Strike (8 page)

“Tucker?” came a girl’s voice.

I thought it was a dream. Or another hallucination caused by my grief.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I spun around to see her standing on the roof, not five feet from me.

Tori.

Or Tori’s ghost.

“I . . . I . . .” Finding words was impossible because I couldn’t even find my brain.

I dumbly pointed back in the direction of where the bus had been obliterated.

“You saved me,” she said.

“I saved . . . ? What?”

“Once I saw you there was no way I was going to leave. I got on the bus and ran straight for the door in front.”

She looked off beyond me and I could see that she was crying too. “All those people. They took me in because I was in their work unit today. Now they’re . . . gone.”

The reality of the situation was gradually sinking in. She wasn’t an illusion created from my paralyzing grief. She was really there.

Alive.

I got to my feet and threw my arms around her.

“I thought you were gone,” I said.

“I would have been if you hadn’t called to me.”

“It was a stupid thing to do.”

“I know,” she said. “But it saved my life.”

We stood there for a good long time, hugging and crying. The different emotions that were bouncing around my brain, and my heart, made my head hurt. I was devastated by the murder of so many prisoners and fearful for whatever punishment Bova would dole out to the others, but I was also back together with my friends. With Tori and Kent. We weren’t alone anymore.

“The crash?” I asked. “What about my mother? And Granger?”

“And Kent,” Tori added.

“He’s down below getting healed. He’s fine.”

Tori wiped her eyes and let out a small, happy laugh.

“Thank God,” she said, sniffling.

“What happened to you?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I saw you get sucked out of the chopper and then we went down and everything went black. The next thing I knew I was lying in the infirmary hooked up to an IV. I was fine. Even the gunshot wound I got on the Retro plane was healed. But I don’t know what happened to your mother. I’m sorry.”

“Cutter is dead,” I said flatly. “I think he died before the chopper even crashed.”

Tori nodded. She wasn’t surprised.

“This just keeps on getting worse,” she said.

“Not entirely. I found you and Kent. At least we’re together. That makes things a whole lot better.”

“Do they know we were the ones who destroyed the fleet?”

“No,” I said. “But I’ll promise you one thing, before we’re done here, they will. They’re going to know exactly who we are.”

“W
hat the hell are you doing?”

It was a rude awakening from what had been, up until that moment, a very restful sleep. I opened my eyes to see a Retro soldier standing over me with an angry scowl and an electronic device in his hand ready to zap me. It was the same guy who didn’t want me staying in the hospital with Kent in the first place. When he saw that Tori had now joined me on the bed, his head must have exploded.

I didn’t move but braced myself for the shock.

“It’s all right,” another soldier said as she rushed up to the bed. “We’ll send them back to their unit.”

The new arrival was a woman who wore Retro fatigues but had no weapons. She was probably on the medical staff.

“Damn right,” the first soldier said as he slipped the device back into his pocket. “I want them out of here, now.”

He stormed off, leaving the woman soldier standing over us.

“It’s time you all went back to your units,” she said kindly, which was totally odd because from what I’d seen, none of the medical staff had any conversations with the patients other than to bark single-word commands.

She went to Kent and carefully removed the IV from his wrist.

I felt Tori’s weight behind me on the bed. We had come back down from the roof to be with Kent and had fallen asleep while lying together. It probably wasn’t the brightest thing to have done, but now that we were all back together, I didn’t want to risk losing them again by splitting up.

Kent sat up, groggily, wiping the sleep from his eyes.

I raised both my hands in a “So? How are you doing?” gesture.

He shrugged and gave me a thumbs-up. The juice had done its job. Kent was healed. When he caught sight of Tori, his eyes lit up. But he didn’t say anything. He knew the drill.

The soldier leaned down to me and said softly, “You are a very brave young man. I wish you all well.”

She put her hand over her heart in the same gesture used by the soldier who brought Kent and me to the hospital.

Sounders.

Was she a Sounder? Who were Sounders anyway?

I nudged Tori to get up. The three of us got on our feet and left the hospital without a word. I took one last quick look at the woman soldier who stood at the foot of the bed. Her hand was still on her heart. When she saw me, she lowered it and walked away quickly.

Once outside, Kent grabbed Tori in a big bear hug.

“Jeez, Sleeper, I thought I’d never see you again,” he said with genuine joy. “You okay?”

“I’m good,” she replied. “Hate the Retros. Love their medicine.”

“Do me a favor and stop getting shot, okay?” he said.

That made Tori hug him even closer.

It was still dark but the sky to the east was beginning to lighten, which meant sunrise wasn’t far off.

“Let’s go back to the barracks with my unit,” I said.

The three of us walked through the quiet, dark camp shoulder to shoulder. The simple presence of friends was more than comforting. Knowing we were all safe and back together gave me a shot of confidence that made me believe we might actually stand a chance of surviving this latest ordeal.

“What’s the plan, Rook?” Kent asked. “I know you’ve got one.”

I was so happy to be together with these guys that I didn’t even mind that he called me Rook. I actually kind of liked it, though I’d never admit that to him. It was our own private connection to another life.

“I’ve got to find my mother,” I said. “If we all survived the crash, there’s a good chance she did too.”

“And Granger,” Kent added.

“Yeah, Granger,” I said with no enthusiasm.

“Hard to believe that guy’s on our side,” Tori muttered.

“But he is,” Kent said. “He’s SYLO and SYLO is all about stopping the Retros.”

Tori stared at the ground. Her jaw muscles were working. It was Granger who ordered the attack on the camp of rebels that killed her father. Though it turned out that the attack was about rooting out Retro infiltrators, knowing that Granger was responsible for the death of her father was hard for her to deal with.

We rounded the corner of one of the long barracks and stopped to face the huge steel dome looming in the distance. The early morning sun was beginning to creep up over the mountains. It threw a warm light on its silver shell.

“What is that thing? Really?” Kent asked.

“I think it’s the key to everything,” I replied. “SYLO has tried to destroy it more than once. It’s important enough that they blasted the one in Boston to dust. Who knows how many others are under construction, but this one—this one here—this is the one that counts. This is where they’re launching their attacks from. This is where they’re putting up buildings to house an invasion force. If we solve the mystery of that thing, we’ll know exactly what this war is all about.”

“So how do we do that?” Kent asked.

“We stay alive,” I said quickly. “We do whatever they ask. And we wait.”

“For what?” Kent asked.

“I don’t know. A chance. A weakness. An opportunity. We won’t know it until we see it. Maybe finding these Sounders is the answer.”

“Sounders?” Tori said. “What are Sounders?”

“A Retro soldier helped us,” Kent said. “He told us to look out for Sounders because they were our only hope.”

“So then what are they?” Tori asked with growing enthusiasm. “Where are they?”

“I think they’re right here,” I said. “All around us.”

Kent and Tori exchanged looks.

“Seriously,” I went on. “Remember that Native American guy who helped us before the raid on Area 51?”

“Yeah.”

“Something he said really stuck with me. He couldn’t believe that anyone was capable of committing such wicked crimes against their own kind.”

“I thought you didn’t buy my alien invasion theory,” Kent said.

“I don’t, but I also have trouble believing so many people could be convinced to wreak this kind of destruction on humanity. There had to be some push back. I don’t care how badly the Retros believe things are going, wiping out billions of people isn’t something you just go along with. Most of the guards are treating the prisoners worse than cattle, but a couple have gone out of their way to show a little kindness. What if some of the Retros are having second thoughts?”

“You mean like a revolution inside the revolution?” Tori asked.

“Maybe. I might be reading too much into this, but if enough of these Retros don’t want the killing to continue, the Air Force may not be as invincible as it seems.”

The giant steel monstrosity was growing brighter as light from the morning sun spread across its surface. The beast was coming to life before our eyes.

“The gate to hell,” Kent said in a soft whisper.

“Everything that’s happened, everything we’ve done, it’s all led here,” I said. “This is what’s it’s all about. The key to stopping this nightmare has got to be inside that thing.”

“Yeah,” Kent said. “I’d like to get a look inside that bad boy.”

I looked to Kent, then to Tori. Glancing around the compound I didn’t see a single Retro soldier.

“Me too,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

“What do you mean?” Kent asked, suddenly sounding uncertain. “Do what?”

“Let’s go knock on the door,” I said and started walking toward the dome.

“Whoa, wait,” Kent said, hurrying after me. “Now?”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re not going to let us just walk inside, that’s why not,” Kent argued. “Not if it’s as important as we think.”

“Only one way to find out,” I replied.

I glanced to Tori, who gave me a wink and a smile.

“Let’s do it,” she said with confidence.

The three of us strode through the empty compound, headed for the monolithic dome. I had no idea of what we might find inside but was totally confident that whatever it was, it would give us a clue as to what we should do next.

We passed several quiet barracks, moving ever closer. The sheer size of the steel structure took my breath away.

When we were roughly fifty yards away, we rounded a building and came face-to-face with a team of Retro guards. Armed guards. They strolled casually across the dusty road, seemingly bored. That is, until three prisoners walked up to them.

When they spotted us, there was a moment of surprise and confusion as if they couldn’t believe three prisoners would dare approach them, let alone three kid prisoners.

“Stop right there,” one of the guards commanded, raising his black baton.

Instantly, five of them formed a line, standing shoulder to shoulder.

“We’re looking for the bathrooms,” I said, trying to sound innocent. And dumb.

“This is a restricted area,” the guard said sharply. “You know that.”

“We just arrived,” Tori said sweetly. “Why is it restricted?”

The guard answered by firing his weapon at our feet. The charge of energy tore into the ground, kicking up a cloud of sand that washed over us and hit us in the eyes.

“All right, all right,” Kent said, backing off. “We get it. We’re going.”

The three of us turned and hurried away.

I grit my teeth, expecting to get shot from behind. We took a quick turn to put a building between us and the guards but kept moving until we felt we were a safe distance away.

“That settles one thing,” Kent said, breathless. “They don’t want anybody near that thing.”

“Which is exactly why we have to get inside,” I said.

“I don’t see how,” Tori said. “Not if they’ve got guards ringing it.”

“Neither do I,” I said. “Not yet, anyway.”

I saw movement through the windows of one of the barracks. The prisoners were waking up. Two Retro soldiers appeared and strolled toward the building, probably to start the prisoners on the new workday.

“We just have to be ready when the opportunity comes up,” I added.

“We’ll be ready,” Kent said with confidence.

“You know we will,” Tori added.

I loved those guys. Even Kent. He had become my brother.

The Retro guards started blowing whistles to wake up the prisoners. The three of us hurried back to the barracks where I had been the night before for a grand total of five minutes. My hope was that we could all blend into Blue Unit.

We reached the barracks as some familiar faces started piling out. It was an easy trick to mix into the group and move along with them as if we had been inside sleeping all night. The fact that the Retros didn’t keep names or seem to care about who any of us really were gave me confidence that we wouldn’t be questioned. We were numbers, not people.

The group filed into the mess hall where we were fed a decent breakfast of scrambled eggs, greasy sausage, and orange juice. I made a point of downing as much juice and water as I could get my hands on. It was already getting hot outside, which meant the day was going to be a scorcher.

As we silently followed our leader out of the mess hall and toward our workplace, I thought of the failed escape attempt the night before and the decoy demonstration. Would there be some punishment doled out? There were hundreds of prisoners who staged that mini-riot. If Bova didn’t think twice about murdering a prisoner for trying to sneak a drink of water, I hated to think of what he might do to the group who tried to help others escape.

When our unit marched past the field where the demonstration had taken place, I had my answer. There was going to be punishment, but not the physical kind.

At first I thought there was a line of orange-clad prisoners standing shoulder to shoulder across the clearing, but as we got closer I realized that the coveralls were empty. They were strung up by a long line that was threaded through the sleeves, giving the illusion that people were standing side-by-side. It was a creepy sight that I didn’t understand at first.

But Tori did.

“It’s them,” she whispered so the guards couldn’t hear.

“Them who?” Kent asked.

“The ones who tried to escape on the bus. Their numbers are on those coveralls.”

We were being marched around the clearing to view the grisly display. These orange suits were symbolic of the fifty or so people who were incinerated on the bus. I didn’t know any of them but it still hit me hard. I could only imagine what the other prisoners who were part of the doomed plan felt like.

Many prisoners kept their eyes on the ground while others seemed to be steeling themselves to look at the macabre memorial. Several were crying.

Bova knew exactly what he was doing. He didn’t need to physically punish these people. Hell, they were already driven to the edge of insanity by the hard work under the desert sun. What he was doing was much worse. This was a psychological beat down. He was taking away any hope they had for escape and shoving it down their throats. No words were needed. No speeches or warnings. No games. The sight of those empty coveralls was torture enough.

We were forced to march around the large field three times. By that time the sun was up and the temperature was climbing. Our workday hadn’t even begun and we were already burned out.

Our unit finally broke away from the main group and we were led to our workplace for the day. The steel-haired woman Retro guard met us at a new structure that already had a cement slab poured. At first I was happy we wouldn’t be digging dirt anymore. That relief was short-lived when we learned what our job was going to be.

“There are thirty trucks loaded with lumber for the construc-tion of this building,” the woman announced. “They’re sitting over there, about a hundred yards away. Our first job today is to unload those trucks and stack the lumber right here where I’m standing. I want every truck unloaded by noon. Get that done and there will be extra water distributed. That’s it. Get to it.”

That was our morning: the brutal, physical labor of unloading endless heavy lengths of lumber, carrying them a hundred yards and stacking them near the work site. It made me wish I had some better skill to offer than gardening.

There was nothing to do or say. We all just got to work. Fortunately the supervisor didn’t question why Kent and Tori were there. She probably didn’t even realize she had inherited a few extra workers. We were indistinguishable to her.