Strike

by D. J. MacHale

  “What did you say?”

  “I love you.”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I love you too.”

  “Good,” she said with finality. “We agree. Let’s stop being victims and start fighting back.”

  I took her hand.

  Tori squeezed mine and gave me a wink.

  We turned to face the screen.

  Together we ran to the blank wall . . . and jumped into the light.

  TWELVE

  When we stepped through the frame the first thing that hit me was the smell. It was a nasty, chemical odor that burned my nose and made my eyes water.

  The second thing that hit me was another Retro drone.

  Actually, I did the hitting because it was floating directly in front of us when we jumped through the frame and I ran into its nose, stomach first. The impact knocked the wind out of me and forced me to let go of Tori’s hand. I hit the ground, gasping for breath while looking around to try to understand what had just happened.

  The Retro fighter drifted forward, the underside of its fuselage not two feet over my head. If the drone knew that it had been hit by someone coming through the portal, it didn’t show it. The craft continued moving ahead and into the large frame, disappearing into the white light that now shone from the backside. Behind us.

  I was left on my stomach, my heart racing and my lungs desperate for air. I caught movement to my right and saw the Retro soldier kneeling over Kent. Kent was flat on his back and the soldier had his hands wrapped around his throat. These were the last moments of a battle that Kent had lost. I rolled over and struggled to get to my feet, fighting for breath, to try and help my friend.

  I made it as far as getting to my hands and knees when the soldier suddenly went stiff. His back arched and he fell away from Kent.

  Turned out I had made the right choice by giving the baton weapon to Tori. She was only a few feet from me on one knee with the black weapon balanced against her forearm for stability. One shot and the Retro was done.

  I managed to crawl to Kent, fearing it was too late. When I saw that his eyes were open but staring at nothing, my heart sank.

  “Kent?” I said, still gasping for breath. “Talk to me.”

  I leaned into him, desperately searching for a sign that he was still alive. When I got right over his face and looked into his eyes, he blinked.

  He was breathing and suddenly I could too.

  His eyes darted around, confused, searching for something to focus on. He finally looked right into my eyes, recognized me, and relaxed.

  “You still with us?” I asked.

  “Barely,” he said with a raspy voice. “Did you have to cut it that close?”

  Tori ran over and knelt down next to us.

  “We gotta move,” she announced with urgency. “Now.”

  We helped Kent sit up.

  “Are we in hell?” he asked.

  Tori gestured to the fallen soldier and said, “Get him. Bring him over there.”

  While she helped Kent to his feet, I went to the soldier, who was either out cold or dead. Either way he wasn’t going to be a problem . . . until somebody spotted him. Or us. I grabbed his legs and dragged him to one side of the frame where a bunch of crates were stacked up. I pulled him between the pile of boxes and the wall, hoping he would be hidden from curious eyes. Kent and Tori soon joined me.

  “He’s alive,” I announced as I checked the Retro’s pulse. “How did you know the shot would only stun him?”

  “I didn’t,” Tori said absently.

  Her mind was already past the soldier. She was too busy taking in our new surroundings. Kent was too. I turned my attention from our enemy and got my first real look at where we had landed.

  “Whoa wait, we’re still in the dome,” Kent said with amazement. “I think.”

  It looked as though we had stepped through one side of the frame and out the other, with one major difference: The dome was no longer empty. The place had suddenly come alive, like a massive, busy beehive. A long line of hovering Retro drones started just inside the enormous open doorway and stretched outside to who knew where. The killing machines floated a few feet off the ground, one behind the other, patiently waiting their turn to move into the dome and drift through the portal. The music from their engines joined together to create a strangely hypnotic soundtrack, which only added to the surreal scene we were witnessing.

  “No we’re not,” Tori said with confidence. “This isn’t the same dome.”

  “It’s like a mirror image of what we left,” I added.

  Stacked against the walls were thousands of containers of every shape and size. Some were about the size of a basketball, others looked big enough to hold a car. They were all made of a plastic-like light green material. Each had a unique raised black bar code on one side that must have been used to identify the contents. There were no recognizable words, English or otherwise. Just the bar codes.

  “Look,” Kent said, pointing up.

  Above us were several round platforms stacked with more crates. Nothing supported them or tethered them in place. They were floating freely. The platforms must have been using the same technology that allowed the Retro planes to fly. They hung at all levels, taking up much of the empty air above the screen like decorative lanterns at a tea party.

  One loaded pallet floated up and over from the far side of the frame then dropped down slowly until it settled in ahead of the next Retro drone in line. It never stopped moving as it drifted forward and disappeared into the white screen.

  “Jeez,” Kent said, stunned.

  “Supplies,” Tori said. “This is where the Retro’s gear is coming from.”

  “And weapons,” I added. “That frame is some kind of transporter.”

  “Transporter?” Kent said, incredulous. “There’s no such thing.”

  “There’s no such thing as a lot of things we’ve been seeing,” I said. “Add this to the list.”

  “I’m telling you,” Kent said. “They’re aliens. Nothing like this exists on Earth.” His eyes got wide as he glanced around nervously. “We might not even be on Earth. What if that frame is like a ‘Beam me up, Scotty’ thing? We could be anywhere in the universe.”

  “It’s an automated shipping depot,” Tori said thoughtfully. “Everything the Retros have been using in this war must have come through here. It’s why we never saw anything delivered to the prison camp. It all comes through here and gets spit out in that dome in the desert. It must be why they’re building more domes. They want other places around the world to receive their equipment from here.”

  “But where is here?” I asked.

  “Wherever we are,” Kent said, “it stinks. Literally.”

  “It smells like some kind of factory,” I said. “There’s definitely chemicals in the air.”

  Tori’s eyes went wide. “Maybe that’s why nobody is here. This place could be toxic.”

  I glanced to the giant door that was the entrance for the Retro aircraft.

  “Answers are out there,” I said. “We gotta go see.”

  “Not dressed like this we don’t,” Kent said. “We’re bound to run into more soldiers.”

  “As soon as we find other clothes we’ll change,” I said. “Until then we’ve gotta try to be invisible.”

  “Yeah, like we’re going to blend in wearing orange clown suits with big numbers on the back,” Kent said with a scoff.

  “The only other choice we have is to go back through to the camp,” Tori said. “And we’d be right where we started.”

  Kent frowned. His mind was racing, desperately trying to come up with a third option. He eventually sighed and shrugged.

  “Fine,” he said with resignation. “Just keep that shooter handy.”

  I started walking around the perimeter of the dome, headed for the do
or. Unlike the nearly empty structure in the desert, this dome was so full of stacked crates, floating pallets, and fighter planes that we were able to creep along while taking cover. At least that’s what I told myself. With the kind of technology the Retros had, we could easily have been under electronic surveillance from the moment we stepped through the frame.

  “They’re getting ready,” Tori said.

  “For what?” Kent asked.

  “The occupation. An army needs supplies.”

  It made all sorts of sense. Feit had told us that the Retros were working to reset society and change the course of mankind. Killing off billions of people just for the sake of wiping out the population like Noah’s flood couldn’t have been their entire plan. At some point the Retros would have to take charge or the world would collapse. The barracks being built in the desert was the first evidence of what their plans were for the next phase of this war. This shipping depot was the second. Once organized society was reduced to rubble, they would step in and rebuild.

  But who were they? Did they come from all over the world to gather here in preparation for the invasion? Did that mean the western United States would be the seat of a new civilization? And where was here, exactly? These guys had advanced technology that the world at large had no idea existed. How was it possible that they could have created advanced weapons and transportation devices without major governments knowing about it? Without anybody knowing about it?

  As we approached the large doors that led outside I had to believe that some of those answers would be on the other side. I stopped a few feet from the door. It made my knees weak to be so close to one of the Retros’ killer planes. At any second it could sense us, turn, and fire.

  “Is there a plan?” Kent whispered, as if the black plane might hear him.

  “No,” I answered honestly.

  “So then what are we doing?” he asked impatiently.

  “We’re here to learn the truth,” Tori answered. “If we can find out what’s behind this whole thing, we’ll bring the information back to the camp. To the survivors. From there we might be able to spread the word. Like the Las Vegas survivors did on the radio.”

  “And then what?” Kent said. “It’s not like it’ll change anything.”

  “It might. The prisoners outnumber the guards at that camp. Maybe the truth will give them the will to fight back.”

  “You mean commit suicide,” Kent said with disdain.

  “Whatever,” Tori shot back. “But we deserve to know who’s doing this and why. We’re not primates. We aren’t inferior beings.”

  Kent shook his head. “I hear you, but I’d rather be clueless and alive than smart and dead.”

  “So go back,” I said coldly.

  He glared at me, and for a second I saw the old, arrogant Kent who bristled when challenged.

  “Keep moving,” he said.

  I continued walking until I reached the edge of the colossal doorway. There was no doubt in my mind that we were on the verge of learning the secrets of the Retros. I glanced back to Tori and gave her a smile.

  She nodded.

  “Just go,” Kent commanded impatiently.

  I rounded the corner . . .

  . . . and stepped into a nightmare.

  The dome was on the edge of a vast gray city full of cube-shaped buildings of all sizes that stretched out for as far as I could see. A single avenue led straight up to the dome and it was clogged with traffic. Not car traffic, black fighter-drone traffic. There had to be a hundred planes in line, waiting for their turn to glide through the portal and wreak havoc on the other side.

  “We’re okay,” Tori announced.

  “Okay?” Kent exclaimed. “How is this okay?”

  She pointed to a group of orange-clad workers who were sweeping sidewalks and washing street-level windows.

  “They brought prisoners through to work here too,” she added. “We won’t stick out.”

  The prisoners were being watched over by a Retro soldier who leaned against a building, bored.

  “Hide the weapon,” I commanded Tori.

  She quickly slid the dark baton up her sleeve. It was only around eighteen inches long and fit easily, with one end resting in the palm of her hand.

  I walked toward the group of workers. The others followed without question.

  A platform stacked with tools hovered several yards away from the prisoners. Before the soldier could turn around, I grabbed a push broom and a shovel then hurried away and ducked down a side street. Once out of earshot I handed the broom to Kent.

  “If we get stopped we’ll just say we were ordered to clean up,” I said.

  We walked along the narrow street until we came to another wide avenue that didn’t look much different from the last. The buildings had no character. They ranged from three to ten stories high, all with identical rectangular windows. The streets and sidewalks were paved with a light sand-colored material, probably to hide the fact that actual sand collected in the gutters.

  The streets were busy with people, all hurrying along as if they had somewhere important to be. There were Retro soldiers wearing the black-and-gray camouflage uniforms, which actually gave the illusion that they blended into the surroundings. There were also more groups of orange-clad prisoners who were constantly sweeping up the sand. It seemed like a never-ending task.

  Most of the hurrying people were dressed in civilian clothes. Both men and women wore black pants but with different brightly colored shirts. There were no patches or markings of any kind, but the clothing definitely looked similar enough to seem like uniforms. It could be that the color you wore indicated a group you were in. Or a job you performed. Or a rank that you held. Or none of the above.

  Though it wasn’t raining, many people held open silver umbrellas.

  “These people sure are neat,” Kent said. “They’ve all got the same haircut.”

  The men all had their hair cut short while the women all wore their hair the exact same length, which was barely over their ears. It was in marked contrast to all the prisoners, who looked shaggy and unkempt. Most of the prisoner men had beard stubble. Compared to the clean-cut locals, the prisoners really did look primitive.

  “They must all go to the same barber,” Kent said.

  “It’s military,” I said. “They may not all be in uniform, but they’re all part of the same operation.”

  “Are those street signs?” Tori asked.

  The corners of each building, just above eye-level, had a raised black symbol that looked like the bar codes we had seen on the crates in the dome.

  “This isn’t a normal city,” Kent declared. “I swear we’re not on Earth.”

  “The chemical smell is getting to me,” Tori said. “It’s worse than inside. Look at the sky.”

  We all gazed upward to see a gray sky full of brightly colored clouds that moved across in rainbow-like waves. There were multiple layers of brilliant reds, greens, and yellows that lazily drifted by, blotting out a hazy-brown sun. It was almost pretty. Almost. This wasn’t some gorgeous, natural phenomenon. It was thick, chemical pollution.

  “Ahh!” Kent screamed and grabbed his hand. “I just got burned.”

  “By what?” Tori asked. “Oww!”

  She grabbed at her neck.

  “It’s raining,” Kent complained. “Acid.”

  We ran for the protection of a building to get away from the microburst that had opened over our heads. The mini-squall moved down the street, dropping a light mist that sizzled and spit where it hit the ground.

  “Now we know what the umbrellas are for,” Kent said. “That hurt.”

  Another mini-squall sprinkled tainted rain on a group of people on the far side of the street. They instantly raised their silver umbrellas to protect themselves.

  “You guys okay?” I asked them both.
>
  “Yeah, it didn’t break the skin,” Tori replied. “What a nightmare.”

  We rounded a corner and were faced with a building that looked unlike any of the others. It was shaped like a half-dome and took up an entire block. It stood only a few stories high and there was one large door that looked to be made of iron that was shut tight. In front were two armed Retro guards.

  “Guess that’s where they keep the good stuff,” Kent said.

  Directly across the street from the low dome was a huge building that towered over everything else. It was set back from the street with a large cement-paved courtyard in front. The front doors blew open and a crowd of people flooded out. Like the people on the street, they wore the dark-pants-and-bright-shirt combo. In this case, their shirts were all electric blue. Some raised silver umbrellas, others glanced to the sky for fear of getting dripped on and burned. The one thing that nobody did was talk. At least not to each other. Many had their eyes glued on handheld devices that were probably smart phones. It was a miracle there wasn’t a major pileup of these human drones bumping into one another.

  “Looks like a meeting of the blue-club just got out,” Kent said.

  “It’s eerie,” Tori said.

  “What is?” Kent asked. “Besides everything.”

  “All those people and nobody is talking to anyone else. It’s like they’re all operating in their own little world even though they’re part of a crowd.”

  “I want to see what they’ve got going on in there,” I said and headed across the street.

  Kent and Tori followed, both glancing to the sky for fear of getting burned again.

  There was a small group of blue-shirt civilians standing in the courtyard, all staring at handheld devices. One guy spotted us, nudged his friend, and dropped a plastic cup onto the ground.

  I ignored him and moved past.

  “Hey!” the guy yelled.

  “I guess they speak after all,” Kent whispered.

  I knew he was talking to me so I stopped. The last thing we needed was to cause a scene and draw attention.

  “Pick that up,” the guy ordered.

  I wanted to swing the shovel at him, but I grit my teeth, took a few steps back and picked up the cup.