The scream of the jet bike was a thing to give an insurance agent nightmares. Neil responded to Junebug’s constant demand for more speed by bypassing limiters and regulators with a dozen tricks he had picked up over a short but active life of vehicular crime. They blew past the gates of the Cykali home at a turn of speed that they sucked up a reverse rooster tail of dust and leaves. Neil furiously decelerated as they approached the house, throwing the bike into a long slide that shoved it down against it’s howling antigrav unit. Sayeeda didn’t wait but rather leaped from the bike in a full body spring. Her hands hit the lawn and folded her into a roll that would have graced any assault course in the galaxy. She came up at a run, dashing through the open door of the house.

The interior was as they had left it, save where a few dishes had been knocked onto the floor and a pile of paperwork swept off a desk. Junebug weaved left and snatched up a kitchen knife in a reverse handed grip as she swept the room. It was empty save a holo feed blaring out the advantages of this or that company’s biotech. Junebug moved with deadly self assurance, clearing each room without making a sound. The house seemed completely deserted.

“Madge?” Junebug called, ducking into her own room as Neil came through the door, a hedge trimmer held before him like a polearm. There was a slight vibration of her bed and Sayeeda snatched up the hanging sheet to look beneath it. There was no one there. Had the girl been taken afterall? Junebug sagged down onto her bed in defeat but as soon as her weight landed there was a squawk and a thump. She sprang to her feet and looked under the bed a second time, eyes wide, not with fear but with guilt that she might have missed a threat. To her shock, Madge was laying on the floor, looking like a bobble head in Sayeeda’s old combat helmet. The girl had lifted herself up into the bed frame, must have held herself there spread eagled for who knew how long. Sayeeda wondered what sports the girl played.

“Aunt Sayeeda?” Madge asked, then tried to sit up, evidently she had forgotten she was under a bed because the helmet thwaked against the timber frame making the girl say a word that Sayeeda was pretty sure her parents would be shocked to learn she knew. Junebug let out something between a sob and a laugh and grabbed the girl by the arms and dragged her out from under the bed and into a tight embrace. Madge struggled awkwardly, as unused to hugs as Sayeeda, or perhaps just with a youthful distaste for the practice. Junebug didn’t care and squeezed the struggling child harder just to be contrary. Madge reached up and touched a toggle on the side of the helmet. A dull orange marking rotated to a dull cream as it switched from infrared to unamplified. The girl had been watching her through the bed.

“You're a clever little shit,” Junebug marveled and reached down to lift the helmet from the girls head.

“Did you know you can switch modes with your tongue?” she asked, instinctively delaying the serious questions. Neil came through the door, still carrying his improvised spear. 

“House is clear,” he reported as Junebug let Madge squirm from her arms.

“Men came through the door, they took Momma and the others they were shouting and I ran away. I didn’t have a gun,” Madge admitted. Junebug cocked her head to the side trying to imagine what a six year old thought she might have done even if she had a weapon.

“It was smart to hide Madge, very smart,” Junebug told her. The girl nodded, her lip trembling slightly. Junebug was bad at reading people and worse with children but she belatedly realized that Madge was close to crying. She felt she should do something but she didn't know what. Frustration coiled in her guts. If this was a literal minefield rather than a metaphorical one, she would know what to do. Frustration and anger roiled in her.

“Junebug?” Neil asked, reaching out but not quite touching her.

“Right,” she said, “did you know any of the men?” Madge shook her head violently, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.

“I found this,” Neil interjected, lifting a simple disposable holoprojecter marked with a red X. It was a simple thing, the kind a couple on vacation might use to capture a few images or a couple of minutes of video for later reproduction.


“Ransom note?” Sayeeda guessed. Neil shrugged, clearly he hadn’t had time to watch it. She nodded at him to play it but his eyes flicked towards Madge in question. His meaning was clear: If it is a ransom note, maybe not in front of the kid.


“Do it,” Junebug replied. Neil shrugged and triggered the unit. A curtain of coherent light sprang into the air, then coalesced from a rainbow blur into the figure of an oily looking man in a pinstripe suit. He was clearly losing the battle with good living and wore golden rings on every finger. His skin was ebon dark and his hair was a series of dreadlocks woven through with silver thread. 


“Good evening capton Cy-kay-lee,” he began in a thick accent that Sayeeda didn’t recognise.

“I am Jean-Luc Devris, an honest business man,” he said with a chuckle he no doubt thought was intimidating. Junebug’s lip curled upwards in contempt. 

“What we have here is a simpol buss-i-ness situat-on,” Jean-Luc said, grinning wide enough to show a mouthful of bright white teeth.


“Your sister she owes me a lot of money. Sadly she canit pay. Normally I take the life insurance after an accident but suddenly… well you show up with a ship that would settle the debt very nicely.”


“Deliver your freighter to me on Carad Island and we will say no more of it,” the hologram told her.

“You have three days, and if the police get involved… well there is always the insurance. The rest of the family too, do not test me cap-i-ton,” The hologram shimmered into a 2D display of coordinates and passcodes, then went out with a click.

“Are they… are they going to hurt my Mom?” Madge asked in a quavering voice. Junebug stood up, she could hear sirens in the distance. They were coming closer no doubt answering the earlier call for help. Junebug couldn’t be here when the arrived, not because of Devris words, but because she was pretty sure she she had an outstanding warrant in the local jurisdiction.

“No sweetie,” Junebug told her, suddenly finding she knew what to say afterall, “that is not going to happen.”