“No,” I said with certainty. “The end of the runway is maybe a half mile ahead of us. According to this map, the only thing between here and there are trees and roads. There’s no wide dirt track. This is new. Or at least it’s new since this map was made.”
Tori said, “It’s like something came through and cleared everything out. Buildings, trees, rocks, roads . . . everything.”
Olivia said, “Maybe the Air Force didn’t lose here after all.”
On the map, Fort Knox was more than just an Army base. It was a town. It was supposed to be directly in front of us, but there was nothing out there but a massive white wall. Was this the result of an air bombardment that wiped the whole place out?
“It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Why would the Air Force use bombs here and nowhere else? If they wanted to wipe out the base, they could have come at night and used their light weapons.”
“I don’t think we’ve got the whole picture,” Tori agreed. “Let’s drive a little.”
We went back to the car and loaded in.
“I don’t want to go toward that smoke,” Olivia said. “It could be, like, poisonous or something.”
“Let’s drive along the edge of the dirt,” I suggested. “Maybe the smoke will thin out and we can see something.”
Kent drove forward and off the end of the road onto the dirt. He made a right turn, and we rolled along on the soft surface. To our right were a few more hangar-like buildings. When we passed the last one, we saw nothing but trees and more crashed black planes. To our left was the fog bank, or whatever it was, on the far side of the dirt track. We traveled parallel to the white wall, unable to see anything beyond it.
“Stop,” Tori suddenly ordered.
Kent slammed on the brakes.
“What?” he asked quickly.
“Ahead to the right. Something’s coming.”
I looked forward to see movement through the trees about a hundred yards ahead.
“Trucks!” Jon announced.
“Let’s get out of here!” Olivia cried.
“No, don’t move!” I countered. “If we move, they’ll see us. Right now we’re just another abandoned car.”
We crouched low and kept an eye on what turned out to be a convoy of green military trucks making its way toward the barren patch of dirt.
“Army trucks,” Kent said. “Lots of ’em.”
I was so used to living in desolation, seeing something as common as a line of trucks now felt like we were witnessing an alien invasion. My heart raced. Who were these people? Where were they coming from, and where were they going?
I couldn’t make out much detail until the first truck cleared the trees in front of us and rolled onto the stretch of dirt.
“There’s a road up there,” Kent said. “It cuts across the dirt.”
“Oh my God,” Tori said. “Look!”
Painted on the door of the first truck, and the second, and all those that followed was a large white logo that looked like a rising sun. There was no mistaking what it represented.
“SYLO,” Kent said in a soft whisper.
The trucks rumbled slowly along the road that crossed the dirt track headed toward . . . what? A white wall of fog? They were definitely military transport trucks, but there was no way to know what they were carrying. People? Weapons? The Ruby?
“Attention!” came an amplified voice. “Stay clear of the convoy.”
The hair went up on the back of my neck. I looked at Tori.
Was I hearing right?
She looked as shocked as I felt.
“No way,” Kent said, equally stunned.
“Who is that?” Olivia cried. “Where is he? Is he talking to us?”
I went into brain lock. I couldn’t accept what was happening or begin to try to understand it.
“Where did that come from?” Jon asked, near panic.
His answer came quickly. A flying plane that didn’t look large enough to carry a pilot appeared in the sky beyond the convoy. It skimmed the treetops, headed our way.
“Repeat. Do not approach the convoy,” the amplified voice warned.
“What do I do?” Kent asked, looking very much like a deer caught in the headlights.
I couldn’t think. I was useless.
“Don’t move,” Tori demanded. “That thing could be armed.”
“So we just sit and wait to be wasted?” Kent whined.
“If that thing wants to waste us,” Tori said, “driving away now won’t stop it.”
The drone plane had a bulbous nose, stubby wings, and twin propellers. Fixed beneath the wings were machine guns.
It was headed straight for us.
“It’s got us,” Kent whined. “We’re going to die right here.”
“Don’t move!” Tori demanded. “Or we’re definitely dead.”
The drone cleared the trees and swooped down into the airspace over the dirt track. Its nose was lined up directly with our grill.
“This is your last warning,” the voice boomed. “Do not approach the convoy.”
“We’re not!” Kent screamed.
The drone was nearly on us. Tori leaned forward and grabbed my shoulder. At any second it was going to fire its machine guns.
“I can’t believe it,” Olivia said with resignation. “We’ve come so far.”
The drone fired. The clatter of its guns was deafening. I tensed up—but it wasn’t necessary. The drone wasn’t targeting us. It continued firing as it passed overhead. We all spun to see the real target.
A black Air Force plane was hovering a few hundred yards behind us.
It had been flying in total silence, like a silent snake stalking its prey. We hadn’t even heard the music of its engines. The plane was no more than three feet off of the ground. Seeing it was a shock that made my stomach fall. Was it headed for the convoy? Or had it been after us?
Either way, its journey was over. The heavy machine gun fire from the drone craft ripped into the black skin of the plane, tearing it apart. The plane must have been crippled quickly, because there was no attempt to fire back.
Olivia covered her ears, and the rest of us followed. It was that loud.
The drone hovered over the doomed black plane, relentlessly pulverizing it with a steady stream of bullets. The black plane shuddered, as if trying its best to stay in the air. Its last gasp of life was to dip one wing to the dirt, then bank as if trying to get away. The drone would have none of that. The attack continued until the black plane dropped to the ground and crashed, kicking up a cloud of brown dirt.
That didn’t stop the drone. It continued to fire, shredding the plane. The black predator was long dead, but the drone continued pounding it with a vengeance. As it hovered in place, it drifted into a turn to reveal a SYLO logo on its belly.
Tori said, “If it hits the fuel tank it’ll—”
Boom!
The black plane exploded into a massive fireball, just like the plane back in Portland that Kent and Olivia rammed.
“Get down!” I screamed.
We ducked down for whatever protection the seats could provide. The burning cloud of debris spread quickly, and the orange flames licked past us. I winced, hoping that our own fuel tank wouldn’t ignite. Though we were inside the Explorer I could feel the wave of heat surge by above us.
It was over as quickly as it began.
I cautiously peeked back over the seat to see the drone circling over its kill, or at least over the crater where the plane had been. Satisfied that its prey had been obliterated, it lifted into the air.
I held my breath, fearing that it would come for us next, but the drone flew skyward and took off after the convoy. The last of the trucks had rolled onto the road that crossed the dirt track as the first in line reached the fog bank and was swallowed up by the smoke. The rest of the convoy followed, each truck disappearing in turn as it entered the mysterious swirling curtain.
Something was definitely in there, beyond the fog.
&nb
sp; The echo of the machine guns rang in my ears. We had just witnessed something shocking. Fort Knox was alive. There was no way to know whether it was the kind of safe haven Mr. Doyle’s son told him about, but the Army base was definitely occupied . . . and protected.
But that wasn’t what shocked us.
It was the voice that came from the drone.
I looked to Tori and asked, “Am I wrong?”
Tori looked pale. “I don’t think so.”
“Wrong about what?” Jon asked, confused. “What do you think is in there?”
“It can’t be,” Kent said. He was thinking the same thing we were.
“Can’t be what?” Jon demanded to know. “What are you all talking about?”
“The voice,” Olivia said, sounding sick. “Either it was a recording . . . or Captain Granger is alive.”
SEVENTEEN
The voice.
It was the voice of SYLO.
I’d heard it too many times in my dreams. Or my nightmares. It was precise and emotionless, with a hint of a Southern accent. It was the voice of the man who had invaded my home and trashed our lives. I’d seen the guy coldly gun down unarmed men who tried to escape from his clutches. I watched as he ordered a missile to be fired from a warship that destroyed the town ferry and turned back those who were protesting his occupation of Pemberwick Island.
I listened while he discussed hunting down Tori and me . . . with my parents.
Worst of all, I had been on the wrong end of a vicious helicopter attack on the camp of rebels who were plotting to take back the island from him. It was an attack that killed Tori’s father.
But Granger had been killed too. I saw it. He had chased us across the ocean on a Navy gunboat and pounded us with machine gun fire as we skirted our way through the battle between the SYLO Navy and the Air Force planes. To escape, we had made a suicide run between two burning warships as they collapsed on each other.
We made it out.
Granger didn’t.
We’d seen his gunboat explode.
I could accept that Feit was healed by some miracle medicine, but Granger? How could a medicine, no matter how magical, heal a man who had been incinerated?
I felt as though someone had grabbed hold of my gut and was twisting without mercy. Granger was the face of SYLO. He was calling the shots. Literally. His death had been minor payback for the misery he’d caused, but at least it had been payback.
Hearing his voice brutally ripped open old wounds and ignited a rage in me that had been simmering for weeks.
“It was a recording,” Kent declared hopefully. “It had to be. The guy has a scary voice. They probably recorded a bunch of warnings like that and use them whenever they want to intimidate somebody.”
“It sure as hell intimidated me,” Jon said, shaky. “And I never met the guy.”
“Could he be alive?” Tori asked the group, though she was looking at me.
They were all looking at me.
“No,” I said. “We saw his boat explode.”
I said that with far more certainty than I was feeling.
“What could be past that fog?” Olivia asked as she gazed out of the window at the mysterious white wall.
“It’s not a place we want to be,” I declared. “Not if it’s a SYLO base.”
Both Olivia and Jon looked glum. They had hoped to find a secure home in Kentucky. What we discovered was something far different.
“I . . . I’m not sure I want to go to Nevada,” Olivia said, obviously shaken.
“Let’s not decide anything now,” I said. “I say we find a place to hole up and rest. We’ll spend the night and decide on what we’ll do tomorrow.”
I got no arguments. I think it was a relief to put off any decisions, at least for a while.
Tori opened the map and did a quick check of the area.
“The closest town is Elizabethtown,” she said. “Head west, and then find a way to go south.”
Kent didn’t have any sarcastic comments about how tricky it was going to be. I think he was too numb to complain.
We rode in silence as he continued along the edge of the dirt stretch. We passed the spot where the SYLO trucks had crossed in front of us to see a paved road that cut across the empty expanse.
“It’s like a moat,” Jon said. “A dry moat. I’ll bet it circles the whole base. They must have leveled everything and cleared it away so that if anybody tries to approach, they’ll see them.”
“So what’s with the smoke?” Kent asked.
“It hides what they’ve got,” Jon said. “They shot down a lot of those black planes. They must have some serious artillery going on in there. If it can’t be seen from the air, there’s less chance of getting hit.”
The sound of incoming fighter jets shattered the silence. They came in low, directly over our heads, on their final approach for landing. Their gear was down as they flew wing-to-wing, dropped closer to the ground, then disappeared into the fog.
I stared after them, straining to see something through the smoke.
“What are you thinking, Tucker?” Tori asked.
“I’m thinking that base is alive,” I said.
“And?”
“That’s all.”
I was actually thinking a whole lot more, but I wasn’t about to share it.
Kent found a road the led us west and away from the dry moat. We traveled through more farmland until we found a major road that led south.
“Time to start looking for a hospital,” Kent said.
“No,” Olivia said quickly. “I can’t spend another night in a place like that.”
It wasn’t exactly a densely populated area. The buildings were few and far between. While Kent navigated past multiple bomb craters and downed planes, Tori continued to scan the map.
“There’s a library,” she announced. “Would that work for you?”
She asked the question with total sarcasm, but at least she was honoring Olivia’s request. It seemed like their moment of mutual emotional support was brief, and over.
“Whatever,” Olivia grumbled. “Anything’s better than spending another night in a cold, dark hospital.”
Tori called out the directions to Kent until we arrived at the Hardin County Public Library. It was a big brick building that rose up in the middle of empty farmland.
“Looks like another hospital,” Olivia said with no enthusiasm.
“Tough. We’re staying here,” Tori declared and got out of the car.
The tension between them had definitely returned.
Inside, we found it was a warm, inviting place. Olivia was right. It was a welcome change from the antiseptic hospitals we’d been staying in.
“Only one problem,” Jon said. “No beds.”
“Or food,” Olivia added.
“How about if Kent and I find a store while you guys figure out how we’ll sleep,” I suggested.
Olivia glanced at Tori.
Tori stared her down.
“I’ll come with you guys,” Olivia declared.
“Whatever,” Tori said. “I’m starving. Hurry up.”
The three of us went back to the Explorer and drove on. It took a while to find anything that resembled a town, but we eventually came upon a big place called the E. W. James Grocery Store. We loaded up a cart with bottled water, powdered drinks, cereals, cans of tuna fish, and various types of crackers. I also found some packages of dried seaweed, figuring it might be our best shot at getting some vegetable-based vitamins. Olivia scowled, but I took it anyway. Kent went for more Doritos and cookies. Whatever.
When we brought our bounty back to the library, we found that Tori and Jon had set up a comfortable place to sleep in the kids’ section using pillows and cushions they had gathered from all over the library.
“You going to read us a bedtime story?” Kent asked, while putting his arm around Tori.
Tori gave him a cold look, and he backed off.
We brought the food to a small kit
chen that was probably for the staff. We all silently grabbed whatever box, can, or jug we wanted and ate. There was no attempt to make it a civilized meal. When we were done with whatever we were eating, we’d drop it down for somebody else to grab. It was more depressing proof that we were moving further away from civilized behavior.
It gave me the resolve I needed to make a move I had been planning since the moment I’d heard Granger’s voice. It was something I had to do alone. If the others found out, they would stop me. I was certain of that.
When we were finished with our uncivilized meal, we left the empty containers where they had fallen and drifted back into the main area of the library.
“I want to show you something,” Tori said to me.
She led me to the reference section. It was getting late in the day, and the library was growing dark. We had to put on headlamps in order to read. Tori pulled out a heavy book and opened it on a table. We sat together, staring at the text by the light of our headlamps.
“What is this?” I asked.
“A Latin-to-English dictionary.”
I had almost forgotten.
“Sequentia yconomus libertate te ex inferis obendienter,” I said. “Does this tell you what it means?”
“Not exactly. I found meanings of individual words, but I have no idea about tenses or conjugations. All I can do is string them together in some rough translation.”
She flipped through pages and said, “Most of what Luna told us is correct. Sequentia roughly means ‘the following.’ Obedienter can be translated to mean ‘obediently’ or something.”
“What about the ‘gates of hell’ thing?” I asked.
“Libertate te ex inferis. That could mean ‘liberated or protected from the gates of hell.’”
“So the wild card is yconomus.”
Tori stopped on a page she had dog-eared. “I found a definition but it took a while. I guess it isn’t that common.”
“As opposed to all the other really common Latin words we use all the time?”
“I mean not common for Latin. I had to look through a couple of dictionaries before I found one that had it.”
“So what does it mean?”
She pointed to a spot on the page.