Storm (Swipe Series)

permission—”
    “Permission denied, Advocate. This matter is urgent.”
    Lily swallowed. “The Moderator’s condition should take precedence,” she said. “Excess time in a helmet can make a person fragile. My work with him, really . . . it’s time sensitive. It can’t be interrupted.”
    Cheswick looked at her, mouth slightly open, one eyebrow raised. He laughed a mean laugh. “By Chancellor Cylis, it can.”

THREE
    CONNOR GOODY TWO-SHOES
    1
    C ONNOR GOODMAN SAT CROSS-LEGGED ON his chair at the fold-up card table in his parents’ basement, contemplating his next turn and thinking about how this used to be more fun.
    “Your move,” he said. But Sally wasn’t paying attention.
    “Hey, you all right, Sally?” Steve asked. “You seem pretty bummed.”
    In an era of virtual reality and nanotech, the three of them had always loved playing tablescreen games, and Mark-opoly in particular had long been Sally’s favorite. But right now her heart just wasn’t in it. She touched the random number generator and slid her avatar four spaces across the glass, but it was clear to the boys that she was only going through the motions.
    “Come on, you’ve been quiet all afternoon,” Connor said, taking his turn. And that was true. She’d even turned down the snacks Connor’s mother had brought in for them. “And you never turn down peanut butter.”
    But Sally only frowned. She looked at him scoldingly. “You could’ve hit me hard with that move just now, Connor. I thought for sure I’d set you up.”
    “Yeah, why didn’t you take it?” Steve asked.
    “There were other good moves,” Connor said.
    But Sally wasn’t having it. “You’re throwing the game. You can’t just let me win because you think you should be feeling sorry for me. It’s condescending.”
    Connor shrugged. “I’m just trying to be nice.”
    “Sure.” Sally laughed meanly. “Right. For a second there, I forgot I was playing Connor Goody Two-Shoes.”
    Connor winced when she said it. Wow, he thought. Something must really be bothering her . His name, of course, was Connor Goodman, and though many of the kids in Lahoma had taken to calling him Connor Goody Two-Shoes ever since he’d won the General’s Award, Sally Summers never had. She knew how much he hated it. She was mindful of that. And anyway, she and Steve were barely any less stand-out themselves.
    In school, Connor, Steve, and Sally were at the top of the heap. No one in the ninth grade—or in any grade, for that matter—had a better average, with Connor at a 100 percent, and Steve and Sally tied at 98.
    But it wasn’t just that the three of them were the smartest kids at Lahoma High. It was that their teachers loved them.
    Why, just a couple of months ago, the day before winter break and the start of the Inclusion Day festivities, it was Connor who flailed his hand wildly in his seat at the front of the class. And it was Connor who reminded his teacher that so far, she had forgotten to give her class any homework assignments over break.
    Steve and Sally were relieved when he said it. They’d been thinking the same thing all afternoon, and Steve had started to fidget with guilt. That was just the kind of students they were.
    “Well, anyway, the boardwalk is now Marked territory,” Steve said, dragging his own avatar across the tablescreen and trying feebly to lighten the mood. “Better pay up if either o’ you land on it.”
    This was the closest thing to trash talk that ever went down in the Goodmans’ gray-carpeted basement. But Sally still wasn’t having it.
    “So what’s your big General’s trophy doing hidden away down here?” she said, pointing to the corner and stubbornly pressing forward with her Connor Goody Two-Shoes line of attack. “I mean, what gives? If I had that thing, I’d sleep with it under my pillow.”
    Connor laughed sheepishly. “Well, it’s really not that big a deal,” he said.
    But the truth, of course, was that it was a big deal. The truth was that Connor’s General’s Award was a very big deal, indeed.
    It should be no surprise, perhaps, that a kid nicknamed Connor Goody Two-Shoes would be a model citizen, famous all across his modest Lahoma town. President of the Lahoma student body, captain of the baseball team, first chair tablet in the Lahoma Electronic Orchestra, and in both of the last two years since he’d become eligible, recipient of the Town Hall Award for Most Distinguished Marked Community Service. Connor