Shutdown (Glitch)

line. No one even noticed the small bundle flying through the air. It sailed and landed in my hand.
    I flew farther away again, wincing in pain as I lifted off the ground and set myself back down several miles away. I peeled up my bloody tunic and opened the tube of healing gel. I barely kept myself from crying out as I twisted around to apply the gel to the wound on my back. It wouldn’t be able to heal the internal bleeding the knife had caused, but at least it would help the outer cut seal closed and scab up.
    Then I opened the spool of bandage and wrapped it as tight as I could bear in several loops around my torso. When I’d bound the wound as well as I could, I dropped the roll to the ground and took several deep breaths. I felt a little lightheaded from blood loss, but there was no time to waste. The Chancellor had somehow compelled my team from far away, even though I still didn’t know how she’d found us. She’d be sending a transport to pick them all up soon.
    But Adrien had said the building where Ginni’d located the Chancellor was the same one he saw in his vision. She must still be there, or she’d be returning soon.
    I steadied myself, then plugged the tiny drive into my arm port and watched the map appear in the glowing display. Now I knew where to go.
    I took one moment to look over toward the trees that separated me from the jet. I was so close to Adrien. I couldn’t leave him here, knowing he was under the Chancellor’s control. Who knew what she might do to him? The last time she’d had him, she’d cut out part of his brain. But there was nowhere I could take him to be safe from her, I saw that now. The only way to truly ensure his safety was to kill the Chancellor. I swallowed hard and lingered one moment longer. I imagined Adrien’s comforting hand in mine and then launched myself up into the sky.

 
    Chapter 25
    I RACED TOWARD BATTLE WITH no army and already wounded. The odds were not on my side.
    But there was my anger. That I still had, that I could cling to. Rage, fury, the hottest and brightest-burning of emotions. I fed them until wrath pulsed through my veins. It was different than the last few months when I’d been trying to swallow all my emotions down and make myself steel. I embraced the anger now and pulled it over myself like a mantle. It made me stronger.
    My speed increased as I ticked off each wrong the Chancellor had done to me and to the ones I loved. She’d lobotomized Adrien, imprisoned Markan, killed who knew how many Rez fighters, and now was planning to implant adult V-chips in children. When I couldn’t feed the anger anymore myself, I imagined the rage of centuries of people whose lives had been stolen from them by people just like the Chancellor. I carried millions of ghosts in my wake like a cape billowing out behind me.
    The wind ripped at my hair, pulling it out of its braid and whipping it back in a mad rush of black curls. I pressed on, letting no more thoughts enter my head. I emptied myself out. I had never been so single-minded in my entire life.
    And then I saw the ocean. It stretched out even vaster than the sky. I couldn’t fathom all the crashing water that battered the coastline. I turned my thoughts from it and focused only on the building perched on a high hill that matched the blinking dot lighting up on my arm panel map.
    The Chancellor’s compound stood out like an ugly metallic sore against the beauty of the horizon. It was a long burnished steel rectangle, only two stories high but covering at least a quarter mile. I must not have been paying attention to the scale of the schematics the techer had shown us, because the building in front of me was far bigger than I’d expected. I flew toward it and let my rage expand even further.
    As I neared, I sensed gun barrels click to life on the top ledges of the building. Both laser fire and projectile missiles streaked toward me. I banked and launched myself straight up into the sky, dodging the lasers and catching the other missiles midair with my telek. I forced them out to the sea and then rammed them into each other. The explosion created a huge fireball over the water. Next I ripped all the guns I could see off the building.
    People began pouring out of the front doors. They were too small to be Regulators, which meant they had to be glitchers. I needed to disable them before they attacked me, but at the same time, any one of them could be my brother, Markan.
    I remembered training