Spiders flee into the tunnels below. Nothing in sight in the false night of the deep. Eyes searched and breath rattled. Nothing to see in the tunnel that does not end.

The earth shakes, and rail breaks. A long horn pierces the dark subway track. Run, it's coming. Rumble and shake, it's coming. The horn roared, and metal screeched. The tunnel bathed in baleful light. It's here.

Lights ablaze, it came crashing.

Will jolted awake with a gasp, the horn still ringing in his ear. He breathed hard, one hand on his stump leg. It twitched, and he felt the familiar sensation prickling up his leg, but the expected shakes didn't come. It, too, faded away along with the nightmare.

Drenched in cold sweat, he groggily reached for his sock and prosthetic limb. His hands shook as he put them on, but he forced himself to get up. Today was the big day.

He stepped out of his tiny bedroom into the front room. The house was empty, and there was a note taped to the fridge.

"Eat before you go.
I know you don't need it, but good luck, honey.
Love, Mom."

Will stuffed the note in his pocket. He barely spent a minute to scarf down the food before leaving the house. The rendezvous point was on the Tower outershell at the 45th floor. It was a long way away, and he needed to get going before the morning traffic.

Will rushed to the station and realized that he had severely underestimated the crowd. The day had just started, and the celebration was going strong. It looked like the entire tower was up and about.

The rails were jam-packed, and Will had to resort to hopping onto the goods train again. Two train rides and three detours later, he had reached his destination.

Will pushed past the milling students and made his way into the Tower shell. It had been a scant few days, but Will remembered the O.A.Ts. The shell was remarkably similar to the one in the VR. Rail tracks lined the floor, and shield generators were placed every hundred feet.

"Attention! Please clear the way," one of the vested officers yelled into the loudspeaker. "Make way."

A colossal airship was slowly wheeled out onto the tracks, and the students scrambled out of its way. The plane was a C-250 Hercules, approximately three stories high, towering over even the shield generators. Each plane could transport about 800 passengers, and Will spotted five 250s lining up. There would be a lot of students awakening this year.

The crew barked at the students and herded them away from the moving craft. There were many different uniforms among the student body. Most schools had sent their crop of students for the ceremony. They seemed excited, laughing and joking amongst themselves as they watched the planes with interest.

Will nervously tapped his foot. He had his slate out in front of him, and a checklist scrolled over the screen. There was a lot to do, and Will checked and double-checked each item, worried that there was something he had missed.

He just couldn't shake the feeling that he had overlooked something. Something he hadn't even considered. Most complicated plans tend to go sideways, and it was the same here. With so many moving parts, there were bound to be mistakes.

Above all, he was worried about Scout. Had the little bot made it on-site? Were all smuggled machine parts still intact? Was the intel on the shipping manifest even accurate? There were too many what-ifs in their game plan than what Will was comfortable with. Moreover, it wasn't the odds of success that he was worried about; it was the consequences of failure. If they were caught...

Few jovial laughs came from the students that passed him by, and Will snapped out of his fugue. He looked around the lively crowd. He stuck out like a sore thumb due to his dour mood. If anyone was paying attention, he would look mighty suspicious.

One of the tower police escorting the students out of the way of the airships glanced in his direction, and Will froze. He kept his face as neutral as possible, but his feet betrayed him, still tapping away. He clamped down on his leg and forced it down, muscles tense, ready to leap out when he spotted Remy.

The brunet walked by the police with a spring in his step. He swaggered, mouthing the lyrics to some song when the cop noticed him. The boy gave a jig, and the constable laughed, waving him forward.

Remy strutted ahead and spotted Will. The boy grinned, giving Will a double thumbs-up. Will couldn't help it. He facepalmed and laughed into his hand.

Remy skipped over. "Hey! Hey!"

"Well, someone is having a good morning," Will grinned wryly.

"Yeah, I feel good. I feel great. I—" Remy broke off in mid-sentence when he spotted the bags under Will's eyes. "—and you look like death warmed over."

Will grunted and rubbed his eyes.

"Did you get any sleep?" asked Remy.

Will shook his head. He had been up all night, worried, and when he did sleep, it had been short and intermittent.

"I'll be glad when this is over," said Will. One of the officers called out for their batch, and Will stood up. "It's our turn."

Both boys followed a stream of blue uniforms of Stanton High.

"You do look terrible," said Remy. How are you holding up?

Will waved it off. "I'm fine. I was just going through the checklist." He glanced back down at the slate. "The gear train is what I'm worried about."

"We packed it down tight. Good chance it made it through," said Remy.

"The arc plugs, fuel blocks," continued Will.

"We have sent spares. It's fine," said Remy.

"The coding—"

"—the code works," said Remy. "Would you chill out? Now you are making me nervous."

Will grimaced, and Remy nudged him. "Hey, you're not having second thoughts, are you?"

"No," said Will out of reflex. There was a pause as he absentmindedly stared at the line in front of him before he admitted, "Yes."

"What?" exclaimed Remy, but Will hushed him down. They were only a few students from the end of the line, and the lady supervising the students was giving them pointed looks. The couple of students ahead of them passed through, and it was Will's turn.

"Your FIC, please," she held out her hand. Will and Remy handed over their IDs.

She scanned them and matched their FIC to the registry.

"William Dunn and Remy Soto," she nodded. "All good. Go on through."

Remy and Will stepped up the plane ramp. Will glanced up at the airship. It was a smaller model and looked much sleeker than the C-250s. It seemed like the higher-ranked academies got favorable treatment.

Will stepped into the plane. The plush interior and the large leather seats were the first thing he noticed. A single aisle ran down the middle with two seats on either side. Will grabbed a window seat, and Remy plopped right next to him.

"Alright, talk. What’s going on?" Remy turned back to Will. "What do you mean you are having second thoughts?"

"Not second thoughts." Will shook his head. "It's just that we barely had enough time."

"That’s what we get for having an op on the clock. But we got everything done," said Remy.

"Maybe."

"Will, listen—"

"There wasn't enough time to check everything," said Will. "Maybe we should have sent more spares, or we checked the—"

"Hey," Remy hissed. "There was never going to be enough time. We have done all we can."

Will slumped into his seat, and Remy bumped him on the shoulder. "Like you said, we're not going to get another shot like this. This is it, man. It's now or never."

Will sighed. "How many laws do you think we would be breaking?"

Remy shrugged. "Not enough to have us executed."

Will looked past the seat in front of him. The lines of students entering the plane and ended a while ago and now everyone was seated. An announcement came over the intercom. "Attention passengers, this is your captain speaking—"

Will tuned out the pilot's greeting and stared out of the window. The engines of the plane rumbled. The seat belt signs turned on, and the boys reached for their belts, fastening them securely.

"Not enough to have us..." repeated Will over the rumble of the engine. They were breaking into the exclusionary zone, the most irradiated place on the planet. Everything in the zone was bathed in radiation. Only nutjobs who wanted irradiated materials would attempt to go there.

"Yup," said Rem. "Not enough to have us executed, enough to get us chucked out of school maybe."

Will blinked. "Unless they see this as treason." It just occurred to him. The irradiated zone was a good place to get the materials to build a dirty bomb. If they got caught, no amount of begging or pleading is going to stay the hand of the tower police for a couple of undercity brats.

"Treason?" asked Remy, confused. Then his eyes widened as he understood. "Oh, shi—"

The intercom buzzed once again. "Please brace for launch." The engine roared to life. They were pancaked into their seats as the plane rocketed forward.

"Oh, shit!" yelled Remy as the airship accelerated.