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.
Up ahead I spotted the Explorer and quickly dug into my pocket for the key. I didn’t want to be there one second longer than I needed to. I was thirty yards away from escape when I heard a whistling sound. I’d heard that sound often enough to know what it was. I stopped and spun around to see a burning black plane careening toward the ground.
Toward me.
I had to move, but which way? I was like a deer caught in deadly headlights. At the last possible second, I dove to my right.
The doomed plane soared so close overhead that I felt the heat as it sped by. I hit the ground as it careened the last few yards… and crashed directly into the Explorer.
There was a massive explosion as the flames hit the gas tank, which shot a pillar of fire into the air. Rolling away, I heard the zing of speeding bits of shrapnel flying all around me, so I wrapped my arms around my head to avoid getting beamed by a flying bit of molten metal. I was lucky not to be hit, but I was still in the danger zone… with no car to get me out.
I scrambled back to my feet and ran. Soon I was off the dirt track and sprinting toward the road I had taken in from the library. I needed to get away as fast as my legs would carry me, so I ran until my side ached, but that didn’t stop me. I can’t say how long I ran for, but the sounds of the battle grew faint. When I couldn’t take the pain any longer, I stopped and put my hands on my knees to try to catch my breath.
As I stood there gasping for air, I gazed back at the battle. There were fewer missiles being fired and far fewer shadows streaking through the sky. The fight looked to be winding down.
SYLO had won. They had repelled the attack. Fort Knox was safe, at least until the next time.
That night I had set out with one thing in mind: revenge. I had failed miserably. Looking back, it was hard to believe that I had seriously considered assassinating Granger. I was angry with myself—not for failing, but for wanting to do it in the first place. I was lucky to have gotten away in one piece…
…and with some disturbing knowledge.
Granger was alive, which was bad enough. What he told me about SYLO and the Retros was even worse, yet it did pull the curtain back a little on this confounding war. The Retros were the aggressors. That much seemed to fit. But who were they? Why had they chosen to reset the course of mankind? Why did they think it was necessary? What gave them the right?
SYLO, on the other hand, was playing defense, and though they were outnumbered and outgunned, they were dedicated to stopping the Retros.
The question still remained: Who were the good guys? Had the forces behind SYLO truly put the world on a path to destruction that could only be stopped by the Retros’ extreme tactics? Or were the Retros only using that as an excuse to create a new world order that they controlled?
And what exactly was this “gate to hell” that the Retros had and were trying to build more of?
As much as I had learned, I was still very much in the dark… and haunted by Granger’s warning. It was the same warning my mother had given me.
My friends could not be trusted.
That may have been the most disturbing revelation of all.
TWENTY-ONE
I had never felt so incredibly alone.
In spite of the horror I had seen since the night Marty Wiggins dropped dead during our football game, I had always had someone to lean on. First it was my parents… until they turned out to be part of SYLO. I also had my best friend, Quinn… until he was killed by the Retros. Or the Air Force. Or whatever they really were. Tori Sleeper and I then forged a friendship that only got stronger as our troubles deepened. Our circle grew, taking on Kent, Olivia, and finally Jon.
We didn’t always see eye-to-eye. Okay, we rarely all saw eyeto-eye, but we had each other’s backs. Even Kent. He had come through for us at times when I expected him to worry more about his own skin.
Now I was faced with the possibility of one of them being a Retro. A traitor. What other way could I put it? Though the news came from Granger, and I didn’t trust that guy at all, some of the things he’d said made me believe that he believed it.
As I made the long walk back to the library, I had plenty of time to think. I searched my memory for any clue why Granger thought one of my friends might be a Retro. When I was in the SYLO prison, Granger interrogated me, wanting to know about my relationship with Kent. Did that mean he suspected Kent? Or was he just fishing? Kent had lived on Pemberwick Island his whole life. His family owned property that had been handed down for generations. They didn’t exactly fit the profile of someone who wanted to destroy civilization.
The same went for Tori. She grew up on Pemberwick. Her father was a lobsterman, and her mother wasn’t even in the picture. She had abandoned them and left her husband to raise Tori on his own. Why would a lobsterman and his daughter want to bring on Armageddon? It didn’t make sense.
Then again, Tori’s father was the leader of the rebels who were planning to kidnap Granger. That alone marked him as an enemy of SYLO. And many of the people who had joined up with them were Retros, at least according to Mr. Feit. Could Mr. Sleeper have joined up with the Retros and brought Tori along with him? Or was he being used, like Feit said?
Kent’s actions might also be questioned. When he and I were prisoners in the SYLO camp, he was hiding a dose of the Ruby that we eventually used to help us make our escape. How exactly did he get that? I never got a full answer. It was implied that Mr. Sleeper’s rebels smuggled it in to him, but most of them might have been working with Feit. When we were staying at the Hall, Kent would disappear for hours at a time. Whenever I asked what he was doing, he’d tell me to mind my own business. The Hall was run by Retros. Was he plotting something with them?
Then there was Olivia. There was nothing about her that said “world destroyer.” She was more worried about looking good and having fun than about rebooting society. But I had only known her since the beginning of summer. She said she came from New York City, but did I know that for a fact? Was she hiding some dark secrets?
Finally there was Jon. None of us knew much about him, other than that he worked as a hospital technician and was a tech geek who tinkered with radios and had a passion for history. He had a know-it-all air about him, but did that mark him as traitor? It bothered me, though, that he was so quick to put in with Chris Campbell and his cowboys at Faneuil Hall. Was that because he wanted food and a warm place to sleep? Or did he actually send Chris after me once he realized I wanted to escape with the others?
None of these people seemed like they could be playing both sides. Either Granger was totally lying or there was some incredible acting going on.
I wanted to forget the idea entirely, except for one thing Granger said. He admitted that he had no reason to want me dead. Yet he had come after me with all guns blazing. Literally. He torched the forest on Chillicot Island to try to fry me. He sent sharpshooters to blow me away before I could escape the island on a speedboat. Once I was on that speedboat, he personally came after me and tried to blast me out of the water. He was so determined to kill me that he ordered his crew to follow us into that inferno, sending them to their deaths. It sure seemed as though he wanted me gone, even though he knew for certain that I wasn’t a Retro. He had to know. He was working with my parents!