SYLO

TWENTY-FIVE

I took control of the boat from Kent.

Driving actually helped calm me. The battle seemed to be over but I wouldn’t be able to relax until we hit dry land. Tori lay across the stern seat with her head in Olivia’s lap. Kent stood over them, staring back at the war zone.

Several of the black planes flew overhead, their incongruous music now clearly audible as they headed west, back toward the mainland and away from what was left of the naval blockade. They were no longer flying in perfect formation but instead were scattered across the sky like shell-shocked soldiers staggering back from the battlefield after having lost most of their comrades.

Casualties were heavy on both sides. Looking back at the line of damaged ships that grew steadily smaller the further we moved away made it clear that the Navy had taken just as bad a beating as the invaders from the sky.

“How many people died?” Olivia asked wistfully, to nobody in particular.

“I only care about one—Granger,” Kent replied without a trace of sympathy.

“What was the point?” I said. “Who won? Those planes came from over land. Don’t invasions usually come from the sea?”

“I guess that depends on what’s being invaded,” Tori pointed out.

That reminded me of something she had said earlier.

“Is that possible?” I asked. “Could those Navy ships have been trying to keep the black planes away from Pemberwick Island?”

Kent snickered and said, “Possible? Are you serious? Why use logic now? I’m thinking anything is possible.”

“But then… why?” I asked. “More important, who? We just saw two huge military forces going at it. Who has the kind of technology we saw with those singing planes?”

“We know the United States is involved,” Tori offered. “President Neff himself set up the quarantine.”

“So then who was flying the black planes? Were they from SYLO, like Feit said? Why would they be attacking their own navy?”

“It could be the Chinese,” Kent said. “Or the Russians.”

“What about that laser weapon we saw the other night?” I asked. “Where on earth did that come from? And why didn’t they use it today?”

“Maybe you hit it, Rook,” Kent said soberly. “Who on earth has that kind of technology? Maybe nobody. What if that attack came from somewhere else?”

I didn’t register what he meant at first but when it finally struck me, I had to laugh. “You can’t be serious. You think this is, like, an alien invasion?”

“This is real life, Kent,” Tori admonished.

Kent stiffened.

“No, it isn’t,” he said with absolute conviction. “This is fantasy. There’s nothing that happened over the past few weeks that has anything to do with real life. At least not the life I know. When you cross that line, I don’t think you can rule anything out.”

I’d disagreed with pretty much everything Kent Berringer had said and done since I’d known him—until then. In the absence of any real explanations, how could we rule anything out, no matter how wild it seemed?

“So then, what do we do now?” Olivia finally asked.

Tori said, “All we can do is stick with our original plan. We go to Portland, find a TV station, and talk to the world. Let somebody else figure this out.”

Now that her adrenaline spike had left her, Tori was left looking pale and fragile. She was right, we had to stick with the plan, but that plan had to include finding a hospital to get her help. For that we had to get to Portland, so we pressed ahead, drawing ever closer to the mainland and hopefully to answers.

It took us another hour to make land and find a dock to tie up to. Part of me wanted to continue up the coast until we reached Casco Bay and the city of Portland, but none of us wanted to be on the water, and vulnerable, anymore. Having dry land under our feet would be a good thing.

We motored a short way north until we came upon a rickety old private dock with a float. I brought the boat around and Kent jumped off to tie us up.

“How are you feeling?” I asked Tori.

“I’m good,” she said.

She wasn’t. She was white. I didn’t think she had lost a dangerous amount of blood, but until she saw a doctor and got patched, we had to worry about her.

We had landed in a wooded section of the coast. It wasn’t the middle of nowhere, but there weren’t a whole lot of houses around either.

“We gotta find transportation into Portland,” I said. “Olivia, wait here with Tori. Kent and I will go looking.”

I figured that Kent wouldn’t want to do anything but sit on the dock and vegetate, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. He jumped from the boat, ran off the dock, fell to his knees, and leaned over until both his hands were on the ground. He then started to laugh. He couldn’t control himself. He laughed until tears ran down his cheeks.

I exchanged nervous looks with Olivia and Tori.

Tori shrugged. She didn’t know what his deal was any more than I did.

“Dude,” I called out. “You all right?”

He turned to us and sat on the ground.

“I never thought I’d set foot on land again,” he said through gasping breaths. “We could have died like a couple of dozen times back there but—here we are. How awesome is that?”

I couldn’t help but smile. I looked at Olivia and Tori, who were suddenly beaming. I took a deliberate step off the dock onto the dirt and gravel to plant my foot firmly on the mainland. It felt good.

I laughed too. That’s how relieved I was. It wasn’t until I felt solid ground under my feet that I truly believed we had made it. We had escaped. It was a great moment. One I hadn’t expected. There was no way to know what the future would bring, but it was good to be able to stop and take a few seconds to appreciate what we had done.

“All right,” I finally said, trying to control the giddiness. “We’re awesome. Yay us. Let’s keep going and end this for good.”

I walked to Kent and held out my hand. He took it and I helped him to his feet.

“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s end this for good.”

Kent and I climbed up a steep hill from the dock to find that we were at the end of a desolate but paved road.

“We’ll walk until we find a house,” I said.

A few hundred yards in from the coast, we came upon a big old rambling white house that had probably stood there for a hundred years. It was the kind of place that usually belonged to wealthy boating people. They probably owned all the land right up to the shore and the dock where we were tied up.

I hurried up the driveway and rang the doorbell. Nobody answered so I knocked. Hard. If somebody was inside, they would have heard.

“They’re probably at work,” Kent said. “Or maybe they’re weekend people.”

“Or maybe they’re hiding in the basement because, oh, I don’t know, there was just a huge battle raging off shore.”

“Or that,” Kent said soberly.

I left the porch and rounded the house to the detached garage.

“We’re trespassing,” Kent said nervously.

“Do you really care?” I asked.

“I care about getting shot by somebody who doesn’t appreciate people snooping around their house.”

“I am way beyond worrying about that,” I said and continued on to the garage. Looking in through the window, I saw two cars parked inside, an old Saab and a Subaru Outback.

“Maybe they really are hiding in the basement,” Kent observed.

“Then they’ll come out when they hear their car starting,” I said and lifted the garage door.

“What are you thinking, Rook? You want to steal a car?”

I threw the garage door up the rest of the way then looked straight at Kent. “I’m thinking about borrowing one of these cars, and I hope there are people inside who are watching and that they call the police and the police will show up and arrest us so we’ll get a ride into town and Tori to a hospital, which would save us the trouble of getting there on our own. And when they give us our one phone call from jail, I’ll call the New York Times and tell them what’s been happening on Pemberwick Island. What are you thinking?”

Kent rolled that over in his head, then said, “Yeah, that’s pretty much where I was going.”

I looked into the Outback and, sure enough, the keys were in the ignition. Gotta love the country. Nobody expects a car thief to mosey by.

“You’ve got a license,” I said. “You’re driving.”

“Seriously?” Kent exclaimed. “After that big speech, you’re worried about getting in trouble for driving without a license?”

“No,” I replied patiently. “I’m worried about wrapping us around a tree because I have zero experience driving on the highway. But if you want to take that risk—”

“Enough, enough, I get it,” he said, throwing his hands up.

Kent got behind the wheel and started up the car. As he backed out of the garage, I kept my eyes on the house to see if anybody was watching, but there was no sign of life. It was looking as though we would have to make our way into Portland on our own.

I hopped in and Kent drove us back to the shore. Olivia had already helped Tori up from the dock and they were sitting in the grass waiting for us. I guided Tori into the back seat and slipped in next to her. Olivia sat in the front with Kent.

“Whose car is this?” she asked.

“Friend of Tucker’s,” was Kent’s curt reply.

Nobody questioned further. Kent hit the gas and we were on our way.

Portland, Maine, is more like a big town than a booming metropolis. It was built around fishing, turned to manufacturing, but then eventually became one of those cities that you don’t really know why it exists other than to take care of itself. The population was only around sixty thousand, but that still made it the biggest city in Maine. Mom and Dad and I would take a trip there every once in a while so we could remind ourselves what it was like to be part of the outside world. Mom liked Portland because it was culturally diverse and had a great art scene. Dad liked the architecture of the Old Port and its cobblestone streets. He always pointed out that the streets, technically speaking, were made with paving stones, not cobblestones. Me? I liked the Italian sandwiches at Amado’s. We always found something in Portland to keep us happy.

On this trip the only thing that would make me happy was a hospital for Tori and a reporter who would help us get our story out to the world.

Kent drove us along winding wooded roads following signs for I-95. There was probably a faster way into the city using local streets, but none of us had much driving experience or knowledge of the area so we figured the most obvious route was the best, even if it took a little longer.

Tori put her head down on my lap and closed her eyes. I didn’t mind. I watched her, wondering which of us had it worse. Years before, her mother had abandoned their family and that morning her father had been killed by SYLO. Was that worse than finding out your parents were liars, playing a part in a conspiracy that was responsible for the deaths of dozens of people—including your best friend? In my mind it was a toss-up.

Though we did have one thing in common: neither of us had parents to take care of us anymore. We would have to look out for each other. I brushed Tori’s hair back from her forehead. She didn’t open her eyes, but she smiled. I wished we could get to the hospital faster.

“What day is it?” Kent asked.

Nobody answered because nobody could remember.

“Why?” I asked.

“Must be Sunday,” he said. “There’s no traffic.”

I hadn’t noticed because I had been lost in my own thoughts, but once he said that, I started looking around. We drove through a fairly rural area but every once in a while we’d pass a row of shops or a gas station. Not once did we see another car moving on the road.

Or another person.

When we turned onto the interstate, the lack of activity was even more obvious. There were no other moving cars. None. Several were pulled over to the side as if broken down, but nobody was with them. The stretch of I-95 outside of Portland wasn’t a typically busy interstate, definitely not like the section that runs past my old home in Greenwich, Connecticut, outside of New York City. Still…

“I’m getting a creepy feeling,” Kent said.

For the second time that day, I didn’t disagree with him.

We switched from I-95 to I-295, which went past downtown Portland. Since we were getting closer to the city, I kept expecting the traffic to pick up. Or to see another person—or any sign of life, for that matter. I didn’t. Portland may have been a sleepy city, but on that day it was downright comatose. The only increase in activity was the growing number of abandoned cars on the side of the road.

“My God, look,” Olivia said.

Tori struggled to sit up. She needed to see what we were seeing.

Not all the cars were abandoned. Olivia pointed to one that had driven off the highway and slammed head-on into a tree.

“Pull over,” I said.

Kent eased the car off the highway and came to a stop.

I got out to see if anybody needed help. It was a horrible wreck. The entire front end was caved in and wrapped around the tree. All the doors were still closed, which meant whoever was in the wreck was probably still in there. I slowed down and approached cautiously. I could only imagine how gruesome the scene would be. I got closer to the car, squinted, and looked inside to see…it was empty.

“Are they dead?” Kent called.

“They’re not even here,” I replied.

I felt the hood of the wreck. It was stone cold. There was nothing more to do so I hurried back to the car.

“How could they have gotten out?” Tori asked.

“I have no idea, and I’ll tell you something else—the engine is cold.”

“So what?” Olivia asked.

“So that means it didn’t happen during the sea battle. That wreck’s been there for a couple of days. Whatever happened here happened a while ago.”

We all exchanged looks but nobody knew what to say to that.

“Can we please keep going?” Olivia asked nervously.

I got back in the car and Kent got us back on the highway. We passed several more wrecks like the one we first saw. It seemed like the people had driven off the highway, hit something that destroyed their vehicles, and somehow magically disappeared.

“Things are not right in Portland,” Kent said ominously.

“You think?” Tori said. “Look at that.”

She was pointing to the side of the highway, where a hole the size of a swimming pool was cut into the ground on the edge of the forest.

“Is it a construction site?” Kent asked.

“Doubt it,” I said. “What would they build on the highway in the middle of nowhere? It looks more like a—look out!”

There was another crater in the center of the road.

Kent looked forward in time to yank the wheel and swerve around it. We missed falling in by inches.

“Hell of a pothole,” Kent said nervously.

“Or a bomb crater,” I said. “There were missiles flying everywhere. Some of them must have hit land.”

Tori said, “So does that mean Portland was attacked too?”

Nobody had an answer to that, but we’d find out soon enough.

As we traveled closer to the city, we passed several more craters. Not all were harmless looking. Some still had smoke drifting up from within. Not all the stray missiles had hit empty stretches of land. We passed an industrial building that was on fire and another that had been reduced to rubble.

“This was recent,” I said. “It must have happened during the battle.”

Olivia said, “So where’s the fire department?”

Good question.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement and looked toward the far side of the highway. What I saw seemed impossible, yet it wasn’t. It looked like a giant jellyfish moving across the barren landscape.

“What exactly is that?” I asked.

It moved slowly, its tentacles brushing against the ground.

“It’s a parachute.” Kent answered with dismay.

The large, white half dome of silk was full of air, which made it float gently on its own. The tentacles were the lines that hung down to the ground.

Kent stopped the car to let it cross in front of us. It seemed to be moving in slow motion as the soft breeze gently pushed it along, its silk skin rippling. It was a strange and haunting sight.

“So where’s the pilot?” Tori asked.

“Keep driving,” I said to Kent.

We were nearing downtown. I looked ahead to the skyline, fearing that I would see buildings going up in flames. Thankfully, nothing looked out of the ordinary.

“I don’t think the city was attacked,” I said. “Everything must have happened out over the ocean.”

“Almost everything,” Olivia said soberly and pointed ahead of us.

There was another wreck. This one was in the center median. It wasn’t a car.

It was a gray jet fighter.

“I guess that tells us where the parachute came from,” Kent said, numb.

The plane must have slammed into the ground going full blast because there was little left of it but wreckage. Flaming wreckage. This plane hadn’t been down for long. There were a few recognizable parts, like the tail fin and…

“The cockpit,” Kent said. “I gotta see.”

Before anybody could protest, Kent turned onto the median and drove right up to the largest piece of the wreck.

“The canopy’s gone,” Kent said. “They must have ejected before they—oh, man.”

Of course we all looked…and wished we hadn’t. Kent was right. One of the pilots must have ejected because the front seat was empty. The rear seat wasn’t. We could clearly see the outline of a charred body slumped forward, still strapped into the seat.

Tori turned away and buried her head in my shoulder. I looked forward, already regretting having seen it for only a brief second. Kent did the same.

“I…I’m sorry,” he said as he jammed on the gas and peeled out.

The only one who didn’t take her eyes off the grisly scene was Olivia. She kept staring back at the poor victim until we were far past it. I couldn’t tell what was going through her mind. Was she in shock? Or fascinated by the horror?

“We are so stupid,” Tori said, battling tears. “How could we have thought that everything would be normal here?”

“Because that’s what we wanted to think,” I said.

“This doesn’t change anything,” Kent said. “We’ve still got to get the word out.”

“We’ll go to Maine Medical Center first,” I said. “Tori’s got to—”

“No!” Tori shouted. “There’s plenty of time for that,” she said as she struggled to sit up. She may have been in pain, but she was still stubborn. “I’m okay. Go to the TV station on Congress Street. WCSH.”

Olivia turned around and in her best mothering voice said, “We need to get you to a doctor.”

“We need to do what we came here for,” Tori said adamantly. “Until then I’ll be fine.”

End of discussion. We were going to WCSH.

“Do you know where Congress Street is?” I asked Kent.

“I’ll find it,” was his reply.

“Center of town,” Tori offered.

The closer we got to the city, the more my stomach twisted. I kept looking ahead, fearing that I would see damaged buildings or more bomb craters or fires or any other kind of destruction, but there was nothing. Though there were no obvious signs of an attack, things still weren’t right.

Besides the distinct lack of activity, the first definite sign that something was truly off was that none of the street lights worked.

“The city looks wrong,” Kent said.

“You think?” Tori said sarcastically.

“I don’t mean because we’re not seeing anybody. That’s plenty weird, but I’m talking about the city itself. I’ve been here a hundred times and something about it doesn’t look right.”

I couldn’t imagine what Kent was talking about, but then again I didn’t know Portland as well as he did.

“It’s, like…abandoned,” Olivia said. “Maybe people are hiding in their basements. I know I would be.”

That made sense. We were so focused on Pemberwick and escaping from Granger and the quarantine that we didn’t give much thought to how the people on the mainland would be reacting to the naval blockade and the battle in the sky.

“Even if that’s the case, the TV stations will still be operating,” I said. “That’s what they’re there for. If there’s a war, you don’t shut down the TV stations unless…”

“Unless what?” Kent asked.

“Unless there was an evacuation,” I replied.

With that sober thought left hanging, we drove into town.

There wasn’t a single soul on any of the streets. There was no life behind the windows. Trash blew across the cobblestones…or the paving stones.

“Congress Street,” Olivia said, pointing to a sign.

“Take this right,” Tori directed. “The station’s a few blocks down. It’s the building with the big NBC peacock logo on it.”

Kent made the turn, not bothering to stop at the dead light, and continued down Congress Street through a gauntlet of abandoned or wrecked cars.

“It’s up there on the right,” Tori said. “Just past the—oh my God.”

“What?” Olivia asked nervously.

“The building. It’s…it’s not there.”

The spot that Tori had directed us to was nothing more than a giant hole in the ground.

“You must be wrong,” I said. “Maybe it’s further down—”

“No,” Tori said adamantly. “I came here with my father about a month ago when he did an interview. Look, there’s the NBC logo.”

There was a parking sign with a WCHS logo and the rainbow peacock, but there was no building. No WCHS.

“That’s it,” Kent declared. “That’s what’s wrong.”

“What?” I asked with growing fear.

“It’s the skyline,” he said. “It isn’t the same.”

“How can that be?” I said. “A whole skyline can’t change.”

“It can,” he said. “If buildings are missing. That’s what I sensed. Some of the buildings aren’t here anymore.”

Without waiting for a response, Kent drove us back through the city, where we passed many similar holes in the ground, just like the site of the former WCHS. Each time it was the same thing. There was no rubble, no signs of destruction, no smoke from an exploded bomb, and no building—not even a foundation. Nor was there any damage to the buildings on either side of the holes.

The grim reality was that several of the city’s buildings had been cherry-picked out of existence.

“It’s like they just…disappeared,” Kent said, his voice shaking.

“The weapon,” I said.

“What weapon?” Kent asked, his voice shaking.

“The one that vaporized the Patricia…and Quinn. That night we saw the lights flashing over Portland, those planes could have been attacking Portland. But not with bombs, with that laser weapon.”

“This war started before the battle on the ocean,” Kent said, numbly. “That’s why the car wrecks were cold. This happened days ago.”

“Go to the Old Port,” Tori said. “If there are still people in town, they’ll be there.”

Kent jammed on the gas and with a squeal of tires we launched forward, headed for the easternmost end of town and the most popular and populated district in the city. Along the way I noticed many more empty lots. Had they always been empty? Or was it the work of the strange marauding planes that came at night and serenaded a sleeping city with their murderous song?

We drove down Pearl Street until we hit the intersection at Commercial Street, the street that ran parallel to the shore and the downtown piers. This was the quaint tourist center of Portland. People came from all over the world to sample lobster rolls and Moxie soda, to buy miniature lighthouses and bibs with smiling lobster designs. It was the heart of Portland.

It was deserted.

When we made the turn onto Commercial Street, Kent hit the brakes hard and screeched to a stop.

“Oh, this isn’t good,” Olivia said with dismay.

Lying in the dead center of the empty street was another wreck.

It was one of the black shadow planes.

The thing wasn’t huge, maybe the size of a Hummer. It squatted like a giant roosting bird of prey that had decided to make its nest in the middle of the wide street.

“It’s been here for a while,” I observed. “There’s no smoke or anything.”

“It must have crashed when the city was attacked,” Tori said, stunned. “Does that mean the city’s been empty since then?”

“I gotta take a closer look,” I said and started to get out of the car.

Tori grabbed my arm to stop me, which made her wince with pain.

“Don’t,” she said, gritting her teeth to fight the sting. “That thing could be ready to explode.”

I looked ahead at the mystery wreck. It seemed dead.

“We want answers,” I said. “That thing might give us a couple.”

Kent added, “There’s gotta be markings. At least we’ll know what country we’re at war with—or what universe.”

I smiled at Tori and said, “I have to.”

Tori nodded and reluctantly let go of my arm.

“Be careful,” she warned.

“Seriously,” Olivia added.

I got out of the car. Nobody followed. Tori had an excuse. The other two were just scared. Can’t say I blame them. I was too. But that wasn’t going to stop me. Not anymore.

I rounded the Subaru and walked slowly toward the dark wreck, ready to bail at the first sign of trouble. There was no smell and no sound. There didn’t seem to be danger of an explosion, and if it was leaking invisible radioactivity, we were already doomed.

Its rounded lines reminded me of a B-2 bomber but with no obvious wings or engines. There didn’t appear to be any hatches or windows either. It was like a giant clamshell with absolutely no aerodynamic qualities. Kent’s crazy theory of these craft being from another world was beginning to seem less crazy. I walked with caution, hoping that there wasn’t an injured alien trapped inside preparing to defend his craft.

As I drew closer, I actually thought of Marty Wiggins. This had all started with his final moment of glory. The crowd was going crazy. Marty was on top of the world—until he fell off. It didn’t seem fair that somebody’s life could end at a moment of such triumph.

Or maybe that was a good thing. What better last memory to have than the joy of hearing the cheers of adoring fans? In light of all that had happened since, he might have been the lucky one.

Marty’s death was the beginning.

Or was it?

I had to accept that my parents had moved us to Pemberwick Island years before to prepare for SYLO’s arrival and some big event that was planned long before Marty had taken a fatal dose of the Ruby.

The event.

What was the event? Was it the battle between the Navy and the dark aircraft? Was it the attack on Mr. Sleeper and his band of rebels? Or did the event have something to do with the lights in the sky and the fact that sixty thousand people from Portland seemed to have disappeared, along with some of their buildings?

Had the event already happened? Or was it still to come?

I stopped a few feet from the edge of the dead aircraft and scanned its surface, looking for any clues that might help me understand. It was coal-black, with seams and rivets that told me it had been manufactured. This was no organic, alien creature. Check that off the list. I took a chance and ran my hand across its surface. The cool skin looked and felt like the pieces of wreckage that had washed up on the beach, along with a ton of the Ruby. That made it more likely that the exploding shadow Quinn and I saw on our midnight ride was indeed one of these alien-looking planes. Had it actually been loaded up with the Ruby and on its way to make a delivery to Pemberwick, courtesy of SYLO?

That’s what Feit said. But he was a liar.

I circled the wreck, looking for something. Anything. This was one of many lethal weapons that had attacked a fleet of warships from the United States Navy. Was it because the Navy, under the command of Granger and his SYLO goons, had blockaded Pemberwick Island? Were they trying to blast past the Navy to rescue us?

Or had they meant us harm and the Navy’s mission was to protect us?

Either way, why would anyone care so much about Pemberwick Island? The reason for the battle may not have been obvious, but this much was clear: These aircraft had flown over Portland and lit up the sky. Now a major city lay empty and several massive buildings had been vaporized.

Between the deaths on Pemberwick and those from the air and sea battles, there was no way to know exactly how many people had died. Wars are fought for many reasons: religion, power, land, riches, prejudice…Name a basic human conflict and you can bet that a war was fought over it. But what was the issue here? There had to be a good team and a bad team but it was impossible to know which was which without knowing who was fighting and what was at stake. I was hoping that I would find something about the aircraft that would at least tell me where it had come from and maybe open a few doors that would lead to understanding.

I walked further along and saw something on the skin of the craft that was totally out of place. It looked like somebody had crudely scrawled a line of graffiti using white paint. I didn’t understand the words because it definitely wasn’t English, but the letters were recognizable.

SEQUENTIA YCONOMUS LIBERTATE TE EX INFERIS OBEDIANTER!

Was it Latin? I had no idea. Who could have done it? Someone from Portland who was angry over the attack on their city? If it were me, I probably would have just thrown a rock at the downed plane or hit it with a baseball bat. I was looking for answers and found yet another maddening mystery.

“Anybody know what it says?” Kent asked.

I turned quickly to see that he had joined me, along with Tori, who leaned on Olivia for support. Tori looked pale and I didn’t think it was from the blood loss.

She was staring at the graffiti.

“Do you know what it says?” I asked.

“No,” she said, sounding numb. “But I can guess what it means.”

She picked up a stone from the street, leaned down to the plane and underlined four letters, scraping a mark under each.

“Sequentia yconomus libertate te ex inferis obedienter,” she said, sounding it out awkwardly.

“Oh my God,” Olivia said, stunned.

The four letters Tori had underlined were S – Y – L – O.

“SYLO,” Olivia gasped.

“So what the hell does that mean?” Kent demanded.

Since the moment of Marty’s death, I had been grasping at pieces of a hundred maddening clues, desperately trying to understand what was happening to us. It took the revelation of those four letters for my brain to finally start putting the pieces together.

“It means Feit was lying,” I said with confidence.

“How do you figure that?” Kent asked.

“Somebody scrawled this after the plane crashed, marking their kill. These planes aren’t SYLO. That never made sense. SYLO is part of the Navy. They wouldn’t battle themselves.”

Tori said, “So Feit lied about Granger asking him to bring the Ruby to Pemberwick?”

“Absolutely,” I said with total conviction. “I don’t think SYLO has anything to do with the Ruby.”

“How can you be sure of that?” Olivia asked.

“When Quinn and I were on our midnight ride, just before the black plane full of the stuff exploded, there was a steak of light that came from the ocean—”

“I saw that too,” Tori said. “I have no idea what it was.”

“I think I do,” I declared. I’ll bet it was a missile fired from a submarine. I think SYLO blew that plane out of the sky, just like all the others they’ve been shooting down since.”

“Whoa,” said Kent.

“That makes total sense!” Tori exclaimed as the realization hit her. “The battle began long before anybody was aware of it. Before Portland was attacked.”

Kent asked, “So if these aren’t SYLO planes, what are they? Who are they? And why were they bringing the Ruby to Pemberwick Island?”

“Whoever they are,” I said, “Feit was one of them.”

“But that doesn’t matter anymore, right?” Olivia offered hopefully. “Feit’s dead.”

“Yeah, he is,” I said. “But if he was waiting for a delivery of the Ruby, whatever he was up to, he wasn’t doing it alone.”

Pieces of the puzzle were falling together quickly and the implications were frightening.

“There were a lot of strangers on the island,” Kent said thoughtfully. “Way more than normal. I thought it was because of the late summer and the quarantine but…”

He let the thought hang.

“Who were all those people?” Tori asked. “Strangers were being arrested all over the island, and being held prisoner in the SYLO camp, and rioting downtown, and plotting with my father on Chinicook Island and—”

“It’s like there were two invasions of Pemberwick,” I said soberly. “One obvious, one not. I don’t think SYLO is the only enemy on Pemberwick Island.”

Olivia was on the verge of tears. She leaned into Kent and said, “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

I took a long look around the Old Port and at the once lively city that was now very dead.

“So where do we go?” Kent asked.

“We have to find somebody who knows what’s happening,” I replied. “And somebody who can help us tell the world what we’ve been through. I say we go to Boston. That’s the closest big city.”

“And what if Boston was attacked too?” Tori asked.

“Don’t even think that,” I replied quickly. “But if it was, we’ll keep going. To New York. Or Washington.”

“Maybe my mother went back to New York,” Olivia said hopefully.

I doubted that, but I didn’t say so.

“Maybe,” I said. “I don’t know. But one thing’s clear—there’s nothing for us here.”

“And we sure can’t go home,” Tori added.

That was the most sobering thought of all. I can’t speak for the others, but as much as I wanted to escape from Pemberwick, my goal was to find the truth, blow the whistle on SYLO, and get them the hell off our island so we could get back to normal. Seeing what had happened to Portland made me doubt that would be possible. Ever.

Kent kicked the plane in anger. “Who the hell are you?”

“Let’s get Tori to the hospital,” I said. “Even if it’s deserted, we’ll get medical supplies.”

We started back toward the car, finishing the full circle around the downed plane.

That’s when I saw it.

I stopped short.

“What?” Kent asked.

It was a simple clue, but unmistakable. If the sun hadn’t been hitting it at just the right angle, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it because it was the same shade of black as the skin of the craft. It stood out only because it had a slick sheen that reflected the sunlight.

It was a logo, no more than ten inches wide. There was a star inside a circle with two flaps, like wings, to either side with three stripes on each. Normally it would be red, white, and blue but there was no mistaking the monochrome version.

“This is no alien spaceship,” I declared, pointing to the logo.

Kent joined me, took a look, and gasped. “Oh, man.”

It was the logo of the United States Air Force.

We had been in the middle of a monstrous battle between two different branches of the military from the same country. My country. It was no drill. It was no training exercise.

“So what does that mean?” Kent asked.

“It means that the United States of America is at war with itself.”

Tori said, “It’s the second Civil War.”

It was almost too much to accept that such cataclysmic events, events that were sure to shake the world, had begun in my own backyard, at a high school football game, on a warm fall evening that turned out to be the perfect night for death.

The first death.

How many more were to come and how far would we have to go before it would end?

“Do you hear that?” Olivia asked.

We all held our breath and listened.

Portland was dead. Dead quiet. There were no normal sounds of life. No traffic. No voices. No screams or laughter. All we could hear was the forlorn cry of seagulls floating on the ocean breeze…

…and music coming from the sky.