Shutdown (Glitch)

have killed the millions upon millions of adult drones who had fully integrated V-chips. Making them mindlessly fight was definitely the lesser of two evils—it at least gave them the possibility of a future. Once we’d won, we could begin researching in earnest about ways to free them from their more extensive V-chips.
    All around the country, Rez fighting cells were poised at strategic posts, ready for the takeover. With the drones on our side, even if only a third of them fought with us, we’d outnumber the Uppers thirty to one. We’d take Sector Six, freeing all the drones in the second-largest country in the world. And now, finally, we were here.
    I slipped the drive into one of the console slots. Blue code started spinning in the columns in front of me. I checked my arm panel again to check Simin’s instructions: W AIT ONE MINUTE FOR THE ERASE OF CURRENT CODE. I tried to wait patiently, but my foot started tapping again. We’d been here too long already. I glanced behind me at the still-open security doors. If anyone came in, they’d immediately know something was wrong.
    Finally the code stopped blinking, and a translucent command box popped up.
    R EWRITE? Y ES OR N O.
    A rush of exhilaration flooded me. This was the day Adrien had always dreamed of. I wished it could have been him standing beside me instead of Max.
    With shaking fingers, I clicked Yes, and then waited for the world to change.
    I watched the screen, excitement already bubbling through me. A confirmation screen should pop up any second now, letting us know that the signal had been broadcast.
    Instead, an alarm so loud it seemed to shake the room went off. Huge metal doors slammed down at every exit, locking us in.

 
    Chapter 5
    “NO!” I SAID OUT LOUD. This couldn’t be happening! We’d planned everything so perfectly.
    Rowun started laughing. I’d let go of my hold over him in my shock. “You thought you could upload code from one port and affect the entire Link? We have a hundred redundancy systems in a hundred different places.” He laughed even harder. “It’s part of the protocol, so if one station is breached with foreign code, all it does is trigger the alarm!”
    “We’ve got to go, now!” Max shouted.
    I grabbed the fingernail drive out of the computer, knowing even as I did that the information had probably instantly replicated. I replaced it with the kill-disk drive I’d also brought with me. I could only hope that it erased any of the code that had been logged and copied. Either way, I had to get word to the Rez quick, in case the Uppers could still see the code mentioning the Rez rendezvous sites.
    I had an encrypted com, but all outgoing signals were too carefully monitored in Central City, and if the kill disk did work, calling my Rez contacts would give away their location to the Uppers just as quickly.
    First we had to get the hell out of this facility.
    Max grabbed my hand and pulled me away before I could see if the kill disk worked.
    “Open the doors,” he said and I nodded. I lifted my hand, letting the telek build up inside me for a moment and then I unleashed it. The door slid back up in its track, grating with a loud screech as it broke free of the hydraulics system holding it in place.
    “What the hell?” Rowun said from behind us. I didn’t have time for him. I threw him backward into the wall of consoles with my telek, then focused again on the blockades in front of us.
    We ran through the open space and down the hallway. Heavy metal lockdown doors awaited us at every step along the way, but I felt ahead and opened the blockades before we even got to them. I could only hope it would be quick enough.
    When we got past the last one I started heading left toward the shuttle platform. “Zoe, what are you doing? We’ve got to steal the nearest transport we can find!”
    “No,” I pulled him near. “We’ll never get out if we steal a transport. There’s no reason we can’t continue with the original plan.”
    He nodded, then gripped my hand. The tube shuttle was still working. They hadn’t shut it down yet. We hadn’t encountered any actual Regs yet either. We’d only hit automatic redundancy systems so far. If the alarm in the lab went off, the doors went down. No one expected someone like me, someone who could breech even the widest, heaviest of lockdown doors to escape. Anyone alerted to the situation would still think we were inside. Until they saw the twisted metal of each door