Shutdown (Glitch)

“We would move faster.”
    I bit down on my cheek hard to keep myself from snapping at him again. I was having a difficult enough time keeping us moving forward without him distracting me every other minute.
    “It’s just that it would be far more aerodynamic and—”
    A metallic grinding noise echoed from behind us in the forest. I swiveled my head around to look. “What was that?” I whispered.
    “Maybe they got past the blockage.”
    My eyes widened, and then I closed them back tight again, pouring all of my energy into my telek sense. I tipped us forward until we were horizontal with the ground. I had to admit, we were smacking into fewer tree branches this way, and we were able to move faster.
    Flying entailed a strange balance of calculating carefully where we were aiming and ignoring the inner stream of logic screaming that flying at all should be impossible. For a few moments here and there I was able to find the equilibrium where I kept us moving forward instinctually rather than intellectually. Dip, adjust to the left, avoid the split branch hanging down. I kept my telek focused spatially forward and down. If I let myself think about the unending expanse of sky above the trees or the Regulators on our heels, I wouldn’t be able to keep it up.
    Every so often Adrien checked his arm panel and told me to aim left or right, but other than that, we stayed silent. The amount of concentration necessary to keep us in the air and keep my allergens at bay at the same time became quickly tiresome, but I managed to keep us going for several hours before finally dropping us back to the ground.
    “I need a break,” I said to Adrien. I was tired. The passage between trees had been so narrow at times that we were both covered in scrapes and stray brown needles. I’d had my eyes closed to stay better focused on what I felt with my telek, but now that I opened them, I saw it was almost dark. I leaned my back against a tree and stretched my neck.
    The forest at twilight was full of unfamiliar sounds. You’d think being out here all alone in the middle of nowhere, it would be quiet. Instead it was loud, but not like noises I was used to—the groan of steel settling or the steady mechanic whir of machines. No, the noise around us now didn’t seem to come from any one place. Insead it came from everywhere, from the wind in the trees, to the scratch of rustling bushes, to the weird high-pitched clicking noise that had to be some kind of animal or insect.
    Then I frowned. Wait, it was nighttime, that meant …
    “Oh no, we haven’t put on the coolant harnesses.” I looked up as if I could sense the Infrared Satellite Cams overhead. They switched from normal Sat Cams to IR Cams at night.
    Adrien waved a hand dismissively from where he walked nearby, stretching his legs. “We’re safe from IR cameras as long as we’re under the trees. They cover our heat signature. Besides, there are enough things living in this forest that even if they catch a glimpse of us, they’ll just think we’re a deer or a bear or something.”
    I let out a sigh of relief. Then I frowned, “Wait, did you just say there are bears out here?”
    Adrien ignored my question and looked up, even though any vision of the darkening sky was encumbered by the treetops. A breeze blew in that twisted and shook the leaves on all sides. I closed my eyes for a moment, enjoying the cool breeze. I’d felt hot and sticky all day, but now that the sun was going down, it was cooling off rapidly.
    I touched my forearm panel for light and watched Adrien gazing up at the sky. He was so tall and skinny, you’d almost mistake his shadow for just another trunk.
    The trees were taller here than they’d been when we left the mountain tunnel. I’d followed the direction Adrien had pointed out as closely as I could, but I’d had to divert my path so often to avoid low-lying branches, I couldn’t be sure if we’d continued going north like we were supposed to.
    Adrien took a few steps forward and broke off a bit of bark. “Coniferous.” He sniffed it. “Pine trees. When I was a kid, Sophia and I used to move through the forests around here if a situation got too hot in Sector Six.” He dropped down and rubbed a small shrub plant between his fingers. “She always knew which foods were good to eat and which weren’t.”
    I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like his voice got quieter when he mentioned his mother. The scene I’d been trying to keep at bay