Fearless

by Sarah Tarkoff

  I asked around until I found the right door to knock on, and Aviva answered. It took her a moment to recognize me. “You’re from one of my classes, right?” she asked, clearly puzzled by my out-of-the-blue appearance on her doorstep.

  “That’s right,” I said, feeling very silly.

  “Why are you here?”

  I took a breath—here goes nothing—and whipped out my little green card. “I think we have something in common.”

  Her eyebrows furrowed as she took it. “What’s this?”

  My gamble hadn’t worked. Maybe whichever prophet she worked for didn’t use the same identification system as Joshua? “I’m working with the prophet,” I told her. “Like you are, right?” I hoped I hadn’t completely misjudged her. Panic sprinted through me. What if Irene had merely misplaced her files? What if I’d outed myself to this random girl for no reason?

  But then a smile came over her face. “Oh! No one told me I would find another friend of Great Spirit here. Come in.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief as she let me in. “Thanks.”

  I desperately scanned her undecorated apartment for the folder, but I didn’t see it anywhere. I wondered if she was even really a student or, given the state of this place, just posing as one temporarily.

  “Sorry, I’m still moving in. Can I get you anything to drink?”

  “No, thanks,” I said. I definitely didn’t trust her enough to eat or drink anything she had to offer.

  “You’re here for Professor Hernandez, too?” she guessed.

  “Yeah. I thought maybe we could compare notes, work together. Two heads are better than one, right?” I was playing my best sorority girl, smiling brightly, trying to channel the women I’d seen lining the walls.

  Aviva seemed intrigued. “What have you found out so far?”

  That Irene’s married to the leader of an organization that’s actively opposing the prophets. That she’s onto you and currently plotting her escape out of town. “Well, that class sure was something,” I said. “And you asked great follow-up questions in her office.”

  “Thank you.” She preened a little. “Apparently all her classes are like that. From what I hear, she’s been getting more and more off book every year. Really radical stuff.” So Irene hadn’t always asked her students to think deeply and critically about the world around them—the kind of teaching that scared the prophets. Knowing the truth from Dawn had likely affected Irene’s lectures, whether she’d realized it or not.

  My persistent scanning of the room finally turned up a bright purple folder sitting under a newspaper in the corner. But before I could make a move for it, a knock sounded at the door.

  Aviva looked at me. “Did you come with anyone?”

  I shook my head no, but the moment she opened the door, I realized it had been a lie.

  Zack was standing in the doorway.

  6

  I had to hold my hand to my mouth to keep from audibly gasping. But Zack ignored me completely, focused entirely on Aviva. “Hey! I’m Zack.”

  He stuck out his hand, and Aviva shook it with a polite smile. “Aviva.”

  It was then I noticed the NYU T-shirt Zack was wearing. This diversion was planned. “I’m new in the building. I wanted to invite you girls to a party we’re having tonight.”

  “Are you a freshman?” Aviva asked skeptically.

  “Senior. It’s not gonna be a big thing, just chilling with my buddies from ADPi. If you’re interested.”

  Based on her reaction, Zack had done his research, and girls from ZTB liked boys from ADPi. Why he’d done that research, I had no idea, but as long as he was here, he was distracting Aviva, which was exactly what I needed.

  I drifted to the other end of the room as quietly and casually as I could, watching Aviva carefully. But her gaze was fixed completely on Zack, as he ran his fingers through his tousled hair. “What time are you guys starting?” she asked.

  “About ten? We should be going pretty late.” Zack winked at Aviva in a way that, if I were capable of being jealous over him, would have made me tear my hair out. With all our history, and all the secrets I knew about him, I sometimes forgot just how desirable Zack appeared to the outside female world.

  Aviva played coy. “Maybe I can stop by at some point? I already RSVP’d to a couple other things.”

  “No pressure. Just trying to be neighborly.” Zack grinned. I tore my eyes away from their flirting to grab the folder, silently shoving it in my bag. My heart was racing, but it didn’t need to—Zack and Aviva were ignoring me completely.

  I knew that the risk of Aviva discovering my crime increased the longer I stayed in her room, so I made a beeline for the exit. “Hey, I gotta go,” I interjected.

  Her eyes flicked to me in surprise; she’d forgotten I was even there. “Oh, yeah. See you later,” she said, clearly glad I was leaving her alone to flirt with Zack.

  As I slipped out, I expected Zack to follow me, but he stayed at the door, consumed by Aviva.

  “Can I text you, to find out if the party’s still going?” Aviva was asking.

  “Sure,” I heard Zack say. “Let me give you my number.” At that, I felt another dumb pang of jealousy I had to push down. He is your enemy, I reminded myself. No matter how dazzling his smile is.

  I was already downstairs, hurrying away from the building, when the owner of said dazzling smile called after me, “You okay?”

  I turned around. It had always felt like the smart choice to ignore the way Zack coincidentally appeared wherever I happened to be. Any prolonged discussion of why he was following me would no doubt end poorly. But him showing up in a stranger’s dorm room, pretending to be someone else, without even acknowledging he knew me . . . I would be blowing my cover if I didn’t point out just how weird it was. “I’m fine. What was that all about? What are you doing here?”

  “You know what I’m doing here,” he said evenly.

  “I know? What am I supposed to know?” I asked, trying to force him to be the one to come clean.

  And he did. “The prophet. He asked me to follow you.”

  I hadn’t expected him to be quite so honest, so it wasn’t hard to feign surprise. “Follow me?”

  “Because you’re new.”

  “Did I do something wrong?” I asked carefully.

  “I don’t think so. But he’s still vetting you.”

  My anxiety surged. “What do you mean?”

  “He does it with everybody, I think. You know, all the new recruits.”

  He still wasn’t saying it out loud. “So you know . . .”

  Zack only hesitated a moment before admitting, “That all the ‘errands’ you’ve been running have been for Prophet Joshua? Yeah, I know.”

  I took a deep breath. As long as he didn’t know I was working with Dawn, maybe talking more openly about our arrangement would make everything simpler. I stayed as nonchalant as I possibly could. “I thought it was weird that you kept popping up, but that explains it. I kinda suspected, I guess.”

  Zack laughed. “Did you have any other working theories?”

  “Not really. Macy thought you had a crush on me.” I chuckled, making sure he knew I was joking.

  He grinned at that. “Yeah, that must’ve been weird, if you didn’t know. You really didn’t know?” He was acting concerned now, as though he actually cared what I was thinking or feeling.

  I answered truthfully, drawing on my own frustration and general mistrust. “Samuel never told me. Why did you wait this long to mention it?”

  “They told me not to,” he said with a shrug.

  “Who is ‘they’?” I asked.

  “His people, my bosses,” Zack said vaguely, giving me no new information. “Please don’t tell anyone I said anything, okay?”

  He seemed nervous, and I nodded, trying to reassure him. “I won’t, of course. But why are you telling me now?”

  “The way you act around me,” he said. “Lately you’ve seemed edgy or something.” Like I said
, I was never born to be a double agent.

  “Maybe I was edgy around everyone?” I suggested. “Since I was keeping secrets all the time. I’m not very good at that—I guess that’s clear by now.”

  “Pretty clear.” He always enjoyed finding an excuse to tease me about something.

  Remembering my initial mistake with Professor Hernandez, I realized this, too, could be a ploy: maybe Joshua had told him to confide in me like this, to gain my trust. If that was true, I knew better than to fall for it. And I saw an opportunity to use this ploy to my advantage. “What do you tell Joshua about me?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  “That you’re perfectly pious,” he said. I flushed a little at his use of the word “pious,” knowing what it meant to him.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled as we began ambling down the street. I’m not sure either of us had a particular destination in mind, but there was a strange comfort in being with him, now that at least some of the truth was out in the open.

  At least until he said, “What was in that file?”

  “Hmm?” I kept my mouth shut, waiting for him to force an answer out of me.

  “In that girl’s apartment. I saw you grab something. What was it?” he repeated patiently.

  “Am I allowed to tell you? Isn’t that confidential?” I asked, hoping to protect Dr. Hernandez as long as I could.

  He smiled, amused again. “Keep your secrets if you want. Since you’re so good at it.”

  I smiled back, playing along. “Hey, I could be good at keeping secrets. Maybe I’m fooling you right now.” The minute I said it, I kicked myself—if the thought hadn’t occurred to him before, it certainly would now.

  “Sure you are,” he said, destroying me with a wink. “Hey, are you hungry?” He pointed to a deli, and I nodded, relieved for the change in conversation topic.

  “Starving.” My stomach grumbled, not just with hunger, but with excitement—for once, I realized with dismay, I was actually looking forward to my interrogation.

  7

  It was funny how much it felt like any dinner with an old friend. Now that things were out in the open, I was reminded of all the reasons I’d always liked Zack—he was engaging, and made the ordinary seem fun. As we settled at a table with a couple of corned beef sandwiches, he took note of all the NYU students. “I definitely did not expect to be back at college so soon,” Zack said, stifling a laugh.

  “Didn’t you like college?” I asked. Zack seemed like the kind of smart, extroverted person who would have thrived on campus.

  “I liked it fine. But I wanted to get out into the world. Do something meaningful with my life.”

  His words gave me pause. They seemed genuine enough; it wasn’t the kind of sentiment I thought he’d bother to make up. And it even made a certain kind of sense—people with a feeling of social responsibility would be more likely to work for powerful, charismatic leaders who promised to do good things for the world. Zack probably didn’t know who Joshua really was, at least not when he signed up. It’s easy to enlist for the army—it’s a stroke of luck whether you end up on the “right” side. As I thought this, I wondered if I was lucky enough to be fighting for the good guys. Or if there was any such thing as the “good guys” in this particular war.

  “Do you feel like you did it?” I asked. “Something meaningful with your life?”

  Zack thought long and hard about that. “That’s a lot of pressure. I’ve still got some time to get around to the meaningful stuff, right?”

  “I don’t know, you seem pretty old to me,” I joked back.

  When the food came, Zack made a big show of protecting his plate, declaring I was a food stealer, before doing what he usually did and depositing half his fries on my plate. As we ate, Zack grew contemplative. At one point he asked, “Do you think you’d believe in Great Spirit if you didn’t have the proof?”

  The question immediately set me on edge again. In any case, I certainly knew my answer: “Yeah,” I said, “I would.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if I didn’t have proof Great Spirit existed, I’d have to prove Great Spirit didn’t exist. And proving that seems even harder.”

  “But why?” Zack pressed. “Wouldn’t you just assume that Great Spirit was something we made up? If you can’t prove something’s there, doesn’t that mean it probably isn’t?”

  One look at his face and I realized—this wasn’t a test or a trick. Zack had a suspicion that this hypothetical world he was describing was the real one. He’d used the “magic” pills, so he knew that Punishments weren’t the work of Great Spirit, but of chemicals. And he knew I’d used those pills, too, and therefore was aware that our world wasn’t entirely what it seemed. He must’ve felt as isolated as I did, keeping his own secrets. That might even be his reason for confessing he was following me, despite all the risks that entailed—he just needed to talk to someone else who understood.

  I felt a pang of real sympathy for him, and I tried to offer an answer I thought might make him feel better: “We had to prove electricity existed,” I pointed out. “And atoms, and evolution, and all kinds of other things we now accept as fact. Maybe even if we had no evidence of Great Spirit causing Punishments, we’d find Great Spirit somewhere else.”

  Zack nodded. “Or maybe there is no such thing as proof,” he mused. Though his words might have felt run-of-the-mill before the Revelations, in that climate they felt explosive, inflammatory. “I just wonder, you know, if there were no Great Spirit . . . and I don’t know, even if there is . . . Sure we know there’s some higher power, but that just kicks the can down the road. Where did Great Spirit come from? Where did the universe come from? And why does any of it exist at all? Everyone thinks we have it all answered now, but we don’t really. We’re no closer than we were before.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said slowly. I hadn’t anticipated that Zack, of all people, would be knee-deep in a crisis of faith. But I’d been thinking about all this recently, too. When your entire worldview is ripped to pieces, you have to try and find your own answers to stitch it back together. But at that moment, I still hadn’t found any. I still believed in the Great Spirit, but I wasn’t sure what that even meant anymore. Working with the resistance had given my individual actions a sense of purpose—but it hadn’t given any meaning to the larger whole. Once this battle was over, would Great Spirit send me down some new path? Or would I have to invent some imaginary purpose and convince myself that it had cosmic significance?

  “What if the Punishments just stopped one day?” Zack continued. “Do you think people would go back to being, you know, evil? Do you think they’d stop believing?”

  “Believing, no. I think people would still believe—I think people need to believe—in something. But the bad parts of humanity . . .” I thought of Dawn, I thought of Joshua. The things I’d seen them do, unconstrained by Punishments. “I think evil would come back.” It scared me to consider: that was the world I was fighting for, the world I was willing to die to bring back. To give mankind back its freedom, I had to give every human on Earth the power to kill each other again.

  “Well then, it’s good Great Spirit’s got our backs,” Zack said, breaking me out of my reverie.

  “Yeah, good thing,” I said, watching him closely. I wished I could get inside his head, know what he was thinking at that moment. Zack’s affability was the perfect mask—I could never quite see what was beneath it.

  And maybe I never would. Zack’s whole job was to hide his true feelings, and he was good at it. I was relieved when he headed to the bathroom, giving me a moment to gather my thoughts.

  It was then I noticed a woman in a wheelchair staring directly at me. Unnerved, I looked away, but a moment later she rolled up to me. “Did you get the lectures?” she asked, without preamble.

  I should have been expecting a message from Dawn. I nodded, tentatively.

  The woman dropped a piece of paper into my hands and wheeled herself outside without another word.
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  The note didn’t say much—just a street corner, Sixth and Waverly, and a time, 10 p.m.

  I crumpled up the message and shoved it in my pocket as Zack returned to our table, no sign he’d witnessed anything unusual. “Ready to go?”

  I’d let myself forget for a moment that I had a job to do, an enemy to fight. I steeled myself against Zack’s charms. “I’m ready.”

  8

  As we stepped outside, Zack glanced around, taking in the possibilities. “So? What should we do now?”

  “Hmm?” I said, surprised. Usually he asked his probing questions and then left me alone. But tonight, he strolled along next to me, with no seeming ulterior motive. As though we really were friends.

  “Come on, the night’s young. You haven’t really explored much New York City nightlife yet.” It was true; I was as reluctant to lie to strangers in dance halls as I was to lie to the girls in my dorm. Fear had turned me into a homebody.

  “Don’t you have a party to host?” I reminded him. “Your ‘frat brothers’ at ADPi will be superbummed if you stand them up.”

  Zack laughed. “Don’t worry, I already handled it.”

  He showed me his phone, a text to Aviva, which I read out loud in a mocking, flirty voice. “Bad news, party’s off. Maybe we can grab coffee Friday night instead?” I tossed the phone back to him. “Subtle.”

  “I gotta check out the people you’re hanging out with. Make sure they’re on the up-and-up, make sure you aren’t getting into any trouble.”

  He nudged me in the arm, a joke. Coupled with the way he was hitting on Aviva, I was starting to find his platonic playfulness annoying, in spite of myself. “I promise you, I’m nice and boring.”