Sneak (33 page)

Tyler’s job was to keep watch over Erin. To make sure she

didn’t get away, and to head any suspicious behavior off at the pass.

There would be no surprises; the Dust was determined. This evening
needed
to go according to plan.

The whole Unmarked community was on lockdown. Everyone

was a part of the plan. To ensure there wouldn’t be any intruders, it was decided that for the rest of the night, there would be no coming or going from the turbine room. The Markless were in this together.

Meg was good with numbers, always had been—astonishingly

good, in fact—so it was Meg’s job to keep watch over the community. She’d counted with ease the number of Markless underground to begin with—2,370—and if that number changed, even by a

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single head, Meg would be able to tell. She waited up on the catwalk now, keeping watch.

Blake and Hailey rallied the Markless throughout the turbine

room, mustering support and scrounging for help from whoever

was willing. Already, their task had proved valuable; that evening the two of them had successfully found eight pairs of magnecuffs that had been hoarded among the crowd. “For disguise,” she told Logan and the others. “You never know . . .”

“Thanks, Hailey,” they said uncertainly.

But Peck smiled. “I’ll make sure we use ’em.”

Even Rusty had an important job, though the rest of the Dust

dreaded the scenario in which he would have to make use of it.

If worse came to worst, Rusty was the decoy. He’d wait on

the catwalk with Meg, and at the first sign of DOME interference, Rusty would run out into the upper hallways and exit into the alley outside. He would attract DOME’s attention, keeping them on

ground level for as long as he could while the Dust scrambled to close up shop below.

Every member of the Dust had a crucial role in the Great Prison Break of Acheron, though none more important than the prison

breakers themselves. From the beginning, this job was Logan’s

and Peck’s, and everyone knew it was theirs alone. During the

planning that night, this particular division of labor came up for discussion not once.

Less expected, though, was Joanne, who partway into the

planning volunteered to follow as backup.

“You don’t even agree with what we’re doing here,” Peck said.

“Maybe not,” Joanne told him. “But I believe in the fight.”

Again Peck refused, but Joanne insisted, and in the end their

argument prompted Eddie to volunteer as well.

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Peck was very proud in that moment to have the friends that

he had. After all the fighting and doubt had passed . . . after all the hopelessness and second-guessing had run its course, the Dust had stuck together.

It was time to save Lily.

10

Logan went first. Peck and the others followed close behind.

Once they’d made it past the maintenance rooms and into the

power tunnels of the fusion reactor, they had to crawl, shimmying on their stomachs, pressed against a humming coil on one side and a concrete wall on the other.

They could not have turned around if they wanted to.

There was not enough room for that.

The tunnel into which Logan and the others had entered eventually branched off into an even narrower tube, with an even lower ceiling, so small that they had to keep their heads turned sideways just to fit. Logan tried hard to hold back the encroaching claustrophobia, but there were moments when he felt certain that he’d end up stuck in this tunnel forever, blocked in by the unimaginable weight of the skyscrapers above them.

He pushed on all the same. One inch at a time. One elbow in

front of the next.

Eventually, the tube led out to an air duct that ended about six
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feet off the ground, in a corner of a large vestibule, which Logan could see through the duct’s grated metal cover.

“How’s it look?” Peck whispered. “What’s in there?”

Logan hated being in the confined space of the air duct. But

the thought of venturing out into the space he saw before him

now . . . that was much worse.

“It’s the holding room, all right,” Logan said.

Peck took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said. “Logan and I descend.

Jo and Eddie, you know what to do in the holding room.”

But Logan shook his head. “No. Change of plans. Only I

descend.”

“Logan, we talked about this. I need to be a part of—”

“A part of Lily’s rescue—
I
know
,” Logan replied. “But, Peck, I think someone needs to stay in this vent—”

“Absolutely n—”

“
I
think
someone
needs
to
stay
in
this
vent
,” Logan repeated, “be cause I’m looking at the number of guards in there. And I think there’s a good chance we’re going to need two tries at this.”

Peck frowned, though Logan couldn’t see it. “Two tries?

Logan . . .”

“Peck. Listen to me. I’m not liking these odds.”

11

Eventually Peck agreed to wait behind in the air duct while Jo and Eddie prepared their part and Logan made the first attempt to

sneak into Acheron.

Logan removed the grate carefully, trying not to make any

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Evan Angler

noise or draw any attention to his entrance. His goal was to slip undetected into the newest batch of arriving flunkees and make sure that no one got any bright ideas about that air duct.

When Logan finally did jump down into the vestibule and

clamp on his own sets of magnecuffs—one for his wrists, one for his ankles—he decided he liked the tunnels better, claustrophobia and all.

The holding room was as gray and filthy and neglected as one

might expect a prison holding room to be. Flies swarmed around in the air and followed flunkees wherever they went, and as everyone’s hands and feet were bound, there was nothing anyone could do to swat them away.

Worse than the flies, though, were the guards. The “Moderators.”

The IMPS. They were everywhere, dozens of them, all taking shifts herding the Markless from a set of metal sliding doors to the main sign-in desk, and beyond that, to the elevator at the room’s end.

Once there, it seemed certain there was no coming back.

That, of course, would be Jo and Eddie’s job to fix.

Logan could see the mass of newest arrivals put into a line as they slowly approached the sign-in desk, where a different type of guard stood by, labeled not as a “Moderator,” but as a “Coordinator.”

Logan figured this must be a higher-ranked individual. He stood counting heads as the new arrivals shuffled past the desk and into the elevator behind it.

There was something odd about that Coordinator, though,

along with the Moderators who manned the room. Something

Logan had never seen before.

The men were Marked. But not on their hands.

Each one of them was Marked on his face.

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When Logan stepped toward the sign-in desk, one of the many

Moderators stepped sharply in front of him.

“Don’t recognize this one,” he said to the Coordinator. “Didn’t see him come in with the others.”

Logan felt his heart speed up. He was sure he would faint.

Stay
strong
, Logan told himself.
This
is
for
Lily
.

For a long, agonizing moment, the Coordinator leaned in and

peered at Logan. He raised an eyebrow. He eyed the magnecuffs.

Then he studied Logan’s face again. “Must be some mistake,” the Coordinator said. “This one goes to level one. Let him through.”

It worked.

He couldn’t believe it worked!

As Logan passed the sign-in desk, his magnecuffs automatically released. He walked freely to the elevator, where another team of Moderators packed him in so tight with the rest of the flunkees, he could have lifted his feet from the ground and not fallen over.

12

Luckily for Logan, his elevator ride was short. One floor down, and he was off. He was inside. Level one.

He’d made it into Acheron.

Except it was nothing like he’d imagined.

He’d heard of the fire. And ice. And snakes. He’d heard of

the blindness. And tar. And desperation. He’d heard of no escape.

Instead . . . what Logan saw before him . . . was
nice
.

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Ten

Acheron

1

The Acheron Logan stepped into was like

a vast, interior courtyard, miles across and intimidating in its scope, but otherwise peaceful and calm. Scattered between the