Epoch Earth; the Great Glitch Read online

  The wind turned into heavy breathing, rustling the hairs around my ear. I held my breath to keep the tears at bay, willing myself to believe it was only my imagination.

  Minute after minute passed with no gunshot. Pity for my former self gave way to terror. They’d been gone too long. I stood, wishing I’d been as smart as Brooks. Instead, I started toward the path cut by Howie’s large frame, unarmed. Just as I reached the line of thick brush, a piercing scream ripped through the night.

  Brooks.

  I ran. Blindly toward the sound, I ran. Another scream echoed louder than Howie’s gunshot had. Then another. I was getting closer.

  “Brooks! Brooks!” I yelled. “Brooks!”

  //Howie!// I chipped.

  Silence.

  I didn’t know which way to turn, so I stopped. I spun in circles chanting their names in the dark woods.

  A twig snapped behind me. I braced for teeth and claws.

  Howie appeared out of the ink black night, holding in his arms the bloody body of my little brother.

  “BIT!” A TREMBLING HAND reached out to him, then to my mouth in a vain attempt to stifle a moan. “Oh, Bit,” I cried.

  Howie laid the limp body gently on the forest floor. As I fluffed dry leaves into a pillow, I was transported back to that night, feeling the lump beneath my head as the nice one stroked my hair.

  I pushed the memory away and inspected Brooks. Blood poured from two jagged wounds on his shoulder and neck. I pressed my hands firmly over them but the scarlet tide rushed between my fingers. “What happened?” I yelled between sobs. The accusation in my voice shocked me as much as it did Howie.

  Panting, he tried to get the words out. “Dogs. Three of them. They... surrounded us. A trap.” Howie pointed back the way we’d come, to where he’d ‘missed’ the first large wolf. “They’re together—”

  “Give me your shirt!” I cut him off, still yelling. “We have to stop the bleeding.”

  He didn’t move.

  “Your shirt!” I screamed, tears strangling my voice.

  Still, he did nothing. “It’s filthy,” he finally said.

  I glared at him with all the fury of the past five years. As I removed my hands from the gushing holes, blood jetted out of the neck wound like a wishing fountain. I tore my shirt in half and wedged each piece into the mangled flesh. Blood stopped spurting, but the light-yellow fabric slowly turned orange around the edges. “We have to get him help,” I barked, trying to lift Brooks.

  Howie took him from me, eyes on the ground below. “I’ll get him on the bike and you hold him.”

  Riding toward civilization, no words passed between us. It took everything I had to hold Brooks and keep pressure on his wounds. Wind and flecks of dust tore at my exposed flesh, but I didn’t care. I silently urged Howie to go faster, get there, get somewhere. Get help. The shirt in my hand had soaked through with blood and tears.

  Twice I almost dropped Brooks as Howie swerved around corners and cut through yards that used to be private property. I didn’t want to associate the form of my little brother in my lap with ‘dead weight’ but it was hard to think otherwise. He slid and rolled with every bump and lean of the scooter.

  //Howie please.// I transmitted my plea to him, unable to form real words.

  I pushed a map into Howie’s chip, guiding him toward Dr. Kaolin’s rundown bar hospital.

  The streets downtown were as black as the forest we’d just left; no street lights or midnight oil burning office workers lighting our path. Howie had to slow to keep from hitting abandoned cars and long forgotten merchant tables.

  //Please.//

  “It looks vacant, Syn.” Howie’s voice broke through the pleading trance I’d put myself in. He leaned the scooter against the curb and lowered the kickstand. He tried to take Brooks from me, relieve me of the heavy burden, but I clung tight.

  “Just get us in,” I could barely speak above a whisper. My throat burned and my fingers ached from squeezing the shirt over Brooks’s neck.

  Howie picked a slab of broken concrete off the sidewalk and hurled it through the window. Glass shattered the quiet night. Dogs barked in the distance. I saw him flinch out of the corner of my eye.

  “Here, lay him on the bar,” Howie said as he unlocked the front door for us. “I’ll get... supplies,” he said, unsure of just what to get.

  “See if there are medications left. Lidocaine. Morphine. Tylenol. I don’t care. Just something for pain. And... sewing stuff.” I called out orders as Howie disappeared into the back room.

  Two long minutes passed as I gingerly tugged at the fabric to peel it off Brooks’s neck. The blood had started crusting, welding the shirt to him. Good.

  Finally, Howie burst out of the back room with one arm full of bandages and a bottle of whiskey. The other covered his mouth and nose. “I think I know what happened to the doc,” he said through his held breath. “If you need anything else from back there, let me go.”

  I didn’t plan on leaving Brooks for one second. “Where’s the medicine?” I asked, panic making my voice quiver. My hands weren’t doing much better.

  “Nothing. Just this,” he held up the half-empty bottle of caramel liquid.

  “Hurry, hold him up so he doesn’t choke on it.” Then I chuckled in spite of myself; a loud cackle laced with insanity. Not too long ago we’d been in this exact spot, my mom refusing to let Dr. Kaolin give Brooks alcohol. And there I was pouring it down his unconscious throat.

  Brooks did cough, his usual wet raspy wheeze he’d had since the big dust storm. Somehow, the sound comforted me, gave me strength to do what I had to do.

  The gaping hole in the side of his neck took fifteen stitches, the shoulder just four. Brooks didn’t stir the entire time.

  Or the rest of the night.

  Or the next day.

  I stood watch over him, spread out across the bar like a memorial viewing. My hand stayed on his chest and I thanked Stone every time that tiny rib cage rose and fell. I counted his breaths, checked his pulse, kept vigil for countless hours.

  By the end of the second day, I had no tears left. No voice. I swayed, leaning against the bar for strength, and whispered over him. “Bit, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Bit.”

  On the third day, the sunlight actually peeked through the haze and the clouds, streaking across the dingy walls and illuminating his small round face. The muffled yellow light lifted my spirits, lulled me into thinking it would be a good day.

  Still, I repeated my mantra over him, whispering in his ear. “I’m sorry, Bit. I’m so sorry.”

  A deep gasp startled me; his chest heaved once beneath my hand.

  “It’s Brooks.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Brooks stayed bar-ridden for another full day, by brute force. On day two, my resistance was futile. The stench from Dr. Kaolin, and whatever Howie didn’t want me to see in the back room, had crawled its way up to our sleeping area. None of us were sad to see the run-down building in the scooter’s rearview screen.

  With Brooks getting back to his old self, I had time for other pressing concerns. Howie had taken his sweet time finding me a replacement shirt. For two days I’d sat vigil over Brooks in nothing but ragged jeans and a please-only-be-beer stained tablecloth. The shirt he did show up with on day three must have come off a dead body because it reeked as bad as the bar.

  That night, back home and alone in our parents’ room, washed and ready for bed, I told Brooks how sorry I was all over again. The guilt of letting him get hurt kept eating at me and the only remedy was more profuse apologies. When I started to cry again, he stopped me.

  “I thought you were dead,” I sniffled.

  Brooks laid his hand atop mine as if he were the adult and I the child, “So did I,” he nodded. “But the first time was worse.”

  “Huh?” I thought I’d heard him wrong.

  “The first time I died, well...” He thought for a moment. “The person who had my chip first. When they died. It was scary
.” Brooks shook his head slowly, staring off in the distance.

  I said nothing, wanting nothing more than for him to tell me it was a joke. The color drained from his chocolate lips said otherwise. I braced myself for what was to come, forcing my face to stay neutral.

  “His name was Ravelin, but at the end... before he died he called himself ‘Cho’ as a reminder, at least inside his head. I figured out why later, when I found the story of Marcus Stone in his archive. Is that why Marcus is –” He stopped. I saw his face remember that Marcus wasn’t ‘is’ anymore.

  It was my turn to lay a hand on his. “Yes, Marcus and Howie’s parents were fighters. Rebels.”

  “That was very dangerous. Marcus never talked about it. He said I was too little.” Brooks broke off, a flash of prideful anger crossed his face before he continued.

  “Rav—Cho fought in the Rebellion. His Grandpa was part of the Uprising, snuck in when he was sixteen, right before people got chipped. He used to tell Cho’s dad all about it, and that’s how Cho learned. His dad didn’t fight. He wanted Cho to be a good Samaritan, but Cho thought that was just weakness.

  “He was twenty when it happened. What’s that thing where you’re forced to be in the Army?” Brooks twisted his face, trying to remember a word he never knew.

  “Conscripted.” My voice shook.

  “Yeah, he was that. He did the best soldiering he could do and tried to sneak into the Unit. He was gonna kill President Thean and her husband. But,” Brooks looked down at the soft bedding and breathed deeply. “He didn’t make it.”

  I squeezed his hand, pleading silently for him to stop.

  “They were all up in a plane.”

  I whimpered and slapped a hand to my mouth.

  “The other guys found out who he was. They took him up there on purpose. It wasn’t even his watch. But they knew and beat him up. All of them. Punching and kicking, throwing him all over the plane. One of them grabbed him by the throat,” Brooks grabbed his throat, lost in his own mind.

  “I couldn’t breathe. Black dots twinkled in front of my eyes and my head banged like a drum every time my heart beat. They kept kicking and scratching me, even when Fabian’s giant hands squeezed the life out of me. Something cold and hot at the same time stabbed into my stomach.

  “And then. Then they pushed me. I flew out of the plane, flipping and falling. I didn’t have a parachute.

  “I watched the ground get closer. First the dots turned into buildings, and cars. And then people. People under me running and screaming, pointing at me like I was a monster.

  “My last thought was of Fandy, pretty Fandy with her bright smile and cute little dimples. Then my real last thought was that my last thought should have been about my mom.”

  Brooks sucked in air, snapping back to reality, “And then there were no more thoughts.”

  Tears poured down both our cheeks. “You didn’t... I thought you didn’t remember. They said your chip was clean. You never said...”

  Brooks shrugged. “I told Daddy once. He said it had to be our secret because it would scare Mommy, and you.”

  “Daddy? Dad died when you were three. You couldn’t have... You can’t remember that far.” It didn’t make sense.

  “I didn’t have to remember that far. My chip did. And when Mommy was gonna take it out, I made it tell me as much as it could real fast.” Brooks said it as if it was the most logical thing in the world, and I guess it was.

  “Your chip remembered when you were a baby too?”

  “Yeah, try it.” His eyes swept over the sagging skin behind my ear, and his mouth creased into a frown. “If it still works.”

  Closing my eyes, I cleared everything out of my mind. All the pain and fear of thinking I’d lost Brooks. The anger and vengeance I’d held onto since that night in the woods. Even Howie, his arrest, seeing him at our door after so long. He was the last thing to go, but I released him from my mind, too.

  Alone in the void, a glowing serenity came over me, excitement and wonder like I’ve never felt before. But... I had felt it, then.

  I stood on wobbly legs in the middle of our den. Everything looked gigantic, Dad’s chair, the end table with that ugly lamp Mom threw away and told Dad it had gotten knocked over. I had been four when that happened, so... I was even farther back than that.

  My legs didn’t work. Or I didn’t know how to work them. Firm hands held mine, over my head. Dad’s face came into view above me. Smiling wide and so full of joy. It was a sharp contrast to the agony and fear I’d seen in him during the Glitch. This, this was how he should be remembered.

  A tentative step, then another. Mom’s voice calling me to come to her. Mom’s face, bright and young; so young. There wasn’t a hint of gray in her hair. Her cheeks were pink and plump. Her skin, the color of warm tea and milk; no dark lines or creases. Only smiles and coos for me, their precious child.

  My eyes flew open. Brooks, a blur through fresh stinging tears, smiled just as wide. Dad’s smile. I could see that now. “Thank you,” I cried. “Thank you.”

  “That’s why I need a new chip.” Brooks dropped my hand.

  “What?” I sniffed, working hard to compose myself. “Are you crazy?”

  “I’m not a baby anymore. And look,” Brooks pointed at me, still sobbing against my will. “You didn’t even know how to do that. I know chips better than you do. And it’s my choice.”

  “What are you talking about?” I wiped my nose on Dad’s faded black shirt I’d been using as a nightgown. “What’s your choice?”

  “To get a new chip.” And with that, Brooks pulled an old cloth out of Dad’s nightstand—his now I supposed. He unwrapped the fabric and a tiny silver glint caught in the moonlight.

  “Where did you get that?” Horror and anger, betrayal coursed through my blood.

  “Found it.” Brooks snapped his hand shut around the chip. “I’m old enough to get another chip. It’s not fair that you and Howie can talk and do stuff and I can’t.”

  //Did you know about this?// I chipped to Howie, who was across the boardwalk in his own room; the Stepps’ former bedroom.

  //Know about what?// He chipped back, sounding like he’d almost been asleep.

  Brooks continued droning on about how times are different now, nine is practically an adult, and besides he’s almost ten. I ignored most of it, grilling Howie instead.

  //Did you know Brooks had a chip? He wants to implant himself!// I spat the words through the transmission.

  //No, but...// Howie knew better than to finish.

  //But nothing!//

  “No!” I refused to listen to another second.

  “I could have saved you!” Brooks shouted loud enough for Howie to hear across the boardwalk.

  My eyes flared open. I knew just what he was referring to, and the last thing I needed was for Howie to come over asking questions.

  “I could have saved you.” Brooks said again, softer, sadder.

  “You couldn’t have done anything. They would have hurt you, too.” I hugged him to me.

  “You don’t know that. I want to be able to help.” For all his blustering about being a man, he sounded like a pitiful child, his cries muffled against my chest.

  “It’s too dangerous Brooks. You should have seen the doctor who did your chipectomy. I’m sure things haven’t gotten cleaner since then.”

  “I wish it was Mom’s chip,” he huffed.

  I pulled him closer. “No, you don’t want that. Her chip was corroded. Besides, you wouldn’t want to remember her death like that, would you?”

  Brooks pushed me away, softly, and looked directly into my eyes. “It’s not like I’m gonna forget without the chip, Syn.”

  //He’s right you know.// Howie chipped in.

  I flashed hot red anger at him and closed the link between us. To Brooks I said, “It’s just too risky.”

  He was silent after that, but I knew he wouldn’t let it drop.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Januar
y 20, 5AG

  “Told you so,” Guard Two smacked Guard One on the arm, then withdrew his hand as if it had touched fire. Meeker, he stammered, “My brother’s coworker’s daughter had a right freak out one day. She started yelling all this stuff about the fire getting closer. ‘My baby! My baby!’ they said she kept saying.” Guard Two rubbed a hand over his bald head, scratching at the birthmark that definitely looked like a butterfly.

  Guard One turned his attention back to Synta. “This is why we have rules about chips. Poor kids like your little brother and,” waving a hand toward Guard Two who had retaken his favorite spot back in the far corner, “that girl. Those haunting memories.” If Synta didn’t know any better, she’d think the guards were human after all.

  “They’re not all haunting,” she replied after a while, memories of her first steps still fresh in her mind.

  “Nevertheless, it’s against the law. And nobody with a chip is gonna get off this planet. You’re dooming yourself to die!” Guard One shifted in his seat, his own chip probably burning with regret.

  Synta merely shrugged.

  The guards eyed her, then glanced at each other. Quieter, with kindness in his voice, Guard One said, “You told us earlier that you were alone, but...” His eyebrows finished the sentence his mouth couldn’t.

  Synta’s eyes dragged themselves away from the blue ink smudge they’d been inspecting on the table, and raised to meet Guard One’s. With a flick of her shackled wrist she presented the empty room around them.

  “What happened?” Guard One whispered, the soft tone of a father soothing away a bad dream. Yes, human.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Howie did the hunting alone after what happened. He only ever caught a couple bony birds, one squirrel that looked like it might have died before he even shot it; nothing good enough to feed the three of us. One day, about a week in, he came home empty handed. Every day after was more of the same.

  “I won’t leave you,” Howie whispered to me as we hid in the Stepp’s garage. All that day our chips had been flooded with alerts from the HNN and Citizen’s Update Channel. There was no chipping over them, so we had to argue in hushed tones, away from Brooks.