The cold rain continued to fall on the Plaza of Zeros. It washed the dirt and blood from Evan Kennedy’s face. Evan stood still. He looked down the dark, wet street where the Collector had disappeared. The scary man with the black umbrella and the empty void eyes was gone. But his warning still hung in the heavy air. The true harvest begins tomorrow.Marco sat on the wet stone bench, holding his broken ribs. He coughed, spitting a little bit of blood onto the ground. "Well," Marco groaned, "that is just perfect. We break the biggest casino in the world, and they tell us it was only a test."Glitch peeked out from behind Evan’s legs. The tiny hacker held his broken computer tablet against his chest like a shield. "Evan, the Collector said there are thousands of branches. The Bank is everywhere. How can we fight the whole world?"Evan looked at his bare hands. For a long time, he had been the Glitch. He had carried the purple fire of the Spark. He had the power to stop bullets and hack

The poison was real. And it was falling fast. "There it is!" Glitch yelled, pointing a dirty finger. At the end of the street was a massive, wide staircase leading underground. The entrance was lined with dirty white tiles. A large, flickering neon sign above the stairs read: HYPER-TRAIN: GLOBAL TRANSIT. "Down the stairs!" Evan shouted. They threw themselves down the concrete steps. The stairs were steep and slippery from the rain. Glitch slipped and bounced down three steps on his bottom, but he jumped right back up and kept running. Evan and Marco stumbled, holding onto the metal handrail to keep from falling. The three surviving Silencers followed them silently. They reached the bottom of the stairs. They were inside the subway terminal. It was massive. It looked like an underground cathedral. The ceiling was incredibly high, held up by thick pillars of polished silver metal. The floor was smooth, clean black stone. Bright white fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. It was a

The Hyper-Train was a silver bullet shooting through the absolute dark. Inside the train car, it did not feel like they were moving. The ride was incredibly smooth. There were no bumps. There was no shaking. The train floated on a cushion of blue magnetic energy, speeding through a deep underground tunnel at five hundred miles per hour. But Evan Kennedy knew the truth. They were not flying toward freedom. They were flying into a trap. Evan sat on the edge of a soft, perfectly white leather seat. He stared at the locked silver doors. The doors had no handles. They had no hinges. They were thick, solid slabs of heavy metal. They were completely sealed. "We are trapped," Marco groaned. The grifter was lying flat on his back on the long leather bench. His face was the color of dirty ash. He held his real hand tightly against his broken ribs. Every time he took a breath, his face twisted in terrible pain. His right arm, the heavy robotic arm, was a crushed, useless mess of broken w

"Get off?" Marco laughed, but it was a dry, panicked sound. "Sunshine, we are moving at five hundred miles per hour over a bottomless pit! The doors are locked! And even if they were open, jumping means instant death!""The train is slowing down," Evan noticed. It was true. Because they were approaching the station, the Hyper-Train was beginning its automatic braking sequence. The speed dropped from five hundred. To four hundred. To three hundred. But three hundred miles per hour was still too fast to survive a jump. Suddenly, a soft hissing sound filled the train car. Sssssssss. "Do you smell that?" Marco asked, sniffing the air. A sweet, sickly smell like fake flowers and rotten fruit began to fill the cabin. Thin streams of white gas started spraying from small vents hidden in the ceiling. "It is sleep gas!" Glitch yelled, covering his mouth and nose with his hands. "The Board’s internal security! They want to knock us out before we arrive! They want us alive for the labora

Evan slowly stood up. His entire body ached. His muscles felt like they were filled with heavy sand. The cuts on his face stung. His right hand throbbed with a deep, hot pain where he had smashed the Architect’s master gear. He walked over to a small, round window on the side of the baggage car. Evan pressed his dirty, tired face against the cold glass. He looked out. The train was moving away from Sector Zero. It was not traveling on the high bridges anymore. It was moving along a track that went down, toward the middle layers of the world. Far in the distance, behind them and far below, Evan could see the Slums. He could see Sector One. It looked very small from up here. The dark, thick gray smog covered most of the ground. But through the smog, Evan saw something beautiful. He did not see the terrible, sickly green clouds of poison gas. The Sector Purge had failed. Instead, he saw dozens of bright, orange fires burning in the dark city. He saw the broken, ruined top of the