SYLO

TWENTY-ONE

I didn’t shake his hand.

I punched the smile off his face.

“Whoa, dude!” Kent yelled with surprise the second my fist connected with Feit’s chin.

I’ll put the blame on the lingering effects of the Ruby. It’s easier than saying I had lost control. Or maybe I wasn’t the same guy I used to be, but in that moment, the smug smiling face of Feit represented all that had gone wrong on Pemberwick Island.

Hitting him felt pretty good.

Feit’s head snapped to the side and he went down hard, landing on his butt. I hadn’t knocked him out, but he wasn’t in a hurry to get back up again.

At first nobody made a move. I think they were stunned and maybe afraid I might take a swing at them too. After a tense few seconds, Tori walked up to me and said softly, “Can I hit him next?”

Her words actually calmed me down, which I think she was trying to do.

Feit rubbed his aching jaw and when he looked up at me, the smile was gone. I had knocked it into next week.

“You can hit me again if it’ll make you feel better,” he said.

“I don’t need your permission,” I snarled.

Kent approached me and said, “I don’t blame you, man, but you should listen to what he’s got to say.”

I looked around at the others. They were keeping their distance, staring at me with concern, wondering what I would do next. I liked the feeling. For a change, I was the one in control.

“Get up,” I ordered.

Feit gingerly got to his feet, making sure that he was out of punching range. He looked the exact same as I’d remembered him, complete with baggy shorts, flip-flops, a hoodie, and a few days’ growth of beard. He looked every bit the part of a surfer dude who was a little too old to be a surfer dude.

“I get it,” he said, with no hint of his usual charm. He wasn’t laughing either. “Some of the people who took the Ruby died. That’s tragic and I have a lot to do with it. But it wasn’t all my fault.”

“You brought it here,” I said.

“I did.”

“And you were the one getting people to use it.”

“Guilty,” he admitted.

“And it was your company that made it.”

Feit didn’t reply to that right away.

“That’s what you told me,” I said.

“I know,” he admitted. “I lied.”

“So then where did it come from?” Tori asked.

Feit looked to Mr. Sleeper as if asking his permission to answer.

“Tell him,” Mr. Sleeper said. “You owe him that much.”

Feit let out a laugh, though it was more out of nervousness than anything else.

“I do work for a company that makes sports supplements,” he said. “It’s my own company. I’m the only employee. I’m a biochemist. MIT graduate.”

“If you’re trying to impress me, I might have to hit you again,” I said.

“Okay, sorry,” he said, laughing.

I almost clocked him again just for that annoying laugh, but I held back.

“About a year ago this guy came to me. Said he worked for a well-funded private think tank that was developing a revolutionary dietary supplement. He said it was light years ahead of anything else out there, but they were running into problems getting it tested and quickly approved by the government. He said if I helped them, I’d be a joint patent holder when it finally got approval. Do you know how much money something like that is worth?”

“No,” I said flatly.

“A lot. Millions. Many millions. To a guy who is struggling just to get by, it’s too tempting an offer to resist.”

Tori asked, “What did he want you to do?”

“Run a test. A secret test. In a contained, controlled environment…like an island community.”

“Like Pemberwick Island,” Kent added.

“Yeah. He wanted me to casually introduce it to the population, take notes, record all the results, and then get back to him. He said with that data they could streamline their testing and cut years off the approval process. He promised me it was safe…and offered an incredible future. So I went for it.”

“But the tests didn’t go so well,” Tori said.

“They went too well!” Feit said. “A lot of people took it. Most you don’t even know about. The Ruby did everything it was supposed to do. The problem was dosage—and controlling it. It wasn’t until Marty Wiggins that…”

“That people started to die,” I said, finishing the thought.

“So the Ruby has nothing to do with SYLO?” Tori said. “Or the quarantine?”

“Oh, no,” Feit said quickly. “SYLO has everything to do with the Ruby being here.”

“How’s that?” I asked.

“The guy who came to me with the offer was Captain Granger.”

I thought my knees would buckle.

“No!” Tori said with a gasp.

“Yes,” Feit said. “I had no idea he was actually working for the government. With the military. There wasn’t anybody more surprised than me when he stepped onto this island with an invasion force. I’ve been hiding ever since.”

“But…why?” was all I could say. “Why would our own government poison us with that stuff?”

“Or invade us,” Kent said. “None of this adds up.”

“Whatever the reason, you’re still responsible,” Tori said to Feit with disgust. “You’re going to prison for this.”

Feit shrugged. “I’m already in prison. We all are. Irony is, the Ruby might be our only hope of getting out.”

“No,” I declared. “No way.”

“Easy there, Rook,” Kent said. “It helped us break out of the SYLO camp, didn’t it?”

“We smuggled the Ruby into the SYLO compound,” Mr. Sleeper said. “We’ve got a lot of people on our side.”

“Who is we?” Tori asked.

“People who are ready to fight back,” Mr. Sleeper said. “Many of them were picked up by Granger and his thugs and stuck in that camp. He doesn’t want anybody challenging his authority.”

I thought back to how all the prisoners kept to themselves and wondered how many of them were part of this group…whatever this group was.

“Look,” Kent said. “I hate this scum. The Ruby killed my father, remember? But if it gives us a way to fight back, I say we use it. Use him. Just like we did tonight.”

“You mean just like I did tonight,” I corrected.

“Whatever. After that he can hang, for all I care.”

There was a long moment of silence, and then…

“I don’t know about you people, but I would really like to get off this crappy island and go home,” Olivia said softly.

Tori’s father stepped between the two of us, but faced me.

“You should see what’s going on here, son,” he said. “This Feit character is only part of it.”

“I thought they arrested you,” I said.

“They took me out of the house, but we never quite made it to the golf course,” he said, then smiled knowingly. “Somewhere along the route there’s a wrecked Hummer and a couple of soldier boys with severe headaches.”

“You don’t mess with my dad,” Tori said proudly.

Mr. Sleeper was a big guy with thick arms and huge hands that came from a lifetime of working on boats. There was nothing complicated about him. When he spoke, he looked you straight in the eye, and if he was anywhere near as good as his daughter at taking down people who crossed him, I had no doubt that the SYLO soldiers who had arrested him regretted it.

“C’mon,” he said. “Let me show you.”

I looked at Tori, who shrugged and nodded. She didn’t like Feit any more than I did, but she wasn’t about to argue with her father.

“Okay,” I said and instantly felt the tension melt away from the group.

Mr. Sleeper looked to the other men and said, “Get that Jeep out of sight.”

The guys got right on it and took charge of the Jeep while Mr. Sleeper led us along the sandy road, headed deeper onto the island. He had one arm around Tori, while I walked on his other side. Kent was next to me. The rest followed, including Feit.

“We started this group a couple of days after SYLO landed,” Sleeper began. “It was casual at first. A bunch of us old-timers got together to try and sort it all out. Nobody bought the story they were feeding us about the quarantine. We tried contacting the state and even made some calls to Washington but kept hitting stone walls or getting doubletalk. We started holding meetings every couple of nights at a different location for fear of Granger catching on to us.”

“How did I not know about this?” Tori asked.

“I didn’t want you involved.”

Tori snickered. “Great. I thought I was protecting you and the whole time you were in way deeper than any of us.”

“My father was part of it,” Kent added. “That’s how I knew all about it.”

“I kept thinking it would all just go away,” Mr. Sleeper went on. “Of course, it didn’t. More and more frustrated folks started showing up to vent. Not just locals either. Many of them were tourists who came here for vacation and got stuck. It got to be tricky keeping it all quiet. Those SYLO goons were always poking around, asking what we were up to. It came to a head when communications to the mainland got cut.”

“The riot in town,” I said.

“The anger just boiled over. We never bought the virus story. It wasn’t until Feit here paid us a visit that we knew for sure.”

“Knew what?” Tori asked.

“That there was no virus.”

Feit came forward and said, “I told them why people were dying. I wanted to…”

His voice trailed off.

“Just say it,” Mr. Sleeper demanded.

“I wanted to confess,” Feit said, barely above a whisper. “I told them how everyone who died had taken the Ruby…and that Granger was behind it all.”

I glanced at Kent. He kept his eyes on the ground but I could feel his anger bubbling.

“That’s when we knew we had to do something,” Mr. Sleeper said. “Sitting back and waiting for it all to blow over wasn’t going to happen. So we mobilized and came out here. It took a while. We didn’t want to raise any suspicion. We could only move at night and had to cover our tracks. But we made it. Been here a couple of days now.”

“You’re all just camping out here?” I asked.

“Not exactly out,” Sleeper said. “More like camping under.”

We were met in the road by a guy carrying a shotgun with the stock against his shoulder, up and aimed.

“It’s okay,” Mr. Sleeper said to him. “It’s my daughter and her friends.”

I knew the guy. He worked at the drugstore in town. He lowered the gun and said, “Welcome.”

We walked past him and then by five other men and women who were stationed on the road to keep out unwanted visitors. I knew them all. One guy worked on my dad’s car. I recognized a woman who taught algebra at the middle school. There was even a husband and wife who owned one of the ice-cream stores in Arbortown. Seeing them guarding the desolate island, with weapons, was like stepping into a surreal dream.

“Won’t it be easy for SYLO to find us?” Tori asked. “I mean, they have helicopters.”

“And we got camouflage,” Sleeper replied proudly.

We arrived at the edge of what was normally a dense scrub forest. Even in the dark of night, I could see that camouflage netting had been erected in the trees.

“We only travel at night, and keep the lights out,” Sleeper said. “During the day we’re hidden beneath the canopy. Besides, we won’t be here long.”

We stepped into the forest to see an elaborate camp filled with small tents. There were no campfires to give them away. Instead there were multiple containers stacked everywhere for storing food. Dozens of camp chairs were scattered about. Most were empty because it was so late, but there were still plenty of people awake and talking in hushed tones.

Calling this a camp for guerilla fighters seemed silly, considering that the people didn’t look anything like hardened revolutionaries. It seemed more like a campground for parents who wanted to get away for the weekend. All that was missing was the beer. The only sign it was something more ominous was that most of them carried guns.

“What’s the point?” I asked. “I mean, you’re not really planning some kind of revolution, are you?”

“Depends on your definition of revolution,” Mr. Sleeper said and kept walking.

As we moved through the campground, we kept getting suspicious glares from the people we passed. There were no smiles or waves or words of welcome. These people were living on the edge—and they were scared. I recognized a few more faces, but there were just as many people I had never seen before.

Mr. Sleeper led us to the largest tent in the campground. Inside were several portable picnic tables. It could have been a food tent, or a meeting hall. The only light came from shielded camp lanterns that were hooded to keep the light contained.

“Take a load off,” Mr. Sleeper said.

Tori and I sat at one table, Kent and Olivia at another. Feit sat by himself.

“We’re not kidding ourselves here,” Mr. Sleeper said. “We have no hope of bullying SYLO off the island. But we can make ourselves heard.”

“How?” I asked. “They’re an army. You guys…aren’t.”

“We’re going to kidnap Granger,” Mr. Sleeper said as nonchalantly as if he had said, “Pass the salt.”

None of us reacted. I think we might have been in shock. I know I was.

“Why?” Tori finally asked.

“To force their hand. You know as well as I do that we’re isolated here on Pemberwick. Nobody on the outside knows what’s happening. They haven’t since the day communications were cut. We figure that if we can pull in SYLO’s most important player, somebody somewhere will finally listen to us.”

“But there’s no guarantee of that,” I argued. “Even if you get Granger—and I’m not so sure you can—we’d still be cut off. Nobody outside of Pemberwick would even know.”

“Exactly. That’s why we wouldn’t keep him here,” Sleeper said with a satisfied smile. “The plan is to bring him to the mainland. We’ve got a half dozen speedboats ready to make the run. We’d send them all at once so they won’t know which one’s got Granger. Once we get to the mainland, we can parade him in front of every camera we can find and let the world know what he’s been doing here.”

“Awesome,” Kent said. “I can’t wait to see that guy squirm in front of TV lights.”

I wanted to tell Mr. Sleeper what a crazy plan that was, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it wasn’t much different from what Quinn, Tori, and I tried to do. We wanted to get to a radio or TV station to blow the whistle on SYLO and that was exactly what Mr. Sleeper was planning. The only difference was that he wanted to do it armed with some serious evidence. Granger.

Tori must have been reading my mind because she looked at me and said, “It’s not bad.”

“Where are the boats?” I asked.

“Out here on Chinicook. Hidden in Crescent Bay. It was a hell of a risk getting them out here at night, but we pulled it off.”

My mind raced—and it had nothing to do with the Ruby.

“Is there a plan to get him?” I asked. “I mean, sneaking a couple of people out of that compound is one thing. Breaking in and nabbing the boss is a whole ’nother ball game.”

“We’ve got a lot of people on our side,” Mr. Sleeper said. “Out here and on the inside.”

“Prisoners?” Tori asked.

“That’s how we smuggled in the Ruby. SYLO doesn’t know who is innocent and who they have to be afraid of. People have sacrificed themselves just to get inside. We have total surprise on our side. And something else too.”

Sleeper nodded to Feit. Feit walked to the side of the tent where a tarp was stretched over a bulky object. He grabbed one end of the tarp and yanked it off to reveal eight clear plastic containers, each the size of a cooler—and each packed solid with the Ruby.

“Oh, man,” I exclaimed and jumped to my feet. I couldn’t help myself. Seeing that much of the deadly substance was a shock.

“It’s like making a deal with the devil,” Mr. Sleeper said ominously. “But if used properly, it’ll give us the advantage we need to get Granger, bring him to the mainland, and end this nightmare.”

“I like it,” Kent said enthusiastically.

“Shut up, Kent,” I snapped.

Kent was ready to jump at me but thought better of it and backed off.

“Let me make one thing clear,” Mr. Sleeper said. “I’m only telling you this so you know what’s been going on. You all are not going to be part of the operation. You’ve been through too much as it is.”

“You get no arguments from me,” Kent said.

I shot him a dirty look but he avoided eye contact.

“When?” I asked.

“Tomorrow night. There’s no telling how long we can keep Chinicook a secret so we have to move fast. One last thing we need before we move is something from the three of you.”

“Anything,” Kent said quickly, but I didn’t think that extended to him taking the Ruby.

“You’ve been inside the compound,” he said. “We need maps and any other information you can give us about how it all works. Hopefully between the three of you, we can get a good idea of what we’ll be faced with.”

“What about me?” Olivia asked. “How can I help?”

Kent took her hand and kissed it. “You’ve already done your part by getting us out here.”

Tori rolled her eyes and said, “I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.”

Olivia ignored the cut.

There was so much to digest. What had started out as the search for answers about a mysterious virus had become something far bigger.

“There’s something else,” I said. “Have you seen those flying shadows?”

“We have,” Mr. Sleeper said. “We think they have something to do with SYLO.”

He looked at Feit, as if expecting him to add something.

“They do,” Feit said. “I don’t know what kind of aircraft they are, but they’re SYLO all right.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Two weeks ago I was supposed to get a shipment of the Ruby. I got a call to be out on the bluffs on the east side of the island at midnight. I drove out there and saw this shadow fly by—and it exploded. Scared the hell out of me so I just took off.”

“And the next day a boatload of the stuff washed up on shore, along with the wreckage,” Mr. Sleeper added.

“And killed my horses,” Tori said.

“The pickup truck,” I said. “The one we saw on the bluffs. That was you?”

Feit nodded. “I didn’t think anybody saw me.”

“But that doesn’t explain what the shadows are, or what they’re doing,” Tori said. “There was a dogfight over the mainland. If those shadow planes were SYLO, who were they fighting? And why? Planes were blown out of the sky. People died.”

“Quinn died,” I said.

“What?” Olivia exclaimed. “Quinn is dead?”

Tori ignored her and said, “Even if you get Granger and make it to the mainland, what are you going to find there? Whatever SYLO is doing, it’s not just about Pemberwick.”

“We thought about that,” Mr. Sleeper said. “All of it. I’m sorry to hear about your friend, Tucker. And your father, Kent.”

“I can’t believe that Quinn is gone,” Olivia said, genuinely upset.

“And I’m sorry about my parents,” I said. “They’re working with SYLO.”

That shut the conversation down. With each new revelation about SYLO, I kept thinking about my mom and dad and wondering what part they were playing in this nightmare. For me, that was the nightmare.

“We don’t have a whole lot of answers,” Mr. Sleeper said. “But we all feel certain that the only way to get the truth is to blast off of this rock and get back to civilization. Nobody knows what we’re going to find there and who might be on our side, but what other choice do we have?”

“None,” I said quickly. “I’ll help. I’ll draw you as many maps as you want and tell you every last thing I learned about the place, but I want something in return.”

“What’s that?” Mr. Sleeper asked.

“I want Tori and me to be on one of those boats going to the mainland.”

“What about me?” Kent asked.

“And me?” Olivia chimed in petulantly.

“You do whatever you want, but Tori and I will be on one of those boats.”

Mr. Sleeper frowned and shook his head. “No. Too dangerous.”

I stalked toward him and said, “It’s no more dangerous than what we’ve been through already. We’ve been out there, Mr. Sleeper. In your boats, in the middle of a battle. One of them was vaporized with my best friend on board. That’s how Quinn died.”

Mr. Sleeper went white. “You made a run for the mainland? Tori?”

“We did,” Tori said. “The Patricia was hit by a light that vaporized it, along with Quinn.”

“Seriously?” Olivia said, stunned. She looked whiter than Mr. Sleeper. “Evaporate? Like…poof?”

“I don’t know who is fighting who,” I said. “Or why. But they’re not taking prisoners. We saw it all, which means we have a hell of a lot more experience making a run for the mainland than any of your weekend warriors here. We will be on one of those boats, Mr. Sleeper. In fact, Tori will be the captain. I trust her more than anybody. It’s not a request, it’s a fact. Accept it or you won’t be getting any map from me.”

Tori stood up and said, “Or from me, Dad.”

I looked toward Kent. He saw how serious I was. He gave a resigned shrug and said, “Or me. I don’t want to be stuck here either.”

Mr. Sleeper was speechless. Tori went to him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and pressed her cheek against his chest.

“Don’t think that leaving us here is the same as protecting us,” she said. “We stand just as good a chance of surviving by making a run as staying on the island.”

Mr. Sleeper closed his eyes and hugged his daughter. She was all he had in the world. It must have pained him to think that he would lose her. But he wasn’t the kind of guy who would step back, hope for the best, and let fate play out on its own.

“All right,” he said softly, then looked at me and added, “You know how to pick ’em. If anybody’s got a chance of piloting a boat through a crapstorm, it’s my daughter.”

“That’s what I figured,” I said. “Do I have your word?”

He nodded. “You do.” He wiped his brow and added, “Let’s get to work on those maps.”

We spent the next hour drawing, talking about what we saw in the SYLO compound, and answering questions thrown at us by a group of people that Mr. Sleeper brought in. Most I knew from around town. They were Mr. Sleeper’s buddies, and now they were his lieutenants. It was clear that Mr. Sleeper was the boss. He’d grown up on Pemberwick; he knew every inch of the island and most of the people. He also had a very strong personality. When he spoke, his buddies listened.

They didn’t fill us in on the details of their plan to snatch Granger. I think they were still figuring it out, especially since we had dumped a boatload of new information on them. All we knew was that once the team left Chinicook, we would move down to the boats and wait.

Feit was not part of this discussion. When the lieutenants showed up, Feit was asked to step out. Obviously, nobody trusted him. He wasn’t going to play a critical role in the kidnapping other than to provide a boost from the Ruby. I got the feeling that nobody liked him much. Made sense. As far as I was concerned, the guy was a murderer. I hated that the good guys had to rely on him and worried that they were going to take the Ruby, but it was a small risk compared to everything else that was going on.

It didn’t help my opinion of him that he was such a good liar. Everything he first had told me about the Ruby was bogus. It made me wonder where his lies stopped and the truth began. We accepted everything he told us about SYLO and Granger because it fit and helped to explain some things. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if everything he said was the absolute truth.

It was nearly four in the morning by the time we finished. I hadn’t slept much earlier that night and I was definitely feeling low after coming down from my adventure with the Ruby. Olivia had already crashed somewhere because she didn’t have anything to offer. Kent got bored quickly and was asleep on the floor of the tent.

“Get some rest,” Mr. Sleeper said. “If you think of anything else, you can tell me later. And sleep in. We don’t move around much during the day. We’re like a camp of vampires.”

The lady from the ice-cream shop came in with a couple of sleeping bags and pillows for us and started to lay them out near the crates of the Ruby.

“Thanks,” I said. “But I’d rather not sleep near that stuff.”

She glanced at the Ruby and nodded. “Right. Sorry.”

She laid both of the bags down on the opposite side of the tent and I went right for one, ready to crash.

Tori gave her father a playful poke in the chest. It reminded me of when she pushed his hat over his eyes on their dock. “I’m proud of you, Dad,” she said. “If anybody can pull this off, it’s you.”

“It’s not like I have a choice,” he said. “I’ve gotta take care of my little girl.”

He kissed the top of her head and headed out of the tent.

Tori came over and lay down on the sleeping bag next to mine.

“Did you ever imagine that your father would be the leader of a revolution?” I asked.

“No, obviously,” she said. “But if there’s gotta be a revolution, there’s nobody better to run it. People listen to my dad.”

“Seriously. I can’t imagine telling him what to do.”

Tori leaned over, kissed me on the cheek, and whispered, “But you did tell him what to do. And he listened. Not bad.”

She lay down on her sleeping bag and was asleep in seconds.

It wasn’t fair. I was about as exhausted as I’d ever been in my life, but I had been jolted awake by a kiss that I never saw coming.

There was so much rattling around in my head, good and bad, that I feared I’d never get to sleep. I probably lay there thinking for, oh, a solid eight seconds before dropping off.

I didn’t sleep for long though. Can’t say why. I definitely needed more downtime but my brain needed my body to be awake so we could both get back to stressing over the situation.

It was still dark. I saw that Tori was fast asleep. Kent and Olivia were, too. I wanted to fall back to sleep but knew it would be impossible so I got up and left the tent.

The sky was slowly growing lighter. The sun would soon rise on what promised to be a dramatic day—maybe the most important day of our lives. Witnessing the dawn on that kind of day felt like the right thing to do, so I walked through the campground, snaking past tents, looking for a trail that would lead me out from under the protective canopy. The entire camp was surrounded by dense scrub trees. There was no way to bushwack out. I had to walk halfway around the perimeter until I found a trail.

I followed the narrow meandering path for at least thirty yards until I broke out into the open to find a wide expanse of sand and grass that stretched to the ocean. From the end of the scrub where I stood to what looked like the edge of a bluff was about fifty yards. Luckily I had come out on the east side of the island, the side where I would see the sunrise.

It was spectacular.

The sky was growing brighter by the second. I thought about walking out to the edge of the bluff but remembered Mr. Sleeper’s warning. It wouldn’t have been smart to be spotted by a passing Navy ship. So I stayed close to the edge of the scrub, where I had a perfect view of the sunrise.

Standing alone with only the sounds of the ocean and the occasional squawking seagull to keep me company, I felt oddly at peace. As uncertain as I was about how the day would unfold, it was good to know that there was a plan. I wasn’t so naïve as to think that we would put a quick end to the nightmare, but at least we now had direction. And friends. We weren’t alone anymore. I guess you have to appreciate the good stuff when it comes because there was more than enough bad stuff to go around.

If there was anything positive to take from recent events, it was that in some small way I had proven to myself that I was able to rise to a challenge. That’s saying a lot. I guess you could say that I had been floating. I didn’t like to fail—at anything—which meant I usually didn’t try. Quinn loved to point that out about me. When I was faced with a challenge, I backed off, whether it was in school or with girls. It was always easier for me to pretend as though I didn’t care than to put myself on the line and risk falling on my face. If I had known I was going to land in the spotlight on the football team, I never would have joined in the first place. Maybe it was because I didn’t want to look bad. Or to be seen as somehow lacking. I think that’s why I never allowed myself to have the kind of dreams that Quinn had: to leave Pemberwick and make a difference somewhere. That was the kind of stuff other people did. I didn’t think I had it in me—whatever “it” is.

But that changed when life changed. I could no longer sit back and say, “Really? The island’s been invaded? Oh well, pass the popcorn.” Maybe you have to have things taken away before you can truly understand how valuable they are…or however that song lyric goes. I had been pushed. Hard. I’m proud to say that I finally pushed back. And I would continue to push back. It was a strangely exciting feeling. It made me wonder what I might be capable of once we got past all of this crap and life settled back to the new normal. Maybe I’d start thinking more like Quinn and start looking around to see what could be accomplished. I’m not sure if that kind of thinking frightened me before, or if I just couldn’t see myself succeeding. But after what we had been through, I no longer had those doubts. I felt confident that I could rise to the challenge. Any challenge.

I wanted the chance to prove it…for myself, and for Quinn.

While I stood there contemplating the wonders of my newfound enlightenment, the sun began to peek up over the horizon. The strip of sky above the sea quickly turned orange, lifting the curtain on a new day. It was a day that would set the course for the next chapter in this strange adventure. I felt certain that the next time the sun came up it would be on a whole new reality—one that we all had a hand in shaping because we were about to make another Pemberwick Run.

Then I saw something on the horizon.

It started out as a black speck on the sun…that soon turned into two specks.

I stared at the aberrations, not sure of what I was seeing as the mysterious blots grew larger. It was the sound that brought it all into focus. It took a few seconds after I had registered the black specks for me to hear it because the speed of sound is painfully slow.

It was a steady, low thumping sound. It was incessant. It grew louder. Fast.

I don’t know why it took so long for me to react. Maybe it was ignorance or disbelief or wishful thinking—or stubborn resistance to the fact that all of our carefully crafted plans were about to go into the toilet.

The black specks were flying out of the rising sun.

They were helicopters.

SYLO had found us.