Dead Zone Read Online Free

one.
    “We should join the rebellion,” Krezi said.
    “Don’t even joke about that,” Josi replied.
    “Who said I was joking?”
    Jack leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You’d better be joking. If the wrong person heard you talking about the rebellion, you’d be dealing with the military police pretty quick.”
    “They overran a base in South Dakota,” Rich said. “Someone said there were hundreds of them.”
    “And how many people died?” Josi asked sternly.
    “I didn’t hear that,” Rich said.
    “I did,” Jack said. Sometimes he wished he had Josi’s perfect memory. He’d recite the conversation word for word. “The rebels killed eighteen soldiers, plus three lambdas.”
    “The rebels are traitors.” Josi tugged idly at a tuft of grass. “They’re American teens—just like us—killing other Americans.”
    “I don’t know,” Krezi said, irritation in her voice. “It wasn’t a military base they attacked—it was one of those concentration camps they sent us to.”
    “They’re not concentration camps,” Jack said. “They’re quarantine centers for teenagers who have the virus. Do you really think that someone should have broken into Dugway and killed soldiers to get us out of there?”
    “Maybe,” Krezi said.
    “Of course not,” Josi said.
    “But they forced us to go to war,” Krezi protested.
    “Wrong again,” Josi said. “I remember you standing up and saying that you’d join the fight. I remember the Utah Jazz T-shirt you were wearing when you said it, and the skinny jeans with a hole in the knee. Thank you, photographic memory.”
    Krezi shook her head. “It was agree to join the army or get left in the camp forever.”
    “Not forever,” Jack said. “Just until all of the infected were found.”
    “Yeah, right,” Krezi snapped, and pointed her finger at the dry autumn grass in front of her. A moment later it burst into flame. Krezi watched it for a few seconds and then patted the fire out with her hand. “Do you really think they’d let me go home? Or would they send me to a lab somewhere to get tested?”
    “I think we’re all going to get tested before this is through,” Rich said. “The army just needs us right now.”
    “I hate to get all chest-thumping and patriotic,” Josi said, “but the US is being invaded. We can’t pretend like that isn’t happening. I’m glad I joined.”
    “Me too,” Rich said.
    “Ugh.” Krezi sighed. “I don’t hate America either. And yes, I think it was a bad thing that the rebels killed soldiers. I just wish none of this had happened in the first place.”

FOUR
    FROM A THOUSAND FEET UP, Zasha could see both shores of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which was the pathway to both Seattle and Vancouver, Canada, two of the biggest port cities on the Pacific. This would be the landing area for the invasion force, and Zasha was flying ahead of an enormous convoy of hastily repurposed cargo ships, each one loaded with tanks, equipment, and soldiers.
    The Russian fleet wasn’t what it used to be—it didn’t have the strength of the Soviet Union during the height of the arms race—but it wasn’t flat-footed or impotent either. And if anyone on the shore got ideas about defending the strait, Zasha and Fyodor would be there to render them useless.
    “How much can you see?” she asked Fyodor, who was dangling in his harness.
    “I can see you,” he said weakly. “I can see the sky.”
    “This is America,” she said. “And Canada’s over there. We’re finally here.”
    “What day is it?”
    She didn’t know. She’d spent too many days in the hold of a boat without the sun, and too many nights flying with Fyodor strapped to her, to keep track of the calendar.
    “It’s Invasion Day,” she said. “The day America crumbles before us.”
    Fyodor forced a pained laugh. “You’re always very grandiose.”
    “Don’t you feel it?” she asked, looking down at him. His face was so gaunt now; this