Sneak (Swipe Series)

place felt a little to her now like a run-down funhouse—bizarre, distorted, dirty, and fake.
    And then, down the block, at the corner under the shelter of some scaffolding, one Unmarked teenager caught Erin’s eye. He sat hunched over a tablet, quietly typing away in a trance of intense concentration. How did a Markless like him get his hands on a tablet ? Erin wondered.
    “Whatcha doin’ there?” Erin asked, standing over him and looking down.
    “Nothing to you, Marky.”
    Erin laughed, and she leaned over to peek at his tablet screen.
    “Looks to me like you’re programming . . .”
    The boy looked up, clearly annoyed to be disturbed. “You here for a favor?”
    “A . . . what?” Erin asked.
    “Someone recommend you?”
    “N-no . . . ,” Erin said. “Should they have?”
    “You’re darn right they should have. Got any transactions that need deleting?”
    “ Huh ?”
    “Transactions. Markscans.” He pointed to her wrist. “Got any you need forgotten?”
    Erin hadn’t the slightest idea what this boy was talking about, so she decided to take a more direct approach.
    “I’m Erin,” she said. “I’m looking for help.”
    “Then you came to the right place. Shawn.” And Shawn held up his Markless hand.
    Erin shook it hesitantly.
    “They call me the Tech Wiz.”
    “Oh really?”
    Shawn nodded.
    “So what’s a Markless like you doing with a tablet?”
    “Can’t be the Tech Wiz without one.” Shawn shrugged.
    “And as a ‘tech wiz’ you are . . . ?”
    Shawn smirked. “Providing my services. And it’s not a tech wiz—it’s the Tech Wiz. The one and only.”
    Suddenly a Beaconer stormed up to the two of them. “Hey! Tech Wiz! What’s she got to do with our deal?” he whispered harshly.
    “Chill out, man. It’s done. We’re cool. You’re set.”
    The man glanced around uneasily. “How will I know it worked?”
    “You’ll know ’cause you’ll never get caught, that’s how.”
    Shifting on his feet, the man shot an uncomfortable look in Erin’s direction but finally nodded to Shawn. “Fine. But if you’re lying to me—”
    “Man, how could I be the Tech Wiz if I went around lying to people? You trust the man who sent you here or not?”
    “Yeah, sure I do—he says you’re the best.”
    “Then I am the best,” Shawn said. “So you got your end of the deal or not?”
    The man handed Shawn a rollerstick, and Shawn handed him the tablet. “Thanks,” the man said. “I owe you one.” And he ran off without looking back.
    Erin sat down beside Shawn now, making no attempt to hide her interest. A Markless hacker? It was too good to be true. “Okay,” she said. “What in the world just happened here?”
    Shawn smiled. “The Tech Wiz provides a very special service,” Shawn said. “For a price, the Tech Wiz can wipe a Marked slate totally clean.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Look,” Shawn said. “What’s the real purpose of a Mark, huh? From DOME’s point of view, I’m speaking.”
    Erin shrugged. “To separate upstanding citizens like me from riffraff like you?”
    “EEEH— wrong ! Erin Ms. Marky, thank you for playing . . .” Shawn made a little bow to her, like the host of a talk show, and he waved her along.
    “Hey, wait—seriously.” Erin laughed. “I wanna know!”
    “Listen, if that’s all DOME wanted to do, they wouldn’t go through the trouble of giving each person his own unique Mark.” He picked up Erin’s hand, and pointed to the tiny numbers in the lines of her tattoo. “No. No—the point of the Mark is that with it, DOME knows everything about you. Think about it. Every time someone buys a sandwich, what do they do? They scan their Mark. Every time someone enters a building, what do they do? They scan their Mark. Every time someone goes to the doctor, or approves a document, or gets on a Metrorail, or goes to a sports game, what do they do? They scan their Mark .
    “It’s all digital. And all those little scans—everyone’s scans— they go straight into DOME’s network, where they’re logged forever. If you’re Marked, DOME doesn’t just know you’re a citizen— they know what kinds of food you like, they know how you get to work each day, they know what kinds of movies you watch, what kinds of prescriptions you’re on, where you’ve been, where you’re likely to go next . . . for all intents and purposes, they know everything about you.
    “It’s control. The Mark is control. Over you . Does DOME