Bess sat with her back to the wall, observing the crowd. By the time the food came, Lance had attracted a small contingent of women, all closer to his age than Bess. The way these women smiled and preened for him shouldn't surprise her. This was how standard humans acted because they didn't have boosts to regulate their hormones.

Bess crossed her arms and let them cradle her head on the table. She couldn't keep her eyes open so why pretend? She had seen enough dresses and shoes and makeup and people in their Sunday best. They could accept her or reject her or think she was being rude, but nothing could stop her from resting her eyes.

When did the music stop? There was a delicious smell. Bess opened her eyes and sat up to see Lance setting a plate of steaming beef and potatoes in front of her. He stood by the table with three young women, all chatting gaily until they noticed she was awake. The closest woman's eyes went wide and she shot Lance a look. He gave her a micro shrug but she frowned and turned on her heel, taking one of her girlfriends with her. That left Lance, Bess, and a pretty brunette wearing jeans and a pink polo shirt. Bess tried smiling at her but the brunette directed all comments to Lance, as if Bess wasn't sitting right there.

"Well, I never thought I'd be the brave one," she said. "Did you see those ninnies running off? What do you say we go for a drive after dinner?"

"I'd love to but I can't..."

"Your sister could babysit."

"I don't need watching," said Bess. "You're supposed to drop me off, remember?"

"I remember," Lance took her hand as he spoke. Normally, men only gave her their hands on the obstacle course. Although, the more she thought about it, the more this evening seemed like an obstacle course. The object here wasn't to finish quickly but to evade social traps, like the women who snubbed her, and the people who smiled at her as long as she was with Lance, then whispered behind her back. This challenge was much harder than getting over the wall or crawling through sand, blanketed in barbed wire. In this social obstacle course civilians, who would normally pose no threat to her, were suddenly dangerous. She had to prove she was worth protecting or they could instantly sell her out to bounty hunters.

Lance was taking a risk on her behalf, with a lot more than a motorcycle at stake. If she caused him to be rejected by the group, he would lose the protection of the farmers' militia. Then who would defend him from marauders? On top of that, Bess noticed the hurt look in the brunette's eyes when Lance put her off. There was something between them and she was in the way. What to do?

Bess looked down at her plate for inspiration. Better just eat and let them talk. She carved a small bite of pink beef. Delicious. She never knew beef could be roasted brown on the outside and still reveal several shades of pink in the middle. The cook had carved it up thin, soft, and juicy, surpassing any food she'd eaten at the Academy. Of course, bettering Academy food wasn't hard. They served only beef substitutes.

Everywhere she looked, people were feasting in a kind of quiet contemplation. She would've guessed they were paying her no attention at all, except when she caught the eye of this or that citizen, and they would suddenly stop talking mid sentence and either glare at Bess or look away. Without Lance by her side, they would probably have run her out of the room. Fortunately, he and the brunette had joined her at the table.

The brunette was talking to Lance but he had stopped listening. He had his phone out and was reading it. This was what civilians used instead of the signal. It seemed hopelessly old-fashioned but understandable in primitive circumstances. After all, if something went wrong with your signal rig, you would need a doctor, and since the war, doctors were in short supply

Advanced compared to this country, people in the NUS once used private sector signal networks. In those days, people who refused the signal were considered backward or suspicious. If they had nothing to hide, why would they refuse to be accountable for themselves? Once the war shifted north they changed their minds. Citizens had their signal rigs removed due to fear their rigs could be hacked by the enemy.

Eventually, statistics proved having a receiver did make people vulnerable to drone strikes. These attacks were supposed to only target bad people but the public rebelled at the thought that they could be identified and assassinated from the sky by an anonymous drone. All it took was a couple of well-publicized organized crime hits to make everybody jumpy. If you could be identified and murdered so easily, what would stop criminals from tracking the wealthy and extorting protection money? What would stop jilted lovers from taking drone-based revenge?

The price of anonymity was burner phones, primitive devices that required touch and speech to work. Bess looked over at Lance whose face had paled under his farmer's tan. His left hand shook as he texted.

"What's wrong?" Bess asked, in awkward unison with the brunette.

"It's the mine."

Lance left them and went to the podium. Without a microphone, he raised his hands to command attention and called out. "Excuse me ladies and gentlemen but something's happened at the mine."

The room went silent.

"Looks like a ground fall. If you have loved ones working the number twelve shaft at Kirklift Mine, you might want to try and contact them."

The crowd started babbling until Lance held up his hands.

"My father's shift has been down for about twelve hours. I've been in contact with the manager of the mine who says not to panic. They're doing everything they can, but just the same, I'm going to feel a lot better when I see my father step out of that elevator."

There were a lot of questions after that but Lance didn't know the answers. People were excited but not panicked. This couldn't be the first incident of its kind or they would've been more surprised, Bess concluded.

She fell into step when Lance got off the podium and headed for the car. Kathy joined them on his left-hand side.

"I'll drop you at home before I head out," Lance told Bess.

"I should come. I can help."

"You're too weak. I had to support you while we were dancing."

"She can wait in the house," said Kathy. "Nothing's going to happen and she can hide in the barn if someone comes."

"I rescue people out of collapsed buildings," said Bess. "If your father's trapped, let me help get him out."

"This isn't like a building. The mine's kilometres underground."

"Please." She felt indebted to him for his intentions, if not his actions.

"You'd be in the way." Lance pulled out his keys.

"You'll cause grief if you try to act the hero," said Kathy.

Lance gave a wry chuckle. "Look at her. I don't think she'll do much but sleep."

"If we bring her, we'll end up looking after her instead of Dad. It's worth the twenty-minute drive to drop her at home."

"You don't understand," said Bess. "I've trained my whole life for this."

Bess's knees buckled under her and she had to lean on Lance to stay upright.

"See what I mean? We can't bring her," Kathy said.

"She needs a special doctor." Lance helped Bess limp to the rear door and let her lean against it before he responded to Kathy. "I know where we can find one on the way back from the mine."

"Dad could be dying and you're making plans for the drive home?"

Lance winced. "Dad comes first but she's dying too. I don't want that on my conscience."

So, he knew.

Kathy's mouth was a hard-line, her eyes narrowed. She stormed around to the passenger side, got in, and slammed the door. Bess pulled the heavy door open and lowered herself into the cramped back seat. Her hands trembled as she strapped herself in. Without the signal, she was dying.

As they started up the driveway, Kathy turned around to look at Bess. "We're taking you to the mine but don't try to help or interfere. You'll just get those poor men killed if you go in and get in trouble. The miners have their own rescue teams and I won't have them risking their lives to save you."

"Kathy's right." Lance started the engine and drove towards the exit. There was a line of cars trying to get out of the gravel parking lot and onto the country highway at once. As his vehicle sat idling behind a row of cars, Lance didn't turn around or say anything else to Bess, no matter how she argued her case.

It was demoralizing. She could be their father's best hope. "I'm stronger than I look. The reason you had to support me when we were dancing is that I don't know how to dance. What I can do is see through rocks and detect heat and life. I'm trained in first-aid. I can help, even if I don't go under the ground."

Lance's voice was gruff. "You will stay in the back seat."

"We're going to regret this," said Kathy.

"There's no time. If I drop her off it will cost us twenty minutes each way."

Kathy didn't answer. She just looked straight ahead.

It seemed Bess would be going to the mine after all. Until they arrived, she decided not to mention the fact she had never agreed to stay in the vehicle.

Bess drifted in and out of sleep over the course of the long ride north to the mine. Eyes closed to the outside world, Bess responded to dream emergencies, one after the other, until they exhausted her. Bess went out on a hopeless call, the kind every first responder dreads. A twenty-five-story building had been reduced to rubble. The people inside were crushed and asphyxiated. Cherry was there and she told Bess not to try. "Give up. Sometimes that's all we can do."

Bess detected life below the rubble, just like when she found the baby. Eagerly, she applied her shovel to the rocks, prying at them but the pieces were huge. At last, she shifted a boulder-sized chunk of cement and started digging into the gravel underneath. Deeper and deeper she went until she was up to her neck in a hole. Capt.'s face looked down at her from above, looking even more super-humanly tall than usual.

He gave her two thumbs up. "Perfect. Now lie down."

Bess did as she was told, puzzled by the request until a metal half pipe appeared, aimed straight at her stomach. In seconds, gallons of cement shot out, covering her. Weighted down, blind, and unable to breathe, Bess tried to push up out of the pit but a pair of strong hands on her chest shoved her back. She struggled like a butterfly trapped on a pin, until a familiar woman's voice started crooning.

"Hush little baby, don't say a word." Cherry was drowning her in liquid cement.

Bess awoke with a start.

Lance caught her eye in the rear-view mirror. "We're getting closer. Keep your mouth shut when we arrive."

She couldn't argue. Bess couldn't even get her thoughts untangled from her dreams.

"I know what you're thinking," he said. "You think the Academy has prepared you for this."

"Well, I can see through solid rock."

Kathy turned around in her seat putting her face almost right up to Bess's. "We don't need another dumbass civilian trying to play the hero. There'll be enough relatives trying to do that."

A civilian. That's all she was now. Bess felt naked without her helmet, her air tanks, her fire gear, and most of all, the signal.

"Teams who know this mine and who regularly compete at mine rescue simulations will be in charge."

"They don't have augmented senses," said Bess.

"My father's shaft is 3000 m under the earth," said Lance. "It's so hot and humid you wouldn't sense a thing with your so-called super eyes. The mine is unstable, so they won't let you go in, but if they did, you'd faint."

Bess did feel a little shaky. She had tried to show off at the dance, to prove how strong she was. Better not to appear weak with the bounty hunter coming after her. She had collapsed into her chair afterward and now a vague memory was coming back to her of Lance dabbing a wet napkin on her brow.

Bess sighed. "You're right but I can still do first-aid."

Kathy turned around to face Bess. "Start with yourself. Every time I look at you your skin looks a little greener. Was it something you ate?"

Bess was feeling sick to her stomach. It was probably just from gobbling down too much beef. The tender pink morsels were was so good she didn't know how to stop. At least, that's what she tried to tell herself. The truth was, none of her injuries were healing properly. Her augmented parts felt swollen and tender, and the deep wound on her back kept reopening.

Bess reached her hand around to check on it. She felt carefully around the edges of the bandages so as not to make it hurt more. Her fingers came away damp with an ill-smelling yellowish fluid. It was infected. Instinctively, Bess mentally requested a healing boost, except none could come without the signal. All she could do was ask Lance to buy her antibiotics at the night market, once his father was safe.

"It's all the bombardments." Kathy whispered to Lance.

"Bombs don't cause seismic activity," he said, eyes on the road.

"So how do you explain the ground fall at the mine?" Kathy looked at her brother.

"The companies are pushing the limits." Lance gestured with his hand. "They're excavating areas that aren't stable and they know it. The mine is tapped out but instead of giving up, they keep going deeper."

"They've opened up new pits, sure, but it's gotta be the war."

"Yeah, I wonder what new story they're going to make up now that it's peacetime," said Lance. "The mine owners want you to think it's because of the bombing. For all we know, they started the rumour that the two are related. If they can blame it on bombs, the public won't hold them liable every time a shaft collapses."

Bess heard Kathy's sudden intake of air. Kathy covered her eyes, weeping silently.

"Sorry. I'm so sorry," said Lance but Kathy didn't answer.

They drove without speaking for a long time, kilometres rolling silently beneath their wheels. Bess felt for Kathy and Lance but there was a bigger question.

What was she doing here? She should be at the Academy as Lance promised her. She had let this civilian delay her, and now time had run out for the baby. It was Bess's fault for not escaping like she was supposed to. This failure lay on her conscience, as if the baby were on her chest, its weight preventing her from breathing. It deserved to know its parents but now it never would.

Never in her life had she felt so useless. The Academy was purpose. There, she had lives to save, traditions to uphold, a code of ethics, and a way of life. Ripped from the Academy she felt like a cork at sea, carried to and fro on every tide. What use was a cork to stopper the ocean? What use was she in the outside world?

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Maaja