Shutdown (Glitch) (30 page)

“And we’ll stay nearby and wait for your signal,” Cole said. “If you take out the Chancellor and there’s no risk of us falling under her compulsion, the rest of us can move in. Ginni said the other glitchers are still there too, in the same compound.”

I looked down at the unconscious girl. Ginni’s chest moved up and down steadily. The laser had partially cauterized as it cut. As we all spoke, Xona worked with Simin to apply the gel that would disinfect and stimulate skin regrowth. A necessary part of every med kit when you lived in the Rez.

Cole continued. “If you’re successful, then we can join you and—”

“But we voted,” City objected. “We all agreed we wouldn’t risk trying to rescue them.”

“Well, I change my vote,” Cole said.

Xona’s head snapped to look at him. He put a hand on her shoulder. “You feel bound by your promise, but I know it’s what you’ve wanted all along.”

Xona stared at him a long moment. “That’s that then,” she said, taking his large hand in hers. “Now the vote is nine to eight in favor of rescuing the others.”

“What?” City said, straightening in her seat. “There’s still a bunch of us who don’t want to. Rand.” City spun to where he sat, nearest the back door. “Tell them. They can’t do this.”

Rand’s forehead was scrunched up in thought. “We’ve got a chance now, Citz. If the other vision comes true … you know, the one where Zoe doesn’t make it,” he avoided my gaze, “then we won’t move in. But if she does, then everything will be chaotic. And you and me can take on whatever security they got.”

City’s jaw tensed as she looked back and forth at all of us watching her. “Fine!” She sat back and crossed her arms. After a few more seconds, she said, “Well, I guess I haven’t gotten to fry anyone in a while.”

Simin finished wrapping up Ginni’s leg with soft bandage, then wound adhesive tape gently around the bandage to keep it in place. His eyebrows knit together in concern as he looked down at her.

“Can someone give me the coordinates for where we’re heading?” Henk called back over his shoulder from the cockpit.

Simin put a hand gently to Ginni’s face, then stood and headed down the aisle to the front of the transport. I followed him to the cockpit. He pulled out a tiny box from his console bag, slid out a chip, and plugged it into the dash console. A projection cube immediately popped out. He flipped through several screens and a map rose with a pulsing red dot indicating the Chancellor’s location. He zoomed in closer so I could see a Sat Image of the building.

Adrien’s voice came from behind us, startling me. “That’s the building I saw in my vision.” I turned to look at him. His face was pale.

“All right.” Henk swung the tip of the transport around and headed in the opposite direction. “The Chancellor’s all the way in the east-most part of the Sector, along the seaboard. Should take a couple hours to get there, so rest up.”

I went back and sat down. Everyone around me fidgeted in their seats. I could tell they were scared, but there was also a palpable adrenaline rush at the thought of heading into battle. Adrien looked at me from several seats down across the aisle, his face drawn in worry.

I forced myself to close my eyes so I couldn’t see him. It was the only way I’d be able to mentally prepare myself for what I was about to do.

“Does anyone have a laser weapon?” I asked, opening my eyes ten minutes later. If the Chancellor was supposed to die by a laser weapon, I needed to have one.

Adrien stayed silent but reached into the pack at his feet and pulled a small weapon out. He handed it Amara, gesturing for her to hand it to me.

“Here,” Xona said, leaning over and unclipping the holster at her ankle. “Take this so you can conceal it.”

I nodded and took the holster, wrapping it around my own ankle. I’d seen Xona do it enough times, but my fingers still stumbled as I tried to click the small clasps along the side closed. I finally got it and slipped the weapon into it.

I sat back up, balling my hands anxiously into fists. There was nothing else to do but wait.

Last time I’d seen the Chancellor six months ago, she’d crippled me with an allergy attack I’d barely survived and then she’d flown away in her transport before I could finish the job. Not this time. This time there would be no hesitation. She would die, and I would stand over her fallen body.

I’d have thought such an image would make me feel powerful … but all it felt like was relief. If I could kill her, finally I could live again without fear for myself and for my loved ones. I’d get my brother back and the Rez could rebuild. We might have a real chance at trying to come up with an idea of how to free the drones without worrying about the Chancellor compelling Rez agents to tell her what we intended before we ever got a plan off the ground.

After another half hour, I noticed Adrien riffling through the bag at his feet again. His back seemed oddly stiff as he bent over to look through it. I wondered if he was angry at me. He’d said he loved me and asked me to go away with him. I’d said no. I hadn’t meant it as a rebuff, but maybe that was how he’d taken it.

I unbuckled myself and walked down the small aisle to where he sat at the back. The small twin telepath boy, Jare, watched me as I went. He must be wondering if I’d be able to do what I’d said. If I could kill the Chancellor and free his brother.

“What’re you looking for?” I asked Adrien when I got to him. There was an empty seat beside him, so I sat.

“Nothing,” he said, still not looking at me.

“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say now that I was here. I took a deep breath. If I didn’t … survive, I couldn’t have our last words in this world be angry ones.

“Adrien—”

He surprised me by turning toward me and taking my hand. “I love you, Zoe,” he said. “All I want is for you to be safe. You know that, don’t you?”

I nodded. “I know. And I know you might not believe it right now, Adrien, but I love you too. This is just something I have to do.”

He smiled and lifted a hand to my face, caressing my cheek. Then, to my surprise, he dropped his lips to mine. I knew everyone was watching, but I didn’t care. I wrapped my arms up around his neck and his slipped around my waist, pulling me in tight. I wanted this one last moment with him.

For those few seconds, I let every other care and worry fall away. The touch of his lips lit me up like a spark of electricity tracing up and down my body. It was enough to consume all other thought.

But then I felt a sharp pain in my back. I gasped and pulled away from Adrien.

His face wasn’t warm and loving anymore. It was completely blank. I twisted to look at what was wrong with my back, then screamed in pain. But not before I saw that there was a kitchen knife lodged hilt-deep below my kidney.

I pulled it out, blinking and looking at the small bloody knife in shock.

What—?

I turned back around just in time to see City raising her hands toward me. I felt the buildup of her electricity crackle in the air the instant before she released it.

Nothing made any sense, but I threw my telek outwards against her. If she let out that stream of electricity in the tiny metal-encased space of the transport, we’d all be dead. I tossed her backwards hard. Her head hit the wall with a sickening
thwack
.

I didn’t have time to check if I’d overdone it, if I’d hurt her badly or even
killed
her on accident, because Rand and Cole had both launched themselves at me. Rand held his hand out toward me. I could already feel the heat pouring off him, and I knew he was only just warming up. If he actually touched me, the burn would almost surely kill me.

I stopped them both midair and wrenched Rand’s arm upwards instead of at me. The metal over our heads quickly turned red hot.

Everyone attacking me all at the same time could only mean one thing. The Chancellor. But she was still hundreds of miles away, how was she compelling them—

Suddenly we were all knocked off our feet as the transport dipped down, aiming straight at the ground. I fell hard into Cole, Juan, and Xona. My head banged into the metal of Cole’s chest, but he’d been slammed into the back of the cockpit seat and for a moment was just as disoriented as I was, so he didn’t renew his attack. Then again, he didn’t really need to. In a few more seconds, we’d all be a pile of fiery wreckage, our bodies indistinguishable from the twisted remains of the transport.

I pushed myself off of Cole.

My mind spun as I tried to figure out what was going on. The Chancellor’s power didn’t extend more than a few city blocks, maybe a mile at most. How was this happening? How did she even know where we were?

I tried to grasp the transport with my telek, but we were dropping so fast, I couldn’t seem to get a clear hold before it all spun out of my mind’s grasp again. It didn’t matter how it was happening. All that mattered was that I stopped us in time. But when I tried to move so I could grab the controls, I tumbled past Henk in the driver’s chair and my backside smashed into the glass windshield at the front of the transport.

The reinforced windshield didn’t crack, but I was woozy from the pain of hitting right where the knife had gone in.

The transport was spinning now as it fell, throwing me from one side of the dashboard to the other. I kicked Henk in the face accidently, and he let go of the transport controls all together. At the same time, Cole had reached up and ripped off the guide stick at its base. He lunged for me next, but I pushed him back with my telek.

I could see the ground now, closer every second. I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the screaming pain in my back, the nauseous sensation of spinning out of control, and the thought that this was my worst nightmare coming true—tumbling through the horrible open sky, empty space on all sides except for the unforgiving ground that was rushing up all too quickly to meet us.

I ground my teeth together. The projection cube blinked to life in my mind, and I hurled my telek outward until I was not only out of the chaotic cockpit, but was outside the transport too. The cube enlarged and I reached blindly for another surface to hold on to so I could orient myself. And there it spread out beneath us—the ground.

I braced myself against the earth with my telek and then felt out the spinning contours of the tiny transport falling through the huge unending sky. It was like a child’s toy tossed through the air. I caught it and steadied it out until we stopped spinning.

It was the strangest sensation, because I could feel the momentum slowing in my outer body while simultaneously slowing the plane’s fall in my mind. I couldn’t think about the mind-twist of it though. I poured more energy into curbing our speed, slower and slower, until when we finally got to the ground, we landed gently on a grassy field.

Cole’s metal-encrusted hand immediately reached toward me, but several of the others were clogging the entrance to the cockpit between us. He tossed them aside like they were no more than paper dolls.

I’d been chased by Regulators before. I knew they never stopped. I pressed my telek against the windshield and blew it outward. I tumbled through the hole I’d opened up and landed painfully on my side. I looked down. My tunic was covered in blood from the knife wound. I tried to get to my feet, but stumbled and fell back down again. I may have cast my mind out beyond the spinning plane while it was falling, but my body had felt every turbulent moment. I was so disoriented I could barely tell which way was up and which was down. I tried to get to my feet and again crashed into the ground.

I let out a pitiful gasp as I looked at the downed transport. Cole was crawling through the hole I’d made in the window. He’d be on me in seconds.

No.

It couldn’t end like this. Adrien’s vision. I was supposed to at least have a chance to kill the Chancellor.

I abandoned trying to stand on my own and closed my eyes, pouring my energy into the only one of my senses that seemed to be working at the moment—my telek. I lifted my body up off the ground and into the air right as Cole got to the spot where I’d just been. He reached his arms up after me, almost catching the edge of my tunic. I flew higher right in time.

The others had opened the door of the transport and spilled out. City was one of them, grabbing her head and walking a few clumsy steps before collapsing to the ground again. A sweep of relief rushed through me. She looked like she’d be okay.

“Zoe, wait,” Adrien called. “Stop! I’m sorry, I must have been under her control, but it’s gone now. Come back, Zoe!”

I wanted to believe he was telling the truth. But I knew it was much more likely that these were just the Chancellor’s words coming out his mouth. Trying to lure me back so they could attack me again. I pushed myself farther into the sky before City figured out how to use her electricity again.

My mind felt thick with cotton. I’d flown away from the wreck as fast as I could, but now I wondered which direction I was heading. I thought about dropping back to the ground, but instead I pushed on. I lifted my left arm in front of my face and clicked through to the compass function on my arm panel, like I’d watched Adrien do so many times when we’d escaped the Foundation.

Okay, I was headed north. I tried to remember exactly where the Chancellor’s facility had been located. It had been to the east, I knew that much. But I’d never be able to find it without the map. I slowed my momentum and finally stopped, not sure what to do.

I was weak and hurt, and if I tried to go kill the Chancellor now, there was a high chance I’d fail to even locate her. But if I didn’t, there was no way I’d be able to find a safe place to sleep, and that was only if I didn’t pass out from blood loss.

I had to try. The others were lost to her compulsion. I couldn’t let it all be for nothing.

I wasn’t sure if it was an actual decision so much as grim determination. I turned around and went back the way I’d come.

I didn’t go close enough for anyone from the downed transport to see me. Just close enough so that I could feel the outline of the plane. I could sense the shapes of my friends, walking aimlessly in the field, looking upwards in the direction I’d flown away. The techer had pulled Ginni out of the transport and was checking her vitals. I prayed she was okay. She must have gotten tossed around like crazy during the tailspin.