Sneak (Swipe Series)

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 rolled 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 called 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 vestibule 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.
    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 .
    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.
    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 understood 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