SYLO (THE SYLO CHRONICLES) (13 page)

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.

The only sign that there had been an accident were the tire marks on the lawn.

“What the hell?” I said with a gasp.

Where I was stunned, Tori seemed totally freaked by the scene and sprinted for her scooter.

“Hey!” I shouted. “Where are you going?”

She jumped onto the scooter, fired the engine, and sped off without saying a word.

“You’re welcome,” I called after her.

She didn’t hear. Or didn’t care. In a few seconds she was gone and the park was quiet once again.

It took me a minute or so to get my head back together enough to remember how to move my feet. I went straight home, rolling over in my head the two different events I had just witnessed. As much as the attack on Tori was frightening, in some small way it made sense. I had no doubt that Gary had been introduced to the Ruby because of his over-the-top energy and the fact that he moved with inhuman speed. It was wrong, but explainable. What disturbed
me more was seeing the SYLO soldiers chase down and Taser that mom-looking lady. Everything I had heard was that those soldiers were here to protect us. But from what? Ladies who rolled through stop signs? The fact that they zapped her and dragged her away in handcuffs like some escaped prisoner seemed pretty extreme. What could she possibly have done to deserve that?

The event was so disturbing that I couldn’t bring myself to tell anybody about it. I had to hold on to the idea that SYLO was there to help us. I mean, President Neff told us so. What else could I believe? Before pointing fingers and making accusations, I wanted to know more about what was happening. But I had no idea how to do that.

The rest of the week passed without any more disturbing events, unless you count the fact that Pemberwick Island had become the butt of jokes for every comic on TV. “Looking for a hot vacation spot?” Jay Leno asked. “Try Pemberwick Island. You’ll never vacation anywhere else…because they won’t let you leave!” We even made David Letterman’s Top Ten list of reasons to vacation on Pemberwick Island. “Number one: Free CAT scan with every cup of delicious, creamy chowder.”

I might have thought the jokes were funny if I lived anywhere else. Letterman’s line wasn’t even that far from the truth. Every person on the island was required to go to the town hall and give a blood sample. When my family went, I recognized several of the CDC people who had gotten off the troop transport under Granger’s cold glare. It felt a little creepy to have to give blood, mostly because we weren’t given a choice. But if they were trying to isolate a potentially deadly virus and feared that some people were genetically
predisposed to contracting it, then I guess it would be stupid not to get tested.

It was one test I desperately wanted to ace.

In spite of the CDC’s bloodletting, Arbortown had started to feel close to normal. The tourists were poking out of their rooms and beginning to go back to the shops and restaurants. And why not? There was nothing else to do and the government was picking up the tab. I even saw people posing for pictures on the pier while pointing to the warship that sat ominously off shore. It was a surreal experience. A thin veil of normalcy had returned, though we all feared that just below the surface was a truth that we didn’t necessarily want to learn.

On Wednesday the announcement was made that there would be a football game on Saturday morning. We were scheduled to play Memagog High, from the other side of the island, in November, but under the circumstances the date was moved up. Captain Granger made the announcement on TV, saying that it would be good for everyone to get out and enjoy a game; and since there were actually two teams on Pemberwick, we were nominated to be the day’s entertainment. I guess that made sense. It wasn’t like either team could travel off the island, so why not play each other? My only problem was that with nothing else happening on the island, the game was sure to be a sellout. That meant I’d have an even bigger crowd to witness my lame attempt to fill Marty’s shoes.

I tried to talk to Tori a few times at school, but she avoided me and it was starting to tick me off. I had stood in front of a raging, armed maniac to protect her; the least she could do was acknowledge
that I existed. I tried not to let it bug me and turned my focus to the challenge at hand…Memagog High.

Saturday came up fast. The game was on our home field because our stadium was twice as big as Memagog Field. It turned out to be a wise move. When we came out on the field for warmups, the stands were already packed. I’d never seen that before, even when there was a county championship on the line. It seemed as though everyone on Pemberwick had shown up because we were the only game in town. Literally.

As exciting as this was, there was an ominous touch. Armed SYLO soldiers casually circled the field. They walked in pairs, keeping an eye on the crowd. They seemed to want to keep a low profile, but it was hard to miss them. None went into the stands. They weren’t there to watch the game…their eyes were on the people.

Kent was in his glory. During warmups, he ran around the sidelines, screaming things like: “This is our house! Nobody messes with our house!” It was all totally clichéd football psych stuff that was more for the crowd than for us.

When warmups finished, I jogged back to our locker room under the bleachers. Glancing up to the crowd, I saw Mom and Dad give me a thumbs-up. I also noticed that many people were wearing surgical masks, a grim reminder that we might all catch something deadly. I did a quick scan of the bleachers, looking for Mr. Feit. I didn’t see him but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there. The crowd was too big for me to see everybody.

One person I didn’t miss was Olivia because she was standing near the tunnel to the locker room. It was a warm morning and she
looked incredibly cute in an Arbortown Wildcats T-shirt (that I’m sure Kent gave her) and mini jean shorts.

“Tucker!” she called, waving me over.

I took off my helmet and went to her.

“How’re you doing?” I asked.

“As good as anybody, I guess,” she said with a shrug. “It’s weird being here without my mother. It’s weird being here at all.”

“I hear you,” I said.

“I haven’t seen you all week,” she said.

It was my turn to shrug. “I’ve been keeping a low profile.”

“I miss you.”

She did? I couldn’t think fast enough to say something clever in return.

“Do me a favor?” she asked.

“Sure.”

She leaned forward and gave me a big kiss. Right on the lips. It wasn’t one of those friendly pecks-from-your-aunt kisses either. This was like…a real kiss. It’s not like I hadn’t kissed a girl before. I had. Once or twice. Or once. But Olivia was a couple of years older than me and, well, she knew what she was doing. In that one brief instant, I forgot all about the game. And SYLO and the Ruby and the mysterious exploding shadow. What can I say?

After a few seconds, she pulled back and gave me a sweet smile that was even more electrifying than the kiss. I blinked, cleared my throat, and croaked, “Uh, and what exactly is the favor?”

She touched my cheek and said, “Make me proud.”

I instantly went from the height of ecstasy to the depths of despair. Olivia had opened the door wide for me to impress her
and maybe start a real relationship that held the promise of more kissing like that. But there was no way in hell that I could deliver on that favor. That door would slam shut two seconds after I was handed the ball for the first time.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I said with about as much casual cool as I could muster…which wasn’t a whole lot.

She gave me a flirty wink. I headed into the locker room.

The game was a good one, a real back-and-forth battle that kept the fans cheering until the final gun. I think it probably helped everyone to forget the mess we were in, at least for a couple of hours. The best thing I can say about my own performance was that unlike the first game, I didn’t embarrass myself. I guess that’s saying something. On the other hand, I didn’t make anybody proud, either. Coach tried working me into the offense early, but I couldn’t do any better than stumble for a few measly yards per carry. I guess the worst came when I was thrown a quick outlet pass in the flat. Our quarterback really put some heat on the ball. I wasn’t ready for it and the ball bounced off my hands—incomplete.

Normally during a game, you don’t really hear the crowd. It’s all just white noise and there’s too much to worry about on the field to even think about it. But the moment that ball bounced away, I heard a collective sigh of disappointment that meant everyone was thinking the exact same thing: “Pierce sucks.” It’s a horrible sound, one that most people never have to hear. But I heard it and it stung.

I have to admit, in that brief instant I wondered what would have happened if I had taken a small sample of the Ruby before
the game. Would I have made that catch? Would that massive groan of disappointment and disapproval been turned into ecstatic cheers and the approval of my teammates? And Olivia? I shook the thought quickly. As tempting as the idea was, it was wrong. No, worse, it was dangerous.

As the game went on, I handled the ball less and less, which was probably for the best. The undeniable truth was that I wasn’t as fast or as strong as the other players. It wasn’t for lack of trying. I just didn’t have the physical ability.