Sneak (Swipe Series)

on Logan’s shoulder. She patted it twice. Dane finally turned toward them, and he frowned from his side of the boxcar.
    The three of them sat like that, just staring out at the world rolling by, and they watched the sun rise.
    8
    The next morning, Erin’s apartment was empty. Not just sort of empty— truly empty. The movers had come first thing and taken every last piece of furniture, trinket, and decoration that had once been in the space.
    Her father was at work, gathering his belongings there to take with him as carry-ons on the train ride back. And it would have been a school day for Erin too, if she hadn’t already been pulled from Spokie Middle.
    As it was, she’d never have to set foot in that miserly school again.
    So Erin sat on the open floor of her abandoned apartment alone, basking in the white light reflecting unimpeded off the blank walls, and delved into hacking territory so deep that it was unfamiliar even to her.
    The memo system in DOME’s mainframe computer was heavily protected, vast, and shockingly unorganized. All morning, she’d been searching high and low for some appearance—any appearance—of the word “Acheron” in any of DOME’s files. She had just about given up hope of it being a word at all—much less of it being a word within DOME’s database—when, finally, she found it. A single memo from Mr. Michael Cheswick, the man who demoted her father:
    P ROJECT T RUMPET CONTAINED
A CHERON IMPS SUCCESSFUL
T ARGETS ELIMINATED
D ETAILS TO FOLLOW ON PAGE
    It meant nothing, as far as Erin was concerned. She read the thing over thirty, forty times. She dissected every last letter. The memo was gibberish.
    And then the header caught Erin’s eye.
    “ T OP S ECRET ,” it said.
“ F OR G ENERAL L AMSON’S E YES O NLY .”
    And a wide smile spread over Erin’s face.
    9
    On her second visit to the Phoenix house, Grandma didn’t even bother to knock. She walked right down the sunny street, up onto the porch, and through the door without so much as a greeting.
    “Sonya. You’re back.” Mrs. Phoenix was sitting at the kitchen table, hunched over a sculpture, hands pressed against her ears, coughing a little. She looked as if she’d been concentrating intensely.
    “You skipped work again, I see,” Grandma said.
    Mrs. Phoenix frowned. “What can I do for you, Sonya?”
    “I’ve been thinking about it. About Logan and Hailey. Dianne, we need to help.”
    Mrs. Phoenix looked at her and shrugged.
    “What’s the, uh . . .” Grandma waved her hands around the air. “What’s the situation?”
    It took Mrs. Phoenix a moment to catch on. “Oh!” she said finally. “We’re good. DOME’s not listening. No signs of surveillance right now.”
    “That’s lucky.”
    “Well, with Hailey gone . . . I was never exactly their prime target.”
    Grandma nodded. “Then that’s our advantage.”
    Mrs. Phoenix slumped down in her chair at the kitchen table, coughing for a while. “Listen, Sonya. Not that I mind the company these days, but . . . your coming here like this . . . I’m afraid I just . . . don’t really see the point.”
    Grandma shrugged. “What’s that you’ve you got there?” she said, pointing at the sculpture in front of Mrs. Phoenix.
    “It’s . . . well, it’s nothing,” Mrs. Phoenix said, pushing it away.
    “Nonsense. I didn’t sneak all the way out here just to get the runaround—”
    “Oh, give it a rest,” Mrs. Phoenix said. “It’s a radio, all right?” She laughed. “An actual radio.” She shook her head. “Can you believe it?”
    Grandma sat at the table now, eyeing the sculpture. “A radio, huh? Doesn’t look like any radio I’ve ever seen . . .”
    “Well. It is one, all the same. AM-type. Shortwave.”
    Grandma narrowed her eyes. “Shortwave? Dianne, there hasn’t been a shortwave station since pre-Unity days. Last ones went off the air before you were even born.”
    “I know,” Mrs. Phoenix said. “It’s all super high-frequency now. Satellite transmitters and computer receivers. This here’s more like what they used . . . well . . . a long time ago. World War II, at least.”
    Grandma scoffed. “What do you know about World War II?”
    “A lot, actually. History’s always been an interest of mine.”
    “Fine,” Grandma said. “Then where’d you get it? And what in the world are you listening to?”
    “I’m not listening to anything right now,” Mrs. Phoenix said. “That’s the whole problem.”
    Grandma picked