Testing Zero: a dystopian post-apocalyptic young adult novella series (Remnants of Zone Four Chronicles Book 1) by N. G. Simsion, James Roth Read Free Book Online

bus to come here and I cried the whole rest of the drive. The memory of looking out the window and seeing that little elephant in someone else’s hands as the bus pulled away is still burned in my brain.” Zero chuckled at the thought. “I remember a few other little things, but that’s the main thing I remember.”
    “How come you’ve never told me that before?” Lefty’s jaw was wide open now. “You remember life outside the schoolyard.”
    “It’s not like I remember life outside the schoolyard. I just remember a few bits here and there. Little memories. Nothing big or important.”
    Lefty turned his back to the window and looked across the room at all the small children. “Someday I’m going to see the place where all the little kids come from—even if I have to jump the city wall and trudge through the jungle to find it.”
    “Sure you will,” Professor Bird laughed. “You’ll get killed or eaten by something long before you get there.”
    “Oh, I’ll do it. I will.” Lefty snatched the nearest little boy running past him and held him up to look at him before lowering him again to the floor and allowing him to continue on his way. “How am I supposed to ever really feel like I know who I am if I don’t know where I come from? I want to hold a baby person in my arms—to look into his eyes. I bet they’re even cooler than holding a baby crocodile.”

Chapter 6
    Zero awoke just as the sun was coming up and noticed Lefty already sitting up in his bed. That was highly unusual for him. But today was the big day. This was the last time they would ever wake up in this dorm room—at this school. Today was the day he was going to prove to the Elite and city officials that they should be counted among the best of society.
    Lefty jumped out of bed and began shadow boxing in the small amount of light sneaking through his curtains.
    “What’s going on?” Zero raised himself up on one elbow and rubbed his eyes with his free hand. “I know you’re excited about today, but breakfast isn’t even available for another hour.”
    “I can’t help it. I’m too pumped up to sleep.” He threw three quick jabs at the invisible opponent in front of him, watching his shadow on the wall as he did. “Today’s my day! Today is the day I prove to the Elite that I’m one of them.”
    Zero sat up and stretched. He looked around at their dorm room. “Do you think the next place we live will be as comfortable as this?”
    “I hope so.”
    “If we don’t get sent to the same—” Zero stopped talking halfway through his sentence. He was about to say he hoped to have his own dorm room—that he didn’t want to have to share a space with a roommate unless they were sent to the same city.
    They had been sharing a dorm room since they had been six. When they first arrived, they were assigned different roommates, but that didn’t last very long—especially not for Lefty. Lefty had been reassigned five different times before becoming roommates with Zero, and always for the same reason—he couldn’t stop fighting with the other kids. Back in those younger years, when tenacity and scrappiness were more important than size, he actually won a fight once in a while.
    “I bet the new rooms will be a lot like this one no matter where they send us,” Zero said.
    Lefty turned on the light and scanned their room. It was simple, but that was all they had ever known. The floors were a speckle-patterned linoleum. The two beds were about three feet apart with a nightstand and a lamp between them against the wall. Other than the two beds and nightstand, the only other bit of furniture was a small bookshelf that held their textbooks from previous years.
    The walls used to be white, but it was typical for the students to customize their walls with colorful markers. Now, after so many years of drawing crocodiles and jaguars, there was barely any room to squeeze in another bit of art.
    Zero stood up from his bed, and walked across