The trip is smooth. Blue sky, calm water, barely a wave in sight. Spirits are high. By evening, they’ll refuel on a small Caribbean island. But in the afternoon— Aya “woke up”. Or rather her body did. She is still completely zombified and looks like she is sleepwalking. She has absolutely no idea where she is and just drags her body somewhere… She goes past Katya and Anya mumbling. “Why are the windows closed… I need fresh air…”

  The girls don't pay attention to her zombie condition at first. Aya waking up disoriented was hardly unusual. After they hear her climbing the ladder up to the deck, it hits them and they quickly get Mils and Trella and they rush after Aya. She just got topside.

  “Aya!” Trella and Milena shouted in unison.

  Aya inhaled deeply, a faint smile forming on her lips. “Ah… nice fresh air. This is nice…”

  Trella and Milena stared at her, then at each other. “She’s still out,” Trella muttered.

  Aya wandered toward the railing, blinking slowly. “And the beautiful sea… sea… Huh?”

  That realization suddenly woke her up. Her eyes flew open, with the realization that she is in the middle of her worst nightmare, she lets out a banshee scream every radar or sonar in 200 miles radius probably picked up.

  Later, when everyone else is working, Aya’s curled in a corner, wrapped in a blanket like a burrito, refusing to move.

  Katya knelt beside her and held out a bottle. “Drink some water. You’ll feel better.”.

  Aya recoiled. “I’ll drown if I open my mouth!”

  Trella sighed. “That’s not how drinking works.”

  Aya hears a watery sound and stiffened. “I hear water! It’s sucking me in!”

  Anya just came out of the toilet. “Yes. That′s called flushing…”

  In the evening the boats pull up to a small Caribbean island for their scheduled stop. Palm trees, a small dock, maybe a shack with barrels of fuel. Everyone’s stretching their legs, grabbing supplies. On the other hand Aya - suddenly energized, took her backpack and ran out. “Land! Land, glorious land! Thank you, merciful gods of dry ground — I’m free!”

  She tries to bolt for the dock, stumbling like a drunk flamingo. Trella & Katya grab her arms, struggling to hold her back. “Aya, calm down!”

  “No!” Aya struggled. “I’m done! I resign from—whatever this insane voyage is! Put me on the first donkey cart out of here!”

  Katya blinked. “It’s an island. There are no donkey carts.”

  That was when Yael entered the scene.. Arms crossed, watching with that Mossad ice stare. “…Aya.”

  Aya freezes like a deer in headlights, still halfway wrestling with Katya.

  “You. Are. Not. Leaving.” Yael said evenly.

  “You can’t keep me prisoner!” Aya cried. “Geneva convention!”

  Yael didn’t blink. “Geneva is very far away. I am very close.”

  SMACK — a clean, tactical slap upside the head. Not hard enough to hurt, just enough to snap Aya back into line.

  Aya stared at her, one hand pressed to the back of her head. “…Did you just Mossad-slap me?!”

  “Yes. And I′ll do it again. Now sit!”

  Aya slumps back onto the deck like a grounded child. Everyone else is biting their lips not to laugh.

  “I’m telling you,” Aya muttered darkly, “one day you’ll thank me for screaming…”

  Trella grinned. “We already do. It’s the only entertainment we’ve got on this boat.”

  ***

  By the next evening the boats slowed as they entered the mouth of the Amazon. The river spread wide and dark, jungle walls rising on both sides. Long shadows stretched across the water. Everyone was tense, scanning the banks. Aya, however, suddenly lit up and leaned over the railing. “Ha! Finally! Shallow water! No more drowning! No more death! Just… sweet, safe shallow!”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Trella, Milena, and Yael slowly turned their heads toward her in perfect unison.

  “…Shallow?” Milena said flatly. “Aya, this river is over 100 feet deep in some spots.”

  Aya blinked in confusion. ”Wait. What?”

  “If it were shallow,” Yael added calmly, “these boats would be scrap metal.”

  “ …Oh.”

  SMACK. Another sharp Yael slap. Aya’s head whips sideways, hair flopping.

  “HEY!” Aya protested. “Was that really necessary?!”

  “Yes,” Yael said. “For your education.”

  Two hours later, they arrived at Yael’s village. Lanterns glowed warmly against the jungle night, the stilt houses reflected in the dark water. The ride in had been quiet, heavy with tension. The moment Aya feels solid ground under her feet, she bolts down the gangplank like a madwoman. “Hallelujah! Land, blessed land! Never again will I set foot on—”

  She throws herself onto the soil, kissing it passionately… only to gag as her mouth fills with mud, grit and a dead beetle or two. “Pffhh! PFFFT! Oh god! It’s in my teeth!”

  Liza and Katya laugh so hard they nearly collapse. “Careful what you kiss, princess!”

  Trella, hauling gear down the plank.

  Trella hauled gear down the plank, shaking her head. “Somebody hose her off before she licks the septic pit.”

  Aya spat and glared at Yael. “You see what you’ve done to me? I’m broken! A broken woman!”

  Yael walked past her, perfectly calm. “Good. Broken things don’t run away.”

  ***

  The village stirred early the next morning. Fishermen moved along the river. Children laughed. Roosters crowed. The girls gathered near the boats, still half-asleep. Aya looks like a zombie, clutching a cup of something black and bitter. Yael appears, calm as ever with a machete on her hip. “ The locals are a bit nervous, but no trouble. The hijacked truck stirred the pot, nothing more. We’re clear to move.”

  Good,” Trella said. “First stop?”

  “The flowers,” Yael replied. “Easier to show you than explain. Follow me.”

  They trekked into the forest, the air thick with humidity and insects. After twenty minutes, the undergrowth opened into a clearing. The ground glows faintly in the shade. Clusters of pale blossoms shimmered softly in the filtered light

  Milena was already crouching, hands itching. “Beautiful. And much cleaner than the crap those pirates were extracting.”

  “They grow only here,” Yael said. “The soil, the water and the canopy have the perfect balance. That’s why the facility is nearby.”

  Aya rubbed her arms uneasily. “Facility? Great. So we’re walking right into the monster’s cave.”

  “Not yet,” Trella said. “First, we see what kind of monster we’re dealing with.”

  They move deeper into the jungle. The sound of generators hums faintly through the trees. Yael signals for silence. Everyone drops low, creeping to a ridge overlooking a fenced compound half-hidden in foliage. Watchtowers poke above the canopy, but the forest swallows most of the building.

  Michelle scanned the area with binoculars and whispered. “Steel wall, electrified. At least two guard patrols, armed. Looks like they’re running shifts.”

  “No way drones work here,” Samira added. “Canopy eats signals. And from above? Just a sea of green.”

  Talia frowned at her tablet. “True. I can barely hold line-of-sight feed. Inside, we’d be blind.”

  “Then we go old-school,” Trella said. “Maps, eyes, ears.”

  “They rebuilt it heavily,” Yael said quietly. “Not locals playing scientists. Professionals. Let’s head back to the village and plan.”

  Silence falls as they watch a supply truck rumble into the gates. The girls exchange grim looks. A confirmation of everything they feared.

  ***

  At Fort Meade, Deputy Lang and her team sifted through data.

  “Yes,” Lang said slowly. “This makes a lot of sense now. Very disturbing data, but they really make sense.”

  “What sense?” Williams asked.

  “You know... Before your little escapade we already had something on our tables to keep us busy. What you brought us is like the second part of that puzzle. Now we just need something to put it together.”

  Dawson crossed his arms. “What kind of data do you have? We shared ours, so you probably should do the same.”

  “Very well. Our part of the puzzle involves two names you already know. First one is a senator candidate named Christopher Morgan.“

  “We know that name,” Williams said. “We ran a security detail on his daughter. That didn′t go very well...“

  “Why not? The girl is alive, no?”

  “Yes, but traumatised.”

  “That′s nothing,” Lang replied. “It will harden her up. But back to him. Elections are knocking on the door. He ran into some weird financial transactions. And those belong to another candidate. A certain retired brigadier general Kingston.”

  “Wow! That’s a big name,” Dawson muttered.

  “As a former army officer he was very interested in what SimCor was doing,” Lang continued. “He invested a lot of time to make amputated veterans walk again. Or was it for something else... He even publicly met this Johann Schmidt guy. And for a retired officer he suddenly had a bit too much money. “

  “What would a retired general want with cyborgs?” Williams asked.

  Lang corrects him. “The question is, what would someone who wants to get into the Senate and the Department of national defense want with cyborgs?”

  “And where does the CIA stand in all of this?” Williams pressed.

  Lang pulls out a photo. “Your late deputy and Kingston were close friends.“

  Dawson exhaled. “That would explain a lot. And the others just followed the lead I suppose.”

  “These files you′ve provided are enough to shut down SimCor for good and sweep up the CIA,” Lang said. “But the biggest fish is Kingston. We need something more to lock him up for good.”

  “The girls are trying to obtain some new data as we speak.” Williams said.

  Lang curiously lifted her eyebrows. “And where are those girls now, exactly?”

  “On a little jungle cruise…” Williams answered, smirking.

  ***

  In the meantime in the jungle Trella prepares the strategy for the night. “We will not go in there like the charge of the light brigade. The objective for tonight is clear: Sneak in, take data and samples and go out. Like ghosts. Since there are almost no informations about them, we need to do the old school recon. We go in small: Yael, Michelle, Talia, Liza, Mei-Ling and Milena will break into the facility. Me and Maya will be on boat patrol.”

  The girls prep their gear and boats. Milena doesn′t look too amused, since she hates to be out in the field, but she has to tag along this time. The jungle is about to reveal its dark secrets...