Shutdown (Glitch)

accelerate,” Adrien said, looking down at our connected hands with an expression I couldn’t read.
    “Right,” I said. Accelerate. Just like that.
    More noise sounded behind us in the distance. Watching the ground, even in such dim light, would only get me cracked. If I was going to do this, I had to rely only on my telek sense alone. I closed my eyes and propelled us forward again. I tried not to think about the air brushing against my face or the smell of the dusty rock surrounding us. Weight didn’t matter. Objects occupying space, that’s all we were.
    I visualized the long skinny tunnel and us as a tiny object zooming through it.
    I felt out the curves of the tunnel far before we came to them. After a few minutes, the terror that I might accidently fly us full speed into a wall dimmed. The tunnel around us was just like those old virtual exercises they used to train us with in nanobio-engineering. We’d put on the goggles and then zoom past minuscule cell walls as if they were huge hallways. I could do the same here. Accelerate, adjust left, slight right. The only difference was here I could feel my hair blowing backward with our speed.
    I kept my telek projected down the entire tunnel, and we were quickly approaching the end. The sudden vastness of the open air beyond the tunnel almost choked me as we got near. I could navigate the slim contours of the narrow walls with a fair amount of precision, but how could I even begin to wrap my head around that much awful open space ? The Surface and the sky were still the stuff of nightmares to me.
    I slowed us down as we came to the lip of the tunnel. I dropped us to our feet again in front of the tree- and brush-covered entrance. The rock that had been hewn in a perfect circle now grew wider, with more natural jagged edges as it opened to the Surface.
    If we’d still been in the escape pod, we would have burst through the slight barrier of tree branches and scrub brush that covered the entrance with little problem. Then the propulsion thrusters would have kicked in as it turned from a launch pod into a regular air transport.
    As it was, we had to make our way through the thick brush and brambles, earning several scratches for the effort. Finally we reached a small ledge overlooking the mountains. The smell of sharp pine filled my nose. I could feel my mast cells threatening to kick into overdrive with the amount of allergens suddenly being introduced to my body. I ground my teeth together to keep them all in check.
    Adrien seemed to have gained more strength back. He’d opened his pack and pulled out a new pair of pants and tunic. Two pairs of clothes came standard in each pack, along with other basic supplies like food, blankets, lamps, and coolant harnesses to avoid Infrared Sat Cams when traveling at night. As I watched, he pulled his gel-soaked top off over his head. He reached for his pants next.
    I spun around so that my back was to him. “What are you doing? We’ve got to get going.”
    “I don’t like the feel of the gel.”
    “There are more important things to be focusing on right now!” Like the fact that his mother was probably lying dead in the Med Center all those miles behind us. Did it mean anything to him?
    “Maybe we can contact one of the other escape pods,” I said, trying to push away all my worries about those who hadn’t been able to make it out. All I could do now was problem-solve what came next. “See if one of the other groups can come pick us up?”
    “I thought about that, but we can’t talk to them.” Adrien held up the external com that was tucked in the side of the rations pack. He held it out toward me.
    On the readout, it said E RROR 8 . I looked up at him. We knew what that meant: the channel wasn’t clear. It must have been compromised. If we tried to use it, the enemy could trace it back to us and we’d be cracked.
    I looked out into the landscape. “What do we do now?” There was a slightly hysterical note in my voice, but I couldn’t help it.
    Adrien didn’t answer me. He just clicked the com unit apart until the inside was exposed and flipped a switch. The device started smoking in his hand and he dropped it. It was the protocol, I knew. But as I watched our only way of communicating with the rest of the Rez go up in smoke, my heart dropped. Only a week ago I’d believed we’d be able to take down the Community, and now here we were with no home, fleeing for our lives.
    “We head to the rendezvous