Girl Cyborg: A Dystopian Action Adventure Thriller

A Drive in the Country

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.