Storm (Swipe Series)

gadgets and training, the kids managed to outrun them.
    Meanwhile, Tyler and Shawn ran full-throttle through a wide alley that dead-ended against the private doorway of a skyscraper apartment building. The building was locked, but not for them. In one swift motion they ran up the wall together—one, two, three steps in quick succession—and they each grabbed with both hands onto the ledge of an open window several feet up.
    “It’s us!” Tyler shouted to the Markless sympathizers inside. “But the IMPS aren’t far behind!” And as Tyler and Shawn pulled themselves in, the owners of the apartment darted to the window, slamming it shut and locking the latch behind him.
    “Run!” they called, keeping watch through the glass, and the boys didn’t stop until they were in the hallway outside and on an elevator headed for Ground Level, into the crowds, into anonymity, into safety.
    Through all of this, Meg watched, focused and sentry-like, from a Tier Three sidewalk suspended even higher above. She looked on through binoculars, following all five of her friends through the streets, but paying particular attention only to theIMP troops behind them. Meg scanned each face, one by one, scrutinizing every last detail.
    This was the Dust’s new routine. Seven days a week, morning, noon, and night. Tyler had made it his full-time job to torment the International Moderators of Peace. Any way he could think of, so long as he hit a new squad each time and made them call for plenty of reinforcements.
    The rest of the Dust, they made it their job to keep Tyler alive.
    But this wasn’t just a pastime.
    This was business.
    “You see him?” Tyler asked Meg after the whole ordeal was over. “Anywhere?”
    Meg frowned. She shook her head.
    “Sorry, Buddy,” Blake said, turning to Tyler. “Really—I’m . . . I’m sorry . . .”
    Tyler closed his eyes. “Okay,” he said, stoic and resolute. “Next time then.”
    Blake smiled. “Yeah, Tyler. Next time.”
    Because one of these days—if not this chase, then the next one, if not the next one, then the one after that . . . one of these days, the squad that they baited, or a squad called up from Acheron for reinforcement to catch Tyler . . . one of these days, that squad would include Eddie.
    It had to, right? The Dust had already scanned each above-ground IMP troop they could find, and Eddie hadn’t been anywhere. The only explanation left was that he was underground, out of reach but still on call for emergencies—which the Dust was more than happy to create. Because Eddie was an IMP now. He was one of them. And it was the Dust’s job to pull him out.
    The plan would work, they were sure. It had to. Because therewasn’t another way to get him back. And because losing Eddie for good simply wasn’t an option the Dust was willing to accept.
    “Right?” Tyler asked. His eyes were red, but he refused to cry.
    Blake patted his back. He smiled sadly. “That’s right, buddy. We’ll find him next time.”
    3
    Logan Langly wiped the sweat from Erin’s forehead. She lay wrapped in a tattered blanket, shivering in her delirium, below a small cover of rock halfway up the side of a desert ridge.
    “How’s she doing?” Peck asked.
    Logan frowned. “Fever just broke. For the night, at least. The nanomeds helped.”
    “Any injuries?”
    “Not that I can tell.”
    “I’m fine, by the way,” Hailey said, rubbing her lower back and standing off to the side. “Thanks for asking.”
    “I’m very glad,” Peck said. He smirked, and Hailey made a face.
    In the distance, the group’s old car lay upside down and totaled, a good ways into the desert brush off the main road, while DOME’s drone plane circled above it, lower and lower with each pass.
    “It’s trying to get a better look,” Logan said. “Whoever’s piloting that thing’s not gonna be too thrilled with what’s left inside.”
    Peck laughed. “All that tumbling, and not a single dead body. Hardly the outcome DOME could have hoped for.”
    “Congratulations,” Hailey said sarcastically. “So we managed to trick it. For, like, five minutes. Now what?”
    “Now it looks for us,” Peck agreed. “It should start sweeping the area soon enough.”
    “We can’t stay still,” Erin grumbled, sitting up slowly. “We need to move.”
    “ You need to rest,” Logan said. “End of story.” The hike here from the car had taken enough out of her already, and that was with Logan and Peck carrying her the