Sneak (38 page)

Twelve

Marked

1

The holding room showed the first

fingerprints of the Dust’s plan in full effect. Where before there had been dozens of IMP guards, now there was only one, the coordina-tor at the sign-in desk.

“He’s alone,” Erin whispered, peering over Meg’s head and

through the grate.

“Is that surprising?” Blake whispered.

Peck nodded. “Last time there were more.”

“Good,” Erin said. “So it’s working. Security’s depleted.”

“Meg. Will you do the honors?” Blake asked.

And Meg nodded gleefully. She unscrewed the grate of the air

duct in front of her, sliding out on her stomach and falling to the ground below. Erin gave her a little tap on the foot as she did, for good luck.

The guard never saw it coming. Meg had him clobbered before

he even knew what hit him. By the time Erin and the Dust made it out of the air duct, he was sprawled unconscious across the floor.

“Go, go!” Peck whispered, and Erin ran to the Markscan to

call the elevator.

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Except.

The Markscan flashed red.

“Call it, already!” Blake whispered, waiting eagerly at the

entrance. “We’re here—call it up!”

“I can’t.
I
can’t!
It’s not working.” Erin was growing frantic.

“Why isn’t it working?”

“You’re Marked, aren’t you?” Tyler demanded. “Make it
happen
!”

And then Erin looked at the IMP splayed out on the floor. And

she saw the Mark tattooed across his face.

“Of course,” Erin said. “How brilliant . . .”

“Erin, we’re naked out here! Make this happen before some-

one sees us!”

“A Marked hand can be stolen,” Erin said. “With extreme

measures, but still . . . it’s possible that someone could cut someone else’s hand off.”

“Like that Rathbone guy the Dust met?” Hailey asked.

“Yeah, just like that,” Erin answered, shuddering a little. How gross. She picked up the IMP now, by his armpits. His head rol ed lifelessly to the side. “A Marked
face
, on the other hand . . . no chance.

It’s DOME’s way of keeping IMPS IMPS, and making sure no one

else can infiltrate the army.” She held the man’s head up against the scanner. It blinked green and cal ed the elevator their way.

“Good,” Hailey said. “Now, hurry up to computer security

before we make it to the surveillanced floors.”

Erin looked up at the mainframe room perched over the ves-

tibule with a narrow metal staircase spiraling up toward it. Then she looked, irritated, at the IMP in her hands. “Shawn,” she called.

“Help me drag this lug up there, will you?” And as Shawn did, the rest of the Dust boarded the elevator and disappeared into the depths below.

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2

Logan was freezing to death.

Around him was a vast cavern, smaller than the other floors

of Acheron, but dimly lit, so that, from where Logan sat, he could just barely see the ragged stone walls around him, just barely make out the stalactites hanging from the high ceiling above.

The entire floor was a frozen lake. Down as low as he was, all the water from Acheron flowed to here, pooling on the ground,

slowly washing over the space, slowly cooling, slowly turning

to layer after layer of milky-white ice. At first, Logan stepped lightly, wading around on the frozen surface in the ankle-deep ice water sloshing atop it. But it was too cold to keep that up for long. After half a day of it, Logan sat, exhausted, numb, slow, right down on the ice, letting the cool water wash over his legs and waist.

So Logan rested, now, stuck up to his belt in the frozen surface of the lake, and it was torture. Pure, vile torture. Logan thought back to his time in the snowbank beside the stream when he’d

nearly died from hypothermia, and he remembered it as mild and pleasant by comparison.

He knew, because he was told, that the way out was within

his grasp. He needed only to commit to Cylis. He needed only to commit to the Mark. That one simple thing, and Logan would be

free of pain. But he had to mean it. Deep down, he had to mean it.

Please
,
God
, Logan prayed, remembering everything he had read in his tattered book.
Give
me
strength
now. I am tempted. I want
to give in. I am so tempted
.

Do
not
let
me
.

Do
not
let
me
give
in
.

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I
am
ready
to
die
.

I
would
rather
die
.

Please
.

Give
me
the
strength
to
die
.

3

On the upper levels of Acheron, Erin and Shawn were frightened and desperate.

Erin had the IMP’s face pressed more or less permanently

against the Markscan, and still she couldn’t manage to hack the security feed. Not to her satisfaction, at least.

“I could get it to turn off,” Erin said. “But something so obvious is bound to sound an alarm.”

“No, no. Much better to have the loop,” Shawn said. “Some

old, boring history feed on repeat—that’s what we need.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Erin snapped. “I’m
trying
, Mr. Wiz.”

But Shawn only looked at her, confused. “What do you mean?”

he asked. And he pointed to the tablescreen in front of him, to the security feed of the first few floors. They were totally clean. No sign of the Dust anywhere. “Didn’t you hack this already? Isn’t this your work? We’d surely be seeing them by now.”

Erin looked at the feed, shocked. “No,” she said finally. “I had nothing to do with that.”

Someone had beaten them to it—someone had already hacked

what Erin was trying to hack, had already done what Erin was

trying to do. Someone else was helping the Dust. And whoever it was, that person was way ahead of them.

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4

The ninth level was empty of Moderator guards. Peck, Tyler, Meg, Hailey, and Blake exited safely from their elevator, straight into the dark heart of Acheron.

The five of them were speechless.

All of the rumors were true.

But none of the rumors were true.

Finally, Peck and Tyler and Meg and Hailey and Blake under-

stood what had been described to them all this time.

After the uniqueness of the courtyard for flunkees on level

one, each of the eight levels below it had, in fact, been exactly the same. Each was nothing more (and nothing less) than an enormous, sterile white floor filled with a seemingly endless array of desks. And at each desk was a criminal, serving his time.

The desks were simple—just a little white surface with space

enough for a little black computer.

The computer attached with cables to a helmet. The helmet

was placed on the head, covering everything down to the neck.

Peck walked to one of them now, lifting it from its empty desk.

“Of course,” he said. “It’s genius. The helmet attaches to the person through a brain-computer interface—it can read the criminal’s mind, and the criminal’s mind can read it.” Peck shook the helmet, frustrated by how obvious it should have been. “This helmet, through a simple BCI, can make its subjects feel
anything
. It can convince its subject that he’s endlessly on fire. It can convince him he’s being eaten alive by snakes. It can convince him he is freezing, or boiling alive in tar, or going blind, or anything else at all.

“All of the rumors are true.

“And none of the rumors are true.”

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“But I don’t get it,” Tyler asked. “What is it that’s keeping the helmet on? Why doesn’t whoever’s wearing the thing just take it off?”

Blake examined the helmet himself, and he pointed carefully

to the inside. “That’s why,” he said. “This simple mechanism, right here. Take the helmet off, and it triggers this switch; the wearer’s forehead will be instantly Marked.”

“So then,” Hailey said, “you
choose
the length of your punishment.”

Peck nodded slowly. “Everyone holds out for as long as they

possibly can. Everyone makes the decision feeling certain that they did the best job they could of avoiding it.”

“And everyone believes,” Hailey said, “whatever point they

were at, that Cylis and his Mark saved them from torture and pain and certain death. No one ever regrets it.”

Blake shook his head, “But in the end, no one escapes. Everyone is Marked.”

“Well, we’re here to make an exception to that rule,” Peck said.

“Let’s just make sure to break Logan and Joanne and Eddie’s computers before we touch any of their helmets. See if we can’t disable the Marking mechanism first.” And the five of them set out in search of Logan and Joanne and Eddie—to find them in a sea of bodies and desks, to find them with their faces completely hidden under the heavy helmets of their punishment.

“Hey, no sweat, right?” Tyler said. “Meg—I’ll race you—best

two out of three.”

5

Logan was delirious when the Dust finally found him.

In the darkness, Logan recognized the voices, could hear them

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all the way across the lake, could hear his own best friends walking out on the ice, sliding fast across the slushy water and frozen surface below it. He was sure they were in his head, but he called out all the same, rasping dryly, tearing his throat raw. “Hey! I’m here! I’m over here!” He never expected an answer. It was not the first time he’d called out that day.

“Found him. I found him!” Hailey yelled, recognizing the muffled cries from several rows over. “Logan!” She ran to him, immediately wrapping her arms around his body, and Peck followed close behind, kicking over the desk and shattering the computer on the ground.

“Help me get this helmet off him! Quickly!
Now!
”

“But what if it Marks him?” Hailey asked.

Peck gestured to the sparks flying from the hard drive. “I

think it’s sufficiently broken, don’t you?”

In the distance, Tyler and Meg sprinted down another aisle,

destroying every computer they could get their hands on. “Best—

game—
ever
!” Tyler yelled.

“You really think that’s all it takes?” Hailey asked.

“I don’t know,” Peck said honestly. But he held his breath, and he said a prayer, and, very carefully, he and Hailey removed the helmet from Logan’s head.