Glitch (3 page)

“I have the authority to resist,” she said, biting back an urge to scream at him. It wasn’t her fault they were standing in the rain together, him getting wet for no good reason, she looking like a girl with an exploding firecracker vest.

“Calm down, Simone. It’s me, Cliff.”

She waited, thinking he might take off his shades and speak to her like a person. “I’m part of the Cybercorps Program. My brother branded the back of my neck.”

“I know.”

“Don’t bully me. I’ll summon if I have to.”

“Don’t talk about that, Simone. Jeez, that’s pushing it.”

“You’re not here to arrest me?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

She saw the cydrone shift again, as if it knew it were being addressed.

“I had a feeling you were ... in this condition,” he said. “Since your family was so good to me and we had a falling out, I thought I’d intervene. Someone had to take this case. I offered.”

“My dad said you’d come.”

The faintest hint of a human smile tipped up the corners of his mouth. “You want to go to school, right?”

“Yes.”

“Here’s the deal. I’ll register you as an Altertranshuman Unperson of interest with the Consortium. Besides, as a member of the Program, you’re already cleared.”

“I am?”

“Came down last night. The Consortium will allow you special providence to continue in your condition. That means—”

“I can attend class?”

“Yes.”

“Awesome!”

Simone defused her psy-kata by spinning around in seven complete turns that was impossible for any embodied person. Ethereal sparks flung off without being doused by the rain.

“On one condition.”

She righted herself. “What?”

“My friend here keeps an eye on you.”

“Your friend?”

“While on campus.”

“Why am I being allowed …?”

“There are people interested in what persons like you can offer to the struggle.”

Her dad had been correct. “Transhuman warriors.”

He wiped water from his face. “We don’t use that popular terminology, but sure, okay. Whatever you say.” He offered his hand. “We have a deal?”

The cydrone shifted again, like a protective guard dog nervous someone approached its owner.

“Deal.”

She reached out. He merged his hand into hers. He reacted as if her touch were a shot of macro-chemicals to his brain, stronger than any opioid. His face seized up in a twisted display of ecstasy. She yanked her hand away.

“Gross,” she said, watching the muscles of his face ripple with pleasure. He tried to hide the reaction, but he looked like a guy caught yanking in the bathroom. “Really?”

“Sorry,” he said, “but touching someone like you is ...
indescribable
.”

“If we’re so great, why does the Consortium always get rid of us?” He didn’t answer. “Oh … they don’t.”

He tilted his head, as if he might elucidate. “Good day, Simone Wellborn. No channeling or summoning, please.”

“Cross my heart.”

He walked past her toward the parking lot as if he were simply a man who’d come to campus for a friendly visit. She wanted to jump up and down, but she couldn’t do that yet with any degree of verisimilitude. She spun again, like a top, arms out, hair blown by an invisible wind. She waved to the cameras and, with legs moving for the heck of it, she imitated a normal walk back to the entrance.

The Sterling School, whether they liked it or not, would have to deal with its newest student. Her official legal classification was now an Altertranshuman Channeler, Summoner, and Digi-Ghost Unperson.

She grinned at the baloney title.

They needed a new classification system for her. She didn’t mind at all; in fact, she relished the fact as she floated through the glass door into the calm of the building and saw faces staring at her as if she were an angel.

* * *

Simone returned to class with a Consortium Ghost Hunter as a chaperone. It walked unheard as it followed her, its silent servos allowing effortless movement. Everyone who saw the cydrone trailing the ghost down the hall stared. A human-operated mech was one thing, an intelligent cydrone another, and a real live Digi-Ghost meant no one could talk of anything else.

The faculty ushered students back to class now that the klaxons no longer blared. Mrs. Douglas’ first-period marine biology for juniors filled up. Just as Simone entered the classroom, Mrs. Douglas exited her classroom office and saw what awaited her. Her knees buckled, and she plummeted to the floor. Joss Beckwith was standing near her and tried to catch her, but failed. His shoulders and hips looked fixed, but he still scratched at his neck, even as he stood over her.

“My arms don’t work right,” he said.

 
The Rogue attack he’d suffered last week had been reversed, but the fact his head and arms had been on backward for a short time meant he’d be dealing with the aches for weeks.

“I guess not,” the one-and-only glad-fighter Hutto Toth said.

He stood next to Joss, smiling at Simone, the perfect representation of masculinity. He’d pulled his blond locks back into a ponytail. Next to him, two-foot-tall Wally Dorsey stared at Mrs. Douglas as if he thought she’d died.

Beasley stood over the teacher, ignoring Simone and her mechanical friend in the back of the room. “Didn’t the teachers get a memo or something about Simone?”

Hutto peeked at the fallen teacher from behind Beasley. “Did you frown at her and scare her shitless, Beasley?” Beasley spun. He backed up, still grinning, as if he expected a blow. “Just playing, Big Dog. Just playing.”

She raised a ham-sized fist. “See these knuckles? They’ll be smashing your nose today in training.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

Wally stood on a chair. “Did she bang her noggin on the floor?”

Joss lifted her head. Mrs. Douglas babbled and slobbered on his hand. “Great,” he said, as if he’d dipped his hand in mud. “Teacher drooled on my fingers.”

Half the class crowded around the downed teacher like gamblers at dice.

Kimberlee pushed forward. “Joss, hold her head up. Let her breathe.”

A semicircle of students had formed around Simone and the cydrone in the back of the room with enough space anyone could bolt if they had to, but close enough for a good look. She let them look at her. She stood there in a summer dress open at the neck, wearing her knee-high boots with the big buckles. Simone imagined they’d throw rocks if they’d had them.

Russell Wooten and Chip Monroe walked in late, and gawked.

“Take a picture,” she said. She put her hands on her hips and faked a pose.

Chip, the quasi-Neanderthal Transhuman, walked past her as if she were normal. “Nice robot.” The big football player sat in the middle of the room, put his head on his hands, and dozed off.

“Freak,” Russell said. He bopped a band student in the back of the head for no reason and sat.

Principal Smalls appeared with Nurse Betty, who wrung her hands as if an Ebola outbreak had just happened. Mrs. Douglas was sitting by now but looked no more refreshed than if she’d been shot and bandaged up. She was trying to blot her eyes. But it didn’t work, and her makeup ran down her ragged face in splotchy lines.

Simone stood in the back with her silent guardian, watching the period implode.

Principal Smalls made everyone sit in their chairs, facing forward, with no talking. As always, his wide belly pushed at his belt, and his balding head looked moist. After a frazzled Nurse Betty escorted Mrs. Douglas out, Principal Smalls paced back and forth, wringing his hands.

“Oh, enough of this,” he said. “All the Cybercorps Alters, including Simone and her guest, in the library.”

“Yes!” Hutto said. “No class.”

* * *

Second period rang for the rest of school, while for the Alters—Beasley, Kimberlee, Hutto, Wally, Joss, and Simone—the bell meant the beginning of their training in the Consortium’s experimental Cybercorps Defense Program.

Hutto sat on one of the empty tables in the middle of the small library, feet on a chair. The others gravitated to him as if he were the de-facto leader. Wally chatted with Beasley and Kimberlee, while Joss played with his tablet. Simone’s cydrone found a place by the wall and stood at attention, as lifeless as an unplugged dishwasher. The walls of the library were lined with stacks in rows like the spokes of a wheel. She moved down one of these aisles, hiding among the books, keeping her distance.

Principal Small followed, shut the double doors. “Everyone, listen up. We had thought to allow you all to start the semester with your classmates. But that doesn’t seem prudent.”

“Not at all, sir,” Hutto said. “Prudence is important.”

Wally laughed. “Study hall!”

“Yes, well ... no,” Principal Smalls said, “this won’t be your typical study hall, and it’s temporary.”

“Study hall!” Hutto said.

“Off the table, Mr. Toth,” Principal Smalls commanded. Hutto plopped into a chair, kicked back with legs out, hands behind his head, as if waiting for someone to throw a pie in his face—or crown him king of the world. “Take out your biology texts and read the introductions. I want one-page summaries by the end of the period. We’ll follow with history and literature before lunch.”

Everyone groaned, Hutto the loudest.

Principal Smalls hurried out. He hadn’t looked at Simone once.

No one cracked a book.

Instead, they all turned to Simone and her cydrone. They all stared as if expecting a speech.

Simone crossed her arms and floated toward the center of the chamber. None of them flinched, but she could see that even they weren’t used to her new form of travel. Hutto, of all people, had adjusted in record time when word spread how scared he’d been upon first seeing her. She’d spent a few days—after he’d kissed her cyber-double instead of kissing her—explaining that she wasn’t a supernatural ghost. She was still a real person, just disembodied; nothing to be scared of. When she explained her condition, he’d stared at her with a blank look as if he’d been hitting a bong; part of her sensed he wanted her to convince him. She’d tried to tease out what
disembodied
meant for him (because she wasn’t sure for herself). He’d listened and, for once, didn’t say anything snide. Her guess: He was pretending not to get it. She was beginning to think that tough-guy Hutto Toth was smarter than he looked.

Now in the library with all of them staring, Hutto grinned at her and her companion. “Don’t you two make an interesting pair?”

Joss stood and steadied himself because he still appeared to be unused to walking again. He ambled over to the Consortium cydrone. He took his time because as the school’s resident cyber Interfacer everyone would look to him for answers. That was fine with Simone. He approached the thinking machine as if he might bump chests with it or maybe give it a good shove. Simone heard finely machined parts whine as it shifted its balance. The thing’s head tilted down and to the side, as if eyeing him. It wasn’t much bigger than Hutto, but it made Joss look frail.
 

“You’re one of the new gracile models,” Joss said. “You must have other capabilities besides brute force.” He reached out and tapped its outer carapace. “Texture like enameled rubberized alloy. I wonder what you can do.”

Everyone crowded behind him.

Wally climbed atop Beasley’s shoulder. “He’s not as big as my mech.”

Joss glanced at Wally. “He?”

“Just seems like a he.”

“Ghost Hunter model.”

Simone moved forward. “I’ve heard my mom talk about them. Once they have your scent, they find you.” A slight movement of its head in her direction. “See?”

“Consortium hardware like this is top-grade, classified stuff.” Joss edged around it to observe its back. “I bet this thing cost millions.”

“More than that,” Hutto said.

Everyone ignored him. “I wonder what the Consortium would do if we hacked it.” The machine remained stolid. “You aren’t even programmed to understand that, are you?”

Hutto stepped closer. “Hack it to do what?”

“I’d love to see it walk into Mr. Hoover’s class and write on the board,” Beasley said.

Hutto chuckled. “Make it walk into the theater and pretend to jerk off on stage—”

“Gross!” Kimberlee said, giggling, though.

Joss rolled his eyes. “You know what we have here?” He stepped aside so that Simone could float next to the cydrone. He let them stand side-by-side. Everyone’s eyes moved back and forth between them. “Here it is, the heart of the Great Conflict standing in our library: The supernatural versus the natural. The spirit versus the machine. The unexplainable versus the—”

“We get it,” Simone said. “Get to the point, Joss.”

“An experiment.”

“Do tell, Joss,” Simone said to Joss.

“You know why they’re so hard on Unpersons?”

“I was wondering that very thing,” Simone said. “I’ve heard it’s about the problem of two identical persons existing at the same time.”

“The philosophical discussion is cool and all, but there’s another instrumental reason. Do you have any idea what you’re capable of?”

“
Instrumental
?” Hutto asked.

Joss sneered at the glad-fighter.

Simone’s father, a Digi-Ghost himself, had mentioned a few things since he’d returned to her life after a decade’s absence. Something about the Consortium having no control of what a ghost could do. “I have an idea.”

Joss looked at the cydrone and back to her. He stepped away, as would an MC. “What we have here, people, is a chance to see who’s got the right stuff: a student from Sterling or the Consortium’s pet.” No one reacted. Joss sneered as if he were the only one clued into current events. “Look, if you all paid attention to what goes on in Cyberspace, you’d know there’s a huge argument raging over how to create Transhuman warriors. One group thinks Digi-Ghosts are the answer, that human beings need to be free of our bodies to shine.” Still nothing. He waved at them as if he might shoo away their dim-headedness. “It’s like talking to first-graders.” He glanced at Simone. “The Consortium can’t have ghosts walking around because ghosts can control Consortium hardware, among other things.”