Zasha looked down at Fyodor. “Do you realize how valuable you are?”
“Do you realize how valuable we are?” he corrected. “We’re partners.”
As they neared Port Angeles, artillery fire opened up on the northern side—the American military in a desperate defense. She heard the dull thud as the guns fired.
“It looks like we’re back to work,” she said.
Fyodor groaned. “I’m tired.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, pulling a syringe from the Velcro pouch on her chest.
“Do it quick.”
“Soon we’ll reach Seattle,” she said. “Once the landing is over, we’re sure to get some rest.”
She plunged the needle into his arm, and at once his back arched and he writhed in pain.
She turned a wide curve and flew toward the sound of the battery. The Americans were hidden well, in a forest she thought she remembered as being a national monument of some kind. But the smoke and flame from their howitzers were clearly visible from her vantage point.
The soldiers must have known it was a suicide mission. There were maybe twenty guns against an entire fleet. The weapons were an improvement over previous artillery pieces the Americans had used, but that made them all the more vulnerable to Zasha’s tactics.
These new artillery pieces had digital fire-control systems, and they used a GPS-guided munition. She’d have to kiss everyone in the logistics and analysis team. None of that would work anymore. They were essentially firing blind, without even radio communication from forward spotters.
Zasha kept moving, placing herself thirteen kilometers behind the artillery. This way, Fyodor’s electronic disruption would stop the Americans, and the Russian fleet could fire back, since their targeting computers were working just fine. Zasha could see Russian aircraft above the action, staying well away from her, but sending recon information back to the big guns on half a dozen cruisers.
Zasha wished she could see it, be on the ground, close, when the bombs fell. She wanted to feel the earth shake.
She’d been raised for this. Chosen when she was three years old, picked for her good genes, high aptitude-test scores, and psychological evaluation. She’d trained in some of the same facilities where the Soviet Olympic athletes used to train, physical fitness in the day and studies at night.
The plan—the maskirovka—hadn’t been clear from the beginning, at least not to her. She knew that she was being raised to be a soldier, but she never left the compound. She didn’t know that this was a secret from the people of Russia, even from many in the regular military. She didn’t know that she was special.
And back then, she wasn’t. She was one of a thousand girls and a thousand boys, all training, all studying, all expecting to be Spetsnaz—special forces. It wasn’t until she was ten that she was injected with the mutagen, and it wasn’t until a year later that her true powers began to develop. The military weeded out the less useful and retrained them for more specialized assignments. Zasha had lost her best friend then—Anya, a girl who couldn’t be burned. She couldn’t create fire, couldn’t control it—she could merely withstand it. Zasha had no idea what had happened to Anya; Zasha was transferred to a higher-security training facility with the rest of the more-advanced children.
From that point on, it was a new kind of training. Flying with weights. Flying long distances over the vast expanses of empty Russian countryside. She pushed herself, and with every challenge her commanders gave her, she gave herself an even harder one. She told herself she was not going to be another Anya. She was going to become essential. She was going to prove her worth. Exceed expectations.
The American forest was now a raging wildfire, the exploding shells sounding like distant thuds and pops.
It didn’t have to be like this, Zasha knew. The invasion could be bloodless if the citizens would simply leave. America and Canada both had plenty of unused land where the refugees could settle.
Russian bombers had flown over Seattle yesterday, with Zasha and Fyodor strategically placed on the ground to keep surface-to-air missiles at bay, and had dropped pamphlets urging the people to leave. Whether they did or not was up to them, but the Russians were not here to slaughter. They were here to capture, to seize resources, to cripple a superpower.
That said, Zasha loved watching the flames below her. Stupid soldiers. What were they hoping to accomplish? A hit or two on a convoy ship? A lucky shot into an ammo magazine? It was foolish desperation, and they deserved to burn.
FIVE
AUBREY DISAPPEARED WHILE CARRYING HER dinner tray and crossed the mess hall to where Jack was sitting alone. She set her tray across from him, and then flickered back to view.
Jack started. “You nearly made me spill my water.”
“You’re not so tough when a sneaky girl shows up, are you?”
“You call that sneaky?” he asked, meeting her eyes. “I had you pegged the minute you walked in. You talked to Josi—I tried not to listen, but I did hear you saying something like, ‘Where’s the hottest guy in the army?’ and then Josi told you I was over here.”
Aubrey grinned and tore a piece of bread in half, dipping it in her bowl of beef stew. “I don’t remember the conversation going that way at all.”
“So you’re denying it?” he said.
“I’m not denying I talked to Josi.”
“But you are denying that I’m the hottest guy in the army?”
“What if there was a lambda,” she said, “whose power was irresistible charm?”
“There is. You’re looking at him. It’s a lesser-known side effect of super hearing.”
Her brow furrowed, but the smile didn’t leave her face. “I didn’t realize my eyes were getting that bad.”
“Well,” he said, “I’m here to tell you: it’s me. You can trust me on that, because I have super sight and I look in the mirror at least once a day and—my goodness—what a fine specimen I am.”
“I see super humility isn’t a trait you’ve developed.”
“When you’ve got it, flaunt it.”
Aubrey laughed and took a bite of her stew-soaked bread. It was crusty and hard, even after dipping it.
“I don’t see you around very much,” she said.
“Secret mission.”
“It had better be a secret mission that I get to come on.” There was no joking in her voice now.
“It’s a secret mission that’s been canceled,” Jack said. “We got the official word today.”
Aubrey felt like a weight had been lifted off her chest. “Will you graduate with us tomorrow?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.” His voice was serious and he wouldn’t look her in the eyes. “We’re nine days short of the training you guys have had. We haven’t done field ops. We haven’t spent time on the gun range. There’re a lot of things we haven’t done.”
“That’s stupid,” Aubrey said. “They know that you and I work together well. We’re a perfect fit.”
“Yeah,” he said. “They’re talking about keeping Rich and Krezi together.”
“I don’t know Rich,” she said.
“Little guy. Fifteen. Black. You’d recognize him.”
“What does he do?”
“He understands machines.”
“I think I’ve heard of him.”
Jack took a bite of stew and made a face.
“Army food is the worst,” Aubrey said.
“All food is the worst. Do you know how much weight I’ve lost since I manifested? And I didn’t have much weight to lose.”
“You look good to me,” she said, though she could see his face looked thinner, his cheeks sunken slightly and his skin a little gray. Still, she did think he was handsome—especially in his uniform. Besides, everyone in training camp had lost weight. She knew she’d slimmed down, losing some of her baby fat and gaining muscle tone.
“You look good to me, too,” Jack replied.
She blushed. “So tell me the truth. Do y
ou know where we’re going after graduation tomorrow?”
He shook his head. “All I know is that virtually everyone here is headed north.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “The Russians have a three-pronged attack—they’re hitting Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver.”
Aubrey scrunched up her nose. “What do they want with the Northwest?”
“Ports,” Jack said. “And they’ve taken Alaska; they’re driving everyone out of there—like, all the citizens, everybody. Probably so there will be no one to fight back against them—no insurgents.”
“But why do they want ports?” She reached across the table to take his hand. “What will they be transporting?”
He looked a little uncomfortable at the contact. Socializing like that was against the rules, and this was a very public place. But Aubrey didn’t care. She didn’t know if they’d get shipped to the same place. She didn’t know when the next time would be that she could hold his hand.
“One of the generals thinks that they want the ports for oil—that they’re going to push all the way into Alberta and take the oil deposits there.”
“There’s oil in Alberta?”
“The second-biggest reserve in the world,” Jack said. “At least that’s what the general said. There’s another guy—a colonel—who thinks this is just another way to cripple us. He thinks they’ll take these port cities, head down the coast to take San Francisco, then move all the way south to San Diego. Cut us off from the Pacific entirely.”
She squeezed his hand. “Do you think they can do it?”
“That colonel thinks they can. The general is still sold on oil in Canada. But it’s not like either of those guys is making any of the decisions. Their job is to prep recruits to fight.”
“Get a room.” Aubrey let go of Jack’s hand as Tabitha sat down next to her.
“Jack,” Aubrey said, trying not to sound as annoyed as she was. “This is Tabitha. Tabitha, Jack.”
Tabitha spoke, a coy smile on her lips. “I assume this is why you sneak out at night?”
Aubrey didn’t answer.
“Doing some extra obstacle courses?” Jack asked, and he winked at Aubrey.
“Something like that,” Aubrey said.
“Is it true you can hear anything?” Tabitha asked Jack, taking a big bite of stew.
“I can hear a lot,” he said. “I can smell a lot, too, and this soup is making me a little sick. I think I’m going to find an apple or something. See you guys later.” He stood up and left, taking his tray with him.
Aubrey hated watching him go. It didn’t feel fair—he always had a connection to her; he could always listen to her, or see her, or smell her. But her only connection to him was talking to empty air, hoping he was listening.
“He’s cute,” Tabitha said.
“Yeah,” Aubrey answered. “Too bad he won’t get to graduate with us. And that means we probably won’t be assigned together—which is stupid, because we’re a great team.”
“You and I are a great team, too,” Tabitha said. “Think of everything we’ve done.”
Aubrey disagreed. They were a good team, she thought. Not great. Tabitha was a telepath: she could talk to you with her mind. They’d been training together in a few field ops—Aubrey moving invisibly and Tabitha hanging back to relay orders. It was a useful combination, but not as useful as Aubrey being able to communicate forward—that could only be done by talking to Jack, or by using radios. With Tabitha, Aubrey felt like she was always being ordered around. With Jack, Aubrey felt like she was in control, like she could make her own decisions.
“We’re fine,” Aubrey said, and took a bite of bread.
“But you’d rather have Jack,” Tabitha said. “I can understand that. If you want my opinion, neither one of us should be here—in the army, I mean.”
“Too late for that. We graduate tomorrow.”
“Don’t remind me. Remember, we didn’t sign up for this.”
Aubrey hated this argument. She’d heard it a hundred times—half the time she’d been the one making it. “We didn’t not sign up for it, either. I volunteered to fight the terrorists.”
“It was coercion,” Tabitha said. “We were minors, and we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into. And besides, I wasn’t fighting terrorists—my assignment had me fighting our own citizens.”
“The rebellion,” Aubrey said.
“Yeah.”
“And even after you saw what the rebels were doing, you still think being in the army is a worse alternative?”
Tabitha thought for a long minute, taking a bite of stew and chewing slowly. “Why does it have to be one or the other? Why can’t we just go back to normal life and not fight anybody?”
Aubrey laughed. “We have to fight because we’re being invaded. And it’s not like they’re coming in to free us from the shackles of an oppressive government. How many people have died since the first terror attacks? Two hundred and fifty thousand? And that number might get much higher. These are Russians, on our home soil.”
“They can’t attack civilians. It’s against the Geneva convention.”
“So you’re willing to live in a world where there is no America anymore, just as long as you don’t have to fight? What are you going to do when the Russians take control and find out about your powers?”
“I don’t know, okay?” Tabitha snapped. “I have no idea. I just want things to go back to normal. I have friends and I have a family, and I wish none of this had happened in the first place.”
Aubrey dabbed at her stew with a crust of bread. “I don’t think anyone wants war. But it’s here. And we can help. I told you what Jack and I did to help break up the terrorists’ plan. I really think we can make a difference.”
“I hope you’re right,” Tabitha said. “Because I’m starting to wonder who the bad guys are: the people who are invading or the people who are using teenagers as human shields.”
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 i
s 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.