ONE

“Strap in, this is going to get bumpy.”

Not words you wanted to hear from a pilot who has your life in his hands.

Six of us were trapped in a military helicopter that was under attack, spinning out of control and headed for the ground. Fast.

I sat shoulder to shoulder with Tori Sleeper on one side of the craft. On the other side sat Kent Berringer and my mother, Stacy Pierce. None of us wanted to be there. Reaching to my right I grabbed hold of Tori’s leg. Her good leg. The other one had a bullet in it. She clutched my arm for whatever comfort it might give.

It was too dark outside to see what our altitude was, or when the impact might come. All we could do was huddle together and brace for the inevitable.

“It can’t end like this,” Tori said with surprising calm.

Well, yeah it could.

I suddenly felt pressure on my chest. It was as if a heavy weight had been dropped into my lap and was pushing me back into the seat. We were gaining altitude. The wild spinning stopped a moment later. The pilot was back in control.

“Get us outta here!” Captain Granger screamed at him through our headphones.

“Gee, you think?” Kent Berringer said sarcastically.

“Hold the chatter!” Granger scolded.

The helicopter’s rotors whined as we lifted back into the sky. I looked across the cabin to my mother. I didn’t think for a second that she wasn’t as terrified as the rest of us, but her expression seemed to be one of, I don’t know, resignation? It was almost as though she had accepted the fact that the Retro forces on the ground would shoot us out of the sky and there was no use stressing about it.

Kent, on the other hand, looked wide-eyed and frantic. He clutched the straps of his safety harness as if that would do any good if we slammed into the ground. He twisted left and right, struggling to look out of the window and get a glimpse of . . . what? The ground? The Retro forces down below that were shooting at us? A miracle swooping in from the heavens?

All four of us wore headphones that connected us with the cockpit where Captain Granger, the SYLO commander, sat strapped into the copilot’s seat. At the controls was the marine commando named Cutter, who was doing his best to keep us flying.

“Help is incoming,” Cutter announced casually as if he had just said, “Looks like rain.”

Was a miracle about to arrive after all?

The helicopter was buffeted by another shot fired from the ground. And another.

Tori yelped. Kent did too.

“Why aren’t we shooting back?” Mom said calmly into her microphone.

“Skyhawks aren’t attack birds,” Granger replied sharply. “No weapons on board. We leave that up to the Cobras.”

The chopper shuddered and we were thrown violently against our harnesses as the craft pitched to our right, but we stayed airborne and under control. At least, I think we were under control. The Retro forces weren’t shooting conventional missiles. Their weapons fired invisible yet powerful bursts of energy that worked silently but with no less destructive force than a rocket-propelled explosive. The blasts were only one example of the impossible technology the Air Force possessed . . . and that the Navy, SYLO, didn’t. Though they were both branches of the United States military, the Air Force had a serious technological advantage. The civil war that had these two forces going at each other was definitely an unfair fight.

“Evade,” Granger commanded.

“Trying, sir,” Cutter replied. The guy remained cool, but not that cool. The tension in his voice proved that he was flying his ass off to try to keep us alive.

Cutter banked hard to the right and nosedived, intentionally. The last thing he wanted to do was travel in a straight line, allowing the ground cannons to anticipate our course. The move pulled me out of my seat, straining the harness. My head spun and my stomach twisted, but I wasn’t complaining.

Kent was.

“Losing it,” he announced. His head was pressed against the fuselage in a desperate attempt to maintain his equilibrium. “Fighting the puke.”

Mom leaned back with her head pressed into her seat to try to keep herself stable. When she saw that I was looking her way, she lifted her right hand and held out her index finger. It was a gesture we had done with my dad for as long as I could remember. We would touch index fingers as a way to say “I love you.” It was very E.T., but it meant a lot to me when I was a kid. I don’t remember the last time we had done it, or at least the last time I acknowledged my mother when she did it. A fourteen-year-old doesn’t do that kind of stuff . . . especially one who has been through as many battles as I had.

Then again, maybe facing the imminent end of the world made me the exact kind of fourteen-year-old who should be doing that kind of stuff.

I raised my hand and pointed my finger toward her. Though our fingers were several feet apart, the contact was made. I hadn’t yet forgiven my mother and father for the lies they told me about why we had moved to Pemberwick Island, but I was open to try to understand. Besides, no matter what had happened, she was still my mom.

She gave me a little smile and dropped her hand.

“Now we’re talking!” Granger exclaimed with his slight southern accent.

“What do you mean?” Kent asked.

The answer came in the form of double streaks of white light that flew past us, headed for the ground. A second later we heard two explosions. Our miracle had arrived. Two SYLO gunship choppers flashed past, one on either side of us, headed for the Retro base. The clatter of machine gun fire was a welcome addition to the tortured whine of our engine.

“Those would be the Cobras,” Granger announced.

Cutter banked hard to the right, which gave me a perfect view of the two SYLO attack helicopters as they streaked toward the Retro base, unleashing rockets one after the other. The spray of missiles they shot toward the ground left thin trails of smoke that eventually led to multiple eruptions on the surface. I hoped they were finding targets.

“They’re going to save us,” Tori said in a small but confident voice.

For the record, I thought they were going to save us too.

I was wrong.

A second later, one of the Cobras exploded. It was a spectacularly horrifying sight as the flying gunship burst into a brilliant fireball that lit up the ground, revealing dozens of the antiaircraft cannons that were all pointed to the sky. Toward us. The burning mass that just moments ago was a chopper with pilots on board fell like a molten brick and crashed to the sandy surface of the Mojave desert.

“We’re not out of this yet,” Granger cautioned.

Our chopper made another sudden lurch. I thought it was Cutter making an evasive maneuver until . . .

“I’ve lost lateral stability,” he announced. “Our tail rotor must have taken a hit.”

“What?” Kent shouted with panic. “We’ve been hit?”

The chopper started spinning, much more violently this time.

I heard Cutter’s heavy breathing through the headphones. He was struggling to fight gravity and control a hurtling machine. “I’ll put us down as softly as I can but I can’t control where—”

The front windshield shattered.

“Look out!” Granger screamed . . . too late.

Glass sprayed everywhere. Cutter was hit with a wave of razor-sharp shards and instantly went limp in his seat. I couldn’t tell if he was unconscious or dead. Either way he wasn’t flying the helicopter anymore. Granger went for the stick but Cutter had fallen onto the controls, making it impossible for Granger to take over.

The spinning picked up and we started dropping again.

I quickly unlatched my straps.

“Tucker, stop!” Mom called, no longer calm.

I ignored her. If we slammed into the ground it wouldn’t matter if I was held in by safety straps or not.

I threw off my headphones and climbed forward to where Cutter was slumped forward in his seat.

“Pull him back,” Granger yelled. “Keep him off of the instruments.”

Cutter’s straps hadn’t been snugged tight and he was a big, muscular guy. It took all of my strength to pull him back into his seat.

“Can you fly this thing?” I yelled at Granger.

My headphones and mic were gone so he couldn’t hear me. Didn’t matter. I would find out soon enough.

Granger struggled with the copilot’s stick but it didn’t stop the spinning. The SYLO commander had always come across as supremely confidant. Not anymore. He looked as terrified as I was, but that didn’t stop him from doing all he could to try to save us.

“Prepare to crash!” Granger called. He gestured with his head for me to go back to my seat.

There was nothing more we could do.

I turned to scramble for the rear of the chopper when . . .

Boom!

The side door blew in with a force so violent it was torn off its track. The metal door bounced around the interior like a whirling buzz saw. If I had moved to the back a second sooner it probably would have killed me. As it was, I was launched off of my feet and sent careening to the far side of the chopper, where I hit hard and fell to the deck. I looked up in a daze to catch a brief glimpse of the terrified expressions of my mother, Tori, and Kent as debris swirled everywhere. The engine whined, desperate to provide enough power to keep us airborne. I heard someone scream but the roar of the engine and the explosions outside were enough to drown it out before I could tell who had lost it.

Boom!

The chopper was hit again. The entire craft lurched forward, throwing me to the deck.

I hit my head.

The sound stopped.

The spinning ended.

The chaos was over.

Everything went black.

I found myself lying flat on my back as a cool breeze blew over me. It was a welcome relief from the violent mayhem of a few moments before.

I moved my hand to feel the ground beneath me. I wasn’t in the helicopter anymore. I was lying on sand. Cautiously, I opened my eyes to see a bright, blazing sun overhead. How long had I been here? What had happened? Without moving, I strained to hear anything that would give me a clue. What I heard was the unmistakable far-off cry of a lonesome seagull.

What? In the desert? It was followed by another sound that made even less sense.

It was the crashing of a wave.

I got my wits together and sat up to see . . . the ocean. I was lying on a sandy beach not twenty yards from the waterline. That explained the cool breeze, but it didn’t begin to tell me how I had gotten here . . . wherever here was.

Sailboats cut through the sea out beyond the break, running with the wind as they were pulled along by colorful jibs. The waves weren’t big enough to surf, but plenty good for boogie-boarding and bodysurfing. The water was full of kids splashing and playing inside the break. The beach to either side of me was dotted with brightly colored sun umbrellas. Families were staked out everywhere, lying on their blankets to sunbathe, read, and snack. A couple of guys tossed a football around. There was a high-pitched squeal as one of the kids picked up a girl and tossed her into the surf. She was kicking her legs while shrieking in protest, but she wasn’t kidding anybody. She loved it. Young kids used neon-colored shovels and pails to build sand castles. A guy jogged by with a golden retriever trotting at his heels. Radios played a mix of hit songs. A single-engine plane flew by over the water, parallel to the shoreline and dragging a banner that advertised two for one lobster dinner at the Lighthouse Inn.

It was all so impossible . . . yet familiar.

“Pemberwick Island,” I whispered to myself.

I was home.

It was the beach where I had been hanging out for the last five years, first with my parents and then with my friends. It was on the eastern shore of my island home . . . the same home that had been overrun by SYLO soldiers and quarantined against a virus that didn’t exist. SYLO had set up a base on Pemberwick Island to make a stand against the Air Force, which was being controlled by people called Retros. SYLO came to protect the island from the gruesome fate that the Retros brought to the rest of the world. Calling it genocide would be an understatement. The Retro Air Force went on a fierce killing spree, wiping out three quarters of the world’s population.

Their justification was that they were protecting the world from an even worse fate, though it was hard to believe that there could be anything worse than a cataclysmic, systematic mass execution.

I never expected to see my island home again, yet there I was with my feet in the sand, lying on a scratchy striped towel, catching some rays. I was even wearing board shorts and a T-shirt. What had happened? Was I knocked unconscious and shipped home with amnesia? It was the only logical explanation I could come up with.

That logic went right out the window at the very next moment.

“Tucker!” a familiar voice called out. “’Bout time you got here!”

I was almost too stunned to turn around. Almost. I looked over my shoulder to the stretch of sea grass that bordered the beach to see my best friend trudging over the sand berm, headed my way.

Quinn Carr was alive.

He carried a beach chair and had a bright orange towel draped around his neck. His mop of curly blond hair and thick glasses were unmistakable. My best friend, the guy who was disintegrated when he was hit by a killer beam of light fired from three Air Force fighters, was somehow headed my way.

“Jeez,” he said. “Could you have picked a spot a little further away? My feet are on fire.”

Quinn dropped his towel and stood on it directly over me, blocking the sun so that I didn’t have to squint. I saw him in silhouette, a dark, impossible ghost.

All I could do was stare in wonder and ask the only question that made sense. “Are we in heaven?”

“Yeah right,” he said with a scoff. “I know you think Pemberwick is, like, nirvana but . . . heaven? That’s over the top, even for you.”

My mind was reeling, desperate to understand what was happening.

“You okay, Tuck?” Quinn asked with concern.

“Okay? I’m about as far from okay as you can get. What the hell is going on?”

“You tell me,” he said. “Your leg looks gnarly.”

“My leg?”

I looked down to see that my right leg was covered in blood. The instant I saw it, I registered the pain. It was vaguely numb at first, but the sensation quickly grew into a vicious, angry ache.

“My folks can fix you up,” Quinn said. “But I don’t know how you’re going to ride your bike to the hospital.”

“I rode my bike here?” I asked, bouncing between confusion and panic.

“I was hoping we could take a midnight ride later,” he said. “I miss those rides, Tuck. Hell, I miss you. I wish things could go back to the way they were.”

I tried to stand up but the pain in my leg forced me to stay down.

“What is happening, Quinn?” I cried. “Why am I here?”

Quinn laughed in that casual way he had of letting you know he knew so much more than anybody else in the world and said, “Because this is where you want to be. Hopefully you’ll get back here someday. For real.”

“But I’m here now!”

Quinn took a step back and the sun blasted my eyes.

“I’m proud of you, buddy. You’re officially my hero.”

“Quinn?” I shouted.

The only reply I got was a sudden rush of sound. At first I feared that a rogue wave had hit the beach and I was about to be washed away. But the sound was too steady for that. I looked for Quinn, but he was gone. The whole beach was gone.

I was still lying in the sand, but it was Mojave sand. It was night. The blinding light revealed its true nature: It wasn’t the sun at all, but a searchlight on a helicopter that was shining down on me. The rogue-wave sound was the steady whine of its engine.

I had only visited Pemberwick Island in the dazed stupor of a teasing dream. My pounding head was proof of that. The only thing real about any of it was my bloody leg. I was hurt. Badly. The pain was excruciating. I didn’t dare touch it for fear I would feel a bone sticking out.

I waved to the chopper, hoping it was coming to get me. It answered by killing the searchlight and flying off. It was hard to see any detail, as I’d just had a bright light shining directly into my eyes, but I could still make out the rising-sun SYLO logo on its belly.

Whoever was in that chopper, they didn’t care about me.

As the sound of the helicopter’s engine faded I looked around to try to figure out my next move. I was definitely in the middle of nowhere. I did a slow three-sixty until I spotted something that rocked me fully back to reality: the wreck of our helicopter.

A dozen thoughts flashed through my brain. None of them were good. My mother, Tori, and Kent were on board. So were Granger and Cutter. It looked as though I had been thrown clear of the wreck. That might have happened because I was near the door that was blown open. Whatever had happened, I was lucky to be alive, even though my leg was useless.

I tried to get up but there was no way my leg could handle any weight. Still, I had to get to the wreck. People could be trapped inside. The only way I could move was to crawl on one knee, dragging my dead leg behind me. The pain was unbearable. It felt as though my limb was being wrenched off, and on fire, but I didn’t stop.

The chopper was dead. The engine was silent. It wasn’t burning so I didn’t think there was any chance of an explosion. How long had it been since the crash? I could have been lying there for hours. Why didn’t the SYLO helicopter land? I didn’t hear any sounds of battle. The action seemed over.

As I crawled nearer to the wreck, I realized that my leg wasn’t my only problem. My head was spinning. I must have had a concussion, not that I knew what that was like. I’d had my bell rung a few times playing football, when I’d see colors and hear a sharp ringing for a few minutes. This felt like that, except it wouldn’t go away. The world was spinning and so was my stomach. I heaved, losing whatever I had eaten earlier that day in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas. That seemed like centuries before.

I wiped my mouth with my dirty sleeve and kept going. I had to know who was inside that wreck, even if there was nothing I could do to help them. When I finally reached the downed chopper, the first person I saw was the pilot through the shattered windshield. Cutter. He was dead. The marine commando who helped lead the rebels in Las Vegas but was secretly part of SYLO was gone. He came across as an arrogant jock, but the guy had compassion. He actually told us that he was honored to know us. In the end, I was honored to have known him.

I dragged my way to the side of the chopper and the huge gash that had once been a door. The spinning got worse. So did the nausea. I wasn’t going to last much longer, let alone help anybody who was inside. But I had to know. These were the only people I had left in the world. My mother. My friends. Granger, too. It’s weird to say that I hoped Granger survived after all he had done, but nothing was turning out the way I expected it to.

I pulled myself toward the opening and hesitated. What would I find inside? It could be gruesome. I wasn’t sure what was hurting more: my leg, my head, or my heart.

The chopper was a twisted wreck. It didn’t seem likely that anybody could have survived such a violent crash. It took every bit of physical and mental strength I had left to poke my head inside the downed craft.

What I saw inside was . . . nothing. No bodies. No survivors. No sign that anybody had lived or died. Even the copilot’s seat was empty. Granger was gone, along with my mother and my friends. The shock of seeing the empty craft and realizing that I was totally on my own was the last straw.

I gave in to the spinning.

The world turned upside down and I dropped into oblivion.