Override (Glitch)

was hard to see much of anything beyond the basic outline of their bodies through the smoke. I turned back to the fire.
    I had to do something. But when I sent my telek outward, I couldn’t get a hold of the fire. It wasn’t a solid object I could just surround like I normally did. It kept morphing and changing shapes and right when I thought I’d managed to catch some of it, it danced out of my grasp.
    I grabbed all the glasses of water from the surrounding tables with my power and hurled them at the fire, but when they hit, it only seemed to make it spread.
    The buzzing screamed in my mind, but there was nothing I could do. The ex-Reg continued to burn and the flame licked over to the table beside me. I yanked off the tablecloth with my telek and tried to smother some of the fire with it. But it barely made a dent in the blaze and quickly caught aflame itself.
    I tripped backward, only barely managing to stay on my feet. The smoke and heat were disorienting. I coughed and covered my face with my tunic sleeve, my mind racing for something else to try.
    Then an image popped into my head—of Saminsa, and how she’d covered herself with an orb of light. The picture took hold and I stopped trying to get a hold on the fire and instead imagined a bubble without oxygen surrounding me. As I imagined it, I could suddenly feel the tingling of energy as the air around me shifted.
    Finally, a surface to hold on to! Even though they were infinitesimal, I could feel the oxygen molecules clustered like a cloud. I took a deep breath and then pushed the cloud away from me right as the flame leapt closer. The flame stopped like it had hit an invisible wall.
    I continued leeching the oxygen from the air around the fire, pushing the bubble outward. The flame on the tablecloth fizzled and died out. Next I immediately concentrated on the ex-Reg, stamping out the fire on his skin and clothing. I pushed past him toward the fiery wall.
    I wasn’t even sure exactly how I was doing it. I wasn’t focusing anymore on the individual molecules, but it was like I’d gotten the feel of them and now I could just do it. My power was like a dampening wave. I felt light-headed from not taking a breath, but kept going anyway. Only a little bit longer. The people behind me were far enough away, they should still be able to breathe. I started at the edges and moved inward. The flame banked inch by inch, until I’d whittled it down to the counter. I finally stamped out the flame surrounding the blackened cooking unit that must have been the source.
    I realized a moment too late that I’d forgotten to let oxygen back into the space surrounding me, and I blacked out.
    *   *   *
    “Eli just sat there. Why didn’t he move?” I recognized Cole’s low voice. I shifted on my cot in the Med Center. It was a little awkward with the oxygen tubes plugged in my nose, but I could see Cole standing beside the bed where the other ex-Reg lay. Eli was wrapped head to foot in burn ointment and the skin regrowth serum. It looked like Jilia had healed some of the minor burns, but she couldn’t create skin where there was none.
    Jilia’s voice was kind. “His pain and reaction centers just haven’t started working as naturally as yours have.”
    “But he’s human,” Cole said. “He can feel. He just doesn’t know who he is without his Reg hardware.” His hands curled into fists.
    Jilia noticed I was awake and came over to do a quick scan before releasing me back to my dorm. My footsteps were heavy as I headed down the hallway. I didn’t want to think about it anymore. I didn’t want to think about any of it—the ex-Regs, the fire, or how I’d used my power. Of course, when I got back to my dorm room, Ginni had other ideas.
    “Zoe, you were amazing today! Xona, did you see the way the fire just stopped? And all because of Zoe’s power. No one will doubt what you can do now.”
    Xona didn’t say anything, she just kept slowly scraping her knife across a whetstone. Scrape. Scraaaaaaape.
    “Xona, wasn’t it great?” Ginni pressed.
    Xona looked up at me. “Magnificent.” She pulled her feet up into the box and swung the curtain shut.
    I looked at Ginni questioningly, but she shrugged.
    “What started the fire anyway?” I asked.
    “A circuit on the thermal unit blew,” Ginni said. “A bottle of cooking oil was right beside it and sprayed everywhere at the same time the spark lit it all up.” She shook her head. “Here we are worrying