Morning sunlight filtered through a pair of faded mint curtains, casting a sickly green light across the room. Robert groaned and groped clumsily for an eye mask that wasn't there, then pulled the musty blanket over his head in defeat.

From the bathroom came sounds of splashing water. Alice had filled the sink from a jug of bottled water, the taps having been shut off long ago. She was giving herself a sponge bath with a ratty blue scrap of fabric that may once have been a hand towel. Enough sand for a mid-sized castle had settled down into the stained basin. She didn't think anyone would mind.

The house has been empty for decades, along with the rest of Unterwestrich. RWE had bought the town lock, stock, and barrel in the early 20s for the next stage of their mining operation. Then the world lost its taste for coal, and the expansion never happened. No one had bothered to move back; the town was dying before being bought, and the only thing of note nearby was an abandoned open-pit coal mine.

It'd taken Alice and Robert the better part of an hour to locate a building with a sound roof, all its windows, and a place to hide the car for the night. Finding the bedding had been a stroke of luck - Robert discovered the old locked trunk while checking out the attic. Alice did something with her knife and a broken paperclip to pop it open. Inside were two moth-eaten quilts lying atop a stack of yellowed love letters, written in German. There was a single faded polaroid of the young couple, standing side-by-side at the base of a snow-covered alp, shoulders squared to the photographer. Judging by his plaid shirt, her acid-washed jeans, and the presence of meaningful amounts of snow, it was probably taken 50 years ago. They looked severe, but happy.

Shaking out the bedding had put Alice into a sneezing fit, but as long as she kept it away from her nose it hadn't interfered with sleep. There were plenty of other things that did keep her up, like her boss turning her life's work into a doomsday weapon, or that same boss repeatedly trying to kill her. Never mind her half-baked plan to stop him.

Alice finished with her her ablutions and dressed. At least she'd been able to wash out her clothes last night, not that the blood stains were coming out with a bar of hand soap. The blouse had dried alright, but the pants were still damp inside. She was thankful it wasn't any colder here.

She returned to the living room where they'd been sleeping. Robert was sitting up shirtless, rubbing his eyes with two brown fists. He wasn't overweight exactly, but the softness of his lines showed he cared little for exercise.

"Oh good, you're awake. Wash up and let's hit the road, got a big drive today."

Robert grumbled something indistinct but looked to be getting up. Alice headed to the kitchen to give him privacy as he dressed. She spread a packet of Nutella over a slice of cold bread, a gift from Wiktor.

Wiktor had been very sorry that the help he'd sent had turned out to be assassins, and was more than willing to comp them a clean rental car and directions to Unterwestrich. They'd ditched the dead mercenary's pickup in a barn outside of Ghent, walked across a field, and hopped into a nondescript Skoda 2-seater. The back was stuffed with provisions, including Alice's favorite guilty pleasure, Nutella.

She looked down at her bread, shrugged, and added a second packet of gooey hazelnut deliciousness. Her nutritionist would disapprove, but having just been dropped from the sky and shot at she deserved a cheat day.

By way of compromise she opted to take her 'breakfast' on a walk. She stepped out the back door and into the cool morning air.

In the distance a drone swooped methodically back and forth across a field, occasionally pausing to spray a burst of droplets over a needy plant before moving on. Alice hugged her torso and looked back toward the house.

Paint sloughed off the southern exposure as if the structure were molting. A dragonfly caught a ray of sunshine as it settled on the lentil above the door. Alice glanced left and right, then walked back toward the kitchen. Two steps away from the door she jumped and grabbed at where she'd seen the bug land.

Something buzzed angrily in her hand. She squeezed until it stopped, then hurried back into the house. "Robert, we need to talk. Now." He stepped out from the bathroom, buckling his belt.

"What's going on? More crazies with guns?"

By way of answer Alice opened up her hand. Inside was a tiny camera mounted on a cylinder and a pair of crumpled wings striped with bands of shiny metal.

"Some kind of broken spy bug? Where'd you get that?"

"Outside our door, and it wasn't broken when I found it."

Robert looked up scanning the ceiling.

"I don't think there are any inside - we picked this place specifically because it sealed. Let's talk fast, then get going."

"What is there to talk about? Someone knows where we are, we need to get the hell out of here." Robert had moved to the front window and was peaking around the edge of the curtain.

"The question to ask Robert, is who knows, and how? These things have limited range, it didn't fly in from out of town. There's either someone already here that deployed the bug, or we brought it with us."

Robert blinked twice, then spoke. "I don't get it. If Wiktor is double crossing us, why weren't we attacked by more of Lynch's goons while we slept? Wiktor's the one who sent us here."

"Maybe he's not working for Lynch. There are other interests who'd like to know what we know."

Alice tried to remember what they'd talked about in the car yesterday. Not much, they'd both been pretty drained from the morning's ordeal. They'd discussed Wiktor getting them into Hungary, but had she mentioned the customs warehouse? She didn't think so.

"Those bugs don't stream back live; too much power drain, plus extra weight for the transmitter. We have a few minutes before anyone notices this one hasn't checked back in. If I'm right, we'll find a docking port somewhere on the Skoda. And if I'm wrong, well, the enemy is at our gates, at least we'll be by the car."

Robert hastily laced his shoes. Alice didn't have the luxury, having lost hers in the dunes. They both went out the back this time, then waded through tall grass to the garage where they'd stashed the car.

Robert swung open the garage doors, and Alice drove the car onto the weed-choked gravel drive. She hopped out and climbed the hood, being careful of her back. It felt stiff this morning, but didn't hurt. Maybe she'd gotten away without major spinal damage.

The roof of the car held no surprises. The sheet of glass wrapping from windshield to trunk afforded no hiding places. Inspection of the front, back, and sides likewise turned up no secret compartments. Which left the bottom.

Alice tried wriggling under the car but only succeeded in filling her waistband with gravel. Her head just barely fit under the bumper, and it looked like things got a little lower further back. She stood up. "I need you to drive the car over me."

"You want me to run you over?" Robert stared quizzically, brow furrowed.

Alice sighed. "No, I want you to drive the car over me. I'll lie down between the wheels, you pull slowly forward. I want to check the undercarriage. First I need to dig out a little here, give me a hand."

The two of them shoved aside gravel to create a depression the shape of Alice's torso, with some extra room for her head. Alice tried it out to make sure there weren't any high spots.

"Okay, I'm ready. Open your window so you can hear me." Alice triple checked the grade to ensure she wasn't setting herself up to get squished, then lay down again. Robert plonked himself in the driver's seat, shaking his head.

Alice heard the sound of the window rolling down, then the car began a slow advance. Her heart beat faster in her chest. The bottom still looked too low, had she miscalculated? As the bumper approached she instinctively turned her head to the side. She cautiously turned back and found there was room for at least a piece of card-stock between the tip of her nose and the undercarriage.

Now to find the bugs. The front bumper was a single piece of plastic, unmarred. Next came the featureless steel plate that protected the battery pack from road hazards. Nowhere to hide on that. And afterward...

"Stop!"

Robert brought the car to a halt about 3/4 of the way over Alice, just past the battery shield. Alice stared at a messy rectangle carved out of the plastic by one of the wheel wells. Made in haste with a rotary tool, from the looks of it. Jammed into the opening was a plastic box the size of a pack of playing cards, the lid of which hung open. Inside were three metallic dragonflies, plus an empty space for a fourth.

"Found 'em. Get it off me please."

Robert finished pulling the car forward, keeping the same cautious pace. When she was finally clear Alice rolled out of the gravel and stood, stretching her back. She opened the passenger door. "Looks like your buddy fucked us Robert. We're–"

Alice stopped. Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 began playing from the car, oddly muffled. "Can you turn off your music while I'm talking?"

"That's not me Alice, I don't even like Beethoven."

"It's Frédéric Cho– never mind." Alice cocked her head - the sound was coming from the glovebox. She opened it up and dumped the owner's manual on the floor, revealing a seemingly empty compartment. The song was louder though.

She reached in with both hands and felt carefully along the rear wall, finally detecting a little ridge in one corner. This part at least was a professional job. It took her another moment to figure out the release, then she pulled away the false bottom. Hidden inside was a cell phone, which was ringing. The caller ID read: "WIKTOR."