Ordinaries: Shifters Book II (Shifters series 2) by Douglas Pershing, Angelia Pershing Read Free Book Online

“Don’t worry about Clay. He’ll come around.” He starts to direct us around the bunker and says, “These guys have been so anxious to see you.”
    We walk around the corner and see two familiar redheaded boys.
    The J’s!
    They jump up and shake our hands with a huge smile spreading across both of their faces.
    “We’ve been . . .”
    “Getting the apps and hardware ready . . .”
    “For the trip . . .”
    “To Six . . .” they say, finishing each other’s sentences.
    “Are your parents here?” Ryland says as she looks around the room. I’m pretty sure she isn’t going to give them a welcome hug or anything.
    “Mom told us no . . .”
    “And Dad wanted to come, but . . .”
    “We left without him . . .”
    “When Marcus picked us up,” they tell us.
    I ask, “What apps and hardware?”
    They both smile and one of them—Jaydin, I think—grabs a box and lifts it onto the table. He pulls the flap and inside there are piles of iPods, iPhones, and iPads.
    Jaylon—I think it’s Jaylon— says, “You’re going to need to distinguish between Shifters and the others. By the way, we don’t call them Ordinaries around Clay. ‘Some’ people take offense to it,” he says doing air quotes.
    “No kidding,” Kai mutters.
    “I don’t get it,” I say. “What good will those be? I mean, I seriously doubt they have cell service there.”
    Kyle speaks up, “You don’t need it.”
    Both J’s smile.
    Kyle continues, “We just really need the app running and some kind of network to communicate. Can you tap into their network and piggyback?”
    “Wait,” Ryland says. “You can’t just use their network thingies? I’m not an expert—”
    “I’ll say,” as I roll my eyes.
    She gives me a look and continues, “What I mean is . . . aren’t there like different languages or something?”
    That is actually a good question. Sometimes my sister can be really smart. I mean . . . when she’s not swooning over the newest Teen Vogue wannabe.
    “Our dad taught us,” one of the J’s says. I’m starting to question if I had their names straight.
    “Yeah,” the other J says. “Before,” he pauses, “all of this. He was working with the chief engineers for the universal network. He may not have programmed it, but his aptitude did allow him to understand it.”
    “So you know how to do it?” I ask. “To use it?”
    “It would have been easier if Devon were here,” one of them says, as both of their faces drop.
    “She was always the one who wrote the code,” the other one says.
    I realize that they miss her too. Her parents didn’t care, but her brothers do. I tell them, “We’ll get her back.”
    “Yeah, we will,” they say together. “We’re going with you.”
    –RYLAND–
    When the conversation turns technical, I begin to survey the makeshift camp in Marcus and Alena’s backyard through the broken glass windows of the burned-out fake office building where they’ve set up tech headquarters. There are a number of faces here that I recognize. Some girls who are obsessed with Tanner, some Keeper kids from Washington, and the various friends we’ve met along the way. I grin when I see Jon and Rick and their mother, who appear to be cooking enough food for our entire child army.
    I watch awestruck, as some of the Keeper kids seem to strike at empty air, breaking Shifters of their supposed invisibility, and knocking them to the ground. The most impressive of all is a boy whose face brings a tear to my eye. It’s Kensi’s brother, his voice screams in my memory, crying out for the death of his brave young twin.
    “Ryland,” Kai says sharply, and my head whips back around to the mock conference happening in the tech heaven.
    “Yeah?” I say, sounding like a complete idiot.
    “Are you ready?” as Kai looks both half annoyed and half amused at my confusion.
    “Ready to what?” I say slowly.
    “Go get some pilots…?” Kyle finishes, staring at me as though I have begun to speak