Strike

by D. J. MacHale

  It was hard to argue with that.

  “You’re not a quitter,” was all I could think to say. “Stop talking like one. We’re not alone anymore. That’s something.”

  I almost asked the helpful soldier about my mother and Tori but decided not to. I still feared that the Retros would put together that we were the team that destroyed the fleet of planes at Area 51. The less information we gave them about us, the better.

  But I so desperately wanted to know what happened to my mother.

  The trip wasn’t far, but it seemed to take forever because Kent let out a soft squeal of pain each time we hit a bump in the road.

  “You guys took a big chance,” the guard finally said. “Both of you. How old are you? Sixteen?”

  “Fourteen,” I said. “He’s sixteen.”

  “Seventeen,” Kent said.

  The guard sighed and shook his head. “Damn. I don’t believe it. You’re just kids.”

  What I couldn’t believe was that this Retro was actually talking to us like we were humans, let alone showing sympathy.

  “I was an idiot,” Kent said through clenched teeth. “I trusted that weasel.”

  “He probably saved your life,” the guard said.

  “Really? By setting me up and then crushing my windpipe?”

  “If he hadn’t, Bova would probably have killed you both.”

  “Why?” I asked. “To make an example?”

  “That,” the guard said, “and because he hates you. All of you. It’s why he volunteered to run this camp. He enjoys making you all suffer.”

  “That’s sick,” I said.

  “That’s Bova,” he replied. “If you want to stay alive, avoid that guy.”

  “Gee, you think?” Kent said with sarcasm.

  “Why are you telling us this?” I asked.

  The guard didn’t answer right away. He must have been thinking hard about what to say.

  “Do you know why you’re forbidden to use your names here?” he asked.

  “To degrade us,” I said.

  “No. They don’t care about you enough to want to degrade you. It’s about us. They don’t want us to see you as real people with personalities and a past. It makes it easier to . . .”

  His voice trailed off.

  “To what? Kill us?” Kent asked.

  The guard didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

  “Why are you helping us?” I asked.

  “Not everybody believes in this war,” he replied. “We weren’t given a whole lot of choice. What I saw you guys do back there, you know, standing up to Bova and then running out to help your friend? It gives me hope.”

  “Hope?” I said. “Hope for what?”

  The soldier thought for a moment and then said, “Humanity.”

  “What is it you Retros are trying to do? Reset civilization by wiping out most of it? It’s crazy, you know.”

  “Crazier than you can imagine,” he said.

  I looked to Kent, who gave me a wide-eyed shrug.

  “Who’s calling the shots?” I asked. “The Air Force is just a weapon. Who is leading them?”

  “You don’t want to know,” the guard said.

  “Well, yeah we do.”

  “We’re here,” the guard announced and stopped the golf cart in front of the infirmary building where I first woke up.

  I jumped from the back of the cart and ran to face the guard as he got out of the vehicle.

  “Tell me the truth,” I said. “Who is running this show?”

  The guard shook his head.

  “I can’t tell you that,” he said. “It would only make things tougher for you. Besides, you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Then tell me why we have to build all of these barracks? What’s going to happen here?”

  The guard looked around wistfully.

  “The answer you’re looking for is coming. Soon these buildings are going to be packed with more of us. Many more. That’s what this is all about, after all. It’s the whole point.”

  “So it’s like . . . an invasion?” I asked.

  The guard chuckled ironically. “Yeah. That’s exactly what it is.”

  “A few days ago I asked one of your officers who you were. His answer was, ‘We’re you.’ Those were his exact words. ‘We’re you.’ What did he mean?”

  “Exactly what he said,” the guard replied.

  The door to the infirmary flew open and two more medical types came out wheeling a gurney.

  “Look for the Sounders,” the guard said quickly so that the others couldn’t hear. “Stay alive and find them. They’re the only chance you have.”

  The guard stepped back and made an odd gesture. He put his right hand over his heart, but then dropped it quickly.

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  “Quiet!” one of the medical guys barked.

  Our conversation was done.

  The two medical personnel pulled the gurney up to the golf cart and quickly lifted Kent’s body to load him on.

  “Ahh,” he screamed in pain. “Easy. I think I’ve got a couple of busted ribs.”

  The medical guys didn’t care. To them, Kent was just a slab of breathing meat.

  “I’m staying with him,” I said.

  “Go back to your unit,” one of the technicians barked curtly.

  “No, let him stay,” the guard who brought us commanded. “They’ve earned it.”

  “Earned it?” the technician said with disdain. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  The guard strode up to the two medical guys and stared them down. It was clear who the alpha dog was. It looked as though the guards who dealt with the prisoners were more badass than the soldiers who worked in the hospital.

  “It means I ordered you to let them stay together,” the guard said coldly. “Am I going to have a problem with you?”

  The soldier backed down and shrugged.

  “Whatever. They’ll be out of here by morning anyway.”

  The two soldiers wheeled Kent inside and I followed right behind. Before going through the door I looked back at the guard. He was already in the golf cart, driving away. Still, I was glad he added one more piece to this strange puzzle.

  Sounders.

  What were Sounders and how could they give us hope? Instead of getting real answers from the guard, he had only deepened the mystery. At least our few minutes with him proved that not all of the Retros were cold-blooded killers. Just most of them.

  The soldiers wheeled Kent past the double row of patients until we came to an empty bed. A minute later Kent was lying down with an IV in his arm.

  Before leaving, one of the soldiers pointed a threatening finger at me. “Keep quiet or you’ll end up in one of these beds yourself.”

  I nodded and the two of them left.

  The bed next to Kent’s was empty so I pulled it closer to my friend and sat.

  “You okay?” I asked softly, so as not to disturb any of the other patients, or draw attention from the guards.

  “I feel like hell.”

  “That won’t last. Soon you’ll be back up to speed like nothing ever happened.”

  “I know,” Kent said. “This is cake compared to the broken back I had.”

  “What?” I exclaimed, a bit too loud.

  “The crash. When I first woke up here I couldn’t move. The pain was incredible. I wanted them to put me out of my misery just to make it stop. They knocked me out right away and when I woke up again, I was fine. Sort of. This stuff may heal your body, but it doesn’t make you forget the pain.”

  “And you have no idea if my mother and Tori are alive?”

  “I don’t, Tucker. It was all so crazy. After we hit I couldn’t even lift my head to see what was going on. I know a lot of people came into
the helicopter but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I was really out of my mind. It was so confusing. I don’t know if they made it or—”

  “They made it,” I said with more hope than confidence.

  Kent nodded but didn’t seem as confident about it as I was.

  “When you were sucked out of the chopper,” Kent said. “I thought you were done.”

  “I thought so too, but after a dose of the magic medicine it’s like nothing ever happened.”

  “Crazy, right?”

  The two of us sat there silently for a good long time. I watched with fascination as the liquid dripped into the tube leading to Kent’s arm. What kind of chemical could this be that would instantly heal wounds and stitch together bones? And why had we never heard of it before?

  “You saved my life, Tucker,” Kent finally said. “Thank you.”

  I didn’t know which was stranger: Kent sincerely thanking me for something, or hearing him call me Tucker. I’d grown used to his sarcastic nicknames. I guess bumping up against death a few times is enough to mellow anybody.

  “I wasn’t thinking,” I said with a shrug. “I saw the guy sneaking up on you and I just went for it.”

  “It was a totally stupid thing to do.”

  “Yeah, well, nobody ever accused me of being bright.”

  Kent shrugged. “I’m not surprised that you did it. I’m not so sure I would have done the same.”

  There was a huge elephant in the room that had to be talked about. It felt like as good a time as any to deal with it, especially since Kent couldn’t yet move.

  “I’m sorry about Olivia,” I said.

  Kent stared up at the ceiling fan. His eyes started to glisten. I knew he was thinking back to the moment when a Retro soldier fired his weapon at me and Olivia jumped out to protect me. She took the full charge and it killed her. It was one moment among many that had been forever seared into my memory.

  “I wanted to kill you for that,” Kent said.

  “I know.”

  “Losing her was like giving up on whatever decent future we might have. Things are never going to be the same. I get that now. It hit me when we were maybe halfway across the country. We hadn’t seen anybody for days and I realized there was no way we’d ever go back to anything even close to normal. Not even if these Retro a-holes gave up and went away. Too much had happened. So I started looking ahead, wondering how this new life might play out. The only thing that made it bearable was knowing Olivia would be with me. I wasn’t just some stupid kid with a crush on the hot girl. I really loved her. I thought we would be together until . . . well . . . turned out I was right. We were together until one of us died. I just didn’t think it would be so soon.”

  There was nothing I could think of to say that would make him feel any better. Olivia’s death took something out of me too. She wasn’t only a friend, she sacrificed her life to save mine.

  “I don’t blame you for what happened,” Kent added. “You don’t have any more control over what’s going on than anybody else. She wanted to save you and that’s what she did. Just like you saved me today.”

  “We’ve all been helping each other from the get-go,” I said.

  “I know,” he said, his voice clutching. “I just . . . wish she was here.”

  I wanted to say that I did too, but I thought he should be allowed to grieve on his own.

  “I don’t want to die in this hell hole,” Kent said.

  “I don’t see how anybody can die here,” I said. “Not with this miracle medicine.”

  “You can die here all right,” Kent said. “If you cross Bova. That guy’s a psycho.”

  “We’ve got to be good little prisoners,” I said. “Don’t break the rules, don’t call attention to ourselves. At least not until we find my mother and Tori.”

  “And then what?”

  “Something is about to happen, Kent. It’s why we’re building the barracks. I think the next phase of this war is going to take place right here.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So when it does, we’re in the exact right spot to cause some trouble.”

  Kent smiled. “I like causing trouble. Why the hell not? It’s not like we’ve got anything to lose.”

  “For now let’s just do what we’re told and keep our eyes open.”

  “What do you think that guard meant by Sounders?” he asked.

  “I have no idea, but it makes me think that we aren’t the only ones who want to stop the Retros.”

  “What about SYLO?”

  “Yeah, SYLO. They’ll be back. This isn’t over. I think we should do all we can to stay alive until things start hitting the fan. That’s when we’ll move.”

  “I’m with you, Tucker. But right now I’ve got to sleep. This medicine is knocking me out.”

  “I’ll stay right here,” I said, but Kent didn’t hear. He was already asleep.

  I pushed the bed back into position and lay down. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized how weary I was. Whatever rejuvenating effect the shower had on me had long since worn off. I put my head down on the flat pillow, hoping that sleep would come quickly.

  It didn’t. I couldn’t stop thinking about my mother. And Tori. And for that matter, Granger. Had the SYLO leader died in the crash? As much as being with Kent gave me the confidence to start talking big about causing trouble for the Retros, I had trouble looking beyond that into the future. Even if we got out of this camp, what kind of life would we be looking at if everyone I cared for was gone? With the kind of firepower the Retros had, I couldn’t imagine SYLO being able to protect Pemberwick Island for long. For all I knew it was already overrun by the Retros, and if my father was working with SYLO, what were the chances of his having survived the attack?

  I was looking at the very real possibility that I was now alone in this new world. Alone with Kent Berringer. How ironic was that?

  I had to force myself to stop looking beyond the next day. The next hour. The next minute. As I had done since deciding to escape from Pemberwick, the best I could do was exist in the moment . . . and hope that I was going to fight for a future that I might actually want to be part of.

  Eventually I fell into a desperately needed deep, dreamless sleep . . . that didn’t last anywhere near long enough. I was soon jolted awake by the sound of an explosion. It was still dark out. There was no way to know what time it was. Another explosion erupted soon after, this one even closer than the first. Next came the sounds of people running and yelling. What was happening? Was SYLO attacking? Had their missiles gotten through? Was the gate to hell about to be pulverized like the one under construction back in Fenway Park?

  All around me the recuperating prisoners were waking and sitting up in their beds, looking as dazed as I felt.

  “Nobody move!” a Retro soldier yelled as he ran past the beds, wielding his black baton threateningly.

  Kent sat up, rubbing his eyes.

  “Is this a dream?” he asked.

  Another explosion hit, followed by screams.

  A second soldier ran through and was stopped by one of the medical staff.

  “Is it another air raid?” the nurse asked.

  “No,” the soldier replied. “It’s a breakout.”

  SEVEN

  “How do you feel?” I asked Kent.

  “Like ass. But better.”

  “Stay here, keep healing,” I said. “I’ll go see what’s happening.”

  I jumped out of bed and ran for the door on the far end of the infirmary. Some of the patients were sitting up, groggy and confused. Most didn’t move. They couldn’t be roused from their deep, healing sleep . . . even by the sounds and excitement of a massive prison break.

  I jumped outside of the door in time to see another explosion erupt on the far side of the compound. It didn’t seem big enough to
cause any real damage. The base wasn’t being attacked by SYLO, at least not as far as I could tell.

  Retro soldiers ran from every direction with their baton weapons raised, headed for the latest explosion.

  Boom!

  There was another explosion that seemed to be a few hundred yards from the first. I turned back to the infirmary and scanned for a way to get up onto the roof where I’d be able to survey much of the camp. Using the skills I learned from climbing up and down the drainpipe on our house on Pemberwick Island, I put my foot up on the window frame, then grabbed on to a light fixture, which allowed me to crawl onto a small awning over the door. With a few kicks and a little struggling I hoisted myself up and over the top.

  The roof was long and flat, and from that high angle I had a view of the entire camp. Or base. Or whatever it was. There looked to be dozens of similar buildings either completed or in various stages of construction. They were clustered in groups of four or five with large empty areas between them, like the one where Kent and that weasel prisoner fought.

  At the center of it all was the giant steel igloo. It was like the hub of a wheel, with camp roads and buildings stretching out from it like spokes. There looked to be a runway leading out from the massive door. This was where they launched the black fighter aircraft. Since the planes took off and landed vertically, the runway didn’t need to be very long. The dome was surrounded by a concrete tarmac where a few idle fighters sat.

  My perch on top of the infirmary allowed me to view the extent of the Retro city. The entire camp was surrounded by black. The desert. What I couldn’t see were the hundreds of antiaircraft cannons that had protected the dome from SYLO attacks, nor the wrecks of fighter planes that had crashed into the desert while trying to blow it off the face of the earth.

  I registered all of this with only a quick look because what was happening far off to my right was way more interesting. I’d never seen a prison riot before, but this sure looked how I imagined one to be. Individual clouds of black smoke rose in several areas, probably from the explosions. There were several fires burning, but they were each contained, as if the bombs had gone off in between the buildings. None of the buildings looked to be damaged. It made me think that the explosions were more about making noise than causing destruction.