Glitches (Book 1)

Chapter 22: Megan

"You changed it! You changed it! I saw you!" I spat as Claire walked off the stage with the Sloppies. 

"What?" Amanda shrugged, playing innocent even though she knew perfectly well I had seen everything she did. 

"Stop pretending, I know you did it! You changed the Code as it was going from the Chair to the printer. I don't know what Claire is, but she isn't a Sloppie!"

"Relax, Megan, now why would I do that? What could I possibly gain from ruining your sister's life?" Her attempt to defend herself was superficial, her smug smile said it all. She had indeed manipulated the Chair's Code transmission. 

"That's what I'm asking you!" I insisted. "What did she ever do to you?"

"Nothing," Amanda shrugged, still wearing her sickening smile. "You obviously don't care what happens to you. You continue to defy me like you did out there despite everything I've done to you, so I thought that maybe you were a bit more likely to obey if I hurt your sister instead." 

"Don't you dare,"I clenched my teeth. "I won't let you near her!" 

"Oh yes, you will," Amanda smiled, slowly pulling her hands into fists at her side.

I instantly felt like I was choking- only, I could breathe just fine. It was my mind that was being constricted, like my head was being crushed under a boulder. I gasped as the blinding pain forced me to my knees and purple spots began to dance at the edge of my vision. 

This is new, her methods of torture are normally more...internal.

That's when I saw the savage look in her normally even, unemotional eyes and knew the truth. After these all these years, she was finally going to kill me. It was almost a relief. 

I closed my eyes as the spots got bigger and the viselike grip around my throat tightened, dying didn't hurt nearly as much as I thought it would. Only something made me open them again, to look straight at my killer. That was when I noticed something horrific.

Until then, I had assumed she was Coding the air around my neck to tighten around me and hadn't bothered to try fighting her with my own Glitch abilities: She was a level five and I was only a four, it was obvious who the Code would listen to. 

But the Code in the air and the Code around her were perfectly still! She wasn't using the Code at all, she was actually manipulating the air directly! Suddenly, I remembered the blue light that had healed her lip when I punched her and everything clicked.

"You're not...human...are you?" I managed to choke out of my swollen lips. 

"Took you seven years to figure that out," Amanda rolled her eyes. 

"Aliens...are...real?" My eyes widened in shock. 

"Trust me, that's trivial knowledge compared to everything you still don't know about your species and mine." 

Trivial knowledge. What could possibly be weirder than an extraterrestrial standing in front of me? 

"Also, we're not the friendliest of aliens. Too bad you won't be alive to warn WGO, to warn Claire." She said my sister's name mockingly, telling me she would be completely helpless without me, which she would be. One last taunt, I thought as the world slipped away into blackness.

~~~~~~~

The soft light of early evening streamed in through the narrow window of the Government box when I woke up. I must have been out for at least a couple of hours. 

There was still a dull throbbing in my head and my neck felt stiff, but most of the pain was gone. I ran my tongue over my teeth to find that they tasted disgusting, like rusty metal. 

Crawling over to the window, I opened it and spat over the side of the box. My spit was a convulsing, blue blob. This can't be normal.

I spat again and again until the weird taste was gone from my mouth and my saliva looked normal. Then, I took a long, refreshing sip from my water bottle. 

I was about to walk out the door and announce to the world that Amanda was an evil alien who was probably planning to take over the world or something when I noticed the handcuffs on my wrists that tied me to Amanda's chair. Smart evil alien.

"Finally awake, are you?" I jumped at the sound of Amanda's crystal clear voice behind me. 

"Why am I not dead?" 

"I thought you'd want to stick around for a while, watch as my dreams come true and yours are dashed into the dust. It doesn't matter much to me," she shrugged. "You're all going to die in the end anyway if the mission is successful, which it most definitely will be."

I whipped my head around to face her only to find that her appearance had been completely transformed! Her hair was a glowing light blue, the same color as the strange stuff in my spit, and it floated around her head like a halo. In fact, her entire body seemed to pulsate with the blue energy! 

"I don't know what game you're playing, but it isn't good and I'm going to do everything I can to keep it from playing out." I stood up, getting ready to push past her out the door and tell everyone what I had seen.

"Oh, I was just getting to that," Amanda smiled. "If you spill any of this, becoming a Sloppie will just be the beginning of Claire's miserable life. She'll always magically end up with the worst assignments on the list and never make the Glitchketball team. She'll wake up to find her clothes for the day are all wet and her sink is clogged with toothpaste. And that's not even half of it. Don't think I won't find out, nothing happens here at WGO without my knowledge."

"How evil and manipulative do you get?" I said through clenched teeth. 

"As much as is necessary to complete my mission." 

"What is this mission anyway, and why do you have to complete it?" 

"If I told you that, you'd know everything," Amanda laughed. "It would ruin the fun if you knew everything, watching you clueless humans scurry about like blind insects is quite entertaining." 

"You really are evil, aren't you?" I narrowed my eyes as she snapped her fingers and the handcuffs fell off my wrists.

"If that's what you want to call me, yes," she shrugged as I hurried out the door, forced to remain silent about what I had seen. Knowledge could be painful, very painful indeed.