The Great Glitch

The air in Manitoba didn't just smell like spring anymore. It smelled like a chemical plant had a baby with a florist shop. Everything was too green, too fast. The Great Glitch hadn't just fried the servers; it had broken the thermostat of the planet, and now the weeds were taking it personally. I wiped a layer of neon yellow dust off my goggles and looked at Rat-Boy. He was currently trying to calibrate a compass that was spinning like a caffeinated top.

"Direction is a social construct, Kenzie," Rat-Boy muttered. He was shivering, which was impressive considering it was eighty degrees and humid enough to swim through. "The magnets are dead. The grid is dead. We’re just monkeys in a garden."

"Monkeys with a quota," I said, kicking a cluster of overgrown dandelions that hissed at me. "Coach Chang says if we don't bring back the Scav-Credits, we’re eating dehydrated lichen for a month. Move your feet."

Coach Chang was about fifty yards back, pretending to check the perimeter but actually just trying to find a patch of shade that wasn't infested with biting flies. He wore his old Envirothon vest like it was tactical armor. In 2026, a high school geography teacher was basically a warlord if he knew which mushrooms wouldn't kill you instantly.

"Keep the formation!" Chang shouted. "And don't touch the Hope Row! It’s in a growth spurt!"

I looked ahead. The Hope Row was a massive hedge of genetically modified fast-grow poplars that the government had planted right before the Glitch to sequester carbon. Now, they were just a wall of woody spears that grew three inches a day. You could actually hear them creaking as they expanded. It sounded like a slow-motion car crash.

Then the wind changed. It didn't just blow; it hummed. A low, electric vibration started in my teeth.

"Pollen tornado," Rat-Boy whispered, dropping his compass. "Kenzie, look."

Across the flat, broken expanse of Highway 1, a funnel was forming. It wasn't grey or black. It was a vibrant, sickeningly bright yellow. It looked like a column of pulverized sunbeams. It wasn't wind-driven, either. It was moving against the breeze, drawn by the heat of our bodies. This was the hyper-caffeinated stuff—the pollen from the 'Expresso Lilies' that had escaped the labs in Brandon.

"Masks on!" I yelled, pulling my respirator tight.

We hit the dirt just as the yellow cloud slammed into us. It wasn't like dust. It was like being hit by a million tiny, vibrating needles. The moment I breathed it in—even through the filter—the world tilted. My brain felt like it had been plugged into a high-voltage socket. This was the 'Whimsy.' The pollen didn't just make you sneeze; it forced your synapses to fire in a recursive loop. It showed you things.

I closed my eyes, but the visions came anyway. I saw the battery. It was tucked inside a rusted-out 2022 Ford F-150, sitting in the middle of a flooded creek. I saw Rat-Boy’s face, but he was older, with a scar across his nose. I saw a pack of dogs with glowing eyes. And then, I saw the sky.

I opened my eyes and looked up. The tornado had passed over us, but it had left something behind. The pollen hadn't settled. It was hanging in the air, forming perfect, crystalline letters and numbers.

49.8951° N, 97.1384° W.

"It’s painting our coordinates," Rat-Boy gasped, coughing out a cloud of yellow mist. "The pollen is reacting to the localized GPS ghost signals. Kenzie, it’s a flare."

He was right. The sky was now a billboard in pastel smoke, telling every scavenger within twenty miles exactly where we were. We weren't the only ones out here looking for the last functional battery in Manitoba. The Gophers—a rival squad from the north—were probably already moving.

"Move!" I grabbed Rat-Boy by the collar and hauled him up. "Coach, we gotta go! The sky is snitching on us!"

We ran toward the bridge. My legs felt like they belonged to someone else. Every step was a weirdly rhythmic bounce. The pollen vision was still lingering in the corners of my eyes, making the grass look like it was flowing in reverse.

We reached the creek five minutes later. The bridge was a mess of rusted rebar and crumbling concrete. It was flooded, the water rushing over the center span. And standing on the other side, looking very smug, were the Gophers.

There were four of them, led by a kid named Jasper who wore a pristine Nike headband he’d definitely stolen from a museum. They had their cross-bows leveled at us, but they weren't firing. In the Envirothon, you didn't waste bolts unless you had to. You used the environment.

"Nice of you to signal, Kenzie," Jasper called out. "We saw the coordinates from the ridge. Very aesthetic."

"Back off, Jasper," I said, my hand drifting to the machete at my hip. "The battery is in that truck. We saw it first."

"Possession is nine-tenths of the law," Jasper said. "But the bridge is a neutral zone. You know the rules. Trivia or Tussle."

Rat-Boy groaned. "Not the trivia. Anything but the trivia."

Suddenly, the wildflowers along the bank began to shake. These weren't normal daisies. They were 'Echo-Blooms.' They had been engineered to react to vocal frequencies. As Jasper spoke, they turned their petals toward us, their centers vibrating.

"Question one," Jasper smirked. "What is the primary nitrogen-fixing bacteria found in the root nodules of the Manitoba legume?"

I blanked. My brain was still buzzing from the pollen. "Uh... Rhizobium?"

Correct. The flowers stayed still.

Jasper frowned. "Fine. Question two. Identify the three stages of the Great Glitch’s atmospheric collapse."

"Ionization, ozone thinning, and the cloud-seeding cascade," Rat-Boy snapped.

Now it was our turn. "Jasper," I said, "What’s the maximum voltage of a standard 2025 solar-array capacitor before it requires a manual purge?"

Jasper hesitated. He looked at his teammates. One of them whispered something. "Six hundred volts?"

Suddenly, a low, guttural sound rose from the riverbank. The Echo-Blooms didn't just vibrate—they emitted a distinct, mocking 'booooo.' It sounded like a stadium full of angry fans. The flowers were actually jeering him.

"Wrong!" Rat-Boy cheered. "It’s four-fifty, you idiot! The flowers hate you!"

"Shut up!" Jasper yelled, his face turning the color of a ripe beet. "The flowers are biased!"

"The flowers are objective!" I countered. "Now step aside."

Jasper didn't move. He reached for a small, round object at his belt. It looked like a seed pod, but it had been painted bright red. A 'Snap-Dragon' grenade.

"If I can't have the battery, nobody gets the credits," he said.

He tossed it. Not at us, but at a cluster of 'Glitter-Vines' hanging over the bridge.

"No!" Coach Chang screamed, finally catching up to us. "Don't trigger the—"

Too late. The pod hit the vines and exploded in a shower of sparks. But it wasn't fire. It was a biological chain reaction. The Glitter-Vines were pressurized with a bioluminescent gas. As they popped, they sent up a sequence of brilliant, multi-colored petal fireworks. Red, blue, purple—it was beautiful, and it was loud.

It was a dinner bell.

From the woods to our left, a long, mournful howl echoed across the prairie. Then another. And another.

"Feral heritage dogs," Rat-Boy whispered, his face going pale. "They’ve been tracking the smoke. Now they have the sound."

These weren't your average strays. They were the descendants of the high-end sled dogs people had abandoned when the fuel ran out. They were big, fast, and they remembered that humans used to be the ones holding the leashes. Now, they were the ones holding the cards.

"Across the bridge! Now!" I yelled.

We scrambled over the slippery concrete. Jasper and his team were already halfway across, but the Glitter-Vines were still popping, creating a screen of neon smoke. I saw the truck—the Ford F-150 from my vision. It was tilted precariously in the mud, its hood missing.

I dove into the cab. The smell of wet upholstery and rot was overwhelming. I reached under the dashboard, my fingers fumbling in the dark. There, nested in a makeshift bracket, was a heavy, rectangular block. The battery. It was an old-school deep-cycle marine unit, but it was sealed. It was gold.

"I got it!" I yelled, hauling the heavy thing out.

"Kenzie! Help!"

I looked up. The Gophers had reached the far bank, but they hadn't made it far. They were trapped. The Hope Row—the fast-growing poplar hedge—had surged. In the five minutes we’d been arguing, the trees had woven themselves together into a solid wall of thorns and thick branches. Jasper’s leg was caught in a fork of wood that was tightening by the second.

"It’s crushing him!" one of the Gopher girls screamed, hacking at the wood with a dull hatchet.

Behind them, the first of the dogs emerged from the brush. It was a massive Alaskan Malamute with a tattered 'Heritage Sledding' vest still hanging off its ribs. Its eyes weren't glowing—that was just the pollen vision—but they were hungry.

I looked at the battery in my hands. This was it. This was the win. If I ran now, we’d have the Scav-Credits. We’d eat real food for a month. Coach Chang would get his promotion. We’d be safe.

If I stayed to help Jasper, the dogs would catch us. The battery was heavy; I couldn't carry it and swing a machete at the same time.

"Kenzie, we have to go!" Rat-Boy said, pulling at my sleeve. "The dogs are here!"

I looked at Jasper. He was crying. Not like a rival scavenger, but like a kid who was about to be eaten by a dog while his leg was turned into pulp by a tree. It was pathetic. It was human.

"Coach!" I barked. "Take the battery!"

"What?" Chang blinked.

"Take it and run for the ridge! Rat-Boy, go with him!"

"What are you doing?" Rat-Boy asked, his voice cracking.

I pulled my machete. "I’m doing something stupid. Just go!"

I didn't wait for them to argue. I sprinted toward the Hope Row. The Malamute saw me and shifted its focus. It let out a low growl that sounded like a chainsaw idling. Two more dogs—sleek, grey huskies—slid out of the shadows.

I reached Jasper and swung the machete. The wood of the Hope Row was soft, like balsa, but it was under immense pressure. As I cut, it hissed, sap spraying my face.

"Don't move," I told Jasper, who was hyperventilating.

"They’re going to kill us," he whimpered.

"Only if you keep talking," I said. I hacked again. The branch snapped, and Jasper fell forward, his ankle looking bruised but not broken.

I turned around. The Malamute was ten feet away. It lowered its head, its ears pinned back. The yellow pollen was still swirling in the air, making the dog look like it was vibrating, like it was made of static.

I held the machete out, my heart hammering against my ribs. My stomach felt like it was full of cold lead. I didn't feel like a hero. I felt like a moron who was about to die for a kid who didn't even know the voltage of a capacitor.

The Malamute lunged.

I swung, but my foot slipped on the wet grass. I went down hard. The dog’s weight hit me, its hot breath smelling like old blood and dry kibble. I jammed the handle of the machete into its open maw, the wood creaking under the pressure of its jaws.

"Kenzie!"

It was Rat-Boy. He hadn't run. He was standing ten feet away, holding one of the Snap-Dragon grenades he’d scavenged from Jasper’s dropped bag.

"Catch, you furry jerk!"

He didn't throw it at the dog. He threw it at the Echo-Blooms right behind us.

The explosion was tiny, but the sonic feedback was massive. The flowers erupted in a deafening, high-pitched scream—a literal wall of sound that sent the dogs scattering, their sensitive ears overwhelmed.

The Malamute let go of my machete and bolted, whining as it disappeared into the brush.

I scrambled up, gasping for air. My arm was scraped, and I was covered in yellow dust and tree sap. Jasper was already limping away, his team dragging him toward the ridge.

I looked at Rat-Boy. He was shaking, holding the empty bag.

"You stayed," I said.

"I’m a social construct, remember?" he joked, though his voice was trembling. "Besides, you have my boots if you die. I couldn't let that happen."

We turned to find Coach Chang. He was standing on a rock, clutching the battery to his chest like a holy relic. He looked at us, then at the retreating dogs, and finally at the sky, where the pastel smoke was finally starting to dissipate.

"Well," Chang said, clearing his throat. "That’s a C-minus in teamwork, but an A-plus in biodiversity management. Let’s get out of here before the trees decide to eat us too."

We started the long trek back to the settlement. My vision was finally clearing, the future-flashes fading into a dull headache. But as we walked, I looked back at the Hope Row. It had already grown over the gap I’d cut. It looked solid, impenetrable.

I felt the heavy weight of the day settling into my bones. We had the battery. We had the credits. But as I looked at the yellow stains on my hands, I knew the Whimsy wasn't done with me yet.

I reached into my pocket and felt a small, hard object. I pulled it out.

It was a cracked AA battery I’d found in the truck’s glove box. A relic from the old world. I turned it over in my fingers. It was leaking a crusty white powder.

"Hey, Kenzie," Rat-Boy whispered as we neared the gates. "You okay?"

I looked at the battery, then at the dark woods behind us.

"I think I saw something else in the pollen," I said.

"What?"

I looked at the horizon. The sun was setting, casting long, distorted shadows across the overgrown prairie.