STORM

Thomas Nelson

Contents

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

FIGHT OR FLIGHT

1

The floor shook violently under Logan'sfeet, its rug jumping and sliding in short, stiff bursts. The windowto his side rattled, and he wondered if the whole door might soonfall off.

Logan leaned forward to the driver's seat in front of him,peering over Peck's tense shoulder at the fuel gauge, which jitteredso much that the after-image of its soft green glow showedonly a blur.

But he could still see the needle, pointing with certainty.Empty.

"Can't this thing go any faster?" Hailey asked from the passengerseat.

"Not if we want it to stay in one piece," Peck said, but hepressed harder on the gas pedal even so.

Lifelessly, Erin bounced from her spot on the backseat and slidto the floor.

"She all right?" Peck asked, unable to take his eyes off the road.

Hailey turned to look over her shoulder. "Not stirring," shesaid. "Keep driving."

"Low on gas," Logan warned, hoping not to spark an explosionof new frustration from up front.

"It'll stop when it stops," Peck said. "'Til then, worry aboutwhat's behind us."

So Logan turned to peer out the back window, where behindthem a drone plane appeared low on the horizon.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Logan said.

"Nope. Very serious. As predicted."

Not far off and closing in fast, the running lights of the droneglowed bright red, green, and white against the night sky. It flewsilent and unwavering in the steady hands of its remote pilot. Andon its side, branded proudly in big white letters, was the single,horrible, menacing word:

DOME.

Most of the way to Sierra by now, Logan had hoped that thefour of them might enter the sprawling city undetected, that theprotests they'd stirred up back in Beacon might distract authoritiesenough to provide some cover. But the team had made a criticalmistake, and they knew it.

About twenty miles back, along the first patch of run-downoutskirts near Sierra's eastern city limits, along the forgottenroad that decrepit signs called "Highway 66," Daniel Peck, HaileyPhoenix, Logan Langly, and Erin Arbitor decided to make an emergencystop. Erin's fever had gotten worse, her shivering violent andher words increasingly delirious. Everyone knew she needed medicine—anything to lower her temperature, even if only for a day ortwo. Anything to buy her some time.

So the team decided to take the risk.

"They'll know she was here the second we buy this thing,"Peck warned as Hailey stepped toward the corner store counterwith a handful of nanomeds. "They'll trace her scan instantly. Youknow they've been watching for it."

Erin nodded in detached agreement. She was standing, butbarely, and only because Logan held her up. He had his arm aroundher back, bouncing it now a few times, trying for a better hold."We'll be miles away by the time they get here," he said. "Andanyway, there's no way around it." If they wanted the goods, theyneeded Erin's Mark, simple as that. So Logan snapped his fingersin front of Erin's eyes. "Look alive, Erin. This part's all you."

And the four of them walked to the counter.

"Evening," said the store clerk. "Find everything all right?"

"Just fine," Hailey said, not looking at the man. She handedhim the nanomeds and held her breath while he scanned themunder the counter's Markscan.

"Your friend's not lookin' too good." The clerk nodded at Erin.

"She'll be all right," Logan said, propping her head up with hisown. He grabbed Erin's hand and waved her Marked wrist underthat same scanner. It beeped and flashed green. "Just fighting downa fever. These cold winter months and all, you know ..."

"You making her pay for those meds herself?" the clerk asked,scolding him a bit.

"She insists," Logan said, but he quickly shoved his ownUnmarked wrist into a deep pants pocket. And Peck and Haileydid the same.

"Well ... bed rest," the clerk instructed. "Plenty of water."Then he pointed to the nanomeds. "And one of these pills twicea day. They won't cure anything, but they should keep the feverdown."

Erin nodded distantly. Logan readjusted his hold on her. Andthe group hustled out without another word to anyone.

"We've sealed our fate," Peck said. "They have us now." He putthe car in gear and peeled out before the store clerk could noticethat these three Markless teens and their dying Marked friend hadsomehow gotten their hands on the last combustion vehicle in theentire Global Union.

Logan shook his head. "We're out. We're safe. That drew lessattention than a robbery."

"A robbery's anonymous," Hailey said. "Markscans are not."

"No stealing," Logan said. He opened Erin's mouth and gaveher two nanomed pills at once. She didn't protest. "She needed this.We had no choice. We'll deal with the next crisis when it hits us."

And Logan was right, Hailey knew. The truth was, they didn'thave a choice. The truth was that they'd made their choice already,when each of them—Peck, Hailey, Logan—refused the Mark oneach of their thirteenth birthdays, refused citizenship, refused toPledge allegiance to General Lamson and Chancellor Cylis. Theyknew then what the consequences would be. They knew then thatthey'd never have rights. That they'd never in their lives be ableto buy or sell anything, hold a job, vote, own a house, sign a contract,see a doctor, finish their education, start a family.... Thosequaint hopes dried up the moment the world broke into its TotalWar; the moment it realized that Unity was necessary, that fracturedcultures and incompatible views could never keep the peace.The kids knew all of this at the time.

But each of them knew something else too. That the Pledgewas a trap. Much more than a ceremony of citizenship, it was a systemdesigned to weed out those who didn't fit in. Flunkees wererare, maybe one in ten thousand—few enough that no one raised afuss. DOME let families believe that their children were dead, victimsof infrequent and unavoidable complications in the Markingprocedure—an allergic reaction, an infection, or an unfortunateerror, perhaps.

But this was not the truth. The truth was that once identified,flunkees were simply removed, thrown into the secret prisonknown only as "Acheron," where they were converted, brainwashed,crafted into soldiers ... into the International Moderatorsof Peace, the IMPS, hidden enforcers of the Mark system.

Under this program, the rest of the world was free to beUnified. Protected by the very peers who otherwise might oneday have betrayed them.

Logan, Peck, Hailey ... they knew this because Logan's sister,Lily, had Pledged herself ... and had never returned. They knewthis because Peck spent the next five years piecing together whatmight have happened, had even warned Logan that it might happento him next.

Peck was right. But Logan escaped.

And with all his worst fears finally confirmed, Logan had goneon to break into Acheron, had seen it with his own eyes, and hadmanaged to break back out.

It wasn't safe for him in Beacon City any longer. It wasn't safefor any of them.

Peck, Hailey, and their friends known only as "the Dust" hadused Logan as a symbol—as a martyr, willing to die in his fightagainst DOME. And among Markless everywhere, that symboltook hold. The news spread countrywide, through renegade radiostations and secret airwaves, and the Dust spread right alongwith it. The Markless were banding together. They rose up; theyfought back. They brought the IMPS out of hiding. And Loganbecame a hero.

Erin, until that time, was as loyal to DOME as anyone,Marked and diligent and proud of it. Her father worked forDOME, after all, was an operative for them, and until recently heand the Department had given Erin no reason to doubt their intentions.But then last month she discovered Project Trumpet ... andeverything in her world changed forever.

Erin now lay on the floor of the group's cramped car, contortedand barely conscious. The drone plane behind them encroached.

Peck pushed the pedal harder, gliding dangerously across theicy, broken road, and Logan said, "It hasn't shot us yet. It couldhave by now. It's close enough."

"DOME's not trying to kill us," Peck said, gripping the wheelwith white-knuckle force. "They're trying to track us."

"Not very subtle about it," Hailey said. The plane blinkedmenacingly as it lowered to car level and followed maybe a hundredfeet behind.

"They don't have to be. We're cornered."

Logan looked out over the wide-open land and the RockyMountains in the distance. It was a funny word, cornered, spoken inthe middle of so much empty space.

"How could DOME even know we're the ones in here?" Loganasked. "They can't scan Erin's Mark from that distance, can they?Even if they've already traced her to the store, as far as this cargoes, they'd only be guessing ..."

Peck laughed. "Logan, they know Erin was with us in Beaconless than a week ago. And now they have her Markscan on file ina store two thousand miles away, without a single logged magnetrainticket in between. As far as we know, this is the onlyprivate car driving on any road between here and Europe. Whatother conclusion could they reasonably come to? Of course we'rein this car."

"So how do we hide?" Hailey asked, very nervously now. "Wecan't outdrive it."

Already, Logan was hunched over, grabbing at Erin's shouldersand sliding her up into the backseat. She groaned once, andher head lolled to the side. He buckled the seat belt around her."We can try."

Hailey turned to Peck uncertainly. "Hey," she said. "Guys,seriously—"

Peck shook his head. He sighed. "Hold on," he said, and hepushed the gas pedal to the floor.

In their headlights, the broken road cast shadows on itselflong into the distance. Its potholes, jutting concrete, and black,wintry ice rushed in fragments and patches toward the run-downcar. Peck weaved fast between frosty cracks and scattered debris,and the drone shrunk smaller in the window behind them. Formiles, it seemed they were succeeding. But Peck couldn't avoidthe road's obstacles forever. Coming off a tight swerve, their backright wheel caught an old blown-out tire, and Hailey yelled, "Holdon!" as the whole car lurched forward with a panicked force.

It spun faster than it could turn. Its back wheels came up alongsideits front. The driver's side plowed ahead with an ear-piercingsqueal of its tires, the left wheels leading the charge against anunforgiving road, front and back together hitting a street-widecrack, catching and stopping all at once. In one continuous motion,the passenger side reared up, getting ahead of itself, flipping endover end at a staggering speed. Metal on concrete. Glass shattering.Gravity shifting. The world rolled hopelessly outside. A carfull of breathless screams.

They tumbled from the road.

2

In Beacon, the citywide protests had reached a stalemate.

For weeks, Markless had marched, and chanted, and campedout on the streets. For weeks, they'd demanded rights, representation,respect, all spurred on by the truth the Dust had revealedabout flunkees and Acheron and the kids who were swiped.

DOME's darkest secrets were in full view now, its Marklessprison finally identified, its once-covert IMP troops forced to linethe streets, make arrests, curb unrest by any means necessary . . .

For years, the Markless in Beacon had stayed mostly underground.They'd lived below the surface, huddled into communitiesinside an abandoned nuclear fission reactor that rested below thecity, coming up only to scrounge for food or catch a glimpse ofdaylight. Some of them had spoken up, sure; some of them hadheld signs, had shared thoughts with the Marked that passed by,or gave food, or dared to stop and stare. But never before hada Markless rocked the boat. Never before had any of them surfacedwith the intention of challenging the system. For years, theMarkless in Beacon had been silent.

No one was silent anymore. For the first time, Markless werefighting. They were Dust. And they were not afraid.

But for each huddle that made its way street side, for eachUnmarked who yelled or blocked the road, a squadron of IMPSwas lying in wait. And the IMPS were fighting back.

From his quiet spot on the sidewalk hundreds of feet above,Blake leaned over, carefully considering the showdown belowhim. In Beacon, a five-tier system of streets connected most CityCenter skyscrapers at forty-floor intervals, and currently, Blakestood at the edge of Tier Two, peering over the railing at theground level below.

From here it looked like the top of an open box of crayons:dots of colors all pressed up against one another, each one a person,each one a Markless protester. Each one Dust.

Surrounding them, completing the crayon-box likeness, werebarricades—rigid right angles of makeshift hurdles and fences, putin place by IMP forces and guarded by the IMPS themselves.

Blake sighed deeply, appreciating the brief reprieve from thenoise and violence down below ... and yet Blake was on no break.He wasn't resting. He wasn't relaxing. He was preparing. And heknew the chaos would come to him soon enough.

In fact, he was counting on it.

"This one's filled with ketchup Meg swiped from the huddle,and this one here ..." Tyler held a balloon in each hand, and heraised the right one now. "Well, I'm honestly not quite sure what'sin this one. Some sludge Rusty found in the gutter between BarrierStreet and the power plant, I know that much. But beyond that ...I really couldn't tell ya. It's green, I think." Tyler frowned. "Sortachartreuse-green."

"Chartreuse?" Jo stepped forward from behind Blake. "I wagera punch to the face that you have no idea what color chartreuse is."

"Sure I do. It's the color of what's in this balloon. You know,greeny sludge color."

"Look, will ya just drop the thing already so we can get onwith this?"

"I'm trying to decide which to drop first. I'd rather see thegutter sludge splash ... but, see, I also kinda wanna save it."

"Tyler—" Jo motioned to grab the balloons herself, but Tylerducked quickly out of the way.

"Okay, okay—gutter sludge it is."

Tyler leaned over the second-tier railing, forty stories up, hiswhole torso hanging off the side, feet dangling in the air just abovethe sidewalk, balancing himself precariously over the ledge. Heclosed one eye for aim, his tongue sticking out just slightly to theside, like a master in full concentration.

"Third IMP from the corner," Tyler said. "The one with allthose stupid extra badges. Don't think we've hit his squad before."

"Me neither," Blake said. "I say we go for it."

"Good game," Tyler said. So he grinned wide, and he let go ofthe balloon.

* * *

Blake, Tyler, Jo, Meg, Rusty, Shawn ... these kids were the Dust.The original Dust—Peck's Markless gang—before Peck left themall to head west. Blake, fourteen years old now, had become a bitof a ringleader in Peck's absence. Joanne, fifteen, used to be Peck'sright-hand girl; now she was more the enforcer. Meg, thirteen, wasautistic, rescued by the Dust last July after Peck realized she wasat risk of flunking her upcoming Pledge. Rusty was an orphanedsix-year-old, picked up by Blake back when DOME made its raidon the Dust's old home, Slog Row, last September. Shawn wasthe Dust's newest member, a Markless hacker from Beacon whofell in with the rest during their Acheron breakout a month ago.And Tyler ... well, Tyler was just a troublemaker. He grew up anorphan too, never knowing or fully comprehending life outside ofMarkless huddles. Then one year ago, right around the time whenhe could have Pledged, Tyler just sort of glommed on to the Dustfor fun—and never left.

And until recently, there was Eddie, Tyler's best friend andnow a painful hole in the Dust's once-inseparable group. Just a fewweeks ago, Eddie was captured along with Logan and Joanne byDOME during the Dust's attempt to break Logan's sister, Lily, outof Acheron. Unlike the others, Eddie never escaped.

He was gone now.

Eddie was an IMP.

* * *

"Bull's-eye!" Tyler yelled. He jumped up and down as he did,pumping his fists in the air and soliciting high-fives from the restof the group. "Did you see that?"

The balloon had hit with astonishing force, and the resultingscene down below was chaos, rapidly growing violent.

The IMP's first response, of course, had been to assumethat the balloon had come from the crowd he was guarding. Thesludge slathered his helmet and shoulders with a greasy green,his face smeared with goop and his uniform now looking somethinglike pickle relish. Immediately, he'd spun around, eagerfor someone to hit or arrest or worse. But no obvious culprit hademerged.

Finally, the IMP's squad looked up. They stared in disbelief.They tapped their leader on the shoulder. "There," they seemedto say.

Forty stories above, Tyler stood in plain view, grinning, laughing,and waving happily as he tossed down the second balloon.

* * *

It took two and a half minutes for the IMPS to call in their undergroundbackups and coordinate a response. This was longer thanthe Dust was expecting. So for about thirty seconds, Tyler wasbored again.

(Continues...)
(Continues...)Excerpted from STORM by EVAN ANGLER. Copyright © 2013 by Evan Angler. Excerpted by permission of Thomas Nelson.
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