Swipe

for the longest time, Dane, but it’s real.”
    Dane thought about the flowers from a few weeks before. He thought about the phone call, and the DOME number he’d been given.
    “You know what this sounds like to me?” Dane said. “This sounds like the most pathetic prank I’ve ever heard of. George, bring the phone! I’m calling the cops. Logan here is trespassing with criminal intent.”
    “You know what, Dane? It’s your funeral,” Logan said. And he pushed past George and into the night.
    7
    “Call DOME,” Logan said. “He wouldn’t listen to me. The Dust is gonna get him.”
    “Don’t you think we can stop it first?” Erin asked.
    “No, I don’t think we can stop it,” Logan said.
    “Well, I’m not calling DOME.”
    “We don’t have a choice. We need help.”
    “Logan—everything we’ve been up to, everything we’ve done . . . you honestly want to invite DOME’s scrutiny upon us, at this stage of the game? You want to ask them to take a good, hard look at what we’ve been doing? ’Cause to me, that seems like an awfully good way to get us both arrested—”
    “Oh, stop it! Forget worrying about yourself for two seconds! We were never supposed to be the heroes. We were never supposed to be taking on the Dust all alone. We were supposed to get a tiny amount of evidence and turn it over to DOME. We should have done this right from the start, and you know it! I think you just like playing spy—and it’s going to get Dane kidnapped or us killed. Now make the call.”
    Erin gave him a cold, hard stare. “You make it,” she said. “If you’re so sure.”
    “Fine.” Logan placed the call.
    8
    “Mr. Arbitor, sir?”
    “Yes, Johnson.”
    “A moment?”
    “Yes, Johnson.”
    Agent Johnson walked forward, a tablet in hand. He unfolded it and began tapping its surface to shuffle the documents on its display. “We just received an anonymous tip. Seems Peck is planning another abduction—tonight.”
    Mr. Arbitor made no attempt to hide his alarm. “Of whom?”
    “Boy named Dane Harold. He’s playing a concert at the Spokie Community Center within the hour.”
    “Gather all agents on duty. I want this casual, though. Until Peck shows himself, we’re just faces in the crowd, you got that?”
    “Loud and clear, sir.”
    “Get to it, then.”
    “Will you be coming with us, sir?”
    “I’ll be stationed here, ready to act if this turns out to be a false alarm . . . or a diversion.”
    “Sir, there’s reason to believe it’s neither of those things.” He glanced anxiously at Mr. Arbitor. “In fact . . . there’s reason to believe this caller is in some way associated with the vigilante we’ve been hunting.”
    “All the same,” Mr. Arbitor said.
    But Johnson carried on. “There’s even reason to believe, sir, that this caller was travelling to the event with our vigilante, and that our vigilante might be headed to the community center to fend off this attack . . . herself.”
    “So what!”
    “So, sir . . . by all reasonable estimations, that would put her in a fair amount of danger.”
    “Then keep your eye out!” Mr. Arbitor yelled. “Do your job!”
    “I think you’ll want to be on hand for it, sir.”
    Mr. Arbitor stopped cold. “What are you getting at, Johnson?”
    Agent Johnson held his breath. “I believe . . . I believe I’ve traced the identity of the vigilante in question.”
    “Fine, then—who is it? And does this conversation have to happen now?”
    Agent Johnson looked more nervous still. “Well . . . sir . . . first . . . let me just say . . . since the missing equipment came from our own Umbrella, there are really only two reasonable explanations for who could possibly have been on Peck’s trail to begin with.”
    “I know that, you—”
    “The first is that one of our agents was either doing it themselves, or else smuggling equipment to an unknown party in order to farm out the effort.”
    “I said I know that, Johnson—”
    “But since the vigilante in question appears to be working with us, I can’t, for the life of me, see—if that scenario were, in fact, our explanation—why that hypothetical agent wouldn’t have come forward with his or her actions and intents—”
    “I agree, Johnson. You’re wasting my time.”
    “I’m not, sir. I’m making sure we agree on the basis of my investigations, so that we might increase our chances of agreeing on their conclusion.”
    Mr. Arbitor narrowed his eyes.
    Johnson cleared his