Shutdown (Glitch)

hated Max, and I hated the system that gave the Chancellor so much power. But most of all, in the darkness of night alone in bed with nothing else to distract my thoughts, I hated myself.
    Because how could I have let it ever happen? How had I been so self-involved I hadn’t noticed when Max switched places with Adrien? Max might have the power to disguise himself and impersonate other people, but I should have known. I thought back to that night of our “date.” At the time, I’d been so happy to have Adrien communicating and being open with me again, I hadn’t noticed anything off about the way he held me and kissed me. I shuddered at the thought that it had been Max, not Adrien, touching me so intimately. I should have recognized it right away, and we could have rescued Adrien before it was too late.
    But as had happened so many times before, I’d failed when it counted most. First with getting my older brother killed, then not finding a way to sneak my younger brother Markan out of the Community before the Chancellor set a twenty-four-hour watch on him, and now with Adrien. I knew that even if I succeeded in this mission, I couldn’t atone for it all. My jaw clenched with determination. Still, maybe I could save others, even if they weren’t the ones I loved most. As General Taylor had once told me, there’s nothing more dangerous than someone who knows they have nothing left to lose.

 
    Chapter 2
    “ DARL, DO HAVE SOME MORE of the bubbles.” Max offered a full sparkling glass to me.
    I tried to smile as if I thought everything at this overly lavish Uppers party was perfectly delightful and fun. Fun . I choked down the impulse to punch the especially fat man beside me who kept leaning over and talking at me with his mouth full of food. Sometimes little bits of spit shot out as he spoke, and I felt like I’d need to take an hour-long shower with blasting hot water when this was all over.
    Last night we’d successfully infiltrated Central City by posing as the Uppers couple Henk’s team had captured. The expansion of Max’s powers allowed him to project the vapid socialite’s face onto mine. As long as I stayed within a thousand feet of him, people would look at me and see her.
    “Really, Darl, darl ing, bubbly makes you laugh, and everybody loves to hear your laugh,” said Max, sounding greatly amused with the bad pun on the name of the woman I was impersonating.
    I reached to accept the glass, and smiled tightly at him. Of course Max had suggested we take on the shapes of this particular couple back when the Rez started researching the perfect way to infiltrate the Uppers circle in Central City. Darl and Nihem Westermin were the optimal choice because of their connections, their wealth, and the fact that their partying ways would make them the last people on earth the Uppers would suspect as planning to sabotage the Link.
    The fact that they were traveling to Central City at the same time Chancellor Bright would be absent had cinched it. Central City was the only place that had the mainframes capable of uploading the Rez’s hack. We would disable the Link that connected billions of people together through the hardware chips in their heads that turned them into mindless slaves.
    I’d been hoping for a nice sibling pair to impersonate—being a married couple meant I had to share a room with Max. Or better yet, I’d wanted to just slip into the city invisible, since Max’s power had expanded so that he could do that too. But we’d discovered part of the security protocol for entering the city was a complete vehicle scan to make sure there were no hidden bodies on board trying to sneak into the city. Invisibility was out.
    So instead we impersonated Darl and Nihem. Max gave us their faces, and we passed the retinal scan with the tiny film Henk had us put in our eyes before we left. We’d prepped for the DNA prick by pooling some of Darl and Nihem’s blood under false pads on our fingertips. When we arrived inside the gates, we were met by the party organizer, who was asked to personally identify us before we were allowed past the last barricade into the city. Darl and Nihem were well known to him, so he allowed us in with only a passing glance. They took no chances when it came to security in Central City. Once you made it inside, though, there were far fewer precautions.
    I put the glass of champagne to my lips and pretended to drink. I needed to be clearheaded tonight if I was going to