Sneak (20 page)

treated fair by DOME? Ain’t no Markless can call himself an A.U.

citizen. Ain’t
none
of us citizens. You kids know that—that’s the whole point.”

“Yes, sir,” Peck agreed.

The man shrugged. “Gotta be an A.U. citizen to stay in an

A.U. jail.”

“But . . . we’ve had Markless friends taken by DOME,” Blake

said. “I’ve never heard of any special Markless prisons.”

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“Your friends ever make it past the Centers?”

Blake thought about it.

“Centers are another matter. Them’s holding places. Markless

come and go from Centers all the time, sometimes for question-

ing, or sometimes ’cause DOME can’t make even the smallest

accusations stick. But if there’s a crime, and if that criminal’s a Markless . . .” The captain raised an eyebrow knowingly.

Blake knew he was right. Joanne’s parents had disappeared

without a trace. Others had done the same. Some went into the

Centers only soon to be released. But had there ever been a story of a sentenced Markless landing in an A.U. prison? Blake couldn’t think of one, and neither could anyone else.

“Sure, no one much talks about it. DOME don’t want any o’ its

Marked thinkin’ we misers are bein’ mistreated. Not yet anyway.

But A.U. prisons are an A.U. right. And you and me ain’t got none o’ those.”

“Still,” Blake said. “If that’s true . . . how come Acheron isn’t mentioned more often? You’d think it’d be talked about among the Markless . . .”

The man laughed. “How? Any poor miser who goes in ain’t

ever comin’ out! If DOME won’t mention it, and if no one else

ever lives to tell about it—well, then there ain’t all that much to talk about, now, is there?” The man shrugged. “
Or
might could be Acheron don’t actually exist.” Then the man looked back at them, over his shoulder. “But whaddo I know? I’m just a crazy ol’ captain, chartin’ boats on
the
driest
river man has ever known.” He shook the reins, and Blake watched out the wagon’s back as the man’s horses made waves all along that dusty trail.

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Evan Angler

2

That night Erin was supposed to be packing. But she wasn’t.

Instead, she lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling and thinking about how much she wouldn’t miss this place.

She wouldn’t miss the town.

She wouldn’t miss the school.

She wouldn’t miss the apartment.

She wouldn’t miss not having any friends.

She certainly wouldn’t miss being stuck with her lunatic

father a thousand miles away from her real home and her mother in Beacon.

She wouldn’t miss the lonely skyline.

She wouldn’t miss the cold weather . . .

Erin sat up and walked to the cage her iguana was in. She

didn’t let him out. She just stared at him, her face pressed against the glass.

“I know how you feel in there,” she said. “But we’re not trapped anymore. We did it. We’re going home.” She frowned. “And that

was the goal all along, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that all we wanted?”

Erin waited now for Iggy to respond.

He didn’t.

You’re right
, Erin thought, not able to say it out loud.
That
wasn’t
really the goal after all, was it? Not by the end
.

The
goal
was
Logan. And he’s as far away now as Beacon was then
.

Erin lifted the lid on Iggy’s cage and picked him up. He waved his tail and flailed his arms as she carried him over to her dresser, where she set him down and let him pace nervously from one side to the other.

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“I’m out of options, little guy. I’m out of ideas. With Logan

around there was always a next step. Visit Slog Row. Spy on the Fulmart. Sneak out to the baseball stadium. We were always thinking one move ahead in the chess match.” Erin sighed. “But I’m lookin’ at a checkmate here. I don’t know where Logan is. I don’t even know where he’s headed.” She petted Iggy for a moment, and he didn’t particularly seem to mind.

“Well, sure, I know he’s trying to find his sister. But that’s a pipe dream, right? I mean, she’s dead. She has to be.”

Erin looked at Iggy and narrowed her eyes, speaking slowly

and thoughtfully. “Except . . . you don’t think that’s true, do you?

You don’t think she
is
dead. But why don’t you think so, Iggy?” Erin frowned.

“Because you know Logan. You know him too well to be fooled

by the things you take for granted. And you know Logan wouldn’t go through all this trouble unless by now he had some type of evidence that truly convinced him.” Erin nodded slowly, looking up at the blank wall, staring at nothing. “That’s smart, Iggy. That’s very smart.

“But when would he have gotten that evidence, little guy? He

didn’t have it when we went for ice cream that night after he met Peck. So that means . . .”

And it dawned on Erin, how dense she had been up until this

moment. How blind.

The
Pledge
, she thought.
What
if
he
really
did
learn
something
from
that
Marker
after
all
?

It seemed impossible.

But was it?

Already Erin was at her desk, tablet computer in hand. She

typed furiously at the screen.

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Evan Angler

3

Logan, Dane, and Hailey had been walking all evening, keeping to the signs on the River. Now that they’d found the path, it seemed every few miles was another symbol to guide them on their way.

Carved onto rocks, laid on the ground with rope . . .

But it was hard to get excited. The tension among the three of them was so thick it was almost visible. Dane hadn’t said a word in hours, and all morning he’d walked just a few too many steps behind.

“Look,” Hailey said, pulling Dane aside while Logan pressed on ahead. “You need to get over this me-and-Logan thing. Because it doesn’t exist. All that stuff you thought was flirting back at Spokie this fall—I was
spying
on him, Dane. I had to get close enough to bring him to Peck. You should know that by now.”

“You can say that all you want,” Dane said. “Just like you can say that this morning was—”

“This morning was about saving Logan’s life! Hypothermia

could have killed him, Dane. He was
dying
.”

“Right. Exactly. You can say that and whatever else you feel like saying. But that doesn’t stop me from seeing it in your eyes when you look at him. You still like him, Hailey. You have since the fifth grade.”

Hailey sighed, looking down at their feet. “I’m not going to

stand here and deny it,” she said. “But Dane, whether or not you’re right—it’s not on my mind. It’s not what’s important here. You get that, right? That this is bigger than any of that?”

“Yeah.” Dane nodded, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “I get

it. Logan wants to go to Beacon. That’s certainly bigger than anything I happen to think or feel. Much bigger. You’re right.”

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“That’s not what I mean,” Hailey said.

“Listen, just run off to him already, will you? I know that’s

where you’d rather be, and I don’t need the company back here.”

Hailey stared at him for a moment, hurt.

“So . . . do
you
get
that
?”

“
Hey, guys!
” Logan called, off in the distance. “
Guys! You’ll never
believe it!
”

Hailey frowned. “Fine,” she said coolly. And the two of them

ran to Logan.

“Train tracks,” Logan said, pointing to the ground. They

stretched out across the barren land as far as the eye could see in either direction. “These aren’t magnetrain rails either—look.” He knelt down. “It’s just an old-fashioned steel-and-wood track. And here—” Logan smiled widely now, his hand running over the cold metal. “Right where the path meets it. A lifesaver. Carved in the rail as clear as day.”

“You don’t think . . . ,” Hailey said.

“Yeah,” Logan said, sitting down happily to wait. “I do.”

4

The last time Erin hacked anything was during Logan’s Pledge—

and she really outdid herself that time. Breaking into the DOME

Center security system? Commandeering each Markscan through-

out the building? Reprogramming the map? Planting a worm to

attack the electrical board just as soon as anyone swiped an interior scanner? You could retire after a hack like that. Erin had figured she would.

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Evan Angler

And yet here she sat now, back in the game after only a few

weeks off, shuffling through the inner save files on DOME’s security system hard drive. She was looking for video feeds. She was looking for one very specific video feed. She was looking for the recording of Logan’s Pledge.

Erin had seen it before, of course, practically as it was hap-

pening—the video of Logan attacking his nurse, threatening his Marker . . . but she hadn’t been looking for clues. She had been looking for guilt. So what had she missed the first time around?

The feed was buried deep. But eventually she found it.

“Good work, Iggy,” she said as her iguana watched blankly

from the dresser.

The video was silent. Sound wasn’t recorded in the Center’s

Pledge rooms, so Erin couldn’t hear what was being said. A month ago, she’d just assumed it was a litany of charges and punishments.

But what if Logan’s Marker actually
had
felt something for the little flunkee? What if Logan’s Marker had decided to help? Might that behavior also look something . . . like this?

Erin was no lip reader. But the last word spoken by the Marker was clearly of some great importance. Erin watched the clip on a loop: the Marker leaning in, annunciating so clearly, directly into Logan’s ear . . . but what was it he said? The way his mouth moved . . . it didn’t fit with any word Erin had ever heard. It looked like nonsense. Three syllables, she could tell that much. But what were they? The first looked like an
ah
. And the word ended with an
on
sound. Or was it an
ot
?
En
? No—definitely an
on
. With a
kuh
in the middle? A
chuh?

She just couldn’t place it. But it looked—it really looked—as

if the word that the Marker was saying . . . was
Acheron
.

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5

The old-fashioned freight train arrived late in the night, running off its own electric engine, chugging along with a chain of double-door boxcars behind it. Logan and Dane and Hailey stood when they saw it coming, and they waited just a few steps away from the track.

The train slowed when it came upon them, its conductor lean-

ing out the front window.

“What’re you kids doin’ out here?” he yelled. “It’s dark out.

Get outta here!”

But Logan and Dane and Hailey stood their ground, and all

three of them held their hands up as though they were waving,

casually showing their Unmarked wrists.

The conductor cut the engine and set the brakes, and still the train rolled on for some time. But when it stopped, he hopped out, no hesitation about it. “You lost?” he asked.

“No, sir,” Logan said. He looked the conductor in the eyes.

And he drew an arc in the ground with his foot.

“Well, I’ll be . . . ,” the conductor said. He held out his

Marked hand, and Logan shook it. “Name’s Arnold.” He pointed

to the boxcar beside him, his smile wide and inviting. “Where you headed?”

“As far as you’ll take us,” Hailey said.

“These tracks go south to a little town by the Gulf. But they’ll veer east a while first.”

“That’ll help,” Logan said. “Where’s the next place you’ll

cross the River?”

“Long ways. ’Bout five hundred miles, at the track’s closest

point to the Potomac.”

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Evan Angler

“The Potomac?” Hailey asked, intrigued.

“That’s right. But folks only risk that route if they mean to

take their chances in Beacon. I wouldn’t recommend it. Most

Markless prefer the quieter destinations down south. It’ll make a nicer life for ya.”

“Well,” Logan said, hedging for safety, wanting to avoid revealing too much. “How ’bout we sleep on it? What would you say to that?”

In answer, the conductor doffed his hat and waved it toward

the train, like a kid finally getting to play his favorite game.
“Allllll
aboard!”

6

It was warmer a little farther south. The old captain let Peck and Jo and the rest of the Dust off by an arrangement of rocks he’d found in the middle of a vast, empty prairie. They filed out of the wagon, and he gave each of them a bit of food as they did.

“Head this way,” he said, pointing into the darkness. “In the

morning, just follow the sunrise. You’ll hit ruins, eventually, and you just keep going, now, when you do. It’s a long haul, for sure.

But from right here, you just head exactly due east, and you’ll hit the next anchor in about one day’s time.” He shrugged. “Can’t

help you farther than that. This here’s as much as I know.”

“We can’t thank you enough,” Peck said.

“And you’ll never have to.” The man turned his wagon around