1
IT WAS NOT A BAD DAY FOR A FUNERAL.
The sun was out. It wasn’t raining. The air was cool and blue.
And yet Connor alone was there. The only one. An hour into the service, and without a single other guest from all of Lahoma.
Connor stood by his parents, so still that he might’ve looked lifeless himself.
He wasn’t. But it would have been hard to say for sure.
He wasn’t thinking about much, in fact. The wide range of emotions he’d felt up to this point had been largely whittled down into one fine point. Guilt. By now, that was more or less all that remained, lodging itself in his throat, sinking its tentacles deep down into the pit of his stomach, grabbing hold and not letting go, squeezing with a sickness that made the world spin.
Was Connor responsible? Was his parents’ death as much his fault as it seemed? He told them, two days ago, that the jig was very nearly up. He told them to work fast, or risk losing everything. And it seemed clear to him now—they had taken that to heart.
They had done both.
In the aftermath of his dinner with them, Connor’s parents had quickly realized that their sporadic, stopgap measures couldn’t continue for long. In these past months since September, they’d skillfully kept Lahoma’s weather mill running more or less smoothly, while at the same time maintaining an unbroken chain of inconvenient system failures serving to perpetually delay any successful canister launch. In this way, they’d kept hope among mill workers alive that the next cloud seeding could happen “any day now,” while continually ensuring that it would not.
But that phase of the plan was over. The Goodmans were suddenly sure to be caught any day now, and the only solution they could find was to bring the whole place down in one fell swoop.
This was all Connor’s speculation, of course. But there was little room for doubt. The one option his parents would not have entertained was a cloud seeding. The one thing they would not abide was a mill-induced storm.
They knew the stakes. The stakes were worth this to them.
“Hey,” Sally said, walking up behind Connor and startling him a little.
He was happy to see her. And he wanted to say so . . . but somehow, he just couldn’t find the words.
“They’re cold,” he told her instead, nodding at the bodies in front of him. “I touched them. Touched my mom’s hand.” He swallowed. His parents were covered now by the white sheet wrapped around them. Sally guessed that Connor must have pulled the sheet off, momentarily, to say good-bye. “They felt cold.”
For some reason, this made Sally burst into tears.
In another hour, DOME would take Mr. and Mrs. Goodman away from Lahoma in order to dispose of them. There wouldn’t be a burial, of course. Burials were for pre-Unity deaths—and Markless.
No, these days, DOME’s Ends and Beginnings Bureau took Marked bodies and cremated them. Those ashes were then taken and purified, and the carbon within them was compressed into graphite, and then again, into diamonds, and each was set onto a ring and delivered generously back to the departed’s closest surviving relative.
Originally, this tradition began as a way to discourage any end-of-life religious practices that Marked citizens might have been accustomed to pre-Unity. But over time, DOME realized the system had a secondary benefit as well—by destroying Marked bodies, it seriously limited the supply chain of black market hands.
So Connor had that to look forward to, he guessed. Two diamond rings, coming his way.
Connor mentioned this to Sally.
She cried harder.
For what it was worth, the Ends and Beginnings Bureau had done a nice job, Connor thought now. Merciful of them, given his parents’ ultimate “traitor” status. Unheard of, in fact. In post-Unity history, no traitor had ever been given a state-sanctioned funeral. Not once. And yet Connor’s parents had been dressed nicely and laid carefully onto a small wooden stage at the grassiest spot of the browning Lahoma public park. A single flower adorned the stage. And deep down, Connor knew he had General Lamson to thank for all that. But it was small consolation. This past hour, what Connor had mostly thought of the funeral was that the Ends and Beginnings Bureau had combed his father’s hair wrong. It didn’t look like that. It wasn’t supposed to look like that. The minutes had passed, the guilt had flared and subsided and flared again, and through most of it, Connor was lost in some great, computer-rack rat-maze of thoughts about hair, parted all wrong and bizarre, as the tentacles of guilt gripped harder . . .
Connor couldn’t see it for himself, of course, the shock he was in. But Sally sure did.
“It’s okay to be upset,” she told him finally. She put her arm around her friend’s shoulder and brushed a stream of tears from her own blotchy face. “It’s better to be upset. You should be upset.”
So Connor nodded at Sally, as if that might adequately cover the whole “emotion” thing she was looking for.
“Where are you going to stay?” Sally asked. “Do you know?”
Connor shrugged.
“I’d say you’re welcome to stay with us, at my house . . .” Sally trailed off.
“But I’m not.”
Sally nodded at her feet. “Not just yet, I think . . .”
“So where is everyone?” Connor asked. A town this size, there wasn’t a single family that hadn’t been friends with the Goodmans. In fact, given Connor’s General Award, from six months ago until yesterday, the Goodmans might have been the most beloved family in all of Lahoma. “Not that I expected them, I guess, given the circumstances, but . . .”
“Central Square,” Sally said. “The mayor’s holding a town hall, in conjunction with the head of the weather mill, to discuss next steps.”
“He couldn’t have waited an hour?” Connor asked.
“Could’ve,” Sally apologized. “Didn’t.”
Connor nodded. “Come on, then,” he said, waving his arm.
“Where?”
“Central Square.” He nodded to his parents. “They can’t take me with them. I’m still as much a part of this town as anyone else.”
“Sure you are,” Sally said, trying hard to mean it.
Connor didn’t look back at the stage when they left.
2
The Arbitor family apartment had always been a tidy home: the type where the countertops shined and the white floors were waxed; with rows in the carpets where the vacuum had rolled; where shoes stayed outside in the building’s hallway, and junk drawers had filing systems; where the windows sparkled with nanosolvent . . .
But just a few short hours into the Dust’s visit, the Arbitor family apartment already looked a bit more like the impact zone of a minor bomb blast.
Immediately after lunch, Tyler had found the packing boxes left over from Charles and Erin’s recent move from Spokie. He’d torn them open, of course, as was Tyler’s way, and he’d scattered them across each room, creating long tunnels and forts for him and Rusty to play in. Meg, meanwhile, amused herself by strewing the boxes’ contents about in piles, making a series of things not unlike nests for mice. She slept now in one of them, snoring loudly.
Already the floors were so cluttered, Charles Arbitor and his wife Olivia were more or less stranded on their own couch. They needed to shout just to be heard. And everywhere they turned, there was Dust.
“What do you mean, you lost him?” Jo asked.
“I mean I lost him, what do you think? How was I supposed to know he’d run off the first chance he got?”
“Because he’s an iguana, Tyler. They have legs and brains and—amazingly—they move on their own!”
“Okay, look, let’s everybody just stop for a second, and we’ll all just stare out and glaze our eyes over a little bit, and in a few minutes time, one of us should see which of these mounds starts moving on its own. Good plan, guys? Good plan.”
Such was the state of Charles and Olivia Arbitor’s best hope. Olivia had her head in her hands. Charles watched with his jaw slightly slack. But it was worth it, he knew. Anything to get these six kids to stay awhile. Anything to get Erin back.
“Hey, Tyler, maybe let’s forget about the iguana,” Mr. Arbitor said. “The iguana will be fine.”
“It’s just that it’d be so easy to step on him given that we can’t really see the floor right now—”
“He’ll be fine!” Charles yelled. “Now, could we all please just sit down for five minutes so we can talk about Erin?”
Meg was still sound asleep. But Blake, Joanne, Tyler, and Rusty all obediently sat down where they were.
“Found Iggy!” Shawn yelled, immediately bouncing back up and reaching down into the pile he very nearly squashed.
“Careful,” Tyler warned. “He moves all on his own.”
“Mr. Arbitor,” Blake said, cutting through the nonsense. “We appreciate you giving us shelter like this—we really do. But I’m just not sure what exactly we can do to help you find your daughter. We don’t know where she is. We have no way of contacting her. She deliberately kept us in the dark in case any of us were ever captured and interrogated—”
“Hey!” Tyler said. “Just like what really happened!”
“Yeah, Tyler.” Jo nodded. “Just like that.”
“It’s all right,” Mr. Arbitor said, laughing a little. “I don’t need your help with any of that. I already know where Erin is. Or—at least, I think I do.”
“Well, in that case, why are we here?” Blake pressed.
“You’re here because I’ve hit a wall. I believe Erin’s found sanctuary at the Sierra Science Center out west, but the scientists there won’t put me through to her on account of my affiliation with DOME. They think I’m just trying to apprehend her.”
“Aren’t you?” Shawn asked.
“No. DOME’s trying to apprehend her. I’m looking to protect her.”
Olivia sighed. “Right now, the head scientist at the SSC is insisting that Erin and the rest of your friends have already escaped for the northwest. Personally, we don’t believe it. But DOME does. And we’d like to keep it that way.”
“If we could just confirm that Erin’s there . . . if we could just talk to her,” Charles said. “Then I just know that Olivia and I could figure out a way to help. There must be something we can do from here.”
Olivia sat forward on the couch, begging the Dust now. “But the SSC’s scientists don’t trust Charles and me enough to tell us what’s really going on. We can’t get through to Erin on our own.”
“And that’s where you kids come in,” Charles said. “You’re Erin’s closest allies. A call from you is totally different than a call from Olivia or me. She trusts you. She’ll talk to you.”
“Please,” Olivia begged. “We just want to know our daughter’s safe.”
“Could be a trick,” Blake said to the others. “He does still work for DOME.”
Mr. Arbitor sighed. “Think about it, Blake. If I were working with the Department on this, I’d have just ordered a raid on the place by now. The whole point here is to prevent DOME from figuring out what I’m up to. The whole point is to do this without them.”
Olivia smiled hopefully. “And you kids are the key.”
“I’m sure I don’t need to remind you,” Mr. Arbitor added, “that right now, a plan to help Erin is a plan to help Peck.”
Blake looked like he was about to speak up. But Jo stopped him. “They’re right,” she said. And she turned to the Arbitors. “We’ll do it.”
3
The town hall meeting in Lahoma was in full swing now, and Sally held Connor’s hand supportively as the two of them entered and watched the end of the mayor’s speech from the back of the riled crowd.
“Lahoma! The Goodmans’ psychotic, reckless, and systematic sabotage of our great weather mill these last few months is unthinkable, unbelievable, unconscionable . . . and, indeed, their final, heinous act of destruction has only cemented the legacy of hardship, suffering, and hatred these traitors leave behind. For the foreseeable future, it would appear as though these two terrorists have succeeded. The mill is down. Its computer system has sustained irreparable damage and will need to be fully replaced. Now, unfortunately, DOME’s Meteorology Bureau, so far, seems somehow to be tied up in enough red tape that we cannot rely squarely on them for the funds and support necessary to repair this damage in a timely way—”
An uproar of anger filled the town hall, but the mayor spoke on.
“That said, Lahoma has dug deep into its own pockets, and, with the help of a flood of generosity from fellow Marked across the country, we believe we have the foundation necessary to begin repairing and rebuilding within the immediate future.
“Let me be clear. This damage has no easy fix. Programming and calibrating a new supercomputer system from scratch, without the Goodmans’ unique expertise in the field, will take time to get right. Of course, with thirty acres of missile launchers at our command, it is our duty not only to get Lahoma’s weather mill back online but to do it in a safe and responsible manner. We therefore ask for everyone’s patience as we embark upon this long and arduous recovery.
“However, hear me today, and mark my words—this mill will be up and running by the end of business day on April 1. America’s rainy season will not be missed.”
The crowd cheered and hollered its approval.
“Our great town of Lahoma will make up for lost time—not with a drizzle, not with a sprinkle, not with a shower, but with the biggest man-made rainstorm this continent has ever seen!”
The town roared, and the mayor of Lahoma reached his crescendo. “And with Cylis as my witness, this long, national drought will be over. Our public health, our economy—our very ecosystem—will be restored. We will not go hungry, we will not go thirsty, we will not go powerless. We will storm into this new year, we will give this great Union the weather it deserves, and the fruits of our hard and honest work will rain down on our fellow Marked—stronger, better, and safer than ever before!”
Connor stood silently at the back of the hall as the applause drowned out the end of the speech. He let go of Sally’s hand. He knew what he had to do.
He ducked out of Lahoma’s town hall without anyone else noticing he’d come or gone.
Logan, Hailey, and Peck had spent the day hiding among the storage shelves of the SSC’s basement, keeping Erin company, reading Swipe aloud, and trying their best to dissect all the stuff they found in there.
“So what do you guys think?” Peck asked once they’d finished.
Logan shrugged. “I’m not sure. He gets a lot of stuff wrong. A lot of the details, you know?”
“He made up a good bit of it,” Erin agreed.
Peck nodded. “In my chapters too. And yet . . . the big stuff’s all there.”
“He got your iguana right,” Logan said to Erin. “When you lost him in Spokie’s park that one time, with Hailey?”
Erin nodded, looking a little creeped out.
And Peck said, “Somehow he knew about Tyler’s card game too. King’s Punch-Out. Little stuff like that is spot-on, all throughout. How would a stranger know about any of that?”
“Are we really this famous?” Logan asked. “That some guy was able to write a book about us in just these last few months? I mean, where’d he learn all this stuff? How’s he have any idea what kinds of things we were up to back in Spokie?”
Peck shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “But he keeps a low profile and he calls himself an ‘Angler.’ By the sound of it, I’d guess he’s a fisherman along the Unmarked River. If so, he’d meet plenty of Markless passing through. Guess one day he just started piecing together the rumors he’d been hearing and—”
“That’s a lot of rumors,” Logan said.
Peck nodded. “His author’s bio says he lives in Beacon. So who knows . . . It’s possible he was there back with the Markless huddle under City Center, in the fission reactor, watching us, listening . . .”
Logan shuddered. The thought of it, of being observed like that . . . it sent a chill down his spine. “I don’t want to be famous,” he said.
Peck laughed. “Then you shouldn’t have done something so remarkable.”
“I didn’t even know they still published paper books,” Erin said, as if that somehow made the artifact less real.
“They don’t. I have no idea how this one was printed. Or where they found the equipment. Even the library downtown, lawless as it is, is mostly electronic. What you’re holding there is highly illegal. Someone risked quite a lot carrying that copy all the way out to Sierra.”
“You think many people have read it?” Logan asked.
But before anyone could hazard a guess, Arianna was bounding down the basement steps with a tablet in hand.
“Erin,” she said. “Tablet call for you.”
Erin sat up slightly in her bed. “Who . . . who is it?” she asked tentatively. Already, Logan, Peck, and Hailey were tense, ready to run or fight in case the doctor was handing them a trap.
“Hey, relax,” Arianna said. “You think I wouldn’t vet these guys first?”
“‘These guys?’” Peck asked.
“Yeah! The whole group of ’em!” Arianna smiled. “Seems they call themselves ‘the Dust’?”
The reunion among the friends was chaotic and warm.
Immediately, Logan, Peck, and Hailey flew from their circle on the floor and into a small huddle around Arianna and her tablet.
“Blake!”
“Joanne!”
“Peck!”
“Hailey!”
On both ends of the video connection, the Dust spoke too fast on top of one another for any of them to be heard.
Arianna laughed at the warm welcome, watching it unfold.
Of all of them, only Erin held back. “How’d they get through to us?” she asked suspiciously, still resting in her medical bed. “They didn’t know where we were headed, they couldn’t have guessed Arianna’s identity . . . they don’t even have a tablet that can make calls.”
“I know!” Tyler yelled. “But listen—now that we’re all here, I have this brand-new game we can play—”
“Now, wait a minute!” Erin said, raining on everyone’s parade. “I’m not saying one more word to these guys until we figure out how they found us. Something’s not right.” She leaned forward and stared into the video screen at the foot of her bed. “So what exactly is going on here?”
There was a brief silence on the other end. Several of the Dust even slinked sheepishly outside the view of the screen.
“I’m what’s going on here,” Mr. Arbitor said, entering the video feed. “Well—your mom and I, both.”
Right away, Erin was dumbstruck. She held a hand to her mouth and teared up just a little, though no one else was quite sure whether it was over fear of being caught, or joy at being found.
“We’re here to help,” Dr. Arbitor said, waving inside the tablet. “The Dust too.” And behind her, Tyler stuck a finger in his mouth and made a gagging motion.
“Arianna,” Erin said. “You know my dad works for DOME, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Dr. Rhyne said. “But if he’s working with ’em right now, then he sure has a strange way of apprehending DOME’s number-one group of rebels.”
The next few minutes of conversation were filled with ups and downs: Erin’s apology for running out, the Arbitors’ forgiveness, Tyler’s account of being caught in the elevator, Dr. Arbitor’s stories of how worried Mac had been back on Barrier Street . . .
But ultimately, the joys of reconnecting were snuffed out once and for all by the Arbitors’ realization that Erin’s trip to the Sierra Science Center wasn’t for pleasure.
“Sick? What do you mean, Erin’s sick?” Dr. Arbitor said quickly.
“You guys didn’t tell them?” Erin asked.
Mr. Arbitor turned his head. “You knew?”
“Well, of course,” Tyler said. “With Trumpet. Obviously.”
“Obviously? What in Cylis’s name is ‘Trumpet’?” Dr. Arbitor asked.
For the first time since the Dust had arrived, a heavy silence fell over the room. Mr. Arbitor hung his head in his hands, slowly remembering the rumors he’d heard over the years.
“Olivia,” Dr. Rhyne said. “You might want to sit down for this.” And she proceeded to tell the group everything.
“I’m afraid right now there’s not a whole lot we can do for her,” Arianna said by the end of it. “Somehow, Erin must have come in contact with a second activation protein. Something I had nothing to do with. And one that . . . well, that activated her vaccine. But right now we haven’t the slightest idea what that protein is or where it came from. Without it, we’re looking at a bit of a dead end. Sorry,” she added quickly. “Pun not intended.”
Each of them stood somberly, hearing the reality of it.
After a moment, Erin broke the ice. “I’ve been thinking a lot about it,” she began. “About where I might have been exposed. Whether I breathed it, or drank it, or touched it, or smelled it . . .”
“There’s no way you would remember,” Dr. Rhyne said. “I don’t blame you for—”
“No, that’s just it,” Erin interrupted. “I think I do.”
Dr. Rhyne raised an eyebrow.
“Before we made it out here, I’d just assumed it was just from . . . I don’t know . . . from whatever. But since you’re sure the protein hasn’t been released nationwide yet . . . well, it’s clear that I must have been exposed through something specific to me.”
“That’s right,” the doctor said. “But as for what that specific thing is . . .”
Erin frowned and tugged a little at the wires in her arms, trying hard—and failing—to get comfortable. “Back in Spokie, I did a lot of snooping around DOME’s headquarters at the Umbrella.” She looked at her dad now in the tablet, apologetically. “I stole things. More things than I could count, really. Lined my pockets with tactical equipment, filled my backpack with spy tech I couldn’t even recognize . . .
“We all know Trumpet originally came from within the ranks of DOME, and I certainly got my hands on enough top secret stuff over there—powders, gels, vials . . . Who’s to say some of it wasn’t carrying this new activation protein?” Erin laughed. “I gave the stupid fever to myself.”
Her words hung in the stale basement air. Erin could almost picture them swirling around everyone’s heads, like birds around a dazed character from some old, pre-Unity cartoon.
Soon, Mr. Arbitor’s mind was racing. Trumpet. Trumpet . . .
If it had been inside the Spokie headquarters, then it stood to reason it’d be at Beacon’s too.
“Erin,” he said. “If we were to find traces of that activation protein ourselves . . . is there any way that could help you all with your research out there at the Science Center?”
“Are you kidding?” Dr. Rhyne chimed in. “Having the info on that protein would make all the difference in the world!”
Already, a big smile was stretching across his face. It was exactly what Mr. Arbitor needed to hear. “Dust,” he said, turning back to them. “Start planning. We’re going on a field trip.”
5
It was late afternoon in Lahoma. The sun was low and golden on Main Street, though not much of it seemed to make its way inside.
“Sheriff, thanks for meeting with me,” Connor said, walking into the room. The sheriff’s office was dim and cool, its dirt floors and wooden walls brightened only by a single, large wallscreen that hung oddly against the rest of the room’s out-of-era simplicity.
Connor found a seat. The sheriff raised an eyebrow and leaned forward at his desk. “You’ve come here, I assume, with some sort of confession?”
“Well, maybe yes and maybe no,” Connor said.
The sheriff nodded. “Before you speak, son, I feel obligated to tell you—my investigation into your parents’ crimes is ongoing, and it’s only a matter of time before I’m going to need you to testify in the town’s hearings against their conspiracy. You’re a Marked man now, and that makes you fully adult in the eyes of the law. Anything you say to me today can and will be used against you. You understand me, Mr. Goodman?”
Connor sat still for quite some time. Why must this be so much harder than it needs to be? “In that case,” he said finally, “I’ll only say this: whatever it is my parents may or may not have been guilty of . . . whatever their plan and actions may or may not have entailed . . . I need you to know—they were acting at the request of General Lamson.”
The sheriff stared at Connor for a moment. And then he couldn’t help but laugh.
“Connor. You’re a good kid. You’re a smart kid, a hard worker, and a selfless volunteer for your community. You’re our country’s first General’s Award recipient and you should be very proud of it. But just because you’ve been honored by our general does not mean that your parents had carte blanche to commit whatever treasonous acts they fancied. Surely you understand the wide leap in logic between these two things.”
“It’s not a leap!” Connor pressed. “Forget the award—the award itself meant nothing. It was a setup! Lamson came here to talk to my parents. The night after the ceremonies, he stayed, he asked me to leave. He talked with my parents himself . . . nearly an hour, he was in there . . .”
“And I’m sure he had many complimentary things to say about you, but—”
“No! He didn’t! That’s what I’m trying to tell you! That meeting—it had nothing to do with me at all! Lamson came here for my parents. Not for me. I was just the distraction. The rabbit he used to pull off his magic trick. I happened to be a believable candidate for the award that he gave me, sure, but that’s only because he designed the award to fit my profile. He could have made something up for anyone! If he’d wanted to conspire with the Jeffersons, then he would have given Patrick a General’s Award for swimming. Had it been the Wolfes he needed, then right now Katherine would have a General’s Honorary Medal for best actor. It’s all just nonsense! The trophy as it was went to me because my parents were in charge of the weather mill’s launch systems. My parents were the ones best positioned to do Lamson’s bidding. And his bidding—was to shut down America’s cloud seeding for as long as humanly possible!”
“Connor. At this point I feel I must tell you—slandering the general-in-chief of the American State is, in and of itself, its own form of treason—”
“But it isn’t slander! It’s the truth!”
“Mr. Goodman, why? Why in Cylis’s name would the leader of the American State, one half of our great, new Global Union, conspire to starve Americans? Why would the general ask his own citizens to wreak havoc and hardship upon their fellow patriots—and his biggest supporters? Connor, I admire your familial devotion, but this fiction you’re spinning doesn’t stand to reason. It’s only out of compassion for your obvious state of shock that I’m not arresting you for it as we speak.”
Connor sat back against his chair with his head in his hands. “Sheriff, what I’m telling you is serious. Lamson’s guards pointed guns at me just for prying into this!”
“Well, you’ll forgive me for taking the general’s word over yours.”
“You haven’t heard the general’s word! That’s exactly what I want you to do—ask him about it! He’ll tell you! He’ll tell you my parents weren’t traitors. They died for him! They died for their country!”
The sheriff stood up and walked to the front of his desk. He leaned back on it, trying, perhaps, to look calm and cool, for Connor’s sake. “Connor. You’re not hearing me. If I were to call DOME and inquire about this . . . were I even to suggest that what you’re saying to me might possibly be true—something I do not believe, by the way—then you and I both would face charges for treason.”
“Sheriff, I know. Trusting me on this—even entertaining the idea of it—is most definitely a risk. I grant you that. And I’m aware of what this ongoing drought could mean.
“But try, Sheriff—for me, please, just for a second—to see things from my perspective. The fact is, I don’t know why the general asked my parents to sabotage Lahoma’s weather mill. My father did say something two nights ago about a civil war, and he seemed to know what he was talking about, but do I have any idea what that meant? No. You got me. I can’t tell you.
“But I can tell you that whatever precise reason Lamson had for his request, it was convincing enough that my own mother and father—two Marked citizens who never wronged a single person once in their entire lives—were willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice just to see it through. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
The sheriff didn’t look doubtful anymore. But he didn’t look convinced either. He just looked . . . concerned.
“Oh, Connor,” he said. “It’s natural, you know, to defend the ones you’ve loved—”
But Connor had heard enough. He knew a dead end when he saw one.
And so it was that Connor Goody Two-Shoes stormed out of a sheriff’s office midlecture.
He was on his own now—truly on his own. He walked fast along the dirt road of Main Street.
April 1, he thought.
That’s my deadline.
Six weeks.
He would have to begin now.