1
POP! POP! POP!
Deep below Beacon City’s tangle of streets and skyscrapers and protests and politics, Acheron’s training room was exploding with the fireworks of four dozen IMP-issued taser rifles. The shots crackled and whizzed and ricocheted across the space with a furious chaos, but Lily Langly never flinched. Instead, she looked on, unblinking, as Eddie Blackall gripped his own shaking gun . . . and her only emotion was shame. This boy was clumsy. He was unfocused. All around him, IMP trainees fired shot after shot of electrobullets at targets that popped out from corners, bounced up and down, rolled along on the ground . . . and through all of it, Eddie just watched.
Across the floor and surrounding him was a massive, complex obstacle course made up to look like Beacon’s city streets, and on each towering wall of the place was a floor-to-ceiling projection of the City Center skyline. Superimposed on top of this was a series of scoreboards pacing each Moderator against one another by squad, ranking them all in a myriad of categories from accuracy, to firing rate, to each Moderator’s ability to determine quickly the difference between Marked and Unmarked targets.
Lily’s ears rang with the echoing rounds of the taser rifles before her, and she looked up at that big projected scoreboard with disgust.
Dead last. The only other trainee ever to have fallen even within spitting distance of Eddie’s current score was Harry Raiman . . . and Harry couldn’t even pass bed making.
“Look alive, Blackall!” Lily scowled at him as she said it, and Eddie fumbled hopelessly with the chamber of his gun. Was it jammed? Was the safety on? Lily couldn’t imagine what was going through this kid’s head. He reached into his shoulder strap for a new canister of electrobullets, and it rattled in his sweaty fingers before slipping out and falling to the ground.
Crack. The casing shattered. Dozens of pellets scattered across the ground, buzzing with unspent voltage.
Beside Lily, a supervising Mitigator stood, arms folded in total disgust and disbelief.
“I don’t understand it,” he whispered to her. “He is without a doubt the worst recruit we’ve had in months. What does the general see in him?”
“Moderator Blackall has a past,” Lily said. “He’s a catch. Right now he’s our closest connection to the Dust.”
“The terrorist cell? From New Chicago?”
Advocate Langly nodded. “That’s the one.”
“This is one of the great Markless traitors DOME was getting so carried away with?”
“That’s correct.”
The Mitigator laughed. “Cylis,” he said. “What on earth were they worried about?”
Lily looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “What does any government worry about?” She took a short breath. “Loyalty.”
“These Dust kids,” Lily continued. “They got swept up in something strong. This wasn’t just idle dissatisfaction, not just some impudent huddle. These guys were aggressive. And, talented or not, Moderator Blackall was at the very front of that line.”
Eddie knelt down to collect his pellets. They bounced and shocked him, their electric-blue lightning arcs finding his fingers and pricking them one by one.
“I’ve heard whispers that he’s starting to doubt,” the Mitigator said. “His poor performance, his attitude . . . There are Moderators that are beginning to question his very commitment to Lamson and Cylis. To the IMPS. The word they’re using . . . saying he’s ‘backsliding’ . . . except, that’s impossible. Right, Advocate? No one backslides.”
The Mitigator looked at her, and Lily sighed. “Technically, you’re incorrect, Mitigator. Some traitors do. Over time, in certain cases, prior, misguided associations can seep back in. Memories of bad habits realign. There is a . . . a falling away. It’s a terrible thing to see.”
The Mitigator frowned in thought. “But . . . who do you know that’s ever . . . ?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Lily said. “She’s fixed now.”
Ahead of them, Eddie’s pellets sparked and popped like jumping beans as their current found his clumsy hands. And Eddie began to laugh.
Well, that does it. Lily took a decisive step toward the wall beside her. She hit a switch so hard that the impact echoed through the space. Immediately, the scoreboard overhead flickered and went out. The cityscape around them vanished. The targets froze in place. And all the lights in that cavernous room turned on in a bright, fluorescent flood of white.
“Attention!” Advocate Langly yelled, and all four squads of IMP trainees climbed out from the obstacle course and stood straight and stiff and ready for orders. Except for Eddie. Eddie was sitting on a piece of foam rubble, shaking his hand and sucking on his fingers.
“Sorry.” He laughed. “They’re numb. From the shocks.”
But Lily was not amused. The Moderators would run laps, she ordered—two hundred of them. “One for each shock on Moderator Blackall’s miserly hand.”
Eddie’s squad mates looked at him furiously, though none dared complain.
“Hey—last one to two hundred’s a rotten egg,” Eddie said, but Lily stopped him before he could take his first step.
“Not you, Moderator. You’re coming with me.”
Now there was a murmur among the line of Moderators. Eddie slung his rifle onto his back. For a moment he smirked, as though he’d just thought of the greatest comeback. And yet some part of him must have thought better than to share it—a rare display of self-restraint, perhaps, upon seeing the anger in Lily’s eyes.
Eddie looked down and cleared his throat.
He followed Advocate Langly out of training.
2
At that same moment, on the two-hundredth floor of Barrier Street’s highest skyscraper, the Beacon City Stock Exchange reeled with its own chaotic fury. It had been pandemonium on Barrier Street ever since the Union merger—what had once been capital of the western economy alone was suddenly the epicenter of the entire globe’s, and the transition had not been kind to anyone involved.
No one was more aware of this than Dr. Olivia Arbitor, though it would have been hard to tell just by looking at her. Currently, Dr. Arbitor stood, resting both arms casually against the glass overlook above the B.C.S.E. trading floor, absorbing the frenzy and trying not to think about . . . well, anything at all.
A decorated professor of economics, Dr. Arbitor had transitioned from academia to public finance the moment General Lamson implemented Europe’s Mark program ten years ago. Ever since, it had been her job to ensure a smooth transition between the American Union and European Union economies. For years, Dr. Arbitor had flown back and forth between Beacon City and Third Rome over in Europe, working tirelessly toward the day when the two countries might finally be one.
But just over two weeks ago, with the signing of the Global Union treaty pushed hastily through Parliament on both sides of the Atlantic, that day had arrived just a little bit too soon.
Indeed, from the perspective of the Beacon City Stock Exchange, it was a worst-case scenario: a scramble that Olivia had worked ten years to prevent. But looking down on that trading floor now, seeing the aftermath in full force, Dr. Arbitor found to her terrible surprise that frankly, amazingly . . . she couldn’t have cared less.
Olivia had been fielding frantic calls all day from every corner of the Global Union, putting out economic fires and issuing press releases to what felt like every last newspaper this side of the Atlantic. “What are you doing to fight inflation?” people were asking. “What do you have to say about America’s debt?” “Do you think General Lamson adequately thought through the effects this merger would have on Marked pension plans?” And on and on, the same old stuff.
In fact, unless, by some grace of Cylis, it had ended without her, Olivia was pretty sure there was another conference call going on back in her office right now, at this very minute, even as she stood out here on this quiet balcony.
So, after a few more short moments of respite, she turned around, braced herself, and walked right back into the thick of it.
“I’m sorry, what was that?” Dr. Arbitor asked as she sat back down at her desk. “’Fraid you were cutting in and out for a minute there.”
The voice on the other end of the line sizzled with anger and agitation. “I said we really need you over in Third Rome—now—to pick up the pieces on Europe’s end of this transition.”
“It isn’t my fault your Parliament pushed that G.U. treaty through before Barrier Street was ready, Bill. We’d been prepping for this merger for nearly a decade now. You’re telling me you couldn’t have waited another three months? I mean, what did you expect would happen?”
Dr. Arbitor took a deep breath and tuned out the next several things Bill said. When it seemed he was done, she shrugged absently. “Sure, Bill. Whatever you say.”
“Does that mean you’re getting on a shuttle? Does that mean you’ll be here in the morning? Because I really need for it to mean that you’ll be here in the morning, Olivia.”
“I have to go, Bill. We’ll talk.”
“We’re talking now. I’m asking for answers now, Liv.”
Dr. Arbitor ended the call without even registering she’d done it.
And for a moment, then, she sat, staring blankly at the wallscreens of her windowless office. In front of her was a drawing, displayed electronically just as it had been every day for the past six years, sketched long ago by her daughter, Erin.
“Any word?”
The voice came unexpectedly from the doorway behind her, and Olivia jumped when she heard it. She turned in her chair and nodded when she saw him.
“Hiya, Mac. Good to see you.”
“Just wondering if . . . I dunno. Just wondering if you’d heard anything, maybe.”
Dr. Arbitor shook her head. She knew Mac and Erin had been close. Summers growing up, Erin spent nearly every day cooped up in this small Barrier Street office, and indeed, nearly all of that time had been spent with Mac. Mac taught Erin everything he knew about computers, about programming, about hacking . . . and he and Erin had certainly caused enough trouble together to prove it. “No sign of her,” Dr. Arbitor said. Then she frowned, and she closed the door on him.
Two months, now. Erin Arbitor had been gone for nearly two full months. Just right up and disappeared.
Olivia was beginning to believe she’d simply never see her daughter again.
Charles Arbitor, the professor’s estranged husband, had long worked as a secret agent for DOME. When Erin first ran away back in December, just off into the night like it was no big deal, Charles spent every last one of his office’s available resources trying to find her. He leveraged every last ounce of influence, cashed in every last favor owed, tried every last thing he could think of to get his daughter back.
But then the whispers started. The rumors of Markless uprisings brewing around the country, standing up to the Union, standing up for the swiped. And those whispers became shouts . . .
And every last one of those shouts traced back to Erin.
In the end, all that effort Charles had spent getting DOME to investigate his daughter had served only to reveal one basic, horrible fact: Erin Arbitor was a traitor. By using the hacking skills her own mother had encouraged, Erin was the thorn that had uncovered all DOME’s greatest secrets. She wasn’t just gone, it turned out. She was a fugitive. And as long as General Lamson was still in charge of DOME, Charles knew she couldn’t come back.
So after all the Arbitors’ efforts, after all the energy they spent trying to find her, Dr. Arbitor’s husband, Charles, now found himself in the unbearable position of having to undo his work. Of having to throw DOME off the trail. Of trying everything he could think of to keep Erin as far away as possible from all the people best equipped to help bring her back.
To find Erin through DOME would be to kill her.
So now a terrible race was on. The Arbitors had to find their daughter first. And through all of it, the only thing Olivia could do was worry.
Dr. Arbitor’s tablet rang again, and for a long while she contemplated not even picking it up. What could one more stupid call possibly matter?
It rang seven times before she finally answered.
“Yeah?” she said. But her eyes went wide when she heard the voice on the other line. It was her husband. Not some financial something or other. Not some politician. It was the father of her missing daughter. And he sounded more worried than she’d ever heard him. Dr. Arbitor turned the video feed on. She could see his face now, over the connection. It was so stripped of life, it looked broken. Like the video connection itself was faulty.
But no. It wasn’t the connection. That was just the state of things.
“Been trying to reach you for hours,” Mr. Arbitor said. “You need to get better at returning my calls.”
“Yeah, well . . . I’ve been busy.”
“Look,” Mr. Arbitor said. “You and I—our differences . . . they’ll keep.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I may need your help on this.”
“Help on what? What? What’s going on?”
Charles Arbitor sighed. “Things just took a turn,” he said. “We’re losing.”
“Losing what?”
“The race.” There was a pause over the connection. “DOME’s just found our daughter.”
3
The elevator ride between Advocate Langly and Eddie Blackall was tense and quiet all the way until it came to a stop, at which point Eddie jumped, hitting the floor so hard that his knees buckled.
“Whoa!” he shouted. “That was a good one!”
Lily looked at him sharply, but Eddie didn’t seem to mind.
“Have you ever noticed that? On elevators. If you’re going down and you jump just as it stops moving, you’ll slam into the ground. Do it as they’re going up, and you’ll float for a second.”
Lily was silent.
“Momentum.” Eddie smiled. “It’s because of momentum.”
The elevator doors opened to a vast room full of desks and nothing else. On each desk was a helmet.
Lily gestured into it. “Level Six.”
And the smile on Eddie’s face vanished at once.
“Wait, what is this?” he asked. “I’ve done this already. You’ve done—” Eddie was panicking now. “You’ve done this to me already.”
“Last time you were here for treason,” Lily said. “Level Nine. This is Six.”
All the humor in him was gone. “What’s Six?”
“Heresy. To disrespect training is to disrespect the IMPS. To disrespect the IMPS is to disrespect General Lamson and Chancellor Cylis. And that, Moderator Blackall, is heresy.”
Lily pushed him down the path between two endlessly long lines of desks, buried far below the surface of Beacon City. The Advocate’s strides were so fast and confident, Eddie had to step double-time not to fall.
“But you can’t. You can’t just . . . This is torture!” Eddie pleaded. “Please! You can’t!”
Advocate Langly raised an eyebrow.
“Do you know the ranks of the IMPS, Moderator Blackall?”
“Yes. No. Wait, I’m pretty sure—”
Lily stopped him. “Moderator—that’s you. Then Counselor. Then Mitigator. Then Coordinator. Those are the four levels, in order, of the subservient ranks. From there, we have Advocates—that’s me—then Champions, then Presiders, and then Deciders. Those are the Controlling Ranks. They give the orders to the subservients. And last, of course, is the general. General Lamson.”
“So then how come when we Pledge, we Pledge to Cylis? If our highest rank is the general, then why in the world aren’t we Pledging to him? I mean, who’s actually supposed to be in charge here? How can I be the picture of loyalty if I don’t even know who it is I’m supposed to be loyal to?”
Lily smiled and sidestepped the question. “You,” she said, “are subservient. You are the lowest of the subservients. And I fail to see what about this is confusing to you.” She frowned. “I, meanwhile, am a Controller. There are not many of us. None have yet even made it to the rank of Decider. None in the world.
“Now, Moderator Blackall, because you were stupid enough to implicate me in your futile attempt at a break-in last month, I’ve been assigned the thankless task of monitoring your worthless training progress. And do you know what I’ve seen? I’ve seen a little Dusty miser who’s managed to actually get worse with each passing day. I’ve seen a troublemaker who wakes up each morning a little less fixed. A little less loyal. And a whole lot less serious. You began with such promise! And now look at you—you’re a worm! Writhing around, claiming small victories with each passing joke. And thinking . . . what? That if you backslide far enough, we’ll just let you go? We’ll just give up? Just open Acheron’s door and let you run back up to your little skinflint friends in the Dust?”
Eddie was silent.
“No! We will fix you. We will Revise you! Just as we did the first time. Just as we’ll do every time. As many times as it takes for Revision to stick. Do you understand me, Eddie?”
Eddie looked into Lily’s eyes with open terror.
“I very much can do this,” the Advocate told him. “And you very much will obey.”
Eddie pointed to his forehead with a single, shaking finger. “But I Pledged. I’m Marked. I did this already. I’ve already Pledged!”
Lily shook her head. “A Pledge is not a promise, Moderator Blackall. It’s a way of life. And you backslid. This is what happens when you backslide.”
Eddie was very serious now. Precisely as serious as the situation demanded.
“Advocate. Advocate, it’s me. Eddie. Your brother’s friend. We came here to rescue you, back in December. It wasn’t a ‘break-in.’ It was a rescue mission. I . . . I risked everything to rescue you. Your name is Lily Langly. You’re a good person. You may not remember it. But I know that you are. And you don’t have to do this!”
Lily showed no sign of hearing him. Instead, she pushed Eddie down onto an open desk, and as he spoke, she slipped the BCI helmet over his head and face. The brain-computer interface. The total immersion torture. It would last as long as it needed to last. It would last until Eddie was broken. Until he recognized the truth. That his was a great and powerful country, led by great and powerful men. And that defending this country was a very serious honor, indeed.
His final words were muffled. “. . . have to do this!” barely even made it out of the helmet.
“On Level Nine your punishment was the frozen lake,” Lily said, latching the helmet’s lock. “But Level Six is fire.” She hesitated. Then quickly, sadly, under her breath, she added, “Be grateful. Trust me. Level Six isn’t quite as bad.” She closed her eyes when she turned the thing on.
She squeezed them tighter. Even the thick, metal helmet wasn’t enough to snuff out Eddie’s screams.
4
DOME’s Beacon headquarters was not the architectural marvel that New Chicago’s Umbrella was out west. There, it was a glass-floored disk atop a fifty-story spire, totally unique and imposing. Here, it was an office building, just the middle twenty floors of your average, pass-right-by-it skyscraper. Below it were a couple of poorly managed nonprofit organizations. Above it were the annex offices of a small European bank.
In Beacon, the Department of Marked Emergencies preferred to keep a low profile; its agents hid in plain sight. And it was in this way that the headquarters avoided the worst of the Markless protest’s wrath, for the Markless simply didn’t know where to aim.
Not all of the offices inside Beacon’s DOME headquarters were as dreary as the building’s outside might have suggested, of course—some had nice windows, others good light and plenty of space. But Charles Arbitor’s was practically a closet.
Ever since he’d been reassigned to Beacon after the botched raid he led against the Dust back on a Midwestern farm in December, the perks of Mr. Arbitor’s job had rapidly dried up. No longer did Mr. Arbitor have any agents under his command. No longer did his day-to-day activities include detective work, or even fieldwork. These days, Mr. Arbitor shuffled documents on a lowres, hand-me-down tablescreen, slogging through one menial task after another and taking orders from office men who just this past fall would have begged to serve under his command.
And then a month ago the news arrived of Erin Arbitor’s treasonous crimes.
Mr. Arbitor wasn’t fired. But the menial tasks got much, much worse.
For his part, Charles Arbitor never complained. He knew precisely what kind of thin ice he was on, and the last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to himself as he secretly did everything he could to throw DOME off Erin’s trail. But last night, when the word came around about DOME’s current lead on Erin’s whereabouts out west near Sierra, Mr. Arbitor realized he couldn’t keep quiet anymore. Presently, with his tie fixed and his breath held and his hair brushed carefully back, he was walking to DOME’s Beacon headquarters main office. And he was knocking on the door.
“Come in,” said the woman through the frosted glass.
Charles Arbitor turned the knob slowly. “I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am.”
“It’s no trouble, Charles. What can I do for you?”
Mr. Arbitor cleared his throat and took a step toward the desk. “Nothing, really, ma’am, I just . . . Any further update on the Erin Arbitor situation?”
Head Agent Samantha Tate looked at Charles with some strange mix of pity and irritation.
“Not since the update you received—what was it, now—fifteen minutes ago?” She smiled. “But don’t worry. It’s only a matter of time before we move in.”
Mr. Arbitor took a deep breath. “Ma’am,” he said gingerly. “You know I hate coming here like this. You know I hate even to bring this up, but . . . well . . .” He chose his words carefully. “In light of all of this . . . have you ever considered the possibility that, perhaps, there’s a good explanation for Erin’s criminal behavior?”
“Of course there’s an good explanation,” Tate said. “She fell in love with a criminal. What, you think Logan Langly and the rest of those Dust traitors haven’t rubbed off on her by now?”
“Sure,” Mr. Arbitor said. “Sure, yes, that’s what I’ve always thought too. Except . . . the thing is, ma’am . . . Erin had been working with us. The whole time. She was helping us. Helping us find the Langly boy, doing everything she could to reason with him . . . right up until the moment she disappeared. I honestly believe Erin was on DOME’s side.” Mr. Arbitor sighed. “I guess I just don’t see where her sudden change of heart might have come from, unless a good reason came along with it.”
Tate shrugged impatiently. “So what are you suggesting, hm? Go on. Out with it.”
“Nothing in particular, I suppose.” Mr. Arbitor looked bashfully at his feet. “It’s only that, when I came to work for DOME, it was my understanding that our mission here was to promote Unity and peace.”
“Of course.”
“And now out of the blue we’re told, ten years later, that our own General-in-Chief Lamson has been assembling a flunkee army of IMPS this whole time? I mean, what kind of government builds an army with another country’s leader? No matter how friendly their heads of state are, you have to agree, it’s more than a little strange.”
Tate sighed. “The chancellor has always been an ally, Charles. You know that. Our movement toward a Global Union has been well-known—anticipated, even—for quite some time. Its leaders’ shared ownership of the IMPS is perfectly consistent, in light of that.”
“Okay,” Charles said. “But what does a Global Union need an army for? Who are they planning to fight? Wasn’t the G.U. Treaty ratified in order to end wars and violence and conflict? Wasn’t that the point of all of this?”
“The IMPS are not soldiers, Charles. They’re Moderators. The ‘P’ stands for Peace.”
“I know that,” Mr. Arbitor said meekly. “But we can call them whatever we want—the fact is, they’re Pledge process flunkees who have been trained to fight. Flunkees, Tate! I was told flunkees were a myth!”
“And so was I.”
“Then both of us were duped! Right along with everyone else in this office. And the only reason we know that now is because of Erin.”
“Everything she’s done has been illegal, Charles. Everything.”
“I know that, ma’am. I just . . . What else don’t we know? What if there’s more, even, than Acheron and the IMPS? And what if Erin knows it? If there’s even a chance that someone within our ranks is working at cross-purposes with our department’s stated mission of Unity and peace . . . and if Erin has discovered that truth . . . . She’d be a hero, ma’am. Not a traitor.”
Head Agent Tate lowered her eyes and looked down at her desk for some time. “Look, Charles. I’m going to level with you. I have a daughter too. What you must be going through right now . . . I can’t even imagine. And, hey—this IMPS bombshell blindsided me just as much as it did everyone else in this office. But the fact is, Charles, you’re an agent of the Department of Marked Emergencies. And right now, your daughter’s made her way into the middle of a very big emergency. Sitting here, hoping that her intentions are good . . . it’s missing the point. Current intelligence states that Erin Arbitor has acted treasonously. I have orders to take her in, as soon as possible, for questioning. It’s for the security of the Global Union that I do that, Charles. You must understand that.”
“I do,” Mr. Arbitor said. “I do.” There was a long pause between them. “And that’s why I came here today to request that I be assigned to her case.”
For a moment, Head Agent Tate only stared. “Charles, you have to know that’s a horrible idea. How could I possibly expect you to act impartially on this?”
“Because you know me, ma’am. You’ve asked me to jump and I’ve jumped. You sent me out west to find Peck and his Markless threat in Spokie, and I went. You called me back here, and I came. I’m as loyal to this department as any agent’s ever been.” He stood straighter as he said it. “At the end of the day, if my daughter’s broken laws, then I expect her to pay the price for that just as much as anybody else. It’s my job to protect the Marked against the Markless. That’s what I came here to do.”
Tate nodded slowly. “Then I admire your intentions,” she said. “Even if it wouldn’t be professional of me to trust them.” She shrugged. “I’m sorry, Charles. But whatever happens once we have Erin in custody, I want you as far away from it as possible. My answer is no.”
Agent Tate sat back in her chair, clasping her hands behind her head and leaning into them. She ran her tongue around her teeth, waiting for Charles to speak.
“Understood, ma’am,” Mr. Arbitor said. “I apologize for wasting your time.” But he couldn’t bring himself to look at her as he went to let himself out.
“Charles,” the head agent called as Mr. Arbitor opened her office door.
He stopped but didn’t turn. “Yes, ma’am?”
“I will see to it that Erin’s treated fairly. You have my word on that.”
Mr. Arbitor stood for a moment, his back still to his boss.
He said nothing.
He closed the office door softly behind him.
5
Lily was late. Teeth clenched and eyes narrowed, she walked fast through Acheron’s winding bowels as though leaning headfirst into some stormy wind. Disciplining Eddie had put her behind schedule, and she resented him for that. An assembly among the Controlling Ranks was not something to which one was tardy. For any reason. Ever.
She exhaled sharply and picked up the pace, and red lasers in the walls flashed and scanned her Head Mark as she approached the auditorium. Its entrance opened automatically. She stepped inside and quickly found her seat.
“Down to the wire, Advocate. Presider’s just about to begin.”
It was that smug Champion who’d said it. Seating order never changed at these Roll Rank Assemblies, and Lily had been expecting an earful. Even if she hadn’t been late, this guy surely would have found something to reproach. He always did—it was a matter of what, not if. But Lily hated giving him a reason, all the same.
“I had a Moderator needing Revision,” Lily said simply. “It couldn’t wait.”
“Acknowledged,” the Champion said, as though he had any real power over her.
He didn’t, in fact. Their squads’ chains of command had nothing to do with each other’s, and on some level, the Controlling Ranks were supposed to be peers anyway. But the Champion sure did enjoy his title.
No matter, Lily thought. And she told herself she’d remember this when the day came that her own rank leapfrogged his.
“So anyone here have any idea what this Roll Rank’s all about? It’s hardly the first of the month.”
Around her, the auditorium buzzed with the speculation of over a thousand eager Controllers. Roll Rank meetings—IMP jargon for the assemblies among the Controlling Ranks—had always been monthly; Lily couldn’t even remember the last time a special session had been called.
“Must have something to do with the merger,” the Champion said. “I’m sure Council is anxious to address the rumors.”
Lily raised an eyebrow. What rumors?
“All right, Controllers, call to order!” the Presider boomed from the stage as the Council streamed in behind him. “Simulcasts, are you with us? New Chicago out west? Gulf Bay down south? We all together?”
On the walls of the auditorium were one-to-one scale projections of the lecture halls at Acheron’s mirror sites across America, giving the impression from where Lily sat that all three audiences were assembled together in the same gigantic space. There was a general assent among the ranks in the projections. Everyone was here.
“Good,” said the Presider, although this was just a formality. Lily was quite certain that Council knew full well before walking out on stage that every assigned seat in all three assembly halls was filled. The active Markscans on each seat back confirmed it. One simply did not miss Roll Rank.
“Then let us begin,” the Presider said. “First of all, allow me to say that, in light of the ongoing Markless riots across Beacon and New Chicago, I’d like to keep today’s meeting brief; I know how eager all of you must be to return to your positions. Marked citizens across America are thanking you for your outstanding moderation of the peace in our streets, and the last thing I want to do is distract you from your duties to them.” The Presider nodded quickly, as though punctuating his own selflessness. “That being said, our Council has assembled us here today because, concurrent with these trying Markless protests above ground, there is a matter that we feel requires additional attention from us right down here below.”
The Presider lifted his arms. “Controllers. The dawn of a new era is upon us. An era without borders, without violence, without the very concept of ‘difference’ itself. Nationality, culture, religion, perspective . . . I speak to you today from a world’s stage in which all of these divisions are no more.
“Unity!” the Presider said. “Finally! Unity.”
A wave of applause swept through the house, but Lily couldn’t help noticing a certain shuffle among the seats around her. A certain discomfort, perhaps, accompanying each clap. What was it these IMPS knew that she didn’t?
“Advocates, Champions, fellow Presiders . . . Fourteen days ago, our long-awaited Global Union became a permanent reality. The integration of East and West is now complete. And understandably, this has led many of you to wonder, ‘Well? What does our new Unity mean for me?’” The Presider paused. “An excellent question.” And the Presider stepped away from his podium, pacing down toward the front of the stage to speak now more directly with the IMPS in the audience. “First of all, Controllers, allow the Council and me to reassure you: At the moment, our chain of command remains unchanged. Standard Operating Procedure remains unchanged. Your day-to-day activities remain unchanged.
“You will not become the subordinates of our European brethren. You will not be receiving mixed signals from your superiors on account of the impending two-head system between General Lamson and Chancellor Cylis. Your roles in the world will not be reduced to ‘glorified police officers’ or ‘relief aid missionaries’ or whatever else your peers have been saying in these last few weeks. Our new perfect Unity does not make our forces any less relevant today than they were prior to the ratification of this great Global Treaty.
“In fact, Controllers—quite the opposite.
“While we recognize that the Articles of Unification are a work in progress, and while it is true that they do not yet fully address all foreseeable details of the impending East-West IMPS integration, it is critical for each of you to understand that your job, both to your fellow IMPS and to the Marked citizens you have Pledged to protect, is the same now as ever. Our goals are unchanged, our stature is unchanged, our roles are unchanged—”
There was a growing murmur now, around the lecture hall.
“And, for the time being, any speculation you might have heard suggesting otherwise is baseless, reckless, and absolutely without place among our ranks. Is that clear?”
In unison, all three auditoriums replied, “Yes, sir.” But it did little to cut the tension in the air.
“In many ways, Controllers, this integration is the ultimate fulfillment of every IMP’s original and, to this day, fundamental purpose. Since our inception, we have always Pledged loyalty to the great Chancellor Cylis in Europe. We have always regarded him as our one true savior, as the man who pulled us up from the ashes of the Total War and the terrors of our former, Unmarked lives. And now, Controllers, finally—all of us will have the honor of serving under this great leader directly.
“We have always owed a debt of thanks to our brothers and sisters in the European Moderators of Peace. Their exemplary institutional model made our own success possible. It will be a privilege to work more closely with them. And at present, there is no evidence whatsoever suggesting that any of this will adversely affect the rank, status, or responsibilities of any Controller in this room. Therefore, the Council and I have called you here today to let it be known, in no uncertain terms, that effective immediately, any public or private display of doubt, inflexibility, or pessimism regarding the impending merger of our Union’s great East-West IMP system will be classified as destructive rumormongering, and it will be heresy punishable by a stay of any length necessary in the helmets of Level Six.”
A silence spread through the house like ice crystals across water.
“Now. Any questions?”
Lily expected not. The consequences, already, were clear. And yet, several rows in front of her and over to her left, one brave Champion surprised her.
“I have a question, sir.”
For a moment, the Presider just stared. Already, the Council behind him was whispering, and IMP guards at the back of the auditorium began to shift and prepare.
But finally, the Presider answered, glancing down at his podium first to see its tablescreen’s display of the Champion’s personal Markscan. “All right, Champion. This Council welcomes your interest.”
The Champion took a deep breath, perhaps gathering his resolve.
“Presider . . . for weeks now, the official story from on high is that everything among our ranks will be business as usual. Your statements today confirm this, and I am glad for it. But the fact remains that you still haven’t told us who is actually in charge here. The general? Or the chancellor?”
“As I’ve said, Champion, both men will be—”
“Yes, I know what you’ve said. And I understand that your answers will suffice most of the time. But, Presider—there simply has to be one, ultimate leader. What if there’s a disagreement between the general and the chancellor? What then? Whose orders would we follow? Will the International Moderators of Peace remain neutral in cases of discordant command? Or does one vote supersede the other? How is no one considering this? It is imperative that we know the answer!”
The Presider grimaced a bit before answering. But finally, he said, “Champion, I can assure you—there is absolutely no reason to believe that Lamson and Cylis will ever be anything but completely Unified. Any suggestion to the contrary is an outrageous speculation, and there is simply no place for it in this assembly hall. There will not be disagreement—”
“Yes, but what if there is?”
“There won’t be. End of story.”
Behind him, the Council members nodded. Quietly, IMP guards descended upon the questioner. The Controllers around him sat rigid, staring at the ground. The Presider smiled. “Thank you, IMPS. That is all for today. Controllers dismissed.” And the meeting ended as abruptly as that.
Coming out of Roll Rank, Lily found herself walking slowly, aimlessly through Acheron’s winding halls. She’d been blindsided by the clear undercurrent of division over Global Unity. And even more so by the suggestion that Lamson and Cylis could ever be anything but totally United. For several minutes she walked, wondering how these developments changed things.
But her train of thought had not gone far before a lone man stepped forward, weaving in front of her against the current of Controllers as the assembly’s crowd dispersed.
“Advocate Langly?” the man said.
“Yes?” Lily froze. This man was no IMP. But she recognized him, all the same. His was the last face she expected to see in these halls. Immediately, cold sweat beaded at her hairline and down her back.
“Advocate, my name is Michael Cheswick, former director of DOME’s Umbrella out west in Spokie.”
“I remember, sir.” How could she forget the man who’d assembled the Trumpet Task Force last summer? How could she forget the man who’d personally ordered the murder of nearly two dozen innocent Marked at Lily’s hands? She nodded now and saluted him, but it took much of her willpower to do so.
“Quite a remarkable few months, huh, Advocate Langly?”
Lily nodded. “Please forgive my surprise, sir. I . . . I didn’t know you’d been transferred to Beacon.”
Michael Cheswick nodded. “When the riots began.” He laughed. “Oh, I don’t work here, of course, in Acheron! No, no. I work with the general, in the Capitol Building. One of several advisors, made useful by my knowledge of Trumpet, as I’m sure you understand.” He gestured ahead. “Please. Advocate. Will you walk with me?”
Lily hesitated. She wanted to be very far away from this man. Slowly, she shook her head. “I’m afraid I’m occupied, sir. I have a Moderator in Revision, and it’s important that I check in on him. So if you’ll excuse me, with your permission—”
“Permission denied, Advocate. This matter is urgent.”
Lily swallowed. “The Moderator’s condition should take precedence,” she said. “Excess time in a helmet can make a person fragile. My work with him, really . . . it’s time sensitive. It can’t be interrupted.”
Cheswick looked at her, mouth slightly open, one eyebrow raised. He laughed a mean laugh. “By Chancellor Cylis, it can.”