D. MacHale - SYLO

The longer we stayed on High Pine Road, the more certain I became that we were headed to Chinicook. The question was why?

Olivia drove fast, considering we were flying without lights and the road was covered with sand. I closed my eyes, suddenly feeling weary after losing my Ruby boost. Tori rubbing my arm helped with that. I think I might have fallen asleep because the next time I opened my eyes, we were approaching the Chinicook Bridge.

“Take it easy here,” Kent warned. “We don’t want to go over the side.”

It was good advice. There was no rail to speak of, only a long wooden beam that ran the length of both sides a foot off the deck. One wrong move and—splash.

“You’re awake, Olivia, right?” I asked.

“Wide awake,” she replied quickly.

I sensed the tension in her voice. She was alert and locked in.

We had gotten maybe halfway across the bridge when she jammed on the brakes. Tori grabbed my arm as we skidded forward. I thought for sure that we were going over the side but Olivia managed to keep the Jeep going straight until we came to a stop.

“Why did you do that?” I demanded.

“What’s that?” Olivia cried nervously, pointing forward.

Something was on the bridge ahead of us. In the dark it appeared to be a moving gray shape.

“Kent?” Olivia whined, her anxiety growing.

“It’s okay,” Kent said with confidence.

He got out of the Jeep, walked to the front, and stood directly between the two headlights.

“Flash the lights,” Kent commanded. “Two short. Two long. Two short.”

“What?” Olivia asked, totally confused.

“I’ll do it,” Tori said impatiently and reached forward.

She flashed the lights, just as Kent had instructed.

The gray shape offered a reply with its own flashing light. Two long. Two short. Two long.

“Very James Bond,” I said.

Kent got back in the Jeep and said, “Drive. Slowly.”

Olivia obeyed. She gently stepped on the gas and we rolled forward, staying a good thirty yards behind the gray shape that now looked to be moving back toward Chinicook.

“Friends of yours?” I asked Kent.

Kent didn’t answer.

After a nerve-wracking few minutes, we reached the far end of the bridge and drove onto the sand of Chinicook Island. Now that we were closer, I saw that the gray shape was actually a group of four people.

Kent turned to us and said, “This is what SYLO wants to know about.”

“What?” Tori asked. “A bunch of people hiding out in the dark?”

“Hiding out in the dark,” Kent said. “And planning to take the island back.”

Kent got out and went to the group. They all shook hands.

“This is just plain creepy,” Olivia said.

I couldn’t argue with her.

Tori and I got out of the Jeep and stood in front, not sure of what to say or do. If what Kent had said was true, we had found the people Granger referred to as “rogues.” It sounded like some kind of revolutionary underground that wanted to fight back against SYLO. Knowing that, all of Kent’s caution about saying anything about his plan made sense. It raised him up in my estimation. At least a little.

“Tori?” one of the gray shadows called. “Is that you, Tickle?”

Tori immediately tensed up. “Daddy?”

The man hurried toward us and I quickly recognized him as the guy who was sitting aboard the Tori Tickle working on his lobster traps when I first visited their house.

Tori ran into his arms and the two hugged.

“What are you doing here?” he cried, full of emotion.

“I gotta ask you the same thing,” Tori said through her tears.

Another mystery was solved. We now knew why Michael Sleeper wasn’t hanging around the SYLO compound.

“Young Tucker Pierce!” called another of the shadows. “Never thought I’d be seeing you out this way.”

It was my turn to tense up, but not for the same reason as Tori. I knew that voice and as soon as I heard it, I realized that yet another mystery had been solved.

I knew where Kent had gotten the Ruby.

The man stepped forward and held out his hand to shake. “Welcome to the revolution,” he said with a warm smile.

It was Mr. Feit.

Ididn’t shake his hand.

I punched the smile off his face.

“Whoa, dude!” Kent yelled with surprise the second my fist connected with Feit’s chin.

I’ll put the blame on the lingering effects of the Ruby. It’s easier than saying I had lost control. Or maybe I wasn’t the same guy I used to be, but in that moment, the smug smiling face of Feit represented all that had gone wrong on Pemberwick Island.

Hitting him felt pretty good.

Feit’s head snapped to the side and he went down hard, landing on his butt. I hadn’t knocked him out, but he wasn’t in a hurry to get back up again.

At first nobody made a move. I think they were stunned and maybe afraid I might take a swing at them too. After a tense few seconds, Tori walked up to me and said softly, “Can I hit him next?”

Her words actually calmed me down, which I think she was trying to do.

Feit rubbed his aching jaw and when he looked up at me, the smile was gone. I had knocked it into next week.

“You can hit me again if it’ll make you feel better,” he said.

“I don’t need your permission,” I snarled.

Kent approached me and said, “I don’t blame you, man, but you should listen to what he’s got to say.”

I looked around at the others. They were keeping their distance, staring at me with concern, wondering what I would do next. I liked the feeling. For a change, I was the one in control.

“Get up,” I ordered.

Feit gingerly got to his feet, making sure that he was out of punching range. He looked the exact same as I’d remembered him, complete with baggy shorts, flip-flops, a hoodie, and a few days’ growth of beard. He looked every bit the part of a surfer dude who was a little too old to be a surfer dude.

“I get it,” he said, with no hint of his usual charm. He wasn’t laughing either. “Some of the people who took the Ruby died. That’s tragic and I have a lot to do with it. But it wasn’t all my fault.”

“ You brought it here,” I said.

“I did.”

“And you were the one getting people to use it.”

“Guilty,” he admitted.

“And it was your company that made it.”

Feit didn’t reply to that right away.

“That’s what you told me,” I said.

“I know,” he admitted. “I lied.”

“So then where did it come from?” Tori asked.

Feit looked to Mr. Sleeper as if asking his permission to answer.

“Tell him,” Mr. Sleeper said. “You owe him that much.”

Feit let out a laugh, though it was more out of nervousness than anything else.

“I do work for a company that makes sports supplements,” he said. “It’s my own company. I’m the only employee. I’m a biochemist. MIT graduate.”

“If you’re trying to impress me, I might have to hit you again,” I said.

“Okay, sorry,” he said, laughing.

I almost clocked him again just for that annoying laugh, but I held back.

“About a year ago this guy came to me. Said he worked for a well-funded private think tank that was developing a revolutionary dietary supplement. He said it was light years ahead of anything else out there, but they were running into problems getting it tested and quickly approved by the government. He said if I helped them, I’d be a joint patent holder when it finally got approval. Do you know how much money something like that is worth?”

“No,” I said flatly.

“A lot. Millions. Many millions. To a guy who is struggling just to get by, it’s too tempting an offer to resist.”