Glitch - Prologue

It was hunger that finally drove her out. Pulled her slowly from the folds of the sleeping bag she’d cocooned herself in for the last 2 days. And thirst. She had never in her life been so thirsty. The pounding headache, the sore scratching in her throat and the heavy emptiness in her gut had grown steadily, perforated by hours of restless sleep.

When she woke the 5th (or 10th, or 2nd?) time it was sensation, peaked like lead and trapped animals, that forced her to abandon the warmth and safety of hiding. She zipped the bag open and half crawled out. It was damp, and cool in the underground room, and gray the gray light of early morning seeped through the barred windows. And the distorted, echoing ring of sirens, voices, more than usual, and closer. A far off rumble that might have been a car crash …or might have been…
Squares and dashes of gray-blue light patterned the stone floor. The room reeked the comfort of ink and gasoline, and cleaners.

Until the breeze stirred up the copper taint of blood.

She gagged, curled in against the nausea and the flood, eyes wired shut and hands over ears against the wave of realization that tried to come over her, to wash her away. There was no time for this.

With nothing in her stomach she soon caught her breathe, and rose shakily. Her uniform was stiff with sweat, and blood, and fuel and lubricant and coolant leaking from the wounds on her arms and shoulders. She needed a repair. Badly. But food and water would help that. She took a deep breath and began to pick her way across the room, over the remnants of smashed computers, dismantled printing presses, and piles of papers which would never be delivered now. She opened the door from the main press, it creaked inward to the stale air of the break room. Somehow, it had been left relatively untouched. The light still blinked on the refrigerator, the table and chairs were overturned, but intact.

Most of the food in the refrigerator was spoiled. No surprise. But there was water in the tap and T.V and canned vegetables and beans in the cupboard and she’d eaten three without tasting them before she realized the static in her ears wasn’t distortion from the street above, or the damaged circuits in her skull.
The radio still worked.

She nearly fell over herself in her scramble to find it, stuttering between the legs of a discarded chair, set the dials, chase around the room for a signal.
And when she found it, weak as it was

-riots in Union Square….police…coalition of protesting cyborgs, robots, and organics…Mr. Rapp CEO of…house ransacked –

Somewhere in the street above another rumble and shock, and a handful of what sounded like firecrackers.

She didn’t care that the tears streaming down her face were more than salt and water, burned her skin, or the way her racking, joyous sobs grated against machinery and bone coming un-knit.

They’d done it. They’d actually done it.

They’d won.