Chapter 13
We accelerated quickly and flew high over Saint Dane's mini-kingdom. Seeing it
from the sky gave me an even better idea of how huge the place was. It was a sprawling
green oasis surrounded by that gigantic wall ... in the middle of a dead, gray city.
"They're coming after us," I said to Mark.
"I hope they do. Maybe we'll snag another one of these babies," he answered while
staying focused on flying.
Unbelievable. It was Mark, but it wasn't. I was thrilled to see him, though totally
thrown by how much he had changed. Up until that moment, Mark and I had been
aging at the same rate. It didn't matter that we were on different territories. For
whatever reason, our time lines had been the same. Not anymore. Did that mean I had
spent five years on Solara? Or floating in space? Or was that the wrong way to look at
it? Maybe when I left for Third Earth, the spirits of Solara put me here, five years past
the time when Patrick was killed. If that was the case, did that mean that the turning
point of Third Earth had shifted? I was always sent where I needed to be, when I
needed to be there. Thinking this way actually gave me hope. Third Earth was
definitely still in play.
All my confused questioning ended abruptly when our helicopter was rocked by an
explosion.
"Whoa," I exclaimed. "What was that?"
"They're shooting from the ground," Mark said calmly. "It won't last. As soon as we
get past the wall, we'll be out of range."
I looked down out of the window to see t hat we were about to cross out of the green
and into the gray. Two more explosions rocked us. The helicopter shuddered but we
weren't hit. A moment later I looked down to see the wall passing underneath us. We
were back over the dead city of New York.
Whoosh! Something flew by to my right, barely missing us. It left a smoke trail in its
wake.
"I thought you said we'd be out of range?"
"Yeah, of their ground guns," Mark replied. "That came from the chopper that's
chasing us."
Oh. Swell.
"I saw what those rockets can do," I said nervously. "I was at the zoo when you
helped those people out." Mark gave me a quick glance. "Where have you been for five
years?" he asked. "That is a very long story."
Whoosh. Whoosh. Two more rockets passed by, one on each side.
"I gotta concentrate," Mark said, and pushed the joystick forward. We immediately
went nose down, headed for the ground. I put my foot out to brace myself. It wasn't that
I didn't trust Mark's flying, it was just that, well, okay, I didn't trust Mark's flying . But
