Shutdown (Glitch)

love. I’ve already sent a transport to pick up your friends. They’re on their way back here as we speak.
    “What I told you all those months ago is still true,” she went on. “All I want is a world in which glitchers rule according to their superior Gifts. There will be no more war. Let that thought bring you peace.”
    The screech of twisting metal made me snap my head around to look behind me, just in time to see Regs breaking through the door from the stairwell. My face scrunched up in pain as I held them back, snapping necks and crumpling their arm weapons before they could fire. Between keeping my brother and the Chancellor still, forcing my mast cells in check, and holding the wave of Regulators at bay, the last ounces of energy I had were fading quickly.
    I looked back at the Chancellor, then over to my brother’s face. I had to kill her. My brother was mindless under her control. Wasn’t that in itself something like death? And even if it wasn’t, surely the sacrifice of one boy’s life was worth it to rid the world of the Chancellor forever. I had to harden myself against thinking of him as my brother. He was collateral damage, just like all the Regs I’d already killed today.
    There was no other choice.
    Tears poured out of my eyes as I again reached for the Chancellor’s neck in a stranglehold. Her eyes widened in shock. She’d been so sure I wouldn’t do anything to harm my own brother.
    I wanted to close my eyes as Markan began to gasp like the Chancellor. But I couldn’t. I watched my brother. His face, even changed as it was, was still so familiar to me. Memories rose up until I was tumbling through them: every morning sitting at the table with Markan, and how, after I’d started to glitch, I would sometimes sneak into his room to watch him sleeping. I’d always had an overwhelming urge to protect him.
    And then there were the memories of my other brother. The one I’d betrayed as a child. He’d haunted my nightmares ever since. I’d called out his name to the Regulators and he’d gotten killed even though all he was trying to do was save me from the Community. Because he loved me. Yet here I was now, about to let another brother die.
    Only this time I’d be actively murdering him.
    Cole’s words suddenly rang in my ears about hearts of stone being turned into hearts of flesh. Could I really allow my last act on this earth, before my strength failed and the Regs stomped toward me, be the murder of my own brother? Would I let the Chancellor take this last bit of humanity away from me right at the end?
    And I knew I couldn’t do it.
    I couldn’t let Markan die even if I knew it meant damning the rest of the world to slavery. It was simply a thing I could not do. I thought of Xona’s and Tyryn’s promises to each other. Well, this was the thing that I had sworn. I’d sworn to protect Markan. It was my deepest promise to myself, the absolute truth that I’d built the rest of my life around after I’d started glitching: I would do everything in my power to save the lives of the people I loved.
    The last of my rage seeped away and I was left broken. I released the Chancellor from my hold and she stumbled forward several steps. The cold smile grew on her face as she realized my decision.
    I drank in each of Markan’s features as he walked toward the laser weapon I’d pulled out of his hands earlier. His jaw had become more pronounced, his shoulders broader. He was becoming a man. I should have tried harder to get him out of the Community, should have done so many things differently. I felt the exhaustion of the past two days and every inch of pain from all my wounds. I was dizzy and lightheaded. This was it then. This was how it ended.
    The Chancellor grinned wickedly. She’d won, and she knew it.
    Markan was only a few steps away from the gun now. I didn’t stop him. I inhaled several quick breaths as I fought to hold on to consciousness. Death had always seemed far away even though I’d come close so many times. But it had never been so certain before. One moment alive and thinking and breathing, and the next, a cold slump of a body on the ground.
    But no, I couldn’t think about that. It was life that I should be celebrating. Markan would live, and I believed the Chancellor would keep her promise to keep the others in my group alive. They had such valuable Gifts after all. It would be in her best interest to keep them safe.
    Markan’s fingers closed around the