Bess awoke from her dream in darkness. Her back was on fire, at least it felt like it. She tried to roll over but she was anchored to a piece of wood, sliding across a vibrating surface. Daylight was blocked out overhead. The vibration came from an engine. She wriggled an arm loose and reached out to find the side of the enclosure but her shovel-calloused hands encountered wood. Heat vision confirmed one driver in the cab of a truck. She tried to sit up but she pinned down by straps and blankets bound tighter than a military bedsheet. What had happened?

The last thing she remembered was the tent in the night market. Fully awake now, she started working free of the straps. She considered slitting the tarp above her and sticking her head out but decided to preserve the element of surprise. Her kidnapper didn't need to know she had broken free. Bess sniffed the air, noting they must be far from the smoke and cordite of the city. The air smelled of pine trees, rotting leaves, road dust, and of course the exhaust of the vehicle carrying her. Bess felt around the side of the straps and started working on the knots. In a few moments she was free, and rolling around in the bottom of the flatbed.

Pain shot through her back with every movement. She called on the signal for a boost but nothing came. No signal? How far out of town were they? There wasn't a place in Budabun City where she couldn't request a pain relief boost. Swallowing down momentary panic, Bess moved to the front of the flatbed and started banging on the window in the back of the cab.

"Hey! Let me out!" Her voice wasn't very loud and up until today, it had never needed to be. Out of habit, she pinged the cab as if it were being driven by one of her Academy brothers. Nothing.

Bess pondered how to handle the situation. She had been kidnapped but didn't think a bounty hunter would be driving her north of the city in the back of a truck that smelled of rotten apples. The guy from the tent must be the driver.

The Academy would expect her to escape at all costs. She was too dangerous in the hands of the enemy. She peeked through a gap in the tarp. Fields and trees flew by. She was wounded, and without the signal to heal her, it would get worse. Jumping from the speeding vehicle was not an option.

She could cut through the tarp, smash the back window of the cab and subdue the driver. It would be simple but she had sworn to save and protect even the most belligerent citizens. Harming him was wrong but how could she escape without hurting the driver?

The truck slowed and turned. Bess grabbed the side of the bouncing flatbed as the road became bumpier. She took a deep sniff of the surrounding air. Fallen apples, drying hay and... chickens? The odour of poultry was too subtle for ordinary citizens but Bess could smell traces of guano in the air. And where there were chickens there were eggs. She hadn't had one of those in months. Saliva rose in her mouth and her stomach growled.

She hadn't eaten since lunch rations the previous day during the mission. It was normal for Bess to go twelve hours, eighteen hours, sometimes even twenty hours without eating; except by now the signal would've sensed her low blood sugar and released an energy boost. Instinctively, Bess tried to request one. Nothing. That citizen must have damaged her signal rig. That would explain the pain in her back, growing every minute. Screw standing orders! She wanted to kill him.

Bess banged on the back of the truck, hard then harder. She noted with satisfaction that her blows were putting dents into the truck as if it were an aluminum can. Through the glass she shouted, "Stop before I rip up your truck!"

The vehicle hit the brakes, smashing Bess into the cab window. It took off again, fast, and she rolled back, tripping over wooden crates. After that, she kneeled on the door, the softest surface she could find. It skated around a little but at least she was free. When this truck stopped the owner was in for a surprise.

They continued up the road for another five or ten minutes before she felt them turn off the highway onto an unpaved surface. She steadied herself against the bouncing and thudding. Soon, the truck slowed to the sound of gravel crunching. They were turning again, then driving slowly along a road with more bumps than a lake has waves. Moments later, the truck stopped and she heard the driver's door open and slam closed. She heard somebody fiddling with the tarp above her head. She crouched, legs tensed. In a flash of morning light, the tarp lifted.

Bess launched herself at her kidnapper, knocking him backward to the ground. Instinctively, her hands sought his neck to choke him but they encountered a brace. It looked like a plastic whiplash collar. He lay underneath her, hands up to protect his face.

"I surrender. Please don't kick my ass."

Bess stood up and picked up a rock. The pain of bending over brought tears to her eyes but she kept her face neutral.

The man stayed flat on his back, his wide eyes tracked the rock as she tossed it from hand to hand. Her calm gesture was meant to show him who was in charge.

"What do you want with me?" He whispered.

"Get up." She shivered as a wave a weakness went through her legs.

He sat up slowly, hands still extended in a gesture of surrender. "I was taking you home. Thought you'd appreciate it. The bounty Hunter came back for you. Don't you remember?"

"No." Bess glanced about, looking for accomplices. They were alone in farm country. "Please, refresh my memory."

He started speaking but although Bess watched his lips she was having trouble concentrating on the words. Waves of pain and nausea flowed through her, and she really wanted to sit down before she fainted.

Behind this strange man stood one of those two-century barns the regional history instructor always raved about. The weathered boards were Swiss-cheese patchy. That it hadn't been burned for firewood said something about the prosperity of this place. Unlike in the city, there were many trees standing in fenced pastures where sheep and goats grazed. If she wasn't faint from pain and hunger, Bess would have been overjoyed to find such plenty. Her stomach growled. There was food here, lots of it.

"I'm taking a risk bringing you home," he continued explaining. "The bounty Hunter was tracking your signal, which means I had to get creative."

Bess's hand went to her back which was bandaged. It came away bloody. "You mutilated me!"

"What, no thank-you?"

"Take me back. Now." She spoke calmly, as if dealing with some wild animal rather than a farmer with a hero complex.

"I could. I'd probably get a bounty for you too. The Academy wants to decommission you."

She wasn't a robot! Her face flushed. Bess heard her heart pounding in her head. "I should decommission you!"

"Don't shoot the messenger."

"If the war's over, they promised me a good job as a firefighter in the NUS."

"Of course." He shrugged.

"The Academy isn't the enemy." This Loon was ignorant, as many were, but only a fanatic would cut out her signal rig. She should turn him in, except then she would his death on her conscience.

"Drive me to city limits. I can easily run back to the Academy. Nobody will ever know what you did."

"You've lost blood. You can barely stand." He approached slowly, frowning and never taking his gaze off her.

"I'm fine."

"I can drive you back when you're ready." His voice was steady now, his posture taller. "Come on, let's go into the house. I have antibiotics and painkillers." He started walking up a laneway between the trees, not bothering to look back.

Bess trailed behind. "People could be dying because I'm not there to pull them out of the wreckage."

"In a ceasefire? I seem to know more about Academy protocol than you."

Bess knew the local militia hacked the signal. "It's illegal for you to have a signal receiver."

"Maybe in your country. This is mine."

She took big steps to catch up. Too big. A stabbing pain shot through her back, growing by the moment. Her head swam a little and she stumbled.

"Why didn't you just leave me alone?" she lamented.

He backtracked and gave her his arm for support. "I saw you lost in the market, so young and clueless. The bounty Hunter, the cease-fire. Everything happened at once."

"I wasn't lost." They had come to a mowed section of lawn around a large farmhouse. He led her to the base of the staircase. Bess gripped the railing and climbed up to the porch.

He held the front door open for her as if he were a hospitable host and she were a basic human like him. It felt odd to be welcomed into a private home that wasn't a rescue scene.

They were standing in the cramped front hall of the farmhouse. The walls sprouted hooks hung with coats and hats. At the base of the staircase, the farmer turned back to look at her.

"My name is Lance and this is my home. You are free to leave any time but first come upstairs and lie down so I can treat your wound."

Bess couldn't believe it. Now he was going to play doctor? Another wave of nausea hit, reminding her of the training video dream. Without constant biofeedback from the signal, a cyber's body didn't just stop healing. Augmented organs without anti-rejection boosts would be attacked by the body's immune system. If she stayed here, Bess would go blind and deaf and never see Cherry again.

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I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It was a tough one to write for some reason. Maybe it's because the relationship between Lance and Bess is so problematic. If you liked it, please vote and share this story with friends. 

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