Dead Zone (4 page)

SIX

JACK LAY AWAKE IN BED,
staring at the ceiling of the Quonset hut. Aubrey was outside. She’d been outside for ten minutes and he’d spent that whole time wishing she’d leave. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see her. He wanted to see her more than anything. He just didn’t want her to get caught and not graduate tomorrow with the rest of her class. But she wasn’t going anywhere.

Jack sat up in bed and pulled on his pants and jacket.

“Everything okay?” Rich asked, rolling onto one side.

“I think so,” Jack said. “I’m going out to get some air.”

“Liar,” Rich said with a hushed laugh. “That’s just something people say in movies when they want an excuse to leave the building. There’s plenty of air in here.”

Jack smiled. “The air in here smells like your dirty socks.”

“Whatever, man. Ten bucks says you’re going to talk to Aubrey.”

“You don’t have to be so loud about it,” Jack said.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got your back. I’m good at pretending to be dumb.”

“Don’t pretend to be anything,” Jack said, lacing his boots. “Just go to sleep.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Jack left the hut, entering the frosty November night. He shoved his hands into his pockets to ward off the cold and walked around to the back side of the building, to a spot where the floodlights created a shadow. He could see Aubrey plain as day, but knew that she’d be virtually invisible to anyone else. His heightened senses gave him almost perfect night vision. It was even better than night-vision goggles, because he could distinguish colors—not just the monochromatic green that the goggles gave.

“Hey,” she said with a grin. “Took your sweet time.”

“You shouldn’t be out here,” he answered. “Graduation is in the morning.”

“That’s why I had to come. What if . . . what if we get split up?”

He wrapped his arms around her in a hug. She felt like ice. “If we get split up, then our job is to survive until this thing is over and we get to go home to be together.”

“Have you heard anything more about our assignments?”

“Not a word. My guess is that the decision is being made by some authority higher than here.”

“That’s not fair. They won’t know how well we work together.”

He shook his head. “That’s not true. They all know about us taking down the terrorists. They know what you did to get Dan and Laura to fight each other. And they know that you need to have some way of communicating back to the rest of your team.”

Aubrey let go of Jack, and then took him by both hands.

“You’ve heard about the rebellion, right?”

“Has Tabitha been after you about it?”

“Every minute of the day. She swears she’s just talking, but I think it’s more than that.”

“You know what I want?” Jack said.

Aubrey groaned. “Don’t tell me it’s to join a rebellion.”

Jack grinned. “No. I want to watch a football game.”

Aubrey laughed. “You don’t even like football.”

“That’s not true. I was just always busy after school so I never got to go. But I’d love to go to one right now. Bundle up, sit on those cold metal benches, eat corn dogs. I don’t even care who’s playing.”

“I’d go with you.”

“It’s a date.”

“When the war is over.”

Jack smiled and pulled her in for another hug. “Then we have all the more incentive to win this stupid thing.”

He could have stood there all night, holding her close, smelling the stringent army soap, his cheek touching her loose hair. He closed his eyes and tried to pretend that he wasn’t headed toward the battle, that he wasn’t in Oregon, that he wasn’t only a few hundred miles from the battle zone. He tried to draw on memories of home—of Mount Pleasant in the autumn, the big cottonwoods dropping their leaves, the crunch of frost on the grass, Aubrey in that old orange sweater she used to wear before she started shoplifting all her clothes.

He heard footsteps and let go of her instantly.

“Disappear,” he said. She didn’t hesitate.

A moment later, two soldiers on a nightly patrol turned the corner and saw him. One of them pointed his flashlight right into Jack’s eyes. “Where are you going, soldier?” he barked.

Jack reached over and patted the Quonset hut. “Had to use the latrine.”

“Taking the scenic route to get there,” the other soldier said.

“Disorientation.” Jack absently pointed to the lambda insignia on his jacket. “One of the side effects of my ability. It’s worse when I first wake up.”

One of the soldiers pointed in the other direction. “Straight that way, two buildings down, on your right. You shouldn’t miss it, unless your nose doesn’t work.”

“Thanks,” Jack said. He paused, hoping the soldiers would leave, but they didn’t. So he whispered a quick good-bye to Aubrey and headed to the latrine.

By the time he was out of the bathroom, Aubrey’s scent had moved back to her barracks. It was so easy for him to eavesdrop, but he avoided the temptation and returned to his own bed. The lights were off, except for a few lambdas who were reading with flashlights. One of them was Edgar, a kid who never got tired and never slept—ever. He didn’t have super speed or super strength, but he could run forever and never break a sweat or have his heart rate increase. Jack wondered what the army would do with him. Another kid had a knack for languages. After two weeks of reading dictionaries, he was fluent in Russian, plus half a dozen dialects like Chechen and Avar.

Jack lay down on his bed. It always took him a while to tune out the noise around him and fall asleep. He’d tried earplugs, but they’d made him able to hear the blood flowing through his own ears, and that was maddening.

“We’re leaving tomorrow,” Rich said quietly from the next cot over.

“Tomorrow’s graduation,” Jack said.

“I know, but they’re moving us all out. Bringing in a new bunch of recruits.”

Jack sat up on one elbow. “How do you know that? I didn’t even know that.”

Rich grinned. “Technology defeats super senses!”

“Where did you find access to a computer?”

“The mess hall. They have one in the back office for ordering supplies and that kind of thing.”

“Do you know where we’re going?”

“No. All it said was that assignments were going to be made by General Freeman, but he hasn’t input them yet. I got the impression that he doesn’t like computers.”

“So this is it,” Jack said, rolling onto his back. “I wish we’d gotten more training. I don’t know if you and I will be assigned to the same unit, but I’m a spy and you’re a guy who is searching for the EMP device. That means both of us will be going to the front.”

“I wish they could just keep me back in the Pentagon or something,” Rich said, “and have me wage a cyberwar on the Russians with some drones. I’d be so much more effective.”

“But somebody needs to find the EMP device,” Jack said. “It’s all they talk about—HQ, I mean. It’s taking down planes and tanks and missiles and everything. If we don’t stop the Russians here, before they can cross the Cascade mountains, they’ll have a free pass to, well, anywhere they want to go. And did you hear they’re forcing everyone out of Alaska? It’s the end of November, and they’re making people leave their houses. That’s got to be a war crime.”

“At least it’s been a mild season so far,” Rich said.

“Thank God for that,” Jack said. “Seriously, I think God is looking down on these refugees and helping them out. I just hope he’ll be on our side when we start attacking.”

“You still believe in God after all this?” Rich asked quietly.

“Sure,” Jack said. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“It seems like a lot of crap is going on. Have you heard the saying about how there are no atheists in a foxhole? I don’t know if that’s strictly true. This war doesn’t make me want to go to church—it makes me want God to step in and smite the wicked. But I know he won’t.”

Jack paused. He could think of a handful of scriptures that might apply, but he knew that he was in over his head. He wasn’t prepared to have this kind of conversation—did that mean he didn’t truly believe?

“I don’t know,” Jack finally said. “Maybe God will smite the wicked. Maybe he’ll send them all to hell when they die. I don’t know how it’s supposed to work.”

“Neither do I,” Rich said. “Maybe God doesn’t help out either army. Maybe he just helps the refugees.”

Jack closed his eyes and prayed. He didn’t know if it would do any good. He drifted to sleep thinking of Aubrey and of right and wrong, and whether he should go AWOL to go home to be with his family.

SEVEN

GRADUATION WAS ON THE WIDE
lawn that served as the makeshift parade ground. Aubrey wore her Army Combat Uniform, with the quirky insignia of a single chevron above a lowercase lambda. She was a private now, but a lambda private. Supposedly the two ranks were equal, but everyone wondered how it would play out in the real world.

She could see Jack standing at the edge of the parade ground, where families would be if this weren’t a time of war. As if her dad would come to see her graduate. Jack had a family that cared. Aubrey had a drunk father who used her to get welfare and shoplift their meals. Well, he didn’t know she was shoplifting—just that she came riding home every couple of days with a backpack full of food.

Aubrey smiled slightly at Jack, and he smiled back. His uniform was identical to hers, with the exception of the insignia. His merely bore the lambda, not the chevron. He was still called a private, but he was a PV1, not a PV2.

“This is a new experience for me,” Brigadier General Freeman said as he stood at the front of the parade ground. “It’s a new experience for all of us. You’re the first of what will likely be many graduating classes from the Lambda Program. Training facilities like this one are being established all across the nation, and we’ll soon be sending out waves of recruits to aid in the war effort—a war effort that is less than five hundred miles from this camp.

“You’ve heard the scuttlebutt. Russian forces have landed, and I don’t just mean in Alaska, but in Washington State. Not since the Mexican-American War has the United States been invaded by a hostile nation, and yet here you are, right in the middle of it.”

Aubrey swallowed as the words hit her. She knew she was going to war, but this suddenly seemed very final. She felt the panicked urge to disappear and hide.

“If this were a regular graduation, your parents and brothers and sisters would be here to cheer you on. And if this were a regular graduation, I’d have a lot more eloquent things to say. I’d talk about your fighting spirit. I’d talk about your dedication to home and country. I’d talk about how you are better for doing this than all of the naysayers and those too scared to pick up a rifle and defend their homeland.”

A voice sounded in Aubrey’s head. “Can you believe this guy? It sounds like a pep rally before a football game.”

It was Tabitha, using her telepathy.

The general continued. “Normally a graduating class would be moving out together, getting their assignments, and working as a company. But—”

“But you’re special,” Tabitha said in a mocking tone. “Seriously, can we just be done already?”

Aubrey tried to push Tabitha’s voice out of her mind and focus on the general’s words.

“Even some of the nongraduating privates will be moving out with you today. Some of them will finish their training at other facilities, and some will finish in the field as time allows.”

The people around Jack seemed surprised by this news, but he stared back at Aubrey and smiled again. Yesterday he said he didn’t know what was going to happen. Maybe something had changed during the night.

“You’re young,” General Freeman said, turning slightly so he was addressing both the graduates and nongraduates. “And I know that this isn’t where many of you thought your lives would be going. But I promise you—the Lambda Program will make a decisive difference on the battlefield. Those are not simply words. We’ve seen what the Russians did with their equivalent of lambdas. We’re playing catch-up, but we also have something the Russians don’t have.”

“Spirit!” Tabitha mocked. Her snark seemed to catalyze Aubrey and make her all the more attuned to the general’s words.

“We’re defending our homes, our families, and our freedom. There isn’t a soldier here today who wouldn’t lay down his or her life for their country.”

Aubrey felt the spark of patriotism rising in her, and it was easier to push away her panic.

“We may have seemed hard on you,” General Freeman said. “But you’ll never regret the thousands of push-ups you did, the hundreds of rounds you fired, and the lifesaving skills you’ve learned.”

“Ugh,” Tabitha said. “Let’s just go to war already.”

“It will be my pleasure to serve alongside each and every one of you.” He nodded to the graduating company, and then to the nongraduates. “Thank you.”

“You knew you weren’t staying for training?” Aubrey asked, hugging Jack tightly.

“I’d heard something,” he said, holding her by the shoulders to look at her. “You outrank me now.”

She grinned. “That’s right. You have to do what I say, Private.”

“Sounds terrible,” he said with a wink.

“So where are we going?” Aubrey asked.

Jack shrugged. “I don’t know.”

She punched him in the shoulder, and he recoiled. She’d exercised a lot in the last seven weeks.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” he insisted. “If they’ve made the decision, they didn’t make it here, or I was paying attention to the wrong conversation. I have to sleep sometimes.”

Aubrey felt a knot in her stomach. “I hope they keep us together,” she said, almost more to herself, and then instinctively reached for his hand before stopping herself.

“Me too,” Jack said. “I bet they will. We have a proven track record.”

“Will they think our”—she paused to choose the most deliberate word—“
relationship
is a liability?”

“I’ve never heard them say that. And I’ve been listening any time your name comes up.”

“What else have they said?” She felt defeated, not knowing her future.

“That you’re a good shot.”

“The best,” she said.

“The best in your platoon,” he replied. “There’s someone in third platoon who has you beat. Still, second place isn’t bad, especially for a girl with bad eyes.” He smiled at the last remark, and she moved to punch him again before, oddly, she wasn’t there anymore.

She could see that it took him a second to realize what was going on—it was always confusing, no matter how many times she did it.

A moment later she reappeared and watched him blink away the confusion muddling his brain.

Her voice was quiet, so even the people standing a few feet away couldn’t hear the words she whispered in his ear. “I couldn’t let this day go by without a congratulations kiss.”

“One day,” he said, shaking his head, “someone is going to be looking across the field at just the wrong time.”

“I’ve got a hundred and forty yards. Unless they have binocular eyes like you, they wouldn’t be able to tell what that was.”

“It can’t have been the best ever. I couldn’t even kiss you back.” He was standing closer to her now so no one else could hear.

“I enjoyed it.”

There was a shout, and one of the drill instructors called for attention. Aubrey and Jack watched as General Freeman strode out in front of the group.

“I hate to break up the party,” he said, and he looked sincere. “But orders are in. No rest for the weary.”