D. MacHale - Storm

The powerful beam hit the Venetian hotel, with its canals and gondolas. The entire structure lit up—and disappeared. All that was left was a deep, empty sand pit. The lagoon, the bridges, the tower, the buildings were all gone in seconds.

“Like Portland,” Tori said with a quivering voice.

The beam focused on the hotels across the street with the same result. The huge hotels lit up and were gone. The pirate ships in the fake lagoon disappeared. The fake volcano vanished. Every last manmade structure evaporated.

There was no escaping this purge.

I hoped that Charlotte had evacuated in time.

I hoped that everyone had evacuated in time.

The plane hovered over the hotel with the fake Roman Colosseum theater where the survivors had met to prepare for the raid. Seconds later it was gone, along with every last statue, fountain, and building. In seconds the terrain was returned to the way it had looked hundreds of years before.

“They’re sweeping it all away,” Tori said. “They knew exactly where the survivors were hiding, thanks to Jon.”

I fumbled around the jump seat, looking for a way to release the safety strap.

“What are you doing?” Tori asked.

“Trying to get out of here.”

“To do what?”

“Las Vegas is done,” I said. “I’m more worried about the next stop.”

“Los Angeles,” she said, breathless.

“This is how they’re going to finish the job. They could easily fly this monster over every major city and do exactly what they’re doing to Las Vegas. Hell, they could probably do it all in one night.”

She let that horror sink in, then said, “The bombs. Could we detonate them faster?”

“I don’t know how,” I said.

I fumbled with my hand under the seat until I found a lever. I pressed it and the safety straps instantly retracted. I found Tori’s lever and released her too.

“What do we do, Tucker?” Tori asked.

I looked to the hatch up front. There seemed to be only one choice.

“We hijack the plane,” I replied.

The ground sped by far below.

The massive Retro plane was finished with Las Vegas and was moving on, probably to Los Angeles, where it would complete its murderous sweep of that city. From there, who knew?

According to my stopwatch, only five minutes had gone by since I had set the charge to try to damage the big plane. That’s all the time it took to delete Las Vegas, and at the speed we were traveling, it would only be a few minutes before Los Angeles was in range.

“The pilot has no idea we’re here,” I whispered to Tori. “We’ll surprise him and force him to land at gunpoint.”

“What if he won’t?”

“Shoot him,” I replied. “Hit his leg or his arm or anything that’ll tell him we’re serious. You okay with that?”

“Absolutely.”

It was hard to believe we had been hardened to the point of calmly talking about shooting people, but if the choice was between winging somebody in the leg or watching as thousands of people were obliterated, it was a no-brainer.

“Ready?” I asked.

Tori took a nervous breath and nodded.

I hurried forward toward the hatch door. It was an unnerving sensation to walk across the transparent floor as the ground flew by beneath us. Once I was there, I turned back to Tori.

She raised the gun.

I reached for the handle, gave her a small nod, and yanked the door open.

I hadn’t planned on doing what I did. I was acting totally out of instinct. I started screaming wildly, hoping it would add to the shock of our arrival.

There were two pilots sitting at the wide console, not one. The cockpit was huge, with plenty of room for me to run in and target one of them. I went for the guy on the right, the copilot. With my adrenalin pumping, I was ready to grab him, yank him out of the chair, and throw him to the floor so Tori could hold the gun to his head.

I took one step inside. The copilot spun around, and I froze.

“Wha—?” he gasped with surprise.

The guy in the copilot’s seat… was Mr. Feit.

He was as stunned to see me as I was to see him, and I took advantage.

I leaped forward, grabbed his shirt, and pulled him out of his seat. Feit was bigger than me, but I had surprise on my side… and anger. I finally had my chance for revenge. Seeing him gave me the added boost of adrenalin I needed to take the guy apart.

I whipped him around and slammed his back against the rear wall of the cockpit. The force must have knocked the air out of his lungs because I heard him grunt with pain and gasp for breath. I kicked his legs out, and he went down to the deck. Hard. I quickly twisted one of his arms behind his back and pulled his hand up to his shoulder, making him squeal.

I’m ashamed to admit that I enjoyed hurting him.

No, I’m not.

Tori jumped behind me, sat on his legs, and jammed the muzzle of the Glock into his lower spine.

“One shot and you’re a cripple,” she snarled.

“Land the plane!” I ordered the pilot.

The cockpit looked more like an elaborate computer workstation than the controls of a plane. There were no mechanical toggles or switches. Instead, the console was made up of multiple touchscreens. There was a narrow windshield in front, but the line of video monitors beneath it was what gave the pilot the information he needed. There were several live views of the ground, along with multiple indicators of various functions.

There was no wheel or joystick. The pilot seemed to be guiding the plane by sliding his fingertips across a touchpad.

If there was ever a moment when I bought into Kent’s theory about the Retros being from another planet, it was then.

The pilot was the same guy we had seen running up the ramp. He didn’t look much older than me, with short military-cut hair. Both he and Feit wore gray flight suits.

His eyes were wide and frightened. He had no idea what to do.

“Sir?” he asked, near panic.

“Stay the course!” Feit bellowed.

Tori jammed the gun barrel into Feit’s back, making him grunt. “I swear I’ll do it,” she warned.

“What the hell?” Feit bellowed. “I can’t get rid of you people!”

I had my knee on Feit’s cheek, squeezing his head into the deck.

“Land the plane, Feit,” I demanded. “If you think we won’t shoot you, you are dead wrong.”

The pilot bolted out of his seat and dove at Tori.

Neither of us expected that.

Tori didn’t react in time, and it cost her. The pilot knocked her off of Feit and went for the gun. The move threw me off-balance, and that was all Feit needed to twist free and shove me back against the control console. I hit my head and saw stars but fought through it and launched myself at Feit, driving my head into his chest.

We hit the hatch, and it flew open, sending us tumbling into the cargo bay. The hinges must have been on springs because as soon as we cleared it, it slammed back shut.

A shot went off inside the cockpit. Then another.

I heard Tori yelp.

I tried to go back for the hatch, but Feit kneed me in the gut.

I doubled over as he pulled away from me and scrambled to get back to the cockpit.

Though I was hurting, I couldn’t let him get back in there. Not if Tori was hurt.

I struggled to my feet and went after him. I wrapped my arms around him and kept driving my legs forward, using his momentum and mine to drive his head into the hatch, making a sickening thud.

He was just as amped as I was and pushed off the bulkhead with his foot, sending us both backward and down to the invisible deck.

I caught a brief glimpse of the ground flashing by below. We were no longer in the desert. There were buildings down there. Many buildings. We were over civilization and headed for Los Angeles.