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“What's the deal?” Logan yelled.

“Do I know you?” Erin said, and then she turned a corner down a side street and out of sight. Logan broke into a full sprint after her.

“Erin, what in the world is this all about?” he demanded once he'd caught up to her.

“We can't be seen together,” Erin said dramatically.

“Why?” Logan asked. “Because of Dane?”

Erin laughed. “Huh? Of course not. Why would you even—”

“Never mind,” Logan said quickly, and Erin narrowed her eyes.

“Listen, if you're right about what you heard last night,” she said, “and I'm not saying you are. But
if
you're right about any of it, we need to start being more careful about how we act.”

“Oh,” Logan said. “Right.”

“I mean, either you're lying to me about that whole playground ambush, or you screwed things up so the deal didn't go down, and whichever one it was, it got me no closer back to Beacon.”

“Yeah, okay,” Logan said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Totally—your getting back to Beacon City is so much more important than me not getting kidnapped and killed. Sorry. For a minute there, I forgot why I was doing all this.”

“Oh, give me a break,” Erin said lightly, hitting Logan's shoulder. “You're all right.”

Logan looked at her, and Erin's bright smile immediately cleared the dark clouds around him. He knew she hadn't quite forgiven him for things going wrong last night. But she hadn't given up on him either.

They walked without speaking for a few blocks.

“Hey, what's so great about Beacon, anyway?” Logan asked after a while. He genuinely wanted to know.

“It's not about the city, Logan. It's about my family.” Erin frowned. “You wouldn't understand.”

Logan shrugged and said, “Still, the city must be cool. My dad calls it the greatest architectural achievement in history.”

“Of course it is,” Erin said. “That goes without saying. It's the center of the Western world.”

“We're not so far from New Chicago, you know. If you want to see a city—”

“New Chicago's
rural
next to Beacon,” Erin said.

“Oh.”

“Beacon . . . ,” Erin began. “First thing you need to know about Beacon—it's right on the water.”

“Okay.”

“Like, the waves literally come right up to it—come between some of the buildings, even, lower down on the hill.”

Logan had seen videos online but tried to imagine it now through Erin's eyes.

“And City Center's way high up, right? So first of all, anywhere you are, you get this beautiful view of the ocean, day and night.”

Logan had heard of this too. The Rupturing of the Dam was a pivotal moment in the States War, and every student in the A.U. knew the story. At the time, the East Belt Dike protected the old capital and all its surrounding land from the Atlantic Ocean that had long since risen above it. But a few years into the fighting, one of the states, led by General Lamson, decided to blow the thing up, and most of the coastal states were destroyed in the ensuing flood. So Lamson had a huge hill constructed over the ruins of the old capital, rising half a mile high and with a ten-mile plateau on top. Lamson named it Beacon and finished leading the war effort from there as a new metropolis began to grow rapidly around him. After the Unity, Lamson chose Beacon City for the new A.U. capital, as a reminder of how the war had been won and how peace had been achieved. These days, City Center filled the entirety of the hill's plateau, and expansion had continued quite a ways down the sides, right to the water's edge. This was fine for the first few years, but nobody expected the water to keep rising. When it did, Beacon's outer boroughs flooded. It happened slowly, though, so rather than relocate, the outer-borough skyscrapers were simply reinforced, and east of City Center, people just got used to getting around on boats and bridges.

“But that's not all,” Erin said. “Six layers of roads and sidewalks connect City Center—one on the ground, and
five
suspended in grids above it.”

“Why do you need that?” Logan asked.

“Are you kidding? You'd never fit all the people and roller-sticks and trams and electrobus traffic on one layer. Besides, it'd be way too annoying to have to enter every building from ground floor all the time.”

“How high do the buildings go?”

“From bottom?” she said. “You can't see the top.”

Logan tried to imagine it, and could, but barely. The whole city sounded like a fantasy.

“And there're lights and screens and speakers the whole way up, on every one. People are
alive
there, Logan—24-7. Spokie is dead by comparison. It's rotting in the ground.”

“Thanks.”

“You'll see, someday,” Erin said.

“I doubt I'll ever make it out there.”

“Well, that'd be a shame.” Erin frowned.

“I guess,” Logan said. “I'm still hoping I make it through the week.”

5

Slog Row was a couple miles from Spokie Middle, and the walk there seemed endless. The last stretch was barren, a no-man's-land, where the buildings went from run-down, to abandoned, to condemned, to crumbling, to nothing at all—just empty lots filled with trash and hazardous waste. And then, on the horizon across the silent, old expressway, it stood: the haven for the Markless. Logan could not believe what he was about to do.

“We'll start with the firehouse,” he said. “A lot of people probably stay there.”

“Outlaws, Logan—psychopaths. Stop calling them people.”

Logan looked at her. “Maybe it'd be best if you waited outside.”

“Fine with me,” Erin said, and she slipped her hands into the pockets of her shorts. “But if you're in there longer than ten minutes, I'm calling DOME.”

Logan shrugged. “I wanted you to call them last night.”

He looked up. Outside, the firehouse looked like it might fall down any day now. The roof sagged, the walls were torn apart with large pieces missing altogether, the windows were broken or missing entirely. The stoop leading to the front door (which rested, unattached to any hinges, against the wall) was covered with trash, stains, and graffiti.

Inside, the firehouse was much worse. The stench was awful. People sat, slumped in the corners and along the edges of the room, and mice scurried between them, often right up to their legs. Logan had never felt so out of place. But he didn't feel scared. For as long as he could remember, he'd always been warned to stay far away from the Row, far away from these dirty, sordid people with their unpredictable behavior and their desperate acts. But standing here now didn't match up with those stories of danger and risk. The scene in this firehouse wasn't frightening. It was tragic.

Logan held his hand up so that anyone who cared could see his empty wrist. Only one man, reclining on the crumbling steps that led to the second floor, seemed lucid enough to notice. Logan walked over to him tentatively, his heart pounding out of his chest.

“Hi,” Logan said. “I have food.”

At this, several others looked up and eyed Logan with cautious hope. He put his backpack on the floor and unzipped it, suddenly very glad that he hadn't had the appetite to finish his lunch. “It's not enough,” he apologized. “I'm sorry.” Somehow it never occurred to him how much his leftovers might matter to people living so close to his own front door. They were just a couple miles away . . . and yet they lived in a different world entirely.

But the man on the steps didn't seem to mind. He smiled a great, big, toothless smile.

“Aw, eh, yer gottem food, ah?”

Logan struggled a little to understand him, but at the words, he extended his half sandwich to the man, who took it. Logan saw that where the man's hands touched the white bread, they left dark, filthy smudges.

“What's your name?” Logan asked.

“Oh, eh, Wallace, um?” It was almost another language.

“It's nice to meet you, Wallace. You eat that, now. It's good, and . . . and I just made it this morning.”

But Wallace had already finished the sandwich. He burped, and a couple wet crumbs tumbled down his chin.

Wallace couldn't have been more than thirty-five, Logan guessed. Certain signs of youth were unmistakable. And yet Wallace was, in so many ways, an old man. His missing teeth were just the beginning. Those that remained were yellow and stray and broken. His eyes were yellow too, and his hair, while long and drawn back in a brown ponytail that reached past his shoulder blades, was unduly thin and fragile. The man's skin was leathery and covered in liver spots. His clean-shaven face made matters only sadder, since it suggested that this was a man who cared about his appearance . . . who was doing everything he could for it.

Others had gathered now, men and women of all walks of life, some very old, some younger, all close to death. Logan divided his leftover carrots and celery and apple slices among them.

He guessed he'd been in here nearing on ten minutes now. Almost time to go. Logan made idle chatter with the group around him, asking about their afternoon, how it was going, and mentioning the sunny weather. The group smiled, laughing softly, perhaps not quite understanding his words either but nodding even so, touching his shoulders, hugging him, shaking his hands, thanking him . . .

Logan wondered if these people had ever had a visitor, had ever been given a sandwich made that day, or an apple, or carrots and celery that still crunched. Somehow, he couldn't bring himself to ask about any of that.

He didn't ask about Peck either.

6

“How was it?” Erin asked. “Was it awful? Are you all right? You look dirty. You smell terrible.”

Logan didn't answer right away. He came off the stoop and walked immediately down the block, toward the houses a few lots over. Erin rushed to follow him.

“It was fine,” Logan said finally.

“Hear anything about Peck?”

“No. Not in there.”

“Was it scary? Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

Logan shook his head but didn't speak, and Erin didn't ask him anything else about the firehouse.

“We need to find some younger Markless. They must be around.” Logan wasn't sure if he'd suggested it as a strategy, or simply because he needed to see someone with some life left in him. Either way, up ahead was a stretch of houses with younger people, late teens and early twenties, sitting and shouting to one another on stoops. Logan and Erin approached.

“You're lost, kiddies. This ain't Old District,” one girl yelled. Erin seemed to shrink into herself, but Logan fired back.

“Good thing,” he said. “I wouldn't take those hoarders' money if
they
begged
me
.”

The girl on the stoop narrowed her eyes. Logan held his hands so his wrists were showing, though he didn't make a big deal of it.

“What's the pretty doing with you?” the girl asked, nodding at Erin.

“She's thinking of losing the Mark,” Logan said. Erin glanced at him sideways, frightened. Last night, she was in her element.

Today, Erin very much was not.

“You can't lose it, sweetheart,” a guy said from another stoop.

“You can't ever lose it.”

“Can if you cut your arm off,” Logan said. Erin let out a stifled yelp, but no one besides Logan seemed to hear.

The people on the stoops lifted their eyebrows, intrigued. Logan made his move.

“We're looking for a man named Peck,” Logan said. “I'm wondering if any o' you fine folks had some ideas.”

Immediately, laughter erupted from the stoops of houses all the way to several lots over.

“Nice try, DOME. Move along, now, move along.” They weren't intimidated. They weren't shy about it. They just laughed and shook their heads as Logan and Erin passed, ashamed.

“Cavalier
and
ineffective. Very impressive, Logan. You play it that cool in the firehouse too?”

“It was worth a shot,” Logan said. “We still managed to learn something.”

“Which is?”

“They know the guy. They know he's wanted. They're on his side.”

“Correct me if I'm wrong, Logan . . . that all seems like
bad
news for us.”

“It is,” Logan agreed. “But at least now we know it.”

7

Back in Old District, Dane Harold spun in circles on his dad's rollerstick while Hailey watched. “It's really not so tough!” he said, though he swung wildly and fell off to the ground as he did. “Wanna give it a try?”

“No,” Hailey muttered, her arms crossed.

Dane shrugged, feigning total apathy. “Fine. I gotta practice the mitts anyway. Did I tell you the Boxing Gloves are playing a concert at the end of the month?”

“Yeah.”

“It's a battle of the bands.”

“Mm-hm.”

Dane had hoped for a more enthusiastic response. “Well. I'll see you around, then.”

“Can I try your mitts?” Hailey asked.

“Um . . . sure,” Dane said. “Yeah, cool. Of course.”
It really must be a whole new school year
, he thought. Hailey hadn't given him the time of day since the summer after fifth grade. She lived just past Old District, so yes, she often walked home along the same streets as Dane. And sure, quite regularly, she'd stand, arms folded, insulting him for a few minutes before she'd continue on and go home. But she'd never asked him to let her come in. And he wasn't about to waste the chance to spend more time with her.

Dane's house was one of the few remaining pre-Unity homes in Spokie. Old District was the wealthiest district in town, and among the wealthiest in all of suburban New Chicago. The streets here were wider and lined with enormous trees. Most of the greenery in Spokie was made of bushes and saplings, five years old at best before they shriveled and died. But in Old District, the trees were taller than the buildings, with great big trunks so wide that if Dane and Hailey had stood around one, they couldn't have touched hands. Presently, the two of them walked under the green shade of an oak much different from the skyscraper shade on the rest of Spokie's streets. Warmer. Brighter, somehow.