Codename: Night Witch by Cary Caffrey Page B

flash of mischief in his eye that put her instantly at ease.
    "Sigrid," she said, reaching up to shake his hand. She tried not to wince as he clasped her hand and hauled her up, lifting her from the floor and setting her down on the bench seat beside him.
    "And sorry about the whole gun-in-your-face thing back there. I thought maybe they were using you was bait."
    "They?"
    "Jackers, sweetheart. Who else? They love a good honeytrap. It's one of their favorites."
    "Don't you mean honeypot? And if you're suggesting I'm the honey—"
    "Not suggesting. Just saying. Jackers love to leave pretty girls by the side of the road. Unsuspecting bloke pulls over. Next thing he knows— wham! Out cold. Rig gone. Cargo stolen. Then there's me, left by the side of the road in nothing but my skivvies—if I'm lucky."
    "Well, I can promise you, I have no wish to see you in your skivvies—not that there's anything wrong with you in your undershorts!" she added hastily, not wanting to give offense. "I just meant, I didn't want you to lose your shirt. So to speak."
    "Don't worry yourself, kid. My days on the catwalk are long behind me."
    "Well, all right then."
    "Look, um, it's none of my business, but do you want to tell me what happened back there? And don't tell me it was nothing. I saw the explosion from ten miles back."
    Several lies came to her lips, but Sigrid dismissed them. Considering her condition—the wounds, her lack of trousers or shoes, the blood on her face, arms and legs—she couldn't exactly paint herself as an innocent hitchhiker traveling the countryside. And this trucker, she owed him some kind of answer, didn't she? If he hadn't picked her up, she'd be back in the hands of those men. Or worse.
    Leaving out the more gruesome parts, Sigrid spun a tale of her escape. Sold into servitude, she was an escapee from a corporate-run facility, where she'd been indentured for the past six years. At least that part shouldn't be too hard to believe. She wouldn't be the first worker to flee from her corporate masters. The factories were notorious for their poor conditions. For the Federation's working poor, there were few choices: it was either escape or the slow and dreary death of indentured servitude.
    When she was done, Jaffer seemed suitably impressed and gave a low whistle. "Six years! And with no outside contact?"
    "None," Sigrid said. "To tell you the truth, I don't even know where I am. Not what province or territory."
    "Punta Arenas," Jaffer said. "I just pulled out of the port, not four hours back."
    Punta Arenas .So this was Chile, and deep in the southern industrial zones of South America.
    "Is there anywhere I can take you?" Jaffer asked. "Somewhere I can drop you off? You must have friends? Family? Someone who's looking for you?"
    It was a good question, and one she'd been asking herself since her awakening. But after six years, would her friends still be looking for her? They'd probably think her dead. And if the Independents could do this to her—holding her captive and doing who knows what to her—then who knows what they'd done to her friends. Was New Alcyone still there? Was Suko even alive?
    "North," Sigrid said. North was the key. If she could get to Buenos Aires, from there there were any number of places she could go. She could take a TGV to São Paulo and maybe smuggle herself off-world. Or if São Paulo was too hot, she could make for Panama. "I need to get north. As far and as fast as I can. I need to get off-world, Jaffer."
    "North I can do. I'm heading for the Crossroads now. As for off-world? Well, that might be a problem."
    Anxious tendrils crawled up Sigrid's neck. "Why? Why can't I get off-world?"
    "Look, you've been gone a while, and I hate to be the one to say it, but Earth's not the same place you left, kid. There hasn't been any travel off-world for years. Not since the embargo. Not since the war."
    "War!"
    Jaffer nodded. "Not since the Independents killed the Council."
    Sigrid thought back to what