Storm (Swipe Series)

dreadlocks, tied back with a handful of tan rubber bands.
    “Thanks, Sam,” the woman said casually. Then she pointed deliberately at the rest, rattling off each name in quick succession. “Peck, Hailey, Logan, and—ah, good—Erin. We are so glad you’ve come to join us.”
    Erin swallowed hard. “I’m still not sure whether we’re hostages or guests,” she admitted.
    “Guests!” the woman proclaimed happily. “Guests in the greatest city on Earth. Please, do come in.”
    “And you are?” Peck asked before taking a step forward.
    “Oh! Forgive me,” the woman said. “You can call me Arianna. Pay no attention to the stuffy old bats you’ll meet in the lab . . . no matter how many times they insist on calling me Dr. Rhyne.”

TWO
    CALL TO ORDER
    1
    P OP! POP! POP!
    Deep below Beacon City’s tangle of streets and skyscrapers and protests and politics, Acheron’s training room was exploding with the fireworks of four dozen IMP-issued taser rifles. The shots crackled and whizzed and ricocheted across the space with a furious chaos, but Lily Langly never flinched. Instead, she looked on, unblinking, as Eddie Blackall gripped his own shaking gun . . . and her only emotion was shame. This boy was clumsy. He was unfocused. All around him, IMP trainees fired shot after shot of electrobullets at targets that popped out from corners, bounced up and down, rolled along on the ground . . . and through all of it, Eddie just watched.
    Across the floor and surrounding him was a massive, complex obstacle course made up to look like Beacon’s city streets, and on each towering wall of the place was a floor-to-ceiling projection of the City Center skyline. Superimposed on top of this was a series of scoreboards pacing each Moderator against one another by squad, ranking them all in a myriad of categories from accuracy, to firing rate, to each Moderator’s ability to determine quickly the difference between Marked and Unmarked targets.
    Lily’s ears rang with the echoing rounds of the taser rifles before her, and she looked up at that big projected scoreboard with disgust.
    Dead last. The only other trainee ever to have fallen even within spitting distance of Eddie’s current score was Harry Raiman . . . and Harry couldn’t even pass bed making.
    “Look alive, Blackall!” Lily scowled at him as she said it, and Eddie fumbled hopelessly with the chamber of his gun. Was it jammed? Was the safety on? Lily couldn’t imagine what was going through this kid’s head. He reached into his shoulder strap for a new canister of electrobullets, and it rattled in his sweaty fingers before slipping out and falling to the ground.
    Crack. The casing shattered. Dozens of pellets scattered across the ground, buzzing with unspent voltage.
    Beside Lily, a supervising Mitigator stood, arms folded in total disgust and disbelief.
    “I don’t understand it,” he whispered to her. “He is without a doubt the worst recruit we’ve had in months. What does the general see in him?”
    “Moderator Blackall has a past,” Lily said. “He’s a catch. Right now he’s our closest connection to the Dust.”
    “The terrorist cell? From New Chicago?”
    Advocate Langly nodded. “That’s the one.”
    “ This is one of the great Markless traitors DOME was getting so carried away with?”
    “That’s correct.”
    The Mitigator laughed. “ Cylis, ” he said. “What on earth were they worried about?”
    Lily looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “What does any government worry about?” She took a short breath. “Loyalty.”
    The Mitigator looked at her.
    “These Dust kids,” Lily continued. “They got swept up in something strong. This wasn’t just idle dissatisfaction, not just some impudent huddle. These guys were aggressive. And, talented or not, Moderator Blackall was at the very front of that line.”
    Eddie knelt down to collect his pellets. They bounced and shocked him, their electric-blue lightning arcs finding his fingers and pricking them one by one.
    “I’ve heard whispers that he’s starting to doubt,” the Mitigator said. “His poor performance, his attitude . . . There are Moderators that are beginning to question his very commitment to Lamson and Cylis. To the IMPS. The word they’re using . . . saying he’s ‘backsliding’ . . . except, that’s impossible. Right, Advocate? No one backslides.”
    The Mitigator looked at her, and Lily sighed. “Technically, you’re incorrect, Mitigator. Some