His people may have been off duty, but he still gave them orders. The crowd dispersed, and I realized I was the only one standing there, still staring at him. I quickly moved away, hovering close to a tent that held a baseball toss game.
I was beyond being surprised by anything anymore. Though I needed to see him to be sure, I’d known in my heart that Granger was alive the moment I heard his voice booming from that drone aircraft. Seeing him brought back so many memories. None of them were good. My hands started shaking. I had to clasp them together to stop from jittering. The last thing I needed was to let my emotions control me.
I needed time to think and plan my next move, but I had to be ready for anything. Half of my mission was already complete. I had seen Granger. The SYLO commander.
His presence on Pemberwick set the wheels in motion for Quinn to die.
He had turned my parents against me.
He was an enemy.
He was a murderer.
I had promised myself that if I found him, I would kill him. Would killing a soldier in a war zone be murder? I guess that
depended on who was doing the killing. Was it justifiable homicide
for a civilian to take out a soldier who destroyed his life? I was going to find out. But to succeed, I had to be cold and calculating. I had to be like Granger.
The SYLO commander strolled away from the high-striker
game in no particular hurry. I trailed him, staying far enough behind to go unnoticed. I used other people to shield me from his
view, while trying not to look like, well, like I was following him. Granger walked casually with his hands clasped behind his back
and his posture impossibly straight. He surveyed each ride, food
cart, and game as he passed, looking them up and down like he was
on an inspection tour. At one point he stopped next to one of the
tall metal cones. He reached out and touched it, running his hand
along the metallic surface as if admiring its workmanship. His casual inspection tour reminded me of the way he strolled
among the bullet-riddled bodies of Tori’s father and the other
rebels on Chinicook Island, casually examining the victims of his
ruthless attack. He showed no remorse or sympathy, and then he
ordered his soldiers to torch the woods where we were hiding. I felt the weight of the gun pressing against my back. Killing
Granger would go a long way toward getting revenge for what had
happened on Pemberwick. But was I willing to sacrifice myself to
do it? This bizarre carnival was in a secure military base loaded with armed soldiers. If I managed to put a bullet into Granger, several more bullets would soon be entering
me
. Not only would it be suicide, there would probably be other casualties. More innocent people would die in the cross fire. Some could be kids. I couldn’t
let that happen. I had to get Granger alone.
He suddenly stopped walking and pulled a phone from his
belt. Apparently SYLO not only had power, they had cell service.
Granger listened for a few seconds and then reacted physically to
whatever he was hearing over the phone. He tensed up and glanced
around as if looking for something. Or someone.
Had he been alerted that he was being stalked? I ducked behind one of the metallic teepees and cautiously peered at him. Granger turned and hurried away. My guess was that he was
looking for a quiet place to talk. With the phone to his ear, he hurried past the furthest tent, away from the carnival and out into the
dark beyond.
He was alone. I had my chance.
I followed quickly but not at a dead sprint. I didn’t want to attract attention. When I left the lights of the carnival, I had trouble
seeing in the dark. I had to follow the sound of Granger’s voice as
he shouted at the phone.
“Details!” he demanded. “I don’t want speculation. I want facts.” He was definitely worked up about something.
“No,” he barked with authority. “Not until we have confirmation. Are you in contact with the AWACs?”
He was still moving. Fast. Every so often I’d catch a fleeting
glimpse of him as he appeared from behind one of the cones before
disappearing behind another. A few seconds went by without me hearing him. Was the conversation over? Where was he going? I had no choice but to keep moving in the same direction and hope
I’d spot him again. I rounded one of the cones . . .
. . . and came face-to-face with him.
He had turned around and was headed back toward the carnival. Granger stopped short. I saw a brief look of confusion cross
his eyes. I was familiar to him, but he couldn’t place me. Those
few seconds of confusion gave me the time I needed. I reached
behind my back, pulled out the Glock, and held it on him, keeping
it steady with two hands.
“Tucker Pierce,” he said, finally recognizing me.
“Why aren’t you dead?” I asked.
Granger was on full alert, though he didn’t look as scared as
he should have, considering he was facing a gun held by a squirrely
guy with a chip on his shoulder.
He said, “That was quite the stunt you pulled, navigating between those two burning ships. That took guts.”
“I saw your boat explode.”
“It did. I wasn’t on board. The commander was willing to
chase you into that inferno, but wouldn’t risk my life. He shoved
me overboard before turning into that flaming gauntlet. The entire
crew was killed.”
“Did you order him to follow us?” I asked.
“I did.”
“Then you should have been with them,” I said with disdain. “Agreed. But I wasn’t, and so here we are. Will you be shooting me?”
“That’s the plan.”
The only sign of stress that Granger showed was with his cell
phone. He kept spinning it in his hand. He was far more concerned
with the news he had gotten over the phone than with me. “You’re a long way from home,” Granger said calmly, gesturing to his left.
He was pointing to a building that stood a few hundred yards
from us. It was a large but squat two-story structure made of light
colored cement. It looked like a fortified bunker with windows. I had no doubt that it was the famous gold repository. “Why are you here?” I asked. “Why Fort Knox? Is it about the
gold, or the vault?”
Granger lifted an eyebrow.
“You’re a smart kid,” he said, though it sounded more like an
insult than a compliment. “Gold is going to be the foundation for
a new monetary system. Or so they tell me. That kind of business is
way above my pay grade. I’m just a simple soldier.”
“Is that why SYLO has so much firepower here?” I asked. “To
protect the gold?”
“To protect the future,” he replied. “Are you enjoying the carnival? We’re trying to make it as pleasant here as we can.” “Really? Pleasant? SYLO is putting on a carnival while trying to
destroy mankind?”
His eyes went wide, and for the first time since I’d met the
guy . . . he smiled. It was small, but it was real.
“I see you’ve been spending time with the Retros,” he said. “The what?”
“The Retros. That’s what we call ’em. The black planes. The
Ruby. The genocide. They’re accusing us of trying to bring about the end of days, so what do they do? They wipe out two-thirds of
the planet’s population. Does that make any kind of sense to you?” “They said we needed to start over. To reset.”
“And you believe that?” he asked, incredulous.
“I don’t know what to believe!” I screamed with frustration. He thought he had an opening and took a step toward me. I lifted the gun to his face.
“Stop!” I commanded.
He did.
“I’m scared as hell,” I said, “and I hate your guts, so take one
more step and I swear to God I’ll put a bullet in your head.” It was strong talk . . . that I knew I couldn’t back up. Granger
knew it too. All I had to do was pull the trigger . . . but I couldn’t.
I didn’t know it for sure until that moment. I wasn’t a killer, no
matter how badly I wanted him dead. I think the only reason he
didn’t attack me was to avoid being shot by accident.
“You’re backing the wrong horse, son,” he said calmly. “I’m not backing anybody! All I see is the Air Force battling
the Navy in a civil war that’s killed billions of people. For what?
What’s the point? Explain it to me.”
“No,” he said flatly.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t trust you.”
“You . . .
what
? You invaded my home, murdered dozens of
people, turned my parents against me, tried to shoot me out of the
water, and
you
don’t trust
me
?”
Granger leaned forward. I lifted the gun until the site was centered between his eyes.
“You should have listened to your mother,” he said without
flinching.
That threw me.
“My mother?”
“She warned you not to trust anyone, yet here you are, holding
a gun on the bad old soldier man you think is the cause of all the
problems. How old are you? Fourteen? Fifteen?”
I had to grip the gun tighter to keep my hands from shaking. “Maybe you’re too young to understand, but they’re using
you, son. Those Retros are like termites. You don’t know they’re in
the walls, eating the wood, until your house falls down.” “Nobody’s using me to do anything,” I argued lamely. “Then go give those bastards a message. From me. Tell ’em
we’re not done. Far from it. Tell ’em to go ahead and try to build
another one of their monstrosities. Soon as they do, we’ll blow it
to dust again, just like in Boston.”
His words rocked me.
“Boston,” I repeated, numb. “What was that thing? What were
they building?”
“A gate to hell,” he said with disdain. “They already got one,
we won’t let ’em get another.”
My mind was spinning, desperately trying to make sense of
what this guy was telling me.
“Another? They have a gate to hell?”
“For now,” Granger said cockily. “They think it’s protected,
but we’ll get that one too. It’s only a matter of time. We’re going
to send those devils back to where they came from.”
There was a crazy fire in his eyes that terrified me.
“Where is this gate?” I asked.
“Middle of nowhere,” he replied. “Mojave Desert. They think
they can protect it out there. They can’t. I want you to tell them
that.”
“No!” I shouted, backing off. “There’s nobody to tell. I’m not
with them.”
Granger laughed. “If you don’t want to listen to your mother,
listen to me. You gotta be careful about the company you keep.” His hand flashed forward, and he grabbed the muzzle of the
Glock. I wasn’t fast enough to react as he yanked it out of my hand.
He then grabbed the walkie-talkie from my belt.
“You tell ’em,” he said. “Let ’em know we’re coming.” “Let
who
know?” I asked, pleading. “Feit? He’s in Boston. I
don’t know any other Retros.”
Granger looked at the walkie-talkie and laughed.
“We have no beef with you, kid.”
“Then why were you trying to kill me on Pemberwick Island?” “I wasn’t,” he said with a shrug. “Can’t say the same about
your friends.”
“Wha—what do you mean?”
“I told you,” Granger said. “They’re like termites. You don’t
know they’re in your house until it’s too late.”
I was reeling. Of all the things I had seen and heard, this was
the most disturbing of all . . . and the most impossible. “Are you saying my friends are Retros? That’s crazy!” The wailing sound of a siren drowned out the carnival noise. “What is that?” I asked.
“Damn! I guess they really are coming,” Granger snarled. “Who? Who’s coming?”
Granger shoved the walkie-talkie into my chest and tossed the
gun away behind him.
“Do the right thing,” he said. “Don’t make me regret letting
you go.”
With that he took off running toward the gold repository
building.
The siren continued to wail.
“Wait! What’s going on?”
The carnival suddenly went dark. So did the floodlights that
had been lighting up the vault building. I was left in near pitch
dark. The fort had gone still. The calliope was silent. The rides had
stopped. Not a single word or shout or hint of laughter came from
the carnival grounds.
The siren ended its wail.
It had become deathly quiet.
That’s when I heard it.
The music from the sky.
The black planes were back.
. . . because it actually
was
coming from everywhere. The silver cones had come to life.
I leaned in close to one and heard the sound of an engine running. There were hundreds of them scattered everywhere. Maybe thousands. I had only been through a small section of Fort Knox. For all I knew, the metallic cones were spread throughout the base. But what were they?
The music from the planes grew louder. The planes sent by the Retros.
What did that mean? Retro? I always thought it referred to something that was a reminder of something cool from the past. But the Air Force had nothing to do with the past, not with the kind of technology they were using. And there was definitely nothing cool about the fury they had unleashed on the world.
I heard a metallic
thunk
sound that made me jump. It was followed by another and another. The tops of the silver cones were opening up. The tips of each one separated into four sections that hinged down. The same thing was simultaneously happening with all of them, including the large ones near the vault building. Were these weapons? Were they going to fire on the black planes when they appeared?
Why weren’t the jet fighters scrambling? When we drove toward Fort Knox the day before, we had passed the wreckages of hundreds of black planes. They must have tried to attack the fort before. Did the antiaircraft guns pack enough punch to fight them off?
It was nighttime. That meant the destructive light weapons carried by these black planes were operative. If they were allowed to fly overhead, they could wipe out every last person in the fort. They could also disintegrate the gold depository, just like they did with some of the buildings in Portland.
And with Quinn’s boat.
I suddenly realized that I was standing at ground zero. If the black planes starting flashing their fire, I’d be done. Granger had given me a free pass out of there. I had to use it. I first picked up the Glock and jammed it into my waistband. Granger hadn’t even bothered to take out the clip. He knew I wasn’t capable of shooting him. I should have known it myself. If I had been honest with myself and not acted on emotion, I would be sleeping soundly in that library instead of standing in the center of a bull’s-eye.
I had no idea of where to go for cover. All I could do was get out of there, and the only route I knew was to reverse the way I had come in. I sprinted back toward the carnival and ran straight through the dark midway. Minutes before, it had been packed with hundreds of people. It was now deserted. They must have taken off as soon as the siren sounded. But where did they go? Underground, probably. I wished I knew where. I wanted to be with them.
All around me, the conical engines whined into another gear. Something began to appear at the top of each device: poles that continued to rise until they doubled in height.
Boom!
The ground shook with the firing of an antiaircraft cannon. The planes were getting close. The deep sound shook my gut, literally. It was followed by several fast, sharp whooshing sounds. I looked north, the way I had entered the base, and saw the white streaks of missiles erupting from the wall of fog that camouflaged the launchers. They tore into the sky at a low angle, which meant the planes were still far away. It took several seconds before I heard them explode. I still had time to get out of there.
I sprinted in the general direction of the road that the garbage trucks had carried me in on, keeping one eye on the silver cones and the tall rods that now jutted up from their centers. I wanted to see a streak of laser light shooting from the pinnacles that would obliterate any bad boy that entered the fort’s airspace.
What I saw instead was altogether different.
The tall shafts began to break into individual rods that unfolded like an umbrella. Multiple struts that were attached at the top of each the spire lifted up, creating a device that looked like a windmill but with blades that were parallel to the ground. The struts continued to lengthen, making the wheel far larger than the height of its base. The machine itself was like nothing I’d ever seen before—and there were hundreds of them, all expanding simultaneously in a coordinated ballet.
By the time the process was complete, the wings of each horizontal windmill nearly touched the outstretched fingers of its neighbor, creating a continuous canopy. Running the length of each strut was a wide “sail” that looked to be made of lightweight, flexible material.
As I watched this evolution, I kept running toward the road that would lead me out of the fort. I wasn’t even sure if I was headed in the right direction until my foot landed on asphalt. Yes! I had found the road. I made a left turn and sprinted for the fog.
The antiaircraft barrage increased. Missiles were fired every few seconds, most heading north—the direction I was headed. The explosions started coming sooner after they were launched. The planes were getting closer.
To get out of the fort, I had to run through the ring of artillery. The black planes would definitely be shooting back at the approaching storm, which meant I had to travel through a dangerous stretch of real estate. Several SYLO soldiers sprinted by me, headed for the massive guns and launchers. They had to know that if the black planes weren’t stopped, Fort Knox would cease to exist, along with everyone inside.
The last thing they had to worry about was a terrified kid running for his life.
I had almost reached the inside edge of the fog when the windmill I was under started to spin. I looked back to see that every one of the massive wheels had come to life. The chorus of engines powering up was so loud that it nearly drowned out the sound of the launching missiles.
I had to stop and watch, that’s how stunning a sight it was. The fort was under a canopy of giant, whirling fans. Their rotation was just fast enough that the individual blades of each device blurred together. They actually looked pretty, like multiple pinwheels spinning in the breeze.
I could only guess at their purpose. They didn’t seem like weapons, so they must have been some sort of defense. Or maybe camouflage. Since the black planes were remote-controlled drones, the multiple spinning wheels might somehow scramble their sensors. The spinning blades seemed light and fragile, which meant they weren’t there to absorb the powerful blasts of energy that the planes could fire. It was a hypnotic display that I couldn’t take my eyes from . . .
. . . until I was rocked back into the moment by the sound of multiple cannons firing at once. The sudden urgency could only mean thing one thing: The storm had arrived.
Even through the dense fog, I could see the ground erupting as invisible bolts of energy rained down from the incoming planes. Cannons were knocked aside like toys. Soldiers screamed and dove for cover that didn’t exist. Through it all, the ground artillery continued to fire.
An explosion erupted in the sky as a black plane was hit. The fireball plummeted to the ground and landed on one of the major cannons, sending soldiers fleeing.
The fog grew even thicker as it mixed with dirt in the air and smoke from burning fuel tanks.
I didn’t move. Panic had frozen me in place. It was a surreal scene. Ahead of me was a chaotic battlefield with fire being traded between the ground and the sky. Behind me was a swirling forest of humongous silver pinwheels that looked like something out of a CGI-heavy music video.
Though they were taking massive hits, the cannons continued to fire, and the missiles were still being launched. There were far too many of these weapons for the attackers to take them out completely. The Retros, or whatever they were called, had been repelled before. The multiple wreckages outside of the fort were proof of that. It gave me hope that SYLO might just have the firepower to send them back to whatever gate of hell they came from.
It was a moment of relief . . . that didn’t last long.
At the very moment I told myself that none of the planes would get through, one of the planes got through. A black shadow shot by overhead. It was going for the gold—and not in a noble, Olympic kind of way. Another plane shot through, and another. Had the defense completely broken down? Was this the end?
The three black planes hovered in a triangle pattern over the repository building, just as I’d seen them do when they targeted Quinn’s boat. Whatever this weapon was, I remembered that it needed the strength of three planes working together to function.
I wondered if Granger was in the repository.
A straight beam of light shot from beneath one of the black, ray-like planes. It was quickly followed by beams from the other two planes. The lights joined together, gained intensity, and shot toward the repository as one combined beam . . .
. . . only to be reflected back into the air!
The purpose of the windmills was suddenly clear. The whirling fans acted like mirrors, reflecting the deadly beam of light. The spinning wheels effectively gave the fort 100 percent protection. The combined, powerful beam of light from the black planes was diffused by the mirrors, sending harmless streaks of light scattering haphazardly. The windmills were not only reflecting the light, they were breaking it up.
It didn’t stop the black planes from firing. The unified beam moved away from the vault building, searching for an opening in the defense.
It failed. The spinning wheels continued to deflect the deadly light.
The weapon had been neutralized.
The event didn’t last long. When the three planes stopped to hover over the repository, they became easy targets.
With three quick blasts, multiple missiles were launched from the center of the fog toward the interloping planes. Each one found its mark, and all three black jets were obliterated. The explosions were so powerful that the only thing left of the planes was ash that blew away on the breeze. As with the plane that was shot by the drone, when the power core of these planes was hit, the result was stunning. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of fuel would create such a devastating explosion. Could they be nuclear powered?
Whatever the case, the windmills had done their job. As long as the black planes were kept outside of the perimeter, Fort Knox would be safe. Granger would be safe too.
I guess you can’t have everything.
The attack didn’t slow down. If anything, the barrage picked up, as if the Retros were encouraged by the fact that some of their planes had gotten through.
I got my senses back and continued to run. I quickly sprinted out from beneath the safety of the spinning windmills and found myself in the middle of the artillery.
A cannon was fired so close to me that I was afraid the sound had ruptured my eardrums. As it was, my ears rang so loudly that I couldn’t hear a thing. I staggered a few steps but had the sense to look up in the direction that the cannon had fired.
A flaming plane was falling out of control, headed straight for me.
I had two choices: run or die.
I ran up the road, headed deeper into the fog. A second later the burning plane fell like a dead bird in the center of the road not twenty yards behind me. When it hit it must have exploded into a million pieces of flaming junk that flew past me. Unlike the planes that had targeted the vault, its fuel core hadn’t exploded. If it had, I would have been incinerated.
I didn’t know what else to do but keep running for my life. I knew the general direction I needed to go to get back to the dirt moat, but there was no way I could run in a straight line. I was surrounded by twisted pieces of metal that had once been trucks or missile launchers.
As many wrecks as there were, there were twice as many weapons still firing. The noise was insane. Though the battle was in the sky, I felt as though I was in the middle of it.
I passed a few soldiers who had been injured and were crying out for help. I stopped at one soldier who was bleeding from the eyes. There was nothing I could do for him but help him to his feet and guide him to one of the trucks where other soldiers were taking cover.
Once he was with them, I ran on and tripped over another soldier. This guy wasn’t moving. He was beyond wounded. He didn’t need my help.
Seeing the dead body brought the battle into focus. It wasn’t just about machines shooting at each other like some Xbox adventure. This was about people getting killed. But the Retro fighters weren’t taking the same risk. They were unmanned. The people controlling them were probably miles away in the comfort of an easy chair as they played what would seem to them like a video game.
For the people on the ground, it was no game.
I couldn’t believe I was actually taking SYLO’s side. It must have been because I was in the same danger as the soldiers.
I kept running, though I was nearly blind and constantly choking on the smoke. The ground rumbled each time a black plane unloaded its energy cannon. A few times the impact was so intense that it knocked me to the ground. Once I nearly ran into a missile launcher that I didn’t see until I was almost on it. Still, I couldn’t weave through cautiously. The longer I was in that fog, the better chance there was of not coming out.
Finally, after a lifetime of running and dodging, I sensed that the smoke was clearing. I was almost through! It made me run even faster. I was still on the road, so footing was good, though I had to be careful not to run into any of the hundreds of pieces of hot shrapnel that lay scattered everywhere. I finally blasted out of the fog . . .
. . . to witness a sight that was even more intense than the one I had just come from.
The night sky was alive with black planes and the bright tracer rockets that targeted them. I thought I would be safe once I had gotten away from the artillery. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I was now in the drop zone where the black planes were falling and crashing. The ground was littered with bits and pieces of the downed fighters, with more hitting every few seconds.
This was an all-out assault. There were more planes blown out of the sky in the few minutes since the battle began than we had seen on the ground when we first drove in. They kept coming, too. The planes swooped through the sky like skittering moths trying to reach a tempting flame. There were so many that I was surprised they didn’t fly into each other.
All I could do was run and hope that I wouldn’t get hit by a falling chunk of flaming metal. I left the road and took a diagonal course across the width of the dirt track, headed toward the Explorer.
The sky was lit up by tracer rockets and flaming jets. It seemed as though the SYLO defenders were doing their job, keeping the Air Force planes from getting close enough to target the fort. I wondered how long they could keep it up. The Retros were throwing everything they had into their assault.
None of the Air Force jets used their light weapon. It must have been because they needed the combined strength of multiple planes for it to work. With all the jets screaming haphazardly through the sky, there was no way they could join forces.