Sneak (Swipe Series)

house.
    “Reminds me of Spokie Middle,” Hailey said. “The way it hides underground.”
    “Yeah, but this place is bizarre,” Logan said, brushing a spider from his back.
    “Why is it any different?” Dane asked. Underground buildings were relatively common these days, given the space constraints in the suburbs and the unpredictable bouts of harsh weather throughout the country.
    “Because Spokie Middle was high-tech,” Logan said. “This kinda looks like some people just dug a hole in the ground with their hands.”
    The steps from the hatchway above were carved right into the rock and dirt, as were the walls and floors. Here and there a few planks of wood had been used to level the ground, but for the most part, it was a house made of earth. Roots stuck out of the walls and through the ceiling. Moss grew on the rocks of the floors.
    The main room of the first floor was the kitchen area, with a table, two chairs, and an alcove for a fire, the chimney of which led straight up to a camouflaged hole in the valley ground above.
    Two side rooms branched off from this main space: a “library,” where Hailey slept last night in a chair with a single shelf of paper books by her side, and a “guest room,” where Logan and Dane had slept under spare blankets on the hard dirt floor.
    This guest room was funny though. The ground was slanted due to the formation of the rock bed beneath it, meaning the room itself also acted as a sort of long, slanted hallway; the lower level of the house began where it ended, and that was where Hans and Tabitha slept.
    To Logan, there wasn’t much of interest in the house beyond the strange architecture itself, so he’d spent the last few hours in the library, reading the tattered Bible Bridget had given him back at the underpass and trying to understand what made the book so dangerous.
    Dane, meanwhile, sat in the guest room, happy to be alone, playing an old pre-Unity acoustic guitar that he’d found in the master bedroom, and filling the air with the sounds of his strumming and his griptone singing.
    Hailey, for her part, was enthralled by something she’d found in the main kitchen area, on a shelf carved into the wall. She was sitting at the table, examining it, when Logan entered, antsy from the waiting and the reading.
    “Whatcha looking at?” Logan asked.
    Just then, Hans and Tabitha opened the hatchway from above, letting bright sunlight in, and they descended the steps.
    “I see you found our radio,” Hans said, sitting at the table beside Hailey.
    “Hans,” Hailey said. “Is this thing tuned to thirty-nine hundred kilohertz?”
    Hans laughed. “’Course! Every Markless radio’s tuned to that.”
    Hailey looked stunned.
    “Well, how else do you expect us to communicate with each other? The villages around these mountains have been at this for years.”
    “Back up,” Hailey said. “‘Communicate’? What do you mean, ‘communicate’? Radio’s a one-way stream.”
    Hans looked at her like she must have been the densest girl in the world. “Well, certainly. That’s why each village has a transmitter.”
    Hailey smacked her forehead and laughed. “Of course . It’s brilliant! If everyone broadcasts on the same frequency, then that channel becomes one big nationwide conversation.”
    “Exactly.” Hans nodded.
    “Can I broadcast?” Dane yelled from the guest room, more excited than he’d been in weeks. “Can I have my own radio program? Please? Please? ”
    Tabitha laughed. “Well, I don’t see why not,” she said. “If you can find a time when the airwaves aren’t too busy. But you kids’ll be ready to head out of here in another couple of days . . .”
    Already, Dane had run into the kitchen, holding the acoustic guitar and smiling eagerly.
    “Hey, you guys didn’t ever happen to listen to a radio broadcast sent out by a couple of people named Hayes, did you?” Hailey asked.
    “Mama and Papa?” Tabitha asked. “Sure! They’re on the air pretty regularly, in fact. Signal’s always weak from them, coming in and out depending on the weather, but yeah, we like those two.”
    “Actually . . . ,” Hailey said.
    But before she could break the sad news, Hans had turned the radio on. Immediately, soft chatter filled the airwaves from nearby villages—overlapping conversations about remaining food stores, requests for clothing, announcements of village fairs, or Markless births, or Markless deaths. It reminded Hailey a little bit of