Sylo

by D. J. MacHale

  “Okay,” he said. “Let me sit down.”

  We both backed away from the shed until we hit a patch of grass. It took incredible self-control, but Kent sat down. I kept my hands on his shoulders in case he lost it again. Olivia joined us and held his hands.

  “It’s okay,” she said to him soothingly. “Relax. Just breathe and relax.”

  Olivia starting humming a song, like a mother might hum to a baby who can’t get to sleep. I didn’t know what the song was, but it worked. I felt the tension leave Kent’s body. Olivia was doing it.

  She shot me a questioning look and asked, “Is it…the virus?”

  “I don’t know. It might be. But he can fight it. He just has to relax. If he can do that, he’ll be okay. I think.”

  “People were taken out of the inn,” Olivia said, her own panic rising. “These ambulances came up and the soldiers took them away. I think there are more people infected than they’re telling us.”

  “I think so too,” I said. “But they’re going to figure it out soon.”

  “How do you know that?”

  I didn’t want to get into it with her. Granger was right about one thing: It wasn’t good to start rumors. If Kent wanted to tell her about the Ruby, that was his choice. I wasn’t going to rat him out.

  I thought fast and said, “Because now they’ve got people who are still alive. That’ll make figuring it out much easier.”

  I had no idea if that was true or not, but it sounded good. I was just happy that she didn’t ask me what the Ruby was.

  Olivia nodded. It sounded good to her too.

  “You’re such a good friend, Tucker,” she said.

  She leaned over Kent, and kissed me on the cheek.

  I instantly felt Kent tense up.

  “Whoa,” I said to him. “Take it easy.”

  I shot Olivia an Are you crazy? Why did you do that? look.

  She gave me a sly smile and an innocent shrug. Olivia was trouble. She cared about Kent, but I wasn’t sure if she felt as strongly about him as he did about her. It was a potentially dangerous situation that I wanted no part of. I stood up and backed off before things escalated again.

  “Talk to me, Kent,” I said.

  Kent was fighting the aggressive urges, but he was winning.

  “I’m okay,” he said with labored breaths. “Or I will be.”

  “Good. Then I’m gonna go.”

  “Pierce?” Kent called. “I don’t know why I went after you like that.”

  “I know,” I said. “You’re not going to do anything else stupid, are you? Like before the next game?”

  I was hoping he knew what I meant without having to spell it out in front of Olivia.

  “No chance,” he said.

  I believed him.

  “Good. Sit there and stay calm for a while.”

  “What is it?” he asked like a confused little boy. “How could it do this?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I think we’ll find out soon.”

  I took off and ran the rest of the way home with my eyes on the ground. I didn’t want to stumble across anything else that would add more drama to the already too-bizarre day. When I got to the house, I blasted in so quickly that I surprised Mom and Dad. Mom tried to hide it, but she had been crying.

  So much for ducking more drama.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Dad started to answer fast, but held back. It was like he hadn’t expected to have to explain anything just then and still needed time to figure out the proper response.

  “Nothing,” was his eventual answer.

  “Nothing?” I repeated, incredulous. “Why are you crying, Mom?”

  “I…I’m just worried. That’s all.”

  “About what?” I asked. “Besides everything?”

  Dad was reluctant to answer, but he knew he didn’t have a choice.

  “The TV works,” he said.

  I waited. He didn’t continue.

  “I’m not getting the tragedy in that,” I said, confused.

  I looked at the TV. On the screen was the nightly six o’clock CNN news. Dad watched it every day. He liked the news guy, Dave Storm, but mostly it was because every night at six sharp, they had The Pemberwick Report. It was a live segment that told the world about what was happening on our island. Or at least they told the world what the government had been telling CNN. Mom thought Dave Storm was cute. I thought his name was probably made up…like he thought he was going to be a weatherman and ended up reading the news.

  Dad took a deep breath and said, “We’re getting a TV signal. Radio too. We get news and shows and everything else.”

  “So then what’s the problem?” I asked.

  “What we’re not getting is out.”

  “Out?”

  “Phone service is gone,” Mom said. “So is the Internet. We can’t call, or text, or send e-mails.”

  “Nothing is coming in either,” Dad added. “Nothing private, that is.”

  I said, “So, maybe it’s just a power outage or something.”

  Both Mom and Dad gave me these looks as if I were the most naïve person who had ever walked the face of the earth.

  I said, “So we can’t talk to the rest of the world?”

  “That’s right,” Dad said, “And that’s why Mom is crying.”

  FOURTEEN

  We spent the rest of the night watching TV, hoping for any news about why Pemberwick Island had had its communications cut off from the mainland, but there was nothing. The only update was that a few new cases of the virus in its early stages might have been identified and people had been brought to the hospital for observation and testing. The reporter said that the CDC was making steady progress and there was hope that they’d get to the bottom of the problem soon and blah, blah, blah.

  There was nothing about the Ruby or the field of debris. There was no mention of the cigarette boat that was blown out of the water and the fact that two people were gunned down by SYLO killers, but I guess that was no surprise. It was torture not telling Mom and Dad about what I had seen but I followed Tori’s instincts. The less they knew, the better. It would all come out eventually. Of that I was certain. Once Granger and his army were gone and I felt safe, I’d talk to anybody who would listen about what we’d seen. I wondered how I might get in touch with somebody at the Boston Globe or the New York Times.

  It had been an incredibly long day. The morning’s football game seemed like it had been played weeks before. My mind was racing in a million directions and if I hadn’t been totally exhausted, I never would have been able to fall asleep. Thankfully I nodded off fast and didn’t wake up until early the next morning.

  When I got dressed and came out of my bedroom, Mom and Dad were already up and glued to the TV. I would have asked if they had been up all night but they were wearing different clothes.

  Mom’s eyes were puffy and red. She had been crying again.

  “Anything new?” I asked, not really sure that I wanted an answer.

  “No, but there’s going to be an announcement soon,” Dad said. “Grab some breakfast.”

  My heart started beating hard. Was this it? Did they figure out that the Ruby was to blame for the Pemberwick virus? Had somebody found the wreckage of the speedboat? I wasn’t hungry but couldn’t sit still so I grabbed some Cheerios and brought the bowl into the living room to join my parents. They were watching a Sunday morning news show that had nothing to do with Pemberwick Island. I watched the talking heads but didn’t register a single word anybody was saying. I couldn’t have cared less about what was happening with the rest of the world.

  After about fifteen minutes, the screen went black. Seconds later, a SYLO logo appeared.

  We all sat up straight. The logo stayed on the screen for a solid sixty seconds before it faded out and was replaced by the image of Captain Granger seated at a desk. The guy didn’t look any more comfortable than the last time he had been on the air. Only this time, I knew a little bi
t more about him and what he was capable of.

  “Good morning,” he began. “I’m sure many of you know that there has been a massive failure of the communications infrastructure here on Pemberwick Island. While we are still able to receive digital data, the use of telephones, both hardwired and cellular, has been sporadic.”

  “Sporadic?” Dad said, incredulous. “Try nonexistent.”

  “Also, we are not able to access the Internet,” Granger continued. “Rest assured that the utility companies both here on Pemberwick Island and on the mainland are hard at work to identify the problem and restore service. Military communications have not been affected, so we are keeping tabs on the situation and will report the moment we have found a solution. We hope that we will all be back online and in touch shortly. Until then, we ask for your continued cooperation with the SYLO team during this time of inconvenience. Thank you.”

  The picture dissolved back into the SYLO logo and moments later the news program picked up, in progress.

  “I guess that’s it,” Mom said. She seemed relieved, as if she had been expecting some bad news.

  “He’s full of it,” I declared.

  “Why do you say that?” Dad asked.

  “If there’s cable service, there’s Internet. And people have satellite phones. Satellites didn’t start falling out of the sky, did they?”

  “Why do you think he’d lie?” Mom asked.

  “I don’t know. But I’ll bet anything that Granger knows exactly why we’ve been cut off. Heck, he probably has something to do with it.”

  I jumped up and headed for the front door.

  “Where are you going?” Dad asked.

  “We can’t use the phone but we can still talk,” I said. “I want to see what other people think.”

  Dad ran ahead and cut me off.

  “I think we should do what Granger suggested. We have to have patience.”

  “Seriously, Dad, do you trust that guy?”

  He thought about the answer then said, “I have no reason to doubt him.”

  “Well, I do,” I shot back. “And I want to know the truth.”

  I started back toward the door but Dad grabbed my arm and said, “We’ll all get that soon enough.”

  He stared me straight in the eye as if he were trying to tell me something without actually saying it. I looked at Mom. Tears welled in her eyes again.

  “What are you guys not telling me?” I asked with determination.

  For a second I thought Dad was going to answer. Instead, he let go of my arm and backed off.

  “Nothing,” he said, sounding defeated. “I just don’t want you getting in any trouble. Stay close to home, would you?”

  “Where am I going to go?” I asked. “We’re on an island, remember?”

  Dad gave me a shrug and a nod. Mom got up and went into the kitchen.

  “See you later,” I said and headed out.

  My parents were starting to piss me off. I didn’t like how they were so willing to accept what was happening. These were good people who got shafted, had to pull up their roots in Connecticut and then move to another town to find a better life. That took guts. Why weren’t they showing those same guts when their life here was being threatened?

  I left the house, not sure of where I would go or what I was looking for. I wanted to be around people who were as upset as I was, and it didn’t take long to find them. I went to Main Street and quickly discovered that my instincts were correct: People didn’t accept Granger’s explanation for why our phone and Internet had been cut off any more than I did. People I recognized from all over the island, and many more I didn’t, were slowly gravitating toward town hall. It was the center of government for Arbortown and as good a place as any for people to vent about how they were being treated, even though it was Sunday and the offices were closed.

  It started out as a few groups of people scattered here and there but the numbers soon swelled. They were all talking about the fact that we had been cut off, and nobody was happy about it. Everyone wanted to be heard, but nobody was doing much listening. I heard bits and pieces of angry outbursts coming from all around me.

  “Who is he kidding?”

  “It’s not right!”

  “I haven’t pulled a single trap in weeks.”

  “My kids are in Boston. I have to talk to them.”

  “Without a phone, I’m out of business.”

  It went on and on.

  “The natives grow restless,” came Quinn’s familiar voice. He walked up to me and said, “I was wondering how long it would take before people started getting antsy.”

  “I think SYLO cut us off,” I said.

  “Really?” he said with exaggerated surprise. “That makes you…and everybody else. The question is, why?”

  I didn’t tell Quinn about Granger for the same reason Tori and I hadn’t told our parents.

  “If they’re not telling us the truth to keep us calm,” Quinn said, “it’s backfiring.”

  The crowd had grown and spilled into the street, choking off traffic into town. Car horns blared but it didn’t help. It was gridlock.

  “Not that I have any experience in these things,” Quinn said. “But this has all the makings of an angry mob. Kind of exciting.”

  “Exciting?” I asked, incredulous.

  “Yeah, in an anarchistic, overthrow-the-government kind of way. History is being made here and we’re part of it.”

  I watched with apprehension as the small groups of angry islanders gradually drifted into one big group.

  “I’d rather have things go back to normal,” I said.

  “Ah,” Quinn scoffed. “Normal’s overrated.”

  I gave him a sideways glance. “Do you mean that?”

  “That depends,” he replied.

  “On what?”

  “On whether or not we live to tell our kids about it all.”

  “Jeez, man, don’t even joke about something like that.”

  “Who’s joking? This is going to get hairy.”

  People started shouting to be heard. You could feel the energy growing, and it wasn’t positive. I only hoped that nobody had decided to sample the Ruby. That would have been like lighting a fuse on dynamite. Slowly, the crowd pushed toward the steps of town hall, where people stopped talking to each other and started shouting their questions at the empty building.

  “Why have we been cut off?”

  “Tell us the truth!”

  “Check this out,” Quinn said. He cupped his hands around his mouth and started chanting: “Sy-lo, Sy-lo, Sy-lo…”

  “Stop!” I commanded, pulling his hands away. “You don’t want to mess with Granger.”

  “Yes, I do,” he replied and continued his chant. “Sy-lo, Sy-lo, Sy-lo…”

  The crowd actually picked up on it and soon the chant was booming across town with the combined voices of a thousand angry islanders.

  I grabbed Quinn by the shoulders and got right in his face.

  “Don’t do this. It’s not a game!” I shouted at him over the chanting crowd. “You’re pushing the wrong buttons.”

  “Or helping to start a revolution,” he said, then pulled away from me and continued to chant.

  I didn’t know what to do. Quinn was having the time of his life…and helping to whip the crowd into a frenzy. Finally, a woman’s amplified voice came over a loudspeaker that was set up on top of town hall.

  “Attention. Please clear the street to allow for the flow of traffic.”

  “No!” was the basic response as everyone shouted her down.

  “Please disperse,” the woman said calmly. “This assembly has become a public hazard.”

  Her voice only seemed to rile the people up even more. The angry crowd had suddenly become an enraged mob. People I knew who were usually normal and friendly were showing their darker side. I saw my football coach and an art teacher. There were parents of my friends and even little kids. But the familiar faces were few and far between. Most of the
se people I had never seen in my life. No matter where they had come from, they were all getting swept up in the emotion.

  A handful of guys broke from the crowd, charged up the stairs, and started banging on the doors. Everyone was yelling something different but the general sentiment was the same: They were tired of being held prisoners. Cutting off communications was the last straw.

  “Come on!” Quinn said.

  We pushed our way in the opposite direction and climbed up onto the second-floor balcony of a hardware store across from town hall. From there we had a perfect view of the action.

  The street was jammed with people of all ages. Another chant began: “Sy-lo…Sy-lo…Sy-lo.”

  Quinn smiled with satisfaction.

  The guys in front of the town hall continued to pound on the doors. It seemed like it was only a matter of time before they’d break a window and overrun the place. I doubted that Granger was inside, but that didn’t matter. It was more about letting out frustration.

  The announcements continued, “Please disperse immediately. This unlawful assembly has become a public hazard.”

  The crowd reacted instantly and angrily to that statement with a new chant, “Un-law-ful…un-law-ful…”

  “Not as catchy as my chant,” Quinn commented

  “Where’s this going?” I asked.

  The answer came from the crowd itself.

  “The ferry!” I heard someone yell.

  The men who had been pounding on the town hall doors immediately moved as one toward the harbor while continuing to chant and scream in protest.

  “Enough!”

  “We’re getting off!”

  “They can’t stop us!”

  The crowd parted to let the men through and they picked up speed, headed for the harbor.

  “Are they seriously going to try to take over the ferry?” I asked, stunned.

  “This is awesome!” Quinn declared.

  “Awesome? They could get killed!”

  “Nah,” Quinn scoffed. “Do you seriously think the United States Navy would hurt their own people?”

  That was exactly what I thought.

  The rest of the mob followed the guys, who began sprinting for the wharf.