Override (Glitch)

was with him. I tipped my head back and he kissed me. His lips were gentle, and for a moment I forgot all the loneliness and fear of the past few months. All I could think about was the soft texture of his lips and the way love for him bloomed inside me like a light cell blinking to life in a pitch-black room.
    But all too soon he pulled away. His eyes were cloudy. “There’s not much time. We’ve gotta move. Now.”
    He turned and let go of me, and my weakened legs gave out from under me.
    “Zoe!” Adrien caught me around the waist, pulling me back up. “What’s going on, are you okay?” He set me down on the closed toilet lid, the only place to sit other than up on my bed.
    “I’m fine,” I lied, blinking and trying to get a breath. “I just gotta get some rest. Can we leave in the morning?”
    But when I looked back over at Adrien, he was already pulling out the biosuit box and opening it up.
    “We gotta leave now Zoe, not tomorrow morning. Fit your feet into the rubber boots first, then we’ll pull the rest of the suit up.”
    “Why now?” I asked, blinking and trying to make sense of everything that was happening. I stepped into the boots.
    “I had a vision. They’re gonna raid this place soon.”
    It took a few more moments for what he’d said to sink in. “Wait, you mean … they know I’m here?”
    “Not yet,” Adrien said, managing to sound halfway calm. “Chancellor Bright was just named Underchancellor of Defense. Right off, she ordered inspections on any place with the kind of air-filtration system she knows you need to survive. I thought we’d have more time. I mean, there’s about fifty facilities like this in the Sector, and there’s no way she’d know this is the only one the Resistance has access to.” He shook his head. “But I saw it.”
    “When will it happen?”
    “I don’t know.” He ran a hand roughly through his hair. “It felt like a short-term vision, like it might happen in the next few days.” He looked back up at me.
    I felt a fresh wave of panic. They were coming for me. The horrifying reality of the situation settled in, clearing away some of my remaining cloudiness and exhaustion.
    “I was gonna send a com,” Adrien said, “but I was afraid any communications would get intercepted and decrypted. I didn’t wanna accidentally be the cause of the inspection.”
    Another cold realization swept through me. “But wait. Where are we going?” I asked. “If the Foundation isn’t ready yet, this lab’s the only place we have access to with air I can breathe. What happens when my biosuit runs out of oxygen in twelve hours?”
    “We’re going to a beta site nearby. They have a few spare oxy tanks there. It’ll buy us some time to figure out the rest.”
    He held out an arm to help me stand and then pulled the heavy padded suit up to my waist. There were three separate layers to it, and it smelled strongly of plastic and stale air.
    “It’s dangerous, I know,” he continued. “But we don’t have a choice. If we move fast enough, maybe we can get out of here safely. Maybe we can change the vision.” His jaw tensed for a moment. “Otherwise what’s the point of seeing the future?” I wasn’t sure if he was talking more to me or to himself.
    “Have you ever done it? Changed something you’ve seen?”
    He didn’t answer me, just lifted up the top half of the suit. “Here, fit your arms in.”
    I shrugged my arms into the heavy sleeves of the suit and sat down again to rest while Adrien clipped one of the compressed oxygen packs onto the belt at my hip and hooked it up. He fit the thick helmet with a see-through face mask over my head, adjusting it so the edges were firmly aligned with the body of the suit. The whir of precious air circulating through the mask filled my ears. He reached for the suit’s forearm panel to run a quick diagnostic that would check for tears or leaks, and that’s when I saw it: the red alarm light began flashing silently in the corner.
    I gasped and looked over at Adrien. We both knew what it meant.
    The Inspector was already here.

Chapter 2
    ADRIEN’S FINGERS MET my fumbling ones as we attached the other tank to my waist.
    “How do we get out of here?” he asked.
    “If they came down the main elevator, we follow the escape route I’ve practiced.” My voice was low and muted through the mask. There was a microphone option for normal speech, but I wasn’t sure how loud it would be, so I didn’t switch it