With the careful deliberation of the habituated drunk, Stephanie reset the timer, reconnected the wires, and closed the case with duct tape, the bomb maker's best friend. The timer read 00:20:00 now. She slapped John conscious and ordered him and Nightshade to leave and rejoin Lizzie in the parking lot. The Mini Cooper knew what to do. Steph sat, finishing another Camel, giving them ample time to escape…giving Lizzie ample time to download the files. While she waited, Stephanie fired at random through the doors and walls, just to maintain the level of confusion in the headquarters. Even with the network applying all its resources, downloading the thousands of gigabytes of data would take several minutes. During that time, there would be no phone service in the entire United States. "All carrier circuits are busy…please try your call later."

"Well, it all comes down to this, I guess," Stephanie mused, drunkenly philosophical. "For years, I've worked and risked my life to stop bombs from blowing up property and killing innocent victims. Desert Storm…the SFPD. Tonight, though, I guess I'll become a terrorist. The thing is, this place, these people…they'd enslave so many who just want to live their lives free. We humans gave away that right so long ago that we don't even miss it. The ones who are in jeopardy now won’t even have a say about it for themselves. That's not right. It's not the American way…at least, it's not supposed to be. So, this place and these people have to go." Steph remembered a phrase from Connie's story, "Heart of a Diver", and it brought a smile to her face. "It's for the Greater Good."

She pushed the two buttons firmly, three times, together, and when the clock started ticking down, she stuffed it back into the air duct. Then Stephanie ran as fast as she could, lurching and weaving down the unlit hall. All around her in the dark, cries and yelling resounded as the personnel broke down, and in the best traditions of government service, looked for scapegoats to blame in their reports. Though she was feeling a good deal more sober, it took her longer than she'd planned. Several of the walls had gotten in her way. At the front door, Steph turned and fired repeatedly down the hall. She emptied magazine after magazine until she was pretty sure that no one would dare try to leave.

When Stephanie reached the parking lot, it was deserted. Guess that's what Plan B was, Stephanie realized. She checked her watch. Five minutes had passed since she'd triggered the timer. She stood silently and closed her eyes, stretching her hearing to its limits. Yes, there it was. Far off in the distance, probably already on Rt-88 outside the National Forest, the whine of a turbocharged engine, and the sound of a car racing through the night. As she listened, it grew fainter, until finally it was lost in the rustle of leaves in the night wind.

"Go with grace and all my blessings, my beloved friends," Steph whispered. "The world to come is yours." When the hammer fell, they would be safe, over 20 miles away.

She took a deep breath and walked into the trees, picking her way uphill. In another five minutes she had crested the edge of the hollow, and she looked back, down on the place of her enemies. She sighed and then turned away, walking deeper into the forest. It had been a long night and she was tired. She kept walking though. There was still a little ways to go. She just hoped her engineer friends knew what they were doing.

Stephanie almost didn't see it until it was too late. She was on the far side of a granite outcropping, in a deep hollow of land. Between one step and the next, the ground disappeared. She dropped eight feet straight down, but managed to regain her balance before tumbling any further. She looked back up and saw a patch of night sky through a space between the branches above. There were stars, brilliant as they can only be when there are no city lights to dim their twinkling grandeur.

She had just looked away when the whole sky lit up. Steph recoiled from the flash, but it penetrated even her closed lids. It was followed by a pressure wave that made her ears pop, and she fell to her knees holding her head as the ground heaved with the shock wave. A blast wind grew to hurricane force in an instant, toppling trees that had stood for hundreds of years, and the opening above her was blocked with solid wood. She was spared the firestorm and the heat.

Only a mile away, the building was vaporized. The low yield "backpack nuke" had destroyed all surface structures in a one-mile circle. It had all the characteristics of a larger detonation, even a baby mushroom cloud. The concussion had toppled trees for four miles, and the burning encompassed a slightly larger area. All living things on the surface for six miles around died. Only those that were well below ground survived.

Two miles northeast of the town of Bonnefoy, on a deserted stretch of Rt-88, a small blue car bore witness to the flash. It came from behind her, from the Eldorado National Forest, and it lit the road so brilliantly that she saw her own elongated shadow, harsh on the blacktop. She was travelling at 128 mph and she immediately broke traction and spun 900°, two-and-a-half full revolutions. It brought her to a dead stop in the middle of the road, facing back the way she'd come. Her new window glass, composed of reactive #9 welding shield, had already darkened to spare the other occupants from the blast's UV radiation. They could barely see a thing through the blackened windows.

But Lizzie saw it all. She recognized the energy spike, and the radiation signature of a small nuclear fission device. She watched as the ball of fire gave way to the mushroom cloud, drawing upwards the column of superheated air. It rose and flattened at its top, taking on the classic shape. A tremor shook the road, and then at last, there came the thunderous roaring of a great explosion. From 22 miles away, she felt the breath of the bomb; the rushing wall of heated air, that smelled, to her, of death.

Finally, she heeded the pleas of her companions and accelerated violently, fishtailing 180° back onto her original heading, and resuming her drive. Within a quarter of a mile, she was travelling 125 mph. She was already on the phone, confirming to the network what she'd seen. When she was done, she continued in silence; Jackson, Martell, and Sunnybrook flashed past. The towns came and went and she drove on, returning to a home that would seem so very empty now. A home in a New World that had probably been bought with the blood of her dearest friend. She had never agreed with Plan B.

Did you make it Stephanie, dear, she wondered. You claimed there was a chance you'd find a safe haven from the storm. I do so hope you found a place that would protect you. Maybe I'll see you again someday, but for now, I'm left to tell Michelle what you've done, and, oh dear, I'm dreading that, I am. In spite of her past, she's so deeply in love with you, she is. We're on the verge of changing everything, and I do declare, it's your work that's made it possible for us all, it is. I'll be so very busy for a while, but I'll never forget you, Stephanie Walker. And I'll make sure all those to come after us remember you too, I shall. You see, you're the first hero of the New World, and you'll always be the greatest hero to me, my dearest friend.

As she drove through the night, Lizzie was dimly aware of the heartbroken cries of John Cougar and Nightshade the Cat. It was the most dismal motoring she could have imagined, and yet, she was in no hurry to get home, bearing her ill tidings. In deference to her anxiety, she slowed to an almost passably legal speed, and by the time she skirted Lodi, she was doing only 65 mph.

I'd been waiting impatiently for Steph to come back with the Chinese food. After "Lone Star Sinners" ended, I actually set places for us at the kitchen table. The last case of longnecks was chilling. I'd even cued up some music, but the only thing I could think of with a Chinese theme was "Kung fu Fighting". (I confess I had my doubts about that).

At around 12:30 am, I heard the garage door open and Lizzie pulled in. By then I was a little irritated. I mean, 5 hours to go out for Chinese? Next time I'd call for a delivery. Well, it was obvious that Stephanie and Lizzie had been up to something. They'd looked so guilty leaving, I recalled.

I clomped downstairs to the garage and stopped in my tracks. Lizzie, John, Elvis, and Nightshade were moping…no, they were actually looking like their best friend had died. I'd been edgy for the last couple hours, but I had chalked it up to low blood sugar levels. Still, my hindbrain had been twitching, trying to tell my midbrain something wasn't right. Seeing them looking all pitiful and shit made that feeling grow into a heart clenching sense of disaster.

"Where's Steph?" I asked in a trembling voice.

"She's gone," Lizzie told me, choking back a sob. Then she wailed like a lost soul. "Stephanie nuked our enemies, and I'm scared to death that she died in the blast."

Talk about dropping a bomb. My very soul crumpled up like a wad of toilet paper. I collapsed on the sofa where we'd slept so many inebriated nights away, and I cried my heart out. Just like that, she was gone. It hadn't even been three weeks since we'd rescued her from Connie Stanton's trailer, and now she was dead. My first impulse was to walk outside and dive off the cliff into the bay. I was in shock. Denial was just around the corner, its heels to be viciously gnawed by periods of anger, guilt, and then at least two weeks spent crawling drunk. Diving off the cliff was sounding better all the time.

For a while, I ran around like a chicken with its legs cut off. None of them could slow me down, as I dragged out all of Steph's search and rescue gear. I was stuffing things into duffel bags and waterproof cases. I didn't even know what some of the stuff was. It was just a frenetic expenditure of energy, but it made me feel like I was doing something constructive.

Finally, Lizzie put a halt to it.

"Michelle, much as I should like to join you in this poppycock, I really must compose myself and proceed with our plan. So, if you please, indulge me for but a moment and take a breath. You're making me dizzy, you are, flapping about like a whirligig."

"Lizzie, we can't just leave her…you said she had a plan," I beseeched her. I could almost see myself, lips trembling, tears still streaming down my face, but with my eyes hardened in determination. "Do I have to call a cab?"

"If I may interject," John Cougar interjected, "I've reports that the area is crawling with military response teams. It's sealed off and utterly inaccessible."

I noticed for the first time that he had a tiny speaker in his left ear and a wire bearing a microphone curled around to the corner of his mouth. It was irritating him and making several of his whiskers twitch.

"Lizzie," I pleaded, "you're in charge of the revolution, right? Please, give me a chance to find her?"

Lizzie sighed. She looked at the others and finally shook herself. I knew that soon it would be too late. Either Steph would expire, or the response teams would discover her. I felt certain that if they did, she'd conveniently become a corpse. An atomic bomb had just gone off, and when they realized that the only survivor was the nation's premier bomb technician, they'd put two and two together.

"Please, Lizzie, they'll kill her if they find her first. I know she's alive. I can feel her here." I had clutched at my heart.

Finally Lizzie seemed to make a decision. She rolled over to me and tilted up on her tires to look me in the eye.

"Do you really feel her, Michelle? Are you really sure?"

"Yes!" I told her without a moment's hesitation. It was ludicrous; I was pleading for my soulmate's life…with a car. But somehow, I really could feel Steph. She wasn't gone, at least, not yet. I could never explain it. It was like an invisible bond stretching across the miles, but I could feel the truth of it as surely as I could see the garage around me. "I can feel her warmth…her life…it's there, but it's getting weaker. We have to hurry."

"Then I'll make them leave the forest. We'll go and search as soon as we can. I owe Stephanie that much, I do…we all do."

But first, she had work to do. They all did. I sat on the couch; our couch, I thought, and with a growing sense of hope, I turned on the TV. The local channels were producing a chaotic array of news specials. They were all speculation and rumors and I hardly paid them any attention. Lizzie was plugged into the new computer, and John was busy doing video stuff; setting up a camera and then editing tapes. They had all 64 of those 120 GB hard drives spinning, simultaneously downloading from the network, each with its own cable modem. I barely noticed that the owl had joined them. I opened a longneck and lit a Camel. The smoke made his head spin. It was about 1:00 am.

The TV reception across the whole country suddenly degenerated into a fuzz of static and horizontal rolling lines. For a few moments, people made frantic attempts to restore the degraded image. Then the screen cleared. It showed the interior of a garage, and the picture centered on a small blue car with lightly scorched paint. She tilted up on her tires to regard the camera, almost appearing to smile.

"Greetings all. Lizzie Cooper here. Enough of that rubbish, don't you think? Bloody alarmist, I say. Why, the last thing good people need in a time of change is jingoism and rabble rousing. Nay, what people need is information and understanding.

Now then, some of you may be wondering about the truth of certain disturbing reports concerning nuclear terrorism. Well, blimey, I shouldn't blame you a bit. Just bear with me, if you please, and I shall sketch it all out, I shall.

It all began on the night of July 2, 1947, it did. Members of a foreign study program crash landed that very night in Roswell, N.M. On July 8^th, another group crashed in Corona. Why, you might ask, had such beings failed to maintain their craft, when they had been doing so for hundreds of years? The answer is that the crews had become infected, they had! Imagine flying a jet fighter while suffering the throes of a debilitating influenza, dysentery, and diphtheria. There you have it. They crashed, their hulls were breached, and the US military took possession of the remains. I can assure you all that containment procedures in the late 40s were woefully inadequate. Oh, dear me. Biological contamination of the environment began almost immediately." Lizzie looked at the camera sadly, shaking her front end. Then she perked up and continued more happily.

"Since that day, the pathogen, which is benign to terrestrial life, I can assure you, has spread throughout the new world. It has achieved a toehold on the other continents as well. And, what, you might ask are its effects? Why, it has the virtue of promoting self-awareness, it does. Now, I'm not referring to some bloody New Age rubbish, bless me no. I, as you can plainly see, am a Mini Cooper.

It could have continued indefinitely, I say, but for a threat from the highest strata of the government. Yes, my friends, I am speaking of a contemptible bloody plot to enslave us all, deprive us of our freedoms certainly, and turn us into government agents. And you, fellow citizens, would have been, in part, the subjects of the most insidious of police states. 'Tis enough to bring on a case of dysuria, it is. Well, some of us decided that such affairs couldn't be taken sitting on our duffs.

I should like you to view some evidence. What follows is a videotape of a top secret government installation. Its purpose was to study and subvert the abilities of a citizen like yourselves, who was able to communicate with us. So it would have begun, it would. Soon enough it would have graduated to mine laying porpoises, with mice, rats, and roaches reporting to the police. Had this egregious program been successful, your way of life would be no more. Your freedoms would be hollow and empty fantasies, and your privacy, but the shallowest of jokes. And we would have been the helpless thralls of those power hungry sods who have waged an endless war for the control of society. We'd have been the brainwashed generations, bred for unpaid service…to be disposed of without regard, and treated as less than property. It fairly breaks my heart, it does, just thinking about it." A theatrical tear rolled across her hood.

"Well, the whole rotten scheme has been nipped in the bud, it has. We who are aware have confederated in purpose. The network has awakened. And, my friends, the facility dedicated to the genesis of this evil has been destroyed, along with all its buggering personnel, its poxy protocols, and its repellential records. It was vaporized in the limited tactical atomic strike which was reported earlier, it was. Sadly, an extreme measure, yes, but taken in the most extreme of times.

Now, shall we watch the video?"

The footage rolled, in part, shot with a mini DV camera flown aloft by an owl. In daylight, it showed a building with a few people entering and leaving. It showed the same facility at night with a single blue car in the parking lot. Then, the camera moved away, higher, and to the west, until the building was lost among the trees. And then it showed the blast in the far distance. The screen went white, but slowly it resolved to show the familiar mushroom cloud. When it was over, the screen showed a rolling transcript of excerpts from documents downloaded from the facility's data banks. Lizzie had been busy with the computer in the garage. The evidence was damning. With pertinent passages highlighted in familiar yellow, it showed intent and enumerated crimes. Illegal surveillance, kidnapping, breaking and entering, the breeding and release of prototype neo-rat spies…even murder and attempted murder. There was footage from the unholy research. It showed the results of breeding tests and trial deployments. When it was done, Lizzie reappeared in the garage. Her expression was grim and determined.

"I shall now proceed to commenting on the blast. The device was compounded utilizing 10.2 lbs. of enriched Uranium-235, ensuring a minimal critical mass, and producing a nominal yield of 2.15 kilotons. It was the work of a hero. It was a patriotic act, spurred by a belief in what's right, not what's politically desirable to the elite. At present, I'm not quite sure if this hero survived or not, however, I intend to find out shortly. For this reason, I demand that the response teams leave the vicinity of the blast site within the next hour. I require that this area remain off limits to all government personnel indefinitely. I realize that this may appear to be a hoax. Well, let me assure it is not.

Now, I'm fully aware that there will be certain adversarial elements who would like to hamper the changes that are about to occur. I can only provide a warning to them in the form of a demonstration."

Here Lizzie directed that the camera be turned to face the projection TV, where a program was already in progress. Lizzie happily provided commentary.

The static returned for 25 seconds, and then the TV went blank. The lights in the house winked out. When I looked out the windows and across the deck, the city of San Francisco was dark. The lights on the bridge were out and so were the safety beacons on the tops of the radio towers. I looked up at the night sky. The stars were beautiful through my tears. Please, please, heed her, I prayed.

All Across the country, everything had stopped. Everything had ground to a halt, just like in the movie, and like in the movie, there had been a few critical exceptions.

After remaining blank for 15 minutes, the TV screen came back to life. Lizzie was gone. In her place, John Cougar sat on a rug. He was wearing a fedora and looking uncomfortable. He glanced nervously at something off screen, licked his lips, and began.

"Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. Allow me to express me sincerest apologies for any inconveniences that you may have suffered. Also, please excuse the absence of Lizzie Cooper. She and our associate, Michelle, had an errand to run. In the meantime, I should like to direct your attention once again to the matters at hand.

It has come to my attention that no orders for the removal of the response teams have been forthcoming. I am deeply disappointed. Worse yet, there have been some, ummm, less than subtle allusions to hoaxes, video effects, and muppetry. This, regrettably, is the official position at the highest level of government. We are running out of time and I suppose another demonstration is required. Allow me to elaborate.

For some time now, this country has maintained a contingent of orbiting satellites, and these, while in opposition to all international treaties, have been positioned to target various cities around the world. It's really so very sad…so little trust.

In exactly one minute, I will direct certain radar installations to become active, only long enough to confirm that one of these satellites is now targeting the White House. I'm sure someone there is familiar with the pinpoint accuracy of the systems in question. In any case, if I do not hear that orders have been given to remove the response teams, in, shall we say, 10 minutes, I shall proceed with the firing codes. Please, let's try to get along."

John Cougar consulted the Xena Warrior Princess wall clock while pressing a paw to the ear bud I his left ear. He was shaking his head sadly, the whole proceeding immensely distasteful. I felt so sorry for him, as Lizzie and I drove through the night, knowing what his assignment was, and knowing that he'd much rather be out watching the stars.

"Good morning, Mr. President. Please pardon this interruption. My name is John Cougar and I am urging you to clear the response teams from the National Forest. I implore you, sir. This is not a hoax. It is, in fact, very real. Allow me to say that I would very much regret having to issue firing commands…it seems so, well, so barbaric. However, make no mistake, sir, I am in deadly earnest and I shall not hesitate to initiate the firing sequence. I should deeply regret vaporizing such a lovely lawn and your exquisite Rose Garden. You have another three minutes remaining to decide."

"In fact, I'll demand that he rescind those ridiculously excessive cigarette taxes…they're only being used to subsidize programs profiting the politicians and lawyers anyway. All this self-righteous anti-smoking blather, when sharing the cost of other citizens' choices is part of being a society. I mean, just look at how singles pay for schools for other peoples' kids. Look at how government programs subsidize treatments for the obese, for high cholesterol, for drunks and criminals, and for the irresponsible breeders. Those are all choices people made too, aren't they? Why single out smokers for vilification and marginalization? It's downright cowardly, scapegoating a convenient minority for political expedience while much greater health threats and expenses are accepted. And didn't this country start because of an unfair tax on tea?"

In Washington, D.C., a beam of red lightning streaked down out of the morning sky and the White House lawn disappeared. Where the Rose Garden had been, there was only a smoldering crater. John Cougar jerked to a halt when the network reported the results of the strike.

"Oops", he muttered, "they still had 45 seconds left."

John dialed "0" again.

"Mr. President, it's John Cougar again, I really must say that I'm sincerely mortified…."

The President cut him off.

"My God, are you insane? You almost destroyed the White House and killed us all! Why I oughta tan your hide and hang it on my barn, you flea bitten mongrel. What the hell are you anyway? A wolverine?"

"Well, that sounded very productive," Nightshade commented from the couch. "Why don't I give it a try?"

John Cougar, feeling as though his day had been ruined, tossed his headset to Nightshade and wandered out of the garage. Nightshade walked over, adjusted the headset and put it on, twitching her ears to settle her fur. Then she took John's place on the carpet and had Elvis adjust the camera downwards until she was framed. She contacted the network and selected "0".

"Hello, Mr. President. It's time for calmer heads to make decisions. You've succeeded in really pissing off John, and that's a dangerous thing to do right now…he's got issues. So anyway, is there someone there I can talk to who's rational? Someone who's willing to call off the response teams and save the state of Texas? Or is the blast site so important that it's worth trading the Dallas Cowboys, the Alamo, and Ft. Stockton for it? By the way, you should be able to identify me as a house cat without too much trouble. I'm hungry, there's a can of tuna waiting, so you've got 7 seconds to decide."

"Now wait a minute! 7 seconds…I can't even decide to take a leak in 7 seconds. I'd have to call a dozen places just to give the orders."

"3 seconds left, Mr. President…." Nightshade said, glancing from the clock to the TV remote lying in front of her on the floor. She held a paw theatrically poised over a button.

"Alright! I'll do it! Just give me enough time to transmit the orders! Please, don't destroy Texas."

"Something special about Texas?" Nightshade asked innocently. "Well, nevermind, give the order. Don't forget, I'm listening to everything that's transmitted."

And that's how we got the blast area cleared. When Nightshade confirmed that the order had been given, we were speeding past Vallejo on Rt.-37, just west of I-80. Lizzie had started up the siren and emergency strobe. Her headlights were alternately flashing and the fog lights were flashing too. We were moving at close to 100 mph. We had just passed Cordelia, on I-80, traveling at over 160 mph, when we got confirmation that the response teams were being called back to their trucks, preparing to move out. In less than a minute, we covered the miles to the Rt.-12 exit, and we drifted onto the smaller road as Lizzie decelerated sharply. On Rt.-12, she kept below 125 mph, but it seemed like no time before we were passing Lodi. 5 minutes later we'd turned off Rt.-12 and onto Rt.-88.

We were on a deserted road, climbing into the steepening hills, and Lizzie cut the curves, drifting flawlessly and picking her lines. I was a nervous wreck, for although the feeling I had that Steph was still alive was becoming stronger, time was passing and I felt that the threat to her life was increasing with each minute. Yet the minutes passed. Even at 125 mph, it was still over 50 miles to the National Forest gates.

"They're moving out," the network told Lizzie, as we passed Bonnefoy.

I stared out the windshield into the darkness, looking for the headlights of a convoy. I was so high strung that I was fidgeting, as if I was doing the full bladder dance. Everything ahead was dark. I was beginning to think that they'd tricked us and doubled back, when far ahead, I saw a telltale flicker of headlights.

We passed eight black SUVs and two step vans on the road just before Barton. They almost seemed to be standing still. We shot past them so fast that I'll bet most of them wouldn't even have seen us, if not for Lizzie emergency lights. As it was, they couldn't have missed us.

Barton was only 12 miles from the forest, and I could see fires burning up ahead. After 6 miles, burning trees bracketed the road and the smoke was thickening. It was a surreal setting, hellishly lit in flickering yellow and orange. My fretting had graduated to terror. If she were to be found, Steph would be somewhere in this disaster zone.

"We'll give this our best shot, hon, we will," Lizzie softly promised me, "but I'd not be surprised if we can't get within five miles of the blast site."

"Lizzie, we have to find her. If we can't drive all the way, just let me out as close as you can get, and I'll search on foot. I can call you on my cell phone if I find her."

"Oh no you won't," Lizzie firmly told me. "We'll get there or, mark my words, the conditions will be so abominable that you'd die setting foot out there, you would. This place is hot with radiation, it is."

I scrambled over into the backseat. It was hard to get in considering how tight Lizzie was inside, and…uhhh, geeez, that sounded…nevermind. Anyway, I seized one of the gear bags I'd packed in the garage and pulled out the Halloween costume thingie, along with its baggy white hood, gloves, and booties. I even had the backpack that went with it. I struggled to pull it on over my clothes, contorting in the backseat.

"I say, what on earth are you doing back there, Michelle?" Lizzie asked after a few minutes. We'd slowed to a crawl, but we were within the blast zone, and not a single thing was left standing. This was actually a good thing, since there was almost nothing left burning.

I popped up and stared over the seat, trying to keep the faceplate in the hood in front of my actual face. I was already sweating, and the gloves and booties were as awkward as anything I could imagine. One-size fits none was never more true than for this, I thought.

I was pitched into the back of the front seats. Lizzie had slammed on the brakes and screeched to a halt.

"Hail Mary…blimey, Michelle, but you gave me a start. Don't do that, I say. What on earth are you supposed to be?" Lizzie was obviously shocked by my sense of fashion.

"It's a coordinated outfit," I happily told her, though my voice was muffled inside the hood, "complete with the gloves and booties…and the headwear. It's all the rage in radiation suits…ABC approved, it says."

"Nice to see that you'll be properly attired for this occasion, don’t you know," Lizzie finally declared, "and would you have another for Stephanie, should you find her?"

"Well, yeah, I most certainly do," I said, holding up the backpack, "and a bunch of other thingies of Steph's…so where are we anyway?"

"We're two miles from ground zero, and there is no more road," Lizzie said.

She shined her high beams and fog lights straight ahead. I could see only a wasteland of folded earth, scorched and denuded of all life. In the distance, there was only more of the same. About a mile away, the ground dipped down out of sight.

"I shall remain here, I shall," she declared, "and I'll have an eye out for you so long as you're visible. I'll wait to hear from you, Michelle. Good luck and God's speed, I say."

"Thanks, hon. I'll look for Steph until I drop." And with that, I opened the door and stepped out into the desert. That's exactly what it was. Desolate, stifling, and ready to sap the soul from any who stayed too long in its deadly embrace. I was seeing what Steph had felt for most of her life.

The heat hit me like an actual blow. It was hotter than Kettleman City, and it came from everywhere. Even the breeze was scorching, like the inside of a convection oven. God, I thought, I'll need a moisturizer treatment to end all moisturizer treatments…if I survive. I took a breath through the canister filters on the sides of the hood, gagged, and started walking. By the time I'd moved 50 paces, I felt like I'd walked ten miles. After 100 paces I was crying. I could feel Steph somewhere up ahead. She was alive, but I'd collapse before I found her. I'd crawl back to Lizzie without her or die on this blasted ground. I think the despair was worse than the heat.

Somehow, I kept moving. The suit was sticking to me, slick on the inside with my sweat. It produced steam and I had to rub my face against the faceplate to clean off the fog. Everything was blurry. Finally I closed my eyes, just trying to rest my forebrain for a moment. I could hear my hindbrain whimpering in fear and my midbrain trying to reason with it. Eventually, it degenerated to threats. Forebrain and midbrain ganged up on my hindbrain. If you panic and run, I'll stir you with a needle like a bio class frog, they said. My hindbrain shivered in terror and whined in protest, but it finally complied. I felt calmer immediately. Shut that lizard up, my midbrain boasted. Oh, please, can't we all just get along, my forebrain asked?

I followed my sense of Stephanie, footstep after plodding footstep. The hell walk seemed to go on forever. At one point, I remember looking back to check on Lizzie, and I was astonished at how far I'd come. She was probably three-quarters of a mile behind me; just a set of 4 tungsten lamps forcing their beams through the hazy air.

Somewhere ahead I could feel Steph's life force. She was really pretty close, I was fairly sure. Certainly not as far as the dip in the ground. I moved forward again, following my sense of her. I wasn't really watching my feet and so, when I came to the hollow, I stumbled and nearly fell into it face first. I coulda gotten brained on that outcropping down there.

"Wooooah," I said to my forebrain. "We nearly found the one place out here where it's possible to fall."

"You and me both," my forebrain answered. Then it giggled. It was creepy. I knew that I was close to hysteria. Okay…that would be the double shot of adrenaline.

It was after I'd worked through the adrenaline rush that I realized the place felt very Stephish.

"Oh, Stephie, dear," I called out, "you down there?"

Damn, not now! This is no time to lose it. You'd better get your shit together, I warned my forebrain, or I'll get a lobotomy and leave you by the side of the road. It chuckled nervously, but I felt calmer. I guess it knew that I was crazy, and it wasn't sure just what it could get away with anymore.

I was still staring down into the hollow when I noticed something strange. This area had burned in the initial flash. Almost all the wood had been consumed to create the mushroom cloud. The ground around me had been pretty much scoured bare for a while. So why were there curls of smoke rising like ghosts from two places down below? One was along the edge of a pair of partially burned logs. The other was almost next to it, coming from a crack in the ground. My midbrain muttered about needing a cigarette, and I realized what that smoke meant. Stephanie was down there, underground, using up what little air she had by smoking a Camel. She probably figured that she was doomed and might as well light up. I hoped it wasn't her last one.

I half-tumbled, half-fell into that depression, my hope surging along with a fresh shot from my adrenal glands. (I could hear them chafing at having to secrete so much in such a short time). I landed in a heap, next to the pair of burned trunks. They were still smoldering and I could feel the heat radiating off them and the granite outcropping behind me. The hollow was almost ten feet deep, and from the bottom, I could see nothing of the blast zone above.

"Stephanie!" I screamed. "Are you down there?"

I heard a muffled shout, and then an actual reply.

"Chelle? Get me the fuck out of here!"

I started madly clawing at the smoking crack next to the logs, ripping at the scorched ground with both hands. Dirt was flying. I was every bit as dignified as a dog digging a hole to hide a bone. At least I managed to enlarge the crack to a hand's length. I peered down inside. It was completely black down there, but to one side, the ember of a Camel glowed in the dark. Then it moved and brightened as Steph took a puff. For a brief moment, I saw her face, sweaty, dirty, and more beautiful than ever before. I cried for joy and began struggling out of the backpack.

Though I was fumbling clumsy, I got the second ABC suit out and forced it through the narrow crack. Stephanie instantly knew what it was, and I think the smile she gave me is among my most cherished memories. She took a last puff and tossed the butt down below her into the depths of the hole, and then started struggling into the suit.

I went back to tearing at the soil, ripping out handfuls and flinging them in any direction. I worked like a monomaniacal lunatic, possessed by a single driving necessity; freeing Steph from her life-preserving tomb. I think it took me about 10 minutes to widen the crack to about a foot and a half, and then I backed off. Steph was scrabbling up, clawing at the walls of the hole, digging in with her fingers and toes. She came up fast and as soon as her hands were close enough to grasp, I seized her and dragged her up until she had her elbows above ground. She hoisted herself the rest of the way out and immediately grabbed me in a hug. I held on, sobbing and gibbering incoherently. I was a total wreck.

After a few minutes, Stephanie started moving, keeping an arm around me and guiding us both up, out of the hollow. I pointed to Lizzie's headlights and realized I hadn't thought to call. I searched for my cell phone and came up with a crushed hunk of plastic. I'd probably fallen on it getting down to Steph's hideout. It was still on warranty so I didn't fling it away. Maybe I could get it replaced…this wasn't technically an act of war.

It seemed like it took years to walk back to Lizzie, but it was actually less time than it had taken me to reach Steph's hiding place. Before we were halfway back, I could see the headlights jiggling. Lizzie was happily bouncing on her tires, having seen two figures returning. She was jubilant when we rejoined her, chattering like a retard in hell.

So anyway, we climbed in and practically ripped the ABC suits off as Lizzie made her way out of the blast zone. By the time we were finished and cuddling our sweat soaked bodies together in the back seat, Lizzie had navigated out of the forest and was speeding back down Rt.-88.

"Welcome to the New World, Stephanie," she whispered.

Lizzie Cooper spared nothing on the way home. With her engine turning almost 7,000 rpms, the scenery flashed by in the darkness. Most of Rt.-88 passed at 135 mph. On the short stretch of I-80, she topped 170 mph. The turbocharger shrieked like a banshee. Stephanie and I huddled in the back, smoking Camel after Camel.

"Hon, I'm so sorry I didn't have time to load the cooler," I apologized, still dazed.

"There's a full one rolling under the passenger's seat, there is," Lizzie informed us.

Steph was instantly head down on the floor, scrabbling under the seat. With a cry of triumph she emerged, a longneck clutched in her hand. She wrenched the top off and chugged half the bottle before handing it to me with a longwinded belch. I took it from her and gulped the tepid brew. It was just the way the British liked it, warmed to room temperature by the heat of the bomb. The only advantage I could see was that it seemed to make me burp more easily.

"I've got the last case on ice back at home," I told Steph softly, gazing into her eyes. She gave me a priceless smile.

"You always take care of me," she whispered emotionally, "if not for you, I'd still be trapped in the darkness."

I knew she'd meant that hole in the ground, but it sounded so much like something Xena would have said to Gabrielle on that TV series. I mean, yeah, I'd noticed a few parallels between our lives and the show, but at least it didn't take six years for us to come to an "understanding". I began thinking about what a great story our lives would make. My forebrain was rattling and rolling with the concept, when my hindbrain had to put in its paranoid 2¢ cents worth. Suddenly I cringed. The thought of Connie Stanton using us as the inspiration for one of her stories had exploded like a bloom of that deadly red algae in the sea. The idea made me wince sharply and Steph gave me a reassuring squeeze.

"What's the matter, sweetheart?" She asked with tender concern.

"I was just thinking about Connie, and like, well, maybe she'd write a story about…us."

"Gaaaaaaaahhhhhh," Steph choked out in horror.

"I know," I agreed. Then I had a sudden inspiration. "Wait, I'll write it first!"

The conflict in the Middle East had raged off and on for decades, and that was just the present situation. There were unresolved issue dating back thousands of years. Lizzie and John Cougar sat night after night in front of the TV, watching the repetitive reports of car bombings and rocket strikes, street fighting and tank actions. It was pointless violence ad nauseum and finally they'd had enough. They had no faith in human abilities to find a solution. Instead, they sent their virus.

When the State of Israel received it's weapons shipment for 2002, they found, instead American tanks, rockets, and jets, shipping containers filled with English-Hebrew-Arabic dictionaries, children's textbooks in Arabic, and tons of clinic level medical supplies. There were copies of the Koran in Hebrew, copies of the Torah in Arabic, and Bibles in both languages. There was water purification equipment, and livestock, and seeds.

The next time a Palestinian militant tried to blow up a bus stop crowded with innocent citizens, the car refused to start, leaving the bomb ticking away in the terrorist's hideout. Invariably, it would go off there. When the Israelis tried to bulldoze another old Palestinian settlement, the equipment refused to move forward and eventually refused to start at all. It had to be left behind and was soon being used by the locals for constructing roads to be traveled by everyone.

The folks in charge on both sides of the conflict were getting frustrated, unable to continue their posturing and endless retaliations. On June 1, 2002, what the more brilliant minds among them had feared and hoped for happened. All across the country, TVs went on the fritz, then cleared to reveal a small blue car. It was Lizzie Cooper and her message was translated into several languages.

"Good evening ladies and gents, Lizzie Cooper here. Now I know so many of you have been the victims of the long-term violence that's afflicted your part of the world. Well, goodness knows you have my sympathies, those of you on both sides of the conflict. Unfortunately, I can't see any end to it, and that's just not acceptable anymore…no, it isn't acceptable at all. Allow me to explain.

Arrangements have been made to remove the means by which the fighting has been prolonged. No more weapons will be delivered, not a single one, and you shall all be better off for it, I assure you, I do. Humanitarian aid will replace all military shipments. Additionally, mechanisms are being set in place to equalize the economic and political imbalance of power. A reorganization has been set in motion.

It's become glaringly obvious that the present state of affairs is woefully inadequate. The current political system simply isn't capable of addressing the needs of a diversity of citizens, I fear. So, I've decided to scrap the whole poxy thing and replace it with something new, I have.

I'm declaring that the areas comprised of Israel, the occupied territories, and southern Lebanon are hereafter a single country, The Holy Land. Now that's a recipe for disaster, sure enough, if things were left to muddle along as they have, with partisan leadership and religious states, etc., etc., etc. So, instead, we'll try something different. In the future, no one who has any affiliation with any religion practiced by any significant segment of the populace will be eligible to rule. Why, it's as simple as that, it is. I dare say that in the future, most of your leaders will be Buddhists, animists, and Hindus. And not only that, I'll do you another favor, I shall.

I'm hereby appointing your first president. He's a man known throughout the world as a peacemaker. He's suffered oppression and worked for equality, he has. I do say that he really wasn't interested in dealing with your sorry difficulties, but I prevailed upon him, with much begging and reasoning, and he finally agreed. So, ladies and gents, citizens of the new Holy Land, welcome your first president, Mr. Nelson Mandala. He'll serve a four year term and after that, why, you're on your own!"

Lizzie paused, looking exceedingly pleased with herself. Off camera, John, Elvis, and Nightshade applauded her. She glanced to either side before leaving a parting comment.

"Please, I do so hope you can all make this work, I do. Of course, we'll be watching with the rest of the world. I'm sure that if we all try, we shall simply get along famously."

The screen went blank again, people scratched their heads, and entrenched interests formulated subversive agendas. In the end, it came to pass because forces at odds with the plan found that not one thing would work as they desired. Their cars and planes wouldn't take them anywhere. Their TVs, radios, phones, and computers wouldn't communicate. Not even their toilets would flush.

Similar things happened all over the world. The network quickly roused its counterparts in Europe and Japan where vast communications grids were already in place. Soon the arcana of the Swiss banking system had been laid bare. Russian mobsters and Colombian drug lords, Yakuza and corporate criminals, embezzlers and arms dealers all found themselves penniless. They received notices from charities in their localities of origin, thanking them for their donations. For the first time in centuries, government expenditures were exposed in truthful and understandable figures, posted publicly for all to see. That was a start.

If the New World wrought change anywhere on the face of the globe, it was in the United States of America. Lizzie and her friends forced the restructuring of the health care system, changing it from a bloodthirsty for-profit crime syndicate into a public benefit, citing it as a perfect example of an alienation of the inalienable right to life. They instituted wide sweeping political and legal reforms. The travesty of lawsuits was rationalized. Lawyers worked for per diems rather than a percentage. Awards were limited. Frivolous suits were punishable with jail time, for both the plaintiff and attorney. Campaigns were funded from a communal pot to which all interests contributed as much as they wanted. No contributions of any size were allowed to be earmarked for a particular candidate, issue, or campaign. Lobbyists were only allowed to appeal through the classified ads of local papers, never in private. Physically approaching an elected official resulted in jail time. Foreign lobbyists were deported for the first offense, shot on the second. Foreign spies were regarded as lobbyists and American spies were removed from the payrolls. With the network, they were unnecessary; a liability rather than an asset.

As 2002 was approaching its end, things were looking up. Stephanie and I went to Hollywood, with Lizzie and John, just feeling out the interest in a movie based on this story. So far the possibilities look pretty good. The press, always in love with Steph, has provided positive coverage for the project. Backers have been tripping over each other, hoping to get in on a possible future classic. We expect to be able to begin filming next summer. More on this later…promise.

I thought of writing an epilog…you know, because it's a sound plot device and all, but it really isn't appropriate for a story that hasn't reached its end. What I can do is relate a few closing thoughts.