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Dane cleared his throat. “Right . . . uh . . . right there, huh?” He took the girl's hand and held the pen above her wrist, right above where the Mark should have been.

“What's the matter?” she said. “Don't you wanna Mark me, Dane?”

Dane glanced uneasily at the men asleep down the hall. His own hand began to shake.

The girl frowned at him. “I'm sorry about this,” she said.

“Oh, don't be!” Dane laughed, nervously now. “I can catch up to my bandmates in just a minute, it's no problem.” And he put his head down to scribble his signature onto the girl's wrist.

“No, I'm not sorry for keeping you,” she said.

Dane looked up and met her eyes. They were very sad.

The next several things happened quickly. The world went black behind a thick, dirty pillowcase, and an awful sweetness filled Dane's nostrils as the pillowcase went damp. Dane flailed wildly.

“You screwed it up!” one of the boys said.

“Then you try!” said the other.

“It's not as easy as it looks!”

“Why won't he pass out?”

All the while, a rotten aroma was stifling every breath Dane took. Three . . . four . . . seven . . . ten of them, shallower and shallower. Weaker flailing from Dane. Knees beginning to buckle. Hyperventilating now. Hard to breathe.

“He's tougher than the agents!”

“That's 'cause we're trying not to kill him.”

“It isn't like the movies!”

“Pour some more on!”

“Blake said not to waste it!”

“You suck!”

“Let me try!”

“You just did!”

More flailing. Swinging dizzily into blackness. Not connecting. Weaker and weaker.

Then the girl's voice. “It's working.” Another breath. Stars inside the bag. Euphoria. Bright white fireworks.

“You killed him.”

“I didn't kill him.”

“Jo wins.”

“It wasn't a game.”

“Everything's a game.”

And Dane slipped off into a happier place.

7

“There was shouting. I heard shouting!” Logan pushed against the agent holding him, trying desperately to peek around and through the doorway.

“I'm gonna have to ask you both to come with me,” the man said. He pulled a pair of electro-magnecuffs from his pocket.

“They're taking him,” Logan shouted. “They're
taking
him!”

“Our men back there will handle it, Logan Langly. Now calm down or we will calm you by force!”

There wasn't time to negotiate. There wasn't time to think. Whatever was happening to Dane, it was happening
right now
.

“Okay,” Logan said. “I understand.” He took Erin's arms and pulled hers up with his, so that all four of their hands were in the air and surrendering.

“Very good,” Mr. Arbitor said. “Johnson—the cuffs.”

But before anything else could happen, Logan closed his eyes . . . and he threw his flash pellets onto the ground.

The light from them was staggering. Screams from the crowd. Everyone in the vicinity went blind. Even Logan, eyes squeezed as tight as they were for the burst, was having trouble seeing in the aftermath.

But he did see the silhouettes of the men in front of him, Mr. Arbitor included, hunched over and clutching their eyes. They were yelling, Logan thought, but he couldn't see their mouths, and it was impossible to hear over the sound of the band. Logan pulled Erin by the arm and led her quickly through the doors.

The hallway in front of them was empty, save for two more DOME agents slumped against the wall. “We're too late,” Logan said. “Follow me.”

Beside him, Erin was crying. Purple tears flowed down her face, a reaction to the nanotech in the flash, but Logan could tell that the sobs were real.

“What have you done?” Erin was saying. “Logan.
What have you done?
”

8

Moments later, Logan was at Erin's rollerstick and using her Mark to turn it on. She stumbled blindly beside him. “I'll drive,” he said. “Hold on tight.”

Logan had always imagined that maneuvering a rollerstick would be difficult for him. He didn't like high speeds. He didn't even like the thought of them. He especially didn't like being in control of them.

But tonight, the way things were, riding a rollerstick was the least of Logan's worries. He moved it intuitively beneath him, and without thought or fear, he was soon flying down the Spokie streets.

“The flash isn't permanent, right? You'll get better, right?” Logan called back to Erin as he swerved along the sidewalk.

“I don't know!” Erin yelled. “I have no idea what those things do!”

“Then why'd you give them to me?”

“I didn't think you'd actually
use
them!”

But within a few minutes, Erin admitted she could see shapes and movement.

“That means DOME can too,” Logan said. “They'll be after us soon.”

“Oh, you think?” Erin said. “Because I was guessing they might just call it a night.”

“We need a plan,” Logan said. “Where are we going? We don't even know where they're
taking
Dane, let alone what they're doing to him.”

“Take my tablet,” Erin said. Logan slowed, and she handed it to him. “Pull up the map. See if your tracker's still working.”

It was the first stroke of luck either of them had had all night.

“Fulmart! They're at the Fulmart!”

“Pull up my old video feed. What does it show?”

Logan did, and he almost fell off the rollerstick when he saw it.

“What's the matter?” Erin asked, her eyes still squeezed shut. “What's happening?”

Logan looked on in horror. There, in the black-and-white fuzz of the video, was Dane, dragged along the floor by the Dust and dumped horribly into a wheelbarrow.

9

By the time they arrived at the Fulmart, Erin's sight had returned, but her face still shone purple in the moonlight from her flash pellet tears.

Logan pulled the rollerstick to a stop, and he and Erin leaped from it, a coordinated tactical team, needing no words or gestures between them, running furiously across the parking lot and into the store.

“We're here, we have weapons, and we're done messing around!” Logan yelled across the empty air of the store, holding his smoke bomb up at his side. Erin had her pepper spray out and ready in one hand. In the other, she held her tablet. No one on its security feed any longer. No one that she could see.

“It's over, Dust! No more hiding in the cracks. Come on out, hand him over, and we'll all go home.” Logan didn't mention the DOME agents, whom he guessed couldn't have been more than a few minutes behind.

There were no words in the aisles. No murmuring or whispers or footsteps. Nothing.

And then, from behind them, out from between the rows of shopping carts, Blake pounced, using one hand to pin Erin's arms behind her back and wrapping the other tightly around her neck.

“Let her go!” Logan yelled.

“I'm not gonna hurt her,” Blake said. “She has nothing to do with us. She shouldn't even be here.”

“But I should,” Logan said.

“Yes. You should. Logan, there's a lot we need to talk about.”

“Give us Dane and I'll consider talking.”

“Put down the smoke bomb and I'll consider letting Erin go.”

Somehow, the fact that Blake knew Erin's name was enough to send Logan into a brand-new state of panic.

“Please,” Logan whispered, and laughter erupted from the aisles all around him. Kid laughter. Crazy laughter.

“We're winning!” someone squealed. “Four points for Blake!”

Shaking, Logan lay the smoke bomb on the ground.

“Now I'm gonna tie Erin up,” Blake said calmly. “I'm not gonna hurt her—if she agrees not to struggle. I'm just gonna tie her up and let her dad come and get her. Okay, Erin?” he asked.

Erin spat at his hand.

“No deal,” Logan said, growing angry. “Let her go or nothing else happens. DOME's on its way. I can wait here all night.”

“We can make this happen faster,” Blake said, and as if on cue, Tyler and Eddie appeared, Tyler with a screwdriver and Eddie with an old saw.

“You're monsters,” Logan said.

“No.” Blake shook his head. “Just desperate.”

And right at that moment, smoke burst from the ground and filled the store with astonishing speed.

“You little miser!” Blake cried.

But Logan shook his head. “It wasn't me,” he said honestly.

Green laser points cut through the smoke.

“Everybody freeze!” a man yelled, and DOME burst through the windows and into the Fulmart.

10

It all happened at once. Tyler and Eddie disappeared. Blake let Erin go. And Mr. Arbitor pinned Blake to the floor.

Everyone was a shadow in the thick gray air.

“Where's Peck?” Mr. Arbitor demanded. “Where is he? Answer me
right now
!”

“You can kill me,” Blake said. “But I won't tell you.” He was limp and calm.

“Do you have any idea what that boy has done?” Mr. Arbitor asked.

Blake laughed at him. “Do you?”

And suddenly, from out of a tent in the “outdoor adventure” section to the right, Meg Steward ran forward, growling and wild, lunging at Mr. Arbitor and leaping onto his back, pounding his head with a frying pan and a cooking pot she must have found in the kitchen aisle. She giggled madly as she hit him, and Mr. Arbitor yelled through each bang in head-swimming agony, swatting at her like some terrible fly, and releasing Blake in the process. Erin lay, stunned, on the ground. Logan stared in shock. The other agents were paralyzed by confusion and surprise.

After several seconds of clanging, Meg dropped the cooking pot and took the frying pan in both hands like a bat. One swing was all it took; Mr. Arbitor slumped to the ground.

The other agents ran in, but too late. Blake and Meg were gone, invisible in the smoke after just a few steps. Mr. Arbitor groaned and held his head, yelling, “What are you waiting for? Follow them!” But the Dust knew the store too well. Even in the fog, they navigated the aisles easily, outrunning DOME despite its agents' high-tech gadgetry and heat-vision goggles. Somehow, the Dust had won, and DOME had lost.

“Go, go!” Mr. Arbitor cried into the smoke. And the agents did even though it was clear that the kids would not be caught that night.

Mr. Arbitor looked at Erin with disappointment, and at Logan with a seething hatred.

“Come on, kids,” he said, swaying a little as he got to his feet. “Time to debrief.”

TEN
STREET CLEANING

1

L
OGAN WAS SITTING, SLUMPED AND TIRED, IN
a cold metal folding chair in the waiting room of the Department of Marked Emergencies Center next to the Umbrella, just across the street from the building he'd visit in November for his Pledge. If he wasn't shipped off to jail first.

Logan's parents sat on either side of him, not saying a word. They rested like statues, Logan's father leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his eyes to the ground, his hands clasped together and contemplative, and Logan's mother sitting straight up, with perfect posture, staring wide-eyed into nothing, hands resting idly on her lap. Neither had even said hello when they arrived after Mr. Arbitor's call.

Erin was off in a side room, being questioned separately. They wanted her story first. No doubt Mr. Arbitor planned to use hers as fact. Logan's would have to try and measure up.

After what seemed like an endless wait, Erin finally returned and stood sheepishly in front of Logan. Her arms were crossed and she was shaking a little, as if she were very cold.

“They're chalking it up to temporary insanity,” she whispered. “Just the flash pellet part. Because I begged them to. The rest . . . you're on your own. But I think we're gonna be okay.”

Logan's father turned to Erin as she spoke, but he said nothing. Logan's mother did not move or flinch. Logan wondered if she was even breathing.

“That's good,” Logan said. “Thanks.”

“I think they realized they need us,” Erin said, and she couldn't help smiling, just a little.

Mr. Arbitor entered. His cheeks were still stained with purple streaks, and his head was wrapped with an ice packet. “Logan Langly,” he said. “Please come with me.”

Logan sat with his hands cuffed and resting on the table in front of him. The room was dim, and bare, and freezing. A floor-to-ceiling mirror took up one entire wall, and Logan wondered how many people were watching from the other side.

“We now know,” Mr. Arbitor said, “that Peck is working with a group. Do you know the name of this group, Logan Langly? What they call themselves?”

“The Dust,” Logan said.

“Any ideas why Peck would have chosen that name?”