D. MacHale - SYLO

I turned quickly to see Tori Sleeper on her motor scooter, zipping quickly through an intersection. A light pickup truck was in the intersection, too, blaring its horn. I quickly realized what had happened: Tori must have sped through the intersection and cut the guy off—

And the guy didn’t like it. He gunned the engine and the pickup jumped forward. With a squeal of tires, the guy made a U-turn and jammed on the gas. He was after Tori.

Tori rounded the far side of the park and glanced back to see the pickup charging toward her. I expected her to gun the engine but she did the exact opposite. She put on the brakes and hopped off, pulling her scooter up onto the sidewalk.

The pickup roared toward her. For a second I feared it was going to jump the curb and hit her, but it stayed on the road—and kept after her. I looked around quickly, hoping there was somebody around who could help, but there was no one in sight. Tori was on her own, unless I did something. I leaped over the back of the park bench and ran across the expanse of grass, headed her way, not sure what I was getting myself into.

The pickup screeched to a stop not five yards from Tori.

Tori didn’t flinch. She stood next to her scooter with one hand on the seat and the other on her hip in defiance. The pickup had barely stopped moving when the driver jumped out.

I knew him. His name was Gary something-or-other. He was a carpenter who lived in Memagog. I’d guess he was about thirty and was known as a hot head. In that moment, he was living up to his reputation. He charged around the pickup, headed for Tori—with a baseball bat that he held up like a weapon.

Uh-oh.

“You messing with me?” Gary screamed.

Tori didn’t answer. Or move.

I sprinted toward them with no idea of how I could stop a rampaging guy swinging a bat.

“Come on!” he screamed, his face red with anger. “You want to mess with me now?”

Gary wound up with the bat and took a swing that knocked a metal garbage can into next week. The garbage can flew five yards and the bat splintered, leaving Gary holding a sharp wooden spike that he waved at Tori as he moved closer.

Tori finally took a step back. She may have been cool but she wasn’t that cool.

“Gary!” I shouted. “What are you doing?”

Gary shot me a look and I saw a fevered glare in his eyes that instantly brought back bad memories.

“She cut me off!” he screamed as if it were a heinous crime worthy of the death penalty.

“I didn’t see you,” Tori said softly but with certainty. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry!” Gary screamed. “You don’t know what sorry is! But you will!”

He moved closer, ready to swing the sharp spike.

I don’t know how I had the guts to do what I did, probably because it wasn’t me who Gary was angry with, but I stepped in front of Tori.

“She didn’t mean to cut you off,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “She didn’t see you.”

Gary stopped moving. He seemed confused. He looked to the weapon in his hand as if he was seeing it for the first time.

“You’re right,” I said, even calmer. “She shouldn’t have done it, but it was an accident.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Tori said, but in a soft whisper that only I could hear. “I didn’t cut him off.”

Gary looked around as though not sure what to do.

“Maybe you should let it go, Gary,” I said.

He let it go all right. He wound up and with a chilling scream threw the handle of the bat. The sharp splinter of wood flew further than I thought possible, sailed across the park, and embedded itself into the roof of the gazebo that sat in the center of the park.

That got Tori’s attention.

“My God,” she said under her breath, her cool finally cracking.

“Thanks, Gary,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “Now it’s over.”

But it wasn’t. Gary let out another scream and ran for his truck. He covered the twenty yards so quickly he seemed like a blur. He jumped behind the wheel, threw it into gear, and hit the accelerator. His tires squealed and smoked as he took off and flew down the road, taking a corner so fast it seemed as though the truck went up on two wheels. Seconds later he was gone. The only proof that the incident had happened was the lingering smell of burning rubber and the baseball bat lodged in the gazebo.

“What the hell?” Tori said, aghast.

She had no idea what had just happened.

I, on the other hand, had a pretty good idea. Gary losing it like that answered a question I hadn’t even thought about asking until then.

Mr. Feit had been caught in the quarantine.

He was still on the island.

And he was still pushing the Ruby.

“Ididn’t cut him off,” Tori said softly, with a slight nervous quiver. “He just came up behind me and…flipped.”

Before I could respond, the sound of screeching tires once again cut through the park. Tori and I both looked around quickly, expecting to see a crazed Gary behind the wheel of his pickup, headed our way.

Instead we saw a silver sedan speeding out of a side street and skidding onto the main road as it turned toward town. The driver gunned the engine and picked up speed, going way too fast for the quiet lane. Behind the car a black Humvee sped out of the same street, in pursuit.

“Now what?” was all I could say.

The silver sedan continued to accelerate, but didn’t get far. An ambulance with a SYLO logo on each side turned onto the street in front of it and sped toward a head-on collision. The two vehicles had the sedan boxed into a three-way game of chicken.

Tori and I could only watch and brace ourselves for what was sure to be a horrific crash.

The driver of the sedan bailed. He turned hard, bounced over the curb and onto the grass of the park. The move may have prevented a head-on crash but he was moving too fast to make such a sharp turn. The car skidded sideways, digging up grass and spewing dirt, then slammed into a cement bench and came to a sudden stop. The impact spun its nose until it was facing back the way it had come, just as the pursuing Humvee arrived and skidded to a stop, blocking his way. A moment later the ambulance arrived, pinning the sedan in place.

The sedan’s passenger door flew open and the driver scrambled out. It was a woman I didn’t know or recognize. She wore a yellow sundress and sandals and looked like any one of a thousand moms you might see walking along Main Street in Arbortown with a toddler in tow, shopping for sunscreen. She leaped out of the car, landed on her knees, then quickly jumped to her feet and started to sprint to get away.

“There’s nothing right about this,” I mumbled.

An older mom-looking preppie lady fleeing from the police wasn’t something you saw in Arbortown every day. Or any day. The Humvee doors flew open and several SYLO soldiers sprang out. One ran to the rear of his vehicle and went down on one knee to steady himself—as he took aim at the woman.

“He’s going to shoot her!” I exclaimed.

Tori grabbed my arm out of surprise and fear. She had the strong grip of someone who had worked on boats all of her life. If I hadn’t been so shocked at what we were seeing, it probably would have hurt.

The soldier fired, but what he had wasn’t a gun. My guess: It was some kind of Taser because there was no crack sound that would normally accompany a gunshot. The only reason I knew he had fired was because the woman suddenly stiffened, stood straight, and fell to the grass. Hard. The SYLO soldiers were on her instantly, picking her up and dragging her back to the vehicles. The woman was limp, her sandaled feet trailing across the grass. They bundled her into the back of the ambulance and the other soldiers jumped inside. One ran back and got into the Humvee, another got behind the wheel of the silver sedan. Moments later, they all drove off the grass and disappeared down the side street.