“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.
TWENTY
I expected to hear the antiaircraft guns start to boom or the scream of jet fighters taking off from the runway near where I stood. Instead, I heard a sound that meant nothing to me—at first. It sounded as though engines were powering up. The noise surrounded me, seemingly coming from everywhere…
…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.