foot
    off the platform.
    She toppled backward toward the tracks below, no fear on
    her face, still that clueless little smile.
    “No!” I screamed, reaching my hand out involuntarily.
    Her mother reacted as well, but too slowly. The train noise
    was deafening, drowning out my scream.
    And that’s when I did it— the thing I swore I’d never do
    again, the secret I kept trying so desperately to deny existed.
    I mean, it simply wasn’t possible. It was illogical. But I did
    it now, without thinking or acknowledging that I fully ex-
    pected it to work.
    I reached out to the girl with my mind. I searched out the
    shape of her in the milliseconds as she fell. I felt the unique
    high- pitched ringing sound in my ears and concentrated on
    the lines and planes of her face, the geometrical cut of her
    suit, the tiny curves of her feet. I surrounded every part of
    her with the invisible force of my will. And then I yanked.
    The girl’s momentum changed in midfall and she vaulted
    back onto the platform a mere second before the train fl ew
    24

    G L I TC H
    past, brakes screeching as it slowed. Her mother caught her
    and calmly smoothed down the wrinkles of the girl’s coat as
    if nothing had just happened.
    Relief poured over me. I did it. I saved her. She was safe.
    But there were eyes on me now. Several subjects were
    looking directly at me, and as the train came to a complete
    stop, the loud beeping of my heart monitor rang out in
    the silence. I looked down at the ground, trying to still the
    fear tearing through me. I shuffl
    ed into line as if nothing was
    wrong, as if my heartbeat wasn’t still beeping with an inordi-
    nately loud noise over the quiet subjects’ orderly movements
    to board the train. I focused on my training. Slow, mea sured
    breaths, repeat the Community Creed, concentrate on the
    still lines of my face.
    A few people tapped on their subcutaneous forearm panels.
    They must be reporting me. Reporting my anomalous be-
    havior: the screaming and what had surely been a look of
    panic on my face as I’d reached uselessly for the girl. I looked
    around me, searching for any Regulators heading my way.
    Then I saw one. In the crowd of moving gray bodies, he
    was standing perfectly still, eyes locked on me. He was watch-
    ing me with a look that wasn’t completely uninterested. He
    started to move in my direction. There was nowhere to run,
    but I couldn’t help trying. I hurriedly stepped on the train
    and moved as far away from the door as I could without at-
    tracting more attention. I tried to glance back at the Regu-
    lator, but in the fl ood of people entering the train, I couldn’t
    fi nd him again.
    I worked to appear calm and disinterested, blending in
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    Heather Anastasiu
    with the crowd. The Regulator had no reason to capture me.
    My heart monitor beeped only briefl y, and no one would
    make the connection between me yelling and the girl fl ying
    back up onto the platform. Surely they wouldn’t. I barely be-
    lieved it myself. Logically, it was impossible. That’s why I’d
    denied it, even though it had happened a few times now—
    like my hairbrush that fl ew across the room into my hand
    when I’d merely thought about it; the glass cup falling off
    the kitchen table that I’d unconsciously caught with my
    mind before it shattered on the fl oor; the shopping cart at the
    Market.
    The doors sealed closed and the air-
    fi ltration system
    hummed as the train