SYLO

EIGHTEEN

My head hurt.

That was the first conscious thought I’d had since staring up at the giant SYLO logo on the side of the submarine. After that, everything had gone black. What had happened? Had I been shot? Knocked out? Drugged? Or was I dead? Dead probably wasn’t an option. Not that I had any experience with the afterlife, but I didn’t think being dead involved having a pounding headache.

I opened my eyes, I think. It was hard to tell because it was dark. I was lying on a thin mattress that didn’t do much to cushion the hard floor. A quick check of my body showed no injuries. The only thing that hurt was my head.

And my heart.

Quinn was dead. It was hard to imagine, let alone accept.

His last moments were the ones that kept playing in my head. It was like a horror movie on an endless loop. Three converging streaks of light hit the Patricia and…did what? Vaporized it along with my best friend? There was no sound. No explosion. No cry of surprise or agony. One second the boat was there, the next it wasn’t. It simply disappeared—along with Quinn. I couldn’t even kick my brain into searching for explanations. All I could do was dwell on the fact that Quinn was gone. He had made a selfless decision to fly solo. If he hadn’t, all three of us might be dead. The attack could just as easily have been directed at the Tori Tickle.

Could I have saved him? What if I had gone with him instead of Tori? Could I have gotten the engine started and put the fire out? If I had been there, we might have been under way and out of there before the shadow planes arrived. But I wasn’t there. I was on the other boat. The second Quinn put out the SOS about the fire, we should have gone for him. But we didn’t. Tori asked me to. I remembered that. But I was too caught up with the light show over the mainland to worry about a little thing like my best friend needing me. What if I had been just a little more selfless? Would he still be around? I’d have to live with that guilt for the rest of my life.

Quinn had always talked about one day leaving the island to do something important, something that would be remembered. As far as I was concerned, he had done just that. He had saved our lives—and sacrificed his own to do it.

“Tori?” I called out.

All I got back was the sound of my own voice. It seemed as though I was in a small room on land. That much I figured because there was no rocking motion. I reached out and banged my knuckles into a wall. Fighting the kettledrum-like pounding between my ears, I managed to sit up and lean my back against the solid surface.

“Hey,” I yelled. “I’m awake.”

Soon after, a bright light flashed on, blinding me. Squinting against its glow, I looked to see the silhouette of someone standing ten feet away.

“How are you feeling?” the silhouette asked.

I was feeling horrible and hearing that voice made me feel even worse.

It was Granger.

“Where am I?”

“In the SYLO compound,” was his simple answer.

“Why am I hurting?”

“You were tranquilized,” he said matter-of-factly. “The discomfort will pass.”

Discomfort? That was a nice way of describing a pain that felt like I was being thumped by a sledgehammer…not to mention the anguish over having lost my best friend.

“Where is Tori Sleeper?” I asked.

“In the same situation as you,” was his reply.

“What situation is that?”

“That is what I would like to know,” he said. “Why were you out on the water?”

“I want to talk to my parents.”

“You will first answer my questions. Why were you out on the water?”

“To get away from here,” I shouted angrily. “And from you. Why else?”

“To what purpose?” he asked, emotionless.

“Purpose?” I repeated, incredulous. “We’re prisoners and you’re the warden. I saw you hunt down and kill people. How many others did you take out? Why? To contain some mysterious virus that doesn’t even exist? And you killed my best friend. The only thing he did wrong was look for the truth.”

My tirade had no impact on Granger. He glanced down at a tablet computer he was holding and said, “You are familiar with Kent Berringer?”

“Why?”

“What is your relationship to him?”

“We’re on the same football team. What’s the big deal?”

Granger stepped forward into a light that allowed me to see his face. His cold eyes were locked on me. There was no humor or sympathy coming from this guy.

“How long have you known him?”

“I don’t know. A while. My father works for his family. Why are you asking? Is he okay?”

Granger looked back down to his tablet.

“Tell me about the man known as Feit,” he said coolly.

“No!” I shouted and struggled to get to my feet. “First you tell me what the hell is happening here. I just saw a war in the sky and whatever was flying around up there killed Quinn with a weapon like I never knew existed. Why don’t you tell me. Who are you? What is SYLO? And what is really happening on Pemberwick?”

Granger stared at his tablet as if he hadn’t heard a word I’d said.

“You sampled a substance you call the Ruby, is that correct?”

I started walking toward Granger.

“Do my parents work with you? Do they know what’s going on here? Do Quinn’s parents? Do they know that he’s dead because of you? Who gets to tell them? I hope it’s you.”

I charged toward Granger. It was idiotic, but I was out of my mind. To me, he was responsible for the entire nightmare that had gripped my home and killed my friend. I wanted to hit him. Maybe wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze until he told me the truth. I wanted to see fear in his cold eyes. I suppose I should have realized how foolish a move that was, especially because he stayed focused on his tablet and didn’t even brace to protect himself. When he didn’t react, I had a fleeting thought that my move was a complete surprise and that I might actually have a chance against him.

The thought ended abruptly when I ran full speed into a hard, clear surface. I slammed my shoulder and was knocked backward. For my effort I was rewarded with a sore shoulder to go along with my aching head.

Granger was standing on the opposite side of protective glass. He looked down at me over his tablet with no sympathy.

“You will be moved to more comfortable quarters,” he said, simply stating fact. “I trust that you will control your impulses or you will find yourself back in here. Alone.”

“You killed him!” I shouted. I was trying to hold back tears but it was a losing battle. “He was a good guy. He got nothing but straight As in school. He read every book he could get his hands on and he liked every one of them. He was the smartest guy I know. He made me laugh. And now he’s dead. Why? Why are people dying? What are you doing here?”

Granger stared at me with no emotion as I blathered on.

“We’ll talk again when you are in control of yourself,” he said. The light behind him went out and the room went black.

I slid down to the floor, crying and gasping for breath.

“Granger!” I screamed for no better reason than to let out my frustration.

I was back in the dark, in every way. I’ve heard about people “hitting bottom” and hoped I’d never have the experience. Lying there hurting, having lost my best friend and everything else to do with my life made me think the bottom was actually being hit because I couldn’t imagine anything lower.

I sat there for a few minutes, crying. Why not? I didn’t care who was watching or what they thought about me. I guess that’s what happens on the bottom. Once I let my emotions take over, my sorrow and self-pity were slowly replaced by another more powerful emotion. Anger. These people had come to my island and taken over our lives. What did any of us do to deserve that? Nothing. We were victims. We all were. Yet Quinn was executed. Yeah, I’ll use that word. Executed. We were in a war. We didn’t ask for it, yet we were in the middle of it. But who were we fighting? SYLO? That was just the Navy. The military needs orders and a mission. Did that come from Granger? He was calling the shots but it was dumb to think that he was solely responsible for the nightmare. He was taking orders too. But from whom? He had the backing of the president of the United States. Richard E. Neff. Was he the villain here? That was too much to get my head around. I had to stay focused on what I knew, and what I knew was Granger. He may not have been acting alone but he was in charge. Granger was the enemy.

That was something I could understand.

As I sat on the floor in that dark room, lost in rage and confusion and sorrow, I made a decision. I couldn’t just wish for the trouble to go away and for my life to return to normal. I couldn’t hope that my parents would tell me the truth and it would all make sense and somehow go away. That wasn’t going to happen…unless I made it happen. We were in a war. I had made a decision. I was going to fight. For me, for my old life, and for my best friend.

I promised myself that someday, somehow, Granger would pay for Quinn’s death. I owed my friend that much.

I don’t know how long I sat there in the dark. A couple of minutes? An hour? It was long enough to get back some control. I couldn’t let my emotions rule my actions. I had to be as cold as Granger. Every move I made had to be calculated while taking one step at a time—and I knew what that first step had to be….

I had to escape.

I had to make another Pemberwick Run.

A door opened, flooding the room with light. Standing there was a SYLO soldier with a pistol in a holster on his hip.

“Come with me,” he commanded and stepped back outside.

I struggled to my feet, fighting the pain of my bruises and the residual effect of whatever it was that had knocked me out. I saw that the wall I had run into was a mirror. A two-way mirror. Was Granger still watching me? I didn’t care. I staggered toward the door on stiff legs and stepped out into bright sunlight.

The dark room was actually a small stand-alone hut. It was one in a long line of similar prefab wooden huts with no windows that had been erected along the par-5 sixth fairway of the Oak Hills Golf Course. I wondered how many of the other huts were occupied by prisoners of SYLO…and if Tori might be one of them.

Looking out onto the fairway, I saw what looked like a pleasant fall afternoon. People were scattered everywhere. Some lay on their backs, soaking up the sun. A few jogged. A couple of elderly folks sat on benches, just staring into space. It could have passed for a typical day in a town park, except for the high chain-link fence topped off with a coil of razor wire that circled the perimeter.

This was the recreation yard of a prison.

Armed SYLO soldiers were stationed everywhere, silently watching the inmates.

“Follow me,” my escort said.

He led me along the row of huts toward the north end of the fairway. As we walked I stared out at the people, wondering why they were there. Had they crossed Granger too? Did they know too much, just like me? I saw no obvious link between any of them. There were older folks, both men and women, and some as young as me. I recognized a few people who lived on the island, but most were strangers. That wasn’t odd since so many off-islanders had stayed to enjoy the warmer-than-usual autumn and were trapped because of the quarantine. I guarantee they all wished they had cut their vacations shorter.

Everyone wore their own clothing. There was no “prison garb” that would have helped to complete the image of a prisoner-of-war camp. It was odd to see everyone dressed in casual vacation clothing like shorts and T-shirts and sandals. A few even wore tennis whites, as if they had been plucked off the courts. There was only one thing they all seemed to have in common: They were all alone. There were no couples talking or strolling. Nobody playing catch. No groups sharing conversation. From what I could tell, all of these people were on their own.

“Through here,” the soldier commanded as he opened up a gate in the fence.

I was about to step through when my eye caught something that froze me.

Kent Berringer was standing on the far side of the compound, staring at me. He must have been watching me walk the whole length of the fairway. I should have felt it sooner because the heat of his gaze was that intense. The last time I’d seen him, he was pissed, thinking I’d turned him and his parents in to SYLO for using the Ruby. I hadn’t, but that didn’t matter to him. He’d wanted to take my head off and from the look he was giving me, he still did. At least he was alive and looking somewhat normal. The effects of the Ruby were gone.

I didn’t wave to him or acknowledge his presence. Not because I wanted to continue our feud, but because Granger was so interested in our relationship. That couldn’t have been a random question he asked. I figured I had to be careful around Kent Berringer for all sorts of reasons.

The soldier led me through a narrow walkway between two fences until we were let through a gate on the far side and into another section of the SYLO base. What was once a driving range was now occupied by large, temporary structures that gave the area the feel of an instant city. The place was teeming with soldiers and civilians alike. When did all these people arrive? They must have been transported to the island from the naval ships at night.

The civilians all seemed to have purpose, hurrying between buildings. They wore red jumpsuits with a four-inch SYLO logo over their hearts. Most carried papers, clipboards, and tablet computers that they read while walking. It was a wonder that there weren’t any collisions. There were no smiles. No laughs. It was all tense and urgent. Everyone was busy; nobody seemed happy.

The soldiers weren’t as busy. They were watchful…and armed.

A truck was being unloaded that was stacked with large crates, all with the SYLO logo stenciled on the outside. It seemed like there was a steady flow of deliveries coming in from the mainland. There had to be. How else would the people of Pemberwick be fed? I watched as one large wooden crate was cracked open and saw that it contained smaller boxes with markings that indicated what each held. I saw: Wheat Cereal, Light Bulbs, Hand Soap, and Marshmallows. Marshmallows? Like it was important to bring in marshmallows to a prison camp? Whatever. The variety of stuff made it seem as though SYLO had been doing some damage at Walmart.

I was led into the one and only building that had been there before the occupation—the clubhouse. It was a big old white structure that had probably been around since the turn of the last century. It was a place where the wealthier residents of Pemberwick Island socialized, along with the type of visitors who stayed at the Blackbird Inn. The kind of people Tori hated. The place was all polished wood and overstuffed leather furniture with oil paintings of whaling ships on the walls and beautiful scale-model ships inside glass cases.

Normally it was crowded with men wearing navy blazers or loud golf clothes and women in tennis outfits but those people were nowhere to be seen. Instead, the place was overrun by SYLO soldiers and civilians. The antique furniture in the large sitting room was gone, replaced by rows of steel desks. Each one was occupied by a soldier or civilian busily filling out paperwork or talking on a cell phone.

I was led past the front desk and down a flight of stairs. Our journey ended in the men’s locker room, where a few temporary walls had been set up to create a makeshift doctor’s examination room. There was a padded table with sanitary paper stretched along its length next to a counter with a sink. No sooner had I entered the room than three men wearing medical-looking white lab coats arrived.

“We need to do a thorough exam,” the first guy announced. “Please try to relax. Your cooperation will make this a simple process.”

I looked at the soldier, who gave me a blank stare that said, “Do exactly what he says or I’ll hurt you.”

“Whatever,” I replied.

What followed was an experience that gave new meaning to the word “thorough.” The three of these guys operated quickly and efficiently, as if they’d done this several times before—that same day. They didn’t ask me a single question and barely spoke to each other. They weren’t interested in my opinion, they were gathering data. While one entered the information into a laptop, the other two proceeded to take me apart. They began with the usual poking, prodding, deep breathing, eye-looking, tongue-depressing stuff that comes with a normal exam. It quickly evolved into something more annoying. Using long cotton swabs they took samples from every orifice I owned. The worst wasn’t what you’d expect. One guy came at me with two swabs on the ends of long, wooden sticks. He grabbed my forehead then jammed them both up my nose, one in each nostril. He pushed them so high I thought they would hit the top of my skull. The only good thing I can say about it was that it was quick. Each sample was put into its own plastic bag, sealed, marked, and placed on a tray.

They also took blood samples. Lots of them. I don’t know how many vials they filled, but it made me wonder how much blood they were leaving behind for me to use. I didn’t say a word the whole time. I didn’t want them to know how freaked out I was.

After the physical abuse in the exam room, I was taken down the corridor into a room with a huge device that looked like a human-size donut.

“MRI,” the one examiner said. “It’s a scan. There’s no discomfort.”

Fine. So long as they didn’t go sticking swabs where they didn’t belong, I didn’t care what they scanned. I was strapped down onto a table so I couldn’t move, then slid into the donut. The whole process took about twenty minutes and didn’t hurt at all. When I was pulled out, the examiners were gone. The soldier wasn’t.

“You’re done,” he said and led me out of the building.

I guess you could say that I felt violated. I wondered if the experience was anything like what those people said they went through after being abducted by aliens. There had been far too much probing going on. They gave me no clue as to what they were looking for or why they were being so thorough, but it made me wonder if we had been wrong about the Pemberwick virus. Granger knew that I knew it was bogus, so then why go through the motions of examining me like that? Was there really something scary that they were looking for? The whole process ended up leaving me more confused than I had been before.

While my anger grew.

The soldier led me out of the clubhouse, past the driving range, and back to the recreation fairway.

“You’ll be called to dinner at seventeen hundred hours,” he said perfunctorily. “After that you will be assigned a bunk.”

“Any chance of you telling me why I’m here?” I asked.

The soldier ignored me, left through the gate, and locked it behind him.

“Guess not,” I said to nobody.

I had no idea of what to do so I wandered around aimlessly, trying to think. I needed a plan. Finding Tori was key. I had to hope that she was being kept somewhere on the same compound. I had the horrible thought that something may have happened to her out on the water but I forced those ideas away. It wouldn’t do any good to stress over something that might not be true. I also had to do all I could not to think about Quinn because as soon as my thoughts went to him, my heart started beating faster and my head started to spin. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to think clearly, so I did my best to lock Quinn away in a remote part of my brain.

It was strange walking along the perfectly mowed and manicured fairway. This was a place for fun, not for holding criminals. I tried to make eye contact with the other prisoners, but everyone was making a distinct effort to avoid any interaction. My guess was that they were all just as angry and confused as I was and felt it was better to keep to themselves. Or maybe they were all plotting their own escape.

The sound of an incoming helicopter broke the silence. I looked up to see a chopper skim the treetops, headed toward the opposite end of the recreation compound. With nothing better to do, I picked up the pace and made it to the fence on the far side. Beyond was a landing pad with a windsock. I watched as the helicopter hovered and landed softly. A soldier ran up to slide open the door and the new arrivals began jumping out.

There were a few older soldiers who were probably officers, followed by two men wearing business suits. The suits were incongruous with anything I’d seen before. What were these guys dressed up for? A board meeting? I was about to turn and walk away when the last guy jumped out—and I did a double take. It didn’t seem possible, but there was no mistake.

It was my father.

He carried a thick briefcase (like I’d never seen before) and was talking animatedly to the guys in suits. He wasn’t wearing a suit himself—he had on his usual khakis and polo shirt. Between the whine of the rotors and the fact that he was a good fifty yards away, I couldn’t hear what he was saying. It didn’t matter. I was staring at proof positive that my father was working with SYLO. It took all I had not to scream. Or cry. Or puke.

“Just keeps on getting more interesting, doesn’t it?” came a voice from behind me.

I turned quickly to come face to face with Kent. He, too, was staring at my father while casually tossing a white Wiffle ball into the air and catching it.

“Turn back around,” he barked.

I did what I was told. I was too surprised to do anything else. I faced the fence and the helicopter beyond. Kent stood several feet behind me, facing the same way.

He said, “We don’t want them to think we’re talking…unless you’re with them now.”

“If I were with them, would I be on this side of the fence?” I asked.

I glanced around to see that several other people had gathered near the fence to watch the helicopter. It was the only game in town at the moment and better than staring at grass.

“So your father is with them,” he said.

“I…I don’t know,” I said over my shoulder. “It looks like it.”

“You didn’t know?” Kent asked.

“Not at first, but I wondered. Now I know. I didn’t turn you in, Kent.”

“I know. I was out of my head.”

“Why did your parents take the Ruby?” I asked.

“They were afraid. They thought there would be riots and the Blackbird would be looted. They were protecting their property.”

“They got it from Feit?” I asked.

“Who else?”

“How are they?”

Kent didn’t answer right away. I thought he might have walked away but a quick look back showed me that he was still there.

“My mother is fine, I think,” he finally said. “I haven’t seen her in a while. They keep us separate.”

“What about your father?”

“Dead,” was his simple, emotionless answer.

I turned quickly without thinking.

“Turn around,” he demanded again, through clenched teeth.

I turned back to the helipad. Dad was still in an animated discussion with the suits.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Why? It wasn’t your fault.”

“I tried to escape,” I said. “To get off the island and tell people what’s going on here.”

If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. “Yeah? And how did that work out for you?” he said, back to his usual sarcastic self.

I ignored the obnoxious comment and said, “There were three of us. I don’t know what happened to Tori Sleeper. My guess is she’s here somewhere. But Quinn is dead.”

“Quinn who?”

I spun back to him. I didn’t care what he or anybody else thought about it.

“Quinn Carr,” I barked. “You know exactly who he is. Don’t pretend you don’t. He doesn’t deserve that because he died trying to help the people on Pemberwick.”

I expected some backpedaling from Kent. What I got instead was unexpected. He had tears in his eyes. I realized then that bold, arrogant Kent Berringer had also reached bottom and was barely holding it together. I turned back around to give him some space.

“They’re watching us,” he said, his voice cracking. “That’s why we’re all here. They want to see who’s working against them. It’s why nobody talks to each other. They don’t want to be accused of conspiring against SYLO.”

I glanced around at the SYLO guards. It suddenly seemed as though they were doing more observing than guarding. Was this why I was sent out to the recreation area? To see who I would talk to? To see if Kent and I were planning something?

“There was a battle,” I said. “In the air. We saw it from out on the water. Something happened over the mainland. There were planes firing on one another. They had this weapon—it was like a laser or something. It’s what killed Quinn.”

“Who was fighting who?” he asked.

“No idea. SYLO was part of it but I don’t know on which side. I don’t even know what the sides were or what they were fighting over. The only thing I can say for sure is that the truth is being kept from us. There is no Pemberwick virus, Kent. It’s all a lie. The world has to know.”

“I want out,” Kent said. “Out of this camp. Off this island. I want the world to know what Granger is doing…what everybody is doing that has anything to do with SYLO. I want to blow this place up.”

As I let Kent’s bold words sink in, I watched my father finish his conversation and get back onto the chopper. Oddly, it was a familiar scene. Not the chopper, but seeing my father in a discussion with guys in suits. It was the kind of thing I saw him do all the time when I was a kid and he worked for the town of Greenwich. He was always fighting for something he believed in. I wondered what he could possibly believe in that was happening on Pemberwick Island.

The rotors sped up and the craft lifted back into the air, headed for…who knew where? It was painful to realize I didn’t know anything at all about who my father really was.

“Then we want the same thing,” I said. “But it won’t be easy. Like you said, we’re being watched and we’re stuck behind some very big fences.”

“How badly do you want it, Rook?” Kent asked, suddenly sounding like his old, brash self. “What are you willing to risk to get out of here and get a little payback?”

“I think I already answered that,” I said, trying to match his bravura. “I tried to escape, remember?”

“But how far are you willing to go?” he asked.

He was getting at something but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Why?”

“Because I can get us out of here,” he said. “Out of this compound. I can even get us a shot at escaping from this island. But you have to want it, desperately, to take the risk.”

I gave his ominous warning some thought then said, “I’ve already lost it all. What more is there to risk?”

“Just your life,” he said.

“I already did that once,” I shot back. “Maybe the second time will be easier.”

There was a long silence. Kent was thinking it over.

“All right, Rook,” he said. “We’ll talk again. Until then…have a ball.”

I stood there waiting for him to say something else.

“Kent?”

No reply.

I turned to see that he was halfway across the compound, strolling away casually. I didn’t like that he was being so mysterious about what he knew, and what his plans were, but I guess when you’re being watched, you can’t be too careful.

I glanced back up to see the helicopter with my father onboard flying away. I was filled with both sadness and anger. I knew I would have to confront him at some point, but that wouldn’t be soon. A reckoning would come, but not until I had taken back a little control.

I took a step to head back into the compound and accidentally kicked something on the ground.

Kent’s white Wiffle ball went skittering across the grass. Had he dropped it without knowing? Or had he left it there?

Have a ball.

That’s what he said. Was he being literal?

I picked up the ball and immediately realized that it felt off. The closed half, the half opposite the air holes, was heavier than normal. Something was inside. I casually lifted the ball, trying not to arouse suspicion from the ever-watchful guards as I peered through the air holes.

What I saw made my throat clutch. Kent’s words suddenly made sense, as did his plan. He was right. Doing things his way was a risk. A huge risk. There was no guarantee that his plan would work and even if it did there was a good possibility that we wouldn’t survive. The question was, was I willing to take the chance?

I needed to think. What was I willing to risk to expose SYLO, stop Granger, and get revenge for Quinn’s death? What I held in my hand might give me that chance.

Nestled in the closed side of the seemingly innocent Wiffle Ball, glued firmly in place, was a thick layer of sparkling crystals.

Ruby red crystals.