All told, fooling around with Olivia wasn’t worth it.
I went back to the ER and slowed down as I passed Kent’s bed, fearing he might be lying in wait, ready to pound me. But he was out cold, snoring away.
Everyone was asleep except me.
I got into my own bed, turned off the lantern, and lay there staring up at the ceiling. There were so many thoughts bouncing around in my head that I had trouble nodding off. I needed to focus on one single thought. That’s what I did when I couldn’t sleep. I forced myself to think of one thing and put up a barricade against all the other annoying worries.
In the past when that didn’t work, I would go for a midnight ride.
I decided to do both. I imagined sneaking out of my bedroom window, climbing down from the porch roof, hopping on my bike, and racing along the deserted, dark roads of Pemberwick Island. I pictured the beam from my headlight on the road ahead, scanning for potholes. I imagined the chilly breeze coming off of the ocean and the smell of sea air.
I also thought about Quinn. We always rode together. Thousands of people had been wiped out in Portland, but I didn’t know any of them. Quinn I knew. If he hadn’t suggested we take separate boats on our run to the mainland, Tori and I might have been the ones who’d been killed. I owed him. The best thing I could do to honor his memory was to survive and to make a difference. Quinn had dreams of leaving Pemberwick and doing something important with his life. In a way, he had done exactly that. Tori and I were living proof.
But that wasn’t enough. I wanted to make a difference. For Quinn. And for us.
That was my single thought. That’s what I focused on. Strangely, it calmed me. I didn’t know what I would find beyond Portland and what I would do once I got there, but I made a promise to myself that I would do whatever I could to make sure that Quinn didn’t die in vain. It felt good to have purpose and a goal beyond simply surviving. I was going to make a difference.
Quinn’s death would be avenged. Whoever was controlling SYLO would pay for the destruction of our lives and the death of my best friend.
But not right then. I needed sleep.
There was no telling when I’d get the chance to do it again.
FOUR
"Tucker,” came a girl’s voice from my dream. “C’mon, open your eyes.”
It was a good dream. It was Olivia’s voice. You can do anything in a dream and not get in trouble for it, so I chose to enjoy the moment.
“I think I’ll keep them closed for a while,” I said dreamily. “Why don’t you sing a song or something? That would be nice.”
I suddenly felt a sharp poke in the arm.
“You’re kidding, right?” came the girl’s voice, suddenly harsh.
I cracked open an eye to see that she wasn’t a dream and she wasn’t Olivia.
All I could see was the mass of long black curls that surrounded her face. It was Tori.
I was suddenly very much awake.
“What? Oh? Sorry. I was dreaming.”
“You got that right. Get up, I want to show you something.”
I rubbed my eyes and sat up. The emergency room was slightly less dark than the night before. Daylight must have been creeping in from other parts of the hospital. It was enough to navigate by, but just barely.
“I made breakfast!” Luna called cheerily.
I hopped off the bed and went to the nurses’ station hoping to see a stack of pancakes next to a pile of bacon and scrambled eggs. What I saw instead was a tray of sliced fruit and a bowl of bagels. That was okay too.
“Sorry the bagels aren’t toasted,” Luna said. “But at least there’s some butter. We should eat it before it spoils.”
I was the last to arrive. Kent, Olivia, and Jon were already eating. Tori seemed more interested in some papers she was reading. With everyone wearing scrubs, it looked like a doctor convention.
“You look a lot better,” I said to Tori as I grabbed a bowl of sliced melon.
“I feel better, thanks to Luna.”
“But you aren’t healed,” Luna cautioned. “You have to take it easy.”
“Yeah, sure,” Tori said unconvincingly. She had no intention of taking it easy; she was just getting back up to speed. “I figured it out,” she said, holding up the papers. “It took four tries, but I think I got most of it.”
“Most of what?” Kent asked with a mouthful of bagel.
“The message. From the radio. I listened to it four times, and with the notes that Jon took, I—”
“Whoa, wait!” Jon exclaimed. “You were messing with my radio?”
“Yes,” was Tori’s straightforward reply.
Jon was livid. “That’s… that’s not right. We’ve got to conserve the batteries. And… and… do you even know how to use it?”
“Yes.”
Tori wasn’t one for justifying anything she did. Or explaining herself.
“But… but it’s not yours! Nobody authorized you to use it.”
“The Air Force gave me the authorization to do whatever I damn well please when it killed everyone in Portland.”
Tori was definitely back.
Jon looked ready to lose it but couldn’t find the words to argue.
“It’s all right, Jon,” Luna said calmly. “Let’s hear what she has to say.”
Jon plopped back down in his chair with a huff.
“You listened four times?” I asked. “That means you were up all night.”
“I caught sleep in between. Who cares? You have to hear this.”
She looked through several sheets of papers that were loaded with scribbles.
“I’m guessing at some of it,” she explained. “But between the notes that Jon took and then using a little logic, I think I pretty much know what it’s about.”
We all stopped eating and gave her our full attention.
Tori took a deep breath as if to calm down. She was actually nervous.
“It starts out with some kind of introduction that I didn’t get,” she began. “Something about making an appeal, or appealing to all. I can’t tell exactly. But she goes on to say this: We are the survivors. We have been bloodied, but not beaten. To all of those who have been attacked: Know that we will fight back. Join us. We will take you in and keep you safe. Then she gives what I think are coordinates, but I doubt if I got them exactly. North thirty-six degrees. Twenty-six minutes, twenty seconds. West one hundred fourteen degrees. Thirtyone minutes, fifty-seven seconds.”
“Might as well be in Greek,” Olivia said, scoffing.
“Where is that?” Kent asked.
“No idea, but it would be easy enough to look up,” Tori said.
“How?” Kent pressed obnoxiously. “No Internet, remember?”
“We could go to a library,” I offered.
“Yeah, but…” Kent wanted to shoot me down but realized how stupid he sounded. “Is that it?” he asked Tori.
“No. It finishes with: We will fight for our home. We will repel the invaders. We will have strength in numbers. The survivors will stand together. Do not hesitate. She then says the coordinates again, and the message repeats.”
Tori lowered the pages and said, “What do you think?”
“I think those are probably the coordinates for the gates of hell,” Kent replied.
“Not funny,” Olivia chastised.
“Sounds like a call for help from other survivors,” I suggested.
“Or a call to arms,” Tori shot back. “These could be people like us who got caught in the crossfire and want to fight back.”
“Fight back?” Kent scoffed. “Against what? The United States Navy or the United States Air Force? Take your pick. One has their own tactical force that isn’t afraid to kill anybody who gets in their way, and the other has weapons of mass destruction like nobody’s ever seen before. You think a couple of people using a ham radio can fight that?”