Jaxon jolted awake, smashing his head on a cold, hard metal ceiling.

"Ow!" he yelped. Jaxon was taken aback. Suddenly, he realized, he was in a dumpster. Jaxon rolled around and felt a figure next to him. He found that he could not think straight, as he tried not to assume the worst. Jaxon did the only thing he knew to do. He shoved his arm down into the trash and felt around for a shard of glass. A sharp pain flew up his arm. A sharp piece of glass had slit his wrist artery. He grabbed the shard and held it up to the figure's neck.

"Who in this damn world are you."

"Stop! No! Please!" begged the figure in a feminine voice.

"Putting me in a dumpster, real smooth" Jaxon remarked in a calm, clear voice, "NOW TALK!!!" Jaxon complemented to himself. A+ for intimidation.

The crackle of a stun gun reverberated off the sides of the dumpster, its light illuminating the small space. Jaxon was caught off-guard and rolled over in pain, not yet subdued. Jaxon tried to roll back over, but before he could, he felt the cold barrel of the blaster pressed against his head. Before Jaxon could move the stun gun fired, relieving Jaxon of his ability to see, and making his whole body fell mostly numb. Jaxon winced in pain. "Ok fine, you got me, what do you want?" Jaxon said as sternly as he could, sweat pouring from his face.

"First, my name's McCayla, thanks for asking, and second I wanted to ask you for a little favor." said the figure behind him, pressing the gun harder against his skull.

******

"Okay... let me get this straight. I'm going to take you, a wanted Xanythar recent non-citizen, to a military retrieval unit, where you will stow away in a non-airtight cargo hold, so you can build up from nothing in Parinjaier and 'hope' not to get caught, because..." Jaxon commented.

"I have a gun!" McCayla declared.

"And I don't?" inquired Jaxon.

"Stop bluffing," McCayla commanded.

Jaxon weighed his options. Should I ditch this McCayla? Or should I shoot her and ditch her. Jaxon decided to ditch her. After a while of course. For unforeseen purposes. Jaxon told himself She could be a valuable asset at some point. He kind of liked this "McCayla." She had grit.

"Fine," Jaxon did his best impression of a teenager. "Soooooooo, we just wait here?"

"No," McCayla replied, desperately trying to sound cool, "We're gonna get a car."

******

It was only ten minutes before the two conspirators had found themselves a car. An old Dwefio ADZ225, which was fast, to say the least. It used the old magnetic levitation systems, so it could only drive on certain, magnet-infused roads, and couldn't fly over two feet. Jaxon got into the driver's seat with surprising elegance, and promptly asked, "Where to Miss?"

"Ha!" mocked McCayla, "Not a chance you're driving".

Jaxon got out of the seat. He could have driven away. There were a thousand things he could do to get away. But he didn't. He wondered why. Why he was still helping this worthless girl? For some reason, Jaxon wouldn't... no, couldn't leave. Jaxon had no obligation to this girl, and the only thing she did was hurt him. Why.

McCayla got in the car. "Get in the trunk," She demanded.

"What!" Jaxon was taken by surprise. Out of all the things he was worried about, Jaxon never thought he was going to be voluntarily abducted by a teen with a stun gun. McCayla smiled an almost flirty smile as she patted him down, stripping him of his weapons.

"What!" McCayla exclaimed, "You actually had a gun!" This caused a smile with an even greater magnitude to spread across her face. She almost giggled.

This put Jaxon in an incredibly awkward situation. He knew he should have left. But he didn't. Maybe, he thought, she is crushing on me. Maybe she thinks I like her back. Jaxon was disgusted by the thought. But he couldn't stop thinking about whether this excuse for a rebel liked him.

She walked him to the back of the car, her gun pointed at the back of his head the whole way. Although Jaxon did notice that her hand was slightly shaking, giving him the idea that he was her biggest capture so far. Jaxon thought of all the ways he could escape the girl but found himself climbing into the trunk of the car. He was interested in the hunter. She looked a little younger than him and was in bad shape. Her clothes were dirty with holes in them and it looked like she wrapped Duct-Tape around her foot to stop a flow of blood.

"What happened there?" inquired Jaxon.

"Goodbye" McCayla retorted and slammed the trunk, leaving Jaxon in the dark. He felt the car smoothly accelerate as it sped down the street. Jaxon tried to get as comfortable as possible in the cramped space, putting his face as close as he could to the one small window into the cabin. He closed his eyes attempting to relax. He remembered the few hours before he ended up in a dumpster. The mission, the fight, and the crash. The one way to get away from this place back to his home was gone. Blown to pieces on the beaches of Xanythar.

******

It had been about an hour when their car stopped, or, more accurately said, fell to the ground, and screeched to a sudden halt. McCayla had steered off of a magnetized road, relieving it of its ability to hover.

"We are in a safe...r place," McCayla said with a hint of doubt. Jaxon stepped out, only to see a KangID police drone hovering overhead. McCayla looked up and scored 5 quick shots on it, which sent the drone falling to its imminent demise. It was 100℉, and there weren't many people out and about.

"Don't worry, there aren't any cops in Residential district Three," commented McCayla, "and there won't be bounty hunters here... or for awhile anyway. There is a place I know from..." McCayla paused again. Jaxon was starting to get a bit tired of McCayla pausing "an online source. We'll be safe there. It's only a short walk."

They had walked about ten minutes before they encountered their first bounty hunter. She was ill-equipped and obviously incredibly poor. McCayla simply shot the girl in the head once, before she fell over from a combination of fatigue and shock. McCayla reached down and pulled a candy bar from the girl's belt.

"Free food!" McCayla exclaimed, "I like to melt these down and eat them with my pills!" '

Jaxon palmed his face, realizing he was no longer tired of McCayla pausing. Out of anyone who could have kidnapped him, it was a chocolate obsessed teenager with a crappy stun gun.

"We 're almost there. One more block." And by block, McCayla didn't mean the regular 16th-mile city block. In Xanythar, there were one-mile-long sweaty, miserable stretches, which were not walkable in 100℉ heat.

"Here goes nothing," murmured Jaxon, before he set out yet again on his path to "safety."

******

"And then the other dude was like, 'It's nothing personal,' and then he got on my hoverboard, and just left!" ranted McCayla, "I mean that dude had some serious problems, and next time I see that guy, he won't be coming back in one piece."

Jaxon swayed as he walked, barely able to stand. His head swiveled to see a cracked, concrete building with steel reinforcements sticking out like badly broken bones. It was shaped like a boring box, with no apparent defenses. Jaxon widened his eyes and stared at McCayla in horror.

"You call that safe?" Jaxon criticized. This kid has a death wish, thought Jaxon, Why would you enter a public facility, with no way to defend itself, while people are trying to kill you!

"It's more than meets the eye" McCayla responded, "That's what makes it safe."

Jaxon had had enough. One could feel the anger radiating from the furious captive, which would put fear into the mightiest of souls. Jaxon had walked miles with this young girl, and she had led him to a box in the middle of nowhere. Jaxon knew that Parinjaier would never come back for him, and if he got in a firefight with a Xanythar unit unarmed, he would be nothing more than a corpse in seconds. Then he had spent what could be his last moments on a death march with an ignorant child.

Jaxon couldn't control his rage. He jumped into action, grabbing the stun-gun and firing three charges up into McCayla's stomach.

McCayla fell to the ground in pain. The capacitor in the stun-gun was running low, so McCayla remained conscious, slowly going into shock.  

"Please," McCayla whimpered, "It is the only thing I can do to save us."

"I don't need to be saved!" Jaxon snarled. He was seconds away from knocking her out and leaving her to die in the 110° heat.

"You don't know how it works here, there are millions of people right now that would massacre thousands for the bounty on your head. There are planes with railguns bigger than your plane what could be seconds away from being pointed at us, and this is the only place we are safe."

"WHY!" Jaxon demanded. He was intrigued, but no less angry.

"It's a rebel safe house," groaned McCayla, "I fight back, just like you."

McCayla ripped the phone case off of her phone, pulled out the paper-thin taser-knife she had scavenged earlier that day, and cut a long gorge into Jaxon's calf.

Jaxon doubled over, and McCayla tried to make a break for the safehouse.

Suddenly, a large aircraft flew over their heads, and three bowling ball-shaped orbs fell from the sky. The last thing Jaxon saw was McCayla slumping to the ground before he fell to his knees. All he could feel was the pain.