Storm

TWENTY-THREE

Black.

I couldn’t tell if I was awake or asleep or dead.

My head hurt, which was good. As far as I knew, dead people didn’t get headaches.

I felt as though I was coming out of a coma, not that I’d ever done that, but I imagined that’s what it was like. I was disoriented with nothing to see but… nothing.

My senses started coming back online, though there wasn’t much input for them to work with. I was lying on something soft. That much I understood. I tried to stand up, but my right leg wouldn’t move. I thought maybe I was paralyzed and started to panic. The fear got my heart pounding and my blood pumping, which helped clear my head.

I tried to move my leg again and realized there was nothing wrong with it. I couldn’t move because I was shackled. My right leg was chained to the floor.

At least I wasn’t dead.

“Tori!” I called. “Kent?”

I was in a big room. That much I could tell from the echo of my voice. As my wits returned, I remembered getting shot and realized I hadn’t been hit with a bullet. The bikers must have fired tranquilizer darts. I felt the area of my chest that had been hit, and it was definitely sore.

“Hey!” I shouted. “I’m awake. Why am I chained up?” A light appeared high in the air. I couldn’t tell how big it was or how far away because I had no other frame of reference.

The light slowly grew more intense as it warmed up, and I realized that it was a spotlight that had its beam directed somewhere behind me. I rolled over to see what was being lit up and nearly screamed.

I was lying below a giant face.

The thing must have been twenty feet high. It was the face of a woman, based on the puckered, painted lips. The skin was unnaturally white and smooth, which made me realize it wasn’t living. The eyes and nose were covered by an ornate silver mask. Attached to the top of the mask and jutting above it were several tall blue and gold triangles that came to points another twenty feet above the face. Each point was topped with a large, golden jingle bell the size of a basketball. Similar blue and gold points circled below the face like a collar. The silver mask itself was intricately decorated with looping detail that looked like waves. There was a half moon on the forehead and something that looked like an ancient boat. Its eyes were closed, thank god.

Once I caught my breath, I realized it was a carnival mask… a very big carnival mask on a very big statue of a face of a very big woman. It appeared to be nestled in a bed of ornate greenery. “What’s your name?” an amplified woman’s voice boomed from the general direction of the mask.

If the lips had moved or the eyes opened, I probably would have passed out again. Thankfully it wasn’t the big head talking.

Somebody was pulling a Wizard of Oz stunt on me.

“Tucker Pierce. Where are my friends?”

“Why are you here?” she asked, ignoring my question. “We heard the radio broadcast,” I replied, and as soon as I said that, a thought hit me. “Wait, the broadcast voice sounded like you. Who are you?”

“Where did you come from?” she asked.

I had been through an interrogation like this once before, when I was captured and sent to the SYLO compound on Pemberwick Island. I half expected Captain Granger to come strolling out from behind the big head/mask/statue/Oz/whatever/thing. “We came from Pemberwick Island. We’re looking for…” I didn’t finish the sentence. I had to be careful. There was no way to know who this woman was or who the bikers were who had drugged and captured us like wild animals.

“Why don’t you cut the show and just talk to me?” I asked. “We need to know exactly who you are and why you came here,” she said. “Your friends are safe and are also being questioned. If we are satisfied with your answers, we will join you.”

“And what if you aren’t satisfied?”

“You will die.”

Oh.

I had never been a great test-taker. I hoped I was up to the challenge. The only thing I could do was speak truthfully. If I thought lying would have helped, I would have lied, but without having any idea who my interrogator was, I figured it was best to just tell the truth.

I told her the whole story, beginning with Marty Wiggins’s death and ending with the bikers showing up to the Valley of Fire.

It took a while. It was a long story.

The mask listened without asking questions. At least I think it was listening. It was hard to tell. It was a mask. My hope was that the others were telling the same story. If somebody (Kent) tried to get clever and head off in another direction, it could doom us all because then none of us would look credible.

I finished the story by saying, “And then I ended up here, chained to the floor, talking to a giant mask. It’s been a hell of a couple of weeks.”

There was a long silence. I think I was more nervous at that point than any time before. It was like being a defendant waiting for the jury to come back with a verdict. Only this wouldn’t just be a verdict, it would be a sentence: life or death. The spotlight went out, and I was back in black.

“Whoa!” I called. “I told you the truth. What more do you want from me?” Another light appeared, only this one was much smaller, and it was moving. It came from behind the big mask, and I realized it was somebody with a headlamp.

One word came to mind: executioner.

I pulled against the chain that held me to the floor in the dumb hope that it would break loose, as opposed to the other dozen times I had tried.

“Look,” I said nervously, “there’s been way too much killing already.”

The person didn’t respond. The light moved closer until their shadow loomed over me.

I had a strange reaction. A second before I had been terrified.

That terror changed to anger.

“You know what? Go ahead. Kill me. I’m done. You’d be doing me a favor. Use whatever magic weapon you’ve got and just do it!” I’m not sure if I meant it. The killing part, that is. But I was definitely tired of being scared and didn’t want to deal anymore. The person stood there for a moment, then reached into a pocket and pulled out a set of keys. The person knelt down and unlocked the shackle around my ankle.

I immediately pulled away and curled into a ball on the far end of the mat.

“How old are you?” the person asked. It was the same woman whose voice had been amplified during the interrogation. “Fourteen,” I replied.

“Jeez,” she said and rubbed at her eyes. “You’re a baby.” Was she crying?

“I’ve heard a lot of stories over the last couple of weeks,” she said. “But yours takes the cake. You gotta be some kind of special kid to come through all that.”

“So you believe me?” I asked.

“It’s the exact same story the others told,” she said. “So either you’ve all done a good job of cooking this up or it’s the truth.” She had a slight drawl, which made me believe she had come from these parts.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“My name’s Charlotte,” she replied. “I’m a Cook County sheriff. At least I used to be.”

“So you’re not with SYLO? Or the Retros?”

“To be honest with you, Tucker, I never heard the term ‘Retros’ before you all showed up, and all I know about SYLO is that it’s the military outfit from the Navy that quarantined Pemberwick Island. We’re not part of either.”

“So then who are you?” I asked. “And would you mind losing the headlight?”

“Oh, sorry,” she said as she pulled the lamp off. She placed it on a chair I had no idea was next to me, shining the light back on herself. Charlotte had short blonde hair. Though she was small, she looked wiry and tough, like you’d expect a county sheriff to be. She looked about as old as my mom, but unlike my mom, I wouldn’t challenge her to an arm-wrestling contest. She had on her uniform, which was dark pants and a khaki shirt with sleeve patches that said: “Clark County Sheriff.” The shirt was wrinkled and worn. She’d been wearing it for a while.

“I’m just like you,” she replied. “A survivor of the massacre.”

“So the broadcast was real? You’re calling out to other survivors?”

“Real as rain, darlin’,” she said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not one to take something like this sitting down. No, I take that back. I do know about you. You came a long way to be here. You may be young, but you’re a fighter.”

“What was with the bikers? And knocking us out in the middle of the desert?”

“Security,” she replied. “Anybody can hear that broadcast. We meet folks out in the middle of nowhere and bring ’em back here to size ’em up. To figure out if they’re with us or against us.”

“So there are others?” I asked. Charlotte chuckled.

“You ain’t the only one left in the world with some fight in ’em.

They’ve been coming from all over the country. From Canada and Mexico too. I’ve been doing plenty of these interrogations. Guess it comes from being a sheriff. I like the whole big-mask thing. Freaks people out. It’s good to keep your subject off-balance.” Charlotte liked her job.

“Has anybody failed the test?” I asked Her expression turned dark.

“You may think we’re a loose bunch of delusional desperados, but make no mistake, young man, we are deadly serious. There have been a couple of bad seeds that the Air Force sent out on a… what would you call it? An exploratory mission. They didn’t pass the smell test.”

“And what happened to them?”

“They were sent back out into the desert,” she said with a shrug. “They won’t be comin’ back.”

“Oh man,” I said, stunned.

“I didn’t give it a second thought,” she said. “After what they done, they got off easy.”

My head was spinning, and it wasn’t because of the tranquilizer. As much as I had hoped that the broadcast was real and we would be meeting up with other survivors, deep down I didn’t believe it would happen.

I looked around at the darkened room and said, “So if I passed the test, are you going to tell me where we are?”

Charlotte gave me a mischievous smile.

“Better to show you. The sun’s just coming up, thank God.

The nights are just too eerie for me. I’ve lived here my whole life, and there was never a time that the city wasn’t lit up at night as bright and sparkly as a Christmas tree. Not anymore. Now every light we’ve got runs on batteries.”

She stood up and offered me her hand. I took it, and when I stood up, my head went weak and I nearly toppled. Charlotte grabbed me and kept me from going over. She had to be a foot shorter than me, but she was strong.

“Easy there, pardner,” she said. “You still got some lingering effects. Tell you what. It’s tough negotiating through the dark on foot. We’ll take a boat.”

“A boat?”

“C’mon,” she said with a chuckle, and with one arm around my waist to steady me, she led me away from the freakin’ giant mask. I began to get a sense of the room. It was big with a huge skylight overhead. Once the sun came up, the room would be completely lit. By then we would be gone. By boat. How could a boat be in the desert? Were we still in the desert?

“How long was I out?” I asked as we made our way through the hazy space.

“About twelve hours. Long enough to get you here and settled.” Yeah, settled. Manacled was more like it.

“Where are my friends?”

“I suspect they’re headed to the same place we are.” It was still too dark for me to make out any real detail, but it seemed as though we were walking along a narrow city street with shops on either side of a cobblestone sidewalk. But that didn’t make sense because we were definitely indoors.

It was about to make even less sense.

“Here we are,” Charlotte announced. “Hop in front. I’ll paddle us out of here.”

“Out of where?” I asked with growing confusion.

“Out of Venice, of course,” she said, chuckling.

It sounded like a joke, but we had stopped at a boat that looked very much like a gondola floating in a canal.

“Are we seriously in Venice?” I asked.

“Yup, but not for long.”

Charlotte was obviously having fun with me, and I stopped asking questions. When the sun came up, I’d see all I needed to see. I got in the front of the boat, or the gondola, or whatever it was and sat on a seat that had an ornate cushion. Charlotte picked up a long oar that was yoked toward the stern and pushed us off. In seconds she was churning us along the narrow canal. We passed under elaborately decorated footbridges and slid by open courtyards that had statues in their centers. We also passed dozens of dark shops.

We really were in Venice. Was it possible that the survivors flew us across the ocean in the twelve hours that I was out? I suppose anything was possible.

“Is this ever going to make sense to me?” I asked.

“Any second now,” she replied with a chuckle.

Up ahead I saw light, which meant the canal would bring us outside. Seconds later we slipped through an archway and into a wide pool. The sun hadn’t yet risen, but the sky was bright enough that I could make out detail through the gray haze. It was like leaving a dream, only to enter a more impossible dream. Venice is one of those cities that you see in movies and in pictures and on TV, so it looks familiar even if you’ve never been there. There was a tall brick tower near an ornate footbridge that spanned the pool. Gondola docks with red-and-white barber poles ringed the pool.

It really was Venice.

But it wasn’t. I also saw huge, modern buildings that loomed over us. I saw what looked like a small volcano nestled amid palm trees, behind which were two pirate ships flying the Jolly Roger. In the distance, I could have sworn I saw the Eifel Tower. I was convinced that the tranquilizer was giving me hallucinations.

“Uh… what is this?” was all I managed to say.

“Never been here?” Charlotte asked. “Guess you’re a little young.”

“I don’t think you can be too young to be insane,” I said. Charlotte laughed. “You’re not insane, though this place has driven plenty of folks off their rocker.”

“Where are we?” I asked, with more than a little desperation. “It’s Las Vegas, Tucker. Haven’t you ever seen pictures? Or been to the movies?”

Las Vegas. I’d seen it on the map, not far from the Valley of Fire. Things were suddenly clicking into place. Charlotte was right.

Las Vegas was the city that never sleeps, or something like that. But it sure looked sleepy to me. Every movie I’d seen of the place showed it with billions of glittering lights. But there was no power for that. Las Vegas was dead.

There were huge billboards advertising shows at places called the Mirage and the MGM Grand. Some had pictures of people who must have been superstars, but I didn’t recognize any of them.

Men wore tuxedos and women wore shimmering gowns. They were bright and happy and ready to please.

They were probably dead.

It might have been some great destination for people to have fun and see shows and gamble and do whatever else you did in a fantasyland out in the desert, but now it was just another dark, empty city. The word Charlotte used to describe it totally fit: eerie. Charlotte guided the gondola up to a dock that had ornate columns like you might see in Italy. The real Italy. This was a themepark copy. She tied up the craft and gave me a hand to get out because my head was still spinning… and it had nothing to do with the tranquilizer.

“Let’s walk,” she said. “Newbies always get a little welcome speech. We’ll find your friends in a minute.”

We climbed up to street level from the lagoon, where I got a full view of this section of Las Vegas.

“It’s called the Strip,” Charlotte explained. “It’s where most of the big hotels and casinos are all jammed together in a four-mile stretch. Las Vegas is a big city, but this is where most of the action is.” She paused and added, “Or was.”

We walked out onto the street and took a left, heading toward the Eiffel Tower. As dead as the city was, it wasn’t abandoned. Far from it. People wandered out from the buildings to greet the new day. Some stretched. Some jogged. Others just walked quickly, as if working to stay in shape. There were all sorts of people representing most every nationality or ethnic group. All were in civilian clothes. This was not an army. Most of them were older than me, no big surprise, but I didn’t see any young kids at all. I guess that made sense. Anybody looking to join up with a band of rebels wouldn’t bring their toddler along for the ride.

“Why here?” I asked.

“It’s the perfect place to hide out,” Charlotte replied. “There’s a labyrinth of tunnels that run up and down the strip and connect all the properties. What better place to stay underground and safe from them damned black planes? You know that drill.” I did.

“It’s like a rat warren down there. If those planes ever come looking for us, we can disappear into the depths like cockroaches.”

“Have they ever come looking?” I asked.

“Nope, but you’ll hear more about that at the briefing. We haven’t had a single incident since we started gathering here.”

“Is anybody in charge?” I asked.

“There’re a couple of guys. Good guys. We call ’em the Chiefs. A few have military background, so they’ve kept it all organized. Check this out.”

She pointed down a side street, where I saw a group of people jogging in perfect formation, four abreast, with a guy in green camo pants leading the way.

“It’s like they’re training,” I said.

“They are,” was her reply.

“How many survivors are here?” I asked.

“Last count was six hundred and fifty-two, including you.”

“Exactly?” I asked.

She shrugged and said, “Like I said, we keep it organized.

Everybody counts here. We’re not playing this loose. There’s too much at stake.”

“So what’s the plan?” I asked. “It’s not like six hundred civilians can take on the Retros.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, pardner,” she scolded. “You just got here.”

We passed more massive buildings that I guess were hotels. I saw one that looked like the Roman Colosseum surrounded by statues right out of ancient Italy. The Eiffel Tower was real, or at least as real as an almost-full-sized replica built in America could be. A gigantic Statue of Liberty stood guard in front of a replica of the New York City skyline… that had a roller coaster snaking through it. There was a medieval castle and an Egyptian pyramid guarded by a sphinx.

Everything along the Strip was monster-sized: a Coke bottle, a guitar, a golden lion that loomed over the boulevard. I didn’t understand what huge replicas of actual places and things had to do with gambling, but I’d never been to Las Vegas, so what did I know? Charlotte led me into a fancy hotel that didn’t look like it was trying to copy any specific country or city. We entered into a lobby that had a ceiling covered with thousands of paper flowers of every size, color, and shape you could imagine. It was actually kind of pretty, and less cheesy than anything I’d seen so far.

“This is where we brief the newbies,” Charlotte said. “It’s a pleasant spot. Puts people at ease.”

“You mean as opposed to a giant head that puts them on edge?”

“Exactly,” she said with a sly smile.

I liked Charlotte.

She led me through glass doors into a courtyard that looked like something out of a fairy tale. The ceiling was glass with a fancy steel frame that gave the place the feel of a greenhouse. The first thing I saw was a miniature carousel with four brightly painted horses. There was also a twenty-foot-high blue-and-white-striped lighthouse with a small sailboat circling its base. Up toward the high ceiling were miniature hot air balloons that were frozen in flight. Across from them was a floating flock of red and yellow umbrellas that would never stop rain or fall to the ground. The floor was covered with flower-filled gardens of black-eyed Susans, white daffodils, and pink impatiens. I know my flowers.

It was clear that the survivors who had taken over Las Vegas were keeping these gardens in good shape. The entire space was playful and inviting, like somebody’s idea of a storybook park. I didn’t understand what this had to do with gambling any more than the giant guitar and fake Statue of Liberty, but at least it was a pleasant enough place to hang out.

Others had arrived. There were maybe ten people who were checking out the indoor park, looking as dazed as I felt. “Tucker!” came a familiar voice.

Olivia ran through the garden toward me with her arms open wide. When she hit me, she wrapped her arms around me and pressed her body square against mine. This time I didn’t mind. I was happy and relieved to see her.

“They said everyone would be here, but I didn’t believe them,” she said, holding back tears.

“You okay?” I asked.

“A little dizzy, but what else is new?”

I laughed and hugged her closer. Olivia may have been dis traught, but she still had her sense of humor.

“Easy there, Tucker,” Kent said. “Don’t get too used to that.” I almost didn’t believe it was him. Not because he was there, but because he called me Tucker. Good for him for remembering that I was ready to punch his lights out if he called me “Rook” again.

“Where’s Tori?” I asked.

“Right here,” Tori replied as she entered through the door opposite the one I had come through. “Still trying to process.” I wanted to hug her out of pure relief, but I was too busy being hugged by Olivia.

“Is this place wild or what?” Kent asked. “It’s like a theme park for vampires. They all hang out in this underground maze and only come out at night.”

“I always wanted to see Vegas,” Olivia said. “It sounded so exciting. Now it’s just creepy.”

“What about Jon?” Tori asked.

We looked around, but there was no Jon to be seen. “Charlotte?” I called. “Our friend Jon Purcell isn’t here.”

“He will be,” she assured me. “They’ve probably got him coming in with the next group. Don’t worry, he’s fine. I did his interrogation myself.”

“Attention, everybody!” came a booming voice. A tall, broad-shouldered guy entered the garden quickly. He had a tight crew cut and an open, friendly face.

“Gather ’round,” he called out. “Sorry, we don’t have chairs. You can sit or stand. Whatever works.” We exchanged looks, not sure of what to do.

“Go ahead,” Charlotte cajoled. “He won’t bite.”

We walked toward the man, as did the rest of the people. A few men had arrived with the big guy and stood next to him. I flashed back to Chris Campbell and his cowboys, but this group didn’t come across as intimidating, like those Retro scum. Body language is everything, and these guys were relaxed and smiling. They must have been the survivors who brought the others here, as Charlotte did with me. Charlotte, on the other hand, stayed with us. We all stood facing the man in the dead center of the garden. “My name is Matt,” the guy announced. “In real life, I’m an EMT who works the Baywatch boat off of Catalina Island near Los Angeles. In this life, I’m one of the Chiefs who organized this little party.”

Matt seemed more like a camp counselor than a counterrevolutionary.

“I know you’ve all got a million questions, and I’ll do my best to answer them. But first let me say this: If you’re here right now, it means you heard our broadcast and you feel the same as we do.

We’ve all lost our lives. We’ve lost friends and loved ones. We’re victims of a war that we never saw coming. We weren’t given a choice or a warning. What happened to us was an unprovoked, unexplained invasion by an unknown enemy. Make no mistake, our situation is grim, to say the least. But if you’re here, it means you don’t want to roll over and accept what happened. You want to fight back. We do too. It’s not just about getting by or survival; it’s about taking our lives back. If you agree with all that, welcome. We’re glad you’re here. If you don’t, then you should be moving on.”

He fell silent, giving us each a look and the opportunity to back out. After what Charlotte told me about their security, I didn’t think anybody who said, “You know, on second thought, I’d rather not” would live to see another day. Nobody moved.

“Awesome,” Matt said with a satisfied smile. “I didn’t think so.” I had a feeling I was going to like Matt too.

“Let me start by telling you what we know. Maybe some of you can add to this, and you’ll get the chance. We believe that the United States Air Force was behind the attack. As to why, and who is calling the shots, we don’t know. But there’s one thing that gives us hope. From what we’ve seen and what we’ve put together from the experiences of the survivors who have joined us, the Air Force seems to be heavy on firepower, but light on manpower. Those black drones don’t have pilots. They’re being controlled from a distance. There are plenty of them, let’s not forget that. They are deadly efficient. We’ve all seen what they can do. What we haven’t seen are people. Cities have not been occupied by any kind of invasion force… at least none that we’ve heard of. Nobody has claimed victory or declared that they’re in charge. It gives us hope that as powerful as they are, they don’t have the bodies to execute a true invasion.”

A Hispanic-looking guy called out, “So why did they attack? Just to kill millions of people for the sake of it?”

“Billions,” Matt corrected. “And, no, that doesn’t make sense.

There has to be some other purpose to what they’ve done, we just don’t know it yet.”

“What about SYLO?” I called out.

“What about it?” Matt replied. “It’s a branch of the Navy.”

“Yeah,” Kent said. “Another branch that’s at war with the Retros.”

Matt looked back and forth between his friends who stood next to him as if confused. “What are these kids doing here?” he asked nobody in particular. He didn’t sound annoyed; it was more like he genuinely didn’t understand.

“We picked them up yesterday evening,” one of his friends answered.

“Uh, I’m sorry, guys,” Matt said, speaking directly to us. “You’re welcome here, but we’ve set up some parameters. We all agreed that we’re not letting kids get involved.

Young people are way too valuable to the future of—”

“Whoa, whoa,” Charlotte called out and pushed her way to the front of the group to face Matt. “Let’s take a beat. First off, these aren’t babies. When we talked about protecting kids, we were talking about real youngsters.”

“Uh, yeah. Like them.”

Charlotte looked back, made direct eye contact with me, and smiled.

“I don’t care how old they are,” she said. “These young people have been through far more than any of us. They’ve had contact with the Air Force, or Retros, as they call ’em. They’ve been in the middle of huge battles between SYLO and these Retros. Turns out, this isn’t a one-sided war after all. The Navy is in on it too. It’s not just one rogue bunch causing trouble, it’s a flat-out civil war.” She had Matt’s attention. Charlotte reached into her pocket and pulled out a plastic baggie full of red crystals. Ruby-red crystals. I heard Olivia gasp with surprise.

“Remember this stuff we took off of that fella who was snooping around here a week or so back? We had no idea what it was… but now we do, because of them. The Retros are feeding it to survivors. It gives folks impossible strength and speed and stamina. It’s like a steroid on steroids. And you know why they’re doing it? They’re making slaves out of survivors to help them rebuild. Trouble is, it eventually kills anybody who takes too much. So the way I see it, this confirms what you just said, Matt. These Retros don’t have a lot of manpower. They’re looking to their victims to do their grunt work. That’s good news, and we got it from these young people.”

I felt the eyes of the others on us, and it was making me uncomfortable.

“Let me put it to y’all simply,” Charlotte said. “They know a hell of a lot more about what’s going on than we do, so I’d say we’d be smart to let them do whatever it is they came here to do, because they may end up being the difference between us doing some good or getting slaughtered.”

Charlotte smiled at me, then looked back at Matt and added, “Now you go on with your little speech.”

Charlotte melted back into the crowd and stood next to me. “Thank you,” I whispered.

“No problem,” she replied under her breath. “Just don’t screw up.”

“I love you, Charlotte,” Matt said. “You’re a pain in my butt, but I love you.”

“I love you too, Matty,” Charlotte replied.

A nervous chuckle went through the crowd. It helped take some of the pressure off.

“All right,” Matt announced. “We’ll see what you guys can offer. If everything Charlotte says is true, you’re definitely going to be an asset to this operation.”

“What exactly is this operation?” Tori demanded. “We came a long way because you said you were going to fight back. It looks like you’ve got maybe six hundred survivors here.”

“Six hundred and fifty-two,” Charlotte called out.

“Sorry. Six hundred and fifty-two,” Tori repeated, shaking her head. “You have no idea what you’re up against. There are armies battling out there. Powerful, mechanized armies. We’ve been through an air-to-sea battle that dropped hundreds of planes and sank dozens of warships. These two forces are huge, they’re determined, and there’s nothing that six hundred and fifty-two people can do to stop them, no matter how angry or dedicated they are.

We came here to fight. To make a difference. From what I’ve seen so far, you’re just setting yourself up for a noble suicide.” The room fell deathly quiet. Matt nodded thoughtfully.

“I hear you,” he said without a trace of defensiveness. If anything, his smile was even more sincere. “You’re right. There’s no way we could go toe-to-toe in the kind of battles you’re talking about. But you’re assuming we’re talking about going to war.”

“So then what’s the point?” Kent asked.

“Like I said before, the Air Force—the Retros, as you call them—don’t have manpower. They have firepower. And we know where that firepower is coming from.”

“Where?” I blurted out.

“We know where they’re staging their raids from. It’s where the black fighter planes gather before taking off on their missions.

The thing is, there are incredible numbers of planes, but not a whole lot of people. They may be able to swarm entire cities, but we think they’ll have trouble protecting their own backs.”

“So you do want to attack the Retros?” I asked.

“There are only a few ways to damage an operation like that. It could be bombed from the air. We don’t have that ability. It could be invaded by an army. As you pointed out, we don’t have an army that’s capable of that. But there’s a third option.”

“Sabotage,” Charlotte declared. “We’re going to be like silent hunters. Snakes. They’ll never see us coming.”

“Small groups,” Matt said. “Demolition teams. No fanfare. No warning. We’ll enter and be gone before they knew we were there.”

“And take out hundreds of those damn planes at a time,” Charlotte said with relish. “By the time the fires are put out, we’ll have disappeared back into the desert, invisible until the next time we come calling.”

There were positive murmurs throughout the crowd. These people had all lost something, and if they had made this trek into the desert, they were ready for some payback. Tori said, “Will it be enough to stop them for good?” Matt shrugged. “Who knows? But it will hurt them, and it’s what we can do. That’s good enough reason to give it a try.”

“I like it,” Kent said with glee. “Where is this place?”

“Close enough for us to strike and far enough for us to stay hidden.”

Tori asked, “How soon do you plan on—”

“Cover!” came a terrified cry from a woman who ran into the courtyard. “Now!” Charlotte, Matt, and their friends all tensed up.

“What? Why? We’re not doing a drill now,” Matt said, confused. The mood had suddenly changed.

Did I sense true fear in his voice?

“No!” the woman yelled. “It’s real. They’re minutes away.” She backed out of the courtyard and took off running.

“What’s going on?” I demanded. Matt and the others looked stunned. There was a painfully long moment when it seemed as if they didn’t know what to do.

“Talk to me, Matt,” Charlotte demanded.

Matt snapped into focus. He had gone from a jovial big brother to a man with a mission.

“Bring them below,” he said without a hint of panic. “We’ll take cover with the other Chiefs.”

“How is this possible?” Charlotte asked, though I don’t think she expected an answer.

“Let’s hope we get the chance to find out,” Matt said. “Go, now!” Matt and his friends took off running. Most of the others followed.

The rest of us gathered together in confusion. We all looked to Charlotte for answers.

“What’s happening, Charlotte?” I asked.

“They’ve found us,” she said soberly. “The Air Force is attacking.”