The Glitch (The Glitches Series Book 1) Read online

  The Gltich

  Ramona Finn

  Contents

  Blurb

  Mailing List

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  END OF The Glitch

  Mailing List

  Blurb

  Being human means more than just surviving.

  In Lib’s world, it’s dangerous to deviate from the Norm. In fact, for someone who doesn’t live up to the AI’s standards, it’s practically a death sentence. Lib learns this the hard way when she wakes up with her memories erased in a barren wasteland where bands of Rogues scavenge for food and resources: This hostile place is the Outside.

  Lib is a Glitch, an imperfect human component of the utopian Norm. Now, she’ll have to team up with her fellow Glitches Skye and Raj and the mysterious Rogue Wolf Tracker and his clan to survive. Wolf only cares about the survival of his group, but Raj thinks they can hack the AI and change the Norm for the better.

  Now, Lib will have to decide which path to choose—whether to go with handsome loner Raj or stay with Wolf and his tight-knit group. Her heart is drawn to both, but she’s carrying a deadly secret that could jeopardize them all. Will she be able to save her newfound family and stop the AI before it’s too late?

  Mailing List

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  Chapter One

  A screech tears through the air and wakes me. The sound echoes and feels almost an echo of the noise in my head. Someone is screaming.

  Scrambling to my feet sets my head spinning. I stagger on shaky legs. My stomach gives a heave, and I almost fall to the cracked ground. I want to laugh—I’m as cracked as the ground. I stagger and then walk. Then I run. I don’t know where I’m going except toward that scream—toward the other voice. The world around me seems wrong—it’s all bright and brown. To one side of me, a wall towers into the sky, impossibly tall, dull and gray, leaving me wanting to beat on it with my fists. The screaming is getting louder. I’m close.

  The need to get there fast beats in me, pumping blood and burning in my lungs. Rocks trip my bare feet, cutting sharp and hot, leaving me limping, skipping. Ignore it—the words come easy to mind, but I’m stumbling like I haven’t used my legs in a long, long time. But something else pops up as well—it’s all my fault.

  I don’t know why those thoughts come to me. But I do know I’ve reached the sound of whoever else is in trouble. In front of me is a building—but what is that really? It is round—a semi-circle, with one end open and a railing and what looks like a wide-viewing screen. The flashing green of the lights seems out of place in this dry world.

  Just like me.

  The thought leaves my head aching, but I have no time for that. The building has a metal platform. A girl is slumped there. Her screams have gone to whimpers now. She looks younger than me, small and fragile. She has one hand on the railing in front of her. The lights glow and sparks jump out, so white they dazzle. The air stinks as if something is burning. I fear the something is the girl’s skin on the hand that seems stuck to the metal railing.

  Moving forward, I put my hands next to the girl’s on the railing. I’m moving on instinct, not thought. I don’t know why, but words leap into my head without my asking—motherboard… electronic connection…access to mainframe AI. My stomach gives another sickening lurch. I’m shaking all over. I know what to do—and I don’t know why I know this.

  I plant one hand on the railing next to the girl’s.

  Connection: Secure.

  Tiny pinpricks jab my palm. A dozen of them. Connections spark within me—I can feel the power slip over my skin and into my mind. With a blink, everything in the dry, brown world around me is no longer anything I can see. Instead, I’m not standing inside a room, dark and blue that is soothing in a way the other dry, dusty place was not. Next to me, the girl stands, her image wavering—and I know we are here in this other place, but we are not really here.

  This is the artificial world—it is a construct I see with my mind. But the question comes up—how do I know this? A certainty swells in my chest. I do know this place—it is where I am from. But…that makes no sense to me. How can I be from an artificial world—a computer construct?

  Glancing around me, I search for answers—and for a way to save this girl.

  A round, black machine sits on her back. Its black arms and legs make it look like it is meant to simulate looking like a small person. But it has no face. No skin. Firewall. The word pops into my head.

  Reaching out, I ghost a touch over the plate on the firewall’s chest. Power tingles on my fingertips, but I don’t know if that is coming from me or the firewall. I do know it is attacking the girl—it is a security measure and the girl triggered it. But I don’t like that it’s hurting her.

  I find a button and press it—something clicks and code appears, scrolling over the black surface of the firewall’s body. A thousand tiny messages appear in binary—ones and zeros. It’s clumsy code. Why do I know that? Unease shivers through me, but in the other world—the dry and dusty one—I can still hear the girl’s whimpers. Turning to the firewall, I pick out the lines of code that will end this. With a touch, the lines are wiped out.

  We can go now, so I put a hand on the girl’s wrists and think those words to her.

  The world snaps and breaks. For an instant, everything seems to be blackness. The soothing room of blue and cool vanishes—but then I stand again on the metal platform. I no longer hold the railing, but the girl is with me. She is no longer screaming. She glances at me, parts her lips as if to say something, but then slumps down to sprawl on the platform.

  Nonfunctional.

  Unconscious.

  The two words leave me frowning—which is it? I changed the code to make the firewall nonfunctional. Did that in turn leave the girl unconscious—nonfunctional?

  It’s all my fault.

  Is it my fault this girl is hurt? I don’t know.

  Frowning, I rub at the ache deep in the center of my chest. That’s new. I don’t know if it’s good or not. I also don’t know how I got out here in this dry and brown world. Glancing around, it seems to me that even the sky is a pale color—almost blue but not quite. It is so different from the cool, blue room—the artificial place—that it frightens me. I want to go back, but if I do will the firewalls attack me?

  Reaching up, I put cold fingers to my cheeks. They are wet and I don’t know why, but the wetness is leaking from my eyes. My throat now seems too tight, too dry. What happened to me that I am in the big, open, frightening place?

  Maybe the girl will know.

  Squatting down next to her, I touch her arm and shake her shoulder. She moves but only when I push her.

  “Why can’t I remember?” The words come out rough and my voice sounds as if I have not used in a long time. The g
irl doesn’t answer.

  Sitting down next to her, I decide she is longer than I am. Taller—that’s the word. But her face is darker than mine. My skin shows pale white and angry red, as if it has been burned. Her skin is not as smooth as mine. Tiny golden hairs cover her arms. Those hairs match the bright ones on her head, but that hair is pulled up and back and I don’t know why. I lean closer. Do I know her? Her face seems angled and sharp. Her eyes are closed but the lashes look feathery soft. I sit back and tug my hair around so I can see it.

  Dark, dark brown and thick. It is much shorter than that of the nonfunctional girl.

  And that is because…?

  No answer swims up to me from within my mind. Closing my hands into fists, I stare down at them. Did someone wipe my code clean? But…no. I am a person not a firewall—not a machine within an artificial construct. I should have memories—I know this. I pound one fist into metal and that leaves my hand sore. That’s a good thing—that means this world is real.

  It’s all my fault.

  With a frustrated growl, I sit back on my heels until my back rests against the metal wall. A rock presses into my butt. I’m tired. I want to close my eyes and wake remembering. I want the girl to wake because maybe she can tell me something. I hope she can.

  “Who are you?” The words come out of my mouth mumbled. I have to wet my lips and try again. “Who am I?”

  Glitch.

  The word appears in my head like someone said it. I glance around us. There is no one here but the nonfunctional girl and me. It seems I’m not very functional either—which leaves me dysfunctional. I almost let out a laugh, but I don’t know why that word is funny.

  Lifting a hand, I open and close my fingers. I let out a breath. I know I’m alive. And in a barren world that seems to be empty except for the girl with me, this platform—which is no longer glowing or sparking—and the wall and the sun burning over us.

  I am a glitch? That word feels wrong—the firewall was glitching wasn’t it when it attacked the girl. Firewalls should guard—they’re not supposed to attack those who enter. Just as I knew how to shut down the firewall and free the girl from its hold, I know this. And I don’t know why I do. The knowledge sits in my stomach like I’ve swallowed a rock.

  I must find the Glitches.

  The thought is like the other fragments lying around in my head—out of order, lost in mist, and has no contest for why I must do this. But it’s something.

  Find the Glitches.

  I don’t know what it means. Glancing around, I want to be back in the cool room. I touch the railing. Nothing happens. It seems to have become even more nonfunctional than the girl. I let out a whoosh of air. If I can get one tiny piece of myself back, I should be able to get more. Right now have no thought for what is my name, or how I know about the artificial world but I seem to know nothing about this…this outside world.

  Memory…error.

  It’s all my fault.

  “Find the Glitches,” I say to the dry, dusty air and to the girl. Maybe the Glitches will know why it’s my fault. And is that a bad thing or a good one?

  The girl moves—just a flutter of her pale lashes, a flicker of a finger moving in the dust. My heart seems to skip a beat. Eagerness floods me along with the chill of fear, and I lean close and ask her, “Do you know who I am?”

  Chapter Two

  Moving closer, I kneel at the girl’s side. I want her to wake. I want her to move and speak and tell me how this brown, dusty world works. It is getting even dustier. A wind sweeps up, pushing dirt into the air. The girl gives a groan.

  Pale lashes flutter and her lids open. Her eyes startle me—they are so blue they seem a reflection of the sky. I look up just to make sure, but in the end I decide they’re not an exact match to the blue shade of the sky.

  When I look back to her, those blue eyes widen. Her nostrils flare and her skin seems to pale. She tries to scrabble backward, but she can’t move very well and only just sits up and stares at me.

  I put out a hand, but I don’t touch her. She looks as if she might become nonfunctional again if I do.

  Glancing at my hand, she wets her lips. That reminds me I’m thirsty, too, but there is nothing here. No water, no food…just this girl and me. I don’t want to leave here. I need to know what this girl can tell me about who I am.

  “You’re…functional now?” I ask.

  As soon as the words are out of my mouth, she jerks away from me. That’s difficult given that I’m kneeling so close and she’s lying on the floor. But she manages it by using her legs to shove herself, digging her heels into the dust and pushing against cracks in the platform.

  I stare at her and ask, “What are you doing?”

  When her back hits the metal wall and the railing—which I now know is some kind of connector—she freezes. She glances up at the railing and then looks at me again. “You!” Her voice is high like a squeak almost.

  Hope flutters in my breast. This is where she’ll tell me who I am.

  Her next words rush out with a breath. “You’re the crazy girl who saved me.”

  Disappointment pulls at my shoulders and I slump back. I don’t know what my expression must look like, but my lower lip quivers. I don’t even know what my face looks like. I don’t think it looks like this girl’s, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we’re copies. Maybe all faces look like hers.

  “Why am I crazy?” I ask.

  She scoots away from the railing and waves up at it. “You could have died. So could I. The hack went bad and I didn’t see the sentinel until it was too late.” The girl sees something in my expression that tells her I don’t understand what she’s saying. Her lips tug down again—she has a wide mouth. She sits up and puts her elbows on her knees. “You did save me? Yes?”

  I think about her question. About the connection to the artificial construct, the room, and the firewall. It was a virtual trap. It wasn’t real. But she had connected her mind to that construct world—and it was out to end her connect which would have stopped her heart with an electrical surge fed back into her body through the railing. Even as fragmented as I am, I know that much. So I nod. “Yes, I did.”

  Her mouth shifts up to a sudden grin. She pops up, onto her feet like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Like she’s very strong and not recovering from being nonfunctional. Has she done this before? Reaching out a hand, she offers it to me palm up, still grinning. “I’m Skye.”

  I stare at her hand and then look at her sky-eyes again.

  On some level, I understand this hand-to-hand offer is a traditional greeting from…well, I don’t know from where. I should take her hand with mine, but I find myself not wanting to. If I do, I will have to tell her a name. That is the custom. I don’t have one to offer.

  She waggles her hand at me. “Well?”

  Slowly, I stand and brush at the dust on the gray cloth that covers me. Skye has better clothes—she has boots and cloth that covers her legs and arms as well as her chest and her hips. The cloth on her fits snug, while my cloth hangs loose as if it’s not even mine. Crossing my arms makes them burn, but I keep them that way and ask, “Well, what?”

  She rolls her eyes, and for a second I wonder if she’s going nonfunctional again, but it seems to only be a gesture. Hands flopping out, she asks, “Are you going to tell me your name?”

  Should I make one up? Something fitting? None for no memory? My stomach knots. I don’t want to lie—that is no way to connect with the only person in the world I know that way.

  Letting my hands drop to the side, I say, “I can’t remember.”

  She tilts her head to the side. Her long, tied-back hair falls forward over one shoulder. “What happened? Have you been walking around for sixteen years like this?”

  I blink once. “Sixteen?” I glance down at my hands. These are young hands? “Am I sixteen? I don’t know.”

  She takes one step closer. Her mouth pulls down and her hands tighten into fists. “You got thrown out?” She
waves at the wall behind us.

  I glance at the wall. It is so tall I cannot see a top, only that it curves up and seems to disappear into the sky. Turning back to her, I shake my head. The wind picks up and tugs at my hair. I reach up to brush at it, and for an instant I know it should be longer. Who cut my hair?

  “I don’t…I can’t remember.”

  She nods. “It happens that way sometimes.” She waves at the wall again. “You’ve been tossed out. Sounds like a wipe, too. Or maybe you’re out because you got an accidental wipe. That’s what happened.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  Skye shrugs. “I got thrown out, too. And you learn out here—or you die.”

  “Die?”

  “You become nonfunctional—permanently.”

  I shiver. “That can happen? I thought nonfunctional—I thought it was only temporary.”

  She nods. Her eyes seem to turn an even darker blue, and I have to ask, “What color are my eyes?” Suddenly, it’s so important. I want a mirror so I can see exactly what I look like. I will know this one, small thing about myself so at least I can say one thing with certainty.

  “Uh,” Skye pauses and wets her lips again. “Well, they’re sort of grayish. Like your jumpsuit. Or like smoke.”

  Reaching out, she touches the cloth I wear. A jumpsuit, she said. She smiles at me and lifts and drops one shoulder. I could reach out and hug her. She’s given me a few small piece of myself—I have gray eyes, I am sixteen.

  Skye steps closer and quickly adds, “It’s a really pretty color. I mean, you’re pretty. Cute.”

  Her cheeks flood red. She frowns, chews her lower lip again, and says, “You’re a Glitch. I mean, you’d know if you were a Rogue, and you’re obviously not a Tech, not anymore at least, or not as far as I can tell. You being a Glitch explains the wipe.”

  All those words sound familiar, but I’m having difficulty parsing them. Struggling with them, images pop into my mind—flashing past so fast I can barely catch them. Tech—someone who maintains…maintains what? That part is missing. But a Glitch is a Tech that has been thrown out. But what is a Rogue?