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to see them every-
    where.
    I struggled to keep my shoulders from sagging. Maximin
    wasn’t a glitcher like me. He was part of the Community,
    part of a greater whole where each person was a small but
    necessary node, Linked in thought with all the other nodes.
    Humanity Sublime. It’s what I missed the most when I
    glitched, that feeling of wholeness and connection, of belong-
    ing to something bigger than myself. Now it was just me.
    What good was it to have color and happiness when I couldn’t
    share it with anyone?
    Community fi rst. Community always. Hot guilt swept over
    33

    Heather Anastasiu
    me again, that constant heavy sense that I was bad. Wrong.
    Broken. After all the lessons I’d been taught about how in-
    dividuality and selfi shness were destructive, here I was not
    only refusing to reporting myself, but looking for a com-
    panion. Actually wanting Maximin to be broken, too. What
    was wrong with me? I was beginning to understand the dan-
    gers of the barbarian human traits that caused the destruction
    of the world.
    Lunch ended and Maximin’s body bumped against my
    side as we walked down the dimly lit hallway to my last
    class of the day. I looked over at him curiously. The four-
    foot- wide hallway was crowded as always and, true, it was a
    narrow fi t, but not that narrow. His face was blank though.
    I stopped in front of my last class, Algorithm Design. Maxi-
    min continued on down the hallway, turning to take a long
    glance back at me. Then he was lost in the mass of subjects.
    I turned in to my classroom and only barely managed not
    to stumble in surprise. The tall green- eyed boy was there,
    sitting in the seat next to mine.
    Everyone else sat down methodically, calmly pulling out
    their tablets and typing on their arm panels to check the day’s
    lesson. I sat down, conscious of the boy’s long gangly limbs
    stretching underneath the table into the row in front of us.
    Extraneous space was an unnecessary luxury in sublevel
    buildings, so all classrooms were small. The room- length
    metal tables and chairs were lined up tightly to fi t as many
    students as possible, fi ve rows to a room.
    I tried to breathe normally. There was no reason to panic.
    I just needed to cut out all other thoughts and concentrate
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    G L I TC H
    on the lesson about algorithm development. But I couldn’t
    help discreetly sneaking glances at the boy. He was typing
    calmly on his forearm. At least for once he wasn’t watching
    me, and even though his limbs were long, he wasn’t touch-
    ing me. Almost as if he was being careful not to touch me.
    Suddenly, the professor stopped talking. All the students
    tilted their heads up expectantly. Must be a Link announce-
    ment, I thought. I hoped it wasn’t too important. I tried to
    make my face mimic the others in the room, as if I were
    concentrating on the Link info. But then all eyes in the class
    turned to look at me.
    “Zoel,” the professor said, “are you not paying attention
    to the Link feed? You are to report to Room A117 immedi-
    ately.”
    My heart monitor started vibrating loudly in the silent
    room.
    35

Chapter 3
    i fumble d putting my tablet into its case. The loud scrap-
    ing of my chair on the concrete fl oor echoed in the small
    space. No one was watching me; their attention was back on
    the lesson in spite of my beeping monitor. I got out of the
    room as quickly as possible and recited the Community
    Creed as I walked down the hallways to the south elevator.
    What I wouldn’t give to click back into the Link again
    right now. After a few more recitations, the heart monitor
    fi nally stilled. But then, how many times had the monitor
    gone off today alone? I must have triggered an alert at Cen-
    tral Systems. I wanted to kick myself. How could I be so
    stupid? So careless?
    My fi nger paused before I put it to the small touch panel
    to call the elevator. I was still glitching. I wasn’t going to be
    able to hide my secrets any longer. I would be caught