Chapter 2 - Rebecca
I stopped running and looked around. I was in the middle of nowhere. I had been running in a sea of golden wheat for hours. The only thing I had passed were a series of high-power wires that ran off to the north somewhere.
The good news was, I had gotten away. The bad news was, I hadn't gone far nowhere near far enough, like to another continent or something.
I looked around. Every direction was available. The bots were still a little way behind me, I couldn't hear them yet, but I knew they were going to catch up. The biosignature I was leaving in the wheat was going to be easy to follow.
I pointed myself toward the sun. There had to be some houses between here and Denby. All this wheat and cattle, someone was ranching. It wasn't perfect, showing up on a stranger's doorstep, but at least they would have food and water. Out here had none of both.
My water had run out almost an hour ago. I had passed two streams but drinking from those was out of the question. I knew better.
North would have been a perfect choice if Haversine would have been reasonable and let me go, but I had a feeling it was going to be impossible for her. She was the kind of rancher that spread like a virus. And everything in her life was bought and paid for.
That's why I had chosen to run this direction. Haversine was south and moving further south. Maybe she would expect me to take off in the opposite direction. It was going to be a pain in the ass to chase me, a waste of time and resources, and for what? In the end, I was a hired gun, protection. You could buy six bots and probably get about the same deal. She didn't need me. Not for a minute.
But I knew Haversine saw it differently, and when I was six hours out, riding Jess, at a full gallop, I had heard two of her bots catching up with me.
I killed them both, but I had lost the horses in the fight and it had put me on foot.
Not the best place to be, especially with a bullet through your shoulder, but you know, I was carrying on as best I could. Stuck in the middle of fucking nowhere.
And then...boop, like a little surprise straight from heaven. Here comes a futanari, naked as the day she was created, running as fast as she could go, right through the center of the same wheat field.
At first, I thought I was dreaming. I mean, I thought I must be hallucinating. The lack of water mixed with the loss of blood. I looked around. I couldn't remember that last time I had seen a house, let alone a barn.
I shook my head. Surely it was mirage, it was impossible that there could be a futanari running through a wheat field in the middle of the day.
I stopped and listened. I could hear her cutting through the field, running as fast as her feet would carry her.
Nope, it was real. She was about five-foot-tall, with long blonde hair that flowed like a ribbon in the wind behind her. She was mowing down the wheat in front of her and leaving a long, thin trail behind her.
I waited. Usually, when people are running, it's because they are being chased. A few moments of patience might answer a lot of the questions that had just popped up.
But I didn't see anyone chasing her.
I wondered if she was a stray. Had to be. A naked futanari in a wheat field was not normal, not running like she was. She must have become cognizant and gotten away from her farm.
It had been a couple weeks since I had read about the sabotage. It's not often something in the newspaper catches my interest, but the company that produced the drug that kept the futanari strain, shall we say, subdued, had been sabotaged. Someone had nixed the formula, so the last few months, they had been sending out drugs that didn't do what they thought they did. In fact, no one was sure what the saboteur had done to the medicine. It was still being investigated.
She must have been one. Must have just woken up and realized what was happening to her.
I shook my head. The world was a cruel place.
I started toward her. She must have run away, gotten free somehow and started running.
Adjusting my path to intersect hers, I did my best to catch up. She saw me and tried to turn the other way, but she was exhausted, covered in sweat and her hair was plastered to the sides of her face.
I got within a few yards of her.
"Hey, stop!" I yelled.
My shoulder was killing me. The blood had already run down my shirt and halfway down my right thigh. I must have looked like I was about to die.
The futa looked at me for a minute. I couldn't tell if or how cognizant she was. Did she understand language? Did she speak mine? She could have been an import. The blonde hair and blue eyes made me wonder if she wasn't from across the Atlantic.
She turned and kept going.
I groaned as her skinny ass waded through the wheat ten yards ahead of me. She wanted to run but she didn't have anything left. The skin along her legs was red and irritated from the leaves against her bare skin. She must have been running for miles.
She started to jog. Her breasts bounced as she went. She looked young, maybe a season before her first breeding season, but someone had been milking her and taking care of her.
Still, she was pretty.
"Stop!" I yelled one more time before I pulled my gun.
The weapon was heavy in my hand. I didn't want to do it - firing a gun was the last thing I wanted to do. The bots wouldn't be able to
hear
it, but the posse in charge of them, the group that had been following me in a truck for the last two days, might hear it. Either way, it was going to draw attention I didn't want.
But I did want the young woman in front of me to stop. If nothing else, for her own safety. I took a deep breath and pointed the weapon in the air.
Empathy, it wasn't something I was used to feeling. As far as I was concerned most people could go fuck themselves. But I remembered what it was like to wake up.
They stop the Kurtalium right after your last extraction. There's no need for it any more. For the next stage of our existence, it helps if we are more...alert? Alive? Present?
The medicine wears off slow, it's like the medicine is a coating of ice around your brain and when you stop taking it, the ice starts to melt. Only it doesn't melt evenly, and you never know what part of a futanari's brain is going to thaw first.
The drug had a strange effect, it was like waking up from a pleasant dream you don't really remember the details of. It's like you wake up and realize that you're alive, but you don't remember anything, but you know what everything is and how to talk and read and eat. You're a complete person, but you are brand new.
And as soon as you realized all of that, the moment it all becomes painfully clear, that you are alive, you usually also realize that you have been sold from breeding stock to pleasure worker, or a you've been snipped of everything (you know, to keep you off the husbands and fathers) and you work as a domestic - maybe a cleaner, or a maid, some became nannies.
"Come on, for fuck's sake, stop!" I yelled, unable to keep up.
She didn't even look over her shoulder.
My shoulder was screaming. I fired in the air.
The gunshot echoed across the vast empty space.
Fuck.
It was the very last thing I wanted to do.
The futa froze.
She looked over her shoulder and as soon as she saw the gun, she dropped to her knees and disappeared in the wheat.
"Shit," I tried to walk faster, but I had lost so much blood I felt light-headed and I knew I wasn't walking well. I stumbled over a stone and then scrambled to my feet. I couldn't remember where she had disappeared at.
I walked in a circle trying to find her and finally found her sitting on her knees, staring up at me.
Tears rolled down her cheeks. "Please," she said, "no." She looked at the gun in my hand.
"Hey, no," I holstered it and dropped to one knee. "No, hey, I wasn't going to shoot you."
She crawled into my arms and I held her. She put her head on my shoulder. She was shaking she was so scared.
"Hey, it's ok. It's ok." I rubbed her back as she clung to me. She was so afraid.
I pulled away and looked into her eyes. "Hey," I tried to reassure her, "it's ok. Where do you live, what farm?" We stood and looked around but there was nothing but wheat fields. She looked like she didn't understand what I was saying.
Then I heard them, bots. The steam engines that powered them produced a steady hissing sound that was just softer than a whistle. They must have picked up my scent or sweat or something. They were moving toward us.
I took the young woman's hand and looked around. We had to pick a direction. "Don't suppose you know where home is?"
She looked up at me, but I couldn't tell she really understood. The drugs must have just been just starting to wear off. I looked back the way she had come. It was our best chance.
I took her hand and we made a run for the hills. I could hear the bots getting closer, chasing us. The futanari ran beside me, her bare feet in perfect rhythm with mine, her finger clasped in mine.
My heart was pounding. I was light headed. I thought I saw a clearing ahead, a break in the trees. Was that a building? A barn? We were too far or was my vision fucked up?
And then I was on my back. The blue sky was above. I saw a lazy cloud shaped like a rabbit. I smelled earth, fresh earth like a grave being dug.
I heard the futanari in the wheat near me, but I didn't have the energy to turn my head. I felt light. I had lost too much blood. There was nothing to do now but smile and give into the peaceful feeling that was moving up my legs.
It was cool in the sunshine.
I closed my eyes.