Sneak (Swipe Series)

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.”
    “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 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.

    It took him several minutes to know whether or not any of them were real.
    Where is the lake? Logan thought briefly. Wasn’t I freezing just a moment ago?
    But as soon as those thoughts had come, they had gone. Logan lay on the ground, delirious . . . but Markless.
    “So what was the punishment?” Tyler asked, running over to him and trembling from the excitement of leaving so much destruction in his wake. “Was it cool?”
    Logan frowned, lost in his memories of it. “It was . . . agony . . . but Cylis . . . Cylis would have saved me . . .”
    “No, Logan. No . Cylis would not have saved you.”