Dead Zone by Robison Wells Page B

the helicopter ride, though it took all her willpower. She hated everything about it—the pounding of the rotors, the sharp banks, the sudden drops. It didn’t help that the pilot said this was one of the smoother helicopters to ride in—that just made her feel worse.
    Her eyesight grew blurry and she got all the same feelings as when she strained against invisibility—the fatigue, the clumsiness, the body aches. She clutched Jack’s arm through the whole flight, and she didn’t care who saw.
    If there was one person onboard who looked worse than Aubrey felt, it was Josi. She spent most of her time huddled forward, head in her hands. Aubrey still didn’t know how Josi’s powers worked, but if she had such a complete, all-encompassing memory, did that mean that she wasn’t able to block out any of the sensations?
    Rich seemed thrilled by the whole thing, completely at ease, like he’d flown in helicopters his whole life. Krezi also seemed relatively unperturbed.
    For her part, Tabitha wasn’t as annoying as usual. She was probably feeling airsick, too, and it cut her snark down. Or maybe she was using her telepathy to talk to someone else.
    It was dark by the time the helicopter landed. The pilot said something that Aubrey couldn’t hear as the door slid open and they all hurried out, hauling their heavy gear with them. Aubrey was wobbly on her feet, and Josi finally did throw up, just outside the door. Aubrey let go of Jack and put her hand on Josi’s side while Jack grabbed Josi’s ruck and hauled it with him toward the officer waiting at the edge of the helipad. Josi spit and coughed, and then moved along with Aubrey.
    “I’m okay,” she mouthed.
    “I’m impressed you waited until we landed.” Aubrey had to shout to be heard over the rotor blades. Already the door was being closed, and the Black Hawk was taking to the air.
    “I’m still vibrating,” Josi said with a weak laugh.
    The officer at the edge of the pad was a Green Beret. Aubrey had worked with the Green Berets before and she had learned to respect them. What they did was hard, and they got assigned tough jobs—like working with lambdas—because they were trained for it. These were guys who trained the Afghanis to fight; supposedly they could train fifteen-year-old lambdas, too.
    “Parsons and Cooper,” the man said, reading Aubrey and Jack’s Velcro name badges as they approached. He had a hard, boxy face and a slight New England accent. There was no disdain in his eyes the way there had been with her previous Green Beret captain. This soldier seemed to be taking in the whole scene, assessing the situation like it was a puzzle to be solved.
    “Let’s get out of the cold,” he said, and took Josi’s ruck from Jack. He flung it over his shoulder like it was a child’s kindergarten backpack, and led the way toward a collection of darkened tents five hundred yards to the—was it the south? Aubrey felt turned around.
    “What direction are we headed?” she asked Josi, not because she really needed to know, but because she thought it might help Josi to get her mind off the helicopter ride. If her mind was ever really off something.
    Josi stretched out an arm. “That’s north,” she said weakly. She seemed to be embarrassed she wasn’t carrying her own rucksack. “So we’re going southeast. Ish.”
    “The map in your head doesn’t happen to know where we are, does it?” Aubrey asked, a smile in her voice.
    “I couldn’t see how fast the helicopter was going,” Josi said, her voice finding a little strength. “But my best guess is we’re somewhere west of Yakima.”
    “How close is that to Seattle?” Aubrey asked.
    “About a hundred and fifty miles. It’s mostly mountains between here and there. You ever seen the Cascades? A couple of giant volcanoes with smaller mountains all around them. Fun.”
    The captain was holding open the door to one of the tents, and the six of them hurried inside. Rich looked like he was