Now I’m sure it’s not just the smoke. Tears roll down my cheeks, and I go limp in the grip of whoever’s restrained me. They can kill me now. They can do whatever they like. Everything’s gone still, and even though I can hear the chaos of the pirates taking the Nereid behind me, it sounds like it’s on the other side of a glass wall.
I’ve failed.
The grip on me loosens, and I can finally twist around and look my captor in the face. She’s about my age. Her blonde hair is desperately trying to recover from a sideshave, and she’s got a feral grin on her lips. “Boss,” she says, and the woman with the rocket launcher turns. “I think we’re going to want to bring this one along.”
4
The girl keeps my hands twisted behind my back as she hustles me toward the pirate ship, forcing me to step over the bodies that litter the hallways. Their uniforms mark them as the Nereid ’s crew, and the guns in their hands mark them as the ones who put up a fight.
Her captain leads the way, the rocket launcher stowed in favor of a submachine gun that she cradles like a newborn child. In the early August heat, her brown skin is dappled with sweat, and she has her wildly curly hair bound back underneath her hat.
I don’t know what’s going on. All I know is that yesterday I’d never seen death up close and now I’m surrounded by it.
“Lock her in one of the closets. We’ll deal with her later,” the captain says. Gunfire rings out from somewhere down the hall, and she rolls her eyes. “Sounds like this bucket’s putting up more of a fight than anticipated. I’ll go see what needs shooting.” She pivots and strides back into the depths of the ship, her coat flapping behind her.
The girl shrugs, then pushes me forward again, gentler than when the captain was watching. We come to a ladder hooked onto one of the lower decks and she nudges me onto it ahead of her. Her hand drops to the pistol in her waistband, just in case I’m thinking of making a break through the gap between the two ships’ hulls.
I’m not. I descend onto the pirate ship, my hands shaking on the cold metal rungs, and the girl follows me.
“Why?” I ask as my captor jumps from the ladder, landing slightly off-balance on the ship’s deck. She just grabs me by the wrist again and tugs me toward another hatch, another ladder. Once again, I go first.
The ship’s interior is more well-lit than I expected. I’d call it homey if it weren’t for the bullet holes in the walls and the pirate girl marching me through it. Probably has something to do with the strips of wood plastered to the walls in a halfhearted attempt at paneling.
We come to a heavy steel door at the end of the narrow corridor, which she twists open and shoves me through without another word. My head cracks against a low shelf and I yelp loud enough that she pauses. We make eye contact—her in her sleek body armor with a gun tucked in her pants, and me in my soaking wetsuit.
“You’re going to be useful,” she says, and no more than that. She slams the door behind her, leaving me with a throbbing head in what I’m just now realizing is a janitorial closet.
And the pill is still in my collar.
She didn’t bind my hands. I reach up with shaking fingers and tug the zipper, flaying open the hidden pocket. The little blue capsule tumbles into my palm, and I sink to my knees in the tangle of mops and cleaning solvents.
My heart is thundering, and I feel as if every inch of my being is rearing away from the promise of death that sits nestled in my hand.
Do it now. Do it fast.
My whole arm is shaking.
How can I know for sure that this pill is the only solution? What if I could escape? What if the pirates aren’t after trade secrets? My mind runs wild with possibilities, with options so much better than a quick death.
I tug at the ends of my limp, damp hair, trying to rein in my thoughts. The things I know for sure form such a short list. The Nereid is taken. Durga is dead. I’ve been captured by pirates. My name is Cas Leung. I smell like Reckoner blood.
And there’s so much I’m not sure of. They might be sinking the ship right now, killing all of the people onboard. They might be stripping it and leaving it disabled in the middle of the NeoPacific. I wonder if Mr. Kagawa is still alive. I wonder what usefulness the pirate captain has planned for me.
I wonder if I’ll ever see my family again.
I should have grabbed my phone instead of the beacon. There was never any hope of beating these guys, not with our Reckoner bleeding out. I used my last seconds of freedom in a futile attempt to spare Durga from an agonizing death and buy the pirates’ mercy, and I couldn’t even do that. I could have called home, could have told my family that I love them.
If I take this pill, the last they’ll ever hear from me—the real me, not some missing persons report—is a call from last night when I was too preoccupied with Durga to ask about anything going on in their lives.
Footsteps sound in the hall outside, but no one opens the door. They must be finishing up now. The boat’s engines start to hum and the floor underneath me feels less steady. I shudder, clutching the pill in my fist. The ridges of the raised lettering on the capsule dig into my skin. Six characters in total. EpiTas. Half of a Spartan phrase. E tan e epi tas. With your shield or on it.
Come back alive and victorious, or don’t come back at all.
That’s our way. That’s our principle. That’s how we protect our industry, which in turn protects the clients that commission us. If we can’t defend them, we’re worthless. If we can’t defend ourselves, we’re worthless.
Other Reckoners have fallen. Uli, off the coast of the Philippines, killed by heavy shelling. Kou, near the Dominion of South Africa, strafed by harpoons. And now Durga, by the Southern Republic of California, slaughtered with nothing but a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher.
Their trainers all did the right thing. Their trainers all took the pill.
Durga is dead. Dear, sweet Durga, the big, dumb, playful turtle who loved her ship more than anything, died falling apart from the inside, unable to protect herself from the pirate captain’s rockets. Her body has probably settled on the floor of the NeoPacific. A whole ecosystem of bacteria and scavengers will gather to break down what’s left.
It’s only natural that I’m supposed to follow her there.
Hours must pass. My muscles ache, but I stay frozen on the floor, staring at my clenched fist and trying to conjure the thought that will bring it to my lips.
Every fight I’ve ever assisted in ended with a sinking pirate vessel, with my dad clapping me on the shoulder as I changed the beacons over to bring our Reckoner down from her seething, righteous frenzy. He would have known what to do today. The pirates wouldn’t have won.
I wouldn’t be sitting here with the capsule in my hand.
Nausea churns at my stomach, and for a moment the stench of Durga’s blood almost overwhelms me. I dig my fingernails into the flesh of my arms, fighting to keep my last meal down. If I don’t do this now, the pirates will use me. Whatever that means. They could force me to cough up information on every Reckoner my mother has ever engineered, every beast my father has ever trained. They could get me to confess weaknesses in our monsters, weaknesses in our facilities, anything that could give them an upper hand.
It’s clear enough. I’m worth more to the industry dead than alive at this point.
The ships that can afford to commission a Reckoner are safe to carry the most valuable goods and people across the NeoPacific. Kill the monster, and the boat’s practically gift-wrapped for you. If the pirates make me help them, I’ll be compromising the safety of every single one of those ships and all of the trainers aboard them.
Including my father. Including Tom.
For them, I think as my fingers curl open. For them, I think as I raise the capsule to my lips.
For them.
The closet door slams open, light floods in, and the girl who dragged me in here lunges forward, slaps my hand away from my mouth, and sends the pill flying.
5