Lizzie reveled in telling the tale of their adventure, while John Cougar sat cringing next to her, still horrified by the drive. Steph was sharing a third longneck with me, interjecting bits that she remembered. She was all for fortifying our position and waiting for Connie's assault, and her drunken rhetoric about, "saturation fire and first strikes", made me nervous. Surely the expenditure of so much ordinance would draw unwanted attention. I mentioned that fact and it sent Stephanie off on a tangent. She drunkenly vowed to put the suppressors onto all her long guns and load only smokeless cartridges. Finally she passed out again, muttering in her sleep about, "windage and elevation". I was left with Lizzie and John, and we entertained a more rational discussion through several tostados.

"So anyway," I said slowly through the alcohol, "I'm thinking the best strategy is to enlist all the help we can get. Lizzie, you talked with the cab and the Spyder, and John, you can talk to all the other inhabitants of the land around here. Couldn't we figure out an early warning system? Like, to spy on Connie or something? Maybe waylay her coming across the channel, or even in the city?"

"Chelle, that sounds like a capitol idea, it does," Lizzie enthusiastically agreed, "and I'd be glad to call a few of my friends, don't you know. Why, there's nothing I love better than having an excuse to network…except maybe motoring about on holiday."

"Since it's a reasonable assumption that Connie won't be walking here, having your friends on the lookout for her would be advantageous," John Cougar added, "but I don't believe that we should overlook the greater threat."

"You mean the rats?" I asked. I had to admit that it had been Connie Stanton who had solely preoccupied my quota of paranoia.

"Precisely," John said, "they were here long before Connie, and they'll still be here long after she's gone. I understand that she's a threat to Stephanie and our quality of life, but these rats could inherit the earth…at least, my piece of it. The roaches will undoubtedly usurp the rest." At this thought, he shivered with foreboding.

"You're right of course," I conceded. "Maybe Elvis could talk with the other city cats, especially his family, and create an underground organization?"

"If he'd be willing," John said, "it seems like a step in the right direction. We require information to formulate a response. Now, where is Elvis, anyway?"

The Kitten had disappeared shortly after Jennie had passed out, and we hadn't seen him since.

"I'll have a look for him," I offered, lurching to my feet, "and I'll look in on Jen as well."

I staggered a few steps, knocking over the bullet can and giggling as I upended an ashtray, before John Cougar padded past me to the stairs, saying that, "It might be prudent if I were to conduct this search, being as I'm still on speaking terms with my feet." Since I could hardly fault his logic, I collapsed back onto the sofa with Steph. It was at this time that the Eclipse Spyder finally spoke up.

"'Scuse me y'all, but't seems like yer havin' more troubles then a nestfull 'a coons entertainin' a cottonmouth," he said in a rich baritone. For a sporty Japanese car, he sounded like he'd come straight from the Grand 'Ol Oprey. I giggled drunkenly.

"Somehow, I'd expected you to have a foreign accent, ya know?" I managed to say.

"Awww now, ya sweet young thang, ah'm from a factr'y 'n Tennessee…all 'merican, 'n 'ssembled by some good 'ol boys down 'n Oak Ridge," he explained. "Name's Virgil, miss, 'n ahm mighty pleased 't meet'cha."

"Oh, so ok, my name's Michelle, but people call me Chelle. I'm from Kettleman City, Ca., near Bakersfield?" I offered him a smile. "I'm pleased to meet you too, Virgil."

"Why thank ya, Chelle. Ah've met Lizzie Cooper here, runnin' down the highway, 'n ah figur'd out tha puma's John. Th' lil lady what rent'd me's Jennie…'n I think ah rec'nize yur girlfr'nd there, 'spite 'a the fact she's so snok'rd, hehe."

"Well, yeah, she's Stephanie Walker, and she's famous," I told him, looking over at her tenderly. She was muttering adorably in her sleep about, "tracers every eighth round."

"Hoo-wee, she's the bomb gurl a'right…I jes knew 't."

"Virgil, dear," Lizzie said, "she's my dearest friend, she is, and she's got a lot of enemies about, though you'd not think so to look at her." Here Lizzie paused and giggled, tilting up on her tires to look more closely at Steph's condition. "But, if I do say so, we're truly concerned, and we're resolved to do anything we can to help her."

"Why, Miss Lizzie, say n'more. Virgil here's at yur d'sposal. I'd be proud 't help out."

About this time, John Cougar returned to the garage, carrying a chastened Elvis by the scruff of the neck. He dropped him unceremoniously on the carpet and reported that he'd found him in the bedroom, "trying to bother poor unconscious Jennie."

"She's such a babe," Elvis muttered in an attempt at explanation.

"Well now, ain't he jes a randy lil thang," Virgil chuckled, "'mus be them youthful hormones kickin' up th'r heels, hehe."

"Hey," Elvis protested, "she was sitting on your seat and playing footsie with your pedals, country boy."

"She was at that, son, lord 've mercy." I could almost see Virgil smirking at the memory. I decided that I liked him. He had more of the real Elvis' persona than the Kitten.

By playing on his guilt, and dangling an introduction to my friend, Jennie, as an incentive, we managed to cajole Elvis into doing espionage in the city. In fact, he wasn't hard to convince. The idea of being a spy and acting on his own appealed to his adolescent need to define himself through adventure. He'd been watching too much TV and believed "cloak and dagger" stuff was sexy. The possibility of becoming a hero to impress Jen didn't hurt either. By the end of our talk, he was gung-ho and ready to go. Lizzie made a couple calls and then we decided that I'd play driver as we drove Elvis into Chinatown.

I'd never been to San Francisco's Chinatown, and I depended on Lizzie to follow the directions Elvis and his in-town contact had created. Elvis' memory of the streets and back alleys was a little rusty, but his cousins, Lao-tsu and Lao-ma, knew every block. We dropped him off at an anonymous warehouse, which Lizzie informed me held Yo Fat-Boy's Drunken Dragon Hong Kong Fireworks factory. Elvis disappeared into the shadows with a pair of nondescript tabbies.

On our way back to the house, Lizzie took a detour. We threaded our way through a narrow alley and stopped midblock in front of a burned out single story building, still boarded up and deserted after a year and a half. In Lizzie's headlights, I could see there had been a catastrophic fire. On one square of the plywood covering the rubble where the sidewalk had been, the Chinese residents had left flowers, candles, and offerings of food and drink. There was a small sign with Chinese characters. It was eerie, lonely, and felt overwhelmingly sad. At the time, I had no idea what it signified.

"What is this Lizzie?" I asked. "Why are we here?"

"Shhhh, hon," Lizzie silenced me. She was concentrating, actually straining her gears, and then after a moment, I could feel something strange happening.

As I stared at the wreckage, it seemed to shimmer, as if I was viewing it through tears. The vision included sounds too, a loud TV program replacing the silence of the alley. A garage building arose from the rubble, and a gas pump sprouted in the blacktop just past the restored sidewalk. There were three bay doors with warm yellow light glowing through the many square windowpanes. I watched in fascination as a cat's head popped up in a middle bay window. He looked out at us and then turned away for a moment. A face joined him, looking out at us from the adjacent pane. In the glow of Lizzie's headlights, I saw that it was Stephanie. She shook her head and turned to speak to the cat. Briefly, I saw the hint of a grin on her face. Then she turned away and returned to whatever she'd been doing inside. Finally, the cat dropped out of sight, and then the vision shimmered again, but now it went up in an explosion of violent flames. I heard the screams from inside, sirens in the distance, and then silence. The vision faded, to be replaced by the cold dark rubble of the present.

"This was where Stephanie was happiest, once upon a time," Lizzie told me in a sad whisper, "and we're the present shadow of what she once knew. We came here, she and I, a year to the day after the fire, it was. Stephanie stood here for over an hour, silently crying for her lost family, she did. Told me she'd wished she'd been home that day to die with them. I saw the vision of what had been…the memory of what she still holds dear in her heart. Her enemies destroyed her home, Michelle…they destroyed all those she loved. It can't be allowed to happen again. It can't."

"Oh, honey, Stephanie loves you," I told her, "and you're so much more than just a shadow of her past. You're her present and her future…we all are." I desperately hoped that was true; I hoped that future included me. "We'll never let her enemies hurt her like this again. I swear, Lizzie, somehow, we'll make them sorry if they even try."

"She has so many friends and allies here in the city," Lizzie told me, "more than she knows about. After what's happened recently, almost everyone wants to help. A lot of them are ready to fight, but all of them are willing to help by passing along what they hear and see."

"That's how we'll beat them, Lizzie." I told her. "What enemy can move or keep a secret when there are ears and eyes all around them that they don't suspect? We have to organize. We've already started tonight."

"You're right, Michelle," Lizzie said. "And we'll win, even if we have to turn this city topsy-turvy, we will."

We drove back to the house, mostly wrapped in the silence of our own thoughts. It was already after 4:30am, and soon the morning rush hour would begin. I needed sleep, and I suspected Lizzie was nearly exhausted. We pulled into the garage and I think she was asleep even as she shut off her motor. I managed to stagger over to the couch and snuggle against Stephanie, who'd progressed from her muttering drunken drowsing into a deeper inebriated sleep. It wasn't long before I joined her there.

"Awww, aren't you two just too cute for words," I heard vaguely from someplace nearby. It was way too early, no matter what time the clock proclaimed, but against my better judgement, I opened an eye in irritation. It was Jennie, returned to the living.

"The swooning princess," I muttered, "have a good sleep?"

"Oh yeah, babe," she said way too brightly, "and I had the weirdest dreams." She was doing the "Jennie bounce", bobbing on her toes and making her breasts jiggle. I groaned. Jen had always been on better terms with the concept of "morning", when she tended to be hyper.

I really didn't want to start off with explanations before coffee, so I just groaned again and rolled over, hiding my face against Stephanie's chest. I felt her arms wrap around me tighter. I was way too comfortable to move.

"So, should I just stand here getting drunk off the fumes you two are exuding, or what?"

I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that I was being a terrible hostess, but what the fuck. Jen was a friend and a big girl. She could take care of herself.

"Coffee's in the kitchen, food's in the refrig, and the stove's uhhh, the stove. The TV gets 1200 channels and the stereo's in the living room upstairs." I instructed. "See ya in a few hours."

"Don't touch the control panels or the weapons' closet," Steph mumbled, "and don't answer the red phone."

"Geeez, still not a morning person, huh, Chelle?" Jen giggled. "Okay, I guess I'll take a shower and make myself some breakfast." She bounced off, back up the stairs.

It was probably less than twenty minutes later when I heard her scream from the kitchen, and then the crash of a pan hitting the floor. Stephanie and I bolted upright. What a wretched way to wake up, my forebrain chafed. Paddle her bottom to cherry red, my hindbrain cackled demonically.

"Sounds like John Cougar and Jennie having a dispute over the eggs," Steph sighed, stretching. She unwound from me and reached for a pack of Camels, quickly lighting two and handing me one. She was beautifully disheveled, and I drank in the vision of her as I sucked down the rejuvenating nicotine. Finally she groaned and said, "I guess I'd better see if anything's left of my kitchen…might need it later."

"Guess I may as well get up too." I declared with resignation. "Maybe some breakfast will help. So anyway, good morning, hon. How are you feeling?" I asked, all the while thinking, God, I know I feel like shit warmed over.

"Like shit warmed over," Steph moaned, before muttering absently, "I need a beer, a shower, and an orgasm."

"Ohhh, me too, me too," my hindbrain blurted out before I could think better of it. Our first time…and in the shower, it gloated. My midbrain was warming to the idea, and even my cranky forebrain was getting with the program.

Another shriek prompted Stephanie to take my hand and lead me upstairs, where unfortunately, a minor disaster awaited. We entered the kitchen holding our breaths. Jennie was crouched on the counter in an agitated state, doing a little anxiety dance. John Cougar was sitting below her in the center of the kitchen floor, sadly regarding a toppled frying pan and a large smear of half-scrambled eggs.

"Don't look at me," he protested, "these proceedings were a crime in progress even before my arrival. Just look at those eggs. Everyone knows that proper scrambles should be beaten with milk and then heated slowly in a double boiler."

"I…he…OMG, Chelle, what's going on here?" Jen choked out, looking at me with an accusing expression. She turned to Steph and hysterically claimed, "I thought it was all a dream, but you're running a mad house with talking animals."

"Yeah," Steph agreed, moving to the refrigerator and pulling out a longneck. "Now who's going to clean this up?"

Understanding from long experience that discretion was the better part of valor, John Cougar shrugged and padded out of the kitchen. Steph watched him go and then turned to Jen, saying, "I guess that leaves you, huh." I realized that Steph probably still didn't fully trust her.

"We're going to go shower, and then we'll make breakfast and talk," I told her, hoping it would suffice. I still wasn't at my best either. I desperately needed coffee, but I resolved to stay out of the kitchen until later. (I wasn't going to clean up that mess either).

Sadly, Stephanie and I weren't on shower sharing terms at that time, but her house did have two bathrooms upstairs. About twenty minutes later, the three of us were sitting at the kitchen table. Jen and I were hovering like vultures, mantling cups of coffee, while Steph was on her second longneck.

"So, what I saw last night wasn't a dream," Jen started with, proceeding step by step for the sake of her forebrain, "and your cougar and your car talk, right?"

"He's not really my cougar, but yes, they talk," Steph told her, lighting a Camel.

Nightshade padded in to join us, hopping up onto the table, and Jen looked at me hopefully, "At least your cat, Nightshade, is normal, Chelle."

"Not nearly," Nightshade and I both said at the same time. She winked at me and I giggled. I was actually beginning to think of her as my cat.

Jennie was staring at all of us, but I thought she'd accept it. She'd always been an adaptable girl. Why, I remembered when she discovered her prom date trying on her lingerie. She'd confessed to me that they'd gone to the prom, having swapped undies.

"So, alright, I'm okay with this," Jennie finally said to convince herself, "I'm okay. Really."

Steph let out a sigh of relief, and then she looked at me and smiled. "Guess that means I won't have to shoot her after all. Now, can we have breakfast?"

I cooked…not great, with a broken arm, but with John Cougar kibitzing behind me, the food was edible. John Cougar and Nightshade the Cat joined us for the meal, and by the end of it, Jen was making comments and conversing with them relatively normally.

"Where's Elvis?" Stephanie finally asked, "that little pig would have been here as soon as he smelled the sausage."

"Actually, he's on a mission, Steph," I told her, then filled her in on the plans Lizzie and I had set in motion. "He's setting up an espionage ring in the city with his family. We dropped him off earlier this morning, at Yo Fat-Boy's factory." It seemed to satisfy her.

I have to say that Elvis really did a great job. In fact, he did much better than Lizzie and I had hoped. He distinguished himself and helped save the day. I think that for him, it was a rite of passage, since he came back acting more like a cat and less like a kitten.

The red phone rang and Steph picked it up. I watched as her expression became serious. Finally she hung up with a sigh.

"Well, guess we've got work of our own to do," Steph said, pushing back her plate and lighting a Camel. With that, she gestured for John and Nightshade to follow her out onto the deck. I didn't see either of them again for several days. They left Jen and me to do the dishes.

Around 9:00am, Stephanie took off with Lizzie, heading in to work, she said. She claimed that she wanted to know what the situation was with the bomb squad and the department, after her absence. She hadn't set foot in the precinct house since before she'd disappeared, over two months ago. I was nervous; Connie Stanton was still out there.

During the day, Jen and I traded gossip and news…mostly about Steph and me. I tried to impress upon her that I really was serious this time. Jennie, having known me since childhood, still had to look into my eyes for a while, but eventually she was willing to believe anything I said…as usual.

"So, I guess it's a little early to suggest a three-way, huh, babe?" She asked.

"Well, yeah," I replied, feeling a twinge of jealousy, "but I'll be sure to let you know…promise. So, maybe later?"

"Okay, hon," Jen giggled, "I'll ask again after dinner tonight."

Stephanie returned late in the evening, none the worse for wear. She lifted a large clanking duffel bag from Lizzie's backseat and then took a hard-shell case from the space behind the rear seat. She immediately locked them both in the secure vault under the garage floor. When I asked her about them, she refused to answer anything. Lizzie was equally uninformed. Thereafter, Steph drove Lizzie to work each morning. The days passed uneventfully…it was kinda like the calm before the storm.

Jennie took off on Monday, after spending the weekend at the house. Thankfully, she'd never asked Stephanie about the three-way thingie. I doubt it would have gone over well. Instead, she fantasized…loudly; accompanied by the sounds of buzzing and moaning from the guestroom. I stuck to the bathtub, biting on a washcloth to maintain some dignity.

Four days later, on Friday, December 7^th, a flatbed truck pulled into the driveway. The men driving it unloaded two heavy wooden crates and left them next to the garage door. I inspected them, unable to reign in my curiosity and stay away. Painted on the sides, in dark green lettering, were the words:

"What a mouthful," I muttered, "what the hell is Steph thinking?"

That night, the crates disappeared into the garage, and Stephanie locked me out. I was lonely without the cats, and I realized how much I'd become used to them being around…and how much I missed them. To take revenge, I watched game shows.

Around midnight, two men in military fatigues arrived in a black Humvee, running dark, with all its lights turned off. They unloaded several large waterproof cases and disappeared into the garage. I was curious about them, but they stayed downstairs. I didn't see Stephanie or either of the men for two days. They spent the entire weekend in the garage. I heard occasional banging and other mechanical sounds when I pressed my ear to the door at the bottom of the stairs. When I called on the intercom or banged on the door, none of them answered. By the time I woke up on Monday morning, December 10^th, they were gone. I slipped quietly down the stairs. The garage door was open.

I looked inside to see what, if anything, had changed. Stephanie was lying in her usual place, passed out on the sofa, dressed in a greasy jumpsuit, surrounded by empty longnecks and overflowing ashtrays. Half the butts were Marlboros.

Hmmm, there was a new computer on the workbench. The casing was open and there was a whole rack of hard drives wired to a series of motherboards. They bristled with DIMMs, cable modems and Ethernet PCI cards. I took a look and counted 16 Pentium 4 processors, 64 120 GB hard drives, all hard wired IDE, 4 to a processor. There was a GB Ethernet box, but only one CD-RW, and that was a USB2 external. Okay, I thought, it's really 16 computers, heavy on storage, all paralleled into a network. It was a compounded commodity type supercomputer thingie, obviously homemade. A thick bundle of fiber optic cables slithered from a row of modems and went out through a conduit in the garage wall. There was a small pair of speakers, the old 17" monitor and laser printer, a keyboard and mouse, and the interface for Lizzie.

I don't think I'd ever been so shocked as when I looked over at Lizzie. She was still blue, but now she wore taller, wider tires on serious looking mag wheels, enveloped by flared fender wells. I walked over to her, and since she didn't respond to me, I assumed that she was asleep. There were other changes, too. Through the spokes of the mags, I could see dual caliper disc brakes with drilled discs. An air dam had been added below her grille. A boxy air scoop sat, molded to the hood in front of the driver's seat. I could see that the front was open, and inside sat the gaping maw of an air stack.

"What the hell?" I wondered softly. I wasn't mechanically inclined, but it was obvious that Steph had hot rodded Lizzie, and I prayed that she was ok.

Stephanie and her friends had installed a fully modified, Roger King prepared, Ford Crossflow engine. Along with the usual dynamic balancing of all the internal components, a free flowing cylinder head, and blueprint machining, the engine had been modified with a turbosupercharger, fuel injection, and a handmade exhaust system. It was rated at a conservative 285 horsepower, and would allow Lizzie to hit over 175 mph. They had altered almost every aspect of her running gear, reducing her weight to 2100 lbs. On a road-racing course, she would hold her own against a BMW or a Porsche.

Little did I know, but modifying Lizzie and building a computer were only part of their mission that weekend. The two men who had helped Stephanie weren't just grease monkeys. They were military engineers, and I don't mean road builders or trench diggers. Steph once called them, "the Bills", but they've never been identified. Between the three of them, they'd also built something that the Pentagon routinely denied existed. I think I would have fled in terror if I'd known what was down there, waiting under the garage floor.

Eventually, Stephanie woke up, hacking out a wad of tars and nicotine. Michelle was tiptoeing around the garage, inspecting Lizzie like a pedophile circling a cradle.

"Don't worry, she's fine," Steph groused, causing the author to jump.

"What did you do to her, Steph…and why?" I asked. "She looks different, like, racier."

"Oh, she's racier alright. She's probably the fastest Mini in the states, and she'll handle better than a Turbo Carrera."

Lizzie had shaken herself awake after our exchange, and she tilted on her new tires to look up at me.

"'Tis true, dear. I'm one-of-a-kind now, and we'll run like the wind on the moors, we shall," she said, sounding the same as ever. I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd held.

"You're looking so sporty, hon," I told her with a smile, "It's very becoming,"

"Thank you so much, Michelle. Why, bless me, I just can't wait to go motoring about. It'll be all new now, don't you know. Oh, just listen to this new engine sing!"

Lizzie started up, and in the closed garage, the sound reverberated with newfound power. Her idle was slightly rough, due to the high rpm-favoring cams, and the exhaust note was deeper, but still civilized. Surprisingly unremarkable, I thought.

Then she revved up. I had never heard an engine like it. The rpms rose so quickly that they seemed to whoop, testimony to the clockwork balancing of every moving part. But what was most noticeable, was the soft whirring sound that rose to a whine, and finally a raging shriek. It was the turbocharger. Driven by her own hot exhaust gasses, the turbine spun at nearly 100,000rpms, driving an impeller that force fed gas and air into her intake manifold. With the increase in intake pressure, came the increase in power. The Crossflow 4-cylinder breathed like a V-10, more than doubling its effective displacement. And the faster she ran, the more of an increase there would be. This was the same technology that was applied at the Indianapolis 500, and on the Grand Prix tracks of Europe. It was ironic that it derived, originally, from diesel trucks.

Lizzie let the rpms fall off, and she finally shut down. The silence in the garage was profound. Now the air hung full of promise.

"Thank you so much for the demonstration," Steph grumbled, "I guess I'm fully awake now."

"Oh, lets go, let's go, let's go," Lizzie prattled, bouncing on her tires. I was convinced that if Steph didn't get up, she'd go off on her own, just to sample the road.

"If Steph wants to clean up and have some breakfast, I'll be glad to go out with you, hon," I offered with a wink, "you know, like, just to give the appearance of a driver being in attendance."

"Oh no you two don't," Steph said, getting to her feet and lighting a Camel. "Just give me fifteen minutes, and we'll go out to breakfast."

"Can we go to the IHOP?" I asked hopefully.

"Yes, yes, yes…the IHOP," Lizzie echoed, "the one in Ft. Bragg!"

Ft. Bragg was about 145 miles north, up Rt-1, along the coast. At first, Stephanie scowled. (She was hungry, I could tell). Then a smile slowly curled the corners of her lips.

"Make it twenty minutes so I can make coffee," she offered, "and it's a deal."

"I'll make the coffee," I said, "you just jump into the shower, 'kay?"

Stephanie turned and bounded up the stairs, and Lizzie did a happy dance in her bay. Rt-1 was the coast road, a practically endless road-racing course, which wound along for hundreds of miles. It actually began in San Diego, changing names as it slithered north; Rt-21, the Old Pacific Highway, the Coast Highway, US-101, and Ventura Highway. In some places, it really was a modern highway, but always, it seemed, it returned to the two-lane blacktop it had once been. North of San Francisco, there are hundreds of empty miles, speckled here and there with small communities…places which sold gas. It continued on, through Oregon and into Washington, always following the coast north, until it finally ran out of United States. By then it had turned east, just past the towns of Beaver and Sappho. It finally ended by the head of a bay in Olympia, Washington.

We would take Lizzie out to stretch her new engine, test her new suspension, and grab a stack of pancakes. It was to be a carefree outing, just "motoring" through the countryside. Maybe Stephanie thought she owed it to Lizzie, considering what she had already planned. Maybe she thought it would be a chance to bring her and I closer together, since what would come afterwards was uncertain. She must have been under significant stress, but she didn't give any clue as to what was churning around in her forebrain. And as it turned out, it was all those things and more. Maybe you've heard some of the story in the news. It was the last day before the world changed. You see, Steph never really answered my second question about Lizzie…why.

At 10:10 am we set out, down the driveway and onto East Rd., heading north. Soon we were past Muir Woods, heading up the coast at an increasing pace. At first, Lizzie kept to a prudent 65mph, occasionally dodging and weaving, upshifting and downshifting, and testing herself on the curves. I barely noticed as her speed steadily increased with the passing miles, until, just north of Walsh Landing, she downshifted to break traction, and drifted around a turn. She came out onto the following straightaway, moving at a good 85mph, and after that, she never really slowed down. Ten miles later, Stewarts Point flashed by at 135mph. I sat in the passenger's seat, eyes glued to the road, utterly amazed at how smooth and flat the ride actually was. I'd felt more lurching and swaying at 35mph, in a city cab.

I took a quick glance to the side. Steph appeared to be dozing lightly, a headset covering her ears. At first I thought it was an MP3 player, but then I noticed the wire, and the mic at the corner of her mouth. I started to wonder about it, but at that moment, Lizzie gave a happy shriek and slipped between two opposing blurs. She'd passed between a pickup truck and a van, straddling the centerline with only inches to spare. The speedometer read 147mph. Somehow, I doubted that I'd arrive in Ft. Bragg…with an appetite. I lit a Camel.

Just before Fish Rock. 153mph.

"That's confirmed?" Steph whispered into the microphone. "Roger that. Proceed with care, over."

Flumeville. 157mph.

"Under no circumstances are you to engage, do you copy? Observe and deploy, over."

A mile north of Bridgeport Landing. 168mph, the top speed that I remember.

"IR and UV? Motion and ultrasound. Expected. Affirmative, John, proceed with deployment. Yes, I'm sure. Over."

Elk. 146mph.

"Excellent. 10:45:00, as planned. Roger that, over."

The towns were coming closer together now, and Lizzie had dropped to 125mph.

Just before Little River. 122mph.

"You're done. Secure and extract. Proceed to rendezvous."

And finally, near Mendocino. 119mph.

"Good job all, beer's on me, out."

Stephanie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She slipped the headset off and folded it into a pocket of her BDUs. Finally, she looked out the windshield just as Lizzie nearly sideswiped a Lincoln Navigator. We were drifting around a turn and had come upon the lumbering behemoth midway through. Lizzie actually upshifted and cut into turn, reversing her drift and passing the SUV on its passenger side. It happened in the blink of an eye, at 120mph. It was inhuman. And then Lizzie was beginning her deceleration, approaching Ft. Bragg and the IHOP. We had covered 143 miles in just under an hour and fifteen minutes.

Lizzie hissed and ticked, cooling down in the parking lot. Steph turned to me and gave me the sweetest smile, happy and full of promise. Her expression moved me more than I can tell. She was so beautiful, but there was more. That smile had been for me alone.

"Ready for some breakfast, sweetheart?" She asked, with a depth of concern I hadn't heard since my mother died when I was 9. It affected me to the core.

I felt as if I was on emotional overload and I could only shake my head "yes", not trusting myself to speak. If I did, I knew the tears would start. I was barely holding myself together, for after a budding career in sex, now I was confronted with real love, a love I'd dreamed of for years, and I was woefully unprepared for its power. Stephanie, having endured a desert of loneliness, understood it empathetically. And with the power of a natural domina, she broke me and put me back together in her image. She leaned in and gave me a soft tentative kiss. It shattered me.

I don't know how long I spent shuddering and crying in her arms. She held me tightly, stroking my back and caressing my hair. She laid soft kisses on my face and wiped away my tears. She whispered to me, and finally, when I'd cried myself out and I was hers in any way she would accept me, she looked in my eyes and said something I'll never forget.

"Sweetheart, I feel that there is nothing I wouldn't do for you so that we can be together. I feel that I have lived my whole life just waiting to meet you, and now that I have, I feel that I've known you all my life. Never forget that I love you more than life itself…because our love will transcend life and death. If I only had a day to live, I know of no way I would rather spend it than as we are, looking into each other's eyes, and seeing into each other's souls. No matter what happens, I will always be with you."

It had sounded so cheesy when I'd heard something similar on the series finale of my favorite TV show. Now, here, in real life, I had never imagined there could be any words so profound, so charged with meaning and promise, or so deeply satisfying to hear. I think that she could read in my eyes that I would die to be with her, give up my life for her, and call myself lucky to have had the chance. And writer that I am, I could think of nothing to say. She seemed to understand. I don't remember the pancakes at all. I barely remember the ride home. Once we arrived, Stephanie went up on the roof.

Somewhere outside the city, a clock was ticking down the minutes until 10:00 pm. It had been started at 11:15 am, just as we'd been motoring past the town of Elk, at around 135mph. 10:45:00 she had specified, and it had been done. The countdown had commenced, with only a whispered prayer, "May God have mercy on our souls."

Those who worked with her exhibited unquestionable loyalty and expertise. They observed and reported, infiltrated and deployed. They were undetected and unsuspected, for they were only pitted against humans and their machines, though these were backed by the resources of a covert arm of the US government. Never had a contest of giants against common folk been so unequal.

120 miles to the east of San Francisco, along a stretch of Rt-88, lay the Eldorado National Forest. For over 25 miles, between Barton and Kirkwood, there was neither settlement nor farm. Not even a payphone graced that deserted length of rural road. Yet here, on federal government property, one of the most advanced covert operations in the country was hidden. The electronics alone comprised so much secret technology that barely two dozen individuals were granted access. All security measures were automated rather than composed of armed human guards. The President of the United States had no inkling of its existence. Not even the military had been appraised. It was a nameless black box, funded through the Dept. of Commerce. (It was a real live X-File, and to this day we don't know who was actually in charge). Its subject was Stephanie Walker. Its objective was to subvert and redirect her ability to recognize and conspire with non-human intelligences. They had carte blanche to act, but due to the nature of their subject, they were outclassed before their operation even began.

It had taken Elvis only hours to receive confirmation of mysterious characters in San Francisco. After his report, Steph talked with John Cougar and Nightshade on the porch. It took only another two days to understand these agents' purpose, and map their movements and subjects. Early the fourth day, Elvis reported to Stephanie that spooks were dogging her workplace, had seized Connie Stanton, and were watching her house. These same people were connected to the release of "neo-rats". They were apparently based east of the city.

That night, at John Cougar's request, the sharpest of airborne eyes followed a Jeep driving east, and spent the hours of darkness observing a hidden installation in an obscure National Forest. On silent wings, this fellow rat hunter had returned in the dim early morning light to report. The great horned owl spoke only to John Cougar, for the other cats were terrified of him; their size included them among his prey. John had made another request and the owl had agreed. Two trips over a short distance; one a live 12-lb. cat and the other, a drowsing 15-lb. Pelican case. The thought of such cargoes made his head spin.

John reported on December 9^th, while things were going on in Steph's garage. She was halfway into a three-day drunk, and she was very busy. Around 6:30 am, in the pale dawn glow, a shadow appeared on the security monitor, and Steph went outside for a break. She carried a small Pelican case with a panel cut into one side. On it were a digital readout and two oversized buttons. John Cougar took the handle in his mouth and set the case down at his feet. He regarded it with a mixture of fascination and loathing.

"The large button changes the time, the smaller button changes the function. The clock is preset, but if you have to change it, push the large button and then hold the small button down so the numbers move. When I tell you to arm it, have Nightshade push both buttons down together three times. Got it?"

"It's such a simple looking thing isn't it, Stephanie, for having such a fearsome power within it," he had philosophized.

"Simple is hard," Steph had agreed, listing unsteadily from the Buds, "and size is deceptive. Think he can carry both it and Nightshade?"

"In two trips, Steph, yes. It will be done, and may God have mercy on our souls."

He had picked up the case and bounded off into the night. There were many miles to cover before the next morning dawned. With his tireless loping strides, the 120 miles would disappear in the next 24 hours. Before we took Lizzie for her test drive, at 10:10 am on December 10^th, he would be in place with his team in the National Forest.

At 7:30 pm, Stephanie loaded a CD into the IEEE drive where Lizzie's stereo had been. Lizzie made a phone call. She didn't use her chatty phone. Instead, Steph had plugged in an extension. It looked like an ordinary touch-tone, but it connected to the line that the innocent red phone was plugged into. It was an untraceable uplink; untraceable, because in the "real world", it didn't exist. This time when Lizzie spoke, there was no charming Bristol accent, only a series of clicks, delivered at 100MB/sec. The call lasted about 7.6 seconds.

"It's done, I say," she told Steph as the line went dead, "and the bloody transmission circuit is deleted as well, it is. Gone with the wind, as it were, and the New World awaits us."

Though it was far from being the most sophisticated network in the world, the United States telephone system was certainly the largest and most integrated. By the endless repetition of elements, it gained complexity, finally eclipsing that of any supercomputer. And though we humans often joke about the stupidity of the phone companies, their equipment was anything but stupid. It did its job and no one was the wiser, because for decades, it had done its work in the equivalent of an ever-lightening sleep. Lizzie had woken it up.

Stephanie had loaded a gear bag into the passenger's seat, and she took the extension and unplugged it. Then she removed the CD and tossed it under the water heater. It warped and curled, and finally blackened. For a moment, she stared around the garage, and finally she sighed.

"Ready to go for a ride, hon?" She softly asked her beloved friend.

"Ready if you are, Stephanie," Lizzie replied soberly, "the ride of the night brigade."

"Okay then," Steph said, "time to go."

At 7:35 pm, from the roof of the house, what was probably the brightest flash in the history of San Francisco lashed out into the darkness above. 250lbs of powdered magnesium, sprinkled in a shallow steel dish 8 feet across, had been subjected to 500,000 volts from the batteries buried under the garage. On every sunny day since its construction, the solar panels on the roof of Steph's house had maintained the charge in a massive block of batteries, installed below the garage floor. They had been wired to a circuit much like an automotive coil, and the voltage had been amplified until it could power a stupefying arc…a big brother to the spark plugs in an automobile engine. The electric arc itself would have been blinding, but it was really there to ignite the powdered magnesium, equivalent to several hundred military spotting flares. It went up in about two seconds and the candlepower was incalculable. It was bright enough to attract the attention of people in Stockton, 60 miles away, and it was bright enough to flare out the sensitive cameras of the dedicated spy satellites in orbit above. Almost no one saw Stephanie leave. They thought their equipment had malfunctioned. They were only human, and deep down, they distrusted the very technology they were so proud of.

"Time to go," Steph told Lizzie, as she lit a Camel. They rolled out of the open garage door and down the driveway, without headlights.

"How long must I wear this ridiculous disguise?" Lizzie asked in exasperation. Her "disguise" was comprised of a kiddie wading pool filled with a dozen bags of ice cubes. It negated any heat signature that might show up on infrared surveillance sensors.

"Just till we get a hundred yards down East Rd.," Steph said, opening a longneck, "I think its embarrassing too, but hopefully, no one will see us."

"And you mean that in more ways than one, I'd wager," Lizzie added with a sigh. Driving a crazy woman around the countryside had its moments.

"Uhhh oh," Lizzie gulped, "it's the wife." Steph choked.

"She's not really my wife," she assured herself, under the pretense of answering Lizzie. Then she whispered, "well, not yet, anyway."

"Of course," Lizzie answered seriously, stifling a giggle, "I believe you, I do."

"Hey…"Steph started, "it's not like that. I'm not married to Michelle, just because she's living here, and she's young, and gorgeous, and sexy, and uhhh…well, it's not like that."

"What research???"

"Why, I read "Heart of a Diver", don't you know," Lizzie informed Steph with a chuckle, "and you're credited as the beta reader, you are. I can't imagine you'd allow some unreliable factoids to be foisted on your readership, knowing how they look to such works as bloody relationship guides, they do. Besides, you always sleep together."

"Akkk…" Steph groaned, finishing the longneck. (I spent most nights wrapped around her like a boa constrictor, sleeping together on the couch downstairs).

"I'm just going out to, uhhh…get some Chinese food," Stephanie yelled back at me while opening another longneck. "Enjoy the movie."

I went back inside and plopped down on the couch. Chinese food would be a nice change from Mexican, I thought, and it went pretty well with beer. So, why the pool on Lizzie's roof, I wondered? Why the ice cubes? I had begun wondering if something wasn't quite right, when I was distracted by the TV. Onscreen, the first of the orgy scenes was beginning in the deserted rodeo ring, and my hindbrain gleefully took over. It started with a sentimental and "touching" scene involving a palomino and a tall brunette. Soon a short innocent looking blonde joined them. I forgot all about Lizzie and Chinese food. Well, uhhh, so anyway….

Rather than heading into San Francisco, they drove north on US-101, taking it until they reached SR-37. They skirted San Pablo Bay to Vallejo, where they picked up US-80, heading north. At Suisun City, they turned onto Rt-12, following it through Lodi. Just a couple miles further east, they passed Clements, and finally picked up Rt-88. All the while, they were moving further from the city, and all the while, Lizzie's speed was increasing. Once they got onto Rt-88, she pulled out all the stops. In the dark, on that nearly deserted road, she ran like the wind twisting through a canyon before a midsummer storm. They had traveled the first 60 miles by 8:50 pm; the last 60 miles, they covered before 9:20 pm, with an average speed of almost 120mph.

"We're here," Lizzie announced to a lightly dozing Steph. The entrance to the National Forest lay directly ahead.

"Huh? Uhhh, oh," Stephanie mumbled, lighting a Camel. She leaned out the window and threw a coat hanger at the fence. As expected, there was no shower of high voltage sparks. Steph staggered out onto the road with a sizeable pair of bolt cutters, wove her way to the gate, and after some muttered curses, managed to clip off the padlock. She tossed it, and the attached chain, into the woods across the road, and then practically fell into the driver's seat. She immediately lit a Camel from the butt of the last one and opened another longneck.

"Just pull right in, hon," she slurred to Lizzie, "according to John, it's seven miles straight ahead. Anyway, congratulations, nothing's working here tonight."

On the approaching service road, a small car and a drunken woman advanced in silence along the smooth blacktop. Six miles in, they ground to a halt, and Stephanie lurched out and staggered into the bushes to get rid of some used beer. Above her an owl hooted, as if in praise of Athena. In response, two sets of cushioned feet broke from the surrounding forest. It was a meeting with destiny, primal and prophetic. They got into the car, with the owl flapping along silently overhead.

"That was the most terrifying and horrible ride I shall ever take," Nightshade complained. "Cats were never meant to fly."

"She's been the victim of nightmares about it all day," John Cougar informed Stephanie.

"So, would you rather be a barn cat living with some cowboy in Texas?" Steph asked her with a smile.

"You would bring that up," Nightshade groused, "and no, I most certainly would not…so anyway, this is kind of fun…mostly. At least the tunnel wasn't so bad."

"Well, you ain't seen nothing yet, pardner, I do say," Lizzie giggled in a Bristol cowboy drawl.

They drove on through the forest in silence after that, each deeply enmeshed in their own thoughts. It would certainly be a night to remember, and they really hadn't, "seen nothin' yet". All too soon, the road dipped into a hollow, and John confirmed that they had indeed arrived.

Below them, the light of the moon revealed a low concrete building with a parking lot in front. A short walkway led from the lot to a glassed in lobby. Beside the double doors, a sign was riveted to the masonry, stating that these premises were the "Eldorado National Forest Maintenance Office". It was merely a front. The forest was maintained by workers from the nearby Bear River Reservoir.

"Looks like a clandestine operation for sure," Steph mumbled, opening a longneck, "the restrooms are inside and there's not a pile of woodchips in sight."

"No road sand either," John Cougar observed, "nor any maintenance equipment."

"'Tis as phony as Michelle's virtue, I say," Lizzie added with a giggle.

"Hey!" Stephanie protested. "She's getting better…she'll be OK, eventually. She's just, ummm…young. Besides, she was just emulating me…trying to be, uhhh, eccentric."

Anyway…they pulled into a space right in front of the doors, and Lizzie parked.

"What time is it?" Steph mumbled to anyone who would listen.

"'Tis time to call in the bomb threat, it is," Lizzie answered. She immediately dialed a number on her cell phone, as Steph opened another longneck. This time, Lizzie was only dialing an operator. The automated voice asked her, "what number please", and Lizzie clicked out a digital code. "Thank you, one moment please," the voice said. The network dialed the secret headquarters and proffered a suitably threatening recorded message. Lizzie hung up. "Why, I feel so very rude doing that, I do," she confessed.

"Time to go, I guess," Steph slurred, opening the driver's door.

Stephanie stumbled out and promptly fell flat on her face. John Cougar and Nightshade got out more gracefully, being cats. The owl came down and flapped to a landing on Steph's shoulder, as she was examining the asphalt and getting her bearings.

"Gaaaaah," Steph muttered, finally locating her longneck behind Lizzie's front tire. "Did someone spit on my back?"

"I beg your pardon, madam," the owl hooted indignantly. "Your bomb thingie is just where you wanted it. That thing gives me the creeps, so if you don't mind, I'm history. Places to be, creatures to eat." He punctuated this sentiment by expelling an owl pellet.

"Oh no you don't," Steph ordered, as she scrabbled for the bottle, "we need you to keep a lookout. Connie Stanton is around here somewhere, and I won't have her sneaking up on Lizzie while she's wired up to the network. Now here, take this." She dug into a pocket of her BDUs and then reached back and stuffed a small pouch into the owl's talons. It was barely the size of a pack of Camels.

"Connie Stanton?" The owl asked. "Whoooo's that? Is she edible?"

"Ewwwwww," Nightshade gagged, "I'm going to be sick just thinking about that. Oh yuck."

John Cougar had padded over and pawed the bottle towards Stephanie's hand. He patted Nightshade on the back and gave the owl a dirty look. The owl flapped and lifted into the night, circling the grounds at treetop level.

"Can't we please just get along here and proceed?" John asked nervously. "It's already 9:45 pm, and we're rather behind schedule."

Meanwhile, inside the building, a bomb threat had been received. One dead phone line had become active just long enough to deliver the notification that an explosive device had been hidden on the premises, and it was set to go off at 10:00 pm. The line had immediately gone dead again, and the voice had been computer synthesized.

Very clever, the director thought in the dark. This hadn't been projected. Panic and pandemonium spread with the announcement. What had been mere disorder and confusion, graduated to outright terror and incontinence. Having thrown her enemies into disarray, Steph moved to capitalize on her strategic advantage.

"Hey, this is empty," Steph observed, looking into the bottleneck with one eye. "I'll be needing another." She struggled to her feet and lurched over to the cooler, then pulled out a fresh longneck. "That's better," she muttered contentedly.

Stephanie eventually wobbled up to the front doors and gave one of the handles a yank. It was locked tight. So was the other one.

"Shit!' Steph exclaimed. "What the fuck?"

"Of course they're locked down, they are," Lizzie called out to her, "the locks went off line from their active condition, they did. No one can get in or out."

Stephanie just looked at her. She honestly hadn't thought of that.

"Oops," she muttered. Another delay she really wasn't in the mood for. Tripping and falling was bad enough, she decided, as she swung around and flung the unopened Bud. It slammed into a plate glass door and shattered it into a crashing spray of splintering crystal shards. That's better, she thought as she walked towards it, drawing a handgun. She ran belly first into the horizontal bar handle that still crossed the metal doorframe.

"Guuuuh," Steph gasped, blinking as the wind was knocked out of her. Jerking to a halt so unexpectedly had caused her trigger finger to tighten and discharge a round.

"Sheeeee-ya!" The 9mm bullet shrieked, as it shot off down a hallway in the dark. In an amazing bit of luck, it capped a man just coming out of an office door. "Ker-splattt."

He'd heard the crash of breaking glass, and had drawn his sidearm and rushed to investigate. He would have had a decent shot at Steph, standing immobile in the doorway and backlit by the brighter outdoors. Instead, he tumbled backwards with a telltale hole in his forehead. He landed with a thud.

"What was that?" Stephanie asked, whipping around to look both ways, before realizing that she was alone for now. "Oh yeah, right. The plan."

She ducked under the bar and managed to clear the doorframe while a second man rushed to check on his comrade. When he realized that the first man was dead, he picked up the man's handgun and edged over to the doorframe, sneaking one eye around the corner for a look into the hallway. He saw Steph, sixteen feet away. She was rummaging desperately on the floor in the dark for her longneck, which, she'd noticed, hadn't broken when it smashed through door. He took a shot at her, just as she jerked back, cursing at a shard of glass that had cut her hand. The bullet shattered the longneck, spraying her with beer. In a rage, Stephanie fired into the hallway sheetrock at random, eventually chipping the drywall and temporarily blinding the man with gypsum powder. When he recovered his sight, Steph was grinning down the barrel of her pistol at him. She was unsteady on her feet, damp with suds, and really pissed off. Then he heard her drunken cackle and saw a really bright flash. That was it.

Stephanie, now badly behind schedule, half-soaked with beer, and with a cut hand, dumped the pistol magazine and slammed another home. She pulled back the slide, chambering a round, and checked her watch. 9:52 pm. What the hell. It was really too late, according to her calculations. She'd expected to be much further along 7 minutes ago. Now she'd have to improvise. She realized though, when she admitted it, that she'd been improvising since she'd discovered that the doors were locked. If only I hadn't stopped to pee, she chastised herself. We lost 4 minutes there, a mile before the parking lot. And I guess cutting the gate lock could have gone quicker too. Maybe next time.

Now there's nothing to do but go through with it, I guess, she told herself. It's just that now, we're all most likely going to die. I really needed that beer, she thought petulantly.

"Well, damn," Steph finally sighed, "this just isn't my day." She lit a Camel.

Right above her, a smoke alarm came to life with a shriek. It was battery operated, isolated from the network, and unlike the flashlights, hadn't gotten the word to shut down. There's one in every crowd. Steph, like smokers everywhere, despised smoke alarms. A cruel sneer curled her lips and she took careful aim. Unfortunately, it really wasn't her day. The bullet demolished and silenced the smoke alarm, but it also shattered a sprinkler head. Reading the pressure drop as a bona fide emergency, all the sprinkler heads reacted on instinct. Throughout the building, hundreds of gallons of rusty water sprayed down on everything. The damage to the sensitive electronics alone would have been calculated in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Stephanie, now soaked to the skin and screaming mad, screamed madly and took off, lurching headlong down the hallway.

Meanwhile, out in the parking lot, a second car pulled in next to Lizzie, and I swear, he'd have tipped his hat in greeting if he'd had one. His job that night was dirty. I would have cringed in his place, but he was a good old boy, and had offered to do his part. Such courage is above commendation.

"Lizzie," Steph whispered into her headset. (It was the very same one she'd stuffed into the pocket of her BDUs earlier that morning on the road to Ft. Bragg).

"Right here, luv," she answered, "we're five by five in the lot and all that rot."

"Wonderful," Steph groused. "I'm lost. Where am I? Where the hell am I supposed to be?"

"I heard that," Steph hissed, "the sprinklers went off and I got turned around. Had to dispatch a couple hostiles too."

"I say, how could the sprinklers go off? Everything's shut down and…oh bother, never mind, I'll shut them off again, don't you know," Lizzie told her. She switched channels and emitted a series of digital clicks. Inside the building, the water pressure obediently dropped.

Back inside the building, Stephanie flung away the newspaper hat she'd made to ward off the water. (It was a trick she remembered from watching the Rocky Horror Picture Show documentary on The Learning Channel). She focused on the last door on the right, and bounced off the wall. It was the left; she remembered now that Lizzie had said the next door on the left. Steph raised her leg, wobbled, and kicked the door in. She lurched into the darkened room with her gun ready and swept the space. Damn it was dark. Soft padded feet stopped a step behind her.

"Not the control room, oh no, not nearly," Nightshade told her. "It's definitely a lounge of some sort in here, and that's Connie Stanton."

"Akkkkk…." Steph choked out. This was really not her night.

"My hero!" Connie bellowed, charging towards the voices. It was her soulmate, and she'd recognize her anywhere. The fact that Steph was so unsteady convinced her, remembering the orthopedic shoes and the leg brace. She collided with Stephanie just inside the threshold and felt the pistol dig into her ribs. Must be that damn leg brace, she thought. Ignoring it, she flung her arms around Steph.

"Geeez, oh yuck!" Nightshade exclaimed, "first a rusty water bath, and now a crusty slobber trap." Despite the darkness, she could see the Twinkie residue on Con's cheeks as she scrubbed them against Stephanie's neck.

Somehow, Steph held it together. Maybe it was the fact that it was 9:55 pm. Maybe it was her sense of purpose and duty. Maybe it was self-preservation. She said it was the beer.

"Connie!" Steph exclaimed urgently, grabbing her and holding her out at arm's length. "You've got to get out of here! This place is about to blow up! You know your way out? Go now. There's a red car waiting outside that will take you back to the city. There's not a second to waste. I'll see you when this is over."

"My hero!" Connie said again. She gave Steph a big sticky kiss and fled.

"Last door on the left," Nightshade reminded her, before turning and disappearing down the hall.

Steph turned to follow her and ran into the doorframe. This sucks, she thought, when the stars cleared, and now I'm seeing double…fuck. With the careful movements of the often drunk, Stephanie picked her way through the hazardous open doorway, negotiated the treacherous empty hall, and finally made it to the last door on her…oops, that's my other left, she realized. She turned around, hunched her shoulder, and slammed herself into the closed door, driving it open with a crash.

As expected, the room was filled with people, soaking wet and tripping over each other in the dark. They were desperately trying to repair their systems, find the bomb, and decide who was to blame. It was chaos in need of order. Stephanie fired three shots into the ceiling.

"Everyone get on the floor," Steph bellowed, flinging a nylon duffel bag at the nearest figure, "this is a stick up. No heroes, please. Now, put all the valuables in this bag."

"You've got to be kidding," someone grumped, "this is a secret government installation."

Stephanie fired several rounds at the place where the voice had come from and was rewarded with a shriek of pain. Well, an example had to be made, she rationalized, and they were all out to get her anyway. Besides, what kind of an asshole let on that this was a secret headquarters, for Christ's sake?

"She's crazy!" Someone yelled in the dark, as the body hit the floor with a thud.

"Without a doubt, a certifiably unstable dipsomaniac," a cultured voice calmly agreed.

"That depends on who you ask!" Steph drunkenly screamed, firing just above the crowd. The muzzle flash was really dramatic…almost blinding in the pitch black. Well, hell, she was already seeing double anyway….

And then the stampede started. It was amazing how well they could all see in the dark when they were acting on panic and fear, rather than looking with their eyes. Something big was dodging among them, lashing out with barely unsheathed claws, and batting them as it hissed. They were screaming as they fled. Steph fired a few more rounds into the ceiling, just to make sure they retained their sense of purpose.

"Eighteen seconds for them to clear out, Steph," John Cougar chuckled. "Even government types can move quickly with the proper motivation."

"Here," Nightshade offered, carrying in the pouch of cold light sticks. Steph took a Cyalume and snapped it and shook, starting the yellowish green glow.

"Thanks, hon," she said, "did Connie get out ok?"

"Oh yeah," Nightshade informed her, "drove off in Virgil and didn't even realize that she wasn't in control. He's letting her play with the wheel and the pedals, but they're not connected to anything. He agreed to give her a lift back to the city, but wouldn't be caught dead with her driving."

"Who would?" Steph asked rhetorically, before muttering, "now where's that bomb?"

"It's right here, Stephanie," John Cougar said, ripping the grille off an air duct near the floor. He dragged the Pelican case out onto the floor.

"That's right," Nightshade agreed. "After being dropped off by that flying rat trap, I dragged it all the way here from the air intake on the back of the building. John ripped off the outside grille to let me in."

"So…ahhhhhhhh! It's 00:01:35!" Stephanie yelled. "Oh fuck me!"

She was falling into a drunken frenzy of urgency. For her plan to work, she needed another 30 minutes…maybe more. According to the plan, now hastily abandoned, she would have accessed all the data recordings and downloaded valuable evidence, reset the timer, and fled. Unfortunately, the water had ruined a lot of the hardware and the timer couldn't be reset externally once it passed below 5 minutes. Now she'd have to improvise again. Steph was fumbling with the casing, snapping the heads off screws with a bent nose wire cutter that gouged the plastic case at the same time. Still seeing double, she lit the ends of two Camels.

The water damaged the electronics here, Steph thought to herself, and I can't access the data from here anymore…but we absolutely need that evidence!

00:01:10 Stephanie ripped the casing open and looked at the circuit boards, comparing it to the diagram in her beer addled brain. The doubling of her vision wasn't the problem. She'd worked drunk before. The wires were all the wrong colors…it was that damned greenish chemical light. Another oversight, she thought, probably fatal.

00:00:58 She really just couldn't be sure. Next to her, John Cougar sat gritting his teeth and watching in morbid fascination. Nightshade was playfully batting at the dead man. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed movement in the doorway. The movement resolved into two someones raising a handgun…it was a hideous woman who looked a lot like that old Popeye cartoon character. The first rounds pinged off the desk just inches away, and Stephanie, John, and Nightshade dove for cover. The bomb ticked away, just waiting for a stray round to hasten it's detonation.

00:00:45 Steph realized that she really didn't have anything to lose. With drunken courage, she leapt up and started shooting back. Bullets zipped and whizzed all around her, and her own aim wasn't any better than Bernice's. (Seeing double had never helped her on the target range either). Her luck though, was marginally better than Bernice's. Steph shot the plastic diffractor out of the florescent fixture right above Bernice's head, and the deluge of falling shattered plastic made her reflexively duck and cover. It was all the edge that Stephanie needed. She took quick and careful aim. Bernice's forehead was centered in her sights. She squeezed the trigger just as she hiccuped. It was a sure sign that she desperately needed another beer. The bullet went off course, of course.

Bernice had recovered enough to fire another round at Steph, but just before she pulled the trigger, her own weapon gave a violent jerk. It would have ruined her aim, but her bullet never left the barrel. Instead, the gun blew up in her face. Steph hiccuped again.

"Shit! *Hic*…. Did ya *hic* see that? My bullet *hic* went right *hic* down her barrel. *Hic* Her damn *hic* gun blew up. Tee *hic* hee."

00:00:31 Oh yeah, the bomb, Steph thought. She scrabbled around on the floor before finding it, then had to reorient herself with the wires.

00:0019 Let's see, *hic*…green plus red equals brown, *hic* so these two brown ones are really one red wire, Steph reasoned. *Hic* Green plus blue is *hic* blue-green, duhhhh, *hic* so these blue-green ones are really *hic* a blue wire. And the greenish yellow *hic* ones are really the white wire. She felt much calmer after the firefight.

00:00:09 *Hic*…guess I'll just *hic* cut these brown ones *hic*…and the greenish ones. *Hic*…well, why not? Because, *hic* it'll blow up, *hic*. Good reason. *Hic*

00:00:02 Stephanie Walker, hero of the bomb disposal unit, closed her eyes and cut a wire. After five seconds, she opened them one at a time, just in case.

00:00:00 John Cougar had passed out on the floor. Steph lit a Camel. She had half finished it before she realized her hiccups were gone. Now for the evidence collection.

Stephanie called Lizzie and told her to patch into the data banks through the network.

"I say, what should I download, Stephanie?" Lizzie had asked. "Folders, files, emails?"

"Uhhh, I dunno," Steph slurred, "maybe whatever sounds like it would be good for evidence? Anything that sounds suspicious?"

"It could be a while, it could, reading through it all to find what we need, don't you know. How about if I just take everything? I can sort through it faster at home, I can."

"Fine," Steph answered, "whatever. Implement plan B." Stephanie had always wanted to say that and Plan A had certainly been a bust. She was trying to remember just what they'd agreed Plan B was.