Burton Fisher sat in the dimly lit control room, his eyes fixed on the array of monitors in front of him. The hum of the machinery around him was familiar, almost soothing, but tonight there was something off. A nagging feeling in the back of his mind that something was wrong. He rubbed his temples, trying to shake off the unease, but it lingered, like a shadow he couldn't quite shake.
The screens showed various feeds from the Peripheral world—people going about their lives, unaware of the dangers lurking beneath the surface. Burton had been at this for years now, navigating between the real world and the digital one, but recently, things had started to change. Glitches. Strange anomalies that shouldn't be there, things that didn't make sense. And as much as he tried to ignore them, they were becoming more frequent.
The lyrics of "Glitch" by Taylor Swift played in his mind, resonating with the situation: "We were supposed to be just friends, you don't live in my part of town, but maybe I'll see you out some weekend." Except in Burton's case, it wasn't about friends or romance—it was about control. Or rather, the lack of it. The glitches were creeping into places they shouldn't, crossing boundaries that had once been solid and secure.
His phone buzzed on the console, pulling him out of his thoughts. It was a message from Flynne, his sister, who had been noticing the glitches too, though she hadn't said much about them yet.
Flynne: Hey, you okay? Haven't seen you around much lately.
Burton stared at the message, his mind racing. He wanted to tell her everything, wanted to let her know that something was wrong in the system, but he didn't want to worry her. Not yet, anyway.
Burton: Yeah, I'm fine. Just... work stuff.
He set the phone down, running a hand through his hair as he leaned back in his chair. He wasn't sure how much longer he could keep brushing this off. The glitches weren't just affecting the system—they were affecting him.
The next day, Burton found himself standing in front of Wilf Netherton, his contact in the future and the man who had brought him into the world of the Peripheral in the first place. They met in the usual place—a sterile room in the facility that felt more like a simulation than reality. Wilf looked at Burton with a calm, measured expression, but Burton could see the tension behind his eyes.
"There's something wrong," Burton said, cutting straight to the point. "The system's glitching more and more. I've noticed it in the feeds, and I'm starting to feel... off."
Wilf raised an eyebrow, his tone calm but curious. "Off how?"
Burton hesitated for a moment, unsure of how to explain it. "It's hard to describe. It's like... I'm losing time. I'll be in one place, then the next second I'm somewhere else, like I'm not fully in control. And the glitches—they're not just in the system. They're in me."
Wilf's expression darkened slightly, but he kept his voice steady. "That's concerning. Have you noticed any specific patterns? Anything that could explain these anomalies?"
Burton shook his head, frustration bubbling to the surface. "No, that's the thing. There's no pattern. It's random. And it's getting worse."
Wilf leaned back, considering Burton's words. "We'll have to run some diagnostics. It could be a corruption in the link between your Peripheral and the system. But if it's affecting you physically, that's something we need to address immediately."
Burton clenched his fists, the unease growing stronger. "What if it's not just the system? What if this is something bigger?"
Wilf didn't respond right away. Instead, he looked at Burton with an intensity that made the hair on the back of Burton's neck stand up. "If it's bigger, we'll deal with it. But first, we need to figure out what's causing the glitches."
Burton nodded, though the sinking feeling in his gut remained. He had a bad feeling that this was only the beginning.
That night, Burton lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. His mind was racing, running through every possible scenario, every potential cause of the glitches. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't shake the feeling that something far more dangerous was happening.
As he drifted off to sleep, the world around him seemed to shift. He found himself standing in a field—a familiar place, but something about it felt wrong. The grass was too green, the sky too blue. It was as if the world had been perfectly constructed, but something in the foundation was off.
And then he saw her.
Grace, a woman he had met once during one of his missions in the Peripheral, was standing in the distance, her back turned to him. Burton's heart raced as he walked toward her, calling out her name.
"Grace!"
She didn't turn around.
Burton quickened his pace, his footsteps growing louder in the quiet field. "Grace, wait!"
But just as he reached her, the world around him flickered—like a glitch. Grace vanished, and the field dissolved into darkness.
Burton jolted awake, his heart pounding. The clock on the nightstand read 3:12 a.m., but it felt like he had been asleep for hours. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, trying to shake off the dream, but the image of Grace lingered in his mind.
It wasn't just a dream. It felt too real, too vivid. And the glitch—it was the same one he had seen in the system. Whatever was happening wasn't just in the Peripheral. It was bleeding into his life, into his mind.
His phone buzzed beside him, and he reached for it, half-expecting another message from Flynne. But this time, it wasn't her.
It was from Grace.
Grace: Meet me where it all started.
Burton's blood ran cold. He hadn't heard from Grace in months—since the last time he had been on a mission involving her. She had disappeared after that, and no one had been able to track her down.
But now, she was reaching out.
He stared at the message, his mind racing. There was only one place that could be: the field. The place from his dream.
Without hesitation, Burton threw on his jacket and headed out into the night.
The field was exactly as it had been in his dream—eerily perfect, with the same unsettling sense of wrongness. Burton stood in the middle of it, his breath visible in the cold night air, as he scanned the horizon for any sign of Grace.
And then, she appeared.
Grace stepped out of the shadows, her face illuminated by the faint moonlight. She looked different than the last time he had seen her—worn, tired, but still with that same sharpness in her eyes.
"Grace," Burton said, his voice rough. "What's going on? Why did you disappear?"
Grace looked at him, her expression unreadable. "I didn't disappear. I was erased."
Burton's heart skipped a beat. "Erased? What do you mean?"
Grace stepped closer, her voice low and urgent. "The glitches, Burton—they're not just random malfunctions. Someone is rewriting the code of the Peripheral. They're changing the system, and anyone who gets too close to the truth is being erased. Like I was."
Burton felt a chill run down his spine. "But why? Who's doing this?"
Grace shook her head. "I don't know. But they're powerful, and they've infiltrated every level of the system. They're manipulating reality itself."
Burton's mind raced. "And you think they're coming for me?"
Grace looked at him, her expression grim. "They already are. The glitches you've been seeing? They're warnings. Signs that you're next."
Burton clenched his fists, anger bubbling to the surface. "Then we stop them. We find out who's behind this, and we take them down."
Grace gave him a sad smile. "It's not that simple. They control everything. They could erase us both with the flick of a switch."
Burton's jaw tightened. "Then we find a way to fight back."
Grace nodded, her eyes filled with determination. "We have to. But we need to be careful. One wrong move, and we're both gone."
Back in the control room, Burton stared at the screens, his mind racing. The glitches were still there, flickering in and out of the feeds like ghosts in the machine. But now he understood what they were—a sign that the world he thought he knew was crumbling, being rewritten by forces he couldn't yet see.
But he wasn't going to let them win. Not without a fight.
As he and Grace began to dig deeper into the system, uncovering layers of hidden code and encrypted files, Burton couldn't shake the feeling that they were on borrowed time. The glitches were becoming more frequent, more aggressive, and it was only a matter of time before whoever was behind them came for him.
But Burton wasn't afraid anymore. He was ready.
Because even in a world filled with glitches and manipulation, he knew one thing for sure:
He wasn't going down without a fight.
