Glitch Me If You Can

Lennox had some type of silly goggles on his head. Devin would’ve found the image almost hilarious if he wasn’t so worried. He’d easily say — could still say — that those would be poor help. But with what the Loovanian was doing, he was certain that no goggles and no safety equipment would save Lennox if anything went wrong.

Devin wasn’t even sure what he was working with. He wasn’t sure if he should be there at all, but Lennox claimed everything was safe and under control. Devin sincerely doubted that, but he’d learned that, once his mind was set on something, nothing could make Lennox change it.

What he had in front of him was… Well, it looked like a stone. Or, maybe, like a gem. It was shimmering slightly, and Lennox kept shaving off little clumps of it with a razor he had sharpened at least three times in the past hour.

“Alright,” Devin conceded, “Will you tell me what this is?”

“It’s a reflection sliver,” Lennox said, engrossed in the work before him.

“Okay,” Devin nodded. “That means nothing to me.”

It was only then that Lennox dropped the razor into a napkin, and then took a step back. First, he assessed the stone — the reflection sliver — and then he assessed Devin as well.

“This, what I am,” Lennox started. “My parents were ordinary Loovanians, you know? They’ve been, hm, how do I say it? Regular? I didn’t have an angel parent.”

“You don’t know that’s an angel,” Devin rebuffed immediately, even though he had to admit that there was something angelic about Lennox. He was pretty certain he thought that only because Devin was in love with the man, not because he exuded any type of holy energy. “Could be an Aeria Equos.”

“It’s an angel,” Lennox claimed, “I checked. Come here.”

Reluctant, Devin did. The crystal — or gem, or rock, or a lump of hardened, coloured soil — was beautiful. It gleamed iridescently, colour changing between pink, purple and blue. Its shine reflected around the room, bathing it in crystalline rain, and it barely lessened even as Lennox took the razor again and removed a thin layer from it. To Devin’s eyes, the material looked solid like stone, but it parted beneath Lennox’s hands.

“It’s beautiful,” Devin said, “What are you going to do with it.”

“It’s chemistry,” Lennox explained. He took the detached layer into a gloved hand, then dropped it into a separate glass. Then, he reached for the table in the corner of the room and plucked a white bottle from there. Devin couldn’t tell what the label said, but from what he could tell, Lennox mostly wrote in a language he couldn’t understand. It was no surprise, then. “I mean, I didn’t think it’d work, at first, because it’s part of the Reflection, but apparently, this isn’t that abstract. I’m glad.”

It lasted for a while. Lennox poured things here and there. He made a pause for coffee, then resumed work, and he instructed Devin to hand him a bottle here, or a pinch of some unknown substance there. Devin had been sure that Lennox had been a pilot before they met — but, well, he’d concluded that Lennox was likely rich and bored and that piloting was a hobby he cultivated. Or maybe chemistry was a hobby. He wasn’t sure.

It had taken a few hours but when, finally, Lennox removed his goggles and poured one last drop into the cup with a pipette, the contents of it started frotting. Lennox grabbed the lid off the table, then slammed it over the cup. Inside, something swirled weirdly. It was restless and looked like it sometimes blinked in and out of existence.

“Oh,” Devin said, now finally understanding, “It’s a glitch, isn’t it?”