D. MacHale - SYLO

Tori asked, “What did he want you to do?”

“Run a test. A secret test. In a contained, controlled environment…like an island community.”

“Like Pemberwick Island,” Kent added.

“Yeah. He wanted me to casually introduce it to the population, take notes, record all the results, and then get back to him. He said with that data they could streamline their testing and cut years off the approval process. He promised me it was safe…and offered an incredible future. So I went for it.”

“But the tests didn’t go so well,” Tori said.

“They went too well!” Feit said. “A lot of people took it. Most you don’t even know about. The Ruby did everything it was supposed to do. The problem was dosage—and controlling it. It wasn’t until Marty Wiggins that…”

“That people started to die,” I said, finishing the thought.

“So the Ruby has nothing to do with SYLO?” Tori said. “Or the quarantine?”

“Oh, no,” Feit said quickly. “SYLO has everything to do with the Ruby being here.”

“How’s that?” I asked.

“The guy who came to me with the offer was Captain Granger.”

I thought my knees would buckle.

“No!” Tori said with a gasp.

“Yes,” Feit said. “I had no idea he was actually working for the government. With the military. There wasn’t anybody more surprised than me when he stepped onto this island with an invasion force. I’ve been hiding ever since.”

“But…why?” was all I could say. “Why would our own government poison us with that stuff?”

“Or invade us,” Kent said. “None of this adds up.”

“Whatever the reason, you’re still responsible,” Tori said to Feit with disgust. “You’re going to prison for this.”

Feit shrugged. “I’m already in prison. We all are. Irony is, the Ruby might be our only hope of getting out.”

“No,” I declared. “No way.”

“Easy there, Rook,” Kent said. “It helped us break out of the SYLO camp, didn’t it?”

“We smuggled the Ruby into the SYLO compound,” Mr. Sleeper said. “We’ve got a lot of people on our side.”

“Who is we?” Tori asked.

“People who are ready to fight back,” Mr. Sleeper said. “Many of them were picked up by Granger and his thugs and stuck in that camp. He doesn’t want anybody challenging his authority.”

I thought back to how all the prisoners kept to themselves and wondered how many of them were part of this group…whatever this group was.

“Look,” Kent said. “I hate this scum. The Ruby killed my father, remember? But if it gives us a way to fight back, I say we use it. Use him . Just like we did tonight.”

“You mean just like I did tonight,” I corrected.

“Whatever. After that he can hang, for all I care.”

There was a long moment of silence, and then…

“I don’t know about you people, but I would really like to get off this crappy island and go home,” Olivia said softly.

Tori’s father stepped between the two of us, but faced me.

“You should see what’s going on here, son,” he said. “This Feit character is only part of it.”

“I thought they arrested you,” I said.

“They took me out of the house, but we never quite made it to the golf course,” he said, then smiled knowingly. “Somewhere along the route there’s a wrecked Hummer and a couple of soldier boys with severe headaches.”

“You don’t mess with my dad,” Tori said proudly.

Mr. Sleeper was a big guy with thick arms and huge hands that came from a lifetime of working on boats. There was nothing complicated about him. When he spoke, he looked you straight in the eye, and if he was anywhere near as good as his daughter at taking down people who crossed him, I had no doubt that the SYLO soldiers who had arrested him regretted it.

“C’mon,” he said. “Let me show you.”

I looked at Tori, who shrugged and nodded. She didn’t like Feit any more than I did, but she wasn’t about to argue with her father.

“Okay,” I said and instantly felt the tension melt away from the group.

Mr. Sleeper looked to the other men and said, “Get that Jeep out of sight.”

The guys got right on it and took charge of the Jeep while Mr. Sleeper led us along the sandy road, headed deeper onto the island. He had one arm around Tori, while I walked on his other side. Kent was next to me. The rest followed, including Feit.

“We started this group a couple of days after SYLO landed,” Sleeper began. “It was casual at first. A bunch of us old-timers got together to try and sort it all out. Nobody bought the story they were feeding us about the quarantine. We tried contacting the state and even made some calls to Washington but kept hitting stone walls or getting doubletalk. We started holding meetings every couple of nights at a different location for fear of Granger catching on to us.”

“How did I not know about this?” Tori asked.

“I didn’t want you involved.”

Tori snickered. “Great. I thought I was protecting you and the whole time you were in way deeper than any of us.”

“My father was part of it,” Kent added. “That’s how I knew all about it.”

“I kept thinking it would all just go away,” Mr. Sleeper went on. “Of course, it didn’t. More and more frustrated folks started showing up to vent. Not just locals either. Many of them were tourists who came here for vacation and got stuck. It got to be tricky keeping it all quiet. Those SYLO goons were always poking around, asking what we were up to. It came to a head when communications to the mainland got cut.”

“The riot in town,” I said.

“The anger just boiled over. We never bought the virus story. It wasn’t until Feit here paid us a visit that we knew for sure.”

“Knew what?” Tori asked.

“That there was no virus.”

Feit came forward and said, “I told them why people were dying. I wanted to…”

His voice trailed off.

“Just say it,” Mr. Sleeper demanded.

“I wanted to confess,” Feit said, barely above a whisper. “I told them how everyone who died had taken the Ruby…and that Granger was behind it all.”

I glanced at Kent. He kept his eyes on the ground but I could feel his anger bubbling.

“That’s when we knew we had to do something,” Mr. Sleeper said. “Sitting back and waiting for it all to blow over wasn’t going to happen. So we mobilized and came out here. It took a while. We didn’t want to raise any suspicion. We could only move at night and had to cover our tracks. But we made it. Been here a couple of days now.”

“You’re all just camping out here?” I asked.

“Not exactly out,” Sleeper said. “More like camping under.”

We were met in the road by a guy carrying a shotgun with the stock against his shoulder, up and aimed.

“It’s okay,” Mr. Sleeper said to him. “It’s my daughter and her friends.”

I knew the guy. He worked at the drugstore in town. He lowered the gun and said, “Welcome.”

We walked past him and then by five other men and women who were stationed on the road to keep out unwanted visitors. I knew them all. One guy worked on my dad’s car. I recognized a woman who taught algebra at the middle school. There was even a husband and wife who owned one of the ice-cream stores in Arbortown. Seeing them guarding the desolate island, with weapons, was like stepping into a surreal dream.

“Won’t it be easy for SYLO to find us?” Tori asked. “I mean, they have helicopters.”

“And we got camouflage,” Sleeper replied proudly.

We arrived at the edge of what was normally a dense scrub forest. Even in the dark of night, I could see that camouflage netting had been erected in the trees.