Sneak (16 page)

Five

The Aftermath

1

The morning on Wright Street was quiet

and still. In the house where Logan grew up, Mr. and Mrs. Langly were eating breakfast, which today was toast, orange juice, and cereal.

But Mrs. Langly hadn’t touched her plate.

“Not hungry?” her husband asked.

Mrs. Langly shook her head.

“Maybe today’s the day. You know? We’re bound to hear some-

thing eventually.”

Mrs. Langly just shrugged.

“So how’s, uh, . . . how’s the research?”

Earlier in life, Charlotte Langly had been a meteorologist.

Before Lily failed her Pledge, Charlotte would spend hours up in her study on the top floor of the house, tracking weather patterns, charting storms, following cold fronts, heat waves, natural disasters . . . she’d studied all of it at great length. She’d written op-eds on the aftermath of the earthquake that destroyed the West Coast, published articles about the changing weather patterns and the dis-ruption that it would (and then did) bring, lobbied Parliament for environmental action, led seminars in New Chicago, organized volunteer “nature cleanup” days in Spokie . . .

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But the interest dried up when Lily didn’t return. All of it just went away, right along with Charlotte’s daughter.

Then, about a month ago, Logan went in for his Pledge, and

once again the Langlys had a DOME visitor by supper.

“Security tapes show your son attacking his nurse,” the agent

told them. “You can see him here, also threatening his Marker.”

The Langlys stood at their doorstep, watching the video feed

on the man’s tablet. Watching their own son assault an innocent nurse. Mrs. Langly watched with her hand over her mouth. Mr.

Langly watched poker-faced. Both of them were silent.

“Fortunately, as you can see, your son’s Marker was able to talk him down from his hysteria.” The man pointed to the screen on his tablet. “And look at this. You see these four men arriving to take your son for questioning?” He shut the tablet off now and tucked it under his arm, looking Mr. Langly in the eyes as he spoke. “Six minutes later your son managed to escape.”

“Escape?” Mr. Langly repeated.

“We lost him, I’m afraid. He . . . managed to evade our guards and somehow sneak off. We have our best people on it,” the man quickly assured them. “But for the time being, your son is missing.”

“Is he in trouble?” Mr. Langly asked.

“No trouble,” the agent said. “We’d just like to find him, is all.

So please—if you see or hear anything . . . if he happens to come home . . . do let us know. Immediately, if you would.”

Mrs. Langly had already excused herself from the conversa-

tion. Mr. Langly looked back, noticing her absence, but she was nowhere in sight.

“We’ll let you know,” Mr. Langly told the agent. “And . . .

likewise . . . were you to find him first . . . you’d, uh, you’d let us—”

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“Of course. Right away, Mr. Langly.”

“He’s been . . . troubled lately,” Logan’s dad apologized. “We don’t quite know what got into him.”

“Let’s just hope this all ends soon,” the man said. “For everyone’s sake.”

Then the DOME agent left.

And Mr. Langly stood at the open door for some time, just

staring at nothing, letting all the cold air come in.

When he’d finally found his wife, she wasn’t in Logan’s room.

She wasn’t in the living room or Lily’s room or the master bedroom. She was in her own study. She had dusted and rearranged

all of her old equipment, and she was sitting among it at her old desk chair, reading over satellite feeds for the first time in years.

“Honey?” Mr. Langly said warily.

“Yes, dear?”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She looked up from her work. “Talk about what?”

Then she turned back to the monitor.

And she’d worked nearly every waking hour since.

2

“The results of my research are . . . odd,” Mrs. Langly replied to her husband at the breakfast table. “Did you know we’ve lost a third of all ocean life since the time of the States War?”

“I didn’t,” Mr. Langly said.

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“We have.”

“That sounds . . . very tragic,” Mr. Langly said.

“It is.”

Behind them, the elevator buzzed. Mrs. Langly’s mother

stepped out into the kitchen. “What’s tragic?” she asked.

“The oceans,” Mr. Langly said. “Charlotte was just telling me

about how they’ve been dying out.”

“Of course they’re dying out,” Grandma said. “What’d you

expect them to do? We destroyed everything else on this lousy

planet. You think the oceans’d just tip their hat and walk away?”

She laughed callously.

“Yes, well, I’ve never read anything about the oceans being in trouble,” Mr. Langly said.

“Everything’s in trouble as long as that mogul Cylis is in

charge. You hear the rumors that they’re moving up the vote on the G.U. treaty?”

“I didn’t,” Mr. Langly said awkwardly. “That’s great.”

“
Great?
It’s not great, it’s terrible! At least Lamson’s finally owning up to the fact that this was his plan all along . . .”

“Sonya . . .” Mr. Langly cleared his throat.

Conversations like this were common these days in the Langly

household. During Lily’s and Logan’s years growing up, Grandma had stuck close to her retirement home in New Chicago, where

nearly everyone liked to complain about Cylis as much as she did.

But when the news hit that Logan was missing, Mr. Langly decided that drastic measures were needed in order to keep his family

together. So he invited Grandma to move in.

She and he both thought it might do Mrs. Langly some good.

But so far all it had done was set the stage for bitter, daily arguments.

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“You know, Sonya . . . maybe we’ve had enough trouble with

DOME for one lifetime, don’t you think? Maybe we oughta just

focus on Charlotte, and each other, and—”

“Oh, give me a break,” Grandma said. “Hey, Charlotte—you

listening? DOME took your children away. You still glad you got that Mark when Lamson told you to? I know
I
am!”

“Sonya, please!”

But Mrs. Langly didn’t flinch. “I noticed something else

recently,” she said.

“Oh yeah, what’s that?” her husband asked gently.

“Plague. I’ve been reading disease reports—”

“Oh, have you?” Grandma said. “That’s good, dear. That’s

real healthy. Just read about all the death you can—I’m sure that’s helping to ease your pain.”

“Sonya.” Mr. Langly kept a lid on his frustration, but it was

beginning to boil over.

“In any case,” Mrs. Langly said flatly. “We seem to be facing

the start of a plague in this country.”

Mr. Langly stared at his wife, not quite understanding.

“Honey . . . don’t you think the news would have said some thing about that?”

“No.” Mrs. Langly shrugged.

And Grandma nodded. “What have I been saying? How many

times have I told you, Dave? It’s the end of the world. You’ve got to expect plagues when it’s the end of the world. Just like you’ve got to expect freak weather and war and famine and all the other stuff I’ve been telling you about for years! What did you think?

It’s Revelation! You want me to read it to you again?—I’ve got my Bible just upstai—”

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“All right, that’s enough!” Mr. Langly exploded. “I will not

have this nonsense exclusionist talk in my house! We’re in enough trouble with DOME as it is. Charlotte, it’s winter. There’s bound to be flu in the winter months. Sonya . . . I don’t even know where to begin with you . . .”

Mr. Langly picked up his tablet and pulled up the morning

reports, tuning his family out. And he read in this way for some time, through the global news and the national news (including articles on how the two sections would soon be one), and finally on to the local news, with Sonya and Charlotte just sitting there, silent.

Mr. Langly had always been pretty good about keeping up

with the news, had always been casually interested in politics and economics and the general goings-on. But in recent weeks he’d

become obsessed, watching every report he could, privately desperate to learn something about his son.

There was nothing, of course. DOME matters were never

reported in the news. The surge in raids on the Markless, the

ongoing search for Logan and Peck and the Dust, the attack on

the Meloy farm last night . . . none of it was ever mentioned. Mr.

Langly didn’t even know what he was missing.

But there was one brief article buried deep down in the news

feed this morning. One little headline that Mr. Langly couldn’t keep to himself. He read it aloud when he saw it:

Hailey PHoenix Missing,

local scHool RePoRts

Third Disappearance in as

Many Months

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“Apparently it was the middle school secretary who called the

authorities. Mrs. Phoenix ‘acknowledged the absence but couldn’t say where her daughter had gone, why she wasn’t at school, or when she might return.’” Mr. Langly shook his head, shocked. “Says here

‘there’s no criminal investigation at this time, but local police are baffled.’”

Grandma sat frowning, listening closely now.

“I don’t understand it,” Mr. Langly said. “Why wouldn’t

Dianne have reported the disappearance herself?”

The Langlys knew Hailey’s family well and had been friendly

with them for years through Logan. When Lily disappeared, Mr.

and Mrs. Phoenix had been the most supportive of anyone in

Spokie. They often had Logan over for dinners and evenings with Hailey as he dealt with the loss of his sister. And when Mr. Phoenix passed away, the Langlys did their best to return the favor. But the families had grown apart in recent years as the friendship between Logan and Hailey had gradually fallen away.

“Maybe Dianne’s like your wife,” Grandma said. “Airheaded

in her grief.”

Mrs. Langly closed her eyes, but she didn’t respond.

“Says here the mayor’s imposing a town-wide curfew. ‘No

Mark, No Dark,’ it says. Anyone on the streets after sundown will be brought in for questioning if they can’t show a Mark—especially the underage.” Mr. Langly sighed. “Three months too late, Mr. Mayor.”

But Grandma narrowed her eyes, lost in thought. “If you’ll

excuse me . . . ,” she said.

Mr. Langly waved her off, reading the article again to himself.

And Grandma retired to her guest room in the Langly house.

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3

It had a crimson red wallpaper that made the space feel heavy and claustrophobic. The only sources of light were two table lamps, and each had a lampshade so thick that even at their brightest, the place was still dim and stuffy. Grandma entered it now, her guest room: Lily’s old bedroom on the ninth floor.

The clutter was everywhere, never cleaned or moved or even

touched since the day of Lily’s Pledge. On the bedside table were a paper plate and a fork with a piece of birthday cake still on it. The cake had gone black, its original remains rock hard and shriveled, but around it mold had sprung up so thick and lively that the whole thing looked a little like a potted plant. Once, Mr. Langly had tried to move the cake, to throw it away before the bugs got to it, but this idea upset Mrs. Langly so much that Mr. Langly worried for his marriage. The cake hadn’t moved an inch since.