Sneak (Swipe Series)

magnetrain grid altogether. Layovers, transfers . . . the works.
    Three days until she could read again and again the truth about the IMPS. Until that truth led her to Acheron.
    Three days never felt so long.
    6
    That morning, Michael Cheswick entered his office as he did on any other day. He rode the elevator up to the disk of the Umbrella, greeted the many DOME agents already on the floor, ducked into the stairwell at the center of the room, walked up the two flights of stairs into the tip of the spire, swiped his Mark and rode the platform into his small circular room, sat at his desk, and sipped at a nice, hot cup of nanotea.
    It was a clear morning. Bright. The sun shone cheerfully through the all-glass walls of the room, and Michael Cheswick spent his first few minutes in that delicious indulgence he so rarely afforded himself: admiring the view.
    He had high hopes for Johnson, Michael did. He looked forward to the work Johnson would do, picking up where Charles Arbitor left off, picking up the pieces, tying all those loose ends. Logan and Peck and the Dust couldn’t have gone far, and surely today marked the end of the troubles involving this case. The G.U. treaty would soon be signed, and Michael could look forward to a promotion once it was. He’d overseen the raids of every major Markless community in the city, had driven the misers out of every last one of their former strongholds, and he had done so with an impressive amount of control over the public’s perception of the events. Surely all Michael needed now was to wrap up this one last pesky investigation, close the book on this one last file— Peck and the Markless Threat of Spokie —and he would be golden.
    He could practically see it now: A transfer to the E.U. headquarters, perhaps. Holding court with General Lamson. A seat at the table with Cylis . . .
    A man could dream. And Michael did dream.
    Mr. Cheswick took another sip of nanotea and opened the day’s briefing. He’d dealt swiftly with the setbacks of the past week, and with Charles Arbitor gone and Johnson in, it was sure to be a relaxing day.
    And then the little blinking light caught his eye at the corner of his tablescreen. A message was waiting. He double-tapped the light, and a file expanded to fill the desktop.
    It was an automated alert sent by the DOME computer network’s security system. Yesterday a virus had been detected, after its introduction to the system one day prior. It was a harmless virus mostly, except that it compromised the encryption of some files here and there.
    No big deal , Mr. Cheswick thought. Such alerts were routine enough, and they were nothing the mainframe immune system couldn’t handle after a few days’ time.
    Michael scrolled through the full report, checking for damage or alterations made to any of the DOME system’s documents. None detected. That was good.
    But a handful of files had been viewed, it seemed, by an unidentified, external party. By an actual person.
    Odd .
    Disconcerting .
    But still . . . no big deal. With the virus found already, the damage would be contained, and no further snooping would be possible, at least not without the introduction of an entirely new virus. So Mr. Cheswick simply needed to double-check which files had been viewed, and then he could get back to more important matters, like his daydream of sitting with Cylis at the head table over in the capital of the new G.U. . . .
    But that’s when he saw it. The last file named in the security log’s report.
    The memo. Four lines long. The memo that read: Project Trumpet contained. Acheron IMPS successful. Targets eliminated. Details to follow on page .
    And Michael Cheswick dropped his nanotea onto the tablescreen, shattering the mug and not even noticing as its dark liquid seeped into the cracks in the glass.
    7
    The day passed slowly for Logan and his friends. On the grass above, Hans and Tabitha and many of the village’s neighbors were working on the canoe. Logan wanted to help, but after he and Hailey and Dane spent the morning gathering wood and tree sap and other natural materials for the construction, Hans and Tabitha both simply insisted that “the kids rest while the grown-ups work.”
    “Your journey will be long enough,” Tabby had said. “And it can be dangerous on the Potomac. If you’re going to make it to Beacon alive, you need to rest first.”
    So “the kids” had spent the last few hours underground, exploring the strange Markless