He wasn't sure whether he slept. With nothing to hear or see, it was pretty hard
keeping tabs on his consciousness.

After some timeless time, the horizon to his left pinked, and as the light grew
he looked out to see where Wendy was. She must be a more trusting person than he
felt was fully justified; he really had managed to talk her into a calmness that
made sleep possible, and she lay now on the ground next to the floater, curled in
a half-fetal position, her upper body slightly twisted so she could rest her head
on her shoulder. Quietly, not wanting to wake her until he knew what to tell her
to do, he opened the glove compartment and fished around in it for the manual.

He flipped through the pages, and his lips twisted in a snarl as his eyes
focussed first on a warning printed in red: "DO NOT LET FUEL CELL RUN DOWN
COMPLETELY!" A lot of good the warning had done him, and he felt like driving
straight to the factory and giving a lot of shit to the engineers. The fact that
the factory was probably a smoldering ruin by now gave him a mild satisfaction.

According to the manual, there was a small compartment in the trunk for the spare
fuel cell. His stomach tightened as he wondered whether there was any way to get
into the trunk. He fumbled with the trunk release under the dashboard, and,
contrary to all expectations, he heard the trunk latch click as the trunk slowly
opened. Apparently the designers were less concerned with trunk security than
making the passenger compartment fast against unauthorized attack.

Beside the car Wendy stirred at the sudden noise. She stretched groggily and
slowly maneuvered into a sitting position. *She* could replace the damned fuel
cell, if he could get the hood opened as well as the trunk. He pulled the
release, and the hood slowly opened on its front-mounted hinge. His spirits rose.
Well, it was up to her now, if he could talk her through it. He felt thirsty, but
didn't want to take a drink in front of her if he couldn't get any to her. The
inside of the floater was beginning to warm, and he realized with a start that he
was in more danger than she was -- with the sunlight starting to stream in, it
was going to get unbearably hot inside the closed-up floater in very little time,
probably less than an hour. He futilely tried the doors again, the windows, the
retractable roof, anything that might let him out of his prison. If there was
some way he could get himself out, it wasn't obvious to him.

She heard him now and twisted to look expectantly at him.

"Wendy, could you do something for me? Look in the trunk and see if you see. . .
wait, let me show you this. See the picture, here?" He pressed the page of the
manual against the window. She leaned her back against the side of the floater
and worked herself up to a standing position, then looked in intently at the
photograph on display.

"Look for a compartment in the floor of the trunk that looks like that, this
little door here. Okay?" She nodded and hopped back towards the rear. He called
out after her, "When you open it up, bring back the fuel cell inside it. I'll
tell you what to do with it after that." He could hear her start to rummage
around in that junk-filled trunk. He held his breath: if the jack-ass who owned
this floater didn't carry a damned spare. . .

He could feel the rear of the floater depress as she sat in the trunk, still
trying to clear the floor enough to spot the little compartment that supposedly
carried the spare. Finally she hopped back around to the front, triumphantly
displaying the flat energy-pack behind her. Vehicle propulsion having come a long
way, what was now referred to as a "fuel cell" would probably have been called a
"battery" in the old days, but it would have been hard for a visitor from the
20th century to reconcile the difference between what he thought of as a battery
and what served the purpose these days -- almost infinitely rechargeable,
producing an order of magnitude more chemical energy than anything of a similar
size would have been capable of a generation ago. David marveled at the human
ability to figure out how to make things work and then make them work better. And
then cursed the same humans who never did find a way to keep from blowing each
other to bits. Well, he thought, maybe we'll all be replaced by an improved
version of the human animal. The present breed is obsolete. Like internal
combustion.

"Okay now, look at the engine, and look for the fuel cell. It looks just like
that one you're holding, and it's up at the top on the near side, with cables
attached at both ends. See it?"

He waited as she hopped towards the front and peered into the engine, afterwards
looking back at him and nodding. She seemed puzzled by something, but merely
looked at him steadily now. "Okay, you'll need to unscrew the cables on the one
in the engine and attach them to the one you're holding." Her puzzlement started
spreading into alarm now. She hopped back towards him, pointing from behind her
back towards him and then the engine. She was willing to be helpful, but drew the
line at messing with an engine. She must not have ever done anything like that
before. She tried the door handle now, turning towards him afterwards with a
pleading look.

"Wendy, I really am stuck in here. I can't get out until after you replace the
fuel cell." He'd thought she understood that, but maybe she had been shying away
from full comprehension of the idea. He looked again at the engine, and it became
easier to see the reason for her resistance to the idea of doing it herself. The
fuel cell was about a third of the way across the engine, easily in reach of
anybody who had their hands free -- but it wasn't easy to see how she was going
to get to it. At the least she was going to have to climb into the engine and sit
on it.

"I'll talk you through it. I'll be right here, and I can see what you're doing."
The inside of the floater was continuing to get warmer. He could feel beads of
sweat starting to form under his hairline. She was looking back and forth between
him and the engine. Taking a deep breath, she finally hopped back towards the
front, and settled back with her back towards the engine, her butt resting on the
fender. She used her hands to lift herself up and sit on the fender, looking
uncertainly at the power plant behind her and back towards him for instructions
and reassurance.

"You're doing great, hon. Can you reach the cell from there?" She leaned back and
let her fingers walk their way carefully along the upper surfaces of the engine,
towards the fuel cell and the cable on the near side leading into it.

"Turn it counterclockwise. Is it turning?" He could see her grimacing, evidently
having trouble unscrewing the cable. Inside it was continuing to get hotter.
Droplets of sweat were starting to run down his face.

Suddenly, with a grin of satisfaction, she displayed the loose cable.

"Great! Okay, the other one now." The other lead to the fuel cell was on the far
side. She tried to stretch her arms back towards it but it was just out of reach
as long as she was sitting on the fender.

"Move farther in. It's okay, you can sit on the engine. You won't hurt anything.
It's just a little grimy, but we can wash you off later." At least it wasn't one
of those 20th-century combustion engines, with so many more moving parts. The
floater's engine, though, left a gap between itself and the fenders on the side.
Leaving the replacement cell perched on the fender, she carefully shifted her
weight back onto her hands and let her butt slide off the fender towards the
upper surface of the engine. There was no comfortable place to sit between the
edge of the engine and the cable.

"Wendy, move on past it and sit on the other side. That'll be easier." As he
watched, she slid a little further back, bringing her feet over to the engine
now, and carefully scrunched herself to get turned around. She maneuvered herself
to sit just in front of the fuel cell, and started working on the cable. This one
seemed to have been screwed on even tighter than the other. She stopped several
times to rub her raw fingers, trying various surfaces on her fingers and palms to
loosen the connection. As the minutes went by, David could feel butterflies
getting loose in his stomach, practicing their dive-bombing techniques. His
entire body was covered in a slick sheen of perspiration, and he was feeling a
little lightheaded. If he didn't get out of here soon. . .All he needed was a
little damned electricity running through the wires! There's got to be some way.
. . hey! Maybe this would work.

"Wait, stop. I think connecting the cells in series would work. Connect the
positive pole of the new cell to the cable you got loose, and then touch the
terminals of the two cells together. See what I'm saying?" Uncertainly, she shook
her head.

"Look, just get the other cell. I'll tell you one step at a time." She looked
behind her at the replacement cell still lying on the fender. She slid back a
little towards it, reaching back for it. It was a long stretch, and she couldn't
slide much farther back. He was about to suggest she turn around again and move
towards it feet-first. She managed to lean far enough back, finally, to reach the
fender. It appeared that just at that moment her butt slipped slightly on the
uneven surface, and she instinctively brought her hands towards her slightly to
steady herself. Her fingers lost their grip on the fender and her hands and arms
slipped downward into the gap between the engine and the fender, as she fell back
on her back and her head cracked hard against the fender.

"Wendy! Are you okay? Are you hurt? Can you look at me?" Her head turned slowly
towards him, her eyes brimming with tears of pain. She jerked suddenly, and
again. It looked like she was trying to sit up, but her handcuffs were caught on
something down below. He tried to get a view of what the trouble was, pushing his
face against the windshield and moving around to find some place where he could
see down where her hands were, but they were just out of sight. She was jerking
more frantically, almost convulsively, close to panic.

"Wendy, stop! Just freeze. Do you hear me? I can help you get out of it, but
you've got to stop moving around. Listen, listen to me!"

He hesitated before plunging on. "Wendy, I could die in here if you don't stop."

That did it, finally; she stopped suddenly and looked at him in shock.

"Just take a deep breath. Calm down. Try to look down. Can you see what you're
caught on?" Her head turned to the side, she was obviously trying her best to
turn it farther, but her hands were well beyond the limits of her peripheral
vision. She shook her head, streaked with sweat and tears.

"Okay, stop moving again. Try to relax. I've got a picture of the engine in the
manual here. As soon as I see what's down there, I'll tell you how to get loose,
okay?" She closed her eyes and he could see she was trying to follow his advice,
breathing slowly and deeply. He turned to the page with the picture of the
engine. There, that had to be it: the intake valves, through which air entered to
be afterwards blown out through the bottom to provide the cushion on which the
floater floated, stuck out about seven or eight inches from the base of the
engine on either side. She had to be hung up on the one on that side. He tried to
look down towards the real one again. It puzzled him that she couldn't just slip
the cuffs off the end of it.

"Wendy, just slide your hands back a little ways. You're caught on a pipe that
sticks out of the engine. Slide the handcuffs back past the end of it." Her face
contorted in pain as she obviously tried to do what he said. Her arms, though,
were already held far out from her back at a painful angle, and she couldn't seem
to force them back any farther. In the confusion of falling she had gone through
a contortion she couldn't voluntarily reproduce.

"Can you slide yourself back a little? Move. . . look where I'm pointing. Move
your body back that way." His shorts were on the seat next to him, and he used
them to wipe his eyes to keep the sweat out, but it wasn't doing much good. His
eyes stung constantly, and he was finding it hard to concentrate on the problem.
He could see her flexing and relaxing muscles all over her body, trying to
wriggle back towards the fender. He classified it intellectually as incredibly
sexy, but he was just too hot to really appreciate it right now. Her head was
resting on the fender, but her shoulders were just a little below the edge. She
couldn't seem to get them up any higher, and until she got them up over the edge
she wasn't going to be able to move in that direction. As he watched he could see
her strain her neck muscles, trying to get her shoulders to clear the barrier.
But she couldn't get her shoulders up onto the fender until she got her hands
loose, and she couldn't get her hands loose until she moved farther back, and she
couldn't move farther back until she got her shoulders up.

He swore briefly, and stopped when he decided it was using too much energy. He
couldn't imagine which of them was more frustrated: she, because her body was
trapped, or he, because he couldn't do anything about it.

"Wendy, I think you're going to have to let your head slip off the fender." She
shook her head, wide eyed, obviously terrified of falling head-first into the
little crevice.

"It's the only way, Wendy. Do it really slowly. You won't fall in, there's not
enough room in there." Was that reassuring? It could be taken either way, he
guessed. "You'll be able to slip the handcuffs off the end of the pipe."

Slowly, an inch at a time, she bent her neck and forced her head towards the edge
of the fender. Her eyes scrunched so tightly that she must have been seeing
stars, her stomach steel-tense with held breath, she let her head skid down off
the edge. He could hear her squeal in fear, and immediately her butt slid a few
inches back along the engine, and then stopped. Flexing muscles now in her arms,
hips, and legs, she squirmed in the opposite direction. She must have got a grip
on the valve, he decided, and she's using it to push herself up. Finally, her
stomach muscles quivering with the strain, she slowly sat up, and regained a
sitting position on the engine, free at last. Or as free as she'd been in the
last few days, anyway.

She sat for several minutes, facing away from him, her shoulders heaving as she
breathed in great gasps.

"Wendy? You're okay now. We still need to get me out of here." His head was
pounding. She turned towards him, giving him a weak smile.

"The other cell, remember? You need to get it and hook it to the cable. Wait,
turn around first. Move towards it feet-first." She got herself turned, and in a
couple of minutes was back sitting on the fender next to the cell.

"Look at the cell, see the end of it with a plus on it? Screw the cable onto
that." Obviously it was hard on the overstretched muscles in her arms and
shoulders to lean back once more, to fumble with the cable and, at last, get it
attached to the appropriate pole.

"Now, touch the two terminals together. Be careful, there's a lot of power in
there." As she brought the terminals in proximity, she was startled by a great
sparks that jumped between them, and she immediately jerked them back apart
before he could reach the door handle.

"It's going to work! It's going to spark like that, that means it's okay. Put
them back together." With one more deep breath, she joined the hissing, sparking
terminals. He yanked the door handle and threw his weight against the door,
wanting to act before she lost her nerve again, and found himself flying out into
the cool, cool outside world.

He lay there, gasping in deep lungfuls of fresh, almost cold-seeming air, then
scrambled to his feet and threw his arms around her waist, lifting her off the
fender and squeezing the skin of his sweat-soaked body tightly against hers.