Authors: Robison Wells
JACK LISTENED TO THE GENERAL
read through names, but he was listening to Aubrey’s heart, too. He’d taken to doing it whenever they stood at attention—he found it calming.
He heard another sound, coming in close. Helicopters, approaching from the northeast. He could pick out the distinct rotor noises of at least four smaller ones—Black Hawks, probably—and one big beast, maybe a Chinook. It had two rotors. He loved that he was getting better at identifying military vehicles by their sound, but this seemed ominous. He wanted to reach out and take Aubrey’s hand. He didn’t want them to be separated. His heart told him that they wouldn’t be—they couldn’t be—because they worked together so well. But his head told him otherwise: Why would they be assigned together if she hadn’t been brought on his special training week?
The helicopters were close enough that he could have seen them even if he didn’t have hypersensitive vision, but they were behind them, and he was standing at attention.
“Lyon, Holmes, Savage, Staheli, Eden,” the sergeant called out. “Please step forward. Go get your rucks and your full ACUs and gear. You’re moving out. Report to the helipad in ten. Dismissed.”
The five of them—four graduates and one fourteen-year-old redhead—tentatively stepped forward, and then, realizing the urgency, began jogging back to barracks.
“Allred, Fisher, Paterson, Shaw, Flynn. Same thing. Rucks and gear and get to the helipad. Dismissed.”
He called three more names—three people Jack assumed wouldn’t ever be on the front lines: someone who could make plants grow, someone who could control the movement of water, and someone who could draw any image with pinpoint accuracy, like a photograph.
“Get your gear and get to the parking lot. There’s a truck waiting for you.”
Jack changed the direction of his hearing—even he couldn’t explain how he could focus on different areas, but he could—and found four idling trucks at the front of the base.
“Cooper,” the sergeant called, and Jack was pulled back to attention. Cooper. That was him. “Torreon, Jefferson, Sola—” That was his helicopter crew, all of them nongrads. Krezi, Rich, and Josi. The sergeant continued. “Tyler, Parsons.”
Aubrey didn’t follow the rules. He heard her exhale loudly and felt her hand grab his.
“Gear and the helipad. Get moving.”
Jack’s heart felt like an enormous weight had been lifted. He was with Aubrey. And he was with the team that he’d come to trust in their week of jump training, even though, presumably, that part of the mission was called off.
“So we’re with Tabitha, huh?” Jack asked as they ran.
“Yeah,” Aubrey said, wincing. “She can be annoying.”
“Everyone else is good,” Jack said. “Too young for a fight, but good.”
“Josi’s not too young,” Aubrey said. “She’s eighteen.”
“Rich and Krezi are fifteen. They don’t even get to carry guns.”
“Maybe that’s good,” Aubrey said. “Maybe that means we won’t be on the front lines.”
“I doubt it. You and I were made for the front lines.”
“But we were made for recon. Not for shooting.”
He glanced over at her. “I wish we weren’t in the middle of this.”
“Where would you rather be?”
“Mexico. We could still do it. Skip out and go.”
Aubrey laughed, as though he was joking. She didn’t realize how serious he was.
“I’ll come visit you in Leavenworth,” she said, referring to the military prison. He knew the risks of going AWOL. He also knew that no one could find Aubrey if she didn’t want to be found. But he was a different matter. They’d track him down easily, even without her help.
“You could probably sneak in and say hello.”
“No. Too many cameras.” She always showed up on cameras—her power only affected brains nearby, not security cameras.
She had to turn left to go to her barracks; his were straight ahead.
“Hey,” she said, stopping him and grabbing his arm. “You okay?”
“Yeah. It’s just—it’s real now, you know?”
“I know. But we’re going together.”
A group of four lambda privates ran past them.
“I wish I could hug you again,” he said.
Aubrey smiled. “Like I said, we’re going together. I’ll probably be sitting next to you on the helicopter. Speaking of which, have you ever flown in one?”
He nodded. “A few times.”
She made a face. “Do they make you throw up?”
“They’re worse than a plane,” he said. “Get a seat by the window.”
She took his hand again. He knew that was going to get them in trouble sometime.
“We’d better hurry,” she said. “I’ll see you there.”
“’Kay.” He paused as though he was going to kiss her good-bye, but of course he wasn’t. She liked to break the rules, but he didn’t.
He let go of her hand. “See you there.”
She grinned at him and then turned and jogged away toward her barracks. Time was ticking for him, he knew, but he watched her run for a good twenty seconds. She was why he was doing all of this. She always had been.
The barracks were buzzing with energy when he got back. There wasn’t much to do—all the guys had packed their rucks that morning in anticipation of shipping out—but Jack needed to get dressed in his full combat uniform, not just the greens he wore to graduation. He pulled on his vest and fixed it into place.
“This is it,” Rich said from across the row of beds.
“It is,” Jack said.
Rich was already fully dressed and was checking the straps on his ruck. “It’s kind of nice that we’ll all be together. The four of us, I mean.”
“Yeah.” Rich, Jack, Krezi, and Josi had spent every waking minute together for the past week. And Jack suspected Rich had a bit of a crush on Krezi. Not that Jack was one to talk.
“Have you heard where we’ll be going?” Rich asked.
Jack pulled on his helmet and began adjusting the straps. “Nope. But I think it’s safe to say we’re on recon. That’s what Aubrey’s good at, too. I’m not sure about Tabitha.”
“You still think they’ll want me to get up close and personal?” Rich said, and struggled to pull on his pack. It was enormous on him—made for a full-grown man, not a fifteen-year-old. At least the army had made some allowances so that it wasn’t as heavy, plus Rich didn’t have a weapon to worry about.
Jack nodded. “That’s what I heard—that they want you to help figure out what technology is knocking out the power.”
Rich stood there quietly, waiting as Jack finished getting packed and dressed. Rich was a good kid. He was young, but he never used his age as an excuse—unlike Krezi, who was always letting people know she was only fifteen. Not that Jack could blame her. He wondered whether he’d be more like her than like Rich if this had happened a few years ago. After all, Jack still had his own doubts about himself as a soldier.
Jack pulled on his rucksack. All together, the ruck and his weapon and his body armor and everything else weighed close to a hundred pounds. He’d done plenty of physical training in his time at the camp—he’d slogged through swamps carrying all of this—but the weight was still hard to bear. It seemed like he was in a movie, he thought. Like he didn’t belong, and was looking at everything from the outside.
“Ready?” he asked Rich.
“I guess.”
By the time Aubrey got back to her tent, Tabitha, Krezi, and Josi were already there.
“You know what we are?” Tabitha asked, folding a shirt and putting it in her ruck.
“Our team, you mean?” Aubrey asked.
“Yeah. The Fantastic Six. They’re going to have us go after the device. You, me, and Jack make the greatest recon team ever, Rich can understand any machine, so he can figure out what it is and how to stop it, and Krezi can shoot when the power’s turned off.”
Josi looked up from her packing. “What about me?”
“I haven’t figured you out yet,” Tabitha said.
“At least we’ll have something exciting to do,” Aubrey said. “I’d hate to be the guy stuck in the back who can count really well, or girl who can make plants grow faster.”
“If you call getting shot at exciting,” Krezi said. “At least you can turn invisible. Some of us don’t have that luxury.”
Josi wrapped up a bag of toiletries and put them in her rucksack. “You can shoot. My superpower is getting massive post-traumatic stress disorder. Seriously, I think that’s all I’ll be good at.”
“What would the therapist say about that?” Aubrey asked, scratching her chin. “Something about how you need to find a creative outlet for all the bad energy you’re absorbing.” She laughed. “You could take up flower arranging.”
“Ooh—or cooking,” Krezi said. “We could use a better chef. We could use
any
chef. All we have now is a guy who knows how to use a can opener and a microwave.”
Aubrey put the last of her belongings in the rucksack. “You guys ready? Because we’re going to war in”—she checked her watch—“four minutes.”
“Ready,” Josi replied, slinging her rucksack onto her shoulder.
Tabitha groaned. “I’ll be done in two minutes.”
“You guys go ahead,” Krezi said, nodding to Aubrey and Josi. “I’ll wait for Tabitha.”
Aubrey smiled. “Okay. Enjoy your last few minutes of peace.”
“DID YOU EVER THINK YOU’D
be here, getting ready to go into combat?” Tabitha asked as she put the final items into her bag.
“Not really,” Krezi said. “I mean, my brother’s in the air force, but he’s a mechanic. He never sees any action, and everyone is pretty happy about that.”
Tabitha bent down to tie her shoes. She wanted to have a long, personal conversation, but she knew they had to get to the helicopter. “Does he have any kind of special ability?”
“I don’t think so. He’s twenty-six. Wasn’t the quarantine just for people twelve to twenty?”
Tabitha nodded. “I feel bad,” she said. “We’ve been living in the same room for six weeks and we hardly know each other.”
Krezi shrugged. “Different training, different schedules.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to graduate,” Tabitha said.
“No biggie.” Krezi headed outside, with Tabitha a few steps behind her.
They weren’t supposed to cross the parade lawn, but they did anyway. It was the fastest way to get to the helipad, and Tabitha knew they were running late.
She wanted just one person from the team to start questioning things, but they were all so patriotic that they couldn’t see common sense.
“You’ve heard about the rebellion, right?”
Krezi glanced over. “Sure.”
“What would you say if I was thinking of joining it?”
There was a long pause. It dragged out until they’d crossed the lawn and were heading up the road.
“I’m not,” Tabitha finally said. “I was just wondering what you would do if you thought I was. Obviously you’re not a fan of the idea.”
“If I could make a custom-built rebellion where I called all the shots, then I might join,” Krezi said. “Right now they’re too violent.”
“I heard they’re democratic. They vote on every action they take.”
“But I don’t want violence at all. I want a peaceful protest. And I’m only one vote.”
“Wrong—they use the same system that the military uses. You’re a category Five-D, right? That means you’re a powerful weapon, so you get five votes. The strongest get the most power.”
“How do you know?”
“
Time
magazine,” Tabitha lied. “They had a whole article about it. It was all anonymous, of course.” The truth was that the rebels had tried to recruit Tabitha and she’d turned them down. They told her to contact them if she’d had a change of heart. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she might be having one. Maybe it was because she was afraid of the Russians. But she told herself she was afraid of the Americans. She’d seen Americans get killed by Americans.
The helipad came into view. Tabitha touched Krezi’s arm, and when the girl met her gaze, she mouthed the word
Jack
.
They were silent the rest of the way to the helicopter.
ZASHA STOOD ON THE ROOFTOP
of a Seattle skyscraper. Fyodor lay sleeping on the hard surface of a helicopter platform beside her, exhausted from the drugs.
It had been a long day—a constant fight against the American air force in the skies, coming at them from every direction in an attempt to pierce Fyodor’s bubble, and the army units positioned on the ground to defend the harbor.
But now the Russian fleet had landed and was offloading its cargo, creating a foothold in the city. Russian fighters were patrolling the skies. And Zasha and Fyodor were finally able to rest.
The others like Zasha—enhanced soldiers who had been raised and trained to participate in the
maskirovka
—would be taking over much of the work now. There was Otto, a boy with power over the weather, who would be heading south for the attack into Portland. Ekaterina, a girl who couldn’t exactly fly but was intensely strong and tough and could leap long distances, would be going north into Canada along with Natalya and Lyubov and a handful of others.
Zasha was heading east with the main force, through a narrow pass in the Cascade mountains. She could see the peaks in the distance.
Fyodor stirred. Zasha sat down on the helipad next to him and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Zasha Litvyak,” he murmured, his words slurred. “Flying ace. How many Americans have you killed?”
“You have killed them,” she said, the breeze whipping at her hair. “You’re the hero.”
TWO MEN STOOD IN THE
apartment building’s lobby, holding Alec’s ID between them and scowling. They’d done all they could to verify his identity; Alec didn’t speak a word of Russian. Back in Denver it was his job to blend in—to look like the all-American boy he was supposed to be. His “parents”—his handlers—had smuggled him across the border and now were living a perfectly average life: he was a dentist and she was a midlevel manager at a railroad. No one had ever slipped up and spoken Russian in the home, or eaten any food that could have been thought of as Russian.
That was not to say they hadn’t trained him. Some of the training was simple: how to build a house, so that Alec would be able to understand how to knock one down. Or the lunch when he and his mom had eaten in the grassy area by the power substation, while she described how each part of it worked. The harder thing was convincing Alec that America was a bad place. He’d only known the training school back home, and America seemed like a land of plenty. So they worked on that most of all. His dad came into his bedroom every night with newspaper clippings—stories about murders where the police used excessive force, about poverty, even a combination of the two: police violence against the homeless. Then his dad would speak wistfully about Russia, and the control their homeland had against crime.
“You,” one of the men down the hall called. “Alec Moore.”
Alec stood up.
“Vy govorite na russkom yazyke?”
Alec stood there and shook his head slightly.
“Then we’ll have to do this in English,” the man said in a heavily accented voice. “Come with me.”
He led Alec around a corner, another man falling into step behind them. Alec realized they were afraid of him. He could tell them they didn’t need to be, but that wouldn’t do any good. He could look like a spy easily, and be shot on sight.
They led him into a cinder-block room and handcuffed one of his wrists to a radiator. It was hot, and he knew his wrist would burn soon.
“My hand,” Alec said. “It will scald.”
“Then it would be best if you answer the commandant’s questions.”
The two men left and Alec stood up, looking everywhere for the pressure-relief valve. It was on the far side.
He picked up his metal folding chair in one hand and swung it down against the valve. He missed. He tried again. A blister was already beginning to form on his cuffed hand. This time the chair hit the valve, but the little brass fitting held.
He swung and swung again, the pain in his hand excruciating. Finally, on his seventh attempt, the valve broke, blasting steam like a geyser into the room.
Alec set the chair back where it belonged, and sat down. There were four large blisters just below his wristband that declared him “healthy.”
The door opened, and a tall man strode in.
“It’s like a sauna in here,” the commandant said.
“Broken radiator.”
The commandant took a seat across from Alec. “Alexi Petrovich.”
Alec had never been called that, not even by his fake parents. His surprise must have shown on his face.
“New name for you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let’s set out some ground rules. You don’t play with my mind, and I tell you the truth.”
“It’s a deal,” Alec said.
The commandant began reading through the file. “You were assigned to Denver with Maria Proponov and Peter Ivanovich. Raised there since you were five. You have the power to implant memories in people’s heads. Most impressive.”
“We all do what we can for the motherland,” Alec said.
“Your last mission didn’t go as planned.”
“My last mission? Oh, you mean with Dan and Laura. I considered the fires I started at the Bremerton oil reserves as my last mission.”
“Tell me about Dan and Laura.”
Alec frowned. “Betrayal. The American military was moving in. Dan created an avalanche and Laura was supposed to pick me up and run. She never did. I was caught in the quarantine.”
“How long did you wait for them?”
“I pulled myself loose from the rubble after an hour or two, but there was no sign of either of them.”
“You’ll be pleased to know that they both—independent of each other—infiltrated a Green Beret team. Sabotaged the groups from the inside.”
“Are they alive?” Alec asked. If they were alive, he’d kill them himself. You don’t abandon your leader.
“They’re either dead or on the run. They tried to fill the entrance to a naval base with another avalanche. That was the plan, at least. According to highly placed sources we’ve been able to gather, they were fighting each other, and Dan created the avalanche to bury Laura. The Americans don’t have the manpower to clean up that landslide yet—every piece of work equipment is being used elsewhere. No one wants to dig through a few hundred feet of dirt to see if they survived.”
Alec had tried to kill Laura, had blamed her for leaving him in the first avalanche. The fact that she had been trying to take down a naval base didn’t make him forgive her. He was her commanding officer.
His eyes met the commandant’s. “What do you want me to do? Send me out there. Give me a job.”
“You can implant memories, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Find a car. I want you to join the exodus of people who are leaving Seattle. I especially want trouble caused at the mouth of Snowqualmie Pass. As long as that road is packed with civilians, the Americans won’t bomb it. Put roadblocks on alert. Tell them there’s a spy among them; tell them we—those damned Russians—have broken through in the south and are heading over to flank them.”
“Is that true, sir?”
“Of course not.” He unwrapped a stick of Rolaids and ate half of them.
“Yes, sir.”