Storm (Swipe Series)

The whole town’s economy had been built around that complex, and without it functioning properly, Lahoma’s families were falling out of work right and left. The town had shrunk to three-quarters its former size in just the last six months alone. Everyone was hurting.
    Steve cleared his throat. “Actually,” he said. “I don’t know if this’ll make you feel better or worse, Sally, but . . . I think I might actually know something about why the mill’s been on the fritz so often these last six months.”
    “Because it’s made from cheap, European Union technology?” Sally asked scornfully. Clearly she’d been listening to her father’s nightly rants.
    “’Fraid not,” Steve said. He frowned. “You know how my dad’s the head of security over there?”
    “Sure—he’s one of the lucky few still working. Along with Connor’s charmed parents, of course.”
    Steve sighed. “Well, anyway. Recently, Dad’s actually beensaying . . .” He bit his lip. “He’s been saying it’s starting to look like sabotage.”
    “ What? ” Sally’s jaw nearly dropped to the floor. “ Cylis! Who in the world would do something like that?”
    “I don’t know. I’m—hey, look, I probably didn’t even hear him right. It’s pretty crazy to think about. But if it is true . . . and if my dad can find the person responsible for it . . . well . . . well, then maybe he can bring the mill back online.” Steve shrugged. “I mean, now that he’s looking into it—who knows? If the whole thing’s over soon, your dad might even be able to get his job back before you have to move.”
    For a moment, Sally was speechless. “Thank you,” she said finally. “Thank you for telling me.”
    She turned the tablescreen back on and swiped at the random number generator, eagerly taking her turn. Steve smiled.
    But Connor didn’t very much feel like playing anymore.
    2
    In Appalachia, half a continent away, the night had already fallen, crisp but pleasant. Its edge had worn from those sharpest points back in January, and Dane Harold walked now along the familiar mountain trail without so much as a shiver. “Spring is coming,” he said to Hans, and Hans nodded slowly in the starlight.
    “Means it’s time to start worrying about crops,” Hans said. “Our food stores are low. We’ll need a good harvest this year if we plan to survive through another winter.”
    Dane watched his shoes shuffle against the roots and dirt, and he walked quietly for a moment. “I know I’m a burden to you andTabitha,” he said finally. “I know you hadn’t planned on another mouth to feed.”
    “You’re no burden,” Hans said. He stopped and put his hand on Dane’s shoulder. “You’re a good kid. And we like having you.”
    In December, nearly two months ago now, Dane Harold, Logan Langly, and Hailey Phoenix had passed through the Village of the Valley on their way between New Chicago and Beacon. The village was an anchor point along the Unmarked River—that secret, nationwide network devoted to helping Markless travel and survive outside the parameters of Union society—and it was village-dwellers Hans and Tabitha who had taken the Dust in and pointed them the rest of the way to Beacon.
    For Logan and Hailey, the stay was short-lived. But for Dane, the Village of the Valley had become a new and welcoming home. The Markless radio tower they maintained—and, specifically, Dane’s manning of it—had proven to be a key link in the network that made December’s Markless uprisings possible. Dane alone bridged the gap between Beacon and New Chicago, and it had been his own broadcasts, in concert with Logan’s grandma’s and Hailey’s mom’s out west, that had sparked the Markless protests that continued to this day. Dane was proud of that. To be needed like that. And anyway, after so many years spent cooped up in his parents’ mansion back in Spokie’s posh Old District, the simple life of the valley suited him.
    “I’ll pull my weight around here come time for the harvest,” Dane said to Hans now. “I’ll work more than I’ll take—you’ll see.”
    But Hans just smiled. He walked on. And the two of them rounded the bend of the wooded trail.
    “This is the first of our farming valleys,” he said as the trees opened up into a wide field. “I know you’ve seen it from above,many times, on your walk to the radio tower. But I need you to see it now as a farmer sees it. I need you to get your hands dirty. I need you