Storm (Swipe Series)

traitors do. Over time, in certain cases, prior, misguided associations can seep back in. Memories of bad habits realign. There is a . . . a falling away. It’s a terrible thing to see.”
    The Mitigator frowned in thought. “But . . . who do you know that’s ever . . . ?”
    “It doesn’t matter,” Lily said. “She’s fixed now.”
    Ahead of them, Eddie’s pellets sparked and popped like jumping beans as their current found his clumsy hands. And Eddie began to laugh.
    Well, that does it. Lily took a decisive step toward the wall beside her. She hit a switch so hard that the impact echoed through the space. Immediately, the scoreboard overhead flickered and went out. The cityscape around them vanished. The targets frozein place. And all the lights in that cavernous room turned on in a bright, fluorescent flood of white.
    “Attention!” Advocate Langly yelled, and all four squads of IMP trainees climbed out from the obstacle course and stood straight and stiff and ready for orders. Except for Eddie. Eddie was sitting on a piece of foam rubble, shaking his hand and sucking on his fingers.
    “Sorry.” He laughed. “They’re numb. From the shocks.”
    But Lily was not amused. The Moderators would run laps, she ordered—two hundred of them. “One for each shock on Moderator Blackall’s miserly hand.”
    Eddie’s squad mates looked at him furiously, though none dared complain.
    “Hey—last one to two hundred’s a rotten egg,” Eddie said, but Lily stopped him before he could take his first step.
    “Not you, Moderator. You’re coming with me.”
    Now there was a murmur among the line of Moderators. Eddie slung his rifle onto his back. For a moment he smirked, as though he’d just thought of the greatest comeback. And yet some part of him must have thought better than to share it—a rare display of self-restraint, perhaps, upon seeing the anger in Lily’s eyes.
    Eddie looked down and cleared his throat.
    He followed Advocate Langly out of training.
    2
    At that same moment, on the two-hundredth floor of Barrier Street’s highest skyscraper, the Beacon City Stock Exchange reeledwith its own chaotic fury. It had been pandemonium on Barrier Street ever since the Union merger—what had once been capital of the western economy alone was suddenly the epicenter of the entire globe’s, and the transition had not been kind to anyone involved.
    No one was more aware of this than Dr. Olivia Arbitor, though it would have been hard to tell just by looking at her. Currently, Dr. Arbitor stood, resting both arms casually against the glass overlook above the B.C.S.E. trading floor, absorbing the frenzy and trying not to think about . . . well, anything at all.
    A decorated professor of economics, Dr. Arbitor had transitioned from academia to public finance the moment General Lamson implemented Europe’s Mark program ten years ago. Ever since, it had been her job to ensure a smooth transition between the American Union and European Union economies. For years, Dr. Arbitor had flown back and forth between Beacon City and Third Rome over in Europe, working tirelessly toward the day when the two countries might finally be one.
    But just over two weeks ago, with the signing of the Global Union treaty pushed hastily through Parliament on both sides of the Atlantic, that day had arrived just a little bit too soon.
    Indeed, from the perspective of the Beacon City Stock Exchange, it was a worst-case scenario: a scramble that Olivia had worked ten years to prevent. But looking down on that trading floor now, seeing the aftermath in full force, Dr. Arbitor found to her terrible surprise that frankly, amazingly . . . she couldn’t have cared less.
    Olivia had been fielding frantic calls all day from every corner of the Global Union, putting out economic fires and issuing press releases to what felt like every last newspaper this side ofthe Atlantic. “What are you doing to fight inflation?” people were asking. “What do you have to say about America’s debt?” “Do you think General Lamson adequately thought through the effects this merger would have on Marked pension plans?” And on and on, the same old stuff.
    In fact, unless, by some grace of Cylis, it had ended without her, Olivia was pretty sure there was another conference call going on back in her office right now, at this very minute, even as she stood out here on this quiet balcony.
    So, after a few more short moments of respite, she turned around, braced