Storm (Swipe Series)

he sounded more worried than she’d ever heard him. Dr. Arbitor turned the video feed on. She could see his face now, over the connection. It was so stripped of life, it looked broken. Like the video connection itself was faulty.
    But no. It wasn’t the connection. That was just the state of things.
    “Been trying to reach you for hours,” Mr. Arbitor said. “You need to get better at returning my calls.”
    “Yeah, well . . . I’ve been busy.”
    “Look,” Mr. Arbitor said. “You and I—our differences . . . they’ll keep.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “It means I may need your help on this.”
    “Help on what? What? What’s going on?”
    Charles Arbitor sighed. “Things just took a turn,” he said. “We’re losing.”
    “Losing what?”
    “The race.” There was a pause over the connection. “DOME’s just found our daughter.”
    3
    The elevator ride between Advocate Langly and Eddie Blackall was tense and quiet all the way until it came to a stop, at which point Eddie jumped, hitting the floor so hard that his knees buckled.
    “Whoa!” he shouted. “That was a good one!”
    Lily looked at him sharply, but Eddie didn’t seem to mind.
    “Have you ever noticed that? On elevators. If you’re going down and you jump just as it stops moving, you’ll slam into the ground. Do it as they’re going up, and you’ll float for a second.”
    Lily was silent.
    “Momentum.” Eddie smiled. “It’s because of momentum.”
    The elevator doors opened to a vast room full of desks and nothing else. On each desk was a helmet.
    Lily gestured into it. “Level Six.”
    And the smile on Eddie’s face vanished at once.
    “Wait, what is this?” he asked. “I’ve done this already. You’ve done—” Eddie was panicking now. “You’ve done this to me already.”
    “Last time you were here for treason,” Lily said. “Level Nine. This is Six.”
    All the humor in him was gone. “What’s Six?”
    “Heresy. To disrespect training is to disrespect the IMPS. To disrespect the IMPS is to disrespect General Lamson and Chancellor Cylis. And that, Moderator Blackall, is heresy.”
    Lily pushed him down the path between two endlessly long lines of desks, buried far below the surface of Beacon City. The Advocate’s strides were so fast and confident, Eddie had to step double-time not to fall.
    “But you can’t. You can’t just . . . This is torture!” Eddie pleaded. “Please! You can’t !”
    Advocate Langly raised an eyebrow.
    “Do you know the ranks of the IMPS, Moderator Blackall?”
    “Yes. No. Wait, I’m pretty sure—”
    Lily stopped him. “Moderator—that’s you. Then Counselor. Then Mitigator. Then Coordinator. Those are the four levels, inorder, of the subservient ranks. From there, we have Advocates—that’s me—then Champions, then Presiders, and then Deciders. Those are the Controlling Ranks. They give the orders to the subservients. And last, of course, is the general. General Lamson.”
    “So then how come when we Pledge, we Pledge to Cylis? If our highest rank is the general, then why in the world aren’t we Pledging to him ? I mean, who’s actually supposed to be in charge here? How can I be the picture of loyalty if I don’t even know who it is I’m supposed to be loyal to ?”
    Lily smiled and sidestepped the question. “ You ,” she said, “are subservient. You are the lowest of the subservients. And I fail to see what about this is confusing to you.” She frowned. “ I , meanwhile, am a Controller. There are not many of us. None have yet even made it to the rank of Decider. None in the world.
    “Now, Moderator Blackall, because you were stupid enough to implicate me in your futile attempt at a break-in last month, I’ve been assigned the thankless task of monitoring your worthless training progress. And do you know what I’ve seen? I’ve seen a little Dusty miser who’s managed to actually get worse with each passing day. I’ve seen a troublemaker who wakes up each morning a little less fixed . A little less loyal . And a whole lot less serious. You began with such promise! And now look at you—you’re a worm! Writhing around, claiming small victories with each passing joke. And thinking . . . what ? That if you backslide far enough, we’ll just let you go? We’ll just give up? Just open Acheron’s door and let you run back up to your little skinflint friends in the Dust?”
    Eddie was silent.
    “No! We will fix you. We will Revise