The day was growing a little cooler as the sun wandered west. David continued
sticking with back roads, and at least 20 minutes passed without his catching
sight of another soul. There didn't seem to be any damage out here; the absence
of people may have reflected a general desire to get out of range of the
spreading radioactive cloud, if possible.

He had wanted to put as much distance as he could between himself and any
potential pursuit by the duly constituted authorities in the form of the sheriff,
assuming Sam could get in contact with him, but hunger pangs started forcing him
to look for a place to stop. Beside him, the girl had been quiet, occasionally
squirming briefly in her seat to get a little more comfortable. He had put the
top up again, knowing she still probably didn't want to be seen from the road.

A buzzing from the dashboard called his attention to the power level, which until
then he hadn't really paid attention to. He saw with alarm the floater was nearly
out of power. He had no idea where the nearest store or charging station might
be, but it didn't look like he could get to one.

As if to mock his concern, the floater picked that moment to expire. He coasted
off the road, his attention drawn to a small, pretty clearing off to the right.
The floater sank to its auxiliary wheels and rolled silently to a stop in the
clearing, surrounded by tall, leafy trees that whispered in the now-quiet
afternoon, sheltering the vehicle from view from the road.

"We're out of power, for now. I hope this guy has an emergency cell somewhere in
here. The law says he's got to, but I don't know if that'd mean anything to him.
But anyway. . . you hungry?"

She nodded her head emphatically, with a sigh.

He opened the doors on either side, and as the floater cooled in the cross-breeze
he reached into the back and started picking through the scattered bottles and
other edibles. "Um, you know, I. . . well, I wanted to thank you for what you did
back there. Do you. . . ah, do you show yourself off like that pretty often?"

Her eyes widened as her lips curled upwards around the gag, and she seemed close
to laughing as she shook her head. He smiled back at her, and fished a selection
of three tiny bottles from behind the seat. "What do you think about strained
peas, apricot, or mixed fruit?"

She wrinkled her nose and inclined her head towards the fruit bottle. As he
opened it he suddenly wondered just how to feed it to her. He hadn't gotten any
spoons, and he couldn't have easily gotten a spoon into her mouth anyway.
Meanwhile she rose to her knees on the seat, put her hands over the back of the
seat behind her and pointed towards the water bottle.

"Yeah, you're thirsty, I know. But I don't have any drinking cups here, and if I
tried to pour it straight down your throat out of that bottle we'd probably lose
most of it. Look, after you finish the. . ." he didn't want to call it baby food,
"the fruit, we can start using the empty bottle as a drinking glass, okay?"

She sighed and nodded. He dipped a finger into the mushy fruit mixture, and
carefully slipped his finger into the side of her mouth, down the side of the
gag. "You getting any?" She swallowed with effort and nodded, ready for more.

He gradually fed her the whole bottle that way, then poured some water into the
bottle, not wasting any trying to rinse it out, and gradually took the edge off
her thirst before asking her, "Want another bottle?" She nodded towards the
stewed apricots this time, and he slowly fed it to her. She eventually decided
strained peas didn't sound so bad either.

"Still hungry?" He wanted to save the remaining baby food, not sure when he could
get more. "Want some bread?"

He thought he could break it into pieces small enough to swallow. She nodded, and
he fed her three slices in tiny bits before she finally sat back, apparently
satisfied.

He gave her one more drink of water before making himself a meal out of peanuts,
a couple of apples and some bread. As he ate she lay her head in his lap, closing
her eyes and giggling as his stomach rumbled.

The light was fading as he finished. She roused herself from her snuggle within
his lap, and looked around for a moment. Before he quite realized what she was
doing she sat up, put her feet out of the floater and on the ground, and
awkwardly stood up, swaying slightly, trying to keep her balance. She tried for a
moment to walk forward, able only to slide each foot barely two inches ahead of
the other, before realizing she could make much better progress hopping.

She took a couple of tentative bounces away from the floater, stopping and
swaying again.

"Hey! Where are you going?" He was stunned at the thought she might be trying to
get away for some reason. She looked towards him and pointed towards her crotch
in a gesture he'd seen before. Evidently she needed another potty break.

"Wait up. I'll help you." She shook her head as she looked ahead once more to try
to resume her progress, waving him away with a short hand gesture, still
concentrating on staying upright. Obviously she wanted to try to do it herself.

He hesitated. He didn't like the idea of her getting out of his sight, as she
probably intended to do. He realized that the loss of her privacy and all ability
to take care of herself had to be getting to her, and by now it wouldn't be
surprising if she was desperate to reassert some sort of adult-ness and take back
some responsibility for herself. He felt a lot of sympathy for what she was
trying to do, at the same time afraid of what sort of disasters it could lead to.
She was about ten feet away now, nearly to the closest trees.

Everything male in him responded to the sight, as the naked girl hopped carefully
away, her hands held out somewhat stiffly behind her in the handcuffs as she used
them for balance, while everything protective in him shouted at him not to let
her do this. He nearly ran over to catch her, and suddenly a feeling washed
through his mind of what it would be like -- what it would really feel like to be
her right now. Probably only a tenth as strong as it really did feel to her, but
enough to send his mind reeling. He knew he had to let her do it.

"Ten minutes, okay? Then I'm going to come bring you back."

She had reached a tree by now and was leaning against it, looking back towards
him. She shook her head again.

"Come on, you don't really expect me to sit here forever not worrying about
whether anything happened to you. Okay, 15, all right?" She hesitated, and
finally nodded, turning away once more. A few more hops took her around the tree
and out of his view.

He wished she could have done this earlier. The light was nearly gone by now, the
sky a deep, royal purple. After about ten minutes he stood outside the floater,
straining his eyes in the direction he'd last seen her, trying to pick up signs
of movement. He closed the door on the far side but left the near one open; the
power in the fuel cell was insufficient to run the engine, but there was still
plenty of juice to run the dome and dashboard lights, which now stayed on as the
door remained open. He was about to leave the floater to go out there and find
her, and leaving the lights on was the only way he'd find his way back. Just five
minutes more, he thought to himself, just before hearing a muffled, alarmed grunt
and a crashing sound. Shouting "No!" he sprinted for the trees, having to slow as
soon as he entered the woods when he lost the light completely. He shuffled
ahead, calling out, "You okay? You need to make some noise so I can find you. You
out there?" He considered using the floater's headlights, but it wasn't facing
the right way and he couldn't turn it.

"Say something please. Please?" Finally she hummed from a little ahead and below.
Feeling ahead with his foot he discovered the ground dropped off in front of him,
he couldn't tell how far. She hummed again, maybe ten feet away now, and he sat
and felt his way down a gentle slope towards the sound. His eyes were finally
adjusting to the darkness, and he could just make her out, her white skin
reflecting a sliver of moonlight as she lay back, upright against the side of the
small gully they were in, the wall slanted at about a 45-degree angle. The
rippling sounds of a tiny brook came to him from a little farther below. He slid
the rest of the way down and impulsively put his arms around her.

"You all right? Are you hurt anywhere?" She grunted non-committally and he knew
he needed to be a little more specific. He patted her feet, her shins. "Does that
hurt? That? What about here?" She responded negatively each time. He let out the
breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. Sliding his hands along her back, he
pulled her gently away from the ground to look for possible scrapes. There didn't
seem to be any bad ones in the dim light. He continued his inventory. "This
hurt?" He felt her chin, cheeks, forehead.

His head was close to hers. She leaned towards him and nuzzled his neck with the
top of her head. He kissed her cheek, smiling as he asked, "That hurt?" She
giggled as she said, "Hmm-mm." She wriggled a little closer to him.

He bent down a little farther and kissed her breast. "That hurt?" He let his
hands wander down her body, rubbing her butt, letting his fingers explore her
bush, each finger slipping momentarily inside her like children taking turns
peeking into a wet, warm cave.

"That hurt?" In response she turned slightly, putting her manacled hands within
reach of his thigh. She stroked it gently with a fingertip.

He licked her neck as he slowly moved to put first one leg between hers, then the
other. As he cupped her butt in his hands she lifted her legs and drew them
tightly around him. He pressed his body against hers, inside her now, his upper
body fully pressed against hers, feeling their hearts alternating beats, her
breasts crushed firmly against his chest. With each thrust against her, she was
more firmly cradled in the soft earth of the gully. Not able to kiss him or hold
him in her arms, she expressed herself in the rhythmic tightening of her legs
around him until they shook together in an explosion that seemed no less atomic
than the one that had brought them together.

He let them both slide a little farther down the slope, still coupled with her,
until they were on level ground and, with his arms around her, they slept.

* * *

He woke first, feeling the chill, hearing her sleep-breathing next to his ear.

Tapping gently at her shoulder, he whispered, "Hey. We ought to get back to the
floater. It'd be warmer in there."

She yawned and stretched, cat-like, her arms straight out behind her. As he sat
up she struggled to do the same, shaking her head at his offer of help. The moon,
nearly down to the horizon now, shone in her face and he could see the smile as
she succeeded in sitting upright next to him.

"It's funny, I don't even know your name. This isn't something I'm really in the
habit of, you know, sleeping with girls I don't know."

Her eyes grew wide as she grunted suddenly, and slid a little ways forward,
turning her back towards him. Somehow he thought he'd offended her, but
understood as she reached back and traced the letter W on his chest. He said it
out loud, and she nodded, going on to trace an E, followed by N, D, Y.

"Wendy? You're Wendy?" She turned back towards him and smiled, nodding again.

"So hi, then, Wendy. I'm David. Maybe I told you that, I don't remember."

She quirked her eyebrows at him in a gesture that had a greeting quality to it.

"Let's go back. Here, I'll help." He doubted she could getup out of the gully on
her own, as much as she might want to. He gathered her in his arms and started
backing awkwardly up the walls of the gully. He had to set her down and rest as
he got up to level ground, then started to pick her up again. She shook her head
and backed away from him.

"Look, I know you want to make it on your own, but -- I'm sorry, look what
happened the last time. There's less light now than there was then."

The moon was nearly down to the horizon by now. She sighed plaintively and
continued shaking her head.

He sighed himself. "Okay, I'll help you stand up, anyway. Just be sure and follow
my path exactly on the way back."

She nodded, and he helped her up. He felt his way carefully through the trees,
looking back whenever he could to make sure she was hopping right behind him. He
wished, for several reasons, there was more light, not the least of which was
that he wanted a better view of her breasts and the rest of her naked body as she
tried to move as well as she could in the chains. Ahead, he could just make out
the outline of the floater, no longer putting out any light: after hours of
heroic effort, the last of the available electricity had finally given out, not
even able to keep the dome light glowing. He'd have to start looking for that
spare fuel cell in the morning. The last sliver of moonlight disappeared now, and
he had to direct himself from memory of where the floater had been. He reached
behind him and took her by the elbow. She allowed him to guide her direction,
probably realizing he would have done so even if she could walk. He felt ahead
with his hands and nearly stumbled into the floater anyway.

"I'll get in and move the seat up. We. . ."

Even though he felt the answer should be obvious, he hesitated to ask whether she
wanted them to sleep together, in the back seat. As independent as she seemed to
be getting, he wasn't sure he wanted to take anything for granted. He shrugged
invisibly and got in to adjust the seat. He heard a sudden squeak of alarm and
jumped as the door slammed closed immediately afterward. She must have lost her
balance and fallen against the door.

"Wendy? You okay?"

He heard a resigned, muffled "Mmm-hmm" from about ground level outside the
floater.

He tried to open the door, and it seemed stuck. The door on the other side wasn't
working either. The window toggles had no effect on the windows.

As he struggled with the mechanisms, slowly it sank into him that they shouldn't
be called, purely, mechanisms. They were electronic, damn it! The days of car
doors and windows with physical mechanisms running the through the door panels
were as long gone as engine cranks and internal combustion; to outward appearance
they looked the same as the old 20th-century cars, but electronic gadgetry had
made floaters a lot harder to break into.

He knew about the legendary wire coat-hanger strategy of entering locked
vehicles, but you had to find a pretty ancient vehicle these days to try that on.
And even if your floater ran out of power, it still had plenty enough juice to
run the auxiliary features like lights, windows, and doors.

Unless you were a total idiot and ran the fuel cell stone dead.

David seethed inwardly, consequences rushing into his head like late guests to a
party. At least his head pounded like there was a hell of a party going on in
there somewhere.

He wished he'd been invited, instead of being stuck here in. . .Concentrate! How
do I get out of here? He could feel the floater rock gently as Wendy slowly
struggled to get back upright outside. God, what do I tell her?

"Wendy? Can you hear me?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Look, I. . . well, I can't open the door right now. It works electronically, and
there's no electricity. It's probably only two or three hours till sunrise,"
judging from the moon. . . they'd slept most of the night away alreadyÖ"and I can
get the doors open then. I need to look in the owner's manual, but there's no way
to see it right now. We'll be okay in the morning, but. . .do you think you'll be
okay out there for a little while?"

Through the door he could hear her increasingly agitated breathing. Claiming a
little independence for herself was one thing, but with no access to him, she was
alone in the dark, miles from anywhere, naked and chained, more helpless than
ever. She whimpered a little with each exhalation, gradually a little louder each
time, close to panic.

"Wendy, Wendy, listen! We'll be okay, it's just a couple of hours, I swear! We'll
just rest for awhile, and everything'll be okay in the morning. I'll be there for
you as long as you need me. Wendy, do you trust me?" He felt like an asshole,
asking for her trust when he was lying through his teeth, having no idea whether
things were going to be okay and no plan of what to do in the morning, but it
seemed automatic to give first priority to reassuring her, getting her calmed
down.

Slowly she did seem to quiet down. "Wendy, I'm going to try to get a little rest
myself. I'll be right here, just a few feet away. You get some sleep too. Okay?"

He listened for her response. At last she grunted, "Mmm-hmm," and he felt a
slight rocking again as she let herself down the side of the floater. He leaned
back in the seat, staring in whatever direction that was where his sightless eyes
happened to be looking, and tried to empty his mind.