Page 8 of Factory Controller

Aberto motions for me to be silent, but my voice has already trailed off. I see the figures creeping into the village as well as he can. There are at least six of them that I can make out, moving off to the different huts like they’ve rehearsed a strategy.

One of the men goes to the hut closest to Aberto and me. He lays a bowl on the ground outside the hut’s grass curtain-shrouded door and lights it. At first, I think he means to burn the hut down. The glow of amber from the bowl briefly illuminates his features enough that I can tell he’s wearing a gas mask.

The man shoves the smoking bowl under the grass curtain and moves on to the next closest hut.

“What are they doing?” I ask.

“There’s a wasp that makes magic honey. If you let it dry, you can burn it. The smoke, it puts you to sleep.”

Live and learn, Brazil has its own version of the mad honey people eat in Nepal, and they’re using it to drug a village so no one can’t fight back.

I use my phone to snap photos, using the night vision feature. They still don’t turn out very well.

“I need to get closer, Aberto.”

“They’ll catch us.”

“Not if we’re careful.”

I glance over at Aberto, but his eyes remain locked on the village below. “That’s my cousin’s hut.”

I turn back to the village. One of the men exits a hut carrying the limp body of a young girl on his shoulder. He lays her down on the dirt next to other captured children. Another man moves through the line, zip-tying the captives’ hands and feet.

Something boils in my belly. I can’t abide this. I move down the hill carefully, taking video the entire way.

“Where are you going?” Aberto hisses. “Come back!”

He steps out of our hiding space and rushes after me. Startled, my foot slips on the slippery moss-covered branches, and I fall hard to the ground. My yelp of pain echoes through the night.

The men look our way. I scramble to my feet and shove Alberto hard. “Go, run! I’ll lead them off.”

“No,” he whispers. “You run. Take the pictures to Anderson Cooper. I’ll tell them I was alone.”

“Aberto, this isn’t a game.”

“I know, it’s not a game. The’ve taken my sister. I want you to find her. You are my only hope.”

It tears me up inside, but he’s probably right. No one will listen to him, while every one will listen to me, or at least to the spokesperson of the Factory, if I bring them the data.

I turn away from him and run.

Shouts indicate we’ve been spotted. I panic but I don’t freeze; if anything, fear spurs me.

Brambles tear at my skin, and leaves slap me in the face as I flee through the forest. I nearly stumble right into a spider’s web eight feet across, a hand-sized arachnid sitting cheerfully in the center. I freak out thinking some of the vines wrapping about the forest limbs could in fact be snakes.

Somewhere on my right, I hear a noise…I can’t tell if it’s my overactive imagination or really the roar of a jaguar, but it’s quickly covered with the angry shouts of the men who pursue me.

They’re getting closer.

I turn back toward the water, and a miracle happens: I stumble onto a hitched canoe. No time to analyze the situation and weigh my options. I yank the stake out of the ground and leap inside. Working the paddle like mad, I push off into the middle of the muddy Amazon.

The shouts fade behind me. With almost no moon, I’m nearly invisible on the water. I hunker down in the canoe just in case, terrified of being discovered.

Leaving Aberto behind chews me up with worry.

I hope they don’t hurt him trying to find me.

A long night passes on the water. I lost part of the contents of my backpack during my mad flight, but I still have the machete sheathed across my back. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes don’t seem to give a shit about it.

---