Free Glitch: A Short Story (Kindle Single) by Hugh Howey

The hotel
coffee maker is giving me a hard time in a friendly voice. Keeps telling me the
filter door isn’t shut, but damned if it isn’t. I tell the machine to shut up
as I pull the plastic basket back out. Down on my knees, I peer into the
housing and see splashed grounds crusting over a sensor. I curse the engineer
who thought this was a problem in need of a solution. I’m using one of the
paper filters to clean the sensor when there’s an angry slap on the hotel room
door.
    If Peter and
I have a secret knock, this would be it. A steady, loud pounding on barred
doors amid muffled shouting. I check the clock by the bed. It’s six in the
morning. He’s lucky I’m already up, or I’d have to murder him.
    I tell him
to cool his jets while I search for a robe. Peter has seen me naked countless
times, but that was years ago. If he still has thoughts about me, I’d like for
them to be flab-free thoughts. Mostly to heighten his regrets and private
frustrations. It’s not that we stand a chance of ever getting back together; we
know each other too well for that. Building champion Gladiators is what we’re
good at. Raising a flesh and blood family was a goddamn mess.
    I get the
robe knotted and open the door. Peter gives it a shove, and the security latch
catches like a gunshot. “Jesus,” I tell him. “Chill out.”
    “We’ve got a
glitch,” he tells me through the cracked door. He’s out of breath like he’s
been running. I unlatch the lock and get the door open, and Peter shakes his
head at me for having used the lock—like I should be as secure sleeping
alone in a Detroit hotel as he is. I flash back to those deep sighs he used to give
me when I’d call him on my way out of the lab at night so I didn’t have to walk
to the car alone. Back before I had Max to escort me.
    “What
glitch?” I ask. I go back to the argument I was having with the coffee maker
before the banging on the door interrupted me. Peter paces. His shirt is
stained with sweat, and he smells of strawberry vape and oil. He obviously hasn’t slept. Max had a brutal bout yesterday—we
knew it would be a challenge—but the finals aren’t for another two days.
We could build a new Max from spares in that amount of time. I’m more worried
about all the repressed shit I could hit Peter with if I don’t get caffeine in
me, pronto. The coffee maker finally starts hissing and sputtering while Peter
urges me to get dressed, tells me we can get coffee on the way.
    “I just woke
up,” I tell him. He paces while the coffee drips. He doesn’t normally get this
agitated except right before a bout. I wonder what kind of glitch could have
him so worked up. “Software or hardware?” I ask. I pray he’ll say hardware. I’m
more in the mood to bust my knuckles, not my brain.
    “Software,”
Peter says. “We think. We’re pretty sure. We need you to look at it.”
    The cup is
filling, and the smell of coffee masks the smell of my ex-husband. “You think? Jesus, Pete, why don’t you go get a few hours’ sleep? I’ll get some
breakfast and head over to the trailer. Is Hinson there?”
    “Hell no. We
told the professor everything was fine and sent him home. Me and Greenie have
been up all night trying to sort this out. We were going to come get you hours
ago—”
    I shoot
Peter a look.
    “Exactly. I
told Greenie about The Wrath and said we had to wait at least until the sun
came up.” He smiles at me. “But seriously, Sam, this is some wild shit.”
    I pull the
half-full styrofoam cup out from under the basket. Coffee continues to drip to
the hotplate, where it hisses like a snake. The Wrath is what Peter named my
mood before eight in the morning. Our marriage might’ve survived if we’d only
had to do afternoons.
    “Wait
outside, and I’ll get dressed,” I tell him. A sip of shitty coffee. The little
coffee maker warns me about pulling the cup out before the light turns green. I
give the machine the finger while Peter closes the