D. MacHale - SYLO

I wouldn’t have considered taking it again if I hadn’t been driven by a load of other factors. I was angry over so many things: Quinn’s death and the betrayal by my parents, to name just two. The new reality of my life was that there was nothing for me on Pemberwick anymore.

Nighttime couldn’t come fast enough.

At the end of the day, I lay on my cot, fully dressed, doing my best to pretend as though I was reading The Catcher in the Rye . I watched the various prisoners file in, take showers, or just hit their cots. I didn’t know any of them from Pemberwick Island. They had to have been summer people who had been unlucky enough to be stuck on the island when it all hit the fan…or spies planted by SYLO. Was everyone there as innocent as I was? Or did some of them have a connection to the “event”? I had no hope of finding out because if all went according to plan, I’d be out of there that night and never have to see any of them again.

The lights went out at nine o’clock, and the barracks went dark. Soon the sounds of snoring filled the tent, but I was nowhere near sleep.

An hour went by. Two hours and then the door to the barracks slowly creaked open. I lifted one eyelid, hoping to see Kent but instead I saw a team of white-jacket-clad SYLO workers enter quickly and pick up the dirty laundry at the foot of the cots. One worker stopped by me and for a second and I feared he might wake me up and ask for my clothes. I hoped that pretending to be so deep in sleep that I couldn’t be roused would work, but I didn’t have to worry. The guy moved on and soon the team left with their bundles.

Another hour went by. And another. I was beginning to worry that maybe Kent’s latest interrogation had broken him and the escape was off.

Finally, I felt a slight tapping on my shoulder. I was so surprised that I nearly screamed. I must have dozed off because I hadn’t heard the door open. Kent put his hand over my mouth to stifle any sound, then left me and padded for the door. I slipped on my shoes and followed quickly.

The compound was lit by a series of lights on poles that reached up from outside the fences, but the place was not evenly bright like daytime. Only so much light could be thrown by temporary lamps and there were shadows everywhere. Kent was waiting for me in the shadow just beyond the door of our barracks.

“You got it?” he whispered.

I held up the Wiffle ball.

“The Porta-potty,” he said. “Go inside and crush it with your foot. The seam is already scored. It should come apart easily. If anybody hears you, just tell them you had to take a leak.”

“Why don’t you do it?” I asked.

Kent frowned and shook his head. “I’m already on their radar. If they catch me in there, they’ll know something is up.”

I was too nervous to hang around and debate so I hurried to the portable bathroom and stepped inside. These toilets were all over the compound because it wasn’t like they had time to bury sewer lines. Each had a white SYLO logo stenciled on the door, proving once again that the occupation had been thoroughly planned.

Once I went inside and closed the door, it was pitch black. And it smelled bad, no big surprise. I took the Wiffle ball out of my pocket, placed it on the floor, then lifted my right foot and brought it down hard in the general vicinity of where I thought the ball was.

I crushed it on the first shot, but the sound rang like a gunshot in that tiny plastic room. I debated about whether I should wait and see if somebody might come to investigate or to just take off. I took off. If somebody came looking, they’d find an empty potty.

I ran back to where Kent was waiting and handed him the two halves of the plastic ball. He grabbed the half with the Ruby and dug at it with his fingers.

“It was glued in here,” he whispered. “They dropped Elmer’s down through the holes, then sprinkled in the goods.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” I asked.

Kent smiled. “Let’s hope you get the chance to find out.”

He scratched out what amounted to a palm-full of the red crystals—about twice as much as I’d taken from Feit.

“Give me your hand,” he instructed.

I held out my palm and he sprinkled half of the strange mineral into it.

This was it. The moment I never thought I would face again.

“You gotta tell me what the plan is,” I whispered. “Or I’m not taking this.”

“It’s simple,” Kent said. “They’ve got ambulances leaving from the clubhouse all the time. Day and night. I think that’s how they bring in the prisoners. We’ll make our way over there and—”

“How? The gates are all locked between here and there.”

Kent held up his handful of crystals. “That’s where this comes in. This isn’t Alcatraz. They put this place up in, like, a minute. Those locks aren’t any stronger than something you’d get at a hardware store. With this in our system, we can tear right through them. Or climb over. There’s no razor wire on the interior fences, only around the perimeter. They don’t have cameras here either. If we can avoid the guards, we can make it.”

“And then what?”

“We stow away aboard one of the ambulances.”

“What if there’s somebody in back, like a soldier?” I asked.

“I hope there is,” Kent replied. “I’d love to kick somebody’s ass.”

“Kent, that’s, like, a really lame plan.”

“It isn’t,” he argued. “Not with the power the Ruby gives us.”

I was hoping for something a little more clever or ironclad than Kent’s crude plan, but I wasn’t about to back out.

“I’ve got to find Tori first,” I said.

“That’s a mistake,” he said quickly. “The longer we’re running around out here, the better chance we’ll have of getting caught.”

“Too bad,” I said. “She’s coming or I’m staying.”

Kent clenched his jaw. “All right, but we’ll go to the clubhouse first. I’ll wait for you but if I get the chance to jump an ambulance, I’m going alone.”

“Understood,” I said.

The two of us looked to each other. There was no more putting it off.

“I’m trusting you, Kent,” I said.

“And I’m trusting you.”

With that, he lifted his hand and licked off the Ruby.

“Now you,” he said.

I stared at the pretty red crystals. They looked so innocent. I thought of the rush of adrenalin I had gotten when I had taken it before. Adrenalin and power. I lifted my hand.

The last thought I had before licking it clean was the sight of two graves by the seaside that held the remains of two dead horses.

The effect from the Ruby was instant and dramatic.

As before, it felt like an electric charge had fired up every nerve in my body. Any trace of fatigue was wiped away. My head cleared. In a word, I felt powerful. There was a moment of fear as I remembered the dangers of what it was doing to my body, but it didn’t last. I felt as though I could see better, hear better, and leap over any fence that stood in my way.

“I am so ready,” I said to Kent.

“After you,” he replied with a sly smile.

I scanned the area, looking for any SYLO guards. I was surprised to see that none were around. Did they really believe that once everybody went to sleep in their underwear, nobody would try to escape? That was fine by me. I took off sprinting for the gate that led to the seventh fairway and the women’s section of the compound. The distance was maybe fifty yards but I was there in an instant. Anyone running that fast would have to appear as a streaking shadow to a guard who happened to be looking. My confidence soared.

The Ruby was doing its job.

The gate was locked, no big surprise, but Kent was right. It wasn’t exactly a formidable device. It would have stood up to a normal person trying to break through, but at that moment I wasn’t a normal person. I laced the fingers of my right hand through the lattice of the door and pressed my left hand against the frame. I knew I could break it open because I had to break it open. I gritted my teeth, gripped the fence, and pulled.