Ruthless

by Sarah Tarkoff

  Zack shook his head, squeezing my hand. “You’re crazy if you think I’d leave you behind.”

  “Cool, so we’re going in the good boats?” Macy asked, looking longingly at the motorboats.

  Dawn shook her head. “We’re harder to spot in something smaller. They won’t expect us to take the slowest one.” She’d already started using a cup to remove the extra water at the bottom of the boat. “Put on a life jacket and grab an oar, we need to move.”

  Macy delicately settled into her seat, glaring at Zack. “If I get eaten by piranhas, I’m blaming you.”

  “Better piranhas than a caiman,” I told her playfully.

  “Or a giant anaconda,” Dr. Marko added, teasing.

  “Stop naming scary animals!” she cried out, covering her eyes.

  Dr. Marko handed Macy a black plastic case, which he’d wrapped carefully in two life jackets. The device, for which we’d sacrificed so much, was our only hope of winning this war. “This little box is worth more than any of us are,” he warned Macy. “Your job is to keep it dry, and make sure it doesn’t fall out of the boat.” She clutched it, some of her fears seeming to subside as having a job calmed her, gave her purpose.

  But not for long—as we backed away from the dock, I heard a faint whistle from afar, which quickly blossomed into a full-on roar. “What’s that?” I asked. Before anyone could respond, the answer appeared in the form of a missile, flying overhead, then slamming into the dining hall we’d walked past moments earlier.

  Prophet Daniel had found us already. More rumbling sounds in the distance left our boat silent—more artillery approaching.

  “Let’s get moving,” Dawn said quietly, and we began rowing away with all our might.

  2

  I never would have thought that a few oars could propel a boat so quickly. By the time the next explosion rocked the shore, we were already around the bend of the river, watching the flames grow from afar.

  “They knew exactly where we were,” Macy gasped. “This can’t be the prophets, can it? I know they’re wrong, but I thought they were still sort of good, right?” The rest of us exchanged glances, as our arms strained with the effort of pushing against the water. Macy’s introduction to our world was going to be swift and devastating.

  Zack leaned over, taking the device from Macy and punching in a few numbers. “I’m getting that stuff out of her head right now.”

  “We don’t have time . . .” Dr. Marko protested.

  Zack shook his head forcefully. “What she’s about to see? I’m not letting her face it vulnerable.”

  Macy glared at her brother, annoyed. “Hi, I’m right here. Can you talk to me like I’m a person, please?”

  I knew Zack was right—we couldn’t risk Macy going into a guilt spiral in the midst of our escape. I leaned over and put a comforting hand on Macy’s arm. “Just take a deep breath from that tube. It’ll be okay.”

  “Okay,” she said reluctantly.

  “We need to get to the river,” Dawn said nervously, watching the missiles fly overhead. We continued to paddle away from the island as Macy breathed in, and the gas worked its way into her lungs. Her face began to change rapidly, as her body began to look more like the Macy I’d always known. Macy clung to the device, white-knuckled, as our boat whizzed through the water, toward the horizon.

  “Grace, will you . . .” Marko nodded to the cup at my feet, and I saw that our boat was taking on water quickly. I nodded back, siphoning the warm, brown liquid from beneath our seats as best I could.

  Up ahead, I could see one of the motorboats, stuffed to the brim with my Outcast followers, all earnestly looking back at us, worried about me. “If the prophets found our location at the camp, they must be tracking where we’re heading, right? All these boats, we’re hard to miss.”

  Dawn nodded, grim. “That’s why it’s good we took this smaller boat. We can break off from the rest of the group, go down smaller waterways, hide places they can’t.”

  “So we’re using them as decoys,” I said, not feeling great about this. In trying to protect my followers, maybe I’d put them in greater danger. But, though I felt guilty, my face didn’t change—and it never would again. I felt a strange, sickening kind of power: I could hurt the people who loved me most and suffer no Punishment of any kind. What kinds of torture might they be subjected to on my account? What evil might I be capable of, might any of us be capable of, unchecked?

  It looked like I was about to find out firsthand. As we turned the corner, emerging out onto the river, we saw a fleet of Brazilian navy ships, a dozen lightly powered crafts, lean and swift and populated by soldiers with guns. There was nowhere we could run, no way our little boat could outpower, outmaneuver, this military. We were trapped.

  3

  “Guns? They have guns?” Macy cried out, flummoxed, as the rest of us dove into crisis mode.

  “We need to find a place to hide,” Dawn said, urgency rising in her voice.

  “There’s no way we can outrun one of those ships,” Zack protested, but she ignored him, doggedly rowing onward.

  “That crevasse there. Our little boat is smaller than theirs, they won’t be able to follow us if we make it in time.”

  We all hesitantly rowed along with her, as Zack continued, “I don’t know if we can fit. If we get stuck, we’re screwed.”

  Across the river, I saw three navy vessels surrounding the boat of Outcasts. My heart filled with anguish as I watched soldiers raise their guns at my new friends. “We have to help them,” I said urgently.

  To my utter lack of surprise, Zack shook his head, darkly voicing the outlook of the rest of our boat. “There’s nothing we can do. We have to focus on saving ourselves.”

  From a distance, I heard a gunshot, and screams. Birds fluttered out of trees, startled by the sound, and I whipped my head around, trying desperately to see what was happening. “Row, Grace,” Dawn said, frustrated.

  Zack gave me a sympathetic look, which doubled as a reiteration of Dawn’s statement. Row. Indeed, the swift boat chasing us was closing in—we didn’t have much time to escape.

  But I didn’t row. I had a different idea. “Macy, hand me that thing in your lap.”

  As she did, Dr. Marko looked at me, confused. “What are you doing?”

  “Grace, we don’t have time for this,” Zack said tersely.

  I ignored him, looking at Marko. “What’s the code to make that gas you used on me earlier? The gas that made me get all blissed out?”

  Marko quickly understood what I was after, and he entered the code. Dawn watched us skeptically. “You want to weaponize his invention against the soldiers?”

  Zack shook his head, still against the idea, then shoved my oar in Macy’s hands. “Someone needs to row,” he said, annoyed, and she dutifully picked up my slack. Meanwhile, the device was humming—it seemed to be working. I unhooked the gas mask and pointed its nozzle directly toward the boat as it closed in on us.

  “They have guns. You’re not going to be able to get close enough,” Zack warned, and I could see he might be right. As the navy ship barreled down on us, fear shot through me—I didn’t know if I could direct the stream of gas effectively enough. We’d all had our nanotech removed and would no longer be susceptible to the gas’ effects . . . but would the gas be able to reach the soldiers from here?

  We were mere feet away from the edge of the flooded forest when a soldier on the boat spoke into a megaphone: “Stand down, and prepare to be boarded.”

  “They want to board this rickety thing, fine, we’ll all go in the ocean,” Marko muttered.

  “They’re going to shoot us,” Zack warned.

  Dawn remained focused. “Keep rowing, we’re almost there. If we make it deeper into the forest, we can get away.”

  Our situation was futile, I could see that clearly. The break in the trees was too small for even our tiny boat to wind its way through. We were cornered. On the navy craft, I heard a menacing shout. “Profeta!” Proph
et. Me. They’d found what they were looking for. And judging by their expressions, it seemed they thought the best place for Prophet Grace was at the bottom of the Amazon River.

  Desperate, I knew we only had one way out. I pressed a button to release the gas and hurled the device directly at the navy ship, sending it sailing across the river between us. “Grace, what are you doing?” Marko cried out, protective of the machine we’d sacrificed so much to acquire. It clattered onto the boat, scattering the soldiers, who expected a grenade. I tensed as a few fired, bullets spattering the water around us. When the device didn’t explode, they stopped and stared, not sure what to do with this strange contraption before them.

  One soldier leaned down to examine it, but a second pulled him back, shouting in Portuguese, “You idiot.” The second soldier pointed his gun at the device—but before he could pull the trigger, the invisible gas enveloped the boat. That finger on the trigger slowly went limp, as the soldier smiled.

  All of them smiled, safely in a haze like the one I’d experienced earlier. Surrounded by the comforting voices of those who loved them, urging them to be their best selves. Helping them process their darkest traumas. My plan was working.

  In our boat, everyone exchanged tentative glances. Dawn leaned toward the navy ship, calling out hesitantly, “Let us pass.”

  The soldiers looked at one another, not sure what to do. They remembered that their orders were to kill me, but in this state, they couldn’t imagine doing anything violent. Weren’t even sure what was real, what was hallucination.

  Finally, one soldier casually waved us aside. We took that as our cue and started rowing away as fast as we could.

  “The device . . .” Marko whispered anxiously. Dawn and Zack exchanged nervous looks then steered our boat toward the navy vessel. As we passed the dead-eyed soldiers, Dr. Marko hesitantly leaned out, pulling himself onto the edge of their craft. I tensed, terrified the soldiers would react, but they just seemed confused. Dr. Marko scrambled toward the device, snatching it, then quickly returned to our boat. As he sloppily sat back down, our boat nearly overturned with his unexpected weight. But we all breathed a sigh of relief as we rowed off, out of harm’s way.

  “Good work, Grace,” Marko said quietly, inspecting our precious cargo to confirm it was still in one piece, as we chartered away from our almost captors. I felt a pang of guilt watching the soldiers float there, confused and incapable of doing much more than stare into space. But we had bigger concerns than helping our enemies, and I knew they wouldn’t be disarmed by a state of bliss forever.

  “We need to get as far from here as possible,” Dawn said, and Zack nodded in agreement.

  I shook my head, taking the oar from Macy and using it to fight the strokes of the rest of my party. “We need to save our friends first.” I pointed to the motorboats, full of the innocent people I’d convinced to follow me. More enemy ships were converging on them—they had no escape. But I wasn’t going anywhere until we made sure they were free.

  4

  “Hey, I was using that,” Macy said, grasping at the empty air her oar once occupied, as the others stared at me, incredulous.

  “We barely escaped one boat. You want us to head straight toward two more?” Zack asked with a hint of anger in his voice.

  I wasn’t going to be deterred. “But we did escape. We figured out how. We use the device again, on the rest of the soldiers, and we save everyone else.”

  The others shared hesitant looks. “And then what?” Dawn asked. “The prophets know our location. They’ll send more forces.”

  “And now we know how to fight them. We can’t keep hiding forever. Eventually we have to fight back.”

  “You’re telling me we need to fight?” Dawn asked, an unexpected fury rising in her voice, and the others went silent. “You’ve been in this thing for a few minutes, you’ve gotten lucky over and over again, and you think that qualifies you to tell me when we should fight?”

  “I didn’t ‘get lucky,’ I was smart,” I shot back, then caught myself, remembering all the huge mistakes I’d made leading up to South Africa.

  “Smart enough to get yourself out of the messes you made for yourself. My wife might be dead, because you didn’t take precautions, because you outed our most protected stronghold.” Her voice was quaking now, and the force of it hit me like a freighter. I realized now just how much anger Dawn had been hiding. She secretly blamed me for what might have happened to Irene.

  I wanted to apologize, knew I should apologize, but I was too angry. I spat back, “You’re the one who made me go into that hospital, where I got infected with that stupid voice in my head. Blame me all you want, I deserve it. But you know you’re to blame, too, for not figuring out sooner what was going on with your own subordinate. For nearly getting me killed in the first place.”

  My words clearly stung her more than I’d intended them to, and she went quiet. I felt bad—I knew there was nothing crueler I could have said than accusing Dawn of putting her wife in danger. Cruel because it cut straight to her worst fears, to her own guilt. The silence in our boat was punctured by the sound of gunshots from across the river. We looked over and saw our friends’ boat was emptying out, that my Outcast followers were going willingly onto the navy ships. We were running out of time to save them.

  Dr. Marko hesitantly spoke up, trying to keep the peace. “It’s not a good strategy to let them take prisoners. They might give up dangerous information.”

  Everyone looked to Dawn. This boat wasn’t going anywhere unless she said yes. With a sharp look at me, eventually she nodded. “We should preserve our operational secrecy. But that’s it. We take no more risks than we need to.”

  I nodded, trying to put her at ease. “Understood.”

  My stomach tied itself in knots. We’d barely escaped capture and death just moments earlier. And we were heading right back into the prophets’ clutches.

  5

  We rowed toward the navy ships in silence, our anxiety pulsing in time to the sloshing of the oars. Up ahead, we could see that our friends’ two motorboats were encircled by an intimidating fleet of five navy vessels. Soldiers were pulling Outcasts off their boats, roughly taking them into navy custody. The motorboats were nearing empty—we didn’t have much time.

  As our rickety boat glided up, a few soldiers turned, confused—why the hell was this little rowboat moving toward them? They raised their guns, expecting an attack, and I realized we weren’t going to have the element of surprise this time. I quickly lifted my hands in surrender, as the others around me followed suit.

  I caught the eye of one soldier who seemed to be a lieutenant of some kind, with many gold stars across his broad chest. I directed my statements to him, as calmly and nonthreateningly as possible. “I’m Prophet Grace,” I called out in Portuguese, and my voice echoed through the night as everyone went still. “If you let everyone else go, I’ll come with you peacefully. I don’t want anyone to get hurt in my name.”

  My followers looked to me gratefully, but I kept my eyes fixed on the soldiers. The lieutenant regarded me skeptically. “We will take you and all the others in your boat. Let these ones go.” He gestured idly to the Outcasts.

  “Good. The rest of us will come willingly,” I promised.

  “He’s not going to cut you a deal,” Zack whispered, a warning. “He’ll go back on his promise and take the Outcasts anyway.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I whispered back. “I just need to get this device on that boat.” I gestured subtly to my waist, where I’d tied the device, hidden beneath my life preserver, ready to deploy.

  “How long will the gas take to disperse?” Zack asked.

  Dr. Marko did a few calculations in his head. “A minute? Then we have another ten before its effects start wearing off.”

  “What happens if the gas wears off before we can save everyone?” I asked, nervous.

  Dr. Marko shrugged in his usual deadpan way. “Then they’ll probably kill us.”

&
nbsp; “This was your plan,” Zack reminded me. “Don’t second-guess it now.”

  Our boat slowly floated along with the current, landing in the middle of the opposing fleet.

  “We still believe in you, Grace,” Julianna called out from one of the motorboats as a soldier helped me into the largest navy command vessel.

  I was close enough to see the name badge on the many-starred lieutenant—Lopez. He stared me in the eye, barely believing his luck, and sarcastically sneered, “Welcome, Prophet Grace.”

  This was it. I stared him in the eye, as with my elbow, I nudged the switch on the device, knowing it wouldn’t affect me or my friends, now that we no longer had any nanotech floating around our brains. “Thank you. Great Spirit thanks you for your hospitality.”

  The soldiers right next to me were the first to feel the effects. Their eyes went droopy, their bodies lax, as silly smiles covered their faces, none sillier than the smile of the once stern Lieutenant Lopez. Just like the soldiers on the first ship, the gas left them nearly immobilized, like happy, confused statues.

  My followers on the boat next to me, unaware of what was happening, also breathed in the gas and were soon giddy. “Prophet Grace is fixing everything,” I heard one say happily. In their blissful hallucinations, it seemed I was reassuring them.

  I addressed the soldiers on the boat with a regal flair. “You’re going to let us leave.” I glanced at the lieutenant, hoping to see if my words had been effective. His eyes were glazed over, like his brain had been frozen . . . ready to unthaw at any moment. The gas was working. Now we just needed to get our friends off this ship, and to a safe distance for when these soldiers regained their wits.

  I watched our enemies nervously for any signs of antagonism, but they just stared at us impassively. I tried to imagine what they’d be trained to do under normal circumstances. Did they know the truth, the whole truth? Or like Zack and his colleagues at the CIA, were they trusted with only the bare minimum of secrets? He’d known about the existence of pills that could change your appearance, but nothing else. Maybe these soldiers were the same way? If that was the case, they’d be endlessly loyal, devoted to the prophet they’d sworn to serve—willing to kill me if they were told it was what Great Spirit wanted. Either way, we needed to make sure we were very far away when they realized what was happening.