Adya almost collapses backwards into Nate. The barrel of a pistol is not six inches from her nose. Her mentor places a tight grip on her shoulder and steps back, trying to put as much space between her and the assailant as possible. The helmet keeps her identity hidden, but her intention of harm is as clear as day.

She turns to the old clerk and gives him a nod back into the lobby. “Relax. I’m not another thug who’s here to rob you,” she says. He disappears through the door at a speed much faster than a man his age should be capable of moving. The woman eyes her captives up and down, cocking her head to the side. “I’m much more interested in you.”

“Guess I’m a likeable guy,” Nate says. If she wasn’t trying to keep herself from short circuiting, Adya would’ve laughed.

“Not you. Don’t be a headache for me, Agent. Just give me the girl and you can go cry wolf to your commander, or whatever it is you do.”

“Whatever this bounty is, the ACA can double it. You want me to call the general?”

“And bring a squad out? Sounds like a lot of trouble for the both of us. I respect that you want to negotiate, but I’m not interested. This job is more than enough to keep me comfortable.”

The mental fog clears and Adya hears Val’s voice in her head. Grab the barrel. Smack my wrist. Move out of the line of fire. Take the gun and aim it back at me.

Her fingers latch onto the barrel. Before the assailant can pull away, Adya throws a harsh jab into her wrist that loosens her grip. With the pistol in her grasp, she aims it back at her attacker, finger hovering over the trigger. 

Nate nearly misses the exchange, but his jaw hangs open. With no capacity to hyperventilate, she almost looks calm. 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Adya says. Even with the upper hand, it’s hard not to let her voice waver. The synthetic thumping in her chest is purely for show. “Take his negotiation or leave. We don’t want any trouble.”

When she scoffs, Adya can almost see the eyes rolling beneath her attacker’s visor. She doesn’t bother to raise her hands any higher than her waist. “Come on, say it like you mean it. I’ve met secretary AIs with more authority than that.”

Nate slips out from behind his cadet and snatches the woman’s wrist, twisting her arm behind her head. She can only resist for so long before a quick jab in the back of the leg sends her knees to the pavement. This time, Adya nearly misses the exchange. “As you can tell, I’ve got my hands full this week,” he says through gritted teeth, “so I’m going to offer you a different compromise. Leave empty-handed and I won’t go on record for this exchange. I have bigger things to do than run errands and deal with petty crime. But if you keep going after your bounties in the middle of the goddamn day, I can’t promise that this is the last we’ll be seeing of each other. I know sloppy work when I see it.”

He shoves the woman out of his grip and she straightens her helmet. She scoffs as she brushes the dirt from her motorcycle jacket. “I might be the first, but I won’t be the last to try and cash in,” she says, knowing she’s beat. “Watch your step, kid.”

She disappears around the corner with the roar of an engine. Adya recoils at the sight of her own hand holding a real, loaded gun. She turns the safety back on and hands it to Nate, who’s still processing what just happened. Just as much as Adya dislikes holding someone at gunpoint, her mentor dislikes the sound of his voice when he makes a threat. Aggression is a relic of the past for him and he wishes that Adya didn’t have to see him like that.

The car ride is painfully silent before Adya stops twiddling her thumbs and playing the memories over and over like a rewinding tape. Nate, on the other hand, concocts the least horrifying way to tell General Morales that their brand new cadet was almost kidnapped. “Who was that?” she finally asks.

“A bounty hunter,” Nate answers. “I was hoping to have at least a little more time before I had this conversation, but they’re all over the country. LA, especially, since it’s a metro area. Anything bionics related that requires going around the law, around the ACA, they’ll do it.” He sighs and drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “It seems that there’s already a bounty over your head.”

She’s only ever known “good” public attention, really; no matter how invasive reporters get, they have good intentions. They want to know more about her. Bad public attention, however, might cost Adya her life. 

“What do bounty hunters want from me?”

Nate huffs out a chuckle as if the answer is already obvious. She’s so humble and she doesn’t even realize it, he thinks. “Let me put it this way,” he answers. “Your ACA file is so classified, only Elora and her team back in Kolkata are allowed to view it. All I get is your ten-page cadet folder that’s mostly information I already know about you.”

Adya goes back to tracing the skyline with her eyes when they merge onto the freeway. “I don’t follow.”

“Adya, you are a walking, talking, feeling computer. You’re the first one, ever. There are cybernetics in your system that do not exist anywhere else. That turns a lot of heads.”

Normally, she’d be offended by the term “walking computer”. But Nate makes it seem like a title to wear with honor rather than an oversimplified insult. 

“If this changes your mind about anything, I understand,” he continues. “This is a dangerous job, especially when your reputation precedes you. But you don’t have to be a field agent if you don’t want to. You can join the research division or do mission communications.”

Adya shakes her head, shoving away the thought of throwing in the towel in so soon. If she wanted to sit in a room and give instructions or do research, she would’ve stayed back home. “I didn’t come all this way for nothing,” she says. “The doctors always told me that no matter what I chose to do with my future, they’d stay uninvolved. But I’m confident that if I stayed at home, they’d have their hands over every little thing I did to ensure I was safe enough for them. I’m gonna have to face the ugly parts of… this, eventually.” She gestures broadly from her head to her toes. “Running from a few bounty hunters in America is better than being a nineteen year old who’s constantly watched by the CBI in India.”

Nate starts to connect the dots. Adya’s surveillance has only ever been for her protection-- now, many of the eyes on her intend destruction. Still, he thinks that going after a bounty in broad daylight is foolish. The price must be high enough that the reward outweighs the risk.

“Nate?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you do me a favor and keep this between us? Elora will throw a fit if she finds out. I’ve spent two years being babied by her and I think this will actually give her a heart attack.”

He wheezes out a laugh and swerves back into Goddard’s back lot. “Sure thing, Cadet. You have my word.”