Less than a month before, Stephanie had been drowning in self-pity; depression had become her defining state of mind. The weeks following her work related injury had been the worst of her life. For the first time, she'd been helpless. She'd been bedridden and unable to take care of even the simplest of her needs.

Her near future had held the promise of the torture of physical therapy. Most days, she didn't want to even think about learning to walk again. Steph would have preferred to have died doing what she had become so good at. Had the incident occurred on a battlefield, a medic would have given her morphine, taken one of her dog tags, and walked away. Instead, the EMTs had scraped her onto a stretcher, and a helicopter had delivered her to the trauma unit that had somehow saved her life. No one had been more surprised than the ER surgeons, that she hadn't flatlined in the first ten minutes. She'd cursed them for each day of bedpans, sponge baths, and liquid meals that she'd endured since. At least the catheter hadn't been permanent….

The morning that Steph had been wheeled into the PT section, she'd expected to at least verbally abuse whatever demon had been assigned to torment her. Instead, she'd been met by an angel. Before her had stood a short blonde woman in a long white jacket. She carried, "a few extra pounds", and she'd been holding a clipboard, looking down and adding a note. Then she'd looked up and her emerald green eyes had captured Steph in their pools of intelligence, compassion, and perceptiveness. It was as though Connie had looked right into her soul.

Connie Stanton had been the toughest taskmaster Steph had ever met. With her gentle touch and kind words, she'd demanded that Stephanie perform a degree better than even the most optimistic of her doctors had expected. Somehow, Steph had met those challenges like the challenges she'd been meeting all her life. In a few days, she went from contemplating suicide to nearly tearing ligaments so as not to disappoint Connie. She'd abused her own damaged body worse than anyone could have forced her to. The incentive to please her therapist was stronger than any threat, or all her fear of pain and failure. She'd wanted to stand and walk again. She'd wanted to be whole again. She'd wanted it so bad she'd have sold her soul. In a way she had, because after so many years alone, she had lost her heart. She'd wanted a chance to love Connie Stanton.

As her discharge date drew nearer, Steph became more and more nervous. Her attraction to her blonde therapist was overwhelming in its intensity. Still wounded from her weeks of infirmary, Steph's natural confidence had faltered in the face of what she finally admitted was true love. Her last day as an inpatient dawned and she still hadn't made her move. In spite of six years in a job that had sent many of her peers begging for reassignment or early retirement, Stephanie had never been more of a basket case.

Somehow though, their fate would not be denied. Connie had asked Stephanie if she'd join her for dinner and a bottle of wine, to celebrate her return to the ranks of the walking. Stephanie had nearly fallen on her face, but her whole body had been held up by the lightness of her heart.

The dinner had been delicious, but it was the company that had made the meal one to remember for a lifetime. The wine had left Stephanie unsteady on her unevenly built-up orthopedic shoes, and her leg brace had felt like it weighed a ton. Connie had steadied her with an arm around her waist, though she had been a bit tipsy herself. In return, Stephanie had saved Connie when her blood sugar had plummeted while they waited over half an hour for their appetizers. Connie hadn't eaten since a small lunch eight hours before, and had been bordering on a diabetic coma. Her vision was already darkening, but Steph had frantically fed her a Twinkie from a pack she kept in her purse. Within minutes, Connie had been back to herself, the reading from her blood sugar test strip said 68, still low, but she'd guessed it had dropped to around 35 before the Twinkie. They seemed to be a match made by Aphrodite herself, except for Stephanie's smoking and Connie's asthma. However, they both realized that no relationship was without a few rocks.

A week later, as they lay together, soaked in sweat and gasping in each others' arms, Connie had taken two puffs from an inhaler and whispered breathlessly, "We're soulmates Stephie, we were meant to be together," as if that explained it all.

Stephanie Walker had grown up in a small cinderblock house in Bakersfield, California. Her tall, dark haired father was a locally cited drunk, the recipient of many citations from the sheriff. He wasn't a violent drunk; that would have taken too much energy, and entropy was his thing. Michael Walker was a happy, easy going drunk. He claimed to love children and dogs without reservation, and always seemed to have a beer in his hand. Stephanie loved him dearly. Steph's mother was obsessive-compulsive; a classical case who couldn't stop washing, and had to organize everyone's lives on a minute to minute basis. Lydia Walker was petite gone puffy, smoked constantly, and placed ashtrays all over the house. She loved everything about cats except their fur, and was given to carrying a lint roller in a pocket of her housecoat. She'd absently roll it across the upholstery while pretending to watch TV, her ice blue eyes darting around the room, trying to outguess the fall of dust motes. The Walkers had never owned a cat or a dog.

Stephanie grew up with a combination of parental traits and a dream all her own. She wanted to be the best at whatever she did, but she dreamed of leaving Bakersfield and finding a new world someday. It was her life, and Steph hated the desert, the tapped out oil fields, and the constant noise. Highway 99 bordered their side yard and the railroad tracks skimmed the back. The other side of their yard hosted a capped wellhead and a drainage canal. She was an only child and no one else lived on their block.

Stephanie stuck around long enough to graduate from Bakersfield High, as captain of the varsity cheerleaders and class president. (She was also valedictorian, of course). Despite her success, Steph was usually ridiculed by her peers. She was a tall and somewhat gangly brainy girl, with a drunk father and a psycho mom. She was poor and lived in a loud house. The Walkers had never owned a working TV or garbage disposal.

Near the end of June, Steph packed a bag, containing a carton of Camels, a six pack of Bud, and a change of clothes, and slipped out of the house. She'd gotten sick of being blamed for the cat hair, but mostly, she hated the desert. Steph walked with purpose in the summer heat, up onto the State Road 99 entrance ramp, where she stuck out her thumb. Her destiny was calling.

Within ten minutes she was headed for I-5 and San Francisco, as the passenger of a failed movie impresario out on a drinking binge. He was an aging Chinaman who squinted at her and laughingly introduced himself as Mr. Magoo. It was the safest ride she could have gotten. Though he wove from lane to lane across the highway, the hand he slid under her waistband was chaste…his passion was for transvestites, and he'd initially been fooled because she was so tall. He didn't intend to fondle her much, he simply needed contact to keep from falling over. Stephanie had thought it endearing, very much like her Dad.

They'd barely passed Route 46 to Lost Hills, before Steph was too drunk to notice the small pills Mr. Magoo would slip under his tongue. The rest of the ride passed in a blur. When they turned onto I-580 to catch I-205 heading west to San Francisco, Mr. Magoo pulled the Cadillac onto the shoulder, crawled over the seat, and fell asleep in the back. Stephanie slid behind the wheel, screamed, "Get up, yaaaaaah", and floored the boat back into traffic.

They'd made Hayward 20 minutes later, where she turned north on I-880, heading for Oakland. In Oakland, Steph became confused when I-880 became I-890 became I-24. She cut off a Lincoln University panel truck, a plumber's van, and a family of tourists, before regaining control as she passed the Market St. exit. Now that she could see the Golden Gate Bridge straight ahead, Stephanie thought she had her bearings. As they crossed the historic span, she scream-sang "Sympathy for the Devil", remembering Tom Cruise as the vampire Lestat. She'd always thought he was hot, but somehow she hadn't been overly disappointed to hear the rumors that he was gay. Her driving was marginally better than Lestat's, her voice noticeably worse than his radio.

Once in San Francisco, she'd pulled off at the Harrison St. exit, following it to 7^th street. Stephanie instinctively headed for the bay, taking 16^th St. to 3^rd, where she parked. She dragged herself over the seat, but dozed off while trying to wake up Mr. Magoo. Steph had no idea where he'd been headed. It was six hours later when she awoke, wondering where the hell she was. She was hung over, but still half-drunk. The car was roasting hot. After opening the windows, smoking a Camel, and washing out her mouth with hot Budweiser, she made a more serious attempt to roust Mr. Magoo. Steph discovered that he'd probably been dead since soon after she'd taken the wheel. She'd been sleeping with a self-embalmed corpse.

The rest of the day went by in a confusing blur. She'd lurched out of the Caddy and into the intersection of Mariposa St. and 3^rd, where she'd nearly been run over by a police car. It took hours for the authorities to sort out her story. In the end, they believed her disconnected ramble. Mr. Magoo had died of a massive coronary, despite the nitroglycerine pills he'd been eating, and he still had over five thousand dollars in his pockets. Steph had sixty-three dollars to her name. She just wasn't a believable suspect, and after all, the death was due to natural causes. Eventually they got around to asking her where she was going and why she was in San Francisco. Without thinking, Steph had blurted out that she'd come to join the police force. They'd laughed her out of the station. She was still seventeen, and couldn't apply until she was twenty.

Stephanie bummed around San Francisco for six more days, fighting off weasels, sharks, and evangelists. She'd almost run out of Camels and had four dollars left, but she'd finally turned eighteen. There was only one thing to do. She walked into the U.S. Army recruiting office on Davis St., and filled out the forms. She was a six-foot-tall girl who drank and smoked a lot, and she hated the deserts, like Bakersfield, where most of America's wars were being fought. She still had a critical mass of angst left over from home. It was either the Army or a career in porn, and she'd come to the wrong town. Despite appearances, Los Angeles was basically a desert.

After completing nine weeks of basic training, it came time for Stephanie to choose a Military Occupational Specialty…a job. When Steph looked over the catalog of offerings, she almost laughed out loud. On her form she indicated MOS-95B; military police. As a woman, almost all of the Combat Operations categories were closed to her. Being an MP would be the next best thing, and, she realized that someday, when she applied to a civilian force, she'd get a triple dose of preference. Applicant female, a veteran, and a prior law enforcement specialist. It was early September, 1989.

As she had at Bakersfield High, Stephanie excelled in her classes and training. She'd become a platoon level commander and made a short-lived switch to Camel Lights. By June of 1990, SFC Stephanie Walker had been reassigned to the 720^th MP Battalion in Ft. Hood, Texas. Among other things, Ft. Hood was the home of Gen. Patton's 2^nd Armored Division, (the "Hell on Wheels" Division), and it was basically a desert. She'd astonished her CO one night by carrying him to bed after drinking him under the table. He'd astonished her by greeting her at the door dressed as a woman. It was the first time they'd associated socially, luckily in the privacy of his residence. She didn't ask, and he didn't tell. They'd had a wonderful time flirting harmlessly. Steph realized that she enjoyed the attentions of a "woman".

Two months later, that madman, Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait. I'm sure you've all heard the story. The 2^nd Armored and the 720^th MP were deployed for Operation Desert Shield; the 2^nd to raise hell, the 720^th to protect it. Stephanie had a full schedule, charged with security for a company of tanks. To the horror of the captain commanding the armored company, Steph gave each M1A1 Abrams tank a girlie name, and to their glee, her MPs referred to them by those names while communicating on their patrols. Steph would later recall that she'd spent most of her time cleaning sand out of her M16A2 assault rifle and tooling around the base in a Humvee she'd named Chrissie.

Despite the demands of her duties, Stephanie managed to engage in a few meaningless liaisons with some other female GIs. Unfortunately, they were in a desert, and Steph soon discovered that oral sex was like finding sand in the oysters, while manual stimulation held its own dangers of grit abrasion. If that wasn't bad enough, bathing wasn't as frequent as she'd have liked, and often the taste was just too much of a good thing. She ended up pissed off and frustrated, and wound up keeping increasingly to herself. Though she now hated the desert worse than ever, mostly she missed the beer.

Desert Shield gave way to Desert Storm, but mostly it was the flyboys who had the fun. The ground troops, Steph's MPs included, maintained their vigilance, growing increasingly bored. They played pranks, touch football, and dodged Scud missiles. They watched the news. Stephanie took refuge from the head-banging metal and hip-hop music so popular with the infantry, by driving off into the desert in Chrissie every chance she got. She poured her heart out to the dependable vehicle.

In the fifth week of the war, just before Valentine's Day, orders came to move west. Steph's assigned company of the 2^nd Armored became part of the VII Corps, sent to flank the Iraqi border in preparation for the ground assault. Steph and her platoon went along to direct the traffic. They drove Chrissie (and her sister Humvee, Tiffanie), herding "their" tanks and a line of trucks filled with war material. They rolled through the desert night, Stephanie demanding that the MPs in Chrissie sing "Sympathy for the Devil" with her. Ridiculous as it was, her platoon had the highest moral in the mostly bored 720^th Battalion, a fact noted by Stephie's CO.

Stephanie thought that they were finally hitting their stride, but the war was over two weeks later. Towards the end of April, she was back at Ft. Hood, Texas. She happily reasoned that if she had to endure a desert, well then, she was better off in an American desert. At least there was beer.

Every chance Steph got, she'd drag her CO off base and into the wilderness; she lugging a cooler, he dressed as a tart. It was a safe relationship with no strings attached. Usually they'd fall asleep under the stars, after drunkenly discharging small arms fire at the wildlife. Stephanie was marginally happy, but her tour of duty was coming to an end. In late June, she was honorably discharged after serving two years. Her service record was flawless, but her time in the wastelands had left her emotionally isolated, hollow, and incapable of commitment. Stephanie Walker was twenty, sick to death of deserts, and she was ready to move on.

With her savings, she bought a perfect, two-tone '56 Desoto Firedome, complete with push button automatic transmission, a first class ice chest stocked with longnecks, and two cartons of Camels. She set out for San Francisco the very afternoon of her final parade, only taking time to shuck her dress uniform for a pair of lewd cut offs and a black cire tank top. Though her CO had given her a pair of fuck-me red stiletto pumps as a going away present, Steph opted for snake skin cowboy boots and iridescent Gargoyles. She named the Desoto Brittanie.

Three days of driving brought Steph back to California. She'd crossed most of west Texas being leered at from a semi, which paced her down I-10 from San Antonio to El Paso. When she realized that he'd probably linger all the way to Tucson, she lit up the Desoto after crossing the Rio Grande. The vintage hemi engine roared and soon the speedometer read 125 mph. Long before Steph reached Deming, the semi was history. After a long third day behind the wheel, Stephanie pulled into San Diego to replenish her ice and beer. Afterwards, she luckily found a parking space with a nice view overlooking the harbor. Steph passed out in the back seat for six hours.

Morning found Stephanie red eyed, hung over, and coughing up tars and nicotine residues. She suspected that her cut offs and tank top needed laundering, but her nose wasn't reporting on the world anymore, which was probably a good thing. With a fresh beer between her thighs, she selected "drive" and headed north on I-215, desperate to avoid Los Angeles. Sometime around 9:43am, two-thirds of Steph's poor addled brain stopped working. Using only her hindbrain, she maneuvered Brittanie the Desoto on autopilot through the morning and afternoon. When she came back to her senses, the sun was already going down, and she'd taken a turnoff for SR-99. Stephanie groaned and lit a Camel. She had just driven in a two-year circle. Steph was less than ten miles from Bakersfield.

Oh what the hell, she thought, as she pulled the Desoto in front of her old cinderblock house. A train roared by thirty yards to her right and traffic whined on the highway behind her. The only thing that had changed was a mean looking mutt of a dog that growled and lunged at her, dragging a huge chain that was welded to the capped wellhead. She grabbed a couple of longnecks and walked up to the door.

Stephanie's homecoming was hardly better than the one a certain Warrior Princess had once received in Amphipolis. Her father staggered up, overjoyed to see her. He reached for the longneck Bud she held out to him and missed, firmly grabbing her breast. Her mother tried to beat her with the lint roller, then claimed she didn't know her and threatened to call the police. Steph stayed just long enough to finish a couple beers with her Dad. She discerned that he really didn't recognize her at all, and forgave him for clumsily trying to seduce her. It was gross. The dog didn't stop barking or slinging saliva the whole time. Finally she excused herself, saying that she must have stopped at the wrong house. She was only too happy to drive off in Brittanie…Bakersfield was still a desert.

She'd passed the Route 46 turnoff to Lost Hills before she realized that tears were streaming down her face. She'd been happy to leave, and if anything, her old home was even worse than she remembered it. She didn't understand. In the end, Steph decided that the beer was making her maudlin. Maybe it was time to switch to Coors.

Stephanie continued to cry as she blazed down the highway. When excessive speed didn't make her feel any better, she pulled off 99, onto SR-41 north, and drove into the miserable half-mile long town of Kettleman City. The place had accidentally sprung up amidst a field of oil wells and didn't even appear on most maps. Steph tooled down General Petroleum Ave. for a block and then turned onto Becky Pease St. At the dead end, she parked Brittanie and climbed out, sitting on the ground in the car's shadow and sobbing as she lit a Camel. She was so upset that she didn't even notice the little girl who approached her.

"Why are you crying, lady?" A soft young voice asked.

Stephanie looked up toward the voice and saw a passable Shirley Temple look-alike with violet eyes, staring down at her. The waif was wearing a cropped, powder blue baby doll tee, (with "Pornstar" emblazoned in silver script where her breasts would someday grow), and blue jeans with the cuffs rolled up, revealing scuffed Nikes. She was probably eight or nine years old and she looked as if she had been crying too. Steph's maternal instincts kicked into gear, a surge of protectiveness washing through her. The little girl was struggling to carry the largest cat that Stephanie had ever seen. If the girl weighed 50 pounds, the cat was probably pushing 30, and it dangled from the girl's arms in an undignified and boneless fashion. Amazingly, it wasn't struggling.

"Is that your cat?" Steph asked in amazement, patting the ground next to her to offer a seat. The girl chewed her lip for a moment, then decided to rest. She plopped down awkwardly, never letting go of the animal. The tabby draped itself across her, (from her chest to her calves), and preened. She nodded "yes" to Steph and then burst into tears.

"My Daddy says I can't keep him anymore and he's going to take him to the vet to be put to sleep," she declared piteously, as the cat nuzzled her and started purring loudly. "So I'm running away to the desert, cause I can't let anything bad happen to Barney," she finished.

Stephanie shook her head. "What does your Mom say to that, hon?" Steph asked with concern. She'd never had a cat of her own and her mom was a psycho.

"My Mommy loved Barney, but she died last spring, and my Daddy has been sad ever since," the girl choked out, "he loves me but he's so allergic to cats." She squeezed the cat tightly, causing it to gasp softly, but it still stayed in her arms, turning to gaze into her eyes. "He's such a good cat, and he catches mice and lizards, even a little poodle once, and he never breaks anything or makes a mess, and I've had him since I was a 5."

"Awwww, geeeez, honey," Stephanie sympathized, watching as the cat licked the crying girl's face. "He looks like a really good cat," she said honestly, still amazed that he hadn't fled from the child's grasp. "I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to him either, but you can't run away from home. Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"No," the girl said between sobs, "it's just me and my Daddy and Barney."

"It's just you and your Dad now?" Steph asked, flicking away the butt of her Camel. "He probably needs you, sweetheart. I'm sure he'd let Barney stay if he wasn't allergic…how bad are his allergies anyway?"

"He had to go to the hospital this morning because he fell asleep by the TV and Barney sat in his lap watching Rosie O'Donnell." Barney seemed to nod in agreement. "Daddy woke up and said he couldn't breathe, and he was turning blue, and I had to call 911. I was scared he'd die like Mommy, and I love my Daddy."

Good god, Stephanie thought, people die from respiratory failure with reactions like that. Of course he can't be around that cat. The girl's mom probably knew how to keep them apart. What a pathetic situation. There's no way she's going to be able to keep this cat, and her dad will flip out if she disappears…especially after losing his wife.

"Honey, let me give you a ride home. Your daddy will be worried sick when he realizes you're missing. If you want, I can take Barney with me…I promise to take really good care of him, and I won't let anything bad happen to him. When I was little I always wanted a cat, but my mom wouldn't let me have one because she's a psycho and couldn't deal with the cat hair."

The girl sniffled, (a slug trail of snot creeping from her nostril), but she seemed to be thinking about Steph's offer. She looked at the cat and it turned to rest its paws on her shoulders, bringing itself nose to nose with her. She hugged the cat desperately, until Stephanie imagined she could see its ribs sliding out of position, and she started crying again. It was short lived this time though. Finally she looked at Steph hopefully.

"Do you really promise to take care of him and not let anything bad happen to him, ever?" Barney the Cat was looking at Stephanie too, obviously measuring her sincerity.

" I promise," she said solemnly to both of them.

Stephanie helped the girl into Brittanie the Desoto, while Barney hopped in and draped himself over the seat back, resting his head on the girl's shoulder. She directed Steph to a small tract house with hideous vinyl siding, about six blocks away, where a distraught man was pacing in the front yard and talking into a cell phone. He watched the Desoto suspiciously, but when he saw his daughter in the front seat, he raced to the door practically in tears. There was no doubt in Steph's mind that he loved the little girl dearly. The child leapt into his arms as soon as she got out.

Eventually he talked with Steph, accepted a Bud, and tried to grope her, all the while eyeing Barney with obvious nervousness. Barney finally came to Steph's rescue, winding his way around her ankles and stretching up to his full height, putting his paws on her waist. After looking into her face, he moved to rub against the father's legs, driving the man indoors. Soon, they were blasting down the highway.

Stephanie didn't really know much about cats, but she'd noticed that Barney had only a stub of a tail. He also had oversized tufted ears, bushy jowls, and massive feet. His coat was irregularly spotted, mostly, developing tabby stripes on his face. Steph drove back onto I-5, heading for San Francisco, with a glow from having done a good deed, and a domesticated bobcat curled over the seat back, purring and chewing on her hair. She'd driven for over two hours before she realized that she'd never even learned the little girl's name.

Stephanie's return to San Francisco was much less flamboyant than her first appearance. When she crossed the Golden Gate Bridge this time, she was accompanied on "Sympathy for the Devil", by a CD player and a howling cat. She checked into the Econo Lodge on Lombard and Divisadero Sts., scoring a room the size of a walk in closet with a single bed, for $50 a night. She cranked up the air conditioner, turned on the TV, and refilled her ice chest, then searched the Yellow Pages for a laundromat, a restaurant, and a pet store.

Steph returned from dinner at Izzy's Steak House, with clean clothes, cat dishes, and a pet rabbit. Barney the Cat leapt up to hug her after sniffing the pet store box. Stephanie turned the rabbit loose and went into the bathroom to take a shower. When she came back out, Barney was lying on the bed cleaning his fur. The rabbit's bones and pelt had been haphazardly stuffed back into the box and the water dish was empty. Steph was amazed that there wasn't even the slightest trace of the bloody mess she'd resigned herself to finding on the floor. She happily patted her new cat and then collapsed into bed naked.

Sometime in the dead of night, Steph briefly roused from a weird dream of the Iraqi desert, thinking she'd heard a toilet flush. As she dropped back off to sleep, she realized that she'd neglected to purchase a litterbox. The dream recommenced with her CO, in a red sequined gown, charging into battle in the Abrams tank that they'd named Buffie. Stephanie paced him in Brittanie the Desoto, accompanied by her MP buddies. This time, the beer was flowing and they were singing "Girls Just Want To Have Fun". The Republican Guard was on the run, fleeing across the sand in hideous mid-70s Buicks.

The alarm clock splintered Stephanie's morning with the most appalling discord, leaving her furious at the interruption of a wonderfully carnal dream. She'd been in a cozy bedroll with 6^th season Gabrielle and the blonde had been on top. Barney the Cat had wormed his way under the covers and had been sprawled on her chest like a sphinx, lustily kneading her breasts. He looked as pissed off as she was.

Stephanie eventually regained her composure, and made her way to the San Francisco Central Police Station. She had taken the precaution of not going near the Potrero Station, the scene of her inebriated faux pas of two years before. Again, Steph found herself filling out application forms, submitting records and documents, taking the written, physical, and oral exams, and submitting to a medical exam.

The doctor, she recalled, looked like a Tammy Faye Baker clone, probably purchased her makeup by the pound, and touched her patient rather more than the doctors Steph had seen in the past. In fact, Stephanie thought it strange that she wasn't offered a gown. She'd had to remain naked throughout the procedure, which included an inordinately thorough pelvic exam and some amateurish photography. In particular, the excessively repeated requests to cough during the bimanual exam seemed suspicious. The doctor finally pronounced her "very healthy", and in a flustered flurry of words, recommended that Steph smoke fewer Camels and meet her for dinner. Stephanie declined, suspecting the doctor of being a transvestite. She fled back to her room at the Econo Lodge and jumped into the shower. The scrubbing that Steph performed there would have made her obsessive-compulsive mother proud.

The day went from bad to worse. Stephanie had decided to relax in the Golden Gate Nat'l Rec Area. Accompanied by Barney the Cat, Steph wandered the grounds, finally lounging on a bench and reading the Police Academy course guide. She was jerked out of her concentration by a paw scrubbing at her shin.

Barney the Cat was proudly sitting at her feet, offering the limp Chihuahua that dangled from his jaws. About forty yards away, a man in a business suit was screaming, charging towards them, red in the face, and brandishing a briefcase. Steph shook her head and flipped away the butt of her Camel. There was nothing to be gained by staying. She snatched the cadaver and jammed it into her shoulder bag, then took off towards the park gate at a dead run. In moments, Barney was frolicking alongside her.

They burst out of the park and onto Lombard St., having increased their lead substantially. After suicidally weaving through traffic, they finally entering the Econo Lodge through a service entrance in the back. Later, in their room, Steph turned on the TV and found that the story had made the news. Stephanie paced and lectured as Barney ate.

Several weeks later, after the Police Academy background check was completed, Steph took her polygraph test from a sympathetic officer who, she supposed, had read about her parents. They didn't really ask any tough questions, she realized. The psychological exam was interesting. Stephanie's claim that her cat used the toilet and hunted small stray dogs was met with skepticism. Although she was finally deemed sane, a note was made about her tendency to name things. Like the doctor, the psychologist asked Steph for a date.

"She had very little imagination and bad breath," Stephanie confided to Brittanie the Desoto, as they drove back to the apartment she'd rented in Chinatown. "Maybe I should have become a shrink," she mused, lighting a Camel, "I could meet some interesting people and I'd know what makes them tick."

"The only interesting ones are crazy, hon, and no one ever really knows what makes another person tick," Brittanie replied, her gentle voice coming from the stereo speakers, "you're better off drinking, smoking, and becoming a cop."

"Thanks, Brit," Stephanie said, gently stroking the leather on the passenger's seat, "I'm so glad you're not a bitch, like Christine in that Stephen King book."

"She was a '58 Plymouth," Brittanie pointed out with finality, as if that explained it all.

When the rainy season came, and Steph began parking Brittanie in the living room of the 3 bay garage that she rented as an apartment, shoving her couch and TV into the large bathroom. The garage had been abandoned for years before Steph searched out the owner and offered to rent it. The landlord had been ecstatic. After the address had been rezoned, (from commercial to residential), the property had been useless without renovations, and he just didn't have the money. Steph had changed the three extra toilet stalls and sink area into a lounge. She added a tub and relocated a sink. The first bay had become a living room, the third her bedroom. The second bay between them she'd divided into kitchen and dining areas, the former claimed by Barney the Cat as a killing ground. It was November of 1991, and Stephanie was 16 weeks into the 28-week training program at the Police Academy. She expected to finish in mid-February of 1992, but she couldn't be hired until she turned 21. In the meantime, Brittanie had suggested that she take additional courses while she waited for her birthday in mid-June.

Valentine's Day 1992 arrived, and Stephanie Walker graduated from the San Francisco Police Academy at the top of her class. A year before, she'd been herding tanks through the Iraqi desert in a Humvee. Barney and Brittanie had both been very supportive throughout her schooling, and Steph knew she'd have been so much lonelier without them. They celebrated Stephanie's graduation and Valentine's Day with cake, ice cream, and beer. That night, she lay in the backseat of the Desoto with Barney the Cat, crying with happiness until she fell asleep. Their friendship had forged them into a loving family; something Steph had missed all her life.

"Sometimes friendship is thicker than blood," Steph had told them gravely one afternoon, having waxed philosophical while drunk, "and you two have become my family. I really love you both."

June of 1992 arrived at last, Stephanie turned 21 and was sworn in as a San Francisco police officer. She was assigned to patrol a beat not far from her Chinatown home; a tong controlled neighborhood, free of gangs, where most of the complaints had to do with missing pets, (mostly small dogs), burglaries, and parking violations. Barney took it upon himself to help her, wandering the beat at her side and showing off by killing rats. In the hours of darkness, he delved into the underground life of the beat, ferreting out its secrets and uncovering evidence. He became a valuable informant. Steph loved the neighborhood, and the people there happily welcomed her and her cat. To them, she seemed much more sane than her predecessor, and like so many of the Asians, she smoked a lot. Slowly, she began to pick up Cantonese phrases and customs. She started taking classes in herbal medicine and Ying Jow Pai.

In her parallel world, Brittanie the Desoto made many friends too, never discriminating between limousines and delivery trucks. There were times when only the information Brittanie gathered from these otherwise silent witnesses allowed Stephanie to close a case. Her superiors couldn't understand who her informants were, or how she had such success fostering cooperative community interaction. On her beat, previously invisible suspects were collared, getaway cars failed to start, and hidden booty mysteriously turned up. Bit by bit, criminals began to avoid her beat; something strange was going on there, they said, and it couldn't be accounted for by the actions of one drunk female cop. The genetically superstitious Chinese began leaving offerings of rice, wine, and cigarettes on her doorstep. Butchers offered Barney puppies, and Brittanie always found parking spaces on the street. It was unorthodox, but Steph was just doing her job…the best she could. She was happy. She was living her dream.

For three years, Stephanie walked her beat, filled out reports, and appeared in court. Slowly but surely, her actions aroused the attention of the press and the city politicians. Her superiors were more reserved in their praise, baffled by her success, but pressure was building to elevate her from patrolwoman to detective. Citizens' groups pressured the mayor. The mayor pressured the commissioner, and the commissioner pressured Steph's precinct captain. In August of 1995, the captain called Steph in for a meeting.

Captain Martinez had exhaustively canvassed the chain of command at Central for details about Officer S. Walker. The picture that she formed was of a driven woman with an affinity for beer and Camels, who somehow managed to solve crimes on her beat, and never revealed her informants. She had never worked with a partner, and she lived in a garage. She had an oversized cat and a classic car. She'd been an MP in Desert Storm and had received glowing recommendations from her commanding officer. It was all superficial as hell. Capt. Martinez wasn't fooled. No one in the station house really knew a thing of value about Stephanie Walker, except that she tended to name things.

Steph appeared at 9:00 a.m. and Capt. Martinez casually asked about her ride over. Steph replied that, "Brittanie is fine, thanks". Capt. Martinez did a double take, then asked about Steph's cat, hoping she'd been misunderstood. "Barney the Cat is on vacation," Steph had confided hesitantly, "and will catch no rats this week, only stray puppies under three pounds." The captain had gagged. Steph had said, "Godzoontight". The captain asked Steph about her apartment. Steph had admitted that she loved playing bartender and having her own pumps, gasoline in the front yard, beer in the kitchen. She was buying drinks for herself and Brittanie by the keg, she joked, delivered monthly by the same tanker truck. She saw that her levity had gone over the captain's head. The woman was just staring at her.

There was no way in hell that Capt. Martinez was going to turn Steph loose as a detective. In the end, Stephanie was offered three choices: narcotics, the K9 squad, or the bomb disposal unit. Steph explained that she never took drugs, and Barney the Cat wouldn't stand for her fraternizing with a dog. She chose the bomb disposal unit. She'd always wanted one for her sink. Capt. Martinez shook her head and filled out the transfer orders. She was astonished that Stephanie had survived for three years on street patrol.

"She was a bit slow," Steph had confided to Brittanie on the way home, "I wonder how she ever managed to become a captain."

"Seniority or nepotism," Brittanie the Desoto had replied with certainty, "the last thing society abides is a meritocracy."

Back at home, Barney the Cat had questioned Steph's wisdom in mentioning his vacation, conveying in a glance that it was really none of the captain's business anyway.

"Of course you're right, Barney," Steph had admitted, feeling a bit embarrassed by her lapse, "but I was just trying to hold up my end of the conversation."

Barney had cocked his head and scrubbed his face with a paw. Steph inferred that he suspected the captain would be setting rats loose in the neighborhood while he was taking his vacation break.

"But she's a police captain," Stephanie had objected, though now a bit doubtfully, "and she's a very busy woman."

"Steph, hon, she could be living in her own delusional world," Brittanie had advised seriously, "for all you know, it's just a front and she's breeding thousands of rats at her house in Sausalito."

"You're right of course," Steph had finally conceded, hanging her head, "I'm sorry guys, I feel like I've let you down."

Barney the Cat had climbed into her lap and nuzzled her chin, letting her know that it was ok. "Steph, you have such a good heart, and it's not wrong to give people the benefit of the doubt. Besides, you have Brit and me to look out for you." He winked at her and she smiled.

"I'm so lucky to have friends I can trust," Stephanie had told them emotionally, "I love you both so very much." They had all felt better after a group hug.

The Chinese were sorry to see her go. The night of her last patrol, the tong sealed off the neighborhood and everyone turned out for fireworks, lion dances, and Cantonese buffet. When the fire department arrived because of the detonations, their fire engines sputtered and refused to run. Brittanie spread the word to the ladder company vehicles that everything was under control, because the police were already on the scene. The locals bought off the fire inspector and ladder captain with cartons of takeout food.

When Steph's shift ended at 2:00 a.m., the party ended as well. People cleaned up their sidewalks, and by 2:30 a.m., when the new cop made his first patrol sweep, nothing was discernable. The heads of the tong met with him on the street, and impressed on him that he had a tough act to follow, but if he could keep the rats under control, he'd get their full cooperation. He shook his head and walked off, muttering about the "crazy heathen Chinese". He was a non-smoker. A week later, crime was back at its old levels of three years before. Within two weeks, the neighborhood was desperately fighting an outbreak of rats. At Central, Capt. Martinez briefly wondered if she'd done the right thing. Citizens were beginning to complain.

Steph went back to the Police Academy. At first, she was disappointed that she wouldn't be getting a bomb disposal unit for her sink. When the particulars of the job were made clear though, Steph couldn't contain her glee. Things that went "bang" were a part of the reason that she'd "Gone Army" several years before. Stephanie applied herself completely and amazed her instructors by scoring perfect grades throughout her training. The only down side was the bomb sniffing dog.

Vito the Dog was a gooberhound, part bloodhound and part mutt. Sergeant Stephanie, (now sporting extra stripes, and drawing hazardous duty pay as well as a standard rank increase), was required to bring her "partner" home; ostensibly to bond. She knew it was a bad idea. Barney the Cat took one look at Vito and let out an unearthly squall, puffing up all his fur to appear twice his size. Vito whimpered and peed, cringing in terror. In the blink of an eye, Barney snatched him off his feet, shaking him like a rat, and accusing him of everything from being an illegal alien, to being a communist, to being a pedophile. Steph had finally separated them as Brittanie shook on her springs in hysterics. Vito was blubbering, licking his crotch, and crying piteously. It was pathetic. Steph lit a Camel.

"Well, hon, do you really want to trust him with your life?" Brittanie the Desoto asked.

"Hell no," Steph replied, shaking her head and thinking of alternatives. Yo Fat-Boy, who owned the illegal firecracker factory, had a dog with a litter of puppies. Maybe she could trade Vito for one of them and train it herself. At least they'd been born knowing the scent of gunpowder.

Stephanie didn't have the opportunity to explore the possibility of training her own dog. By the time she returned to work with Vito, he was completely ruined, intimidated to the point of disassociation, and curled in an unresponsive ball. The shocked kennel master asked what had happened. Steph had informed him that Vito wasn't a team player and didn't get along with her cat. Steph was busted from the search team and relegated to bomb removal.

She reported to the removal unit team leader, a battle scarred, chain smoking Japanese-American named Archie Shimamoto, a Viet Nam vet who walked with a limp. His office was in a Quonset hut at the furthest end of the Police Spec Ops compound, where he couldn't do any damage. Stephanie knocked on the door and heard a heavily accented voice say, "Entah Preees."

She shoved the door open against resistance, the sheet metal dragging on sagging hinges across the concrete slab floor. Too late, she saw a wire pull out of the door jam. Immediately Steph heard the click of an electronic relay, and a box on the desk in front of her began ticking. A digital counter on the top started a countdown from 100, ticking off seconds in glowing red. Wires from the box were stuck into a large blob of C4. Behind the desk sat Archie, in wrinkled black BDUs, furiously puffing on a Marlboro.

"Oooooo, yu gotta ninety second reft, hotta cheeks," he pronounced while squinting at her through Hirohito glasses, "enda then we goah boooom!" He glanced pointedly at the box and giggled.

"Very good, hon," Archie said, no trace of an accent evident. Stephanie looked at him.

"Every so often I have someone panic because the situation is too strange," Archie explained. "They run out, the bomb goes off, and I fire them…send them back to patrol or administration…whatever." He said, absently waving a hand, (he was missing two fingers), before gesturing to a battered recliner in the corner and offering, "have a seat."

It turned out that, after surviving classified duty in the corps, Archie had gone to work for Yo Fat-Boy, but an accident at the firecracker factory had left him minus several fingers. Using preferential hiring statutes, he had applied to the Police Academy as a partially disabled minority. When he proved that he could handle a handgun by holding it inverted and squeezing the trigger with his pinky, he passed the physical requirements. He had been hired easily, and eventually came to head the bomb removal team. It was fine with him. He still loved things that went "boom", and the others left him alone. They thought he was crazy, a perception he actively cultivated, so no one complained that he smoked on the premises. He offered Steph a Marlboro; she declined and lit a Camel. They found that they got along well.

Eventually, Steph and Archie socialized. He lived in a series of railroad cars, welded together and placed on blocks overlooking the bay. One car held a full bar and a karaoke machine. He kept an ostrich in the yard to chase away trespassers, and had a pig named Mattie for a pet. When Steph visited, Barney would spend long hours talking with Mattie, (whom he characterized as a brilliant lateral thinker), while Brittanie sat in rapt attention as the railroad cars described the California of the 40s and 50s. Their conversations were often interrupted by Archie and Steph, drunkenly scream-singing karaoke.

There were several evenings when Steph arrived to find that Archie had invited guests. His company invariably consisted of two late middle-aged men, who Stephanie instantly pegged as ex-military. Nam vets like Archie, she thought, judging by their age. On their first meeting, Archie introduced them as Billy Jack and Billy the Kid. He was dead serious.

"You can't ask them anything about what they did in the war," he told her, "that's all still classified in a file labeled 'Cambodia'. It's 'don't ask, don't tell', once again. You know the drill." Steph only managed to learn that Billy and Billy were in engineering.

The four became the best of friends. If Archie had been a woman, he and Steph would have soon become much more. Sometimes, Archie would pocket secondary charges from their jobs, and then Steph and Archie would drive Brittanie into the desert to picnic and explode the devices. For two years, Steph learned everything about the removal and destruction of explosive devices, from the master craftsman of the trade on the West Coast. As always, Stephanie became very good at her work. It was September of 1997.

As often happens with people who live on the fringe, it is only the hand of fate that can bring them down. It was a clear early fall night. Archie was lying in bed, looking up through his sunroof at the stars. Mattie was asleep under the front stairs, and the ostrich had its head buried in the side yard. The 271-pound iron meteorite came down smack on the 500-gallon propane tank adjacent to the railroad cars. There was nothing anyone could have done. The explosion flung the 40s era coaches off the cliff and into the bay. Nothing remained except a few pork chops, (the other white meat), and a scorched ostrich steak, (the other red meat). Stephanie was heartbroken.

"Oh Brittanie, why him?" Steph sobbed, the tears rolling down her cheeks as they drove home after the memorial service. "He was my only human friend."

"Sweetheart, there's no reason for things like that," Brittanie the Desoto softly replied, "and we all know what a fucked up place the world is." Brit would miss her friends too.

"I know, Brit, I know," Steph had agreed as she pulled off the highway, "I don't feel too good." She barely made it out the door before losing her lunch. "It could have been us."

Barney the Cat looked at Steph as she stood shivering and spitting to clear her mouth. He glanced at Brittanie, whispering that maybe they should get rid of the gasoline pump in the front yard. Ever the pragmatist, he'd snatched the ostrich steak and dragged it into the bushes…neither he nor Mattie the Pig had appreciated the ostrich's elitist disposition. She had been a meal waiting to happen. Barney had found that she tasted like puppy.

The Bills had been present at Archie's memorial ceremony. It had been military standard. Just before Archie's empty show coffin was laid into the grave, Billy Jack stepped forward and draped it with a unit banner. It was one that Stephanie had never seen, and later she discovered, one that she could find no record of. On a field of red, below the gold emblem of the corps, and superimposed over the flaming bomb that denoted ordinance, there was a small rendition of the atom. There was no unit number.

"Keep in touch, hot stuff," Billy the Kid whispered to her, before the Bills left the service in their black Humvee. It would be years before Stephanie saw them again.

Steph became head of the bomb removal team, a small distinction since she was the only member. She was 26, and the heiress to the knowledge Archie had spent twenty-eight years learning. Within the San Francisco Police Dept., she was regarded as an outcast, almost a pariah. No one was interested in her job, and joining her would have been recognized as a punishment; it was a departmental backwater, far off the path of career advancement. Steph was regarded as a madwoman, for it was known by now that she talked to her cat and her car. She was also a stunning beauty, with a slender powerful body, ice blue eyes, and raven hair that showed reddish highlights. Her tall, slim figure hid a steely strength. For over five years, Stephanie had advanced in her study of Ying Jow Pai, (Eagle Claw Art), achieving a rank of Minh Kup, (5^th grade), and soon she would test for the equivalent of a first-degree black belt. She could squeeze a full can of beer hard enough to blow the pop-top open.

Stephanie continued to rely on the love of Barney and Brittanie, and she loved her little family with all her heart. The loss of her friend, Archie, had left her even more withdrawn from human company than ever before. If anything, she had come to be fatalistic about close relationships with people. They led to pain and disappointment. It was predictable, and the norm was illustrated by her disenfranchisement by the rest of the police force. Steph was willing to forego the possibility of finding love beyond what she had, for she'd learned that such attempts ended in pain and loss. When she saw loving couples, she told herself that such a relationship would forever be beyond her reach. Her happiness would never come from the love of another person. Already isolated by her years in the deserts, she was now in real danger of retreating to the safety of her oasis, and never again venturing across the hostile sands in hope of reaching anything better. Instead, she worked.

In March of 2000, Steph's little family celebrated Barney the Cat's 14^th birthday. Down in her subconscious, Steph must have been noticing that he hadn't been moving quite as quickly in the mornings, hadn't been quite as aggressive with the rats, and hadn't been eating quite as much as when they'd met. The changes were almost unnoticeable because they happened so slowly, and consciously, she didn't really recognize them for what they were. There was just a tickling sense of foreboding below the threshold of her awareness that left her unsettled. In truth, she'd been more worried about some rust spots that had appeared on Brittanie's rocker panels. Brit had spent decades in the dry heat of Texas, and the damp salty air of San Francisco was slowly eating away at her sheet metal. The clock was ticking. Steph was aging too; in June, she would turn 29.

Somewhere along the way, bomb disposal had gained a kind of glamour. Maybe it was the movies or TV action shows. Maybe it was that the young were searching for ever more extreme tests of their self-worth. Steph had taken over in 1997, after Archie's death. In the two years they'd worked together, no one had even tried to join them. In 1998 she'd had two potential members apply to the bomb disposal team. One panicked and the other passed. In 1999, four people tried to join. Three passed the test when confronted by the mad woman with the bomb on her desk, who sat and talked to her cat as the timer counted off the 100 seconds. In the first half of 2000, three applied and one passed. By her 29^th birthday, Stephanie had a team of five working for her. She drilled and tested them unmercifully, instructing them in every trick she'd learned. She had never understood that Archie Shimamoto, her mentor, had been the recognized dean of his profession, or that her own record was exemplary. Steph figured that it was simple; if you fucked up in her line of work, you died.

A week after her birthday, Stephanie was jerked awake by her pager. The dispatcher told her that a bomb had exploded in a shopping center in Oakland, and the mayor's office had received a demand for sixteen million dollars before 10:00 am, when a second mall would explode. They had only determined which shopping center was endangered in the last few minutes. Within a quarter-hour, Steph was heading for the Golden Gate Bridge, her strobes and siren clearing the way. Police had closed the bridge to traffic. Brittanie's aging hemi engine pushed them to 110 mph, weaving past other emergency vehicles. Her team was converging on a second shopping center, the evacuation already in progress. It was already 9:20 am.

When she arrived at Piedmont and MacArthur, the search team had already completed their sweep. Three known devices had been found in widely separated locations, probably timed to detonate simultaneously. The loss of life could have been staggering. The property damage would be in the tens of millions of dollars. The first device had been a warning, going off at 7:00 a.m. in the nearly empty International Marketplace just off Embarcadero. The demand for money hadn't been sent until 8:30 a.m., shortening the response time and insuring that a full crowd was endangered. It was now known that the second threat was unquestionably for real.

At 9:30 a.m., the evacuation was complete, and Steph mobilized her team. She sent in two of her people to each of the bomb sites, while she took the third site alone. The sixth team member, the least experienced, waited outside in their specially equipped truck, ready to respond to their call to extract the devices from the premises. The team members donned their work clothes; hazardous materials suits, layered with puncture resistant Kevlar and fire resistant Nomex. They immediately started sweating. Stephanie shouldered her equipment bag and stepped onto her scooter. She'd instituted the use of children's scooters to hasten their response time when indoors, figuring that skateboards were unnecessarily hazardous. Though Capt. Martinez had shaken her head in disbelief, the tactic had proven itself valuable, saving transport time in offices and parks alike.

Stephanie approached the front of the Sears department store and leapt off her scooter, jogging inside, and heading for the entrance to the sporting goods stockroom where the search team had found a device. She spotted the red flag marking the device with little difficulty, and quickly saw the device itself; a locked tool chest, marked by a red beanbag the search team had left lying next to it. The box was big, and Steph knew that bombs were made as small as possible, the better to be transported and set in place undetected. A hand grenade was a perfect example. The toolbox was close to the size of a small microwave oven. There was no point in attempting containment before working. Steph carried nothing that would significantly increase her odds of survival if she fucked up with a charge as large as what she expected she was looking at.

Steph set up a video camera to record her progress. Next, she attached a microphone to the toolbox with a suction cup, and started a tape recorder. After adjusting her headphones, she pulled on a Kevlar/Nomex hood with a polycarbonate/acrylic visor that matched the silvery hazardous materials suit she wore. She could hear the faint ticking of an electronic timer, probably made from a battery operated clock; a cheap piece of work, she thought.

The toolbox sported a combination padlock, and Steph attached her microphone to it, preparing to pick the lock. A padlock as cheap as the one she saw was there for a reason, and it wasn't expected to stop anyone. It was only present to distract them into lowering their guard. Before she started, Stephanie spoke softly into her headset, communicating with the two other teams.

Across the empty mall, two teams responded affirmative. A mercury switch would complete an electrical circuit and detonate the charge if the liquid metal inside its glass capsule moved enough to submerge a pair of contacts. It could happen if the toolboxes were lifted, rocked, or when the lid tilted as it opened. The circuit could have been activated by a time delay, allowing the bomber to close and lock the lid.

Once the padlocks were removed, Stephanie's people would edge the lid up 1/8" and insert an endoscopic camera with a fiber optic light source, to check for the booby trap that Steph suspected. This was an unavoidable hazard, and the most dangerous part of the job. Depending on what they found, they'd improvise a solution. At least a mercury switch was distinctive, with an easily recognized appearance. It would be a simple thing to spot. Steph really, really wanted to light up a Camel.

Steph had set to work, listening as the plates inside the padlock spun and finally lined up, allowing the lock to open. She removed the padlock from the hasp and carefully raised the lid, wedging a special rubber shim into the opening. She took the endoscopic camera and inserted it into the toolbox, the built in diode lighting the interior. Steph watched a 5" monitor as she moved the camera, examining the inside compartment. She saw the charge, about 25 pounds of plasticized high yield explosive. She saw the timer; a clock, battery pack, wire bundle, and the detonator cap. She saw the wires running to the alternate circuit for the booby trap. Following the wires, Stephanie tilted the camera up and saw the mercury switch, pop-riveted directly below the handle in the center of the lid. The liquid metal was 1/4" from completing the circuit.

Stephanie slipped a rubber wedge into the gap, raising the lid until the mercury was barely 1/16" from contacting the second electrode, and gaining precious added workspace. The opening between the lid and the body of the toolbox was now about 3/8". Into the gap she slid a special pair of titanium forceps. The ceramic-coated tips had a cutting edge like a toenail clipper, the fulcrum held a force multiplying gearset. Non-conductive and razor sharp, the forceps could cut up to a 8 gauge solid core wire, or a 1/8" steel braid cable. Stephanie carefully placed the tips around the wires to the mercury switch and applied force. The cut wires fell away, disabling the booby trap. She extracted the forceps and lifted the lid open wide. There were no surprises; the camera had shown her the full picture.

As she had on her first day in Archie's office, Steph examined the bomb. Sure enough, whoever had created it had exhausted their ingenuity on the booby trap. The detonation circuit was simple; no feedback loop, no interrupt sensor, no hidden button cell. A 9-volt battery powered everything. Steph lifted the battery pack and removed the battery. The clock stopped. It was 9:49 a.m. 11 minutes remained, and to Stephanie, it was a huge margin of safety.

"Prepare to retrieve the device," Steph announced into her headset, "Sears sporting goods stockroom. I need a wheel dolly. The device is deactivated."

Within four minutes, her words were repeated by her other two teams, the last at 9:53 am. Stephanie had pulled the blastproof Nomex hood off her head, relishing the rush of the air conditioning that cooled the sweat from her skin and hair. She gazed directly at the video camera and happily announced, "That's all folks!" She lit a Camel.

Somehow, the press got a hold of her videotape. It showed a beautiful woman, sweating in a Kevlar/Nomex HAZMAT suit, deactivating a bomb and saving the public with only minutes to spare. It was way too good a visual for the media to pass up. By 5:10 p.m., Stephanie Walker was a hero. By 5:30 p.m., a contract had been placed on her life.

When the news aired, Steph was the lead story, and Barney the Cat demanded that she sit and view SF Bay Watch, the TV news show, for the 10:00 p.m. repeat. Stephanie was horrified. She'd wondered what the vans with the big antennae were doing outside the garage, but she'd been reading and napping, and hadn't even ventured outside. Now, Steph could see a crowd of reporters, cameramen, and gawkers on the sidewalk in the dark, overflowing into the street. What would her neighbors think, Steph wondered, especially the quiet Chinese and the reclusive Mr. Mussolini, the aging son of a deposed Italian politician? In any case, she knew she could never leave her apartment again.

Around 11:00 p.m., the tong came to the rescue of their old friend. First, a street sweeper barreled down the curb, scattering the crowd and tearing up the wires the reporters had strung across the pavement. As the media types scurried to recover, an aging step van lurched in front of the garage and the rear doors opened, falling off their rusted hinges. Thousands of rats poured out into the shrieking crowd. Steph watched the action in amazement, while Barney the Cat sat, mesmerized and conflicted by the hordes of vermin. It gave him the creeps and stirred his killer instincts at the same time. Brittanie sat in the living room garage bay, rocking in hysterics on her springs. She alone knew what had been arranged, having personally made the phone calls. The tong finally set up ultrasonic pest repellers, driving the rats east, into the financial district. By 12:30 a.m., the neighborhood was quiet and back to normal.

They were resourceful people who had adapted to their strange new country, though it was so different from their home across the sea, and they took care of their own. Unfortunately, no one had noticed the two men in their silver Cadillac, who had watched the entire affair, and whose interest in Steph's apartment had nothing to do with getting a story. For the next two weeks they watched Stephanie's comings and goings, building up a schedule of her activities. They could have completed their research in a couple days, but she was highly unpredictable, and they didn't know how much to believe the stories they'd heard about her. In the end, they could have spent two years and still not predicted Steph's movements accurately. One thing they were sure of though, was that the gasoline pump in the front yard would come in handy.

In many ways, it was a day like any other. At 7:00 a.m. Stephanie smacked the alarm clock and Barney the Cat batted it onto the floor. Steph grudgingly rose and went into the dining room and spent a half-hour warming up and running through a couple of Eagle Claw forms; Lin Kuen, (the Connected Fist), and Fuk Fu Kuen, (Controlling the Tiger). She held the equivalent of a second-degree black belt now, and helped her Sifu as a part time instructor. Afterwards, she showered, donned her black BDUs, and headed out the door to work. It was only a twelve-minute walk to the Spec Ops compound at Central, and she often walked rather than drove. By 8:15 a.m., Steph was in her office making coffee.

Back at the apartment, Brittanie was chatting on the car phone and Barney the Cat was stretching on the couch. Neither noticed the pair of men in suits who crossed the sidewalk and tampered with the gasoline pump in the front yard. Neither noticed the box they left on the gas meter, attached with magnets, or the wires leading from it to a small backpack wrapped in duct tape.

At 11:30 a.m., Steph and two of her colleagues went to the Hing Lung Pan Asian Restaurant, on Broadway, for lunch. Usually she walked home and ate with her family. Barney the Cat was probably returning from his morning rounds of rousting rats, and Brittanie the Desoto would have been glued to the TV, watching the Discovery Channel. Mr. Mussolini recalled that he saw Barney at the dining room window around 11:45 a.m., when he was returning from the self-service hand laundry, and the TV was turned up loud enough to be heard on the sidewalk. Everything seemed normal.

At noon, Steph and her team members were just digging into their curried lo mien lunch specials, when they heard the blast. It was powerful enough to rattle their empty soup bowls from a dozen blocks away. Steph's heart skipped a beat, and she was stricken with a certainty of disaster. She felt as if she'd been shot. On the basis of her instincts, she threw down a twenty and dashed out the door, headed for home. Her teammates followed, but neither of them came close to catching up with her.

All the way, Stephanie had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as she ran. It got worse when she was three blocks from home and her pager went off. She ignored it. She could already hear sirens and see smoke billowing into the air up ahead. She knew, just knew that something horrible had happened at home, and tears were already pouring down her cheeks as she rounded the corner onto her street. There was a crowd gathering up and down the block, and the buildings opposite her garage were lit with flickering yellow and orange, by a conflagration far beyond anything the aging structures could have created alone. Accelerants…Steph knew there had to be accelerants present for the fire to burn so fierce and so fast.

She didn't even have to reach the garage to know it was fully involved. There was a flaming pit that encompassed what had been her front yard, the front of the garage, and the sidewalk too. A powerful lateral jet of fire was rolling out of a pipe where the gas meter had been. The gasoline pump was nowhere to be seen. She couldn't get within 35 yards, not within four doors of her home for the heat, and thick black smoke was roiling up into the sky. In her heart of hearts, she could almost hear the terror of her family; Barney and Brittanie, helplessly burning to death in the ruins, though she knew they must have died almost instantly. She saw that the roof had already collapsed. Stephanie's legs couldn't hold her up and she sank, first to her knees, then crumpling down flat, until she lay sobbing in the street. Brave, loyal Barney and sweet, loving Brittanie; the only ones she'd ever loved who had stuck with her. Her beloved family was gone, and she was more alone than she'd ever been. She was back in the desert and her oasis had dried up.

The garage had mostly burned to the ground before the fire department even arrived. The firemen worked mostly to contain the blaze and stop it from spreading. It was almost 7:00 p.m. before they left, and there was nothing for Steph to do, nothing to salvage, absolutely nothing. Stephanie found parts of Brittanie's frame rails in the wreckage, melted and twisted almost beyond recognition. Nothing was ever found of Barney.

Stephanie took a leave of absence from the department. Mostly, she wished that she'd been home for lunch that day, and died with her beloved friends. She went to the cliffs where Archie's railroad coaches had once sat, remembering the nights they'd all spent together. She'd been surprised that he'd left her the land in his will. The surf and the rocks far below had never looked more inviting. But Steph didn't jump, and she didn't pull the trigger of the handgun that she'd held against her temple one night as she cried and drank. She didn't purposely botch a job and blow herself up. Somehow, Steph survived.

Eventually, Stephanie took to walking the used car lots. For weeks she searched, hoping to hear the whisper of a voice among the vehicles parked side by side in endless rows. She was desperate to find a new confidant, but the hulks remained silent. Steph probably walked past every used car for sale in the city of San Francisco, but in the end, she could only accept that Brittanie the Desoto had been one of a kind. She had been the gift of providence, a wise and loving companion for a lonely soul; Brit had been the best friend or older sister that Stephanie had never had. Finally, with a heavy heart, she gave up and leased a BMW. Steph never even considered the dealership showrooms or the idea of buying a new car.

The idea of replacing Barney the Cat was ludicrous to Steph. She never even tried to find another like him. In Barney, she had stumbled on a friend who reflected the hand of the divine. Of all the animals Stephanie had ever met, not a one had communicated with her in any supernatural fashion. Even Mattie the Pig had been mute to her. Housecats, bred through thousands of generations to domesticity, were a pale shadow of their wild bobcat cousins. Though they impressed many people with a sense of self-awareness and apparent empathy, they worked mainly on instinct, and an almost cynical ability to manipulate humans for their own comfort. Barney had embraced his wildness and killer instincts, and yet, having been raised in a loving human home, he had attained a civility and clarity about the world that exceeded what most humans could claim. He was without their pretensions, but endowed with their intelligence.

The land that Archie Shimamoto had passed on to Steph in his will was prime real estate. Had it not been in Archie's family since the first decade of the 20^th century, it would have been either part of Stinson State Beach or the Golden Gate Rec Area. Archie's father had fought in court for three years to reclaim it, after the family had returned from Manzanar in 1946. The land encompassed ten acres, situated in a picturesque locale, on the cliffs south of Sausalito, overlooking San Francisco Bay. On foggy nights, it seemed that a ghostly carpet stretched from the yard, out to Oakland and Berkeley, with only the towers of the Golden Gate piercing the slowly rolling vapors in between. On sunny days, Alcatraz and Angel Islands lay like miniatures in a perfect model landscape, unreal and gemlike, purified by the distance as they floated in the blue-green water below. East Rd. ran behind the property to the west, while to the east, Steph could watch the ferry lines threading their lanes, crisscrossing the bay. In late September of 2000, Steph hired an architect and began to build a new home.

There had been two more attempts on her life in the weeks after her garage apartment blew up and burned. Someone shot at her from a rooftop, as she walked a used car lot in Richmond, on a gusty afternoon. The slug slammed into the hood of a Buick right next to her, just as she'd passed out of sight behind the building. Steph never even noticed; she was lurching drunk and still half-dazed by her loss. A week later, someone in a blue Ford van tried to run her down on a street in Daly City. Steph saw the van coming at her and slipped aside. She'd been in no mood for the shit. As it passed a hair's breadth away, she'd flung a longneck bottle through the driver's side window and pulled her autopistol, dropping into a Weaver stance and discharging two rounds. The driver had almost lost control, scrubbing a guardrail for ten yards. He'd actually accelerated away from her and never stopped. Steph didn't give it a second thought. The incident was indicative of a newfound coldness in Steph. She had no one to love, and no one loved her. There was no outlet for the natural warmth in her heart, and her looses had made her grim.

In all the years she'd been in San Francisco, Stephanie had never taken a real vacation. Now, without a home or any family ties, she took part of her accumulated vacation time and went to Hong Kong. Every five years, the home chapter of the tong in Steph's old neighborhood sponsored a kumite, a full contact martial arts tournament. Steph entered it, representing her art, her kwoon, and her Sifu.

She fought six contests, and the Chinese had never seen any woman fight with her rage or inspiration. It seemed to them as though a demon had come from the west, heartless, merciless, and thirsting for blood. Using techniques drawn from the Lin Kuen and Fuk Fu Kuen forms, Steph defeated every woman she faced, intimidating them, forcing errors, paralyzing nerves, and finally dislocating joints. When she faced the male champion for the overall title, she didn't win, but she didn't lose either. They fought to a draw, neither able to continue. After five long minutes, Steph had suffered a broken right leg. She had a minor concussion and three broken ribs. Her opponent would never speak again, and it would be a year before the joint damage she'd inflicted would allow him to walk. She'd employed techniques from Jui Lao Tong, (the drunken eagle form), to crush nerves and bone. Stephanie came home as the joint overall champion, a first for a woman, and only the second time a westerner had won.

Steph returned to work after a month's absence, still with a cast on her leg. She continued drilling and teaching her team, and when the cast came off three weeks later, she resumed deactivating bombs.

In Sausalito, Steph's new house was under construction, rising fast above a poured concrete pedestal that housed a windowless three-car garage. Above that sat a reinforced concrete bunker, sheathed in weathered cedar and encircled by a redwood deck whose eastern side was cantilevered out over the cliff face. Floor to ceiling windows graced each wall, but they were _" Herculite, the same bulletproof material used in the cockpits of older USAF fighters. Satellite dishes and solar panels adorned the roof, and a sub-basement housed a room filled with batteries and a generator. The fuel oil tank was stainless steel wrapped in graphite fiber, and it was buried deep in reinforced concrete, 25 yards from the house. There was no gas hookup or meter. Steph had paid for the inclusion of several alarm systems, and after the contractors were done, she would personally install some illegal countermeasures of her own. She spent most of the money she'd saved since her tour in the U.S. Army, but never again would someone threaten her home. In the meantime, Steph lived anonymously in a trailer, her bunk bed hiding a growing cache of military munitions and firearms. It was mid-December, 2000.

Stephanie was celebrating a dismal Christmas 2000, alone in her trailer. She spent much of the day drinking and cleaning her weapons, loading magazines, checking detonators and charges. Finally, at about 5:00 p.m., when others were enjoying the aromas of Christmas dinners nearly ready in their ovens, Steph grabbed the keys to her BMW and went for a drive. The trailer had progressed from cozy to claustrophobic, and she was saturated with loneliness and discontent.

She intended to drive south on SR-101, to the Fish and Game Reserve, where she could lose herself wandering in the marsh, drinking, smoking Camels, and screaming unheard. Eventually, she'd cross the bay on SR-84 and head back north, making a large circle through Freemont and San Lorenzo, on I-880, blatantly abusing the speed limit. Steph figured that sometime around 9:30 or 10:00 p.m., she'd navigate the BMW back across the Golden Gate Bridge and into San Francisco. Maybe she'd drive past the burned out garage, maybe not.

Around 5:30 p.m., Stephanie passed the airport and turned off the highway onto Marsh Rd. She followed it to the dead end, where she parked. The oily channel leading to the bay was less than 100 yards ahead and she could smell the stale petrol and rotting vegetation. She got out, with her handgun, a full longneck, and her pack of Camels, and walked, her hiking boots squishing in the soggy soil as she headed down to the water. It was mostly quiet, with a breeze whistling through the marsh grass and worn out tires, that muffled the traffic noise from SR-84 nearby. An occasional jetliner passed overhead.

Steph found a discarded refrigerator, half buried in the muck, and she took a seat, lighting a Camel and gazing across the water. Distant lights winked in Jarvis Landing and Newark, while the Coyote Hills Park formed a dark mass on a hillside. It was a melancholy scene, and it suited her mood. To her right, the lights of cars moved across the SR-84 bridge…a bridge without a name, Stephanie thought sadly. That bridge had been around for decades and it obviously knew the score.

Steph believed things like that should have names. People named their pets and boats. They named their children. She'd named her car and they'd thought she was crazy because she talked to it. Her cat, too. Yet they'd never figured out how she'd solved so many crimes on her beat all those years ago. They'd never identified her informants or learned where her information had come from. They would never have believed that Brittanie the Desoto had learned more, talking to the vehicles on the streets, than a dozen detectives could have learned by questioning the neighbors. They would never have believed that Barney the Cat had found the locations of counterband, stolen goods, hideouts, and hidden weapons. He'd prowled the dark alleys and rooftops, spying out the haunts and doings of nocturnal criminals; listening and reporting on their plots with a glee that bordered on mania. It had been a variation on his natural hunting instinct, a part of his catness.

Stephanie sat in the speckled dark of that holy night, draining her Bud and thinking how much happier she'd have been to still be a patrol officer walking her beat. The esteem of her neighbors and the warmth of her home and family had made her life sweet. Steph cared nothing for being a hero. She sat drunkenly remembering her beloved family, tears trickling down her face, the handgun pressed against her temple. A hundred yards behind her, the men who had followed her from the trailer blew up her BMW. Amazingly, she didn't shoot herself in the head by reflex.

The blast and the gout of flame shooting into the sky made her snap. She would later recall that what followed felt unreal, almost dreamlike. Steph leapt from her seat and flew back down the trail in the dark, slipping in the mud and tripping on partially buried refuse. When she saw the silver Cadillac starting up, she opened fire, still running toward it as fast as she could. Thirteen rounds from the 9mm Glock slammed into the hood, grille, and windshield, and the car stopped. Steph dropped the spent magazine, slammed a fresh one in, and kept coming. When she reached the Caddy, she ripped open the driver's door and emptied the second magazine into the two occupants. As the sounds of the gunfire died away in the marsh, Steph stood drunkenly gasping, trying to catch her breath.

"That'll teach 'em," the nameless bridge's whisper tickled her ears on the breeze.

Stephanie managed to drive the Cadillac, with its grisly occupants, into the channel, where it mostly sank beneath the oily wash. It had been hissing, and the smell of antifreeze steam clung to her clothing. On the way back, she briefly regarded the burned out wreck of her leased BMW, before starting to walk back down Marsh Rd. to SR-101. It would be a long walk home, several hours at least, she figured, but it would give her time to think.

When she got back to SR-101, Stephanie stuck out her thumb as she had on that June afternoon in Bakersfield, eleven years ago. She presented herself to the Christmas traffic as a drunken woman, her legs covered in mud, carrying a handgun and a pack of Camels…even in California, it was almost an hour before anyone stopped.

"Thanks for the ride," Steph said as she slid into the idling car. She set the Glock in her lap and pulled the door shut. The car was so small that the roof had barely reached her waist. It was a bright red, with a black roof, and a diminutive tire at each corner.

"'Sup, wahine? Frisco go?" The woman driving weighed at least three hundred pounds, and the steering wheel was jammed into where her lap would have been. She looked very happy to meet Steph; just happy in general it seemed, to be out driving on Christmas night. "Mele kalikimaka!"

"Uh, okay," Steph agreed, not really sure what had been said. To make conversation, she asked, "Where ya from?"

"Lihue, Kauai," she told Stephanie as she squinted out the windshield into the dark.

"Turn on your headlights," Steph instructed nervously, as the car wove across the centerline toward an approaching truck. The hulking carcass of a large dead animal lay in their lane, flashing by in the darkness outside Steph's window.

"It's in Hawaii," the woman elaborated with a fluttering gesture, momentarily taking her hands off the wheel. The engine tone rose as the car accelerated, swerving back into their own lane, then the headlights came on. Steph could have sworn the woman hadn't touched any of the knobs on the dash.

"Oh, okay," Steph said, finally understanding now. The woman was a Hawaiian, maybe even a kumu hula. "Yeah, I'm going to San Francisco. My car just exploded."

"Whatta shame," the woman said sympathetically, toning down her island pidgin, "needing wheels now, wahine?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Steph realized for the first time. The little red car dodged around a pothole, though the woman was obliviously steering straight ahead. Stephanie raised an eyebrow. "What kind of a car is this?"

"Mini Cooper."

At 9:05 a.m. on December 26^th, 2000, Stephanie Walker pulled her replacement BMW into the parking lot of Great Britain Import Motorcars, at Howard St. and Van Ness. She had dressed in a Navy blazer and slacks, with a pale blue silk blouse that matched her eyes. Steph hadn't started drinking yet that morning, so she carried a Nissan Stainless Road Carafe filled with Vanilla Hazelnut Hi-Test. The salesman saw her coming, noted the BMW and the suit, figured executive, and began calculating his percentage on a Jaguar. He nearly regurgitated his Eggs Benedict and Double Sputum Latte when she asked about the Mini Coopers. He was stuttering, and she looked past him into the showroom. There they sat, on the far side of the Land Rover; three Mini Coopers, small and gemlike, shining in the tungsten spotlights, red, yellow, and British racing green. Stephanie walked towards them as if entranced, leaving the salesman behind. In truth, he was glad to see her go. The Minis tended to sell themselves to those with an affinity for them, and all he had to do was wait to fill out the paperwork.

Steph circled the cars, noticing immediately that the yellow one seemed to tilt slightly on its tires to watch her. The red and green seemed a bit colder to her; not unfriendly, but simply more reserved. Finally, she stood in front of yellow, looking closely at the front end and grille. The little car seemed to be looking up at her with its headlights, the grille seeming to smile. Stephanie liked it already. She moved to the driver's side and opened the door, relishing the scent of new upholstery and fresh paint. Though limited on interior space, it felt inviting, sorta cozy, and the seat looked comfy to Steph. She ducked down through the door and sat, stretching her legs and settling them on the pedals. She grasped the wheel, tried the placement of the shifter, stared at the gauges. She turned on the radio.

It was amazing. The little car had six-speaker surround sound and a CD player rested beneath the tuner. It played her a jaunty show tune from a Broadway musical that Steph couldn't remember the name of…maybe it was the one named for a western state, she absently thought. Stephanie pulled the door closed to see how much of the outside noise disappeared, and again she was surprised. She could hear nothing of the outside world at all.

"Wow, it sounds really nice in here," Steph remarked to herself, "I'm impressed."

"Thank ye, luv," a lilting, youngish voice whispered to her around the words of the music, "always so nice to be appreciated, it is." The car's pleasant accent was musical.

A smile spread across Steph's face. "I'm Stephanie," she offered, "Stephanie Walker. What's your name, dear?"

"Oh, beg yer pardon, miss. Forgive my boldness for this self-introduction," the yellow car replied somewhat formally, "Lizzie Cooper here, and a pleasure it is, Ms. Walker."

"The pleasure's all mine, Lizzie," Steph answered, and it was true. "I'm kinda informal, mostly, and I want to be your friend."

"I'd be likin that, Stephanie," Lizzie said, and Steph could hear the smile in her words, "I'd so love to feel the open road, the sun and the breeze, even the rain, just motoring through the countryside, don't ya know?"

"Absolutely," Steph agreed, "just let me talk to that salesman, and we'll be on our way."

"That would be Nigel, it would," Lizzie offered with just a touch of pique, "nice enough chap, if a bit superficial. Spends most of his time brown nosing the Jaguar roadster."

"All done, hon," Steph happily told the little car as they drove off the lot, "how do you like the little present I got from Nigel for you?"

"Oh Stephanie, you know how every girl loves new shoes. Thank you so very much."

Lizzie's genuine gratitude warmed Stephanie's heart. In the end, Steph also bought her a pair of fog lights and vanity plates with her name on them.

As they rode through the city that morning, Stephanie found herself becoming uncharacteristically chatty. She had a new friend, and she hadn't been so happy in weeks. On the way home, Lizzie became so very excited at the description of the cliff house with its built-in garage. She had a sweet and bubbly disposition, and she expressed an endearingly childlike wonder with life. The little car also had a backbone and nerves of steel, and she never shied away from the challenges that would later come her way. Lizzie was always thankful to Steph for taking such loving care of her, and she always tried as hard as she could to make Stephanie happy. She accomplished her mission by just being herself. Stephanie came to love her dearly.

Because Steph's new house was mostly poured reinforced concrete, and because the interior was a mostly open design, the house was finished by May 1^st, of 2001. Steph was sick to death of living in a trailer, and Lizzie couldn't wait to move into their new digs. By early June, all the alarms, traps, and furnishings were completed. Steph had the oil tanks filled, and she charged up the solar batteries. At night, lamps shone through the great windows, making Steph's home appear like a lighthouse beacon above the bay.

Steph spent most of her evenings downstairs in the garage with Lizzie, watching DVD movies on the flat screen plasma TV she'd set up there. Lizzie Cooper adored the cinema, laughing, fretting, and crying with the action. Steph kept a couch, microwave, and refrigerator on a piece of carpet in the middle bay of her garage. It reminded her of the apartment she'd lost. Her proper living room upstairs was seldom actually used. Many an early morning found Stephanie curled up asleep on the couch, empty long necks and ashtrays cluttering the floor, the TV screen awash with static, while Lizzie dozed peacefully in the bay beside her. It was a time of bonding, and on other nights, like Archie had loved to do, they'd sit in the yard with the lights off, watching the stars.

In mid-June 2001, Stephanie and Lizzie celebrated Steph's 30^th birthday. They started at daybreak, driving east, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, and picking up I-205 to SR-120. They followed the winding road, Lizzie reveling in the ups and downs. Between the towns of Moccasin and Priest, the road became a torturous winding track, and Lizzie flew around the curves, her ecstatic cry of "Wheeeeeeeeee!" ringing through the clear air. Steph was laughing with joy; her hands clasped comfortably behind her head as she leaned back in the seat, watching the scenery go by.

After three hours of driving, they passed the park gates and drove into Yosemite National Park. Lizzie and Steph threaded Big Oak Rd. down Yosemite Canyon, high above the Merced River. Topping the opposite side of the valley rose Turtleback Dome and Inspiration Point. The little yellow car slowed, craning up on her tires to see the heights above as Steph pointed them out from the park map.

For some time, a distant roaring sound had been increasing in volume. When they rounded a curve, Bridalveil Fall was revealed across the river, where its waters plunged 620 feet into a cloud of spume above the green carpet of the forest. Lizzie stopped dead in the road to watch until Steph took over the driving. She hadn't touched the wheel since before Moccasin an hour earlier. Now Steph followed the road letting Lizzie take in the sights. The roaring was coming from another source up ahead now, but the next breathtaking view was of El Capitan, rising almost next to them on their left. Further up a valley, the waters of tall Ribbon Fall plunged in an endless stream.

They pulled off into a scenic overlook, and Lizzie "Ooooooh'd" and "Ahhhhhh'd", before exclaiming, "Oh look, Stephanie, look! Why, bless me, there are people climbing on the face of the cliff!" And so there were.

El Capitan was a Mecca for rock climbers from around the world. Stephanie watched the tiny figures' slow progress. A part of her wished that she could be on that sheer face too, looking out over the world below, with nothing but her ropes, her knowledge, her strength, and her courage keeping her safe.

"Oh, Stephanie, why it's just the most wonderful place I have ever seen, it is," Lizzie declared with heartfelt gratitude, "I can't thank you enough for showing it to me. I'm so very happy!" The little yellow car was deeply affected by the natural beauty around her. It was her most hoped for reward in motoring, the dearest payoff of her very existence.

"Honey, you're so welcome," Steph said, smiling at her friend, "come on, I'll get these people to take some pictures of us together up here."

She'd been snapping photographs of the scenery all along, and now Stephanie handed her camera to a father, visiting the park with his wife and two sons. He snapped several shots of Steph and Lizzie, posing together with the valley as a backdrop. Eventually, Steph would have them enlarged and framed. They hung, adorning the walls in the garage, a reminder of their happy adventure. After the pictures, Steph pulled out a long neck, a sandwich, and corn chips, and sat at a picnic table enjoying a quick lunch, while Lizzie turned in a slow circle, trying to commit the panorama to memory. The family eyed them curiously form the next table.

They chattered happily on their drive home, thrilled by what they had seen, and both deeply contented with the day and the company. Lizzie found that she had come to love her new country and her new mistress. Lights were winking on in the city, as they crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, and dark had already fallen fully when they pulled into the garage. It had been a long day, but they finished it with the traditional cake and ice cream, Lizzie raising her clear sweet voice to sing "Happy Birthday" to Steph. She sang the well-known lines, meaning them with all her heart.

In the concrete garage above the San Francisco Bay, the hero veteran leader of the police bomb removal team, a deadly champion martial artist, and a woman with a life filled with heartbreak, hugged a small yellow car and cried tears of happiness. Like the cloudbursts that bring forth a wealth of flowers, a welcome respite had again come to the desert.

A few nights later, movie time was interrupted by the floodlights snapping on in the yard in reaction to the motion detectors. The video monitors showed a chase in progress near the East Rd. section of the property. It appeared that a pack of coyotes were chasing a shadow. Stephanie slipped a magazine into her M4 carbine, picked up a pair of nightvision goggles, and went out to take a look. Even from the house, she could hear the yapping and disturbance of the undergrowth. Approaching with caution, she lowered the goggles for a quick look. Sure enough, beyond the floodlights, a half dozen coyotes were frantically leaping and snapping under a spreading cedar, threatening someone who remained invisible in the shadowed branches above. Steph raised the goggles. Slipping off the safety, she fired a burst over their heads. The appreciable muzzle flash and noise startled the coyotes into flight. They turned tail and disappeared into the underbrush.

Thinking they'd treed a trespasser, Stephanie shined her 6 D-cell Maglight into the branches, holding it parallel to the carbine's barrel. About 15 feet up she discerned a pair of pale eyes.

"Hey you," Steph yelled, "get your sorry ass down here before I fill your hide with lead."

For a moment there was silence, and the eyes blinked. Then a tired and irritated voice answered, "Oh puuuhleeease. First dogs and now a cowgirl…whatever happened to this peaceful neighborhood?"

The eyes winked out, just disappeared, and Steph carefully aimed up at where they had been. She was about to squeeze off a burst when something sizeable hit the ground behind her. Stephanie tucked and rolled, coming to her knees and whirling to cover the area. There was nothing there but air. Then Steph felt the hairs on the back of her neck rising, and a warm gentle breath on her back.

"Can we perhaps talk about this?" The voice asked calmly. Stephanie was anything but calm. She threw herself sideways, recovering into a prone shooting position. She looked through her sights into the pool of brightness from her Maglight and saw an unlikely figure sitting on its haunches regarding her. The figure tilted its head quizzically and asked, "Is this all really necessary?"

Stephanie didn't lower the carbine. These animals were wild and dangerous, and although this one was apparently cultured, she wasn't ready to trust it yet.

"Just what are you doing here," she demanded, "I live here, it's my property, you're trespassing."

"You're quoting the consequences of human laws, and they don't apply to me," the figure informed her with a sigh, as if speaking to a retarded child. "Besides, I was here first, years ago, when the Japanese and his pig lived here…before the ostrich. Anyway, you have nothing I want, and I doubt I have anything you'd want. Can't we just get along?"

Stephanie lowered the carbine slightly. What he said was probably true.

"That's it…easy there girl, it's ok. I won't hurt you…it's ok now. Don't worry, everything's going to be alright." He was talking to her as if she were a scared animal. It was ridiculous. Steph slowly rose to her feet. "That's better, why don't you put that gun down, we could have an accident here. It would be…unfortunate."

Steph lowered the carbine, still somewhat nervous. The cougar probably weighed more than she did, had proven itself to be possessed of unnatural stealth and a high level of intelligence, and was obviously familiar with the terrain. It would be a crafty and deadly adversary. Stephanie realized that it had already passed up two opportunities to kill her, and it hadn't even seemed to be trying.

"Look, I think we can come to an arrangement," the cougar offered reasonably, "we can simply ignore each other and for all practical purposes, we shall cease to exist, in so far as our mutual experiences of this land are concerned."

"Somehow, that seems like a waste," Steph mused, "I mean, isn't there some way we can help each other? We both love this piece of land at least."

"Sure there is," he answered, "you watch the stars and your movies, and I'll inspect the trees and the land, check the fog and sample the air, mind the animals and encourage the plants. I need to do my job, like my ancestors have since the last cold time."

"Well, maybe I could drive off the coyotes if you'd be willing to scare off trespassers."

"Those dogs?" The cougar asked with just a hint of disdain. "They're part of all this," he continued, gesturing to their surroundings with a sweep of a paw, "they belong here. Distasteful as they are, they have duties here. They don't bother me."

"But they had you trapped up that tree," Steph pointed out. Her words brought a soft chuckle in response.

"My dear girl, those dogs have an attention span of no more than 5 to 10 minutes. Really, unless reminded of my presence by my scent, they'd soon have forgotten why they were even there. We've been through that time and again, they and I, and we are all still here."

"But could you drive off human trespassers for me? I have enemies and they blew up my last home; they killed Barney and Brittanie. I know that sooner or later they'll come for me again, even though I managed to kill a couple of them recently…."

The cougar started at her words. "They killed Barney? Why, I spoke with him on several occasions…he and the pig, Mattie. I had wondered why he wasn't here with you now. He was a reasonable fellow, a bobcat rather than a lynx, as I recall. I'm very sorry to hear that. Brittanie was the Desoto?"

"Yes, and she was my friend," Steph told him sadly, "they were my family and I loved them both."

The cougar came forward and leaned gently against Steph's legs, then sat partly on her boots and curled his tail around his feet. "I'm so sorry, my dear. They were both special, and I had actually grown fond of them during our few meetings over the years. My sincerest condolences."

"Thank you," Stephanie said softly, blinking back tears, "I will never cease to miss them, but at least I have a new friend, Lizzie Cooper. I hope we can be friends too."

"Lizzie Cooper?" The cougar asked before reasoning it out. "The little yellow car?"

"Yes, that's Lizzie. She's a Mini Cooper and she's from Great Britain."

"Ah, a Mini Cooper, yes, I should have known," the cougar mused, "if I may advise you, Stephanie, I'm a fairly good judge of personality, if I may say so myself. I have to be in my position, of course. Lizzie is a sweet girl, and she's a very loyal sort. I can tell. I would implore you to treat her with the utmost kindness and respect, for she deserves no less. I sense that she'd willingly give up her life for you. Make sure you remain worthy of her trust. You were very lucky to find her. She needs a loving friend, for her sensitive spirit would be crushed by neglect or disregard. Never take her love for granted."

"Believe me, I would never mistreat her," Steph said sincerely, "I love her dearly and she's all the family I have. I love her like a little sister."

The cougar looked deeply into Steph's eyes, and seemed to read her heart. Finally he nodded as if he approved of her. "Stephanie, might I impose upon you to introduce us?"

"Ummm, well sure, I guess," Steph replied, a little uncertainly, "we'd been watching a movie. Lizzie loves movies. Why don't you come to join us?"

"Thank you, Stephanie," the cougar agreed, after looking up at the moon as if checking the time, "I think I'd like that very much."

They walked back to the house, and Steph unlocked the garage door and they went in. Stephanie introduced Lizzie and the cougar to each other, and the two seemed to get along very well. The cougar seemed reserved, very polite, even solicitous, while Lizzie appeared charmed by his manners and knowledge of their part of the world. He was surprisingly well traveled, despite his duties to the local landscape, having explored much of California and Oregon, as well as ranging east through Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, and even parts of Utah. Lizzie listened in awe to his descriptions of the Grand Canyon, Zion Canyon, and the Great Salt Lake. The cougar politely listened to Lizzie's recollections of her Atlantic crossing on the freighter from England, questioning her at several points. They shared popcorn and tostados that Stephanie quickly fixed upstairs.

When she'd returned with the tray of food, she'd quietly watched the interaction of the cougar and the little car. Steph had noted his attentiveness, her lilting laughter, and the slight embarrassment they'd displayed when they'd realized that they had been staring at each other a bit too long.

They're flirting, Stephanie realized, smiling. Lizzie is eating up his attention; she's charmed by the look of it, and the cougar seems to be developing a crush…already had it, judging from his words outside earlier, she realized. She came in with the tostados and the conversation stopped for a moment, then began to flow again, now including her. It was the first of many nights the three shared together, and amazingly, the cougar could even converse knowledgeably about the cinema, as Lizzie called it.

Before he took his leave in the early morning, Stephanie asked if he had a name.

"No, Stephanie, I have no individual name. I'm simply the cougar of this area, and in the past that has been sufficient."

"But you're a person," Steph had protested, "and you should have a name because you're an individual unlike any other."

The cougar had seemed amused by Stephanie's assertion, noticing the slight sway in her stance from the Buds and the fact that the Camel she was holding had burned down nearly to her fingers. Finally he'd decided to humor his hostess. "What would you like to call me, Stephanie?"

"Well, you're kinda in charge of the forest here," Steph said, "and I guess that makes you a star. There's a rock star named John Cougar. Can I call you John?"

The cougar had smiled indulgently and agreed. "Very well, Stephanie, John Cougar it is. I believe I'm the first in my family to have a name. I thank you." He had said a long goodbye to Lizzie, promising to return soon, and then disappeared into the night, blending into the shadows like a ghost.

"Why, Stephanie, I do believe I've been smitten, as it were," Lizzie declared with a conspiratorial giggle, "he's a charming chap, if I may say so. I do hope to see him again shortly."

Stephanie grinned and patted her friend's fender. "Think you'll be getting any sleep at all tonight? Or is your heart fluttering too quick to rest?"

"Oh, goodness me, I haven't the foggiest, cross my heart," Lizzie had confessed. Then they had both cracked up laughing. Steph had put out the lights, and she lay in the dark on her couch, whispering back and forth with her friend until they dozed off like two schoolgirls at a slumber party.

The summer of 2001 blended into fall. Stephanie and Lizzie watched movies and entertained John Cougar several nights a week. In the daytime, Steph trained her team and deactivated bombs. Lizzie spent the days in the Central Precinct parking lot, safely surrounded by patrol cars and special purpose vehicles. For the most part, they were polite, a few afflicted by excessive macho, a few surprisingly lighthearted despite being involved in such violent occupations. She made a few good friends; the hilarious crew of mopeds, the mild mannered SWAT personnel carrier, and the morose bomb disposal truck who loved her accent, and became self-conscious and tongue tied when they were parked next to each other.

The other officers had a few unsettling moments when they'd actually noticed that Stephanie's Mini Cooper seemed to have moved about the parking lot while Steph was at work. She always left the keys in the ignition, another practice they found disturbing. One incident stood out. A patrolwoman, about to start her shift, came out to pick up a cruiser in the lot. She stood in shocked amazement as Lizzie pulled out of a space and trundled over to join her friend, the personnel carrier, for a chat. No one was driving the little yellow car, which finally noticed her, appeared to do a double take, and then slunk into the space as if she'd been caught red handed at a crime.

"Oops," Lizzie had exclaimed to the personnel carrier as she looked back at the patrolwoman, who was standing by the station doors rubbing her eyes. The cop hurried back into the precinct house.

"Bad girl," the carrier admonished with a chuckle, "that had to happen sooner or later, you know."

"Oh, bless me, I know," Lizzie had agreed, unrepentant, "but I get so unbearably itchy sitting all day long in one place. God gave us wheels for a reason, don't you know."

The mopeds were giggling and making comments, like misbehaving school children caught by their teacher, such as, "Ohhh, Lizzie's in trouble now," and the like.

The patrolwoman had soon controlled her shock. She'd rushed to the security office, where she proceeded to view the videotape from the cameras that overlooked the parking lot. What she saw upset her even more. Since Stephanie had first arrived at just before 8 a.m., the Mini Cooper had changed parking spaces no less than three times, never with a driver in attendance, and seemingly at random. She'd started out next to a patrol car, moved over to the mopeds, crossed the lot to sit for a while beside the bomb disposal truck, and finally crossed back to a space next to the personnel carrier. The officer hurried into the captain's office to report her discovery. It was almost noon.

Out in the parking lot, Lizzie Cooper had returned to her original parking space so that Stephanie wouldn't have to search for her when she went for lunch. She never let her socializing interfere with her duties to her mistress. She was Steph's friend, first and foremost.

When the patrol officer finally got the captain's attention, she dragged her into the security office and showed her the videotape. They looked at the monitor, watching as the little yellow car returned to the original space that Stephanie had first parked it in. They saw Steph emerge from the Quonset hut, unlock her car, and drive off to lunch with two of her team members. Neither could explain what they'd seen, and the captain was anxious to hear what Steph would have to say.

Over the years, the captain had found relatively little reason to have anything to do with Sergeant Stephanie Walker. She recalled the woman's surprisingly successful career as a uniformed patrolwoman. All those crimes on her beat had been solved without explanation, but the evidence was always sound when they got to court.

What the sergeant did in her Quonset hut was a mystery to the captain, mostly, and she tended to leave well enough alone. She really didn't want to know. The few times she'd ventured out there, it had been weird and disturbing. Shoving the office door open and starting a bomb ticking, for example. She'd nearly wet her panties and hadn't even admonished Steph for smoking indoors. The rest of the bomb removal team was the same way. They smoked and drank, and sometimes they could be heard out there, singing really badly, but the city hadn't blown up yet. Capt. Martinez assumed that their behavior was attendant to living under such a stressful mission assignment. At least the bomb search team was still presentable, with their hardass Spec Ops mindset and their bomb-sniffing dogs.

Captain Martinez was nearing her retirement, having served nearly 30 years, but she remembered the day when Steph had come into her office and accepted the job with the bomb disposal unit. She remembered the strange conversation they'd had that morning. She remembered the notation in the psychological profile. Steph liked to name things.

At 1:05 p.m., Stephanie and her teammates returned from the Sun Kwong Restaurant, happily stuffed with the eggplant fu yung lunch special. Steph parked Lizzie and closed up the doors. The captain was waiting at the entrance to the station house and beckoned her over. Lizzie seemed to cringe.

"Sergeant Walker, would you please join me and Officer Davidson in my office?" It was not really a request.

"Sure, Captain Martinez," Stephanie responded. Though she thought the woman a bit dull witted, she'd always maintained a professional respect for her position. Steph shrugged, crushed out a Camel, and walked over. Officer Davidson, she didn't know at all. She appeared to be an excitable young blonde, probably an aerobicized vegan, and relatively new on the force. She was fidgeting, and Steph found it annoying.

They made their way to the captain's office, taking seats and facing a TV with a built-in VCR, which sat on a side table. Steph looked for popcorn, but detected none.

"Before we start, is there anything you'd like to tell me about your car?" Captain Martinez asked Steph. Officer Davidson was watching Stephanie closely, which Steph found even more annoying.

"Such as…?" Steph responded. She was remembering her Army training. When confronted with accusations, admit nothing, disregard the charges, and make counter accusations.

"Never mind," the captain said, confidently hefting the remote and starting the tape.

Stephanie sat calmly watching as the surveillance tape showed her leaving the lot that morning. Then, in jerky time lapse footage, she saw Lizzie relocating herself several times around the lot. The footage ended with Lizzie returning to her original spot right before Steph drove off for lunch. Afterwards, the three women sat in silence.

"So can I go now?" Steph asked innocently.

The captain looked at her in disbelief. The patrolwoman was fidgeting again.

"No, you can't go now," Capt. Martinez exclaimed, "I want an explanation, Sergeant Walker. What did we just see here?"

Steph sighed. They were making such a mountain out of a molehill. Still no popcorn had appeared.

"Nothing, captain," she responded, sounding bored, "just some dull footage of the parking lot."

Captain Martinez's eyes bugged out, and Officer Davidson gagged. Steph continued to look at them with a bored expression, revealing nothing.

"Excuse me, but we just saw your car moving about the lot without a driver," Davidson claimed. The captain nodded in agreement. Stephanie looked at them in disbelief.

"You are both mad," Stephanie pronounced with certainty, "a car does not move without a driver, except sometimes downhill by accident. Are you seriously claiming that my car drove itself?"

"But, that's what we just saw," the captain claimed, looking back at the VCR.

It struck Stephanie as sad, the slow-witted captain and the excitable rookie. She examined them with an expression of condescending pity.

"I am going to recommend that we forget this incident," Stephanie offered, slowly shaking her head, "otherwise, I will have to report it to the department psychologist as evidence of mental instability. Whatever you think you saw was probably just reflections, weather balloons, or maybe swamp gas anyway," she told them charitably.

The captain and the patrolwoman looked at each other uncertainly. Stephanie took the initiative, rising from her seat and ejecting the tape. She shoved it into a thigh pocket of her BDUs and headed for the door while the other two women watched her in shock.

"I think that for the good of your careers I should remove this temptation to besmirch your own reputations. I understand the stress of this job, and I would hate to see either of you commit professional suicide." She said the last looking pointedly at the captain.

Steph fled from the office with her heart pounding as she lit a Camel. Had she screwed up? Was besmirch actually a word? As soon as she cleared the station doorway, she headed directly for Lizzie. Lizzie saw her coming and tried to scrunch down in her parking space, remorseful for having gotten Steph in trouble.

"Don't worry hon," Steph reassured her, to the little car's immense relief, "they were simpleminded and highly impressionable, as I had thought all along. They won't say anything about you wandering around the lot all day." Here Steph actually laughed. Lizzie looked up at her and smiled. The last thing she had ever wanted was to create a problem for Stephanie.

"I'm sorry," Lizzie apologized, hanging her front-end, "I just wanted to chat up my friends, don't you know, and it's so very dull sitting all day in one space."

"I understand, sweetheart," Steph told her, "it would make me go crazy too. Tell you what. We'll get you a car phone, and when you want to move, just page me and I'll come out and take a Camel break with you. It'll look as if I'm moving you and finally complying with the smoking regulations. Then you can always talk to your friends."

"I'm really to have a car phone?" Lizzie asked excitedly, "a phone of my very own?"

"Yes, hon," Steph confirmed, "Brittanie had one and she really loved it. I should have thought of this long ago. We'll do it this evening right after work."

"Oh, Stephanie, thank you, thank you, thank you," Lizzie gushed. She was practically dancing on her tires.

Back in her office, Capt. Martinez and Officer Davidson watched out the window as Steph talked to her car and the car bobbed and bounced on its springs. They looked at each other, but neither said a thing. Sergeant Walker was definitely insane, the captain thought, dangerously insane, but she could threaten their careers, one near finishing, the other just starting. Neither wanted to cross the hero of the bomb squad in an altercation that would probably receive significant media coverage. The news people still loved Stephanie Walker, in spite of the rat incident. They'd become sympathetic after the bombing of her apartment, seeing their ratings jump as they milked the story of criminal retribution against a heroic public servant. Although there were probably similar surveillance tapes of the parking lot from other days, neither of them was willing to become associated with unbelievable charges when there was nothing to be gained by bringing them.

Lizzie got her cell phone, her "chatty phone", as she called it, that very night. She immediately began calling at all hours of the day, though out of consideration for Steph, she reserved the calls to her friends in Merry Old England for the evenings and weekends. Lizzie especially loved to call the local radio stations, commenting on the talk shows and requesting songs. She even won free movie tickets for Stephanie, answering call-in questions about the cinema. The DJs seemed to love her accent and came to recognize her on their call ID boxes. Several flirted with her, asking personal questions on-air, (which she never answered), and calling her back off-air requesting dates, (which she couldn't accept, being as she was, more interested in John Cougar). Several of them started sending her obscure bootleg music CDs.

In September of 2001, Stephanie was called out to remove a bomb in Candlestick Park's 3COM Park stadium. Her pager had sounded at 1:30 p.m., and she ran to Lizzie with her gear bag. They took off across town, weaving through the traffic on US-101, Lizzie giggling as she threaded tiny spaces between other cars. Steph closed her eyes and let Lizzie drive, covering her head with both hands; her crash position was less than reassuring to other drivers who were close enough to see into the speeding Mini Cooper.

Lizzie screeched off US-101 at the Beatty Ave. exit, executing a perfect four-wheel drift across the path of a garbage truck. It cursed her roundly with a groaning of its compactor. They zipped down Alana to Harney Way, finally turning onto the Hunter's Point Expressway to approach 3COM stadium from the bay side. The 49ers were scheduled to play the Redskins that weekend, and the captain had been snippy. Bitch, Steph thought, she's still pissed about that videotape thingie.

They skidded to a halt in the parking lot, next to the main entrance, in the stiff afternoon breeze. Lizzie shimmied to settle herself, seeming to squint against the blowing dust. Steph leapt out with her gear bag. Across the lot, she could see the search team already caging their dogs. They had found a single massive device next to a critical structural member, below the offices and ticket windows. The team had fled as quickly as possible.

Stephanie took two of her team members with her, leaving the other three to prepare for the evacuation of the disarmed device. As they headed towards the stadium doors, Steph spied the approaching vans from the three local TV stations. One of them had already spotted Lizzie, and was headed her way, hoping for comments off the record. Oh just what she needs right now, Steph thought, she's already worrying herself into a perforated muffler, fretting about me being in danger, poor girl. Then they were inside, in the dimmer hallway with the ticket windows hidden behind their roll down security barricades.

Despite their frantic and terrified flight out of the building, the bomb search team had adequately marked the path to the device. A series of red flags, dog droppings, and yellowish puddles pointed the way unerringly to a stairwell, leading down to the offices, storage rooms, and the foundation. They could hear the timer on the device ticking from thirty feet away in the silent basement. Cheesy and melodramatic, Stephanie thought, before calling out, "Are we getting this on tape?"

"Oh yeah, Sarg," a team member replied, glancing down at the Handycam he was panning over the scene. Steph could tell he was unsteady with the camera.

"Everyone smile before we don hoods," Steph ordered, crushing out a Camel, "and hide that bottle! What are you crazy? This is going on the 5:00 p.m. news, if it leaks like all the others. The dept. loves to show us off when we save their asses. Gets votes ya know."

"Sure, Steph, sorry."

"Okay, you know we can't fuck up in this business, people. The captain already hates me and the mayor is looking for votes. That means the commissioner's job is on the line too. They're snarling at each other and looking for scapegoats, so we gotta keep our heads down. Now let's concentrate and see what we have here."

"Uh, Steph? They'll edit that off, right?"

"Of course they will," Stephanie relied, "they'll probably mostly show the search team with their mutts anyway. They just cut to us when we take out the bomb."

"That sucks, those guys are a bunch of wimps…just because they dress all fashionable and shit."

"Enough, people!" Steph barked. "Now there's the device, and it looks like a real killer. Geeez that thing's big. I'll bet the charge is a thousand pounds at least. This is serious, they really wanted to bring the stadium down." Steph realized that the person who had created this device was a real pervert. It actually looked like a bomb, the first time she'd ever seen such a thing. Usually they were made to appear innocuous, or else they were bare bones, an exposed charge and timer held together with duct tape. This device had a full steel exterior, and like the GIs had in Desert Storm, it had been graffitied. A cartoon shark face had been crudely painted on one end, and the words, "Saddam Lives", had been scrawled in the same ghastly red Krylon.

They were approaching it carefully now, but at twenty feet, Steph stopped them dead in their tracks. She'd spotted the fish. A Big Mouth Billy Bass toy was attached to a pillar ten feet from the bomb, with a pair of wires leading to the device. The cheap motion-sensing toy was rigged as a booby trap. Ingenious, thought Steph with approval. The dogs went below the beam, and the search team chickened out before getting that close. She waved her people back.

"Set up the camera thirty feet back and put it on manual focus and exposure. I don't want any stray infrared beams around here. You make Billy Bass over there sing, and you can kiss your ass goodbye," Steph instructed, pointing to the fish.

"Hey, I had one of those," the cameraman admitted, "it played, 'Don't Worry Be Happy' and 'Take Me to the River'. The tail would flap and the mouth actually sang the words while the head moved back and forth. I loved that toy, but my dog chewed it up. Hey Steph, if we don't die, can I have this one?"

God it figures, Steph thought, while working her way around the back of the fish. Serves him right for having a dog.

"It's evidence," Steph told him, pulling a battery pack with four "C" cells in it out of her gear bag, "it's part of a terrorist bomb…of course you can have it, just remember to wipe this part off the video and no one will know, 'kay?" They regularly pocketed cool stuff off their jobs. Even Archie had taken unexploded secondary charges home. It was an accepted job perk.

Stephanie checked the wires leading from the back of the Big Mouth Billy Bass, held her battery pack leads next to it, and then stripped away some insulation. She deftly replaced the wires leading to the fish with the wires leading to the battery pack. Now the current feeding the circuit from the booby trap remained, but the danger posed by the fish triggering it was neutralized.

"Take your damn fish," she told her teammate, "it's deactivated."

The cameraman had set up the camera on a tripod, racked the lens to telephoto, and locked the focus and exposure. He happily pulled the Billy Bass toy off the pillar and stuffed it into his gear bag. Then he restarted the recording.

Steph recalled later that it had been a nerve-wracking job. Just the look of the bomb, which resembled something she dimly remembered from the History Channel's WWII series, was bad enough. They had probed it with their worm eye cameras and stethoscopes. They had removed screws with non-sparking titanium wrenches. They had avoided magnets, static discharges, radio waves, infrared and ultraviolet radiation. They had even whispered around it. The whole time, its loud and endless ticking had gotten on their nerves. They'd desperately wanted it to stop and simultaneously prayed that it wouldn't. After 10 minutes, they'd been soaked in sweat.

After 45 minutes, the team had a pile of hardware on the floor at their feet. A timer had been revealed. It was made from a Xena Warrior Princess wall clock, its ominous ticking greatly magnified by the steel housing. A pair of "AA" cells powered it. Attached to the clock were the expected detonator and a full 150-lbs of Tri-Nitro-Toluene. The charge was shaped into a cylinder, with a dense 9 1/2 lb. gray metal hemisphere about the size of a half-grapefruit at one end. There was a steel tube for the hemisphere to slide down, and at the far end, another identical hemisphere glowed dimly. It all accounted for perhaps a tenth of the bomb's volume. The rest seemed to be lead shielding and Styrofoam.

"What the hell," Steph wondered aloud, "why go to all this trouble to shove two hemispheres of metal together? I could do it by hand." The whole thing was ridiculous, but she still had a nasty feeling about it. She stuffed the Xena wall clock into her gear bag. It was a perk of the job.

"Call the truck and let's get out of here," she ordered, tossing the metal domes back into the bomb casing and staring at the camera, "that's a wrap."

When the officially leaked footage was played on the 5:00 p.m. news, all hell broke loose. Those with an interest in restricted technologies will have some suspicion of what Steph had so casually disarmed. Everyone involved tried to aggrandize their personal involvement, except Stephanie, who was cozy on her couch, (her eye often straying to her new Xena wall clock), while watching "Blade" on DVD with Lizzie. Across town, her cameraman was scaring his dog with his new Billy Big Mouth Bass toy.

The mayor just knew he'd get reelected. What a way to open his campaign for the 2002 election! The commissioner was assured of his continued employment. They were the conquering guardians of democracy that day. Everyone was feeling charitable; amazed by their good fortune in having such a triumph of law and order come about on their watch. Captain Martinez actually forgot about Steph's car for the duration of her press conference.

The metal domes were snatched by the FBI and taken to a lab in Berkeley, where they were assayed and confirmed as being Uranium-235. The mass of each hemisphere was just shy of critical. The remainder of the bomb was then whisked away by Federal agents, who were frantically curious about the first terrorist atomic bomb threat on U.S. soil. They showed up unexpectedly at Steph's house to debrief her. A simple phone call beforehand could have saved everyone a lot of trouble, but arrogant as they were, the idea never crossed their minds.

Two pairs of FBI agents arrived at the East Rd. turnoff to Steph's property, in two government cars. They parked at the entrance road, where a locked and alarmed gate blocked their way, and began walking up the driveway toward the lighted windows they could see almost a quarter of a mile ahead. From the branches of a spreading cedar halfway there, a pair of pale eyes watched their every move.

Trespassers, John Cougar thought to himself, guys in suits arriving to make trouble for Stephanie and Lizzie. It's probably another attempt to take control of the property for the park. We saw it often enough when the Japanese lived here with his pig. That's why he resorted to getting that insufferable ostrich. John Cougar crouched on a limb, waiting for the agents to deliver themselves into range.

Motion sensors had revealed the presence of the agents to Steph and Lizzie. Their images popped up on the monitors and floodlights snapped on. The agents, paranoid cases that they were, dropped prone and drew handguns. Stephanie was soon walking out onto her deck, carrying a ridiculously high-powered rifle fitted with a nightvision scope and a bipod. Her everyday M4 carbine was strapped to her back.

The weapon that Steph had chosen as a first line of defense was an M82 A1. It fired .50 caliber armor piercing rounds from a 5-cartridge magazine, and was used mostly as a long-distance sniper rifle. Its half-inch diameter, six-inch long ammunition could punch a coffee can sized hole through a foot of concrete, but that power was more often utilized to allow lethal accuracy at one and a half miles. When Stephanie had seen one used by the "God" character in the "Navy Seals" DVD, she'd known she had to have one.

Out in the yard, the agents were scrambling out of the floodlights and into the shadows. They didn't know what was going on with Sergeant Walker, but the house and grounds weren't the simple home in the suburbs that most mid-level cops aspired to. The land alone was worth more than the woman made in twenty years. The motion sensors and floodlights were obviously part of a very sophisticated security system. It was way beyond what even a paranoid cop could justify; a loaded gun in the nightstand was more like what they'd been expecting. Unfortunately, Stephanie Walker wasn't just any paranoid mid-level cop.

"Whoever you are, you've got to the count of five to stand in the light and throw down any weapons, or I start shooting to kill," Stephanie yelled from the darkness of the deck. She'd already had half-a-dozen longnecks and she'd been really into the movie. She hated trespassers, so she started counting, calling out, "One, and I've got a gun."

The agents were undecided. For all they knew, it wasn't Sergeant Walker at all out there in the dark with a gun. Anyway, they figured that if she was going to shoot at them with a police officer's sidearm, then they were better off in the shadows where she couldn't see them clearly. They were still 200 yards away from the house, well beyond any reliable pistol range. Besides that, she'd sounded drunk.

"Two," Steph called out, then more softly, "and I'll fuck you." She sent a round through the trees, clipping the steel pipe of the gate and punching a hole through the engine block of the nearer of the two government cars. The projectile retained enough energy to exit and puncture a tire on the second car.

"What the hell," a young agent screamed. Whatever the woman was firing, it had clipped a branch off a tree, cut a 2" steel pipe in half at the gate, and then hit both their cars. One was hissing from under the hood and the other had dropped noticeably with a flat tire. He grabbed his cell phone and dialed the FBI office to report that the team had come under fire.

"Shut up and get down," a second agent barked. He was an older lead agent who'd been a teen Marine in Nam, and he still knew what a .50 sounded like. "We are in so much shit," he muttered to his partner, "and don't stand behind that tree, it won't protect you at all."

"Three, and I can hit what I can see," Steph yelled, enjoying herself immensely. They were wearing suits just like the two in the marsh who had blown up her BMW. She fired another round, which splintered the trunk the partner was crouching behind, though it had been over a foot thick. The bullet passed less than a hand's height above his head, and then slammed into a tree behind him, the bark exploding off of it in all directions.

"God fuck me," the partner yelled as he dove behind a boulder, "she's got a starlight scope."

"And the muzzle flash is fully suppressed," the older agent said, "I think she has an elevated position, but I didn't see a flash anywhere."

While the two older agents were pinned down trying to observe her position, and one of the younger agents was making his call, the fourth agent was slowly crawling through the undergrowth, attempting a flanking maneuver. He'd made it to a position under a spreading cedar and had raised his head for a look at the house. It was so dark up there that he couldn't be positive, but he thought he'd seen a figure moving on the deck with a really big rifle. If he was right, then he just might get a shot if a flash revealed the shooter's position. He gripped his pistol and trained his eyes on the deck, his vision straining to pierce the darkness, almost as if he was looking through a tunnel. He was completely surprised when something heavy and fast moving landed on his back. The pistol was batted out of his hand and he got a glimpse of a really big cat face before it cuffed him hard with a massive paw and knocked him out.

"Four, and don't come 'round my door," Steph yelled. As soon as her body relaxed, she exhaled and squeezed the heavy trigger.

The big rifle boomed again and one of the cars went up in flames, the shot placed perfectly to puncture the gas tank and send a spark off the street.

"All right, we surrender," the older agent yelled, tossing his pistol into the lighted driveway and standing. His partner rose from behind the boulder at the same time, tossing down his gun as well. While the woman was preoccupied with them, maybe the other two could take her out. At least, they might be able to get closer to her. The present situation had been getting them nowhere. "We're FBI agents," he added, "are you Sergeant Stephanie Walker?"

Steph was pissed. This took all the fun out of the evening. She was missing out on her movie, the popcorn was getting cold, her beer was getting warm, and Lizzie was getting bored. What the hell did the FBI want with her?

"Where's the other two of you," she yelled, "and what do you want with me?"

In the distance, the beating of helicopter blades was just becoming audible.

Shit, they probably want that Xena clock, Stephanie thought, as she watched a third agent appear by the gate, his hands up in a surrender pose. Off to the right, John Cougar broke from the undergrowth dragging a body, apparently the fourth agent. Steph was reminded of Barney the Cat dragging home a puppy carcass. The guy was just starting to come around. Eventually he recovered and joined his fellow agents. They were eyeing the cougar nervously.

When she could see them all clearly she had them hold up their badges. Under the floodlights, looking through her scope, she could clearly read Federal Bureau of Investigation on the nearest shield. Damn, she thought. John Cougar had padded off down the driveway to collect their handguns.

"Y'all come on up to the front door and I'll be right down to let ya in." Steph called in her friendliest voice. "Sorry about the little misunderstanding guys."

Steph returned the rifles to their locker and walked down the entrance hall to the door. When she opened it, she noticed that the helicopters were still distant, but getting nearer. Maybe they were traffic or news choppers, she absently thought. The four disheveled government agents stood there in soiled suits, looking pissed off. Stephanie offered them beers. They declined, though one lit a Marlboro. Steph gave him a brief smile and handed him an ashtray.

They sat in the unused living room discussing the reason for their visit. Steph took it pretty well. When they told her that the bomb she'd disarmed had been a uranium fission device, she hadn't really understood the term. She was familiar with TNT, ammonium nitrate with fuel oil, RDX, nitroglycerine, Cyclonite, HMX, and C4…those sorts of threats. When they said, atomic bomb, the alcohol surged up, her hindbrain had a coronary, and she passed out briefly in shock.

Stephanie came to several minutes later and noticed that two agents were missing. They had taken advantage of her unconsciousness by trying to explore the house.

"Where are the other two," Stephanie groggily asked, trying to quickly clear her head.

"Uh, they went to the bathroom?" One of the older agents lied. Steph squinted at him.

"Together?" Although Steph was open minded about male "bonding", she didn't want it going on in her nice clean bathroom. Rather than appear biased though, she appealed to their safety concerns. "Well, it could be dangerous for them to wander around the house," Stephanie warned, "call them back now, please."

Eventually the wandering agents' nervous high-pitched calls brought their attention to the garage. They went downstairs, following the voices. In the basement, the missing agents were backed up near a wall, standing right in front of the TV. John Cougar was leaning towards them over a pile of their handguns. He was growling softly, standing protectively in front of Lizzie, while she scolded them for blocking the picture.

Stephanie had never seen Lizzie so angry. She had never heard Lizzie call her Steph before. The little car had called her friends at the radio station, and now the media would surely be getting involved; maybe a pack of reporters was already on the way. John Cougar was a step from launching himself at the agents to protect Lizzie, and the agents had already seen way too much. It was impossible to tell whether they were more upset by the cougar or the talking car. The other two were standing silently, immobilized and dumbfounded at unexpectedly being thrust into Steph's world. They were bugging and tension filled the air. Steph's happy, quiet home life was unraveling. She groaned and lit a Camel, weighing the necessity of terminating all four agents with extreme prejudice. The thumping of helicopter blades became audible inside the house. Steph finally realized they were too close to be going anywhere else.

"What is that chopper?" Steph harshly asked the lead agent.

"Um, bureau strike team, probably…" the man reluctantly told her, still staring at the car and the cougar, "they were called in while we were still under fire outside."

"So call them off," Steph barked, "it's all a mistake anyway, and it's getting worse by the second. Taxpayer dollars are going to waste and all that shit." She opened a long neck, taking hurried gulps. Steph pinched the bridge f her nose and sighed because she was having another disturbing thought. "They'll try to land on the property close to the house, won't they?"

"Well, yes, in agent rescue situations they'll try to insert their team as close to the objective as possible," the agent stated, confirming what Stephanie already knew of assault procedures.

"Damn it, you four come with me, now!" Steph commanded. "Unless you guys really have an X-Files section, you do not want them in here, and you will not want to explain what's happened. Hell, we'll be lucky if we don't see ourselves on Bay Watch."

Stephanie had turned and was running up the stairs. The agents thought about the truth of what she'd said, then followed her up from the garage at a run, trying to keep up as she tore down the hall and out the front door.

"And good riddance," Lizzie flung after them. "You've the manners of guttersnipes, the whole buggering lot of you."

They ran out of the house and towards the small grassy field next to the cliffs, a short distance away. When they got to the edge of the field, Steph stopped them and went to a locked steel box buried in the lawn under a trap door. She keyed in a code on a lighted display panel and an array of lights in the grass came on. From the air it showed a skull inside a red circle with a slash mark running diagonally through it. Unsafe landing area, it warned in clear yet unorthodox symbology.

An S-70A Black Hawk chopper broke off its descent and hovered 50 feet above the ground. Only 100 feet back, out over the water, an AH-46 Apache variant floated on nearly silent rotors, providing cover for the strike team with its 30mm chain gun. Steph pushed a red button and one of the buried land mines exploded, raining them with sod. The Black Hawk tilted backwards and rose to 100 feet, a spotlight coming on and bathing them with harsh light.

"Get rid of them," Steph ordered the agents with her, "wave or something."

She took the last swig from the long neck and crushed out her Camel. The agents leapt up and down in a St. Vitus dance, waving the strike team off. In the distance, several more helicopters were approaching. The TV stations were sending in reinforcements. How the news crews would love to open this can of worms, doggedly inquiring about a Spec Ops assault in progress at the home of a SFPD hero. It was the last type of exposure the FBI would want. The black bureau choppers pulled up and banked to the south, moving much faster than their civilian counterparts. By the time the media choppers were approaching the cliffs, they were just distant specks out over the city.

"Now we pose for the late edition," Steph told the bewildered agents as she wrapped her arms around the shoulders of the nearest two. "Smile and wave."

The media had arrived, hovering above the five figures and the humorous lighted emblem in the field. That was the image seen on the 10:00 p.m. edition of San Francisco Bay Watch. The hero bomb removal team leader being congratulated by the FBI, a stirring example of interagency cooperation in American law enforcement. The city had weathered the nation's first domestic atomic terrorist threat, thanks to their outstanding and dedicated public servants. The citizens of the Bay City slept at peace that night, knowing they were safe.

Through everything, Stephanie kept her sense of humor, drinking herself into a stupor to tape her appearance on Bay Watch the next day. In this state of inebriation, she appeared relatively normal, her characteristic mania and confusing commentary dulled down to levels that average citizens could relate to. Steph was a media darling again, beautiful in her black BDUs, slurring her words, (which was attributed to a charming accent), and chain-smoking Camels. She took care to mention nothing about her friends.

Stephanie eventually staggered off the soundstage on her way to a parade through the financial district. It was an orchestrated public spectacle, just like the Romans with their coliseum. The mayor, police commissioner, and Steph's precinct captain all desperately wanted their day in the limelight, and the politicos wouldn’t pass up a chance to display their prize law-enforcement officer. It became a travesty. Stephanie's friends even saw it coming. They warned her, but there was nothing she could do to avoid it.

The parade commenced under a beautiful sunny sky, if a bit blustery, as Lizzie put it. She'd driven from the TV studio and parked in a restricted area for the parade guests, allowing Steph to pass out cold on the ride over. John Cougar sat self-consciously in the passenger's seat; a cheap fedora incongruously pulled down over his ears. It was a stupid attempt at a disguise, but Lizzie had implored him to come along, and he could deny her nothing. Steph snored, her face pressed against the side window, unconscious and drooling.

Stephanie was finally aroused by Captain Martinez, who was obnoxiously pounding on the driver's side window. Lizzie cursed softly under her breath, wondering if there was enough of a slope in the road to justify rolling forward onto the captain's toes. Finally, John Cougar growled and lunged at her across the console. The captain jerked back from the movement by reflex. Then she looked more closely at Steph's passenger, doing a double take. Oh my god, she thought, Sgt. Walker's even more profoundly insane than I thought…that's a wolverine wearing a fedora. She hurried away in denial, already creating rationalizations for what she'd never admit that she'd seen. On top of that parking lot surveillance video incident, well, now she realized that this was becoming a habit. Capt. Martinez doubted that it could be healthy.

Stephanie kicked the long neck bottles back under her seat, holstered her Glock, and lurched out of the door. She admonished Lizzie, telling her to stay put and not wander about. The warning earned her a giggle from Lizzie and a throat clearing from John Cougar. Steph, too drunk to argue her suspicions, just shook her head and lit a Camel.

Stephanie wove her way over to the convertible limousine that was to carry the dignitaries. The mayor was already seated in the back, with the police commissioner and a very fidgety Capt. Martinez. The captain refused to look at Steph, when she collapsed onto the bench seat next to her and adjusted her shoulder holster and utility belt. The commissioner grimaced when Steph lit a Camel, but the mayor was puffing on one of his abominable clove scented Indonesian cigarettes, so he withheld comment. Soon, the parade marshal gave the signal, and the limo rolled forward, surrounded by patrol cruisers, and followed by the bomb removal truck and the SWAT personnel carrier.

It seemed that everyone living in the bay area had turned out. The sidewalks were crowded to overflowing. People hung out of building windows and parked cars, like third world denizens in some overpopulated ghetto, fifteen to a room and still breeding like mice. Steph looked at the crowds in amazement. She just knew the situation was a preamble to disaster, a setting guaranteed to crash and burn. It seemed that most of the cops in the city were present as well, leaving their precincts to the criminals and the rats. It would be a war out there, Steph realized, taking the city back afterwards. She opened a long neck. Capt. Martinez gave her a horrified glare.

Steph looked behind the limo and saw the bomb casing swinging from the tow hoist hook at the back of the bomb disposal truck, like a trophy marlin headed for a taxidermist. Her team members waved at her from the truck bed. She saw the SWAT personnel carrier churning the macadam under its treads. It was flanked by platoons of assault rifle toting Spec Ops officers. With a grin, she noted that the bomb search team had been forced to walk, their bomb-sniffing dogs leashed and trotting alongside them, snarling. The mutts were incorrigible, raising their legs to mark their new territory, (mostly parked cars), and snapping at the feet of inattentive spectators.

Along the curbs, concessionaires peddled "SFPD Bomb Squad" tee shirts and caps. They also had photos of Stephanie with and without her team, election bumper stickers for the mayor, pictures of the bomb, and horrible foods. It was incredible how fast the crap could be produced for sale. American ingenuity knew no bounds when combined with profit motivation.

It seemed that the entire parade route would be uniformly packed with people. Traffic control officers and patrolmen lined the streets, keeping back the crowds. After three blocks, Steph noticed the members of her old neighborhood tong, holding U.S. flags, and dressed in Bomb Squad tee shirts, waving energetically at her. They were lifting a girl overhead that Steph recognized as a niece of Yo Fat-Boy. She held a struggling ball in her arms. They were beckoning her over. Those people never did anything without a fairly good reason, Steph remembered, weird as those reasons may have seemed to the western mind. Something was up.

Steph lurched up out of her seat and staggered away from the slow moving car. She left the door open. Behind her, she could hear the mayor asking Capt. Martinez what was wrong with Sergeant Walker. The captain spitefully replied that it was nothing that wasn't always wrong with her, as she slammed the door closed. It seemed to satisfy him.

Stephanie was only a few yards from the curb when the Chinese put the girl down and she darted past the police line and into the street. She shoved the ball into Steph's arms, grinned at her, and fled back into the crowd. Had Stephanie been elsewhere, or the people been unknown to her, she would have suspected a trap, like something the Viet Cong had done; running up and handing a baby with a grenade in its diapers to a GI. She might have started shooting. Instead, she carefully pulled away the swaddling of 49ers sweatshirt.

The bundle held a large kitten, with a speckled tabby coat and a stubby tail. He looked at Steph with little apprehensiveness since she held him steadily and felt warm. Steph noted that the kitten's ears were slightly tufted. She waved to the people on the curb and tossed the sweatshirt to the girl, then turned and staggered back to the limo.

"You delayed the parade so those people could hand you a kitten?" The police commissioner asked incredulously. The captain was staring at the kitten's tail and ears.

Stephanie looked at him while lighting a Camel. A parade was supposed to be fun, and she was having a great time. She would have been very surprised if this kitten wasn't a descendant of Barney's. Obviously, her old friend hadn't only been chasing rats or solving crimes on his nights out. Maybe he's Barney's grandson, Steph thought, since 15 months had passed since her apartment had been destroyed.

"Just a little public relations," Steph finally answered, slurring her words, "pet adoption was a program I promoted in the community."

"Not today, thanks," Stephanie replied, thinking he'd said dyspeptic.

"Ever think of running for an office?" He asked, leering at her conspiratorially. The top 2 buttons of her BDUs had fallen open. Next to them, Capt. Martinez blanched.

"Only when I'm late," Steph answered in a distracted manner. She was so drunk, and the kitten had climbed up to take a familiar position, draped across Steph's shoulders and chewing on her hair. It reminded her of Barney, when they'd first driven out of Kettleman City in Brittanie the Desoto, and so Stephanie's mind was far away.

For a few more blocks, the parade wound on without incident. The mayor and his cronies were waving happily to the citizens, and Steph could almost see them tallying up the votes. Stephanie absently waved too, and the people loved seeing her. She wasn't a politician. She was from the rank and file; she was one of their own.

Steph was a career woman who had made herself into a hero through courageous hard work and an unswerving sense of duty. She had been president and Valedictorian of her class at Bakersfield High, a Desert Storm vet, and an MP platoon leader in the U.S. Army. She was a champion martial artist, a patrol officer with an outstanding record, and the head of the city's nationally acclaimed bomb disposal team. In short, Stephanie Walker was a real American hero. She was someone the people could look up to.

She also had the obligatory dark side, a requisite for uber fanfic. Stephanie was a chronic drunk, a heavy smoker, and a borderline paranoid psychopath who talked to her cars and her cats. She had no human friends, but kept an arsenal and munitions dump at home. Steph had killed people, both in the line of duty and in a blind drunken rage, but she always had good reasons. Besides, she was attractive, friendly, and compassionate, and strangers overlooked her shortcomings. Her team was devoted, the media loved her, and she'd endeared herself to the city leaders. The mayor in particular idolized her. Never in his career had anyone handed him an election so neatly.

Several car lengths behind the bomb disposal truck, a small yellow car paced the parade. A cougar wearing a fedora rode shotgun. No one sat in the diver's seat. They were both so very proud of their friend as they trundled along unnoticed. Lizzie was practically bursting with happiness, bouncing on her tires as she played the Post March, though John Cougar thought Sousa simplistic and overbearing. Tubas actually turned his stomach. Truth be told, he favored the harpsichord and pianoforte, chamber music, and compositions from the Baroque. He honestly appreciated good ornamentation when it was worked into the theme.

As the motorcade approached the halfway point, a foreign born individual on an expired student visa stepped from a doorway and prepared to make his contribution to the festivities. Although a failing student of chemistry, he had applied his substantial knowledge to bomb making. What he knew within his area of expertise was offset by his lack of common sense. He'd grown up, inspired and shell shocked, in a Beirut refugee camp. He'd been nurtured with more ideology than food.

Now, though he'd freelanced for organized crime, he was also a member of a terrorist cell that had failed several times. The cell's greatest enemy was Sergeant Stephanie Walker, an American, a cop, but worst of all, a woman. Had he known that she was also an abomination who loved other women, he'd probably have had an embolism on the spot. As it was, he thought she was kinda sexy. It was a classical love-hate relationship. He fantasized about her in a chador.

Abdullah al-Haziz was a militant, a political malcontent, and a religious fanatic, who was able to rationalize any act with his own interpretation of scripture. He had come to America to cause civil tragedy for the benefit of Saddam's regime in Iraq. Basically, he was a creepy sore loser who nevertheless felt safer across the ocean, where his fearless leader couldn't execute him on a whim. While in the United States, he'd come to love TV, the video arcades, the California beach babes, and the look of polyester suits. Long ago, he'd abandoned prayer times to stare unblinkingly into the screens of the Star Wars pod racer or the Grand Prix Ferrari games. At first he'd tried to make sure the games he played faced east, towards Mecca, and when the muezzin called the faithful to prayer, he'd scrabble on the floor as if searching for a lost quarter. Eventually his immersion in American pop culture ruined him. Now, Abdullah was spiritually polluted, and he despised himself for it as he ogled the Playboy channel, coveting the lifestyle. Soon his degeneracy would end for good though. Al-Haziz would win a place in heaven, like all the other martyrs of the Jihad, even though he always lost at Tomb Raider.

Today he carried a football, tightly packed with Cyclonite, stabilized with ammonium nitrate. The combination was a high order explosive, over 1_ times as powerful as TNT. In each end of the football, a detonator of encapsulated mercury fulminate awaited the shock of a hard landing on the pavement, to detonate the mix. Abdullah also carried a gym bag. Inside was a commando version of the AK-47, a tiny assault rifle with two 30-round magazines taped side by side for quick reloading. Abdullah al-Haziz could do a lot of damage, but he was really only concerned with the object of his hatred and lust, Sergeant Stephanie Walker.

"Blimey, will you look at that odd fellow," Lizzie remarked to John Cougar. She'd spotted Abdullah shoving his way through the crowd. Abdullah was wearing a vomitous green, 70s disco styled suit, and a turban. He was carrying a football and a Seattle Mariners gym bag. "Why, I say, I have never witnessed such a horrendous defamation of haberdashery."

"Trouble for sure," John Cougar agreed, "we've got to warn Stephanie."

"Aye, John, that bugger's fully wigged, yet no one even bats an eye," Lizzie observed, "'tis astounding that he can pass himself off thusly, as a blooming Moslem terrorist pimp, and not attract even a single Bobby."

Lizzie dialed up Stephanie on her chatty phone and watched as Steph stared around until she realized it was her own phone ringing. She fumbled in a belt pouch for her Nextel, before finally answering on the seventh ring.

"Huh?" Steph asked, managing to slur the single word.

"Stephanie, it's me, it's Lizzie. There's a right batty fuck in the crowd on your right…on the sidewalk." Lizzie excitedly reported, happy to see Steph starting to look around. "He's dressed in a dreadful Saturday Night Feverish suit and he's got a bomb shaped like a football. He's carrying a Mariners gym bag, and I'd bet a ten quid he's got a gun in it."

"Damn…you're right," Steph exclaimed as she noted Abdullah about thirty feet away, "god, how could I have missed him. I despise the Mariners."

"Steph, you've got to do something!" Lizzie cried into her phone. "He could hurt a lot of innocent people."

"No one's innocent," Steph replied philosophically, as she often did while drunk, "I'll shoot him…hold on." She tossed her longneck away, over the fender.

Steph stood up unsteadily in the back of the limo and drew her Glock. She slipped the safety off and aimed towards where Abdullah stood in the crowd, panning the barrel and causing the crowd to panic. They were beginning to stampede and there were only seconds before the terrorist acted. Stephanie was drunk and indecisive. Should she aim for his bomb and blow him up? The idea was almost too attractive, but he was just passing in front of a large flat looking family that was rooted in place against a wall, as if in terror. Steph squinted as she watched the mother's face cross her sights. What a hideous woman, she thought, she's got a face like a cartoon character…shooting her would be a mercy killing. She nearly discharged a round on principal.

While hitting the bomb was a sure thing at ending the threat, Steph figured that it would also cause about 100 casualties due to the collateral blast damage. Should she try for a headshot…on Abdullah, not the woman? Steph shifted her sights to the terrorist. With a handgun fired from a moving car, it would be an iffy shot. She could easily hit a bystander by accident. Alright, Stephanie finally decided, it'll be the bomb then…. At least no one could sue her for accidentally shooting a civilian, even though she was lurching drunk. Time slowed down, as it does in fanfic at the height of the action. Somewhere behind the limo, a car's tires screamed as it accelerated. Steph exhaled and relaxed, her finger squeezing gently on the trigger.

"What are you doing!!!" Captain Martinez shrieked as she popped up in Steph's sights.

"Well, hey, hey, hey," the mayor exclaimed, turning away from waving at the crowd and noticing for the first time that Stephanie had drawn her sidearm. "That wasn't very nice."

Not my day, Steph decided, seeing Abdullah beginning to move. He was preparing to pitch the football underhanded as he charged at the limo. Stephanie watched him in her sights against a questionably rendered backdrop of painted children. God they're ugly kids, but, oh what the hell, she thought, you only live once. She'd come a long way from Bakersfield. Abdullah had just stepped off the curb, lunging forward. Steph depressed the trigger, dispensing another bullet.

Only this one more round was fired that day. Stephanie's second shot punched into the football as it left Abdullah's hand. A fireball and shock wave filled the street. The limo capsized sideways, flinging the guests-of-honor out onto the street. Mad Abdullah disintegrated in a bloody vapor, leaving only his Florshiems. A few remaining bystanders were flung several yards. Steph thought she heard tires squealing and people screaming, but her head was ringing too loud to be sure. Well, that could have gone better, her forebrain said groggily, cause I really feel like shit. The singed kitten had limped over and was nuzzling Steph desperately just as Lizzie slammed to a halt, her brakes screeching in protest.

"Oh my god, Stephanie," Lizzie cried, trembling on her springs, "you're hurt. Someone help her, help her, please." Tears of windshield washer fluid leaked across her hood.

John Cougar leapt from the passenger's side and moved to check Steph's condition. Around them, the few remaining people who were watching reacted in confusion, pointing and staring, but struck dumb for the moment. The sheer improbability of a talking cougar, and a car without a driver calling for help, had immobilized them. Steph took it all in and thought, here comes trouble.

"Lizzie, John," Steph choked out, still in shock from the blast, "people are seeing you. You're not acting normal. They'll take you both and chop you up to see what makes you tick." Stephanie was terrified for her friends. "You've got to get out of here, now."

In her state of mind; drunk, traumatized, and with a concussion scrambling her brains, Steph had a moment of clarity. The kitten was still nuzzling her, and it triggered a new hope. She thought back to the only living person that she had ever met who could accept what her friends were. A place in the middle of nowhere where they might just be safe.

"John, take this kitten," Steph implored, "Lizzie, get them out of here. Drive south to Kettleman City off I-5, north of Bakersfield. Go to 64 General Petroleum Ave. and find the girl. Go now, please." For a moment it felt almost like…destiny. And then the welcome blackness surrounded Stephanie Walker as she lost consciousness.

John Cougar gently smoothed Steph's hair, and then noticed people pointing at them. They were shouting and starting to move. Steph was right. They'd end their lives in a lab somewhere, and probably wind up in pieces preserved in jars. John Cougar couldn't even think of that happening to Lizzie. He scooped up the kitten and jumped back into the passenger's seat. As the crowd started surging forward, the Mini Cooper fled, tires screaming, leaving behind a cloud of burnt rubber and a pair of black streaks on the macadam. On the wall backing the scene, a mural of neighborhood families looked on.

Lizzie drove as she had never driven before. She wove through the traffic on Market St. in a suicidal fashion, while John Cougar sat, white knuckled in the passenger's seat with his eyes clenched shut. The kitten had hidden in the back, crying pitifully in terror as tires squealed and horns honked outside. Lizzie oversteered and drifted around the turn onto Van Ness Ave. at almost 65-mph. She hit the U.S.-101 entrance ramp, sluing around the curve with shrieking tires, and then fled south out of San Francisco. Through her tears she swore she'd follow Stephanie's last request, and though it was killing her to leave her beloved friend behind, she knew their lives depended on it. She swore she'd not be stopped or taken, and that nothing would happen to John Cougar or the little kitten.

The small yellow car was flying, topping 85-mph as she hit the long ramp from U.S.-101 to I-280. She never looked back. John Cougar had slapped Steph's rotating emergency beacon onto the dashboard, started the siren, and then assumed a crash position. Within 15 minutes after the blast, they were already passing Woodside Glens. Lizzie didn't lower her speed to blend in with traffic until she reached San Jose, taking U.S.-85 to U.S.-101. She was playing "The Ride of the Valkyrie".

In Gilroy, about 80 miles from San Francisco, Lizzie left the highway, taking SR-152, east towards the San Luis State Rec. Area. The secondary road led through uplands and the Pacheco Pass, then skirted the San Luis Reservoir, crossing on the dam, and finally intersecting with I-5. The Mini Cooper headed south on I-5, through the central desert, for 90 boring miles. It was 4:30 p.m. when she finally pulled off onto SR-41. Lizzie was panting in the dry air, and her petrol tank was nearly empty, but she'd made it. Two miles north of the highway lay the dismal town of Kettleman City.

At first Lizzie thought that Steph had been delirious when she saw their destination. The place was sun baked and sleepy, and nothing was moving as far as the eye could see. It seemed to be a neo-ghost town. The grand sounding General Petroleum Ave. was a worn two-lane asphalt road, lined with prefab houses and a run-down convenience store. The Mini Cooper minced on her tires, the asphalt underfoot decomposing into gravel and tar, semi-liquid in the heat. In the distance, oil pumps rocked slowly back and forth, creating a mesmerizing monotony that condemned the landscape to an expectant tension.

64 General Petroleum Ave. was a small tract house with weathered vinyl siding that might once have been puce. The ultraviolet radiation from the afternoon sun seemed to be yellowing it right before their eyes. It had been hideous when new and looked all the worse for wear. Lizzie and John Cougar stared at the house and then looked at each other. They couldn't decide which of them should go up to the door. Finally it was the kitten that went. He'd easily convinced them that only he could appear at all normal to the naked eye and gain the trust of any possible inhabitants.

The little cat walked up to the house and hooked the screen door with a claw, pulling it open and then letting it slam closed. When he got no response, he repeated the action, slamming the screen door repeatedly until a voice inside called out, "Come in, it's open. I'm free for an hour." The kitten sat and looked back at his companions and shrugged. Inside the car, John Cougar groaned and motioned for him to continue slamming the door. He did just that. Finally after about 5 minutes, a young woman stomped through her living room and tore the door open. She was pissed off and stared at the bright yellow car out on the street, noticing that the slouching figure inside it was wearing a fedora. She'd never seen a fedora outside of the "Indiana Jones" movies. Finally, she looked down and saw the kitten. He wove around her ankles, rubbing his fur against her skin and melting her heart.

The drive home to San Francisco commenced the next morning, just before dawn. John and I had loaded Stephanie into the back seat, while Lizzie clucked and whispered sympathetic words to her. She was still mostly unconscious, as her lungs and trachea reacted in horrified disgust to the intake of swamp water. Her larynx had been mortified, but Steph's hindbrain had explained the incident away, blaming her sympathetic nervous system for its "gasp reflex". After reviving, John Cougar had spent hours in the tub scrubbing at the black Grecian Formula coloring, but had only succeeded in rendering himself a dark tawny gray. He sulked in the passenger's seat. Elvis the Kitten and Nightshade the Cat were cranky, confined to the area behind the back seat with the duffel bag. I slid into the driver's seat and Lizzie took us out of the parking lot at a somber pace, playing Gregorian Chants. I rolled my eyes and made a show of perusing the CD collection.

When we were about halfway down US-82 to I-95, Lizzie huffed and said, "Michelle, are you going to make a selection, or will you merely fondle those CDs all day? You're making me bloody antsy fumbling around and sighing like that."

"I'm not sighing," I sighed, "and this funereal atmosphere you're creating is sooo going to make me depressed. I'll end up eating chocolate and shopping if this doesn't stop. You'll make me gain five pounds and get zits. I mean, geeezus, we rescued Stephanie and she's alive again. You should be happy. What's the matter?"

Lizzie was silent for almost a mile. Finally she told me, "Michelle, you're right. We accomplished our mission, don't you know, but you see, love, I haven't a clue as to what Stephanie's mental condition is now. She was like a dearest big sister to me, she was. She took care of me and showed me wonderful things. She loved me, and I never expected anything like that from an owner. All my friends on the transport, coming across the pond, claimed that Americans are superficial and temporally handicapped. They told me I'd be ignored, and then most likely abused as soon as I was off warranty. They said I'd surely be left to rust before being given to a teenager learning to drive."

She sighed and I could almost see her closing her eyes and drawing up pleasant memories of her life in San Francisco with Stephanie.

"Michelle, I shall never forget that day when I first saw Stephanie at the dealership. She came in and she looked so beautiful, and I could see that her heart was warm. She wasn't like anyone else who'd come into the showroom. I thought she'd go for the Jaguar straight away, but, don't you know, she told Nigel that she wanted a Mini.

Oh, how I held my breath as she walked towards us. I tried to catch her eye, watching her each and every step. When she stopped in front of me, I smiled at her and wished with every drop of oil in me that she'd just give me a chance.

Why, do you know that the first thing she said to me was how nice my stereo sounded and how well I silenced the outside world? I took a chance and thanked her. I was sooooo very nervous, speaking up at first. She introduced herself and said she was pleased to meet me and wanted us to be friends. And then she made the decision to take me home with her…right then, not five minutes after we met. Since that day, she showed me nothing but the utmost consideration and loving kindness. She's one-of-a-kind, Stephanie is, and when I said I'd take care of her for the rest of my life, I meant every word. She's everything a person like me dreams of finding, and I'm so very worried that she won't remember me, or anything else."

I really didn't know what to tell the poor dear. I had never known the real Stephanie Walker; only my mistaken image of her. I would never claim to understand the loss of the individual that had inhabited the body that lay in a stupor on the back seat. But Lizzie would notice even the slightest change in her, and John Cougar would also know. For John, Lizzie's unhappiness and doubts added a layer of sorrow on top of his own feelings for Steph. I looked over the seat back and noticed Steph's hands moving, absently checking herself. At first I thought she was acting out some bizarre dream, and then I thought that maybe she was searching herself for injuries. Finally though, a realization dawned on me and I smiled.

"Look, Lizzie," I whispered, gesturing over my shoulder at Steph, "she's looking for a Camel."

Lizzie slowed slightly and started straying across her lane toward the shoulder, so I grabbed the wheel and pressed the gas pedal down to maintain our speed. I heard a sputter in Lizzie's engine that would have approximated a gasp from a human, and then the console sprang open revealing a carton of Camels. I snatched them and ripped open a pack, then dropped them when we swerved across the centerline. I cursed the cast on my arm. A terrified gasp came from the passenger's seat. Lizzie and I both went for the controls at the same time, and we lurched across the oncoming lane before jerking back to our own side. I looked over and saw John Cougar grinding his teeth and hiding his eyes behind his paws.

Finally I lit a Camel. Just the first whiff of smoke seemed to calm Steph. Her lands slowed in their frantic search and she exhaled, relaxing into deeper rhythmic breathing. I held the cig over the seat with my good arm and put it to her lips. As if on automatic, she inhaled and a grin curled the corners of her mouth. After holding in the smoke like a hit of pot, she exhaled slowly, drawing some of the smoke back in through her nostrils. The nicotine was working. Steph's eyes fluttered open. They were icy blue.

" Camel…Gimmee…" she rasped, her first words, coherent or otherwise.

She raised an unsteady hand and I slid the cigarette between her fingers. Steph sucked it down like a joint, the ember growing to 2" in length before she struggled up and snuck it through the gap where the rear window was propped open. She looked up at me and then eyed the pack. I handed it to her with the lighter. In moments she had another Camel lit, but this time she smoked it at a nearly normal pace. Finally, when she'd finished, she coughed and took a careful look at her surroundings. We were all looking at her. The fact that one strange person and three different species of cats were her only company didn't phase her a bit. The fact that we were flying down I-95 and I wasn't even looking at the road didn't disturb her at all. She looked each of us in the eyes and then smiled.

"Okay," she said weakly, "I recognize the inside of my own car, but who are all of you?"

John Cougar was miffed, but then realized that he was still dingy gray from his Grecian Formula. He made the introductions.

"Stephanie, it's John. John Cougar, though I've had to assume a disguise. This is Michelle Allen, who you sent us to find in Kettleman City. Elvis the Kitten you met briefly the day of your 'accident'," here he gulped at the memory, "and this is Nightshade the Cat…Michelle's cat," he added, though I'd never thought of her as mine. "Of course, Lizzie Cooper is driving."

We all held our breaths, wondering if any of it made sense to her. I was startled by the tears that began to flow down Stephanie's cheeks. She looked us over again, trying hard to compose herself. I wondered if she thought she'd awakened in a nightmare of insanity, because although I'd grown comfortable with my companions, most people wouldn't have been convinced that this was completely normal. Maybe she was still "broken" from her ordeal in that trailer.

"Oh, my friends," she finally choked out, "I can never thank you all enough for somehow getting me back. I don't even know where I was…am…whatever. John, thank you, thank you, my friend. Dear, dear Lizzie, I love you so very much. I can't believe I'm here. The last thing I really remember was being in a hospital and being given a handful of pills. Then I was traveling to another hospital, but I don't know where I went. Later, I do remember that I was in a trailer, but everything was really fuzzy. It's still not really clear. I was being given so many pills. But for the last week, I was sneaking them into that blonde woman's drinks and not taking any of them myself. She's immensely disturbed, I know that much…she's uh, Connie, that's her name…I think."

She'd become uncertain about the details. Tears were still rolling freely down her cheeks, and I reached over the seat back to stroke them away with my thumb.

"I'm afraid I don’t know you at all," she said to me, "but you're really beautiful…you have violet eyes."

I was ready to burst with happiness from her compliment and a warm feeling grew inside me that I really don't think I'd ever felt before. It wasn't devoid of lust, but it was so very much more.

"Stephanie, I met you once, you know, years ago in Kettleman City? So, anyway, I was just a little girl, running away to the desert with my cat. Somehow, you managed to convince me to go home, and you took Barney and drove away. I haven't lived a day since then without wishing that I'd see you again. When your friends came to my house looking for help, it felt like a dream come true.

Anyway, I tried to find out about you all my life, but everything I thought I'd learned about you was wrong. Steph, I've been hopelessly infatuated with you since all those years ago, and I think maybe I'm falling in love with you all over again…for real this time. So, anyway, uh, Hi."

She looked at me as if I had three heads and then lit a third Camel. I didn't mind because I had her attention. We smiled shyly at each other.

"Oh, love, I'm so very, very happy to have you back," Lizzie burst in emotionally, "in both body and soul. Bless me, but I can't tell you how horribly I've fretted. I really don't know what I'd have done if we hadn't found you and freed you from that wretched trailer and that Connie monster. I still shudder to think of what you must have gone through, I do, but it's over now, and we're taking you home at last."

"Home…" Steph whispered uncertainly, "where there's a sunset lighting the towers of a great bridge, rising over a sea of fog?"

"Yes, hon," Lizzie confirmed, "home to your wonderful house in San Francisco…our house. We're your family, Stephanie, and we love you, we do."

We spent hours talking and getting acquainted or reacquainted. As the miles passed by, I fell more and more hopelessly in love with Stephanie Walker. I felt more and more a part of the unusual family that she'd forged, and I knew that, (for the first time since my father had died of his allergies in a cat house), I was going home too. I was cramped into the driver's seat of a small, over-crowded blue car, on a cross-country run. The food sucked, the scenery was boring, and the clothes I was wearing smelled more like me than me. I was also happier than I had been since I was a little girl, back when I still had both my parents and Barney the Cat.

Well, the trip home seemed to take only half as long as the drive from California. We arrived in the early evening, after two and a half days on the road with barely a break. When Lizzie finally pulled into the driveway off East Rd., Steph breathed a sigh of relief as she surveyed her surroundings. She asked Lizzie to drive around the side of the house, so we could look out over the cliff. I think she needed to see the bridge and the bay.

We climbed out, leaving the doors open so Lizzie could air out her interior, and took seats in front of her with our legs dangling over the cliff. Nightshade and Elvis curled up on the hood, enjoying the warmth of Lizzie's engine in the cool November night. We'd been so preoccupied that none of us had realized it was Thanksgiving.

The sun sank gently into the west behind us, throwing its glorious ruddy light on the spans of the Golden Gate Bridge, and illuminating its towers in warm evening hues. Fog unrolled across the water, like a cloudbank creeping across the watery reflection of the sky. Soon the carpet of vapor stretched across the bay, to Berkley and Oakland in the east. It was an enchanted homecoming, beautiful beyond belief.

I leaned back against Lizzie's bumper, watching the progression of colors that painted the great bridge; deepening orange to red, finally falling to violet. The fog bank rolled in slow motion, reflecting the colors of the sky, before sinking in to a ghostly dusk. South of us, the city's lights came on, winking in the distance like a field of stars.

To me, it seemed almost a vision of flying while sitting still. We were floating above the world like eagles or ancient gods. From below, muted sounds rose from the city to our ears, reassuring and undemanding. Their distance defeated their ability to command our attention, yet acknowledged the comforting presence of humanity. We all sat together watching the spectacle unfold. Neither Stephanie nor I noticed when our hands clasped or that our fingers intertwined. In all my life, I had never felt so at peace. I had never felt that everything was so right. I desired no fame or glamour, nor any riches beyond what I held at that moment in my hand. It was Thanksgiving, and I felt that I had never been so blessed.

Finally full dark fell, and with a sigh we rose and went into the garage. We unpacked Lizzie and cleaned her interior. Later, we settled on the couch, with burritos and longnecks, hot salsa verde and cool sour cream, tangy salsa roja and salty corn chips, watching a DVD of "A Friend in Need", the series finale of Xena Warrior Princess. Steph fell asleep as Gabrielle received Akemi's gift, the tattoo of a dragon, to protect her from Yodoshi, the Eater of Souls. I gently coaxed the Camel from her fingers and turned down the sound. Beside us, Lizzie was snoring lightly. It had been another long day. I cuddled up to a sleeping Stephanie, and felt Morpheus coaxing my eyelids down as the warmth of her body lulled me to sleep.

The next day there was a lot to do. Aside from resettling Stephanie in her house, we had to figure out how to handle her return. As usual, Lizzie Cooper was the voice of reason.

"Oh Stephanie, we'll not be able to keep your whereabouts a secret for long, don't you know," she said, "and to keep you from vanishing again, I should say the best place for you is in the spotlight, it is."

I had to agree with her, because if the media and the public knew she was back, they'd watch her and raise hell if she disappeared again. Especially if the circumstances were suspicious. Lizzie had friends in TV and radio who could orchestrate good coverage for the return of our hero. Fame and glamour were just around the corner. I could smell them like a hot dog on the breath of a 49ers fan.

"I would have to agree as well," John Cougar said. "The more visible Steph is right now, the better her chances of remaining free. I suggest we produce a short statement for the press as soon as possible."

Convincing Steph was the hardest part. She was more inclined to await the next crises with a longneck and a rifle, holed up in her garage with one eye on the video monitors and one eye on a bowl of taco chips and guacamole. She was already talking about teaching me weapons handling. The rest of us were less eager for a shootout. We suspected that Stephanie might still have some residual medications in her system, affecting her judgement.

"Feeling more yourself this morning, I should say," Lizzie stated, as she watched Steph loading magazines on the couch, "but 'tis video we should be shooting, it is."

"Lizzie, dear, I guess I don't mind a little self-promotion," Stephanie replied, though it had never been her favorite thing, "if ya really think it'll keep the Feds away. But I need to feel ready in case it doesn't end there. They aren't my only enemies." She would never forget the destruction of her apartment, or the losses of Barney and Brittanie. Never.

As usual, Steph was less than enthusiastic about self-promoting when the time for filming came. She grumbled a bit and procrastinated a bit. I would have said she sulked, but by the time she finally acquiesced, she was too drunk for the term to apply. I'd offered to stand in as her spokeswoman, but Lizzie would hear nothing of it. The little car was getting downright bossy. Eventually I was ordered to unpack the camcorder and set up the tripod. I sulked.

In the end, when I saw the footage, I grudgingly agreed with Lizzie. Steph looked softer and sexier, and the public would relate to her with sympathy. Even I could see that. Her delivery was flawless. She was slouching near a wall of utility hookups, smoking a Camel and making flirty eye contact, while reading from the teleprompter and slurring her words. She actually seemed…sorta feminine and vulnerable, a combination that she habitually detested and I characteristically mocked. Lizzie spent a little time furiously editing the final tape. Finally, she autodialed on her "chatty" phone.

"Good day, Lizzie Cooper here. Would you be so kind as to connect me with Maxwell Blackthorne? I'd be ever so thankful," Lizzie asked of whoever had answered her call to the TV station. "Yes, he's the program director for Bay Watch. Thank you so much, of course I'll hold the line. Yes, he knows me, of course, just tell him it's Lizzie C, dear. Why, thank you kindly, luv, yes, Bristol."

"They always love my accent," Lizzie stage whispered to me.

I chuckled. Maxwell Blackthorne was the same contact that Lizzie had sent the video of the break in at Steph's house to, just over a week ago. He'd arranged the program that we'd watched, fostering a tone of moral outrage at the violation of her home. The show had given its audience a very sympathetic biographical sketch of Stephanie, and publicly questioned her disappearance. I had a question about Max.

"Lizzie, is Maxwell Blackthorne British?"

"Oh, why he most surely is, Michelle," Lizzie answered, and I could sense her impish grin. "In point of fact, he's the most British person I know. Twenty-five years here stateside and he still takes his Earl Grey and scones every afternoon. Why, I always hear the BBC, playing in the background in his office. He always has the inside dirt on the goings on back home, don't you know; who's playing up across the pond. Especially the Royals." Here she actually giggled, then recovered quickly when he came on the line.

"Maxwell, dear, I'm so glad to have been able to catch you," she said, "thank you sincerely for sparing me a moment. Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I do. But of course it's an exclusive, luv, and I think you'll really like it, too…happy endings and all. Yes, she's back…yes, exactly. We're worried, of course." I could imagine him salivating in his office downtown. Lizzie finally finished with a giggle and a conspiratorial, "we Brits must stick together, don't you know."

She clicked off and then looked over at me. Stephanie was just coming down the stairs with a longneck and a bowl of chips. She looked at Lizzie expectantly, setting down the chips and lighting a Camel.

"Maxwell is sending over a courier straight away, and just guess what. He's setting up a special report! Stephanie, he's going to air your statement just as soon as he's viewed it himself. In fact, he'll be doing the on air commentary personally!"

We just looked at her. A program director usurping the place of his talking heads was pretty much unheard of. I couldn't remember it ever happening. Even Steph seemed impressed. She sat down hard on the sofa and lit a second Camel. After a couple puffs, she smiled.

"All this fuss over little 'ol me?"

"Hon, there's nothing else in the bloody news right now with a decent human interest angle," Lizzie stated, "and you know news people are just overpaid gossips at heart. Besides, this city was so proud of you after that atom bomb affair, it was. Why, you've no idea how outraged everyone here was when Bay Watch showed the tape of your home being searched and bugged. People were up in arms, they were."

"That's right, Steph." I told her. "There were actually street protests over your disappearance. Especially in Chinatown, around your old beat. In fact, the day after the Bay Watch report, a crowd of marchers turned a thousand rats loose at the FBI office."

Steph chuckled at that, but I noticed Elvis' eyes bugging out at the comment about the rats. He had puffed up his fur and laid back his ears. Even Nightshade was mincing on her paws; her claws dug into the carpet. Steph seemed to notice it too, but said nothing.

Before the chips were gone, the doorbell rang. I went upstairs and handed the envelope with the videocassette to the courier at the door. He leered at me, took the tape and signed a receipt, then thanked my breasts and hopped back on his motorcycle. I went back inside and rejoined the others in the garage.

Predictably, Lizzie already had the TV tuned in. I knew the media worked fast, but even I was amazed when the same criminally beautiful anchorwoman from Bay Watch appeared on the screen less than 30 minutes later. The game show that had been in progress simply cut off…no fabulous prizes would be awarded there today. The talking head was practically frothing at the mouth.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she smirked, obviously privy to a choice morsel of news, "we have interrupted our normally scheduled programming to present a Special Bulletin. San Francisco Bay Watch has received an exclusive report that is of interest to all citizens of the Bay City. And now, Mr. Maxwell Blackthorne III, President, Executive Producer, and Program Director for San Francisco Bay Watch."

The screen went dark for a moment as the video feed switched from the Bay Watch set to a genteel office interior. At a heavy mahogany desk sat a late middle-aged man who could have been Alistair Cooke's younger brother. The man looked British…he exuded a mannered presence that we American provincials would immediately associate with "English Lord". Maxwell Blackthorne gazed into the camera solemnly; composing his already immaculately composed self. When he spoke, the expected British accent was understated and flawless.

"Ladies and gentlemen. These United States were founded on the principal of universal laws, which are to be applied equally to all citizens as God given rights. Among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…the cornerstones lying at the heart of all subsequent mortal legislation. Since the founding of this nation, these rights have required defense against assaults, both from without and from within. Since the founding of this nation, many citizens have come forward to fight in this defense. This has been true, both in times of war and in times of peace.

Among those who have defended the rights and upheld the laws of this nation, we must number a local hero. In both times of war and peace, Stephanie Walker has defended the United States. She has spent her entire adult life in service to this country. First, as a Sergeant First Class in the US Army Military Police, she served in Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Later, she served with the San Francisco Police Department, first as a patrol officer, and then as a Sergeant, in charge of the Bomb Removal Team. It is in this most recent role, that Sgt. Stephanie Walker's heroism has been most publicly recognized…notably, when she led her team in the deactivation of the atomic bomb, planted earlier this fall by terrorists, in the 3COM stadium.

Many of you will recall that it was shortly after the parade in honor of this hero, a parade in which, I might add, she again neutralized a public threat, when Stephanie Walker mysteriously disappeared. She was, in fact, spirited out of a hospital, to places unknown, by parties unknown. That incident was over 8 weeks ago. Sgt. Stephanie Walker had not been heard from since.

Many of you will recall the footage that was obtained and exclusively aired here on San Francisco Bay Watch, documenting the shameful violation of this hero's private property. In that footage, we witnessed the illegal entry and bugging of a citizen's home. I'm sure that you will also recall the 'plausible denial' which our investigators met, whilst questioning federal authorities about this matter.

This afternoon, I am pleased, relieved, and thankful, to finally be able to provide you with an update. In answer to the hopes and prayers of the citizens of this city, San Francisco Bay Watch has obtained documentation of the return of our hero. Ladies and gentlemen, you have heard me correctly. Sgt. Stephanie Walker has returned to San Francisco safely. She has released a statement which will now be aired, exclusively, here on San Francisco Bay Watch."

With that, Maxwell Blackthorne turned to a monitor on his left, revealing his right profile, which I'm sure he considered his more flattering side. The screen cut to the footage we'd shot that morning.

"He's the bloody president and the executive producer," Lizzie muttered in disbelief, "the bloke always introduces himself as just the program director. So then, that explains Rolls Rita."

"Huh?" I asked. The last comment had lost me.

"I got his number from his bloody Rolls Royce, Rita," Lizzie answered. "I met her one afternoon at the dealership. We were both in for warranty maintenance, we were. Thought at first she'd be stuffy, I did, but she was a lively one. We had such a pleasant chat, don't you know. Of course, she has her own phone too, so now we chat regularly. Feisty lass, that Rita."

I was shaking my head. Lizzie was networking with other vehicles; socializing with contacts unsuspected by the human world. Steph seemed not at all surprised. Lizzie was following in the tradition of Brittanie the Desoto. Remembering his reaction to the comment about rats, Stephanie also realized that Elvis the Kitten was feeling the call to follow in the footsteps of Barney the Cat.

Well, I could imagine the public's reaction to Steph's little speech, or at least I thought I could. None of us could really predict all of its ramifications on that day though. Still, I thought, for the average person, she symbolized someone who had tangled with the might of the government…and got away. An angsty teen had become a hero, and now a hero was becoming a legend. Bay Watch broadcast the exclusive, but the national networks picked up the story second hand. By the time they finished airing their evening reports, Stephanie's return was known across America.

Stephanie lounged on the couch, sucking down a longneck and smoking her third Camel. An overflowing ashtray sat on her thigh. The air quality in the garage was equivalent to a Los Angeles parking garage on fire. Elvis and Nightshade had already fled upstairs to camp out with John Cougar, in the fresh air on the deck. I was smoking defensively, figuring I'd prefer to die from my own second hand smoke. Beside us, Lizzie was washing her windshield for the second time.

"Could we turn on the exhaust fan, please and thank you," she muttered in a huff.

"Huh?" Steph asked, looking toward her from the TV screen.

"Its so bloody smoky in here that my paint's dulling, it is," Lizzie claimed, tilting on her tires to regard her finish, "and I'll be needing a new air filter within the week, I shall."

"Oh, uh, sorry," Steph said, hastily stubbing out her Camel and picking up a small remote. She pointed it at a panel on the wall and pressed a button, starting a whisper fan in the ceiling. The air cleared at a visibly rapid rate. "Guess I'm smoking a bit more than usual, huh," she admitted sheepishly, "sorry."

Steph leaned over the arm of the couch and dumped the ashtray into a bullet can, then absently chugged down the last three inches of Bud and added the longneck bottle. Lizzie looked pointedly at her and cleared her throat.

"I know, I know…I'll sort it out later." Stephanie assured her. "Glass in the recycling bin…I know."

John Cougar padded down the stairs to join us, an uncertain and worried look on his face. He sniffed the air briefly, then nodded his head in approval. Finally he took a seat next to Lizzie, curling his tail around his feet. Though it was obvious that something was troubling him, he held his peace. A few moments later, Nightshade and Elvis came back too. They seemed as unsettled as John was.

The TV was showing a report about the ongoing protests in San Francisco. Almost immediately after the Bay Watch airing of Steph's video statement, angry mobs of people had taken to the streets. They'd marched on several federal offices, waving hastily made signs, shouting slogans, and releasing rats. The commentator interviewed a scientist who claimed that over twenty-three thousand rats had been released in the city since Steph's disappearance. Neither of them understood the logic driving this particular form of protest. They thought it was a gay thing.

"What the fuck? Are they stupid or something?" Steph grumbled, before lighting another Camel. "Don't they have any idea about Barney, or my work in Chinatown on my old beat? All they'd have to do is ask anyone in Chinatown…or probably any protester. Instead, they ask a scientist. Everyone knows that those guys don't know squat about the real world."

"Stephanie, dear, of course they don't understand," Lizzie said with sympathetic but condescending certainty. "Scientists are required to be retarded by their intelligence, they are. The sods go to school for it. They live in isolation. Just look at them, hon."

"Well, yeah, you're describing an A-B Synch Error between their midbrains and forebrains," I agreed, "sorta like a dopey form of insanity."

"It's true, Steph," Nightshade added, "I saw some of the ones my prior owner worked with. They were supposed to be making great discoveries, but the best they could come up with was microwave pork rinds and mildew-proof shower curtains. The one I was stuck with couldn't even remember to feed me regularly…it's no wonder his family drove off without me. They probably didn’t even remember from moment to moment that they owned a cat." Here, she grimaced and spat.

"See," Lizzie chuckled, "would you want to trust them with your life?"

"Hell no," Steph said, opening another longneck and lighting a second Camel. She took a puff and then self-consciously realized she already had one in the ashtray. I gently slipped the new one from her fingers. We exchanged a brief smile that sped my heart rate. For a moment there was silence.

"But, what about the 23,000 rats…?" It was Elvis the Kitten, finally iterating what was in the back of everyone's minds.

"What if they aren't really rats?" John Cougar cryptically asked, in a voice so soft that it was almost a whisper. He was looking down, regarding his paws. Lizzie inched forward to lightly contact his back and offer her support.

Steph looked at him sharply. She'd learned long ago that no one knew rats as well as cats. Now she was hearing doubts from the largest of cats, a cat whose life was dedicated to managing the land around them. It was more upsetting than the sheer numbers of vermin.

"John, what do you mean?" Stephanie asked. Her esophagus was twitching and she slugged down the rest of her longneck to settle it, then immediately opened another. I lit another Camel off the butt of the one I'd taken from Steph and listened with my full attention.

"Well, Stephanie, I've heard rumors from the city. Some of these new rats aren't right…they're just 'gush' inside, like bugs…and they don't taste right either." He looked back down at his feet, probably thinking that we thought he'd lost it. Finally, he turned to address Lizzie. "Lizzie dear, I need a favor. I need to go into the city. I need to find out what's really going on across the channel over there. Maybe tonight, late?"

Lizzie looked briefly at Steph and received a barely perceptible nod.

"Would 2:00 am be appropriate, John?" Lizzie asked.

"That would be fine, I should think," John Cougar replied with relief, "I dread going into the city on foot. It's a foregone conclusion that my appearance on the streets would cause a panic."

"I think I'll go along for the ride," Steph said, "I think this is all part of something bigger. The thing is, if they look like rats, but they're not rats, then what are they?"

At 1:45am, a thoroughly drunk Stephanie was draped over Lizzie's wheel, nodding off in the driver's seat as the little car crossed the Golden Gate Channel into San Francisco. In the passenger's seat, John Cougar nervously eyed the sparse oncoming traffic.

"Where should I be headed first, luv?" Lizzie asked John, as she steered off the US-101 exit ramp and onto Lombard St.

"I need to contact several fellows in Chinatown, where the initial reports came from," John replied. "In fact, it was another member of Barney's family that first noticed the presence of these suspected ersatz rats. Now I'm wondering if we shouldn't have brought Elvis along."

"Well hey, here I am," Elvis the Kitten announced, popping up from behind the rear seat. He'd stowed away under the rather ominous deployment bag that Steph had dumped in just before they'd left. "I couldn't resist a chance to check out the city at night. Bright lights, big city here I come!"

"Elvis, dear, this isn't a joy ride, don't you know," Lizzie informed him.

"All too true," John said with concern, "I'm uncertain as to the level of danger we could encounter, and the city can be a very dangerous place. We'll be in unfamiliar territory, with a multitude of real rats all around us, not to mention the paranoid and hysterical humans, and these suspected…umm, things."

"What's going on back there?" Stephanie slurred, rising halfway from her stupor. She reflexively clutched at the steering wheel, sending the little car across a couple of opposing lanes before Lizzie wrenched back the controls. John Cougar was cringing as oncoming headlights swept the interior and a horn blared.

"It seems that Elvis has chosen to join our excursion," John told her.

"Stowed away in the boot with your munitions, he did," Lizzie elaborated.

"Come see, cum saw," Steph articulated absently before passing out again with a snort.

"So I guess I'm in, huh?" Elvis crowed.

"Guess so," John agreed reluctantly, "just stay close."

A few minutes behind it, a bright red rental Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder slipped out of the Avis lot. Jennie had used her employee preferences to score a sexy set of wheels, suitable for a love goddess. She too headed north, on US-101; passing other cars and weaving through the traffic like a snake. Chelle was waiting. As she swept past a state highway patrol cruiser, Jen dialed her cell phone and gave the author a call. (I answered, after a couple of rings had logged her on the call ID).

"Hi hon, I'm on my way," Jen told Michelle breathlessly while passing an ambulance. She hated squinting through the reflections from the flashing lights. It could cause wrinkles around her eyes.

"Oh, goody, babe…can't wait to see ya. I thought of a question, though. That passenger who gave you the creeps?"

"So anyway, like, you wouldn't happen to remember her name by any chance?" I asked, knowing better. "It's just that I'm getting a tingly-bad feeling here…you know, after your description."

"Well, duh, of course I remember her name," Jennie said with an exasperated sigh. I could actually hear her rolling her eyes. "I still remember the names of every guy I've had sex with too. I'm the best with names. You know that." It was true. I could almost see Jen's pouty smile as she proudly reminded me of her astonishing ability with names. "She was Connie Stanton."

"Oh, yuck," I choked out; a sudden rush of anxiety made my chest constrict and left me fighting for breath. At the same time, alarm bells went off in my head, filling my sinuses with a ringing sensation. (I could hear my forebrain berating my hindbrain for the reaction). The monster had tracked Stephanie down and she was almost certainly coming here. Nothing else could have prodded Connie Stanton all the way across the country from her trailer in the swamp. I had to warn Steph.

"Jen," I gasped, finally catching my breath, "I've gotta go…this is horrible."

I immediately dialed Lizzie's number, figuring that Steph would be too passed out to answer hers. It was the right thing to do. Lizzie picked up on the second ring.

"And a good evening to you, Lizzie Cooper here," she said while passing a car full of drunken teenagers. God, I could hear their hip-hop music flashing past and dropping into the background. I couldn't tell if they were frat boys or a ghetto gang.

"Lizzie, it's me," I sputtered, "oh god, Lizzie…it's Connie, she's here!"

I heard her brakes screeching in a panic stop. I heard John Cougar let out a horrified shriek. Then I heard the screaming of brakes from other cars behind her…and a crash with breaking glass. Oh yeah, and the hip-hop music kept blaring above it all.

"Oops," Lizzie muttered, then she asked in alarm, "Chelle, what…Connie's here? In bloody San Francisco?"

"I…yes! My friend Jennie was a stewardess on her flight and she just told me…I mean she called and she told me about this creepy woman porn writer and she was eating snacks through the whole flight and she acted like she was drugged and she was shooting up stuff and she was blonde and she was…Connie Stanton!" I was babbling out a really bad run-on sentence, without commas, periods, or editing.

"Oh bloody hell! And she's headed for Stephanie's house?" Lizzie was shocked but remarkably coherent, answering her own question while I gibbered in panic. "Of course she is. She's got no other reason to be here and nowhere else to go. Damn."

"Lizzie…what should I do?" I asked, but now she was ignoring me; how irritating.

"Stephanie…Stephanie, wake up there! Wake up, I say, we've an emergency!" I could hear Lizzie trying to rouse Steph, and Steph muttering with slowly increasing awareness. I could imagine John Cougar looking over his shoulder and nervously appraising the accident they'd caused, while worrying about unwanted attention. The last thing we needed was to have Stephanie found drunk in the driver's seat.

"Huh? Uhhh, what…where?" Steph was at the stage of trying to understand her surroundings. It was a good sign. Then, "Oh shit! Whatthefuckhappened?"

"Stephanie, hon, it's Chelle on the line, it is. She says an informant reported that Connie Stanton is in San Francisco, and she's probably headed for your house."

"Awww hell," Steph replied, "then let's get out of here."

"But, Stephanie, there's a sizable automobile wreck behind us that we were instrumental in precipitating…"

"Lizzie, are you ok?" Steph asked, her concern shading to panic, "god, please be ok."

"Not a scratch, hon," Lizzie replied reassuringly, "but the five cars behind us are really hurting, don't you know."

I had been listening to the discussion, and now I heard rising voices in the background; it was some guy yelling and someone else cursing in anger rather than pain.

"Ladies," John Cougar interjected, "the locals are expressing some aggravation at our unexpected stop. I believe several young people are converging…."

"They're going to lynch us," Elvis wailed from the backseat.

The next thing I heard was what sounded like gunshots and then the squealing of tires.

"That'll give 'em something to think about…young punks," I heard Steph say, "now, let's take Marina to Baker. We can head back on Old Mason St. and catch 101 at the junction with 1."

"Oh, why that's such an irritating roundabout, Stephanie," Lizzie complained, "let me take Baker to California St. and then I can get on US-1 straightaway."

"Whatever," Steph agreed as the tires squealed again, the Mini Cooper drifting around another corner. "Geeez, Lizzie, ya wanna cause an accident?"

In the background, I heard John Cougar choke as Lizzie giggled.

"What's going on?" I screamed into the phone, hoping to get their attention.

"Chelle, what is this about Connie being in San Francisco?" Steph had taken the phone and she was sounding pretty rational for having finished a six-pack before getting in the car.

"Steph, my friend, Jennie, is a stewardess. She just flew into town and one of her passengers was Connie Stanton. Her description was exact. She must be heading here…she was talking about finding her soulmate."

"Oh, for crying out loud," Steph whined. "Why tonight? Why this lifetime?"

"What are you going to do?" I asked. "What should I do?"

"Are all the alarms on?"

"Well, yeah, Steph, of course," I answered. "Uhhh, except that my friend Jennie is coming over here and I'll have to shut them down to let her in."

"She's…WHAT? How well do you know her, Chelle?" Stephanie asked suspiciously, "you've never known her to breed rats, have you?"

"God no, Steph. I've known Jen since grade school. She hates icky things…rats, fish, spiders…even babies. She's still my best friend from Kettleman City."

"Where is she now?"

"Uhhh, somewhere on the road? Like, between the airport and here, I mean. I just talked to her before I called you."

"That was all of five minutes ago, dear," Lizzie interjected. "She's probably still south of the city."

"What's her number, Chelle?" Steph asked in her 'take charge' voice, the words still adorably slurred. "I'll call her and we can escort her in. Maybe we can even spy on Connie. She's probably somewhere on the road nearby."

"Jen's number's toll-free…800-550-6969."

"That's…that's a phone sex line," Steph gulped out.

"Well, yeah," I told her, "she's always getting calls. So anyway, I'm really scared thinking about all of you being anywhere near Connie. Now I'm scared for Jennie, too."

"Hon, we'll be alright," Steph reassured me. In the background though, I heard her checking the magazine in her sidearm. "I've gotta hang up now and call your friend. We'll make sure she's ok."

"Alright," I agreed, "please, please be careful. I'd just die if I lost you…again."

I heard Steph swallow hard as she hung up. Then I could only wait, smoking Camels and chowing down Skittles. Pretty soon the sugar was making me pace, as I worried myself sick about my friends.

My beloved friends; they really were closer and dearer to my heart than anyone I could remember in all my years growing up. I'd come to value them so much more than the guys who gave me money, or told me they could make me a star. They were the strangest crew I'd ever met, I realized, but they were becoming my family, just like they were to Stephanie.

And then there was Stephanie. I'd fallen in love with the image of her that I'd created in my head so long ago. I'd spent all my years since then emulating a phantasm. Now that I'd met her, I was not just infatuated, I was head over heels in love with her. She seemed like she could do anything, survive any challenge. (Even if we hadn't rescued her, she'd probably have escaped in another week or two, as her body shed the effects of the drugs, and Connie became less lucid). Despite what conventional thinkers would have considered personality flaws, Steph had excelled in a dangerous and demanding career for years, and she had become a hero. She had met the world on her own terms, though many people thought her insane because of it.

She went around naming things and talking to them, seeing what no one else could even accept as possible. Unlike the garden-variety psychopaths, who talked to their sandwiches and themselves, the things Steph talked to answered her, revealing a whole world of unsuspected experiences and points of view. They became her friends, her family…they gave her information, and they'd saved her life. Stephanie embraced diversity on a scale that would have confounded the politically correct…and it was second nature to her.

The Skittles rendered up their sugar, supercharging my forebrain, so that the synapses crackled with acetylcholine. Throughout my cells, ADP and ATP danced a tango. In that state of hyper-reality, I foresaw that Steph could perhaps enlist the masses of sentient beings that only she could recognize and communicate with. A whole world was available to her and to no one else. Her circle of friends could eventually grow to surround her with love and companionship beyond that claimed by any person who had ever lived. She could slay her deadly desert.

Before my blood sugar level dropped off and I fell into a state of lethargy, I had two more insights. First, I wondered if any of Steph's enemies realized just what they were up against, and second, I wondered if Steph had any idea of the value of her resources. Then my cells belly-flopped into an energy shortfall, like a sorta bio-brownout, and I staggered off to the kitchen seeking coffee and Mexican food.

Stephanie called Jen right after she got off the phone with me; before she could think about it being a phone sex line and lose her nerve. Jennie, of course, not recognizing the number that appeared on her call ID, assumed it was a customer.

"Jennie?"

"Hi, sweetheart. It's $3.99 a minute, no limits, so what charge card will you be using?"

"Huh? Uhhh, oh, no. Ummm, my name's Stephanie Walker and Michelle Allen gave me your number," Steph said, trying to clarify what was causing a fizz in her own mind.

"Oh goody! If you're a friend of Chelle's you must be a hottie. I'll give you the first ten minutes free. You sound a bit drunk, hon," Jen giggled, "but you've got a sexy voice…kinda smoky and dangerous. This'll be fun. So, what are you wearing?"

Steph was shocked into a sputtering silence and Jennie wondered if she was stripping.

"Ya there, hon? Did you want a particular fantasy? Schoolgirl and teacher? Mistress and slave? Animals? Incest?"

At the mention of incest, Stephanie remembered Connie's childhood, and the danger of the situation came back to her. Steph found her voice and prodded her forebrain to cooperate, even as her hindbrain considered the school girl and teacher option.

"Jennie," Steph said, regaining control of her Broca's area, "this isn't a phone-sex call. It's about Connie Stanton. She's a real threat and you could be in danger. Chelle will have to deactivate my alarm systems to let you in, and I'm nervous about lowering my guard with Connie in town. I know she's planning to show up at my house."

"Well, OMG…" Jennie was horrified that she might actually see her passenger again.

"Yeah, but he's no help in this, so tell me where you are and we'll escort you in."

"Okay," Jennie agreed hopefully. Steph had made her paranoid, and her driving suffered as she frantically looked around at all the other cars. She was just passing a cab and happened to look into the rear seat. "Gaaaaah, it's her!"

"Jennie! Are you alright?" Steph shouted into the phone. "What…You see her?"

"Ewwwwww…she's in a cab I just passed," Jen said in horror as her car slewed across a lane. She was looking over her shoulder at the cab behind her. "She was still eating, and the cabbie looked terrified."

"Geeeez, the poor guy. Where are you now? What are you driving? Can you see the cab's number?"

"Yes." Jen whispered in morbid fascination, hypnotized as Connie engulfed an entire cakeroll in one bite. She was pacing the cab, her tires squealing as she wove across the centerline. "It's number 666."

"Jen! Snap out of it and watch the road!"

Connie had noticed the beautiful blonde in the flashy red car pacing them, and she'd leered at her out the window, making brief eye contact. Why, it was her stewardess from the flight, she realized! She must have gotten hot reading my story, Connie thought. Maybe if she couldn't find Steph right away, she could have a little tryst with her. Maybe she could even write her into her new story. Connie waved. Jennie floored the Spyder.

"I'm on US-101 north…uhhh, I just passed the Oyster Point exit. She…she saw me," Jen gasped.

"Oh shit! Floor it, Jennie! Get out of there! We'll meet you…hold on a sec," Steph was conferring with Lizzie about the route. "We'll get on at 280…we're in a custom blue Mini Cooper, and we'll catch up with you. Keep this line open, hon. I'm sure you can outrun the cab if you have to. Just be careful, 'kay?"

"Oh god, oh god, oh god! Please hurry! I'm already doing 80 and I can see them in the mirror speeding up. She's leaning over the driver's seat, waving her arms and pointing at me…and the cabby's wild-eyed with terror. Here they come."

"Hold on, Jennie…we're on the way! Just stay ahead of them, hon!" And then Steph turned to Lizzie, yelling, "Floor it!"

The race was on! Jennie, never the best driver even when she wasn't under pressure, was accelerating in a panic. Behind her, the cab was holding even. It was mechanically inferior, but driven by a professional who felt like his life was on the line. In other words, it was a dead heat, and only Jen's slight initial lead kept her from being caught, as both cars wove through traffic at close to 80mph.

Lizzie broke traction and spun 270° to decelerate; ending up facing southbound on US-1. Behind her, traffic slammed to a halt on Lake St. with several crunches of sheetmetal and breaking glass.

"Sorry," Lizzie called back to the cars in the pile up. "Police business!" She was answered with curses from both the drivers and their cars.

Then she was upshifting, tires squealing as she accelerated down Park Presidio Blvd. Stephanie calmly reached out her window and attached the revolving emergency beacon to the roof, then she lit a Camel. Lizzie hit 75mph within five blocks, crossing Balboa St. When she crossed Fulton St., two blocks later and entered Golden Gate Park, she was doing 90. She had only 70 yards to decelerate, to make the first right turn in the park, and she took the corner at 50mph in four-wheel drift. John Cougar had covered his eyes with his paws, and was screaming like a child on a roller coaster. Steph was smoking and glancing at her watch. In the back, Elvis had crawled under Steph's gear bag.

Once they cleared the last turn in the park, Lizzie went full out. Her little 4-cylinder engine screamed as she topped 90mph leaving the park, blasting down the straightaway of 19^th Ave. 95mph was her top speed, and for a fleeting moment, Stephanie wished for Brittanie's V-8 Firedome hemi engine. It would have pushed them to over 135mph, but Brittanie wouldn't have been able to make the turns that Lizzie executed with such ease. The comparison made Steph think, and thinking made Steph plan. Yes, she decided, (as Lizzie drifted around the corner onto Vincente St.), with a few modifications to the suspension and drive train, it could work.

In another three minutes, Lizzie blasted onto I-280, at the San Jose Ave. entrances. The flashing light cleared their way, and on the highway, Steph suspected that being capable of another 40 or 50mph would come in handy someday. Less than a mile and a half ahead lay the junction with US-101. It flew by in 45 seconds.

"There they are!" Stephanie crowed. "You did it, Lizzie! You caught them!"

A red Eclipse Spyder, closely followed by a cab, had just sped by, northbound on 101.

"Oh, they'll not be getting away from me, they won't," Lizzie declared a she careened around the ramp onto US-101, "not in this lifetime."

In another two minutes, Lizzie was tailgating the cab, looking for a chance to pass. The revolving light had unnerved the cabbie, and when Stephanie blipped the siren she'd installed, he slowed down and pulled it over to the side. Lizzie jabbed left around him and followed Jen's Eclipse, finally pulling alongside the terrified woman.

Stephanie was gesturing to Jen, holding up her cell phone and yelling into it. It did no good. The blonde was paralyzed, her eyes on the road, her hands in a white-knuckled death grip on the wheel. She'd overloaded her forebrain, her midbrain had given up in a huff, and she was driving on instinct, her panicky hindbrain firmly in control.

"God, she's adrenaline locked," Steph cursed, "and she's not answering her phone. How can I tell her to slow down and get off this highway?"

"Not to worry, luv," Lizzie calmly replied, "I'll handle it. Let me just have a word with her vehicle. Now, be a dear and take the wheel, please."

Stephanie assumed control, her brain lucid, but her body still very drunk. She wove erratically, but somehow kept pace beside the Eclipse. In the passenger's seat, John Cougar crouched down into a crash position, gritting his teeth.

"He's having the time of his life, he is," Lizzie reported a few moments later, "but I informed him that the highway ends at Fell St. up yonder, and he promised to slow down then. The poor dear has had nothing but posers and pompous wannabes renting him out for his looks. Claims he hasn't stretched his motor in ages."

"Oh well, let him have his fun then, I guess," Steph agreed, lighting another Camel, "tell you the truth, I'm more worried about the cabbie."

"The bloke's royally pissed off, he is," Lizzie chuckled, "I mean the cab, that is. He was cursing up a storm, moaning about not being kept in tune and being forced to participate in a race. He was also deathly afraid of that passenger vomiting in the back, but I assured him that Connie never wastes food." Here, Lizzie giggled and took back the controls. "Now that they've come to a stop, he's not moving again tonight…absolutely refused, he did, pleading vapor lock and loose wiring."

"So much for Connie Stanton," Stephanie laughed, opening a longneck, "at least for now."

Well, anyway, after the highway ended at Fell St., the two cars made their way at a legal pace through the Bay City. They skirted Chinatown on their way back to the house, and only John Cougar heard Steph's softly whispered observation that, "tonight they're releasing rats." Then she passed out in the driver's seat again, trusting dear Lizzie to get both cars home.

Miles behind them, the cabby got out, under the pretense of checking under the hood. The cab had stalled dead and refused to start. He threw the hood up, patted the air cleaner with thankful affection, and then fled for his life. Connie barely noticed, being focused entirely on draining a Yoo-hoo.

I heard the garage door opening while I was still in the kitchen, groaning as I digested a plate of nachos. All I'd been able to think about was the safety of my friends. I think there must still have been tears streaking down my face when I rushed into the garage and leapt into Steph's arms. Jennie was just getting out of the Eclipse, and she witnessed my desperate hug, and the frantic kiss I plastered on Stephanie's lips. Steph, still reasonably drunk, staggered under my onslaught, but her arms came up around me and she slipped her tongue into my mouth for the count of 30.

"Jalapenos," she commented, when we finally broke apart. Jen giggled in the background as she watched Stephanie stroke the tears from my cheeks.

"I was so worried about you," I told her, still trembling with relief.

"We're all okay, sweetheart," Steph said, the endearment bringing a tentative smile to my lips, "and your friend Jennie's safe too."

"Finally," Jen commented theatrically to herself, "Michelle's found a meaningful relationship."

She looked around at her surroundings and then blanched when John Cougar and Elvis the Kitten got out and appraised her. Elvis let out a low wolf whistle and I heard him mutter, "what a babe."

Jennie looked them over and I could see that Elvis' talking had profoundly surprised her. Finally she looked back at us and nervously asked, "Is that a wolverine?" She was pointing nervously at John Cougar.

"Madam, I am a cougar," John began, somewhat indignantly, "a felid, whereas a wolverine is a mustelid, really just an overgrown ferret," Jen gave him a blank look, shocked into silence because he too spoke. John misinterpreted her expression as mental deficiency and offered clarification, "…Puma? Mountain Lion? Panther? Panthera concolor?" Finally, he bared his teeth, reasoning that the dental formulae of felids and mustelids was diagnostically significant, (especially with respect to lower premolars).

"Oh, John, luv, I don't think she understands a word," Lizzie commented sadly.

Jennie whipped around to look for the source of the lilting British accented voice. Because of the direction, her gaze settled on Lizzie, almost by default. I could tell that her grasp on her composure was marginal at best, after everything she'd been through since we'd talked on the phone.

"Hello there, Jennie," the little car said brightly, bobbing slightly on her tires, "I'm Lizzie Cooper, and any friend of Michelle's is a friend of mine, don't you know."

"Ummm, uhhh…" Jen managed to choke out in shock, before she passed out cold and landed on the carpet. As it turned out, she remained senseless for quite a while.

"Poor dear's exhausted after that chase with Connie," Lizzie sympathized. Then she turned to me and added, "but what a fun race it was, if I do say so myself. Why I must tell you all about it."

We laid Jennie out in a bedroom upstairs, with an explanatory note and a glass of water on the nightstand. Nightshade the Cat curled up beside her, to keep an eye on her and let us know when she came to. Steph and I went back down to the garage, to make plans with John and Lizzie. It was only a matter of time before Connie showed up, and there were still those rats to be dealt with.

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.

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, Steph 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 permeated 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.