Storm (Swipe Series)

citizens are still working under General Lamson’s request, then this reopening remains a pipe dream.
    “I need to know that our mill is secure, Lily. I need to know there aren’t any ongoing plots to destroy it. This first attack was devastating enough. If anyone out there is planning a second . . . Lily—the American Marked way of life could be destroyed by the time a new mill is built.”
    “Okay,” Lily said. “Well . . . well, what if we send a few squads of IMPS to Lahoma for security? We could set up a detail to guard the weather mill day and night.”
    “I’ve tried,” Cylis said. “Probably where those infighting rumors came from, in fact. Lamson simply vetoed the order. The IMPS won’t act without agreement from both of us—and it is clear to me, now, that he and I will never agree on the issue of Lahoma’s security. I can’t afford to risk further unrest among the IMPS by straining that already delicate balance of power. The last thing this G.U. needs is to think that its joint leaders are feuding.”
    Lily frowned. It was clear that Cylis had thought through his options already. It was clear, now, that calling upon Lily already was Cylis’s last resort. This was where things stood. Whatever his request of her was now, it was how things had to be.
    “All right,” Lily said. “Then what do you need from me?”
    Cylis sighed. “I’ve pulled some strings within the inner workings of Beacon’s Capitol. You’ll be positioned there, effective upon your return, as General Lamson’s personal assistant. He doesn’t know I have anything to do with your reassignment. He doesn’t even know you’ve been gone. No one does, Michael Cheswick aside.”
    Lily gulped.
    “Lily, I need you to find out if there is anyone left who might take measures to destroy Lahoma’s weather mill. The fate of your country depends on its reopening.”
    Lily nodded, slowly at first, but increasingly resolved. “Of course, Dominic. Of course I will.”
    Cylis sat down and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a small Markscan, and he took Lily’s head in his hands. “I brought you here in person because I could not risk the possibility of a hacked tablet call. But once your duties to Lamson begin, you will not be able to leave Beacon.
    “Thus, with the most incriminating of our discussions already behind us, what I am giving you now is access to my personal line of communication.” He waved the Markscan in front of Lily’s face, coding the Mark on her forehead into its system. “You alone now have the authority to reach me in this palace, day or night. Any tablet or computer system will know to grant you access. But you must be extremely careful with this power,” Cylis added. “In the event that Lamson should discover what you are doing . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head and sighing a slow sigh.
    Lily understood.
    “Excellent,” the chancellor said, standing now, abruptly. “I knew I could count on you. You’re a good soldier, Lily. A loyal Marked. And you will do great things for the Global Union.”
    “Thank you, Dominic,” Lily said.
    The chancellor smiled and gestured grandly toward the hall. “Your shuttle awaits.”

FIVE
    GHOST TOWN
    1
    I T WAS NOT A BAD DAY FOR A FUNERAL .
    The sun was out. It wasn’t raining. The air was cool and blue.
    And yet Connor alone was there. The only one. An hour into the service, and without a single other guest from all of Lahoma.
    Connor stood by his parents, so still that he might’ve looked lifeless himself.
    He wasn’t. But it would have been hard to say for sure.
    He wasn’t thinking about much, in fact. The wide range of emotions he’d felt up to this point had been largely whittled down into one fine point. Guilt. By now, that was more or less all that remained, lodging itself in his throat, sinking its tentacles deep down into the pit of his stomach, grabbing hold and not letting go, squeezing with a sickness that made the world spin.
    Was Connor responsible? Was his parents’ death as much his fault as it seemed? He told them, two days ago, that the jig was very nearly up. He told them to work fast, or risk losing everything. And it seemed clear to him now—they had taken that to heart.
    They had done both.
    In the aftermath of his dinner with them, Connor’s parents had quickly realized that their sporadic, stopgap measures couldn’t continue for long. In these past months since September, they’d skillfully kept Lahoma’s weather