Storm

TWO

Home.

It’s a simple little word that means so much.

It’s not just a place, it’s a concept. Home is safety. It’s where you are surrounded by loved ones who watch out for you. It’s the one place where you will always be welcomed, no matter what craziness may be going on around you. I think for most people it’s the single most important place in the world.

I know that’s true because I no longer have one.

Neither do Tori, Kent, and Olivia. We may have left our homes behind when we escaped from Pemberwick Island, but we had lost them long before that. We just didn’t know it at the time.

I’m not exactly sure when our homes started to slip away. Maybe it began when people on Pemberwick Island suddenly started dying. The deaths rocked the small community and were unexplainable, until we were invaded and occupied by a branch of the United States Navy called SYLO. The president of the United States himself announced that a virus had broken out and quarantined the island for our protection and that of the people on the mainland. It was a lie. The real reason people died was because of a substance called the Ruby that was being distributed by a mysterious stranger named Ken Feit. The Ruby gave people incredible strength and energy. I can say that with authority because I tried it. It was magical… unless you took too much. The human body wasn’t built to perform at such a high level. It was absolutely amazing—and ultimately deadly.

Was that when our home started slipping away?

Or was it when the SYLO occupiers and their leader, Captain Granger, started pulling people off the street and throwing them into prison? Or when SYLO began killing people for attempting to escape? Maybe it was before that, when the black Air Force planes started secretly delivering the Ruby to Pemberwick. What was the point of that? If they wanted to hurt us, why didn’t they just vaporize us one night like they did the people of Portland? Were we being used as guinea pigs for some hideous experiment?

I could say that I first felt my home slipping away when Quinn Carr was killed. He was such a huge part of my life until… he wasn’t. Or maybe I know the exact moment when I realized I no longer had a home. It was when I heard that my mother and father were working with the Navy. With SYLO. They knew SYLO was coming long before we set foot on the island when I was nine years old. They had been keeping the truth from me for a very long time.

The people who were supposed to protect me and make our home a home weren’t doing either. I will never forgive them for that… if I ever see them again.

My tragic story is only one of many that developed once SYLO came into our lives. Tori’s dad was killed while trying to fight back against the occupation. Kent’s father died when he took the Ruby to try to gain the strength to protect their home.

Olivia was visiting the island from New York City, but her mother was on the mainland when the invasion hit. They may never see each other again because there’s no way to know if she’s dead or alive. The details may be different, but the bottom line is the same: We have all lost the familiar base that helped make us who we are.

We’re adrift. All we can do is move forward and try to understand the biggest question of all: Why? Why has this happened? Why have so many people been killed? Why are the Navy and the Air Force battling each other, and who should we hope will win? That’s the most confounding question of all. SYLO held us prisoner, and the Air Force tried to poison us. The Navy murdered anyone on Pemberwick who challenged their authority; the Air Force wiped out thousands on the mainland.

Why? What were they hoping to gain? I can’t imagine anything being worth the pain and destruction that this war has already caused. There has to be a reason for it. Someone must be calling the shots. Someone sent SYLO to destroy my home. My life. When I find out who they are, I’m going to do everything I can to cause them the kind of suffering they brought to my friends, to Pemberwick Island, and to me. Maybe then we can start over and establish a new base. A new history. A new home.

If there’s any hope of that, we must first search for the truth… and hope that what we find won’t be worse than what we’ve already seen.

“We’ll take the Saab,” Kent said. “It’s butt-ugly, but the tank is full.”

We had made it safely to a parking lot that was packed with the cars of people who had come to the Old Port for a night of fun, and never left. We piled into the ancient burgundy sedan while keeping one eye on the sky. Nobody had to say it, but we all feared that another attack plane would come swooping in. I sat in back with Tori. Olivia rode shotgun.

“Where’s the hospital?” Kent asked.

“Head back the way we drove into town,” Tori said. “It’s near the Western Prom.”

“You say that like I know what you’re talking about,” he said snidely.

Kent started the engine, put the car into gear, and jammed his foot to the floor, launching us out of the parking lot.

“Hey, take it easy!” Olivia cried.

“Easy?” Kent said with a scoff. “Those planes are out hunting. I don’t want to get blown up.”

“And I don’t want to smash into a light pole,” Olivia chastised sweetly. “C’mon, Kent, I know you can get us there safely.” Kent backed off the gas.

“Sorry,” he said as if he actually meant it.

Olivia had an almost magical hold over Kent. Maybe it was the way she made it seem like he was always making his own decisions, while in reality she got exactly what she wanted. Or maybe it was because she looked incredible in the same short-shorts that she had been wearing since the night before. Or maybe he genuinely cared about her. Didn’t matter. Kent was a loose cannon, and if he had to be reined in, Olivia was the one to do it.

“How are you feeling?” I asked Tori.

“Tired, but okay,” she said.

I examined the bandage that Olivia had wrapped around her wound while we were on the boat making the run from Pemberwick Island.

“You’re not bleeding,” I said. “But we have to make sure you don’t get infected.”

“Yeah,” Kent said. “Wouldn’t want you to go all gangrene and have to cut your arm off.”

Nobody reacted.

“Jeez, I’m kidding!” he complained.

Nobody reacted.

“Fine, I’ll shut up and drive.”

“Does it hurt much?” I asked Tori.

She didn’t answer, which was all the answer I needed. She was hurting.

As we drove through the streets of an empty Portland, I kept glancing to the sky for fear of seeing another dark plane. I rolled down the window to listen for incoming music.

None of us spoke. We were all wound tight, tuned for signs of danger. With each empty street we passed, the enormity of what we were facing grew more real. The idea that thousands of people had been wiped off the face of the earth was beyond horrifying. Not that the death of any innocent person can be justified, but with a war, there’s the grim expectation of casualties. But were we truly at war? If so, the people of Portland hadn’t gotten advance notice. They had been attacked without mercy and for seemingly no reason. It’s not like a victorious army came in afterward to occupy the city.

It seemed as though the attack was all about death for death’s sake.

As bad as it was, there was no way to know if Portland was the only target. What would we find when we left the city? Was the rest of the world safe and watching the grisly events unfold here in Maine? Or were there similar battles raging over New York? And Philadelphia? And Baltimore? And and, and…

Even more sobering, if civil war had broken out in the United States, it would affect the entire planet. We had allies and enemies.

The world economy relied on us. A civil war would create chaos everywhere. What we were witnessing would have an impact that stretched far beyond the borders of our little universe. With those dire thoughts in mind, it was no wonder that none of us could bring ourselves to say much until we reached our destination.

The Maine Medical Center was a sprawling, modern complex of brick buildings.

“Go to the emergency room,” I called to Kent.

“Yes, sir!” he replied with mock enthusiasm.

He followed the signs and pulled to a stop in front of the glass

ER doors. We all got out and took a quick look around. The parking lot was full, but not a single person was around.

“What’s the point?” Kent asked. “We’re not going to find any doctors.”

“We’ll get clean bandages and antiseptic,” Tori said. “It’s not like I need surgery.”

Olivia held Tori by the arm to support her.

I led us to the front door… and nearly walked right in to it. Oops. No power.

Kent pulled open a side door.

“Or we could go this way,” he declared smugly.

He held the door while the three of us entered.

The sun was already on its way down. With no power in the building, it was going to be a challenge to find anything—especially since the deeper we walked toward the emergency room, the fewer windows there were.

“We gotta do this fast,” I said, “or it’ll be pitch dark.” We walked quickly toward the patient-treatment area, more or less guessing at which was the right way to go. Being there brought back memories. Bad memories. The last time I had been in a hospital was the week before, when Quinn and I snuck into his father’s office in the Arborville emergency room. We hacked into his parents’ computer looking for information about the Pemberwick virus. What we found was the first hint that there actually was no Pemberwick virus; the hospital database showed no cases being treated. It confirmed that Captain Granger and his SYLO team weren’t telling the people of Pemberwick the truth.

As startling as that was, it was only the tip of the iceberg. “What’s that sound?” Olivia asked.

I stopped short and tensed up, fearing an incoming attack plane.

We listened and heard what sounded like a static-filled AM radio. “Could be a battery-powered radio,” I said.

“Yes!” Kent exclaimed. “We can get news out of Boston.” We followed the sound while straining to hear what was being broadcast. There was more static than anything else, but we could occasionally hear the sound of a woman’s voice breaking through the clutter. It wasn’t clear enough to make out anything specific.

The signal was either too weak or the battery was near dead. “It’s coming from in there,” Tori said, pointing to a closed door.

I didn’t hesitate and went for the door.

Dim light entered the room as I pushed it open. It was enough to see a small office. On the far wall was a desk that was stacked with electronic equipment, some of which had green power lights on. There were several computer monitors lit up and showing colorful data.

“It is a radio,” Kent said.

“Why do they have power?” Olivia asked with confusion. “It must be running on batteries,” I said. “Or an emergency generator. It looks like the communication room for the ER.”

“So what is it picking up?” Tori asked.

The static and voice were coming from speakers mounted near the ceiling. It was a bad signal, but I didn’t want to risk monkeying with the touchscreen for fear I would lose it completely. The static continued along with the ghostly voice of a woman who was broadcasting from… somewhere. I only caught every third word. “… appeal… survivors… bloodied… attacked… join… north… thirty-six degrees… twenty seconds… hundred fourteen… fifty-seven… invaders… strength… hesitate…” The voice was clipped, and it cut in and out so that whatever she was saying made little sense.

“Maybe we can talk to her,” Kent said and went for the radio. He picked up a microphone on a stand, brought it up to his mouth, and—

“Don’t touch that!” barked a male voice from the hallway. We all jumped in surprise and spun quickly to see a guy standing there who didn’t look much older than us. He wore green hospital scrubs and a white lab coat. He had a head of thick, curly black hair and wore large glasses that gave him a wild, bug-eyed look. He pushed past us and went right for the radio.

“I don’t want to lose the signal,” he said, peeved. “It’s tough enough finding it because it’s so weak.”

He fine-tuned the frequency by moving his fingers over the touchscreen, but rather than bringing the ghostly voice in more clearly, he killed it entirely.

“Damn!” he said, frustrated. “It’s over.”

The guy touched a few more icons, and the radio went dark. “Who was that?” Kent asked. “And who are you?”

“Jon Purcell,” the guy said. “I mean, that’s who I am. I don’t know who she was.”

“What was she talking about?” Olivia asked.

“I’m not sure,” Jon replied thoughtfully. “She comes on every two hours and says the same thing, I think. It’s hard to tell because I only get random words. She talks about survivors and heading west and spews out numbers, but none of it makes sense. I don’t even think she’s broadcasting live. It might be a recording, like a continuous loop, because it sounds exactly the same each time.”

“So you don’t know if she’s close by or on the other side of the world,” I said.

Jon looked at me like I had just asked if fish could sing. “Obviously she couldn’t be on the other side of the world,” he said condescendingly. “Radio waves don’t follow the curve of the earth. With some repeaters she could be broadcasting from a few thousand miles away, but that’s likely the limit.”

“Right. Thanks for the physics lesson,” I said, not meaning it. “Do you work here?” Tori asked. “I need some help.”

“I’m in transportation,” Jon said proudly. “I know every inch of this hospital. What do you need?”

“Transportation?” Ken said sarcastically. “Not exactly what we’re looking for.”

“I was shot,” Tori said, gesturing to her shoulder. “I want to clean up the wound.”

“Shot?” Jon said in disbelief. “How? Why? What happened?”

“Really?” Kent exclaimed. “The whole city is wiped out by laser beams from the sky, and you get all squirrely over a bullet wound?” Jon snapped a look to Kent and walked right up to him. He must have been a foot shorter than tall, blond, preppy Kent, but that didn’t stop him from getting in his face. Or rather his Adam’s apple.

“That’s exactly why I’m ‘all squirrely,’ as you put it,” Jon said.

“There aren’t a whole lot of survivors. The last thing we need to do is start shooting one another.”

Kent looked as though he wanted to smack the little guy, but he held back.

“Can you please show us where the medical supplies are?” I asked.

“I can do better than that,” he replied. “This is your lucky day.” He turned and strode out of the office.

The four of us exchanged confused looks.

“I can think of a lot of words to describe this day,” Kent said.

“‘Lucky’ isn’t one of them.”

“Are we supposed to follow that little nerd?” Olivia asked. “Yes, you are!” Jon shouted from the hallway.

“Oops,” Olivia said, then called out, “No offense!” She got no reply.

We left the radio room and followed Jon deeper into the ER.

The light was nearly gone, but that didn’t stop him from walking quickly.

“Hey!” Kent yelled to him. “Transpo-Boy! You may know every inch of this place, but we don’t.”

“We’re not going far,” Jon shouted back without stopping. We followed him through a doorway, and I saw a faint light further ahead. It was enough to recognize that we were in the main treatment area of the ER. Jon led us down a row of treatment stations that were separated by curtains. Each contained a bed for patients. None were occupied.

The light grew brighter as we approached it, and I could see that it was coming from one of the curtained-off sections. “You’ve got power?” I asked.

“We’ve got batteries,” Jon replied. “And lanterns.” He stepped past the illuminated curtain and said, “We have company.”

Somebody was back there.

“She’s been shot,” Jon added.

The curtain was pulled back to reveal a tall Asian woman with long, dark hair wearing deep red hospital scrubs.

“Hello,” she said with professional distance. “I’m Doctor Kayamori. Please call me Luna.”

She was a strikingly pretty woman who looked Japanese but had no trace of an accent.

“A doctor?” Olivia exclaimed. “Thank god.”

“I told you it was your lucky day,” Jon said, smug. “Who is injured?” Luna asked.

Tori stepped forward.

“The bullet passed clean through just below my shoulder. There was a lot of blood, but that’s stopped now. I just want to make sure it doesn’t get infected.”

Luna relaxed and broke out in a big, warm smile. I liked her instantly.

“I’ll have to take your word that the bullet passed through. It isn’t like we can x-ray it. I’ll examine you and see what I can do.” She looked to the rest of us and asked, “What are your names?”

“Kent.”

“Olivia.”

“Tucker.”

“I’m Tori.”

“When was the last time any of you had something to eat?” she asked.

We all looked to one another dumbly.

“It’s been a while,” I replied. “Food’s been the last thing on our minds.”

“Jon, take them to the cafeteria,” Luna commanded. Then to us she added, “Eat the fresh food first.”

“Do I have to do this?” Jon whined.

“Yes, please,” Luna said firmly. “We are still a hospital, and we will continue to provide care.”

“Fine,” Jon said, pouty.

He grabbed a small battery-powered lamp and secured the strap around his head so the light shone from his forehead. The bright beam hit us in the eyes. He didn’t care.

“Follow me,” he said with no enthusiasm.

He shuffled off, keeping the beam on the floor ahead of him. Geek.

“Maybe one of us should stay,” I said to Tori.

“I’ll be okay,” she replied. “Bring me back something to eat.

I’m suddenly starving.”

“Me too,” Kent said, then called out, “Wait up, Chadwick.”

“Chadwick?” Luna asked with confusion.

“Don’t ask,” I said. “He makes up offensive names for everybody.”

“Go,” Tori ordered. “I’m fine.”

I didn’t want to leave her with a stranger, but I had the feeling that we were going to have to start doing a lot of things we wouldn’t normally do. Olivia and I caught up, and we followed the little guy to the far side of the building.

“Why are you all still alive?” Jon asked with no hint of tact.

“We made it because as soon as I saw trouble, I hid in the basement with Dr. Kayamori. It saved our lives. The only people who survived were deep underground when the attack happened.”

“How did you know to do that?” I asked.

“Because I’m smart,” Jon replied. “What’s your story?”

“We were on Pemberwick Island,” Kent replied curtly. “Now we’re not. End of story.”

He didn’t have the energy to relive all the details of what we had been through, and I didn’t blame him.

Jon stopped short and turned back to face us. The beam from his headlight burned into our eyes.

“Get that outta my face!” Kent complained.

“You were on Pemberwick?” Jon asked in awe.

“There’s no virus, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I assured him.

“I’m not,” Jon said. “I never thought there was. It made no sense. How did you get away?”

“Speedboat,” was my simple answer.

Jon nodded thoughtfully. “That explains a lot.”

“What do you mean?” Kent asked.

Jon turned abruptly and continued to walk.

“About your friend being shot,” he answered quickly. “That was a hell of a battle out there on the water.”

His reaction to our being from Pemberwick was an odd one, mostly because he didn’t press us for more information. You’d think he would have been a little more interested but Jon was definitely more about Jon than anybody else. He brought us to the cafeteria without another word and led us into the big, institutional kitchen.

“There are fruit and vegetables in the walk-in cooler. Open and close the door quickly. We’re trying to keep the cold in for as long as possible.”

He tossed me a flashlight, and Kent and Tori followed me into

the big cooler. Inside we gathered tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, bananas, and a half dozen apples. All were still fresh, but there was no telling how long that would last. We also grabbed a loaf of bread that didn’t look as though any mold had grown on it. Yet. We brought it all outside, spread it on a counter, and made sandwiches. “Is it okay for us to take this much?” I asked Jon. “How many survivors are in the hospital?”

“Including me and Dr. Kayamori?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Two.”

“You know you’re kind of annoying, right?” Kent said. “That’s it?” Olivia asked with surprise. “There are only two survivors in the whole hospital?”

“Why is that a shock?” Jon asked. “People weren’t injured in the attack, they were obliterated. Dr. Kayamori wanted to stay here in case people showed up and… surprise. Here you are.”

“And why are you staying here?” Kent asked.

“Why not?” Jon said with a shrug. “There’s nowhere else to go.”

That was a conversation killer.

We finished making a load of tomato and lettuce sandwiches and stacked them in a bus tray along with the apples and overripe bananas. I grabbed a few bottles of water from next to the silent cash register, and we all headed back to the ER.

When we arrived, the doctor was finishing the tape job on Tori’s new, clean bandage.

“She was incredibly lucky,” Luna said.

“I was just lucky,” Tori said. “If I was incredibly lucky, the sniper would have missed completely.”

“The entrance and exit wounds are clean. Seems as though the bullet passed through without bouncing around inside. If it had, you’d probably be dead. As it is, you’ll be feeling some pain while the muscle heals.”

She looked to us and added, “I packed the wound with cotton to allow it to heal from the inside. It’ll have to be changed every day or so for a while. I gave her a tetanus shot and some antibiotic tablets. Multiple vitamins too. There isn’t anything more I would do even if the hospital were fully functional.”

She touched Tori on the shoulder and said, “It will be painful for a few weeks, but you should be feeling better soon after that.”

“Thanks, Dr. Kayamori,” Tori said.

“Luna, and you are very welcome. I’m just happy I was here to help. It’s odd to be the only doctor in a war zone and not have any patients.”

We all sat at the nurses’ station and chowed on the sandwiches. I would have preferred a big old hamburger, but you can’t cook a burger without gas or electricity… or meat. Luna placed her battery-powered lantern on the counter, and we sat huddled together in its light, enjoying the simple meal.

“Do you have any idea what happened?” I asked Luna. “Not a clue. It was about as normal a day as you could imagine. The only interesting news going on was about Pemberwick Island. But after a few weeks even that was no longer big news.”

“Unless you were there,” Kent groused.

Luna continued, “I was working alone in my office when we heard the first screams. Then the power went out. Jon came running in and ordered me to go to the basement with him. I was too confused to do anything but follow.”

“Why her?” Kent asked Jon. “Was she the best doctor here or just the hottest?”

“Jeez, Kent,” Tori scolded.

Kent shrugged. “Just trying to get the picture.”

Jon replied, “I’d like to say that I was thinking clearly enough to make those kinds of judgment calls, but the truth is that I had just delivered a load of paper products to the nurses’ station next to her office. Dr. Kayamori was the first doctor I saw when the attack began.”

“And she’s hot,” Kent added.

Jon looked embarrassed, and Luna bailed him out. “It was my good fortune he was there, because he saved my life. We stayed in the basement for a few hours before deciding that whatever had happened was over. It took us quite some time to make our way back up in the dark, and when we finally surfaced, the hospital was empty. Jon and I left to seek help, but, well, you know what we found. We came back and have stayed here ever since.”

“It’s like they swept the city with that laser weapon,” I said. “It even got to people who were indoors.”

“Unless they were deep below ground,” Jon corrected. “We’ve met other survivors too. We think that weapon only works at night, but a few planes have been around during the day using other weapons. We’ve heard explosions. It’s like they’re trying to finish the job. We don’t see them much anymore, though. Maybe they think they got us all.”

“The idea that so many people died in such a short time is hard to comprehend,” Luna said. “Who could be behind such an evil act?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” I said quickly.

We gave Luna and Jon a brief overview of what we had been through on Pemberwick: the Ruby, the bogus quarantine, the SYLO troops from the U.S. Navy that were holding us prisoner, and the discovery that the black attack planes had the logo of the U.S. Air Force.

“No way!” Jon blurted out. He had been fidgeting during the entire story, dying to add his own opinions. He held himself back until I said that Portland had been attacked by the U.S. Air Force. That pushed him over the edge.

“That’s just crazy. Why would the Navy be fighting the Air Force?”

“Current theory? Civil War II,” Kent said casually while licking tomato pulp from his fingers.

“It’s a horrifying thought,” Luna said soberly. “If it’s true, then it would follow that Portland isn’t the only battleground.”

“That’s what we’re afraid of,” I agreed. “But if the United States is busy trying to destroy itself, you’d think that other countries would step in to try to stop it.”

“Unless they don’t want to get attacked themselves,” Tori offered.

“Or unless they want us to wipe ourselves out,” Kent said. Jon suddenly sat bolt upright and looked at his watch. “It’s time!” he said and took off running into the dark. “Time for what?” Tori asked.

“For the last two days, we’ve been picking up a radio broadcast,” Luna explained. “It’s the voice of a woman, but the signal is very weak, so it’s hard to understand.”

“We heard it,” I said.

“The transmission lasts for two minutes and happens every other hour on the hour. Jon has been trying to decipher it.”

“I’d like to hear it again,” I said.

Luna grabbed the battery-powered lantern and headed after Jon. We followed her back down the hallway to the small office that held the ER’s radio.

Jon was inside, already having powered up the device. He was listening intently to the static while delicately moving his finger across the touchscreen, searching for a signal.

Kent asked, “Who do you think—”

“Shhh!” Jon snapped.

After hearing nothing for several seconds, I was ready to give up and go back to my sandwich… when the voice came through. “…survivors… beaten… attacked… you safe… north… thirty-six degrees… twenty seconds… west one hundred… thirty-one minutes… repel… invaders… strength… not hesitate…”

“It’s making me crazy,” Jon complained. “I have no idea what she’s saying.”

“It’s the same message every two hours,” Luna added. “We think it’s a recording.”

“Could it be somebody on a ham radio?” Tori asked.

“No,” Jon said quickly. “They’re broadcasting on an emergency frequency. It’s the one used by ambulances to communicate with hospitals.”

“So there could be other hospitals hearing this right now?” I asked.

“If they still exist,” Jon said. “And they’re smart enough to be listening.”

“It can’t be SYLO, or the Air Force,” I said. “Their equipment is, like, high tech.”

“We must be listening to other survivors,” Tori said. “This could be a call for help.”

“Then they’re calling the wrong people,” Kent said, scoffing. Tori grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down some of the disjointed words.

“Thirty-six degrees,” she said while writing furiously. “That could be a coordinate. But without the whole thing, there’s no way of knowing where it is.”

The woman’s voice abruptly stopped, leaving nothing but static coming from the speakers.

Jon glanced at his watch.

“Two minutes on the dot,” he announced. “She’ll be back in another two hours.”

“Somebody is trying to reach out,” Tori declared.

“Reach out to do what?” Olivia asked.

“I don’t know,” Tori said. “Maybe to find other survivors?”

“So why don’t we talk back?” Kent asked.

“I tried,” Jon explained. “There’s no response. It’s another reason why I think it’s a recording.”

“Well, this is all very interesting,” Kent said, sounding bored.

“But if we don’t know who it is, why they’re broadcasting, where they are, or what they want, why are we so interested?”

Tori said, “Because they may know why we’re at war.”

Jon powered down the radio, and the room went silent.

I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote something quickly. “Luna, don’t doctors have to study Latin?”

“A bit,” she replied. “I took more courses as an undergraduate, though. I thought it would help in medical school. It didn’t.”

“Do you have any idea what this says?” I asked.

“I’m not sure if I remember the exact spelling.”

I handed her the paper. On it I had written down the words that were scrawled like graffiti on the wreckage of the downed Air Force plane we discovered in the Old Port.

Luna held it closer to the lantern and read it aloud. “Sequentia yconomus libertate te ex inferis obendienter.”

“SYLO,” Tori said.

Luna frowned. “I’m not a Latin scholar by any stretch of the imagination.”

“Does it make any sense?” I asked.

“Sequentia could mean ‘sequence.’ Or something that follows. I’m not familiar with yconomus. Obendienter could be the root of the word ‘obedient.’”

“What about libertate te ex inferis?” I asked.

Luna gave me a dark look. She asked, “Do you really think this

phrase has something to do with SYLO?”

“Either that, or it’s an incredible coincidence that it’s a perfect acronym,” I said.

“Do you know what it means?” Tori asked.

Luna took a breath. She said, “Libertate means ‘to liberate or free something.’”

“What about te ex inferis?”

She handed the paper back to me. “I can only offer a loose translation, but to the best of my knowledge, libertate te ex inferis means ‘to liberate, or to save a person, from the gates of hell.’” Her words echoed through the empty hospital, or maybe they were echoing through my head. I finally got my thoughts together enough to say, “So we could be dealing with a deadly virus, or a powerful and lethal drug, or aliens, or a civil war, and now we’ve got to add the possibility of something biblical going on?” Luna shrugged and said, “I don’t know. I’m not a religious person. I don’t know what happens after death or why we’re all here, but after what happened to this city, to these people, I could be convinced that evil truly does exist, because there was definitely a devil at work here, and we have found ourselves standing at the gates of hell.”