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tried to breathe normally so I wouldn’t set off my heart
    monitor. Something felt wrong. What ever he said, this was
    defi nitely not routine. The urge to run welled up again, but
    I forced myself to sit still. He was an offi
    cial. I had to obey.
    But the uneasy feeling only worsened as he moved be-
    hind me and lifted my curly ponytail. I knew what he was
    looking for— the access port at the back of my neck. My
    chest constricted, cutting off my air. If there was anything
    wrong with my port, he was going to be able to see it. And
    if not, he would run the diagnostic and the scans would tell
    him everything.
    This must be what happens right before a subject gets deactivated.
    I glanced back at him and saw him take a tiny data drive off
    the table.
    “I just need to run a quick program, girlie- girl. You won’t
    remember a thing.”
    I didn’t like the way he said girlie- girl. I didn’t like the tone
    of his voice or the look on his wide, red face. In fact, noth-
    ing about this felt right. Suddenly, obedience and duty were
    forgotten— I knew I had to get out of here. Now. But just as
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    Heather Anastasiu
    I moved to get up from the chair and pull away from him, the
    man grabbed my ponytail roughly and inserted the drive into
    my neck port. “Voice- activate program 181,” the man said in
    a breathy voice, coming back around to face me.
    I tried to reach around to yank the drive out of my neck
    but I couldn’t move. I was completely immobile. I could still
    feel everything— I could feel my arms and legs but I couldn’t
    move them.
    He reached out and put a sweaty hand on my face, then
    moved it slowly down to my neck. What was going on? I
    tried to pull back or yell but my lips didn’t move and no
    sound came out. He started laughing, A chill ran down my
    still spine.
    No , I tried to yell. I knew he could deactivate me in an
    instant, and I could do nothing to stop him. He could upload
    anything through that drive and break my programming
    and hurt me in so many diff erent ways— ways I couldn’t
    even imagine. I could only sit in mute horror, and my eyes
    stung in the strange way they did when I was scared or sad.
    I was suddenly sure that even though I didn’t know exactly
    what was going on, something very bad was about to hap-
    pen. And I was powerless to stop it.
    My heart was hammering in my chest but the monitor
    was silent— another result of what ever horrible hardware
    he’d invaded me with. Out of all the things I’d feared, this,
    what ever this was, hadn’t even been on my list.
    My eyes were the only part of me that wasn’t completely
    paralyzed, and I looked frantically around the room. There
    had to be something I could do, but all I could see was my-
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    G L I TC H
    self, alone and frozen in the room with a stranger who had
    absolute control. A stranger who was getting close to me,
    wielding tools I had never seen before.
    I heard the high- pitched hum in my head— the same as
    when I’d seen the girl falling from the platform. I paused.
    Of course. He might have my body trapped, but what about
    my mind?
    My panic bubbled up and I embraced it, reaching out
    with my screaming thoughts to surround every contour of
    the side- table lamp with my mind’s humming energy. But I
    couldn’t control it. I could never control it. The lamp ex-
    ploded, and my heart pounded in panic and dread. The man
    looked up, surprised at the noise and sudden darkness. Ter-
    ror made the buzzing in my brain explode.
    As the offi
    cial let out a surprised gasp, the door crashed
    open and a lanky boy burst in. With a burst of fear, I im-
    mediately recognized the green- eyed boy. He scanned the
    room before fi nding a blanket, yanking it off the bed, and
    throwing it over the offi
    cial, his arm wrapping around the
    man’s neck in a tight V and squeezing. The man’s arms fl ut-
    tered uselessly and then he crumpled forward and stopped
    moving.
    In my mind I was screaming, but I still couldn’t