Shutdown (Glitch)

with Tyryn. He’d always said the key to knocking someone out with one punch was the speed of the blow. I’d practiced tossing dummies against a pressure panel and had been confident at the time that it was a skill I could use whenever I needed it. But now, with adrenaline pumping through my veins and knowing that any one of the figures rushing out the door could be Markan, I was less sure.
    I reached forward with my telek. As soon as I could feel the shape of their bodies, I threw them all headfirst into the metallic slabs that made up the outside of the building. Some stayed on the ground, out cold, but others got to their feet again.
    More poured out the door. Even as ten bodies slumped to the ground, ten others replaced them. I felt the tingling that signaled an assault on my mind and threw the new wave of glitchers against the walls.
    Still more came.
    The next moment, laser fire blasted toward me from a second round of guns that had previously been hidden. I barely dodged the disorienting flashes of red, dropping low to the ground to escape the blasts.
    I ripped the guns from the wall before they could get off another shot. I landed on my feet and ran a few steps so I could direct all my telek toward the building.
    But before I could do a sweep to check for more weapons, a familiar figure held her arm out toward me, a blue orb in her hand.
    It was Saminsa. She released the orb and I tried to jump up to fly out of the way. But the orb expanded as it went and I was blasted straight in the chest by the wave of blue energy. It knocked me sharply backward, disorienting my telek. I put out an arm to brace my fall but hit the ground so hard that I heard the crack of bones in my right forearm even before I felt the searing pain. I let out a deep howl of rage and looked back up.
    Just in time to see a stream of fire burning toward me.
    I tried to jump out of the way, but I wasn’t fast enough. The fire caught the outer side of my left thigh. My pants and part of my tunic went up in flames.
    I dropped to the ground and rolled several times to put the fire out. But not before it burned through my tunic and pants down to my skin. I screamed in pain, both from rolling over my broken arm and from the burns. I didn’t look down to see how bad it was but the smell of charred skin filled my nose.
    Somehow I had to ignore the excruciating wounds because I could see Saminsa gathering another orb. I lifted myself up into the air again to avoid another wave of fire while I focused in on her. Saminsa was a friend so I tried to be delicate; I reached into her body to look for the blood vessel to close off so she’d pass out easily. But she released the second orb before I could. It sent me spinning through the air end over end.
    As soon as I’d righted myself, I saw the fire boy gearing up to send yet another stream at me. I was already half-delirious from pain. I couldn’t handle getting burned again, so I did the first thing I could think of; I grabbed hold of his body and Saminsa’s and slammed their heads together. They crumpled to the ground and I could only pray I hadn’t hit them too hard.
    A loud jarring noise exploded in my ears, disorienting me so that when I tried to stand, I only stumbled a few steps before falling to my knees again. I tried to look around for the explosion, but there was none, and I realized a second before another screeching sound hit that I felt the telltale tugging at my brain. Mind-workers.
    I looked back up. I’d taken out everyone I could see, and no more were rushing out. But their power wouldn’t be halted by walls any more than mine was. I reached forward with my telek, pushing past the flimsy barrier of the outer wall.
    Just as I sensed a group of bodies huddled in a main corridor, I froze and toppled forward into the packed dirt. I hit the ground face-first. Blood gushed out of my nose and the burned side of my body was ground into the rocky dirt. My vision blurred from the pain. I tried to jump to my feet, but I couldn’t get up, couldn’t move at all. I was completely vulnerable, lying paralyzed in the middle of the open field in front of the building.
    And then I started drowning. I gasped in panic but only swallowed more water. I coughed it out, only to have my throat fill back up again.
    I tried to stay calm. This was part of their strategy. Assault me from enough angles and I’d be so distracted, I wouldn’t catch the one attack that killed me. But every rational thought I