Shutdown (Glitch)

Hopefully it was enough to convince him to help us.
    “I have a plan,” I said, “but first I need to talk to my brother.”
    *   *   *
    An hour later, I sat in the attack transport behind Henk with my brother and Lundris, a boy Adrien had found among the glitchers as he was taking his meticulous survey of their powers. Lundris was short and blond, and couldn’t be more than fifteen. He sat quietly in the seat by the window, awaiting instructions. Adrien said he’d had a vision of our mission and that it was imperative that Lundris came with us.
    I looked over at Markan. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
    His eyes were wide, but he nodded anyway.
    “And you?” I asked Lundris.
    Lundris sat straight in his chair, still used to the posture required in the Community. He met my eyes. “You freed me from the woman who took my mind away from me. I will follow you.”
    “Ready to lift off,” Henk said. He looked back at us, a grin on his face. “Alrighty. Let me know when you’ve cleared a path, Zoe.”
    I nodded, feeling nerves twist up in my stomach. I reached out a hand to my brother. He swallowed hard, but then took it.
    Immediately I was bowled over by all the information and data assaulting my mind. What had begun as a small projection cube in my head suddenly exploded outward, flooding to encompass the entire building, then the fields full of attack transports surrounding us, then out to the shore and ocean beyond. To the west, my reach extended hundreds of miles inland.
    Panic bubbled up. It was so much information. I grabbed my head with the hand that wasn’t clutching Markan’s. But after a few calming breaths, I was able to let all the data saturate my mind. In a way, it was exhilarating. I was spread out so far. I could sense so many things. Humans, machinery, trees, the ocean, tiny animals scampering across the ground. Hundreds of thousands of heartbeats all thrumming out a strange syncopated rhythm. For several moments I just lost myself in it.
    Then I tried to ground myself again. It was easier when I focused in on concrete objects. I plucked all the transports surrounding the Chancellor’s compound right out of the air as if they were no more than gnats. There were about fifty of them. I swung them through the air, crumpling the large propulsion modules along the bottom in on themselves. Then I flung them through the sky several miles into the ocean.
    Next, I tried to filter through all the information and focus only on the humans. I used their heartbeats to help me key in on them. In a way, it wasn’t that different from what I did with my mast cells every day. I’d learned to differentiate mast cells from amongst all the other billions of cells. I could do the same to identify people. Once I’d grabbed hold of all the human shapes in range, I let myself drift up from their pumping hearts to their brains. I grimaced, biting hard on the inside of my cheek. I could not let all the sensory data overwhelm me. I had to make this work.
    There. I zoomed in through the soft putty of brain matter and finally could feel the contours of the hardware inside the hundreds of thousands of heads. I’d long ago studied and gotten familiar with the differences between the bigger adult V-chip with its snaking metal filaments connecting to places all over the brain, and the pre-eighteen chips, which were much smaller and had less invasive wirework to allow for normal brain development. Most of those with the smaller V-chips were all clustered together. It made sense. They’d be together in their various Academies at this hour in the day. That was good. They’d have strength in numbers once I freed them.
    I sifted through those in my search radius and let go of everyone with the larger V-chip. Then, anchoring myself in all the smaller V-chips left, I squeezed Markan’s hand tighter and pushed the radius out even farther. There were millions now. Millions of thumping hearts and millions of V-chips. I sorted through and again latched on to those with the smaller hardware.
    Finally, when I felt like my head was going to split wide open from being pulled in so many directions, I took one last deep, calming breath, then crushed the smaller V-chips all at once. Almost immediately, chaos erupted as the previously staid groups of people began to respond to their crushed hardware. They were all seeing color for the first time, all beginning to feel emotions at once. I couldn’t let myself imagine