The three of them spent the night in a plastic bedspread hotel room. Kathy refused to share a double bed with her so Lance took the floor and let Bess sleep in the other bed. She tried rolling on one side and then the other, feverish and exhausted but unable to stop thinking about the Academy. It wouldn't be an easy welcome home.

Kathy's snoring was loud in the cramped room and thinking about Lance, bedded down on the hard floor, made her feel guilty. He and Kathy had been through so much. When they should be concentrating on their father, her presence was a burden they shouldn't have to bear. If Bess could walk away and leave them she would, but then how would the doctor find her? Without his shots she would fall apart.

No. That was crazy. There was no way she would ever let him touch her again.

She grabbed the motel phone and stretched the cord into the bathroom where she could switch on the light. She dialed the Academy and told them her story.

When it was done, she went to Lance on the floor and roused him with a finger to his lips.

"The Academy is going to pick me up from the nearest gas station," she whispered. "I could walk, but it's a least a kilometre... Think you could drop me off?"

"Don't do this."

"Time to look after your father." Bess stood and put on her coat. Cursing civilian vanity, she slipped her feet into the only shoes she had — high heels — and started walking.

Lance drove up alongside and waved her into the passenger seat. While he drove, she studied the frown lines around his mouth, but even super senses couldn't tell her how he felt. Annoyed at being wakened? Worried about his father? Did he feel foolish for capturing her? Was he angry with her for wanting to return? He had to see that this was the only solution.

"If I had died on your property... If I had died anywhere near you, the Academy would punish you."

"Couldn't your conscience wait until morning?"

He pulled into the station and got gas. Bess got out and started to walk around the side of the building.

"Wait. There's a blanket in the back." He got it and handed it to her with a little paper money on top.

"What's the cash for?"

"To help you hitch a ride home with a civilian, so you can turn yourself in properly — unless I can change your mind?"

"If I go back to the Academy, I can visit the baby in the nursery. Maybe I can convince them to let it go home."

Lance looked her in the eye. "We both know that's never going to happen."

"But it's peacetime. You said yourself, the cybers are being recalled. We aren't needed anymore."

"That baby is still worth money. If you're serious about finding it's parents, keep in touch. I don't want another innocent to wind up like my Dad."

"I can't contact you. The Academy will come after you for kidnapping me and mutilating me."

"Can't you leave me out of it?"

"I won't mention your name but if I don't say I was kidnapped, they'll say I went AWOL."

She looked at him, so sure of himself and yet completely ignorant of how things worked. "Just being in the Night Market without leave is punishable. I won't be able to hide where I was taken but I'll blame it on the bounty hunter. If they go after him, they won't find out about you."

Lance looked like he wanted to argue.

"Go. Go, before you get me in more trouble." She didn't wait for him to leave. She found a sheltered spot against the wall of the gas station and wrapped herself up in the car blanket. These people would be safe from her now.

As if this was the assurance her body had been waiting for, Bess sank into sleep.

Dawn was just pinking the sky when Bess heard a motor, getting louder. She hung the blanket from the edge of the dumpster and peeked around the side of the building. A motorcycle was approaching. Funny. The Academy wouldn't come for her on a motorbike. They would send an SUV.

When she understood, her shoulders sagged. It had to be the bounty hunter. Was he tipped off by motel staff? She had hidden in the vehicle while Lance and Kathy booked the room. No casual observer would have guessed from her print dress and heels that she was a cyber. If it wasn't someone at the hotel, who could have sold her out?

She was too weak to fight or run so Bess went into the gas station and begged the attendant to let her use his mobile. With a story about getting stranded on the road that he didn't want to hear, and few of Lance's bills to grab his attention, she convinced him.

She called the Academy. She recognized the voice of the staff supervisor, who didn't seem surprised to hear from her. News travels fast in the Academy.

"Patience, we already sent a team to get you."

"They won't be in time. There's a bounty hunter on a motorcycle coming for me. Somebody tipped him off."

"Seek cover and shelter in place. The team left hours ago, so they should be close." His voice sounded flat.

Wasn't he even a little surprised to hear about the bounty hunter?

No time to wonder. Bess had only minutes before the motorcycle reached the gas station. She considered her options. Hide behind the counter? The gas station attendant wouldn't protect her. He just wanted money. Take him hostage? Never. Even to save her life, she'd never endanger a civilian.

She was debating whether, to save herself, she could promise him intel (made up) or money (she didn't have), when the motorcycle closed in. It slowed down as it approached the store. The rider was over-sized, shoulders straining against his leathers. The gas tank was painted red, just like Lance's. Bess held her breath.

She let it out again when he drove by.

Yes! It was just a guy on a motorcycle, with a red gas tank like Lance's. Lots of people painted their motorcycles red. She was just paranoid, but to be sure, she went outside to watch it shrink into the distance.

The motorcycle turned into the motel parking lot. Suspicious. Would he go to the check-in desk first?

If he went directly to Lance's door it would mean he already knew the room number. That would point to Kathy. Or possibly the concierge if Lance and Kathy had let slip what she was in front of him.

If the bounty hunter didn't know the room number, it was more likely the Academy had tipped him off. They were the only people outside of Lance and Kathy who could guess which motel she was in. Although she had set up the meeting at the gas station and had been careful not to mention the hotel, Academy missions preferred the element of surprise. When Bess chose to meet at the gas station, it didn't take a master tactician to figure out where she spent the night. Reconnaissance tactics meant they didn't believe Bess was kidnapped. They were going to punish her for leaving, regardless of innocent intentions.

Bess walked out across the gas station parking lot but she couldn't see the bike anymore. She continued to the side of the road, then to the opposite side of the road, but it was useless. The motel was a one-story horseshoe, with the parking lot inside the curve. There was no way to see Lance's door or reception from a kilometre away.

It had to be the Academy investigating, and pretty soon they would know too much. A cyber who goes against Academy orders is defiant, and a defiant cyber is a traitor.

Could she avoid court martial but keep Lance and Kathy out of it? If she admitted she had been abducted and mutilated by Lance, it might save her from punishment but at what price? The Academy had its own laws and tribunals, granted because of their diplomatic status as allies. If they brought Lance in for questioning, the second he entered Academy ground, NUS law applied. They would declare Lance a spy and interrogate him and Kathy with extreme prejudice.

Not knowing what else to do, Bess crossed the street and returned to the gas station. There was only one car in the lot, a rusted out beater which probably belonged to the attendant. It surprised her that someone so humble could own a fossil fuel car. She guessed working this far off the grid, in a region known for winter, meant he needed more than solar panels to get him into town.

She broke the driver's side window with a rock, grateful the old junker didn't have an alarm. It took a couple minutes to pull the right wires from under the faded faux wood dashboard. She hot wired it. Hit the gas.

It stalled.

The clunker was too old to have fuel injection. After that, Bess was careful not to flood the engine. She waited, breath held, to see if the attendant had heard it turning over.

He didn't come. Bess tried the engine again and when it caught, she pulled out of the parking lot, fast. Bess might not get away, but at least she could draw fire away from Lance.

Ten minutes up the highway, Bess's breathing slowed and she wondered if she'd made a mistake. Stealing this car was a serious breach of civilian law. If she got caught, she could expect no leniency from the authorities. If an Academy grad did something criminal, they would disown her. Her only hope was to ditch the car once she was far enough away from the bounty hunter — but before the gas station attendant reported it stolen.

Her other regret was not taking Lance with her. It wasn't that he could help, exactly, but she wanted to see him escape unharmed.

She put her foot to the floor, racing through the early dawn. It was irritating to care about a civilian who thought so little of her and her vocation, but there it was. She already missed the concerned look on his face. She didn't miss Kathy quite as much, despite how she took care of Bess when she was ill, but she couldn't wish ill on either of them. They had tried to help her out, in their foolish, broken way.

Getting far away from them had seemed the safest thing with regards to the Academy. She was less sure about the bounty hunter. The first time he had been disappointed, the bounty hunter had claimed Lance's precious motorcycle as a forfeit. Today, when he searched the motel and came up empty-handed a second time — and recognized the same blue-eyed farmer — Bess worried what he might do.

------

** Hope you enjoyed this chapter. If you did, consider recommending  it to a friend who would also like it. **