Swipe

didn’t send my dad and me across the country for a field trip. Whatever Peck is doing, it’s serious. Attacking Pledges is serious. Killing the Marked—and attacking a DOME agent—is serious!”
    “I know that,” Logan said. “Can you slow down, please?” Logan held Erin tight but felt increasingly unsteady as the roller-stick zipped along the Spokie side streets.
    Erin pulled back imperceptibly. “Like it or not, you’re part of something big tonight, Logan.”
    “Then why didn’t we just go straight to your father! How is stealing DOME equipment less serious than having looked at a couple of documents?”
    “He won’t know about the stealing,” Erin said. “Besides, this is bigger than that now. You and I, we need to beat this little piker at his own game. Find out what he’s up to, find out who he’s working with, and turn the whole lot of misers in.”
    The Markless slurs grated against Logan’s ears; he couldn’t understand why Erin hated them so much. In Spokie, anyone without the Mark was largely ignored, and Logan had never heard anyone talk like that about them. Like they were less than trash.
    He didn’t quite know what to say. “That’s your dad’s job, Erin.”
    “But my dad has to follow the rules. Due process—laws— jurisdictions,” she snapped.
    “And we don’t?” Logan asked, incredulously.
    “That’s right. We don’t.” Erin pulled up on the rollerstick and took out her tablet to look at the time. “In forty-five minutes, we’re gonna know everything we need to know about this guy. All at once, just like that. No warrants. No bureaucracy.”
    “And then what?”
    “And then I hack into DOME, plant the evidence, and make it look like my dad did all this. DOME moves in, they catch Peck, you get the best night of sleep you’ve ever had, and I’m on my way back to Beacon in the morning. Piece of cake.”
    “W-wait,” Logan stuttered. “You’re going back to Beacon?”
    “If we catch Peck, sure. That skinflint’s the only reason I’m here.”
    Logan hadn’t understood until now Erin’s motivations in all this. Ridiculously, he’d allowed himself to believe it had something to do with him. But of course that was a fantasy. And suddenly he felt himself sour on the whole thing.
    “Erin, just stop. This—this is crazy. You’re gonna hack into DOME. You—a thirteen-year-old! This plan’s already so full of holes I don’t know where to begin. And you’re just getting started.”
    “That’s exactly right,” Erin said. “I’m just getting started.” The look on her face stopped Logan’s protests cold. “Now point me to Spokie’s playground.”
    7
    The jungle gym in Spokie Central Park was made almost entirely of wood. Nothing in Spokie was made of wood anymore, but the jungle gym was. It had been a decision made at the town hall some years back that the park’s playground was tradition. It had been an attraction for generations, residents said, just exactly as it was, and the last thing it needed was plastic and fiberglass and diodes and wires and computer processors and television screens hooked up to the Internet.
    Consequently, Spokie’s playground was a relic from bygone days. Nothing on it lit up. Nothing on it made noise. Nothing on it moved by itself or performed calculations or computations of any sort. The playground was for climbing on, and that was about it. There had been just enough renovations over the past few years to keep the jungle gym from rotting and falling apart, but not a single thing in or around the area had been replaced or tampered with in any way since the park’s unveiling long before the States War.
    Blake was aware of all of this. When the sun went down, the playground was the darkest, quietest, most private place in Spokie.
    It was also great for playing on. But Blake was not playing on it tonight.
    He climbed alone to the top of the old slide, where the view of the park was best. The metal sucked the heat from him, and he shivered a little in the late-summer breeze, scanning the scene for signs that Logan had already arrived, or that anyone unexpected was on their way. They don’t make slides like this anymore , Blake thought. So high up off the ground, straight and built for speed, hard metal and nothing covering it. The way a slide should be. A perfect lookout with a fast escape .
    Below him, the scene should have been still. They were all set up for Logan now, and Tyler should have stood, waiting silently