Chapter 16 – The Bus Driver

Kim had to return to work at the music store immediately following Malka's punishment. Eloisa entered Dukov's office to remind Kim that she was needed at the customer service counter. She stopped to look at Malka's prostrate body and collection of dark welts and bruises. She was awestruck by the severity of Malka's punishment, and also by the fact that one of the most feared officers in the National Police had been reduced to a beaten and semi-conscious criminal, wearing a collar and lying naked on a recovery table.

Kim left Dukov's office to return to her normal life. Eloisa came to fetch her friend not only for her boss, but also to make sure she would be available for a recording session planned for that evening. A representative from a French record company would be on-hand to witness the session. Eloisa hoped for a foreign distributor for her band's music and needed all the members to be present.

Spokesman Dukov watched the two naked young women descend the stairs as they left to go to work. Suddenly he felt very satisfied about Criminal # 98945 and her future. For the first time he knew, not just hoped, but actually knew, that his client would come out of her two-year sentence a much stronger and better person. Kim's courage had been tested, her physical endurance had been tested, and her need to come to terms with an enemy had been tested. The young woman's character displayed incredible strength in the face of some very harsh realities. Dukov reflected that, once the restrictions of Kim's sentence ended, she really would be capable of achieving great things in this life.

Dukov's immediate problem was not Kim, however. His immediate problem was what to do with Malka Chorno. The former police officer had neither a job nor a place to live. Prior to her public disgrace Malka lived with her parents, as was the case for any young woman who was not yet married. She had a very formal and traditional relationship with a fiancée, although rumors circulated that she had enjoyed affairs with several of her co-workers. All of that ended when Malka lost her badge. Her father locked her out of the family house, her fiancée left her, and her old lovers and friends turned their backs on her. She literally was starting from nothing, having to completely re-build her life living among people she had abused and humiliated just a week before.

In many ways Kim had an easier task adjusting to being a Danubian criminal than would Malka. People generally sympathized with Criminal # 98945 because she was just 18 and a foreigner. She had no reputation prior to her arrest nor any enemies. She did not have to face the humiliation of being a criminal in front of her family and friends. Malka, on the other hand, was well known and hated by many people. She was 26 and Danubian, so there would be no patience or consideration from other Danubians like there had been for Kim.

Malka's life would be one of constant and on-going humiliations. Any day she had to take care of business in Dukov's office she would have to walk through the Central Police Station past dozens of ex-co-workers. Every time she saw a cop on the street, she would know that person. Undoubtedly she would pass members of her family or her ex-fiancée's family every so often. Worst of all would be constantly facing other criminals, people who she had terrorized and abused in the past. Malka, of course, now held no special status among criminals, so the others would be free to jeer at her as much as they wanted.

Dukov wondered what on earth Malka could do to earn a living. Kim's music store definitely was not an option. Dukov hardly could imagine Malka smiling at patrons from a store's customer service desk. The only logical solution was his brother’s courier service. It was far from perfect and a solution that could only be temporary, but working as a courier really was the only thing Malka could do at the moment.

Dukov called his brother. Not surprisingly, Victor objected to the idea of having to employ an ex-police officer. All of his other employees were only a year or two out of high school. Just how would an ex-cop fit in with a bunch of high school graduates? Dukov knew that his brother eventually would agree to employ Malka, if only on a temporary basis, but he spent nearly an hour begging and arguing before Victor finally agreed to issue Malka a bicycle.

"I will tell you this, Vladim. You had better let her know that around me she won't be any better than one of my other employees. Don't expect me to be nice or courteous to her because I won't be. When I snap my fingers, she'd better damn-well jump."

Dukov sighed when he hung up. Victor, always his same unpleasant self.

Malka's next problem was where she was going to live. Dukov did have a possibility. He had a classmate from high school whose husband had just died. The woman was trying to raise three children and manage a small goose farm by herself. Anyone who has ever been around geese knows that geese are quite ill tempered. Well, Malka was even more ill tempered. No goose would be a match for the ex-cop. Vladim called his ex-classmate to suggest giving Malka a room and board in exchange for help with the geese and a small monthly rent. Overwhelmed with the loss of her husband, the Spokesman's classmate quickly agreed. Besides, the woman's children were getting out of hand, and having a cop around might help them calm down.

Vladim Dukov then called his secretaries in to have afternoon tea. In Upper Danubia mid-afternoon tea was a custom in all professional offices, a time when a boss and his employees sat together to relax. It was the one opportunity the Spokesman and his two assistants could sit together as equals and chat about their lives. Today's topic, of course, was the disgraced police officer recovering in the reception area and the events that led her to her current situation.

The three heard Malka stirring outside Dukov's door. They invited her in to join them for tea. Malka came into the office, knelt, and placed her head to the floor. When the Spokesman gave her permission to stand up, Malka took a cup and a sweet roll. She had to eat standing because her bottom and the backs of her thighs were dark and still horribly swollen. She would be very badly bruised for quite a while, so her first deliveries for Victor would have to be done on foot. There was no way her bottom would take the pressure of a bicycle seat until the bruises subsided a bit.

Dukov told his new client about her new job and living arrangements. Malka quietly nodded and thanked Dukov for taking the time to get her set up. As for her living arrangements, she was quite happy. She had grown up on a farm, so it would be a nice change from her life in Danube City. She had a comment about Victor that put Dukov's mind at ease.

"Spokesman, your brother doesn't sound any worse than several of my section chiefs. Remember where I worked is not a place known for having nice people, and I am used to taking orders. I've been yelled at plenty of times, so I'm sure your brother will be just more of what I'm accustomed to already."

The only problem with Malka's living arrangements was the location of Vladim's classmate's farm. It was a kilometer outside the Danube City collar zone, which meant that he would have to petition to have the transmitter in her collar re-programmed to allow her to live outside the normal area for criminals. Because it was Saturday, Dukov had to wait until Monday to turn in the paperwork. It would be Tuesday at the earliest before Malka could have her transmitter re-programmed. One of Dukov's secretaries volunteered to have the criminal stay with her family until Tuesday.

With that Malka put on her police belt. She was required to wear it to show everyone that she at one time had been a police officer. The belt, sitting alone on the woman’s otherwise naked body, accentuated her nudity. She sadly knelt and said goodbye to her Spokesman. Malka then left the Central Police Station with the secretary, trying to avoid the stares of her ex-peers as she made her way out of the building.

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Following the broadcast of Malka Chorno's trial that Sunday night, Criminal # 98945 became something of a hero among her fellow-criminals. The others were amazed that she had been so savagely beaten and managed not to cry. They were impressed that the American was able to look Officer Chorno straight in the eye, even as the cop was slapping her face. They were gratified that Kim's actions resulted in the removal of a feared and sadistic police officer from their lives.

Kim expected the others to be angry over her plea for leniency for her former nemisis, but they were not angry at all. Danubian criminals tended to be more religious than average citizens, so Kim's actions following her visit to the Temple of the Ancients made perfect sense to them. Many of her peers even held out hope that once Officer Chorno returned to duty, she would be changed and would encourage her co-workers to treat criminals with respect and leniency.

For the first time in her life, Kim felt good about herself. She was not proud, because pride in oneself was an emotion Danubian society ridiculed. However Kim had learned self-respect and confidence in her ability to make decisions that were morally right. Her feeling of well-being increased when her father broke the news about the arrest of his attorney in Lima, the attorney who had promised, for a huge fee, that he could negotiate Kim's release from her sentence. For the first time Mr. Lee treated her with respect over the phone, gratified by the changes that had transformed his daughter into an adult.

Kim realized something else the week following Malka Chorno's trial. No longer did she want to kill Tiffany, nor in any way harm her. Her feelings about her high school friend had changed. If Tiffany were to re-enter Kim's life, she would be concerned with doing everything possible to help her. As her hatreds dissipated, Kim found herself well on her way to achieving inner peace.

The following Tuesday, exactly a week after her switching, Criminal # 98945 took Officer Malka Chorno's badge to the National Police Academy to surrender it. As promised by the judge, the institute's director was on hand to receive it. He assembled the cadets in the parade yard as Kim knelt and formally handed over the badge.

The director of the academy ordered Criminal # 98945 to stand up and then did something that shocked everyone. He bowed his head and kissed Kim's hand.

"Your gesture has humbled the National Police of the Grand Duchy of Upper Danubia. I will carry through with your desire to someday provide ex-Officer Chorno the opportunity to earn back this badge. I assure you that the opportunity I will give ex-Officer Chorno will be just that, an opportunity. She will need to earn her badge. It will not just be given to her. Now, please face the cadets and remain standing."

The director then let out the loudest and most ear-piercing whistle Kim had ever heard. The cadets, in unison, shouted:

"DOC-DOC DANUBE!"

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The water crisis in Upper Danubia intensified as the hot July weather showed no sign of abating. Eloisa was forced to cut back on band rehearsals as her male musicians took afternoons off to try to save their parents' vegetable gardens. All around the outskirts of Danube City groups of exhausted, forlorn young men clustered around pumps with buckets, waiting their turn to obtain precious water for their families' dying plants. Farms began slaughtering farm animals, reservoirs dried up, and the nation's forests began to change color as the trees sickened from the drought.

The Danubian government did what it could to ease the situation. Around Danube City it set up several pumping stations to move water from the Danube River to the residents' garden areas. It approved emergency measures to make sure farmers did not lose their land due to foreclosures. The Parliament approved a plan to ration water and electricity that began July 15, as the water level behind Upper Danubia's main hydro-electric dam dropped to a critical level. Danube City ended up with electricity for only 9 hours per day: from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., then from 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. The main purpose of the schedule was to keep the trolleys running during rush hour, but even so, the country's Prime Minister appeared on TV to exhort the citizens to ride their bicycles whenever possible.

As bad a crisis as the drought was, Danubian society was well suited to confront it. The government's main goal was to ensure the nation's food supply through the next growing season, so every action taken by the Parliament served that purpose. The population clearly understood the need to make sure everyone would eat through the winter, so any personal sacrifices that needed to be made to save a farm, or a vegetable garden, or a herd of cows, or to import food, were accepted and supported by the citizens.

On July 15 government scientists issued a warning the water table all around Danube City had dropped, and shortly many wells would run dry. The Minister of Agriculture warned that whatever vegetables people had managed to grow needed to be harvested and canned as quickly as possible. Food prices on fruits and vegetables started going up, but fortunately there was very little speculation and no panic buying.

The Ministry of Justice ordered all the nation's criminals to report to the Central Police Station the day after the warning. The police quickly turned off the transmitters in everyone's collars and then loaded the criminals onto buses to help farmers and pensioners get their vegetables harvested.

The wells ran dry over the following week as Kim and her friends helped harvest vegetables from several farms. The farmers issued the criminals work boots and aprons, and did what they could to show gratitude for the help. In the heat of the day, after working hard all morning, the criminals relaxed under shade trees and drank cold fruit punch to avoid dehydration. They started up again as soon as the sun lowered in the horizon and worked until well after dark. They slept on army cots, but in the evenings they ate well, enjoying food provided by the farmers they were helping. In spite of the hot, hard work, Kim enjoyed her week outside Danube City and the chance to see a part of Upper Danubia that normally would be off-limits to criminals.

The criminals spent their second and third weeks helping pensioners and anyone without an adult son harvest their vegetables from private gardens. They hauled baskets of harvested food to trolley-stops, and when necessary, helped pensioners carry heavy items to their apartments and houses. The fourth week most of the criminals returned to the farms for a final round of crop harvesting.

The farmers and pensioners were grateful for the assistance they had received and wanted to find a way to thank the criminals for their help. When several of them called Spokesman Vladim Dukov, he suddenly had an idea. He presented a petition to cancel all corporal punishments due to be issued through the end of September as a gesture of gratitude from the government. The idea caught on as many of those helped by the criminals lobbied their deputies to approve Dukov's proposal. The Upper Danubian Parliament approved the measure, not really having the time or the inclination to resist a popular idea. When the news broke to Kim and her friends out in the fields, they squealed with delight. Eloisa shocked Kim by hugging her. She and the others in her group had been due for a switching at the end of August. That punishment now was canceled.

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At the end of the second week in August, the criminals were transported back to the Danube City Central Police Station and their collar transmitters turned back on. The majority of the help they could provide was over, so they were released and ordered to return to their normal lives. The criminals had been away for four weeks, working 16-hour days with only a short break in the mid-afternoons. They were exhausted, sunburnt, and reeking from not having had the chance to get cleaned up. Their hair was disheveled and the men had beards. The women did not feel particularly feminine at that moment. Still, the criminals all were quite happy. They had performed public service to a country that had expressed at least some gratitude for their efforts.

Sergekt and Kim trudged up the hill to Dukov's house that evening. They hugged each other goodbye, and with that she went inside. Vladim and Maritza were eager to talk to Kim, but held off when they saw what a smelly mess she was. The first thought on everyone's mind was getting their surrogate daughter into a bathtub as quickly as possible. Once that was taken care of and Kim was civilized again, there was a dinner waiting for her. She recounted her adventures on the farms, but soon was nodding off. She went to bed right after dinner.

The next morning Kim woke up and looked out her window. She had not seen the view for a month and was shocked by how brown everything in the countryside appeared. A landscape that normally would have been lush green instead reminded her of the time she went on vacation in eastern Colorado. The trees were green, but the ground underneath them was completely brown. Kim noticed something else in the distance that she wondered about, some smoke in the air. She figured a farmer must have been burning some harvest debris. She shrugged her shoulders at the desolate view and prepared to deliver packages for Victor Dukov, for the first time in over a month.

There was more smoke in the air when Kim got home that evening. She spent the evening with the Dukovs, because Eloisa had decided to hold off on band rehearsals until the following week, and her boyfriend was busy helping his mother and aunt preserve what he had been able to salvage from her garden. Kim and Vladik stood at her window, commenting about the line of smoke in the distance and the increasing haze.

"This isn't good. I'd better call my section chief and see what's going on."

What was going on was the beginning of the worst natural disaster Upper Danubia would face in over a century. There were a series of huge forest fires just getting started. Already the entire fire departments of four provinces were totally occupied fighting the blazes. Most of the soldiers in Upper Danubia's small army were on their way to the fire zones as well. Officer Vladik Dukov's chief informed him a call-up of Danube City's police officers and firefighters was imminent.

While their son was on the phone, the elder Dukovs turned on their television. Vladim, Maritza, and Kim watched news footage of huge fires burning forests, farms, and villages in eastern Upper Danubia. There were dramatic shots of frantic farmers and police officers trying to move herds of panicking cows away from rapidly approaching flames. There was one particularly gruesome shot of a pig farm on fire, with hundreds of dying pigs trapped in burning buildings.

The fires were exacerbated because the country still had plenty of forested areas, some even close to major cities. The forests were a vital economic asset to the country, as well as a traditional part of Upper Danubia's defense strategy. Having large forests near the cities allowed the Danubian military to mount guerrilla operations against any foreign invader, since there was no hope that such a small country could defend itself in a pitched battle against a large modern army.

King Vladik the Defender originally set up the forest preserves in the early 1500's after successfully using the woods to help his army repel a total of five foreign invasions. The king was a military visionary, a person whose guerrilla tactics against both Papal and Turkish armies were way ahead of their time. As they made their way through the forests, the invading armies suffered massive losses before they ever got to Danube City, at the hands of King Vladik and his guerrilla archers. Because of the forests and King Vladik's military strategy, Danube City never fell under foreign occupation at a time the rest of central Europe was devastated by wars.

The military rationale for the forests faded in the 20th Century. However, Upper Danubia still took pride in its forest preserves at a time when other European countries were trying to restore their own forests. The only problem, one that no one could have anticipated, was the vulnerability of the entire system during a drought as severe as the one currently afflicting the country.

That night Vladim and Vladik Dukov went downtown to the Defense Ministry. The Spokesman had to translate a series of phone calls, as the country's fire chiefs called overseas for advice to work out a strategy for combating the fires. Finally the fire chiefs settled on a creating a system of firebreaks to save most of the forests and more importantly, Upper Danubia's towns and farms.

The following morning Kim and Anyia watched as military convoys rolled passed Dukov's house and into the valley towards the line of smoke. A couple of military helicopters flew overhead. Kim rode her bicycle to her music store job, not realizing the fires were about to impact her life and the lives of her friends in a big way.

When Kim got downtown she saw a couple of police officers standing outside the music store talking to her boss. She noticed the "closed" sign still on the door. When she went inside, no one was working. Instead Kim's co-workers were calling their families to tell them they had been drafted into the fire-fighting effort.

Eloisa came up to her with a very worried expression.

"Kim, call home. Let them know we're heading east, out to Rika Chorna Province, and it looks like we're going to be there for a while. They're pulling every criminal in Danube City to work on the fire-break they're setting up out there."

Kim parked her bicycle inside and called Anyia to let her know that she too, would be gone for an indefinite period of time.

Criminal # 98945 and her co-workers, only two days after being released from a month of heavy farm labor, walked with the police officers to the Central Police Station. The Central Plaza was full of criminals going through a huge assembly line to get them ready to become fire-fighters. The first priority was turning off their transmitters. Kim and Eloisa tilted their heads back as the collar technician touched their transmitters with an electronic device that somehow turned them off. The next line the two women stood in was to have their feet measured for army boots. The police took down their criminal number, Spokesman's name, and foot size; entering the information into a laptop.

The next line was for clothing. Yes, clothing. This was a national emergency, so Kim and Eloisa found themselves putting on yellow fire-fighting clothing. The clothing felt extraordinarily hot and uncomfortable to Kim, who had spent the last 14 months of her life living nude, but obviously no one expected her to fight a forest fire without proper protection.

The police shouted at the criminals to find their Spokespersons. Each Spokesperson had to organize his or her clients to get on the military trucks for transport across Upper Danubia. Kim knew that Vladim Dukov still was on the phone translating for the fire chiefs, so she went with Eloisa to find Spokesman Havlakt. Sure enough, he had Kim's criminal number and her boots. He handed each of the two women a bag containing socks, a canteen and belt, a fire blanket, gloves, dust masks, and several plastic bags of US army meals, or MRE's. He then ordered the two women to turn around and slapped their criminal numbers onto the Velcro patches onto their backs. He then pointed at the long rows of Danubian Army trucks at the other side of Danube City's Central Plaza.

"Your boyfriends are in the third truck in that second row. If you hurry up you can catch it before it leaves."

Kim and Eloisa didn't bother to put on their boots. They simply dumped them in their bags and ran across the plaza in a frantic dash to catch the truck before it departed. The truck already was moving slowly, but when the driver saw the two young women desperately running behind it, he stopped to let them get on. Kim sighed with relief as she saw Sergekt and sat down next to him.

For the second time that summer Kim's normal life as a criminal was suspended as she was drafted into the service of Upper Danubia. The trucks rode out to the edge of the capitol and beyond the border of the Danube City collar-zone. The criminals whistled and hissed as they passed one of the dreaded yellow signs. It was a gesture of derision against the system that normally restricted their lives so severely.

The criminals were in a relatively upbeat mood, in spite of the danger and toil that lay ahead. It was a part of their place in society they be available for emergencies. They felt good about being able to contribute. They also looked forward to getting out of Danube City, even if it was for just a short time in a very restricted area. Most importantly, they could look forward to the possibility of having a switching canceled if they performed their duties well. If the police felt it was necessary to put a criminal in harm's way, the reward usually was to cancel a switching. That promise was sufficient to make criminals plenty willing to put themselves at risk for the good of the community.

A fairly pleasant ride lay ahead for Kim and the others, then would come days of hellish work in a smoke filled environment. The criminals filled their canteens, put on their socks and boots, and looked at their MRE's with bewildered expressions. They sang a few traditional songs, but finally settled down to sleep or watch the countryside go by. Kim relaxed in Sergekt's arms as she observed the towns and forest parks of central Danubia.

"If this doesn't get burned up, we'll come out here next summer once we get our collars off. I'm desperate for a good hike."

Kim smiled and nodded. A hike would be nice.

The criminals' convoy climbed a series of foothills, passed the Rika Chorna Reservoir, and continued through a range of low-lying mountains. As the vehicles turned out of the pass to descend into the next valley, their passengers observed with horror what was going on. A massive fire was sweeping towards the foothills and blanketing the entire valley with thick smoke. Behind the fire was an enormous blackened area containing several villages, which already were burned to the ground. A long column of evacuees and herds of farm animals streamed past the military convoy, heading in the opposite direction away from the fire zone. Helicopters circled overhead, trying to douse sections of the fire with retardant.

As bad as the situation in the valley was, what concerned the government was the need to prevent the fire from making it past the first line of hills standing between the valley and the main mountain range. If the fire made it to the mountains, it would be completely uncontrollable and char the entire central portion of Upper Danubia. Not only would the forest be lost, the water shed for the nation's main reservoir would be destroyed and Danube City would lose both its electricity and water supply. The government's solution was to create a firebreak at the top of the first ridge, and in several spots a secondary series of firebreaks in case the fire jumped the main one. Professional fire crews and soldiers had sections of the firebreak nearly completed near the main road, but beyond the main road hill after hill was waiting for firebreak crews.

The trucks stopped along the main road as firefighters divided the criminals into work crews working under the direction of a police officer or a firefighter. Several trucks ahead, Kim noticed Malka Chorno, in her collar and yellow firefighter's suit, talking to couple of army officers. The officers placed her in charge of one of the firebreak crews, her status as a criminal suspended due to the emergency. For at least a couple of days Malka could go back to being her old self as a cop and shout orders at a group of subordinates.

Malka's crew separated out first. She was placed in charge of three Danubian soldiers, who in turn led three groups of 10 criminals each. Malka and her crew climbed onto a bus and disappeared down an unpaved country road towards one of the untouched hills.

Sergekt looked around sadly at the doomed countryside, and made a comment to Kim that later would become very significant.

"I've been all over this area. It has a lot of memories for me, because my father took me hunting and camping here before he died. I'm going to be real sorry to see it burn up."

The Danubian firefighters ordered the occupants of the first 15 Army trucks to get off with their gear. The firemen divided the criminals into groups of 10. Each group had a soldier leading it, and a firefighter or police officer was placed in charge of the three soldiers. The criminals received additional equipment such as shovels and pickaxes. The soldiers carried explosives to clear sections of firebreak and canisters to set backfires. Thus equipped, each crew loaded onto an old city bus and departed for one of the hills.

Fortunately the Danubian Army had managed to move several bulldozers and earthmovers out to the fire zone. The bulldozers already were en route to the line laid out for the firebreak and some already were toppling trees and brush.

Kim and her companions boarded a bus that trailed behind two army trucks towing bulldozers. They traveled about 25 kilometers away from the main road and then turned on a narrow dirt road that passed between two low-lying hills. There were five buses altogether, one for each heavily forested hill, and the other three crews to cut backup firebreak along a large meadow. The meadow was by far the more logical spot to cut a firebreak, but there was an evacuated village located at the back of the two hills the government was hoping to save.

As the smoke from the approaching fire increasingly poisoned the air, Kim's crew trailed behind the bulldozer, clearing debris as the soldiers set backfires. It was slow-going because of the large trees that needed to be cut down to clear the path. Three criminals who knew how to use chain saws switched off with the soldiers cutting branches, while the others exhausted themselves clearing flammable debris from the path. A local villager brought water and gasoline to the fire crew on a mule.

The villager also brought some bad news. The bus driver who had driven the bus Kim rode in on had a heart attack and had to be evacuated by the other bus driver. The other driver had to take the second bus back to the Rika Chorna Medical Center, but promised to return shortly with a replacement. That afternoon there was just one bus left near the road. There was no one to drive it, but the crew's supplies were there.

Kim's crew felt they had made good progress as night fell. The soldiers expressed confidence the village probably could be saved after all. The lead firefighter called his supervisor, who estimated the fire would reach the firebreak mid-afternoon the following day. The firefighter ordered the three soldiers to have their crews pick up their tools and follow him back to the road, where everyone would have dinner, reorganize their equipment, and camp. There was plenty of time remaining to widen the firebreak, set more backfires, and prepare to fight embers…or so everyone thought.

As dawn broke the following day, the fire crew noticed it was very windy. There was more smoke in the air, lots more, blowing up from the valley.

The firefighter was on his radio, talking with a very worried expression. What the Danubians overheard terrified them.

"What do you mean you can't get a driver over here? Can't you see we're trapped? What about a helicopter?…too windy? Look, there's 68 of us out here…You've got to get a helicopter…No! I don't know how to drive that thing!"

The Danubians seemed immobilized with fear. Suddenly most of them got on their knees and started reciting a prayer normally spoken at funerals. It was obvious the group’s members expected to be dead in a few minutes.

What the hell is the problem, thought Kim, we just get on the bus and go. She spoke up:

"Let's just get on the bus! We can get out of here on that!"

"There's no bus driver, that's why!"

"No one knows how to drive?!"

"Of course not! This is not America! We don't drive in this country!"

Kim glanced at the orange glare at the bottom of the hill. Unlike her companions, Criminal # 98945 was not yet ready to face the Creator in the Afterlife. There was only one solution. She would have to try to operate the bus and get everyone out.

"I do know how to drive! I haven't driven a bus, but I've driven a couple of vans! Everyone get on! I'll drive!"

The orange glare brightened. Kim frantically scrambled into the driver's seat of the bus. She fumbled for the ignition. The key was there, thank God. She turned it hard. The engine groaned in protest, but Kim got it running.

"GET ON!"

As Kim's 67 companions quickly filed on, she noticed the orange glowing brighter and brighter. Embers were blowing past the bus. The seats quickly filled and the final people boarding had to squeeze into the aisle or into the laps of those already seated. It was a tight fit, but everyone made it on. The firefighter took a quick look out the door to make sure no one was still outside, and climbed in.

Kim shifted into drive just as the flames became clearly visible along the road. The area was filled with smoke, making the frightened driver realize that she had a new problem, visibility. She gunned the engine and moved the bus forward, although not any quicker than the approaching flames.

Panic swept through Kim. She had to move faster, but she could only see a few meters ahead of her. The awkward and unfamiliar feel of driving such a large vehicle made things considerably worse. One wrong turn onto the wrong road, and the flames would catch them. If she lost control and went off the road, she and everyone else would die for sure. Suddenly Kim remembered Sergekt's comment about knowing the area.

"SERGEKT! SERGEKT!"

Sergekt struggled to get up to the front of the bus.

"You know this area?"

"Yes!"

"Tell me where to go! Get us out of here!"

For several harrowing minutes Sergekt directed Kim down the hill towards the village. The flames chased the bus, as though the fire was infuriated at the escape of Criminal # 98945 and her 67 passengers. The village now was doomed; the efforts of the two crews canceled by the sudden shift of wind. However, as the bus descended into flatter and more open terrain, its driver breathed a sigh of relief when she noticed the smoke was not as bad. The vehicle dashed across open fields towards the main firebreak as the fire roared behind and engulfed the village. The flames swept across the parched fields, but fortunately there was not enough fuel near the road to put the bus in any further danger. Kim sped towards her goal and rushed past the first line of firefighters. She braked, assuming, quite rightly, that the two crews in the bus were desperately needed to supplement the main firebreak. She directed her next question to the head firefighter.

"Where are we going?"

"Let's go left, towards that next hill! They'll need us up there!"

Kim turned onto a dirt road, not yet realizing the others were flabbergasted with her feat. With Sergekt guiding her, she drove along the hill and unloaded her passengers, one team at a time. The flames were approaching Upper Danubia's second, and final, line of defense. The exhausted criminals working the main firebreak cheered the arrival of re-enforcements. Because of Criminal # 98945, 68 potential fire deaths instead became 68 extra sets of hands for the drama about to unfold on the main firebreak.

The smoke thickened again as the fire approached the back-burned slope of the hill. It had run out of fuel to keep going, but in a final desperate effort to make it to the mountains, the fire shot burning embers across the firebreak. The fire-crews pounded small flare-ups with their shovels. There were plenty of scares, and one spot where it looked like the fire had indeed jumped the firebreak that had to be attacked by a tanker plane dropping flame retardant.

Finally, after two arduous days of shoveling spot fires and breathing smoke, the firefighters, soldiers, and criminals fighting the fire realized the worst was over. The central portion of firebreak had held so far. The fire still was burning towards the edges in either direction, but there were enough professional firefighters to handle the reduced crisis. The work was not over, because there was plenty of mopping up to do and the need to monitor the area, but the desperate physical danger largely had passed.

That night, as Kim and Eloisa tried to clean the soot off their faces, Eloisa mentioned Kim's hero status among her peers. Kim dismissed the entire incident.

"Look, I just drove a bus for a few minutes. That's all I did, and I wouldn't have made it down the hill if I hadn't had Sergekt telling me where to go."

"Well, you can say it's nothing, but we're all very grateful for what you did. You did save us."

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Three days later the criminals boarded the buses to go back to the main road. They would spend the night at the Rika Chorna Gymnasium getting cleaned up and resting. Then the plan was to transport them back to Upper Danubia's Central Valley to fight several smaller fires. However, that night, as they stood in the parking lot, Kim and her companions noticed it was increasingly humid. A light rain started as they went inside to eat and shower. Once clean and fed, the criminals relaxed on mattresses on the gym’s main floor. They all were asleep within minutes. The following day the firefighters came in to announce the planned operation in the Central Valley was canceled because it had rained overnight and still was raining quite heavily. Not surprisingly, most of the criminals dashed outside to see for themselves. Sure enough, sheets of heavy rain were falling in the parking lot. The police decided to collect the fire-fighting suits and other equipment in Rika Chorna, since the items no longer were needed. As the rain continued to fall some of the criminals dashed outside and splashed water on each other. Many others, including Sergekt, were kneeling on the wet pavement, giving thanks for safely making it though the fire fighting operation. Kim knelt beside Sergekt and joined him in prayer to the Spirits who had protected her.

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A week of rain put an end to the fire crisis. Upper Danubia still faced huge problems, including the rebuilding of thousands of homes burnt in Rika Chorna Province and the restocking of the area's farms. The government had to plan massive replanting operations and set up a general economic recovery program for the entire eastern half of the country. However, life in Danube City could return to normal, now that the Rika Chorna Reservoir had some extra water in it.

The government kept its promise to cancel the next switching for the criminals who had participated in the fire-fighting operation. That meant Kim's final switching on January 2 was canceled. The dreaded beatings now were behind her. Sergekt, Eloisa, and Kim's other friends now could look forward to the cancellation of two switchings, the one at the end of August, and the one at the end of December. That left them with only one switching, the one scheduled for next April, which would be the final corporal punishment for the group.

The sentencing judge decided to give commendations to several criminals whose participation in the fire-fighting operation was outstanding, including Kim and Malka Chorno. Kim found out that Malka's crew had cleared and guarded their firebreak under particularly severe conditions, and that Malka had administered first aid to three injured villagers that saved their lives.

The Danubian government made a much bigger deal out of Kim's driving than she thought was necessary. Criminal # 98945 became a hero not by being brave, but because she knew how to do something no one else in her group knew how to do. How easy it had been to be a hero. She simply was in the right place at the right time with the right knowledge. The judge asked Kim if she had any wishes in particular that she might want to make, within reason, of course.

"Yes, your honor, I do have one request. I don't want to end my sentence on July 2. I would like to complete my sentence with my friends. The day they take off their collars is the day I would like to take off mine. I know it will add three weeks to my sentence, but it is very important to me that I stand together with them the day my collar comes off."

"Well, that is an easy-enough wish to grant, Criminal # 98945. But you will take your collar off on July 2. I will shorten your friend's sentences instead of lengthening yours. So, on the Monday after July 2, there will be 29 of you in this courtroom. Considering your contribution to our country, I think that's the least I can do for you."

As they left the courtroom, Malka approached Kim. In spite of their overt coming to terms with each other, the two women still felt very uneasy in each other's presence. Malka had something she needed to say to Kim, however.

Chapter 17