THE TRIGGER 
by 
Arthur C. Clarke & Michael Kube-McDowell 
Contents 
Prologue: The Chosen 
I: Trigger 
1: Anomaly 
2: Mystery 
3: Secrecy 
4: Inquiry 
5: Chemistry 
6: Journey 
7: Strategy 
8: Amity 
9: Colloquy 
10: Exigency 
11: Military 
12: Apostasy 
13: Enginery 

14: Opportunity 
15: Trickery 
16: Perplexity 
17: Festivity 
18: Equity 
19: Guaranty 
20: Publicity 
21: Piracy 
22: Alchemy 
II: Jammer 
23: So Much Madness 
24: Weapons to Kill 
25: The Progress of Reason 
26: Forever Our Destiny 
27: Summons to Greatness 
28: Not Made for Defeat 
29: To Promote Peace 
30: Harder than War 
31: From Savage to Scholar 
32: Never a Bad Peace 
III: Killer 
THE TRIGGER 

Arthur C. Clarke was born in Somerset in 1917. He is a graduate of 
King's College, London (where he obtained a First Class Honours in 
Physics and Mathematics), a past Chairman of the British 
Interplanetary Society, and a member of the Academy of 
Astronautics, the Royal Astronomical Society, and may other 
scientific organizations. He served in the RAF during the Second 
World War and was in charge of the first radar talk-down equipment 
during its experimental trials. He wrote a monograph for Wireless 
World in 1945 predicting satellite communications, and did it so well 
that when the first commercial satellites were launched twenty years 
later they could not be patented. Arthur C. Clarke has for many years 
made his home in Sri Lanka. He is chancellor of a university there 
and founder of the Arthur C. Clarke Centre for Advanced 
Technology. He was awarded the CBE in 1989 and knighted in 1998. 
Michael Kube-McDowell was born in 1954 and grew up in southern 
New Jersey. He holds a master's degree in science education from 
Indiana University and was honoured for teaching excellence by the 
1985 White House Commission on Presidential Scholars. Novelist, 
teacher, photographer, musician, screenwriter, Kube-McDowell is a 
father of three and a 'spaceflight geek'. He has written scripts for the 
tv series Tales From the Darkside. His novels include the thousandyear 
Trigon Disunity future history and the Star Wars trilogy The 
Black Fleet Crisis. His novel The Quiet Pools was nominated for the 
Hugo Award. 
Also by Arthur C. Clarke 
2001 A Space Odyssey 
2010 Odyssey Two 
2061 Odyssey Three 
3001 The Final Odyssey 
Islands in the Sky 
Prelude to Space 

Against the Fall of Night 
The Sands of Mars 
Childhood's End 
Expeditions to Earth 
Earthlight 
Reach for Tomorrow 
The City and the Stars 
The Deep Range 
The Other Side of the Sky 
A Fall of Moondust 
Tales of Ten Worlds 
Dolphin Island 
Glide Path 
The Lion of Comarre 
The Nine Billion Names of God 
The Lost Worlds of 2001 
The Wind From the Sun 
Rendezvous with Rama 
Imperial Earth 
The Fountains of Paradise 
1984: Spring 
The Sentinel 
The Songs of Distant Earth 
Also by Michael Kube-McDowell 
The Trigon Disunity future history 
Star Wars: The Black Fleet Crisis trilogy 
Alternities 
The Quiet Pools 

Exile 
Voyager 
ARTHUR C. CLARKE 
and 
MICHAEL KUBE-McDOWELL 
THE TRIGGER 
HarperCollinsPublishers 
Voyager 
An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 77-85 Fulham Palace Road, 
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB 
www. voyager-books.com 
Special overseas edition 2000 This paperback edition 2000 
987654321 
First published in Great Britain by Voyager 1999 
Copyright  Arthur C. Clarke and Michael Kube-McDowell 1999 
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of 
this work 
ISBN 0 00 648383 6 Set in Meridien 
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc 
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, 
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any 
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, 

without the prior permission of the publishers. 
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of 
trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated 
without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover 
other than that in which it is published and without a similar 
condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent 
purchaser. 
Dedication 
To the memory of 
The children of Dunblane, Scotland 
And Jonesboro, Arkansas 
Acknowledgements 
Any project of this size and scope owes much to people whose names 
do not appear on the cover. At the top of the list is an indispensable 
team of publishing pros including agents Russell Galen and Danny 
Baror, Bantam Spectra editors Tom Dupree and Pat Lobrutto, and 
HarperCollins editors Jane Johnson and Joy Chamberlain. Without 
their contributions, we would never have been able to start this 
journey, much less hold on to see our journey's end. 
With the principals scattered across twelve time zones, the Internet 
was an essential tool for keeping in touch and staying on the same 
page. It also proved to be a superb research tool. The Web provided 
round-the-clock access to an amazing wealth of information and 
opinion (a partial bibliography of Web sites is available at 
http://www.sff.net/people/K-Mac/trigger.htm). At the same time, a 
variety of Internet newsgroups (from rec.aviation.military to 
talk.politics.guns) offered both an international cast of volunteer 

experts and a rich tapestry of passions and philosophies in conflict. 
Among the many individuals who extended themselves as a courtesy 
to the authors were Georgia Whidden at the Institute for Advanced 
Study; Dr Rick Langolf; Daniel K. Jarrell; Commander Cole Pierce, 
USN (retired); Dr Graham P. Collins; Major Billy Harvey, USAF 
(retired); Jeff Crowell; Lieutenant Colonel Les Matheson, USAF; 
Paul J. Adam; Robert Brown; Todd Elmer; Scott Rosenthal; and 
Urban Fredriksson. They are not at all responsible, of course, for any 
abuse of their kindness and expertise, nor for advice not taken. 
Finally, the most heartfelt thanks go to those closest to hand, to the 
dear friends and family who provided aid and comfort throughout the 
long gestation of The Trigger. Their contributions to our endeavors 
have been - and continue to be - innumerable and inestimable. 
Michael P. Kube-McDowell, May 1999 
Dramatis Personae 
At Terabyte Laboratories: 
Karl Brohier, senior director 
Jeffrey Alan Horton, associate director 
Gordon Greene, electrical and mechanical engineer 
Leigh Thayer, experimental information systems specialist 
Donovan King, director of site security 
Eric Fleet, security officer 
Val Bowden, engineering physicist at the Annex 
In Washington, D.C.: 
Senator Grover Wilman, founder of Mind Over Madness 

President Mark Breland 
Richard Nolby, Chief of Staff 
Roland Stepak, Secretary of Defense 
Devon Carrero, Secretary of State 
Attorney General Doran Douglas 
Aimee Rochet, director of public relations 
Edgar Mills, FBI Director 
Jacob Hilger, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency 
Elsewhere: 
Aron Goldstein, owner of Aurum Industries and principal investor in 
Terabyte Laboratories John Samuel Trent, president of the NAR Jules 
Merchant, president of military contractor Allied 
General 
Philby Lancaster, attorney for the NAR Robert Wilkins, regional 
commander of the People's Army of Righteous Justice 
PROLOGUE: The Chosen 
With resignation, Jeffrey Horton surveyed the clutter in the hardwarefilled 
second bedroom he and his roommate self-mockingly called 
The Black Hole. 
Data disks and tapes were scattered under and across the several 
tables, and a mortally wounded CD-ROM was pinned under the 
caster of one of the chairs. Assorted first-generation computer 
components and test gear formed precarious mounds of metal and 
plastic in the corners. There was a jumble of cables on the seat of 
Horton's chair, and a sagging, badly overloaded shelf of books and 
manuals loomed over the large monitor like a sword of Damocles. 

The normal level of chaos in The Black Hole was one that only 
another gearhead could love - most of Horton's friends had at least 
one room like it. But it was obvious from the overflowing cardboard 
boxes in the middle of the floor that Hal had been hitting the Silicon 
Valley electronics swap meets in the weeks Horton had been away. 
'If it's broken, I can fix it. If it works, I can use it,' was Hal's selfproclaimed 
motto. It was hard for him to say no to any flea-market 
bargain, whether it was a $50 refractometer, a $100 argon laser, or a 
complete Windows-era computer for $25. Somehow, the Black Hole 
absorbed them all. 
Resisting the temptation to paw through the boxes to appraise Hal's 
latest finds, Horton retreated from the room and firmly closed the 
door after him. The mound of dirty clothes on his bed and the 
accumulation of recyclables on the apartment balcony deserved 
higher priority than beating back entropy in what their landlord 
grumpily called 'an unlicensed salvage yard'. 
It was then that Horton heard someone knocking on the apartment 
door. The knocking was sharp and impatient, as though it had been 
going on for a while - which it might have been, since it was 
competing with the white noise of the elderly dishwasher whooshing 
and rumbling away in the tiny kitchen. 
Hastening to respond, Horton only glanced at the corridor monitor 
long enough to see that the caller was a silver-haired man in a long 
cloth coat. Releasing both locks, he opened the door to the floor stop. 
'Hello - I'm looking for -' the caller began. Then he straightened his 
shoulders and smiled broadly. 'Well, and here you are.' 
Horton was staring dumbly at a face that had no business appearing at 
his door. 'You're Karl Brohier,' he said, blinking and shaking his 
head. He had no precedent for how he should act when a Nobel 
Laureate appeared at his door like a campus missionary, and fell back 
on repeating himself. 'You're Karl Brohier.' 
'I know,' said the older man, his head cocked at a slight angle. 'And 
you're Jeffrey Alan Horton.' He gestured with the bottle of wine he 
was carrying. 'May I come in?' 
'Uh - of course, Dr Brohier,' Horton said, retreating a step and 
allowing the door to open fully. 

'Karl,' the visitor corrected. 
Horton could not allow himself such presumptuous familiarity, and 
so simply nodded acknowledgement. 'I have to apologize for the 
mess. I just got back from being away for most of three months -' 
'Yes, I know,' said Brohier as he brushed past. 'How did you like it in 
the Midwest?' 
'Uh -I wasn't ready for snow in the spring.' 
Brohier grunted in amusement as he searched for a place to sit down. 
'And Marsh Tolliver - how did you find him?' 
Tolliver was the director of the National Superconducting Cyclotron 
Laboratory at Michigan State University, where Horton had gone to 
trade months of service as a volunteer intern for sixty minutes of 
cyclotron time in support of his doctoral thesis. 'He has high 
expectations,' Horton said. 
'You are too polite,' said Brohier, settling on the one kitchen chair not 
piled high with mail. The student disease. You will get over it.' 
'I-' 
Tolliver is a tin-god bureaucrat masquerading as a scientist - 
unfortunately, all too common for the top post at government sites. 
All of the good work that comes out of the NSCL nowadays is due to 
Ginger Frantala, the assistant director. I'm sure that she's the one 
Professor Huang spoke to to arrange your visit. Did you get what you 
needed out of your time there?' 
There seemed to be nothing about him that Brohier did not already 
know. 'The results supported my thesis.' 
'Excellent. I look forward to seeing them. Are you going to publish?' 
'In a refereed journal? I'm not sure it merits -' 
'Oh, I think it does. From what the old tiger told me - the old tiger. He 
loves that nickname, you know. It would do you no harm at all to 
arrange to let him overhear you calling him that.' Brohier chuckled to 
himself. 'Send your paper to Physical Letters B. I'm on the referee list 
there. I'd give it a fair reading.' 
'Dr Brohier -' 
'Karl,' the visitor insisted. 

Horton flashed a quick grimace, then nodded. 'Karl,' he said. 'Karl, 
you are looking at one very confused person. I mean, it's a great 
honor to meet you. I've read your papers, I was delighted when you 
won your Nobel Prize. I consider it a privilege to be having this 
conversation -' 
Brohier waved off the praise. 'I'm already sixty-seven years old, 
Jeffrey. Get to your point.' 
Gesturing with both hands, Horton asked, 'Why are you here? 
Forgive me, but it's sort of like having Miss April show up at a frat 
house.' 
An easy surprised laugh softened Brohier's dramatic features. 'And 
ask the president out on a date,' he said. 
'Yeah,' Horton agreed. 'About that improbable.' 
'Life is improbable - but real. I came here to ask you what you're 
doing for the next ten years,' said Brohier. 'If you have nothing better 
to do, I wonder if you might consider coming to work for me.' 
'Excuse me?' 
'The Nobel Prize does open doors - not only yours,' said Brohier. 'Not 
quite a year ago, a very forward-thinking man named Aron 
Goldstein approached me about establishing a new research center. I 
told him there was only one way I'd be interested - if he would let me 
collect as many of the top young minds as I could and give them the 
tools and freedom to pursue whatever they thought promising.' 
'Sounds like grad school without grades.' 
Brohier smiled. 'I told him I didn't want to run a bottom-line-driven 
gadget factory, that I thought what we needed was an idea factory, 
working at the boundaries, pushing back the boundaries.' 
'New science creates new opportunities.' 
'Yes, it does,' said Brohier. 'It always has. I told him I wouldn't sign 
off on a business plan, couldn't tell him what we would come up with 
or how much it would be worth, couldn't promise him anything 
concrete. Then he asked me how much money I've made from my 
patents and licenses on solid-state memory, and I told him. He said 
that was good enough for him, and we shook hands. 
'In about five months, Jeffrey, I will put on my administrator's hat 

and open the doors of a state-of-the-art research campus being built 
on fourteen hundred acres outside Columbus, Ohio. I'd like to have 
you there from day one. Are you interested?' 
'Just tell me who I have to kill,' Morton said. 
Brohier grinned broadly. 'This bottle contains a cork,' he said, 
gesturing at the wine. 'Does this apartment contain a corkscrew?' 
'It did when I left.' 
Then endeavor to locate it, arid you and I will kill this fine Bordeaux - 
and a few of our gray cells - together,' said Brohier. 'Welcome to 
Terabyte Labs, Jeffrey. Start thinking about what you want to work 
on next.' Brohier's eyes glowed with an undisguised prideful delight. 
'And start adjusting to the idea that you're about to become the envy 
of all those who wish they could call themselves your peers.' 
I: Trigger 
1: Anomaly 
'Vox,' Jeffrey Alan Morton said to his car. The voice-command 
indicator glowed on the instrument panel, and a heads-up menu 
appeared on the windshield. 'News, national.' 
'- Attorney General John Woo is expected to release final plans for 
the twice-postponed murder trial against Melvin Hills and eight other 
members of the "God's Assassins" anti-abortion group. The 
defendants face five counts of murder in the deadly rocket attack on 
the Planned Parenthood facility in San Leandro. 
' "We promise the defendants a fair trial, the court a safe trial, and the 
victims a just conviction." 
The unusual virtual trial is expected to be conducted entirely on the 
high-speed G2Net, with judge, jurors, prosecutors, and defendants at 
widely scattered secret locations. In January, the first jury was 
dismissed when several members received death threats -' 

'Vox,' said Horton. 'News, local.' 
'- Women's health services providers in the Greater Columbus area 
were reluctant to discuss any additional security measures, but 
Deputy Police Commander Jeanne Ryberg promised "maximum 
vigilance" throughout the high-profile trial. 
'"We know what the Assassins are capable of, and we're not going to 
allow it to happen here -"' 
Horton sighed. The San Leandro trial hadn't even started yet, and he 
was already tired of hearing about it. But the story was receiving 
saturation coverage, and the only relief available was to stay away 
from broadcast media for the next month. 'Vox. Radio off,' he said, 
spinning the wheel for a right turn onto Shanahan Road. 
It was the time of year and the kind of clear Ohio morning when the 
sun rose directly over the east-west roads like an oncoming fireball, 
greeting drivers with a blinding glare. Squinting his sleep-cheated 
eyes and groping beside him for a pair of sunglasses that failed to 
manifest themselves, Horton was grateful when he finally turned in at 
the tree-lined entry to the Terabyte Laboratories campus. 
With a generous buffer of woods and meadow separating the research 
complex from the surrounding suburbs, the entrance to the complex 
looked more like the entrance to a park than to a world-class research 
center. To preserve the illusion, security at the perimeter was 
unobtrusive. There were no gates, no guards, no barriers - just a lowprofile 
shadow-box sign. 
But appearances were deceiving. A hundred meters in, there was a 
pull-off lane for remote visitor screening. Just beyond that, a 
pavement sensor scanned the undercarriage of Horton's Honda 
Passport, and a roadside transmitter interrogated his own radioresponder 
ID card. 
Horton knew from experience what would happen if he failed either 
check: just beyond the first turn, he would encounter a series of 
barriers rising from the driveway, and be intercepted by a canaryyellow 
security Jeep roaring down it. Anyone who tried to go further, 
or to enter the campus cross-country, would be tracked by optical and 
thermal sensors and met by the drawn weapons of the professionally 
humorless security detail. 
At first, Horton had regarded the security diffidently. It jarred with 

Brohier's insistance on calling the Terabyte site a 'campus', because 
fences and checkpoints had not been part of Horton's college 
experience at Stanford, or Purdue, or Tennessee State. But of late he 
had come to appreciate the quiet vigilance of the security staff - 
especially after the lab received one of 'Ned Ludd's' package bombs 
in a shipment of office supplies. 
Now Horton knew all the officers by face and first name, and they in 
turn lent a comforting presence when, as was often the case, he found 
himself keeping early, late, or weekend hours. The only trouble 
Horton had ever had with them was during his first winter at 
Terabyte, when, with his own car in for brake service, Horton tried to 
enter the campus on a Sunday in his girlfriend's untagged electric 
Saturn. 
His girlfriend - that was a construction Horton hadn't had need of in 
longer than he cared to remember. His last serious relationship had 
been with Kelly Braddock at Stanford. In a year and a half of dating, 
they had never quite gotten to the decision to live together, but 
between Kelly's brittle emotional defensiveness and her bold sexual 
openness, that relationship came to take up as much space and energy 
as his friends' live-in relationships seemed to. By the time Karl 
Brohier showed up at Horton's door, Horton was growing weary. He 
had begun to occasionally avoid Kelly, and to contemplate 
disengaging completely. 
Brohier's offer had resolved that problem, though not in quite the way 
Horton expected it would. A few weeks later, Kelly announced she 
had secured a fellowship at the University of Texas. That allowed her 
to leave Palo Alto a month before Horton did, thereby proving to 
herself that she had not compromised her independence by sleeping 
with him. They had said good-bye without tears or concrete promises. 
For a time, they had kept up with each other over the net. But netsex 
had proved a pale substitute for the real thing, and the real thing 
proved to have been the binding energy of their relationship. Lust 
absent, there was too little left to keep them from drifting apart, and 
within a few months, they were 'old friends' on their way to becoming 
nodding strangers. 
Still, the disappearance of Kelly from Horton's life did deprive him of 
both an agreeable heat and a comforting unpredictability, and he 
made a few awkward and half-hearted efforts to replace both. 

Of his several relationships that first year, the one with Moira, the 
owner of the Saturn, had lasted the longest. An outgoing thirty-yearold 
Toledo native who lived in Horton's apartment building, she had 
some of Kelly's fire in a softer and more accommodating package. 
But she lacked Kelly's enthusiasm for independence, and her 
principal ambition was an old-fashioned one - to marry and have 
children. She waited only until the first afterglow to start musing 
aloud about buying a house together. When she learned that Horton 
did not share her ambition, she wasted no more time on him. 
Since then, more by inertia than design, Horton had allowed his work 
to swallow him whole. His recreation was limited to occasional visits 
to a target-shooting range or IMAX theater, plus one week-long 
hiking trip into a National Park each year. His social contacts outside 
of work were limited to netchat and two or three family holidays at 
his parents' new house in Columbia, South Carolina. 
He told himself he did not mind his chaste bachelorhood, that the 
work was enough - but there was no one close enough to him to 
question it. He told himself he did not mind sleeping alone, eating 
alone, traveling alone - but the truth was that he also did not greatly 
enjoy it. 
He told himself that there would be more time, more laughter, a fuller 
life later, when he had had a chance to prove himself, when work and 
not-work came back into balance - but he had been telling himself 
that for nearly six years. His thirtieth birthday was now only a month 
away, and it had suddenly become possible to see himself still living 
this way at thirty-five, and forty, and beyond. 
The catalyst for all this melancholy, Horton knew, was the 
experiment scheduled for that morning. And the best antidote Horton 
could think of would be a little long-overdue success. 
At the end of the snaking driveway was the main parking area and the 
gate into Terabyte's compound. As an associate director, Horton was 
entitled to one of the parking spaces inside the wrought-iron fences. 
He pointed the Passport toward the gate, lowering the driver's 
window as he did. 
'Hello again, Dr Horton,' said Eric. The barrel-chested, gentle-voiced 
officer had been on duty when Horton left at 3.00 a.m. 'Did that 
catnap do you any good?' 

'Not much,' Horton said, making an effort to smile. 'Have you heard 
anything about the status of the arrangements?' 
'I just talked to the boss. We'll be ready for you at seven-fifteen,' said 
Eric. 'Other than me and Tim, your team has the campus to itself. The 
site engineer will start taking down nonessential systems at seven. 
It'll be as quiet as we can make it for you.' 
Thanks,' Horton said with a nod, and drove on. 
'Good luck!' Eric called after him. 
Horton grimaced. Luck. The team had had a bundle of it, all of it bad. 
The theoretical and design work on Baby had consumed nearly a 
year, and construction of the experimental apparatus had taken most 
of six months. Now, more than two years later, the rig had yet to 
complete successfully a single test series. There had been a fire, 
computer failures, power supply problems, and a series of puzzling 
bugs, leading to a major redesign of the detector, two partial rebuilds 
of the emitter, and replacement of most of the test and measurement 
gear. 
To be sure, the project was bleeding-edge, unmapped-territory work, 
and setbacks were to be expected. But even in the relaxed culture of 
Terabyte Labs, Horton was feeling pressure - most of it self-imposed. 
If he had spent the last forty months and fourteen million of Aron 
Goldstein's dollars chasing a chimera, it was up to him to make that 
assessment and close down the project. And if Suite I didn't produce 
some positive results soon, Horton might be forced to do exactly that, 
and admit that he had been wrong. 
The Hong- Jaekel-Mussermann unified field equations had brought 
on the paradigm shift for which theoretical physics had been 
hungering through the last third of the previous century. 
Cosmologists rushed to embrace the so-called 'CERN system', 
providing as it did attractive solutions to both the missing mass 
problem and the age/expansion paradox. 
But physics itself was turned upside down and plunged into the 
turmoil of scientific revolution. Reputations crumbled like fallen 
kings, and new heroes rose from anonymity to lead the way. The last 
five Nobel Prizes in Physics had been awarded for CERN system 
work, and no one was betting that that was the end of the string. It 
was an exciting time to be a physicist. 

And Horton might easily have missed it. If the United States had built 
its Superconducting Super Collider on schedule, the essential 
elements of the CERN system could have been revealed nearly two 
decades earlier. And if it could be done, someone would have already 
done what Horton was trying to do. The window of opportunity 
would have closed before Horton had left primary school. The new 
history of physics was being written at a breathtaking pace. 
But the American Congress, a body historically long on lawyers and 
short on vision, had canceled the SSC when it was little more than a 
hole in the Texas flatland. Ironically, their short-sightedness had 
created Horton's opportunity - if he and his team could just teach the 
Baby to walk. 
Four years ago, at the American Physical Society's Honolulu 
conference on the CERN system, Horton had realized that one of the 
field equations in the new paradigm allowed for - but did not require - 
a heretofore unobserved phenomenon. That was the day that Jeffrey 
Horton began pursuing the stimulated emission of gravitons, the tiny 
bosons which were the vector of universal gravity. 
His own collateral equations said that what was unthinkable in the 
old physics was just barely possible in the new - namely, to build the 
analogue of a laser for gravity. Though such a device had yet to be 
demonstrated, it already had a name waiting for it, inherited from the 
science fiction tales where it had become part of the technological 
furniture: the tractor beam. 
And it would not stop there. Artificial gravity for long-duration 
spaceflight, frictionless drives, overhead cranes with no cables and no 
moving parts, zero-g chambers at sea level - Horton and Brohier 
already had a list of more than two hundred patentable applications. 
When Baby came of age, everyone would want to play with him. 
But Horton could not count on being the only free-thinking physicist 
to have looked at the CERN team's equations and seen the same 
opportunity. He lived in dread of logging into the Los Alamos 
preprint server, skimming the new high energy physics papers, and 
finding his hunch made real in the words and equations of someone 
else. 
He dreaded that prospect almost as much as he did the prospect that 
he was wrong, and they'd all been wasting their time. 

The lights were already on in the Planck Center's Davisson Lab, and 
both of Horton's associate project managers were busily making final 
preparations for the test. 
Dr Gordon Greene was lying on his back on the floor, half-hidden 
under the refrigerator-sized transformer stage of the field generator. 
One corner of a faded and stained tool pouch was visible beside him, 
as was the Number 4 Faraday panel. 
Dr Leigh Thayer was tailor-sitting in the chair at the data collection 
console, rubbing the back of her neck with one hand while she 
studied the twin displays. Her back was to Horton as he entered. 
In so many ways, Gordie and Lee were a study in contrasts. He was 
chocolate skin on a middleweight wrestler's frame, she was tall, pale, 
and coltishly slim. His family's short American roots ran back to the 
time of Nkrumah's Ghana and had been watered mostly with hope, 
while her deep ones traced to the days of genteel mercantile England 
which had once traded in his ancestors. He was the streets of 
Oakland, California, and she was the upscale suburbs of Connecticut. 
He had needed a state scholarship to attend UC-Davis, while she had 
had her pick of the Ivy League before choosing Cornell. 
But both had in common that they had defied the expectations of their 
backgrounds. Gordie had sufficiently distinguished himself at Davis 
to earn his way into the graduate programs in electrical and 
mechanical engineering at Gal Tech. And after a year, Lee had 
declared Cornell and her classmates a bore and, shrugging off her 
parents' financial blackmail, transferred to Rensselaer Polytechnic 
with a determination to 'get some dirt under my nails'. Even her 
chosen nickname was a subtle rejection of what she called 'old money 
affectations'. 
Horton knew he was fortunate to have snared both of them. Gordie 
had come to Terabyte after Hughes ITT closed down its prototype 
shop in favor of virtual prototyping. And Lee, eight years older than 
Horton, had become disillusioned at Fermilab after three consecutive 
projects fell under a budgetary axe. 
'Gordie, Lee - did either of you actually go home?' Horton asked, 
dropping his portfolio on one end of his workbench. 
Thayer raised her hand. 'I did,' she said without looking back at him. 
Took a shower, changed my underwear, collected my fetishes and 

lucky charms, and came right back to finish calibrating the detectors.' 
'Gordie?' 
'I napped on the couch in your office for a couple of hours,' Greene 
called from underneath the apparatus. 'Had a nightmare about another 
fire in the transformer stage, decided I'd eyeball things one more 
time.' 
'Do I detect a whiff of creeping superstition in the air?' Horton asked 
with a quizzical grin. 'Never mind, don't answer, I have to go light a 
prayer candle in the Grotto of Niels Bohr.' 
Greene chortled. 'Now there's an exotic fetish! -' 
'You're a pathetically lewd individual,' Thayer said, shaking her head. 
'If you weren't also the best metal-basher I've ever seen' 
'You want me,' Gordie said to her, digging his heels into the floor and 
wriggling out from under the transformer stage. 'Why else would you 
put on fresh underwear?' 
'See what I have to put up with when you're not here, Boss?' Thayer 
asked, spinning her chair half a turn. 'Why, if this creature and I were 
the same species, I'd be able to file a sexual harassment complaint as 
thick as his ego.' 
'You both sound like you could use about ten hours' sleep,' Horton 
said. 'In separate beds,' he added quickly. 'I'm wondering if we 
shouldn't postpone this a day, come back to it fresh -' 
Thayer shook her head. 'Boss, I'm planning on leaving here in three 
hours to go home and sleep for a week. Or go home and get drunk for 
a week, depending. Either way -' 
Horton nodded. 'Well, I wouldn't want to have to ask you to change 
your plans. Gordie, how does it look? Are we going to be able to go?' 
'I'm satisfied,' said Greene. 
'You're supposed to say, "Dr Horton, I guarantee it - this is the day".' 
'I'm willing to guarantee that if it breaks today, it'll be something 
that's never broken before. Is that good enough?' 
Horton snorted. 'I guess it'll have to be. Lee, how much more time do 
you need?' 
'I'm ready. All the recorders are sync'd up, and all the sensors are 

zeroed-in. I'm just watching to make sure Gordie doesn't undo all my 
hard work at the last minute.' 
'Gordie?' 
Ten minutes to finish getting Baby dressed,' said Greene. 'Then we 
can start warming up the generator at any time.' 
Horton glanced up at the clock above his workbench. 'All right. 
I need to chase down some caffeine and sugar, update the 
experimental log before I forget what we did last night. Let's start 
running the checklist at seven-fifteen, and aim for starting the test 
series at seven-thirty.' 
'Is Dr Brohier coming?' asked Thayer. 
'He said he'd take a pass this time - that considering he'd been present 
for all the previous disasters, maybe he was jinxing us. I'm sure he 
was speaking metaphorically, not metaphysically -' 
'I'm sure he just didn't want to get up this early,' said Thayer, sniffing. 
'I'm half his age, and I don't want to be up this early.' 
'Something tells me he's going to wish he'd been here,' Greene said, 
lying back and disappearing under the machine with the Faraday 
panel in hand. 'Don't ask me how I know,' he continued, his voice 
falling away into a horror-movie affectation. There's an unknown 
power tugging at my awareness, an inexplicable compulsion to my 
thoughts - I am suddenly in the grip of a mysterious, irresistible force - 
'
'Testosterone,' Thayer muttered. 
Horton laughed, then went in search of a doughnut. 
In principle, at least, the primary detector was simplicity itself. 
The goal was to detect a minute, temporary local variation in the 
gravitational attraction between the target and the emitter. The 
method was to measure the deflection of the target itself -a curtain of 
extremely fine ribbons, each made from a different elemental metal. 
In theory, when the target was subjected to the full sweep of 
electromagnetic radiation - from kilohertz to gigahertz, long-wave 
radio to short-wave X-ray - produced by the emitter antenna, the 
magic combination of material and frequency would cause each of 

the ribbons in turn to twitch toward the antenna. Horton could not 
predict what the magic frequencies would be. His equations required 
a theoretical constant that could not be derived, only determined 
experimentally. 
In practice, the more sensitive the detector, the more fragile it was, 
and the more sensitive to outside influence. Even the air current 
created by someone walking past the detector was several orders of 
magnitude stronger than Brohier's most optimistic estimate of the 
tractor effect at experimental power levels. The first set of ribbons 
was torn in half by vibration when a visitor bumped into the 
workbench where it was being assembled. 
Since then, everything possible had been done to isolate the detector. 
It was enclosed under a thick glass bell, with the air inside evacuated 
to an infinitesimal fraction of normal air pressure. Then the entire 
assembly was rigidly attached to a three-ton cube of black Ohio 
granite floating on an oil cushion. 
Brohier had walked into the lab one day to find Horton, Greene and 
Thayer gathered in a circle around the granite cube, vigorously 
jumping up and down to test the shock mounting. With characteristic 
presence of mind, the senior director began humming the Zarathustra 
theme from 2001 as he wordlessly retreated toward the hallway. 
It had been a long time since Horton had laughed that hard. 
'Gordie?' 
'Power supply is steady and quiet. Fingers are crossed, hat is on 
backwards.' 
'Lee?' 
'Zeros across the board on all sensors. Prayer weasels spinning 
counterclockwise.' 
Horton glanced in the direction of the detector, now hidden from 
view by a semi-circle of portable radiation screens. 'Let's do it. 
Starting sequencer.' 
'Recorders running,' Lee reported from her station. 
'Output power at five percent,' Gordie reported a moment later. 
'Output frequency at one hundred Hertz and climbing.' 

Horton sat back in his rolling lab chair, his elbows propped on its 
arms, his hands restless in his lap. The experiment was now under the 
control of a custom program nicknamed Steady Hand, running on the 
Alpha 3 at Lee's console. Immune to both anxiety and anticipation, 
Steady Hand's primary duties were to hold the output power constant 
at each stage of the series, and to ensure a slow, smooth sweep 
through the emitter's operational spectrum. 
No one spoke for several minutes. Thayer and Horton were intently 
watching the continuously updated displays before them. 
Both had the power to pause the sequencer or terminate the trial with 
the touch of one finger. 
'Coming up on the infrared notch,' Lee announced. 
Horton nodded. Owing to the problem of heating the tissue-thin 
ribbons, much of the infrared spectrum had to be skipped. 'Here 
comes the first rainbow.' 
From behind the radiation screens came a flare of pale red light. The 
light shifted quickly toward orange and kept changing until it 
disappeared as a pale violet cast. 
'Beginning X-ray series,' said Thayer. 
'I hope that was lead underwear you changed into,' said Gordie. 
'You'll never know,' she answered breezily. 'Boss, everything still 
looks nice and stable to me.' 
'To me, too,' he said. 'I wouldn't mind seeing a wiggle or two any 
time now, though.' 
'Do you have a bet going with yourself about where?' 
The low end - the very long wavelengths. Dr Brohier thinks just the 
opposite - he thinks our emitter can't reach the necessary frequencies, 
up around ten to the twenty-second.' He shrugged. 'So much of the 
mid-spectrum's been studied to death already, the odds are that one of 
us is right -' 
'First pass complete,' she interrupted. 'Negative results.' 
'At least we got through a first pass,' Gordie said. 'Output power now 
at ten percent. Once more with feeling -' 
'We've been here before,' Thayer said diffidently. 'I'm not going to get 
excited until we pass our previous best.' 

That was twenty-eight minutes and six seconds, or nearly three 
complete passes, from the December 12 trial. That attempt had ended 
when a solid-state power conditioner failed, giving Steady Hand an 
advanced case of digital palsy. 
'I wonder if there's some French physicist sitting in the control room 
at CERN right now,' Greene mused aloud, 'pumping Z particles into a 
simulated protostellar nebula and polishing his paper on induced 
gravitational clumping -' 
Spinning his chair toward Greene, Horton shrugged. 'If so, more 
power to 'em - no pun intended. If it turns out you need heavy bosons 
to pump up a gravity laser, we're not going to be the ones to do it. 
Fermilab, CERN, KEK, even Stanford and 
Brookhaven - we can't get in there, and we can't compete with them.' 
'Coming up on the infrared notch,' Thayer said quietly. 
Horton nodded. 
A rainbow of light flared across the ceiling of the lab. 
'I still think we missed a bet not making a deal with one of the 
smaller high-energy labs,' said Greene. 'There's always someone 
who's hurting for money. Macdonald, Elettra - I hear Protvino's for 
sale.' 
Thayer sniffed. 'You just want a chance to play with a trillion 
electron volts.' 
'Who doesn't?' 
Horton stood up and stretched. 'I don't. That wouldn't help us. I'm 
hoping for an effect we can apply in the real world - the physics of 
the first three seconds of the Universe are of no practical use to 
anyone. If we -' He stopped in midsentence and leaned in toward the 
display. 'What the hell is that?' 
Thayer was frowning, pulling her chair toward the control console. 
'Some kind of ground tremor. Look at the seismograph.' 
Before Horton could respond, a harsh alarm cut through the room, 
keening from the lab intercom. 
'What is that - the lockdown warning?' Horton started toward the lab 
door. 'Reset everything to the start of the current pass,' he ordered, 
raising his voice over the alarm. 'Check your calibrations -' 

Suddenly Horton was competing not with the alarm, but with another 
voice. 'All Terabyte personnel - this is Site Security. A precautionary 
lockdown is now in effect throughout the campus. Isolation protocols 
for power and communication have been invoked -' 
'There goes the trial,' Greene said in disgust. 
'- Please remain where you are. Do not leave the building. Stay away 
from windows -' 
As Horton reached the lab door, the data bar on the electronic locks 
began to flash red, and the door itself was immovable. He grabbed 
the wired phone hanging beside it and punched Security. It rang an 
extraordinary eleven times before it was answered. 
'This is Dr Horton. What's going on?' 
'Dr Horton - this is Tim Bartel. Are you and your staff all right?' 
'We're fine -' 
'Where are you at the moment?' 
'Davisson, Planck Center.' 
'Good. Please stay there, Dr Horton. We'll come for you as soon as 
we're sure there's no danger.' 
'Damn it, just tell me what's happening.' 
There was a moment's hesitation. There's been an explosion on the 
grounds -' 
'What? A bomb?' 
'Bloody hell,' said Greene, eavesdropping. 
'I don't know what caused it,' Bartel said tersely. 'We've got two fires 
burning, a couple of people hurt. But you should be safe where you 
are. Please stay put until we're sure the situation is under control.' 
Then the line went dead, the connection broken at the other end. 
As Horton returned the phone to its cradle, he sighed exasperatedly, 
and his shoulders sagged. He looked up into the anxious expressions 
on his staff's faces. 'Shut it all down,' he said wearily. 'We're done for 
the day.' 

2: Mystery 
San Juan, Puerto Rico - Nine separate explosions rocked Puerto 
Rico overnight Tuesday, killing one person and injuring three others. 
The bombs destroyed a railroad bridge and damaged a tour bus depot 
and the power substation serving Ft. Buchanan, headquarters of the 
US Army South. The show of strength by the pro-independence 
Macheteros came on the anniversary of the US invasion of the island 
during the Spanish-American War. 
Complete story Gov. Harrod's statement 
The security lockdown ended after two hours, allowing Jeffrey 
Horton to leave Planck Center. He was met at the door by an acrid 
smell of something burned or burning, and by Donovan King, the 
director of site security for Terabyte, in his yellow Jeep. 
'Dr Brohier's waiting at the service gate,' King said. 'Get in - I want to 
give you both a tour of the damage.' 
Horton clambered into the back seat. 'What happened?' 
'Damned if I know,' King said tersely as the Jeep jerked forward. 
'Well, was it a bomb?' 
'Damned if I know.' 
King's answer was sobering. He was a lean, tanned veteran of ten 
years with US Air Force Special Operations and sixteen in private 
security consulting. In that time, he had confronted a wide range of 
threats, from millennialist martyrs and Third-World gunrunners to 
cuckolded husbands and corporate hackers. His quiet competence 
was taken as a matter of course - which made his clear discomfiture a 
matter of concern. 
'What about injuries?' Horton pressed. 
'Dr Horton, I understand your impatience with me, but I'd like to wait 
until Dr Brohier joins us and brief you together.' 
Horton did not argue. He was distracted by the thin plume of grey 
smoke visible to the northwest. A grassy hillock intervened to keep 
him from seeing its source or gauging its distance, but the tang in the 

air told him it was nearby. 
It did not take long to reach the service gate and collect Brohier. The 
director looked uncharacteristically rumpled, with no tie or jacket, 
and an unruly lock of hair over his left ear. But he greeted Horton 
with a relaxed smile. 
I'm glad you and your people are okay, Jeffrey. Mr King, how is Mr 
Fleet?' 
'As soon as I could spare him, I sent Charlie over to the hospital to 
get a report on Eric,' King said. 'But he hasn't called in yet.' 
'All right,' said Brohier, awkwardly hoisting himself into the 
passenger seat. 'Why don't you show me what happened here?' 
Their first stop was the still-smouldering remains of the groundskeeper's 
shed. The little earth-sheltered structure was a shambles, its 
concrete roof and overburden of earth and sod gone, its contents a 
blackened jumble, its sectional door lying thirty meters away, 
buckled and twisted. Nearby, a member of the maintenance staff 
stood watch beside the lab's first-response fire truck - a foam 
generator mounted on a Hummer chassis. 
'What was Eric doing back here?' Horton asked as he peered at the 
remains of the tractor. 'He was on the gate when I came in.' 
'He was still on the gate when this went up,' said King. 'He never got 
back here.' 
'I don't understand.' 
'Neither do I,' said King. 'Let me show you the rest.' 
King took them next to the front gate. 'Eric was in the shack,' he said, 
gesturing. 'Nothing to see, really, except a scorch mark on the floor. 
Eric ended up with burns from his hip to his knee. His leg looks like 
it was held in a blowtorch. I have what's left of his sidearm in my 
office. Apparently the bits of melting nylon from the holster caused 
some of his worst burns.' 
'Heavens,' said Brohier. This was caused by debris from the 
explosion, I take it?' 
'The shack's intact, Dr Brohier. No holes in the roof, no broken glass - 
'
Then what? Did he set himself on fire? Perhaps he was lighting a 

cigarette when the bomb went off -' 
'Eric doesn't smoke,' said Horton. 
'No?' 
'No,' said King. 
Then what?' 
Til show you the security video when we go inside. Maybe you can 
tell me.' 
But first, the security director drove them past the burned-out shell of 
a two-door sedan parked in the outer lot, three rows south of the gate. 
'We were a bit shorthanded when everything went blooey,' King said. 
'Eric and the grounds shed got priority. The guys didn't get to this 
until the car was pretty well gone.' 
This must be how Eric got hurt, then,' said Brohier. There must have 
been two bombs, one here in front, the other in back. He must have 
been checking out this car -' 
'No,' said King. 'Wait until you see the rest.' 
There's more?' 
King drove them to the west side of Edison Center, the sprawling 
administrative services building, and took them inside the small 
security office garage, where the first-response truck was ordinarily 
parked when not in use. There he showed them the blackened 
lockbox between the front seats of a yellow Jeep which was parked in 
a back corner and roped off with red plastic tape. The interior of the 
Jeep was coated with a gritty white powder which Horton took for 
residue from a chemical fire extinguisher. 
'We were able to keep this in the family,' King said. 'Jack was on 
mobile patrol in Number Three this morning. He was responding to 
the back lot explosion and reaching for his sidearm, which was in the 
lockbox. He ended up burning his hand on the cover of the box. I 
have a pretty good idea what we'll find when we get that box open - 
it's sealed tight, with a deadlock and probably a partial vacuum 
inside.' 
'I'm confused - what do these things have to do with each other?' 
Brohier asked, frowning. 
'I'm kind of counting on you to tell me,' King said. 

Horton's mind was already spinning. 'Your men carry the Clock 17, 
right?' 
King nodded. 
'Anything special about the ammunition?' 
'Besides the fact that there seems to have been some sort of massive 
misfire that I don't begin to understand? No. It's standard Remington 
9mm - we don't roll our own.' 
'Still, it wouldn't hurt to look at the rest of the box -' 
'It wouldn't hurt, but it isn't going to happen. If you'll follow me into 
the office, I'll show you why.' 
A minute later, they were standing in the equipment room of the 
security suite, staring disbelievingly at the buckled door of the gun 
safe. Neither the deluge from the fire sprinklers nor the fans set up to 
dry out the room had scrubbed the smell of burned gunpowder from 
the space. 
'The fire started inside the safe?' Brohier asked. 
'So it seems.' 
Brohier shook his head. 'I need a cup of coffee,' he said. 'Mr King, 
why don't you join us in my office in half an hour. Bring the video 
and Mr Fleet's gun with you, and anything else you may have by 
then. And get someone to work on that lockbox -I think we need to 
see what's inside.' 
'I have a forensic specialist coming in later this morning. I'd rather 
not touch it until then.' 
Brohier nodded grudging agreement. 'In half an hour, then.' 
'Director - one more thing,' King said. The fire inspector's waiting for 
me to call her back. How do you want me to handle the authorities? 
Invite them in, or try to keep them at arm's length?' 
That depends, Mr King. Are we looking at a crime, or an accident?' 
'At this point, Director, I just don't know.' 
Then why don't we keep it closely held for a while. And I'll deal with 
the outside world.' 
King nodded approvingly. 'I have no problem with that.' 
One of Karl Brohier's qualities that Horton most admired and 

marveled at was his calm efficiency in crisis. While Brohier did not 
succeed in getting near a coffee cup before Donovan King rejoined 
them, he did manage to complete eight phone calls - to the township 
fire inspector, two members of the township council, the city editor 
of the Columbus Dispatch, the director of personnel for Terabyte, the 
lab's insurance officer, the chief of medicine at the Olentangy 
Medical Center, and the local news channel that was broadcasting 
live pictures of the smoking hole in the lab's back yard from an 
orbiting UAW. 
Even more amazingly, he seemed to get what he wanted from each of 
the calls -namely, breathing space. 
'Any further word on Mr Fleet?' Brohier asked King as the trio sat 
down together. 
I'm still waiting for an update from someone who's actually seen him 
in the ER, but the EMTs were optimistic,' said King. 'Might need 
some grafts, though, which is never fun. He probably doesn't feel as 
lucky as he was. Let me show you the recording from the gate 
cameras.' 
Brohier and Horton watched silently as the split-screen images 
played. There was no vehicle at the gate, no sign of any outsider. One 
moment Fleet was sitting in the gatehouse, sipping a cup of coffee. 
Then the holster on the guard's right hip seemed to explode in a fierce 
roar and a searing gout of yellow flame. Screaming and thrashing 
frantically, Eric crashed heavily into the metal security log desk, then 
the side wall before falling against the door and out onto the 
pavement. 
'Good god,' said Brohier, blanching. 
Horton was shaking his head. That shouldn't happen. I've never seen 
anything like that.' 
'No, it sure as hell shouldn't,' said King. 'It looks as though all 
seventeen rounds - the whole clip, with one of the rounds chambered - 
were involved. The gun is a wreck. The grip is nearly burned away. It 
looks like most of the slugs were still in the gun -half-melted, 
though.' 
'Why is that?' Brohier asked, his gaze narrowing. 'I would think 
they'd have scattered in every direction.' 

'The brass isn't strong enough on its own to contain the kind of gas 
pressures that burning gunpowder produces.' Horton explained. The 
cartridge will split and vent before the bullet acquires any real 
momentum.' 
'So what would you call this, then - a misfire?' asked Brohier. 
'No, no,' said King. 'Not a misfire, not an explosion. What we had 
was a gunpowder-fueled flash fire inside the body of the pistol. For a 
couple of seconds, it was a flamethrower instead of a firearm.' 
'How do you know that's what happened?' asked Morton. 
King tapped the upper left corner of the interior view. 'Eric keeps his 
spare clip in the log desk - he doesn't like the weight on his belt -' 
'They both burned?' Horton asked disbelievingly. 
'I'll show you the recording again. You can see the flash, and the lid 
of the desk jump, and then smoke from the seams.' 
'Makes no sense,' Horton said, still shaking his head. 
'What about the car bomb?' asked Brohier. 
King nodded. That was probably an unfortunate choice of words on 
our part. Did you two see what's left of the vehicle?' 
'Yes, as I arrived,' said Brohier. 
'Just a glimpse,' said Horton. 
'I've got a security camera recording on that, too. Take a look.' 
The camera was slowly panning the nearly-empty lot when there was 
a bright flash inside a white sedan parked in the foreground. The 
vehicle seemed to jump in place, the windshield and both of its 
passenger-side windows blown out by a cloud of gray-black smoke 
that lingered over it in the still air. Then the first tongues of flame 
appeared, licking at the dash. In moments, the interior of the sedan 
was completely engulfed, and the plume of smoke turned black with 
burning synthetics. 
King turned off the recorder. 'About three minutes later, the gas tank 
blew up, with the results you've already seen. Luckily, no one was 
there trying to put it out - we'd responded to Eric's location.' 
'Which happened first?' asked Brohier. The misfire, or the car fire?' 
'Neither,' King said. 'According to the time marks on the recordings, 

they happened at damn near the same instant. You can hear Eric's gun 
on the audio track from the parking lot. And you can see the initial 
flash from the car as a momentary shadow on the video track from 
the gatehouse.' 
'Whose car was it?' asked Horton. 
'Your assistant's,' King said. 'Dr Gordon Greene. I thought this might 
be a good time to ask him about it and see if he can shed any light.' 
'By all means,' said Brohier, gesturing his assent. 'Call him in.' 
King nodded. 'Maybe I should send someone to bring him here, just 
in case.' 
'Just in case what?' Horton asked. 
'In case he tries to run,' King said, his gaze and tone both level. 
'Wait - this is absurd. How did he become a suspect? What do you 
think he did?' 
'I don't really know,' said King. 'But I've got a friend in intensive care 
because something pretty goddamned weird happened to his sidearm. 
And Greene is your gadgeteer, yes? Don't those Cal Tech people have 
a reputation for pranks -' 
'He's my experimental engineer,' Horton said hotly. 'But if you think 
he'd deliberately endanger -' 
'It's all right, Jeff,' Brohier interrupted. 'We're all just looking for 
answers. Mr King, release the lockdown and ask Dr Greene to come 
here. Let's see if he knows any more than we do.' 
'Boss,' said Greene, nodding in Horton's direction. 'Dr Brohier. 
What's going on?' 
'We have some security video of the incident earlier this morning,' 
said King. 'We'd like you to take a look at it and tell us what you can.' 
Greene shrugged his assent and slipped into a seat to the left of the 
monitor. 'Isn't this Lot B? I thought the shooting was at the gate.' 
This is Lot B,' said King, releasing the freeze-frame. 
'Yeah, it has to be - that's my car, there. The white one.' 
'Keep your eye on it,' Horton said quietly. 

'What do you mean? I - oh - oh, no - oh, sweet mother of -' His eyes 
widened in surprise as the first flash of light and billow of smoke 
appeared inside the passenger compartment. Then his expression 
turned to one of mournful disbelief. 'Oh, hell - Boss, look at it! I still 
have two years of payments left -' 
No one spoke, or even smiled. Fists clenched and resting on the table 
before him, Greene stared wordlessly through the rest of the 
recording. Then, when the playback ended in another freeze-frame, 
he dropped his forehead to his fists in an expressive display of grief. 
'Do you have any idea what happened?' King asked. 
Raising his head, Greene slumped back in his chair and blew a deep 
breath into one closed hand. 'Yeah. Tennessee.' 
'What?' 
'I drove through Tennessee on my way to see my brother Brandon 
and his new baby girl at Christmas,' Greene explained with a sigh. 
'You know how they have fireworks shops at every exit along the 
highway, each one bigger, brighter and claiming to be cheaper than 
the last? I weakened on the way back north.' He shook his head. 'I 
had twenty dollars' worth of firecrackers in the glove compartment 
and fifty dollars' worth of skyrockets under the passenger seat.' 
King raised an eyebrow. 'At Christmas? Why were they still in the 
car?' 
'Because I hadn't figured out yet where I could use 'em. They're all 
highly illegal here in Ohio, if you didn't know. Oh, damn - illegal 
fireworks,' he moaned. 'My insurance company will probably use that 
as an excuse to deny my claim -' 
'Do you have any idea why these fireworks would go off?' 
Greene shook his head wordlessly. 
'How were they stored? Might they have gotten damp?' 
They were still in the plastic wrap. I hadn't even broken them open.' 
He added apologetically, 'My neighbors live too close, and they're not 
particularly tolerant of loud noises. I was saving the fireworks for 
when Jillian and I go up to her parents' cabin on Black Lake, on 
Memorial Day weekend.' Greene looked to the security chief. 'Did 
my fireworks injure the guard?' 

Lips pressed together in a line, King shook his head. 'No. It seems 
not.' 
'Can I tell my insurance company that?' Greene asked, rising to his 
feet. 
Brohier answered. 'Dr Greene, as a personal favor, I'd appreciate it if 
you'd put off reporting your loss for the time being. I don't think we 
need third parties asking questions when we can't answer our own.' 
'Aren't the local police already involved - or about to be?' asked 
Horton. 'I thought hospitals had to report all firearms-related injuries.' 
'Yes,' said Brohier. 'Fortunately, I have a personal relationship with 
Dr Giova at Olentangy, and he has accepted my assurances that the 
firearm was peripheral to this accident. There will be no police 
investigation at this time.' 
King nodded approvingly. 'Excellent.' 
'Well - if everyone else is fudging the facts, I guess I can do that,' 
Greene said. 'Wait, that is. For a little while, anyway.' 
Thank you, Dr Greene. Check in with Mr King tomorrow, please,' 
said Brohier. 'For now, stop by the facilities office on your way out - 
the manager will provide you with the keys to one of the lab's 
vehicles, as a temporary loan.' 
Greene looked surprised. 'Thanks,' he said, as he backed toward the 
door. 'Boss, are we going to reset for tomorrow?' 
'I don't know,' said Horton. 
'I do,' said Brohier. 'No one's working here until we understand this.' 
'Boss?' 
Horton nodded. 'What he said.' 
'Okay. I'll collect my lunch box and go home.' 
When he was gone, King and Brohier exchanged glances. 'Two guns, 
a gardening shed, a gun safe, and a case of fireworks,' Brohier 
recited. 'Can you connect them, Mr King? Can you link any person or 
group of persons to all five incidents?' 
'No. I don't like to say it, but it would be hard for anyone not on my 
staff to have ready access to the weapons or the safe,' King said, 
standing. 'Maybe I'd better talk to Eric and Charlie myself.' 

'Let me know if anything comes of it.' When the security chief was 
gone, Brohier turned to Horton. 'Well - what do you think?' 
'I haven't a glimmer of a hint of a suggestion of a clue,' said Horton. 
Brohier chuckled deeply as he closed his binder. 'Send all your 
people home, Jeff. And then follow them out the door. I'm closing the 
lab until tomorrow morning to let Donovan's people do their work. 
You and I and Donovan will meet at seven a.m. to decide what to do 
next.' 
'All right,' said Horton. 'Be strange to be home before dark on a 
weekday. Won't know what to do with myself.' 
'I don't believe that,' said Brohier. 'Oh, and, Jeff?' 
'What?' 
'Yours was the only experiment running when all hell broke loose. 
Think on that a bit while you're catching up on your sleep.' 
It being the middle of the day in the middle of the week, the 100- 
meter outdoor range at Buckeye Sportsmen's Club was uncommonly 
quiet. Only three of the shooting stations were occupied - two by 
women practicing with 9mm automatics, and one by a gray-haired 
gentleman risking his classic Winchester 94 lever-action rifle. 
Jeff Horton picked the station furthest away from the other shooters, 
placed the black hard-shelled case he was carrying on the counter, 
and began unpacking his competition pistol. The exotic-looking 
Hammerli-Walther Olympia had a way of attracting more attention 
than Horton wanted, but it was the only gun he owned - and more 
gun than he probably would ever have bought for himself. 
Twenty years ago, Horton's father, after gauging his children's 
enthusiasm for the shooting gallery at Minnesota county fairs, had 
decided to channel that enthusiasm into a family activity. So he 
purchased a second-hand Marlin carbine, an inexpensive Browning 
automatic, and a gun club membership - and the Horton family 
became recreational target shooters, or 'plinkers'. 
Everyone had taken part - even Mom, who preferred the rifle and 
long distances, and Jeff's younger brother Tom, who became 
surprisingly good at speed-shooting before he was ten. But Jeff's 
older sister Pamela had shown a talent with a greater talent and 

higher aspirations. Steady, sharp-eyed, and unflappable in 
competition, Pamela had won a junior championship at seventeen, 
and earned her way onto the last two US Olympic shooting teams. 
The Olympia was a gun she had outgrown, and passed on to Jeff as a 
present four years ago. 
By his own admission, Horton was not a very good shot. But the 
rituals of shooting had a comforting, even nostalgic familiarity, and 
the concentration demanded by the deceptively simple task had a 
calming, even clarifying effect on his restless mind. And it was, at 
times, Horton's escape valve for frustration. That afternoon, Horton 
was at the range for both reasons, and he stayed there longer than was 
usual for him. Only when all sixty of the cartridges his pistol case 
held were gone did he let the morning's events back into his thoughts. 
What were you trying to say, Dr Brohier? How could it have been 
us? 
On his way out, Horton stopped at the club's shop and cornered its ex- 
Marine manager. 'Bobby,' said Horton. 'Can I get a minute?' 
'Hey, Dr H. Still carrying that peashooter, I see. You know, I'd love 
to help you spend some of your money on a real gun someday.' 
'Someday,' Horton promised agreeably. 'I've got kind of a weird 
question for you. Say you wanted to booby-trap an automatic -a 
Clock, maybe - so the entire clip went off at once. Could it be done?' 
The question brought a questioning look. 'Why would you want to do 
it?' 
'I don't, actually. But I heard a story at a party about it happening to 
someone, and I couldn't figure out what might do that.' 
'I can't imagine,' said the manager. 'Using a Clock as a lightning rod, 
maybe. Though you'd be better off trying it with a Colt ACP - more 
metal. Are you sure you heard this story straight?' 
'I'm sure,' said Horton. 'Couldn't you do something to the clip, put 
some little hammer or pin mechanism in it -' 
The manager was frowning and shaking his head. 'There's no room in 
there. And the weight would be off, even if you could. Wouldn't fool 
anybody who knew their weapon. Someone must have been telling 
tall tales at that party. Punch-drunk, I'd say -pardon the pun.' 
'I'll try,' said Horton, frowning. 'Well, thanks anyway.' Distracted, he 

started to turn away. 
'No problem. You need a reload today?' 
'What?' 
'You left a pretty good pile of brass out there,' the manager said with 
a jerk of his thumb. 'I was just wondering if you needed to restock.' 
'No,' said Horton. 'Wait - yes. Do you have any .22 blanks?' The 
manager looked surprised. 'Sure. Starter pistol stuff. But you don't 
want to put that in your Olympia. It'll just crud up the barrel.' 
'I know,' Horton said. 'Let me have a box.' 
Karl Brohier's three-story house in the 'executive community' draped 
across Claremont Hills had enough manicured lawn in front to host a 
croquet tournament, and enough woods in back to conceal a herd of 
deer. But Brohier usually seemed more embarrassed than proud when 
hosting visitors. More than once Horton had heard him explain how 
his parents' Vermont property - farm, woods and a thousand meters of 
lake frontage - had sold for such an outrageous sum that he'd had no 
choice. It was either buy a 'pauper's mansion' in Columbus or pay half 
its value to the government in Social Security Stabilization 
assessments - the new tax which reimbursed the fund out of the 
recipient's estate. 
'My father was an old-fashioned New England conservative -he 
would never have stood for that,' Brohier had explained. 'He would 
never have forgiven me if I'd divided his legacy with our friends in 
Washington.' 
That evening, Brohier greeted his unexpected visitor in tennis shoes, 
faded yellow shorts, and a oversized't-shirt bearing one _of Sidney 
Harris's 'Dr Quark' cartoons. The director expressed no surprise at 
Horton's presence on his doorstep. 
'Let's walk,' he said, gesturing past his protege at the expanse of lawn. 
'My doctor says I'm eight pounds overweight, and insists I break a 
sweat four times a week.' 
'Your doctor is a tyrant,' said Horton, falling in beside Brohier. 'I 
know people thirty years your junior who'd kill to be as fit as you 
are.' 

'My doctor is thirty years my junior,' Brohier said with a gentle 
laugh. 
'Isn't that a little unsettling?' 
'Chances are that any MD my age who hasn't retired to New Mexico 
to spend a fat retirement account isn't a very good doctor,' said 
Brohier. 'Besides - do you want to be cared for by someone who 
received their primary training in the twentieth century?' 
It was Horton's turn to laugh. 'Since you put it that way -' 
'Exactly,' said Brohier. The recipe for a long, happy life - consult with 
old philosophers and young doctors, consort with old friends and 
young women. And since I am none of these, what brings you to me 
tonight?' 
The accident this morning, and your little poke in the ribs afterward,' 
said Horton. 'I think it's possible that my experiment might have 
caused the accident.' 
'Do you have a theoretical foundation for that thought?' 
'None whatever,' Horton confessed. 'Just a compound coincidence 
piled atop an anomaly. Both Gordie's fireworks and Eric's gun 
misbehaved at the exact same second. I don't care what Mr King 
thinks - neither one caused the other. Two effects, which means we're 
looking for a third factor, the cause of both. And the only thing out of 
the ordinary that morning was our experiment. We'd just gone to 
forty percent, the first time we've been at that level -' Horton stopped 
suddenly. 'You're not saying anything.' 
Panting slightly, Brohier stopped and turned toward Horton. 'You 
were doing fine without me.' 
'Is there something here worth looking at?' 
'We dare not overlook an anomaly,' said Brohier. 'Do you know the 
story of Auguste de Tocquard?' 
Frowning, Horton shook his head. 'Must have missed that class.' 
'A French scientist of the late nineteenth century,' said Brohier. 'He 
was building and experimenting with high-voltage discharge tubes. 
One day he noticed that unexposed photographic plates were ruined 
when they were stored near the tubes. So he moved them further 
away, for protection. Then he returned to his experiments.' 

'And missed out on discovering X-rays,' said Horton, wearing an 
amazed grin. 
'Which would have revolutionized the science of his day,' said 
Brohier. 'I do not know what is happening here, Jeffrey - and from 
what you have said, neither do you. But perhaps we, too, have 
stumbled on something new. The question we must answer now is, 
what next?' 
Horton nodded eagerly. The theoretical work is a dead end 
- too many missing pieces. I'm not sure but that the context is 
missing, too. I want you to unlock the lab. I want to call in my team 
and see if we can do it again.' 
'Yes. We need to know that, before anything else,' said Brohier. 'But 
do you think that perhaps we can do it alone, without your team? 
Tonight, in private.' 
'Why?' 
'Because I fear that we have both been seized by wishful thinking,' 
said Brohier, 'and are about to embarrass ourselves as only old fools 
and young dreamers can. If so, I would rather it be our secret. And if 
not - well, we may want that to be our secret, too, at least for a time.' 
It had taken Horton just five minutes to design the sensor array for 
the second test, and just fifteen minutes to construct it. The sensor 
had started life as a fence post left over from the construction of 
Horton's screen porch, and made its way to the lab hanging out the 
passenger window of his car like a dog pointing its nose at the wind. 
With Brohier seeing to the doors and the security checkpoints, 
Horton carried the timber into the lab on his shoulder. The two men 
dragged a heavy table into the emitter's output radius, then secured 
the post to it with bar clamps. Then, as Brohier watched, Horton 
placed a .22 caliber blank into each of the holes he had drilled every 
twenty-five centimeters along the length of the post. Most of the 
cartridges fit loosely in the holes, dropping down till only the flanged 
disc of the primer end was visible. The last one had to be force-fit, 
and at that would only go in half-way. 
'Did you bring a flak jacket for me, too?' Brohier asked, eyeing 
Horton's handiwork. '"Nobel Prize Winner Found Dead With 

Wooden Stake in Heart" 
Horton frowned. 'Maybe I should take that one out.' 
'Maybe you should,' said Brohier. 'And while you do, I will take the 
rest of that box of shrapnel out to the guards and explain that I want 
it, their own guns, and them at the foot of the main drive for the next 
half-hour. Will that be enough time?' 
'Should be,' Horton said. 'We don't have to do any of the fussy 
calibrations for this trial - thumbs up or thumbs down is all we need.' 
By the time Brohier returned, the displays on both consoles were 
active, and the test apparatus' power stage was humming audibly. 
Horton was making final adjustments on the compact digital 
camcorder he had set up on a tripod in a corner. 
'Ah,' said Brohier. That nagging business of proof. Or were you 
thinking to document our demise?' 
'I'm thinking that if what I expect is going to happen happens, I'm 
going to need to sit down and watch the recording a few dozen times 
before I believe it,' said Horton. He straightened up and stepped back 
from the camcorder. 'I think we're all ready.' 
'Almost,' said Brohier, and handed Horton a pair of safety glasses and 
a packet of foam earplugs. 'And I think I shall stand there, behind 
Lee's station. I'm not nearly as eager to lose that weight as I would 
have to be to stand any closer.' 
Horton chuckled uncomfortably, then settled in his chair. He pointed 
a tiny remote at the camcorder, and a red light began blinking above 
its lens. 'May 19, 2.19 a.m., Davisson Lab, Planck Center, Terabyte 
Corporation campus, Columbus, Ohio. Present are Dr Karl Brohier, 
director, and Dr Jeffrey Horton, associate director. This is a test of a 
trigger hypothesis regarding the accidents on May 18 -' 
'Oh, for crying out loud,' said Brohier. 'You're not on CNN, and I'm 
not going to live forever. Get on with it - push the damn button.' 
Blushing slightly, Horton turned toward his console. 'Beginning at 
ten percent, low band -' 
The ensuing fusillade made Horton jump in his seat. Heart racing and 
ears ringing, he whirled in his chair to see tendrils of white smoke 
climbing from four splintered holes. Two of the bright brass shells 
were still dancing and skittering along the hard floor - plink plink 

plink. A third could be seen buried in the soft ceiling tile. 
Brohier was staring with complete disbelief. 'What the devil,' he said 
to himself. 'What the devil.' 
Trembling, Horton reached out, grabbed the package of earplugs 
from the counter, and tore it open. The plugs tumbled out into his 
hand, and he worked them into his ear canals with the feverish 
eagerness of hindsight. His throat was bone dry, and for long 
moments he was as incapable of speech as if his tongue had been cut 
out. 
'Ing -' He swallowed and tried again. 'Ink - increasing power, onetenth 
of a percent per second.' He dialed in the changes, then turned 
toward the experiment before executing them. 
This time he saw it - the yellow-red flash, the bright brass shell 
hurled against the ceiling, the tiny gray-white mushroom cloud of 
propellant gases, the shell tumbling back down. Blam! Plink plink 
plink 
A few seconds later it happened again. Blam! Plink plink 
In the grip of wonder, Brohier and Horton momentarily found each 
other's eyes, seeking confirmation, affirmation, celebration. Can this 
really be? Horton's demanded. Brohier's were soft with awe, as 
though he had long ago given up hope of the universe surprising him. 
Blam! Plink plink 
Blam! Plink plink plink 
The same pattern continued down the line until the last shell was 
gone. At that point, Horton's monitors told him the emitter was at less 
than fifteen percent power. 
'Plenty of range to reach the gate and the parking lot,' Horton said, 
scribbling a calculation on his personal information manager. 'Even if 
this effect follows the inverse square rule -' 
'It was as if we'd gone down the line hitting them with a hammer,' 
Brohier said in wonderment. He felt his way to the nearest chair and 
slumped into it. Mopping his brow, he said in a shaky voice, 'Dr 
Horton, when next you see him, you may tell Gordie that the 
corporation will replace his car.' 

3: Secrecy 
Windsor, NC - Police report few leads in yesterday's shocking triple 
murder at a Be-Lo convenience store. Security camera recordings of 
the crime show two masked assailants binding their six victims with 
duct tape, making a pile of their bodies, and then shooting into the 
pile 'as though they had all the time in the world', according to police 
sources. 
Complete Story 
Terabyte Corporation's Columbus campus remained officially closed 
for nine days. But when it finally reopened, it was immediately clear 
to the returning staff that the campus had not been idle during that 
time. 
The brownies have sure been busy,' said Gordon Greene, peering out 
the passenger window of Leigh Thayer's boxy Skystar. 
'Brownies?' 
'Brownies, Girl Scouts - whoever it was that made all those shoes for 
the cobbler while he slept.' 
Greene was reacting to the sight of a new guardhouse and gate on the 
main drive, adjacent to the new black asphalt parking lot that had 
been carved out of what had been a grassy field dotted with trees. 
Near the guardhouse, blocking what had been the exit lane of the 
main drive, was a new cargo dock. Concrete obstacles flanked the 
delivery chute, which was occupied at the moment by a brown UPS 
van. On the campus side of the dock, a pale blue Terabyte flatbed 
was nestled against the wall, and two men in corporation security 
uniforms were transferring packages between the two trucks. 
The gate and the cargo dock straddled a new fence separating 
Terabyte from Shanahan Road. 'Looks as though they're not going 
to allow any outside vehicles anywhere near the labs from now on,' 
said Lee. 
'Seems like they're overdoing things just a bit, don't you think?' 

Lee's guess was confirmed a moment later by the two gate guards 
who directed them into the parking lot. 'Dr Leigh Thayer, space 8,' 
the first officer said, affixing a responder decal to the inside of the 
windshield. 'Dr Greene, when you get your new car, you'll be in 
space 9. You can wait for an escort driver at the pavilion.' 
As he spoke, the guard jerked a thumb in the direction of a covered, 
plexiglas-walled enclosure a few meters beyond the airport-style 
security pass-through. Beside the enclosure were three six-seat 
canopied carts that would not have looked out of place on a golf 
course - or, Greene thought, in an episode of The Prisoner. 
'I think there's something we don't know yet,' said Lee, peering out 
the Skystar's windshield. 'Let's get up there and find out if they plan 
to tell us.' 
Before they could pass through the gate, Lee and Gordie had to 
surrender their old Terabyte identification cards in favor of new and 
larger cards worn on a chain around the neck. 
'If I'd wanted to wear a sheep collar, I could have gone to work for 
IBM,' Greene grumbled as they crossed to the pavilion. 
Another minor indignity awaited them at the pavilion. They were not 
allowed to drive themselves up to the labs. That required a special 
key, entrusted only to the 'escort' - in this case, a thirtyish woman 
with an athlete's shoulders and friendly but warily alert eyes. 
Neither Lee nor Gordie tried to talk over the whine of the shuttle's 
electric motors and the wind whipping the canopy fringe. But halfway 
up the drive, Gordie silently pointed between the seats at the 
driver's odd holster, which contained a rectangular black shape that in 
no way resembled a gun. 
They were driven directly to and through the former main gate, which 
had been rebuilt with a six-sided armored guardhouse. 
'Al Capone,' Gordie said as their shuttle entered the 'canal lock' entry, 
whose reinforced steel-bar gate arms looked solid enough to stop 
anything short of a military vehicle. 
'What?' 
'He means the new gate post,' their driver called back over her 
shoulder. 'It's like the gun booths little towns used to build to fend off 

bank robbers in the Thirties. I saw one once, in Goshen, Indiana 
- right on the corner of the courthouse square. Machine guns on Main 
Street - can you imagine?' 
'Do I have to?' asked Lee. 
As they were cleared through the lock, she silently pointed out to 
Gordie that the inner fence had been electrified in their absence. 
He nodded acknowledgement. 'Reality shift,' he said. 'We're not in 
Columbus anymore, Dorothy.' 
The escort drove them directly to the main entry of Planck Center, 
where they endured yet another check of their new identification 
cards, this time with a wand that scanned both the barcode and the 
memory strip across the bottom edge so the security log could 
compare their contents. 'Dr Greene, Dr Thayer,' the guard said with a 
nod a moment later. The Director and Dr Horton are expecting you in 
the conference room.' 
'Don't you want to walk us there?' Lee asked archly. 
'No, ma'am, Doctor,' said the guard, emphatically shaking his head. 
I'm not authorized to enter this facility.' 
Jeff Horton's face brightened when his assistants entered the 
conference room. 'Lee - Gordie - it's good to see you.' 
It's good to see you, too, Boss,' said Greene. 'I was a little worried I 
was going to come in here and see Patrick McGoohan -' 
As Horton and Karl Brohier burst into laughter, Greene became 
aware of the third person in the room - a slender man with angular 
features and an almost palpable air of calmness. Brohier rose from his 
chair and waved the stranger forward. 
'Dr Greene, let me introduce you to the newest member of your team,' 
said the director. 'Pete McGhan, this is Dr Gordon Greene, Dr Leigh 
Thayer. We've given Pete the title of Co-ordinator of Special 
Materials.' 
'Special materials?' Greene shot a questioning glance sideways at 
Horton. 
'A euphemism for his tax return,' said Brohier. 'Mr McGhan - the 
former Colonel McGhan, USMC - will be in charge of obtaining, 

storing, handling, and preparing the samples for your new test 
program. Which reminds me, Dr Greene - did you receive your 
check? Any problems securing a replacement for your vehicle?' 
'They're making me wait another week to get the color I want -which 
I wouldn't call a problem,' said Greene. 'I do want to thank you again - 
'
'No need for that,' said Brohier. 'What happened was our 
responsibility.' 
While Greene frowned over that, Thayer stepped forward. 'Dr 
Brohier, Dr Horton - would one of you be so kind as to start at the 
beginning? Why all the increased security? And with all respect to 
Mr McGhan, why do we need someone new just to handle our 
samples?' 
'Because he has fourteen years' experience working with munitions 
and explosives, and we don't,' said Horton. 'Gordie, we blew up your 
car - you, me, Lee, and Baby.' 
'How?' Thayer demanded. 
Horton and Brohier exchanged wry smiles. 'I don't know yet, Lee. 
That's why it's time to get back to work.' 
First there were new and even more stern nondisclosure agreements 
to sign. Then Brohier and Horton showed the new arrivals the 
recording of the midnight tests, and took them to Davisson Lab to 
show them the changes. 
The first and most obvious change was that the entire target 
assembly, including the marble pedestal, was gone. 'We've built a 
new test chamber outside,' said Horton, pointing toward a new allmetal 
door and a plexiglas viewport in the far wall. 
'Twelve-inch-thick walls covered by a Kevlar and steel-plate armor 
sandwich, sealed and vented through a five-hundred-liter water 
muffler,' added McGhan. 'We tested it yesterday - big splash, very 
little sound or smoke.' 
'We want to keep our Good Neighbor status,' Brohier explained. The 
fewer questions, the better.' 
'Looks like we need to turn Baby around, then,' said Greene, studying 

the geometry. 'Now that we know we have to be careful 
'Actually, we don't know that. That's your first priority - finding out 
what the effect envelope looks like. Pete will get you some test 
material that won't put you or the lab at risk,' said Horton. 'Lee, your 
priority is to figure out what sort of data collection we can do inside 
and through the port, and get it rigged up for Steady Hand.' 
'What sort of samples are we going to be testing?' 
'More ammunition, first - all calibers and propellants. Then the whole 
catalog of explosives, from Amatol to Torpex,' said McGhan. 
'Everything my licenses cover and my contacts can provide.' 
'And then the entire Handbook of Chemistry,' said Brohier. 'We need 
to know exactly what compounds are affected, and what compounds 
aren't - a very practical necessity, in the absence of any theoretical 
base.' 
'Which is my first priority,' said Horton. 'We need to understand 
what's going on here - why what came out of this lab made something 
happen that natural radiation doesn't. Or doesn't where we can see it, 
anyway.' 
'Any help from PSR Index, or the JPSI?' asked Thayer. 
Horton shook his head. I've been searching the literature for a week 
now, and it looks as though this effect has never been observed 
before - or never been reported, at least. So I'm starting with a blank 
page.' 
'Then we'll have to fill it with some good data, so you have 
something to work with,' she said, then looked expectantly at Brohier. 
'Is there anyone besides the five of us who knows what we've 
stumbled on?' 
'Not yet,' said Brohier. 'And that is the problem on my table. Because 
when we choose the sixth person, and share this with them, the world 
will start to change. I cannot emphasize this enough - our discretion 
will buy us necessary time. Indiscretion will cost us the opportunity 
to shape what comes next.' 
His words sobered the others but his gaze measured the weight he 
had laid on them, and found it insufficient. 'Make no mistake,' he 
went on, 'no one will be able to control the future once this discovery 
leaves this room. We will be in the realms of politics and psychology. 

This discovery will rewrite the rules of power which and spear. And 
we will not be the ones who write the new rules -we are merely the 
reason why they will be necessary. 
'We did not choose this responsibility, but we cannot refuse it. There 
is no turning back. What we can discover, others inevitably will 
discover. You will remember today fondly as one of the last days of 
the old familiar world. Your children will know a different reality.' 
Brohier glanced across the room at the apparatus, then back, a kind 
smile softening the solemnity. 'May it be a better one.' 
4: Inquiry 
Dale City, MD - Investigators are counting on an emergency 
dispatch center's 911 call recording to shed some light on last night's 
drive-by shooting in a mostly-white subdivision. The cries and 
screams of party-goers punctuate the 100-second recording, which 
begins just before bullets smashed through a kitchen window and 
killed home-owner Gil Dellard as he tried to report a car full of teens 
driving across his front lawn. 
Complete Story 911 Recording 
For the next several weeks, life in Davisson Lab was fast-paced yet 
deceptively tranquil. 
The generator/emitter unit was relocated, realigned, and rededi-cated 
to the purpose of detonating the samples delivered four times a day 
by Pete McGhan. Because of the danger to McGhan if he were to 
approach the lab while a test was underway, his comings and goings 
dictated the rhythms of the test program and the daily schedule of 
Horton's team. 
The first delivery was at 8.00 a.m., with the other deliveries 
following at three-hour intervals. Half-hour 'blackouts' were 
programmed into Steady Hand for each delivery. As insurance, 
McGhan called in on a dedicated line as he neared the Terabyte 
campus, to verify that the emitter was cold and the test chamber 

ready. 
'Can the doctor see me?' he asked each time. 
'Come on up to the office,' was the reply that told McGhan to 
proceed. 'Sorry, there are no appointments available,' was the reply 
that told him to stay outside the safety radius. 
McGhan never lingered longer than was necessary to set up the 
samples in the test chamber and turn over the sample tags and 
standard yield data to Horton. Then he disappeared again to whatever 
undisclosed off-campus location he was using to receive, store, and 
prepare the samples. 
'Thanks for seeing me,' he said each time as he left the safety radius. 
'Please come again,' was the countersign. 
The cloak-and-dagger aspects tended to elicit childish giggles and 
snide jokes from Horton's team - especially Lee, who'd been drafted 
to field the calls. 'He sounds like a hypochondriac with a drug habit,' 
she complained to Horton. 'I sound like a Cincinnati madam. And if 
you put one word about this part in the research paper, we'll all sound 
like paranoid James Bond wannabes.' 
'Just because you're paranoid -' Greene began. 
'I know, I know.' She hunched over her console and glanced furtively 
to either side.'Ve must be careful,' she said in exaggerated comicbook 
German. 'Ze enemy may be listening effen now. Any vun of us 
may haff been compromised -' 
Apart from McGhan's deliveries and calls, there were few other 
intrusions on their work. The administrative staff protected them 
from routine inquiries, deflected personal contacts with a shield of 
plausible excuses, and took over a wide range of mundane 
obligations, even to picking up Dr Greene's new car and putting readyto-
eat meals in Dr Horton's home refrigerator. 
Karl Brohier visited daily for the first few days, then fell out of sight 
after announcing he would be away from campus for a time. Exactly 
where he had gone and with what purpose was grist for much 
speculation, but not even Horton could get answers from Brohier's 
staff. 

'He wouldn't sell us out, would he?' asked Greene. 'Make a deal 
behind our backs?' 
'No,' Horton said firmly. 'I don't believe he'd ever do that. He's on 
Diogenes's mission. It's going to take some time.' 
'Diogenes,' Thayer said with evident displeasure. 'You could have 
picked a more comforting allusion, Boss.' 
'Looking for an honest man? Isn't that what we need for Number 
Six?' 
'Boss, the one thing everyone knows about Diogenes,' she said with a 
sigh, 'is that he was the founder of the Cynics -' 
Greene's face brightened. 'Papa! At last I find you!' 
Thayer glowered at him. 'His nickname was Kayo - "dog" -because 
he slept in the streets. He taught his students to hold civilization in 
contempt. He gave up all worldly goods in a rejection of it. Boss, if 
we have to cast Dr Brohier as a Greek philosopher, couldn't it at least 
be one of the lonians? Thales, or Anaximander?' 
'I had an Anaximander when I was a kid,' Greene said. 'Kept it in a 
glass bowl on my dresser - till it died.' 
She balled up the nearest piece of paper and threw it at his head. 
As the days slipped by, the data piled up. 
The first round of tests centered on ammunition similar to that in Eric 
Fleet's pistol - ammunition using cellulose hexanitrate propellants, or 
guncotton. Having little personal experience with guns, Thayer and 
Greene were surprised by the seemingly endless parade of varieties 
McGhan Was bringing them. The Winchester catalog alone offered 
eleven powders and more than two hundred cartridges. 
Blend, grain size and shape, loading, maker, caliber - any one of 
those factors could be the difference that made a difference, that 
separated a positive test from a negative one. But the first twenty 
samples all duplicated the anomaly with such reliability that the team 
began calling the last mouse-click of the test protocol 'pulling the 
Trigger'. 
When the run of positive tests had reached thirty-two, consuming 
eight days, Thayer and Greene succeeded in infecting Horton with 

their impatience to test other materials. From that point on, they 
accelerated their testing by putting three ammunition samples in the 
chamber at once. 
It made no difference in the results. Magnum and ACP, rimfire and 
centerfire, rifle and handgun, .218 Bee through .458 Winchester - 
within a fraction of a second after the emitter reached the ten percent 
power level, the sample cartridges would discharge, the soft brass 
shell splitting and curling in the clamp, the bullet crashing weakly 
into the catch box. 
At the end of the seventeenth day of testing, with one hundred forty 
samples logged, ennui threatening to replace the healthy impatience 
of curiosity, and no sign of Karl Brohier, Horton finally reclaimed 
control of the project. 
That's more than enough of this,' he said to himself, closing the 
research log and calling McGhan. 'Pete? There's a change in the 
schedule. I want to do the raw powders tomorrow and Saturday, and 
start the Series Three materials the first of the week. Can you 
accommodate that? Good. Thanks. See you in the morning.' 
As he logged off, he heard thin but earnest applause behind him, and 
turned away from his desk to find Greene and Thayer had been 
eavesdropping. 'Good decision, Doctor J,' said Greene. 'I was getting 
so bored that I was thinking about taking the new car down to 
Tennessee this weekend.' 
'Why are men in love with explosions?' Lee asked with a sigh, not 
expecting an answer. 'Boss, if we're doing powders in the morning, 
we probably should test the exhaust and fire suppression systems 
tonight.' 
'No,' said Horton. 'We're done for the day. And I'm taking both of you 
out for a decent meal.' 
Greene nodded approvingly. 'Good decision number two. You're on a 
roll.' 
'Wait till you hear number three,' said Horton. 'Both of you, take a 
minute to swab and fluff, and then let's get going - it's an hour's drive 
to Zanesville.' 
I'll drive,' Greene cheerfully volunteered. 
'No, you won't,' said Horton, and Lee sighed her relief. 

 On the way to dinner, Horton told them of his other plans. 
'With our test emitter behaving itself, I don't think I've been getting 
the best possible use out of you, Gordie. So tomorrow I want you to 
start working on a second-generation emitter,' he said. 
'Sounds like fun. Parameters?' 
Take everything we've learned so far and run with it. We now know 
we don't need the whole spectrum, zero to infinity. Simplify. Try to 
give me something smaller, more efficient, sturdier, and more selfcontained 
- in a word, something portable.' 
'Portable?' Thayer asked, raising an eyebrow. 
'We can't test the emitter's range at the lab - the campus isn't big 
enough. Someone else would get hurt, in that big subdivision on the 
south side of Shanahan Road, or even just driving by. We need to be 
able to take a test rig to a Big Empty somewhere, out West, or in the 
middle of Lake Erie. You can build Baby Two right into the back of a 
panel truck if you like.' 
'Just out of curiosity, Doc - will the Trigger make gasoline explode?' 
'Good question. I don't suppose you'd take a guess for an answer.' 
'Sure - if it's your truck.' Greene said, grinning. 
'We should test gasoline next week, then. I'll tell McGhan.' 
'Probably should test kerosene and diesel fuel at the same time,' 
Thayer interjected. 'Unless you don't mind surprises - since there's 
plenty of both around.' 
Horton nodded. 'Yes. And we had all three on campus the day of the 
anomaly, and none of them were affected at that power level. Maybe 
higher output levels will affect some of the materials we now think 
are stable in a Trigger field. If I was making any headway on the 
theory, I could possibly answer that. For now, all we can do is keep 
testing. The other advantage of having a second unit is that we could 
speed up the test program.' 
'Every time we start Baby up, we're testing more than the sample in 
the chamber,' said Thayer. 'We already know it doesn't affect 
plexiglas, concrete, grapefruit, black lace and Spandex, carbonated 
drinks, the batteries in Gordie's cheap watch -' 

'Black lace and Spandex?' Greene repeated, looking back over his 
shoulder. 
I'll explain when you're older.' 
For the rest of the drive, the trio brainstormed a list of materials 
known to have been exposed to the Trigger field, simply by virtue of 
having been part of the structure, setting, or contents of Davisson 
Lab. But as they pulled into the driveway of the Old Market House 
Inn, Horton confiscated the list. 
'That's it for shop talk,' he said. 'Not another word about work. If we 
can't think of civilized conversation, we'll eat in silence, by god -I 
mean to enjoy this meal. After all, it's not every day that I put on a 
tie.' 
'Or eat something that wasn't served in colored paper and styrofoam,' 
said Greene, reaching for the door latch. 'I accept your terms. Come 
on - I'm starving.' 
With surprising ease, they talked only of pop-culture guilty pleasures, 
the demise of women's professional football, and dream vacations, 
while consuming tender meats, exotic vegetables, and most of two 
bottles of wine in the course of a two-hour meal. The only breach of 
Horton's edict was committed by Horton himself, in a toast. 
To the world's largest single-shot hand-load country-windage hideyour-
children firearm, and the team what built it,' he said quietly. 
'May we figure out what it's good for, and how to aim it.' 
'You're a sloppy drunk, Boss,' said Thayer, clinking glasses. 'But, 
what you said, all the same.' 
Whether it was the hour, the tranquilizing effect of the food and wine, 
or the sobering after-effect of the toast, there was little conversation 
on the way back to Columbus. Horton directed the car into the highspeed 
autodrive lane and let it bore westward through the moonless 
night while he looked out onto the darkened farms. Greene dozed, 
sometimes snoring lightly. Thayer watched the traffic in the selfdrive 
lanes. A dark four-door sedan, breaking all speed limits, 
overtook them and melted away into the night ahead. 
'Unmarked car?' Horton suggested. 'Desperate need to find the next 
rest area?' 

'Secret government agency transporting captured alien to Wright- 
Patterson Air Force Base,' she said lightly. 
'Ah.' 
The silence seemed to be lengthening the miles, so Horton turned on 
the satellite radio and the last half of Count Basic's 'Kansas City 
Suite' saw them to the gatehouse of Greene's singles community - he 
had decided to taxi in the next morning rather than spend most of 
another hour on the road - and Stan Kenton delivered them to the 
Terabyte lot where Thayer's car waited. 
'It was a nice place, a good meal, Boss - thank you.' Though it 
sounded like an exit line, she made no move to open her door. 
'My pleasure. See you in the morning.' 
'Can I confess something?' 
Puzzled, Horton turned sideways in his seat, so he could see her face. 
'Sure.' 
'I didn't enjoy tonight very much -' 
'I'm sorry -' 
'Not your fault,' she said. 'Boss, I was nervous all the way there and 
back, in a way I never am when we each go our own way at the end 
of the night, I kept thinking, one car crash, and the status quo is safe -' 
'I think Dr Brohier has enough now that he could carry on even if 
something happened to us.' 
'I guess probably he does - but would outsiders realize that?' 
'What are you getting at, Lee?' 
'All evening, I've been thinking about how this work threatens the 
power base of a lot of people who aren't going to love us for what 
we're doing, and who'd surely like to stop it if they had the chance. I 
kept wanting both you and Gordie to lower your voices in the 
restaurant, even though you had the No Shop Talk sign lit. I just 
didn't want anyone to take notice of us. I just wanted to be invisible.' 
She sighed. 'And now that I have these thoughts in my head, every 
sound I hear outside my condo - every time my cat gets curious about 
something in the middle of the night - every time I turn the key to 
start my car - I'm going to be nervous. Jeff, we're not going to be safe 
until we're no longer the only people in the world who know how to 

do this.' 
'I don't know that -' 
'You know that there're people out there who'll kill out of calculation - 
to further their interests, or protect them. They aren't just a 
Hollywood invention.' 
'I suppose. I confess I haven't really thought much about it.' 
'I have,' she said, her voice tight with emotion. 'My sister in 
Cleveland's been having trouble with gangs, because her son doesn't 
want to join. Their house has been shot-up three times now.' She 
sighed again. 'And when I was twelve, my Uncle Ted was jury 
foreman in a bank robbery case against the head of one of those white 
nationalist syndicates. The jury voted to convict. 
A week later Uncle Ted was found dead, shot sixteen times, with 
"Traitor" painted across the windshield of his car.' 
'I remember that,' Horton said in surprise. 'I remember seeing that on 
the news. I had no idea -' 
'I promised myself -' She shook her head and started over. 'I told 
myself I'd never let myself get caught between someone like that and 
what they wanted - that I'd just hunker down in the tall grass and let 
the lions fight it out overhead.' 
'Lee, what can I do?' 
'I think I'd like to start living at the lab,' she said. 'Ernie, too, if that's 
okay.' 
'Ernie's the cat?' 
Lee nodded. 'Just until we've published, and there's not so much at 
stake. I could use Barton's old office - it's close to the women's 
lounge, and the couch is long enough for me.' 
'We'll get you a bed, and a wardrobe,' he said firmly. 'And an old 
armchair for Ernie to claw.' 
A relieved smile brightened Lee's face. Thank you.' 
'Shall I take you around to the gate? Do you want to start tonight?' 
'No - Ernie goes crazy when I don't come home.' She thought a 
moment. 'But I'll bring him and a suitcase with me tomorrow, if that's 
all right.' 

'Of course. I'm pretty sure Site Services can rustle up a bed by 
quitting time, if I light a fire under them.' 
Nodding, she opened her door. 'Thanks for not making me feel like 
some paranoid 'fraidy-cat.' 
There's plenty out there that's worth being afraid of,' Horton said. 
'Most of us cope by pretending it's not there. You had that illusion 
taken away from you too damn early.' He grunted. 'And I think I just 
lost mine. Maybe I'll ask Site Services for two beds.' 
'I'm sorry, Boss -' 
'No. Don't be. Dr Brohier tried to tell us. He couldn't have been any 
plainer about it. And I looked right past it, with hardly a thought for 
anything but the puzzle, the science.' He shook his head. 'It's late. 
Time to go home.' 
She started to climb out, then stopped and looked back at Horton with 
a penetrating earnestness. 'Jeff?' 
'What?' 
'We are going to publish, aren't we? Tell me we're not really working 
for Dow Chemical, or the Department of Defense. Tell me that Dr 
Brohier understands we can't just sell the Trigger to the high bidder - 
that there'll be a chance to use this work to declaw some of the lions. 
That's the only reason I didn't run away the first week.' She smiled 
ruefully. 'I wanted to, but Uncle Ted wouldn't let me.' 
'We're going to publish,' Horton said firmly. 'And the lions are going 
to get the surprise of their lives.' 
5: Chemistry 
Lyons, France - Smoke bombs and firecrackers chased supporters of 
beleaguered French president Charles Fontenay from a poorlyattended 
election rally on Tuesday. One woman was seriously injured 
in a fall from an escalator. This was the ninth time in two weeks that 
a Social Democrat campaign event has been disrupted by the selfstyled 
political terrorist group Mad Dogs. Police officials announced 

they would meet today with representatives of the three major 
candidates to discuss event security and 'explore troubling rumors'. 
Complete Story Campaign Schedule 
'Mad Dog' Manifesto Fontenay Gaining in Polls 
When the testing moved to other materials, the first subtle clues about 
the nature of the trigger effect began to emerge. 
A test sample of loose nitrocellulose gunpowder flared up in a single 
bright gout of flame. As McGhan showed them by match-burning a 
reference sample on the worktable, that flare represented much faster 
burning than would ordinarily be expected. 
'It's as if there's no convection delay - as if every grain in the pile hits 
the flash threshold at essentially the same instant,' said Horton. 'Like 
the difference between heating water in a pot on a stove and heating 
water in a microwave.' 
'That would help explain why Eric was so badly injured,' said Greene. 
'And why my car went up like a bomb. Baby is very efficient at what 
he does.' 
'I wish you'd stop calling it "Baby",' Thayer griped. 'There's nothing 
cute and cuddly about it anymore - if there ever was.' 
'How about "Problem Child"? Is that any better?' 
'Shouldn't you be down the hall, working on Son of Problem Child?' 
'I only come down here when you're pulling the Trigger,' he said 
defensively, retreating toward the door. 'Ten minutes every three 
hours. I get lonely down there, all by myself. Look, I know you have 
a couple of hours of cleanup ahead of you - I'll leave you to it.' 
The next sample was black powder - the world's first explosive, and 
the mainstay of armies from China to England for more than three 
hundred years. To everyone's surprise, the test sample merely smoked 
and turned gray-brown. A second test at the next power level yielded 
the same result, with what was left rendered inert to a match. 
'It should burn,' said Horton, shaking his head. 'Black powder will 
catch on a spark. This is like trying to light a soggy cat.' 
'We're going to have to get our samples to an analytical chemist 
soon,' Thayer said. 'Something queer is happening at the compound 

level.' 
'We should get an analytical chemist set up in the next lab,' said 
Greene grumpily. 'Isn't there anyone on campus we can hit over the 
head and drag over here?' 
'It's at the top of my list for when Dr Brohier returns,' said Horton. 
'But I don't need a chemist to tell me that the only thing gunpowder 
and guncotton have in common are the nitrates. And I think we're 
seeing that the difference between cellulose hexanitrate and 
potassium nitrate is the difference between flash and fizzle.' 
'I think we're going to need a physical chemist, too,' Thayer said with 
a frown. 'Something queer has to be happening to the electron bonds.' 
'I think we're going to need a sample of Blasting Powder B,' said 
Horton. When the others looked at him questioningly, he added, 
'Same basic chemistry as black powder, except it contains sodium 
nitrate. And that will give us another big piece of the puzzle.' 
That afternoon, Horton and Thayer watched five grams of Blasting 
Powder B fill the test chamber with fragrant gray smoke. Neither the 
sample nor the residue ever showed a flame. 
'Interesting,' said Horton. 
'Indeed, Mr Spock,' said Thayer, studying her displays. 'But I want to 
tear that miserable excuse for a test chamber apart and rebuild it the 
right way. It's absurd that I can't get a spectrograph on that smoke -' 
'Lee, would you look up Mr King's report on the anomaly?' 
'Sure - what do you need?' 
'See if it has a list of the fireworks Gordie said were in his car.' 
'It's there - I remember seeing it.' Her screen flashed rapidly. Two 
dozen bottle rockets. One box M-60 firecrackers. One "Devastation 
Celebration" skyrocket assortment.' 
'That's all?' 
'That's all.' Then her eyes lit up with understanding. 'Oh! We have a 
little problem, don't we?' 
Horton nodded reluctant acknowledgement. 'If the black powder 
didn't burn, and the blasting powder didn't burn, why did the 
fireworks in Gordie's car go off?' He pushed his chair away from his 
monitoring station. I need to stretch my legs. Be back in a few.' 

 The mobile emitter unit was already taking shape atop a pair of the 
Maintenance Section's rubber-wheeled aluminum dollies. Horton saw 
that the geometry of the power and control module was already well 
defined, and that Greene was anchoring the support section of the 
emitter cylinder in its upright position. 
'I've never seen anyone get to bending metal faster than you do,' 
Horton said. 'The vertical orientation's not going to create any 
problems?' 
'Not for me,' Greene said, sitting up and brushing the perspiration off 
his forehead. 'Half an hour pushing lines around with the cursor, and 
the CAM shop started turning out parts.' 
'It's what goes on in your head before you touch the cursor that's 
mysterious to me,' Horton said, settling on a stool near Greene's work 
area. 'We have a problem, Gordie.' 
Pursing his lips, Greene said nothing. 
'Come on, Gordie - don't make me be the bad guy,' said Horton. 'You 
must have realized we'd pick it up.' 
Greene wiped his hands on his overalls with great deliberation, then 
looked up and smiled a wry, rueful smile. 'Actually, I didn't. Until 
this morning I thought gunpowder was gunpowder. Who knew?' 
'What was in the car?' 
'An unlicensed pistol.' He snorted. 'My anti-carjacking security 
system. A little plastic-frame Ruger 9mm.' 
'Another Tennessee souvenir?' 
'Kentucky, actually,' said Greene. 'They still find a way to overlook 
any Federal law they don't like. And I guess they didn't like the 30th 
Amendment.' He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs and 
slowly wringing his hands. 'Dr Horton - I'm sorry. I didn't know the 
fire was going to be kept in the family. I was afraid of that mandatory 
five-year term. And once I'd already committed myself to one version 
of reality - Doc, I was just too embarrassed to admit I'd lied.' 
Horton stood. 'I guess I can weather this little surprise,' he said. 'But 
please don't hand me any big ones. Did you replace your security 
system along with your car?' 

Shaking his head, Greene said, 'No. Thought about it. Decided I'd 
have to wait until things were clearer up here before I could assess 
the risks.' 
'I think it's pretty clear that the lab's not going to buy you two 
replacement cars,' said Horton, letting his face relax into a lazy grin. 
'So if you don't feel safe out there without a pistol in the console, you 
can always opt for Lee's solution - or mine.' 
'What's yours?' Greene asked, cocking his head. 
Horton laughed. 'Drive a car so pocket-protector dull that no one 
would ever think to steal it.' 
A day's testing on black-powder fireworks confirmed that while 
Greene's cache might have helped accelerate the car fire, it could not 
have started it. 
Then Horton's team turned their attention away from low-yield 
combustion explosives to high-yield detonating explosives. Pete 
McGhan sat them all down for a primer before delivering the first 
samples to them. 
Thirty-thirty rifle cartridge,' he said, placing a gleaming brass 
cylinder on the table between them. Three ccs of guncotton propellant. 
Powder burns in a few thousandths of a second and develops 
a maximum detonation pressure of a few hundred pounds per square 
inch.' 
He placed a small putty-colored cylinder beside it. Three ccs of RDX, 
a.k.a. cyclonite. Detonation takes a few millionths of a second and 
develops a detonation pressure of millions of pounds per square inch. 
If your rifle can fire a 30-30 bullet two hundred meters, an RDX 
cartridge of the same size could damn near reach orbit - if there was a 
gun anywhere that wouldn't shatter to splinters first. 
There are more kinds of high explosive than any of you probably 
realize - more than a hundred readily available formulations, 
probably another hundred that have been used in the past and 
abandoned, plus a couple of dozen more that are military or industrial 
secrets. But most of them are built around one or more of half a 
dozen or so basic compounds - ammonium nitrate, picric acid, 
nitroglycerin, PETN, RDX, TNT. Dr Brohier's instructions were for 

me to provide appropriate samples from each family in the purest and 
simplest formulation available, then let the results guide the choice of 
which blends to investigate. 
'Almost everything I've told you about what you've tested so far 
doesn't apply to what's coming up. Dynamite can burn without 
exploding. But the nitroglycerin in the dynamite will explode on a 
shock no greater than this,' he said, snapping a pencil sharply against 
the edge of the table. Everyone jumped. 'While Nitromex is so stable 
you can shoot a pistol at it or set off a detonating cord under it. 
'In fact, the detonating explosives are so different from the 
combustion explosives, and one family from another, that I have a 
private bet with myself - I don't think your device is going to touch 
them. Any of them. 
'No matter what, though, you're not going to touch them. I'll handle 
the preparation, transportation, set-up and cleanup - the last two 
wearing my Kevlar gorilla suit,' McGhan said, looking around the 
table. 'Dr Brohier was very specific and painfully blunt about this. I'm 
replaceable, and you're not. So I won't be coming into the lab 
anymore - I'll load the test chamber from outside, and you'll keep that 
access door closed and secured. 
'The safety procedures we've been using, the radio calls, the 
blackouts, have been a drill for this,' he added as he stood and 
gathered up his props. 'Chances are I'd survive if you triggered a rifle 
cartridge in my trunk. Chances are I wouldn't if you triggered a 
sample of Torpex. And while I may be expendable, I'm fairly certain 
it would hinder the research program if you blew up your courier in 
the middle of Shanahan Road.' 
Then he popped the putty-colored cylinder into his mouth and began 
to chew it. 'Peppermint, sugar-free,' he said. 'I'll be back with the real 
thing in half an hour.' 
McGhan lost his bet by lunchtime. A one-centimeter-square cube of 
something called EDNA blasted the water muffler dry and cracked 
the test chamber's plexiglas port. 
That was way above the standard yield,' McGhan said grimly, 
studying the damage with the helmet of his high-collared bomb suit 
tucked under one arm. 'I'm going to have to trim all the samples by a 
quarter to a third to get back our safety margin.' 

A shaken Horton agreed that that was an idea which recommended 
itself. 
At the end of that week, Karl Brohier returned. 
His reappearance was as low-key as his departure, and came with 
even less advance notice. The first that Horton knew of it was when 
the senior director poked his head into Davisson Lab, captured Lee's 
attention with a wave, and called out, 'Jeff? Come and see me when 
you have a minute.' His tone and demeanor were as casual as if he'd 
never left, as if only utterly mundane administrative matters were 
occupying his thoughts. 
Horton was momentarily struck dumb, but managed to squeeze out a 
few words before Brohier vanished again. 'I'll be right there.' 
'No hurry,' said Brohier cheerfully. 'My assistant tells me there are 
five hundred fourteen priority messages waiting in my mailbox.' 
Despite that reassurance, Horton only waited as long as it took to call 
Greene in from the prototyping shop to follow Brohier across the 
campus to Edison Center, the administrative building. 
'Ah, Jeffrey,' Brohier said brightly when Horton walked into his 
office. 'How is the work going? Everyone still has ten fingers, I 
trust?' 
'Yes. Pete was a good addition,' Horton said, settling on the couch. 
'He's meticulous, punctual, and only nosy about the parts that affect 
his job, which he does very well. Where did you find him?' 
'I have a grandson, Louis, in the Marines,' said Brohier, dividing his 
attention between Horton and the display in front of him. 'He is not 
allowed to tell me his unit, but I believe it is the one trained to 
operate behind enemy lines for purposes of sabotage and terrorism. 
McGhan was an instructor for this unit until he made the mistake of 
sleeping with the wife of a higher-ranking officer. McGhan was 
charged with rape and accepted a general discharge.' 
'Rape? How -' 
'Apparently the higher-ranking officer provided his wife with 
corroborating bruises, and the incentive to lie.' Brohier smiled wryly. 
'I thought the fact that that officer is still alive recommended Mr 
McGhan as a man of self-discipline and principle.' 

'I'll say. One little booby-trap -' Horton shook his head. 'You asked 
how the work is going. Mostly it's going boom. It's beginning to seem 
as though if it has a nitrate compound in it, the Trigger sets it off.' 
'Fascinating,' Brohier said, looking up. 'What about nitrate 
compounds that aren't explosives?' 
'We haven't gotten to them yet.' 
'And explosives that aren't nitrates?' 
'No effect. But there aren't many of those. All of the most-used 
explosives - military and civil - use nitrates. All standard ammunition 
uses nitrates.' 
'So do most farmers,' said Brohier. 'So do many people with diarrhoea 
- I myself had a prescription once for bismuth subnitrate, after a trip 
to Brazil. Did you give any thought to that?' 
'Farmers?' 
'Fertilizer. One farm bureau semi-trailer passing by at the wrong 
moment, and we'd be Breaking News on CNN.' 
'Oh, god,' said Horton, his face suddenly ashen. 'Nitroglycerin. 
Nitroglycerin. I never thought about medicine -' 
Brohier answered with a cheerful smile. 'I did. My doctor assures me 
that nitro tablets do not explode. As for the rest of the pharmacopia, 
well, we will look at everything in its turn before loosing this on the 
world. 
Horton could not understand why the director was being so casual 
about what to Horton seemed an inexcusable oversight. 'Dr Brohier, 
we've been playing Russian roulette. We have to suspend testing right 
away, today,' he said, still agitated. 'We can't do this work at this site 
anymore. We're going to need to go somewhere more isolated and 
work out the control issues - range, directionality. Maybe then we can 
come back.' 
'As it happens, I've already begun negotiating for a piece of property 
in the West,' said Brohier. 'But, please, Jeffrey - let's not aggravate 
ourselves over a disaster that didn't happen.' 
'It could have, and it would have been my responsibility.' 
'We needed data,' Brohier said, gesturing. 'Even if we'd known at the 
outset, it was an acceptable risk. Now the picture is clearer, and we 

can adjust accordingly. Tell me how the theoretical side is 
progressing.' 
Loosing a sigh, Horton settled into a chair. 'It isn't,' he said. The 
Trigger doesn't fit the CERN model of the atom. It doesn't fit the 
quantum model, or the Bohr model. As near as I can tell, it doesn't 
even fit conventional chemical thermodynamics - the yields are 
above book value.' 
'Is that so?' said Brohier. 'Well -I will shortly be able to devote more 
time to this, and I confess I'm pleased you've left something for me to 
do.' He smiled wryly. 'I suppose I could have worded that more 
diplomatically.' 
'No, that's all right - my ego won't kick in until it's time to haggle 
over the by-line. Right now the problem is everything. I'll be glad to 
have someone to bounce ideas off,' Horton said. 
'The by-line will not be a problem,' Brohier said with grim humor. 
'By that time, we may be more interested in dodging the blame than 
claiming the credit - and "Anonymous" will cover any number of us.' 
Nodding thoughtfully, Horton said, 'I want to bring in a chemist, 
someone who can analyze the residue from our test samples and tell 
us what's happening on the molecular level - how the Trigger reaction 
is different from ordinary spark- or shock-initiated detonation. There 
may be someone on staff already, in one of the other research units. If 
not, I know someone at Ohio State who could handle it.' 
'We need not bring them all the way in,' said Brohier. 'In fact, we 
could spread the samples out among any number of contract labs -' 
'I don't want to have to take a crash course in physical chemistry. I'd 
rather have one experienced person who understood the context - 
someone who might be able to help the two of us lay a foundation 
under the theory.' 
'And a frail enough edifice it is, eh? Very well, let me think on it for a 
day. Give me the name of the fellow at Ohio State, and I'll make 
some inquiries.' 
Horton handed over a folded piece of paper. 'Everything you'll need's 
right there,' he said, and jerked his head toward the door. 'I'd better 
get back to the lab and pull the plug.' 
'Of course,' said Brohier. 'And since you have nothing to do for the 

rest of the day, you'll be able to come to my place for dinner.' Seeing 
Horton's startled look, he added, 'I have a house guest who's looking 
forward to meeting you.' 
There was a black coupe at the end of Karl Brohier's driveway, and 
two men in black suits standing behind it. They eyed Horton 
carefully, but made no move as he drove past except to turn and 
watch "him. 
Not lab security, Horton thought, stealing a glance back in his rearview 
mirror. Private security - bodyguards. For Karl - or his guest? 
A silver Mercedes sedan was parked on the cobblestone half-circle by 
the house, and a slender woman in a smart chauffeur's uniform was 
coming down the walk from the front door. She stopped at the 
driver's door of the Mercedes as Horton pulled up behind it, then slid 
behind the wheel and pulled away as he climbed out. He peered into 
the sedan as it made the big turn and headed down the drive, but saw 
only the driver. 
The presence of guards in the driveway tempered the surprise when 
the front door was opened by someone other than Brohier - in point 
of fact, by another broad-shouldered man in a tailored suit. Again 
there was the steady gaze, the snap appraisal, the calm alertness. 
'Come in,' the man said, ushering Horton inside. 'You'll find them on 
the sky porch.' 
Taller than it was wide or deep, the north-facing two-story space 
Brohier called the sky porch looked out on the upslope forest and the 
sky through great sloping panels of permaglass. A pair of avocado 
trees and a giant dieffenbachia brought the forest inside and separated 
a sunken tile hot tub from a casual seating area. 
There Horton found Brohier and his guest, a slender man with a shortcropped 
full white beard and a wealth of smile lines around dark, 
deep-set eyes. He was casually dressed in golf shorts, polo shirt, and 
well-worn sandals, and had his feet propped up on the rounded edge 
of a low stone table. 
'- I have never micromanaged your budget, Karl, and I won't start 
now,' the guest was saying as Horton approached. 'Ah, here he is.' 
Brohier twisted in his chair to look back over his shoulder, then 

stood. 'Jeffrey - I want you to meet Aron Goldstein.' 
Horton had already guessed the identity of the visitor. He had never 
met Terabyte's principal investor and majority owner, but there was a 
photo of Goldstein and Brohier in the director's office, and Horton 
had searched the hyperweb for information on Goldstein shortly after 
arriving in Columbus. 
The most useful information had come from the Fortune site, which 
mapped Goldstein's extensive holdings - thirty-one companies in 
eleven industry groups, with the cash cow among them being 
Advanced Storage Devices, Inc., the exclusive licensee of Brohier's 
solid-state memory patents. The most interesting information had 
come from the gossipy Microscope pages, which had named him 
America's 'most ineligible bachelor', snidely commenting 'never 
before in our memory has anyone with so much managed to enjoy it 
so little'. 
Goldstein stood to shake hands, then settled back in his chair. 'Do 
you like Chinese food, Jeffrey?' he asked. 
'Urn - sure. Some,' he answered, nonplussed. 
'Good. Sit down, please.' Goldstein waited only for Horton to start 
moving before he went on. 'I want to congratulate you on your 
discovery. It's stunning. I've scarcely been able to think or talk about 
anything else since Karl told me. Which has been quite a burden on 
him, since I haven't had anyone else I can talk to. 
'Of course, now I have you, too. And the first thing I want to say is, 
"Well done". This is revolutionary, in the same way the 
Watt engine, the Marconi wireless telegraph, and the Hollerith 
tabulator were revolutionary.' He chuckled. 'I like those examples 
because every one of those men managed to make money while they 
were changing the world.' 
'I confess I haven't been able to see any way of making money from 
this,' Horton said. 
'That's all right - I have,' Goldstein said with a wave of his hand. 
'Change always creates opportunities. I've acquired three companies 
and two hundred patents in the last ten days.' Then the twinkle of selfsatisfied 
glee left his eyes as he sat forward in his chair. 'But that's 
completely irrelevant. Do you know why I created Terabyte 

Laboratories, Jeffrey?' 
'From what Dr Brohier told me when he hired me, I assumed it was 
for more or less the same reason farmers plant seeds and investors 
buy futures,' said Horton. 
'You're only partly correct,' said Goldstein. 'What I wanted was to 
create the Bell Labs of the twenty-first century.' 
'Bell Labs -' 
'Yes - the research arm of the one-time Bell Telephone monopoly. 
One of the overlooked benefits of that monopoly was that it paid the 
bills for a peerless basic research enterprise. And the twentieth 
century was invented there.' 
'The transistor,' Brohier said. 'The laser. Cellular radio. Solar cells. 
Radio astronomy. CCDs and LEDs. Big Bang radiation -' 
Nodding, Goldstein took over. 'Eight Nobel laureates. Thirty 
thousand patents - an average of one a day. And all of it the product 
of enlightened capitalism. In its heyday, Bell Labs was the equal and 
more of any university department, any government research center, 
and any quarterly-profit-and-loss corporate lab anywhere in the 
world.' 
'I'm afraid we've fallen a bit short,' said Horton. 
'Not at all,' Goldstein said as a distant door chime sounded. 'I could 
not be more pleased. Jeffrey, I long ago reached the point where I'd 
made more than enough money to satisfy a lifetime's ordinary 
desires. At which point there arises the burdensome ques-tion of what 
to do with the excess. Ostentatious consumption has no appeal for 
me. Neither does charity in the usual sense - there is no Goldstein 
Foundation bestowing grants on Jewish MBAs or slow-footed 
midfielders or the children of city bureaucrats. I do not give to save 
the whales or feed the birds or sponsor music in the park -' 
At that point, the chauffeur reappeared, and Goldstein fell silent 
while she placed the blue and white picnic cooler she was carrying in 
the middle of the stone table. She started to remove the lid, but 
Goldstein raised a hand and stopped her. 
'We can see to it,' he said. Thank you, Barbara. I expect that'll be all 
for tonight.' 
'Yes, sir. I'm going to stay in, though, so if you change your mind -' 

'We'll look in Karl's game room first,' he said, smiling tolerantly. 
When she had left them, Goldstein looked to the others and asked 
absently, 'Where was I?' 
'Music in the park,' Brohier supplied. 
'Music in the park,' Goldstein repeated, frowning. 'Jeffrey, money 
whispers to you like a whore, telling you what it can do for you if 
only you'll open your wallet. And if you have no shame, you can be 
seduced into almost anything.' Standing and moving to where the 
cooler sat, he began removing brown paper bags from inside it, and 
then white boxes from the brown paper bags. 'Karl, we're going to 
need three plates, and some spoons.' 
'I'll collect them,' Brohier said, rising. 
Cracking the lid of one container, Goldstein took a deep breath of the 
escaping steam. 'What do you do with a few extra billion?' he asked. 
'Collect art, like Hearst? Collect women, like Hughes? Most of the 
examples at hand are embarrassments. When Bill Gates paid for the 
Ares mission to Mars, that was a stunt - nothing more than ego 
gratification. He was seduced into trying to buy immortality for 
himself and his company logo by hijacking an historic event. I 
promised myself I would never be that weak - and then fell under the 
spell of an even more fickle temptress. 
'Jeffrey, I have nearly a hundred thousand people working for me, in 
eighteen states and seven countries. I invested in them to make 
money. I invested in you to make a difference. Now you've given me 
that chance.' 
Goldstein sat on the edge of the table closest to Horton and leaned 
forward as though about to reveal a secret. 'Guns and bombs have 
been the vector of power for four hundred years. Some call a gun the 
great equalizer, and yet more often guns seem to me to be the great 
unequalizers. In the last century, guns and bombs herded Jews and 
gays and gypsies into Buchenwald, struck down three American 
presidents, killed fifty million people in war and nearly that many in 
peace, exterminated dozens of tribes and hundreds of species. The 
people with the most guns -the biggest bombs - and the greatest 
readiest to pull the trigger: those were the beneficiaries of the 
ingenuity of Nobel and Colt and Winchester.' 
'Of course, that was business, too,' Brohier said, reappearing at that 

point. He carried a tray of plates and utensils to the table and 
reclaimed his chair. 
'Yes - and as shameful a business as it was a necessary one,' 
Goldstein went on. 'You cannot reason with a rifle bullet fired from 
across the battlefield. You cannot negotiate with an artillery shell 
lobbed from over the horizon. You cannot compromise with a nuclear 
warhead screaming in from half a world away. The only answer to 
the gun, the only defense against the gun, has been more guns. 
You've given us another answer, Jeffrey. You've given us a way to 
tear this terrible inhuman tool out of our clenched primate fists -' 
'If we take the power of the gun away from the world, what will come 
forward to take its place?' Horton asked, troubled. 
'Perhaps chaos,' said Goldstein. 'Perhaps peace. Imagine two armies, 
now facing each other across the battlefield empty-handed. Will 
twenty-first-century men throw themselves on bayonets for god and 
country? Imagine the terrorist, the would-be assassin, unable to 
deliver his cowardly, anonymous blow from a distance. 
'Now imagine Tel Aviv, Belfast, Sarajevo, Los Angeles as oases of 
peace, with one of your devices radiating from a tower at the heart of 
each city. Imagine how many plowshares we could build if we 
stopped buying swords. Fallen short, you say? Oh, no, Jeffrey, not at 
all - the Trigger is a gift of incalculable value. And I pledge to my 
children and yours that I'll see that its promise is fulfilled. I pledge 
my fortune and my life to that.' 
Then Goldstein straightened up and threw his head back, eyes closed. 
'So many words, tumbling over each other to get out,' he said, 
drawing and releasing a deep breath. 'I warned you, didn't I? Come, 
let's eat - that will silence me for a while, at least.' 
But the food hardly slowed the torrent of words, for Goldstein was 
not the only one who had had no audience for thoughts burning to be 
spoken. And over crystal fish, Hunan lamb, and black tea, they began 
to hammer together the outline of a revolution. 
6: Journey 

Calcutta, India - A would-be good Samaritan lost more than his car 
and wallet to bandits on the Berhampore road Thursday - he also lost 
his idealism. British tourist Thomas Sudaranka was on a pilgrimage 
to the Ganges River when he stopped to help what he believed was an 
injured girl lying in the road. Shot twice in the back and left for dead, 
Sudaranka is now hospitalized with partial paralysis of his right leg. 
Authorities in Murshidabad said the girl was probably a lure for a 
local highway gang, and warned travelers to be cautious. 
Complete Story Map 
The drone of the Helio Courier's single engine increased sharply as 
the plane banked and wheeled around in the sky above the desolate 
valley. Ahead and to the right, Jeff Horton could see a thin ribbon of 
two-lane highway meandering northward. But there were no cars on 
the road, and no other signs of human habitation. 
'Where does that go?' he asked, tapping the pilot on the shoulder. 
'That's Nevada 278,' the pilot shouted back. 'Runs up to I-80 at 
Carlin, just east of Emigrant Pass. Ninety miles of nothing.' 
By then, the silver-and-red-winged Ely Air Taxi plane had swung 
west and begun to descend out of the cloudless sky. By the time they 
flashed over Nevada 278, they were below the level of the enclosing 
mountains. 'I don't see the airport.' 
The pilot pointed ahead at a dirt road paralleling a dry creekbed. 
'Right there,' he said. 'Vinini Creek Road. That's as much airport as 
there is in Eureka County. But I want to get a close look at it before I 
put the wheels down. We had a good hard rain last month, and you've 
always gotta worry about washouts.' 
Clutching his knees tightly, Horton stared in silent disbelief at the 
rutted, narrow-track road as the pilot buzzed over it at no more than a 
hundred feet. 
That must be your ride,' the pilot called out. Horton caught a glimpse 
of a sand-colored Jeep Cherokee and a figure standing beside it 
before the pilot hauled the nose of the plane skyward. 'Doesn't look 
too bad. Have you down in just a couple of minutes now.' 
Horton just nodded, tight-lipped. 

'All this used to be government land, you know,' the pilot went on. 
'Not that there's been any rush to build out here since the Feds gave it 
back to the state. About all we get are prospectors of one kind or 
another, passing through - either looking for UFOs or looking for 
fossils. The UFO types are the talkers, so I figure you for the other 
kind.' 
While he was talking, the pilot had carried out a heart-stopping halfloop 
that brought the Courier skimming back over the road in the 
other direction, this time even lower. 'There's my spot,' he called out, 
and throttled back. The plane floated for a moment, then flared and 
settled, bouncing twice and kicking up a plume of yellow dust. It 
rolled to a stop a few dozen meters from the Cherokee. 
That anybody you know?' 
Fingers digging at the catches on his restraint, Horton peered out 
through the thinning dust. The man standing beside the Cherokee was 
Donovan King, wearing dark sunglasses and a Colorado Rockies 
baseball hat. Horton and King exchanged brief acknowledging 
waves. 
'Yeah,' Horton said, unlatching the door. Thanks for the ride.' 
The little cabin of the six-place tail-dragger was warm enough by 
Horton's standards. But the heat that enveloped him as he clambered 
out of the plane was almost overwhelming. He hastened to the 
waiting vehicle, now idling with King at the steering wheel. 
'We have air-conditioning out at the Annex?' Horton asked, turning 
the fan to high and directing the blast from the nearest vent toward 
his face. 
'In the accommodation trailers. The lab building'll be another week or 
so.' 
'Can't be too soon. Dry heat, my ass,' Horton grumbled. 'Chamber of 
Commerce propaganda.' 
They waited as the Courier taxied eastward past them, the engine 
winding up for its take-off roll. 'We're going to need to get our own 
plane and pilot for these runs,' Horton said as King eased the 
Cherokee back onto the road, heading west. This fellow was too 
curious.' 
King chuckled. 'That fellow was our pilot,' he said. 'He's garrulous, 

but he's harmless. We also own a one-plane outfit in Elko and a small 
trucking company based in Reno. We'll spread the traffic around, 
Doctor. And the fossil-hunter cover will help us fade into the 
background.' 
'So that's what that was about,' said Horton, peering out the 
windshield at the barren landscape. 'How far from here?' 
'About eight miles,' King said. 'And speaking of your ass, there's an 
extra pillow in the back seat - you may want it under you most of the 
way.' 
There was no hyperbole in the warning. Before long they left Vinini 
Creek Road for an unnamed, unmarked track half as wide. Its 
undulations gave no reassurance that it had ever been graded, and the 
traffic which had passed that way before them could not be said to 
have improved it. Even at speeds that never topped fifty klicks per 
hour, Horton found that part of the trip all too much like an 
amusement park ride that went on too long. 
'I'm going to recommend that we buy someone a helicopter,' Horton 
said, bracing himself against the dash. 
'We're already planning to bring your equipment in on the Skycrane 
we're using for construction material. Don't want to do that more 
often than necessary, though. For a state with hardly any people, 
there are a lot of eyes watching the skies out here.' 
The ride finally ended in front of a scattering of structures on the 
floor of a narrow, steep-walled box canyon. The largest of them was 
a windowless one-story cinderblock sprawl that reminded Horton of 
his elementary school. Half a dozen boxy mobile homes were lined 
up to the west, and the steel frame of a barn-sized prefabricated 
building was taking shape to the east. A small bulldozer, a backhoe, 
and three other Cherokees were nestled against the east wall of the 
main structure, in the narrow band of afternoon shade. A cacophony 
of construction noises greeted Horton as he climbed gingerly out into 
the heat. 
'Did Dr B. really have to find a place this remote?' he asked, shaking 
his head as he surveyed the site. 
I guess the difference between few neighbors and none mattered,' 
said King. 'The director said he wanted a five-mile secure radius and 
a ten-mile safe radius. Do you want to go to your trailer or the lab 

first?' 
'After that ride, my bladder votes for "trailer".' 
King smiled, a rare sight, and pointed. 'You're in number Three.' 
When Horton emerged again. King handed him a site map and a hard 
hat. 'Meals and recreation are in the double-wide. Trailer number 
Two is reserved for Dr Brohier and guests. The temporary 
communications shack is in Five, and the temporary security office is 
in Six. The construction crew is in pop-ups on the north side - we'll 
take over that space for staff when they've moved out.' 
Horton studied his map, then squinted out into the bright haze to the 
north. 'What are these things?' 
'Don't know. Outhouses, some here call them. There are six of them, 
each about the size of a walk-in closet, cinderblock construction, 
empty as this place was,' King said, gesturing toward the main 
building. 
'So what was this place?' 
'Don't know that either,' said King. 'When the last residents packed 
up, they took everything but the walls with them. We took photos of 
all the floor scars and mounting bolts we found, if you'd care to join 
the guessing game we've been playing.' 
'What's your guess?' 
'My guess is they weren't herding sheep.' King shook his head. 
There's no obvious answer, Dr Horton, which is why the game is fun. 
Tomorrow I'll take you out to see the concrete trenches that connect 
the outhouses,' he said, waving a hand northward. 'Nevada has kept a 
lot of secrets over the years, from Plumbbob to Area 51. With luck, 
it'll keep ours, too.' 
As Aron Goldstein's black Dassault Falcon 55 descended into the 
choppy air three hundred meters above the Potomac River, Karl 
Brohier turned his recliner toward the nearest oval window and 
searched the sprawling cityscape for its familiar landmarks. 
Having no great fondness for politics or for bustling, traffic-choked 
cities, Brohier had only been to Washington, D.C. three previous 
times. The last, eight years ago, had been for a friend's funeral. The 

time before that had been to be paraded in public by politicians and 
then have to beg for funding of basic science research in front of half 
a dozen review committees - for Brohier, an experience hardly more 
pleasant than a funeral. But the first and most enjoyable of his visits 
had changed the course of his life. 
At a time when wealthier school districts were sending planeloads to 
Europe, chartering Caribbean windjammers, and white-water rafting 
in Canada, it was all that Champlain Valley Union High School's 
graduating class could do to manage a fifteen-hour bus ride down 
from buttoned-down Chittended County for three days of sightseeing 
in the nation's capital. The chaperones made up for that indignity with 
a light schedule and liberal curfew. 
'We're not going to decide for you what you want to see,' Mr 
Freebright, the class advisor, had said. 'Every one of you has a 
guidebook, a Metropass, a trip buddy, and a mind. If you don't lose 
any of them, you'll go home having had a trip to remember.' 
Brohier and his best friend Tom lange had passed up the out-ofboundaries 
expeditions to various Maryland sin spots, where 
drinking, gambling, and topless dancers could be pursued. Instead, 
they had divided their free-exploration time among the Smithsonian, 
the Museum of Natural History, and the US Naval Observatory. 
The attraction of the last was the chance to look through the thirtytwo-
inch reflector at Jupiter's moons or a solar prominence, but gray 
clouds and a summer drizzle had stolen the opportunity. 
Disappointed and looking to salvage the time spent waiting in line for 
the tour, the young Brohier had become fascinated by the Master 
Clock of the United States and the scientific magic behind it. Cesium 
oscillators, hydrogen masers, satellites, and synchronizers opened an 
unlikely door to wonder - one which led him to relativity, 
radioactivity, and nuclear science. After a summer of testing the 
waters through heavy reading, Brohier had reported to the University 
of Vermont and promptly changed his major from the safe career 
path of computer science to the uncertain one of physics. 
He had managed to keep the news from his parents for a year and a 
half, and then to resist their intense pressure to correct his 'error'. 
After distinguishing himself in an undistinguished program, he won a 
graduate fellowship at MIT, where both the competition and the 

intellectual stimulation were of a higher order. But it was the right 
time - his mind never quicker, his hunger never sharper than in those 
days - and by the end of his two-and-a-half years there he stood out in 
that company as well. 
It had gotten harder after that: the disaster at the University of Texas, 
where a clash of personalities with the department chairman and the 
distracting complexities of first love and first loss combined to make 
him a doctoral dropout. The five years as a lab drone in TRW's 
materials science lab, a gift from Tom Lange but a prison for 
Brohier's curiosity. Then the second try at a Ph.D., at Stanford, where 
every other candidate was younger and seemed quicker, and Brohier 
felt like he was running uphill trying to catch up. The first shot in the 
CERN revolution was still five years away, and Amy Susan a few 
more beyond that, and zero-phase solid-state information storage 
nearly two decades down the road. 
But he had started on that road here, and now - against his better 
instincts - he had followed it here again. 
The cabin of the Falcon 55 shuddered as the landing gear extended 
and locked in place. There was nothing but water beneath them, and 
the water seemed very close. Then suddenly there were rocks, a patch 
of brown grass, and the runway threshold. Tires kissed the concrete 
gently, then again more firmly. When the nose wheel settled, the 
cabin began to vibrate with the roar of the Falcon's three engines as 
the thrust reversers were applied. 
Brohier looked across the cabin at Goldstein, who was still napping 
peacefully, his slight frame almost swallowed up in the 
ultracushioned chair. I hope you're right about this, my friend, he 
thought. Neither Brohier nor Horton had anticipated involving 
anyone from the Federal government this early, and both had 
profound reservations about involving the military at all. Just the 
knowledge that the Pentagon was less than three kilometers away 
gave him chills. 
It was what Horton called the 'Hangar 57 scenario' that haunted him - 
the fear that with one wrong word to the wrong person, a convoy of 
black vans filled with Special Operations troops would swoop down 
on the Terabyte campus and cart away everything. It had taken 
Goldstein hours to convince them that 'friends in high places' did not 
belong to the same class of imaginary creatures as unicorns and 

mermaids. 
'There are people at every level of this society who can and will help 
us,' Goldstein had insisted. 'And we'll need as many of them as 
possible with us when those who will oppose us realize the danger.' 
'We'd better be damned sure which kind we're talking to,' Horton had 
said. 
The man I want to bring in will not betray us. As elected officials go, 
he's an oak among reeds -' 
'Faint praise, in my book.' 
Goldstein had grown irritated at the carping. 'You scientists are such 
naifs about politics. You only know these people from CNN, and 
barely even that,' he had snapped. 'I've known this man as a man for 
twenty years, and I've never known him to act rashly or compromise 
his principles. What's more, his power base is not threatened by this - 
very much the reverse, in fact. And if he does come aboard, I expect 
his contacts to be of inestimable value to us.' 
Then why not tell us his name?' 
To protect him in the event that he chooses not to involve himself - 
because he is my friend.' 
In the end, Brohier's presence on the plane, and at the meeting to 
come, was the price of consensus. Horton would not agree to let 
Goldstein make a private approach to an unnamed unknown without 
the reassurance of knowing Horton's interests would be represented 
there - and Horton did not know Goldstein well enough yet to take 
that reassurance from him. 
It was, on some level, an unreasonable, even an irrational demand, 
since Goldstein could easily have had hundreds of secret meetings 
with anyone he chose in the weeks since Brohier had brought him the 
news. But so much was at stake that even Brohier's trust wavered at 
times, and he was glad to have a reason to insinuate himself into the 
process. 
As the Falcon 55 came to a stop at the VIP gate, Goldstein opened his 
eyes and stood. 'Made good time,' he said, glancing at his watch. 'Did 
you get any rest?' 
'I can't sleep in planes,' Brohier confessed. 

'My job would kill you, then,' Goldstein said with a cheerful smile. 
In a remarkably few minutes, they were in the back seat of a silver 
Mercedes that was humming north along Washington Memorial 
Parkway. Almost before Brohier realized it, the Pentagon loomed up 
on the left. Goldstein caught him looking out at its bland, imposing, 
implacable face as they drove past. 
'Are you still worried?' Goldstein asked. 
'Not about you, Aron. I never was worried about you. I'm worried 
about losing control of this,' Brohier said. 'I don't want the 
responsibility -I don't want to have to make these decisions. But I'd 
rather it be me - us - than a lot of people I can think of. And a lot of 
them live and work in this city.' 
Goldstein nodded. 'I'll tell you something I learned a long time ago 
about the Washington gang. The good news is, away from the 
cameras, they're just like the people back home who sent them here. 
The bad news is, away from the cameras, they're just like the people 
back home who sent them here. No better, no worse - just a great deal 
more visible, and their mistakes have a longer reach.' 
Smiling wryly, Brohier said, That's kind of funny. This friend of 
yours - to keep my thoughts in the green zone, I've been trying to 
imagine that someone I know and respected went and got themselves 
elected - someone like my father, say.' 
'Mr Smith Goes to Washington,' said Goldstein. 'Karl, let me say 
something I didn't want to say in front of Jeffrey, given his state of 
mind at the time. This meeting tomorrow - this man - we need him 
badly. At this moment, this is a frail conspiracy.' 
'I've thought about that,' Brohier said. 'Our secrecy works against us. 
We could be swept up in an afternoon, and it would all be over.' 
'Ah, but unlike you, and even me, my friend has too much stature to 
be easily silenced,' Goldstein said. 'Unlike Jeffrey and his people, he's 
too visible to just be made to disappear. He can't be intimidated, and 
he won't let himself be compromised.' He turned away toward the 
window and gazed out across the Potomac toward the Lincoln 
Memorial. 'And he'll ask the right questions, loudly and in the right 
places, if we disappear.' 
That's very comforting,' said Brohier. 'Aron - your friend - it's 

Senator Wilman, isn't it?' 
Goldstein nodded silently, and the gesture was reflected in the tinted 
glass. 'How do you feel about that?' 
'I think I feel all right about it.' 
'Good. Still,' he added absently, 'I think we will not tell him about the 
Annex. That will be our insurance policy.' Goldstein turned to face 
Brohier's questioning look. 'In case I am wrong about him, or about 
how far our adversaries would go.' 
7: Strategy 
Hong Kong, China - In a last-ditch attempt to end sixteen days of 
anti-Beijing demonstrations, the new military governor of the Hong 
Kong Special District today declared a twenty-hour daytime curfew 
that permits travel only between home and work. Governor Han Lo 
announced that Chinese army commanders are now authorized to 
shoot to kill if 'treasonous disrupters' defy the order. At least a dozen 
demonstrators and five police officers have died in earlier 
confrontations in the city's Botanical Gardens and along the Victoria 
waterfront in the University area. 
Complete Story Hong Kong Since Unification 
Han Lo Bio Stay On the Story with Sky-Scan 
Grover Andrew Wilman's suite in the Humphrey Senate Office 
Building was typically the first on that floor to come alive each 
morning, and the last to close down each evening. The official work 
days of his top administrative aide and top legislative aide began at 
seven a.m., which was early enough by Congressional standards. But 
they often found that their boss had beaten them there by an hour or 
more, and with terrifying efficiency had already done a morning's 
work before their arrival. 
On most mornings, Wilman's self-assigned first task was answer-ing 
what he called the 'mad dog' mail. The educational and lobbying 

efforts of his disarmament advocacy coalition. Mind Over Madness, 
generated a steady stream of critical, often hos-tile mail - video, 
audio, and text. Even after the anonymous, unanswerable screeds 
were filtered out, there were hundreds of messages a day from people 
who felt compelled to tell Wilman exactly how deluded, misguided, 
ignorant, disloyal, and just plain wrong he was. 
'Gets my blood moving better than any amount of coffee,' he 
explained when questioned why he took the trouble to answer 
messages that others would ignore. 'And it surprises them so much 
when they get something back from me personally that sometimes 
they actually stop to reconsider. Besides, I have an irrational belief in 
the power of reason.' 
Early morning was also a good time to teleconference with his allies 
in Europe. Mind Over Madness had chapters in forty-one countries, 
and legislative partners - like Wilman, signees of MOM's Common 
Sense Declarations - in almost half of them. Of course, that alliance 
made Wilman a favorite target of the Christian ultra-nationalists and 
the internationalist-conspiracy fringe. 
Somehow, Wilman took it all in stride. On one level, it was only 
noise. On another, it was confirmation that the message was getting 
out. That, plus the parallel stream of supportive letters and the 
occasional conversion of an opponent, was enough to confirm him on 
his course. His crusade was no poll-driven, short-horizon, mediasavvy 
re-election ploy. It was a principled long-term commitment to 
changing how people thought about conflict. He knew better than to 
judge the progress of that effort by the 'mad dog' mail. 
Wilman's office was as unconventional as his politics and as 
doggedly confrontational as his Senate floor persona. The standard 
desk accessory for senators was a large American flag, positioned 
where visitors could not ignore it and cameras could not miss it. In 
Wilman's office, that prime space was occupied by a framed blowup 
of his favorite Mind Over Madness print ad - the controversial 'corpse 
collage' of morgue and crime-scene photos with the bold caption 
GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE above, and a sardonic (THINK 
ANYONE'S STILL BUYING THIS?) below. 
Elsewhere in the room, the usual honorary degrees and personal 
photo gallery were likewise absent, their spaces taken over by the 
words and images of heroes and pioneers of the peace and 

disarmament movements. It was Wilman's private hall of fame, a 
shrine to a philosophical ideal which, for more than a century and a 
half, had been running a poor second to the reigning Zeitgeist - Man 
as killer ape, and evolution red in tooth and claw. 
The only images of Wilman himself were the caricatures in two 
framed political cartoons and a glass-covered photograph of Wilman 
with his tank crew on the sands outside An-Najaf, Iraq. Framed 
beside the photograph were his captain's bars, service medals, and 
honorable discharge certificate. 
I have the moral right, the photograph insisted. You cannot invoke 
cowardice, or disloyalty, or fear, and then dismiss me - you must 
engage the moral issue in our challenge. And a year earlier, that 
photograph had spoken loudly enough from campaign ads to give 
Wilman a razor-thin victory and another six years as Oregon's senior 
senator. 
'No other state in this Union would have sent you to Washington,' his 
Democratic opponent had said in his private concession call. 'And no 
other state would have sent you back there once they realized what 
they'd done. Still and all, for the trouble you cause the Republican 
leadership, and for the good you try to do by rubbing our noses in the 
shit, I almost don't mind losing to you. And if you tell my party 
chairman I said so, I'll see to it that your incestuous little nest of 
morally bankrupt technocrat pansies never gets another hundred 
bucks in dues from my wife.' 
It was the essential Wilman paradox, encapsulating not only the 
campaign, but his entire career in politics. His friends and allies 
resented him and his enemies admired him for exactly the same traits: 
his stubborn singlemindedness, the characteristic bluntness in the 
service of a penetratingly insightful mind, and his uncompromising 
commitment to principle over practicality. In the words of the leading 
news magazine In Touch, he was the prototype anti-politician. 
'He breaks rules considered sacrosanct, but knowingly, out of 
necessity rather than defiance,' the magazine's political editor had 
written in introducing Wilman's profile. 'He makes mistakes 
considered fatal, yet survives, because passion is something rare and 
therefore treasured in this usually bloodless city. 
'Grover Wilman makes us at once proud and uncomfortable, as 

though we know the truth of his words but despair of living up to his 
ideals. At no time in my thirty-year memory of these halls has there 
been such a grand iconoclast or an intellectual of comparable 
consequence in Congress. Patently unelectable as 
President, he is now at the peak of his power - and when the masses 
tire of his somewhat preachy message, as they inevitably must, 
L'Enfant's city, this writer's beat, and our national dialogue will be the 
poorer for his absence.' 
Indifferent to the praise, Wilman sent the editor a copy of the piece 
with 'as they inevitably must' circled in red and a handwritten note 
scrawled across the bottom: 
If civility is a fad, civilization is a fantasy. Is that really the best you 
can offer your children? 
'For me, this is the one that rocks,' said Toni Barnes. The graphics 
designer touched the controller and brought a different ad dummy to 
the conference room video wall: a monochrome photograph of eight 
adults standing in a circle, each holding a revolver to the head of the 
person to his left. 'We can use something like "Feel Safe Now?" as 
the hook line, and "The Killing Stops When We Stop It" as the sell 
line.' 
'I still like the first one,' said Evan Stolta, Mind Over Madness's 
senior strategic consultant. He reached out and returned a photo of a 
three-year-old in tiny fatigues, holding an assault rifle, to the screen. 
'Hook and sell in four words - "Now he's a man". Simple, strong.' 
'Stop thinking like a Yalie lib,' said Barnes. There are a lot of people 
out there who won't catch the tone - they'll think that's cute.' 
'There's nothing we can do to help the irony-impaired,' Stolta said, 
annoyed by the dig. 'What do you want - smoke coming from the 
barrel and a second kid lying in a puddle of blood?' 
'Let me see it,' said Senator Wilman, who had been sitting back in his 
chair listening to the brainstorming. 
Frowning, Barnes turned to her digitizing easel. In a few moments 
the black-and-white image acquired color. Not long after, it acquired 
a corpse. 
Wilman was already shaking his head when Barnes turned to him for 

his opinion. 'No, no, no. We've never faked a victim in any of our 
material, and that's not nearly strong enough to make an exception. 
But I like the color. Why are we falling into this Wiesenthal-Bergman 
high-art rut lately? These people we're trying to reach don't live in a 
monochrome world, and we have to connect with them where they 
live.' 
'We -' Stolta began, but couldn't find an opening. 
'Toni, your circle-of-insecurity would work just as well in color,' 
Wilman went on. 'Better, because the people will look like family and 
neighbors, instead of characters from a film noir murder mystery. 
You can move the light source around if you want to play with the 
emotional subtext. Show me something by the end of the day.' 
Barnes nodded, and began closing up her easel. With barely a beat, 
Wilman turned his attention to Stolta. 'Evan, what happened to what 
we talked about last week - going after the content providers? We 
can't possibly buy or beg enough bandwidth for these spots to 
compete with the program libraries at Turner and Sony and 
Bertelsmann. They're going to have to do something to help us.' 
They don't want to talk to us,' Stolta said, shrugging his shoulders. 
'Of course they don't,' said Wilman, standing. 'They're sitting on 
hundreds of thousands of hours of program material that's based on 
the premise that men maiming, torturing, and killing other men is 
entertainment. But it's your job to figure out how to get them to talk 
to us.' 
Stolta was shaking his head. They have an enormous investment in 
inventory -' 
'An inventory of poison. We need them to start looking at those 
libraries as liabilities, not assets,' Wilman said sharply. 'We need to 
help them see that there's an ethical dimension in what they're doing 
that goes beyond supply and demand. And if that means beating on 
closed doors and closed minds until they open, that's what we're 
going to have to do. Now, if you're too burned out for that kind of 
fight -' 
'Put me on your schedule for Friday,' said Stolta. 'I'll try to have some 
ideas for you by then.' 
'Good.' Wilman checked his watch. 'Late for my meeting. System?' 

'Ready,' said the conference room controller's synthesized voice. 
'End meeting log.' 
'Verified,' said the room. 'Do you wish me to abstract and distribute 
minutes?' 
'No. Archive only.' Then Wilman looked up and flashed a 
sympathetic smile at the others. This road is uphill all the way,' he 
said. 'And that's hard. Sometimes when I get discouraged, I think 
about renaming the coalition the Sisyphus Society. So far I've 
managed to get over it before having papers drawn up, thank 
goodness -it's a name only a Yalie lib could appreciate.' He winked in 
Stolta's direction, and his smile brightened enough to put a twinkle of 
puckish humor in his eyes. 
'A lost opportunity,' said Stolta. 'Just think of the jazzy animated logo 
we could have had for our Web sites.' 
Wilman laughed as he picked up his portfolio. I'll be back in the 
office in an hour. If something urgent comes up before then, Marina 
knows how to get in touch with me.' 
A light breeze was blowing across Arlington National Cemetery, 
taking the edge off what was warming up to be a quintessential 
oppressively-humid Washington summer day. Even so, Wilman was 
perspiring freely by the time he walked from the Sheridan Gate to the 
gentle hill where the remains of Dayton Charles Arthur Deich rested 
in the shade of a hundred-year-old maple tree. The tree interrupted a 
line of white marble headstones, and its spreading roots had pushed 
Dayton's headstone a few degrees askew. 
Over the last year, the sole visitor to Dayton's grave had been a 
private of the 3rd US Infantry, who paused there briefly to place a 
small American flag in front of the headstone in preparation for 
Memorial Day. Through this annual tradition, The Old Guard 
remembered and honored his service and sacrifice. But the chances 
were that no one else did. 
Dayton had died half a world away and more than half a century ago, 
a draftee corporal who fell during a bitter Korean winter and an even 
more bitter defeat - the bloody retreat to Hngnam-ni. Dying at twentyone, 
he had left no descendants. The closest of his living cousins was 

three generations and five states removed. 
But Dayton was not alone in fading from sight. As Korea's youngest 
veterans passed from the stage, Dayton's war had crossed the line 
from memory to history. Now distilled down to a Cold War skirmish 
which boasted no patriotic songs or triumphant images, it had lost all 
its pain and passion. 
Even the most basic facts had left the collective consciousness. Rare 
was the civilian who knew more about Korea than could be gleaned 
from the classic television comedy set there. Ridgway and 
MacArthur, Pusan, Inchon and the Yalu - their emotional resonance 
was gone. 
But it was the same for all of Dayton's neighbors in the old graves on 
the hill in Section 20. Even those who fought in a Good War could 
not count on visitors to break the settled solitude. 
We give you this little piece of the earth, Wilman thought as he 
neared the two men waiting for him at the maple tree, allow you this 
little claim in a realm you no longer inhabit - to what end? An 
exercise in propaganda, sanitizing the truth. The honored dead in 
their final rest, with no hint of what they did, what they endured, to 
earn that dubious honor. No blood, no torn and broken bodies, not a 
weapon anywhere in sight -just row after row of sterile white stones, 
lying by their silence. I hate this place more than any other I know - 
Karl Brohier frowned. 'Is that him?' 
'That's him,' said Aron Goldstein, nodding. 
'He doesn't look happy.' 
'I don't expect he is.' 
'Maybe we should have just picked him up in your car and gone for a 
ride around the Beltway,' said Brohier. 'That would have been private 
enough, wouldn't it? More private than this. One cheap audio 
telescope, and -' 
'I know how he feels about Arlington,' said Goldstein. This is a better 
way.' He moved toward Wilman with a smile and a hand offered in 
greeting. 'Grover! Thank you for meeting us.' 
'You said it was urgent that we talk,' Wilman said, looking past 

Goldstein. 'I know you. Where do I know you from?' 
'That's not important,' said Goldstein. 'Come, let's sit. Karl, the 
blanket.' 
They settled in the shade on a red-and-black stadium warmer, looking 
for all the world like three brothers lingering a time at a family 
gravesite. 'What do you have for me, Aron?' 
'Would it brighten your day any if I could offer you the prospect that 
there would never be another grave dug in this cemetery except to 
bury an old man like me?' 
'I don't quite know what you mean,' said Wilman, frowning. 'But the 
casualty rate in the US armed forces is the lowest it's ever been - even 
when we put forces in the field, the machines do most of the fighting, 
and combat deaths are so rare that they all make the news. That half 
of the battle's nearly won, Aron. Casualties are no longer acceptable.' 
He nodded in the direction of the Pentagon, hidden from them by 
distant trees. 'Now if only we could get them to care that much about 
the Hutus, or the Brazilians.' 
That's expecting too much,' said Brohier. 
'Why?' Wilman demanded. 
'Men have willingly killed other men's children for ten thousand 
years. Makes more room on the planet for their own.' 
'Oh, Christ, don't invoke Darwin to me,' Wilman said in disgust. 'I've 
heard a lot of sociological drivel about The Other, and I'm telling you 
that the only thing it means is that sometimes we can't hear the wives 
and mothers crying.' 
'Explain what you mean.' 
'Happily. Tell me what you remember about Desert Storm.' 
'Desert Storm? Gracious, that was - you know, there are great gaps in 
my awareness of current events over the last sixty years. I was having 
my crisis at Bell Labs, I think.' 
'I was in an Abrams M1-A1,' said Wilman. 'Go on - whatever you 
remember.' 
'You'd think I'd remember more, since every TV everywhere I went 
seemed to be tuned to CNN for what seemed like a month straight,' 
Brohier said with a frown. 'We had the stealth fighters, the smart 

bombs, and Schwarzkopf. They had Saddam Hussein, Scud missiles, 
and an air force that ran away to Iran. It wasn't much of a contest, as I 
recall.' 
'No, it wasn't.' 
'And the Iraqis set the oil fields on fire, didn't they? When they left 
Saudi Arabia.' 
'Kuwait.' 
'Right. Kuwait. So, how did I do?' 
'You remember what most people remember,' said Wilman 
offhandedly. 'It was a Good War. Our cause was just, we won 
handily, and almost everyone came home.' He gestured at the 
seemingly endless field of headstones surrounding them on every 
side. 'Not many here who died that winter. And that's too bad -' 
'What?' 
'- Because the Good War is a lie. Desert Storm was a horrible little 
war. And the most horrible thing about it was how little of the horror 
made it back to Frogleg, Mississippi. We went to war for Big Oil and 
the divine right of someone else's king - not for self-defense, not for 
democratic principles. The press treated it like a video game, and the 
people treated it like a television miniseries.' 
Wilman shook his head. 'In the span of six weeks, we killed at least 
twice as many Iraqi soldiers and civilians as the US lost in fifteen 
years in Vietnam. But we didn't see the mothers crying, so it didn't 
mean anything to us. The Good War.' He snorted derisively. The 
Good War means that only strangers with funny names were blown 
to bits.' 
'Grover - what if it all could have been avoided?' asked Goldstein. 
'What if the Kuwaitis had had a border that no Iraqi tank or Iraqi 
soldier could have crossed without being disarmed?' 
'And what if the Iraqis had known that in advance?' Brohier added. 
Wilman studied their expressions for a long moment before 
answering, as if trying to gauge their seriousness. The Iraqis had 
excellent long-range artillery, and a lot of it. A fortified border 
wouldn't have stopped their army, just altered the tactics. Are you 
asking me how high the price would have had to be to dissuade 
Saddam?' 

'No,' said Goldstein. 'I'm asking if the war could have proceeded at all 
if tank rounds and artillery shells exploded before they reached their 
targets, if bombs and missiles blew up in mid-air, if rifle and pistol 
magazines caught fire when the infantrymen got within a thousand 
meters of the border.' 
Frowning quizzically, Wilman said slowly, 'Well, there are still such 
things as arrows, catapults, and the phalanx. I don't know that the 
second century was a great deal more peaceful than the twentieth. 
Still and all, your scenario would certainly have upset a lot of apple 
carts, Saddam's included. But is it anything more than a fantasy?' 
That's an interesting question,' said Goldstein. 'Let's call it a thought 
experiment rather than a fantasy and play with it a while longer. Let 
us suppose there were a technological means by which these results 
might be achieved. How might you go about introducing it to the 
world stage, if your goal were to put an end to war? In whose hands 
would you want to place it?' 
'I don't want to play the game,' said Wilman. 'Do you have this thing, 
or don't you?' 
'We have it, Senator,' Brohier said quietly. 'We call it the trigger 
effect. We call the device itself the Trigger.' 
Theoretical or-' 
'No,' said Goldstein quickly. The prototype is operational.' 
Wilman's whole body shuddered involuntarily. He looked away from 
the other two men, his gaze unfocused. 'My god,' he said finally. 'An 
anti-weapon weapon. The essential tool the UN's blue-helmet army 
has needed for fifty years.' 
'And the tool every tyrant will want to disarm his opposition,' said 
Goldstein. 'How do we keep it away from the tyrants?' 
'We probably can't. So we'd have to make sure everyone has it,' said 
Wilman. 'How difficult is the device to make? How small can it be 
and still have useful range? How expensive are the components?' 
'It's too early to really answer those questions,' Brohier admitted. 
That isn't very useful -' 
'But it's the truth. Listen, the first lasers were big, power-hungry, 
finicky, and expensive. But after just a few decades of development, 

twenty dollars bought you one that ran on penlight batteries and fit in 
a shirt pocket. We don't know how far we can scale up or down from 
the prototype. We probably won't know that for quite a while.' 
This discovery - was it wholly within Terabyte? You own this 
discovery free and clear?' 
Terabyte has never taken a dollar of government money,' said 
Goldstein with stiff pride. 
'Good,' said Wilman. 'Not that it would matter in the long run. If they 
want you, you belong to them - and they'll want you. How's your 
security been?' 
'As tight as we could make it,' said Brohier. 'This conversation is the 
biggest risk we've taken.' 
'I doubt that. And how did you manage to test your prototype on 
artillery shells and tanks?' 
Brohier and Goldstein exchanged glances. 'Well, we haven't, 
actually,' Brohier said. 'A little problem of access.' 
'You're going to need to solve that problem,' Wilman said. 'If you 
don't know the limits and capabilities of your system, you're going to 
get people killed - the wrong people.' 
That's why we came to you, Grover,' said Goldstein. 'Because we 
know you share our outlook on how this should be used -and because 
you know both Washington and the Pentagon from the inside. That's 
why we'd like you to come aboard. That's why we want your 
counsel.' 
Wilman frowned. 'The first I'll give you. If some day these Triggers 
of yours were as cheap as televisions and as common as wristwatches 
- well, I could let myself dream of living long enough to see that 
world. But whether I know either Washington or the Pentagon well 
enough to help make that happen - that's highly questionable. Which 
makes any counsel I might offer of dubious value.' 
'Why not let us judge that?' asked Brohier. 'We haven't promised to 
take your advice, after all.' 
That brought a surprised laugh from Wilman. 'No, you haven't, have 
you? Very well. I think it's your duty to inform the President, just as 
Einstein informed Roosevelt about the possibility of the atomic bomb 
-' 

It was Goldstein's turn to be surprised. 'But, Grover - five minutes 
after we do, the Pentagon will slap a Top Secret sticker on it.' 
'Yes, they will.' 
'And you still think we have an obligation to hand it over to them?' 
Brohier demanded. 'How does that help move us toward 
disarmament? It's more likely to move us toward a Pax America -if 
we're the only country that has the Trigger, we'll end up being the 
only country that has armies.' 
'Karl is right, Grover,' said Goldstein, his face flushed. 'I am as 
patriotic as any man - I love this country - but I sure as hell am not 
going to give some young Caesar a magic formula for empirebuilding. 
And you cannot tell me that the Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs is going to share your enthusiasm for making Triggers as 
common as televisions.' 
'No,' said Wilman. 'I can't. But hear me out. We need to be clear 
about the objective. It isn't to keep this discovery away from our 
government and its armed forces - because you can't. If our 
intelligence assets don't dig it out, they'll grab it when you start to 
hand it out. Do you think that'll give you more influence, more moral 
authority, more bargaining power than you'll get going to them first?' 
'Probably not,' said Brohier. 'But -' 
'Of course not,' said Wilman. 'You're not trying to keep this from 
them. You're trying to make sure they don't take it from you. If we 
make them discover us, we'll validate their every worst suspicion. But 
if we come to them with this, and remind them of all those 
peacekeeping missions that weren't so peaceful, some of them will 
realize "We can use this to save some of our kids". And then we'll get 
the Trigger tested in ways you never could on your own, against the 
full range of military munitions.' 
'At the cost of losing control of it,' said Goldstein. 'This doesn't 
belong in the hands of the people who're pointing the guns. It belongs 
in the hands of the people the guns are pointed at.' 
'You never had control of it,' said Wilman. 'It's scientific knowledge - 
it belongs to everyone. How many labs around the world could start 
building a Trigger today, if they had access to your information?' 
Goldstein looked to Brohier. 'I don't know,' the scientist said slowly. 

Thirty - forty? Maybe more.' 
'And how many of those labs are capable of making the fundamental 
discovery on their own, next month, or next year?' 
'Probably a third - maybe half of them.' 
'So how much will that "Top Secret" sticker really mean?' Wilman 
asked. 'It's meaningless reassurance for our leaders.' 
'It represents a year's head start, or more,' said Brohier. 'A year in 
which we could march into Mexico and unseat Cardena, or annex 
Western Canada, or take back the Panama Canal -' 
'But, Karl - we could do any or all of those things today,' said 
Wilman. 'Our military has the best of the best, and enough of them to 
dominate any battlefield on any continent. But we don't do a tenth of 
what we could do with that power. Why? Because we know we'd 
make lousy conquerors - we'd pull our punches when it comes time to 
shoot dissenters and hunt down the resistance. And because modern 
industrial democracies don't start wars - they're bad for business. Do 
you really think there's anyone at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue 
harboring a secret desire to ride triumphantly into Vancouver?' 
'I don't want to take the chance. There've been adventurers in the 
White House in the past. There may be again, sooner than we 
imagine.' 
There are no risk-free alternatives, Karl. And I'll say this - if I had to 
pick any existing government of any major power to trust with this 
for a year or two or five, I'd pick this one. They may not do the right 
thing, by our lights - but I'd take the chance that they won't do the 
wrong thing.' 
'I wish I shared your confidence.' 
'I know these people, Karl. So does Aron - ask him his opinion of the 
President,' said Wilman. 'And there's something else to consider - if 
this discovery of yours reaches Baghdad and Havana and Phnom 
Penh and Kiev before it reaches our people, someone's sure to use it 
against us while we're trying to catch up. You have to picture the 
Trigger in the hands of the people who're trying to hurt you, not just 
the people you're trying to help.' 
'I believe Grover is correct, Karl,' Goldstein said gently. 'We need to 
talk to the President.' 

Brohier shook his head. This is not what I pictured at all.' 
'Well -I would not have you thinking me a trusting innocent, Karl,' 
said Wilman. 'Aron - if you decide to talk to the Presi-dent, I would 
be happy to make the arrangements. But before that day, there are 
two steps I would urge on you. One is to use the secure application 
procedure to apply for a patent on the Trigger technology. That'll 
complicate any attempt to edge you out.' 
The Pentagon vs. the Patent Office? What's the line on that fight?' 
Brohier asked sardonically. 
'What's the other?' 
Wilman ignored Brohier, addressing himself to Goldstein. 'The other 
is to give me - give MOM - a copy of the plans, all the technical 
information. And a list of those labs, too.' 
'Why?' Brohier demanded. 
'Because you can't unring a rung bell,' Wilman said grimly. 'Because 
they can swear you to secrecy on threat of imprisonment for treason, 
but they can't get back the words that have already left your lips. 
Because I might be wrong about all of this, and have to do something 
to try to undo the damage. You might want to make plans of your 
own along those lines, just in case.' 
'Wouldn't that be treason, too?' 
'Perhaps,' said Wilman, turning his head and looking out across the 
headstones. 'What happened to our breeze? The air is suddenly heavy. 
I'm dreading the walk back.' He rose to his feet, and the others 
followed suit. 'Dr Brohier, a pleasure meeting you - you see, I 
remembered after all,' he said, turning back and managing a polite 
smile. 'My congratulations on your new discovery- Who knows, 
perhaps your next Nobel will be the Peace Prize. Aron, come see me 
in a few days, tell me what the two of you have decided. Dr Brohier's 
not ready to decide today.' 
'Is that unreasonable? The price of being wrong is very high,' said 
Brohier. 
'Yes, it is,' said Wilman. 'And I can't promise you that I'm right. I 
know that we're prepared to be the policeman of the world. But are 
we prepared to walk that beat with an empty holster? That, I don't 
know. When you change the rules, you change the game. Gentlemen.' 

He nodded at them, and started back down the hill. 
Watching him go, Brohier ran his fingers back through his hair and 
sighed. 'Aron - did he just take over?' 
Goldstein paused in the business of folding the blanket. 'No. But he 
would, if we asked - or we lost our way, or our will.' 
'So he's going to be standing behind us with a spear, exhorting us to 
glory?' 
'Something like that.' 
'And this was part of your plan?' 
'He is a tiger,' said Goldstein, glancing in the direction Wilman had 
gone. 'We need his strength.' He brushed perspiration from his 
forehead with the back of his hand. 'And I need a drink. Let's go.' 
They picked their way in silence through several rows of headstones 
before turning and following the aisle between two rows. In ten 
sweltering minutes they were at the car, parked inconspicuously in 
the congestion near Arlington House. 
On the way to the West Gate, a signpost for Roosevelt Drive caught 
Goldstein's eye. 'Does anyone know, would Einstein have done what 
he did if Hitler hadn't already invaded Poland?' he asked. 
'Yes,' said Brohier, holding a handful of ice to his neck. 'He actually 
wrote his letter to Roosevelt about the bomb the month before. It took 
Sachs three months to deliver it.' 
'Oh,' said Goldstein. 'Never mind, then.' 
'No, no - that was exactly the right question,' Brohier said. 'I was 
reading Out of My Later Years on the way here, wondering what 
Einstein had thought about that letter later, after the Manhattan 
Project, after Hiroshima. And I learned something I hadn't known, 
and wouldn't have guessed. Einstein and the Hungarian conspiracy - 
Szilard, Teller, and Wigner - they wanted to stop Hitler, yes. But they 
were also idealists, pacifists. They thought that the discovery they 
were bringing to Roosevelt was going to put an end to all war, not 
just to that war.' 
'No-' 
'Yes. They believed that the atomic bomb would bring about world 
government, and through it world peace.' Brohier glanced sideways at 

his companion and smiled ruefully. 'Something to think about, eh?' 
Goldstein's only answer was a gloomy countenance and the sound of 
gin cascading over crackling ice. 
8: Amity 
Chicago, IL - Calling Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital 'a monument 
to gang violence', executive director Amafa Jones pleaded Friday 
with city officials to act decisively to end the South Side's war in the 
streets. 'Something's terribly wrong when a gunshot scar is 
considered a badge of honor,' she said in testimony before the City 
Council. 'Our wards are full of kids who'll never walk again.' 
Complete Story Chicago Gangs on the Net 
City Crime Statistics Police Chief Responds 
'Chief Assistant Junior Auxiliary Mushroom reporting for duty,' 
Gordon Greene announced as he entered Engineering 04, where the 
portable Trigger unit was nearing completion. 
Looking up from her work, Leigh Thayer regarded him with a wary 
expression. 'Mushroom?' 
'Sure - you know, kept in the dark, fed lots of -' 
I've been getting my breakfasts from the cafeteria,' Thayer said dryly. 
'You might want to check the routing on your meal requests.' 
Greene laughed easily. But his expression turned serious as he 
dropped his sleeping bag and red-and-white sports bag near the door 
and approached her. 'No, seriously - aren't you feeling like we're 
completely out of the loop here?' he asked. 'Brohier and Horton are 
off who knows where talking to god knows who, cutting deals and 
making arrangements that we're going to have to live with -' 
'I'm feeling like we still have a lot of work left,' she said. 'And if we 
don't hear from the boss for a few more days, that's fine with me, 
because then I won't have to tell him we're not done.' She pointed 
past Greene at the bag. 'What's that?' 

'A pillow, six shirts, a dozen pair of underwear, a toothbrush, and 
twenty-three Anthony dollars tied in a handkerchief.' When she 
looked at him blankly, he added, 'I'm running away from home.' 
'Oh,' she said. 'So you're finally doing the sensible thing -moving in. I 
don't know why you didn't do it two weeks ago.' 
'Why, that's very gracious of you to offer your hospitality, Miss Lee,' 
Greene said. 'I'd be most grateful if I could stay with you for a spell. I 
won't be a lick of trouble.' He peered into the portable control console 
and quickly assessed its partially assembled state. 'How about I knock 
out a lateral brace and mounting bracket for that processor board?' 
'As long as you don't block access to the backplane,' she said. 'I don't 
want to have to take it completely apart to field-service it.' 
'Can do,' Greene said, already crossing the room to the design 
engineering station linked to the polymet prototyping lithograph 
down the hall. 'Yeah, you were right,' he called back as he settled 
there. 'It just didn't make sense to go home. Not after twelve-hour 
days. I was kidding myself that I could still have a life.' 
'Couldn't get any dates at midnight?' 
'Couldn't stay awake through them. It was ruining my reputation.' 
Thayer snorted. 'I wouldn't count on getting my life back soon, if I 
were you,' she said. The hole spacing on that bracket is sixty 
millimeters.' 
'Got it.' 
As the bracket took shape on the screen, Greene ran through a mental 
checklist of the tasks which Horton had left to them. 
The project data had been collected, encrypted, and archived to two 
secure off-campus sites. The prototype Trigger had been broken 
down into sections and boxed for transport. The test samples were 
tagged, indexed, and resting securely in three com-partmented 
aluminum cases. 
All that was left was to pack up the main control console, a job that 
was waiting on the arrival of a custom wooden crate and a couple of 
strong backs borrowed from lab security. The portable emitter unit 
had passed its low-power checks and was ready for the first round of 
system checks as soon as its controller was ready. 

That left as Greene's sole remaining project one he had added to the 
list himself - making 'Baby Two' not merely portable but 
operationally mobile. There just may be places we'd want to put this 
where you can't run an extension cord,' he had explained. 
So he found himself distracted by what amounted to primitive 
technology - a pair of high-output Caterpillar diesel generators. 
Delivered as a single integrated unit complete with rubber-tired 
trailer and a sound-insulating shell, the DuoCat 1500 had been 
designed as an emergency services generator, with automatic 
switching from primary to backup. 
The rebuild that Greene was carrying out sacrificed that redundancy 
in the name of doubling the output. At the same time, he had decided 
to replace the power conditioning stage, hoping to filter and stabilize 
the output to something closer to laboratory standards. His best guess 
was that he had four days' work ahead of him - and, at that, he 
expected to be finished a day before Lee. 
'I'm going to go collect that bracket for you from the tank,' he said, 
pushing his chair back. 'And drop my stuff off in Conference B. Say - 
do you happen to know where they put that comfy sofa from Barton's 
office?' 
'Oh, it's still there. They took out the desk instead, to make room for 
my bed.' 
'In that case, can you spare it? I don't want to ask Site Services to 
bring in another bed -' 
'Ernie - my cat - sleeps on it -' Thayer began. 
'Oh,' Greene said with an offhanded shrug. 'Never mind, then. Plan B. 
Dr Brohier must have something in his office worth borrowing.' 
'That's all right,' she said, to Greene's surprise. 'Ernie will adjust. Just 
drop your bag in my room for now. I'll help you move the couch 
later.' 
Almost from the moment Greene had arrived at Terabyte, he and Lee 
had fallen into a foolish and annoying rivalry that had they been 
twenty years younger would have been taken for flirting. 
It played out as one-upmanship - a futile contest between two gifted 
minds to force a compliment from the lips of the other, coupled with 

a stubborn determination not to give the other that satisfaction. 
After so many months, the rivalry had little blood left in it. It lingered 
as a tic, a running joke which neither of them took seriously but 
neither of them would give up. Morton called it Let's-Poke-Each- 
Other-m-The-Eye-With-A-Stick, and sometimes eluded them when 
he caught them at it. 
That night, however, it was Thayer who caught them. 'We're doing it 
again,' she said, sitting back on her stool and switching off her test 
gear. 
'What?' 
The only reason we're still working at ten to ten is that you don't want 
to be the first one to admit that you're tired,' she said. 'Well - I'm 
tired. I've been inside this little box all day, and my eyes won't focus 
anymore.' 
Greene laid down his tools. 'I suppose you think this proves that 
you're the mature, responsible one.' 
'Not at all,' she said breezily, standing and stretching. 'I proved that 
last week by staying here working when you took off early for your 
snipe hunts.' 
'As if it's my fault that I'm popular with the ladies,' he said, joining 
her as she moved toward the hallway. 
'Of course you're popular with the ladies. You pay in advance, and 
you leave early.' 
Greene winced. 'Ouch. Victimized by a grievous low blow, the white 
king staggers, gasps his surrender, and topples off the board,' he said, 
play-acting his own narration as he went. 'Mercifully, he lands on a 
comfy couch.' 
'Ever gracious in victory, the red queen invites the vanquished king to 
share a Molando's barbecue pizza at her table.' 
'Did you already order?' 
'Half an hour ago. It should be at the gate in ten minutes.' 
'Ha! So we're really knocking off because you got hungry? Yes!' he 
chortled, going into a mock victory dance. 'I take back my surrender. 
Oh, the flesh is so weak sometimes -' 

The pizza vanished in short order, as did a large bottle of Vernors 
which Thayer produced from her tiny refrigerator. 
'Thank you,' Greene said. 'That was good - too good. I'm going to 
need to run the fence a few times first thing in the morning.' 
'You could do it now, and give the snipers a chance to practice with 
their nightscopes.' 
'You are so thoughtful,' he said, and patted the couch he was sitting 
on. 'I guess we'd better get this moved, so I can thoughtfully leave 
you alone.' 
'Maybe we can just leave it where it is.' 
Greene cocked his head questioningly and waited for her to explain. 
'It hasn't been that easy for me to sleep here,' she said, seemingly 
embarrassed by the admission. 'I thought about this today - and I'd 
rather have you in here where I know what you're up to than out there 
making strange noises in the middle of the night. If you don't mind, 
that is.' 
He shrugged. 'I suppose that'd be all right. Unless you sleep with the 
lights on, or have some sort of unnatural relationship with your cat, or 
something like that.' 
'No,' she said, amused. 'Of course, I may change my mind when I find 
out what sort of strange noises you make in here in the middle of the 
night.' 
'I'm housebroken, I never snore, and I've taught my spiders not to 
bark.' 
'A prince among men,' she said. 'Let's give it a try, then.' 
There were a few awkward moments as they prepared to turn in. Lee 
was momentarily startled when Gordon, apparently oblivious to her 
presence, stripped down to a pair of white boxers before slipping into 
his unzipped sleeping bag. A few minutes later, when Lee returned 
from changing in the women's lounge, Gordon caught himself being 
unaccountably curious about how her knee-length nightshirt draped 
her body. 
Darkness relieved both of them of their embarrassment, but did not 
erase their awareness of the other. The silence seemed meaningful 
somehow, as though it were waiting eagerly to be broken, as though 

it had an awareness of the moment which transcended theirs. Greene 
fought against the temptation to read more into her tentative 
invitation, and in doing so had to confront a cache of unexamined 
thoughts. 
I always told myself it was because we have to work together, that we 
didn't need that complication. But it's more that you deserve better 
than a six-week wonder that ends after we've been to bed a few times, 
and I don't know if I have more than that in me. 
The office was an inside room with no windows, and Gordon could 
barely even make out Lee's outline on the bed against the opposite 
wall. But he listened to her turning on her side, adjusting her pillow, 
releasing a settling breath. What are you thinking over there? Did you 
expect any different? Are you disappointed, or relieved, or is it just 
an arrogant fantasy that you're even aware of me? 
Greene sighed, and then wished he could snatch the air back, because 
the sound seemed all too loud and meaningful in the darkness, too 
like an invitation. And because he had created that opening, and 
feared that she would avail herself of it, and knew that there were 
questions he could neither answer nor gracefully deflect, it became 
necessary for him to be the one to break the silence. 
'Lee?' 
'Mmmm.' 
'There's something I've been meaning to ask you -' 
'What's that?' 
'Do you really think babies are cute?' 
'Why do you want to know?' 
'Just exploring one of those men-women boundaries. I don't have any 
sisters, you know. Two older brothers. Sean doesn't want any kids. 
And Brandon has this new baby that cries all the time, and as near as 
I can tell he doesn't even think she's cute yet.' 
'So what good would my answer do you?' 
'I just wondered how universal this baby thing is, how much starch 
there is in the stereotype. Whether all women are drawn to it on some 
level, even women who're happily single with successful careers.' 
'Ah -I get it now. This is one of those summer-camp slumber-party 

flrst-week-in-the-dorm conversations.' 
'Right.' 
She was slow to respond. 'It sounds like you already believe the 
stereotype, or you wouldn't ask the question.' 
'I can see as readily as anyone that men and women are built to 
different specifications, if that's what you mean.' 
'For example?' 
'I've never seen guys cluster around a stroller the way women do. 
Brandon calls Molly his babe magnet. That's why he doesn't mind 
taking her for a walk, or shopping.' 
'Your brother sounds like a charmer.' 
'Well, he's only twenty-six. He won't be sentient for another couple of 
years.' 
Lee chuckled savagely. 'What does that say for you?' 
'"Danger, danger. Will Robinson -"' 
She laughed. 'What was - is? - your mother like? Since you have no 
sisters to set a better example -' 
'I'd say that being a mother was my mother's first and best destiny, 
and she knew it. She stayed home with us until the youngest of us - 
me - entered high school. I remember I was turned around enough at 
one point to feel guilty about that. She told me that we didn't keep her 
from doing anything she wanted to do more, because there wasn't 
anything she wanted more. I don't think those were just words.' 
'Was she a Family First covenantor, then?' 
'Oh, no,' he said, chuckling. 'There was nothing political about it. She 
was just being mom.' 
That helps me understand the context of the question,' she said. 'So 
what kind of answer do you really want? General or specific? 
Sociobiology or psychology?' 
'Ladies' choice.' 
'How quaintly old-fashioned of you,' she said, yawning involuntarily. 
'I guess I'd say it's a confidence-point-nine-zero generalization. Most 
women are drawn to babies, and most of them can't even tell you 
why. But there's that other ten percent. I have had a couple of friends 

over the years who avoided babies like they were booby-trapped.' 
She stopped a moment, then added, 'But now that I think about it, 
both of them came from screwed-up homes - one abusive step-father, 
one alcoholic mother. And both of them had cats. Maybe it's a 
confidence-nine-five generalization, after all.' 
Then there are exceptions - no cats, no horses, no dogs, and no 
regrets -' 
'You're mixing up at least four different kinds of women,' she said. 
The relationship between women and dogs - big dogs, anyway; little 
dogs count as cats - is nothing like the relationship between women 
and their cats, or women and their horses. Mind you, I'm not saying 
there isn't some compensation and displacement involved in all three 
of them. These are relationships, not possessions.' 
'So if cats are substitute babies -' 
'Sometimes,' she cautioned. 'And dogs are sometimes solicitous 
lovers. - Not literally,' she added hastily. 
'Not usually, anyway. And horses -' 
'Horses - horses are complicated.' She thought a moment. 'I think 
horses manage to evoke all the kinds of human relationships there 
are, from the purely mercenary and utilitarian to the profoundly 
personal, even sexual. The horse can be mother, father, friend, child, 
lover, devoted servant - not to mention the powerful wild thing held 
captive between the horsewoman's legs, kept in check by harness and 
whip and the rider's will -' 
'I'm guessing you watched Xena when you were a kid.' 
'How did you know?' He could hear her smile. 
'Lucky guess,' he said. 'But, still, you say there are exceptions - 
women who simply aren't drawn to motherhood and babies, who 
haven't filled that space with substitutes and aren't running away from 
their own terrors.' 
'Yes. Which is why you can't make one rule for all women, why 
women have to be able to choose.' 
'And are you one of them? The exceptions?' 
'Ah - so you do want the personal answer, after all,' she said, sighing. 
'No. I like babies fine. I do think they're cute. I wish I'd been able to 

be around more while my sister's kids were little. And I haven't given 
up hope of having one or two of my own. - Don't read anything into 
that.' 
'Wouldn't think of it.' 
'Just for the record, you could have been a little less eager to agree,' 
she said, and sighed. 'I'm not what men want. I know that. And I'm 
not interested in trying to be what men want. - No, that's not really 
true. I understand it well enough, and I'm not one of those women 
who find the whole thing disgusting. It just doesn't come naturally to 
me. I'm a tone-deaf siren, a wallflower at the mating dance. And I do 
wonder why men can't want me for me. I'm smart, I don't defer, and I 
didn't put making babies number one on my list of priorities. Does 
that disqualify me somehow?' 'It shouldn't,' he said. It doesn't. Now 
give me a clue or three about what you want, and where you think 
you might find it - 
There were two messages waiting for them in the morning. The one 
from Brohier advised them that he would be remaining in 
Washington for a few more days. The one from Horton asked for 
their best estimate of when Baby would be ready to travel. 
'Something's happened,' Gordon said. They've made some kind of 
deal.' 
That would be good news, wouldn't it? Or did you want to live like 
this forever?' 
'It's not good news. Brohier's going to hand the Trigger over to the 
Pentagon, and Horton's going to stand by and let him.' 
'You don't know that. The boss promised me -' 
'It's inevitable. If they were thinking globally they'd be in New York, 
visiting with the Secretary General of the UN. Look, Brohier's not in 
Washington to cruise Embassy Row. He's in Washington because 
he's a nationalist at heart. He doesn't want to do anything that might 
weaken his country.' 
'And that's a problem for you?' 
'It's seventeenth-century thinking, not twenty-first-century thinking. 
Strong armies, strong city-states, strong walls. But there are no walls 
anymore. We have a global culture and global commerce built on 

science and technology. Every attempt to politicize scientific 
knowledge has been an unmitigated disaster. Information wants to be 
free.' 
'What do you expect from them? Dr Brohier is as proud of his 
National Medal of Science as he is his Nobel Prize.' 
'Brohier is a throwback,' Greene said with disgust. 'Look, I expect 
Brohier and Horton to think about the politics of the Trigger. I 
expect them to act like Homo sapiens sapiens, not Americans. We're 
supposed to be outgrowing our tribal mentality, not reinforcing it.' 
'Are the two mutually exclusive? It's perfectly reasonable to make 
sure your own home is safe before charging off to save someone 
else's.' 
'But giving the Trigger to the military amounts to hoarding the fire 
hoses and then wondering why our neighbors' houses are burning 
down. Come on. Lee - I know you can't want this to end up in the 
same warehouse with the Ark of the Covenant, the cold-fusion 
turbine, and the Roswell UFO.' 
Lee was shaking her head. 'You're so paranoid that you're starting to 
make me feel normal by comparison. No, I don't want to see the 
Trigger used to make the powerful invulnerable - it's good for people 
like Nkrumah and Morana and Son Lee to have to worry about 
finding themselves on the wrong end of a gun. But I can't believe that 
we'd give the Trigger to people like that.' 
'You don't think our government still plays the game of propping up 
our friends and weakening our enemies? I didn't think you were that 
much of an innocent.' 
'Gordie, I'm not naive about politics, I'm bored to tears by it -there's a 
difference. Church politics, city politics, national politics, 
international politics, it's all the same, just an endless pissing contest 
punctuated by the occasional bloody brawl.' 
'You can't pretend the outcome doesn't matter -' 
'It's as inconsequential to me as the outcome of the next Ohio State 
football game -' 
His face showing mock horror, Greene made a cross of his 
forefingers and held it up before him as though warding off a demon. 
'Heathen child!' 

'It's my heretic heart,' she said agreeably. 'As far as I'm concerned, 
you could call the whole season off, and apart from the quiet and the 
improvement in the traffic near campus, I'd hardly notice the 
difference. Which is pretty much how I feel about elections, family 
feuds, hostile takeovers, superhero comics, professional hockey, and 
action movies. I'd keep the Olympics, but get rid of the national 
uniforms - everyone represents themselves. No medal counts.' 
'You're a totally alien creature.' 
'I thought we agreed on that last night,' she said. 'Gordie, seriously - 
maybe I am naive to trust the promise the boss made me, that we'd 
see the Trigger used to liberate rather than oppress. But it seems to 
me that making a disarmed world work is going to require a lot of 
trust, and I'm willing to take that chance. We have to be willing, or 
we're dead at the start.' 
'Except Horton isn't in Washington - Brohier is,' Greene pointed out. 
'What kind of promise did he make you?' 
She had no ready answer for that, save a frown. 'It doesn't matter 
anyway,' she said, turning to her work. 'What could we do, even if we 
had proof you were right? Arrange an "accident" that'll destroy the 
lab and kill us? Run away with Jeff's babies and see how long we can 
keep one step ahead of the FBI? Publish the notes and specifications 
on the Internet and let chaos come?' 
'I'd be willing to think about at least two of those.' 
'Well, I'm not,' she said, turning back toward him. 'Like it or not, 
we're committed to this course. And if the first mass-produced 
Triggers are built by TRW and installed in the White House 
basement, the Pentagon courtyard, Air Force One, and the Social 
Security Data Center, so what? It's a Trojan Horse, Gordie. Because 
you can't use the Trigger in self-defense without disarming yourself 
at the same time.' 
They'll find a way around that.' 
'By the time they do, we'll have the size down to a suitcase and the 
price down to a good deskstation, and Triggers will be everywhere, 
creating little oases of sanity,' she said. 'Or maybe we'll have boosted 
the range so much we'll just build three great big ones and park them 
in Clarke orbits a hundred and twenty degrees apart. That's something 
Washington can make happen, and Tehran can't.' 

'It's worse than I thought,' he said gloomily. 'You're an optimist, too.' 
'Bite your tongue,' she said sharply. 'The optimist only sees the up 
side, just like the pessimist only sees the down side. I'm a meliorist. I 
see the possibilities. You have to have hope, Gordie. The kind of 
stars-in-your-eyes, feet-on-the-ground hope that lets you see a better 
world hiding in the shadow of this one - and warns you that only hard 
work will bring it into the light.' 
By the time she finished, Greene was eyeing her with a curious 
expression that seemed one part skeptical amusement and three parts 
surprised admiration, or perhaps the other way around. 'You really 
are something else, Dr Leigh Thayer,' was all he said, in a voice so 
carefully neutral that it didn't reveal which way the balance finally 
tipped. 
'Funny, that's what it says in my FBI surveillance file, too.' Her gaze 
narrowed, but her eyes betrayed her with a twinkle. 'But how would 
you know that, unless - you're one of them.' 
'Hah. I'm not just one of them - I'm the original one.' 
'Just as I suspected all along,' she said, her face relaxing into a smile. 
'Look, what do you want to tell the boss about the timetable? I should 
have my part wrapped up by the end of Friday - Saturday noon at the 
latest.' 
'Tell him ten days.' 
She squinted questioningly at him. I thought you were closer to being 
finished than that.' 
'A week, then.' 
'Gordie, what's this about? You're just tinkering with the power trailer 
now.' 
'I think we need to burn in the portable - at minimum power - for 
seventy-two hours before we move it. Bounce it around a bit, too.' 
'Why?' 
'So we'll know we can count on it during the move.' 
'Still thinking about FBI agents in pursuit?' 
He shrugged. 'About what else is in those shadows. We might as well 
have the benefit of our own creation, both here and when we leave 

here. I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.' 
'You're sure you're not just digging in your heels and trying to slow 
down the Terabyte express?' 
'I'm sure,' said Greene firmly, then added, '- though I'm not saying I 
wouldn't if I thought I could.' 
She nodded understandingly. I'll tell the boss that the prototype is 
ready whenever, and the portable will be seven to ten days. He won't 
question it. He knows it's only the two of us here, and that we're 
doing the best we can.' 
'I don't want to ask you to lie for me -' 
'I won't,' Lee said. 'I'll just say we're not quite ready.' She glanced 
around the lab, now stripped of not only every personal touch, but all 
traces of the work that had been done there, and sighed lightly. 'This 
was the job of a lifetime. And it's over. I know that. But I'm not quite 
ready to leave.' 
9: Colloquy 
Algiers, Algeria - Opening ceremonies of the World Islamic 
Progress Conference were disrupted by a deadly rocket attack that 
killed thirty-two and wounded scores more, including visiting 
Egyptian President Mohamed Khaled. In retaliation, Algerian Prime 
Minister Zaoui ordered ground and air assaults on Hassan Hattab 
strongholds in Z'Barbar and Tipaza. Later, in an interview on CNN, 
Zaoui denounced 'the blood merchants of France and America' for 
selling advanced weapons to the anti-government insurgents. 
Complete Story Anti-Terrorism on WIPC Agenda 
Khaled Addresses Conference From Hospital Bed 
None of the three men waiting restlessly in the Oval Office anteroom 
was a stranger to the White House, but none of them were 
accustomed to being treated like beggars at the back door. 
Before his anti-gun activities made him a political leper, Grover 

Wilman had been one of the Republican Party's rising stars. Coming 
late to politics, he offered a mature visage unburdened by a long 
legislative pedigree, and found himself cast as the worldly-wise war 
hero. Between Congressional briefings, legislative strategy sessions, 
and media events, he had logged more than sixty visits to 1600 
Pennsylvania Avenue, most during the first term of President Evans. 
Because power has always and everywhere courted wealth, and 
wealth invariably returns the favor, Aron Goldstein also knew the 
White House well. He had been favored with invitations to social 
events and State dinners by four successive Presidents, including 
Evans. In a deft and delicate balancing act, Goldstein had managed to 
preserve his virtue while retaining both their interest and his access. 
By neither begging for favors nor buying them, he achieved a 
reputation for integrity which made him more welcome in those 
circles than any mere money-man could be. 
By contrast, Karl Brohier had only been inside the White House on 
two occasions, but both had been red-carpet events. The first had 
been President Engler's campaign-season 'cattle call' of Nobel Prize 
winners. In that now-infamous embarrassment, Engler had tried to 
claim credit by proxy for America's scientific successes. Minutes 
later, Bartlesmann, the recipient of the prize for medicine, pointed out 
from the same South Lawn podium that Engler had cut the Federal 
science budget in half, and killed the program under which 
Bartlesmann himself had received his doctoral training. 
The second occasion, when Brohier accepted the National Medal of 
Science from President Evans, had been a quieter but considerably 
more dignified affair. 
But all of that had been before Mark Breland moved into the Oval 
Office. 
The first man since Kennedy to move directly from the Senate to the 
Presidency, and the first 'people's President' since Teddy Roosevelt, 
Breland had - for better or worse - broken or rewritten most of the 
rules about how Washington worked. Neither Evans nor Engler 
would have allowed the likes of Wilman, Goldstein, and Brohier to 
be kept waiting for nearly two hours for a prearranged audience. But 
this was Mark Breland's White House, where nothing was as before. 
Breland's personal charisma was often likened to JFK's, but the 

resemblance ended there. He was from the Senate, but not of it, and 
his wealth was 'new money' and self-made - Breland had been a star 
pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies for more than a decade. With an 
engaging smile, an old-fashioned work ethic, and a one-two punch 
consisting of a disheartening fastball and a wickedly deceptive slider, 
Breland pitched the Phils to three World Series, collecting two Cy 
Young Awards as the best in the game. 
But Breland was unimpressed by celebrity, including his own. 
Throughout his career, he had quietly turned down all endorsement 
deals, even when they would have doubled or trebled his substantial 
annual salary. Then a frustrated athletic-shoe company tried to 
borrow Breland's fame without using his name or image in a clever 
ad featuring blurred action shots, shadowy figures, darkened locker 
rooms, the sound of running footsteps, and a grandfatherly narrator 
who began each spot by drawling, 'Yessir, he was the best I ever saw - 
' Instead of suing the company, Breland shamed them with a 
memorable press conference that produced an even more memorable 
quote: 
'Why should anyone care what kind of shoes I like to wear? I'm the 
only one walking on my feet. And doesn't everyone here know that 
it's the walking, not the shoes, that gets you where you want to go?' 
It was a national audience's first glimpse of the plain-spoken, 
common-sense populism that would come to define Breland's public 
reputation. And it was not the last time he would break the rules. In 
an era when major league rosters might change completely in a span 
of only two or three years, he played his entire career for one team, 
and chided his fellow players for valuing money more than loyalty, 
saying, 'No mercenary was ever a hero. You can't expect to be 
cheered when you change uniforms in the middle of a battle.' 
And after posting his one losing record in what had become a 
nightmare season for the whole team, he apologized publicly to the 
fans and gave back his salary in the form of refunds - $2.71 per ticket 
for every game he appeared in, mailed or credited to every ticket 
purchaser on record. 
'I'm lucky enough to be a grown man playing a boy's game,' said the 
note accompanying the refund checks. 'I'll take your money again 
when I've earned it on the field.' Eight teammates followed his lead. 
And the following season, the team regained its competitive form and 

reclaimed first place. 
In part because of moments like those, when an off-season wrist 
injury prematurely ended his career, 'Breeze' was the marquee player 
in professional sports. In the news coverage of his retirement, the 
most frequently applied adjectives were 'genuine' and 'honorable'. 
And his fame had spilled over into the mass cultural consciousness, 
placing him in that elite group of athletes instantly recognizable by 
millions who had never seen him play. 
When Breland called the chairman of the beleaguered Pennsyl-vania 
State iDemocratic Party and told her that he wanted to run for the 
Senate, party officials had been jubilant, thinking that they finally had 
a horse they could ride back to respectability. But somewhere along 
the way, the roles of horse and rider got turned around. Behind 
Breland's golden reputation were dual degrees in literature and 
political science, an incisive and decisive mind, and an unwavering 
conviction that the country's problems were solvable through a 
generous application of industry and compassion. 
'These are my family values,' he said on election night, the phrase 
somehow sounding fresh on his lips, 'the values that were my parents' 
greatest gift to me, the ones they taught me by example. You work 
hard. You protect and provide for your family. You put your 
responsibilities before your desires. You lend a hand when someone's 
struggling, listen and hold a hand when someone's hurting, speak up 
when someone needs guidance, stand up when the truth needs a 
friend. 
'None of this needs explanation, or justification. Everyone here 
understands. Everyone knows it's the right thing to do. These are the 
values of communities that work, of tribes, villages, neighborhoods, 
towns. Our challenge is to extend those values to communities the 
size of states and countries, and in time to the whole globe.' 
It was a message that wanted a wider audience. It found that audience 
six years later, when Breland asked to be entrusted with the job of 
President of the United States. 
He asked the people, not the Democratic Party. One term had been 
more than enough to make clear that the qualities which endeared 
Breland to his admirers vexed and infuriated the party leadership. He 
was too direct and not nearly beholden enough for their liking. 

Breland would not play The Game, would not bow to the icons and 
mouth the mealy platitudes, would not keep his place or mind his 
tongue. The party could neither control him nor silence him. He did 
not need the party, and both of them knew it. 
The party needed him, and both of them knew that, too. 
Though jaded Beltway insiders dismissed Breland as a light-weight 
and discounted his chances of making it as far as the nominating 
convention, he was good copy - as quotable as he was quixotic. And 
his words struck a chord, not only with early adopters across the 
political spectrum, but with some of the jaded press covering his 
unconventional campaign of ideas. February's joke became, in turn. 
May's longshot, August's surprise nominee, and November's polldefying 
President-elect. 
Breland's first act the next morning was to announce that he wouldn't 
accept the Presidential salary of $2 50,000. 'I'm a rookie in this 
league,' he said. 'Let's wait and see what kind of year I have.' 
And so far, it had been a strange and wonderful year, as Breland 
continued to break the rules and upset expectations. 
He had canceled most of the pomp of Inauguration Day, including the 
parade - putting the focus on the democratic miracle of the peaceful 
transfer of power, and on the theme of his address, 'We can do better.' 
Within two months, the press that had loved Breland the candidate 
was beating Breland the chief executive about the head and shoulders 
with that phrase, mocking his ad hoc administration for a series of 
missteps great and small. 
But instead of resorting to the usual White House tactics of denial 
and distraction, Breland crossed up the press corps by publicly 
agreeing with them. 
'Yes, we've made mistakes. Did anyone here expect me to pitch a 
perfect game on opening day?' he asked a roomful of journalists and a 
national holovee audience. 'Because I didn't expect it. It just doesn't 
happen - which I'm sure you know, since most of you folks have been 
following this sport longer than I've been playing it. But I'll tell you 
this: more than once in my career, I've been wild early, found myself 
down a couple of runs to a good team, and gone on to win. Leave me 
in the game, coach. I'll be all right.' 
Allergic as they were to folksy metaphors not of their own creation, 

the Washington press remained cool - but the public was charmed. 
Breland's approval rating went up eight points, and had remained 
high despite the best efforts of his enemies. 
But you're still missing the plate with your fastball, Wilman thought 
crossly, rising to go question the appointments secretary once more. 
But before he and his accumulated annoyance got there, he was 
intercepted by Breland's chief of staff, Richard Nolby - the man who 
had arranged their visit. 
'Senator,' Nolby said breathlessly. 'I'm terribly sorry. This situation in 
Algeria has had us hopping all morning. But the President is free now 
- if you and your companions will follow me?' 
One thing that had not changed during the Breland tenure in the 
White House was the power geometry of the Oval Office. 
Visitors who were there to be flattered, impressed, intimidated, or 
humored found Breland behind sixty inches of flame oak desktop, 
ensconced in front of the famous curved windows in what he and his 
aides had dubbed 'the hot seat'. Visitors who were there to negotiate, 
brainstorm, debate, or conspire had their meeting with Breland in 
what he called 'the pit' - a pair of claw-footed davenports facing each 
other across a glass-top accent table. A matching armchair, which 
Nolby had never seen Breland use, made the pit into a U that seemed 
more intimate than the room that surrounded it. 
For more than an hour, Breland had been perched on the front edge of 
one of the davenports, listening raptly as his visitors laid out the 
details of an astonishing discovery. The science was beyond his 
ability to comprehend, but the implications were not. Every goal he 
had, every problem he faced, every hope he harbored had suddenly 
been rendered irrelevant. These three men - unprepossessing in 
appearance, naive in outlook, unpolished in presentation - were 
sweeping away Breland's game plan, rewriting the future before his 
eyes. 
Everything you know is wrong - 
'I can see that I'm not going to be getting a full night's sleep for a 
while,' Breland said, shaking his head. 'I hope you'll understand when 
I say that I'd like to witness this Trigger effect myself, at the first 
opportunity -' 

'As would I,' said Wilman. 
'Everything we've told you is the truth,' said Goldstein with a hint of 
indignation. 
'Did I suggest otherwise? It's not doubt you were hearing,' Breland 
said. 'You and Dr Brohier arrived at my door with enough credibility 
to tell me the incredible and keep me listening. But I confess to the 
childish desire to touch the miracle.' 
'We'd be happy to arrange that at your convenience,' said Goldstein, 
looking mollified. 
'Well - it's hardly the most important thing to be settled,' said 
Breland, and looked to Nolby. 'I suppose we should have General 
Stepak in to hear this, and Carrero,' he said, naming the Secretaries of 
Defense and State. 
'At the very least,' Nolby said. Though we'll have to be careful to 
keep this information tightly compartmentalized. Dr Brohier, who 
else knows about this?' 
'Does it matter?' Brohier asked with a raised eyebrow. 'In the long 
run, there are no secrets in science. The universe will not cooperate in 
a cover-up.' 
'Richard wasn't thinking about a cover-up, I'm sure,' said Breland. 
'But I have no doubt you've already -' 
'Wasn't he?' asked Wilman sharply. 'Mr President, there's only one 
reason we're here. And that's because you, more than any other 
person, have it within your power to see that this discovery is used 
for the benefit of the human species, for the advancement of 
civilization. These men are patriots, as am I - but none of us came 
here to offer you anything as transitory as a technological edge over 
our enemies. The Trigger isn't something to be "compartmentalized" - 
it's something to be shared, to be spread around the globe until it's in 
the hands of everyone who can benefit from it. And if you're not of 
like mind on this, we'll make our apologies for misjudging you, and 
take our leave.' 
'Just because we aren't at war doesn't mean we have no enemies,' said 
Nolby, unmoved. 'Just because there are no troops massing on our 
borders and no warships off our coasts doesn't mean our enemies 
can't threaten us. And with old Soviet nukes in at least twenty 

countries, the threat is extremely potent. Remember Srvestibad,' he 
said, invoking the name of the first city since Nagasaki to vanish 
under a mushroom cloud. 'We don't want one of those in Florida or 
Texas or California.' 
'I remember Oklahoma City,' said Wilman. The guns that most 
threaten us are our own. The fanatics who most threaten us are homegrown.' 
'No.' Breland shook his head. 'Oh, that threat is there -' 
'Not merely a threat,' Wilman said. 'We've just become numb to the 
bloodshed when it happens in ones and twos. Shoot ten in a 
restaurant or a post office and we'll pay attention for an afternoon. 
Kill fifty by blowing up a railroad bridge and the City of Chicago and 
we'll pay attention for a week. But eleven thousand gun murders 
every year pass beneath our notice - until it's a sibling, a friend, a 
child -' 
'If we were losing eleven thousand young men a year to fireflghts in 
rice paddies or jungles or sand dunes, you wouldn't be shrugging it 
off,' said Goldstein. 'But because it's in vacant lots, and bedrooms, 
and bars -' 
'I don't shrug it off,' said Breland. Though perhaps there's something 
to the charge that we're numb to the bloodshed, or at least inattentive. 
But I wish I could tell you - hell, I wish I could tell CNN - how much 
our intelligence agencies have done for this country over the last ten 
years, how much pain they've spared us by keeping those weapons 
away from our borders. There've been so many sacrifices, so many 
heroes, that no one's ever heard about.' 
The Trigger can make the CIA's job easier,' said Wilman. 'But if all 
we do with it is protect our own, then shame on us. There are 
innocents dying every day in Panama, in Korea, in Angola, in Bosnia, 
because of the detritus of wars that ended half a century ago - a 
hundred million mines waiting in the dark for a child's footstep. 
There are places in the world which haven't known a day's peace in a 
hundred years, because guns and bombs drown out all other forms of 
dialogue.' 
Breland smiled wryly. 'You are a passionate and persuasive man, 
Senator. One might think you've done this sort of thing before.' 
'Home field advantage,' Wilman said lightly. 'No apologies.' 

'Of course not.' Breland glanced sideways at Nolby, then fixed his 
gaze on Brohier. 'You want me to start a disarmament race.' 
'Yes,' said Brohier. 'Yes, exactly.' 
'Forgive me, Mr President, but that's the worst kind of foolishness,' 
Nolby said. 'You can't change human nature. You can't eliminate 
conflict. It isn't the weapons - it's us. It's greed, and lust, and rage, and 
someone standing in the way of what we want. War was invented 
long before gunpowder, and murder long before war. Take away the 
guns and they'll use knives and clubs. Take away the bombs and 
they'll use poison and fire. This doesn't touch the impulse that leads 
to murder, that leads to the order for the infantry to advance.' 
'I pity you,' Goldstein said, though his expression spoke more clearly 
of contempt. 'You live by choice in a bleak and hopeless world, and 
use your pessimism as an excuse for inaction.' He looked to the 
President with a steady, challenging gaze. 'But even if Mr Nolby 
were right, and our species is condemned to create murderers and 
warlords, the least the rest of us can do is make it as hard for them as 
we possibly can.' 
It was Wilman who answered the challenge, and his words made 
Goldstein and Brohier both stare in disbelieving wonder. 
'Mr Nolby is right. It's dishonest to pretend otherwise,' Wilman said. 
'Without war, we'd hardly have any history. Without murder, we'd 
hardly have any fiction. We are flawed, and the flaw is a failure of 
empathy. We are unable to give the suffering of others the same 
weight as our own mild discomfort. We block the pain of others from 
reaching our nerve endings, lest we find ourselves impelled to do 
something to relieve the pain. 
'But Mr Nolby is also wrong. He discounts the significance of 
learning, the possibility of enlightenment. I could not now bring 
myself to do for you, President Breland, what I willingly and 
unthinkingly did for another President, half a lifetime and half a 
world away. I learned from my experiences, and so must we all. Do 
you have children, Mr Nolby?' 
'Three sons.' 
'Ah, well, then at least you have some foundation for your 
pessimism,' said Wilman. 'If you come home tonight and find your 
sons beating each other with sticks in the back yard, you will want to 

talk to them about respect, about other ways of solving disputes, 
about the rules of your household. But while they're trying to absorb 
the wisdom of your advice and the earnestness of your warnings, 
won't you also take away the sticks? In fact, won't you do that first?' 
He did not wait for an answer, turning next to Breland. 'I welcome 
the revolution. I want to see how it changes things if our presidents 
can no longer napalm a jungle or machine-gun a crowd, if all that the 
general's tanks can threaten is what they can run over, if the worst the 
premier's planes can do is drop rocks. I want to see if a commander 
will send an army into battle knowing that the very weapons his 
soldiers carry will likely kill them. I want to see if that army will 
march into battle unarmed.' 
'Haven't you made the strongest man in the tribe king, then?' asked 
Breland. 
'In some respects, likely so,' said Wilman. 'Sir, I won't promise you 
an egalitarian world. Dominance hierarchies will not disappear - 
they'll be strengthened. And so it should be.' 
'This is a good thing?' 
'It's the express lane of the road to peace. One of the most insidious 
things about guns is how they inspire the ambitions of weak men - 
how they lead them to fight when they properly ought to submit, and 
to keep fighting when they should accept stalemate. Nature's been 
turned upside down by these weapons. Imagine what rutting season 
would be like if the bucks were armed with shotguns.' 
Breland showed a rueful smile, and Goldstein laughed 
uncomfortably. By then, Nolby was openly scowling. 'Then you 
mean to betray your country, to surrender the planet to the Chinese?' 
he demanded. 'Because our military technology is the counterweight 
for their numbers. Take away our technology, and the balance of 
power shifts to them. And the Romans built an empire with nothing 
but the phalanx and the oared galley.' 
Brohier rescued the moment for Wilman. 'President Breland, I can 
tell you that the Chinese physicists are just as capable of making this 
discovery as we were,' he said. 'In fact, I can't offer you any 
reassurance that they didn't make it five years ago. We are as likely to 
be a little behind as a little ahead.' 
'So they could be building these devices now.' 

'It's entirely possible.' 
Turning to Nolby, Breland said, 'It's not clear to me what other 
options there are, Richard. But I'll listen to your suggestions.' 
'I have none,' Nolby confessed. 'But I find this whole business 
unsettling - deeply unsettling.' 
'"Unsettling" is a good word,' said Breland. 'It looks to me as if this 
will "unsettle" a great deal. Dr Brohier, can you stay in Washington 
for a few days?' 
'Under what terms?' asked Wilman. 
Nolby and Breland exchanged glances. 
'Well - I suppose Richard will insist that I get your signatures on a 
security oath -' the President began. 
'He can insist all he likes,' said Brohier, interrupting. 'I'm no more 
trustworthy with my name on a piece of paper, and no less 
trustworthy without.' 
'Of course,' Breland said. 'But you can understand that -' 
Brohier had no patience for verbal balm. 'Mr President, you don't 
own me - and no one owns a scientific discovery. You have no 
business asking me for a commitment when you're not ready to make 
one yourself. When you decide what you're going to do about what 
we've told you today, then I'll be ready to decide what I'm going to 
do. In the meantime, I'll take a room, and give you your few days. 
But only a few -I hate jostling with tourists, and I hate socializing 
w'ith lawyers, which sharply limits how long I can stand this town.' 
'Would you be interested in going up to Camp David, Dr Brohier?' 
asked Breland, unfazed by the remonstration. 'No tourists, and I can 
have the lawyers driven off before you get there. You're a Vermont 
man, if I remember correctly - I think you might enjoy the mountain 
and the woods.' 
'A prison with a view?' 
'Dr Brohier will stay with me at Hollow Oak,' said Goldstein. 'If that's 
agreeable to everyone.' 
'Given what's at stake, I'd like to see the Secret Service on the 
grounds,' Nolby said. 

'To watch us, or watch over us?' Brohier said sharply. 'Never mind. 
Aron, this time, will you let me run the trains?' 
The President looked puzzled, but Goldstein wrinkled his nose in 
contemplation and allowed, 'Maybe one slow freight.' 
Brohier nodded and looked to Breland. 'We'll be at Hollow Oak.' 
'We'll accept an escort, if you insist on providing one,' Goldstein said 
with polite cheer. 'But no agents on the grounds,' he added sharply. 
That's my home, Mr President. And I choose not to live in a fortress. 
I recommend that notion to you.' 
As a rule, Mark Breland did not have trouble being decisive. 
Indecision was a fatal flaw in competitive sports, and the purposeful 
self-assurance he had displayed on the mound was woven into his 
nature. 
To be sure, his decisions were not always right. But Breland would 
rather be wrong in a hurry than agonize his way to a state of 
ambivalence. Soon after his arrival in Washington, his staff and the 
media alike had taken note of his uncanny ability to quickly size up 
the options, run out the likely consequences, and make a choice he 
was willing to live with. Breland's fans, looking at his best decisions, 
called it 'incisiveness' - his detractors, looking at his worst, called it 
'impulsiveness'. 
But the decision facing Breland now was causing the gears of his 
analysis engine to seize. 
The options were clear enough. The government could take over and 
build the Trigger for its own purposes, step aside and allow Brohier 
and Goldstein to take it to market, or draw down the black curtain 
and bury the secret in the vaults of Yucca Flats. 
But the likely consequences of those choices were frighteningly 
complex - like trying to look fifty moves ahead in a chess game 
where each side had five hundred pieces. By the time Goldstein and 
Brohier left, Breland was feeling humbled by the situation, illprepared 
for the responsibility. 
It was not the first time he had felt that way, but it was the first time 
in a long time. As a sixteen-year-old high school sophomore, he had 
found himself the starter in a state tournament game, thanks to a car 

wreck that injured two of the team's senior pitchers. He hadn't 
expected to play, hadn't studied the opposing hitters, hadn't been 
mentally or physically ready, and their top-ranked lineup had stung 
every pitch that wasn't wild during a half-inning that had gone on 
forever. 
In the loneliness of a deserted locker room, a teary-eyed Breland had 
vowed never to be caught out again, never to bring less than his best. 
Until that day, he had coasted on raw physical talent, never working 
harder than his notion of 'fun' allowed. From that day forward, he set 
out to make certain he was always ready for the next level, the next 
opportunity, the next challenge. 
Breland outworked everyone that fall and winter, made the All-State 
First Team as a junior, was a first-round draft pick out of high school 
but took Florida State's scholarship instead of a million-dollar 
contract. He played four years and graduated with eight SEC records, 
a degree plus six credits toward a master's, a multimillion-dollar 
contract, and a nickname - 'Breeze', because he made it all look so 
easy. 
He never liked the nickname, thinking that it meant they couldn't see 
the work. It was a nickname better suited to the boy he had been than 
the young man he had made himself into. But, still, when Breland 
was called up to the big club after smothering Triple-A for half a 
season, he was ready. Nothing had changed when the game became 
politics and the arena Washington - the day he started running, he 
was ready to win, and the day he won, he was ready to get to work. 
Even his harshest critics gave him credit for working hard. 
But at that moment, he was his own harshest critic, and the only 
answer he had for the uncomfortable feeling of looking up at a 
problem that seemed to dwarf his resources was to work even harder. 
Breland spent most of the afternoon querying the Library of 
Congress, using the broad-band terminal in his private office. The 
lead topics were criminology and military history, though industrial 
chemistry and the Manhattan Project also commanded his attention. 
By early evening he'd worked up a number of questions he wanted to 
put to human experts. He picked up his phone, and the parade to the 
White House gate began. 
Wherever he could, he picked the brains of his visitors without 

revealing the existence of the Trigger to them. It saved considerable 
time on a night when most of the men and women Breland 
summoned spent an hour or more impatiently waiting for him in an 
anteroom, wondering about the urgency under which they'd been 
called away from their personal lives. 
When his questions couldn't be posed any other way, Breland spoke 
speculatively about disarmament without specifying the means, or in 
airy what-if generalities about the future of weapons technology. 
Only to his last two visitors of the night did Breland offer a full 
explanation as preamble. 
His conversation with FBI Director Edgar Mills began just before 
midnight, and it was after one before Breland finally posed the first 
of his two questions to the somber-faced former field agent. 'Director, 
if this technology reaches the hands of ordinary folks, what kind of 
impact would it have on crime?' 
'Reaches them how? At the price of a new Mercedes, or the price of a 
cheap suit?' 
'I wouldn't be surprised to see both ends of that scale over the span of 
a few years.' 
Mills nodded, rubbing his nearly bald pate. 'We had ninety-three 
bombings last year, not quite two hundred dead. A quiet year, 
comparatively. At Mercedes prices, maybe we alter the script of fifty 
of those incidents - and end up with five hundred dead -' 
'What?' 
'Because not every bomber means to kill. But you're still going to 
have ninety-three explosions, except now some of them are going to 
take place in the streets at rush hour instead of in a deserted clinic in 
the middle of the night. And there isn't going to be time to make that 
phone call and empty that office building. In fact, maybe we end up 
with three or four bombings a week instead of two, because we won't 
have as many opportunities to catch some of these people before their 
timers hit zero, and because this gadget will make competent bombbuilders 
out of the klutzes - whereas today, sometimes we catch a 
break because amateurs make mistakes.' 
'But once word starts to get around that their own bombs are going to 
kill them, won't that alter the equation?' 

'I'd expect it to alter the tactics,' Mills said with a frown. There are a 
lot of ways to deliver a bomb-sized parcel besides walking it up to 
the front door yourself. Messenger services, UPS, dupes and mules - 
just find someone who goes where you want the bomb to go and strap 
it under his car. Now, at middle-class prices, maybe we alter the 
script of seventy incidents, and end up with two hundred explosions 
and three thousand dead -' 
'Why?' 
'Because middle class people live and work closer together than the 
Mercedes people do. From what you say, this device is a detonator 
that's live all the time, with invisible wires that reach out hundreds of 
yards - you and your bomb drive past one installed in a mansion's 
front gate, and you and maybe a security guard or a gardener die. 
Drive past one installed in an apartment house entryway, and you and 
maybe a hundred residents die. The simple fact is that the more of 
these things that are out there, the more carnage we'll have. This thing 
would make bombs more dangerous for all of us, not just for the 
would-be bombers.' 
'You don't think people will change their behavior when faced with 
changed circumstances.' 
Mills sighed. 'Mr President, we've been changing the circumstances 
for two thousand years, and we still haven't run out of people willing 
to be criminals.' 
Breland nodded slowly. 'But this device would also make guns less 
dangerous. How would you balance that against what you've already 
said?' 
'Oh, that's where the real trouble begins,' Mills said, shaking his head. 
'Partly because this is how that device will end up in that apartment 
house entry in the first place, because people will be thinking about 
guns instead of bombs. But mostly because there are five hundred 
million guns in this country, and the people who own them are rather 
attached to the idea that they're going to work when they need them. 
The Second Amendment is a high-voltage live wire, Mr President - 
they don't come any hotter. Don't touch it. If you do, your Presidency 
will be dead.' 
'You believe that gun owners are equally attached to those fifty 
thousand shooting deaths a year?' 

'Sir, this may sound cold, but so long as it's someone else's family 
doing the bleeding, yes. They'll tell you that a third of those shootings 
are suicides, and whose fault is that? They'll tell you that a third of 
those shootings are gangboys killing each other, and good riddance to 
them. And they'll try to tell you that the victims left over are a 
tragedy, but nothing compared to the number of people who would 
have been victims if they hadn't been armed, if the bad guys had no 
reason to be afraid.' 
'Are they right?' 
Mills drank the last of his coffee before answering. 'You know, when 
I'm visiting East L. A. or the Tenderloin, I think like a cynical old 
cop, and wonder how I could ever be foolish enough to think we're 
anything more than savages. And when I'm visiting Sydney or 
Toronto, I feel like I've discovered a lost world called Civilization, 
and I wonder why the hell we Americans don't expect more from 
ourselves. But it really doesn't matter, Mr President, because the gun 
owners believe they're right. You'll never move them, and they'll 
never forgive you for trying to take their guns away. Besides - if you 
can disarm them, they can disarm you, and we can't tolerate that. Not 
here, not now.' 
Giving a tired little sigh, Breland eased back in his chair. 'Director 
Mills, I was going to ask you for your recommendation on how I 
should handle this, but I think you've already made that clear -still, if 
you'd care to summarize -' 
Mills stood, preparing to leave. 'Speaking for the FBI, I'd rather deal 
with the problems we have now than the ones this technology would 
bring. Lose it. Destroy it. Don't go there.' 
The President's conversation with his final visitor, National 
Security Advisor General Anson Tripp, was much shorter. Now 
practiced, Breland was able to condense his briefing to little more 
than ten minutes. Tripp was able to condense his answers even 
further. 
'General, if this technology reaches the battlefield -' 
'We'd better be the side that brings it there.' 
'So your recommendation would be? -' 
'Build it, figure out how to beat it, and then throw a blanket over it.' 

'A secret weapon.' 
'Yes.' 
'Wouldn't there be some deterrent value to making it known that we 
had such a device?' 
'Mr President, there's very little that's more fleeting than a tactical 
advantage due to a technological advance. There's also very little 
that's more valuable. If we don't keep it a secret, it won't be available 
as a weapon.' 
When Tripp left, the anteroom was finally empty. Breland took his 
unsettled thoughts for a slow walk on the dark South Lawn. Pausing 
near the fountain, he looked out across the Ellipse at the stout spire of 
the Washington Monument, which was bathed in a soft yellow glow 
reminiscent of moonlight. He tried to peer not merely out into the 
quiet night, but into the shadowed future. 
Breland was in shouting distance of fifty - too old to have delusions 
about the depth of the footprints he was leaving on Washington. Like 
most of his predecessors, he had received an intensive education 
regarding the limits of presidential power. Looking for insights, he 
often ended the day sitting in his robe in his private office, reading 
from his collection of presidential memoirs, especially those of the 
men for whom the tourist maps listed no monuments. He had come to 
the conclusion that while presidents sometimes missed an opportunity 
for greatness, no president could create such opportunities - the 
moment came to them, driven by events outside the White House 
walls. 
With a certainty he could not explain, Breland knew that his moment 
was here. In another fifty years, the only remaining trace of his 
having passed this way would be the consequences of his decision 
about the Trigger - doubly so if it was the wrong one. 
He told himself he cared less about being remembered well than 
about doing well, and it was probably true. He had told the voters, 
'We can do better,' and now his deeply-held and boldly-stated 
meliorism would be tested - a test devised by a crotchety genius and 
delivered by an idealistic tycoon, both of whom clearly viewed him 
with the skepticism due an unproven youth. To the extent that pride 
was part of what moved him, it was tied up in not wanting to 
disappoint those who looked to him to lead - whether they looked like 

fans, or sounded like fathers. 
But it was far more important to rise to the moment and seize the 
opportunities it offered. Getting it right mattered. Each life touched 
dozens more, and the line between living and dying, between healthy 
and crippled, between joy and fear, could be crossed in an eyeblink. 
Monuments did not matter. Suffering mattered, because it was real, 
and so often unnecessary. 
And considered in that light on the deserted White House lawn at 
three in the morning, Breland realized with weary relief that it was all 
right if this particular decision took a little longer. He could give 
himself permission to rest, to close his eyes with the question still 
unresolved, and take it up again tomorrow. Tomorrow would be soon 
enough. 
The White House was full of moles, and some of them wore the 
livery of Secretary of State Devon Carrero. 
Twenty-two years in the diplomatic corps, including high-profile 
posts in Bonn, Beijing, and Tokyo, had schooled Carrero on the value 
of information, and instructed him well in where it could be found. 
Any change in the President's schedule, any unusual visitors, any 
meetings which did not appear on the daily bulletin provided to the 
media, were reported swiftly and discreetly to Carrero. Knowing that 
most of what really mattered in official 
Washington took place out of sight, Carrero studied the city as 
though he were leading a legation in the capital of a foreign power, 
ever alert to the kinds of cues which inevitably foreshadowed change. 
The media had dubbed Carrero one of the 'ringers' on Mark Breland's 
team. Breland had not been in politics long enough to accumulate 
either friends or obligations in significant numbers, and he had filled 
out his Cabinet with veteran Capitol insiders who owed their 
positions not to friendship with the President or even long party 
loyalty, but to their experience, expertise, and connections. That this 
was considered remarkable said something about the practices and 
priorities of Breland's predecessors. 
But as a newcomer, Breland was only fitfully observant of innercircle 
rituals and etiquette. Carrero had suffered the first few slights 
in silence. But when he had found himself out of the loop on the 

Rwandan intervention - with the ambassador to the UN not only 
holding the spotlight that should have been his, but mishandling the 
responsibility - Carrero elevated his normal level of inquisitiveness to 
outright spying. 
'I want to do everything I can to prevent any further embarrassments,' 
he told his sources and himself. 'Those of us who've been here longer 
have to help the President succeed. But I can't do that if the President 
doesn't call on me, and I can't step forward and volunteer if I don't 
know what's going on.' 
But that grey and windy spring morning, the picture was coming 
together slowly. The growing roster of visitors was mysterious indeed 
- among them, two sociologists, a psychologist, the top historian at 
the Library of Congress, the vice president of the American Chemical 
Society, the president of the demolition contractor GDI, half a dozen 
Pentagon types (including a major general in command of the Army 
War School), and Carrero's own coodinator for counterterrorism, 
Donald Lange. 
More worried than angry, Carrero called Lange into his office. 'Don, 
I'd like a report on your meeting with the President,' he said, drawing 
on his experience to offer a convincing smile and affect a disarmingly 
casual tone. 
'There wasn't a lot to it, Mr Secretary,' Lange said. 'The President 
asked me for some facts and figures on trends in international 
terrorism -' 
'What kind of facts and figures?' 
'Number of active terrorist groups, number of incidents per year, 
deaths per year - nothing that I don't put into the annual report, except 
that the annual report's six months out of date. He was very interested 
in trends and patterns in methodologies, asked me a number of 
questions about that.' 
'Who else was there?' 
'Most of the time, no one. Chief of Staff Nolby was in and out a 
couple of times. I saw the secretary of defense on my way in, but he 
was gone by the time we finished.' 
'What about a stenographer?' 
'No, there were no minutes kept. The President made a few notes, 

that's all. Come to think of it, that is a little odd, isn't it?' 
Carrero ignored the question. 'How was this meeting arranged?' 
'I got a call this morning asking me to come down. I thought it was a 
joke - even in Washington, calls that begin "This is the President" 
aren't all that common. Didn't you know about this? I would have 
notified you if I'd had any reason to think you weren't in the loop -' 
'No, I knew,' Carrero said quickly. 'I just wanted to make sure 
everything came together properly, given the short notice.' 
'Oh,' said Lange. 'So can you tell me what it's about?' 
'I'm sorry, Don,' Carrero said with an apologetic smile. 'I'm not at 
liberty to go into that right now. You understand.' 
'Of course. Well, if there's any other way I can be of help -' 
Thank you.' 
Pacing in his office, Carrero totted up the score: secretary of defense, 
chief of staff, counterterrorism, military brass, psychology and 
sociology, industrial leaders. It added up to a terrorist threat - a 
credible and imminent threat, probably to a chemical manufacturing 
site. He drew his phone from an inside jacket pocket and paged his 
secretary. 
'Clara, would you get me Richard Nolby?' While he waited, he 
walked to the window and looked out across the city toward the 
White House. Amateurs, he thought gruffly. Too many amateurs. 
'Mr Secretary, I have Mr Nolby.' 
'Thank you, Clara.' He pressed a button, and heard the ambience 
change as the digital scramblers came up. 'Richard, Devon. What the 
hell is going on over there? I want to see the President, and soon. If 
what I've been hearing travels any further, we could be looking at a 
very serious situation -' 
Nolby objected, but Carrero would not be deterred. The chief of staff 
was a flyweight, a doorman. It was not his place to decide policy or 
control the Cabinet's access to Breland. And if he thought it was, then 
he deserved to be put in his place by those who knew better. 
'I'm coming up,' Carrero said. 'Tell the President to expect me. And 
don't even think about having me held up at the gate - unless you 
really want our disagreement to have a much wider audience, because 

I will not go away quietly.' 
A glow of hope slowly replaced the surprise in the Old Lion's eyes as 
he listened to Breland, and as it brightened the decades seemed to fall 
away from his face. 
'This is wonderful - far beyond anything I could have hoped for - Mr 
President, we must have these devices for our embassies. How long 
will it be until they're available?' 
Breland shook his head. 'I haven't decided yet if we're going to build 
them - or if we do, how we'll use them.' 
'You haven't decided, or you haven't announced? No, that's not your 
way, is it,' Carrero said. Then may I say a few words, Mr President, 
against the possibility that my perspective hasn't yet been heard in 
your deliberations?' 
'Go ahead.' 
'Thank you.' The diplomat's gaze narrowed, and the weight of his 
years returned to his countenance. 'Mr President, I do not like 
funerals. I especially do not like being an old man at the funeral of a 
young man or woman. And the hardest days of all are when I must 
attend the funeral of a young man or woman who died doing a job I 
sent them to do. 
'Mr President, our missions are under siege. We have no great 
adversaries, but ten thousand sworn enemies. There are incidents 
every day, injuries every week, and the constant awareness that we 
are the prime target for the disaffected. An embassy is an outpost in 
hostile territory. When we forget that, we place at risk the people we 
send there to serve. 
The diplomatic corps overseas pays the price for the decisions made 
here. And a steel gate and a Marine guard detachment aren't enough 
protection. I don't think I need to remind you, but I will, because 
these are our people dying. Eleven killed by a rocket in Athens - three 
of them had been guests in my home. Ambassador Warton murdered 
by a sniper. A car bomb in Ankara, with state security looking the 
other way. Sofia. Tashkent. Jakarta. My memories go back as far as 
Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.' 
'So do mine,' Breland acknowledged. 

Then perhaps you've noticed that we're no longer shocked when these 
attacks occur, no longer capable of outrage. My department has 
shipped bodies home from twelve countries in the last ten years.' 
Carrero hesitated, his mouth working wordlessly. 'One of those 
bodies was the man my daughter was pledged to marry -an analyst 
named John Dugan, killed when a mob stormed the embassy in 
Amman. A bright, gentle, funny man. I would have like to have seen 
his and Jeanne's children.' 
Drawing that close to his family's own loss, Carrero seemed to shrink 
into sadness for a moment. But lurking just behind that sadness was 
anger, and in the moment he took to reach for his glass of water, it 
steadied him. 
'Mr President,' he said in a soft voice that was all steel, 'you cannot 
ask these people to risk their lives in service to their country and not 
do everything in your power to minimize that risk. Anything less than 
that is shameful, unworthy. If this device can disarm a mob, detonate 
a bomb while it's still blocks from the front gate, destroy a rocket in 
midflight, then we must build it, and we must use it. Conscience 
demands that of us.' 
Then Carrero struggled to his feet, waving off a proffered hand. 
'You've listened politely, Mr President, and I won't make it necessary 
for you to be rude. I know how to make an exit as well as an 
entrance. I only ask that before you decide, you be certain of how you 
will feel when the next bomb goes off or the next rocket flies - and 
that you agree to accompany me to the funerals. Good day, Mr 
President.' 
The door had scarcely closed behind Carrero when it opened again to 
admit Nolby. 'Is everything all right, sir?' 
'We had a good conversation,' said Breland. 'And we need to thank 
Secretary Carrero for showing us where we've been careless. We 
need to get out of this fishbowl.' 
'We'll need a cover story.' 
'Work one up,' the President said. He picked up his phone, and in a 
few moments he was in touch with Hollow Oak. 'Mr Goldstein, this 
is Mark Breland. I've made my decision. Will you and Dr Brohier 
join me at Camp David to discuss what comes next? Good. No, I'll 
notify the Senator. Yes, we'll arrange transportation.' 

He logged out and looked up to find Nolby regarding him with an 
unhappy frown. 'What?' 
'You're going to build it.' 
'Yes. You still have misgivings?' 
'More than that. This thing scares me to death. I don't think we're 
smart enough to understand all the ramifications.' 
'There's a tremendous amount of work to be done,' Breland said, 
nodding. 'But I'm convinced we have to pursue this. We'll take it a 
step at a time, and keep a short leash on Wilman and Goldstein. We 
won't just throw it out there. I find this every bit as overwhelming as 
you do, Richard, but it's the right thing to do. And I'm going to need 
your help if we're going to do it the right way.' 
'I'll be here. I'm still on the team,' Nolby said, acquiescing without 
enthusiasm. 
'Good. Then let's get the rest of the team together and get on the bus. 
We'll want Stepak, Carrero, Mills, and, I think, Davins from NSA.' 
'We probably should include the vice president.' 
'No. There's nothing Toni can contribute to the project right now.' 
'All right. Harvey Tettlebaum, then,' Nolby said, naming the science 
advisor. 
Breland shook his head. 'Let's get everyone who already knows about 
this sitting at the same table before we start talking about who else 
should be there. No one gets brought into this now unless we need 
them to be part of it.' 
'Have you gotten Senator Wilman to agree to that yet?' Nolby said 
challengingly. 'I think the man is a real threat to security. Dr Brohier 
might be one, too.' 
'They came to us, so they want something from us,' said Breland, 
rising to his feet. 'We'll work it out. Let's get the wheels turning.' 
The setting for the first meeting of what Nolby had waggishly dubbed 
the Trigger Guard' was as unprepossessing as any Karl Brohier could 
have imagined. As the well-weathered wood and multiple layers of 
paint betrayed, Cabin C dated from Camp David's origins as a 
mountain-top youth retreat. The surface of the long table bore so 

many scars that it was useless as a writing surface, and a carelessly 
placed glass was in danger of tipping over. 
The men seated at the table matched the informality of the setting. 
The baseball jersey tucked into the waistband of Breland's jeans was 
faded and stained. Goldstein wore a Georgetown University 
sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed up past his bony elbows. Nolby 
had hidden his receding hairline under a black ball cap bearing the 
Oldsmobile logo, and his comset peeked out of the front pocket of a 
heavy cotton lumberjack shirt. A World War II era B-25 menaced the 
room from General Stepak's't-shirt. Even the ever-proper Carrero had 
forgone his suit and tie for a designer-label polo shirt, though his 
black dress shoes had fared poorly in the soft ground left by an 
overnight rain. 
Nor was there any Robert's Rules of Order ritual in Breland's manner. 
When a slightly breathless Edgar Mills finally appeared, the President 
simply made his way to his chair, and waited for the others to notice 
and follow suit. 
'Mr Nolby has agreed to take notes,' he said. 'You're welcome to do 
so as well, but understand that your notes will be classified 
documents, and you'll have to handle them accordingly. 
'Some of you recommended to me that the Trigger not only be 
classified, but completely erased. But the fact is that we don't have a 
long enough reach to suppress this discovery. We can really only 
deny it to ourselves, not to the Chinese, or the Indians, or the 
Russians. 
'So my decision is that we're going to move as fast as we can to 
develop it, and at the same time work as hard as we can to control it 
for as long as that's possible. But let's not delude ourselves. In my 
very first Intel briefing as President, I was told I could assume that 
material marked Confidential would be compromised in six months. 
Secret in eighteen, and Top Secret in three years. So that's our 
window of opportunity. In three years, this technology will be 
everywhere. 
'I'm authorizing an expanded research effort, an extensive testing 
program, and immediate production,' Breland said, eliciting an 
approving nod from Brohier. 'I intend for us to build them as tactical 
weapons for the armed forces. We'll build them as counterterrorism 

shields for government facilities here and abroad. And if the research 
effort produces results, there's the prospect of making use of the 
Trigger in the public realm. 
'I'm asking Terabyte Laboratories to provide two prototypes at the 
earliest possible date, so we can start to find out how useful it is in its 
current state of development.' Breland looked toward Brohier. 
'I would think we could manage that in a matter of a few weeks, Mr 
President.' 
'I imagine we'll need at least that long to figure out who will have 
custody of them, and where they'll carry out the testing. Dr Brohier, I 
wanted to ask you - do you think it might it be possible to place a 
Trigger unit in orbit?' 
'For missile defense?' 
'No - aimed at the ground. To target a hot spot, much the same as the 
Forest Service fights fires with aerial tankers. Think how differently 
Kosovo would have played out if we could have simply disarmed the 
Serbs.' 
An unfamiliar rush of optimism brightened Brohier's eyes. 'Obviously 
there's a range issue to deal with, and the current version doesn't give 
us the option of aiming. We'll have to look into that, Mr President. I 
can't say it's not impossible, but it's a worthy question.' 
Then let's put it on the list,' said Breland. 'Dr Brohier, I want your 
people to stay with this. I propose we reimburse Terabyte for its costs 
to date for this research, and contract with you and your research 
team for your continued services. I'm not sure who you'll report to, 
but I can't see any reason why you can't personally continue to head 
the unit. It will need to grow, though, and quickly. And I don't think 
Columbus is the place for that. Are you still interested?' 
'I had girded myself to fight if you tried to push me out, Mr 
President.' 
Breland laughed and turned to Goldstein. 'Mr Goldstein, we're going 
to need to build these systems somewhere. Perhaps you could be 
persuaded to convert or set up an appropriate production facility.' 
'We'd be happy to bid for the job, Mr President.' 
That won't be necessary. Now, Senator Wilman -' He shook his head. 
'I'm grateful for what you did in bringing these men to me. But I 

honestly don't know what role I can offer you in what lies ahead.' 
'Take my calls,' said Wilman. I'm going to be your conscience. 
President Breland. You need someone who doesn't owe you anything 
to make sure you play between the lines - to make sure you 
remember that this isn't about the White House, or the Washington 
Post, or the next election, or posterity, or making the Pentagon brass 
happy. I think you already know all that, but good intentions have a 
way of getting twisted around in this neighborhood.' 
'So they do,' said Breland. 'Very well. I accept your offer. You'll all 
be staying, then?' He counted nods, then stood. 'Richard has some 
paperwork for you, then, and once that's taken care of we can roll up 
our sleeves and get after the details. There's a lot to do.' 
As the President stepped outside, Nolby slid a sheaf of papers in front 
of Brohier and laid a pen atop them. 'Three documents, three 
signatures,' the chief of staff said. As Brohier pulled the first one 
toward him and fanned to the last page, Nolby added in a low voice, 
'You never answered my question. How many of your people know? 
I'll need a list by the end of the day.' 
Looking up, Brohier held the chief of staff in a level gaze. 'Mr Nolby, 
I make promises for no one but myself. The people you're talking 
about work at Terabyte, not for it - we don't own them. I'll take your 
offer to them. And they'll make their own decisions.' 
'But Terabyte owns this discovery, doesn't it? You do have that much 
control over them.' 
Brohier laughed derisively, scrawled his name, and pushed the 
security oath across the table. 'It's not that simple, Mr Nolby, not with 
people who are accustomed to thinking for themselves. You can get 
their signatures on all the papers you want, but it's still a lot like 
making bullfrogs promise to stay in a bucket.' 
10: Exigency 
Philadelphia, PA - A family argument over the dinner menu flared 
into domestic violence and ended in a deadly Shootout in a southside 

neighborhood late Friday night. Dozens looked on as Malia Jackson, 
24, fled her Fourth Street row home in tears and then opened fire on 
her boyfriend, Raymar Rollins, when he followed. That girl had no 
choice,' one neighbor protested when police took Jackson into 
custody. 'Her man beat her every weekend. He was a bad character.' 
Complete Story Domestic Violence 
Hotlines Murder or Self-Defense? A Newsline PeoplePoll 
The phone woke both Leigh Thayer and Gordon Greene from a dead 
sleep, as it was meant to under such circumstances. The call was 
announced by the special high-frequency alarm for the Emergency 
Code, which overrode all filtering and forwarding instructions Lee 
had in place for her personal number. 
Only three people had Lee's Emergency Code - her sister Joy, her 
half-sister Barbara, and her father. The only one who'd ever used it 
was her father, to tell her that her mother had had a heart attack. The 
shrill, nerve-jangling sound echoing through the darkness of the 
ersatz dormitory portended equally dire news, and Lee's hands were 
already shaking as she fumbled for the folding phone. The tiny 
yellow data screen told her that the caller was Barbara. 
'Yes - hello? Barbara?' 
The words that came back to her were lost in a wail of pain 
punctuated by broken, racking sobs. 
'Barbara, what's the matter? What's happening? Talk to me, hon -' 
Across the room, Gordon had turned on a reading light and sat up on 
his couch. He said nothing, but his furrowed brow and intent eyes 
showed his concern. 
Once again, Barbara's sobbing stole most of her words. Lee managed 
to catch 'Elise' and 'window', but the rest conveyed nothing save the 
depth of her sister's fear, or shock, or terror. 
'I can't understand you, hon. Try to calm down - take a deep breath, 
let it out slow. That's it - you can do it. Get control. Easy. Breathe. 
Remember to breathe. Now tell me what happened to Elise. Is she 
hurt?' 
'She's - she's -' There was a catch in Barbara's voice as she fought 

back another outbreak of sobs. 'No. No. She's not hurt. She's not hurt.' 
That's good. Is Tony all right?' 
Tony - Tony's okay.' 
'And you're not hurt?' 
'No. Nobody's hurt. But it was so close -' 
'Are you at home?' 
'Yes. Yes. The kids are finally asleep. I hope they're asleep. I made 
them move to the basement. Oh, Lee - I thought it was over. I thought 
we were done with this. But it's happening again. They almost shot 
her, Lee - they almost shot my Elise.' Saying the words tested 
Barbara's control of her emotions, but she struggled on through deep, 
shivery sobs. 'She was on the couch watching TV. The bullet missed 
her head by six inches. Six inches -' 
'Who shot at her?' 
Those damned White Kings,' Barbara said, fury in her tone. 
The gangs are after Tony again?' 
The fury dissolved into despair. 'What am I going to do? What am I 
going to do?' 
Tell me everything that's happened.' 
Over the next few minutes, Lee painstakingly pieced together the 
story. She already knew that not quite two years ago, Tony - then 
fourteen - had been approached by an Iranian-led gang called the 
Scimitars, then taking over the drug traffic at Tony's high school. 
When he refused to join, the windows of Barbara's ten-year-old car 
were shot out as it sat in her driveway. Further confrontations had 
mercifully been headed off by a Cleveland Metro drug enforcement 
unit 'street sweep' that put most of the Scimitars in jail. 
But a new gang calling itself the White Kings had lately taken shape 
in the neighborhood. The White Kings were positioning themselves 
as the protector of the Caucasian majority against the Middle 
Easterners and African-Americans who predominated in several 
surrounding neighborhoods - all served by the same high school 
where Tony was now a sixteen-year-old junior. There had been 
beatings and brawls as the White Kings asserted themselves in a bid 
for respect. 

Once again Tony had been approached; once again he had refused. 
And once again he'd been warned that refusal was considered 
betrayal, and would not be tolerated. As before, the warning came in 
the form of gunfire - in this case, a single bullet fired through the 
living-room window an hour after dinner, a bullet that buried itself in 
the wall over the couch and showered a terrified nine-year-old Elise 
with plaster dust as squealing tires boldly marked the retreat of the 
shooter. 
'Did you call the police?' 
A bitter laugh. 'I called the police. A half-hour later I called them 
again. They finally got here an hour later, and treated it like a joke.' 
'What do you mean, a joke?' 
'Apparently if you're not selling drugs or spilling blood, our police 
aren't interested. One of them actually said, "Well, no harm done, 
eh?" He suggested I might want to put heavier curtains on the front 
windows, and keep them drawn.' 
They aren't going to go after the gang?' 
They're not going to do anything. Oh, they didn't admit it to my face, 
but they might as well have patted me on the head and said, "There, 
now." Not that Tony helped any.' 
'Let me guess - he wouldn't name names.' 
'He told the police he didn't know who'd approached him, said he 
wouldn't recognize them, said he didn't see the car. Oh, god. Lee, 
that's almost the scariest part - he's known these boys for years. Some 
of them were in his church basketball league. What am I going to do? 
Am I supposed to tell Tony to go ahead and join, wear their white cap 
and beat up blacks and yellows? Am I supposed to wait for them to 
come back and kill one of us?' 
'No. Neither,' said Lee. 'Here's what you're going to do - first thing in 
the morning, you're going to put Tony and Elise in the car and come 
down here. You can stay at my apartment - I'm not using it. You'll 
have plenty of room.' 
'I can't do that,' Barbara wailed. 'The kids have to go to school -' 
'What's more important? Their health or their attendance record?' 
I'll lose my job -I don't have any more personal days for another two 

months. Besides, what's the point? Oh, Lee - it's generous of you to 
offer, but it doesn't solve the problem. The White Kings will still be 
there when we go back, and the police still won't be able to protect 
us.' 
'Who said anything about going back? We'll put the house up for sale, 
and go up there in a few days to clean it out. No, even better, I'll pay 
to have it done - you don't have to spend a minute more there.' 
'This house is all I have,' Barbara said in a voice that was close to 
becoming a whine. 'Even though I probably owe more on it than it's 
worth. I can't afford to sell it. I can't afford to buy a house in 
Columbus.' 
'You can afford one in Plain City, or West Jefferson, or Johnstown, or 
Carroll. There're a lot of little towns around here, very reasonable. 
And I'll help. I never understood why you stayed in that house when 
Jonas left you -' 
Barbara had begun to sob again. 'You never will understand. Both my 
children were conceived here, born here, took their first steps here. 
You don't just throw that away.' 
Her patience exhausted, Lee snapped, 'Oh, grow up, Beebee - do you 
want to be able to add "both of my children were murdered here" to 
that list? Then you could make it into a goddamned shrine -' 
'I don't deserve that,' Barbara said plaintively. 'You shouldn't talk to 
me like that -I called you for help, Lee -' 
'Then why won't you take it when it's offered? Pack your bags, gather 
up your kids, and come make a fresh start down here. 
Come on, Barbara - face reality. There isn't anything up there worth 
holding on to, and that includes your job.' 
I'm sorry if my life doesn't come up to your standards,' Barbara said, 
her tone suddenly cold. 'You don't have any respect at all for me, do 
you? Nothing about me and my kids counts with you, is that it? My 
job, my house, my feelings, our friends -' 
Lee was barely aware that she'd stood up and was pacing the dimly-lit 
room. 'Are any of those things worth Tony's life? Elise's life? Your 
life? Do you want Tony getting a gun of his own and trying to solve 
your problems for you? Six inches, Beebee. Six inches is all that 
separates a second chance from a funeral.' 

Now her sister was crying again. 'It's too much. There's just too 
much. I can't do it, Lee.' 
'You don't have to do it alone -' 
The sobbing deepened, and started to steal her words again. 'How can 
I tell them? I'd just be admitting my whole life's a failure. How can I 
just run away after fifteen years? What kind of example is that? How 
can I tell Tony that that's the right thing to do?' 
'Because sometimes it is the right thing to do. Beebee - I'm begging 
you - all these other things you're going on about are just pride 
getting in the way. For once in your life, be practical. You can't 
protect those kids there, and the police won't - don't make Tony think 
he has to do it for you. Please, Lee - come to Columbus. Come 
tomorrow. Come tonight. Please.' 
'I don't know,' Barbara said, her voice a frightened whisper. 'I don't 
know. I have to think. I'll call you.' 
'Beebee -' 
The connection closed. Exasperated, Lee threw the phone down on 
her bed and looked across at Greene. 'She makes me so angry,' she 
explained, aware that her entire body was tense and jangling. 
Gordon nodded silently. Tell me the half I didn't hear. I want to make 
sure I have the whole picture.' 
Half an hour passed before Lee was ready to talk to him. 
For the first few minutes, she stewed restlessly - pacing the room, 
rummaging in the small refrigerator without finding anything that 
suited her mood, scrubbing her face to redness in the adjacent 
women's lounge, sitting on her bed brushing her hair so vigorously 
Gordon could not believe it could be anything but painful. Finally she 
put down the brush and picked up the phone. 'Personal agent,' she 
said. 'Search: Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Police. Emergency 
dispatcher. Connect.' 
There followed a short, brutal education in the nature of the police 
mission and the limitations of police power. Gordon watched 
surprise, indignation, dismay, and finally despair paint Lee's face. 
Yes, the police were aware of gang activity in Cleveland Heights. 

Yes, the street patrols were aware of the shooting incident at 
Barbara's house. No, they could not offer any promise of protection - 
the police investigate crimes, they don't provide bodyguards. No, 
detectives were not actively investigating the incident - on an average 
night, there were at least a dozen reports of gunfire. Yes, in an ideal 
world - but, no, this wasn't one, and there was hardly time to 
investigate the shootings that sent victims to the hospital or victims to 
the morgue. 
When that conversation was over, Lee was still giving every sign of 
being at once unapproachable and inconsolable. She stood hugging 
herself near the door, head lowered, eyes burning a hole through the 
floor with an intent but unseeing gaze. Gordon had the distinct 
impression that if he tried to throw a comforting arm around her 
shoulders. Lee would snap it off and gnaw on it. 
Then she was on the phone again, this time to her younger sister Joy 
in Bakersfield, California. Barbara had apparently not called Joy, 
allowing Gordon to get most of the information he still needed as Lee 
brought her up to date. The two sisters then commiserated about 
Barbara's lifelong tendency to become paralyzed in a crisis, and that 
seemed to take some of the tension out of Lee's face. 
'Exactly - that's it exactly,' Lee said in response to some observation 
by Joy. 'As if she has no survival instincts whatever. She's the 
squirrel who sits in the middle of the road staring into the headlights 
of the oncoming truck, instead of running for the shoulder. Hmm? 
No, I don't think it's even that she expects to be rescued. She's just 
completely overwhelmed.' 
But Joy had no suggestions Lee could seize on, no solutions to her 
dilemma. The sisters agreed that it was the wrong time to involve 
their father, who had his hands full caring for Mom, and was a 
thousand miles away in Florida in any case. With that as precedent, it 
quickly became clear that the only help Joy was prepared to offer was 
commiseration and a call to Barbara in the morning to try to persuade 
her to accept Lee's offer. 
When she put down the phone after that conversation, Lee's armor of 
anger had vanished, replaced by the momentarily lost look of 
someone who was even then realizing the cavalry was not coming. 
She tried one last call, to Barbara, but it rang a dozen times without 
answer. She left a message with the network voice-mail forwarder, 

but there was little life in her voice as she recorded it: 'Barbara, this is 
Lee. Please call me.' 
Then she settled back onto the edge of her bed, folding the phone and 
setting it aside. 
'Maybe that means she's in the car, on the way here.' 
'No,' said Lee. 'Barbara's not capable of just going out the door and 
dealing with the details when she arrives. She'd never leave home 
without talking to me - confirming I was going to meet her, setting a 
time, getting directions, asking if she should bring pillows, and the 
like.' 
'So you think -' 
'I can't think that. What she probably did was turn off her phone, so 
the kids wouldn't be disturbed - they need a good night's sleep, after 
all, if they're going to get up tomorrow and go to school.' Lee shook 
her head. 'I love her dearly, but sometimes I just want to slap some 
sense into her.' 
Gordon nodded. 'But first, there's the little matter of getting the 
squirrel out of the street.' 
'I have to go up there,' Lee said with a sigh pf resignation. 'I have to 
wake her up somehow - I can't let her endanger those kids again.' 
'Okay,' said Gordon. 'Then we'd better stop talking and get to work.' 
'What? What are you thinking?' 
'I don't know why you aren't thinking it, too,' said Gordon. 'These 
thugs are going to want to know if the message got through. If 
tomorrow morning Tony tells them to go stuff themselves, they'll be 
back tomorrow night. And we'll be waiting for them.' 
That's crazy, Gordie -' 
'No, it isn't. We can have Baby Two ready to roll by noon. I just need 
to put together the collimator I've had rattling around in my head for 
a week or so, while you wire in a couple of quick-and-dirty controls 
for the truck cab. We can be up there by the time the kids get off the 
bus.' 
The Boss will never agree to this.' 
'A good reason not to ask him.' 

'What, you think we can just drive out with it?' 
'Yes.' 
They'll shoot us. And then Brohier will fire us. And then his friends 
in the sheriff's office will throw our corpses in jail, for good measure.' 
'You know, you're starting to sound a lot like your sister,' Gordon 
said quietly. 'Why are you looking for reasons not to try?' 
Her eyes widened in surprise as the thrust found its target. 'You think 
I don't want to help her? They'll stop us at the gate, Gordie.' 
'No, they won't,' he said. 'I've already had the truck out of here three 
times, twice with Baby Two inside - and the last time with the 
generator trailer riding out back.' 
'Why?' 
I've been worried about the readability of the system. I had to know 
that taking it across a grade crossing wouldn't put it out of action.' 
Lee stared at him with dark suspicion. 'Aren't you a little ahead of 
schedule on that? Gordie - have you been planning to steal it?' 
He shrugged. 'I've been trying to do my job, that's all - to make sure 
we're ready for any surprises. I've been trying to protect us,' he said. 
That's why I've been running it every night, too. A little extra 
security.' 
'What? How?' 
Timer module, right on the actuator. Don't kick yourself, you'd have 
to be a lot more paranoid than you want to be to have spotted it.' He 
chuckled. 'You almost caught me on Tuesday, though, when you got 
up early.' 
'Son of a - I thought it seemed awfully warm in the bay that morning. 
I even checked to see if the climate controls were working.' 
'I had it plugged into the generator trailer that night. The climate 
controls can't really keep up.' He smiled conspiratorially. 'So - are we 
going to do the right thing, or the safe thing?' 
'Explain something to me first - why are you willing to take this risk? 
She's my sister - that's my niece and nephew - but you've never even 
met them. What's your stake in this?' 
Greene pursed his lips. 'She matters to you. That's enough for me. I 

don't add things up the way everyone else does, Lee.' 
'Is that what you're going to tell the Boss when we get back?' 
'I'm going to tell him that we took the system out for a real-world 
field test. And if protecting your sister and her kids doesn't seem like 
a good enough reason to him, or Dr Brohier, then I'll know they're not 
the kind of people I want to be working with anyway.' 
'Then why not ask them?' 
'Because we'd run squarely into a wall of worries, and we don't have 
enough time to knock it down. Once we're back safely, though, they 
can't say, "Yeah, but what if-"' He smiled. 'Which is the secret of why 
it's easier to get forgiveness than permission.' 
Lee was shaking her head. 'Maybe once I'm there, I can talk her into 
moving down here -' 
'Have you ever?' 
'Have I ever what?' 
'Talked her into doing the sensible thing when she seemed set on 
doing the familiar thing, or the expected thing. How many times has 
she been hit by the car, and how many times have you managed to 
get her to run for the curb?' 
'I've never been able to do that,' she said gloomily. 'She always gets 
hit by the car.' 
'Then why are we still sitting here yapping?' he said, rising to his feet. 
'We have a lot to do.' 
True to Gordon's prediction, it was only a few minutes after noon 
when he and Lee climbed into the cab of the unmarked white truck. 
Behind them in the locked cargo area was the Trigger unit, resting on 
a foam sheet and secured to the tie-downs with wide straps. Behind 
the truck, attached to the tow hitch, was the bright orange generator 
trailer. 
With his hands resting lightly on the steering wheel, Gordon looked 
sideways at Lee. 'Ready?' 
Her nod was less than wholly convincing, but Gordon reached for the 
ignition switch anyway. The truck's big engine whined, coughed, and 
came to life. Try not to look so guilty,' he said, and eased the truck 
into gear. 

There was no trouble at the inner gate. Tim Bartel was in the 
gatehouse, and he waved them through as soon as he'd recorded the 
number stenciled in black on the side of the truck. The guards at the 
street gate were unfamiliar, but they showed no special curiosity as 
they logged the two researchers out and allowed their vehicle through 
the double barricades. 
'Told you so,' Gordon said as he guided the truck out onto Shanahan 
Road. But there was no sign of relief in Lee's expression. 
'What?' he asked. 
'I'm thinking about Eric. He's still in the hospital, isn't he?' 
'Last I heard. Burns like that take a long time to heal.' 
Lee looked away out the window. 'I don't know if I can do that to 
someone - knowingly.' 
He reached over and squeezed her hand. 'You don't have to,' Gordon 
said. 'I know how you feel about that kind of confrontation. All you 
have to do is take your sister and her kids to a motel - convince her 
she needs to let things cool down for a couple of days. Just keep them 
away from the house. The way we've rigged things up, I can do the 
rest.' 
'And you're okay with that?' she asked, turning back toward him. 
'I am,' he said, reclaiming his hand so he could turn south, toward the 
freeway. 'Lee, these thugs set the ground rules when they picked up a 
gun and pointed it at your family. I'm not going to lose sleep if that 
boomerangs on them. Are we going to hurt them? Perhaps even kill 
one of them? I damn well hope so. Are you okay with that?' 
'I can't seem to let myself admit to feelings like those,' she said 
quietly. 'Which isn't the same thing as saying I don't have them.' 
'I'd worry more if I didn't feel this way,' said Gordon. 'Anybody who 
terrifies a nine-year-old kid, waves a gun in the face of a teenager, 
brings this kind of fear into a family that's minding its own business - 
they've earned whatever comes. Haven't they? Haven't they? 
Barbara's whole world is under attack.' 
'Yes.' 
Then let's not be coy about this - this thing in the truck behind us is a 
weapon, and we're going up there to strike back.' Then his tone 

softened. 'But I'll do it alone if you want. You don't have to be there. I 
can still leave you here.' 
'No,' Lee said. 'Keep driving. But stop talking. I want to keep 
pretending for a couple more hours. I want to hold on to my illusions 
just a little while longer.' 
Gordon and Lee started talking again north of Brunswick. By the 
time they reached the exit for US 20 and Cleveland Heights, they had 
a plan. At the core of it was a decision to conceal from Barbara the 
real reason they were there, and in doing so to give her an alibi that 
would shelter her from any consequences of their actions. 
They parked within sight of the East Cleveland diet clinic where 
Barbara worked as a records and claims clerk, and Lee called her 
from there. 
'Barbara Thayer-Cummins, please,' she said, glancing sideways at 
Gordon with a look that said here we go, across the Rubicon. Thank 
you. - Barb, this is Lee. Listen, I caught a ride north with a friend - 
I'm just a few minutes away. No, I just want to do what I can to help. 
How late do you work today - until six? Okay, where are the kids 
going after school? - Margie is right across the street, isn't she? That's 
awfully close, if they come back. 
'- No, it's really not fair, even though Margie was brave enough to 
offer. That's more than a good neighbor. - Listen, I have a motel room 
in Mayfield Heights, at the Budgetel just off Two-Ninety-One. Can 
you get away long enough to collect the kids and bring them over to 
the motel? I'll watch out for them until you get off work, and then we 
can have dinner together and figure out what to do. - No, I don't know 
my room number yet. I'll be there before you, though. All right - I 
love you, too.' 
A minute later, they saw a woman emerge from the clinic, look 
around nervously, then scurry across the parking lot to a welltraveled 
sky blue sedan - an '02 or '03 Saturn, Gordon thought. 
'That her?' 
'That's her,' said Lee, her left hand moving to the industrial-grade 
control box resting on the seat between her and Gordon. There were 
only three switches on the box: a pushbutton to start the generator, a 

click-detent rheostat to activate Baby Two, and a shuttle knob for 
pointing the new collimator head toward a target. 
Barbara's sedan headed south, and they followed, the height of the 
truck cab allowing Gordon to lag a few car lengths behind. This was 
the part that worried him the most - the family still on the street, and 
him with no idea where the White Kings were, or if they were bold 
enough to attack in daylight. Every vehicle that drew near to the 
Saturn was a potential threat, and the margin for recognizing and 
responding to a real threat seemed wholly inadequate. All through the 
short drive, Gordon was sorely tempted to activate the Trigger 
preemptively. Only the near-certainty that doing so would leave a 
trail of chaos and injured innocents stopped him. 
Instead, he brought the truck up in the outside lane and rode in the 
Saturn's blind spot, denying that place to any other vehicle, and 
giving himself and Lee a clear view of any cars that might pull up 
behind or beside her sister. When Barbara turned off the boulevard 
onto a one-lane, one-way street, Gordon followed, again falling back 
a few car lengths. 
'This is her street, coming up on the right,' Lee said. 
Turn on the generator,' he said, tightlipped. 'Just in case there's 
someone waiting for that car to show up.' He opened his window in 
time to catch the muted cough of the DuoCat turning over, then 
hauled firmly on the wheel to make the turn onto Seaton Road. 
'Which house is hers?' 
'Fourth one on the left - the white salt-box, before the yellow duplex.' 
'See anything out of place?' 
'No.' 
'Keep looking,' he said, studying the big rear-view mirror. 'I hope she 
called ahead to tell the kids to expect her.' 
'Looks like she did - here they come.' A slender girl and a taller, 
wider teenaged boy had appeared on the stoop and were already 
running across the postage-stamp lawn toward Barbara's car, its brake 
lights glowing bright red. 
'No one behind us,' said Gordon. 'See anyone in any of those parked 
cars ahead?' 

Her fingers were nervously caressing the rheostat. 'Nothing.' 
In a few seconds, the children had clambered into the back seat, and 
the Saturn began to accelerate. 'Don't relax,' he said. That next 
intersection would be a good place to box them in.' 
But they rejoined the busy boulevard and turned east toward 
Mayfield Heights without incident. Gordon allowed himself a glance 
at his companion, and found her visibly perspiring. 'A little tense?' 
'I kept thinking someone was going to sit up in one of those cars, and 
I'd freeze up and have to watch them being shot to death in front of 
me.' 
He smiled. 'You should have played more Doom when you were a 
kid - honed those combat reflexes.' 
'I hated that game.' 
'Ask me if I'm surprised.' He looked in the rear-view mirror again. 
'No one followed us out of the subdivision. Unless we're just unlucky 
enough to bump into the bad guys -' 
'Let's pretend we're superstitious, and not sit here generating failure 
scenarios for the cosmos to borrow,' 
'Fair enough,' said Gordon. 'Okay, I see the motel sign. I'm going to 
go ahead and pass her now, so I can drop you off. I'll wait until she 
leaves to go back to work, and then come in and talk to Tony. Make 
sure she parks away from the street, tail-first. And tell her to take a 
taxi here after work, or get a ride. I don't see these thugs as having a 
lot of ambition, and I know a Saturn's about as invisible a car as there 
is, but let's not assume they're idiots as well as thugs.' 
Three hours later, Gordon and Lee were parked at the curb near the 
west end of Seaton Road. Their nervousness had been replaced by a 
quiet, almost fatalistic determination. They had enlisted Tony in their 
conspiracy, and - as Gordon had suspected he could - the youth had 
told them much more than he had admitted to the police. With his 
help, they knew what cars they were looking for: a white Camaro 
convertible, and a forest-green Eddie Bauer Explorer. 
They make a big entrance every morning at the school parking lot, 
honking, burning rubber,' Tony had told them. The Camaro belongs 
to Frosty - Steven Frost. The four-by-four is John Nolan's. They have 

permanent parking spots together in the first row -everybody knows, 
and nobody else dares to park there. They sit there revving their 
engines for five minutes, and there's twenty girls - all lookers - down 
there surrounding them by the time they're done. I don't get it.' 
Also thanks to Tony's help, they were confident that they were not 
looking in vain. 
They had told him as little as possible about what they were planning, 
but, even so, the hard part had been persuading him to stay behind. 
With the reckless arrogance of young men everywhere, he was eager 
to be part of the hunt, picturing himself in the moment of victory, 
tasting his tormentors' humiliation, craving his redemption. Only Lee 
and Gordon's combined resistance blunted his eagerness. 
'You need to stay with your family, and comfort and protect them,' 
they had told him. 'We can't do that job as well as you can, and you 
can't do our job as well as we can.' 
But he had remained dissatisfied, until he found a way to play a part. 
'You want to be sure that they show up at the house tonight, right? 
You're staking out the place in case they come back.' 
Gordon had confirmed that much to him. 
Then call me when you're set up there,' Tony had said. 'I'll make sure. 
I know what will bring them out.' 
That call had been made half an hour ago. Now twilight was settling 
over Seaton Road. Children were disappearing from the yards, and 
adults from front stoops and porches. Security lights came on at side 
doors and in back yards, and dogs came inside for the night. Blinds 
and drapes were drawn as a defense against the dark, hiding the 
bluish glow from televisions and computer monitors. Two of the 
three streetlamps began to glow dully. By the time they warmed to 
full brightness, the street was deserted, abandoned to the creatures 
that owned the dark. 
Holding hands in silence, Gordon and Lee waited for them to emerge. 
Time crawled. They heard a distant siren, and then another. 
'Car wreck,' Gordon said under his breath. 'Or a fire.' 
He watched in his rear-view mirror as a car turned onto Seaton Road, 
heading toward them. Its headlights momentarily blinded him, and he 

held up a hand to shield his eyes and hide his face. 'Wait,' he said, 
feeling Lee's urgency beside him. As the car trundled past, he saw 
that it was a red four-door sedan. It turned into a narrow driveway 
further down the street and disappeared into a carport. 
A scruffy dog padded across the circle of light cast by the nearest 
streetlamp. 
'Would this be a good time for you to explain what a sister of yours is 
doing living in a neighborhood like this?' 
'Half-sister.' 
'Go on.' 
Thayer sighed. 'My father visited Cleveland thirty-odd years ago on 
business and carelessly left some sperm cells behind.' 
'Ow.' 
'Barbara's mother didn't use up all her bad judgement sleeping with 
my father - she let my father's lawyers inveigle her into signing a 
support agreement that might have sounded generous, but wasn't even 
fair. Even at that, the annuity was a magnet for deadbeats - two 
husbands, two live-ins, two more babies. Then Barbara got twentyfive 
thousand dollars when she turned eighteen - supposedly for 
college, but not nearly enough. She bought a car instead. She still 
drives it.' 
'So she wasn't exactly brought into the family fold.' 
'No. Mom never has acknowledged her. My father does so 
grudgingly. I'm easily the closest to her - maybe because I'm pretty 
much an outcast myself. Joy is the Good Daughter, doesn't want to 
make Mom angry or Father uncomfortable. She has too much to lose.' 
The sound of a helicopter beat down on Seaton Road from 
somewhere up above. 
'Are we going to wait for them to start shooting?' she whispered. 
'Only if that's what it takes to be sure it's them,' he whispered back. 
They already started shooting, remember?' 
A car turned onto Seaton at the far end, starting the wrong way down 
the one-way street. Gordon pushed Lee down, then ducked down 
behind the dash himself before the approaching headlights could give 
them away. Gordon tracked its progress by the moving shadow of the 

windshield pillar, and sat up just in time to see a minivan slide past. 
'False alarm,' he said. 'Just someone looking lost.' 
Another siren keened in the night. 
A car with squeaky brakes appeared and parked on the street, six car 
lengths ahead of the truck. 
In the moments between, time seemed to have stopped. 
The generator's going to give us away,' she whispered. 
'Sssh,' he said, and squeezed her hand. They'll never hear it. This kind 
likes their cars loud and their music louder.' 
'I don't think they're coming.' 
They're coming. It's a head game. They think they've got Tony 
sweating, while they're off somewhere juicing themselves up for 
sport.' 
'How do you know so much about this?' 
'I had exceptionally poor judgement when it came to friends, once 
upon a time.' 
She looked away to her rear-view mirror. 'I hate this.' 
'Just wait,' he said. 
The creeping, interminable minutes had finally carried them close to 
midnight when Gordon heard a short-pipe dual exhaust clear its 
rumbling throat. 
'Convertible at the corner,' he said, touching the shoulder of his 
dozing companion. 
'What?' 
Then the Explorer glided into view, following close behind the 
Camaro. 'Here they come,' Gordon said. 'Get down.' Heeding his own 
admonition, he ducked out of the glare of the Camaro's headlights. 
His right hand fended off Lee's left and claimed the Trigger controls. 
'Let me,' he whispered. 
It seemed to take forever for the two vehicles to pass where Gordon 
and Lee were parked. The bass grumble of the Camaro seemed to 
stop right outside Gordon's window, which he had left open a few 

centimeters for both air and sound cues. For an agonizing minute, he 
feared that they'd become the target - that the gang had become either 
wary of the truck, or curious about its contents. 
Fragments of an animated conversation, thick with slang and 
profanity and punctuated with wild laughter, reached him through the 
cracked window. Gordon strained to decode what he was hearing, 
and suddenly realized that behind their bluster, they were spooked by 
Barbara's house being completely dark. While sneering at Tony's 
supposed cowardice, they were hanging back, wondering about an 
ambush. 
It was for just such a possibility that he had taken the home security 
remote from Barbara's car while she was inside Lee's motel room. 
The system was unsophisticated, but he did not require much from it - 
merely a way of drawing them in, the equivalent of a pebble tossed in 
the dark. Digging in his jacket pocket with his free hand, he found the 
remote and pressed the top button. Almost instantly, the porch and 
living-room lights came on. 
That was all it took to goad the gang into action. There was a whoop 
and a shout from inside the Camaro, and it surged forward, tires 
squealing and smoking. 'Stay down,' he whispered sternly to Lee, 
then sat up as the Explorer passed. 
With cool deliberation, Gordon assessed the situation in the street 
ahead. There were four White Kings in the convertible. One was 
standing up in the back seat, shouting unintelligible taunts toward the 
house and waving a pair of pistols in the air. Another gang member 
was hanging out of the right-side window of the Explorer, clinging to 
the roof and cradling some sort of larger weapon. In moments, both 
vehicles would be directly opposite the house. 
Gordon waited no longer. A single long thumbpress started the 
generator. The collimator atop the Trigger was already pointing down 
the street toward his targets. With a slight twist of his wrist, he 
brought the Trigger to life, dialing up the power one click at a time. 
There was one short burst of gunfire, the hollow popping of a smallcaliber 
automatic - Gordon thought it came from the Explorer. The 
glass panes in the storm door of Barbara's house disintegrated as 
though smashed with a hammer. A second gun, its bark deeper, 
harsher, spoke once, twice. He heard gleeful laughter. 

In the next moment, everything turned. The Explorer was suddenly lit 
brilliantly from within by yellow-white fire, almost as though several 
flares had gone off in the middle of the back seat. There was barely 
any sound from the eruptions, no more than the dull whump of a 
pillow whipped against a mattress. But the laughter and taunting cries 
turned to screams as the vehicle swerved sharply, then screeched to a 
halt. Gordon could clearly see the contortions of the passengers as 
they tried to escape the fire and flee the vehicle. 
At the same time, the Camaro began to speed up. But it had not 
traveled more than a few car lengths when its trunk erupted in a 
fireball so intense that Gordon felt the heat of it on his face. Moments 
later, the Camaro careened into a parked pickup truck with the 
sickening sound of rending metal and shattering plastic. 
'As ye sow -' he said grimly. 'Now maybe the police will take notice.' 
Lee, now sitting upright beside him, wide-eyed and white-knuckled, 
said nothing. 
As the flames climbed higher and the screaming continued unabated, 
Gordon started the truck's engine. The burning vehicles had Seaton 
Road blocked, so he used the first driveway to turn the truck and 
trailer around. He left the truck's lights off until he reached the corner 
and turned right. From that point on, they could pretend innocence. 
'That was horrible,' she said, hoarse and dry-voiced. 
'More horrible than burying your sister, or one of her kids?' he said. 
'I feel dirty.' 
'Don't. They came there to Tony and his family. They got hurt 
instead. Simple justice, directly meted out. Would you rather it had 
been Barbara?' 
She slumped against the door and stared out at the night, glancing 
nervously at the rear-view mirror when she heard sirens in the 
distance. 'I just wish Tony hadn't told us their names.' 
11: Military 

Cleveland Heights, OH - A minor car crash on a quiet residential 
street turned into a killer conflagration Monday night when a trunkful 
of illegal guns and ammunition erupted in flames. Three members of 
the White Kings race gang, including alleged gang leader Steven 
'Frosty' Frost, were killed. Four other gang members were 
hospitalized with extensive burns and other injuries. State police are 
investigating the incident which destroyed three cars and caused 
minor damage to several nearby houses. 
Complete Story Casualty List Gun Safety Tips 
Race Gangs Selling Nostalgia, Not Drugs 
Committees being one of the least efficient decision-making 
mechanisms ever devised, it had taken six days of twice-a-day 
meetings to hammer out the details of what was now called Project 
Brass Hat. But at last the operational plan had been finalized, the 
memoranda of agreement drawn up, the executive orders signed, the 
black-budget draws authorized, and the committee finally dispersed. 
Karl Brohier was on his way back to Columbus to begin ramping up 
the research effort. Aron Goldstein was on his way to North Sioux 
City, South Dakota, where the closing of a computer assembly plant 
had left a technically skilled workforce and a hundred twenty 
thousand square feet of work floor idle. Grover Wilman was on his 
way back to the Senate, where the bipartisan Defense Advisory 
Committee was about to admit a new member to its ultrasecret 
meetings. 
That left the White House quartet - Breland, Nolby, Carrero, and 
Stepak - with what looked to be the hardest job: selling Project Brass 
Hat to the Pentagon. And the key to that was General Roland Stepak, 
USAF (Ret.), the first secretary of defense since George C. 
Marshall to bring general officer rank and command experience to 
the office. 
In a twenty-six year career, Stepak had logged nearly ten thousand 
hours in a variety of aircraft, including the top air superiority and 
strike fighters in the world. He had been an air combat instructor, an 
F-22 squadron leader in Namibia, and a wing commander during the 
Taiwan Interdiction - though, typical for a pilot of his era, he had 
flown only sixty-two actual combat sorties, and recorded no air-to-air 

kills. Stepak owed his reputation more to his brand of confidence 
without ego and leadership without arrogance than to heroism in the 
air. 
Since leaving the cockpit, he had returned to Keesler to lead the 2nd 
Air Force in its training mission, returned to Japan as commander of 
the fighter-dominated 5th, added a third star to his collar and moved 
up to commander of the Pacific Air Forces, and finally came home to 
take over the Air Combat Command at Langley -considered the 
prestige assignment among the major commands. 
Interspersed with those assignments had been three turns in highvisibility 
staff positions at the Pentagon, where his diligence and 
quiet competence won him respect from the headquarters staff. By 
the end of his second year at Langley, he was considered a dark horse 
candidate to eventually return to the Pentagon as Air Force Chief of 
Staff. 
But then his wife of twenty-two years, Peggy Ashford Stepak, 
learned that the persistent headaches which had plagued her for 
several months had a tangible cause: brain cancer. The morning after 
they received the news, the general put in for immediate leave - he 
had nearly half a year accumulated - and for retirement as of the 
expiration of his leave. In all but name, he quit on the spot, violating 
the standing protocols regarding the orderly transfer of command. By 
noon, he was off the base, out of uniform, and at Peggy's side for the 
follow-up MRI. It was the single most selfish act of his career. 
The three years which followed were the best of times and the worst 
of times, as the general and his wife played catch-up on a lifetime of 
postponed promises and deferred dreams. Peggy's final six months 
were an agony for both of them, until at last saying good-bye was a 
small mercy. 
Five years later, President Breland had plucked Stepak from the 
private anonymity he had fallen into, rescuing him from a lingering 
grief and an unfocused restlessness. The appointment, and the work 
that went with it, had renewed Stepak. 
Some days Stepak's countenance still seemed clouded by the 
darkness of an unspoken regret or a melancholy memory, but it never 
touched his work. He had been as diligent and thorough in preparing 
Breland for that morning's meeting with the Joint Chiefs as he would 

have been preflighting his F-22 for a sortie over the Formosa Strait. 
'Don't expect to get a clean read from the Joint Chiefs at this first 
briefing,' Stepak cautioned the President. 'The service chiefs, 
especially. There's an inherent conflict in their posts - they're your 
advisors, but they're also the senior commanding officers for their 
respective services.' 
'Which way do you think they're going to fall on this?' Breland asked, 
patting his copy of the agenda book, with the words TOP SECRET 
embossed on the locking leatherette cover. 
'In all honesty, sir, I think you're going to have some trouble,' Stepak 
said. 'Above and beyond the implications for foreign policy and 
national security, you're changing the conditions of the exercise in 
ways which threaten their identity. They're human beings. They have 
thirty years' time in. Behind the gold stars and the ribbons, they're 
pilots and grunts and swabbies. They know what the people who have 
to do the actual fighting have at stake, and they identify with those 
people.' 
'How bad could it get?' 
'My guess is that it'll be "Yes, Mr President" while they're still 
recovering from the shock and trying to get on top of this news. But 
once they've had some time to think about it, you'll start to feel their 
resistance. Whether that'll be today or sometime down the road, I 
don't know.' 
'First assess the battlefield intelligence, then deploy your forces.' 
'First look over the defense, then call the snap count,' Stepak said 
with a quick smile. 'Something else - realistically, they're probably 
going to resent being kept in the dark until after some of the decisions 
were already made. They may wonder why this didn't come through 
the National Security Council.' 
'Isn't it obvious? Just the bare mention of the NSC would probably 
have spooked Goldstein's people. Besides, the only statutory member 
who wasn't part of the Brass Hat committee was the Vice President.' 
Stepak nodded. 'Are you planning to involve her at any time soon?' 
'No,' said Breland, and shrugged. Truman wasn't told about the 
atomic bomb until after Roosevelt was dead.' He caught the surprise 
in the secretary of defense's expression, and added, 'It's not that 

difficult for me to come up with scenarios which end with my being 
impeached for treason. No?' 
'I wish I could say I thought you were overstating the risks, Mr 
President.' 
'I'd be a tough sell. I can think of too many folks up on the Hill who'd 
view my allowing this discovery to disarm our military as nothing 
short of treason. I'm sure I know what Ben Twilly's counsel would 
have been - destroy the research and make the Terabyte people 
disappear,' he said with a rueful smile. 'And he could probably 
manage to round up a posse of like-minded citizens.' 
'Possibly so.' 
'But if I can keep Toni at arm's length, maybe she could survive my 
impeachment. Which I think would be to the good of the country - if 
everyone wakes up some morning to discover that they have a 
President that no one voted for -' He shook his head. 'Let's see if we 
can avoid running that particular experiment in representative 
democracy.' 
'I'll concur on that, Mr President.' 
'Which brings me back to what you were saying earlier,' said Breland, 
standing and emerging from behind his desk. 'Just what form might 
that "resistance" take? Do you think there's a chance that the Joint 
Chiefs would resort to direct action?' 
'Against you?' 
'Against me. Against us. And please, an honest answer - I need more 
than a glib reassurance that it's never happened here.' 
'It's not a glib reassurance,' Stepak said. 'These men take their oaths 
every bit as seriously as you do yours. This isn't like schoolkids 
mumbling their way through the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of 
classes.' 
'I accept that - but it doesn't rule out the possibility of a fundamental 
difference of opinion. The oath they take is to the Constitution and 
the Presidency, not to any particular president. There has to be a limit 
to how long they'll stand by and do nothing. I'm asking you how 
close you think we are to that line.' 
'It doesn't matter where that line is, or what side of it you're on,' said 
Stepak. 'It's not the place of the Joint Chiefs to remove you. You may 

not understand that, but they do. You're speaking truthfully about 
human nature - but the whole point of a soldier's training and loyalty 
is to defy human nature. That's the only way you get men to run 
toward where the bullets are coming from -when any rational person 
can see that the sensible thing to do is run away.' 
Breland was frowning. 'You know all of the current Chiefs 
personally, don't you?' 
'Yes. I count two of them as friends. But I'd say the same thing if they 
were all strangers,' Stepak said firmly. 'Mr President, if you were 
facing impeachment, and there was an angry mob coming up 
Pennsylvania Avenue with the intention of accelerating the process of 
removing you from office, every one of those men would willingly 
and unhesitatingly place themselves between you and that mob, 
would give their lives if necessary, to see that you lived long enough 
to be impeached. There was no coup when Johnson and McNamara 
were bungling the Vietnam War, no night of the generals when Nixon 
was sullying the presidency or Clinton was selling it. You have 
nothing to fear from that quarter.' 
Breland was taken aback by the earnest passion of Stepak's reproof. 
He retreated a step and sat down on a corner of his desk. 'My 
apologies, General Stepak,' he said softly. 'I got confused for a 
moment about which team is wearing what color.' 
'No apology is necessary, Mr President,' said Stepak. 'It's my job to 
make sure that you don't forget anything important. - Now, to answer 
your question. You don't need their consent. You only need their 
obedience, which you'll have, whatever your orders. You're the 
commander in chief - it's your responsibility to get it right, theirs to 
get it done. Moreover, the chain of command doesn't pass through the 
service chiefs - it goes directly from you to the major commands, 
through me. So even if the chiefs were of a mind to thwart and defy 
you - which, I'll say again, isn't going to happen - they would have to 
overstep their authority to do so. 
'No, what you can expect is a war of words,' said Stepak. 'If they 
think you're wrong, they'll argue with you - and a full-out assault by 
the combined chiefs is nothing to sneer at. They'll argue as hard and 
as long as you let them - and it's a good idea to let them, because the 
one thing they can do to seriously hurt you is resign.' 

'Go on.' 
'If you bring them a policy they think is dangerously wrong, and if 
you leave them feeling that you weren't willing to hear them, or to 
defend your decision in front of them -' 
I'll put them in a position where the only option their conscience will 
allow them is to resign.' 
'Yes. And the simple truth is that if you suddenly lose two or three 
people from the JCS, Congress will notice, and so will the entire 
force structure. You don't need that. This is going to be difficult 
enough with their full commitment. Technically, you don't need their 
consent - but practically, you do need their experience, their insight, 
and their leadership, all fully engaged.' 
'It's not enough if they just run out and take their positions,' said 
Breland. 'I need them to have their heads in the game - I need them to 
play hard.' 
'Exactly, sir. And if I may add a personal opinion -' 
'By all means.' 
'You owe it to the country to give them every chance to convince you 
that you're wrong.' 
'Are you saying that you think I am?' 
Stepak raised his hands in a gesture of profound ambivalence. 'Mr 
President, I don't know. The only way I get any sleep these days is by 
telling myself over and over that it could be worse -it could be my 
decision. Maybe the right place for the Trigger is at the bottom of a 
thousand-foot shaft, with five hundred feet of concrete on top of it. I 
just don't know.' 
Showing a wry, lopsided smile, Breland admitted, 'I've had a little 
trouble sleeping myself.' 
'You'd have to be inhuman not to,' said Stepak. 'Even after a week of 
talking about it, I can't really say I've grasped the full reach of the 
changes to come if you follow through on Brass Hat. I know this 
much - no one's life is going to be untouched. And if you do follow 
through, no presidency in this country will have left the country, the 
world, as profoundly changed as yours will. I just wish I had the 
wisdom to know if we'll be changing it for the better, or for the 
worse.' 

'Except that isn't the choice we face,' said Breland. 'We can act, or we 
can wait to be acted on. One of those at least gives us a chance to try 
to control the outcome. And that's not a hard choice for me, even if 
the attempt ends badly. We can't wish this away - what if some 
Chinese physicist met with the Premier the same morning Brohier 
came to me? It'd be an abdication of responsibility not to move 
forward.' A relaxed, reassuring smile came to his lips. To use one of 
those sports metaphors you're so fond of, Roland - it's crunch time, 
and I want the ball in my hands.' 
The concealed door to the outer offices opened just enough for Nolby 
to poke his head in. 'Mr President? It's time.' 
Breland glanced back over his shoulder at the clock behind his desk. 
'So it is. General?' 
'I'm with you, Mr President,' said Stepak, standing. 'And I want you 
to know I mean that.' 
'I know you do.' 
The formalities of roll call complete, General Donald Madison, 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, dismissed the recording secretary from 
the conference room. 
Clearing his throat, Madison pushed his personal organizer back from 
the edge of the conference table and laid down his stylus beside a 
thick, secure-sealed white envelope. An identical envelope rested in 
front of each of the men seated at the table. The envelopes were 
personalized, dated and numbered; the one by Breland's right hand 
was marked Copy 1 of 8. The contents had been prepared by Stepak, 
under Breland's close supervision and subject to his personal editing. 
This special meeting has been called at the request of the President,' 
Madison said in his phlegmy rumble of a voice. The information he's 
brought us is compartmentalized Top Secret -there are to be no notes 
taken, and no minutes kept. The briefing materials will be collected at 
the end of the meeting.' He looked across the expanse of wood at 
Breland. 'Mr President, the floor is yours.' 
Thank you, General Madison,' Breland said with a nod. 'Gentlemen, 
I'm here not only to brief you, but to consult with you. I've recently 
learned that there now exists a technological means to neutralize most 

conventional weapons.' It was a natural pause line, but Breland was 
aiming for a matter-of-fact presentation, not a dramatic one, and went 
right on. 'This discovery was made by American scientists earlier this 
summer. They constructed a working prototype and carried out a 
series of preliminary tests. Those tests confirm that the device, which 
we are calling the Trigger, detonates or destroys nitrate-based 
explosives and propellants at a distance. 
'In consultation with the secretary of defense, I've already ordered an 
expanded research effort aimed at refining the Trigger device and 
establishing a theoretical foundation for its extraordinary effect. I've 
also ordered the immediate production of one thousand examples of 
an interim Mark I Trigger design based on the prototype, which has 
an effective range reported to me as "no less than five hundred 
meters". 
'One hundred of the Mark I units are reserved for an expanded testing 
program, to be carried out by the Defense Advanced Research 
Projects Agency and the Redstone Arsenal in cooperation with all 
three services. I've directed General Stepak to see that every weapon 
and munition currently in inventory, conventional and nuclear, is 
tested for susceptibility to the Trigger effect. However, I have to tell 
you that our expectation is that all conventional munitions will be 
susceptible. 
'No one currently cleared to know about the Trigger has access to 
detailed technical information about the design of current nuclear 
munitions, so their susceptibility is less certain - but on general 
design principles, considered likely. With your assistance, we may be 
able to settle that question before the end of this briefing. 
Together, these three operations - research, production, and testing - 
constitute Project Brass Hat. But they only address the most 
immediate need to discover the limits and capabilities of this new 
technology. There are many more issues and challenges which need 
to be addressed, many of them crucial questions related to national 
security and international relations. 
'We're fortunate to have a chance to address them before being 
confronted by this technology on a battlefield. We have a window of 
opportunity in which to rethink our battlefield concept, and shift our 
tactics, our weapons mix, and even our force structure, to remain 
effective in the new combat environment. 

'But that's only the beginning. The morning after I learned about the 
Trigger, I woke up with the realization that everything I knew was 
wrong. This discovery calls on us to develop a new concept of 
"security", one which doesn't depend on our having more and bigger 
weapons than the enemy. We have a window of opportunity in which 
we can rewrite the definition of "deterrence", and reconsider the need 
for traditional means of force projection. 
'Just think, Admiral Jacobs - an unarmed freighter with a Trigger unit 
aboard would be more secure in a war zone than the heaviest cruiser 
or the fastest carrier. In fact, the freighter might be a greater threat to 
the cruiser than the cruiser would be to the freighter. 
'Just think, General Moorman - we have before us the means to create 
an entirely new concept of a national border. With the Trigger 
standing guard, we can create open borders in places where open 
borders have never existed - the Middle East, the Far East. Open 
borders without fear of attack. Because the Trigger can give us 
borders that a friend can cross at any time, but an enemy can never 
cross. 
'Beyond all that, I also see one great opportunity that transcends our 
own legitimate needs to protect our people and our allies - an 
opportunity to save twenty thousand lives a year, to save hundreds of 
thousands more from a lifetime of suffering. 
'Because despite the treaties of '97 and 2000, there are still more than 
a hundred million live mines lurking in the ground in Cambodia, 
Kosovo, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chad, the Ukraine - you know the list 
as well as I do. Despite the ban, there are still more mines put into the 
ground every year than there are taken out. And all across Europe, 
central Africa, southeast Asia, the unexploded munitions left buried 
by a century of warfare are still percolating to the surface. 
'We can put an end to that threat. We can stop the slaughter of the 
innocents. Just think, General Hawley - a squadron of Triggerequipped 
helicopters should be able to cleanse an acre in minutes, an 
entire country in a few weeks. We now have the capacity to turn 
battlefields back into the farms and pastures and playgrounds they 
were before the armies showed up. Humanity may not have learned 
yet how to stop brawling amongst ourselves, but we finally have the 
means to clean up after ourselves. And we'll do more good for more 
people - and for our country! - by being the janitors of the world than 

we ever have as the policemen of the world.' 
But despite all Breland's passion, eloquence, and earnest enthusiasm, 
it remained a tough room, a distant audience. The demands of 
etiquette and the expectations of discipline assured him the Joint 
Chiefs' full attention, but they absorbed his words with scarcely an 
outward reaction. Breland was not interrupted once by the pokerfaced 
chiefs, whose body language - which approached sitting-atattention 
- gave him little more to go on. 
'I've said enough to set the context,' he said, settling back in the 
padded-armed chair. 'Please open your briefing packets now. You'll 
find an overview of Brass Hat, a summary of the test results to date, 
an outline of issues and opportunities, and a preliminary list of 
questions regarding the impact on national defense. If the Chairman 
has no objection, I'd like to invite you to take as much time as you 
need to review what's there, and then we'll come back together and 
begin the hard work.' 
'I have no objection,' said General Madison, to the sound of secureseal 
tabs snapping and Tyvek rustling. 
Breland nodded and rose, his eye on the crystal tumblers and pitchers 
of ice water at the far end of the table. His exposition had left him drymouthed, 
with the first hint of the widely-noted rasp that frequently 
came on him when he found himself talking at length. But as he 
turned away from the table, someone cleared his throat and said, 'Mr 
President, I don't need any more time to know what I think of this.' 
Breland turned back to find General Hawley standing at his seat, a 
single finger touching the briefing packet. 'Very well. Go ahead, 
General.' 
'I think it's madness,' said Hawley. 'You've obviously decided not 
only to develop this weapon, but to deploy it - not only to deploy it, 
but to do so in as public a manner as possible.' 
That decision hasn't been made,' said Breland. 'But I won't mislead 
you, General - it's clearly the option that offers the most opportunities 
to alter a potential enemy's behavior.' 
'I can tell you the first behavior that'll be altered,' said Hawley. 'Ten 
minutes after news of this reaches Beijing, Premier Denh will order 
an all-out effort to buy or steal the Trigger secrets. Every scientist 
working on Brass Hat is going to need to be locked up where no one 

can find them. Every one of those Mark I units is going to need a 
twenty-four hour guard made up of the most bribe-proof people we 
can find. Every Trigger you take out of the country is going to need a 
platoon of Marines to protect it. And even if you do everything right, 
within ten years, the Chinese, the Iranians, the Iraqis, the Pakistanis, 
and anyone else who really wants the Trigger will have it.' 
Breland nodded calmly. 'That would be the expected outcome - 
wouldn't you agree, General Stepak?' 
Stepak nodded gravely. 'Everyone here knows there's nothing more 
transitory than a military secret,' he said. 'In my opinion, any 
deployment scenario eventually leads to universal proliferation. The 
only variable is the timetable.' 
At the far end of the table, General Moorman was flipping through 
the pages of the briefing packet. 'Does building a Trigger require any 
exotic materials or exceptional technology?' he interjected. 'Perhaps 
we can slow the rate of proliferation by controlling the means of 
production - as we did with nuclear weapons.' 
'I'm afraid not,' said Breland. 'Once they know the fundamentals of 
the design, any country that can build high-powered microwave 
transmitters can build Triggers. Which means, essentially, every 
industrialized nation. And since we're not talking millions of dollars 
per copy, those who can't build them will likely be able to buy them.' 
Then I'm more mystified than ever,' said Hawley, pushing the packet 
away from him as though it were something distaste-ful. 'Mr 
President, I'm completely at a loss to understand why you're 
proposing to dismantle the preeminent military force of the twentyfirst 
century.' 
'Dismantle?' asked Admiral Jacobs. 'A submarine equipped with this 
device would be virtually invulnerable.' The appeal of that idea was 
evident in the voice of the former fast-attack submarine commander. 
'And completely useless, Mark. Your Sawfish couldn't even carry a 
deck gun.' 
'Wait - but this is a directional effect, yes?' 
'No, sir,' said Stepak. 'The Trigger field is omni-directional.' 
'Surely there's some way to shield our own magazines -' 
'Not that we now know of,' admitted Stepak. 'We have to do more 

testing, but the available evidence is that the field penetrates all 
ordinary materials. The primary limitation on the Trigger appears to 
be range - which is principally a question of available power.' 
'You see. Admiral? You see?' Hawley prodded. 
'Well, what are we supposed to do, then?' Jacobs exploded, looking to 
Breland for an answer. 
I'll tell you what you're supposed to do - disarm the entire Fleet, or 
mothball it,' said Hawley. 'Better yet, mount battering rams. General 
Moorman, you'll have to rearm all your tanks with bayonets. General 
Brennan, you'd better call your Warfighting Laboratory and tell them 
to lay in a supply of crossbows. And I'll be able to send everything 
but the recon squadrons to the graveyard at Davis-Mothan.' 
He turned on Breland with angry eyes. 'Start building these things, 
Mr President, and you're throwing away everything that makes this 
country strong and keeps our people safe,' Hawley said. 'We have a 
technological advantage in every dimension of the combat cube - air, 
sea, land, undersea, and space. We enjoy an absolute numerical 
advantage against every possible adversary except China. And even 
against them, we can establish absolute battlefield dominance - right 
up to their front door, if need be. Push this technology into the mix, 
and we lose all of that.' 
'The Chinese can raise an army of ten million, a hundred million, and 
hardly notice if they lose them all,' said Moorman. 'What are we 
going to do when they cross into South Korea, into Vietnam -when 
they take Vladivostok, and Taiwan, and start looking across the water 
at Japan?' 
Breland was unfazed. 'Gentlemen, it seems to me that those are 
exactly the kind of questions you're going to need to help answer.' 
The Vice Chairman, General Heincer, spoke for the first time since 
the meeting began. There have to be other options. An intermediate 
strategy - fast development, but no deployment -all-out effort on 
alternative weapons, but a maximum effort to contain and suppress 
this discovery -' 
Shaking his head, Breland said, 'Unless someone's been keeping 
secrets from the President again, we don't have enough people in 
China to prevent them from discovering this on their own - or even to 
know if they've discovered it already.' 

'The President is correct on that point,' said the Chairman. 'We are 
tracking nearly eight thousand Chinese agents in the US. We have 
barely two hundred agents in China.' 
'Maybe it's time we evened things up,' said Admiral Jacobs. 'March 
'em out to the end of Santa Monica Pier, point toward Beijing, and 
wish 'em a nice swim.' 
'And when Beijing responds by expelling every American 
businessman -' 
That'd be all right by me,' General Moorman grumbled. 'It's gotten so 
you can hardly buy anything for under a hundred bucks that isn't 
made in China. They're making our toys, our clothes, our tools - last 
month, my wife even found an American flag, one of those little desk 
flags, that was made in China. And that was at the Base Exchange. I 
couldn't believe it.' 
'Believe it. Be glad for it. That's part of the answer to General 
Hawley's challenge, General,' said Breland. 'We're China's biggest 
trading partner. And Japan is number two. We're more valuable as 
customers than as conquests.' 
That won't help Vladivostok much,' said Jacobs. 'Or Taiwan. Hell, 
they take Taiwan, and we'll just have to buy that much more from 
them.' 
'You're missing the point,' said Breland. 'In the long run, it doesn't 
matter if the Chinese factories are full of kids being paid slave wages. 
In the long run, it doesn't matter if the ruling circle is full of rabid 
expansionists. The real meaning of all of those billions of dollars 
we're sending to China is that there are now powerful voices inside 
China with a strong interest in staying on good terms with us.' 
Jacobs answered with a derisive snort. 'All we've been doing is 
paying for their military build-up.' 
'Which is about as smart as paying for your wife's divorce lawyer,' 
said General Brennan. That brought a laugh that took some of the 
edge off the tension in the room. 
While he listened, Breland had reclaimed his chair and settled into a 
determinedly relaxed posture. 'Gentlemen, I respect the dedication 
and experience you bring to the great responsibility of ensuring the 
security of our country,' he said. 'It's your duty to take the darkest 

possible view of our adversaries, the most cynical interpretation of 
their acts, the most skeptical view of their words. 
'It's my duty, however, to balance the worst possible scenario against 
the best possible scenario, in search of the most likely. We don't 
fortify our northern border against the possibility that some Canadian 
Prime Minister might decide he wants a port on Lake Michigan. We 
don't search every trunk, cooler, and hat box coming across the 
Friendship Bridge, looking for Canadian terrorists with suitcase 
nukes. 
'Now, China is no Canada. They keep building Long March ICBMs. 
They keep cloning Soviet missile cruisers and arming them with 
Silkworms. They keep upgrading their air force with Su-27 and MIG- 
31 knockoffs. They keep spying on us and our friends. They keep six 
million men in uniform. In short, they keep acting like they expect to 
find themselves in a scrap against someone a lot like us. 
The question is whether they expect to start that scrap.' 
'What are you talking about?' asked Moorman. 
'Every one of you has a counterpart in China. What do they tell the 
premier about us?' Breland asked. 'When they look at the United 
States, with our technological superiority, our absolute battlefield 
dominance, our allies on their doorstep, our super-silent boomers 
which we promise aren't lurking in the Kuril Trench and the Bering 
Abyssal, our hypersonic SSTOs which we keep assuring them aren't 
bombers, maybe they get to feeling just a little bit uncomfortable, a 
little unsure of our intentions. It's just possible they'd welcome a 
chance to stop spending four hundred billion yuan every year on guns 
and bombs.' 
The Chairman leaned forward and rested his folded hands on the 
table. 'No offense intended, Mr President, but I hope you're not 
telling us you belong to that school of woolly-headed internationalists 
who believe that people everywhere are the same, and every conflict 
is the result of a misunderstanding.' 
'No offense taken, General,' said Breland. 'I hope you're not telling 
me that you belong to that club of testosterone addicts so in love with 
big fast toys and noisemakers that they can't imagine giving them up.' 
'Now, just a minute -' Jacobs began. 

'I'm not finished, Admiral,' Breland said sharply. The fact is, we've 
been extremely successful playing under twentieth-century rules. But 
if we keep on fighting the last war, we're going to find ourselves 
wearing red and marching in straight lines across the meadow while 
our enemy mows us down from behind the trees. Does anyone here 
want to fight the twenty-first century version of the Battle of New 
Orleans - as the British? 
'Gentlemen, the rules of the game are changing. They've already 
changed, in fact. You don't have to like it, but we all have to deal 
with it. I know it's going to be a painful transition - but I have to 
believe that if we apply all the experience and dedication and talent 
we can call on, we can be successful under the new rules, too. 
'But we have to be smart, and we have to be flexible. We have to be 
able to break our own tendencies, and we have to be willing to 
redefine success. It may not mean technological superiority and 
absolute battlefield dominance. It might mean giving up the capacity 
to start a war in exchange for the capacity to prevent one. It might 
mean a hundred little victories no one notices instead of one big one 
that gets written about for a hundred years. It might mean a new kind 
of conflict, and a new kind of peace. And if we're very smart, and a 
little lucky, it just might mean a safer, saner planet for all of us. 
That's what I expect from you, gentlemen,' Breland said, meet-ing the 
eyes of each chief in turn. 'I expect you to find the path that gets us 
from here to there. I expect you to figure out how to keep us as safe 
as possible along the way. I expect you to rise to the challenge of the 
hardest job any President has ever handed this body - and the most 
tantalizing opportunity fate has ever handed our country. 
'No, we won't forget that we have real enemies, that greed and cruelty 
and hate keep evil alive in human hearts. But we also won't forget 
that there never has been a war that left the world a better place - that 
even the "good" wars exact a terrible price in both blood and treasure, 
in lost years and squandered lives. If there can be another way, a 
better way, let us be the ones to uncover it. Now, you may call that 
woolly-headed idealism if you like - but I call it hard-headed human 
compassion. And if you can't locate a fund of that to draw on, then 
you've forgotten why we wanted the guns in the first place. 
'Now - are there any other questions? General Hawley ? General 
Moorman?' He looked from one face to the next, searching for the 

men behind the insignia, the humanity behind the duty. 
'Not a question, but a comment,' General Brennan said at last. 'Over 
the years, the Warfighting Laboratory has looked into a lot of 
alternative weapons for Special Forces - compressed-air guns, hurling 
sticks, shock prods, various martial arts devices, and so on. Those 
files, eh, would probably be worth a second look now.' 
Nodding, Breland said, 'Consider it on the list of things to do.' 
'I have a question,' said General Madison. 
Breland swiveled his chair toward the head of the table. 'Go ahead.' 
The chairman drummed his fingers on the table for a long moment 
before responding. 'Those other nine hundred Triggers - what plans 
do you have for them?' 
'Well,' Breland said, 'I confess I find the thought of putting one in 
every high school in Los Angeles for a month or so very appealing.' 
Then he shrugged. 'But, actually, those decisions are waiting on input 
from all of you.' 
'Then I have a few thoughts in that area, Mr President,' Madison said. 
'Some allocations that I'd like to propose receive priority.' 
Sitting back in his chair, Breland caught a sideways glance from 
Stepak that said I think the worst is over. 'Go ahead, General. It's as 
good a place as any to start.' 
12: Apostasy 
London, UK - Constable Clarence Whitehead closed out an era 
today when he added a leather holster and a black Webley & Scott 
pistol to his uniform before setting out on his daily foot patrol in the 
Docklands. Though London's famed bobbies have had the option of 
carrying firearms on regular patrols for years, the recent murder of 
two officers in Shropshire led Scotland Yard officials to make it 
mandatory. 'I've got regrets,' said Whitehead, a 25-year veteran, 'but I 
don't see as the Inspector had much choice.' 
Complete Story Walther Revives Webley Name 

Sociologist Says American Cinema Brought 'Gun Cult' to UK 
The day for good-byes had finally come, and Donovan King had 
chosen it well. 
The day was a cloudy autumn Saturday, and the stiff breeze had a 
winter's bite. With the top-ranked Penn State Nittany Lions in town 
for a showdown with the Buckeyes, the entire city of Columbus 
awakened to thoughts of football. All across the region, Ohio State 
fans began the rituals and ablutions which would lead them to their 
seats in the stadium and in front of television screens. The patterns 
were as predictable as a sunrise: as the sports bars filled, the roads 
emptied. As kickoff neared, the stores became deserted, the beer 
flowed and the heady energy of anticipation grew. The police were 
occupied, the populace distracted. 
At Terabyte, Saturday began with the arrival of a yellow Ryder 
tractor and semi-trailer at the gates. The truck was driven by a twoman 
team from Terabyte's expanded security force, and accompanied 
by a forest green Chevy Tahoe sport-utility and a silver Honda sedan. 
All three vehicles bore plates from different states, and all three 
drivers wore casual clothes - both signs of Donovan King's attention 
to the smallest details in planning a safe but unobtrusive move from 
Columbus to the West Annex. 
Even on a lightly traveled highway, it would take more than a casual 
observation to realize that the three unremarkable vehicles made up a 
caravan, or to guess that anything more valuable than household 
furniture was being transported. To complete the illusion, the last 
three meters of the trailer would be packed high with ordinary 
moving boxes filled with what had been the contents of Leigh 
Thayer's apartment. 
While the crates containing the prototype and its instrumentation 
were loaded into the trailer, three teams from the lab's engineering 
staff went to work on the vehicles. Working quickly enough to beat 
the twenty-minute update cycle, they removed the unsophisticated 
Ryder and Hertz global positioning system trackers, transplanting 
them into Terabyte vehicles. Those vehicles, with their identification 
numbers spoofed to match those of the caravan, would never leave 
greater Columbus. 

In place of the trackers they removed, the engineering teams installed 
Terabyte's own military-grade GPS-III secure-duplex trackers. 
Identical systems had been installed overnight in the two largest 
crates, against the possibility that they might become separated from 
the truck or each other en route. It was all part of King's promise to 
Brohier: 
'I'm going to make sure it's easy for you to monitor the entire move, 
and damned hard for anyone else to.' 
The caravan rolled out the gates again a few minutes before kickoff, 
with King himself at the wheel of the lead vehicle. Brohier saw them 
off, then crossed to where Lee and Gordon were waiting and 
watching, near the main entrance to Planck Center. As he approached 
them, he noted their starkly contrasting body language - Gordon 
perched casually on a low wall, bare-headed, coat wide open, while 
Lee stood stiffly half a dozen paces away, hands buried in her ski 
jacket's square pockets, collar rolled up and a crocheted hat on her 
head. 
'That's one, Doctor,' Gordon said. 
'That's one,' he agreed. 
'I was kind of surprised to see King leave now,' said Gordon, hopping 
off the wall. 'I would have thought he'd stay around until the second 
caravan was away.' 
'No, this was always what he planned,' Brohier said. 'Listen, you two - 
we're looking at a lull of an hour or so now, and I spoiled the chief 
cook's day by making her come in. How about one last lunch in the 
grille, for old time's sake?' 
'Sure,' said Greene. 'But I'll eat Lee's hat if you can name three of 
Josie's specials - when did you ever patronize the campus cafeteria?' 
'Whenever there was six or more inches of snow between me and 
something better,' Brohier said cheerfully. 'Lee?' 
'I could use something hot,' said Lee, and shivered. 'Even soine-thing 
from the Terror-Bite Girl.' 
The deserted cafeteria seemed cavernous, tomblike - every clink of 
glass and flatware, every word above a whisper carrying to the four 
corners. Conditions were perfect for eavesdropping, except that the 

only conversation underway was the one at the table where Lee was 
seated. 
Mercifully, even that conversation was largely Karl Brohier's 
monologue. The director seemed to be aware of how uncomfortable 
she and Gordon were with each other, of the way their easy banter 
had given way to a chilly, awkward silence, and smoothly took over 
the burden of filling the silence. Lee had never seen him quite so 
garrulous. 
Brohier told them a series of physicist jokes so groaningly bad that 
the cumulative effect had them both laughing out loud. He 
reminisced about his one chance meeting with Stephen Hawking, 
about embarrassing himself in front of John Wheeler, about his 
tumultuous internship under John Bardeen at Bell Laboratories. 
'I took that internship hoping it would lead to a job at the lab, and 
once I was there I wasn't shy about telling them so.' He laughed and 
shrugged.'- My father used to tell me, "Always ask for what you 
really want - you might get it." I had to discover on my own that the 
style points counted. 
'Dr Bardeen was brilliant, one of the few legitimate geniuses I've 
known - and he had just accepted his second Nobel Prize in Physics. 
And here I was, younger than either of you, the ink barely dry on my 
doctorate, totally clueless about the etiquette and politics at that level, 
and totally in love with my own ideas, in love with new ideas. 
'I wanted to impress Dr Bardeen. And I tried to do it the same way I'd 
done it all through school - by showing my teachers I was just as 
smart as they were. Or smarter. I kept treating the internship like it 
was Wilkenson's graduate seminar - with a paycheck. Well, surely 
you can see this coming - Dr Bardeen and I could never seem to 
agree on anything, including how smart I was. We had at least one 
full-blown, high-theater argument a week, and I never won a single 
one. I got used to going home feeling like I'd been exposed as an 
idiot. 
'But I was a stubborn idiot. And the less success I had, the more 
frantic I was to find some way to correct Dr Bardeen's mistaken 
opinion of me. By the end, I must have been completely obnoxious. 
'I came to Dr Bardeen's office that last day, itching to reopen an 
argument we'd had a few weeks earlier - as I recall, something about 

Fahy's approach to modeling the properties of complex materials 
from first principles. Old news, now. 
'In any event, I never even got started. He told me that the lab 
wouldn't be offering me a position. Then he told me he'd enjoyed our 
arguments, that he thought I'd helped make it a "lively" year -which I 
could only hear as his way of saying I'd provided valuable comic 
relief. Finally, he handed me his letter of recommendation. 
'I was afraid to open the letter in front of him. I didn't even want to 
open it when I was alone. I sat there in my kitchen, staring at the 
envelope, realizing all my mistakes. I did a year's growing up in the 
hour or so it took for me to reach a point where I thought I could read 
the letter without crumbling.' 
He took a sip of his ice water before continuing. 'Dr Bardeen's letter 
was two sentences long. It said, "Karl Brohier will do important work 
someday. I recommend his employment without reservation."' 
A startled laugh escaped Lee's lips. 'No!' 
'Oh, yes. But there's more - he'd written me a note, and stuck it to the 
bottom of the letter. "An old bull and a young bull don't belong in the 
same pasture. Don't take it personally - and don't stop pushing. Good 
luck - J.B."' He smiled a quiet smile. 'I still have that little yellow 
square of paper.' 
'I guess he knew talent,' said Gordon. 
'Or perhaps it was just a self-fulfilling prophecy,' said Brohier. 'No 
one was more surprised than I when Dr Bardeen's prediction came 
true - well, perhaps my parents. My parents must have been 
astonished to learn that I ended up doing anything of consequence. 
But that's another story. 
'I lived under the weight of those expectations for fifteen years before 
I managed to turn one of those wild notions Dr Bardeen had 
dismissed into the first working example of solid-state memory,' 
Brohier said, and smiled ironically. 'It took me that long to finally 
win an argument with him.' 
'Did you call him up and say, "I told you so"?' asked Gordon. 
'Unfortunately, there was no opportunity to. He had died a few 
months earlier. Of course, honor would have compelled me to admit 
that he'd been right about all the other wild ideas - so perhaps it's just 

as well.' 
Brohier picked up a napkin and began wiping his fingers, even 
though he had hardly touched the food in front of him. It seems to me 
that you two are living my life backwards. You have already done 
your most important work, at a very young age. The weight of its 
consequences is just now settling on you, and it isn't easy to see what 
can ever lift that weight.' 
He knows, Lee suddenly realized. The thought tightened the muscles 
of her ribcage, squeezing out the air, and paralyzed her face in a 
rictus of apprehension. 
Brohier went on, 'I made my biggest mistakes - the ones that proceed 
from naivete, and ignorant idealism, and egocentrism, the ones of 
which we can say, "I was young -I didn't know any better" 
- I made them when the only person affected by them was me. You 
no longer have that luxury. 
'I want you both to know that I feel great sympathy for you - 
sympathy limited only by the extent that your mistakes cross over the 
boundaries of my responsibilities. I warned you once before that what 
lay ahead of us was harder than the part that lay behind us. Well, 
what's the saying? Today is the tomorrow you worried about 
yesterday.' 
Brohier glanced at his message watch, though whether to check the 
time or the display Lee could not say. The second caravan should be 
here now,' he said, standing. Time to wrap this up.' 
The relocation plan had seemed innocent enough when Donovan 
King had presented it to Gordon and Lee in the director's office. The 
prototypes would travel separately and under escort, with the original 
Davisson Lab unit masquerading as household furniture, and the 
portable unit's truck-and-trailer repainted as an electrician's van. The 
details of their routing King chose to keep to himself, but Gordon 
guessed that neither would follow a direct route, or complete the 
journey in the same vehicle in which it started out. 
Lee and Gordon would likewise travel separately, each in the 
company of a bodyguard. Gordon's first stop was Atlanta, Lee's 
Minneapolis, but the full itinerary and ultimate destination were still 

unknown to them - their tickets were in the custody of their traveling 
companions until boarding time. Gordon imagined that King had 
some scheme worked out to cover their tracks - a ticket swap at a 
plane change, perhaps - that would make it seem as though they had 
gone somewhere else. 
'By Monday afternoon, you'll all be reunited at the Annex,' King had 
promised. 
But then King drove off with the first caravan, which started Gordon 
wondering. And then Brohier started talking as though he were 
saying good-bye to more than Columbus, which turned Gordon's 
wonder into worry. Edging past Brohier in the hallway, Gordon ran 
ahead to the entrance and out into the courtyard. A single glimpse 
was enough to tell him how wrong everything had gone. 
Baby Two's truck and trailer had, indeed, been repainted. It now 
blended in perfectly with the other olive drab vehicles flanking it, and 
the green-uniformed soldiers standing guard with M-16s at all four 
corners. The vehicles carried the markings of the 612th Engineer 
Battalion of the Army National Guard. Gordon's tools, which were 
supposed to have been loaded aboard the truck, were still sitting on 
the sidewalk fifty meters away. 
His face suddenly flushed with anger, Gordon spun on his heels to 
confront the director. 'You son of a bitch - you lied to me -' he 
growled. 
'Yes,' Brohier said. 'As you did to me. And we'll talk about it in my 
office, in just a few minutes.' He brushed past Gordon and raised a 
hand, calling out, 'Captain Brandt!' 
'Damn it, come back here!' Gordon took a step toward the older man, 
but then Lee caught up to him and grabbed his arm. 
'Don't,' she said, tight-voiced. 
He shook off her touch and retreated a step. 'Don't you understand 
what this means?' he demanded, sweeping an arm in the direction of 
the convoy. 'He's turning our work over to the goddamn Pentagon.' 
'I understand what it means,' she said harshly. 'It means we screwed 
up, and he knows it. It means he trusts them more than he trusts us 
now. We are on the way out, and I can't say we don't deserve it. Go 
on, keep after him, maybe you can get him to turn us over to them, 

too. What would it be, Gordie, espionage or treason? Or maybe just 
three counts of first-degree murder.' 
Taken momentarily aback by the intensity of her assault, Gordon 
could not find a comeback worth voicing. Chafing at his impotence, 
he watched in silence as Brohier stood talking with what was 
obviously the officer in charge of the convoy. As the two shook 
hands, Gordon belatedly realized that the captain's camouflage 
uniform bore no unit insignia. 
'Why would they have the National Guard make this pickup?' he said 
under his breath. 'Answer - they wouldn't, so they're not. Probably 
Army Intelligence. But no one'll wonder at seeing a few weekend 
warriors out on the highway - and they can go right to Camp Perry, or 
Camp Grayling, offload Baby Two onto a V-22 tilt-rotor, and take it 
anywhere.' 
'It doesn't matter,' said Lee. 'It's out of our hands.' 
Gordon slowly shook his head. 'I don't accept that.' 
While they were talking, the captain had climbed into one of the three 
waiting HMMVs. There were no orders shouted, but engines began 
roaring to life, and the four sentries left their posts, scattering one to 
each vehicle. 
'Accept it,' Lee said curtly as Karl Brohier backed out of the driveway 
and rejoined them. The lead HMMV lurched forward, and the other 
vehicles followed with crisp precision. Gordon felt the anger 
returning as Baby Two's truck passed in front of where the trio was 
standing. But neither he nor anyone else said anything until the 
convoy had passed through the inner gate and disappeared down the 
drive. 
'Let's go talk about you,' said Brohier, and turned away toward his 
office without waiting for their reply. 
Brohier was waiting for them behind his desk. 'Sit,' he said, gesturing. 
'I have one more story to tell.' 
Gordon and Lee exchanged glances, then sorted themselves into the 
two closest chairs. 
'Last night, I had a call from a member of the Joint Chiefs,' said 
Brohier. 'He was trying to evaluate a report he received from the NS 

A, which now has its ears up for any hint of anything that might be 
related to your discovery. Of course, they weren't expecting to find it 
in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.' He turned his desk display toward 
them. 'The security logs show that you and the truck were off campus 
when this happened, Dr Greene. The truck's mileage - well, this is not 
a court. You and I both know that this was your doing.' 
Greene glanced briefly at the news item displayed on the screen. 
'Yes,' he acknowledged. 'I am sorry about the fires. The collimator 
didn't work as I thought it would.' He shrugged. "Truth is, I don't 
really understand this Trigger field very well yet - not once it leaves 
the emitter, anyway.' 
'You understood the effect it would have on that car full of kids.' 
'That car full of kids with guns,' Greene corrected. 'Yes, I did. But 
don't fool yourself - those "kids" didn't deserve to be labeled with a 
word that evokes five-year-olds saying "Mommy, I want a hug".' 
'So you say,' said Brohier. 'But as I said, this is not a court, and I am 
not interested in your justifications.' 
'Why are you only talking to Gordie?' Lee said. 'I was there, too.' 
Brohier raised an eyebrow in her direction. 'I have no information 
about that.' 
'What are you talking about?' she demanded, sitting forward on her 
chair. 'The guard must have logged us both out. It's my sister we went 
up there to help. It's more my responsibility than Gordie's. He did it 
for me.' 
'You don't need to do this, Lee,' Gordie said quietly. 'Dr Brohier, I 
drove the truck. I pushed the button. I did it on my own initiative, and 
for my own reasons. Nothing else matters. The weight falls on me.' 
'Gordie -' 
But Lee was ignored by both men. 
'Do you think you know how much weight that is?' Brohier asked. 
'We have a one-time opportunity to make certain uses of the Trigger, 
preemptive strikes if you will - an opportunity that will vanish as 
soon as knowledge of its existence becomes commonplace. I choose 
not to offer specific examples, but suffice it to say that there are some 
actors on the stage who can't be given a chance to rearm. And there's 
one obvious countermeasure against the Trigger that some 

governments are not above using -placing prisoners, hostages, in their 
armories as human shields. The lives of good people are at risk, Dr 
Greene - good soldiers, and innocent civilians. The kind of people we 
want the Trigger to help, not harm. 
'Now, you may be thinking that what you did in Cleveland Heights 
was done in exactly that spirit - a preemptive attack in the defense of 
good people. But by acting unilaterally, by taking untested equipment 
into the field, by putting the second prototype on the road, 
unprotected, by attracting public attention and handing the police a 
curious puzzle, you may have done incalculable damage.' Brohier 
tapped the top of the display with his forefinger. 'There's no telling 
how many people are out there tonight thinking, "Hmm, I wonder 
what happened here". And the moment the first one figures it out, our 
window of opportunity starts to close.' 
'I think you give people too much credit,' said Greene. 'No one cares. 
It's already old news.' 
I'm sure the Cleveland Heights police department cares,' said Brohier. 
'And we can't afford to have their investigation reach Terabyte's front 
door.' 
'It won't,' said Greene. 'No one saw me. Not even the targets. 
Everyone thinks it was an accident - a car wreck.' 
'You can't promise me that. You don't know if there was a video 
camera in an upstairs window, a man out walking his dog.' 
'It was clean, I tell you,' Greene insisted. 'There's no way this comes 
home to you.' 
'No? Then explain why the NSA called me,' said Brohier. 'You put us 
on record. All the essential elements are there. And just knowing 
something is possible is motivation enough sometimes. 
'That's why I decided to turn the portable system over to the Defense 
Department now. It was always going to go to them for testing, but I 
thought it best that it disappear now - and do so in the hands of 
people who can slam the door on a mere city detective's curiosity.' 
'I suppose you expect us to disappear now, too,' said Lee. 
'If that's all I needed of you, I'm sure one call would be enough to 
make it happen,' Brohier said. 'No, I have something harder to ask of 
each of you, now that you've had your moment of selfishness - I need 

you both to set aside your personal baggage and do the right and 
necessary thing.' 
'As you define it?' Greene said challengingly. 
'As I define it,' said Brohier. 'Dr Thayer, would you mind stepping 
out into the anteroom for a minute or two?' 
'She can stay,' said Greene. 'I don't mind.' 
'I do,' said Brohier. 'Please, Dr Thayer.' 
'You don't have to let him push you around, Lee,' said Greene, 
coming to his feet as Lee did. 
'It's all right, Gordie,' Her fingertips lightly grazed the back of his 
hand as she passed him. 
When the door closed and the two men were alone, Greene turned 
back to the director. 'Well?' 
'You are an excellent engineer, Dr Greene,' said Brohier. 'But you're 
only an average hacker, and the NSA has whole buildings full of 
people who are better at it than you are - better at it than almost any 
freelancer. It's a point of pride with them that when they sift 
cyberspace, they don't miss very much. In addition to this news clip, 
they also found the extra copy of the research database you banked in 
pieces all over the net. And one of our people found the Trojan horse 
you tried to attach to Terabyte's employment records - the one that 
would have published the database to half a dozen servers when your 
termination was posted.' 
I had to try,' said Greene. 
'No, you didn't. You had to trust - and you weren't up to it.' 
'Are you going to turn me in? Or do you expect me to turn myself in?' 
'Neither. I'm going to give you another chance,' he said. 'Another 
chance to rise above your cozy cynicism, and to show that you're 
worth trusting. Does it still matter to you to protect Dr Thayer?' 
He thought hard before answering. 'Yes.' 
'Even if she doesn't know that you're doing it?' 
'Even if.' 
Then what I need you to do is resign, today -' 
'What does that accomplish?' 

'To begin with, it means I won't have to put your name on the list for 
FBI background checks, because you'll never officially be part of 
what the Trigger project has become,' said Brohier. 'I don't have to 
explain why I fired you - you simply decided you weren't interested 
in relocating with the project.' 
Is that all you want? To avoid embarrassment?' 
'No.' Brohier slid the right drawer of his desk open a few inches and 
plucked something from it. When he slid it across his desk toward 
Greene, the engineer saw what it was: a ten-gigabyte solid-state data 
block. 'I want you to hold onto that.' 
'What is it?' 
'It's a copy of the Trigger research archive, identical to the one you 
tried to hide - same encryption scheme, same password lock,' said 
Brohier, leaving Greene blinking in surprise. 'If you leave us the way 
I'm asking, voluntarily, without a cloud hanging over you, I believe I 
can ensure that no one we work with will wonder if you might be 
hiding something - or from something.' 
'I don't understand. What do you expect me to do with this?' 
'Hold on to it. Hide it. Wait a year. If, after a year, nothing has 
happened, or the wrong things are happening, take that to Senator 
Grover Wilman and his group, and help them put it to good use. But 
give us that year to start things moving. Give us that year of 
opportunity.' 
Greene leaned forward in his chair and picked up the memory block, 
holding it gingerly between thumb and forefinger. 'How do you know 
I won't publish this tomorrow, and then just disappear?' 
'I'd like to be able to say that I simply choose to trust you,' said 
Brohier, closing the drawer. 'But I also know that you must realize if 
you do, it'll all come out - and Lee will be the one hurt, because 
they'll be able to reach her. She'll pay the price for your egotism.' 
'So Lee's the hostage in your armory, eh?' 
'I'm giving you a chance to choose, Dr Greene which is frankly 
more consideration than you've earned.' 
Frowning, Greene let the memory block drop into the palm of his 
hand. 'What are you going to tell the NSA?' 

'As little as necessary. That you were asked to archive the research 
off site. We can let the fact that you tried to add another copy for 
yourself pass without comment.' 
'And the Cleveland Heights police?' 
'Didn't you assure me no one saw you?' 
'I did,' Greene said. He stared for a moment at the memory block, 
then slipped it into a pocket. 'Where are you sending Lee? Is she still 
going to the Annex?' When Brohier hesitated, Greene patted the 
bulge in his pocket. 'If you're going to trust me with this -' 
Brohier acquiesced. 'If she agrees, she's going to follow Baby Two to 
the DARPA test site, and spend a few weeks training some people to 
operate and maintain the system. Then she'll join us at the Annex.' 
Nodding, Greene stood. That will be hard for her,' he said. 'An out-ofcocoon 
experience.' 
'I know,' said Brohier, following suit. 'But if you can carry your 
weight, I'm sure she can carry hers.' 
'I have the feeling you'll make her believe she ought to try.' Greene 
released a sigh that dropped his shoulders and carried away his coiled 
defensiveness. 'Dr Brohier - if this year goes the way you hope it will - 
'
Then you'll be able to color me amazed,' Brohier said with a halfgrin. 
'I was just wondering -' 
'I know,' said Brohier. The answer is yes. If we don't need you for 
something more important a year from now, you can come back in.' 
He offered his hand. 
A year's probation. A year's penance. Little enough for what I did - 
what I was ready to do. Greene took the director's hand. 
'Good luck,' he said, with unexpected feeling. 'I'll see you next 
October.' 
13: Enginery 

Paris, France - Hunting for a special gift for the folks at home? At 
the biennial European Defense Exposition, which opened its doors to 
invitation-only customers on Monday, you can try out and buy 
Iranian tanks, French armor-piercing rockets, and Chilean antitank 
mines. 'It's just like any other trade show,' said Henri Dessault, 
organizer of the week-long event. 'Glitzy booths, salesmen in suits, 
beautiful models, and silly giveaways. Except for the product 
demonstrations, it's actually rather boring.' 
Complete Story Top 10 Arms Exporters 
Secretive EDEX Attendees Speak Softly, Carry Big Checkbooks 
The first of the Mark I systems rolled out of the Brass Hat plant in 
North Sioux City five days before Christmas. It had a formal and 
unpronounceable Pentagon designation (XM9M1, for Experimental 
Munition 9, Mark I) and a serial number (0001 -1), but was otherwise 
a close twin of the hand-built prototype portable. The only changes of 
note were the replacement of the three-kilowatt Caterpillar DuoCat 
with the US Army's battlefield-tested Advanced Tactical Quiet 
Generator with the Toyota cold decoupling fuel cell, and the addition 
of military-standard safing mechanisms to what was now being called 
the firing controller. 
Numbers I through 10 were delivered without ceremony into the 
custody of the 41st Tactical Battalion, 3rd Combat Engineering 
Division. The 41st had been newly reorganized for the job of transporting 
and deploying the Mark I Triggers; the job of protecting them 
would go to a new cross-service security division still being 
assembled. The first stop for all ten units was a reopened Cold War 
era airfield in North Dakota, where they underwent a live systems 
checkout and two days of hot testing. 
By New Year's Day, Number I was installed in the basement of the 
White House. Several times in the following week, it was quietly 
activated for a few seconds at a time, so its output could be carefully 
calibrated. When that process was complete, its protective halo 
enclosed the entire White House, the east face of the Executive 
Office Building, the west face of the Treasury Building, the 
Pennsylvania Avenue pedestrian mall, East Executive Drive and the 
tourist entrance, and half of the South Lawn. 

The hard decision was how to use it - as a primary defense, or a 
backup to the existing security systems and procedures. After long 
discussions with the Secretary of Treasury and the head of the Secret 
Service, Breland overruled both of them and approved a plan for 
round-the-clock operation. 
'I've always thought Americans should be able to look at these 
grounds and see a house, not a fortress,' he said. 'What kind of 
example does it set if I ask others to put down their guns, ask them to 
trust this technology, but refuse to trust it myself?' 
That meant Breland was now to be guarded 'in the bubble' by a 
special unit of Secret Service agents who'd been thrown into intense 
training with shock wands and compressed-air guns. At the same 
time, the sharpshooters yielded their snipers' nests to agents armed 
with 500-pound pull crossbows - an elite group that soon would take 
to unofficially calling itself the Company of St George, after the 
medieval crossbow society that once protected the English sovereign. 
Conventional weapons were not completely abandoned in the new 
security scheme, but they were pushed outside the Trigger's threshold 
perimeter. The White House air defense unit, armed with the new 
Raven shoulder-launched antiaircraft missile, was moved to the 
rooftops of the Department of Commerce and the General Services 
Administration. And to back up the 'Secret Service Elite', fastresponse 
teams with traditional firearms were posted in the Executive 
Office Building and just inside the South Lawn fence. 
After weeks of drill and rehearsal, the new security system quietly 
supplanted the old during Breland's State of the Union address. 
Trigger Number 2's destiny was to occupy the back of a sleek black 
van with tinted windows, government plates, and its own built-in 
CDFC generator. Nicknamed The Caboose', the van was slated to 
follow close behind the presidential limousine in every motorcade, 
effectively becoming part of the limousine's armor. 
Even though there had been no aerial intercept tests yet, Numbers 3 
and 4 were placed in the cargo holds of Air Force One and Air Force 
Two - President Breland's aerial yachts, and, in the event of war, his 
flying command posts. Since the twin 747-200s were unarmed 
aircraft, only modest changes in operating procedures were required - 
affecting only the Secret Service contingent and the selection of 

survival equipment normally stowed aboard. 
Number 5 was delivered to Camp David, Maryland, and installed 
beside the communications trailer adjacent to the main house. The 
boundary of the gun-free zone was marked by a ring of small blue 
pennants. The retreat's security forces retained their weapons, 
maintained their fences, and respected the Trigger boundary -one 
demonstration, with six 9mm rounds pressed into a grapefruit that 
was then rolled across the boundary, was enough to enforce the 
warnings. 
Number 6 went into the bowels of the US Capitol, though not without 
some joking about whether or not Congress actually represented a 
valuable national asset. 
Number 7 was installed inside the Supreme Court building, and 
heartily welcomed by the head of security there. The fight over the 
National Firearms Registration and Responsibility Act -known to 
supporters as 'little Brenda's law' and to opponents as the 'gungrabbers' 
license' - was not over. It equaled or surpassed the fight 
over abortion in ferocity, and gave every sign of persisting as long. 
Eight years had passed since the Souter-led Court had ruled the 
NFRRA constitutional in Jefferson vs. United States of America, and 
the death threats and demonstrations had hardly abated. In fact, the 
annual 'Show Your Gun' march and rally on the anniversary of the 
decision had grown larger and more alarmingly boisterous every 
year. 
Trigger Number 8 had been allocated for the Pentagon, and the Joint 
Chiefs had developed four different plans for using the system at the 
famous structure. Ultimately, however, they decided not to 
implement any of them. The official reason was that it could not be 
done without destroying so many traditions and stepping on so many 
toes that the Trigger would quickly become the worst-kept secret in 
military history. 
But Breland suspected that, behind that undeniable truth, the chiefs 
were expressing a deep-seated fondness for the familiar. Though 
there were actually far fewer firearms inside the Pentagon's walls 
than most people would have expected, the chiefs and generals 
simply weren't ready, Breland thought, to see their subordinates 
standing guard with broomsticks - much less to surrender their own 
service sidearms. 

Given that precedent, there was less surprise when the FBI Director 
declined the offer of a Mark I to protect the Bureau's headquarters at 
10th and Pennsylvania. But she requested four units for tactical 
evaluation, a request which was placed near the top of the Brass Hat 
committee's lengthy Candidate Allocations list. 
It was no surprise at all when the CIA Director also declined the offer 
of a Trigger for the Company's well-protected headquarters complex 
upriver in Langley, Maryland. But he, too, apparently saw the 
potential of the system, and requested ten units for the Directorate of 
Science and Technology. That request Breland viewed with a 
somewhat jaundiced eye, wondering what assurances he could secure 
that those units could be kept out of the hands of the Operations 
Directorate. 
The principal weapons of the National Security Agency were 
technology and cryptology, which the Trigger did not threaten. 
Nevertheless, with most NS A facilities - including the headquarters - 
located securely within the perimeter of the Army's Fort Meade, the 
director's answer was 'Thanks, but no thanks.' 
So Numbers 8, 9, and 10 were reassigned to the next three highest 
priorities drawn from the FBI's official Domestic Terrorism Threat 
Assessment and the Cold-War era National Disaster Recovery Plan - 
the Federal Reserve Board, the Social Security Administration, and 
the Internal Revenue Service's central records center. 
'Making the world safe for tax collectors was not exactly what I had 
in mind when we started this,' Breland said dryly as he signed the 
transfer authorizations. I got the latest numbers from FedStat this 
morning - thirty-five thousand deaths by gun last year - a hundred 
thousand more gunshot injuries. I want to do something to protect 
those people, not the Beltway elite - we were already safer than they 
are. Someone reassure me that we haven't lost our way so soon.' 
'The next fifty Mark Is - a month's production - are going directly to 
Utah to expand the test program,' said Richard Nolby. 'We won't have 
a chance to really address the civil sector until March.' 
Breland sighed. 'I know I was there when it was decided, but do they 
really need so many at once?' 
'Yes, Mr President,' said General Stepak. Truth is, they could use a 
hundred or more - up until now, they haven't been able to do any tests 

which might damage the only working example they have, tests that 
actually simulate combat conditions. And, in any case, the special 
security units are a few weeks from being ready. We're going to need 
them when we start going outside the kind of tightly controlled 
environments these first ten Triggers went into.' 
Propping his chin on his hand, Breland spun his chair a half-turn and 
stared out the window at the snow flurries dancing above the South 
Portico. 'I guess I'm just impatient, General,' he said. 'I can hardly 
stand to look at the news now - every shooting, every terrorist 
bombing, seems that much more senseless and tragic, knowing that 
there is something that could be done.' 
A hundred miles west of Provo, Utah, the vast expanses of the Great 
Salt Lake Desert belonged to the engines of war. Over the decades, 
hundreds of new and exotic weapons had come to the Utah Test and 
Training Range to prove themselves. Hidden by sheer isolation from 
curious eyes, the white salt flats had been bombed, burned, strafed, 
shelled, gassed, sprayed with noxious chemicals, and littered with the 
debris from shattered drones, smashed tanks, and doomed aircraft. 
In the remote southwest corner of the UTTR was a cluster of hangars, 
shops, garages, and barracks which those who lived and worked there 
called the Fortress of Solitude, and the Pentagon called the Desert 
Test Center. Here the newest and most secret weapons underwent 
their auditions. Weapons which passed muster typically became part 
of the inventory. Those which did not typically vanished back into 
the anonymity of 'file and forget' - the fate of classified projects that 
not even the enemy was interested in. 
Lieutenant Colonel Roger Adams, commander of the DTC, was 
hoping that the XM9M1 Trigger would be one of the latter. And if it 
could be done without violating the test protocols, he was determined 
to see the system fail - because its success would be a nightmare for 
every battlefield commander. 
Far better for everyone if his report could be summarized in four 
words: Not reliable. Not effective. 
So far, the clocks for the Continuous Operation Duration Test had 
reached the 200-hour threshold with all eight systems still up and 
running. But even that test was being made as challenging as 

possible, with two units mounted on shakers, two being fed dirty 
power, and two being dialed between 1% and 100% every thirty 
seconds. With luck, they'd all expire well before reaching their initial 
design target of a thousand hours. 
The most crucial test, though, was to begin that morning. At 07.00, 
three tracked vehicles had trundled out of Building 9 and headed 
north to the test area. The first was an HMMWV equipped as a 
camera platform. The last was a Bradley Fighting Vehicle which 
mounted a small forest of antennas instead of the standard 25mm 
cannon. 
Sandwiched between the Hummer and the Bradley was Ground Test 
Article 1 - a boxy sloped-fronted Ml 13 armored personnel carrier, 
remotely controlled by an operator in the Bradley. And inside GTA-1 
was Trigger 00013. (Adams was not above enlisting the power of 
superstition in his cause.) 
The test area was sixty kilometers from the Fortress of Solitude, but 
the jolting cross-country run was actually the first hurdle. Waiting for 
GTA-1 on the other side was a murderous gauntlet it was not 
expected to survive - first a high-density minefield, then a series of 
five fire zones, each boasting higher-powered weaponry than the last. 
At 08.30, Lieutenant Colonel Adams and test coordinator Cap-tain 
Dionne Weeks boarded a UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter, from 
which they would observe the test. Before long they caught up with 
the test caravan, now waiting motionless on the desert outside a flagmarked 
boundary. Both officers donned headsets monitoring the 
command frequency, and moved to the Black Hawk's large side 
windows with binoculars in hand. 
Test Control, this is Test Command,' said Weeks. 'You may proceed. 
Over.' 
'Roger, Test Command. All stations, prepare to activate GTA-1, on 
my mark.' 
From their hovering helicopter, Adams and Weeks watched as the 
Hummer and the Bradley retreated a few hundred yards from the Ml 
13. When the activation order came, they had an unmatched view as a 
great semi-circle of the minefield ahead of the Ml 13 suddenlyerupted, 
with at least fifty plumes of white crystals and dust thrown 
up from the former lake bed. The cleared area was easily three 

hundred meters from one side to the other. When the Ml 13 started 
forward, the circle became a great arc moving ahead of the vehicle 
like a bow wave. 
'That's incredible,' Weeks shouted to Adams, shaking her head. 'It 
looks to me as though the only way a mine could touch that APC is if 
the driver took it into the minefield before he turned on the Trigger. 
An armor column with one of these at the point wouldn't even have to 
slow down. I'd say the M58 is now obsolete,' she added, referring to 
the combat engineers' current mine-clearing system. 
'No surprises,' Adams shouted back crossly. 'This is just what we 
would have expected from the static tests.' 
'Yes, sir - but it's still something to see.' 
There was a brief pause when the Ml 13 cleared the minefield, 
allowing camera and other recorders to be reset and the Black Hawk 
to crab closer to the first fire zone. Then the order to proceed crackled 
over the headsets, and the elderly APC rumbled forward. As soon as 
it passed the first marker flag, a gunner 500 meters away opened up 
with a 40mm automatic grenade launcher - single shots at first, then 
short bursts, then a sustained ten-second fusillade of more than a 
hundred rounds. 
To the Army sergeant whose finger was on the trigger, it seemed as 
though every round was on target - except that after the flash 
182 
faded and the breeze blew away the smoke, the APC was still rolling. 
But the camera crew following in the Hummer and the observers 
aloft saw something quite different. From their perspective, the 
grenades exploded more than two hundred meters away from the 
vehicle, as though they were striking an invisible wall. GTA-1 
suffered no greater punishment than a light hail of shrapnel. 
'Well, I'm impressed,' Weeks shouted. 'A Mark 19's supposed to be 
able to take out an armored personnel carrier.' 
Frowning darkly, Adams made no reply. 
In the next fire zone were more infantrymen, armed with two Silver 
Dragon wire-guided antitank missiles. Their marksmanship was 
impeccable, the explosions louder and more spectacular, but the net 
effect was the same. Secure inside its mysterious shield, GTA-1 

ambled on. 
Waiting in the third fire zone was a Bradley Fighting Vehicle 
mounting the most powerful antitank weapon available to the 
infantry, the TOW 2 wire-guided missile. Its warhead was powerful 
enough to penetrate the frontal armor of a main battle tank, and 
should have gutted a lightly-armed vehicle like the Ml 13. But it, too, 
expended itself uselessly against the Trigger field, the force of the 
blast so muted by distance that all it did was momentarily rock the 
APC sideways. 
'If I wasn't seeing this for myself -' Adams muttered under his breath. 
Test Control, this is Test Command - what frequency is the Abrams 
using?' 
'Combat 1 for C&C, Combat 2 for monitor, sir.' 
As the APC moved into the fourth fire zone, Adams leaned forward 
and changed the frequency of the radio to Combat 2. New voices 
crackled in his ears as the M1A2 Abrams tank prepared to fire its 
deadly-accurate 120mm cannon from a point-blank 800 meters away. 
'Gunner, APC, HEAT,' ordered the tank commander. 
'APC, HEAT, aye.' 
'Target is green,' said Test Control. 
'Gunner, fire!' 
'Fire, aye.' 
A billowing gray-white cloud pierced by a gout of crimson fire 
erupted from the barrel of the tank as the enormous shell sped toward 
its target. The detonation of the high-explosive shell was wild and 
terrifying, the shock wave making the Black Hawk shudder. But 
although the blast bent an antenna and shoved the APC half a meter 
sideways on the crumbly salt pan, it did not cause any critical 
wounds. 
'Gunner, APC, sabot.' 
On hearing that, Weeks jerked her head around to stare at Adams. 
'Who added that to the test routine?' she demanded. 
'I did,' said Adams. 
'APC, sabot, aye.' 

'But there's no explosive charge in a sabot round. It's strictly a KE 
weapon - you know what's going to happen.' 
'Gunner, fire!' 
'Yes, Captain,' Adams said. 
'Fire, aye!' 
Moments later, all that was left of the test article was an oily scorch 
mark a dozen meters across, a tall plume of black smoke and a quiet 
rain of metal fragments onto the desert. 
Against a background of cheering from the tank crew came the 
message, Test Command to all units, looks like we're done for the 
day. Secure all weapons, lock all data recorders, and return to base.' 
'Colonel Adams, I don't understand,' Weeks shouted, tearing off her 
headset. 'We had an Apache loaded with Hellfire missiles waiting in 
zone five.' 
'Let's not do this here, Captain,' Adams said, his eyes steely. 
Removing his own headset, Adams leaned forward, tapped the pilot 
on the shoulder, and signaled to him to head back. 
'Where, then?' 
'Wait for the operations debriefing.' 
When the helicopter landed, Adams silently bade her to follow him 
with a jerk of his head in the general direction of his office. Behind 
closed doors, he turned to her with arms folded over his chest. 'First, 
let's make sure we both understand that I'm not under any obligation 
to explain myself to you.' 
'Understood, sir.' 
'Fine. Then this is the operations debriefing. What's your gripe?' 
'Since I'm the one who signs the first line on the test report that goes 
back to HQ, I was hoping that maybe you could give me the benefit 
of your reasoning.' 
Adams looked out the window. 'What do you think the result would 
have been with the Hellfires?' 
'Well -' She pursed her lips. 'If the 120mm HEAT didn't do the job, 
chances are that the Hellfires wouldn't, either.' 
'In which case right now there'd be a hundred and twenty-some 

soldiers who'd witnessed a miracle, a tin can transformed into an 
indestructible tank with an invisible shield - a hundred and twenty 
minds starting to chew on the idea that there's something out there 
that can take their best shot and keep coming. I'm not accusing 
anyone of disloyalty, Captain Weeks, but I don't think they'd all be 
able to keep from talking about it. And I don't want that idea getting 
out there in the ranks. I can't imagine anything more destructive to 
morale.' 
'So you gave them the big finish, to reassure them.' 
'I did,' said Adams. 'Captain, maybe I can't make them forget about 
everything they saw back there - but half a miracle doesn't make half 
as good a story, and the difference might just be enough to help them 
keep their mouths shut. As for your report, tell it straight, but keep it 
simple -I overruled you on the test protocol, because I wanted the 
entire munitions inventory included.' 
Weeks took a moment to digest that. 'You know, sir,' she said slowly, 
'if the Trigger had more range, it's the Abrams that would have been 
burning.' 
'Make sure that makes it into your report, too, Captain,' the colonel 
said with a nod. 'But you'd better not repeat it anywhere else.' 
On a clear, cold January morning, two aircraft roared down a runway 
at Nellis Air Force Base and climbed into a velvet Nevada sky. Test 
11 was made up of a mismatched pair - an elderly Navy F-14 and a 
sleek Air Force F-22 - but they formed up together and turned to the 
southeast with the easy grace of the well-trained performing a 
familiar task. The test sortie was carefully scripted, the aircrews well 
briefed. 
Still, not every question had been answered, and some could not be 
asked. 
One was about the target aircraft itself. While most target drones 
were retired fighters, Test 11's sortie was against a QT-1 Jayhawk, a 
one-off based on a common twin-engine jet used to train transport 
and tanker pilots. Even the test director had acknowledged that oddity 
with a little joke. 
'Yes, it's going to seem like going after a Southwest Airlines 

commuter out of Salt Lake City,' the general had said. 'So be sure we 
don't.' 
The mystery was heightened by the weapons loadouts, which were 
unusually heavy for a test involving a single drone of any type. 
Captain 'Mojo' Thome's Tomcat was hung with both Phoenix and 
Sparrow missiles, while Captain 'Rhino' Oatley's Raptor had both 
Sidewinders and AMRAAMs tucked away in its internal bays. All of 
the missiles had live warheads. Each fighter also carried a full load of 
ammunition for its 20mm Vulcan cannon, in a high 
explosive/lead/tracer mix. 
'Loaded for bear, Mojo,' one of the armorers had said, asking without 
asking. 
'We'll bring back what we don't need.' Thorne had replied. Privately, 
he had said to his back-seater, 'Seems like they want a month's data 
from one sortie.' 
The prospects for getting it, though, seemed dim. They had been told 
the target would carry an experimental electronic counter-measures 
package, referred to only as 'the package'. Its principles and 
capabilities had not been alluded to, much less disclosed. But, 
experiment notwithstanding, nothing in the air should be able to 
withstand the onslaught programmed in the sortie script - least of all 
such a thin-skinned, glass-jawed target. 
It was not their place to ask for or expect explanations. They would 
fly the mission like professionals, light up the drone, and leave the 
rest to the managers. 
Accelerating to the high subsonic, the tandem covered the distance to 
the first waypoint over northwest Utah in a matter of minutes. 
Wheeling around to the south, they turned on their long-range attack 
radar and climbed to the specified altitude. Almost at once, they 
picked up the target drone, which was circling over the range. The 
Raptor pulled out and fell behind the Tomcat, which was assigned to 
take the first shot. 
'Flagman, Mojo,' said Thorne, calling the test controller. 
'Mojo, Flagman. Go ahead.' 
'Test 11 is home on the range. Calling Judy.' With that word, control 
of the intercept passed to Thorne. 

'Roger, Mojo. Proceed. Range is hot.' 
'Contact, twenty left, forty-five miles.' 
'That's your bogey.' 
When his Radio Intercept Officer called thirty-five miles, Thorne 
selected a Phoenix missile. At thirty, he said, 'Fox one,' and thumbed 
the firing pickle. 
As the stout projectile jumped off the rails and accelerated to its 
supersonic cruising speed, the two fighters broke off into a tight 
check turn to the left, maintaining their distance from the target as the 
script required. The Phoenix closed that distance so swiftly that only 
the Tomcat's RIO, twisting her head sideways, saw the explosion 
with the naked eye. 
'Direct hit!' she said excitedly as the bright yellow flash collapsed 
into an oily black cloud. 'Splash the drone!' But in the next instant she 
saw that the drone remained on her radar display. 'Mojo -' 
'I see it. Flagman, Test 11. Do you have a tally on the drone?' 
'Test 11, Flagman, negative splash, drone is still alive. Range is cold.' 
A long two minutes later, the controller came back. 'Test 11, range is 
hot. Proceed.' 
The second Phoenix roared away toward the horizon. Again there 
was a yellow flash, a snarl of black smoke - and again the drone flew 
on, apparently unscathed. 
Closing to a distance of twenty miles, the Tomcat loosed the first of 
its medium-range Sparrow missiles. Still the drone flew on. 
'Rhino, check victor,' said Thorne, and switched his own radio to the 
VHP intraflight frequency. 
'Toop,' his wingman acknowledged. 
'Rhino, whatever they've got hung on that bird, I want one.' 
Before Rhino could answer, there was a sharp, chastening response 
from a new voice, that belonging to General Thorn Vannigan from 
the Office of Defense Technology. 'Test 11, this is Goldenrod. Knock 
off the chatter.' 
'Copy, Goldenrod,' said Thorne, swallowing hard. 
The last of the Tomcat's missiles was as ineffective as the first, and 

the flight vectored away to set up for the Raptor's turn at bat. By that 
point Thorne had decided the 'the package' was not only affecting 
guidance, but causing the missile warheads to detonate prematurely. 
He expected the F-22's AMRAAM, with its large directed 
fragmentation warhead, would end the exercise. 
But it did not happen that way. Four times the Raptor's weapons bays 
opened, and four times the test controller reported, 'Negative splash.' 
'What the hell is that thing?' Thorne muttered to his RIO. 'Eight dean 
intercepts, eight warheads, and it's still out there?' 
'Maybe it isn't,' she said. 'Maybe it's a damn ghost.' 
'We'll find out in a minute, if they keep to the script.' 
It took five orbits in the loiter circle for the range safety officer and 
the test controller to both give their approval. 
'Test 11, Flagman.' 
'Flagman, Mojo.' 
'Mojo, close for guns.' 
Almost eagerly, the fighters hurried along the trail their impotent 
missiles had blazed. Before long, the dot in the tracking circle 
became a bright red silhouette, and the silhouette a recognizable 
plane. 
'It really is a T-1,' Thorne said, bleeding off speed. 'A goddamned 
Beechcraft.' 
'Hardly seems sporting, Mojo,' said the RIO. 
'No honor in the kill,' the Tomcat pilot agreed. 
The headphones crackled. 'Test 11, target is hot. Cleared to engage. 
Watch your separation.' 
'Copy, I am engaging the target. Rhino, give me some room.' 
As the Raptor peeled away, Thorne zeroed in on the drone. Calling, 
'Guns, guns, guns,' he began firing the prescribed one-second bursts 
at the maximum effective range of his cannon. It seemed to him that 
the first few bursts exploded in midair like Chinese firecrackers, as 
though against an invisible wall. 
But something was getting through, because pieces of the Jayhawk 
began to fly in every direction. Just before Thorne broke off, the 

drone disintegrated just forward of the engine pods, and the shattered 
pieces spun out and tumbled toward the salt-frosted desert eight 
thousand feet below. Wheeling back toward Nevada in a knife-edge 
turn, the silent aircrew searched the ground for explanations. 
Rhino finally made the call. 'Flagman, splash target. Test 11 returning 
to center, over,' he radioed, then looked sideways out his bubble 
cockpit as he eased into formation with the Tomcat. 
'Rhino looks just as pixilated as I am. What the hell did we just see 
here?' asked the RIO. 
Thorne shook his head in answer to both her words and Rhino's 
questioning look. 'I know this much - this is gonna be a hard one not 
to be able to talk about.' 
As far as Jeffrey Horton was concerned, the smells of the Nevada 
desert were hot asphalt and concrete dust - the sounds, rivet guns, 
ratchets and rumbling diesel engines. The Terabyte Laboratories 
Annex had been continuously under construction for six months, and 
there was no end in sight. The finished space was already 
overcrowded, and there were seventy more technicians and engineers 
already hired but not yet on site, simply because there was no place 
for them to work. 
Everything had changed, and was still changing. The jouncing crosscountry 
ride Horton had endured was a thing of the past. An extrawide 
two-lane asphalt road had been laid down across the scrubland, 
and more than a dozen tractor-trailers used it every day to bring in 
more tons of construction material and equipment. There were five 
new dedicated lab buildings arrayed to the south and east of the 
original structure, and an entire village of Cardinal manufactured 
apartments had grown up inside the main gate to accommodate the 
more than sixty people now living at the Annex. 
Everything was different than Horton had thought it would be, and 
few of the differences were to his liking. The weeks when he'd been 
the only member of the Columbus staff at the Annex had been hard - 
long hours of uninteresting work, unpleasantly hot weather, 
makeshift quarters with few familiar comforts, a suffocating burden 
of responsibility, and an isolation that ground at him more with each 
passing day. He'd survived it in surprisingly good humor by telling 

himself it was temporary, that soon the old team would be 
reassembled, and work would be fun again. 
It hadn't worked out that way. 
Lee Thayer now ruled her own ten-thousand-square-foot kingdom 
and an eighteen-person Instrumentation & Measurement team. She 
had most of them working on the crucial but - so far - intractable 
problem of detecting and gauging a Trigger field without 
pyrotechnics. Outside the lab, she kept to herself. Horton hardly saw 
her except for the twice weekly team meetings, at which she rarely 
smiled and never laughed. Horton had no inkling of what had taken 
all the presence and playfulness out of her, and so far she hadn't given 
him any opportunities to ask. 
While Lee was only partly there, Gordon Greene had never shown up 
in Nevada at all. According to Brohier, he'd opted out at the last 
minute, saying he preferred to change jobs rather than change locales. 
Unprompted, the director had wondered aloud if a woman was part of 
that decision. All Horton knew was that he'd left Greene three 
messages, but never heard back from him. 
The new engineering physicist, Val Bowden, had twice as much 
space as Lee, and had turned it into a fully equipped Experimental 
Assembly shop - complete with CAM machinists, hardware 
engineers, PROMgrammers, composite spinners, and bum tanks. So 
far, Bowden's team had scratch-built four Mark I variants, one for 
Lee, one for Horton, and two for the test range. Bowden was 
personable and talented, and he'd gathered an equally talented group 
around him - his fourth Mark I was forty percent lighter than his first, 
and a third more efficient. But at this point, he was strictly a 
colleague, and Horton missed his wise-cracking, cynical friend. 
Even Brohier was a changed man. In Columbus, he had seemed 
content behind his desk, resting on his considerable laurels and 
letting the science staff do the heavy lifting. His visits to the various 
labs were polite and perfunctory, and he typically evinced more 
interest in the results than in the work. But since coming to the 
Annex, Brohier had been revitalized. He had claimed for himself the 
problem of shaping, aiming, and shielding a Trigger field, and taken 
an aggressively experimental approach that was keeping Bowden's 
shop hopping. 

Horton presided over the least space and the smallest staff. His 
Theoretical Modeling group occupied six small offices encircling a 
modest conference room. He had brought in two technical 
researchers, a mathematician, an administrative assistant to keep the 
files straight and the research record current, and a young physicist 
with some interesting thoughts about information theory as applied to 
the CERN system. 
They met informally every morning for an hour or two to share ideas 
and generate new ones. The brainstorming sessions helped keep them 
mentally fresh, but the pressure was enormous, since any substantive 
progress would have immediate dividends in the work of the entire 
Annex. Though inspired persistence in the experimental sections had 
yielded some advances, a sound theoretical understanding of the 
phenomenon was still the keystone of the edifice they were trying to 
build. 
Alas, progress was slow. Horton's stock characterization of his group 
was 'good chemistry, so-so physics', and took most of the blame for 
the latter on himself. Many afternoons found him hiding in his office, 
feeling overwhelmed by the task before him, fighting the conviction 
that his ability to think clearly was fading, and that the leap of 
inspiration necessary to solve the puzzle was beyond his capacity. 
The self-doubt waxed and waned, but never vanished. More and 
more, it looked to Horton as though the Trigger discovery had been a 
lucky accident, and someone else would have to be the one to explain 
it. That was why he had started to press the director on the subject of 
publishing their findings, or at least circulating them privately among 
colleagues who might take an interest. But Brohier would not 
consider it. 
'Mathematical Physics isn't interested in phenomenological anecdotes 
- and I don't see how it will advance our work to publish in Ripley's 
Believe It Or Not,' Brohier said. 'In any event, our contract with the 
Defense Department prevents us from publishing without their 
blessing - which won't be forthcoming, not at this juncture.' 
'I can't understand why you agreed to that -' 
'Do you not understand the concept of "national secret"? We'll 
publish when doing so doesn't carry such a high risk of 
compromising the President's efforts, of compromising international 

stability -' 
'Which might be fifty years from now - or never.' 
'- In the meantime, the government agreed not to squash or contest 
our patent applications on the Trigger device.' 
'They agreed we could keep what was ours, so long as we didn't tell 
anyone about it,' Morton said. 'Somehow I can't see the parity there.' 
'If you think that was no small concession, you haven't had enough 
contact with the upper echelons of government - any government,' 
Brohier said. 'Taking what they want and telling themselves that it's 
in everyone's best interest is a well-ingrained reflex. Only the most 
honorable manage to resist it. We're fortunate that one of them 
happens to be President at the moment.' 
'And three years from now, if Breland isn't re-elected?' 
Three years from no w this will be a different world-andlwould not 
care to sign my name to any prediction more specific than that. No, if 
you need more skull power, Jeffrey, you can recruit it - you're barely 
at half your authorized head count, and I speak with some confidence 
when I say that no one would question a request from you to double 
it.' 
'You can't get the best people to sign on under these terms -not when 
I can't even tell them what it is I want them for, not when I can't even 
tell them where the work is, except that it isn't in Cambridge or Palo 
Alto.' 
'Maybe you can't, and perhaps even I can't,' Brohier agreed. 'But I 
wager the President can. If there's someone you know you want -' 
'I wish it were that easy,' Horton said. 'I wish I could hand you a list 
of ten people I know could help. But how do I know what kind of 
expertise we need when I can't even properly define the problem? We 
might as well be looking for experts in metaphysics.' 
Brohier chuckled. 'Perhaps so. Nevertheless, I want to point out one 
other option. Washington already has a very large number of 
scientists under contract, working for every branch of the civilian 
bureaucracy, the Pentagon, and all the agencies and contractors. And 
while bona fide theoretical physicists might be a bit thin on the 
ground, I'm sure that there must be someone out there in that mix 
with the skill set you're looking for - and that Breland would be more 

than happy to send him - or her - to us. Seniority wouldn't be an 
issue, either - we could go right to the top of anyone's staff chart. 
Think about it.' 
An interruption rescued Horton from having to admit that the idea 
activated his professional territoriality. The interruption came in the 
form of a courier from the secure signal shack - in local parlance, the 
telegraph office. 
The four officers assigned to the signal shack were, as far as Horton 
knew, the only military personnel at the Annex. Horton called this 
one The Tailor - his business suit and blue tie were so unconvincingly 
out of place that he might as well have been in uniform. 
'Do you want me to leave?' Horton asked. 
'Nothing in this that I won't tell you tomorrow at the round-up,' 
Brohier said, signing for the magnetically-sealed portfolio. Before the 
door had even closed behind the courier, Brohier had entered his 
security code and was removing the documents within. He skimmed 
the cover page, grunted once, and glanced at the next sheet. 'Well,' he 
said, and retreated to the chair behind his desk. 
'What? What is it?' 
The Pentagon's wish list,' said Brohier. 'From the timing, I'd guess 
that it reflects the results of their testing with the early production 
units.' 
'And?' Horton asked, settling into a nearby chair. 
'Oh - nothing too surprising. They want it smaller, lighter, and less 
power-hungry. They want increased range - fifteen hundred meters as 
soon as possible, three thousand as soon as possible after that.' 
'No hint there that they know that their first two wishes are inherently 
contradictory.' 
'No hint,' Brohier agreed. They also want a way of shielding or 
blocking the Trigger effect, or a way of making it directional - or, 
ideally, both.' 
'So they won't have to give up their own weapons to use it.' 
'Presumably.' Brohier's gaze skimmed down the page. This one's 
signed by the President, not Stepak.' 
'Karl - we can't give them what they want.' 

It's a wish list, as I said. They don't expect it all on their doorstep in 
the morning.' 
'That isn't what I meant,' Horton said, leaning forward. The minute 
we give them directionality, the Trigger stops being a defensive 
weapon - stops being a force for disarmament. If our military has a 
directional Trigger, they get to keep all their weapons, and take away 
everyone else's. If the law enforcement agencies have a directional 
Trigger, we're looking at the same game - they get to keep all of their 
weapons, and take away all of ours. Karl, that wasn't the plan - was 
it? Or was it?' 
'No.' 
'Then what are we going to do?' 
'Work on the wish list,' said Brohier, gently placing the President's 
memo on his desk. 'But when Christmas Day comes, just to be fair, 
we give presents to everyone.' 
'Are you really prepared to do that?' 
Brohier smiled ruefully. 'I suppose I can forgive you a touch of 
skepticism. But I have a conscience, too, Jeffrey - even if it comes 
with a complex set of loyalties attached. I want to give my President 
and his people every chance to live up to my high opinion of them. 
But I'm not such a naif that I couldn't anticipate the possibility that 
they'll disappoint me. Yes - I'm prepared for that eventuality. I've 
been preparing right along.' 
Drawing a deep breath and releasing it slowly, Horton sat back in his 
chair. 'I think you should tell me more about that.' 
Disappointment crossed Brohier's eyes. 'I hadn't realized you looked 
on me with such deep suspicion, Jeffrey.' 
'Oh - no, that's not why I want to know,' said Horton. 'You see, I've 
wondered, now and again, if I wasn't stopping myself -not letting 
myself see the answers, because I can't control what others will do 
with them. And I've envied you your apparent self-assurance - 
without realizing that there was more to it than reckless optimism. If I 
know what you know -' 
'Then you can come to the problem with a clear conscience.' 
'A clearer one, at least,' Horton said, then grinned. 'Besides, if 
something should happen to you, there should be someone else who 

knows where you put the Santa Glaus suit.' 
'Catastrophic single-point failure mode,' Brohier said thoughtfully. 
'Very well, Dr Horton - welcome to my little conspiracy.' 
14: Opportunity 
Port Arthur, Tasmania - Gunshots fired from a passing truck 
scattered a crowd of more than a thousand gun control advocates 
rallying at the Port Arthur Victims' Memorial. Eleven people were 
injured, one seriously, and the memorial's ceramic frieze was struck 
by two bullets. Police are looking for three men in a tan 'road-worn' 
Range Rover. 'I guess they must have figured we wouldn't be 
shooting back,' said event organizer Chad MacKee, of Hobart. The 
'Enforce The Laws' rally was one of many being held on the 
anniversary of the 1996 massacre of thirty-five people by gunman 
Martin Bryant, which led to Australia's universal gun registration law 
and the ban on self-loading firearms. 
Complete Story Mass Murder and Madness 
'I Remember' Flashback: Port Arthur Massacre 
US Still Leader in Guns, Homicide, Suicide 
The 641st Tactical Brigade, an independent unit of the United States 
Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), made its first 
appearance as the second phase of Trigger deployment began. In a 
small miracle of military efficiency, 641 Tac BG had been created 
from scratch in just four months, and for only one purpose - to protect 
the myriad of Mark I Triggers wherever they might be placed. 
The Mark Is which had previously been deployed in the Washington, 
D.C. area had gone to locations which were already among the most 
secure on the continent. What's more, only two of those ten sites were 
'hot' sites, ones where the Trigger was active around the clock. Out of 
sight and protected by the existing security, each of those ten units 
had only been assigned an operations team from the 115 Sig BT. 

But the wider deployment which was planned brought with it a much 
higher risk of attracting the curiosity of people outside Brass Hat. 
Stepak had told the President that the secrecy of the project could not 
be guaranteed once Phase Two began - it was only a matter of time 
before someone 'not on our Christmas card list' would learn of the 
Trigger's nature and existence. And once that happened, it was 
inevitable that someone would try to steal a working example to 
study, copy, and turn against the American government, the military, 
or the public. 
'It would be the perfect terrorist weapon against an armed enemy,' 
Stepak had pointed out. .'And frankly, sir, we are the most heavily 
armed target in sight.' 
Then we'll just have to make damned sure that every one of these 
things is guarded well enough that no enemy can get to one,' had been 
Breland's answer. 
But Breland had been surprised to be told that what he asked was 
impossible. 'We can't put enough men around one of these to prevent 
a sufficiently determined enemy from getting his hands on it,' Stepak 
had said. 'Not unless you'd agree to have them all stored at one of our 
ICBM sites. What we can try to do is make certain that by the time 
they reach a Trigger, it's of no use whatsoever to them.' 
That conversation had been the genesis of 641 Tac BG. Its first 
members were one hundred and fifty Army Special Forces troops 
drawn from three veteran companies at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. To 
them fell the task of devising a training program for the seven-man 
squads that would soon be called the T-teams. In two weeks, a plan 
was in place. Two weeks later, the cadre -now tasked with 
implementing its own plan - started receiving its first class of trainees 
at Fort Sill, Kansas. 
The intent behind the T-teams was to put a two-man guard on a 
Trigger unit around the clock - four-hour watches, one on, two off. 
By and large, it promised to be dull and unglamorous, the kind of 
'stationary post' assignment that many Special Operations troops not 
only dreaded, but silently considered beneath them. It took no special 
training to be a guard-post gargoyle, and the roving 'head-knockers' 
of the Military Police got little more respect. 
But if the boredom ever broke, the T-team would likely find itself 

having to use nontraditional weapons at close range to resist a 
numerically superior force - a job for the toughest, calmest, and most 
intensely focused troops available. Reflecting that, a majority of the 
first class of recruits came piecemeal from the elite Special 
Operations units of all four services - Green Berets, Seals, Army 
Rangers, Recon Marines. 
If it looked no further, 641 Tac BG would have cannibalized all those 
units by the time it reached its full strength of seven thousand troops. 
So the first class of two hundred and fifty, like the ones that would 
follow, reached beyond Special Operations and drew on regular 
infantry and Airborne units as well. 
The three-month training program took some of the traditional 
strengths of Special Operations troops and built on them. Physical 
training and hand-to-hand combat were part of the daily regimen, but 
no more so than fighting off monotony and maintaining mental 
alertness. 
A folding, quick-loading crossbow and a compressed-air short-barrel 
carbine that could fire fletchettes or gas ampoules were added to the 
weapons qualifications list. In the meantime, the cadre kept testing 
other exotics, including a pistol-like cyanosilicate 'glue gun', which 
was startlingly effective but too prone to clogging to rely on. 
Some of the 'packages' - as the Triggers were referred to on all 
documents and throughout training - would be mobile, and all of 
them had to be protected in transit from the factory. So the training 
command took over a twenty-mile stretch of the brand-new 
automated interstate being built west of Nashville, and put every 
recruit behind the wheel of both the transport and escort vehicles for 
anti-hijacking drills and high-speed driving practice. The 'road work' 
caused more washouts than any other element of the training. 
More than two dozen buildings and other facilities at Fort Sill, 
ranging from an ammunition bunker to a four-story office building, 
were converted into mock deployment sites, and each training unit 
was assigned regular watches at one of them. They were not told 
about the concealed cameras monitoring them, or the group of cadre 
members assigned to carry out sneak attacks against them - a role 
which quickly but somewhat mysteriously earned that group the 
nickname 'the Spanish Inquisition'. 

It was not until the third month, after most of those who would wash 
out were gone, that the 641 Tac BG recruits were shown a mock-up 
of a Mark I Trigger unit. Only then were they made aware of the 
second dimension of a T-team's responsibility - to destroy their 
Trigger if they could not protect it. They were introduced to the 
special thermite castings - one each for the controls and the emitter - 
which had been devised for the purpose, and schooled in the 
streamlined arming procedure. 
Finally, soberingly, the T-teams trained with the interlocked jawclench 
and hand-grip dead-man switches which would both allow the 
team to keep fighting as long as possible, and assure that death would 
not prevent them from fulfilling their ultimate responsibility. By the 
time they received their new battalion patches and individual team 
assignments on graduation day, every member of 641 Tac BG 
understood the stakes in a very personal way - and why, for what was 
being asked of them, no mere gargoyle would do. 
Unannounced and unexpected, Karl Brohier poked his head around 
the corner of the door to Jeffrey Horton's office. The associate 
director was sitting with his back to the door, hunched over a 
digitizing easel two-thirds of the size of his desk. 
Brohier had never gotten comfortable with the easel, which was, 
ironically, a product of the Aleph Instruments Division of Aron 
Goldstein's little empire. He much preferred the tiny notepad he 
carried everywhere and the enormous whiteboard he'd insisted be 
installed in every Terabyte conference room. But the easel had two 
advantages that attracted many younger scientists - it could both 
record and erase itself. 
But Horton did not look comfortable, either - and there was not much 
on the board to either record or erase. Brohier cleared his throat. 'You 
have a little time?' 
Horton stole a glance back over his shoulder, then straightened and 
turned. 'Sure.' 
'Good. Go pack a bag.' 
'Pardon me?' 
'We need to go to Washington.' 

The prospect of escaping the Annex lit up Horton's face. 'I finally get 
to meet Santa Claus?' 
'No, you get to meet the Grinch. The corporate patent attorney just 
forwarded the PTO examiner's first action on our application 
covering the Trigger - rejected.' 
'On what basis?' 
Brohier chuckled. The same one they use to reject applications for 
perpetual motion machines and reactionless drives - fails the standard 
for usefulness on the grounds of operativeness. Fails the test of 
patentable subject matter on the grounds of unsubstantiated scientific 
foundation.' 
'They don't think it will work.' 
'Right. They want us to submit a working model.' 
'We can't do that - can we?' 
'No. We're going to file an amended application for reconsideration, 
but first you and I are going to go talk to the examiner.' 
'Can't we do it on the wire?' 
The Patent and Trademark Office doesn't have military-grade secure 
conferencing. Have a winter coat?' 
'In a box somewhere. Why?' 
'Find it. Ten inches of new snow on the Mall.' 
'Lovely. I'm looking forward to it.' 
Retreating toward the door, Brohier sniffed skeptically. 'Meet me at 
the helipad at three - with coat.' 
'And files?' 
'No. We sent them a small mountain already. Our problem is making 
them understand what they read.' The door started to close behind 
him. 
'Say - Karl,' Horton called after him. 'Are we allowed to travel 
together now?' 
A wry smile crossed Brohier's face. 'Oh, sure. We'll have an escort - 
but they're only worried about us being grabbed, not killed. As far as 
Brass Hat is concerned, we're expendable now. We even get to fly 
straight there - no cloak and dagger, no double switches, no side trips 

to Kalamazoo. And you can have my peanuts - I can't digest them 
anymore.' 
By then, Horton was standing. 'Don't let anyone ever tell you that you 
don't know how to plan a vacation, Doc. I'll see you at three.' 
Patent Examiner Michael Wayne was a year younger than Jeffrey 
Horton, but was already at the top of the Patent Office's internal 
hierarchy. 
A short man with a shock of wild red hair, Wayne had outspoken 
opinions about 'tabloid science' and 'crooks with degrees'. From the 
first, he had taken special pleasure in dissecting and rejecting 
applications from the 'under-educated egotists who either think that 
we're idiots or don't know that they are.' Though nominally the senior 
examiner in engineering physics, Wayne was, by his own choice, the 
primary review examiner for the applicants the office informally 
dubbed 'exotics', and Wayne called the 'fanatics'. 
'They don't have any idea how much they don't know,' he would 
expound on the slimmest provocation. They can quote Clarke's First 
Law, but they don't understand the First Law of Thermodynamics. 
They've heard somewhere that Edison flunked the third grade and 
Einstein needed help with his math homework, and they think that 
means the world's waiting impatiently - checkbook in hand, of 
course! - for their invention.' 
Wayne reserved special contempt for any applicant who dared use the 
word revolutionary on the forms or in an interview: 'They make 
mistakes any second-year science student would catch, and when you 
point them out, they cry conspiracy - General Motors, or Exxon, or 
IBM has the fix in, protecting their stockholders. True Believers think 
they're this close to being billionaire tycoons, but they have a union 
man's contempt for big corporations, and the hard work it takes to 
build one.' 
Though his formal authority was limited to training supervisor for his 
own section, Wayne's attitudes had influenced the entire Engineering 
division, and the collection of 'perpetual motion' machines on his 
credenza was a Third Floor landmark. The irony of that - apparent to 
others with longer tenure, but not to Wayne himself - was that he had 
risen so quickly through the grades in part because the Marchmont 

scandal had swept a small army of senior examiners out of their 
offices and onto the streets. 
In retrospect, it was easy to see how the Marchmont situa-tion had 
developed. None of the names on the application titled Enhanced 
Energy Devices had any face credibility - neither the individuals nor 
the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where they were all 
students or instructors. The subject of their application had even less 
credibility - the Office had rejected more than three hundred cold 
fusion devices and processes over a span of nearly two decades. The 
whole application had the smell of a college prank, a hoax brewed up 
from beer and chutzpah. 
The only problem was that the EED worked. By all rights. Peter 
Marchmont and his graduate practicum in chemical engineering 
should have received the world patent for the decoupling 
hydrothermoelectric generator. 
But Toyota received it instead, based on an application filed in Tokyo 
seven months after the Marchmont application was received in 
Washington. And as the first Toyota Waterfall electric commuter 
sedans - with their thousand-kilometer range and inexpensive quickreplace 
plug-in fuel cells -began rolling off assembly lines in Kyoto 
and Tennessee, heads rolled in Washington. 
The Director, all five Associate Directors, and all sixteen Technical 
Section Managers were fired in President Engler's 'Black Friday' 
purge. But that was only the overture. When the Supreme Court gave 
the green light to Marchmont vs. US Patent and Trademark Office, 
the Office quickly settled out of court - and then vigorously cleaned 
house. More than two hundred senior review examiners were fired 
over the rejection of a patent application only five of them had ever 
seen. 
'We are going to war against a deeply-entrenched culture of that's-nothow-
I-learned-it skepticism,' said the new director of the Office, a 
business-school graduate and former Merck executive. The cutting 
edge of science and technology comes to our front door - we have to 
be ready to welcome it, and speak to it in its own language.' 
Wayne missed the irony of his position because his reading of those 
events was different than that of most of the survivors. 'It's not that 
the examiners were too skeptical,' he explained to his trainees. 'It's 

not that they were hidebound and behind the times. It's that they got it 
wrong. 
'Walking into this building in the morning is like walking into a room 
where the floor is covered with precious black pearls and poisonous 
black beetles. You're supposed to stomp on the beetles and pick up 
the pearls. And if some day you can't tell the difference, you'd better 
not do anything until you can. The Marchmont examiners stomped on 
a pearl - a big one, a beauty. I have no sympathy for them. When you 
say "No", don't be wrong. It's as simple as that.' 
'So, gentlemen - you intend to file an amended application on your 
Remote Pyrotechnic Detonation Field Device?' 
Something in the examiner's tone of voice prompted Horton and 
Brohier to exchange glances. That's why we're here, Mr Wayne -' 
'Dr Wayne.' 
'My apologies,' Brohier said, following the examiner's lead and sitting 
down. 'As I was saying. Doctor, that's why we're here - to make sure 
you're aware of the special circumstances surrounding this 
application, and see if we can come to a meeting of the minds that 
will assure -' 
As Brohier was speaking, Wayne picked his card up from the desktop 
and squinted at it. 'Special circumstances, yes - excuse me, but in 
exactly what capacity are you here today?' 
Brohier blinked in surprise. 'I'm the Director of Terabyte Laboratories 
-' 
'But you are not a named inventor on this application, is that right? 
Or do you anticipate amending that part, too?' 
'I hardly see a reason -' 
'Good. So long as you understand that adding your name adds 
nothing to the application - the defects in it would be unaffected. As 
for your taking part in this review -' Wayne shrugged. 'It's a bit 
irregular, but I can overlook it. Dr Horton, where is your patent 
attorney?' 
Offended on behalf of his mentor and taken aback by Wayne's policeinterrogation 
style of questioning, Horton stammered through his 
answer. 'I, uh - the corporation's patent attorney is based in 
Cincinnati. I understood that the issues, um - the issues were 

technical and scientific, not legal. We have the attorney's release -' 
'As you wish,' said Wayne. 'I'll just note that you declined to have 
your attorney present. Now, about that amended application - as I'm 
sure you saw in the notice, I'm requiring you to submit a working 
specimen with any amended app. I've also judged your technical 
disclosure to be inadequate. This time, you'll need to provide 
citations to published papers in refereed journals establishing the 
validity of your operating principles.' 
The smug superiority in Wayne's voice kept Horton's slow burn alive. 
'I'm afraid it won't be possible to show you a working specimen -' 
'In that case, why not save my time and yourself some money, and 
file a declaration of abandonment instead - what?' 
'- without authorization from the Joint Chiefs of Staff,' Morton 
continued. Turning one over to you is out of the question.' 
This is a government project? I saw nothing about that in the 
application. If you're an employee of the Federal government, you 
may not even be eligible for a patent -' 
'It's a private project by a private research firm,' said Brohier. 'Now 
classified, on the President's orders. That's why Dr Horton applied for 
a secret patent.' 
'I don't see how any patent can be granted. This is completely 
irregular.' 
'We're strangers here ourselves,' said Horton, thinking he saw 
Wayne's arrogance wavering. 'How can we help each other?' 
The overture was sharply rebuffed. This isn't a mutual assistance 
society, Dr Horton. For a valid patent, I have to certify that the 
invention you've described is both novel and usable. Since you say 
you can offer me neither a demonstration nor an explanation of its 
function -' 
'Would you accept certification by General Thorn Vannigan, head of 
the Pentagon's Office of Defense Technology?' Horton asked. 
'Are you representing to me that working specimens of this invention 
have already been delivered to the government -' 
'Yes.' 
'Working specimens?' 

'Yes.' 
An annoyed frown appeared on Wayne's face. Then tell me how it 
works. If your explanation's satisfactory, perhaps I can drop the 
requirement that you submit an example.' 
Horton allowed himself a little laugh. 'We don't know how it works 
yet. We only know that it does.' 
That's not acceptable,' Wayne said, shaking his head. 'Not acceptable. 
A patent must be specific as to process -' 
Brohier leaned back in his chair and grunted. 'I told you to just tell 
'em that was classified, too.' 
'Dr Brohier, if that's your contribution to this meeting -' 
'Dr Wayne, what would you have done with an application for a 
patent on the atomic bomb in 1945? Or radar in 1939?' 
'I would have approved them,' the examiner said unhesitatingly. 'They 
were significant technical advances with a sound theoretical 
foundation. You, on the other hand, are pulling a rabbit out of a hat - 
and you won't show me the rabbit or the hat. My hands are tied. Your 
patent would never stand up to a challenge. I earnestly doubt any 
other PCT signatory nations would issue reciprocal paper on it.' 
'I'm not planning to seek patent protection overseas,' said Horton. 
'Not even if your American patent is eventually published?' 
'No.' 
Now looking completely perplexed, Wayne folded his arms over his 
chest. 'Then what exactly is the point of your application? If the 
technology's classified, you can't benefit from a patent anyway -your 
only customer is the Pentagon. Is this just an ego issue? Or a money 
hunt - are you chasing some sort of bonus from Terabyte?' 
Horton glanced sideways at the director before answering. 'Dr 
Wayne, I don't think my reasons are germane to the application and 
review process.' 
'No - you're right. They aren't. But I thought you might want to offer 
me some motivation to read the procedure manual as creatively as 
you wrote your technical disclosure.' He covered his mouth with his 
right hand and blew a sigh through it. 'Do you have that certification 
from General Vannigan with you?' 

Horton produced a security-sealed Tyvek envelope and passed it 
across the desk. It's a read-once,' he cautioned. 
Nodding, Wayne tore open the seal and studied the letter within. It 
was already beginning to disintegrate when he sighed again and 
placed the letter on his desk. In less than a minute, it crumbled to a 
fine white powder, unreadable, unreconstructable. 
'Sorry about the mess,' Horton said, gently breaking the silence. 
Wayne waved the apology away. These are - special circumstances, 
as you said, Dr Brohier,' he said slowly. 'Classified technology - an 
immature theoretical domain - a patent which won't be published 
unless and until the Pentagon approves the release. All that's really 
required is to preserve your date of precedence in the event this does 
become an open patent.' He drummed his fingertips on the desktop, 
making the dust dance. 'Based on the, um, supplementary 
documentation presented here, I can approve a provisional - ah, 
provisional and conditional patent.' 
'The condition being -' 
'You'll have to provide an amended technical disclosure, setting out 
the theoretical basis for the device. If you don't do so before the 
restrictions are lifted and the patent submitted for publication, the 
patent will be invalid - withdrawn.' Wayne sat back in his chair, 
hands folded in his lap. 'That's the very best you're going to get from 
me, gentlemen. I suggest you take it.' 
As Horton listened to the pronouncement, he felt the weight of 
expectations pressing down on him more heavily than ever. But 
Brohier stood up and offered his hand and a cheerful smile. 'Very 
good. Thank you, Dr Wayne. That will suffice - yes, that will do 
nicely.' 
Brohier had built some slack into the schedule for their return - 
enough, he told Horton proudly, to allow for an early but leisurely 
dinner at Mamarand's in Alexandria. 
After seven months, every meal away from the Annex - even their 
hasty lunch in a Denver airport tavern - was a palate-cleansing 
pleasure. But Mamarand's was a surpassing delight in any context, a 
four-star Capital landmark that had held the allegiance of Washington 

notables for nearly two decades. 
Horton threw caution to the wind and opted for one of the notorious 
'cardiac cut' specialties, the bacon-wrapped Twin Filet. 'If I thought 
this would taste half as good tomorrow, I'd order another one to take 
with us,' he told Brohier. 
'If I thought my body would forgive me for it by tomorrow, I'd order 
one to have now,' Brohier said, eyeing his own light fish entree with 
regret. 
Mamarand's walls were papered with autographed caricatures of 
famous customers. The few tourists lucky enough to get a table - 
always before seven - invariably gave themselves away by gawking 
or giggling. The regulars only took notice of new hangings. 
'Are you here somewhere?' Horton asked. He had been entertaining 
himself with a third glass of cabernet and a little game of seeing how 
many faces in a row he could recognize without recourse to the 
autographs. 
'Me?' Brohier chuckled. 'Jeffrey, out in the real world, the typical 
Nobel Prize winner is a news story with a half-life of twelve hours. 
I'm not famous. At best, I'm answer B on question one hundred 
ninety of someone's cultural literacy test.' 
But as though in direct refutation, they were interrupted half a dozen 
times before the end of their meal by late-arriving diners stopping by 
the table and greeting Brohier by name. 
Horton knew none of them. After the ritual introductions, he found he 
also knew of none of them. But having Brohier explain to him who 
they were after they'd moved on toward their own tables only 
reinforced Horton's feeling of living a disconnected life. Each cheery 
greeting nudged him further into a dour dissatisfaction. He fell silent, 
and Brohier misread the silence as fatigue. 
'You know, I was thinking that it's really not necessary that we return 
tonight,' he suggested gently. 'We can take a couple of rooms at the 
Northwind, and recharter in the morning. It'll do us good to let 
someone pamper us a bit - the Jacuzzi, a massage, plush towels, a 
king-size bed.' He chuckled to himself. 'I think when we get back I'll 
hire someone to put little chocolates on everyone's pillows.' 
Horton doubted a single night of luxury would leave him any more 

enthusiastic about returning to the Annex. 'Let's do that -the 
Northwind, I mean, not the chocolates.' 
Dabbing at his mouth with his napkin, Brohier fished his comset out 
of an inside pocket. 'Let me see what I can arrange.' 
But nothing touched Horton's melancholy - not the spectacular view 
of the capital's brightly-lit panorama of monuments from his hotel 
window, nor the blistering heat of a long four-head shower, nor the 
indulgence of a room-service Shrimp Cocktail For Two at midnight, 
nor the plush comfort of the long white hotel robe, nor even 500 
channels of music, theater, and film delivered through a shadow-box 
holowall. 
When a hard swim in the hotel pool did nothing to urge him toward 
bed and sleep, Horton realized he was prolonging the day as a way of 
postponing the morning. In that same moment of clarity, he also 
realized what had to change. That was how Horton found himself 
standing in the corridor in his robe at five minutes to one, tapping at 
the door to the other suite. 
'This will only take a minute,' he promised when Brohier finally 
opened the door and squinted sleepily out at him. 
Brohier grunted crossly and retreated from the doorway, allowing 
Horton to enter. 'I would have thought you'd have been asleep two 
hours ago. I was. This couldn't have waited until morning?' 
'I really need to resolve this now, Karl - if I don't, I don't know if I'll 
even be here in the morning. The way things are right now, I don't 
think I could make myself get on that plane with you.' 
The door closed behind Horton as he was speaking, leaving only the 
pale glow from a lamp dimmed to night-light intensity. 'All right,' the 
older man said, the annoyance leaving his voice. 'What do you need 
from me?' 
'A change. I'm not having any fun beating my head against the wall. I 
don't know what the reason is, and I've lost interest in trying to figure 
it out. The fact is I'm stumped. I've gone mentally stale. No, it's worse 
than that - I've developed a bad attitude about the whole business.' 
'Do you want out?' 
Horton felt himself tempted, but pushed the thought away. 'I 
wondered if I could interest you in swapping problems?' 

A sardonic chuckle rumbled deep in Brohier's throat. 'Why do you 
think I'd be any more successful? You can't know how much harder it 
is for me to concentrate than it was when I was your age. Maturity 
has nothing to offer the physicist, Jeffrey - nothing that makes up for 
the wear on the instrument.' 
'Why do you think I'll believe that you're not interested, that you 
haven't been thinking about it all along?' Horton shot back. 'You can 
stop respecting the territorial boundaries. I just erased them. You 
gave me every chance to put it together on my own. 
Well, I can't do it. I'm asking for help - exactly as you said I should. I 
should have done it months ago.' 
'Do you think I would have kept silent if a worthy thought had 
strayed into my consciousness? Really, Jeffrey, you have too 
generous an estimation of me, and too harsh an assessment of 
yourself.' 
'I don't think so. Even if you can't solve this yourself, you can bring 
together the people who can. You know everyone in the field, and 
they know you. There's no one who won't take your call, respect your 
confidences, trust your word -' 
'Oh, there are a few,' Brohier said, smiling wryly. 'More than a few.' 
'Not as many as would do what I did, and jump at a chance to work 
with you. I know you expected more from me -' 
Brohier sighed. 'That you could say such a thing makes your case for 
you - you need a change of scenery. Trying too hard is a mistake that 
can sabotage you in almost any field. So, very well, then - I accept 
your proposal.' 
Thank you -' The rush of relief was more intense than Horton had 
expected. 
'Not because I expect the problem to yield to my superior brain,' 
Brohier added quickly, clapping Horton on the shoulder, 'but because 
it does interest me, and because we are friends. And you're right 
about something else, too. We are separated by two generations, and I 
can reach out to my peers and down to the younger physicists more 
easily than you can reach up to them. So I'll do that, and we'll see 
what we see.' He shrugged. 'It may well be that it just isn't time yet.' 
After that, sleep came easily. 

15: Trickery 
Kupang, Timor - A peaceful 'March of the Forgotten' turned into a 
bloody massacre Wednesday as Timorese security forces loyal to 
embattled President Gusmao fired on a crowd of more than two 
thousand demonstrators as they approached the government offices in 
central Kupang. The death toll was estimated at 'more than forty', 
with as many as 200 others injured. A spokesman for Gusmao called 
the marchers 'brigands' and 'Indonesian terrorists' who were 
exploiting the island's economic difficulties. 
Complete story Timeline: Tangled History 
1996 Nobel Prize 'brought no one peace' 
The brainstorming sessions during which the bulk of the Basing & 
Deployment Site Manifest had been generated had been some of the 
liveliest and curiously enjoyable meetings of the Brass Hat team. But 
when it came to assigning priorities to the more than 14,000 
candidates, consensus proved impossible past the first hundred 
places. In the end, the prioritization was primarily the work of 
General Stepak, after consultations with the President and the service 
secretaries. 
Escorted by their T-teams and ops units, Triggers went to the Air 
Force for installation in Global Hawk battlefield intelligence drones, 
E-8D Joint STARS flying radar stations, and KC-10B Extender 
tankers - all unarmed aircraft crucial to the twenty-first-century 
concept of war. The Navy had plans to turn four Sturgeon-class 
attack submarines into torpedo-interceptors for its precious aircraft 
carrier task forces, and was toying with reviving the Pegasus 
hydrofoil patrol boat as both an attack platform and a defense against 
sea-skimming cruise missiles. 
On the ground, the Army wanted every cavalry squadron to have two 
Trigger-equipped M113A3 armored personnel carriers to serve as 
mine-clearing combat vehicles. The Marine Corps was evaluating the 

system's usefulness in amphibious assault, as a means to clear a path 
through fortified and booby-trapped beaches. It planned to create test 
beds using Osprey tilt-rotors. Super Cobra helicopters, and its Navyoperated 
LC AC air-cushion landing craft. 
Over the years, a variety of offices in the law enforcement and 
intelligence communities had invested many thousands of man-hours 
in creating exhaustive lists of the possible high-value targets for 
attack by terrorists and hostile forces. These threat assessments and 
targeting analyses amounted to a classified catalog of vital national 
assets, from communication and transportation infrastructure to key 
research centers and records archives. The FBI and the Pentagon had 
both provided the Brass Hat committee with their lists, and from 
them Stepak selected one-of-a-kind civilian and military sites in 
almost every state. 
America's space industry received a priority allocation, from the 
Venture Star launch centers in Florida, California, and southern 
Texas to satellite dish farms in nine states. And Stepak wanted to go 
further than that - all the way to orbit. He was pressing the NASA 
Administrator to equip the agency's six SSTO orbiters with Triggers 
and order the commercial fleet to follow suit. In the last two years 
alone, there'd been one confirmed and three suspected cases of 
airliners shot down on takeoff or landing by Stinger-type shoulderlaunched 
missiles. 
But the NASA Administrator was resisting. None of those incidents 
had taken place in the United States, he argued, and every kilogram 
of payload was precious now that eighteen people were living aboard 
the expanded International Space Station. Stepak had scheduled a 
meeting between President Breland and the NASA chief to resolve 
the dispute. 
The secretary of state had no such reservations. Every American 
embassy from Dhaka to Gaborone was slated to receive two Triggers, 
along with a special addition to its Marine guard contingent. 
Most of those Triggers would be deployed cold, as insurance against 
the unpredictable vicissitudes of Third-World politics. But half a 
dozen would go hot from the start, as insurance against the 
unpredictable violence of political terrorists. 
Neither Breland nor Stepak was ready to turn control of a Trigger 
unit over to any law-enforcement agency, even the FBI. But staging 

depots - dubbed 'rental agencies' by Richard Nolby - were being 
prepared at six sites scattered around the continent. Each would be 
the home base for as many as a dozen mobile Trigger teams, 
available for loan to local and state police and the FBI for specific 
raids and investigations. 
The President's pet idea for the Trigger was to use it as 'a filter in the 
flow', to intercept weapons in transit. 'There are places people already 
know you can't take a gun, places they already expect to be screened 
and searched,' he told Stepak. 'They don't need any further warnings 
for us to make sure that they follow the rules. No more road-rage 
shootings. No more letter bombs. No more courthouse rampages or 
schoolyard feuds.' 
Nolby tried to convince Breland that the actual number of such 
incidents was too small and the number of necessary deployments too 
high to justify an allotment from the first thousand. But Breland was 
unmovable. 
'The numbers may be small, but their impact isn't,' he said. 'Every 
killing like that makes the news, lingers in people's memories. Kids 
shooting each other outside math class - letter bombs killing middleaged 
professors - airliners full of French students blowing up in 
midair - these are the sort of moments that tell people life is insane, 
that their world is turning wrong. That's what makes them afraid.' 
On hearing that, Nolby remembered that Breland's childhood home of 
Williamsport was j ust a few miles from Montoursville, the hamlet 
that was hit so hard by the Flight 800 tragedy. Rather than rehash the 
still-controversial verdict or argue with the emotional memories of 
the young Breland, Nolby acquiesced. Restricted-power Triggers and 
Kevlar blast boxes went into the baggage-handling systems of fortyfour 
airports and the sorting systems of the Postal Service's central 
mail facilities. 
But Stepak did manage to persuade Breland that the schools would 
have to wait until those placements could be made openly. The 
presence of soldiers could not easily be explained away, and, as 
Stepak observed, 'Absurd as it is, injured kids are almost always seen 
as innocent victims And if they're the good guys, we're the sneaky 
bad guys - which is not how we want to introduce the Trigger to the 
public.' 

 Senator Grover Wilman followed all these developments through his 
monthly meeting with the President and biweekly updates from the 
Brass Hat team, which then became the basis of his own classified 
reports to the Joint Congressional Committee on Security. 
He did so with a growing dissatisfaction, one that the President's 
reassurances did less and less to assuage. Wilman had his own list 
and his own priorities, and as month after month passed without him 
seeing them reflected in the deployments, he began to wonder if he 
ever would. By the time the July meeting approached, Wilman had 
thoroughly lost all faith in the promises Breland had made at that 
momentous first meeting. 
Before the end of that month, the 500th Mark I would roll out of the 
South Dakota plant and into the hands of 641 Tac BG. Contemplating 
that fact, Wilman decided that he had been patient and reasonable 
long enough. 
'Mr President, have you been shining me on?' Wilman said as they sat 
down together in the Oval Office. 
'Excuse me, Senator?' 
'I think you heard me clearly enough. Have you been "handling" me? 
Are these little meetings your way of neutralizing me, given that you 
wouldn't go along with the recommendation to just have me killed?' 
'No one ever made such a suggestion, Senator,' Breland said, his gaze 
narrowing darkly. 'Not where I could hear them, anyway.' 
'No discussions of whether I could be trusted to stay quiet and play 
by your rules? No intimations that I have stronger loyalties to the 
MOM than to the Congress, that I'm an internationalist peacenik 
dressed up as an American hero? If not, there should have been - it's 
all true. I've been on my very best behavior, Mr President. Better than 
I would have thought me capable of. To sit on something this big for 
eight months - well, sir, I can only say that I'm feeling very pregnant.' 
Is this the beginning of a confession? Are you going to make it to 
nine?' 
'I would think that depends on your answer to my question, sir.' 
'Senator Wilman, I'm grateful for your patience -' 

I'm sure,' said Wilman. 'But will it be rewarded, or is this whole Brass 
Hat exercise nothing but an extended joke at the expense of the 
people I care about?' 
'I'm afraid I don't understand -' 
I'll put it plainly. Are you ever going to do anything constructive with 
the Trigger?' 
Breland frowned. 'I know you're getting all of the deployment 
reports, so all I can think is that you and I mean different things by 
that word -' 
Then I'll be glad to explain what I mean. Active rather than passive. 
Pro-active rather than reactive. Positive, affirmative, transformative, 
risk-taking, do-something interventions that affect people's lives, that 
save people's lives. I thought you had a visionary understanding of 
the power and potential of the Trigger. I'm still waiting to find out if I 
was right. You have the hammer and the anvil in front of you - do 
you ever mean to use them?' 
A flash of annoyance intruded on Breland's features. 'We have more 
than four hundred Mark Is in the field. They're not warehoused in an 
armory somewhere.' 
'They might as well be, for as much good as they're doing,' Wilman 
said. 'You've turned a miraculous breakthrough into a goddamned 
homeowners' insurance policy. We're protecting billions of dollars of 
concrete and metal, safeguarding all our precious collections of toys 
and souvenirs - and forgetting all about people. Good lord, most of 
the Triggers you've deployed aren't even turned on. If there's a 
hundred of them hot right at this moment, I'll do naked cartwheels on 
the Mall.' 
'Every site has its own set of considerations, Senator. I don't really 
understand what you expect from me.' 
Try thinking about eighteen thousand four hundred and nine corpses.' 
'Where does that number come from?' 
The Center for Health Statistics at the CDC, yesterday after-noon,' 
said Wilman. That's how many people have tried to stop bullets with 
their bodies since the day Dr Brohier and I came to see you. That's 
how many murders, suicides, and fatal accidents you've tolerated. 
That's the price of timidity, and secrecy, and passivity. 

'Of course, that's just us Americans - and we're not even officially at 
war with anyone. I can't begin to tell you how many Europeans, and 
Africans, and Asians have stepped on mines or gotten in the way of a 
border squabble or a little uncivil unrest. I expect our twenty 
thousand are just the down payment.' 
Breland's angry frown declared his displeasure at being lectured to. 
'Now you're sounding like a True Believer, Senator, and I'd thought 
better of you than that. You can't expect us to stop all the killing -' 
'We can make it much harder than it is now. But we have to want to 
do it. We have to try.' 
'We are trying -' 
The hell we are, Mr President. The hell we are. All we're doing is 
digging in our heels against change. Hold on to our edge. We're 
scared to death that Mao was right, that all political power does grow 
out of the barrel of a gun - and that we're about to lose ours.' 
Rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth, Breland said nothing. 
In the silence, Wilman changed seats to move closer to him. 
'It's the most natural thing in the world, Mr President, to want to 
protect your own,' he said, sitting forward on the edge of the couch. 
'It's just not good enough for this century, or this office. We have to 
care as much about a dead black teenager in Atlanta as we do about a 
dead white baby in Beverly Hills. We have to care about mortars 
fired across the Congo at Kinshasa as though they were being fired 
across the Mississippi at Kansas City. 
'How big is your tribe, Mr President? Who gets the benefits of 
membership? Just soldiers and politicians?' 
'No - no, of course not -' 
Then why are we protecting our wealth and power when we could be 
protecting our people?' 
Breland stared, blinking. 'You did warn me you'd scorch my feathers, 
didn't you,' he said, and shook his head. 'Grover, we're not really at 
odds here. Your ethics and mine could get along in close quarters. 
People are more important than things. Lives are more important than 
ideology. And I do believe that humanity is one family - even if it's a 
dysfunctional one.' 
'You say that, but you've sent nine-tenths of the Trigger production to 

addresses that begin with "Fort" or end with "Base".' 
'Because they're ready to make use of the system now. The civilian 
population isn't. We have a huge public education job ahead of us -' 
'Is that your excuse for going so slow?' 
'So slow? What are you talking about? We're deploying them as fast 
as Goldstein's people can make them.' 
'Then why haven't we ordered a second thousand, and a third? Why 
aren't we pushing Goldstein to increase capacity as fast as he can? 
Why are we being so goddamned timid?' 
'Timid?' 
'Timid,' Wilman said emphatically. 'It's all baby steps and halfmeasures. 
Look, your notion about filtering the social flow - that's 
exactly the sort of thing we should be doing. But you didn't go nearly 
far enough.' 
Breland turned his palms upward. Tell me what I missed.' 
'For starters, all the loaded handguns in glove compartments and 
under car seats. Congress passed the Merck-Martinson law ten years 
ago, and people are still being shot down after a fender-bender, 
murdered for making a face at the driver in the next lane. Why didn't 
Merck-Martinson put an end to that?' 
'I think it's because of something called "probable cause",' Breland 
said, attempting a wry smile. 
'It's because Merck-Martinson doesn't help the police find those guns 
before something happens. But the Trigger can. It can put bite in 
what's been a toothless law. It can be to gun control what radar and 
the automated highway were to traffic control.' 
'What exactly are you advocating here?' 
'Nothing more than what you did with the post offices and airports. 
Everybody who drives eventually crosses a bridge, passes under an 
overpass, takes the tunnel, goes through a toll booth. If you put 
enough Triggers at the choke points, you could get all the guns off 
the road.' 
'It'll only destroy guns that're loaded. And cause some dandy traffic 
accidents in the process.' 
Wilman shrugged. 'It's not as if they haven't heard of Merck

Martinson - you can't carry a loaded weapon in a moving vehicle.' 
'So you think we can go ahead and destroy everybody's ammunition, 
even if they're obeying the law, even if the ammunition's safely 
tucked away in a lockbox the driver can't reach - even if it causes a 
fire that destroys the family car -' 
'Mark the screening zones. Light 'em up like truck scales. Big red 
signs every hundred meters for a kilometer. Big red stripes across the 
road. Let them know what's coming. Give them a place to dump their 
ammo before they reach the edge of the zone - we don't want anyone 
hurt. That's -' 
'We can't do that, Grover. You know we can't do that.' 
'Why? And don't tell me it's because of the Second Amendment. Ask 
your Attorney General about Miller vs. US.' 
'It's because we're not ready for CNN,' said Breland. 'The Pentagon is 
dead-set against any disclosure until they have an effective defense 
and a substitute for gunpowder in hand.' 
'And when did this become their decision?' 
'It's not. It's mine.' 
His face relaxing into a thoughtful expression, Wilman sat back on 
the couch, draping one arm across the backrest. 'Was that the decision 
you wanted to make, Mr President?' 
Surprise bloomed in Breland's eyes. Without answering, he stood and 
crossed the office to his desk, where he scooped a root beer-flavored 
hard candy out of a bowl. 'I don't know why that isn't an easy 
question to answer, Grover,' he said finally. 
Wilman nodded. 'Mr President, I think I owe you an apology. When I 
suggested that you'd been trying to "handle" me - I was off target. I 
respectfully suggest that you're the one who's been handled. No 
shame in it, sir - they're experts.' 
There was an audible crunch as Breland's teeth ground down on the 
candy. 'I knew they were going to try,' he said. 'I knew that that 
wasn't my St Crispin's Day speech - knew that if I got too far out 
ahead of them, I'd find they weren't following. But I thought I was on 
top of it, Grover.' He sighed, and the last of the candy disintegrated 
between grinding molars. 'Maybe they worked me better than I 
realized.' 

'It was a fine speech. You got their attention. The deployment 
program is proof of that - it's got their stamp all over it. They couldn't 
make the Trigger go away, so they took over. And they tell you 
perfectly reasonable things about how doing it any other way will 
make all hell break loose.' Wilman managed a thin smile. 'An 
argument strengthened by the fact that they're right - it will. I look 
forward to it. They dread it. You -' He let the word hang as a 
question. 
Breland sank down against the edge of his desk. 'Give me an idea. 
Something we can do now, so you'll know my heart is in the right 
place.' 
'I get a dozen ideas every day, reading the news,' said Wilman. 'Denis 
Sassou-Nguesso is at the top of my list at the moment. I'd love to see 
you give him a call, tell him that he has twelve hours to get everyone 
out of his Cobra compounds, and then send an F-117 into the Congo 
with a Trigger in its belly - has the Air Force managed to fit a Mark I 
into the internal bay yet?' 
'Still working on it.' 
Wilman looked disappointed. 'It's just as well. He'd probably pack the 
camps with opposition hostages - if he could find any that the Cobras 
haven't already killed. Of course, we could always do it without the 
twelve-hour warning -' 
'Next idea,' Breland said firmly. 
'Well - if you're not ready to go public, how would you feel about 
spreading a little disinformation?' 
'Go on.' 
'There are too many people involved in Brass Hat to keep it black ops 
for long. I don't get your intel reports, but I'd wager every 
government that cares has now heard of Brass Hat, and some have 
gotten deep enough inside to get the cover story -that this is a followon 
to Shortstop, intended for mine-clearing operations.' He paused, 
looking to Breland for confirmation. 'You always did have a good 
game face.' 
'Just for the sake of your argument, let's assume that you're right.' 
'Well, then the next obvious thing is to back up the cover story with a 
demonstration,' said Wilman. 'Get the boys at INSCOM to cook up a 

photo-op prop of some sort that we can sling under a Black Hawk - 
lots of shiny metal, plenty of antennas and blinking lights, even give 
it a magnetic field and some radio emissions to make it convincing to 
the Chinese.' 
'And the real Trigger is tucked away inside the helicopter?' 
'Exactly. The L model of the Black Hawk should be able to lift both 
with no trouble. You call a press conference, announce your initiative 
against land mines, tell them you've established a special unit of the 
Army dedicated to humanitarian demining, and cue the helicopters. 
It'll be great television, Mr President - top of the news. And it'll give 
the Pentagon another few months' cover. A little bit of truth can make 
a wonderful lie.' 
Breland pursed his lips. 'General Madison and the Joint Chiefs won't 
like giving away even that much.' 
'Fuck 'em,' said Wilman, startling Breland with his coarseness. 'Ask 
them when was the last time they visited a prosthetic clinic in Bosnia, 
or attended a village funeral in Afghanistan. Ask Madison if he thinks 
these secrets are worth his right leg, or his granddaughter Macey's 
life. A hundred and fifty million mines waiting in the ground - 
approaching a thousand casualties a week. And both numbers have 
been going the wrong way for twenty years. You can do something 
about it, Mr President. Please - do something about it.' 
Rising up from the desk, Breland pointed an accusing finger at 
Wilman. "This is what you wanted when you walked in here.' 
'Yes, sir,' Wilman admitted cheerily. 
'So you're the one working me now.' 
'No, sir. I'm the one shaming you.' 
Breland sighed. 'You're doing a good job of it.' 
Showing a rueful smile, Breland circled around behind his desk. 'You 
know what the biggest surprise about this job has been, Grover? How 
hard it gets to be to do the right thing, even with the best of 
intentions. How hard it can be to do anything. It's almost as if every 
time one of those doors opens, a little more Potomac river-bottom 
muck leaks in. Before you know it, you're hip-deep in it, and you can 
hardly move.' Leaning forward, he touched the intercom key. 'Mrs 
Tallman, would you find General Stepak and tell him I need to see 

him?' 
'Do you want me to stay for that?' Wilman asked after the 
acknowledgement came. 
Breland shook his head. 'Not unless you brought a shovel with you. - 
You do know the story of the city fella, the farmer and the mule?' 
"First, you gotta get their attention,"' Wilman said, chuckling as he 
stood up. 'Good luck, Mr President.' 
That afternoon, pursuing an impulse, Wilman sent a present up to the 
White House - a long-handled shovel with brightly chromed yoke and 
toe. It had originally been made for ceremonial ground-breakings. 
Wilman had a large decal of the Presidential Seal added to the flat of 
the toe. 
But he didn't know if he'd misjudged the man or the moment until his 
next visit to the White House, when he found the shovel mounted on 
the wall to the left of Breland's desk. A black-and-yellow sign more 
appropriate for a factory had been hung beside it. It read FOR 
EMERGENCY USE - DO NOT REMOVE. 
A surprised and delighted grin was still taking shape on Wilman's 
face when Breland handed him the new mid-month Brass Hat 
summary report. 
'Item Two,' he said, then paused a moment to let Wilman's eyes scan 
to it. 'Have a favorite country?' 
The heading for Item Two was Brass Hat Demining Initiative. 
Wilman looked up, his gaze grateful. 'No favorites, Mr President,' he 
said pointedly. 'But I have always wanted to see more of Cambodia.' 
Breland nodded. 'Cambodia it is, then. And I take it it's all right to 
include you in the travel arrangements?' 
'I wouldn't miss it.' 
'You shouldn't,' said Breland. 'I'm planning to publicly credit you, and 
I want to find out if you blush.' 
The perspiration had barely begun to cool on Gordon Greene's bare 
skin when the alarm on his comset began to sound. 
The alarm was a surprisingly unobtrusive noise - in part because he 
had left it set in Carry mode, and in part because the jeans he had 

been carrying it in were lying in a jumbled heap on the floor ten feet 
away, near the bedroom door. Half vibrating rumble, half low-pitched 
buzz, the alarm was no louder than the breathing of the naked woman 
curled up against Greene's right side. Moving slowly, Greene 
disengaged himself from her embrace, replacing his shoulder with a 
pillow under her cheek, his body warmth with a blanket drawn up to 
her shoulders. 
It was not tenderness or affection that guided him, but rather a 
combination of politeness and his desire for privacy. As in most 
encounters during which strangers become lovers, the last hour had 
been about mutual selfishness, not intimacy. Her need not to be alone 
and his need to slake his hunger for touch had made the 
arrangements, negotiating with measured promises by the cold light 
of a hot dance bar eight blocks from campus. 
For all that, they had meshed well, their bodies fitting easily together 
for hard kisses and all that followed, her intensity matching his, her 
body glowing to his touch, his body answering the call of hers. The 
final coupling had been feral, vocal, febrile, wanton, and they had 
collapsed together on the damp sheets afterward with no thought of 
regrets - in fact, with very little in the way of thoughts to disturb the 
pleasant haze of sense-memories and a swift descent into sleep. 
Then came the alarm. Greene had remembered at once why he had 
set it, and found it was still reason enough to give up the agreeable 
pressure of Kiera's softness against him. He escaped the bed with a 
single squeak from its springs. By then the alarm had ceased, but he 
snatched his jeans up with one hand as he slipped out of the room, 
and paused in the hallway to climb back into them. 
There was enough illumination filtering through the blinds from a 
security light outside for Greene to find his way to the swivel chair in 
his study. When he touched the trackball, the hundred-centimeter 
display awoke from Sleep mode, throwing enough light onto the desk 
for him to see his split keyboard - an antique accessory that required 
an arcane skill, but still Greene's first choice for talking to his system. 
Most of the interesting things that could be done with a computer 
required giving up the cozy conveniences of a multimedia interface - 
and at the machine level, syntax mattered. 
All of his newsagents were active and showing new retrievals. Since 
there was still a little time before the scheduled broadcast from 

Phnom Penh, Gordon started to skim the waiting messages. 
There were so many entries in the Explosion queue that it almost 
seemed as though the earth should be reverberating beneath him. A 
truck bomb in Colombo, mines in a busy road in the Jordan Valley, a 
rocket attack in Algiers, mortar duels outside Bogota - these were 
routine. Greene had skimmed hundreds of reports like them in the last 
month alone. Fifty-year-old American cluster bombs killing farmers 
north of Ho Chi Minh City, a suicide bombing aboard a German 
train, live 105mm artillery shells found in a Kentucky landfill - these 
at least offered some novelty, though no spoor of Greene's quarry. 
And now and then there were stories Greene could only call macabre 
and bizarre - a booby-trapped casket at a burial service in southern 
Italy, or the 'homing donkeys' smuggling grenade launchers over the 
mountains into Greece. 
Occasionally, inevitably, his newsagents' context parsers would 
hiccough, and offer Greene a lighter moment - an article on a 
'explosion' in fire ant populations in Missouri, or a Devonian 
cometary impact in Nevada. Those were balanced by the stories 
Greene could not shrug off, the senselessly cruel, the shamelessly 
brutal. The mental pictures stayed with him for days - of 
fragmentation grenades hurled into the middle of a crowded church in 
Manila, of a bungled letter-bomb murder in Grozny that killed a onemonth-
old girl in her mother's arms. 
But nowhere yet had the newsagents found evidence of the Trigger 
being used as he had been promised it would be - of would-be 
bombers killed by their own bombs, of despots deposed and armies 
deprived of their armories, of thugs and punks and wiseguys stripped 
of their finely machined blued-steel masculinity. The bleeding and 
dying, the suffering and crying continued unabated, on every 
continent, in every country, with only the most poignant and dramatic 
deaths even registering on the conscience and consciousness of 
strangers half a world away. All was as it had always been. 
Greene did not despair, because he was enough the cynic that he had 
expected no better. Even so, he felt the lost opportunity more keenly 
with each passing day - felt it for himself and for those he had called 
friends, and for her who was never far from his thoughts. A noble 
gesture wasted, a year lost, and lives disrupted without purpose. It 
was not from the surrender of hope that his disappointment came, but 

from the sacrifice of good intentions. They had fallen on hard ground, 
and it looked more and more as if he would have to step forward and 
tend them. 
That prospect seemed so certain, in fact, that Greene's preparations 
were already well underway. He now had three encrypted copies of 
the Trigger file secreted on remote servers, all physically located 
outside the United States. Two of those copies were wrapped in a 
digital envelope addressed to more than a hundred public distribution 
sites, from newsgroups like alt .peace and sdphysics to preprint 
servers in sixteen countries. The third was targeted at nearly two 
hundred private mailboxes belonging to disarmament activists and 
the Terabyte team's peers around the world - physicists of every 
flavor, experimental engineers, and the research directors of 
unencumbered high-tech companies. 
All in all, Greene calculated that his efforts - incorporating the newest 
and sneakiest tricks of direct-mail spammers - would spawn no fewer 
than ten thousand copies of the massive file by the end of the first 
hour. Depending on the speed and effectiveness of any Pentagon 
interventions - roadblocks, packet assassins and cancelbots being just 
a few possibilities - there could be half a million copies or more in 
circulation by the time they found and shut down the source servers. 
And at that point, it would be too late. Too many recipients would 
have taken note of the digital elephants Greene had dropped off at 
their front doors. It would be impossible to make them all go away. 
The threat that most concerned Greene now was the knock at the door 
that came without warning. He was the weakest link - a classic singlepoint 
failure mode. So he had set up all three of his caches with 'deadman' 
mailers, their schedulers set three days ahead. If something 
happened to him, so that an innocuous net "ping" failed to reach his 
mailers at least once every three days, everything would be set in 
motion without further involvement on his part. That same 
mechanism would give Greene a head start - a few hours, a few days 
if he wanted to risk it - in which to fade into the shadows, if and 
when the call came. 
But the reason he was sitting in front of a terminal in the wee hours 
of the night - instead of cuddling the woman in his bed, as any sane 
man would - was to find out if just possibly all that work had been in 
vain. 

A few minutes before two, as he was closing his newsagents, he 
heard the living-room floor creak. 'Hey,' she said softly as she 
approached. 
'Hey,' he said, bringing CNN up and muting the sound. 'You're a light 
sleeper.' 
'Not as light as you, apparently. What are you doing - posting a 
review to alt-dot-gotlucky-dot-com?' she murmured, wrapping her 
arms around his bare chest from behind. 
'Keeping up with current events,' he said. 'President's on a tour of the 
Far East.' 
'I've known guys who had to smoke afterwards, and guys who had to 
eat afterwards, and guys who had to jump up and brush their teeth 
afterwards -' 
That's endearing.' 
'Intensely,' she said, as a CNN LIVE EVENT bumper appeared on 
the screen. 'But if you don't come back to bed, I'm going to have to go 
home thinking I got passed over for a politician - and a dopeylooking 
one, at that.' 
With a touch of his left hand, Greene started a video capture. With 
another, he brought up the volume. With his right, he squeezed 
Kiera's hand, stopping her from pulling away. 'Fifteen minutes and 
I'll be all over you again.' 
She giggled. This gets you hot?' 
'Well, you know about the genetic link between testosterone and 
explosions, right?' 
The introductions over, President Breland was beginning to speak. 
Kiera peered over his shoulder at the screen. 'You're expecting 
explosions?' 
That's the rumor. Not at the podium,' he added quickly. They're going 
to clear a minefield.' 
'Isn't that dangerous? And doesn't it take a long time?' 
'Usually. That's why this is news.' 
She looked at the screen and saw only talking heads. 'Fifteen 
minutes? You promise?' 

'Twenty, tops.' 
She kissed the top of his head. 'Maybe I'll go take a shower, then.' 
'What Napoleon said to Josephine.' 
'Hmm?' 
'Don't.' 
She made a surprised noise - but not a displeased one. 'Don't keep me 
waiting.' 
'I won't.' 
When she was gone, Greene allowed himself to smile. He'd gotten his 
first glimpse of the air-cushion vehicle at rest in the background, 
behind the President. The smile broadened to a delighted grin when 
the first closeup came. When a mock blueprint followed it to the 
screen, Greene sat back in his chair and started chuckling quietly in 
the dark. 
'"Harmonic Demining Vehicle",' he whispered to himself. 'I like that. 
Like the phoney antennas, too - and those big Leslie speakers fore 
and aft. Very cheesy. Harmonic demining - yeah, that'll do.' 
Greene had misjudged his own degree of glee and fascination. More 
than an hour passed before he finally tiptoed back into his bedroom. 
When he did, he found Kiera sound asleep and snoring lightly. He 
intended to make amends in the morning, but she left the bed early 
and did not return, hiding in a long shower and then keeping him at a 
distance until she could escape. 
To his surprise, Greene found he did not particularly mind the lost 
opportunity, or regret the broken promise. He did not try to detain 
her, or explain himself. His first thought that morning was to wonder 
how the event was being reported on the leading headline services. 
His second thought was about Leigh Thayer, and about the suddenly 
improved prospect of seeing her again. 
'Before Pol Pot and Lon Nol, before America's secret war and 
Cambodia's brutal civil war, this was a farm,' President Breland said 
to the cameras that carried his image around the globe. To his right 
was the Chairman of the Supreme National Council; to his left, the 
director of the Cambodian Mine Action Center. 'These fields 

produced rice, and the woods beyond them yielded firewood and 
fruit. 
This was not a factory farm, or a state cooperative, or even a cash 
cropland. This was the family farm of Ngos Iran.' Breland looked 
down the platform to where the thin, hunched-shouldered man stood 
barefoot, in jacket and sampot. 'He, and his eight siblings, and his 
parents, Poth and Ravi, worked these flooded fields for their own 
survival. If in a good year there was enough extra to fill a cartful to 
sell at market, they counted themselves blessed. 
'But then the soldiers came, and Mr Tran lost a brother to a bullet. In 
time, those soldiers were driven off by other soldiers, and Mr Tran 
lost a second brother - recruited by bayonet, and never heard from 
again. Again and again, four different armies have skirmished over 
this land, which lies too close to the Mekong River and the Kampong 
Cham road to escape their attention. 
'The armies are gone now, but their calling cards of death remain - 
dozens of plastic-cased antipersonnel mines, hiding under the water, 
hiding under the mud. One killed Mr Tran's oldest sister. Another 
took his father's right leg. No one lives off this land now. No one 
grows rice here. It's too dangerous, even for desperate and hungry 
people. 
'But the mines in Cambodia are not just one family's tragedy -they are 
a national tragedy. There are more amputees here than anywhere else 
in the world - one out of every two hundred people. Four hundred 
civilians are killed every month, in what the Khmer call peacetime. 
'Why doesn't someone do something? Someone has been trying. For 
more than a generation, the Cambodian Mine Action Center has run 
one of the best organized, most dedicated, and most successful 
demining programs in the world. Working one step at a time, one 
mine at a time, the CMAC teams - more than three thousand men and 
women, most of them trained by CMAC - have removed more than 
seventy thousand mines, and cleared more than six thousand square 
kilometers of land. And every square kilometer the CMAC clears 
allows fifty refugees to return home. 
'But despite their unceasing efforts, there are still eight million mines 
concealed under Cambodian fields, waiting along Cambodian roads 
and trails, hidden in Cambodian forests. These fields have been red

flagged, on a list of sites to be demined, for nine years. 
The CMAC - the people of Cambodia - have done all anyone could 
ask to rid their country of this scourge. They need and deserve our 
help - and help is what we have brought. 
'Behind me is a remarkable machine - the first of what I promise will 
eventually be hundreds of Harmonic Demining Vehicles, which I 
intend to see put to work everywhere that our help is welcomed. 
Using principles of sound energy which will be familiar to anyone 
who's ever attended a concert, the HDV can do in an hour what 
would take a platoon of trained deminers a week -and without the 
terrible casualties all too often suffered by these brave volunteers. 
'This land has seen too much blood spilled, and lain fallow for too 
long. It's time for Mr Tran and his family to return home to their 
village and to their fields. That is why I have asked the US Army's 
newly-formed 318th Engineering Brigade to bring their first HDV 
here, and to demonstrate to the world that the era of the mine is 
ending. Mr Tran, I hope these will be the last soldiers that are ever 
seen in your fields.' 
Breland turned away from the podium and made a signal - a circle 
drawn in the air with his forefinger - to the Army lieutenant standing 
at attention with his crew in front of the HDV. The lieutenant 
answered with a salute. As he and his men climbed aboard the 
vehicle, Breland allowed himself to be steered to one of the five 
chairs sheltered by three large sloping panels of clear acrylic shrapnel 
shield - a concession to the Secret Service, who had wanted Breland 
to make his speech from a studio in Phnom Pehn. 
There was a rustle and murmur of anticipation as the HDV's turbines 
wound up, and the air-cushion vehicle rose up off its collapsed rubber 
skirt. With its ducted steering fans all spinning, it turned and 
approached the boundary markers. As it neared the first flag, another 
sound was added - the basso thrum of the high-output speakers, 
which reached Breland's ears almost as a pulse, even though he knew 
it was a continuous sound. 
Almost at once, half a dozen small fountains of earth and water 
erupted from the abandoned rice paddy in an arc just ahead of the 
HDV. The individual explosions, muffled by the overburden, were 
barely louder than their scattered echoes, but they nevertheless 

caused the hundred or so spectators to start, and then - inexplicably - 
crowd closer. As the HDV glided forward over the edge of the field, 
the explosions continued, to the delighted applause of his hosts. 
When the vehicle paused at the treeline and then turned to begin a 
second, parallel pass, Breland could see that the air-cushion skirt was 
splattered with Mekong mud, but there was no sign of any damage. 
'How many of these can you lend us?' asked the Supreme National 
Council chairman, leaning close to Breland. 
'We're organizing them in squadrons of four,' said Breland. 'I was 
hoping you'd allow me to station two squadrons here. My experts tell 
me that they should be able to have all the lowland areas cleared by 
the end of the year.' 
'By the end of the year -' the Chairman echoed, marveling. 
Just then, without warning, a single huge explosion erupted just a few 
meters inside the edge of the flagged area. Something hard rattled 
against the shield, and the entire platform shook. Breland flinched 
reflexively, then started to stand, his ears ringing. The explosion had 
curtained the HDV from his eyes behind a solid wall of mud, smoke, 
and water. 
He was grabbed by two Secret Service agents, who clearly meant to 
take him to the floor shielding his body with their own. But he shook 
them off angrily as Colonel Grassley of the 318th came running up to 
the platform. 
'What's happening, Colonel?' he called, helping the CMAC director to 
his feet. 
'UXO, Mr President - unexploded ordnance. Probably an artillery 
shell or mortar round that buried itself in there. Sounded like a big 
one - the Chinese copied the Russian 82mm towed mortar, could 
have been something like that. Could even have been an iron bomb 
we left behind.' 
'Is the HDV damaged?' But by then he could see that it wasn't - 
though now well-painted with mud, it was still moving forward, 
passing close by a small crater that was quickly filling with water. 
'No, sir. Do you want us to continue?' 
The commander of the Secret Service unit stepped forward and tried 
to take that question, but Breland was quicker. 'Absolutely, Colonel. 

Clear that entire field.' 
The Secret Service was now at Breland's elbow, angry and insistent. 
'Mr President, we have to move you back -' 
I'll sit back down, John,' he said in a low voice the microphones did 
not catch. 'That's as far as I'm going to let you move me.' 
In another ten minutes it was over. There were no more big 
explosions, and only a single medium-sized one, which Grassley 
identified as an antitank mine. In all, some three dozen 'poppers', as 
the director of CMAC referred to the small antipersonnel mines, 
detonated in the first sweep of the field. The HDV made a second 
sweep at right angles to the first, but not a single additional explosion 
ensued. It appeared that the first sweep had been one hundred percent 
effective, locating and destroying every threat lurking under the 
surface. 
As the HDV settled onto its skirt in the parking zone, Breland jumped 
down from the platform and crossed the road to congratulate its crew. 
His Secret Service detail hurried nervously after him, hoping his next 
stop would be the Presidential helicopter, and a quick trip back to the 
safety of Singapore. But as Breland was finishing with the crew, he 
saw that Ngos Tran had also left the platform, and was walking 
haltingly toward the red flags, all alone in his wonder and 
uncertainty. 
It was then that, on impulse, Breland made the gesture which almost 
every news editor around the world would choose as the defining 
image of the day. Crossing the ground with long but unhurried 
strides, he joined Ngos Tran where he stood. 
The two men could hardly have been less alike, or from more 
different worlds - West and East, city and farm, broad-shouldered and 
thin, tall and stooped, empowered and impoverished, a President and 
a peasant farmer. Neither could understand a word that the other 
spoke. But in a few gestures, they made their meaning clear. 
Is it really safe? Tran wanted to know. 
Come - see for yourself, was Breland's answer. 
Side by side, the two men walked past the flags and into the soggy 
field that half an hour earlier neither of them would have dared enter. 
Before long they were joined by the Cambodian officials, then others 

from the platform, all rushing to demonstrate that they, too, were not 
afraid. But the others were irrelevant. The cameras barely paid them 
any mind. 
It was Ngos Iran's tearful gratitude - looking up at Breland and 
clasping both his hands, the two men standing ankle-deep in the mud - 
that would earn photographer Milos Thurban a Pulitzer Prize. 
And it would earn President Mark Breland inestimably more. 
16: Perplexity 
Nagasaki, Japan - Seismic tracings 'prove without a doubt' that 
China conducted an underground nuclear test in violation of the 
Comprehensive Test Ban, according to the director of World Nuclear 
Monitor. The bomb transients are unmistakable. This was a new 
design, with a higher yield than we've seen before,' said Dr Ray 
Milius. 'I expect it's the warhead for the DM0.' The Chinese Space 
Agency test-fired its new long-range rocket last month. But officials 
in Beijing insist that the seismic event, centered near the Lop Nor 
nuclear test area, was an earthquake rather than an explosion, and that 
the Dong Feng 10 was designed as a booster for the Lotus manned 
spacecraft. 
Complete Story State Dept 'reviewing Data' Video: DF-10 Launch 
Japan's Premier Protests Was Test Meant as Warning' to Russia, 
US 
Dr Leigh Thayer's control and measurement team was in command of 
the test range for the afternoon. It had prepared more than 400 
samples of materials being evaluated as Trigger shields - from metals 
to crystals to liquids to inorganic compounds rich in nitrogen. Each 
material would be tested in three thicknesses -one, three and five 
centimeters - and at two distances - ten and twenty-five meters. 
Lee called these test sessions the Scramble, because the predominant 
image of them was of the entire team scattered across the test range, 
carrying sample trays and hurrying from one test pad to the next. The 
tests themselves only took a few seconds each, so it seemed as 

though they were in an endless cycle of set-up and collection. 
There were now a total of twenty test pads laid out in two arcs to the 
north of the main lab. Lee had asked for more, so more materials 
could be tested at once. But after watching the first Scramble shortly 
before he left for Princeton, Brohier had ruled against her request. 
'As things are, you have one person per material - very orderly, little 
chance of error,' he had told her. 'Go beyond that, and all you'll do is 
increase the chance of a mistake.' 
Mistakes were not the threat they had been in the beginning, because 
they were no longer using explosives in their testing. Instead, they 
used the closest thing to a workable Trigger detector that had yet 
been devised - Leigh Thayer's 'puff caps'. 
Analogous to a reagent strip or radiation badge, the caps consisted of 
a plastic panel bearing a fabric disc impregnated with a solution 
derived from black powder. When exposed to a Trigger field, the 
caps erupted with a readily visible puff of fragrant smoke. 
The information they provided was strictly binary - yes or no, Trigger 
detected or not - and the caps were consumed in the process. 
Nevertheless, unlike the pyrotechnic poppers, which had cost one of 
Lee's assistants the tip of two fingers, the caps could be handled with 
no special training, and the test cycle shortened by half. They were 
also nearly noiseless, which meant that testing days no longer 
sounded like the Fourth of July. The Pentagon saw potential in them 
as perimeter alarms, so Goldstein was rushing them into production, 
and Lee had applied for a patent. 
But Lee was still looking for the breakthrough that would allow her 
to build a proper detector and strength-meter for Trigger fields. The 
two problems - shielding against the fields and taking their measure - 
seemed inextricably linked. Up to the limit of a Mark I's range, the 
Trigger field appeared to pass through any amount of matter as if it 
wasn't there. 
She had tested with poppers suspended a hundred meters down a wellshaft 
and placed on the far side of a granite ridge. They had tested 
with the well flooded and the emitter swathed in lead. They had 
sealed a popper inside a box made of depleted uranium. The results - 
all positive - destroyed all notions of propagation based on the 
behavior of any form of electromagnetic energy. Whatever it was that 

came from the emitter of a Mark I Trigger found rock as transparent 
as air. 
Because the Trigger's interaction with matter was so weak and 
selective, it was inevitable that Horton and Brohier started looking at 
neutrinos. The CERN model had relegated those mysterious ghost 
particles to the status of the interplanetary ether, dismissed as a mere 
bookkeeping convention of an immature theoretical model. Even so, 
neutrinos remained attractive. For most of two weeks, Horton had 
talked of almost nothing else. 
In their last days on the theoretical stage, neutrinos had been the 
strangest of the many strange creatures in the subatomic zoo. With 
their variable mass, fractional spin numbers, candy-store variety, and 
the bizarre ability to pass through the entire mass of the Earth as 
though it wasn't there, neutrinos were the last Holy Grail of the 
Standard Model physicist - and the last hope of Jeffrey Horton. 
The hope was that somewhere in the experimental record there 
lurked, unremembered and unrecognized, another Trigger anomaly. It 
had troubled Horton that he had been unable to connect their 
discovery with any naturally-occurring phenomenon. 
'I'd give my right arm for a good look at this thing from another 
angle,' he had told Lee at dinner one evening shortly after she arrived 
at the Annex. 
'You'd have to find someone who actually wants your right arm first.' 
Horton was already humorless by that point. 'You know what I mean. 
What we do in here with technology ought to mirror something that 
happens out there without it. I'm uncomfortable with the lack of 
natural analogues. If this is a real phenomenon, where are the 
observations it should be helping us explain?' 
'Horton's Paradox,' she had said. 'What did the literature search turn 
up?' 
'Nothing,' he had said with a shake of the head and a disgusted 
expression. 
'Maybe you searched the wrong literature,' she had suggested. 'Maybe 
you want The Weekly World News instead of Physics Today.' 
'Do you think I'm above resorting to phenomenology at this point? 
Maybe I didn't go all the way to the tabloids, but I purposely left the 

search parameters as open as possible. I made sure they caught all of 
the fringe science and parascience.' 
'And?' 
'You don't want to go there.' 
'Come on - tell me.' 
The search agent kept trying to tell me that spontaneous human 
combustion was a good match on my criteria.' 
She had chortled with delight. 'Oh, it is!' 
'It is not,' he had said tersely. 'There's not a single documentable case 
with witnesses - no preachers immolated in the pulpit, no matter what 
you've heard. As near as I can tell, all of the "best" cases involve a 
reclusive elderly woman who was overweight, lived alone, liked to 
tipple, and smoked.' 
'Hmm. Doesn't sound like you'd need Sherlock Holmes to draw you a 
picture.' 
'And the forensic science is either anecdotal or nonexistent. You've 
never seen such credulous reporting -' 
'Sure I have,' she had said. 'I was raised an Episcopalian.' 
'Withdrawn,' he had said with a wry smile. 'But still, if we need Mary 
Reeser or Mrs Oczki to make our case -' 
'Well - what about "fires of suspicious origin"? Someone must keep 
records.' 
'Someone does - the National Fire Data Center. We covered this 
ground while you were still in Utah, training the Army operators.' 
'And?' 
The best we could do is a definite "Maybe". NFDC tracks two million 
fires and explosions a year, and one out of five is "cause unknown". 
We hired a private arson investigation company to go through NFIRS 
database for possibles. They came back with a very long report, and 
none of it was anything I could use. Not enough information, not 
reproducible, no patterns that held up to close examination.' 
'No proof.' 
'In a word.' 
'It has to be out there somewhere.' 

'If we're asking the right questions,' Horton had said. 'One of the 
truths I'm still reasonably sure about is that matter and energy 
interact. But I'm starting to wonder if whatever's coming off that 
emitter is neither matter nor energy.' 
'You have any other suspects?' she had said, surprised. 
Horton had frowned and shook his head. 
That question was now Karl Brohier's to worry over. Within three 
weeks of returning from Washington with Horton, the director had 
packed his bag again, this time for the Institute for Advanced Study 
in Princeton. 
In his absence, Horton had become a presence again at the Annex, 
showing welcome signs he was returning to his old form. No longer a 
hermit, he had evinced renewed enthusiasm for his work, some of 
which spilled over as an almost intrusive interest in Lee's work as 
well. He had spent most of a week going over her unit's records and 
talking to her staff about the detection and measurement problem. 
And at the end of that week, he had delivered what amounted to an 
old-fashioned pep talk to her staff. 
'If you can detect it, we can deflect it. If you can measure it, we can 
modulate it,' he told them. 'Stay focused - stay committed. If you can, 
stay optimistic. We all have trouble with that one sometimes. But 
your work may well hold the key to everything we're doing here. If 
you find something that interacts strongly with a Trigger field, we 
can have shielding the next day, and directionality the day after.' 
Horton's involvement was coming late in the day from Lee's 
perspective, but she was surprised to find that his enthusiasm even 
buoyed her own mildly discouraged spirits. And she was pleased 
when Horton showed up at testing control half an hour before the 
second Scramble was scheduled to begin. It reminded her of the old 
days, before Baby - a time which, like many new parents, she looked 
back on with some selective nostalgia. 
'Anything I can do?' Horton asked. 
'I'm accepting donations of synapses in good condition,' she said. 'Did 
you know that the last brain growth spurt takes place right after 
puberty? After that we're coasting - and coasting is downhill.' 

'I did know that.' He smiled broadly. 'I even developed a pet theory 
about how our life paths are decided by how we use those last few 
billion connections - academics or sex.' 
'You must have looked around in grad school and realized just how 
many really bright people haven't a clue about relationships,' she said, 
regretting the touch of bitterness that crept in unbidden. 
'I could see it as early as high school honors math,' Horton said. 'Only 
two of us went to the prom, and they went with each other. Diana and 
Kim. Got an extra headset?' 
She pointed. 'Bottom drawer.' 
They were too busy for conversation soon after that. Lee ran the final 
checklist herself with a brisk efficiency that kept everyone hopping. 
Horton distinguished himself by managing to stay out of her way, 
which she appreciated more than any help he could have offered. 
The actual test was an anticlimax. With the test range cleared, Lee 
brought the Mark I up to ten percent for fifteen seconds. All of the 
test strips were sealed inside small resin boxes lined with the test 
material; there were no vent plugs, so there was no puff of smoke, no 
sound. When the green light went out again, one of Lee's crew 
brought the electric truck back from outside the test radius, and the 
numbered boxes were gathered up and taken away for examination 
later. 
As that cart drove off, a second arrived, carrying another batch of 
samples. There was another short lull at testing control as they were 
being placed. 
'Did Dr Brohier say anything to you about how long he expected to 
be in New Jersey?' asked Lee. 
'He said it wasn't as terrible a place as people liked to say, and not to 
be surprised if he was gone a few weeks.' 
Think we'll hear from him while he's gone, this time around?' 
'Not unless he has something,' Horton said. 'He's just not the chatty 
type.' 
'Did he give you any clues about why he went there - I mean, who in 
particular he was planning to talk to?' 
'Well - he has plenty of friends on the faculty. Buhl and Esterovich, 

particularly. But all he actually said to me was that he'd been 
wondering if we'd been pushing on the wrong end of the stick, if what 
we needed wasn't a new physics, but a new mathematics. I took that 
to mean he was going there to talk to Reichart and Wu.' 
Both names were familiar to her. Reichart was faculty in the School 
of Mathematics, and a recent Wolf Prize winner. Wu was a visiting 
member in the School of Natural Sciences, and a notorious freethinker 
whose critiques of the CERN model were as much a part of 
his reputation as his own work in stellar physics. 
'The by-line's going to be as long as the paper by the time we have 
this all figured out,' she said lightly. 
'I'm more worried about it ending up published by Kreskin's Journal 
of the Bizarre,' Horton said. 
'Could be worse - you might get invited to appear on Wonders of 
Nature,' she teased. The ratings leader of Phenomenal!, an 
infotainment channel devoted to fad religions and paranormal pseudoscience, 
the lowbrow daily Wonders featured a voluptuous former 
model turned neoEgyptian priestess as hostess. Her undraped assets 
(bared by her neotraditional garb) might not have given rise to the 
show's title, but certainly accounted for much of its audience. 
'It's a hope worth grabbing onto,' Horton said straightfacedly. 
She laughed, and swung the headset mic toward her mouth. 'This is 
Lee in the booth. Ready for round two. Call off by stations.' 
A few days later, it was much harder to find any humor in their 
situation. Lee and Horton were finishing their inventory of exposed 
samples from the third Scramble, and facing up to the reality that the 
results had been no different from those of the first two. None of the 
shielding materials had worked; all of the puff caps had been 
destroyed. 
Horton sat back in his chair and surveyed the line of tables filled by 
opened test boxes. 'Guess we're going to need to reorder, eh?' 
'Jeffrey, I want to talk to you about that.' 
He noticed that she no longer called him Boss. 'I'm listening.' 
'I've already worked my way down the periodic chart and back again. 

Given unlimited time and money, I could work my way through the 
Handbook of Chemical Compounds, too. But that doesn't seem to me 
to be a good use of either. Not without some encouragement from the 
tests we've already done, some direction that shows a little promise. 
But the only materials that interact with the Trigger field blow up or 
disassociate. And even there, I don't understand the process -I can't 
even prove anything's being absorbed. It's a dead end, Jeffrey. This 
damned thing -' She shook her head, frustration denying her the 
words. 
'Have we gotten a good survey?' 
'Absolutely.' She thumbed the stack of test reports. 'Metals, nonmetals, 
transitionals, noble gases, actinides, sulfides, carbonates, 
cobalt complexes, phosphates, resins, alloys - Geri's a good chemist. 
She understood what I wanted.' 
'So what do you want to do now?' 
Lee sighed and looked away. 'I suppose we could stand to work the 
metal-organics a bit harder. And I've been shying away from liquids, 
because of the handling problems - so many of them are reactive. We 
could go there, I suppose.' 
'Okay,' Morton said encouragingly. 
'What I really want to do is get out of here for a while,' she said 
plaintively. 'Is that possible? You had your holiday. Or am I still on 
probation - house arrest?' 
'Hmm? What are you talking about? What do you have in mind?' 
'How far is it to Las Vegas?' 
'By chopper, close enough for a night on the town. If you drive, you'll 
want a three-day pass.' 
'It's no fun going to Las Vegas alone,' she said, looking at him 
hopefully. That's for gambling addicts and showgirl wannabes. I'm 
neither.' 
'You know more about it than I do - I've never been.' 
'Neither have I.' 
'Reason enough,' Horton said, rising. 'You grab your toothbrush. I'll 
roust the pilots from their card game.' 

17: Festivity 
Sacramento, California - Six workers died Saturday night when fire 
broke out in a confined basement area of the State Capitol. Capitol 
Park Director Beth Markham said there was 'no structural damage' to 
the historic building, and the upcoming session of the State Assembly 
would not be affected. Markham said the contractors were installing 
cutting-edge air-quality equipment intended to help preserve the 
Capitol's museum-grade artifacts when they apparently sparked the 
blaze. The casualties included two US Army engineers supervising 
the installation. 
Complete story 
Horton and Thayer immersed themselves in the glitter and spectacle 
of Las Vegas with the reckless glee of runaway children with a 
borrowed credit card. They hired a white Cadillac limousine at 
McCarran International Airport, and told the driver - a breezy, 
tuxedoed Louisianian named Ruby - their intentions. By the time the 
limo reached The Strip, Ruby and her cellular RedCarpet city guide 
had secured them a suite at Bellagio and tickets to the two hottest 
casino shows. 
The early show, at the Luxor, included a sumptuous dinner served by 
bronzed 'temple slaves' wearing mock-gold jewelry and short colorful 
skirts that owed more to Hollywood than to Egyptology. The 
spectacle that followed depicted the rise and fall of the First 
Kingdom, and was built on the twin foundations of prurience and 
ufology, highlighted by an on-stage Nile flood, a sybaritic orgy, and 
the destruction of the Great Temple at Karnak by a departing 
spaceship. 
There was just time enough between shows, Ruby told them, to catch 
one of The Strip's most enduring crowd-pleasers. She dropped them 
at the curb in front of the Treasure Island Hotel's Buccaneer Bay just 
as the first twelve-pounder from the HMS Britannia roared, belching 
crimson flame and silver smoke. The crowd of 500 lining the bridge 
cooed in delight, then cheered as the privateer Hispaniola returned 

fire. 
'Do you ever wonder why we find guns and explosions so attractive 
as entertainment?' Lee asked as they watched the playlet unfold. 'Or 
is that something that testosterone just understands instinctively?' 
A deafening cannonade from the Britannia sent pirates and planking 
flying in the air, and Horton held his answer until the pirates had 
triumphed and he and Lee were back in the limousine. 
'I do wonder about it,' he said. There's something visceral, to be sure. 
The bright lights, the intense colors, the loud sounds, the pressure 
wave against your chest -' 
That explains fireworks. Not war movies.' 
"That's tied up with something primal, I think. Something deep in the 
animal mind. All those myths about Big Men - fathers and kings and 
warriors -' 
"The friend with the gun is our champion. The enemy with the gun is 
the killer beast,' she mused. 
'And slaying the beast without being harmed confers heroic status - 
the protector and provider.' He shook his head and dropped his voice, 
mindful of the driver. 'It's an old script -going to be strange to see 
what it looks like when we're done rewriting it,' 
'What are we going to do for entertainment?' she said with a little 
laugh. 'Half the writers in New York are going to be out of work.' 
'Aren't they already?' 
'Okay, then the other half will be out of work, too.' 
Horton shrugged. There's always historical fiction.' 
A hopeful smile appeared on her face. 'Just think, Jeffrey. Maybe in a 
thousand years, a "Western" will be a story set between the invention 
of the flintlock and the invention of the Trigger - a moment in time 
when the rules were different. A colorful era, a fascinating one, a rich 
source of legends and folklore - but fundamentally tragic and brutal, 
with no reason for anyone to regret its passing.' 
Horton reached across the wide leather seat and squeezed her hand. 
'A nice thought. Hold tight to it. If we can ever manage to look back 
with that much clarity - well, we'll have learned something, then, 
won't we?' 

'It could happen,' she said with conviction. 'When's the last time you 
heard anyone defend the genocide against the American Indians, or 
wish they were living in Tombstone, circa 1880?' 
'Oh - I'm sure we could find someone. People get nostalgic for the 
oddest times - there are weekend medievalists. Civil War reenactors -' 
'But most people think the present is a better place to be,' she said, 
looking out the window at the bright bustle of Las Vegas. 'And I 
think most people still will, fifty years from now.' 
Fifty, I'll grant you, Horton thought. It's the next five I have doubts 
about. But he said nothing, leaving her optimism hovering over them 
like a pleasant scent on the night air. 
It was not in Jeffrey Horton's nature to let himself enjoy a 
demonstration of stagecraft for its own sake. He took his rewards 
from matching wits with the professional tricksters, and in piercing 
their illusions to discover the reality beneath them. Long before he 
had entertained any thought of a career in science, his two great 
curiosities were special effects and stage magic - two domains where 
deception is the highest art, and reality becomes elusive. 
When Horton's parents had taken him to see David Copperfield in 
Cincinnati as a present for his ninth birthday, they had taken his rapt 
attention for youthful wonder. In fact, he had spent the entire 
performance trying to penetrate Copperfield's bold, stage-filling 
illusions. On the drive home, Horton had done his best to spoil them 
for the rest of the family by telling them everything he had discerned 
or deduced. When many of the same illusions appeared on one of 
Copperfield's network specials, Horton had recorded it on CD-R and 
studied it until he could narrate a thorough dissection. 
At thirteen, his favorite film was The Stunt Man, which aud-aciously 
manipulated reality not only for the audience but for the protagonist - 
a desperate Steve Railsback dancing at the end of a godlike Peter 
O'Toole's string. Horton's favorite book was ILM: The Art of Special 
Effects, an expensive Christmas gift from his mother's brother, in 
which the secrets of virtually every popular film of Horton's youth 
were revealed. He watched every behind-the-scenes documentary he 
could, to the point that his brother Tom claimed Horton's favorite 
show was The Making Of. 

But it proved to be an obsession with diminishing returns. The more 
Horton knew, the harder it was to fool him, or even surprise him - the 
workaday tools of magicians and effects technicians alike changed 
slowly, and true innovations were rare. 
Pixar mattes were better than bluescreen mattes, which were better 
than rear-projection mattes, which were better than knowing that a 
scene in The Wizard of Oz had to end when it did because Dorothy 
was about to dance face-first into a giant matte painting. But they 
were all tricks designed to place real actors in unreal surroundings - 
and they were all equally unbelievable once detected. 
So it was with every tool in the standard repertoire of magician and 
technician alike. And since Horton was uninterested in using what he 
knew to fool others, there had come a point where he needed a new 
set of puzzles to test himself against. He had found them in Mr 
Tompkins's sophomore honors physics, where he was first introduced 
to the notion that science was an ongoing inquiry with unanswered 
questions, and not merely a catalog of things already discovered. The 
latter had hardly engaged his interest; the former came to consume 
him. 
Reality itself proved the grandest and most fascinating illusion of all - 
solid matter was largely empty space, stationary objects were in 
constant motion, straight lines were actually curved, most of the 
Universe was invisible, matter created itself spontaneously from 
vacuum, time was a variable, and every answer led to more questions. 
With those and even more paradoxical mysteries to occupy him, he 
had never been bored since - not one day in twenty years. A holiday 
church service, a long line at a state office, a charity telethon, a 
garrulous grandaunt, a cross-country car trip, the proceedings of any 
legislature, a round of golf - Mr Tompkins had effectively immunized 
him against all such tedium. His thoughts were unfettered even when 
duty or etiquette held his body in thrall, and there was always 
someplace more interesting for his mind to go. 
So Horton had let Lee choose their entertainments for the night, 
because it mattered more to her than to him what the choices were. 
But because Las Vegas was at its heart a mirage in the desert, 
illusions were its stock in trade, and all of Lee's choices had been 
working to reawaken the thirteen-year-old inside him. 

The shows at the Luxor and Treasure Island had shown him that he 
now was able to appreciate artistry in execution, and not just 
creativity in design. Putting a hundred-thousand-gallon flood and a 
set-destroying conflagration on the same stage half an hour apart was 
no small accomplishment - doing it twice a night and a dozen times a 
week was stagecraft of a very high order. Placing an audience smack 
in the middle of a sea battle - Lee had sworn she had heard the 
cannonballs flying overhead, and Horton had seen that she was not 
the only spectator to duck reflexively - was as bold as the demolition 
of the Britannia was complete. 
But it was during their final stop that everything came together for 
Horton, that the past and the present, work and play, intersected and 
merged. EFX had been the MGM Grand's showpiece for two 
generations, its several incarnations the fulfillment of a solemn 
promise that inside the doors of the Grand Theater awaited something 
that could not be seen anywhere else - not on any other stage, in any 
studio theme park, on any screen. You must come here, it whispered, 
and come they did, expecting not merely the best show on The Strip, 
but on the planet. 
Perhaps it was because Horton did not bring those expectations with 
him to his seat, or because the wizards of illusion had had fifteen 
years to further polish their craft. All he knew was that for the first 
hour, he watched with the edge-of-the-seat joy he had never quite 
mustered as a child. Like the grand finale of a fireworks show, the 
stunts and tricks came so closely spaced that there was scarcely time 
to appreciate them, much less to analyze them. 
It was an ostentatious display of technical virtuosity, a continu-ous 
parade of sights and sounds seamlessly bound together by grand 
music and the theme - it did not deserve to be called a plot - of a timetraveler 
skipping through the highlights of five billion years of Earth 
history. 
But midway through the show - shortly after the Yucatan asteroid had 
fallen from the sky and struck beyond the horizon with a blinding 
flash - Horton was suddenly yanked out of his suspension of 
disbelief. It was not the shaking of the ground underfoot or the blast 
of hot wind in his face, or the jungle being flattened before him, or 
the massive smoldering tree trunk that toppled out over the first 
dozen rows that did it. 

It was, rather, the lone pteranodon circling mournfully overhead, 
looking down on a devastated landscape, on the twilight of its era. 
Horton saw at once that the pteranodon wasn't an animatronic prop 
hanging from a wire, or a radio-controlled model, or a film 
projection, or any other trick of stagecraft that he recognized. The 
creature was flying above the ceiling, and was as real to Horton's 
eyes as any bird on the wing had ever been. 
Hologram, he thought as the pteranodon flew off, vanishing into the 
gathering darkness of the great cloud that foreshadowed the end of 
the age of dinosaurs. But Horton had never seen synthetic 
holoanimation with such detail or on such a scale. What's more, there 
had been no sign of a laser or other illumination in the darkened 
auditorium. 
Transmission holograms, mounted in the ceiling and lit from above - 
Horton spent the rest of the show watching for the effect to be 
repeated. He was rewarded for his diligence at the start of the finale, 
which depicted a techno-utopian future in the spirit of Popular 
Science of the 1950s - complete with flying cars overhead and a 
horizon-to-horizon architectural showcase of a megalopolis. 
Both effects were, if anything, more convincing than the pteranodon, 
if only because the shapes were simpler and the scale more familiar. 
Horton hardly noticed as the finale built to its cli-max. He was 
pondering the difficulties of creating those images -the incredible 
calculating power required, first to model the images in sufficient 
detail, then to derive the interference patterns for the digital 
holographic writer. Making a photorealistic hologram of an 
imaginary object taxed the most powerful graphical workstation. 
Making a photorealistic animation was several orders of magnitude 
more demanding. The complexity of the diffraction grating - 
'Interference,' Horton said aloud, then clapped a hand over his mouth 
as Lee stared at him. He offered no explanation, ignoring her 
questioning look. But as the audience rose for a standing ovation and 
the cast began taking their bows, he edged toward the aisle. 'I have to 
make a call,' he said, and headed for the exit. I'll come back and find 
you.' 
The secure comset in his back pocket could have handled the task 
from Horton's seat. What he was seeking was privacy. He had to go 

all the way back to the limousine to find it, chasing Ruby out to the 
sidewalk. 
'General Stepak - yes, here, too. Moon and dark and all,' he said. 
'General, I want the last two Mark Is that came out of the plant 
diverted to the Annex. At the gate at oh-eight-hundred, if possible. 
Yes, I know there are some located closer to me. But I need two that 
are as nearly identical as possible.' 
When Horton rejoined Lee in the casino, she demanded an 
explanation. He demurred, saying, 'I'll tell you when we're back in the 
suite.' 
'Are you trying to avoid spoiling my night out?' 
'I'm trying to avoid ending it prematurely. It's bad enough that one of 
us is still thinking about work.' 
'Why - who did you call?' 
'Management,' he said. Trust me - this will keep until you've had your 
fill of Las Vegas.' 
She acquiesced, but contented herself with only one more stop - at 
New York, New York, where the recreation of the Coney Island 
amusement park was scheduled to be demolished in the spring. 
Coaxing Ruby to accompany them, they rode the roller coaster three 
times in succession, spun madly on the Tilt-A-Whirl, laughed their 
way through a mirror maze, and rode the Ferris wheel for the 
panoramic view from on high. Still thinking them a couple, Ruby 
insisted they go on the Ferris wheel alone. 
'The ultimate carnival midway,' Horton said, leaning out over the side 
of the swaying car and looking out along The Strip. 
'Are you going to tell me now why we're going back early?' 
He told her. She did not argue. Their last view of the city that night 
was from the company helicopter as it wheeled about over McCarran 
International and headed home to the Annex. 
The Triggers arrived a few minutes after nine, delivered by a fivevehicle 
caravan and a platoon of uniformed men who looked 
decidedly unhappy about releasing the units to Horton's custody. 
By midafternoon, Val Bowden had the units carefully aligned and 

securely mounted side by side on the test pedestal at the south end of 
the test range. Thayer finished installing her hastily improvised 
controller synchronizer under floodlights. 
Two controls, amplitude and mix,' she explained to Horton. 'I've 
calibrated the two units as closely as I can without being able to 
directly measure the field strengths.' 
'We can refine it as we go, by trial and error if need be. Do you have 
enough puff caps?' 
'What sort of grid do you want?' 
'Fine. One per square meter.' 
'Well - I've had three people working on caps all day. Triple our usual 
batch. I don't know if they're dry yet, though.' 
'Find out, would you?' 
'You want to run a test now? I thought we'd have to wait till morning.' 
'I can't wait,' Horton confessed. 
'Are you that confident?' 
'No - I'm that insecure.' 
It was nearly midnight before the grid was ready. By then, word had 
spread, and a crowd had gathered. It seemed to Horton that everyone 
who was not working on the test was waiting and watching - the 
entire Annex staff gathered by the test range, their anticipation as 
palpable as the chill of the desert night. 
At 12.20 a.m., Thayer reported to Horton that the test grid was ready - 
fifteen hundred puff caps laid out in a thirty-by-fifty array fifty 
meters from the test pedestal. Horton turned to the manager of the 
test site. 
'Do we have enough light for the recorders? We're not going to get 
any other data off most of those placements.' 
'There's enough light,' he promised. The low-angle floods should give 
us ideal coverage - better than daytime.' 
'Okay,' he said. 'Clear the test range.' As the five-minute-warning 
horn began to sound across the compound, he turned back to Thayer. 
'Any reason not to do this?' 
'None that I know of.' 

At one minute, a second, more urgent siren sounded - the signal that 
all Triggerable material should by then be beyond the safety radius of 
500 meters. At thirty seconds, the test range's audio, video, and 
infrared recorders began receiving data. 
'Take it up slowly, now,' Horton said to Thayer, who was standing at 
the synchronizer, her hands on the controls. 
'I know the test profile. Boss,' she said. 'Honest, I do.' 
Horton retreated, joining Val Bowden at the plexiglas-shielded 
observation rail a few meters away. 
'Are you a betting man, Dr Horton?' the engineer asked. 
'Not even in Las Vegas,' was Horton's answer. 'But this isn't gambling 
- it's guessing. And your guess is as good as mine.' 
A sharp electronic chime counted down the last ten seconds. Then 
Thayer counted off the power setting, one percent at a time. 
The many tests done at that site had conditioned everyone's 
expectations - the front edge of the fifty-meter grid reached reaction 
threshold at fifteen percent, the back edge at forty percent, with fifty 
percent observed as the redline for test purposes. 
So there was an audible gasp of surprise from the previously hushed 
onlookers when the center of the first rank of the grid erupted in 
smoke just after Thayer called out, 'Six percent.' 
She hastily added, 'Holding,' and lifted her hand from the amplitude 
control. 'Boss?' 
'I counted five cells,' Horton said into his headset mic. 'What did you 
get?' 
The same,' Bowden said. 
'I didn't see it,' Thayer said with a sigh. 'I wasn't expecting anything 
yet.' 
'Take it to seven percent, step-wise,' he said, signaling Thayer with a 
lifted hand. 
'Resuming, step-wise,' Thayer acknowledged. 
It was eerily quiet on the test range, considering the number of people 
gathered there - so quiet that many of them heard the faint pfffft as the 
caps in the next three ranks of the grid erupted. It took a moment 

even for the most observant to realize that only the center of the next 
three ranks had gone - the rest of the first rank still had not reacted. It 
took a moment longer for the quickest-thinking observers to realize 
what it meant - but only a moment. Scattered whoops and cheers 
erupted in the wake of that realization. 
Horton was not among those cheering. Still withholding judgement, 
he ordered, 'Eight percent.' 
This time no one could mistake what was happening - the twin Mark 
Is were slicing a path through the middle of the grid, leaving the cells 
on either side undisturbed. The Trigger field had become a Trigger 
beam - and the celebration became more certain of itself, the cheers 
full-throated, the scattered applause solidifying. 
'Should have made that bet, Dr Horton,' said Bowden, clapping him 
on the back enthusiastically. 
'Don't jump to conclusions,' Horton said, stubbornly clinging to his 
fatalism. 'Nine percent, Lee.' 
But a scant few minutes later, even Horton had to accept the evidence 
of his eyes. At fifteen percent power, the beam cleared the center of 
the grid all the way to the last rank. The remainder of the cells were 
still unaffected. 
'Change the mix, now - minus one,' he called. That would reduce the 
output of the A unit by one percent, while increasing the output of the 
B a corresponding amount. 
The 'beam' swung to the left, taking out most of two files in the back 
half of the grid. 
'Minus two.' 
More cells on the left side erupted in smoke, clearing the grid to the 
edge. The audience had begun to thin by then, the cold driving people 
inside. 
'Plus two.' 
The right rear quarter of the grid erupted as the Trigger beam swept 
across it. 
'Boss, I think with a little practice, I could write my name with this 
thing,' said Lee. 'But I'm going to start building a better controller 
first thing tomorrow.' 

Horton stared out at the floodlit test range. The initial euphoria of 
accomplishment had already faded, replaced by a vague but growing 
apprehension and the accumulated fatigue of a long day and a longer 
chase. 
That's enough for now. Shut it down, Lee. Send everyone to bed, with 
my thanks,' he said. 'Val, put out the word - department heads will 
meet in Conference C at eleven to review the test data.' 
'Are you going to call the Director now?' Thayer asked. 
Horton nodded. 'He'd expect me to.' He drew a deep breath of cold air 
and released it as a sigh. 'See you at eleven.' 
'Boss -' 
Her voice stopped him in the middle of turning away. 'Hmm?' 
'This was a good catch. Congratulations.' 
Horton waved a hand dismissively. It was just luck. If you hadn't 
dragged me away to Vegas -' 
'Newton and the apple. Archimedes and the bath. Luck favors the 
prepared mind.' She smiled. 'But maybe it favors the relaxed one, too. 
So I'll take a little of the credit when you talk to the Director.' 
'At least there won't be any trouble about the bill,' Horton said, then 
laughed. 'I charged everything to the firm, right down to Ruby's tip.' 
18: Equity 
Pontiac, Michigan - Eleven-year-old convicted murderer Austin 
Williams heard himself described as both a 'sociopath' and a 'regular 
kid' as the sentencing phase of his trial began Monday. The four-footsix-
inch fourth-grader faces a potential life sentence without parole 
for the shooting deaths of his mother, Bernice Fortune, and two 
teenaged neighbors last October. Williams' aunt, Helen Battrick, 
pleaded for leniency, saying that the youth 'just thought he was 
playing a game' when he used his mother's semiautomatic pistol to 
fire at students disembarking from a school bus in front of his house. 
Complete story Court transcripts 

Young Perps Trial For Police, Jurors, Parents 
Karl Brohier did not mind being awakened early. He welcomed the 
news of the breakthrough, and was eager to see the data for himself. 
He returned to the Annex in time for breakfast the next morning. 
By then, there was more news. It came out of a long afternoon 
devoted to a low-tech but effective method of mapping the reach of 
the double-barreled Trigger. 'Dowelsing,' Thayer called it, and 
Horton thought the appellation an apt one. The mapping exercise 
involved scattering as many warm bodies as could be dragooned into 
helping around the periphery of the test range. Each volunteer had a 
short dowel with a piece of puff-cap material wedged into a slit in 
one end. 
The dipole Trigger was activated at a given mix and amplitude, and 
the 'dowelsers' started walking toward the test pedestal, hold-ing the 
dowel out in front of them. As each staffer's test strip started 
smoking, they stopped walking. Eventually, they formed a human 
map of the boundary of the field in that configuration. A photo was 
taken, the Trigger shut down, the dowels reloaded, the Trigger reset, 
and the process repeated. Over the course of the afternoon, a 
complete picture of the capabilities of The Twins' emerged. 
The hot zone ranged in size from five to eight meters, depending on 
the angle of deflection. That angle was limited to about nine degrees 
in either direction - past that point, and the interference between the 
units seemed to collapse, and The Twins acted like a standard 
monopole Mark I. 
They also discovered a second hot zone, one hundred eighty degrees 
removed from the one over the test range. 'Someone compared the 
dipole to a bazooka that fires in both directions at once,' Horton 
explained to Brohier over Belgian waffles and strawberries. 'You 
have to be real careful where you point it -which I think will limit its 
usefulness.' 
'Not appreciably. Point it up,' Brohier said at once. Tut it in an 
underground turret, twenty meters down, and you can forget about 
the hot zone behind you. Or put it in a plane and point it down. 
They'll find ways, Jeffrey. Be sure of that. Have you determined the 
range yet?' 

'No,' Horton said. 'But it's going to be a big jump over a Mark I.' 
'Let's see if we can't get at least an approximation by the end of the 
day.' 
'If we do, we probably won't get anything else done today.' 
'I'm not sure there's anything more important. I want those numbers, 
and the Joint Chiefs want every bit of improved performance that we 
can give them.' 
'How long do you think we can hold back before we give them 
anything?' 
Brohier looked at Horton with surprise. 'I had assumed that you'd 
already reported. Why do you want to hold this back?' 
'To give the rest of the world some time to start catching up,' Horton 
said, confounded by Brohier's surprise. 'Even with the plans, it's 
going to take months for anyone else to start producing Triggers.' 
'I see. You're talking about our friend - the insurance policy.' 
'Of course I am. Karl, I thought we'd already settled this. With this 
Mark n, the Pentagon gets the best of both worlds. They can keep the 
weapons they have, and take everyone else's away. Which is why I 
assumed that you'd already given our friend the go-ahead.' 
'What? No - oh, no. I really don't think that's necessary,' Brohier said. 
'Look at the progress they're making on demining -tremendous 
progress, in just weeks, with only a handful of units out there, and 
more coming all the time. I don't think we're going to need that 
disaster insurance, Jeffrey. I think we're right where we hoped we'd 
be.' 
Then you and I must have been hoping for different things,' Horton 
said. I wasn't planning on giving the government a way of taking 
everyone else's guns and keeping their own.' 
'Jeffrey, what do we gain if we disarm the police, the armed forces - 
handcuff the President - chaos, son, nothing but chaos. This needs to 
be handled carefully - deliberately. It needs to be coordinated - 
orderly -' 
'All under one roof.' 
'Exactly. I trust Mark Breland,' Brohier said. 'I trust Roland Stepak. 
They're good men, Jeffrey. They want what we want.' 

'What about Grover Wilman?' 
Brohier shrugged with his hands. 'He's an extremist - an ideologue. 
What he wants is unrealistic. Global disarmament would just mean 
chaos - kindergarten without a teacher.' 
'Someone needs to be able to enforce order.' 
'Yes. Because human beings want that. We need limits. We respond 
to authority. Humane discipline -' 
'And if one kid is hurting another kid with a toy -' 
'You take the toy away. You do understand, then.' 
'Not in the least,' said Horton. 'I didn't hear any of this before you 
went to Washington with Aron. I didn't hear anything like this when 
you came out here and told me about your contingency plans.' 
That was a mistake on my part. But it'll be corrected.' 
'"Corrected"? Who's been talking to you, Karl? Whose words are 
these?' 
'Now, Jeffrey -' 
'You say you trust Breland and Stepak - fine. What if, in two years 
from now, it's another Nixon and Haldeman instead? Or one of the 
rabid dogs from the Hill? Do you really think it can't happen here? 
We weren't supposed to rig the game for our side, Karl - we were 
supposed to referee it. Same rules for everyone, remember? What 
happened?' 
'I've been made aware of - certain issues we overlooked in our 
enthusiasm.' 
'What do you mean?' 
The kinds of enemies we face. The real evil that threatens us. People 
you've never heard of. Stories that don't make the newswires.' 
Grimacing, he shook his head. 'Things I wish I didn't know.' 
'Made aware by whom?' 
'I had visitors in Princeton. General Stepak came up to talk to me, 
along with a colonel from Army Research.' 
'Why did he do that?' 
'I - they were interested in my progress. And Stepak wanted to 

introduce me to Colonel Weiss, because he'd just assigned him as a 
liaison to the project.' 
They didn't say anything about security?' 
'Well - the General did ask for some reassurance about how much I 
was sharing with my peers at the Institute.' 
'Because they've been worried about Wilman. They probably figured 
that they could get you to think you were doing the right thing by 
telling them what you knew about his intentions.' 
'Now, I'm certain they have better sources of information on the 
Senator and his activities than me,' Brohier demurred. 
'But you did talk about him.' 
Brohier was beginning to lose his equanimity, and his tone became 
defensive. 'It ended up being rather a long conversation. We went 
through two pots of coffee.' 
'Come on, Karl - think it through. They wondered about the research 
archive. They wanted to know how many there really were, who had 
them. Am I right?' 
'No - no. The colonel gave me a number I could use if I discovered a 
breach of security,' Brohier said slowly. 'It was an afterthought - they 
were ready to leave -' 
'Until you told them Wilman has one. You did, didn't you? That was 
your "correction".' 
'If you had heard what I heard -' 
'Did they ask about Gordie?' 
'No,' Brohier said. 'God help me, Jeffrey, I told them about him on 
my own.' 
Horton slammed the table sharply with his open hand, startling diners 
at several other tables. For a painfully long moment, his anger would 
not allow him to even look at Brohier. 
'Jeffrey - you have to understand -' 
'Don't ask me for that now,' Horton said curtly. 'When was this 
"conversation"?' 
'Perhaps a week ago - let me see, it was a Tuesday -' 
'Son of a bitch.' Horton rubbed his eyes vigorously, then threw back 

his chair and stood up. 
'Where are you going?' 
'Maybe they haven't grabbed him yet. Maybe they're holding off until 
they're sure they can grab every copy of the archive at the same time.' 
'You're going to contact him?' 
'I'm going to try. If you have a problem with that, I guess you'd better 
call Colonel Weiss and turn me in, too.' 
'No - no. Go. Do it now. Jeffrey, I'm sorry -' 
The older man's distress was so naked and palpable that Horton's hard 
feelings toward him unexpectedly softened. They've studied us pretty 
well, it seems,' Horton said gruffly. 'I guess I'm about to find out just 
how well.' 
Neither Jeffrey Horton's personal data carrier nor the Annex's 
corporate carrier would complete a call to Gordon Greene's number. 
The former reported that Greene was off net, and volunteered to 
forward a voicemail message when he reactivated his service. The 
latter reported that Greene's number was not a valid account. 
Horton did not believe either story, and tried two a la carte gypsy 
carriers - and heard two other variations. One baldly pretended to be 
Greene's answering machine, though the voice wasn't even close. 
The other - the Libertarian-owned ComFree - straightforwardly 
advised Horton that 'a state or Federal law-enforcement agency has 
issued an Article 209 block-and-trace order for this subscriber's 
account.' Horton vaguely remembered that Article 209 had been 
added to FCC rules as a tool for rooting out digital pornography. 'We 
at ComFree believe that Article 209 is unconstitutional. We object to 
this oppressive intrusion on free and private communication, and urge 
you to add your voice to the Free Speech campaign. To download an 
intelligent mailing list, press the Yes key -' 
'I guess you won't need to give 'em my name after all, Karl,' Horton 
muttered to himself as he broke the connection. 
There was one other option, though it did not offer Horton the 
certainty of knowing that he had been successful. Anticipating the 
possibility of being cut off, Greene had provided Brohier with a short 

list of aliases, a code phrase, a verification key, and a short primer on 
sending anonymous mail. 
'If I have to vanish myself, these are the accounts I'll be checking - all 
international, so they should be untouchable.' 
It did not take long to get the messages ready to go - Horton had set 
up a secure file in his personal communicator the same night Brohier 
had given him the information. But when the moment came, Horton 
hesitated. If Gordie was already in custody, if Army Intelligence had 
already gone through his files and records, all Horton would be doing 
by sending the activation was implicating himself. Trying to call 
Greene was a completely innocent act. Issuing him marching orders, 
however - 
"The hell with it,' Horton said aloud, pressing a key. 'Come on and 
arrest me. It's my patent, goddammit - and I'll give it away if I want 
to.' 
The isolation of Dr Gordon Greene from his net resources was nearly 
complete at the moment Horton sent his alert. Three of Greene's five 
alias accounts had been discovered through a search of payment 
records, and a fourth had been found through a National Security 
Agency penetration of a poorly-protected server in Santiago. Every 
outgoing message was being monitored; every incoming message 
was being filtered or spoofed in real time by an NSA traffic 
simulator. 
Greene was aware of none of this, any more than he was aware that 
he was also being watched from the apartment above and followed 
when he left the complex. 
For the moment, he still had his freedom, and his weekly routine took 
him all over the city. Regular stops included the Ohio State 
University library with its digital stacks and netlinked carrels and a 
by-the-hour virtual teleconferencing service whose private booths 
attracted the business of clients who appreciated the discreet billing. 
He was also a familiar sight at more than a dozen other wellconnected 
but less reputable enterprises. They ranged from an 
Undemet nightclub with wide-open links to uncensored offshore 
shock sites to a CD-publishing kiosk in Worthington that was 
agreeably casual about the copyright status of the data it was burning. 

All of those could be explained either by Greene's lifestyle or the 
contract consultancy work he had been doing since leaving Terabyte. 
But each of them also gave him an opportunity to poll his aliases via 
a third-party account, an opportunity he made sure to avail himself of 
once a day. 
Gordon picked up the message from Jeffrey Horton at a coffee-andcrullers 
franchise cafe called Hot Bytes, where every tabletop had a 
large supertwist LCD built into it - an old technology, but one that 
made it difficult for anyone to read over your shoulder as you sipped 
and surfed. He did not know who had actually sent the message, or 
that it was the sole survivor of five that had started the journey 
together. 
But the names it bore - names he himself had chosen - foreshadowed 
its contents. The sender's name was Pandora. And it was addressed to 
one Michael Armstrong - the name of a character in an ancient spy 
movie, that of an American physicist who was both a defector and a 
double agent. 
The body of the message consisted of two words, both the title of that 
film and an assessment of where things stood. 
It read, Torn Curtain. 
It meant. Publish the archive without delay. 
His face offering no hint of the turmoil in his gut, Greene did so 
without hesitation or wasted motion. Linking his personal communicator 
to the cafe's open ports, he used the Armstrong account to 
activate his failsafes and rogue publishing agents. When some of the 
expected acknowledgements did not appear, he weighed his options, 
then re-sent the activation commands through another alias account. 
Insurance, Greene thought, though he knew the price for it might be 
high. 
Then he headed toward home, which was barely ten minutes away, to 
collect an already-packed bag and then vanish from Columbus. 
It was a mistake, though he realized that too late. He should have left 
without the bag, or taken it on his errands with him, and to hell with 
appearances. But he did not, and they were waiting for him. He was 
intercepted on the sidewalk outside his apartment by four men in 
civilian clothes but with Army Intelligence identification cards. 
Moments later an olive-drab van pulled up at the curb beside them. 

Greene did not try to flee or resist - there was no point. All of his 
personal ambitions, already barely sustained against his pessimism, 
had vanished the moment he received Pandora's message. He asked 
but one question as they took him into custody - 'How did I do?' 
'Not so good,' one of the intelligence officers said with cheerful 
arrogance. 
After that, Greene had nothing to say. There was no point in arguing 
with the drones. If and when he found himself face to face with their 
masters, then he would speak his mind. 
In the back of a black limousine headed uptown to the United 
Nations, President Mark Breland asked much the same question of 
General Stepak. But Breland received a more thorough - and honest - 
answer. 
'Eleven minutes and change from the time Greene issues his 
marching orders to the time our counterattack begins. In that eleven 
minutes, he managed to spawn more than six thousand copies of the 
archive - pretty good work, given the size of it. He apparently thought 
ahead and found big pipes and fast pumps. The distribution was 
scattershot - e-mail, preprint servers, news servers, FTP. A little of 
everything.' 'How many of the six thousand have been purged?' 
Stepak glanced down at the screen of his communicator. 'Not quite all 
of them,' he said. 'Cancels took out all the public ones, and the NS A 
is sitting hard on the afterchatter - there won't be any 
"Please repost" and "What happened to -" messages. But they're still 
working on a few dozen hard-to-reach traceables - I think all of the 
copies still outstanding went to dial-up mail accounts, most of them 
offshore.' He saw Breland's frown, and added, The rest of the world 
doesn't live online quite as much as this country does. An 
inconvenience.' 
'So the NSA has to wait for the next time those people connect to 
make a try at burning that file.' 
'Yes. And we really should make a personal visit to each of them to 
make sure those copies don't have copies. That'll take a National 
Security Directive from your desk.' 
'Draw it up,' Breland said. 'Is that the extent of the damage?' 

'No. There were about thirty hits on the preprint server at Physics 
Today before we closed it down -' 
Thirty? In eleven minutes? Is it always that hot a site?' 
'No. It looks like Greene passed the word in advance to some friends 
that they should keep an eye on that server. He may have done the 
same with all of the public copies.' He shook his head. 'Mr President, 
the section chief is telling me that even when they get finished going 
through the transaction logs of every machine along the line, they 
can't guarantee that there aren't thousands of private copies, off net, 
out of reach.' 
'How is that possible?' 
Stepak shrugged. The information-wants-to-be-free generation hasn't 
quite died off yet. Some anonymous servers really are - they throw 
away the transaction data. Greene used several of them. But the 
section chief promises me that they can keep this thing from moving 
over the net from now on - proactive is more efficient than reactive.' 
Breland reached for his glass. 'Of course, the longer we do that, the 
more obvious it'll be that we're doing it - people are going to notice 
that their messages don't show up, that their mail doesn't get through.' 
'Yes,' Stepak admitted. 'And anything we try to do about that just 
makes it all snowball even faster. Besides which, it can still move 
hand-to-hand, and we won't see that at all.' 
'Perils of a free society,' Breland said. 'All we can do is what we can 
do. Let's make sure everyone remembers where the line is, and which 
side of it we work on. Send the section chief a copy of the Bill of 
Rights.' 
'Mr President, this is an extremely serious situation -' 
'General, I hope you don't expect me to start locking people up over 
this.' 
'Not even Dr Greene?' 
'What does it accomplish?' 
'If we make an example of him, we might not need to detain very 
many others. A knock at the door - two FBI agents explain that 
certain classified material has been stolen and placed on the net in a 
virus by a man now under arrest, facing serious charges - and would 

they cooperate by allowing our technician to search their computers 
for this virus -' 
'You're talking about knocking on tens of thousands of doors. Do we 
have the manpower? Is it even worth the effort?' 
'I think I can give you a reason why it is. The archive Greene put out 
isn't the same as the original we got from Brohier.' 
'What do you mean? How was it different?' 
The distinctive architecture of the United Nations was now visible 
ahead of the limousine. Somewhere inside it, the Secretary General 
was preparing to present Breland with a humanitarian award for his 
spectacularly successful demining campaign. 
'Greene's been adding to it. More than three hundred pages of ideas 
about how to modify the Mark I design - what to do to make it more 
powerful, more efficient, more compact,' Stepak said, his voice 
conveying his alarm. 'He's provided complete CADCAM drawings 
for a medium-power unit that would fit in the trunk of this car. He 
talks about avenues of research that he thinks might lead to a suitcasesized 
mass-production version. All of this could be extremely 
destabilizing.' 
'It probably will be, General. And sooner rather than later. The veil is 
getting a bit tattered. We're going to have to go public soon. I think 
it's time to start deciding how we want to handle that.' 
'And in the meantime -' 
'Let the NSA pull as many weeds as it can.' He sighed. 'Is there solid 
law to support Greene's detention?' 
The Espionage Act of 1917 is still in force, and clearly pertains.' 
'How long can you hold him without charging him?' 
'Ah - I'll have to confirm this with the Attorney General, but I believe 
it's thirty days. Why does it matter, sir? There's more than enough 
evidence to not only indict, but convict.' 
'I'm not going to let someone face the death penalty for trying to 
reveal a secret that I'm going to turn around and reveal myself a few 
weeks later. That's an awfully high price for simply beating me to the 
punch,' Breland said as the limousine turned into the UN's west 
entrance. 

'But, Mr President -' 
'Besides,' Breland went on, 'from the sound of it, what we really want 
is to have this man back on the team, working for us. So here it is, 
General - the FBI has thirty days to use Greene as a stick to beat the 
bushes - what will that be, March 19? I'll schedule an address to 
Congress for that morning - and that afternoon, Greene goes free. 
Tell him that, and see that he's treated civilly in the interim. No, don't 
argue with me about this - just see it done.' 
'Yes, sir. What do you want to do about the Terabyte people?' 
'I'll take care of it when we're done here.' 
They have to be involved,' Stepak said. 'Brohier was vague to the 
point of deception about how Greene got his copy of the project 
archive, and Horton sent Greene a coded warning that apparently 
precipitated the release. It's clearly a conspiracy to commit treason.' 
'You'd like to see all three of them charged.' 
Stepak nodded. 'Absolutely. Sir, it doesn't matter if what a traitor 
gives the enemy is something the enemy could have eventually gotten 
on his own. They should be removed from the project at once and put 
away where they can't do any further damage.' 
The limousine eased to a stop at the curb, and Breland raised a hand 
to prevent the Secret Service agent on the sidewalk from opening the 
door. 'That isn't going to happen, General. Let me be absolutely clear 
about this - the Trigger is no longer a secret. We will deal with that 
reality. I never intended for it to be a secret forever.' 
'But allowing these people to give it away willy-nilly -' 
'Try to understand: I don't need, we don't want, and you can't sustain 
a technological hegemony. It's completely proper for us to share what 
we know. It's necessary, if the Trigger is to fulfill its potential. And 
there's precedent. You may not be aware - I wasn't, before some 
recent reading - that our government went public with a detailed 
report on atomic weapons just days after the Japanese surrender.' 
The situations are hardly analogous, Mr President.' 
'No, they aren't,' Breland agreed. 'The Trigger is a defensive weapon 
that only threatens armed attackers. General, the interests of our 
people and the world's peoples are best served by allowing the 
Trigger's proliferation - not by seeking its suppression. It's inhumane 

and immoral to continue to withhold it.' 
'As an ideal, in an ideal world, yes, but we have to be practical -' 
'Now, General - we've had nearly a year to try to make certain that 
we're not surprised by this nor placed at a disadvantage. How many 
people who might have been saved were sacrificed as the price of our 
caution? It's not only that we can't help Chechnya protect itself 
against Russia, or India against Kashmir - keeping this a secret means 
we can't do half of what's possible to protect our own people. 
'So who are we serving by holding back? Obviously, ourselves. Our 
jobs, our reputations, our attachment to our ability to project force 
anywhere at any time.' Breland shook his head. 'General, the fact is, I 
feel like a fraud, coming here today to accept their praise, knowing 
that what we've done is only the hundredth part of what we could 
have done. Have you read Gil Elliot - The Twentieth Century Book of 
the Dead? A hundred and ten million killed by the machinery and the 
privations of war. We can do better. We will do better, if I have any 
say in it.' 
'I understand, Mr President.' 
'I sincerely hope so, General.' He signaled, and the limousine's door 
was opened from outside. Before he climbed out, he leaned closer to 
Stepak and added, 'Because if men like you aren't ready for the 
twenty-first century, it may not get here until the twenty-second.' 
There were no happy faces among the quartet squeezed into the paint 
trailer. Brohier looked positively dyspeptic; Horton still wore hard 
lines of anger around his mouth. Thayer's features conveyed a faraway 
sadness, while Val Bowden's face had not yet lost the wideeyed 
pole-axed surprise that had settled there as he learned the 
unsuspected secrets of his employment. 
It had not been a long argument, but it had been a draining one all the 
same. Horton had spoken first, and set out his unwavering position: 
'We can't give the government the Mark II - not today, not ever. We 
have to tear down the test unit and destroy every record of yesterday's 
tests - and quickly. If we don't move fast enough, we'll lose the 
opportunity. And anyone and everyone who knows enough about the 
operating principle of the Two to recreate it - most especially the four 
of us - has to swear to whatever god they fear most that they'll never 

hand it over to these people.' 
To his surprise, it was Lee who had opposed him most strongly. 
There are too many people on site who know pieces of the puzzle 
- there were five hundred witnesses the other night,' she had said. 
'What we should be doing instead is backing up Gordie. The Annex 
must have a thousand different links to the outside. We should use 
them while we have them, and keep using them until we're 
completely frozen out. We need more weight, not more secrets 
- we need Senator Wilman on the late news, and Dr Brohier on the 
early news.' 
But no one else thought they could mount such a campaign quickly 
enough to make a difference. Horton eventually won over Thayer 
with the indisputable fact that his plan required none of the outside 
cooperation that hers did. 
'We can see this through on our own,' he said. 'It's all right here on 
our turf, within our reach.' When he added a promise that her 
proposal would be his second priority, she acquiesced. 
But when they emerged from the trailer, they were hailed almost 
immediately. 'Dr Brohier! Dr Horton! Stay right there, please.' It was 
The Tailor, one of the signal shack's out-of-uniform Army officers, 
running across the Annex's west lot toward them. 'Call off the 
hounds, Lieutenant - I've found them all,' he said into a collar mic as 
he closed with them. 
'What's all the excitement, son?' Brohier asked, stepping forward to 
meet him. 
'We've been paging you and looking everywhere for you for the 
better part of an hour, sir,' said The Tailor, panting and perspiring 
freely. 'You have a call, at the signal shack.' 
'Who does?' 
He pointed at three of them in turn. 'Dr Brohier, Dr Horton, and Dr 
Thayer. Sorry, Dr Bowman - the President didn't mention you.' 
'The President?' asked Horton. 
'Yes, sir. He's been holding while we look for you. If I could ask you 
to come quickly -' 
The glances that the quartet exchanged among themselves ranged 

from skeptical to apprehensive. 'Pass the word that we'll be right 
along,' Brohier said, manufacturing a polite smile. 'All four of us.' 
Four was more of a crowd in the booth than it had been in the paint 
trailer, and the back row was still jockeying for a comfortable 
position when the signal unscrambled and Mark Breland appeared in 
front of them, seated at his Oval Office desk. 
'Good afternoon. Doctors -' 
Before Breland could complete the greeting, Brohier interrupted him. 
'Where is Dr Greene? Is he in Federal custody?' 
Breland blinked in surprise, then laughed lightly and shook his head. 
'Very well,' he said. 'First things first.' He looked up, past the camera, 
and said, 'Doctor?' before vacating his chair. 
A few moments later, Gordon Greene sat down in his place. 
He was wearing his familiar bemused grin, and looking off to the 
right. 'Say - what's the going rate for a chance to plant cheek behind 
the big desk? Five-thousand-dollar donation to the party?' Then he 
looked into the camera lens. 'Would somebody please screen-capture 
this? My parents will want to hang it on the dining-room wall.' He 
looked off to the right again. 'Can I get the Prez in this shot?' 
In the distance, Breland laughed. 
Lee fought through her surprise first. 'Gordie, are you all right?' 
'I'm fine now,' he said. 'Missed you.' 
'What are you doing there?' 
Greene sent an inquiring glance off to the right, and they heard 
Breland's voice answer it. 'Go ahead - tell them.' 
'Okay,' he said. 'Consulting. Going to want to get you in on it, too. 
The Trigger goes public in a month, and the folks here seem pretty 
serious about wanting to show it off properly.' He leaned back in the 
big chair, hands folded over his abdomen. 'I think everything's going 
to be all right, gang. Even if I can't quite believe I said that.' 
19: Guaranty 

Bonn, Germany - Investigators are still searching for explanations in 
the wake of Tuesday's suicide bombing aboard a Berlin-Bonn highspeed 
monorail train. Chilling security camera images showed a 
young man in a business suit shouting hate slogans to the half-filled 
carriage moments before the blast, which killed twenty-two 
commuters and destroyed a thirty-meter section of the southbound 
track. This is not supposed to happen here,' said a DeutschRail 
official. Complete Story Casualty List Blast Video 
Getting There: Trains Rolling, But Schedule Cut 
Given that the well-connected could choose among more than a 
thousand licensed feeds of round-the-clock news, commerce and 
entertainment, plus a cornucopia of nearly 60,000 unregulated 
Undemet channels, it was a challenge for anyone, even the President 
of the United States, to get the simultaneous attention of more than a 
few percent of the populace. 
To be sure, not everyone who could call themselves American 
qualified as 'well-connected'. 
A few percent simply did not care to be. Some of that number 
actively campaigned against what they called 'netmind', which Pull 
The Plug founder Michael Adamson defined as 'that state of electrodein-
the-monkey-brain masturbatory overstimulation which elevates 
amusement over all else - in particular, ambition and achievement.' 
But most of the dissenters simply withdrew to one of the small 
wireless villages of the Welcomer movement. There, only analogue 
communications technology was allowed -and that principally to 
maintain contact between the scattered villages, and to see that Earth 
continued broadcasting to the stars. 
For one family in seven, the elementary net services included with a 
basic household telecommunications account were either all they 
could afford or all they cared to master. News 1, News 2, Talk 1, 
Talk 2, Arts 1, FedFacts, NetSearch, NetTeach, NetAgent, and 
MultiMail put the basic elements of interactivity in the living rooms 
of the two flavors of underclass that had resisted eradication - one 
economic, the other intellectual. Ironically, it was the very paucity of 
their options which made these people the easiest to reach. They were 
the principal receivers of cablecasting, passive sponges for the 
advertiser-supported feeds. 

But premium connectivity was an investment middle class families 
budgeted for, upper class families took for granted, and every model 
of enlightened education depended on. Net literacy made them 
participants rather than spectators, and opened the doors of digital 
and virtual libraries around the globe. It also fragmented the audience 
into a billion pieces, leaving very few of them passively taking an 
unaltered feed in real time. 
No media event of the new millennium had yet commanded as much 
as a fifty percent share of the connected audience. The last event to 
attract even a ten percent share of the online audience was the World 
Cup final between Scotland and the United States, three years ago - a 
thirty share, the Santa Rosa earthquake that dropped the north span of 
the Golden Gate eight years earlier. 
Even knowing the difficulties, Mark Breland wanted better than that 
for his address to the nation, and he pressed his staff hard to make it 
happen. 
'This is something people should hear first-hand, unedited -families 
listening together, the whole sports bar watching, every screen in the 
electronics emporium carrying the same feed. Like Roosevelt's 
fireside chats and the landing on the moon,' Breland said. 'I want a 
chance to talk to everyone directly, so they first hear about this from 
my lips, and not from some predigested and regurgitated second-hand 
abstract.' 
'You can't change people's habits,' Chief of Staff Richard Nolby said 
dismissively. 'People won't put their lives on hold to sit and watch a 
talking head. Even a three-dimensional talking head in a virtual oneon-
one. As soon as they try to ask a question, they'll know it's a 
lecture, not a conversation. No, I think we'll be doing well to get a 
fourteen share - getting the four top entertainment licensees to agree 
to carry the speech was a breakthrough. And I think we can still get 
Financial Newswire and WorldMarket to window your speech on the 
ticker feed, which would push us up over sixteen.' 
'It's not enough,' Breland said. 
'Our saturation advertising doesn't start for another hour, and will 
build right up to the opening gavel,' said Aimee Rochet, the director 
of public relations. 'I still think we have a chance at twenty. And the 
post-event propagation will be very extensive - I'm modeling it with 

the Accelerated algorithms, which means seventy percent event 
awareness within three days.' 
'I want seventy percent by the closing gavel,' said Breland. 'By 
tomorrow, I'm going to be either a hero or a villain to millions of 
people who haven't given me a second thought since the election. I 
want a chance to win over as many of them as possible -I want them 
to remember where they were when they heard about this. It has to be 
the number one topic of conversation in bedrooms and chat rooms 
overnight and on the trains in the morning.' 
'You're asking for mass media numbers, and there are no mass media 
anymore,' protested Rochet. It's all narrow casting and interactivity.' 
'Don't the licensees have any contractual obligations in the area of 
civic service? Isn't there any way to make them carry the speech?' 
There's the Emergency Broadcast System,' said General Stepak. 'It's 
never been used to stream real-time multimedia on that scale, though - 
test announcements are text and audio only. If we flag this for EBS, 
we might end up choking everything off.' 
'That would be a disaster,' Rochet said quickly. 'Zero share watching, 
one hundred share annoyed.' 
'Can you do a small-scale test this afternoon?' Breland asked, looking 
at Tettlebaum, the science advisor. 
Tettlebaum was momentarily startled to find a question directed at 
him. 'We could, Mr President. But a small-scale test won't tell us 
anything. The scale is the potential for trouble.' 
Breland grunted his dissatisfaction and turned back to the others. 
'Other than this immeasurable possibility, where's the downside of 
invoking the EBS? Why haven't we talked about this before?' 
'Even a successful BBS broadcast will annoy millions,' said Rochet. 
The Undernet community hates having its servers frozen for any 
reason at any time. They barely tolerate thirty-second tests - a twentyminute 
speech will have them organizing for impeachment, if not 
revolution.' 
'Forty-five minutes,' Breland corrected. 'Maybe a little more.' 
Rochet winced. 'Are you serious, sir?' 
'Why shouldn't I be?' 

'Why - Mr President, I can promise you fourteen, maybe sixteen, at 
the opening. But if you run on for forty-five minutes, you'll be lucky 
to hold a five share through to the end. And you will not get the kind 
of next-day numbers you want. Moreover, if you start in the negative, 
you will never turn it back to the positive. That's just expecting too 
much from people.' 
'On the contrary -I don't think you expect enough from them,' Breland 
answered. 'I also don't think you understand the stakes - and I accept 
responsibility for that. You're planning to watch tonight?' 
'Of course, Mr President.' 
'Good. Someone tell me this: do we pay licensees for their loss of 
revenue when they carry the State of the Union address?' 
'No. Which is why you can't get anyone with an entertainment license 
to carry it,' said Rochet. 
'Are we paying DreamWorks and Sony-Fox and Alliance to carry me 
tonight?' 
'Yes, sir.' 
'Then let's pay them all,' Breland said. 'Notify the licensees that we'll 
be invoking the BBS for one hour beginning at nine-thirty tonight. 
Advise them that if they keep their systems up and the feed 
uninterrupted, we'll reimburse them their usual revenues -plus a 
twenty percent bonus - for technical services. The channels that 
already agreed get a fifty percent bonus.' 
'Are we dropping the ad campaign, then?' Rochet asked. 
'Absolutely not. All the EBS can do is put me on their screens. You 
still need to put them in the seats,' said Breland. 'As for the Undernet, 
start getting the word out now that we're going to need their 
bandwidth for a while this evening. A properly worded advance 
warning should mute at least some of the indignation. 
And we need to be sure to invite them to come over to the other side - 
we can drop some heavy-handed hints about the Trigger and the 
Greene letter without naming either.' 
The director of public relations was looking nonplussed. Breland had 
always been a difficult client, but even he rarely rejected her advice 
this completely. 'Sir - meaning no disrespect, but are you sure that 
this address can carry the weight of the expectations you're trying to 

create?' she asked. 'Wouldn't it be better to go at this a little more 
slowly, target the most sympathetic audiences first, and then use them 
to pull the bandwagon down Main Street?' 
Breland had written his address himself, and Rochet was not among 
the very few who had seen even part of it. But if she was trying to 
win herself a preview, she failed miserably. 
'You don't need to concern yourself with that,' said the President. 
'Making the pitch is my job. You deliver their eyes and ears. It's up to 
me to deliver their hearts and minds.' He smiled and shrugged with a 
studied nonchalance. 'And if I can't, maybe I don't belong here. Now, 
get to it - you have just about twelve hours left before we start finding 
out.' 
Mark Breland had debated with himself for days, trying to decide on 
the best setting for his announcement. Should it be an address to 
Congress from the podium of the Senate chamber, with the pomp and 
formal setting of a joint session? That added the unpredictability of a 
live audience - 539 men and women who owed him little, and from 
whom he would be asking much. 
Should it be from the Oval Office, which evoked just as much 
authority but closed the distance to the width of the big desk? Some 
of his predecessors had used that illusion of intimacy to their 
advantage, but others had lost stature in trying, making themselves 
seem ordinary - or, worse, petty and pathetic. 
There were other options, of course. Breland considered several 
seriously, including originating the 'cast from a hospital emergency 
room, the front steps of a police station, the streets of the District of 
Columbia, a firing range at Fort Knox, a studio with a small 'town 
hall' audience, and a schoolroom full of children. On Nolby's 
prompting. Technical Services offered to give the address the full 
film-school FX treatment, dropping Breland into as many digital 
landscapes as he needed to make his points. 
In the end, he settled on the Senate chamber - in part because it was 
the most High Church of all his options, but primarily because he 
knew that the likelihood was that his toughest audience would be 
right there in the room with him. But standing behind that high 
podium and looking out at their faces as the obligatory applause 

faded and they settled into their seats, he wondered if he had made 
the right choice. 
Speak through the camera, don't make a speech at it - 
'"We hold these truths to be self-evident - that all men are endowed 
by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 
'You all recognize the words. These are the ideals of the American 
experiment, the ideals of the Founders of this nation, the promises 
that America has always held out to its citizens and to the world -life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 
'But none of those ideals can be met, none of those promises can be 
kept, if we do not have the essential prerequisite of security. 
'This is why one of the great common themes of human life 
everywhere is the hunger for security. This hunger is expressed in 
many aspects of our lives - we pursue the security of our nation, the 
security of our homes, the security of our children, security in our 
jobs, security in our relationships. 
'Each of us may define this blessing differently. Some of us may need 
more of it, and others less. But rare is the human being who has 
deliberately arranged his life so as to refuse it completely. 
'Because if we do not have that security, we live in fear. We fear for 
ourselves, and for those we love. We fear loss, and suffering, and 
death. 
'But what we call security is not just the absence of fear - it's the 
antidote to fear. It's the confidence that allows us to set aside our 
darkest thoughts and embrace our brightest hopes. It's the prospect of 
a tomorrow worth looking forward to. It's the key that opens the door 
to the endless possibilities of our lives. It guarantees nothing - but it 
allows for everything that matters. 
There can be no "good life" unless we satisfy this first and most 
primal need - to know that, at least in that moment, we are safe. All 
of the best things we humans are capable of - music, art, literature, 
athletic achievement, philosophy, invention, charity - take place in 
the sheltered spaces we create. 
'We are in such sheltered spaces at this very moment. None of us 
would be here in the Senate if we felt threatened by being here. None 

of you would be watching if a stranger was rattling your front door, 
or there was the smell of natural gas in the room. 
'But our sense of security is a subjective state of mind. It is less a 
matter of being safe than of feeling safe. We feel secure here, but 
there could be a terrorist bomb secreted under someone's seat, its 
timer ticking away. You feel secure where you are, but there could be 
someone skulking outside, figuring out how best to get at you. 
'The interesting thing is the way that even just saying such things 
alters our perceptions for a moment. Did you think about reaching 
under your seat, or listen for the ticking? Did you think about going 
to make sure the front door's locked, or draw a deep breath to sniff 
the air? 
'I'm sure that many of you did. We react to the mere mention of a 
possible threat as if it were a threat. We reevaluate our security 
constantly, just as we do when driving in heavy traffic on the 
freeway. We try to stay within a personal comfort zone - not too fast, 
not too slow, not too close. In like fashion, we try to live in a personal 
comfort zone. 
'But consider this - if you stood up right now and went outside to the 
street, picked a direction at random and started walking - alone, and 
dressed just as you are now - how many blocks would you have to go 
before you began to lose that sense of security, before you began to 
feel anxious, uncomfortable, afraid? Do we know what's out there? 
Do we know if we're in danger? Uncertainty is the enemy of security. 
'Two tragic miscalculations are possible. One is to believe yourself in 
danger when you are safe. The other is to believe yourself safe when 
you are in danger. 
'As a nation, we are haunted by both. 
'More than any other people at any other time, we Americans have 
tried to find security through the gun. Our guns make us feel 
powerful. They make us feel safe. Or do they?' 
There was a small stir at the right side of the chamber as a door 
opened and a man entered. The stir grew quickly to commotion as 
more and more of the audience noticed the hunter orange vest he was 
wearing, and the carbine he was carrying in front of him. Angry 
shouts of protest and calls for the sergeant-at-arms could be heard as 
the man climbed the steps to the lower level of the dais and 

approached Breland. 
One stride short of the podium, the gunman stopped and raised the 
carbine to his shoulder, pointing it directly at Breland's head. There 
was a collective gasp, and then an anxious hush settled over the 
chamber as the cameras locked on the bizarre tableau. 
'It only takes one gun in this room to change the perceptions of all 
five hundred and forty of us,' Breland said. 'It only takes one gun to 
shatter our illusion of security. What you see before you is the 
equation of fear - the unarmed, helpless before the armed. And for all 
of our history, there has only been one way to balance that equation.' 
Reaching behind his back, Breland found the military 9mm automatic 
tucked in a belt holster and drew it. 
'What the hell!' someone exclaimed from the upper dais - it sounded 
like the Speaker of the House, Breland thought. 
He raised his right arm and pointed the pistol at the gunman's face. 
The chamber erupted again in surprise and consternation. 
'You can see the answer for yourself - the equation neatly balanced,' 
Breland said, raising his voice over the tumult. 'The only answer to a 
gun is another gun. We can build walls and lock doors, but a wall is 
only a way to hide, a lock only a way to delay. The only answer we 
have found to a gun is another gun. Mutually assured destruction, the 
same principle which we depended on through the Cold War - only 
on the smallest possible scale. Two men, two guns. Equilibrium. 
Security.' 
They were all listening now, shaken out of their complacency and 
their comfortable habits of thought by his unconventional theatrics. 
'But is this truly security?' he demanded, gesturing toward the 
weapons with his free hand. 'Do you feel as safe now as you did 
when you thought there were no guns in the room? I must tell you 
that I personally find this a more precarious peace -' 
There was a scattering of uncomfortable laughter at that, which 
Breland accepted with a smile. It strikes me that there are many more 
things that can go wrong now, and with much graver consequences. It 
seems to me that my gun does not give me back what his gun takes 
from me. 
'I will say that again - my gun does not give me back what his gun 

takes from me. At this moment, I am not as free as I was when 
neither of us was armed. I am not as safe as I was when neither of us 
was capable of killing with a twitch of the finger. 
'Would I feel any better if I knew that ten, or fifty, or a hundred of 
you were also armed? Would that make this chamber a civil society 
again? Or would it only increase the number of threats I have to 
worry about, the chances of an accident, the prospect of a 
misunderstanding?' He scanned the front row for a familiar face. 
'Senator Baines, when you were arguing the assisted suicide bill with 
Senator Kastin last month, do you think it would it have helped 
advance the dialogue if you'd both had automatic rifles handy?' 
That brought hoots and wicked laughter, for the debate over the 
Loomis-Figer bill had been the most heated and acrimonious in many 
a year. Standing at his seat, Baines called out, 'I suspect it might have 
shortened it, Mr President.' 
Not every broadcast microphone caught the comment, but they all 
caught the ensuing wave of laughter that broke the tension in the 
chamber. As it subsided, both the President and the orange-clad 
gunman lowered their weapons. 
'The truth is, it's only when we have real security that we can enjoy 
true freedom of speech. If we fear being silenced by a gun, our 
freedom is compromised. 
'It's only when we have real security that we can enjoy true freedom 
of assembly. If we fear being made a target by terrorists, our freedom 
is compromised. 
'It's only when we have real security that we can devote our energies 
to bettering ourselves and building a future. 
'Several months ago, news of a startling new invention was brought 
to me - an invention which gives us, for the first time, another answer 
to the gun raised against us. I have been obliged to consider whether 
we can be more secure - as a people, as a nation - if we put that 
invention to use. 
'After long consultation with my Cabinet and my conscience, I have 
concluded that the answer is yes.' 
He walked around the podium to the edge of the dais and laid his 
pistol down there. The gunman came forward, close on his heels, and 

laid the carbine down beside the pistol. 
'Sergeant-at-arms, please take these away,' Breland said. As the 
sergeant-at-arms started forward uncertainly from the back of the 
chamber, Breland turned to the orange-jacketed man. 'Thank you for 
your assistance, Major Imhoff.' 
Imhoff saluted smartly and left the dais. By then, the audience was 
buzzing with anticipation. Many of them had made the connection 
between his words and a month's rumors and denials. Breland could 
almost hear the whispers: The Trigger - he's talking about the 
Trigger. The Greene letter wasn't a hoax - 
'That's better,' Breland said, reclaiming the podium and the floor as 
the sergeant-at-arms collected the weapons. 'I feel better without that 
gun in my hand - and without the other one pointed at me. Because I 
don't want to live that way. I can't imagine many of you do, either. 
'I've come to realize that the security our guns give us isn't the 
genuine article. It's a deception - a shadow of the real thing. An 
armed society is not a polite society - it's a murderous, terrified 
society. Bosnia in the last century - Kashmir and Egypt in this. And 
America in both. 
'The gun is the first choice of our fearful for self-protection. It's also 
the first choice of our criminal population for forcing their will on us. 
'What choice does that leave the rest of us? We can become 
gunslingers ourselves - or refugees, fleeing from the streets, hiding in 
our homes, moving out of the war zones. 
'But either way, we can still end up a casualty. And so many have - 
too many have.' 
The enormous screen on the wall behind Breland had been displaying 
the Presidential seal. Now it changed to a digital map of the fifty-two 
states, white on a blue background, with the states outlined in black. 
Small red dots began to appear - seemingly at random, but for the fastchanging 
counter, its large numerals also red, which appeared below 
the peninsula of Florida at the same time. 
There is no solemn black marble Wall for the casualties of our uncivil 
war- their small memorials are scattered in city cemeteries and 
church graveyards from Atlantic to Pacific,' Breland said. 'But I wish 
there were such a memorial, because then I could forget all the 

statistics and simply point you to it, and ask you to walk it from one 
end to the other. By the time you were finished, you would 
understand why something must change. 
'But the memorial itself would never be finished. It would quickly 
dwarf the Vietnam Memorial. In fact, we would need to add a section 
as big as the Vietnam Memorial every single year. 
'And it has been going on that way for nearly a century - our own 
Hundred Years War. 
'Even in the worst years of that terrible Vietnam conflict, the death 
toll in the jungles and rice paddies of Southeast Asia was less than 
half the death toll in the streets and homes of America. It took fifteen 
years of combat to put the names of some fifty-eight thousand 
veterans on The Wall. In those same fifteen years, America buried 
nearly half a million civilian casualties of our home-grown war - nine 
times as many. 
'Even if we took the first day of the new millennium as the starting 
point for our Citizens Memorial, we would need a wall long enough 
to completely surround the Reflecting Pool - and the wall would have 
to be five meters high.' 
Behind Breland, the counter was still running, the dots still 
appearing. There were ugly crimson blotches now over the locations 
of the largest cities, but even the least populous state had a scattering 
of red. 
'Every year, our guns kill as many as ADDS did at its peak, more 
than our cars do, twice as many as alcohol does, four times as many 
as illegal drugs do. 
'Last year, the death count was the third highest in our history: fortysix 
thousand, three hundred forty-one.' 
Pausing, Breland turned to look up at the display as the last five 
thousand-odd victims were marked on the map. The chamber was 
absolutely hushed. He would learn later that even the newsfeed 
commentators had observed a respectful silence. 
'It would take three days just to read their names from this podium. It 
would take many months to tell you all their stories. But I can't allow 
them all to remain numbers, nameless, faceless.' He raised his hand, 
pointing a laser controller at a dot in southern Idaho. A digital zoom 

turned the dot into a photograph of an owlish-looking Caucasian 
man, with unruly blond hair and a broad grin. 
'John Carpani, age thirty-two - an award-winning teacher of English 
and the drama club sponsor at Manning Central High,' Breland said, 
and clicked his controller. A second photograph opened, to scattered 
gasps and exclamations - this one showed Carpani lying face-down in 
a parking lot, his shirt stained with the blood that was puddled 
beneath him. 'John was shot twice by a sixteen-year-old student 
named Michael Pace, who had brought his father's shotgun to school 
to kill his former girlfriend.' 
Another click, and a dot near Houston expanded into a photograph of 
a black-haired, round-cheeked Hispanic girl with a frozen gaptoothed 
smile. 'Juanita Ramirez, age five.' Another click, and they 
saw a small, still form huddled in the dirt in front of a wood-frame 
three-apartment bungalow. 'Juanita was struck by a stray police bullet 
when a high-speed chase - a carjacking - ended half a block away. 
She had been playing with her dolls in the yard, with her older 
brother watching from the porch.' 
The next click was near Los Angeles, and introduced them to a 
bespectacled Asian teen named David Chen. 'David was an honorstrack 
straight-A student at Point Reyes Preparatory Academy. One 
week after he gave the salutatorian address at his graduation, he 
tidied his room, took a .357 automatic from a locked cabinet in his 
mother's office, and committed suicide in the woods behind the 
family home.' The grisly police photo showed that half of Chen's 
head was gone. 'David left his father a note apologizing for 
disappointing him, and his mother a note apologizing for the mess.' 
The final click revealed a middle-aged black woman named Julia 
Myers. 'Julia was on her way to a ReadiMart for milk and bread when 
someone stopped her, robbed her, and then shot her through the neck. 
It took her half an hour to bleed to death on the sidewalk, unable to 
call for help. Her three children still cannot understand why anyone 
would kill her for a twenty-dollar bill. That happened only ten blocks 
from the Capitol, just two weeks ago.' 
Clicking Julia's photographs away, Breland turned back to face the 
chamber. 'I ask you to reflect again - how much security do we really 
have? An honest answer would be: not enough. Not enough by half. 

'Could the old answer have saved these people? Would more guns 
have made their worlds safer? I don't believe so, though others may 
feel differently. 
'But this I do believe, with all my heart - there are certain places that 
shouldn't have to be made into armed fortresses to be safe, certain 
places where guns are simply not welcome,' Breland said. 'Our 
schools, our churches, our streets, our public transportation, our 
courts and government offices, our homes, and, yes, even our 
legislatures - these should be sanctuaries.' 
That brought the first genuine applause of the evening - and perhaps 
because they had been holding back, it grew into a standing ovation 
which lasted more than a minute. 
'I will now confess to a small deception,' he said when they had 
satisfied themselves. 'I wasn't afraid when Major Imhoff had me in 
his sights - because I knew that his gun wasn't loaded. I knew that not 
because of his assurances, but because this building is protected by 
the invention of which I spoke - the LifeShield. 
'If Major Imhoff had tried - by accident or design - to enter the 
Capitol grounds with a loaded weapon, he would have received a 
rude surprise. The ammunition in his weapon would have been 
violently destroyed the moment it made contact with the Life-Shield's 
protective field. His weapon would have been destroyed or rendered 
unusable in the process, and he would have been lucky if he had not 
been injured himself. 
The LifeShield gives us a means to disarm a threat without taking up 
arms ourselves. The LifeShield protecting the Capitol is but one of 
nearly five hundred which are already in use at govern-ment and 
military facilities around the world. The LifeShield is also the secret 
technology behind America's humanitarian campaign to rid the world 
of land mines and the unexploded munitions of the twentieth 
century's wars. 
That is only the beginning of what we can and will do with this 
miracle of science. But I want to say something first about what we 
will not do. 
'We will not touch the Second Amendment. We will not take a single 
gun from any rightful owner. There will be no LifeShields in the 
woods - game hunters may continue to hunt as they always have. 

There will be no LifeShields in the gun clubs and on the ranges - 
sport shooters will continue to plink and pull to their heart's content. 
We will not come into your house and carry away the firearm in your 
nightstand - much as we might wish otherwise, the burden of 
personal defense remains with you. 
'But we will do everything we can to make your children safer. We 
will work to make the streets outside your homes safer. We will make 
a start at erasing this shameful stain from the fabric of American 
society. Forty thousand dead! We can do better. We must do better.' 
It would have been an applause line, but Breland did not wait for it. 
The red blots across the map of the nation had begun to fade when 
Breland first spoke the Trigger's new name. Now they vanished 
completely, and were replaced by a large and unfamiliar symbol 
superimposed over the center of the map - a stylized white dove with 
outstretched, sheltering wings on a United Nations blue circle. 
Tomorrow morning, sites which are already protected by the 
LifeShield will bear this sign prominently at every entrance. This is 
not the dove of peace - like the real bird, this dove is aggressive in the 
defense of its territory. This dove is both a warning to aggressors, and 
a protector of innocents. And she will become a familiar, and - I hope 
and believe - a welcome sight. 
This morning, I instructed the directors of the LifeShield project to 
expand the existing production facilities so that they can deliver a 
total of fifteen thousand units by the end of this year. I intend that we 
use them to keep guns and bombs out of places where they plainly do 
not belong. 
'We'll put them in urban schools, so your children and their teachers 
will have a shield against gang violence and adolescent rage. There 
will be no more massacres like the one at Henry Ford High. 
'We'll put them in post offices and courthouses and government 
buildings, so you can open your mail and conduct your business 
without fear of terrorism. There will be no more tragedies like 
Oklahoma City or Austin. 
'We'll put them in airports - in time aboard the planes themselves - so 
you can travel freely and in confidence. There will be no more Flight 
Two-Oh-Nines. 
'We're going to allocate one tenth of the production - a tithe, if you 

will - for churches and temples and synagogues, so that they may 
enjoy the protection of both god and science. There will be no repeats 
of the Beth El bombing. 
'- And by the way, the cost of these units has already been paid by a 
generous gift from an anonymous donor - not a single tax dollar will 
be diverted for this use. 
'I also have decided to give samples and the specifications for the 
LifeShield to our friends around the world - to begin with, Great 
Britain, Canada, Israel, Germany, and Japan. 
'We'll keep looking for ways to use the LifeShield here at home. 
There is no intrinsic right for anyone to carry a bomb or a firearm 
onto Federal public property, whether it's the highways and bridges 
of the Interstate system or our national parks, monuments, and 
museums. 
To support these efforts, we'll continue to expand production, until 
we reach the point where we've run out of ideas and built a surplus of 
spares. At the same time, we will mount an aggressive research 
project aimed at reducing the size and cost of the LifeShield, so that 
placements which aren't possible now become possible in the future. 
Those are some of the things we're going to do. 
'Now - here's what you can do. 
'First, you can help us think of more ways to save more lives. A 
national toll-free number and a free Web site have been set up to take 
your suggestions for public placements.' As he spoke, the routings 
appeared on the display behind him. 'We want your knowledge of 
your own neighborhoods, your passion for your families and your 
community, and your compassion for your fellow citizens to help 
guide us. 
'Second, you can ask your governors, your mayors, your legislators to 
participate in Life Assist. This is our plan to sublicense production of 
the LifeShield to state and local governments, so they can take steps 
to provide you locally with the same quality of security that we 
intend to provide in the Federal sphere. 
'Finally, beginning six months from now, some of you will be able to 
buy a LifeShield yourself from a licensed manufacturer, and use it to 
create your own sanctuary. 

'At first, sales will be limited to the owners of large multifamily 
housing, such as apartment buildings; financial institutions, such as 
banks; public accommodations, such as hotels; retail establishments, 
such as malls; and commercial properties, such as office towers. I 
want those owners to be able to offer a firearm-free environment to 
their tenants, their clients, their customers, and their employees - to 
use it in their advertising and their recruiting. Nothing will help 
spread the blessings of the LifeShield faster or farther than oldfashioned 
competitive American capitalism. 
'But we will lift that restriction as quickly as we can, and reduce the 
price as often as we can. I look forward to the day when the 
LifeShield symbol is as commonplace as an auto-club sticker or a 
credit-card logo, when a gun-free environment is no longer a saleable 
curiosity, but a basic expectation, like air conditioning or 
handicapped accessibility. 
'I want to be very clear about something - tomorrow is not the first 
day of the Utopian States of America. The LifeShield will not make 
us a more moral people, or resolve the conflicts which all too often 
explode into violence. It's not a magic wand that will erase homicide 
or suicide or stupidity or cupidity overnight. It's not a guarantee - it's 
only a tool that we can use to build a better society. We'll have to 
work hard and grow fast. We'll have to accept some compromises and 
make some adjustments in order to make that society real. 
'But they are, I believe, lesser compromises than the ones we are 
already making - think of all the places that you've become 
accustomed to metal detectors, bag searches, armed guards, and of all 
the times you've found yourself afraid. They're trivial adjustments 
beside the adjustments of the forty thousand families each year that 
are losing a father, a mother, a child, a sibling, a spouse. 
'Benjamin Franklin warned us, "They that can give up essential 
liberties to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor 
safety." The ghost of Franklin can rest easy, because the LifeShield 
defies that old equation of trading liberty for safety. We can and we 
will have more of both. That is the promise of the LifeShield, and 
that is my promise to you. 
'Thank you - and bless you all.' 
The standing ovation which followed was unprecedented in the 

history of Congress - or, at the very least, unsurpassed within the 
memories of the longest-tenured observers who witnessed it. It had 
no detectable partisan tilt, and went on for more than ten minutes, 
continuing even after Breland left the dais - whereupon he was 
immediately surrounded and nearly overwhelmed by the gladhanding 
Senate and House leadership and other front-benchers. All 
the formal etiquette of the chamber had vanished in the burst of 
enthusiasm that filled it. 
Then Senator Grover Wilman appeared from nowhere, and bent his 
shoulder to the task of clearing a path for the President. With 
Wilman's help, Breland slowly made his way up the center aisle to 
the double doors and the more practiced assistance of his Secret 
Service detail. In Breland's wake, with throngs jamming the aisles 
and the floor, the Vice President abandoned parliamentary procedure 
and unilaterally gaveled the session closed. 
Aimee Rochet and Aron Goldstein were waiting for Breland in his 
limousine. The latter was beyond words, but clasped the President's 
hand fervently with both hands and thanked him with eyes bright 
with tears. 
'That was - well, that was incredible, sir,' said Rochet, removing her 
eyescreens. The share we were guaranteed, we bought that, but the 
ratings - the numbers kept going up from start to finish, as if people 
were calling their friends and saying, "Are you watching this?" I was 
wrong, Mr President. I was wrong, and you were right.' 
Breland settled back into the cushions with an exhausted smile. I'm 
afraid it's much too early to be sure of that, Mrs Rochet. But thank 
you, all the same.' 
'I mean it sincerely,' she said, leaning forward toward the vehi-cle's 
communications center. 'Is there any particular feed you'd like to 
monitor, sir? For the reaction and analysis?' 
'Leave it off, please,' he said. 'If all they're talking about is my little 
Mexican standoff with the major, I don't want to know about it until 
tomorrow.' 
'It'll be less frothy in the morning,' she agreed. 'I'll have a real solid 
sense of how it played and where it's going by, say, ten o'clock. Can 
we meet then?' 
'Put it together. I'll be there,' the President said, and closed his eyes. 

 There was no sleep that night for most of Aimee Rochet's staff. If 
they weren't monitoring and analyzing the public dialogue, they were 
doing their best to shape it. 
Immediately after the speech, the Stand-Ups were the busiest, making 
themselves available for push interviews on the newsfeeds and snap 
debates in the virtual town halls. 
As the night wore on and the formal postmortems ended, the burden 
shifted to the Sit-Downs, who'd begun working the Undernet message 
boards and public chat rooms hours before the speech. With their 
flags of allegiance discreetly furled and their anonymity protected by 
sprites, aliases, and the NSA's best smoke and mirrors, the Sit-Downs 
seeded and highlighted the themes Rochet wanted to see emerge. 
To that end, Rochet kept tabs on an evolving list of headers, taglines, 
and catchphrases that were playing and propagating well. 'Our kids 
don't belong on battlefields' and variants headed the list, with the 
technically inaccurate 'This isn't gun control - it's bullet control' and 
the ungrammatically blunt 'dead people don't need rights and got no 
freedoms' strong early contenders. 
The observer-analysts carried the freight through the wee hours of the 
night, tabulating and classifying, watching for the crystallization 
points where discussion hardened into argument and opinions began 
to break toward both extremes. That was when the uncertainty 
collapsed - almost as though it were part of a quantum wave function - 
and the minority and majority positions became defined. 
True to her promise, by ten o'clock the next morning, Rochet had an 
extensive report prepared for Breland and the other prin-cipals at the 
meeting - Nolby, Stepak, Attorney General Doran 
Douglas, FBI Director Edgar Mills, and National Security Advisor 
Anson Tripp. 
'We have an extremely dynamic situation this morning,' she said. 
'High profile, high investment, record high deviations. Seventy 
million touches on the suggestion site - and one out of ten left a 
message.' 
'It's going to be a long, long time before we have seven million 
Triggers,' said Nolby. 

'Most of the messages aren't suggestions - they're expressions of 
support. I'm mailing each of you a summary and excerpts so you can 
see what the up side looks like. The numbers are excellent for women 
generally, married-with-children, and men over forty.' 
'And the down side?' asked Breland. 
'Something that emerged very early was a high uncertainty value 
where geopolitics were concerned. You didn't say much about 
military affairs, foreign relations - you gave them a full diet of 
domestic. But the audience included our men and women in uniform, 
our veterans, and all of their associates - people who know enough 
about military matters to ask hard questions.' 
'The same sort of questions we've been asking for the last year, I 
imagine,' said Tripp. 
'Not having been privy to those conversations, I'll leave that analysis 
to others,' said Rochet. 'But we're going to need a fast follow-up to 
speak directly to those issues -' 
'How fast?' asked Breland. 
'By the end of the day, if at all possible. And I'd recommend you 
consider someone with solid ties to the uniformed side of the 
Potomac - we want that face credibility working for us. General 
Stepak would be my suggestion, though anyone from the Joint Chiefs 
would meet the requirements.' 
'With your permission, sir, I'll get together with General Madison and 
work it out,' said Stepak, looking to Breland. 
'Fine.' 
Rochet nodded approvingly. 'I have some data you should look at. 
General - perhaps when we're done here,' she said. 'Now, we come to 
the major action points - three hard areas, and one soft one. 
The first hard area is a self-inflicted wound. You've raised public 
expectations dramatically, Mr President. You've also made them look 
at something that they don't want to see, and told them that their 
world is a nastier and more dangerous place than they previously 
cared to notice. From this point forward, we're going to be fighting to 
live up to those expectations. 
'Everything that happens will be measured against the ideals you've 
identified yourself with instead of against yesterday's realities, and 

there's a very real danger of a Gorbachev scenario -where instead of 
getting the credit for progress you get the blame when it doesn't 
happen fast enough to suit them. There's a number of things we can 
do to work on that, but it'll take a total team effort to keep every runof-
the-mill shooting from coming back on you as an accusation of 
failure.' 
'Consider me eluded,' said Breland. 'Continue.' 
'Yes, sir,' Rochet said. 'The second hard area was completely 
predictable - the Second Amendment crowd isn't buying your 
reassurances. They think you're after their guns. The most 
immoderate voices think you've sold your soul to the internationalist 
left, and that this is the opening round of the fight they've been 
expecting for fifty years - the Federal government trying to disarm 
the American people before surrendering sovereignty to the Secretary 
General of the United Nations. There's a lot of talk about mounting 
armed resistance, though there's been substantially more shouting 
than shooting so far.' 
'Has there been shooting?' 
'I'd classify the incidents we're monitoring as individual shows of 
defiance,' said the FBI Director. 'No deaths or injuries.' 
'How many incidents?' 
'Sixty-three - two-thirds of them west of the Mississippi.' 
'I wouldn't be surprised if either the moderate elements or the 
ammunition manufacturers are in court before the day's out, looking 
for an injunction against the Trigger - I mean, the Life-Shield,' said 
Attorney General Douglas. 'But we're already preparing responses to 
the anticipated grounds. I doubt that anyone'll be able to hold up the 
program for more than a week or so, if that.' 
'My biggest concern is that we keep these conspiracy theories 
contained on the fringes, where they're preaching to the converted,' 
said Rochet. 'We have to be very conscious to avoid missteps which 
might seem to give these charges any validity.' 
'Good luck,' said Mills. 'These people will believe what they want to 
believe, with or without what passes for evidence with them. Besides - 
they might be right. We might be after their guns, if the heavy 
weapons that've been disappearing from military arsenals for the last 

ten years are ending up in their hands. There's no good reason anyone 
living in Iowa or Idaho needs an antitank rocket or a SAW.' 
Breland had heard enough on that subject. The third area?' he asked 
Rochet. 
'Criminal opportunism,' she said. 'Crime rates, murder rates, might 
actually get worse rather than better in the short term, once the 
LifeShield becomes a credible threat to their ambitions.' 
'People are openly talking about this?' Breland asked. 'About running 
out and killing someone while they still can?' 
'Enough to light the storm lamps,' she said. '"Don't delay -off the 
bitch today." Saw that one myself, in a misogyny chat room.' 
'Free speech is wasted on some people,' Stepak said with open 
disgust. 
The FBI Director leaned forward and rested his crossed arms on the 
edge of the table. 'Staying on point - if I'd armed myself with some 
sort of aggression in mind - knocking off a bank, settling a score, 
whatever - I might be rushed into acting now if I thought I could lose 
my opportunity later. It's completely plausible.' 
'Use 'em or lose 'em,' said Tripp, nodding agreement. 'We could be 
looking at this in the international arena as well.' 
'How do we handle it?' asked Nolby. This is not just a matter of 
perceptions - this is a real threat.' 
'Maximum vigilance, immediate response, assured consequences,' 
said Mills. 'We beat the bad actors to the draw as early, as often, and 
as publicly as possible, until the word gets around that this just isn't a 
good time to test the system.' 
'Which might be exactly what the conspiracy fringe needs to sell their 
hokum to Mr and Mrs America,' Rochet pointed out. 'I won't presume 
to tell anyone here their business, but I can tell you that those 
newsclips of police in black combat gear breaking down doors 
doesn't help us with the public.' 
'We'll come back to this,' said Breland. 'You said there was a soft 
spot?' 
'Yes, Mr President - a big one, right in the middle. There's a lot of 
residual skepticism. You kept talking about the dragon, but in the 

end, you didn't show them a dragon, or even one good snort of fire 
from behind the rocks. They don't have to understand how the Shield 
works, but they're going to need to know that it does.' 
'Which brings us to the question of the day,' said Breland. 'Weighing 
all the factors, do we want to go ahead with the Chicago 
demonstration?' 
'It's not a demonstration to the Chicago police department,' said the 
attorney general. There've been six people killed by the Cabrini 
Green snipers, including a paramedic and a police sergeant. The 
snipers have been using the media to taunt the authorities. It's going 
to end in blood, on a live national feed, unless we give them an 
alternative.' 
I'll take that as your nonbinding recommendation in favor of 
proceeding,' said Breland. 'Let me hear from the rest of you.' 
The tally was five in favor, one - Rochet - against. 
'I'm glad to hear so much support for the option I've chosen,' said 
Breland. 'Director Mills, will you make one of the FBI's street tactical 
units available?' 
'We can have a team there in an hour,' he said, turning a faintly 
mocking gaze on Rochet. 'I'm afraid our spring fatigues aren't in yet, 
though, so we'll have to go with basic holiday black.' 
Am I the only one in this room not trying to get Breland impeached? 
Rochet wondered. 'Mr President, if we're going to do this in public, 
may I suggest that we at least do what we can to try to build a 
positive mystique around the LifeShield and its crews. Even if it 
means a delay of a day or two -' 
'It's covered, Ms Rochet,' said Breland, and smiled. 'I think you'll be 
proud of us when you see.' 
20: Publicity 
Winona, Mississippi - A small band of armed gun rights advocates 
blockaded the northbound lanes of Interstate 55 near Exit 185 for two 

hours on Wednesday, creating a 40-mile-long traffic jam. Shouting 
"Wake up, America!', the demonstrators fired rifles, shotguns, and 
pistols in the air. The LifeShield is the nose of the camel,' said 
Winona mayor Tom Mullins, who led the demonstration. The Feds 
won't stop until they've confiscated every firearm and disarmed every 
household.' State police responded to motorists' complaints, but made 
no arrests. 
Complete story Commentary: Guns & The South 
Post Commander Defends 'low-key' Handling 
Tower 11 was the last ghost of Cabrini Green - a fourteen-story 
concrete monolith rising from a desolate treeless tract of urban desert. 
A monument to misplaced public charity. Tower 11 and its nowdemolished 
neighbors had been built as Federal subsidized housing. 
They soon turned into shameful vertical ghettos, a case study in the 
tragedy of the commons, and a symbol of everything that was wrong 
with the cities of America. 
For all the misery they inflicted on their occupants, and all the 
embarrassment they represented for their creators and caretakers, the 
towers of Cabrini Green had lingered a surprisingly long time on the 
South Chicago skyline. Even after Cabrini Green was finally closed, 
boarded up, and fenced off, the stark, windowless towers stood for 
nearly another ten years as one redevelopment scheme after another 
fell through. 
Only when the city finally agreed to subdivide the parcel and the 
Federal government agreed to share in the demolition cost did the 
towers begin to come down. Tower 11 had been only a week away 
from a visit by Controlled Demolition when it was occupied by 
something calling itself the African Heritage Army, who claimed 
'moral ownership' and announced plans to turn Tower 11 into a 
museum of gang history and 'the twentieth-century nigger 
reservations.' 
Whatever official sympathy for those goals the squatters might have 
found was squandered in an afternoon. Impatient with the lack of 
se'rious attention from both the press and the polls, 23 Jordan 
Nkrumah went to the top floor of the tower and began sniping at cars 
on the nearby northbound Dan Ryan Expressway. 

An enraged amateur with a cheap Chinese-made assault rifle, 
Nkrumah had little control over what he hit at that distance. He 
simply kept firing, through half a dozen clips, until the freeway was 
deserted and the tower ringed with police cars, a helicopter was 
circling overhead, and he was the story of the day on CNN Breaking 
News and the Chicago newsfeeds. It was then that he learned that his 
bullets and the high-speed accidents they spawned had killed five and 
injured nine more. 
That was when Nkrumah became Captain Michael Kaminski's 
problem - and vice versa. 
Kaminski was a seventeen-year veteran of the Gary, Indiana, and 
Chicago police departments, serving the last five years in the 
'headline bureau' - the heavily-armed, combat-trained Selective 
Response Team. For the last two years, he had served as CSRT 
commander, handling such high-profile cases as the meat-packer 
bombings (traced to the Animal Life League) and the Field Museum 
hostage situation (resolved with only a single fatality among the 
creationist extremists). 
It had fallen to Kaminski to inform Nkrumah, in their first contact, 
that most of his victims had been black, including an eight-year-old 
and a woman pregnant with her third child. 
Nkrumah had been unapologetic. 'They are martyrs to the cause of 
truth, and their deaths are on the heads of our oppressors,' he said. 
'We will write their names boldly on these walls.' When Kaminski 
asked what Nkrumah hoped to accomplish by murdering black 
children, the squatter replied, 'A slave is invisible to the king until the 
slave bloodies the king's nose' - a line he repeated in his next (and 
last) conference-call media interview. 
Then Nkrumah had rebuffed Kaminski's appeals to surrender and 
avoid further bloodshed. He vowed that he and his army -which he 
claimed was a hundred strong - would not be moved until the Federal 
government promised to 'guarantee justice for the black prisoners of 
war who died in Concentration Camp Cabrini.' 
Nkrumah's African Heritage Army and Kaminski's Selective 
Response Team had been locked in a standoff ever since. Nkrumah's 
band - which Kaminski suspected numbered no more than twenty - 
held the high ground and had a thousand open windows to fire from. 

They were also armed with sticks of industrial dynamite -from which 
they had improvised grenades to thwart the SRT's only attempt to 
enter the tower in an armored personnel carrier. 
But the police controlled the perimeter, meaning no food, water, 
ammunition, or reinforcements were reaching the AHA. They also 
controlled the airwaves, as least insofar as anything originating from 
within the tower - Nkrumah had been completely silenced. Even so, 
the story had not gone away. And the continuing press attention 
meant continuing pressure on Kaminski to resolve the situation. 
Knowing that there was no way to assault the tower without risking a 
Waco, Kaminski had resisted the pressure. He hoped that hunger and 
a late-winter chill would eventually soften Nkrumah's resolve. But 
when sporadic sniping from the tower claimed two more casualties, a 
second assault was planned. 
Then the director of the Chicago office of the FBI had called with an 
unlikely proposition, and a few hours later the President had made an 
extraordinary announcement - giving Kaminski a chance to revise the 
assault plan one more time, and bringing him to the perimeter gate to 
await the arrival of the cavalry. 
There were more than two dozen news witnesses waiting there as 
well - part of the price of the FBI's help was giving advance warning 
to the press and site access to three pool camera teams They reacted 
to his arrival like steel filings to a magnet, and he gave them the 
quote they were looking for. 
'I hope Mr 23 Jordan Nkrumah was watching someone's news-feed 
last night, so we can keep the explanations short and get every-one 
here home in time to say "Sleep tight" to your kids,' Kaminski said. 
'In a little while, we're going to take away Nkrumah's guns, and a 
little while after that he's going to be behind bars, answering for the 
lives he took with those guns.' 
'What about the moral rights of the squatters?' someone shouted to 
him from the back. 'Do you expect them to be able to get justice from 
prison?' 
The politics don't interest me. Child murderers have no special claim 
to moral rights that I can see,' Kaminski called back. 'And yes, I 
expect them to get justice - considerably more justice than they gave 
Donnie Stavens, or Vernon Thagard, or Jonita Walkey -' 

Just then, sirens announced the approach of the Lif eShield Assist 
team. Rather than the ominous keening of the typical American 
emergency vehicle, it was the more neutral two-pitch trill Kaminski 
associated with old British crime movies. The sound turned all heads 
(and the headset-mounted cameras along with them) away from 
Kaminski and toward the street. 
Moments later, a pair of white vehicles - an all-terrain scout car and a 
four-wheel-drive panel truck - pulled up at the gate. The scout car 
had four weatherproof speakers mounted on its roof; the truck, four 
black antennas half a meter high. The vehicles had large blue 
LifeShield emblems on the hood, roof, and doors. 
The five-man crew that piled out of the vehicles was dressed in the 
same color scheme - white jumpsuits with LifeShield emblems over 
the left breast and on the right shoulder. One of the five also had a 
gold circle ringing his emblems; and it was he who pressed forward 
through the news witnesses and introduced himself to Kaminski. 
'John Grodin, team coordinator,' he said. 'Any changes from what you 
sent us this afternoon?' 
'No changes.' 
'Do you have your safety perimeter established?' 
'At two hundred meters. We're ready to pull back on your signal.' 
Then let's do it,' Grodin said. 'Are you riding with us?' 
'I'd like to.' 
There's a seat open in the lead car,' said Grodin. 
Kaminski thumbed his lapel mic. 'SiteOpCom to all units - clear the 
blue zone. Repeat, clear the blue zone and assume your Baker Hot 
positions.' 
As the others fell back, the tiny caravan moved forward to the edge of 
what had been the tower's playground. 'You want the honors?' Grodin 
said, handing Kaminski a comset. 
'I already have all the publicity I can stand,' said Kaminski. 'It's your 
play.' 
Grodin accepted the phone back with a nod. 'They're not answering,' 
he said after a time. 'Not to worry, we'll get his attention.' Using his 
thumb, he entered a code on the comset's keypad. 'Attention, 

occupants of Cabrini Green Tower Eleven,' he said, and his words 
boomed through the night from speakers atop the car. 'Attention, 
Twenty-Three Nkrumah and the African Heritage Army. This is John 
Grodin with LifeShield Assist Team Thirty-one. Please listen 
carefully - this will be your only warning. 
'As of now, your weapons are more dangerous to you than they are to 
us. I can detonate your explosives and destroy your ammunition in a 
second, with the press of a single button. That's fact one. If you fire 
on my vehicles, I'll push that button. That's fact two. If you're 
standing too close to your weapons when I do that, you're going to 
get hurt. That's fact three. 
'I don't expect you to take my word about this, so I'm prepared to 
offer a demonstration. You have two minutes to place something 
from your arsenal - loaded gun, explosive, it doesn't matter - at the far 
end of the hallway on any floor of the south wing. You pick the floor, 
you pick the weapon, and then you get everyone clear. When two 
minutes are up, I'll activate the LifeShield and destroy that weapon 
from here. 
'After that, I'm going to wait three minutes, and then start dialing up 
the power. You can use those three minutes to lay down your 
weapons and walk out of there, or you can stay. Either way, five 
minutes from now, every explosive in that building is going up. 
'One minute to the demonstration. 
'There isn't anything you can do about this. You only have one choice 
to make - put down your weapons and live, or keep holding and die. 
Fire on my team and you forfeit the choice. Don't think the walls will 
protect you. Don't think you can hide yourself or your weapons. Don't 
think you can run. The LifeShield will be everywhere, inside and 
outside. 
Thirty seconds. 
'Come out unarmed, and you will not be harmed. Cling to your 
weapons, and you're going to the hospital, or the morgue. Your 
choice. 
'Ten seconds.' He carried the countdown to zero, then switched 
channels. Tech One, this is Team Director. Do you have a range to 
the south corner, first floor?' 

'Range is one-seven-two.' 
'Make your range one-nine-zero and prepare to initiate.' 
'One-nine-zero, aye.' 
'Initiate.' 
There was a bright flash from a fourth-story window, followed an 
instant later by a concussive thunder that made the car vibrate. A hail 
of concrete fragments rained down on the barren ground. When the 
breeze blew the cloud of fine dust away, the spotlights showed a 
gaping hole high on the wall of the tower. 
'Attention, occupants of Cabrini Tower Eleven,' said Grodin. 'You 
now know that I'm telling you the truth. Your weapons are no longer 
of any use to you. Your weapons are now a grave danger to you. You 
have three minutes to abandon them and surrender yourselves to the 
authorities. Exit the building through the west entrance and walk 
directly toward the LifeShield vehicles. Do not try to carry a weapon 
out of the building with you -' 
There,' said Kaminski, pointing. There was movement at the west 
entrance - a figure that appeared in the ruined doorway, then 
disappeared again. Moments later, two women emerged, picking their 
way across the splintered plywood panels which had once covered 
the entrance. Shielding their eyes against the bright lights directed 
toward them, they started uncertainly in Grodin's direction. 
That's right - keep coming,' he said. 'Two minutes.' 
Others followed. By the time the countdown reached zero, twentyfour 
people had emerged from the tower and been escorted away by 
flak-jacketed members of Kaminski's Selective Response Team. But 
it quickly became apparent that Nkrumah was not among them. He 
had ordered his followers out, but defiantly stayed behind himself. 
Kaminski made one last attempt to call Nkrumah's comset, but the 
squatter did not respond. 
'Do we have enough to declare victory?' asked Grodin. 'No casualties 
so far, which would please the people I work for. Or do we carry out 
our threat and give Nkrumah what he wants? He might have enough 
ordnance up there to bring down big pieces of that building.' 
'I don't think he's the kind to give up his life for the cause,' Kaminski 
said. 'Not to mention that he's too smart to leave himself with no 

other options.' 
'You think he thinks we're bluffing?' 
'I don't think he's standing over his armory waiting to find out. My 
bet is that he's down at ground level somewhere, and unarmed.' He 
thumbed his lapel mic. 'TacData, this is Kaminski. We're looking for 
one more. Anything on infrared or audio?' 
'I had some audio transients in one-fourteen about two minutes ago.' 
'Might it have been a comset ringer?' 
'It might have been,' the tech agreed. 
Kaminski thumbed his command radio off. 'We have him,' he said to 
Grodin, then gave the order to go in. 
Team Red Five found Nkrumah cowering near the window in the 
ruins of apartment 112, waiting for the explosion, ready to vault the 
sill and run. Team Red Two found his cache of weapons against an 
outside wall on the sixth floor, where it would have provided a 
mighty diversion to cover Nkrumah's attempted escape. 
'Like I said - smart,' said Kaminski as he and Grodin's team watched 
Nkrumah being taken away in handcuffs. 'Smart enough to come out 
of this alive.' 
I'm glad we had a smart one the first time out,' said Grodin. 'Can you 
live with the fact that he didn't give you a chance to kill him?' 
The question surprised Kaminski. 'Yeah,' he said after a moment's 
thought. 'Yeah, I can. I could even get used to it. I don't suppose you 
can let me keep that thing.' He jerked a thumb in the direction of the 
LifeShield van. 
'Sorry,' said Grodin. 'But they'll get you one of your own eventually. 
This is only the beginning.' 
The core of the Annex team - Karl Brohier, Leigh Thayer, Jeffrey 
Horton, and Gordon Greene - had come to Washington for the 
Trigger's unveiling. All but Brohier had been in the gallery itself for 
Breland's speech, as guests of the President. In fact, had Brohier not 
objected on their behalf, Breland would have taken that opportunity 
to credit them with the discovery and introduce them to Congress and 
the world. 

'You don't want to be celebrities yet,' Brohier had said at a White 
House luncheon the day before. 
'You're not enjoying the food, Karl?' Gordie had called from the other 
end of the table. 'I'm pretty sure I'm the first person from the 
neighborhood to get seated at this restaurant.' 
'Believe me, Dr Greene, I understand. I know how seductive it can be 
to find yourself here, somewhere that previously only existed for you 
on TV. This is fun. It is, isn't it? Being invited to the President's tea 
party. Just being in his company makes you feel like Somebody. Of 
course, you're not really somebody until you can be blase about 
coming here.' 
Even the President had laughed at that. 
'We still have work to do, and the spotlight won't make it easier. The 
theoretical foundations aren't there yet. We haven't earned the 
spotlight. We don't have good answers to important questions. Every 
one of you can think of peers who forgot to make sure they had it 
right before they went to the press. I promise you, the country - the 
world - will find out soon enough who we are. No one else will get 
the credit - or the blame - for your discovery. 
'Now, I wouldn't ask any of you to turn down the chance to be here. 
But this week, please take my counsel, and stand a little to one side. 
The President's kind enough to give us that choice -I think because he 
understands that it can be a most unwelcome spotlight.' Breland had 
silently gestured with his glass at that. 'In a little while, we'll know if 
we're heroes or bums.' 
Heeding Brohier, they had stood a little to one side, and not felt the 
sacrifice too keenly. They had been feted privately by the White 
House and by Aron Goldstein at his estate, welcomed by Grover 
Wilman at Mind Over Madness, and briefed by a four-star general at 
the Pentagon. They enjoyed government drivers on call and five-star 
accommodations, and no ticket or reservation was too hard for the 
President's social secretary to secure. 
Brohier had only stayed in Washington long enough to host a private 
Terabyte Annex party in his hotel suite the night of Breland's address. 
Half-drunk on champagne, he praised the members of his team 
effusively, toasted them repeatedly, and revealed an unexpected 
command of the ribald limerick. The next morning, he returned to 

Princeton. 
The others lingered, tempted by Breland's offer of A-list access to 
whatever landmarks they chose. For Gordie, that meant a peek at the 
Cold War era Situation Room and an unhurried after-hours visit to a 
deserted Air and Space Smithsonian; for Horton, a floor tour of the 
Mint and a chance to watch a sunset through the stained-glass West 
Rose Window of the National Cathedral. Lee spent an entire day 
poking through drawers and cabinets at the Smithsonian with the 
paleontology curators at her elbow. 
The road not taken,' she explained, and the others seemed to 
understand. 
No matter how many different directions they went during the day, 
they watched the news together each night, most often in Horton's 
hotel room, to see what they had wrought. In the week following 
Cabrini Green, there were half a dozen more LifeShield raids and 
sweeps. All were carefully chosen to offer the most unambiguous and 
unsympathetic villains, the most egregious flaunting of civil 
authority, the greatest threat to innocents, the greatest likelihood of 
success, and the best opportunities for favorable media play. 
In Roswell, north of Atlanta, police cleaned out a designer drug 
factory, collecting more than a dozen automatic weapons. Near South 
Bend, Indiana, a white anarchist enclave surrendered after the 
LifeShield unit disarmed its perimeter guards and blew up a ring of 
mines and booby-traps. In Brooklyn, a Chicano gang house went up 
in flames, driving its unarmed occupants to the street and the waiting 
police. 
Nine hostages were released unharmed after a bungled bank robbery 
in Amarillo, Texas, when the would-be robbers' guns caught fire in 
their hands. And a joint FBI-RCMP operation thwarted a Quebecois 
separatist group building bombs meant for trains passing through the 
Sarnia Gateway and Coleman Young Tunnels spanning the Detroit 
River. 
Unexpectedly, each day's reports left the three of them less and less 
satisfied with their handiwork - especially the last, in which eleven 
separatists died. After Horton turned off the screen, he looked across 
the room at Lee and Gordie and gave voice to what both had been 
thinking. 

'It's still pretty crude, isn't it,' he said soberly. 'Messy. It'd be so much 
better if we could find some way to tune it so high explosives just 
fizzle the way propellants do. I really don't want our Baby to keep 
killing people.' 
'Vacation over, Boss?' Gordie asked. 
He nodded. 'Vacation over.' 
They were back at the Annex by noon the next day. 
21: Piracy 
Taipei, Taiwan - Acting on a tip from a would-be robber, the fraud 
unit of the National Police arrested four men and two women for 
selling phony LifeShield devices. Also seized in the raid were more 
than five thousand of the one-kilogram lifeGuard' necklaces, which 
feature a calculator-like 'system controller', an array of blinking 
lights, and a low-pitched hum. The robber, bleeding from a gunshot 
wound to the right leg, complained to arresting officers that the 
device had failed to disarm the clerk of the Every Happiness 
Pharmacy. 
Consumer Fraud: Newest Growth Industry 
Legit LifeShield production 'going great guns' 
It was inevitable, everyone involved in Brass Hat understood, that 
somewhere, sometime, a Trigger would kill an innocent civilian. 
It was inevitable, everyone conceded, that when it happened for the 
first time, the media would give it saturation coverage, and offer 
every credentialed critic all the air time they wanted to tear into 
Breland and his LifeShield policy. 
But no one quite realized just how thorough a disaster it was going to 
be, because no one managed to anticipate a tragedy as preventable 
and painfully personal as the sinking of the Mutual Fun. 
For nearly three years, the US Coast Guard had been trying - with 
little success - to deal with a piracy problem along the middle 

Atlantic Coast and its inland bays and waterways. There had been 
more than forty incidents from Absecon to Hilton Head, most 
involving pleasure motorcraft. There appeared to be at least three 
criminal groups operating in overlapping territories, board-ing 
moored cabin cruisers or luring them in with false distress flags, then 
destroying their radios, disabling their engines, and stripping them of 
valuables. With anything from a few hours to a few days head start 
before the crimes were even discovered, none had yet been captured. 
But the stepped-up vigilance of the authorities had had an unexpected 
consequence. In a recent and vicious turn, several boats had simply 
disappeared - seized or sunk, with their occupants, the only 
witnesses, left to drown. And with the line between property crime 
and murder now crossed, nothing was unthinkable. The sole survivor 
of one such attack, picked up after eighteen hours in the water near 
the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, reported that his wife and her 
girlfriend were taken by the pirates, who leeringly intimated that 
hours of sexual torment awaited their captives. 
That lurid story lit up the newsfeeds more brightly than all the 
previous incidents combined, overwhelming the ongoing efforts by 
the boating industry and the waterside resorts to blunt the danger to 
their livelihoods. Thus it was that Commander Robb of the Cape 
Charles Coast Guard Station proposed placing a LifeShield aboard a 
twelve-meter trawler and using it both as bait and as a floating 
checkpoint. 
'When you get right down to it, the reason we haven't been able to 
find any of the pirates is because they're hiding in plain sight, 
ordinary-looking people with ordinary boats - and there're too many 
boats on too much water with too much shoreline for us effectively 
patrol it all,' he had explained to the commandant of the Coast Guard. 
'It's much easier for the pirates to keep track of us than the other way 
around. But we know these raiders are well-armed, and every boatowner 
knows that firearms are prohibited on the water. If we play the 
pirates' own game, and set up out there in the high-traffic areas, 
eventually we'll catch them coming or going.' 
'First try decoying them into coming after you,' the commandant had 
ordered in giving his blessing. 
Robb had complied, but only with the letter of his instructions, not 
the spirit. With eleven unsolved piracies within the Bay alone, he had 

no patience with the prospect of weeks or months of stakeouts with a 
single Trigger-equipped decoy boat. Far better to take the more 
aggressive course, and secretly search hundreds of boats a day. 
So after going unmolested during a single night anchored near 
Tangier Island in Pocomoke Sound (the site of one piracy), and 
another night spent in Mobjack Bay (where the cruiser Daddy's Toy 
had disappeared), the trawler Sea Me moved out to the Intracoastal 
Waterway. It dropped anchor near the southbound channel, within 
sight of Fair Port. All of the traffic heading oceanward from the 
Potomac or down from the upper bay passed through those waters, 
making it an ideal checkpoint. 
The third boat to approach the Sea Me in the first minutes after the 
Mark I went hot was a ten-meter Cross & Davidson sport cruiser 
belonging to stockbrokers John and Jinx Morgenstern of 
Fredericksburg, Virginia. Next to the floating palaces that the pirates 
had been targeting, the Morgensterns' modest craft was an unlikely 
target. They also had no plans to sleep on the water - this longplanned 
trip with old friends was to end in Virginia Beach before 
nightfall. The chances of them crossing paths with the Chesapeake 
pirates were accordingly modest. 
But because John Morgenstern was a prudent man, he had taken the 
precaution of adding a flare gun to the hand-held flares aboard the 
Mutual Fun. And because John Morgenstern was a frugal man, he 
had retrieved the perfectly good twenty-year-old Heckler & Koch 
37mm flare kit from his late father's boathouse rather than buy a new 
'safety launcher' at a premium price. 
In the Coast Guard's closed-door inquiry into the deaths of the 
Morgensterns and their friend Thomas Welch, Commander Robb 
would admit that he had not read the LifeShield technical briefing 
before authorizing the pirate hunt. He would allow that although he 
had ordered a test with a 'clean' boat carrying standard-issue Coast 
Guard flares and rockets, he had not devoted enough thought to the 
possibility that there would be other boats on the bay carrying 
prohibited or outdated pyrotechnics. 
But at the moment Mutual Fun reached the boundary of the Trigger 
field centered on Sea Me, no one on either boat realized the danger 
represented by the black case Morgenstern had tucked away in the 
life-jacket locker behind him. 

The only danger on Morgenstern's mind was a mild violation of 
etiquette should he bounce the tan-hulled trawler with his 25-knot 
wake. He was reaching with his right hand to back the twin throttles 
off when the lid of the locker blew open with a bang, exposing a 
fierce magnesium-sweetened fire. 
Loretta Welch was sitting closest to the locker at that moment. 
Surprise and an instinctive urge to flee from the intense heat carried 
her out of her chair and into a jolting collision with Jinx, who was 
lunging for the boat's fire extinguisher. The collision knocked Jinx 
back and carried Loretta over the side of the boat. Her shriek was cut 
short by the water that closed over her. 
Investigators were never able to determine the exact sequence of 
events after that. Curiously, when the trawler reached Cape Charles, 
the sound-actuated video recorders were found to have 
malfunctioned, leaving no official record of the accident. 
But witnesses aboard nearby boats reported an explosion that was, in 
the words of one, 'pure Hollywood' - a two-stage crimson and yellow 
billow with oily jet-black highlights. It rose thirty meters into a 
cloudless blue sky as tiny bits of wood and fiberglass debris rained 
down onto the surface of the bay. Even from barely a hundred fifty 
meters away, there was nothing anyone aboard Sea Me could do, 
except move in and pluck a dazed Loretta Welch from the water, then 
wait for the Coast Guard search and rescue helicopter to arrive. 
When news of the incident - still publicly unconnected to the Trigger 
program - reached the Oval Office, Nolby pleaded with Breland to let 
it remain a regrettable accident. 
'It's completely deniable,' Nolby insisted. 'There's no reason to tell 
anyone that we provided the spark that set off that explosion - and 
every reason not to. Liability torts, conspiracy nuts - instead of 
feeling safe and secure, you're going to have people being afraid 
when they see the LifeShield symbol. I beg you, Mr President, if this 
initiative means anything to you, leave things as they are -this 
accident will be archive dust in a day or two.' 
'There's one reason you seem to have overlooked, Mr Nolby - we 
were in the wrong. Commander Robb secured his Trigger through the 
Joint Chiefs instead of through the FBI assistance-request 
clearinghouse - it didn't get the kind of risk review it should have. 

The trawler was unmarked, the checkpoint was unannounced -those 
people didn't have any warning that they were sailing into a Triggercontrolled 
zone. When you come right down to it, this was an 
unprovoked assault by elements of the American uniformed services 
on innocent citizens. Do you seriously expect me to overlook that?' 
'You can discipline those responsible without putting your own neck 
in the noose. It can all be done quietly.' 
Breland held his Chief of Staff in a frosty gaze. 'Was it your 
impression, Richard, that I thought protecting the people - my bosses - 
from the truth was part of my job?' 
'In the service of a greater good, sometimes, yes.' 
'And what good does it do to compound a mistake with a lie?' 
'I'm not asking you to lie, sir - I'm urging you to bite your tongue -' 
'Is that a meaningful distinction for you, Mr Nolby? Is that the way 
your moral calculator works? Why should I assume the secret will 
stay a secret?' 
'It's well-contained at the moment, Mr President.' 
'Only if you assume that everyone who knows or will know is a 
friend of this administration and of LifeShield. Can you assure me 
that that's so?' 
Nolby sighed. 'No, sir.' 
'Then all the lie does is double the damage from a later revelation - 
and double the temptation to make that revelation. "What did you 
know, Mr President, and when did you know it?" Throw me into that 
tar pit, and I'll never be seen again,' Breland said. 'Have Aimee 
schedule a press conference for five o'clock. If your conscience can't 
stand that much honesty, you can put your resignation on my desk by 
that time.' 
'I wasn't making myself understood, Mr President - my apologies,' 
Nolby said stiffly. 'I'll put Aimee on alert.' 
The next morning, with Loretta Welch's name on millions of lips and 
her face on dozens of newsfeeds, lawyers representing the National 
Association of Riflemen descended on the Federal Court for the 
District of Columbia to ask the judges to declare the technology 
known as LifeShield unconstitutional. 

 '"-In the hands of the government, this technology represents a prima 
facie violation of the Second Amendment guarantees; in the hands of 
the public, it represents a grave threat to life, liberty and public 
order,"' Attorney General Doran Douglas read from the display of her 
comset. '"The plaintiffs ask that this Court order an immediate 
injunction against any further use of this technology; further, for the 
destruction and dismantling of all existing examples of this 
technology; and finally, for a permanent ban on the manufacture, 
ownership, and sale or other transfer of the plans, specifications, 
component parts, or operational examples of this technology."' 
She set the device down and looked across the tea table to the 
President. 'I'm a little surprised that they didn't ask for you and your 
staff to be mindwiped.' 
'Who says that they're finished?' asked Breland flippantly. 'Are you 
aware of the NAR making any sort of back-door approach to us in 
advance of this filing, any attempt to open a dialogue or a 
negotiation?' 
'No,' said Douglas. 'But, then, we didn't make any sort of back-door 
approach to them in advance of your presentation to Congress.' 
'I suppose I did set the ground rules, after all,' said Breland, smiling 
wryly. 'What do you think they really want?' 
'I think they really want everything,' said Douglas, reaching for her 
coffee. They're providing Loretta Welch with legal assistance for a 
wrongful-death suit. And I hear that they've contacted the Patent 
Office - I think we can expect some sort of action against the Trigger 
patent, which is hanging by a thread anyway.' 
'They want a time machine,' said Breland. They want to make it all go 
away.' 
'Ideally, yes, sir. Though I don't imagine they actually expect to get 
everything they've asked for. The court would have to gut the First 
Amendment to give it to them.' 
They might be willing to make that trade,' Breland said. 'Where does 
this go from here?' 
'A hearing next Tuesday on the request for the preliminary injunction. 
That'll be before Judge Virginia Howarth - an Engler appointee, but 

more level-headed than that suggests.' 
'Predictions?' 
'I expect that she'll reject the request for injunctive relief, but the case 
itself will be a nasty scrap.' 
'How long will all this take to settle?' 
'Could be three months if it's fast-tracked, could be three years 
otherwise. With SCOTUS's current backlog, there's not much 
likelihood of anything in between. Of course, if Howarth rules for our 
side, we have no reason to go fast track.' 
'You can control that?' 
'Well - we can apply to the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari. 
That amounts to asking them to step in and hear the appeal 
themselves. Of course, the other side is free to do that, too. I expect 
they will, if they lose with Howarth. And given the issues in this case, 
if either side asks for it, it'll probably be granted.' 
'Good. I want this settled quickly. Can we bypass the District Court 
trial, too?' 
She cocked her head and looked at Breland questioningly. 'Mr 
President, I wouldn't even consider starting down that road unless I 
was absolutely sure where it ends.' 
'And you're not.' 
'Only reasonably sure.' 
Breland nodded. 'All right. I want to talk to the plaintiffs. The NAR 
leadership - president, board of directors, whoever's making the 
decisions.' 
'I see.' Douglas frowned. 'Sir, what do you imagine such a meeting 
might accomplish? I can't think what you could say to them now that 
could make them decide to drop their lawsuit -just the reverse, since 
they'll probably interpret our request as a sign that we're worried 
about the case, or the political heat, or both. It'll be like showing 
wolves a lame leg.' 
'I don't intend to try to talk them into dropping the case,' Breland said. 
'Can you set it up?' 
Douglas sipped at her coffee before answering. 'John Samuel Trent,' 
she said finally. 'He's the power there. I'll have someone arrange it. If 

his lawyers will go for it.' 
For most first-time visitors to the Oval Office, being ushered into that 
storied sanctum evoked the humility of a penitent entering the 
Vatican, the awe of a fan entering Graceland, or the gleeful pride of a 
young man allowed to sit with the council of adults for the first time. 
But for John Samuel Trent, the predominant feeling was of confident 
anticipation. 
The organization's First Vice President, a legendary action star of the 
television era, had tried several times to dissuade Trent from 
accepting the President'sinvitation.'There'snothinghecangiveus,' she 
had said that morning. 'There's no prestige in being summoned to the 
White House like a dutiful servant. If he wants to talk to us, let him 
come down to Fairfax and ring the bell at headquarters.' 
'No, no - you don't understand. You may relish the thought of 
Breland begging on our doorstep, hat in hand, but it's infinitely 
sweeter to see him humbled in his own house,' Trent had answered, 
collecting his coat. 'I've been waiting for this for eighteen years - 
eighteen years of watching presidents who were our friends take us 
for granted and presidents who despised what we stand for chip away 
at our rights. Now a wounded president reaches out to us, asking for 
mercy, asking for our help. I wouldn't miss for anything the chance to 
walk into hell and give the devil our answer.' 
But the audience for Trent's moment of delicious schadenfreude was 
going to be much smaller than he had allowed himself to hope for 
during his short drive into Washington. He had envisioned Breland 
holding court with a retinue of Cabinet members and senior staffers 
gathered behind him to bolster his prestige. But there was only one 
other person with Breland in the Oval Office, a youngish man of such 
low status - one of the Secret Service's new ninjas, perhaps - that the 
President did not even trouble to introduce him. 
'I thought this room was bigger than this,' Trent said, settling into a 
chair after a perfunctory handshake. 'It must be something about the 
camera angles, I suppose - I'm a big fan of political movies, you 
know. Especially those charming post-Watergate films where the 
President turns out to be the villain. Have you ever seen High 
Crimes?' 

'I suppose we all enjoy fiction that confirms our prejudices about the 
world,' Breland said. 'My tastes in classic movies run more to stories 
where good men have to make hard choices than where they have to 
make a good shot - To Kill A Mockingbird, or Casablanca.' 
'Or Mr Smith Goes to Washington?' 
'Touche,' said Breland. 'A palpable touch.' 
Trent smiled broadly. 'Let's get to it, then. Why did you ask me here? 
To try to make our troublesome lawsuit go away, I assume.' 
'No, not at all -' 
Trent heard the denial, but discounted it, confident that a more 
oblique and face-saving appeal was coming. 
'- I welcome your challenge - in fact, I've asked the Attorney General 
to do what she can to expedite the progress of the case through the 
lower courts. I want all the uncertainties resolved as soon as possible.' 
'She's not telling you you can expect to win, is she? If she is, fire her - 
she's obviously incompetent.' Trent tossed his hand dismissively. 
Unexpectedly, disconcertingly, Breland smiled. 'I'll tell her you said 
so. But the fact is that I'm well acquainted with the arguments she's 
going to present in Baltimore on Tuesday, and I don't see how your 
side can prevail.' 
Trent crossed his arms over his chest. 'You're baiting me.' 
'Not at all. You obviously expected this meeting to be adversarial. 
But when it comes to the Second Amendment, we're on the same 
side.' 
With a hot flush climbing his neck and quick anger balling his fists, 
Trent sprang up from the couch. 'You're a bald-faced liar, Mr 
President - and you must think I'm a fool.' 
'On the contrary. I think you're a dedicated advocate of personal 
liberty, and a vigilant defender of the Second Amendment -' 
'Don't compound your insults with empty flattery,' Trent said with 
cold fury. 
'- But your world view is, I'm afraid, out of date,' Breland persisted. 
There's nothing in the Second Amendment to guarantee that arms 
technology would or should stand still. There were no selective-fire 
automatics, no laser sights, no centerfire cartridges in the eighteenth 

century. The NAR isn't defending the right to bear flintlocks and 
black powder - you want Americans to have all the benefits of two 
hundred fifty years of refinement and invention. Am I right?' 
'Yes - while you want to deny us those benefits. You want us 
disarmed and compliant -' 
'You're missing my point, Mr Trent. Disarming someone is a violent 
act -' 
'Exactly. And this is violence against sixty million gun owners, and 
two and a half centuries of democracy.' 
Breland gestured toward the couch behind the NAR president. 
'Please, Mr Trent - if you would hear me out.' 
Liking the sound of what he took for anxious pleading, Trent settled 
back into the cushions. 'Only because I'm curious about how you've 
deluded yourself into expecting victory.' 
'Because the LifeShield - or the Trigger, as it's also known -is a 
weapon,' Breland said softly. 'And the Second Amendment protects 
private ownership of it just as strongly as it protects ownership of 
rifles and handguns. We'll win because you can't use the Second 
Amendment to privilege one class of arms over another. You have a 
right to your firearms. Your neighbor has a right to a LifeShield. And 
it's no business of the courts if your neighbor's weapon turns out to 
trump yours.' 
The audacity, the arrogance of Breland's tactics left Trent blinking 
and momentarily speechless. 'You're shifting the ground. There are 
no LifeShields in private hands,' he sputtered. They're all in the hands 
of the Federal Bureau of Intimidation, and the Central Interference 
Agency, and the fascist gun-grabbing police forces you're making out 
of our armed services. This isn't about individual rights - it's about the 
government trampling individual rights. It's about you murdering 
Loretta Welch's husband.' 
That's beneath you, Mr Trent,' Breland said, but without evident 
rancor. That was a screw-up, a tragic concatenation of mistakes. You 
know as well as I do that the courts have never used the Constitution 
to limit how the Federal government can equip its armies - or how 
government at any level can equip its police. Armies and police exist 
to apply force. Sometimes that power is misused. I understood this to 
be the reason you call gun ownership the "First Freedom".' 

'It's exactly that,' said Trent challengingly. 'A man who can't defend 
himself, who can't protect his home and his family, has nothing - no 
rights, no freedom, no property.' 
Then help bring Ms power to those people,' Breland said. 'We're 
standing on the cusp between yesterday and tomorrow. 
We can't change that - neither you nor I. That's why I asked you here - 
to make sure that you understand that it's out of our hands. No man - 
not even a president - stands against history.' 
'I don't see it that way at all,' said Trent lightly. 'You've lost twenty 
points in three days - and I've gained half a million members. You're 
defending the slaughter of innocents, and I'm defending the 
Constitution. You think people are afraid of guns - I know they're 
more afraid of their government. And we've analyzed the firearm 
death statistics - your plan can't possibly prevent more than ten 
percent of those deaths. You've overpromised, and we're going to 
make sure the nation knows it.' 
He chuckled, a sign his confidence had returned full force. 'How 
many factories are building these things - one, two? What's so 
irresistible about history that those factories can't be closed? Are 
there so many of them that we haven't enough torches to cut them up, 
or enough smelters to melt them down? No, Mr President -it'll be 
easier to stop this than you think.' 
'You're already too late.' 
Trent jerked his head in the direction of the new voice. 'What did you 
say?' 
'I said, "You're already too late."' The young man advanced several 
steps from where he had been standing. 'Right now, there are at least 
eleven production lines in operation around the world. I know of five 
more that'll be up before the end of the month -three of them in 
Canada, and owned by my employer. And there're at least thirty labs 
working on improvements - the Japanese are already testing a design 
that's a third smaller and has a fifth fewer parts. America isn't the 
world, Mr Trent. Maybe the Supreme Court will be afflicted by 
sunspots, and we'll be the last to benefit from the Trigger, instead of 
the first - but it will happen.' 
'Who is this?' Trent demanded of Breland. 

The President stood and invited the newcomer into the circle with a 
sweep of one hand. 'John Trent, may I introduce Dr Jeffrey Horton, 
associate director of Terabyte Labs and principal inventor of the 
Trigger.' 
'And former life member of the National Association of Rifle-men,' 
Horton said, dropping his membership card onto the table in front of 
Trent. 'While you're counting heads, make that a net gain of a halfmillion 
minus one -I have no interest in belonging to an anachronism. 
And that's all you'll be, as irrelevant as a muzzleloader encampment 
or a reenactment of the Battle of Shiloh, if you keep closing your 
eyes to what's happening -what's already happened.' 
'I see,' said Trent, coming to his feet. His hands were trembling with 
barely-suppressed fury. 'I hope you enjoyed your little deception, Mr 
President. And I hope you enjoy your blood money, Dr Horton. I 
trust that you'll be profiting handsomely from betraying your 
country.' 
Horton shook his head. 'You never have understood, have you?' 
'Understood what?' 
'That the reasons you love your guns are exactly the same reasons 
others hate and fear them,' said Horton. 
'What are you talking about?' 
'It's the power- that terrible, concentrated power in your hands, at 
your command. The power to kill in an instant of rage, or impatience, 
or greed, across a room, across a street. There's a djinn inside the gun 
that obeys you - and because it does, others must, too.' 
'A philosopher,' said Trent curtly. 'I despise philosophers. They 
delight in making the simple obscure.' 
'No,' said Horton. 'A physicist. But I'll accept the definition anyway.' 
'It doesn't matter,' said Trent. 'You can't even see the erosion of 
individual rights that you and your kind have engineered. Those 
issues obviously don't matter to you. So we're done here.' 
'Not quite,' Horton said sharply, taking a step to block Trent's path to 
the door. 'I want to correct your mistaken assumption about 
something - I'm not earning a penny from the Trigger patent. I 
donated it to the public domain almost two months ago - a free 
license. That's part of why things are moving as quickly as they are. 

It's true that I got paid well while I was working on it, and someone'll 
make money selling it, but if you think this is about money or politics 
- well, you're very wrong.' 
Incredulous, Trent stared at Horton as though he had revealed himself 
the devil incarnate. 'You won't be satisfied until you've taken every 
last gun away from us, will you?' 
Horton tucked his hands into his back pockets and showed a weary 
smile. 'You still don't get it - it's not about the guns. But you're right, 
I'm not satisfied,' he said. 'I won't be satisfied until Triggers are the 
size of a briefcase and every shop-owner can afford one. I won't be 
satisfied until they're the size of a comset and every home-owner can 
afford one. 
'Hell, I won't be satisfied until they're cheaper than a good handgun 
and just as easy to conceal. So you say you won't feel safe carrying 
your Clock on the street in such a world? Then turnabout really is fair 
play. We haven't felt safe with you carrying it in this world.' 
Drawing a deep breath, Trent summoned all of the contempt he could 
muster and slathered it over every word of his rebuttal. 
'You have to be two of the most foolish men this office has ever 
seen,' he said, circling toward the exit. 'Your little toy won't protect 
you from a mugger with a knife, or your daughters from a gang of 
rapists. It won't turn away a gang or slow down a Chinese division. 
You're living in an imaginary world where people want to get along - 
I'm living in the real one where they covet everything you own.' 
By then he was at the door, with his right hand closing on the 
doorknob. 'And you're either insane or hopelessly naive if you really 
think a hundred million Americans are going to stand by and let you 
take away their guns and their god-given rights.' 
It was a perfect moment - the best presence-of-mind-parting-wordsslam-
the-door exit he had ever managed, or could ever hope to. 
Too bad, Trent thought as he drove away, that to share it with anyone 
he would have to also revisit the nightmare of the darkest morning of 
his life. 

22: Alchemy 
The wonderful thing about Triggers/ 
Is Triggers are wonderful things/ 
Their insides are made out of widgets/ 
Their outsides are made out of zings/ 
When bombs go boom! and ammo foom!/ 
You'll know I'm having fun/ 
But the most wonderful thing about Triggers is - / 
I have the only ONE 
NSA INTERCEPT LOG 
Search Key 00062883Hit: A3H07HB Rating: 99% 
Classification: Folk Doggerel, Derivative 
Sender: Anonymous Propagation: Netwide 
The lawsuit aimed at stifling the Trigger had offended Jeffrey Horton 
on both a personal and a philosophical level. Claiming that Trigger 
technology was unconstitutional seemed to him to be of a piece with 
the Pope silencing Galileo or Tennessee forbidding the teaching of 
evolution. It was a small-minded, short-sighted, self-serving 
absurdity, and he had found himself bursting with eagerness to 
denounce it as same. 
'All of their justifications are just sugar-coating for antiintellectualism,' 
he had grumbled to Dr Greene after reading the 
NAR's court filing online. 'If they had their way, it'd still be muskets 
and flintlocks. This is the twenty-first century, not the damned 
eighteenth.' 
'Don't tell me, tell them,' Gordie had replied. 'I'm not the one who 
said you had an ugly Baby.' 
Taking the suggestion to heart, Horton had contacted the White 
House to offer his assistance in responding to the lawsuit. That had 
led to a long conversation with the President and the longer flight 

back east for the confrontation with John Trent. 
It had not gone quite as he had expected. Horton had wanted to see 
for himself how Trent's mind worked. The President had wanted 
Horton there as a resource he could call upon. Neither of them had 
anticipated Horton would play quite so large a role in what 
transpired. 
But by the time he jumped into the conversation, Horton had built up 
a full head of righteous indignation. In venting it, he had satisfied 
himself for the moment, but he had also irreversibly crossed the line 
about which Brohier had warned him. He had walked out of the 
shadows into the spotlight, and placed himself right beside the 
President. 
The day after his confrontation with John Trent, a gun rights Web site 
outed Dr Jeffrey Horton as the inventor of the Trigger. Most of the 
article was polemic and character assassination, easily shrugged 
aside. But the biographical material sent a chill down Horton's back. 
To judge by the errors and omissions, most of it seemed to be drawn 
directly from the AAAS Directory and Terabyte's own publications. 
But there were also three photographs of him - including a vidcap of 
him sitting in the gallery for the joint session of Congress - with 
sighting circles and crosshairs superimposed. 
Immediately below his photos appeared his former address in 
Columbus, along with a map of the driving route from there to 
Terabyte's Columbus campus. 
'We can make that page go away,' said FBI Director Mills at a hastily 
arranged meeting that included the President and the director of the 
Secret Service. 'But they've already accomplished their goal - we 
can't stop the information from spreading. The mainband news 
organizations will probably have it by this evening, if they don't 
already.' 
'So what do I do?' Horton asked, looking to Breland. 
'It's up to you,' the President said. 'You can decide to make yourself 
available, or you can decide to make yourself scarce. My suspicion is 
that it won't much affect how much they talk about you, but it might 
affect what they say.' 
'He still has a safe harbor in Nevada,' said the Secret Service. 'No one 
knows about the Annex yet. Maybe just going back there is the best 

idea.' 
The director of public relations was vigorously shaking her head and 
edging forward on her chair. I've already fielded three direct inquiries 
about the identities of certain people who've been under our wing this 
week, and there others are nosing around,' Rochet said. 'I say we step 
right up and answer the questions, let them have a peek at Dr Horton, 
maybe even allow a press conference - then let him high-tail it back 
to Nevada.' 
'They'll eat him up,' said Mills bluntly. 'Nothing personal, Dr Horton, 
but you have no experience with what passes for journalism here. 
Speaking forcefully, Rochet said, I've always believed that it didn't 
matter whether the natives were preparing to feast you or roast you, 
you're better off helping make the arrangements than leaving 
everything to them. I think we can spin this very nicely, if Dr Horton 
agrees. He's a pleasant-looking young man, smart, well-spoken, no 
political baggage, no extreme agenda - why let them demonize him 
when we have the truth on our side? This static over the 
Morgensterns isn't changing any minds, just giving the opposition 
something to rally around. We can give our people something to rally 
around, too - an unassuming hero. What do you think, Doctor?' 
Horton searched their faces for an answer. 'I wouldn't want the rest of 
the team to think I was trying to take all the credit,' he said slowly. 
'You'll talk to them beforehand, explain the situation.' 
Nodding, Horton added, 'But I also don't want to let what the Ammo 
Locker said go unchallenged.' 
'Absolutely right,' said Rochet. 'You shouldn't give them the last 
word. It's all about perceptions.' 
'I was thinking it was about the truth,' said Horton. 
'Not often,' said Rochet. 'But we always try to start there.' 
'Was that a decision, then?' Breland asked Horton. 
'I think so,' he said. 
'Good,' said Rochet, standing. 'Why don't you come with me to my 
office, then, and we'll get to work.' 
Like a Picasso drawing figures in mid-air, Aimee Rochet was an 

artist working in the transitory and insubstantial - impressions, 
perceptions, and, when necessary, illusions. 
Overnight, she put together an event which was not merely a political 
debutante's coming-out party, but a hero's coronation. When the 
Commerce Department balked at rushing through a National Medal 
of Technology for the Trigger developers, she rummaged through the 
White House archives and found paper authorizing an earlier 
incarnation, the Presidential Medal of Progress. She lined up an 
enthusiastic audience big enough to fill a wide shot by tapping the 
middle-level staffers of the State Department. The two living 
American recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize were rushed into town 
to sit in the front row and be seen shaking Horton's hand. 
The frothy speeches for the President and his honoree were whipped 
together by the usual suspects on staff, but she personally rehearsed 
Jeffrey Horton on his, and then rewrote his remarks to make them 
simpler and more in keeping with his natural rhythms. She handpicked 
the media representatives who would be allowed to take part, 
and gave a three-hour scoop to a particularly friendly correspondent 
from Bertelsmann Worldwide. At a morning breakfast, she coached 
Horton through what she thought was a successful mock press 
conference. And when the time came, she personally moderated the 
real thing. 
The only thing Rochet couldn't do, she thought regretfully as she 
looked out at the thicket of raised hands, was answer all the questions 
for Horton. He shared Breland's faults - he was too real to memorize 
a polished answer, too honest to avoid the political potholes. Unlike 
Breland, he was an amateur. She could only hope that he wouldn't 
wound himself too badly. 
She pointed, thinking. We open with the big bear. 'Yes, Richard, you 
have the first question.' 
'Dr Horton, Senator Wilman says that the LifeShield is the answer to 
a pacifist's prayers. Have you discussed this with either Senator 
Wilman or god, and do you think global disarmament is a realistic 
goal?' 
Come on -just like over eggs and pancakes - you don't have to answer 
them all- 
'I don't know Senator Wilman,' Horton said. 'But I'm pretty sure that 

god is on the side of peace. Whether global disarmament is realistic 
or not, I can't say. I can tell you that the LifeShield team will be 
happy if our discovery moves the world in that direction.' 
Not bad, she thought. Now the vicar - 
'Dr Horton, Alfred Nobel made his fortune selling TNT to both sides 
in a series of nineteenth-century wars. Would you accept a Nobel 
Prize for discovering the antidote to dynamite, or would you consider 
that blood money?' 
'Nobel told his friend, the Countess Bertha von Suttner, that he 
wished he could produce a machine or material that would make war 
impossible. He seems to have been thinking about deterrence - 
mutual assured destruction - but I don't think anyone who's honored 
by his Foundation has any reason for misgivings.' 
Very nice. Here comes the fondler. 
'Dr Horton, would you rather win a Nobel Peace Prize or the Nobel 
Prize for Physics?' 
'I don't think about it,' Horton said. 'My business is science, not 
awards.' 
Ohh, the fondler won't have anything nice to say about you tonight, 
you took away his moment. Let's have one from the college press - 
'Who are your idols, Dr Horton?' 
'I don't think people in my line of work can allow themselves to have 
idols. But I owe a debt to every teacher who taught me, and every 
pioneer who worked out a piece of the puzzle and passed on that 
knowledge to us.' 
Oh, I could kiss you. Let's see, let's see, the giggler should be safe - 
'Would you describe yourself as a genius?' 
'No. I just work hard.' 
Just a few more and we're out of here. All right, Monsieur - 
'Dr Horton, what do you know about a net document concerning 
something called "Trigger Mark I"? It purports to be a complete set 
of instructions for building what sounds very much like the 
LifeShield. Can you tell us whether that's authentic or a hoax? Did 
you have anything to do with it?' 

While Horton gaped, Rochet smoothly stepped in. 'I'll remind you 
that Dr Horton simply can't comment on the specifics of his research 
until restrictions related to national security are lifted. That includes 
confirming or denying rumors from the net.' Quick, who - oh, Lady 
Flowerhat - 'Eleanor.' 
'Dr Horton, what would you like to say to Loretta Welch and the 
Morgenstern children?' 
Shit - see if you ever get called on again, bitch - 'Dr Horton joins the 
President in expressing his condolences -' she began. 
'No, it's all right, Aimee - I'd like to answer,' Horton said. I'm sorry it 
happened. I wish it hadn't. It was a bad day in the lab when we heard. 
I hope the people who are handling the LifeShield in the field learn 
from it. But when I lost a friend in a plane crash a long time ago, I 
didn't blame the Wright brothers. When those Challenger astronauts 
died, I don't think anyone thought it was Robert Goddard's fault. 
Every new technology brings both risks and benefits. I don't think we 
can ask for guarantees.' 
Stop talking, stop talking already. I need a graceful exit - 'Last 
question to Tania, up here.' 
'Dr Horton, have you talked to your sister? I understand she's an 
Olympic shooting medalist.' 
'She is,' he said. 'I'm very proud of her. No, I haven't had a chance to 
talk to Pamela.' 
'Do you think she'll approve or disapprove of what you're involved 
in?' 
Horton looked surprised. 'We've always supported each other. That's 
the kind of family we are. I don't see why that should change.' 
Good enough - With that, Rochet hustled him away into the White 
House, told him he'd done splendidly, turned him over to a 
supernumerary, and then hurried away to the press wing to try to 
knock off the rough edges. By the time she came back, she knew 
enough to steer him to some of the best of a mixed but mostly 
favorable set of notices. They channel-surfed together in a White 
House media center for a short time, until Horton stood up, 
shuddering, and pronounced, 'I can't take any more. I hate my voice.' 
She smiled and said, 'By tomorrow you won't have one - you'll just be 

a video clip under someone's voiceover.' 
He laughed at that. 
'You know, you really did all right,' Rochet said, and hugged him. 
She had seen a lot of post-press conference meltdowns, and not only 
among beginners. 'In fact, if you made yourself available for a few 
more days, you could do a lot of good for our side. Let me know, 
Doctor.' 
He agreed on the spot, and bore up well during a whirlwind week of 
carefully staged high-profile appearances. So Rochet was as surprised 
as anyone when, nine days after returning to Nevada, Dr Jeffrey 
Horton wrote himself approval for an indefinite, unpaid leave of 
absence, drove out of the Annex in a Terabyte vehicle, and vanished. 
Alerted by the gate guards that Senator Grover Wilman was on the 
plant grounds, Jules Merchant met his old friend in the reception 
lobby of the Allied General administrative center. 
War had thrown them together three decades ago, and shared 
memories of roaring through a desert night in a sixty-ton Abrams 
tank had bound them together. But they had taken different paths 
after the war, and politics had kept them separated for more than a 
decade. The chairman of what was both the world's largest arms 
manufacturer and the country's top military contractor could not be 
allowed a personal relationship with a man who was both the Senate's 
most outspoken maverick and the planet's best-known disarmament 
advocate. 
But a friendship formed in fire lasts forever, and Merchant's greeting 
and smile were both warm and genuine. 'Grover,' he said, opening his 
arms to a back-patting clench. 'Do me a favor and don't tell me how 
long it's been.' 
'It's good to see you, Jules,' said Wilman. 'I believe you're the first 
person I've seen in the last twenty minutes who isn't gaping or glaring 
at me.' 
Merchant laughed easily. 'Ah, you've been getting the what-the-hellis-
he-doing-here look,' he said. 'I've been getting the flip side of it 
ever since I told my staff you were coming up. But everything 
changes if you wait long enough, eh? Come on - I've got wheels out 

front. I want to take you out to the test track and show you 
something.' 
The chairman's wheels were attached to a low, wide five-seat vehicle 
that despite its neutral brown color had 'battlefield' written all over it - 
spare fuel cans in a sheltered central well, global positioning system 
display in the dash, obvious firing positions protected by angled 
armor on both rear corners, and a roll-bar that incorporated a two-axis 
mounting ring for a light machine gun. 
This is the replacement for the Hummer?' Wilman said, swinging a 
leg over the high splash-board that passed for a door and pulling 
himself into the second seat. 
'Yeah - this version answers to "Fiver", or Forward Infantry Vehicle, 
Recon/Patrol. Also for the five-man fire team - driver, stand-up 
gunner, spotter-loader, and two riflemen watching your back. We 
started delivering them last May - current contract is for thirteen 
hundred units in all versions. It'll hit a hundred klicks on the flat, 
climb a fifty percent grade, ford anything shallower than the turbine's 
air intake. But you know all that, I suppose - you led the fight to cut 
back the buy from fifteen hundred to thirteen.' 
'It was nothing personal, Jules,' Wilman said. 'And I never said Allied 
General didn't deliver value for money.' 
'I know,' said Merchant, gunning the turbine engine and pointing the 
vehicle at a driveway that disappeared into the woods to the west of 
the parking lot. 
'First time I've seen one in person, that's all.' 
'Well, the Fiver isn't what I want to show you,' he said. 'Have you 
gotten far enough into the black files to read up on something called 
Basilisk?' 
'No. I've been busy with other things.' 
Merchant nodded. 'Well, you being an old tanker, I thought you 
might appreciate a peek at the prototype. I couldn't have shown this 
to you before you were moved up onto the black-budget committee, 
you know.' He slowed for a checkpoint as they passed through a 
double gate into the high-security test area. 'Have you ever seen one 
of those crazy events where people compete to see how far they can 
drive a snowmobile across open water?' 

'Sure,' said Wilman. Though you have to wonder who the first guy 
was who decided to try it, and why he thought it was a good idea.' 
'I just figure it was a sixteen-year-old somewhere - drunk or 
extremely bored. Or both. Anyway, that's Basilisk - named after the 
lizard that runs across water. Essentially it's a Bradley CFV on diet 
pills and steroids - synthetics everywhere, plastic armor, a sealed 
chassis that's close kin to bathtubs and lifting bodies both, and the 
new GE high-output turbine that's a big brother to the one under the 
Fiver's hood.' 
'You're talking about a light tank that can swim?' 
'"Swim" isn't the verb I'd use. But here we are - Shed 7. You can see 
for yourself.' 
With Merchant yielding the wheel to an AG test driver, they followed 
the Basilisk at high speed to a remote section of the test range that 
offered hills, brush, a natural river, and an artificial lake. There the 
Basilisk's test crew put on a demonstration that brought a wide-eyed 
elemental joy to Wilman's face - the look of a boy reveling in the 
noise and power of big machines. 
The Basilisk climbed rock walls, bulled down a small tree, flew along 
a rough road, and then vaulted the river without slowing down, 
throwing out a jet-plume roostertail of water behind it. To close out 
the demonstration, the Basilisk crossed the small lake at its widest 
point, then turned around and started back. Half-way across, it 
slowed to a stop, dropping deeper into the water but remaining 
securely afloat. With tracks wheeling in opposite directions, it spun 
through a full turn clockwise, then counterclockwise. The turret 
swung round and the 25mm cannon fired at a target off to the west. 
The recoil barely left the Basilisk rocking as it surged forward, 
climbing up out of the water as it picked up speed and headed 
shoreward. 
Try that in any other vehicle,' Merchant said proudly. 
'Can it handle sloping banks?' 
'Of course. So long as it reaches the water right-side-up, it's not going 
under.' 
'Well - I'm impressed. An amazing machine,' Wilman said. 'We 
wouldn't have needed them in Iraq, but most anywhere else - you've 

got the mobility of a hovercraft without the hockey-puck effect.' 
Thank you,' Merchant said. 'I thought you should see it before it goes 
the way of the B-49 - chopped up for scrap or consigned to the 
Museum of Historical Curiosities.' 
'What?' 
Merchant inclined his head to the right, and the two men fell into a 
slow walk along the concrete beach of the artificial lake. 'The 
Basilisk was intended to replace both versions of the Bradley. But I 
got word Monday that the order for the next six prototypes is on hold, 
and the entire production run is in question - the Pentagon is 
Devaluating all development and procurement of all weapons 
platforms. Every contract that has brakes in it is squealing to a halt.' 
'No great surprise, is that, considering?' Wilman asked. 
'No. But it looks like a lot of them will never start up again, including 
this one. And if we don't get a domestic production run of some size, 
we'll never get an export license, even for sale to friendlies - which 
means the end of a new platform that might have put $20 billion on 
our side of the trade ledger and kept six thousand skilled workers on 
the job. We don't have anything for them if this falls through.' 
'Are you telling me this to make me feel guilty, or are you asking for 
something? And if you are, are you sure it's something I have to 
give?' 
'I'm asking for a compass reading from a friend - nothing more,' 
Merchant said. 'Grover, I spent most of last week in Vail, talking 
privately with some acquaintances who have similar concerns. At the 
end of it, we couldn't agree on how to respond. We went away - let's 
say deeply divided, and in a high state of anxiety.' 
'If these acquaintances were named Burton, Lightner, and Sullivan, 
that's understandable,' said Wilman, naming the CEOs of the other 
three American defense conglomerates. 'You have a lot of 
responsibility - a lot of influence over people's lives.' 
Merchant stepped in front of Wilman and stopped short, facing him. 
'Grover, you know I don't care about the politics - I'd just as soon be 
building Caribbean cruise subs and RVs for Mars if that's what 
governments wanted to buy. Allied General builds cutting-edge 
vehicles for any environment - land, sea, air, space. It's our customers 

who insist on weighing those vehicles down with weaponry.' 
'"If wishes were starships" I know you believe that, Jules. And on 
the strength of old friendship, I'm willing not to argue it, at least not 
now.' 
Thank you,' Merchant said. 'The hell of it is I've got a hundred and 
seventy-five thousand people who depend on the theory of armed 
deterrence to pay their bills and cover their kids' subscriptions to 
college. So I have to ask - is it too late to derail this train we're on?' 
They had the privacy of isolation by then, two hundred meters around 
the curve of the lake from the vehicles and their crews. Wilman threw 
a glance in that direction, then said, 'Much too late, Jules.' 
It was the answer Merchant had expected, the one that validated the 
position he had taken during the Vail sessions. Then do you have any 
ideas about what we do now? We're talking about seventy billion a 
year in government contracts drying up - twenty-five billion a year in 
arms exports disappearing.' 
'If you're looking for sympathy, Jules, you should have known I'd be 
a tough audience,' Wilman said. 'You're the Four Horsemen of the 
Apocalypse - Allied General, Boeing, Lockmar, United Textron. 
You've done very well for yourselves on the suffering of others. If 
you're going to be the ones suffering now - well, frankly, it's hard for 
me to work up much outrage.' 
'We won't really be the ones hurting, Grover. We can slash payroll, 
close plants, write down canceled projects, until we've shrunk to 
whatever size the rest of our business can support. I'd have a harder 
time of it than the other three - more than half of AG's business is 
military. But even we can probably survive in some form.' 
'So what is it then, Jules - the value of your stock options? What's the 
reason for the "high state of anxiety"?' 
Merchant shook his head. 'I'm surprised you have to ask that. The 
"Four Horsemen" have major facilities in sixty-three locations in 
thirty-two states. It'll be the economic equivalent of a Los Angeles 
earthquake, a Lower Mississippi flood, and a Florida Coast hurricane 
all in the same week. You're going to be looking at a hundred 
thousand layoffs in the first wave alone - most of them high-skill, 
high-pay jobs that support professional-class families.' 

'We've gone through cycles of this sort of thing in the past - 
contractions in an industry, trade dislocations, technology shifts,' 
Wilman said. 'It's temporary. After a year or two, the economy 
reabsorbs the talent.' 
'And loses the special capabilities, the synergy, the technological and 
intellectual muscle that you get when you concentrate talent in one 
place. Grover, I'd like to try to keep as many of those people at work 
as possible. I'd like to keep the teams together and keep them on task.' 
Wilman wrinkled his face in distaste. 'You're talking about makework, 
corporate welfare. "Let's buy a few more bombers a year to 
keep the Palmdale plant open, let's build an aircraft carrier we don't 
need to hold Newport News together." But you do that when you 
think you'll need that muscle later. And, this time, I don't know that 
there's ever going to be a "later" like that.' 
That's exactly what I want to talk about,' Merchant said. 'About what 
else we could use that muscle for. About whether we're sure that 
we're never again going to need to know how to build a fast-attack 
submarine or a stealth bomber, and about what we might want to do 
with ourselves while we're waiting to find out. 
'But not about welfare, Grover - not about making things we have no 
use for, or taking twice as long to make things we do need. I'd just 
like to sit down with the President and talk about the possibilities.' 
Merchant hesitated, then decided to turn over his hole card. 'I'd like a 
chance to talk to him about a manned mission to Europa - about 
putting a spacecraft in orbit, a crawler on the ice and a sub in the 
ocean. Do you think he'd be willing to listen?' 
Wilman's wondering eyes proclaimed that he had finally heard 
something unexpected - and inviting. Whether it was the idea itself or 
the prospect of converting one of the Four Horsemen from acts of 
chaos to acts of creation, Merchant did not know. But Wilman's 
words opened the door wide enough to give him hope. 
'I don't know if the President would be willing to listen,' the senator 
said slowly. 'But I would. Do they let you have enough space for two 
chairs and a hatrack somewhere around here?' 
Merchant laughed. 'Yeah, Grover - they do. All the coffee I can drink 
and a key to the men's room, too.' 

'If you take them up on the first, you're going to need the second - 
especially at our age.' He clapped a hand on Merchant's shoulder and 
turned him back the way they had come. 'Well, gunner - let's go talk 
about what we're going to do after the war.' 
It's out of our hands now. 
When Mark Breland had offered those words to John Trent that 
morning four months ago, it had been with a purely intellectual 
understanding of their verity. Now he had all the evidence he needed 
of his own prescience. There were no longer any 'normal' days - 
something totally unexpected, and yet at the same time completely 
understandable, seemed to be happening all the time. 
'On good days,' he explained to Stepak, 'being President used to be 
kind of like trying to steer a rickety minibus down an unfamiliar 
mountain road at high speed while three aunts and a mother-in-law 
simultaneously try to give you advice about your driving.' 
'And now?' 
'It's more like learning to surf,' said Breland. 'And surfing isn't 
something we do a lot of in Pennsylvania.' 
But the metaphor was more than the punchline of a joke to Breland. 
His control was that tenuous - the forces that powerful and turbulent - 
and he seemed to spend all of his time falling off, climbing back on, 
or precariously clinging to his balance. 
Sometimes events merely sprang to the top of the news queue, 
complete and remote, suitable only for expressions of wonder or 
disgust, celebration or regret. Others demanded a place at the top of 
the President's daily agenda, and occasionally lingered there 
demanding continuing attention. Breland placed the two assassination 
attempts - one domestic, one imported - in the former category. The 
impeachment attempt - by general agreement, a much closer call - 
belonged to the latter. 
Breland had survived all three attacks, but he had other wounds, and 
they were not healing. Rising expectations had battered his approval 
rating. An unlikely coalition of civil libertarians and uncivil 
Libertarians, patrician industrialists and industrious Patri-ots, was 
sniping at him from both ends of the political spectrum, with a 

sophisticated mailing campaign and a coordinated protest campaign 
the principle weapons. 
Even with the election more than two years away, a second term 
seemed a lost cause, and by Nolby's order was simply not spoken of 
in the President's presence. The staff's focus, as defined by Vice 
President Toni Franklin, was 'curing the foundation'. 
We cannot control what happens when we are gone from here, or 
when that day will come, she explained in the memo that became 
known as the Eulogy. We cannot be assured of completing what 
we've begun. We cannot be assured that our successors will honor 
either our intent or our efforts. All we can do, in the time remaining 
to us, is to make the most of our presence. If all we leave behind are 
plans, they are easily ignored. If all we leave behind is a hole in the 
ground, it is easily filled. If all we do is hoard workers and supplies, 
they are easily diverted to other causes. 
But if we commit ourselves to this goal and no other, enlisting help 
wherever we can find it, I believe we have enough time to place in the 
ground a solid foundation for peaceful disarmament, with pilings that 
go all the way to the social bedrock. And if we diligently tend and 
watch over our foundation until the concrete has cured, and is ready 
to bear all the weight we intended for it, then those who follow us will 
have as much trouble dismantling it as they will ignoring it. It will be 
a permanent fixture on the political landscape, a reminder of the new 
possibilities. What our successors decide to build there will be 
influenced by what we've done to prepare the ground, and their 
choices will be visible for all to see, and judge. 
It may be that it's not yet time for this vision to become a reality. But 
we can change the nature of the argument forever, and provide those 
who share our vision with a symbol and an example around which 
they can rally. It may be that it is not within our reach to hasten the 
future - this is still a young country, stubbornly short-sighted at 
times. But we can still be the voice of the self-fulfilling prophecy, the 
midwife if not the mother of a new age. Our commitment and our 
example will ensure that the future, when it comes, will bear more 
than a passing resemblance to our ideals of a safer, more civil 
society. 
This is what the moment asks of us. This is what the President needs 
from us. Make every day count. 

Printed on fine bond letterhead instead of electronically mailed, 
individually hand-signed by the former Alabama senator and handdelivered 
by her to nearly three hundred desks in the Execu-tive 
Office Building, the Eulogy memo had far more impact on the staff 
than Breland could ever have guessed. There were a handful of 
defections and resignations, but those who remained closed ranks 
around the President and tried to shelter him from the storm raging 
without. 
Ironically, one of the sheltering havens they found for him was 
Western Europe. Breland was more popular in Cologne than in 
Chicago, more respected in Bonn than Boston. All of the European 
Union nations had long ago resolved their issues regarding private 
ownership of firearms - and resolved them in favor of public safety. It 
was hard for the typical citizen of England or Germany or France to 
grasp how an American President could find himself in trouble for 
offering a long overdue solution to what they viewed as an ugly stain 
on America's character. 
But there was more to Breland's popularity than sympathy for 
someone seen as wrongly maligned. Most of those same EU nations 
had struggled for decades with urban terrorism, and Breland's gift of 
the Trigger had given the police a powerful new weapon against the 
car bomb and the package bomb. And unlike in America, there was 
no resistance to using the Trigger creatively and aggressively. 
Offspring of the Mark I were buried under dozens of intersections in 
Paris and three other French cities, creating confinement grids that 
made it difficult to transport a bomb any distance through the city. 
Checkpoints with massive blast deflectors were placed along the 
approaches to train and highway tunnels in the Swiss Alps. Large 
areas of London, Belfast, Geneva, Amsterdam, Rome, Warsaw and 
Berlin - some as extensive as forty square blocks - were evacuated 
and screened for unexploded ordnance, then placed under permanent 
protection by a Mark I array. 
Creating these 'safe zones' was a calculated risk, and there were some 
casualties, despite metal-detector and magnetic anomaly sweeps 
beforehand - a thirteenth-century church, San Francesco, in Bologna 
and a ten-year-old government services center in Bonn both partially 
collapsed into the craters left by deep-buried aerial bombs, and in 
London a fire caused by a V-1 warhead exploding under the 

basement badly damaged a block of flats near Parliament Square. But 
the safe zones, marked by Breland's blue-and-white dove symbol, 
were so popular with tourists and residents both that those losses did 
not derail the program. 
At the same time, all across the European continent, fields and forests 
by the square kilometer were being swept clean of bombs and shells 
left behind by almost two centuries of warfare. A startling amount of 
aging ordnance proved to still be in the ground, and the work became 
something of a spectator event, producing spectacular visuals for the 
newsnets on a regular basis. 
Outside the EU, similar 'anti-terrorist protocols' and 'interdiction 
zones' began to appear along the Nile, where the new democratic 
government of Egypt was eager to lure Westerners back to the 
pyramids and temples; in Sarajevo, which was determined to recreate 
itself as the beautiful, cosmopolitan city it had been before the first 
civil war; and in Singapore, which surrounded itself with what 
amounted to a Trigger-field moat and declared itself 'the island city 
of peace'. 
Elsewhere in the Far East, the governments of more than a dozen 
island nations from the Solomon Islands to the Philippines were 
calling on the United States and Japan to return and clean up not only 
the battlefields but the territorial waters on which they'd fought, and 
the US Navy had begun testing a towed Trigger array off 
Guadalcanal. The premier of a reunified Vietnam made the same 
appeal to the governments of France and the United States. 
Viewed from Eureka County, Nevada, or Princeton, or the Goldstein 
estate in Maryland, all this activity seemed like a thoroughgoing 
vindication, a guarantee that there would be no turning back. 
But the view was different from the offices of Senator Wilman and 
Mind Over Madness, of General Madison and the other Joint Chiefs, 
of Anson Tripp and the National Security Council, of Devon Carrero 
and the geopolitical analysts at the Department of State. They were 
concerned not with cleaning up after the last war, but with preventing 
- or, it became necessary, winning - the next war. And it was not yet 
clear to anyone whether the Trigger could help with either. 
No one in those circles believed that peacable demonstrations of the 
technology alone would make the Trigger a credible deterrent to 

aggression. It was widely held that someone, somewhere, would have 
to put armed forces on the move and on the line. 'It will take a 
Hiroshima,' was the chilling phrase that had achieved currency. 
And so they waited, preparing for what they considered the Trigger's 
real test, knowing that if their response was too slow or too feeble, it 
would have to be done again. They waited for the rumblings of 
aggression in a place they could reach in time and in strength, 
rumblings loud enough that no one could miss when and how they 
were silenced. 
They waited, frozen in an uncertain standoff with an undeclared 
opponent. They waited, and while they waited the training went on, 
preparing unarmed pilots and sailors and soldiers to face an invading 
army, an advancing fleet. If the Trigger did not work, many lives in 
the special Tactical Intervention units would be forfeit. 
The waiting finally ended on June 6, when President-for-Life Hosan 
Hussein demanded that Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait cease 
construction on a series of slender fifty-meter-tall towers located just 
inside their borders with Iraq. 
'We know the true purpose of these structures,' Hussein declared in a 
chest-pounding national address. 'We know that the claim of a 
defensive shield is a lie. These towers are being built so our enemies 
can spy on us, so the infidels can peer into our villages and cities and 
streets and homes and mosques. These towers are being built so our 
enemies can beam destructive energies into our bodies as we sleep, 
energies which will cause cancers to grow and steal the life from our 
unborn children. 
'We will not allow these assaults to take place. We will not accept 
these insidious invasions of our sovereign lands and our sacred 
places. The towers must come down. If those who plot against us do 
not abandon their course and destroy these evil weapons, then I will 
send our brave pilots and soldiers to smash them down and scatter 
our enemies on the sands.' 
To back up his ultimatum, Hosan Hussein sent two armored divisions 
supported by artillery and antiaircraft batteries south to within a fourhour 
drive of the Al-Rafah crossroads on the Saudi border, where 
more than eight kilometers of the tower array stood completed. But 
before the columns of tanks had even reached those encampments, a 

mixed squadron of F-22 Raptors and F-l 17B Nighthawks had flown 
half-way around the world and landed at Al-Hayyaniyah, just forty 
minutes from the border. 
The aging Nighthawks carried the military version of the Mark I in 
their internal bays, while the Raptors carried the long-range Mark II 
in an oversized underbelly pod. But even the crews of those aircraft 
wondered silently how much eight aircraft carrying no missiles under 
their wings, and cameras instead of guns in their noses, could do 
against more than one hundred tanks. They listened to Breland's 
public warning to Hussein with no hope that it would be heeded. 
The next morning, the Iraqi forces moved to within an hour of the 
border, and Hosan Hussein issued another ultimatum, this time 
including the United States in his roster of villains. 'We will not wait 
to be your victims, or needlessly endanger our fighting men. We will 
not be diverted into lengthy negotiations or slowed by empty 
promises. The towers must come down now.' 
By nightfall, the last of the construction crews working along the 
Saudi border had packed up and withdrawn. 
At 2.00 p.m. Washington time, Stepak and Tripp interrupted 
President Breland in a meeting with news of what looked like the 
Iraqi push. 'We have new satellite data,' said Stepak as they hurried 
through the corridors toward the situation room. 'The Iraqi units near 
Al-Rafah are moving east at high speed, and six more divisions are 
coming down the Al-Basrah road toward the Safwan entrance into 
Kuwait.' 
'So Kuwait was the target after all,' said Breland, studying the map. 
'Al-Rafah was a feint.' 
'So it appears,' said Tripp. 
'How long?' 
'We're projecting that the western forces will probably cross into 
Kuwait along the Wadi al-Batin, where the array is still under 
construction. If they keep up their present pace, they can cross just 
before dawn local time. The eastern forces can reach Safwan an hour 
sooner. The grid is active there.' 
'Rockets and artillery?' 
They reached the situation room as Breland was asking his question, 

and the secretary of defense went directly to the theater map. 'In 
position to reach Al-Kuwayt - here, here, and here. 
And as this scenario is developing, Mr President, we expect to see 
them used.' 
Stepak hesitated, then turned to face Breland. 'I know you intended to 
wait until the tanks crossed the border, so there'd be no question that 
Iraq was the aggressor. But if the GA-30s have chemical warheads, 
we could be looking at ten thousand dead in Kuwait City. If they 
have biologicals, the bidding starts at thirty thousand. Do we wait 
until the Iraqis put the artillery in play, or do we go after them 
preemptively?' 
'How fast can we respond once they start? Can we get close enough 
to wait on the first muzzle flash?' 
General Hawley stepped forward to take the question. The 
Nighthawks don't have much capacity to loiter on station. The 
Raptors have more, but, frankly, we don't have enough planes there to 
cover all the bases - or to cover the likely losses if we do expose our 
aircraft that way.' 
'Do we have any other aircraft we can bring in?' 
'There are six Trigger-equipped strike fighters on the USS Truman, in 
the Mediterranean,' said Admiral Jacobs. They're too far out. There 
are six more on the USS Reagan, in the western Indian Ocean - with 
midair refueling, we could just get them over the Iraq-Kuwait border 
by dawn, but the timing is tricky - we need a Go within the next halfhour, 
and they won't be able to linger.' 
Breland settled into his chair at the circular conference table. 'I need 
to hear recommendations,' he said. 'Don't expect me to call the pitch.' 
'Very well, Mr President,' said Stepak. 'Our recommendation is that 
we violate the border and act preemptively. General Madison 
proposes to send one flight of F-22s and one flight of F-l 17s after the 
artillery in Iraq, with the attack timed to take place thirty minutes 
before the armor units reach Kuwait. The other four aircraft at Al- 
Hayyaniyah would pursue the armor column from Ash-Shabakah and 
intercept them at the border. Four aircraft from the Reagan would be 
sent to intercept the eastern column at Safwan.' 
'Projected losses?' 

Twenty percent. Three aircraft.' 
'Can they get the job done?' 
'I'd rather have twice as many aircraft, and some top cover for them,' 
said Madison. 'But we'll do our damnedest to get the job done with 
what we have.' 
'Can we be sure this isn't another feint?' 
'Not if we shoot first.' 
'I'll want to issue another warning.' 
'Then projected losses double, and I can't guarantee the results. I 
would counsel strongly against it. You already told them we're there, 
and you told them why. Letting them know we've seen through the 
feint gives away an edge we probably need.' 
Tripp appeared at Breland's right elbow. 'And, sir, consider -' he said 
in a low voice. 'What if you warned them again, and they actually 
stopped? Does that give us what we want?' 
His implication was as distasteful to Breland as the prospect of 
initiating hostilities on Iraqi territory. Pushing his chair back, he 
walked up to the theater map and studied it, his arms crossed over his 
chest. But the map was only colored pixels, an eccentric chessboard 
with exotic pieces. He had to force himself to see the human beings - 
the American pilots, the Iraqi tankers, the Kuwaiti soldiers and 
citizens, the artillerymen expecting to be fifty kilometers from the 
fighting. 
We do need a Hiroshima, after all. Damn them for not believing, 
Breland thought bitterly. Damn them all for being willing to raise the 
club - and obliging me to knock it out of their hands. And that means 
no half-measures - it has to be done with enough authority that they 
never pick it up again. Damn them all - 
'I authorize the plan outlined by the Secretary of Defense,' he said 
without turning from the map. 'Send the planes into Iraq.' 
The planes came racing through the near-total darkness of a moonless 
predawn morning, skimming four abreast two hundred meters above 
the desert. Neither radar nor sentry saw them, angular black shapes 
knifing through the sky, outrunning the sound of their own engines - 

not until it was too late, and hellish pillars of fire marked the location 
of ammunition trucks which had been poised to feed the great steel 
cylinders of the long-range artillery. 
From inside the cockpits, each thunderous explosion below seemed to 
lunge upward at them, grasping for the delicate flight surfaces, 
hurling shrapnel at the spinning turbine blades, the soft bodies of the 
pilots. The worst of the concussions shoved their planes around in the 
sky like a thunderstorm cell. But the speed of their passage carried 
them safely away from harm, as though they were riding on the 
leading edge of chaos. 
Breaking into pairs, they made four more runs over the gun 
emplacements and the adjacent encampment, both now starkly lit by 
fierce fires. The last of these was made in silence, as there was 
nothing left on the ground below them that could threaten the planes - 
or anyone else. 
Along the Az-Zubayr road, four more ghosts chased and caught a 
different quarry - a long and badly strung-out support convoy 
following a two-mile column of Russian- and Indian-made armor. 
With one Nighthawk flying just above and to the right of the road and 
another just above and to the left, a single pass was enough to leave 
the convoy in ruins. The Ravens, trailing behind as spotters, found 
nothing to aim their Mark Us at, and no reason for a second pass. 
When they caught up with the armor column, they found it 
dispersing, scattering off the road and into the sand. It made no 
difference. In less than two minutes, every tank was a flaming coffin. 
The token machine-gun fire directed at the planes in the first seconds 
did no damage, and even with radioed warning from the convoy 
behind, neither of the mobile antiaircraft guns managed to fire a 
single shell at the low-flying attackers. 
The third element of the interdiction force, the Navy contingent from 
the Reagan, arrived late at Safwan, their unforgiving timetable ruined 
by half a dozen minor snafus and a midair refueling problem. Dawn 
had already broken when the flight finally made contact with its 
targets. 
But to the amazement of the pilots, the Iraqi column - number-ing 
more than two hundred twenty tanks and other vehicles - was neither 
driving into Kuwait nor fleeing back the way it had come. Instead, it 

was stopped dead on the road a kilometer from Safwan, a ragged 
double line of vehicles in clear sight of the Kuwaiti border post. And 
on either side of the road, scattered across the barren land but keeping 
well clear of the tanks, were hundreds, perhaps thousands of Iraqi 
soldiers on foot. 
It took several radio calls over the next several minutes to sort out the 
mystery. Eventually, though, the circling pilots received confirmation 
from the Kuwaiti forces at the border that the improbable prospect 
before them was in fact the strange reality - the soldiers on foot were 
the tank crews, who had abandoned their vehicles rather than be 
blown up inside them. 
'Flight, they obviously got the word on what they could expect. Let's 
not disappoint them,' said the sortie leader, and led his wingmates 
down. 
It was, at last, the end of the beginning. In less than an hour, a dozen 
unarmed aircraft had dismantled a modern armored invasion force, 
methodically destroying its equipment and, more importantly, 
breaking its will. But it was the story of the battle that wasn't - the 
events at Safwan, the incredible images captured by combat 
videographers on the ground - which confirmed for believers and 
skeptics both that a new era had dawned, and there would be no 
going back. 
II: Jammer 
23: So Much Madness 
'If you have a nation of men who have risen to that height of moral 
cultivation that they will not declare war or carry arms, for they have 
not so much madness left in their brains, you have a nation of lovers, 
of benefactors, of true, great, and able men.' 
- Ralph Waldo Emerson 

From the first day it was filed, the National Association of Riflemen's 
lawsuit against the Trigger had received special handling. 
Judge Virginia Howarth of the D.C. District Court had needed barely 
two weeks of testimony and four days of deliberation to reach a 
ruling upholding the NAR's position: citizens had a right to guns, but 
no right to Triggers. Her blanket injunction forbade the use of any 
Federal funds to develop, manufacture, or deploy the Trigger. But she 
had infuriated John Trent by, in virtually the next breath, setting aside 
the injunction pending the appeal. 
'Why?' he had demanded of his lead lawyer, Philby Lancaster. 'She 
gives with the one hand and jerks it away with the other. Isn't she one 
of ours? Who else does she owe?' 
'She's only been sitting for three years,' Lancaster had answered. 'This 
is too big for her, and she's obviously passing the buck to the 
appellate courts. Don't worry about this. The weight of the decision 
leans toward us. And the real action starts now.' 
Within days, no fewer than nine petitions for a writ of certiorari were 
filed with the Supreme Court, including the expected one by Doran 
Douglas on behalf of the Justice Department. The Court responded 
by reaching down and claiming the case before the District of 
Columbia Court of Appeals had even scheduled motions. 
Once in the highest court's hands, NAR vs. US was pushed to the top 
of the calendar, leapfrogging more than two dozen other cases 
already on the docket. Oral arguments were heard barely ten weeks 
after the case was first filed. In a rare departure from form the Court 
had approved Rule 28 motions from both parties, and extended the 
time allotted from the usual half-hour per side to forty-five minutes. 
In an even stronger break with tradition, the Supreme Court had even 
allowed representatives of four of the record number of groups filing 
amicus curias briefs to also argue before the justices. Gun Owners of 
America and the Second Amendment Alliance had appeared in 
support of the NAR, while Mind Over Madness and HCI had stood 
up for the gun-grabbers. Trent had been pleased by the contrast that 
presented. 
'Judge them by the company they keep,' he had said when 
interviewed by the media on the eve of oral arguments. 'Patriots and 
lovers of the Constitution support our position. Socialist 

internationalists and statist propagandists support theirs. Disarming 
America has been on the far left's agenda for fifty years. I'm 
confident the Supreme Court will not join them in committing 
treason.' 
No case since Roe vs. Wade had attracted so much public interest. A 
public affairs foundation turned the transcripts of the pleadings into a 
three-hour docudrama literally overnight; when it was published, so 
many people tried to access it that the Oyez Project servers crumbled, 
and the producers had to resort to a sponsored broadcast at fixed 
times. Even so, it topped the ratings for the week. 
All the urgency fostered expectations for a swift ruling, but it did not 
come. Month after month slipped by, until Court watchers were 
united in the belief that the justices were badly divided, possibly 
hopelessly deadlocked. 
As the scheduled end of the Court's annual session neared, Lancaster 
relayed to Trent a rumor that the justices had not even decided who 
was to write the opinion - which, if true, raised the prospect that the 
Court might adjourn on June I without issuing a ruling, and take the 
case up again in the fall. 
'How can this be so hard for them?' he demanded of Lancaster. 'What 
possible issue could they be stuck on? The plain language of the 
Second Amendment gives them everything they need. The 
Founder's own words - George Washington, "Firearms stand next in 
importance to the Constitution itself." James Madison -' 
'Please, John - not the whole conservative book of quotes. I wrote the 
brief, after all.' 
'I know that,' Trent said with a sigh. 'But, god almighty, Philby, Judge 
Howarth got it right in a tenth of the time they've already had. - 
Except for the stay, of course.' 
For the first time, Lancaster was unable to exude confidence. 'The 
government's argument may be causing problems for the strict 
constructionists on the Court,' he said. 'We're in a realm the Founders 
never imagined. There's talk that the justices are divided not two 
ways, but three. Compromise comes hard to that body. We could end 
up with strange bedfellows and a tortured decision that pleases no 
one. I think we should be prepared.' 

'And in the meantime, the Feds are laughing up their sleeves - the 
factories humming and the trucks rolling and new Trigger 
installations going online every goddamned day,' Trent complained 
bitterly. 'Isn't there anything we can do to get the stay lifted? Isn't 
there any way to reach the Court? Should we be out there on the front 
steps every morning, six or ten or twenty thousand of us?' 
'Oh - certainly. And be sure to bring plenty of guns to wave, like they 
do at that stupid demonstration every year. Scaring the justices is 
always a good idea,' Lancaster said acerbically. 'John, we talked 
about this months ago - there's a fucking Trigger in the basement of 
the Supreme Court itself. If our people do anything that makes the 
justices feel like they need it there to protect them from the likes of 
us, it's over. Over.' 
'Maybe they should disqualify themselves from the case. Conflict of 
interest.' Trent's tone was sulky. 
'You'd better tell me you understand, John. One mistake, and we 
throw away the edge the eight years of fuss over NFRRA gives us. 
The justices aren't hermits. They know how passionate you folks are, 
and the Court has to be leery of kicking off another long-running 
controversy. You are reaching them by being patient, reasonable, and 
civil. Stick with it. And do everything you can to clamp down on the 
free spirits until we get the ruling.' 
'And what if the opinion goes against us?' 
Then we analyze the justices' thinking, and go at it again from 
another direction.' 
'So Plan B is more of the same.' 
Lancaster snorted. 'Burn me for heresy, John, but when you have 
good lawyers, you don't need guns.' 
June 1 came and went, and the Supreme Court neither issued an 
opinion in NAR vs. United States nor recessed for the summer. No 
announcement was made, no explanations offered, as for the first 
time in more than two decades, the Court extended its session. The 
phrase 'hung court' made its first appearance in a CNNLaw report, 
and soon was heard everywhere. 
John Trent weathered the crush of media attention in the weeks 

preceding and following June 1 with outward calm. Everyone wanted 
to know what he thought, and he was sternly prevented by Philby 
Lancaster from actually telling them. 
'This delay should alarm no one. It should tell us that the Court 
recognizes the very grave issues at the heart of our complaint, and is 
according it the seriousness it deserves,' Trent said, standing before a 
newly-dedicated monument to Revolutionary War Militiamen in 
Brandywine, Pennsylvania. 
I'm absolutely confident the Court will come to the right decision - 
right for the Constitution, right for the country, and right for our 
citizens, whose rights are paramount in a free and democratic nation,' 
he said a week later, standing beside a poster-sized facsimile of the 
Bill of Rights hanging in the lobby of NAR headquarters. 
'The way I see it, Jay, there can't be anyone in Washington more 
eager to wrap this up than the justices themselves - it's summer in 
Washington, and those robes have to be hot,' he said a week later in a 
VR appearance on Altered Egos. It was a good line, even if it was 
only a set-up, and the laughter was bolstered by the fact that the 
producers had given him the scantily clad Biblical David as his avatar 
on the virtual set. 
'Speaking of robes,' Jay cracked back, 'if there are any Monicas over 
there in the law clerk corps, please call, because we'd like to know if 
this really is a hung court -' 
Away from the cameras, Trent was increasingly restive. He 
complained bitterly to other NAR executives about the shortage of 
courage and conscience on the Supreme Court, and the lack of honor 
in the legal profession generally. He derided Philby Lancaster and the 
rest of the NAR legal team as professional leeches who would 
cheerfully lose a case to keep a hungry client's wallet open. He could 
scarcely bear to mention Mark Breland, Grover Wilman, or Jeffrey 
Horton by name, but when he did, he liberally peppered his 
comments with angry words like 'traitors', 'lying bastards', 
'murderers', and 'cowardly whores'. 
Ironically, Trent found himself spending much of his day listening to 
even more venomous rants and forcing himself to counsel 
moderation. By virtue of being first to the courtroom, the NAR had 
become the gravitational center of the fight against the Trigger. It 

seemed as though the top officers of every gun-rights organization 
with more than three members expected to have a chance to bend 
Trent's ear - whether to offer him unsolicited advice, praise and 
encourage him, commiserate with him, or bluntly excoriate him for 
timidity. 
He suppressed his growing doubts and told them all what Philby 
Lancaster had told him, that as long as the outcome hung in the 
balance, their interests were best served by what amounted to a 
ceasefire - no threats, no violence, nothing but polite demonstrations 
and gentle persuasion. He took some ridicule for that, but he steeled 
himself against the criticism and persisted. 
'We don't want those justices checking the news and coming away 
thinking that America needs the Trigger,' he told the commander of 
the West Montana Militia. 
'We don't want those justices thinking that the three-piece suits are 
fronting for a collection of thugs, mutts, hotheads, mean drunks, and 
bullies,' he told the president of .45 Caliber Freedom. 
'We want the Court to know that America is a civilized country filled 
with responsible gun owners. We want 'em to know that our firearms 
are saving lives and protecting our liberties and providing family 
recreation,' he told the chairman of the Arizona Committee of 
Correspondence. 
With patience and persistence and sometimes a pretense of 
brotherhood, Trent persuaded most to sign on to the 'civilized 
ceasefire' concept. He did it even though he knew that some of them 
nevertheless considered him weak, soft, timid. A willingness to kill 
for the cause was, in their eyes, the only real measure of manhood. 
And those who had lost all faith in what they believed were corrupt 
courts and sham trials made it clear that they were ready to resort to 
violence. 
Trent could identify with that frustration, but found it difficult to even 
talk about taking the next step. The toughest tests, though, were his 
meetings with the extremist militias. It was a small mercy that not 
many of them came calling. Some had established separatist 
communes and severed all contact with the rest of 'Amerika'. Many 
others viewed the NAR with the high contempt due all collaborators. 
But several times since.the case reached the high court, Trent had 

found himself sitting across a table from a man of morals so repellent 
and mindset so alien that it made him squirm to think of him as an 
ally. They brought him offers he did not want to hear: to assassinate 
the managers of Aron Goldstein's factories, to take the Chief Justice's 
six-year-old great-granddaughter hostage, to poison the White House 
water supply, to hijack an airliner and crash it into Trent's target of 
choice. 
He did not know if they had the wherewithal to deliver, or if it was 
just bluster, and he did not care to. The line Trent would not cross, 
the line his visitors helped define for him, was the line between acts 
of patriotism and acts of revolution. He would not condone 
destroying the nation to preserve it - that paradox, which Trent 
associated with the Inquisition, seemed to him a kind of madness. 
Ironically, it was out of these sessions that Trent emerged with his 
blackest moods, his most uncompromising fury toward Washington. 
'You need to start treating craziness like a contact poison, John,' his 
senior administrative aide kidded him. 'Don't go in there without 
gloves and a mask.' 
'That's not it,' Trent said, unable to laugh about it. 'Do you know why 
I end up this way? Because I can't forgive the President for giving 
people like that fuel for their paranoia. Tyranny isn't the only threat to 
what I love. Anarchy is every bit as dangerous.' 
The voice came from behind him in the lobby - pleasant, assured, and 
unfamiliar. 
'I wonder if we might have a frank conversation together, John Trent.' 
Trent spun around to find a nattily-dressed older man standing one 
stride behind him. His glance went first to the usual places of 
concealment for a man wearing a well-tailored summer suit, then to 
assessing the man himself. Several centimeters shorter than Trent, the 
stranger had a full head of silver hair, a Princeton ring, and a slight 
paunch that the tailoring could not quite mask. Trent gauged his age 
to be sixty. 
I'm sorry, do I know you?' 
'Possibly,' the man said, edging closer. 'In any case, I have some 
information that will be of interest to you.' 

Trent frowned. Being recognized in public and approached was 
nothing new, especially lately, but he had run out of patience with it. 
'Look, I'm here with friends, to hear the orchestra. If this is 
Association business, I'd appreciate it if you'd call the office 
tomorrow.' 
The stranger's response was to take Trent firmly by the elbow and 
turn him toward the corridor leading to the offices of the concert hall. 
'Please,' he said, 'I'm afraid I can't sit through the Mahler. My tastes 
run to the Italian romantics -I came for the Rossini, and to see you.' 
'Might I have your name, then?' Trent asked, allowing himself to be 
led. 
'How rude of me,' the man said. 'I am Angelo DiBartolo. Come - in 
here.' DiBartolo had unlocked the office of the sales manager, and 
stepped aside to allow Trent to enter first. When Trent shied, looking 
back down the hall for Jerry, his driver and bodyguard, DiBartolo 
added quickly, 'No, no, we're friends, Mr Trent, please let go of your 
pulp-fiction prejudices. Your driver and my driver are having a 
cigarette outside, so we can have a little privacy.' 
'You're that Angelo DiBartolo,' Trent said. 'From Baltimore.' 
The other man shrugged resignedly. 'I have people who try to keep 
my face and name out of the news. Unfortunately, they aren't always 
successful. Come, please, and perhaps we can still get you back to 
your seat for the first movement.' 
Trent turned on the light as he entered, and DiBartolo turned it off 
again as he pulled the door shut and locked it again. There was 
enough light streaming in from a streetlamp to make the room a grey 
and white world. 
'You said you had information for me -' 
'Yes, you see, I've been taking a very personal interest in your 
lawsuit,' DiBartolo began. 
'Why? Speaking frankly.' 
DiBartolo smiled. 'You could say that applied violence is to my 
business what advertising is to General Motors. So any possible 
change in business conditions is of great interest to me. And in 
pursuing my curiosity, I've now heard something which I'm sure is of 
interest to you. The Supreme Court will hand down its opinion on 

Tuesday morning -' 
That was three days away. 'How can you know that?' Trent 
demanded. 
'I have a friend, someone who is extremely close to the Court.' 
'Look, how can I -' 
'Are you not interested in knowing the outcome?' 
With a sick feeling, Trent swallowed hard and fell silent. 
The Court will split five-four,' DiBartolo went on, 'to overturn 
Howarth and allow the use of the Trigger to continue. They will issue 
four opinions in all, including three from the majority. Liggett will 
write the principal opinion.' 
'You're telling me we've lost.' 
'Regretfully, yes. I hope that the advance notice will help you be 
properly prepared to respond.' 
There was no reason to believe DiBartolo, save perhaps one: 
Supreme Court Justice Joseph Anthony Perri, formerly of the District 
Court for the State of Maryland and the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, 
and currently the junior member of the October fraternity. 'This news 
is - reliable?' 
'Absolutely reliable,' DiBartolo assured him. 
Trent turned away and grabbed the back of a chair with a fierce grip 
that left his fingers bloodless. 'What's the price of this information, 
Mr DiBartolo? You offered it before I told you if it was of any value 
to me.' 
'Don't concern yourself with that, Mr Trent. There are no obligations 
attached. In fact, I want to ask if we can do anything more for you -' 
'More? What, a hit on the President?' Trent's tone was sarcastic. 
'You misunderstand me, Mr Trent,' said DiBartolo, though there was 
no indignation in his tone. 'I would never sanction such a reckless act. 
There are rules. One doesn't take retribution on a man simply because 
he opposes you. There must be a sound business purpose, some clear 
profit to be gained. That, or it must be a matter of honor.' 
'What, then?' Trent demanded, spinning toward DiBartolo. 'What are 
you offering? You come here and tell me they beat us. What do you 

think you're going to be able to do for us now? I'm afraid I'm not very 
good at reading between the lines.' 
DiBartolo shrugged. 'An unarmed man on the road always knows that 
he's in danger. An armed man behind a castle wall isn't always so 
wary. In time, you see, all the castles fell - to artillery, to siege, to 
corruption and betrayal. There is a way, Mr Trent, and someone will 
find it.' He invoked the air with his right hand. 'But in the meantime, 
there are expenses. I would like to make a contribution toward them. 
This is something we can do -' 
The offer pricked Trent's ego, and the wound bled a sharp-tongued 
resistance. 'We can pay for our own lawyers. Or any other 
professional services we might require.' 
'As you wish.' DiBartolo raised his hands as though in surrender. 'But 
if you should need help securing other resources -someone who 
knows the secrets of artillery or the ways of siege engines, as it were - 
I hope you'll feel free to call on me. My people take some justifiable 
pride in their expertise in that area.' 
The glow of the corridor light through the pebbled glass of the office 
door dimmed momentarily, once, twice, three times. 'Ah, there's the 
call - you see, the intermission is just ending, you've missed nothing 
yet. By all means, please, rejoin your friends. I myself am eager to go 
home and see my family. Thank you for your courtesy, Mr Trent. I 
wish you well.' 
John Trent said nothing to anyone about that meeting for two days. 
By the time Mahler's 2nd Symphony was over, he had calmed 
himself enough to hold his tongue, and convinced himself that he 
would wait and see what Tuesday brought rather than go out on a 
limb on the basis of DiBartolo's word. 
But early on Monday morning, the treasurer of the NAR came into 
Trent's office with a worried expression and a handful of printouts. 
'Look at these,' he said. In the last hour, nearly a million dollars has 
been posted to the general administrative account - all wire transfers, 
all between forty and a hundred thousand dollars, all from donors 
we've never heard from before. International Liberty Fund, Sophia 
Aiello Foundation, Friends of Freedom, something called the 
Maritime Enterprises Holding Company, half a dozen individual 
EuroUnion citizens plus two Caribbean accounts that might be hiding 

just about anyone - did you have a good weekend and forget to tell 
me? None of these donors contacted us for our account information. 
How do I handle this?' 
'I had an awful weekend, thank you, and I'm expecting an even worse 
week,' Trent said curtly as he came to his feet. 'Allocate the money to 
Education and Outreach. We're going to spend a lot of it in the next 
twenty-four hours. Kenneth!' The last was a shout directed at the 
outer office. 
His administrative aide came running. 'Yes?' 
'Call in the council. We have work to do.' 
The netmail action alert tree worked perfectly. By dawn on Tuesday, 
the vanguard of the Justice Day demonstrators was streaming into 
Washington aboard a small fleet of tour buses and charter aircraft. 
Converging on the west end of the Mall, the buses disgorged their 
human cargo near the Lincoln Memorial, then headed off to gather 
more. March captains gathered the new arrivals into groups of two or 
three hundred, and led them east along Con-stitution Avenue toward 
the Capitol. That route took them past the windows of the White 
House, and many marchers shouted jeers across the Ellipse. But they 
were otherwise well behaved, and while the park police on horseback 
watched attentively and seemed to be doing a great deal of talking on 
their radios, they kept a comfortable distance and did not try to 
interfere. 
By 8.00 a.m., there were more than ten thousand outside the Capitol, 
milling on the grassy eastern tip of the Mall in sight of the Supreme 
Court half a block away. By then the parade along Constitution 
Avenue had grown to a thin but unbroken stream, and the shouted 
jeers had been replaced by a wordless but equally challenging display 
of clenched fists and one-fingered salutes. The signs and placards 
reading JUSTICE NOW! and FREEDOM NOW! finally arrived, and 
soon were in evidence along the full length of the Mall. 
Every side street seemed to have at least one police unit parked and 
watching, but still there were no confrontations. The march had taken 
the authorities by surprise, and while they were no doubt 
uncomfortable watching the crowd swell, they had no ready strategy 
for preventing it. 

There were cameras evident from the beginning, some feeding NARfriendly 
sites and others belonging to press outlets friendly to their 
cause, but the march officially became an event when two of the 'Big 
Five' netcasters put the story at the top of their portals. It cascaded 
quickly from there to the smaller providers, and the buzz spread even 
faster throughout Washington: 'Something's happening on the Mall.' 
Just after nine, normal morning traffic and the influx of curious locals 
slowed traffic flow near the Lincoln Memorial to near-gridlock, and 
the city police responded by trying to close Arlington Memorial 
Bridge. Almost immediately, the half-dozen officers whose vehicles 
formed the barricade found themselves caught between more than a 
thousand demonstrators disembarking from buses stopped on the 
Virginia side of the Potomac and more than three times that number 
marching in relief from the Mall. But the imminent clash never came. 
After a hasty consultation with headquarters, the barricading vehicles 
were hurriedly removed, and in a complete reversal the police began 
directing traffic to help the buses get through. 
Supreme Court announcements were ordinarily made at 10.00 a.m., 
and John Trent had hoped to have the two blocks of park and street 
which separated the Capitol steps and the courthouse steps 
completely filled by his people before then. That proved too 
optimistic - there were bottlenecks everywhere, and the small delays 
had a way of compounding each other - but it did not matter. No 
announcement would be made in the face of what must have looked 
like a prospective riot. Only a few of the organizers knew that 
anything unexpected had happened, but when CNN1 reported that the 
justices had been hustled out of the city by the Secret Service, a loud 
cheer went up throughout the crowd. 
'Vacations, hell - they didn't want to face us!' a man wearing an 
Airborne beret hooted. 'We spooked 'em!' 
All morning the buses kept coming, with the entire Mall west of 14th 
Street turned into a drop-off zone and marshalling area. The parade 
east to the Capitol became an uncountable throng that kept spilling 
over into both Constitution and Independence Avenues, the 
thoroughfares flanking the Mall. Fearful of an incident, city police 
closed both routes west of 2nd Street. In minutes, the marchers 
gleefully claimed them for their own. 
When a rumor spread that Breland was watching from the South 

Portico, a chant of 'Traitor - traitor - traitor -' went up in its wake. 
One reporter described the chanting as loud enough to rattle the 
White House'. 
At the Capitol, the hard-working march captains tended to a mostlypatient 
crowd that now numbered more than a hundred thousand. 
Looking after its own interests, the National Park Service lent 
unexpected assistance in the form of a water truck and two flatbeds 
filled with portable toilets. A podium finally went up on the Capitol 
steps just before noon, with wireless repeaters scattered through the 
crowd all the way to the Supreme Court. 
'What do you want?' 
Coached by the march captains, the part of the crowd standing before 
the Capitol shouted back, 'Freedom now!' and thrust their signs and 
placards high into the air. A moment later the part of the throng 
nearest the Supreme Court answered with, 'Justice now!' 
'What are you here for?' 
'Freedom now!' The sound of their massed voices echoed off the high 
marble walls. 
'Justice now!' The sound of their massed voices shook the crowded 
street. 
As the chanting went on, John Trent climbed out of the back seat of 
the dark blue Cadillac parked just outside the barriers on the circle 
drive and started walking toward the podium. With some help from a 
dozen or so plants who'd been expecting his appearance, he was 
noticed and recognized, and the crowd started applauding as it parted 
to let him pass. By the time Trent reached the stairs all of the cameras 
and most eyes were on him, and as he mounted the stairs to the 
podium the chanting turned to cheering. He held up his hands for 
silence, then leaned forward to the mic. 
'This is the greatest nation on the face of the earth,' he said, and a roar 
of approval erupted from his audience. 
This is the greatest nation in the history of human civilization,' he 
said when it subsided, and the second roar was louder than the first. 
'I love this country,' he said with a catch in his throat, and the throng 
went wild, answering his love with their voices for an unbroken 
minute. 

This city is not what makes America great. These grand buildings do 
not make America great. You - the American people - make us great.' 
They applauded themselves enthusiastically, as late arrivals 
continued to pack in at the edge of the crowd. 
'And the contract we have with each other makes us great. The 
contract that allows us to assemble here today, unmolested. The 
contract that allows us to freely speak our minds, uncensored. The 
contract that promises freedom, unfettered. The contract that provides 
for justice, uncompromised. 
This contract, this Constitution, that guarantees our right to defend 
ourselves and our families and our nation from those who would prey 
on us.' 
He paused and swept the crowd with his gaze. 'What is it you want?' 
Loving it, the crowd shouted as one, 'Freedom now!' 
'Make sure they can hear you inside!' 
'Justice now!' 
'What are you here for?' 
'Freedom now!' 
They need to listen to you!' 
'Justice now!' 
Trent pointed in the direction of the Supreme Court. 'There are nine 
justices in that building over there who seem to be having trouble 
understanding our contract with each other.' There was booing, but 
Trent did not stop to indulge it. 'They seem to be having trouble 
understanding that it was armed citizens who created this nation, and 
armed citizens who've strengthened and preserved it for nearly two 
hundred fifty years. They seem to be confused by the plain language 
of the Second Amendment - which I'll wager you all know by heart.' 
It was ragged, but impressive all the same. The cameras panned the 
crowd and found rapturous faces while they recited the words of the 
Second Amendment. 
'The good news is that there are plenty of people in this building who 
do understand,' Trent told them. 'And right now I'd like to introduce 
you to some of our friends.' He turned and looked up the stairs at the 
group of nine Congressmen descending toward the podium, and 

began to applaud. 
The crowd's response was little more than polite, but it didn't matter - 
that moment was wholly for the media. Four senators and five 
representatives. Seven men and two women. Three Democrats, four 
Republicans, and two Progressives. Six whites, two blacks, and an 
Asian. America in a microcosm. The best 400,000 dollars I ever 
spent, Trent thought. 
He shook hands with each of them, then brought Senator Gil Massey 
to the podium. 
'John Trent is right - this is a great country. And John Trent is a great 
American!' Massey said, beaming in expectation of the applause that 
followed. 
'I came here today to tell you that as the ranking-minority member on 
the Senate Judiciary Committee, I will shortly introduce a bill to 
outlaw the Trigger now and forever -' 
His words were lost in a kaleidoscope of joyful noise that dwarfed 
every outburst which had preceded it. 
Protecting his sound bite, Massey repeated himself at first opportunity. 
'I say, to outlaw the Trigger now and forever! No matter how 
the High Court rules. This device is as un-American as a sneak 
attack! It says, neighbor, I don't trust you. It says, mugger, rapist, 
murderer, pick me, I want to be your next victim. Well, I say that's 
crazy. I say these things belong at the bottom of Boston Harbor with 
the King's tea! We don't need them!' 
Trent smiled and applauded through eight more occasionally tortured 
invocations of patriotic imagery, then reclaimed the podium with the 
Congressmen forming a half-circle behind him. 
'Will you help?' he asked the crowd. 'When you go home tonight, will 
you keep this memory alive? Will you cast one eye on Washington 
while you go about your daily business? Because Senator Massey 
will need you. Representative Baines-Brown will need you. I'll need 
you. This will be an all-out fight. With Breland in the White House, 
this bill will need a veto-proof margin. Will you help us get it?' 
There was a roar of affirmation, and as it faded, someone in the 
crowd began singing loudly, 'God bless America, land that I love -' 
The singer was a plant, but, even so, by the final chorus, a chill ran 

down Trent's back, and there was a lump in his throat. 
Afterwards, while the gathering was being slowly reabsorbed by the 
buses and the surrounding city, there were interviews to do - a 
seemingly endless string of them, starting with the gray eminence of 
newsmedia, Bill Moyers of ABCDisney. Then, finally, there was a 
chance to escape from public view, drop the mask, and quietly 
celebrate. He chose a private dining suite at Alexandria's low-key 
Mondrian Inn for the setting, and NAR lobbyist Maria Nestor for the 
company. 
That was beautiful,' she said, greeting him with a kiss on the cheek. 
'You throw a great party.' 
Her perfume lingered in his nostrils as she circled the table and sat 
down. 'You did the heavy lifting,' he said, pouring her a glass of 
cabernet. 'I couldn't be more pleased. Senator Massey! That was a 
coup. And what a fine lineup of mannequins to go with him.' 
'I enjoyed being back in my comfort zone. The High Court is hard to 
scare and harder to buy. But Congress is a whore.' She laughed. 'I 
should know.' 
By the time they were finished with a leisurely five-course dinner and 
a thorough mussing of the king-sized bed and each other, the Mall 
was empty. A city the size of Madison, Wisconsin 
- perhaps even Riverside, California - had appeared overnight in the 
middle of Washington, spent the day in the park, and then quietly 
departed, without a single arrest and with little more than some welltrampled 
grass left to testify to their presence. 
I hope the right people got the message, he thought, climbing back in 
the Cadillac and waving his driver on. This time, we were content just 
to be heard. This time. This time, we left our guns at home. This time. 
Pay attention - add the pieces up-I can put two hundred thousand 
people on your doorstep any time you make it necessary. You don't 
want to make it necessary. 
Expecting the NAR decision to be released in the morning, Trent had 
made plans to spend the night in Washington, so he could make 
himself available to the cameras again. But it seemed that someone 
else was thinking about the empty Mall as well. As the car neared the 
Hotel Americana, Lancaster called with the alert. 

This is it. They're releasing it at 8.00 p.m.,' he said. 'I'm on my way 
over there - they only gave us twenty minutes' notice.' 
'Did they say anything about the timing?' 
They say it was delayed from this morning by a printing problem.' He 
snorted derisively. 
Trent and his driver sat in their car in the driveway of the Americana, 
waving off the doorman and car valet and listening to the news 
together on Iridium Radio. There were four different opinions, two 
with only a single signer. They added up to a 5-4 vote to reverse the 
DC District Court. 
Justice Joseph Anthony Perri, Trent noted with interest, voted with 
the minority. 
'Bastards,' said Jerry, smacking the steering wheel with the heel of his 
hand. 'Rubbing it in our faces. Couldn't even give us a few hours to 
enjoy what happened today.' 
'No rest for the wicked,' said Trent, who had not extended the benefit 
of his foreknowledge to his driver. 'Well, there's no reason to stay in 
town now. Let's go home, Jerry. Fredericksburg, not Fairfax. I'm 
think I'm going to let myself go fishing in the Rappahannock 
tomorrow.' 
The red Ranchero pickup followed them all the way from the 
Americana to the Interstate 395 on-ramp, including a side trip 
through Arlington National Cemetery which Jerry tossed in just to 
see how interested the driver of the pickup was in them. He seemed 
very interested in them and not at all in the cemetery, which troubled 
Jerry enough for him to mention it aloud. 
'Could be media, I suppose,' Trent said, glancing back. Dusk was 
disappearing into night, and there was little to be seen except a 
pattern of lights - headlights above, fog lamps below - that left a 
vague impression of a high-ground-clearance vehicle. 'I've made 
myself unavailable since before the decision was announced.' 
'It's not really a media sort of vehicle, Mr Trent. More of a trouble 
sort of vehicle. Maybe I should call security for an escort, head for 
Fairfax instead so they can get to us early.' 
'You like to drive fast, don't you, Jerry?' Trent said, settling back into 

his seat. 'Let's just keep going.' 
The driver obediently pushed the Cadillac to 120 kilometers per hour. 
'He's fallen back a little, but he's still there.' 
'Maybe he just wants to shake my hand,' Trent said, then chuckled to 
himself. 'Or maybe he was part of the march and didn't get his travel 
money.' 
'I would really be more comfortable calling for an escort, sir.' 
'If he's still back there when it's time to leave I-95, then I'll worry.' 
But just past Quantico, the red Ranchero moved up behind them and 
started to press. Jerry responded by pushing the big Cadillac harder, 
opening up the gap again - and, a few minutes later, running them 
right into a well-disguised two-car block on the quiet stretch between 
Stafford and Falmouth. The Ranchero came roaring up quickly to 
seal them in - minivan ahead, black coupe on the left, guardrail and 
ditch on the right, pickup behind. 
'Son of a bitch,' Jerry muttered. 'I should have seen that -' Trent heard 
the Velcro rip as Jerry yanked up the passenger cushion and retrieved 
the Beretta .45 ACP concealed there. 'Hang on, Mr Trent, I think 
we're going to have to play bumper-cars.' 
'Wait,' said Trent. 'They may just be punks, with no idea who we are.' 
'So much the better. Mr Trent, I think you should get down.' 
'There's no air bag on the floor, Jerry.' 
'I'm not going to let us crash, Mr Trent.' 
'It's not your driving that concerns me. Jerry, it's theirs.' 
Just then, Trent's comset began chiming in local mode. As it did, the 
front passenger window of the vehicle beside them was rolling down, 
revealing a laughing young man who raised his own comset to his ear 
and gestured. The youth's shaved head and enormous mutton-chops 
were instantly recognizable, as was the cackle Trent heard when he 
answered the page. 
'Hey, got any fucking mustard?' 
'Bowman -' Trent's slow-burning ire at the Patriot Fist commander 
made the name come out a growl. 
'No? Maybe check your shorts, you'll find some there! How'd you 

like that, Mr President?' 
'I'm glad to be able to help entertain you. Is there anything else you 
want?' 
'Yeah, we gotta talk about some stuff. Have your boy take the next 
exit, we'll find a quiet spot.' The connection terminated as the coupe's 
window rolled up and the vehicle surged ahead. 
'Do we have a problem here or not, chief?' asked Jerry. 
'Apart from the fact that Bob Bowman is high half the time and 
paranoid all the time?' Trent asked. 'Probably not.' 
'What do you want me to do?' 
'Follow them off at the next exit. But don't be too trusting, all right?' 
After several minutes of wandering the winding roads on the outskirts 
of Fredericksburg, the lead car in the caravan pulled in at a deserted 
roadside park and boat launch along the Rapidan, just past Fox Run. 
'I thought for a minute we were going to end up at the reservoir,' Jerry 
said as he shut off the engine. 'Do you want the pistol?' 
Trent shook his head. 'No. Just stay in the car, act nonchalant. I have 
a big enough credibility problem with this guy as it is.' 
When he climbed out of the car, Trent was momentarily taken aback 
by additional familiar faces. The driver of the Ranchero was Mel 
Yost, the fiftyish publisher of Washington War Crimes, 'a newsletter 
of the American Resistance'. The minivan had borne Zachary Taylor 
Grant to the meeting. Everywhere he went, the tall, bearded founder 
of the Hedgehogs militia wore camouflage pants, a flak vest, and a 
large silver cross on a neck chain. 
'Did we get your heart going pretty good back there, Johnny?' Grant 
said with a hearty laugh. 'We'd have had you - bang bang. Just a 
rehearsal, though - lucky you.' 
'You shouldn't tease my driver like that,' Trent said. 'He loves a 
chance to bend some sheet metal. What's this all about?' 
'Well, you were nice enough to invite us all to your place to tell us 
what you thought we should do,' Grant said. 'It's only polite for us to 
return the favor.' 

'Nice place you've got,' said Trent. 
'Come on, let's not drag it out,' said Bowman, flinching nervously. 
The next SRA satellite will be passing overhead in eleven minutes. 
And let's go into the fucking trees - sound carries across water.' 
Without waiting for their agreement, Bowman led the way. Yost 
followed with a penlight flash, while Grant fell in beside Trent. 
'Johnny, one of the things I wanted to know is how serious you are 
about that show you put on today.' 
'Serious enough.' 
'Really? It's not just fresh-scrubbed-face cover? You're going to count 
on the same scoundrels who passed Brady I, Brady II, the ugly guns 
ban, national registration, and the Stoke-Williams liability act to 
rescue you? Now, see, you made a liar out of me.' 
They caught up to Bowman at that point, and in doing so also to the 
sound of urine splattering against a tree trunk. 
'Geez, Bob, what are you thinking? Now they'll know you were here,' 
said Grant. 
'What? Hey, there's no DNA in piss, is there? Shit -' 
Grant laughed heartily as the younger man frantically tried to staunch 
his flow and zip up. 'You spoiled everything, Bob. We can't kill 
Johnny now.' 
'You're a cruel fuck, Zack,' said Yost. 'Bob, don't listen to him - 
there's no DNA in urine unless you've jerked off in the last twentyone 
days.' 
'Christ,' said Bowman, and Grant laughed even harder. 
'I guess that means I owe you a favor, Bob,' said Trent lightly. 'Zack, 
I've got people waiting on me. Can we take care of business before 
that satellite gets here and photographs our cars together? What's this 
about?' 
It was Yost who stepped forward to answer. 'We wanted to give you a 
chance to come in with us, now that your lawsuit went in the dumper. 
We're going to work together on another strategy, a little more direct.' 
'A lot more direct,' said Bowman, making a pretend gun out of his 
hand and 'firing' a shot into the darkness. 'I'm tired of waiting. Right 
in the face, all the fucking traitors.' 

'Why me?' Trent asked. 
'Two reasons, Johnny,' said Grant. 'Because you'd be useful -you're 
national, we're local, you're respectable, we don't want to be, you're 
well-connected, we wouldn't join any club that would have us. And 
second, because you just got kicked in the face by the conspiracy, so 
it's real clear to you now that they're not going to let it happen.' 
'You can't beat them playing by their rules, because they have the 
game rigged. Like Las Vegas, only worse,' said Yost. 'So we're going 
to play by our rules.' 
Trent pursed his lips. 'If I ask you what kind of targets you have in 
mind, will that affect my status here?' 
'"I have a little list - they never will be missed -"' Bowman said, singsong. 
'No, Johnny, you're square with us,' said Grant. 'But before I tell you, 
make sure the answer makes a difference. Are there some targets 
you'd be ready to sign on for, and some you wouldn't? If so, you'd be 
getting in at the right time. We have a target-rich environment and a 
lot of decisions to make.' 
For the first time since the Ranchero had appeared in the rear-view 
mirror, Trent was gripped by an acute feeling of peril. He was not 
completely confident that the wrong answer would not put him facedown 
in the Rapido, and so he tried not to answer at all. 'I'm going to 
need to think about it, guys.' 
Grant frowned and shook his head. 'I don't think we can do that. It's 
like Bob said. We're tired of waiting.' 
'I don't get why you're not more fucking angry,' Bowman said, 
kicking a rock. 'Man, you ought to be jumping at the chance we're 
giving you. Why haven't you been thinking about it all along? I have. 
We're going to do something, not just suck up bandwidth like you did 
today. Maybe you don't really want to win. Or maybe you're just a 
fucking coward.' 
'Say, Bob, how much longer till that satellite is above the horizon?' 
Grant asked. 
'What?' Bowman peered at his watch. 'Goddammit -' Pushing past 
Yost, he bolted for the parking area. 
Grant and Yost shared a chuckle at Bowman's expense. 'Don't say it, 

Johnny, I know - he's deeply twisted. But he has very good access to 
toys,' Grant said by way of explanation. 'What's your answer going to 
be, Johnny? In or out? We're going to make some noise, I promise 
you that.' 
'Then you're going to need me to keep on doing what I do,' Trent said 
on impulse. 'High-profile, high-road, voice of reason, good citizen 
working through the system. It's the best cover you can have. Let me 
be blunt - if something goes wrong and the Feds take down Bob 
Bowman, he's replaceable, and the public thinks, well, that's one 
crackpot. If something goes wrong and they take down John Trent - 
well, I can't risk that for anything but the highest stakes. And I don't 
think we're there yet. Which doesn't mean I'm not going to wish you 
luck.' 
Then he held his breath. 
Grant and Yost exchanged glances. 'All right, John,' Yost said, and 
offered his hand. 'You hit them high, we'll hit them low -and luck to 
you, too. You won't hear from us again.' 
The skin on Trent's back crawled all the way back to the parking lot. 
When he was safely back in the car, he broke out in a cold sweat. 
'Let's get out of here, Jerry.' 
'What happened?' 
'You know better than that, Jerry.' He settled back in his seat, 
wondering if his hands were trembling because he'd been afraid, or 
because, under the fear and revulsion and contempt, some part of him 
had been tempted. 
24: Weapons to Kill 
'I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill.' 
- Thomas Alva Edison 
In the ten months since Dr Jeffrey Horton's face first appeared in the 
newsfeeds, both his life and his appearance had dramatically 

changed. 
In the days following his unveiling as the inventor of the LifeShield, 
his face had been everywhere. He had agreed to interviews, taken 
part in debates, testified before Congress, and appeared at the United 
Nations with President Breland, where they received a standing 
ovation from the General Assembly. 
But immediately after that, he had disappeared - not only from public 
view, but from what had been his life. Taking an indefinite leave 
from Terabyte, he traded in his hermitage at the Annex for the life of 
a wanderer. Since then, he had had no home base to speak of, renting 
a hotel room in Vancouver for a week, a camper in the Great Smoky 
Mountains for a fortnight, a lakefront cabin in northern Minnesota for 
a month, and so on - leapfrogging here and there across the North 
American continent with no clear purpose beyond going where he 
had not been and seeing what he had not seen. 
He carried with him only that which he could fit into a hiker's 
backpack - little more than a few days' change of clothes, a few 
essential toiletries, an extra pair of comfortable shoes, his comset and 
reader. The toiletries included neither razor nor scissors; he had 
grown his first beard, and let his wavy hair grow long. 
'I look like the very cliche of a tree-hugging eco-terrorist,' he had 
written to Lee, one of his very few contacts at Terabyte. 'It's 
wonderful, because respectable people who might recognize me keep 
a wary distance, and the eccentric and disreputable types who 
actually approach me don't care who I am, as long as I'm willing to 
listen to their advice, or their complaints, or their philosophy, or their 
dreams. I listen, because these fringe folk are interesting, with 
refreshingly unlikely and discordant perspectives on the world. I'd 
forgotten just how differently people can think, and how few of them 
are burdened by thinking the way the lab-coat-and-doctorate set 
does.' 
In a note to Brohier, he had added, 'I feel like I'm reconnecting with 
the real world - or maybe connecting with it for the first time. I didn't 
realize it when we were having those conversations about what our 
work would mean to Society, but my theoretical model for people 
was as flawed as our model for physics turned out to be. But I guess 
that's what comes from collecting all your samples in your own back 
yard. I overestimated the influence of reason, and underestimated the 

influence of passion. And I completely missed the fact that 
intelligence can serve either one equally well.' 
Horton had been in the Mayan Peninsula, perspiring profusely after a 
long climb up the steep stairs of a 1,600-year-old stone pyramid, 
when he received Brohier's excited invitation to come to Princeton 
and share in a theoretical breakthrough. But Horton was not yet ready 
to talk about physics - he had only activated his comset in order to 
find out more about the structure which he was sitting atop, and about 
the people who built it. So he had let the invitation go unanswered. 
But despite his best efforts to prevent it, Princeton kept intruding on 
his consciousness, threatening to give direction to his directionless 
journey. It insinuated itself into his thoughts like an elephant in the 
living room - impossible to ignore. Either going to see Brohier 
foreordained the end of his journey and the resumption of his 
professional life, or it represented something he was avoiding. And 
neither admission was acceptable to Horton. The only escape from 
that psychological double-bind was to make Princeton just another 
stop along the way, a side trip off a road heading somewhere else. 
So in his second week in Cape May, Horton took a break from 
watching the late-winter storms lash the piers and stone jetties. 
Locking up his third-story apartment with all the ritual of someone 
who intended to return, he hired a jet taxi out of Wildwood to 
Philadelphia. There he caught a nearly empty Amtrak commuter train 
to Princeton Junction, from which he rode the rattly, superannuated 
'dinky' shuttle onto campus. There was a ground taxi at the station, 
but Horton elected to walk the last leg of his pilgrimage, declaring 
indifference to the damp chill in the gusty March breeze. 
But as Horton was following College Road between the deserted golf 
course and the theological seminary, he realized that he had contrived 
to create a sort of Zeno's Paradox for himself - the closer he got to his 
destination, the more slowly he approached it. 
Does it still bother me that much? he wondered. Is this choice or 
coincidence? Unable to answer, he picked up the pace. 
As he drew nearer to the Institute, Horton was taken aback by the 
names of the streets: Hegel Avenue, Newton Road, Einstein Drive. 
Only the last of the three men so honored had ever walked these 
streets, but the names alone made Horton feel as though he were 

entering another world - an island enclave where the names of great 
thinkers had more resonance than the names of soldiers and 
politicians. 
But, then, that was what the Institute's benefactors had intended to 
create - a haven for pure intellectual pursuits, unpressured by 
academics, uncompromised by commercialization. The Institute had 
no laboratories, no curriculum, no tuition, no degrees - but it had 
excellent libraries, long wooded trails, and a remarkable record of 
success. 
Horton found it humbling enough to consider the aggregate 
brainpower of the current faculty. But even that stellar assemblage 
paled beside the roster of past faculty and alumni, which read like a 
history of the last century in science - not only Einstein, who had 
closed out his career and his life here, but C. N. Yang, John Von 
Neumann, Kurt Godel, Freeman Dyson - 
I am unworthy to enter your house, sahib - Horton thought selfmockingly, 
standing before the sign at the foot of the main drive. 
He had to give his own name at the reception desk in Fuld Hall to 
gain admittance to the Institute's buildings and directions to Brohier's 
office. That was something he had taken pains to avoid in the course 
of his travels. But there was no flicker of recognition, no raised 
eyebrow -just the reserved Old World courtesy and New World 
efficiency of a well-trained staff. 
This is your visitor identification, Dr Horton. There's no need to wear 
it -just carry it with you. It also serves as your cafeteria pass, should 
you decide to take a meal while you're here.' 
'Transmitter?' Horton asked, turning the thin silver disc over in his 
hand. 
'Linked to our security systems, yes. But it's only to tell us that you're 
an authorized visitor - we won't be keeping track of where you go. It 
expires at eleven, though, when the Institute closes to visitors.' 
Horton nodded and slipped the disc into his breast pocket. 'An early 
night for Cinderella. One-Seventeen, you said?' 
'Yes, Dr Horton. I've already informed Dr Brohier that you're here.' 
'Guess I'm in for it, then, eh? Retreat cut off.' He found a wry smile. 
Thank you for your help.' 

The hallway was carpeted with a soft pile that absorbed the sound of 
footsteps. The doors and moldings along its length were a darkgrained 
hardwood with a faint sheen - real wood, not synthetic, that 
remembered a thousand dustings, cleanings, and re-oilings. 
A year ago, Horton would probably have missed the life in the wood. 
Now it spoke to him not only of attention to detail, but dedication to 
principle - of an unwavering investment in bringing the best out of 
the best, and of a place where there was always enough time to do 
things right. 
Suddenly, Horton was ambushed by a wistful envy for those 
privileged to call this mecca home, and an unexpected eagerness to 
hear what Brohier had uncovered here. A moment later Horton saw 
him, emerging from the corner office at the end of the hall, raising a 
hand in greeting and starting toward Horton with an uneven gait that 
favored the right leg. 
'Karl,' Horton called, hastening his steps. 
'You came.' Brohier was beaming joyfully. 'I'm so glad - I've so much 
to show you. Wherever have you been?' 
'I took the long way,' said Horton. He pointed at Brohier's leg, then 
surrendered that same hand to a hearty handshake. 'What did you do 
to yourself?' 
'Fell, on the woods trail. My own fool fault. I went walking after the 
first snowfall, with the wrong shoes. It's nothing now - just a bad 
habit I haven't broken.' But when Brohier took Horton by the elbow 
as though to steer him toward the office, Horton realized that he was 
being drafted to serve as the older man's walking stick. 'How long can 
you stay? Did they find you a room? I could make space for you in 
my cottage - it's nothing like Columbus, mind you, but big enough 
for the two of us.' 
'We'll talk about that later,' said Horton. Out of the corner of his eye, 
he noticed the number on the door they were passing. Half-turning, 
he gestured with a thumb. 'Wasn't that -' 
Brohier's glance followed the gesture. 'Einstein's office? Yes -his last 
one. One-Fifteen Fuld. Here, I'm right next door.' 
'How is that?' Horton reached for the knob. 
'Pardon?' 

'Well - it seems like it could be intimidating. Like working down the 
hall from god.' 
'I find it inspiring,' said Brohier, releasing Horton's arm and making 
his way to his desk. 'The stories they still tell here about him - he's 
become a real person to me, instead of an icon.' Then he laughed as 
he settled heavily into a chair. 'Besides, it's Harry Beuge who's 
carrying the weight of comparison. I only have to pass Einstein's 
office every morning - he has to work there. Which may explain why 
he's over here six times a day.' 
Horton joined Brohier in his chuckle. 'There is something about this 
place, though, isn't there,' he said, dragging a chair up. 
This building is touched by greatness, by genius - it's in the bricks, 
the plaster, the air. I draw a deep breath every morning, hoping to 
borrow some.' He leaned forward conspiratorially. 'When I'm feeling 
impish, I tell someone there's a morphological field over the campus - 
there's been so much deep thinking done here that it's now easier to 
do it here than anywhere else. Last week I said it in front of the 
Director.' 
'You invoke Sheldrake to the Director of the Institute? You're a brave 
man.' 
'I've committed worse sins here than that.' 
'Such as?' 
'I've been holding out on them, waiting for you.' 
'You shouldn't have. You didn't owe me that.' 
'Oh, there's been plenty to do. I've had to go back to school, to learn 
some chemistry.' 
Horton blinked in surprise. 'Chemistry? You? The man who earnestly 
explained to me over a bottle of Bordeaux that chemistry was a trade 
for people without enough imagination to be physicists?' 
The very man,' said Brohier. 'As many times as I've said words to that 
effect in front of witnesses, I'll probably have to make a public 
recantation at an annual meeting of the American Chemical Society. 
But look behind you - right there on the top shelf is the place I 
started, Pauling's Nature of the Chemical Bond. A first edition, in 
paper, no less - hand-corrected by Pauling himself.' 

Horton stole a glance back over his shoulder. 'Isn't there a multimedia 
edition yet?' he asked, unimpressed by the artifact. 
Brohier wrinkled his nose in disgust. 'Oh, of course - and it's awful. 
All cluttered with three-dimensional animations and other extraneous 
nonsense. I sent it back after a week. This, this I've had checked out 
of the Natural Sciences library since August.' 
'Slow learner?' 
Brohier bleated a laugh. 'Oh, thank heavens. There was only one 
thing that worried me more than the thought that you were never 
coming back -' 
'The thought that I was, but my sense of humor wasn't?' 
'Just so. You were frightfully earnest for the longest time, you know.' 
'Well - it was my first time,' Horton said with a rueful smile. I'd never 
changed history before.' 
'We're not finished yet, Jeffrey,' Brohier said, sitting back. His eyes 
had the eager brightness of a parent anticipating his child's first 
glimpse of the Christmas tree. 'Don't you want to know why I've been 
reading Pauling?' 
Pursing his lips, Horton hazarded a guess. 'You figured out 
something about the Trigger and bond energies -' 
'Because you and I have to rewrite Pauling. Because the whole 
fundamental model, the core metaphor, has to change. I know why 
the Trigger works, Jeffrey. I know what you did right - and why you 
kept hitting theoretical dead-ends.' 
'Well- give, then!' 
Brohier looked past Horton to make certain that the office door was 
closed. 'We were hidebound old farts, Jeffrey - trying to shoehorn our 
new wonder into the pinched shoe of yesterday's fashions. We 
weren't thinking nearly radically enough by half. Understandable, 
really - no reflection on us. I think we've all been fooled into thinking 
that the revolution has already come and gone, that the CERN system 
was the paradigm shift we'd been waiting for. But it wasn't the shift - 
just the tremble beforehand.' 
Shaking his head, Horton said exasperatedly, 'I'll be damned if you 
don't take your own sweet time getting to the point.' 

Brohier's eyes widened in indignation - whether mock or real, Horton 
couldn't discern. 'You keep me waiting for months, and now you 
begrudge me a few minutes? Arrogant youth. You'll sit there and be 
quiet for as long as it takes. I have a right to enjoy this.' 
'Sorry,' Horton said with a sheepish, lopsided smile. 
'I may forgive you,' Brohier said. 'Or I may drag it out another twenty 
minutes just to spite you. Now, where was I?' 
'Paradigm shifts. The fundamentals of the model. Rewriting Pauling.' 
'Paradigm shifts,' Brohier echoed. 'Jeffrey, in the CERN model, why 
is there such a thing as matter?' 
'Pardon me?' 
Brohier repeated his question. 
'I don't think the CERN system says anything about why matter 
exists,' said Horton, shaking his head. 'All it addresses is how- the 
matter identity of energy as a collapsed wave function, the stability of 
the collapsed field state, the asymmetry of the initiating factors for 
transitions. But that isn't the answer you wanted, is it.' 
'No. Look at the picture we physicists have painted. Energy is energy. 
Matter is energy. What else is there? Forces - which are transmitted 
by vector bosons, which are particles, and particles are matter, and 
matter is energy. So why is the universe so complex? Why does it not 
consist of nothing more than the white light of god, pure and 
undifferentiated? Why should there be air or stone or tree, desk or 
wall or me or thee?' 
'The Kastenmach equations -' 
'Describe how - they do not explain why.' 
Horton sat forward in his chair. 'Karl, maybe I'm missing your thrust, 
but aren't we outside of the realm of science here? I thought teleology 
was something we fobbed off on the Humanities Department.' 
'We're outside the realm of matter-energy physics,' said Brohier, 'but 
not outside the realm of science.' 
'What else is there?' 
Brohier's eyes sparkled. 'Now we're asking the right questions. What 
else, indeed! What is the factor which collapses the primal energy 
field into so many discrete field states - four forces, a dozen 

elementary particles, a hundred elements, a hundred thousand 
compounds? What is the essence of differentiation that allows a 
drawerful of pencils, a sky full of snowflakes, a beach full of sand 
grains to exist - with each element of the set retaining its individual 
character and separate existence, without sacrificing the underlying 
identity of form?' 
'Why, we're talking about the effects of quantum indeterminacy, 
aren't we? Stochastic variation. It all depends on how complete a 
description of the subjects you specify. The sand displays unity at 
certain resolutions, and variation at others.' 
'Too subjective. Either there are a billion grains of sand, or there 
aren't. They exist independent of perception, or because of it. 
Choose.' 
'I'm voting Materialist in this election,' Horton said. His face bore a 
quizzical expression, and he followed his answer with a question. 
'Are you trying to say that what gives them their identity, their 
existence, is the specification of their properties?' 
A satisfied smile crept across Brohier's face. 'Yes, exactly, Jeffrey. 
The "what else" is information. Information organizes and 
differentiates energy. It regularizes and stabilizes matter. Information 
propagates through matter-energy and mediates the interactions of 
matter-energy. It is the mind of creation, the antidyne to chaos.' 
Horton was staring through the floor as he grappled with 
Brohier's pronouncement. 'If the universe consists of energy and 
information,' Horton said slowly, 'then the Trigger somehow alters 
the information envelope of certain substances -' 
'Alters it, scrambles it, overwhelms it, destabilizes it,' Brohier said. 
'And crudely, too. The units we're building now are unimaginably 
wasteful - like hitting a computer with ten thousand volts of lightning 
to change a few bytes of its programming. It was a fluke, pure 
serendipity, that somewhere in the smear of informational noise 
describing your prototype were a few coherent words in the language 
of resonance mechanics - the new science of matter. You stumbled on 
the characteristic chemical signature of certain nitrate compounds, 
which picked your signal out of the air like a ham radio operator 
finding a voice in the static.' 
'But if we can learn to read and write in that language -' 

'You see now why I said we need to go back to Pauling and start 
over.' 
The idea was too big, and had snuck up on him too fast. Horton felt 
his resistance mounting. 'Are we just playing word games here, or do 
you actually have a representational system worked out?' The 
inflection of the words conveyed more skepticism than Horton had 
intended. 
'Why, Jeffrey - you wound me. You know it isn't science until you 
can say it in numbers.' 
This time, Horton saw the twinkle, and knew that the affront was 
pretense. Pushing the sleeves of his sweater up to his elbows, he rose 
from his chair. 
'Good,' he said. 'Let's go to the whiteboard. Show me the math.' 
They spent nearly two hours at the giant whiteboard hanging low on 
the common wall with 115 Fuld. For most of the first hour, Brohier 
sat in a secretary's chair and rolled back and forth with a fat black 
marker in hand. For most of the second, Brohier sat in the middle of 
the office, from where he could see the entire board as a whole, and 
debated with Horton as the latter edited and annotated the board with 
a bright red marker. 
Finally Horton, too, retreated from the board. He surrendered the red 
marker to Brohier as he joined him. 
'Well?' Brohier prodded. 'What have you decided?' 
'I've decided you should buy me dinner,' said Horton. 'An expensive 
dinner. You can charge it against the prize for your second Nobel.' 
'Oh, foo - that kind of talk is extremely premature,' Brohier said with 
a dismissive wave of his hand. Horton could tell that Brohier was 
pleased, nonetheless. 'Just tell me that it sings for you.' 
It does,' Horton said, resting a hand on Brohier's shoulder. 'I can't find 
a wrong note. Not that I'm the most critical listener you'll run into. 
But if it ends as well as it begins - Karl, it's a hell of a piece of work.' 
Brohier beamed and patted Horton's hand. 'Thank you, Jeffrey. Now 
wipe the board, will you? And we'll go find you some dinner.' 
The Institute's meal hall was not quite what Horton had had in mind 

for a celebratory dinner, but he conceded to Brohier that theirs would 
not be the first such taken there. 
'Indeed. Besides,' Brohier assured him, 'there's nothing second-tier 
about the food here. The Institute takes very good care of our 
stomachs, as well. Go on, look - tell me the last time you saw a menu 
like that on campus.' 
Horton saw quickly that Brohier was not exaggerating. The entrees - 
which apparently changed daily, since the menu bore that day's date - 
spanned five continents and more than a dozen cuisines. 
In a replay of Horton and Brohier's last dinner together, while they 
were waiting for their food, Horton had to endure two introductions 
and an intrusion. The introductions were to Barbara Glennie-Golden, 
the round-cheeked grandmotherly Distinguished Visiting Professor in 
Historical Studies, and Roger Petranoff, the vulture-necked chairman 
of the mathematics department. 
Neither scholar was anything but polite, but Horton still squirmed as 
he smiled his way through the encounters. He was too conscious of 
his own notoriety to relax, and Glennie-Golden's parting words only 
heightened that sensitivity. 
'You know, young man, you've certainly made my field more 
interesting,' she said, pausing by his chair. The lions of the economics 
school of historical analysis were sleeping peacefully, thinking that 
they were at the top of the food chain - and now you've stirred up the 
hornets of the technology school, and they've been making the lions 
mighty uncomfortable.' 
'And what are you, Barbara - lion or hornet?' asked Brohier. 
She laughed. 'I'm the sterile crossbreed.' 
The intrusion came in the person of Samuel Bennington-Hastings, an 
exuberant physics post-doc from Cambridge who looked young 
enough to make Horton feel old. 'So, you're the legendary Trigger 
man,' he said, slipping into one of the empty seats at the table. 'Does 
this mean our secretive Dr Brohier is finally going to let the rest of us 
play with the new toys?' 
Brohier snorted good-naturedly. 'Dr Sam thinks I've been holding out 
on him.' 
'Not at all, sir - on the whole department,' Bennington-Hastings said. 

'Dr Brohier asks a thousand questions for every one he answers. 
When I ask him what's the trick inside the magic box, he just smiles 
like the Buddha.' He reached across the table and patted Brohier's 
stomach. 'He's starting to look like the Buddha, too.' 
Brohier rapped the young scientist sharply across the knuckles with a 
spoon, then sent a sheepish look in Horton's direction. 'Since I hurt 
my hip - it's winter, after all. And the food is good -' 
'I just hope you're keeping excellent notes, so Dr Horton doesn't 
spend the rest of his career deciphering Brohier's Last Theorem. It'd 
be better still if you'd come with me to the fitness center at sunrise, 
for Hatha yoga and twenty-five laps. Then you'll live forever - maybe 
even be famous someday.' 
'If I have to get up at sunrise to run laps, Dr Sam, what's the point of 
living forever? - I think this is our food coming.' 
With a wink, Horton leaned toward Bennington-Hastings. 'What you 
don't understand, Sam, is that Karl here doesn't know what's in the 
magic box. See, the truth is, I've been carrying him for twenty years. 
He's only here to spy for me.' 
'Oh, splendid, I'm beset by liars on both sides. A fine thing this is for 
the upward march of science.' He stood up as the waiter reached the 
table. 'Eat, yes, eat, may your arteries harden to stone and your 
manhood dangle like an empty snakeskin.' 
Brohier laughed heartily. Horton stared after Bennington-Hastings 
with an uncertain grin and a wondering look. 'What was that? Who 
was that?' 
'Well, Dr Sam would tell you that he's descended from a long, 
distinguished line of English eccentrics, and that John Cleese is his 
spirit guide.' Smiling broadly, Brohier shook his head. 'Don't ever tell 
him, Jeffrey, but I find him a delight. He's a gifted mimic, and 
completely irreverent. He has half a dozen different characters living 
in his head, and he'll shift into any one of them without warning - you 
got a little taste of the one I call Dr Bombay there at the end. But 
don't underestimate him. Dr Sam tutored me in combinametrics when 
I first arrived. He's a very bright young man. And I wager he'll be 
sitting in the center of the front row when we present our paper on 
resonance mechanics.' 
Horton said nothing to that, and it proved the last time either of them 

spoke of work while there was still food on the table. Instead, Brohier 
quizzed Horton about his travels, and Horton surprised himself by 
finding he had entertaining anecdotes to tell about himself. 
'Have you kept in touch with Lee and Gordie?' Brohier asked over 
dessert. 
'About as well as I have with you,' Horton confessed. 'How are they 
doing?' 
'As far as I can see, the Annex appears to be on an even keel. It seems 
as though they cancel out each others' deficiencies as managers.' 
That's not what I was asking about.' 
'Oh,' said Brohier. 'That. At last report, they were inching toward 
each other at a pace which makes glaciers seem nimble.' 
'Really? That much progress? Whose report was that?' 
'Lee's.' 
'Ah - the pessimist's version. If we had Gordie's version, we could 
find the average, and then we'd know what's really going on.' 
Brohier snorted. 'I suppose you haven't kept touch with any of the 
Washington people, either, then.' 
'No. I walked away, and they didn't chase me very hard. I didn't even 
get a Presidential Christmas Card.' 
'I don't think Breland sends any,' Brohier said over a quiet smile. 
'Just my luck. I should have taken a souvenir when I was up at the 
White House.' 
They'd have you back,' said Brohier. They're not running from this. 
You have friends there.' 
There and where else?' 
Brohier grunted. 'You gave up watching the news too soon.' 
'Did I? Breland is going to lose big this fall.' 
'Probably,' the older man said. He dropped his crumpled napkin on 
his empty plate. 'But that's politics, Jeffrey. You're not being judged 
by the same standards. And you shouldn't take on guilt that isn't 
yours.' 
'People are still doing horrible things to each other out there, Karl.' 

'I know.' 
'Some of them made possible by what we gave them,' said Horton. 
That man in Denver, the one who used the courthouse Trigger as the 
detonator on his suicide bomb -' 
'His choice, Jeffrey.' 
'And the two other women he killed?' Horton shook his head. 'I used 
to watch the news and think, "A Trigger could have saved those 
people." Now sometimes when I let myself watch, I find I have to 
think, "A gun could have saved those people." 
'Ah. St Paul?' The name evoked a month-old headline of horror - a 
neighborhood gang rampaging with chains and metal clubs in a 
Trigger-protected strip mall, killing a seventeen-year-old and 
severely injuring a dozen other shoppers. The irony was that the 
LifeShield had been installed in response to an escalating turf war 
over that mall, a war which had seen half a dozen shootings on or 
near the property. 
'And Birmingham Heights, and Louisville, and South Boston.' Each 
name carried an echo of a tragic brutal crime. 
"This is a period of transition, Jeffrey. Mistakes are going to be made. 
Anywhere that the gun was an easy answer, people are having to 
make adjustments, having to address underlying issues. Guns were 
Band-Aids, and some wounds require more attention than that. You 
can as easily say that a ninja could have saved those people, and it 
would be just as true.' 
'I don't know,' Horton said. It just seems as though the water gets 
muddier all the time. People are having second thoughts about 
whether they wanted this.' 
Brohier shook his head vigorously. 'No, no - you're having second 
thoughts. Look, production has been expanded ten-fold in less than a 
year, and there's still a six-month waiting list. Do you know the 
biggest problem the committee's dealing with at the moment? 
Counterfeit LifeShield signs. They've been popping up all over - 
people are that eager for the benefits of the Trigger.' 
'But if they use it as recklessly as they were using guns -' 
'Some will. You have to accept that. My solid-state memory 
microcards have been used to smuggle documentary films into China 

and send a million-volume library to Mars. They've also been used to 
pass child pornography hand to hand, smuggle corporate secrets out 
of IBM, and hide criminal bookkeeping from the FBI - and those are 
just a few that I know about.' 
'So it's the user, not the tool.' 
'Exactly.' 
'Remind me why we didn't find this point of view convincing when 
the tools in question were guns and explosives.' 
'Because some tools are too dangerous to give to chimps or children,' 
said Brohier. 'Because a tool designed to kill when used properly is a 
threat to everyone, and making more of them doesn't change that - 
every household having a gun is almost as frightful a prospect as 
every country having a CBN missile battery. Or ought to be, to 
anyone with any sense.' He frowned. This melancholy of yours is a 
byproduct of idleness, Jeffrey. And I know the cure for it - getting 
you back to work. Let's talk about where you're going to sleep 
tonight.' 
'Cape May.' 
'You're going back to get your things?' 
'I'm just going back, Karl. This is your work, not mine.' 
There's more than enough to do for two of us. For ten of us,' said 
Brohier. 'And it doesn't have to be done here - you could work in 
Columbus, or at the Annex - I may need to go there myself soon to 
supervise the start of testing.' 
Horton shook his head as he pushed back from the table. 'Offer it to 
someone else. I gave up my claim on the way back from Washington, 
remember?' 
'And I've dutifully kept it in a jar on my desk, waiting for you to get 
over your funk and ask for it back. What the devil is going on with 
you, Jeffrey?' Brohier fumed, struggling to his feet and fumbling with 
his coat. 
'I don't want to have this conversation, Karl,' Horton said. 'And it's 
time for me to go.' 
Turning away, Horton started for the exit with long strides. It took a 
supreme effort for a hobbled Brohier to catch him. 

'Jeffrey - Jeffrey - stop,' Brohier said, grabbing for the younger man 
as they reached the double doors leading to the path back to Fuld 
Hall. 'You've already missed the last train, so you might as well hold 
still for this. And, frankly, I think you owe me a little more 
consideration than you're giving me.' 
Looking past Brohier, Horton saw Bennington-Hastings watching 
curiously from the other end of the short hallway. 'All right. But out 
there,' he said, jerking his head toward the doors. 
They settled on the steps just outside, using the doors and the cold to 
secure their privacy. 
'I'm just trying to understand, Jeffrey,' said Brohier. 'Most people in 
our field go their entire careers without an opportunity like the one 
we have. And a lot of them are a damn sight smarter than either of us, 
just not as lucky. We're looking at a scientific revolution, not just a 
social one. I don't understand how you can walk away.' 
Horton shook his head. I'm just not ready to come back yet.' 
'I see,' said Brohier. 'Nothing more to it?' 
'No.' 
'I see. Well, I'm reassured. I was afraid that you had some silly notion 
that you weren't worthy to be part of this. I was worried that you 
might be feeling that you didn't deserve either the acclaim or the 
blame that you've already received, that you felt the most you could 
claim for yourself was being the first on the scene of a research 
accident. 
'Because if any of those fears turned out to have any foundation, I 
would have had to tell you you were being an idiot - that every one of 
us who ends up in the spotlight feels a touch of impostor syndrome 
from time to time. The only ones who don't are egotistical 
incompetents like Tettlebaum, whose self-image depends on the title 
and the office and the newscams and seeing themselves quoted 
online.' 
Horton scuffed at a patch of ice on the second step. 'I might have 
needed to hear that, if I'd been thinking along those lines.' 
'I probably wouldn't have stopped there,' said Brohier. 'I'd have 
wanted to remind you that people like us didn't choose this path to 
become famous - it was because we wanted to know things that no 

one could tell us. So the cure for impostor syndrome isn't to give up 
the work - it's to focus on it until you forget there's an audience, and 
you don't know or care what they're saying about you.' 
Horton's chin-high sigh blew a plume of icy condensation up into the 
air. 'Sometimes it's hard not to care.' 
'What are they to you, Jeffrey?' Brohier said with a shrug. 'What do 
they know about you?' 
'Some of them know a lot,' Horton said with a shiver. 'Come on, I'm 
cold - let's walk.' 
They started down the path in silence, both of them knowing Horton 
was not finished. 
'The morning after the President and I had that press conference in 
the Rose Garden, my father called me,' Horton said at last. 'Now, you 
have to understand that my father never calls any of the kids, and if 
he should happen to answer the phone when I call, chances are the 
first thing he'll say is, "Hi, Jeffrey - I'll get your Mom." It's not in his 
nature to chat, or nag, or intrude - it's not that he doesn't care, it's just 
that -' 
'He doesn't ask for anything he doesn't want to give,' Brohier 
suggested. 
'I suppose that's it,' Horton said. 'I would have said he believes that 
there are boundaries.' They'd reached the side entrance to Fuld Hall, 
and Horton stopped there. 'So he calls me that morn-ing, and being 
my father, he comes right to the point. "There's something I have to 
know, son - in all those Saturdays the family spent at the range, with 
hundreds of people walking around with guns, did you ever meet 
anyone you found scary or dangerous? Did it make you nervous 
being there?" And I had to tell him no. Those are good memories - 
some of the best I have.' 
Brohier cocked his head quizzically. 'He assumed you'd been 
working on the Trigger by choice? That it was a personal crusade, 
and that he might have had some part in your taking it up?' 
Tightlipped, Horton nodded. 'Then he said, "I wish you could have 
remembered that yesterday, and said something about it to the 
President. But, thank you, son. Your mother sends her love." 
'And that was the end of the conversation. But I kept hearing the 

things he didn't say, all the rest of the day - and a lot of days since.' 
That he disapproved?' 
'No, much worse than that,' said Horton. 'That he was hurt and 
puzzled and disappointed, as if by doing what I did I'd attacked the 
family, sat in judgement on our friends. He couldn't say any of that, 
of course, because he loves me.' 
'And because there are boundaries.' 
Horton nodded slowly. 'I'm sure that I'm going to work again, Karl. I 
just think it's going to have to be on something else.' He tried a smile, 
but it came off as wistful at best. 'I guess it doesn't matter how old 
you are - a kid still wants to know his parents are proud of him.' 
'I understand,' Brohier said. 'And a parent can be the most difficult 
audience to please. I had a father myself, as it happens.' He hesitated, 
then added, 'I won't ask again - but if you change your mind, don't be 
too proud to tell me.' 
'I think I can promise that, Dr B.' 
'Good.' Brohier took a step toward the warm, inviting brightness of 
the main lobby, then stopped abruptly and turned back. 'Jeffrey - if I 
can presume, and speak as a mentor rather than a friend -' 
'Of course.' 
'Just make sure you're someone you can be proud of. Don't give that 
up just to win approval from someone else. I learned the wisdom of 
this from watching my father.' Then Brohier shook his head and 
grunted, a single joyless laugh. 'The pity of it was, he never quite 
learned it himself. - Did you want to stay with me tonight, then?' 
'I thought I'd check on a late airport shuttle. Or rent a car and drive to 
Cape May. I might enjoy that, actually.' 
Brohier nodded. 'It was good to see you, Jeffrey. Safe trip home - 
wherever that might be.' 
In the end, Jeffrey ended up spending the night at a motel near 
campus, and taking the first train out in the morning. But even so, 
when he finally reached his apartment, he was struck by the 
realization that, whatever it was to him, it was very little like home. 
He said good-bye to it the next day, journeying on. 

25: The Progress of Reason 
'War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to 
be hoped from the progress of reason; and if any thing is to be hoped, 
every thing ought to be tried.' 
- James Madison 
The change had been swift, sudden, and final. The day after Toni 
Franklin had been brought in from the cold on the Trigger project, the 
National Security Council had formally taken over its management 
from the ad hoc Brass Hat committee. 
There was no paperwork involved, since Brass Hat had had no 
official status. And since three out of the four seats in each body were 
occupied by the same people - President Breland, Secretary of State 
Carrero, and Secretary of Defense Stepak - the significance of the 
change wasn't immediately obvious. On the surface, in fact, the 
ramifications seemed inconsequential. 
The meetings moved to a different conference room in a different 
wing. Since there was no longer a need to account for the President's 
time, the meetings could be held more often, and were - twice weekly 
instead of once. They could also run longer, and did - frequently 
consuming an entire morning or afternoon. 
But the issues were the same, and the headaches were the same. The 
NSC still had to juggle the dual threats of passive resistance from the 
Pentagon and active resistance from Congress. It still had to wrestle 
with a fast-developing, constantly changing security situation both 
inside and outside of the country's borders. And, just as before, it 
found that no amount of diligence guaranteed an end to surprises. 
Still, there were benefits to the change, if you knew where to look. 
The easiest to see was the replacement of Richard Nolby with Toni 
Franklin. That forced the chief of staff to the sidelines where the 
Trigger was concerned, neatly resolving a nagging problem for 
Breland. He had been increasingly uncomfortable with Nolby's 
ambivalence about the Trigger. The former senior aide to the Speaker 

of the House was the only true Washington insider on Breland's staff, 
and Breland found his obsession with calculating the political 
advantage of every scenario offputting - contrary to what Breland 
saw as the spirit of the undertaking. 
Now Nolby had been marginalized, and in a way which left him no 
room to complain to Breland about the demotion - the Vice President 
was a statutory member of the NSC, and the issues surrounding the 
Trigger clearly placed it under the NSC's purview. Franklin's 
contributions as a fence-mender on the Hill and a logjam-breaker in 
meetings only sweetened the deal. 
The change that displaced Nolby also pushed Grover Wilman farther 
away from the decision-making. The formal security protocols 
surrounding the NSC made it impossible for Breland to casually 
include Wilman, or even to brief him in detail afterwards. That 
development had pleased General Madison and the Joint Chiefs, who 
had viewed Wilman as an iconoclast at best, and a traitor in the ranks 
at worst. 
But far and away the most significant consequence of the shift was 
that it made the substantial resources of the NSC and its professional 
staff available to Breland. He was no longer dependent on the good 
will of the Joint Chiefs for opinions and expertise in the military 
realm, no longer even dependent on his own ability to ask the right 
questions. The NSC's analysts were good at thinking up the questions 
on their own, including questions which trampled on the toes of spitshined 
shoes. Moreover, when necessary, the NSC had the 
knowledge, the connections, and the authority to reach inside the 
Pentagon for answers. 
One example of a question Breland would never have thought to ask: 
whose career aspirations were threatened by the Trigger, and how did 
that map against the resistance among the generals and admirals? 
Analyst John Miller's monograph pointed out that the 'combat 
commands' which were most affected by the new technology were 
traditionally the fast track to moving up the chain of command. His 
unblinking case studies embarrassed two generals for putting turf and 
status ahead of readiness and security. 
Better information, however, did not necessarily mean welcome 
news. And the white paper authored by senior analyst Wendell 
Schrock and titled THE NEXT WAR was anything but welcome. At 

the instigation of Harris Drake, the President's assistant for national 
security, Schrock and three assistants had investigated the response of 
all four services to the prospect of facing an enemy equipped with the 
Trigger. The day before Schrock presented the paper to a meeting of 
the NSC, he gave Breland an informal Oval Office preview that made 
the President feel like he was hearing the complete story, plainly said, 
for the first time. 
'We looked at three different scales of engagement: global 
superpower conflicts, theater conflicts, and skirmish conflicts. We 
considered each in light of two different scenarios - one in which the 
United States retains its current monopoly on the long-range, pointtarget 
Mark II Trigger, and one in which we fail to do so. That gave 
us a total of six different conflict models. 
'Within each of those models, we looked at our readiness to cope with 
Trigger-equipped adversaries in all four sectors of the combat cube - 
land, air, sea, and space. 
'Our overall conclusion, Mr President, is that in every conflict model 
but one, we are no more than six months away from reestablishing a 
level of battlefield domination comparable to that we enjoyed before 
the Trigger appeared. Within six months, we'll have the ability to 
overwhelm Trigger-based defenses and use our conventional 
weaponry to apply any degree of destructive lethality appropriate to 
our objectives.' 
The exception being -' 
'The exception being a global superpower conflict with a China 
which has Mark II technology. In that model, we're twelve to sixteen 
months away from restoring a decisive advantage.' 
'Let me be certain I understand - are you saying that we're at most six 
months away from neutralizing the Trigger as a deterrent factor?' 
'Yes, sir.' 
Breland heard that as My successor will be able to start a war with 
impunity. 'How is it that we've managed this so quickly?' 
'If you'll look at Section Two -' He waited while Breland scrolled his 
reader. 'There are really only two tactical issues presented by the 
Trigger. One is predetonation of explosive projectiles - principally 
torpedoes, cruise missiles, AAMs, and artillery shells. To deal with 

that, we're building missiles with higher-yield warheads and different 
fragmentation patterns. The goal is to make sure that we can get a kill 
at the Mark I's effective radius. This is proving very do-able.' 
'A bigger bang - that's all?' Breland said, frowning. 
'It's the kind of challenge the hot weapons designers love, sir - 
packing more into less. And we have some excellent people at 
NAWC and the Marine Warfighting Laboratory. In some 
applications, we're replacing conventional explosives with some of 
the exotics which contain no nitrates - we can expect more of that as 
time goes on. In other cases, we're completely removing the warheads 
from our missiles, and replacing them with inert mass. After all, 
throwing a rock up the tailpipe of a SU-27 works just about as well as 
throwing a bomb.' 
'I suppose if a bird in the engine can bring down an aircraft -' 
'Just so. Now, the other issue is the accuracy and lethality of kineticenergy 
weapons. It isn't a matter of range, because every combat 
firearm except for our service sidearms already has enough range to 
fire from outside the effective radius of the Mark I. The problem is 
strictly one of hitting the target - the effective range of some of our 
weapons is less than the Trigger radius, and our experience in combat 
is that most kills take place at even shorter distances.' 
'And how are we dealing with that?' 
'A number of ways. Changing the mix of weapons in an infantry unit, 
so there are more heavy weapons like the SAW, and more sniper 
rifles - and, of course, you change your tactics at the same time. 
Taking the explosive rounds out of the belt-loads for automatic 
weapons and aerial cannon. To a limited extent, supplementing 
conventional firearms with flechette weapons and electric railguns. 
Changing the loadings of our ammunition to get non-explosive 
expansion, fragmentation and edge-cutting from the slugs.' 
That's all it takes? These changes sound - almost trivial.' 
'They're adjustments,' said Schrock. The real change is at the theater 
tactical level. Apart from the limited range, the real vulnerability of 
the Triggers is their susceptibility to EMP.' When Breland's face 
showed no recognition, Schrock added, 'Electromagnetic pulse. A 
side effect of a nuclear explosion.' 

Breland blinked. 'What?' 
'All three services are preparing to bring new generation tactical 
nuclear warheads back to the field. The Air Force has two versions 
under development - one for air combat, and one for ground support, 
using a cruise missile platform. The Navy's looking at both versions, 
one for antisub and one for antiship. They may want something for 
air combat, as well. The Army is working on nuclear-tipped shells for 
both the 120mm and 150mm platforms - both rocket-assisted, so they 
can get the altitude and standoff distance you want to have, even with 
a baby nuke.' 
Then, belatedly, Schrock read the disapproval on Breland's face. 'Of 
course, all these projects will need your approval for both testing and 
deployment - you'll have to rescind Directive 99-15.' 
'Don't we have some sort of treaty obligations to observe?' the 
President asked crossly. 
'Actually, no, sir. Congress never ratified SALT IV - we've been 
observing its provisions voluntarily. We can bring tactical nuclear 
warheads back to the field any time we choose to.' He hastily 
amended, 'Any time the President chooses to.' 
'And what happens if we find our forces are too close to the opposing 
forces to light off a nuclear artillery shell overhead?' 
'Sir, preventing that situation from developing is one of the necessary 
changes in combat doctrine. The new doctrine would call for holding 
conventional units back from the front until the area has been 
depacified.' 
Making the world safe for war, Breland thought, reacting to the ugly 
neologism with an involuntary shudder. 'What if the enemy doesn't 
cooperate with our new doctrine, and refuses to keep a respectful 
distance?' 
The new doctrine calls for decisive engagement -' 
'Decisive? That would mean preemptive, wouldn't it? And with 
nuclear weapons. The Next War, indeed - and a fine little war it'll be.' 
He flipped the reader in the direction of the table, where it spun to the 
edge before stopping. 
'Sir, if I could remind you that this is a report on what we found, not 
what we recommended -' 

Breland raised a hand. 'Yes. Yes - and I'm glad to have it. You've 
done good work here. I just hate what it means - what it says.' He 
looked toward the map wall and, sighing, combed the fingers of both 
hands back through his hair. 'Mr Schrock, next time your desk is 
clear, figure out for me why we're working harder to make this go 
away than we are to use it. Tell me why we can't let go of the power 
to kill.' 
'Sir -' 
'Urn?' 
'Was that strictly rhetorical?' 
Breland sat back in his chair. 'No - go ahead.' 
'I've spent a lot of time over on the other bank - including ten years in 
uniform before I went civilian. It's absolutely true that some of those 
guys - and a few of the gals, too - are in love with the power. Big 
machines, fast machines, the thunder, the power to destroy. It's fun. 
You can make a fetish out of the machinery of war, and never see the 
blood. You don't have to be in uniform to do it, either. Air shows, 
fireworks, action movies -' 
'But? -' 
With the light touch of a single finger, Schrock pushed the President's 
reader back to the center of the table. 'But I think those types are the 
exception - and that they're pretty well held in check by the others.' 
The others being? -' 
'The others being the ones who realize that nobody wants to fight, but 
somebody needs to know how. That's what's going on here, Mr 
President - professional soldiers figuring out how. They do it because 
it's their job. And they do it well because they have to do the fighting 
and the dying when men like you decide when and why. At least, 
that's how it works here. - No offense intended.' 
'None taken. Were you heading somewhere?' 
'I thought so.' Schrock paused. 'Maybe our modern technologi-cal 
wars are a little too clean and tidy - you never get splashed with the 
blood of the man you just killed. Maybe our last ugly, personal war is 
too distant a memory to properly chasten us. But I still think they'd 
gladly let go of that power the day you can persuade them we no 
longer need it - the day that giving it up doesn't put everything they 

love at risk.' 
'I guess that's the question, isn't it? What they love most.' 
'Forgive me if this sounds like recruiting babble, but I think most of 
them love the same things we do. I think they love their lives, their 
families, their freedom much more than they love the guns and the 
bombs and the killing. If you can give them an alternative, Mr 
President, if you can give them a way to protect the one without the 
other, they'll take it. I know they will.' 
'And the Trigger isn't it?' 
Schrock shook his head. 'No. For what it's worth, I happen to have 
considerable sympathy with your vision. I'm sorry to say that I don't 
think the Trigger is enough to get us there.' 
Breland stood, signalling that the briefing was over. 'If you're right, 
Mr Schrock, that just means we have to work harder. Thank you for 
your efforts on this report - and for your frankness. You've opened 
my eyes to some issues I've been neglecting. I want you to keep on 
trying to do that.' 
'I'll do my best, Mr President,' Schrock said with a nod. As he stood, 
he reached up and touched his lapel, drawing Breland's attention to 
the silver pin he wore. The face of the pin was in the shape of a Q, 
with an arrowhead pointing to the right. 'Are you familiar with the 
figure?' 
I'm afraid not. Your unit insignia?' 
'More like my fraternity pin. It's a creation of Theodore Sturgeon - a 
neglected writer of the last century,' said Schrock. 'It means, "Ask the 
next question." I wear it to remind me what I'm supposed to be 
doing.' 
'If you don't mind my asking, what "fraternity" would that be?' 
'I don't mind. I belong to the Alliance for a Humanist Future - the 
Futurians.' When he saw no recognition on Breland's face, Schrock 
added quickly, 'It's not a proscribed organization. We have a social 
and technological agenda, not a political one.' 
'Which would be what, exactly?' 
Schrock smiled. 'Actually, you borrowed our mission statement for 
your speech last year: "We can do better." Made me reach for the 

zoom, to see if you were wearing one of these.' 
'Well - as you can see -' 
Waving off the demurral, Schrock said, 'It's not important. Member 
or not, we consider you part of the alliance. And when you see one of 
these - and you might be surprised where you do - you'll know you 
have a friend there.' 
It was a curious ending to a disturbing conversation. Breland did not 
know what to make of Schrock or his intimations, so he set them 
aside until he could learn more about the so-called Futurians. 
But he knew that the information Schrock had brought him meant 
trouble. It was difficult enough to hear that the path he had chosen 
would not take them to the summit - not least because he had begun 
to suspect it himself. It was far more distressing to discover that, far 
from moving the world toward disarmament, the Trigger might be 
pushing it back toward not only the proliferation but the use of 
nuclear weapons. 
That kind of backsliding was intolerable, completely unacceptable. 
The question Breland had no answer for was what, if anything, he 
could do about it. 
The President was not the only person in the District of Columbia 
harboring a growing apprehension about the direction events were 
taking. At the Mind Over Madness offices in Georgetown, Senator 
Grover Wilman was fretting over reports from a completely different 
realm. 
Months ago, Wilman had effectively abandoned the duties of his 
Senate office, placing his staff on autopilot after the manner perfected 
by the Stennises and Thurmonds. On the insistence of his chief of 
staff, twice a week Wilman reported to the Capitol instead of to the 
brownstone three-story two blocks from the University. But it was 
strictly for appearances - behind his closed door, he was 
teleconferencing with MOM's staff in Kuala Lumpur, or Prague, or 
Nairobi. 
His voting attendance had dropped below thirty percent, and would 
have dropped lower if it were not for the new remote voting rules. 
Wilman could not be moved to take the time to actually cross 

Constitution Avenue and appear in the Senate chamber. Coming to 
the outer office, where the vote-verifier sat alone on a small desk, 
was the biggest concession he was willing to make for the sake of 
appearances. The Trigger campaign was all that mattered to him, and 
the moment would not wait. 
So he left it to his Congressional staff to answer the mail, and handle 
the constituent problems, and fend off the callers and visitors who 
thought themselves important enough to have a claim on the senator's 
time. It was the work of the foundation's staff which had his attention, 
and which was the source of his concern. 
At Wilman's instigation, Mind Over Madness had taken on the task 
of easing the transition to the new paradigm. In a span of just four 
months, it had tripled its budget, dipping deeply into its endowments 
to fund a presence at every point where the intelligent application of 
money could make a difference. Their efforts went far beyond 
attitudinal advertising and working the wires. They were trying to 
provide as many answers as possible to a problem the Trigger created 
- how the law-abiding and nonviolent could protect themselves from 
the bullies in their lives. 
MOM's money was paying for studio space and instructors for free 
martial arts training in the sixteen metropolitan areas which 
accounted for sixty percent of all gun homicides and armed assaults. 
The curriculum had been developed under MOM's sponsorship, and 
consisted of six techniques for disabling single attackers and two for 
dealing with multiple attackers. Graduates as young as nine and as 
old as seventy-three had already successfully defended themselves, 
and the press had coined the phrase 'citizen ninjas' to describe the 
phenomenon. 
The nonprofit retailing arm of the foundation had vastly expanded its 
operation from an Internet publisher and storefront (The Peace 
Library). MOM was now buying the entire production run of stun 
batons, shock-boxes and chem-sprays from five different personal 
defense companies - all but one owned by Aron Goldstein. 
They were reselling those nonlethal weapons at cost - not only on the 
Net, but through StreetSmart kiosks in hundreds of malls. The low 
prices and the near-monopoly kept the lines long, even though nearly 
one in four applicants who passed the criminal registry check were 
rejected after an interview with a counselor. 

In the entertainment realm, Mind Over Madness had endowed the 
annual Pax Prizes - $100,000 cash awards in eight different media to 
writers whose work best exemplified the notions that entertainment 
did not require exploding bodies and dramatic tension did not require 
drawn firearms. Taking an even more active role, MOM had bought a 
small multimedia production company, renamed it FaxWorks, and 
hoped to turn it into a major content producer in both interactive and 
performance media. 
But, distressingly, beneath this ambitious edifice cracks were starting 
to appear in the foundation - one after another after another. 
The first came to Wilman's attention in a report focusing on crime 
patterns. He called in the analyst - a fourteen-year FBI veteran 
volunteering in the Georgetown office - to question him more 
closely. 
'As I read what you sent me, after an initial dip, we're not seeing 
decreases in the targeted crime categories. We're seeing steady or 
increasing numbers and a shift in the victim population.' 
That's correct.' 
'What's happening at street-level? Take me beyond the numbers.' 
The analyst shrugged. 'Contrary to popular notions, most criminals 
aren't stupid. If there're fifty bank branches in town, and the twenty 
biggest are protected by Triggers, the rest of them are going to get 
extra attention. And because the average take is down -' 
'You get perpetrators who work three days a week instead of two.' 
Wilman frowned. 'This is what's driving the traffic in counterfeit 
LifeShield signs. People who aren't protected yet want to have that 
sign out there saying "Go rob someone else."' 
The FBI analyst nodded. 'Along the same lines, if the merchants' 
association turns West Avenue Mall into a LifeShielded property, the 
bangers are going to start hanging at Northland Mall instead. And 
when the Star-Bellied Sneetch Tribe finds that The Cat In The Hat 
Gang has already staked a claim to Northland, you get a turf war that 
you probably wouldn't have had before.' 
'So to whatever extent people would rather relocate than give up their 
weapons, the Trigger aggravates the situation by artificially 
restricting the supply of territory and increasing the demand.' 

The analyst nodded again. 'The effect is of concentrating the 
remaining weapons in an ever-smaller area, and things get worse 
rather than better for those who inhabit that area.' 
'Ghettos for violence.' 
'In a manner of speaking.' 
'So is this strictly a transitional phenomenon? What do you expect to 
see, say, three years from now, when Northland and most of those 
little banks are LifeShielded, too?' 
'The wolves always look for the cripples and stragglers. There isn't 
any projection I've seen that brings us close to having entire cities 
being protected. I'd expect the status quo, only more so -two 
societies, two cultures, the haves and the have-nots.' 
Another crack showed up in a longitudinal study of the economic 
impact of the Trigger, which included a comprehensive catalog of 
Trigger-related products. Reviewing the update one day, Wilman 
found an item with a new-item flag which was troubling enough that 
he had to verify it himself. 
At a digital shop based on a server in the Cayman Islands, Wilman 
found a database called Safe Passage offered for sale by an 
organization called The Resistance. The database was a catalog of 
LifeShield installations in North America, offered as an unlicensed 
add-on for GPS navigators and other trip-routers. If the database was 
accurate, anyone who had a copy could smuggle explosives or 
ammunition safely between almost any two points on the map. 
Wilman arranged to have a surrogate acquire a copy of Safe Passage, 
and then turned it over to the NSA for analysis. It proved to be a 
clone of the supposedly secret database used by LifeShield Transport 
to make deliveries, twenty-four days out of date but one hundred 
percent accurate and complete. The leak was plugged ten days later 
with the arrest of an LST driver and depot manager in Idaho, but 
Wilman was not reassured. Neither the digital shop nor The 
Resistance could be touched, and there was enough money chasing 
that kind of information to assure that someone else could be bought. 
'So let's undercut them, and take away the profit motive,' said 
Wilman's senior strategic coordinator. 'If we openly market a list 
that's ninety-five percent complete for ten dollars, how many people 
will cross the line to pay a thousand dollars for that last five percent?' 

'It's not the information that matters,' said Wilman. There aren't even 
a hundred unmarked Trigger installations. The liability issue makes it 
impossible to have stealth installations in public places, at least here - 
we would if we could, but we can't. No, it's the sales pitch, the reason 
for putting the data together this way that matters. People are starting 
to find work-arounds. And there's damned little we can do about that.' 
The next crack appeared in an urgent teleconference called by the 
Atlantic States field coordinator in the wake of deadly bombings in 
Baltimore and Manhattan. 
'People have caught on to the fact that they can use the Trigger as a 
fuse,' the coordinator told Wilman. 'And it enormously simplifies 
making and planting a bomb.' 
'None of that fuss with timers or fuses or remote controls.' 
'No technology at all. Making a bomb becomes a matter of gaining 
access to an explosive, and then concealing it in the trunk of someone 
else's car or the cargo compartment of a bus or train or a parcel - 
anything that someone else will take care of moving. And this 
approach has the added psychological impact of making people 
paranoid about entering LifeShielded space - for just that moment, 
they wonder if they're riding with a package of death, one of these socalled 
"hitchhiker bombs".' 
But most alarming to Wilman, because it spoke to the attitudes of the 
mainstream rather than the criminal fringe, was a crack that he 
discovered through his own resources. 
For nearly two decades, the Algonquin Saloon had clung to a tenuous 
existence on a side street three blocks from the Georgetown 
University campus. A cross between an Internet newsgroup, a oldfashioned 
talk show, and an even older-fashioned British pub, the 
Algonquin catered to two endangered vices - caffeine and live, faceto-
face conversation. 
It was the creation of one man, Martin Groesbeck, an energetic and 
voluble former journalist who'd retired 'rather than go over to the 
enemy' when the Washington Post was purchased by DisneyNet. 
Groesbeck had an ear for issues, a trustworthy face, and a knack for 
drawing out the occasional shy or intimidated visitor to the 
Algonquin's seven circular tables. Through the marriage of an 

idiosyncratic vision and sheer stubbornness, Groesbeck had managed 
to create and sustain a unique community he proudly called 'a sevenring 
intellectual circus'. 
He threw strangers randomly together at the nine-seat tables, and sat 
in to fill an empty space or 'stir the soup' at a sluggish roundtable. He 
wrote and published a daily house broadsheet called The Real Slow 
News which highlighted social and political issues, copies of which 
were known to turn up far from Georgetown. He wandered from table 
to table in the early evening, scattering fire-red Devil's Advocate 
cards - each bearing a controversial proposition in Groesbeck's 
distinctive handwriting - on tables as conversation-starters. 
Groesbeck delighted regulars and offended newcomers with his 
'bouquets and brickbats' policy, under which he tore up the checks of 
customers whose participation kept things interesting and doubled the 
bills of customers who were conspicuous spectators or tedious bores. 
Saturday evenings were reserved for guest presenters, an event 
Groesbeck promoted as 'Nights of the Roundtable'. Applying his own 
idiosyncratic standards, he offered 'interesting people' from all walks 
of life (no politicians need apply) a chance to test their ideas in front 
of a roomful of articulate critical thinkers who gave no points for 
credentials. Considering that he only offered a token honorarium, a 
surprising number of the invitees accepted, leading to some of the 
Algonquin's most memorable moments. 
But as a business, the Algonquin was a grand failure, despite the full 
houses most weekday nights and every Saturday. The turnover was 
too slow and the average per check too low to do more than break 
even. 
Wilman found the Algonquin too valuable to risk seeing it replaced 
by a pottery shop or a piercing emporium. Of all the places he 
frequented in and around Washington, it was the only one where he 
could be sure that what he was hearing was unaltered by his celebrity 
or his position or the speaker's ambitions. Not even within the 
foundation offices could he be confident of that. The Algonquin was 
his touchstone, his bellwether for public opinion - the sort of wellgrounded, 
passionately-held opinions which had staying power as 
memes. 
That was why Wilman had found ways, indirect and anonymous, to 

funnel money into Groesbeck's pocket and keep the Algonquin's 
doors open - grants, private gifts, a book contract, a short-term 
consultancy. If necessary, Wilman was prepared to do more: to set up 
a trust which would buy the property and hire Groesbeck to manage 
it. 
But for now, he could walk through those doors as a regular but not a 
rescuer, and sample both an opinion and a vintage Pepsi. Or, if time 
was at a premium, he could come early in the day, sit at the serving 
counter in the back, and squeeze the sponge that was Martin 
Groesbeck. 
'What do you hear that's new, Marty?' 
The big man turned away from the chrome taps he was polishing. 
'Order something, and we'll talk. Let's see, you take your caffeine 
cold. I've got some Royal Crown Draft in. Cuban sugar, American 
spring water, concentrate from Canada.' 
'Glass-bottled?' 
'Metal cap and all.' 
'Dig one out of the ice.' 
'I like a customer who doesn't ask "How much?",' Groesbeck said 
with a smile, plunging a hand into the cooler. 'So what's the keyword 
today, Grover? Breland?' 
'We can start there. How's the "internationalist conspiracy" selling?' 
'Not very well - but, then, this isn't South Dakota. People here have 
actually been to other countries - and I don't mean Niagara Falls or 
Tijuana.' 
Wilman chuckled. 'And these worldly and enlightened folk are saying 
-' 
'It's been an interesting evolution. Breland's actually been doing a 
little better. Two months ago, I never heard anyone defending him - 
he had supporters, mind you, but no defenders. They were still 
looking for a defensible position.' 
'Have they found some, then? I thought the Bringer of Chaos and 
Enemy of Liberty camps had command of the field.' 
'They forgot to set up pickets around the high ground,' said 
Groesbeck. The defensible position is forgivable idealism. Every time 

Breland comes back to his we-can-do-better theme, a few more 
people in the B ringer of Chaos camp seem to realize that he's serious 
about it, and that he was serious all along.' 
Wilman cocked an eyebrow. 'Bringing him what, exactly? Grudging 
respect?' 
'Integrity points. The secret agenda all the cynics were ready to 
impute to him, or his handlers, or the Trilateral Commission, hasn't 
materialized - his agenda is right out there in the open, and was from 
the beginning. More civility - less killing.' 
'Which, on second consideration, is starting to sound like not such a 
bad idea to them?' 
To an extent.' Groesbeck bent forward, resting his forearms on the 
serving counter. 'What I'm hearing sounds like the reluctant 
admiration we reserve for someone who sets a standard we're not 
quite sure we can aspire to.' 
Wilman nodded slowly. 'We have to temper our approval somehow, 
as a hedge against being called on to follow the avatar.' 
Groesbeck patted the countertop with the flat of one hand. 'Just so. In 
Breland's case, he stands accused of thinking too well of us. You see, 
he's handicapped by having been surrounded all his life by nice 
people. Early exposure to villainy broadens one's horizons, or so it's 
said.' 
'Sounds like the conclusion of someone who lives in Newsworld, or 
Movieworld,' said Wilman. The real world isn't nearly as violent as 
either of those places. Most people can get from one end of a day to 
the other without seeing or laying hands on a gun. - Which includes 
most gun owners, if they're being honest.' 
'I won't argue the point,' said Groesbeck. 'I know my father owned a 
shotgun, and my mother had a revolver. But in twenty years of living 
at home, I never saw either one of them - and I was a nosy kid. Still, I 
could find you an argument, if you wanted one.' 
'Without going to South Dakota?' 
'Sure.' Groesbeck pursed his lips. 'Two nights ago, there was a fellow 
at table five going on at length about why the Life Shield program 
was a "disaster". He wasn't the most eloquent customer in the house, 
but he was very upset about those condo rapes in Milwaukee -' 

'The week after the condo turned on its LifeShield,' Wilman recalled. 
'Three men who lived there were arrested.' 
'That's the one. I remember that this fellow said, "Not everyone with 
a gun is a bad guy. Not everyone without one is a good guy. A bad 
guy without a gun can still do a hell of a lot of damage. A good guy 
without a gun can't always stop it from happening."' 
'Did he carry the table with that?' 
'Seemed so to me.' He paused. 'Grover, for a couple of months after 
Breland's speech, I kept hearing variations on "It's a shame they didn't 
have a Trigger" - talking about some killing in the news, some 
tragedy that didn't have to be. There was a woman at table five that 
night who said something I hadn't heard before -' 
'"It's a shame they didn't have a gun."' 
Groesbeck looked at him with surprise. 'Were you here, and I just 
missed you? Yes, that's what she said - with exactly the same mixture 
of anger and regret that I used to hear from the others.' 
'I wasn't here,' Wilman said, and drained the last of the soft drink. 'All 
I had to do was think of the last thing I wanted to hear - nostalgia for 
the good old days, when real Americans kept pistols in their 
nightstands.' 
'You can't get away from the fact that if one of those victims had a 
gun -' 
'-Somebody would probably be dead,' Wilman finished. 'Maybe one 
of the rapists. Maybe one of their victims.' 
'And maybe those three men would have just stayed in their condo, 
drinking away their self-pity,' said Groesbeck. 'You can't escape the 
fact that some guns did some people a world of good, and the 
Trigger's taking those guns away, too. I know, you like the tradeoffs - 
but, then, none of those women was your daughter.' 
'No,' Wilman said. 'Just like none of those men was my son. I don't 
want my daughters raped, Marty - but I don't want my sons shot to 
death, either. Why should I have to choose between those 
alternatives?' He stood up from his stool and gestured at the empty 
bottle. 'How much?' 
Groesbeck grunted. 'Just hand over your debit card. - But, much as I 
need the money, in the future you might think about asking the price 

before you commit yourself.' 
'When the price makes a difference to me, I do,' Wilman said, 
surrendering his card. 'But not every decision can be made with a 
calculator. - In fact, I doubt that any of the important ones can be.' 
In theory, there were eight different ways for Karl Brohier to reach 
Jeffrey Horton. 
The standard comset Terabyte Laboratories issued to its employees 
was a Celestial 3000 Personal Office - which, by no coincidence, 
incorporated Terabyte solid-state memory and was built in a factory 
owned by Aron Goldstein. The Gee-Three would accept voice, flat 
video, page, and priority page signals in real time, and store 
voicemail, 3-D video, fax, and hypermedia for playback on a base 
station. And with three-band global pointcasting, Celestial claimed 
that its customers enjoyed 'universal connectivity, from pole to pole 
and mountain to sea'. 
But there was nothing Celestial could do about a customer who 
muted the ringer, disabled the pager, and allowed his mailbox to fill 
up with sex ads and get-rich schemes. There was no technological 
recourse when a man simply didn't want to be reached. 
For more than a week, Brohier had peppered Horton with urgent 
entreaties to come back to Princeton. The longer they went 
unanswered, the more anxious and impatient the director became. 
Toward the end of the week, he was driven to violate his own 
security rule for unpublished work. Trusting Celestial's kilobyte 
encryption, Brohier sent Horton the key equations he wanted to 
discuss, hoping to tempt his protege into at least a long-distance 
collaboration. 
'I have taken this as far as I can on my own, Jeffrey,' Brohier said in 
the attached message. 'I need the Ruyens transformations verified, 
and some help with the beta combinametrics. Then it will be time to 
bend metal, as the engineers say. 
'We thought we had already seen the whole opera. When you look at 
these files you'll realize how naive we were. Everything that's 
happened so far amounts to no more than the overture. I hope you 
will help me write the finale - but if you choose not to, understand 
that I will have to turn elsewhere. I can't bear the thought of leaving 

this work unfinished. As it is, I can hardly keep from dancing a giddy 
jig around every physicist I see.' 
But to Brohier's disappointment, even that appeal did not bring any 
response - not even regrets and good wishes. He allowed forty-eight 
hours to pass, then reconsidered and extended his personal deadline 
another day, but to no avail. 
Even then, it was difficult for the director to bring himself to turn his 
back on Horton, and he took a long slow walk through the Institute 
woods to think it through. 
It was impossible for him to be angry. More so than with any of the 
other bright young talents Brohier had recruited at the founding of 
Terabyte, his feelings toward Horton had taken on something of the 
flavor of the relationship between accomplished father and promising 
son. Whether Horton realized it or not, he was the heir apparent, the 
son Brohier expected to eventually take over the 'family business'. 
And just as it would be for a father, it was hard for Brohier to know 
that Horton was struggling, and harder to realize that there was 
nothing Brohier could do to help him through it. In a way, Brohier 
felt that he had failed Horton - failed to prepare him for the weight 
that had fallen on his conscience. 
And yet, who could have anticipated where it would lead? How often 
had a theoretical physicist even needed a conscience? 
After all, it wasn't science which had transformed the world, but the 
marriage of technology and capitalism. The ignorant might blame 
science for the ills and evils of the modern era, but that was a case of 
mistaken identity - no research scientist ever polluted a water table 
with PCB, or performed a third-trimester abortion, or denied 
someone insurance based on a genetic screening, or turned the 
Internet into a covert way of peering into private lives. 
Real scientists were invisible outside their own circle of peers. Even 
Nobel Prize recipients barely registered on the public consciousness, 
as Brohier well knew. A Heisman Trophy or an Oscar counted for far 
more - there was no market for Heroes of Science trading cards. 
Status was still measured in arcane units: by-lines, citations, 
appointments, grants. 
No, apart from the occasional entrepreneur like Sagan or Pauling, it 
took the heavy hand of politics to raise a scientist to the status of 

household name, and to confer a moral polarity on the research they 
pursued. Einstein gave Roosevelt the roadmap to an atomic bomb. 
Eisenhower injected Salk's vaccine into the arms of twenty million 
schoolchildren. Von Braun and his Germans built Kennedy a moon 
rocket. 
And Jeffrey Horton handed Mark Breland the Trigger. 
Though he himself had played a role in that, Brohier's own 
conscience was clear. He harbored a lifelong contempt for those who 
resorted to violence to resolve their problems, and especially for 
those who used violence to trump decisions made by rational or 
democratic means. Like many of his calling, he both lived in and 
believed in a meritocracy, in the triumph of superior ideas and the 
leadership of superior men. 
The enemies of civilization were the terrorist, the bandit, the assassin, 
the bully, the anarchist - precisely because of the way petty men of no 
accomplishment could bring the good and great low with the squeeze 
of a trigger or the push of a button. It was a perversion of the natural 
social order, a kind of rabid egalitarianism that would not tolerate 
another's success. 
In Brohier's eyes, violence was not merely the last refuge of the 
incompetent. It was the gloating revenge of the sore loser. 
The quintessence of civilization was the concept of good 
sportsmanship, and its principles were easily understood - 
graciousness in victory, acquiescence in defeat. They could be seen in 
the way outgoing Presidents surrendered their offices, the way Oscar 
losers applauded winners, the way victors showed mercy to the 
vanquished. They could even be seen in a gentlemen's duel that ended 
in death, because that'contest had rules which were binding on both 
sides. 
But terrorist violence - the shot from the dark, the bomb in the mail, 
the blackmailing threat - was the antithesis of civilization. And, by 
Brohier's lights, class violence was indistinguishable from terrorism. 
That was why the director had been lenient with Lee and Gordie after 
the Cleveland incident. Brohier had no brief for gun-wielding thugs 
out to terrorize good people who were playing by the rules. 
Still, he was under no illusions. Civilization was hard, and terrorism 
was easy. The tension between order and chaos was ubiquitous and 

eternal. Brohier knew in his heart that logic and reason were easily 
drowned out in the human dialogue by the insistent voices of passion 
and self-interest. 
Even so, he firmly believed in the bootstrap theory of progress - that 
even a minority committed to reason, to excellence, to the high 
principles of civilization, could make a difference. Society was not 
led from the middle, but from the top - by the ideas of the thinkers, 
the discoveries of the explorers, the creations of the inventors, the 
words of the philosophers, the marvels of the builders, the sacrifices 
of the pioneers. 
As he was fond of saying: rudders are, as a rule, much smaller than 
the ships they steer. Leverage mattered. 
Leverage, and which hands were on the wheel. 
That was what the Trigger represented to Brohier - leverage. 
Leverage that could be used to turn society in the right direction, 
toward a saner and more civil existence. And if it was not enough 
leverage, or if more hands were needed to hold the wheel steady in 
rough seas, then it was incumbent on him to do what he could to help. 
In the end, that was what swung the decision - an obligation deeper 
and stronger than that which his feelings for Horton could command. 
Sitting in the sun on a bench at the edge of the woods, he realized that 
he had waited for Horton as long as conscience would allow. It was 
necessary to go forward without him. 
On his return to his office, he wrote a brief note to Samuel 
Bennington-Hastings: 
When you have a few minutes, I'd like to talk to you about something 
I've been working on. 
It seemed as though Brohier had barely lifted his hands from the 
keyboard when the young mathematician opened his door and poked 
his head in. 
Testing Ashby's interdimensional transport, Dr Sam?' Brohier asked 
with a raised eyebrow. 
Bennington-Hastings beamed a bright smile. 'I was afraid that you'd 
be planning on eating your usual dinner, and -' he touched his chest 
and made a guttural sound like an explosion '- I'd find you face-down 
in the smashed potatoes.' 

Brohier laughed. 'Come in, Dr Sam. Come in and take a look at this.' 
There was no trace of the playful sprite when Samuel Bennington- 
Hastings talked mathematics. 
'This - this is wrong,' he said, swiping at the whiteboard with a cloth. 
'The relationship is asymmetrical - you see, here is the correct 
expansion, and this value falls out on the right side.' 
Brohier frowned unhappily. 'Then the covalent function is 
indeterminate.' 
'Of course. This entire recapitulation is unnecessary. Where did you 
get this?' 
That section provides the morphological inertia that restores the 
initial resonance matrix.' 
Bennington-Hastings made a scoffing sound. 'Sheldrake. I'll erase it.' 
'Wait - wait. If I lose that function, then there's nothing to restore the 
time-zero eigenstate. The material won't return to its initial 
condition.' 
There is nothing in what you've shown me to indicate that it should.' 
'But would the new eigenstate be stable?' 
'If the solution set for the resonance matrix is complete and 
meaningful - and if stability is a feature of the solution set.' 
Pressing his right hand to his cheek, Brohier turned away and walked 
to his desk. He picked up his cup of Indian coffee and sipped at it as 
he considered both the threat and the opportunity in Bennington- 
Hastings's contention. 
'I had been expecting - counting on - a morphological safety net,' 
Brohier said at last. To create a local change that lasts only as long as 
the input continues, and then to have the material revert to type under 
the influence of its universal resonance parameters. Peer pressure to 
conform, if you will.' 
Bennington-Hastings glanced back at the whiteboard. 'As Descartes 
said of god, I have no need of that hypothesis.' 
'We can change the information envelope permanently.' 
'I see nothing here that forbids it.' 
Then we also could destroy the information envelope.' 

'I see nothing here that forbids that, either.' 
Brohier set his cup down with an unsteady hand and walked back to 
the whiteboard. Reclaiming the marker from Bennington-Hastings, 
he gestured at the lower right quarter of the board. 
'Correct me if I'm mistaken, but this is consistent with the parameters 
of a matter-antimatter reaction,' he said. Erasing the morphological 
extension with his sleeve, he scribbled several mathematical symbols 
in the vacant space. 'You see? The values for particle and antiparticle 
cancel, and their bound energy is released in mutual annihilation. 
Remove the resonance matrix -' 
'And we will have direct experimental evidence of the conditions at 
the beginning of the Universe,' said Bennington-Hastings. 'Sadly, our 
funerals would have to be closed-casket.' 
'Brohier's Last Theorem.' 
'Very much so.' 
Their light tone belied a sobering realization - that an elemental 
energy discharge from matter stripped of its matrix would dwarf not 
only the largest man-made explosion ever, but every cataclysm Earth 
had witnessed since the Yucatan impact. 
'Perhaps I'll take another look at the Sheldrake hypothesis,' 
Bennington-Hastings volunteered, breaking the silence. 'We wouldn't 
want to have any unexpected outcomes when you take this off the 
whiteboard and into the laboratory.' 
'I'm going to revisit every piece of it, from top to bottom,' said 
Brohier grimly. 'My tolerance for uncertainty is suddenly very thin.' 
He did not share the rest of his thoughts, which were to haunt him for 
days to come. We are already running this experiment. We have 
altered the information envelope of human culture, and changed the 
behavior of its constituent matter. Have there been any unexpected 
results? Have we prevented many small calamities - or laid the 
groundwork for the one great calamity that will shatter everything? 
In the wake of the successful test of the Twins and the departure of 
Jeffrey Horton, the Annex had reached a cusp. The first question 
Leigh Thayer and Gordon Greene had taken up after taking over was 
whether the lab still had a mission - and if so, whether it was one that 

required the Nevada facilities. 
The problem is that this place is too big and too small at the same 
time,' Greene had explained to Goldstein and Brohier in a 
videoconference. 'Too many people spending too much time together 
too far away from civilization - the pioneering spirit eventually wears 
thin, especially when there's no place to go to get away from each 
other. At this point, these people feel like they've built the bloody 
bridge for the Colonel. It's time to either pack up and go home or turn 
the camp into a settlement.' 
Thayer had a different perspective, but had reached the same 
conclusion. The test and development situation is impossible - my 
labs and the test range should have been isolated from everything else 
from the beginning. With the uprated Mark I and the Mark II, we're 
always impinging on the whole campus, including the apartments. At 
this point, I don't know if it's going to cost more to move the test 
units or the residences and support facilities, but somehow we have to 
separate them. If we don't, I can't see that it's worth keeping the 
Annex open.' 
It was Goldstein who had reduced both their presentations to the 
essentials. 'So we either put more money into the Annex, or write off 
what we've already spent there. We need to decide whether to make 
the Annex a permanent part of Terabyte.' 
'Exactly,' Greene and Thayer had said in unison. 
'Very well. Karl and I need to talk. We'll let you know as soon as 
there's a decision.' 
Two days later, Brohier had delivered the answer - the surprising 
answer, since it made no economic sense whatsoever. Goldstein was 
acquiring an additional nine square miles of property adjoining the 
Annex site, and opening the corporate purse for a thoroughgoing 
transformation of the facility. 
'There are two conditions,' Brohier had informed them. 'One, that 
both of you agree to stay on at least until your recommendations have 
been implemented. And two, that you make certain we have at least 
one operational test unit available throughout the transition.' 
Then it had been Greene and Thayer's turn to consult in private. 
'What do you think?' Greene had asked. 

'We're talking about a commitment of at least a year, wouldn't you 
say?' 
'I'd guess two, allowing time for all the dust to settle. Can you stand 
the thought of another two years out here?' 
She had shrugged. 'I'm ambivalent. I like the air. I hate the heat. I 
love the night sky - all the stars. I miss the color green.' 
'What about the work - and the company?' 
'I can see some potential in both,' she had said, with the barest hint of 
a hopeful smile. 'What about you? You're the footloose one. Aren't 
you missing Columbus, all those student dives filled with Girls of the 
Big 10 candidates?' 
Greene had laughed. 'I like the scenery here - and the challenges. I'm 
planning to stay.' 
Then I suppose I will, too.' Then she had smiled sweetly and added, 
'After all - you'd be in deep trouble trying to handle it all without me.' 
Nearly seven months had passed since then, and the first phase of the 
metamorphosis was now complete. Security chief Donovan King 
now had responsibility for an unfenced sixteen-mile-long perimeter 
guarded by four thousand sensors, five four-wheel-drive trackers, and 
a whisper-quiet cherry-red helicopter that mounted a millioncandlepower 
light pod, rocket flares, and dye bombs. Donovan was 
unabashedly enjoying his new toys, and there had been several 
unconfirmed sightings of off-duty staff officers wearing black't-shirts 
bearing the puckish logo AREA 5.1 SECURITY. 
In the southwest corner of the enlarged Annex site, a new Village had 
sprung up on the rise above a dry arroyo. It boasted three paved 
streets, twenty new homes, a half-acre of irrigated grass as park and 
playground, a general store and late-night grille, a fitness and 
recreation hall with a first-class minitheater, and the Family Center - 
one wing of which was a health clinic, and the other a day-care 
facility. 
What the Village did not have yet was any residents, though many 
Annex workers had already packed their apartments in anticipation of 
the move. But they were at the mercy of the building inspector for 
Eureka County - a part-time post currently held by the owner of the 
largest building-supply dealer in central Nevada. The inspector had 

already canceled two appointments and failed to appear for a third. 
Greene suspected they were being punished for a breach of etiquette - 
namely, failing to properly grease the inspector's palm. With Aron 
Goldstein's bargain-hunting corporate buyers signing the purchase 
orders, very little of what had gone into building the Annex or the 
Village had been purchased locally, and none of it from Tillman 
Construction. 
The suspicion hardened into certainty when Greene received the earlymorning 
call from the gatehouse. 'Dr Greene, we have a Robert 
Tillman here - he says he's here for final inspection on a number of 
permits, and you're expecting him.' 
Greene cast a bleary eye in the direction of the clock. 'Have someone 
take him up to the Village, and stay with him until Mr Colquit or I get 
there. Give him some coffee, but don't let him inside any of the 
buildings without us. In fact, give him a lot of coffee - it might help 
improve his opinion of the plumbing.' Closing the comset on the 
guard's laughter, Greene rolled onto his right side and nudged a 
sleeping Leigh Thayer. 'Lee?' 
She stirred and turned toward him. 'The answer is no,' she murmured. 
'Ask again later.' 
Tillman's playing some more games with us. I have to go down to the 
Village right now. Give me a tickle when you get up - if we're still at 
it, maybe you'll want to come join us,' he said as he climbed out of 
bed. 'Besides, I don't think you've been down since before the Family 
Center came in and the landscapers rolled out the sod for the 
playground.' 
Yawning, she sat up, letting the sheet fall away with careless 
unconcern. The Tasmanian Devil grinned back at him from her 
sleepshirt. 'It's not like I haven't had any work of my own to do,' she 
said. 
'I know,' Greene said, jumping into his pants. 'I just thought if we all 
could sign off at the same time, we might be able to give the green 
light to the people who've been waiting to move.' 
'You actually think Tillman will let us occupy? I'm expecting him to 
fine-print us to death. But I'll come down anyway in a little while to 
lend moral support. - Comb your hair, hon, you look like you've been 
partying all night with some tart.' 

By the time Thayer joined them two hours later, her prophecy had 
already been fulfilled. Tillman had torn open a finished wall and 
ripped up the subfloor of a carpeted room before red-tagging the 
California-built manufactured homes so heavily that the tags looked 
like part of the decor. But he had not dawdled in doing so; he was 
already on his way back to the gate when Lee found a glum Gordon 
Greene sitting on the porch steps of one of the two larger L-shaped 
prefabs. 
'Bad?' 
Greene waggled the sheaf of yellow deficiency notices at her. 'He 
rejected the manufacturer's certification papers because they weren't 
originals - hand-signed by the inspector, embossed seal, one copy for 
each unit.' 
That arrogant son of a' 
'The smaller the crown, the more petty the king. But this won't hold 
us up more than a couple of days. I've already contacted the 
manufacturer. They'll have new certificates couriered to us as soon as 
they can put them together.' 
'I didn't know you were capable of being this philosophical,' she said 
with a wry smile. 
'Some people just aren't worth the stomach acid,' Greene said. He 
jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the door behind him. 'Got a few 
minutes? I'd still like to show you this one.' 
Her gaze narrowed. 'Why? Isn't this the administrative supply 
building?' Then she raised an eyebrow. 'Or is this your idea of asking 
me later?' 
Greene laughed as he stood. 'No to both. Come on - I'll show you.' 
It was obvious on first glance that the spaces inside were set up for a 
residence rather than for storage. But the structure was half again as 
large as the standard Village home. 'I don't understand. I was sure the 
site plan called for an administrative building here.' 
'It did,' Greene agreed cheerfully. 'I think the director's residence 
qualifies as an administrative building, don't you?' 
'The director's residence,' she echoed, as she peeked through a 
doorway. 'Hey, look at the size of that bathroom. You talked me into 
it - I'll take it. - So, where are you going to live?' 

'Well - I'm afraid there's only one director's residence, and we happen 
to have two directors.' 
'That was poor planning.' 
'I agree. But it's too late now to do anything about it. So -' 
he shrugged '- I'm afraid we don't have much choice but to share.' 
She crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame, an amused 
expression on her face. 'Gordie, this is at once the sweetest and the 
dumbest way I've ever heard of asking someone to move in with you.' 
Greene protested his innocence with raised hands. I'm just trying to 
carry out my responsibilities for efficient facilities management. Here 
we are, occupying two Cardinals, burning twice as many lights, using 
twice as many rolls of toilet tissue -' 
Lee frowned. 'I suppose if we did move in together, we'd finally have 
enough pillows for the bed.' 
'And we could return half of the silverware we've lifted from the 
cafeteria - more savings for Terabyte. What do you say, Lee?' 
Her smile returned, at once tender and mocking. 'How can I resist a 
company man?' 
Greene smiled back. But before either could say more, both their 
comsets began to chirp the priority page signal. 
'I was thinking about coming over there and kissing you,' he said, 'but 
I suppose a company man would answer.' 
Thayer was already reaching for her pocket. It's Karl,' she said, 
looking down at the display. 
They hit their callback buttons together, and in moments they were 
connected. 
'Gordie? Lee? This is Dr Brohier.' The senior scientist's voice was 
eager and vibrant. 'Whatever you're doing, drop it. Whatever you 
were planning on doing, forget it. I need you to build something for 
me.' 

26: Forever Our Destiny 
'We cannot accept the doctrine that war must be forever a part of 
man's destiny.' 
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt 
Aron Goldstein was one of the last of his breed, and he knew it. He 
had watched the globe-trotting on-the-go CEO gradually give way to 
the teleconferencing stay-at-home CEO, seen the articles in Fortune 
and Forbes and Business Week lauding multimedia interconnectivity 
as the essential management tool, noted the ranks of the corporate jets 
thinning as stockholders and corporate boards increasingly 
questioned the necessity of shipping protoplasm from here to there at 
company expense. When McNamara's The Frugal Executive hit the 
bestseller list, airline stocks fell fourteen percent in three days, and 
business travel fell twenty percent by the end of the year. 
But Goldstein remained a road warrior, spending an average of thirtyfive 
weeks a year away from his Maryland estate. That included weeklong 
visits to each of his companies, attending international trade 
shows in North America, Europe, and the Pacific Rim, and an annual 
two-week retreat aboard the rigid-sail catamaran First Love he kept 
docked at St Thomas, in the Virgin Islands. 
He did it because he could - as sole owner of Aurum Industries, the 
holding company which served as overseer of all his properties, he 
did not have to answer to anyone but himself. He also did it because 
he believed it was necessary - he would not trust even the smallest of 
his enterprises to a manager whose measure he had not taken in 
person. Nor would Goldstein assess an operation by the numbers 
alone, or allow himself to be given a 'Stalin village' tour of 
operations. Consequently, his unannounced visits had, over time, 
become what Goldstein described as 'agreeably motivational' - not 
least because they were frequently followed by sudden promotions 
and summary dismissals. 
But that was the quintessential Aron Goldstein - demanding and 
decisive. He had made his fortune and his reputation on two simple 
principles, and one personal gift. The first principle was 'Move 

quickly, whether pursuing an opportunity or being pursued by 
calamity.' The second principle was 'No one ever lost a customer by 
giving him too much value.' 
Goldstein's gift was an uncanny ability to connect seemingly 
unrelated events and in doing so to pick up on the earliest signs of 
coming trouble - a knack for hearing the signal among the static, the 
off notes in the orchestra. It was said in jest that there was no need for 
smoke detectors when he was around, that the first warning sign 
would be Goldstein standing over the point of ignition with an 
extinguisher, waiting for the fire to break out. 
The myth exaggerated the gift. Still, Goldstein had come to rely on 
that feeling of prescient certainty. But it took no special talent on 
Goldstein's part to recognize that when a Secret Service advance team 
showed up at his estate to arrange for an unexpected and off-therecord 
visit from the President, the disarmament initiative was in 
trouble. 
Breland's visit was hidden as an unannounced stop on a routine 
weekend flight to Camp David. The giant props of the Marine Corps 
Osprey set it down gently on the rain-softened driving range a few 
minutes before Friday noon. The President alone emerged from the 
rear hatch of the tilt-rotor to join Goldstein and the Secret Service 
ground detail. Breland looked at once tired and tense, and snapped at 
the agents when two of them tried to follow him inside the house. 
'This is a private meeting,' he said, stopping short and blocking the 
doorway. 
'Mr President, we have to be close at hand if we're going to be able to 
respond quickly enough to protect you,' one of the agents protested. 
'If the International Army of God is waiting in the wine cellar, we'll 
have learned something about my ability to judge character. In the 
meantime, you stay out,' Breland said, and closed the door in the 
agent's face. As he turned back to a wide-eyed Goldstein, he 
muttered, 'damn spiders. Ever since Starr got them to spy on Clinton - 
'
'Their discretion can't be taken for granted - I know. Shall we?' 
Goldstein asked, gesturing toward one of the exits from the expansive 
foyer. 
'I wonder if there's a room with no outside windows where we might 

talk?' 
Nodding, Goldstein said, 'If the irony isn't too strong for you, there's a 
chamber in the lower level which the original owner had built as a 
firing range. My elder daughter used it for archery, and I keep my 
trains there now. The accommodations are somewhat spartan -' 
'It sounds ideal. Lead on.' 
Goldstein's trains were a complete world in miniature - a great Ushaped 
landscape wrapped around a small raised observation 
platform with three swiveling seats. The moment he and Breland 
entered, a computerized controller brought the diorama to life. Lights 
came on in buildings, more than a dozen freight and passenger trains 
started moving along hundreds of meters of track, trolleys shuttled 
through the streets, and real water flowed through river channels. A 
matte painting which climbed half-way up the wall extended the 
landscape to a hilly distant horizon. 
'Why, this looks like north central Philly - say, 1950 or so?' Breland 
said with surprised pleasure. He stepped closer and peered over the 
layout. 'Sure, there's 30th Street Station, and the Zoo. Which makes 
this the Schulkill River. Am I right?' 
'Right city, wrong era. I went with 1935, pre-war, so I could bring the 
occasional steam engine into the city.' He pointed at the far left end of 
the diorama. 'I grew up eight blocks from Reading Station and the 
Chinese Wall. Every time I hear a train whistle, it takes me right back 
to my bedroom.' 
Suddenly looking wistful, Breland settled into one of the chairs. 'I 
envy you, having the time for this - for something wonderful and 
frivolous and personal.' 
Goldstein laughed. 'Don't be misled. You're looking at more money 
than time - and at that, the time is scattered across three decades, an 
evening a month, a weekend a year.' 
'Ah. Still -I think I used to have hobbies. Surely one, at least.' Breland 
smiled wanly. 'But, then, it won't be too much longer before I'll have 
plenty of time to try to figure out what it was.' 
'Now, Mr President -' 
'Please - Mark,' Breland implored. 'I find I'm increasingly hungry for 
the sound of my own name.' 

'Mark,' Goldstein echoed. 'As I was about to say, it's much too early 
to surrender.' 
'I have a forty percent approval rating, Aron.' 
'A passionate and unshakeable forty percent - the kind that can decide 
an election when half the population stays home.' 
Breland laughed bitterly. 'I don't think anyone's going to sit out the 
next election. Whatever the modern record for voter turnout is, I'm 
sure we're going to see it broken.' 
'And if that happens, all bets are off - the pollsters have no idea how 
to predict the behavior of a group that's never voted before.' 
Holding up his hand and shaking his head, Breland said, 'Enough - 
enough, please. The only thing sadder than a young cynic is an old 
idealist.' 
'With respect, sir, I would have said it the other way around. - But our 
time is limited, and I doubt you came here to trade aphorisms with 
me.' 
'No,' Breland said. Shoulders slumping, he sat back in his chair. 'No, I 
came here hoping for your help.' 
'Whatever I can do.' 
'I don't know that there is anything you can do. But I'm desperate, 
Aron. Everything is spinning out of control. I have no authority over 
the Pentagon, no credibility in Congress - they've both decided that 
I'm the lamest of lame ducks, and can safely be ignored. The Joint 
Chiefs are preparing to rearm with tactical nukes and azide 
explosives. The House is looking for a way to ban privately owned 
LifeShields as public hazards. The NRA is suing to get rid of stateinstalled 
LifeShields as violations of the Fourth Amendment - 
unreasonable search and seizure. And I have no leverage with any of 
them.' 
That's not all - there's yet another front in this war,' Goldstein said. 
There're more than sixty liability lawsuits pending against 
Aurum Industries, Terabyte Laboratories, Jeffrey Horton, and anyone 
else who had a hand in building the Triggers which are out there 
now.' 
'Sixty!' 

'It's only the beginning, I'm afraid. I believe there's a coordinated 
effort to get rid of the Trigger by making it prohibitively expensive to 
build them or install them. And it's working as blackmail even before 
the first case has reached a courtroom - we already know of more 
than a hundred private installations that have been voluntarily shut 
down or removed.' 
'Because the owners are more worried about being sued than about 
someone being killed.' 
'That's what it comes down to.' 
Breland blew a sigh across a clenched fist. 'You know, Aron, I've 
never had any faith in Freudian analysis, but in this instance, I'm 
sorely tempted - the male fetish for guns, and the completely 
unreasoning way some men react to the prospect of giving them up -' 
'I know where this is going. As if they were being castrated, rendered 
impotent.' 
'It sounds absurd, and yet -' Breland shook his head. 
'I suppose it's too late to add National Mental Health Insurance to 
Medicare.' 
That drew a brittle laugh from Breland. 'The other explanation I've 
been offered is even more depressing - that we're fighting a primal 
biological selfishness, an innate drive to acquire power and defend 
the family. A British anthropologist sent me a long essay with his 
analysis: The resistance is coming from men who see me as a threat 
rather than as a higher-status male of their tribe. They're refusing to 
place themselves under my protection, and clinging to what they 
believe they need to protect themselves.' 
That sounds like the makings of a revolution.' 
'Doesn't it, though? Maybe the only thing that's saved us from that is 
how weak I look - how weak I am. They see me as mortally 
wounded. They think they've already won. And right now, I'd have a 
hard time arguing the point. Which is why I'm here - looking for 
more leverage. Looking for a way to prove them wrong.' 
'I'm not sure I understand -' 
'With your cooperation, I turned over the complete theoretical and 
technical record on the Trigger to five government research centers - 
four military, one under the Justice Department. I know now that I 

can't look to any of them for help. Their mindset is controlled by the 
people who feel threatened by the Trigger, and they're picking it apart 
to learn how to thwart it, not how to improve it. Nothing I can do will 
make any difference - it's like hiring wolves to shear sheep.' 
'I understand now. You want to know what we can do for you.' 
'I'd phrase it with a bit more desperation - I've come to beg you to 
find some way to help. I need a better Trigger, Aron. A better and a 
safer Trigger. I need one that works on all the exotic flavors of 
explosives we're rushing to bring into play. I need one that handles 
explosives the way the current version handles black powder. I need 
one that makes us feel safe enough that the generals can live without 
battlefield nukes and the rest of us can live without an arsenal in the 
closet. I need more leverage. I need an answer - if I can't find one, 
civil disarmament is going to end up side-by-side in the history books 
with Prohibition as a noble idea we couldn't live up to.' 
A deep frown furrowed Goldstein's face with worry lines. 'Have you 
talked to Senator Wilman about this?' 
'Grover came to me, earlier this week. He has his own concerns, and 
no answers. It was a very gloomy conversation.' 
'But the foreign labs -' 
'- Have so far been unable to do more than refine the original design. 
Grover spoke of a theoretical hurdle, a missing piece.' 
'I assure you, Mr President, we didn't hold anything back.' 
'I know that. But the original Trigger was your creation - no one 
knows more about it than your people.' 
'Perhaps so. But Dr Horton's been on sabbatical -' 
Then it's time to get him back to work,' Breland said sharply. 
Goldstein frowned. The fact of the matter is, Dr Horton hasn't been 
keeping very closely in touch.' 
'You don't know where he is?' 
That's my understanding.' 
Breland shook his head unhappily. 'Maybe it's unfair of me to lay this 
at your doorstep, Aron, but there it is - what you've done so far isn't 
enough. You have to take it further. You have to give me more, and 
sooner rather than later. If you can't, we will fail -and I know you 

don't want that.' 
'Of course not. Of course not.' 
Breland stood and edged toward the door, signaling his intention to 
leave. 'In fact, I remember very clearly something you said that day in 
the Oval Office - that even if our species is condemned to create 
murderers and warlords, the least the rest of us can do is make it as 
hard for them as we possibly can. Well, we aren't there yet. Help me. 
Push your people. Shame them, bribe them, scare them, inspire them - 
whatever it takes to extract the very best they can give us. Because 
it's getting very late, Aron - and we won't get a second chance in our 
lifetimes.' 
'No,' Goldstein said slowly. 'You're quite right. This is a singular 
moment. We either make this work, or in failing confirm the 
pessimism that excuses us from asking more of ourselves. Either a 
civil society, or a cynical one.' He joined Breland in standing and 
offered his hand. 'Mr President, I honestly don't know how much we 
can do that we aren't already doing - but I'll find out, and I'll see that 
it gets done.' 
Goldstein saw the President out and waited until the tilt-rotor lifted 
off before reaching for his comset. 'Captain Hill? Get the plane ready - 
we're going to Princeton.' 
There were no other aircraft at the Princeton airport's modest 
commercial terminal, and consequently no limos waiting at the taxi 
stand. Rather than wait for a car to be called, Goldstein went straight 
to the only rental agency and pounded on the counter until a puzzled 
clerk, apparently roused from a mid-shift nap, emerged from the back 
room. Goldstein accepted a bland cream-colored family sedan 
without complaint, keeping to himself the facts that his license had a 
daytime-only endorsement and he hadn't been in the driver's seat for 
more than five years. 
The only parking available in the visitor lot in front of the Institute's 
Fuld Hall was a handicapper space. Rather than risk the automatic 
impoundment, Goldstein left the car running at the curb. 
'Excuse me,' he said to the woman in the reception office. 'Can you 
tell me where I can find Dr Brohier?' 

'I'm sorry - Dr Brohier isn't available to see visitors. But you can 
leave a message for him right there.' 
Goldstein glanced over his shoulder at the comstand. 'What does that 
mean? Why isn't he available? Does he have his "Do Not Disturb" 
sign out? Is he sleeping? Is he off campus? - or is it something else?' 
'I'm sorry - I don't have any other information. I suggest you leave a 
message for Dr Brohier, and make arrangements -' 
'Miss, if I wanted to leave a message for him, I could have done so. 
Dr Brohier works with me.' 
'In that case, you probably have better ways of contacting him,' she 
said brightly. 'I'm sorry I couldn't help. You understand that the 
Institute is deeply committed to creating an optimum environment for 
-' 
'Yes, yes, yes,' Goldstein said impatiently. 'Now you understand -' 
'Excuse me, sir,' a new voice interrupted. 'Is that your Elite parked 
outside in the traffic lane?' 
Goldstein turned to find himself looking up into the face of a tall man 
in a low-key tan uniform. 'Yes.' 
'I'm afraid you're going to have to move it, sir. It's blocking traffic.' 
Pursing his lips, Goldstein bit back his first thoughts. 'Very well,' he 
said with deceptive calmness. I'll move it.' 
When he reached the car, he climbed in, slammed the door shut, and 
sat rock-still for a moment, burning a hole in the instrument panel 
with his gaze. He had intended his visit to be low-key and discreet, to 
slip in and out of town as invisibly as possible, trusting nothing to the 
ether, where it could be intercepted, recorded, and decrypted by those 
who might be taking a particular interest in the creators of the 
Trigger. 
But Karl was locked away behind a wall - not only of etiquette and 
protocol, but of Terabyte's own precautions. Brohier's physical 
address appeared nowhere in Terabyte records. There was no need 
for it. Money found its way into accounts, information found its way 
to displays and printers, and there were package drops aplenty 
available for the delivery of merchandise. 
There were only two choices - try to knock a hole in the wall, or wait 

until Brohier came out from behind it on his own. Which, insofar as 
Goldstein was concerned, was really only one choice. 
With a screaming whine of motors and a squeal of rubber worthy of a 
seventeen-year-old, he sent the car lurching forward, then swerving 
sharply to the right. The front wheels jumped the curb and then dug 
in, hauling the vehicle up onto the grass. There Goldstein waited. 
He did not have to wait long. In moments, the tall male security 
officer came rushing out of the building's main entrance, followed by 
a much smaller female officer. Both ran straight toward Goldstein, 
neither shouting orders nor drawing weapons as they approached. 
When they were close enough to stand glowering over him outside 
the driver's door, Goldstein lowered the window part of the way. 
'Shameful - shameful,' he said, not giving them an opening to speak. 
'Is this your idea of security, Officer Weiss? What if I'd been a 
terrorist car bomber? I could have driven right up the steps and taken 
out the entire building.' 
'Sir, you need to move this car now,' insisted the female officer. 'If 
you don't, you're looking at being arrested for trespassing and 
destruction of property -' 
'Bluster won't cover up the deficiencies. Good heavens, one mediumsized 
car bomb would drop the mean planetary IQ twenty points in an 
eyeblink. I know you don't have a LifeShield installed here, because 
your directors foolishly declined our offer. But hasn't anyone around 
here ever heard of controlled access, or barrier design? This road 
should be closed at both ends, and you need to have someone looking 
out for strangers who has more than a frown and bit of brass to call 
on if they're unfriendly.' 
Officer Weiss tried the car door, but found it locked. 'You have more 
than a little brass yourself, sir. How about telling us who you are, and 
what you want here?' 
'My name is Aron Goldstein -' He saw the skepticism in their 
expressions and sighed. 'Yes, that Goldstein - don't be misled by the 
car. It's a rental. I just flew in, and I have an urgent need to talk to Dr 
Brohier. Now, I understand that you try to protect your fellows or 
associates or what have you from being disturbed, but this is 
extremely important - important enough that if I don't get a little 
cooperation, I'm going to start looking for ways to vent rny 

frustrations. I do that by spending money to make trouble for the 
people who make trouble for me. How much trouble do you think 
one day's profits will buy?' 
The officers were exchanging questioning glances. 'Do you have any 
certified identification?' the woman asked. 
Casually and wordlessly, Goldstein handed her his SmaitID card. He 
watched her face as she swept it through her scanner and studied its 
display. 
'It's Dr Brohier you want, eh?' the man asked. 
'Willis - don't -' 
'How many times do I need to say it?' 
'I think you're too late.' 
'What do you mean?' 
'Dr Brohier gave notice this morning. I gather he and Dr Sam were 
headed out somewhere together.' 
'Where? Who is Dr Sam?' 
'Hold on a moment.' The officer nodded, triggering the chin switch 
for his radio. 'Steven, this is Willis - has Dr Sam signed out yet?' He 
listened a moment, then added, Twenty minutes ago? Thanks.' 
Another bob of the head, and Willis bent down to peer through the 
window. 'Maybe you aren't too late, after all. Try members' housing, 
off Olden Lane,' he said, pointing toward the east. 'Dr Brohier was in 
Fifty-one.' 
Goldstein nodded as he put the car in reverse. 'My apologies about 
the lawn, officers - I lost my grip on the joystick for a moment. Send 
Aurum Industries a bill for the landscaping.' 
Only knowing that he was looking for two men allowed Goldstein to 
spot them. Otherwise, he would have obeyed the stop sign at Olden 
Lane. Otherwise, he would have surrendered right of way and 
allowed the taxi to pass through the intersection instead of pulling out 
in front of it. 
Brakes squealed as both vehicles swerved. The taxi ended up with its 
right front wheel against the curb and its left front fender kissing the 
passenger door of the Elite. Both drivers stepped out into the twilight, 
one cursing angrily, the other calmly retrieving a $100 bill from an 

inner pocket. 
'Sorry about that,' Goldstein said, flashing and then handing over the 
money as he neared and then walked past the suddenly speechless 
taxi driver. He poked his head through the open door and looked into 
the passenger seat. Brohier was pale, and the second passenger was 
visibly trembling. 
'You're very old for a hit man,' the stranger said with nervous 
bravado. 
'I'm very unarmed for one, too,' Goldstein said. 'Karl, we need to 
talk.' 
'Aron, what the hell are you doing here? And are you completely 
addled? You could have killed us!' 
'Nonsense, taxi drivers have splendid reflexes. Just get out and get in 
my car, will you?' 
The taxi driver shouldered in at that point. 'Look, if this is some kind 
of boyfriend-boyfriend thing, I don't want to be in the middle of it.' 
'It isn't, and you aren't. Unload their bags - I'll take them where 
they're going.' 
'Hey, I have a meter running here. I don't let anyone steal my fares, 
not even for-' 
Goldstein silently pushed another bill at him. 
'Fair enough,' the driver said. 
'You don't even know where we're going,' Brohier protested. 'And 
we're already late - we're going to miss our plane.' 
'I don't know where you were going. But I do know you're not going 
to miss your plane.' He peered at Dr Sam. 'You, I'm not sure about. 
Karl, my car - please.' 
Brohier frowned, then threw his door open. I've never seen you like 
this, Aron - so I suppose I'd better find out what's gotten into you.' 
'That's my boy.' 
'Not likely. Give me the keys, Aron.' 
First, Brohier drove the car forward to the curb, clearing the 
intersection. The taxi driver followed suit, depositing Dr Sam and the 
suitcases on the sidewalk, then driving off. 

'Now - what's going on?' Brohier demanded of Goldstein. The 
industrialist joined him in the front seat. Things are very grave, Karl - 
very grave. The playwright's begging for our help. The play needs a 
second act, and there isn't much time. We've invested so much in this 
production, and I don't want to see it close prematurely -' 
Blinking in confusion, Brohier interrupted, 'What play? What the 
devil are you talking about?' 
Frowning, Goldstein leaned close and whispered. 'I'm talking about 
the President. I'm talking about what we're doing for him.' 
'Then why are you talking in code? There's no one here but the two of 
us.' 
'And your friend out there. Who is he? How well do you know him?' 
'I was about to take him to the Annex - does that answer your 
question?' 
'To the Annex -' Aron pursed his lips. 'Well, the fact of the matter is, 
that's exactly where I want you to go. I'm here to drag you away and 
get you back to work.' 'I never stopped working.' 'On the second act.' 
'Well - the fact is, I think Sam and I may already have a working draft 
of it,' Brohier said. 'What?' 
'We were on our way to a dress rehearsal. Would you care to come 
with us to the theater?' 
Goldstein nodded, hope brightening his eyes. 'We can take my plane.' 
'Good - because ours left ten minutes ago.' Brohier waved the young 
scientist into the back seat of the car. 'Aron, meet Dr Samuel 
Bennington-Hastings. Dr Sam, this is Mr Goldstein -he pays the bills. 
And he's going with us. Or should I say, we're going with him.' 
Wedged in between two suitcases, Dr Sam cast a wary look in 
Goldstein's direction. 'Promise me he's not going to be the one 
driving.' Chuckling deeply, Brohier clasped the joystick and eased the 
car away from the curb. 'No problem,' he said. 'Aron and I have an 
arrangement -I do the driving, and he does the flying. So just sit back, 
and don't worry a bit.' 
Dr Sam sighed expressively. 'I think I am about to make a very big 
mistake.' 
That's what youth is for,' Goldstein said lightly, smiling con

spiratorially at Brohier. 'When you get to be our age, you don't get 
that kind of latitude.' 
'I am worrying about altitude, not latitude. I think I will close my 
eyes now - will you please tell me when it's over?' 
The other men laughed. 'Sure, Dr Sam,' Brohier said. 'As soon as 
someone tells us.' 
Dr Gordon Greene bent forward and peered through the electronic 
binoculars at the test stand a thousand meters away. Taking 
advantage of a natural bowl that had been further sculpted by 
bulldozers and explosives, the new test range was set up for 360- 
degree testing. That arrangement pushed the observation and control 
station much farther away than it had been at the Annex's original test 
stand, to the top of a sun- and wind-exposed ridge a kilometer to the 
southwest. 
'A lot of firepower out there,' Greene observed, focusing on some of 
the instrumented sample pedestals. The pedestals, each nestled 
against its own curved reinforced-concrete blast wall, not only 
surrounded the test stand but climbed the face of the bowl to an 
elevation of more than thirty degrees. Four sloping tunnels on the 
north side extended the test envelope to minus twenty degrees. 
Greene had been speaking to no one in particular, but Val Bowden 
was standing close enough to hear. 'Yeah, Pete McGhan did a great 
job pulling things together for the test.' 
'It helps to have an in with the Army quartermaster,' Greene said. 
'Ninety millimeter, thirty millimeter, rifle grenades, C-4 - if even one 
of those goes off, we're going to be picking up the pieces of the test 
stand for a month.' 
'Don't say that around Lee - not after the twenty-hour days she's put 
in getting this place ready.' 
Greene grunted his agreement, and Bowden drifted away. He found 
himself standing beside Dr Brohier, listening to two tech-nicians 
calling off the instrumentation checks. 
'A lot of firepower out there,' Bowden said, just to have something to 
say. 
'Not for long,' said Brohier cheerfully. 

At the other end of the platform, Samuel Bennington-Hastings had 
attached himself to Leigh Thayer. 'I'm deeply confused by the fact 
that we're preparing to test this device and we still have no proper 
way to measure its output.' 
That's probably because it doesn't have an output in the conventional 
sense - it has an effect,' she said. 'And that ordnance out there will 
measure the effect just fine.' 
'Very well. As long as you know that this isn't science - this is merely 
fooling around with god's Legos.' 
'Oh, Sam - you're so cute when you're jealous,' Thayer cooed 
flirtatiously at him. 'Everyone knows engineers have all the fun. 
Theoretical science is just a little squirt of information - it doesn't 
amount to anything unless an engineer is around to take it in, 
combine it with some practical science, and lovingly nurture it until 
it's a full-term newborn baby technology.' 
By the time she was done, Bennington-Hastings was blushing. 'Well, 
I just hope you're practicing safe Annex.' 'You're a strange little man, 
Dr Sam.' Bennington-Hastings beamed. 'Thank you very much.' Aron 
Goldstein and the newest arrival, Grover Wilman, had found 
themselves a place at the back of the platform, safely out of the way 
of the pre-test bustle. 
'I'm nervous,' Goldstein confessed. 'I wonder if they might be rushing 
things because we're here.' 
'Are you afraid we might jinx them, Aron, just by virtue of standing 
here and wanting it so much? The preliminary tests were very 
promising.' 
'My mother believed that god is very concerned with our humil-ity, 
and metes out disappointments when we start to expect more than our 
share of good fortune,' said Goldstein. 'As a rule, I'd prefer having 
low expectations exceeded than high expectations disap-pointed - but 
on those occasions when I have difficulty keeping my expectations in 
check, I remember my mother's warning.' 
Wilman grunted. 'Aron, if you think a good result down there would 
amount to more than our share of good fortune, you need to let me 
take you on a little refresher tour of recent history. You put two world 
wars, twenty regional wars, a hundred civil wars, and all the racial, 
religious, and political genocides - in and out of war - on one side of 

the ledger -' 
'But how much of that bad fortune did we create for ourselves?' 
'Oh, the men with the guns created all of it. They've had things all 
their way for a long time now. But we're not here for them -we're 
here for the rest of the world, the ones who've done all the bleeding 
and suffering and dying.' He rested a hand on Goldstein's shoulder 
and squeezed reassuringly. 'No, I promise you, this won't come close 
to balancing the accounts. We're not asking for too much - this is a 
crumb, a token payment on account, a single kiss after ten thousand 
beatings. Don't be afraid to wish for it with all your heart.' 
Goldstein nodded toward where Brohier and Thayer were standing. 
'They've started the countdown,' he said, reaching for his binoculars. 
'We'll know soon.' 
It was a day when what did not happen made history. 
At exactly 2.10 p.m., when the sun angles were ideal for the video 
recorders, the Jl prototype mounted atop the test stand's Mark I 
Trigger was activated at full power for one-twentieth of a second. All 
of the tension was in the lead-up - the moment itself passed too 
quickly for so much as a breath held in anxious anticipation. But in 
that brief interval, the array of munitions and poppers on the sample 
pedestals was subjected to what Brohier cheekily called the 
bolometric intermodulating gauge-integrating field - the BIG-IF. 
Of all the observers at the control station, only Brohier was equipped 
to visualize what was happening to the structure of those materials 
during that fleeting exposure. Bennington-Hastings thought in 
mathematics, not metaphor - he saw the balance and fit of the 
equations the way a deaf composer heard music without instruments, 
as a pure essence requiring no translation into some-thing concrete. 
The others were prisoners of whatever schoolroom model of the atom 
had settled most firmly into their library of ideas, because there was 
no place in a world of either orbiting electrons or quantum 
uncertainty for the instantaneous transformation of elemental matter. 
But in Brohier's vision, elemental matter had disappeared, exposed as 
a comfortable fiction agreeable to the evidence of the senses. Matter 
was a mere derivation, a subordinate phenomenon. The fundamental 
essences were energy and information. Information bound energy 

into form, as will bound volition into purpose. Alter the information, 
and the form is altered, while the substance remains unchanged. 
It was, Brohier thought, as though information was the Universe's 
will, imposing order on the Universe's substance - order which had 
followed in the wake of the spontaneous and explosive 
transformation wrongly taken as the moment of creation. Energy was 
older than information, but formless and timeless without it - older 
than matter, but helpless and useless without it. In this new and 
provocative view, the Big Bang was not the birth of the Universe, but 
the birth of its consciousness. 
And with characteristic human hubris, he and his team were trying to 
tap into the mechanism by which the Universe had created itself and 
by which it sustained itself. They were trying to whisper a suggestion 
in the ear of the universal mind, to replace one thought with another, 
one pattern with another. They were hoping to find that the properties 
of matter were as arbitrary in the present as in the first seconds of the 
cosmic inflation, to demonstrate that quantum uncertainty was merely 
a clue to cosmic plasticity. 
Brohier already knew that they could scramble the information 
envelope of bound energy - that was, he now understood, what the 
Trigger did. The question to be answered was whether they could 
coherently alter that information envelope. But even asking the 
question presumed upon the resilience of the fundamental order, 
presumed that a local change would remain local, and that the energy 
would remain tightly bound as Dr Sam's equations promised. 
If it did not, the test range, the Annex, the central counties of Nevada, 
and perhaps much more would disappear in the blue-white heat of 
chaos's ultimate fury. This day, Brohier thought, we will become like 
gods, or we will meet them. 
That was the drama of the moment for Brohier - not the presence of 
military munitions on the test range, or the equally explosive 
backdrop of power politics. And that prospect was what made the 
stillness and silence after the first phase of the test protocol so sweet 
to him. They would not know for a little while what had happened in 
that one-twentieth of a second, but what had not happened brought 
Brohier as much relief as any non-event possibly could. 
It took nearly thirty minutes for Pete McGhan's ground crew, dressed 

in full-body bomb-disposal armor, to bring their new remotely-driven 
AFC-117 forward into the test range and load into its rear 
compartment one-third of the exposed samples from each pedestal. 
They were being removed from the test range before the second 
phase of the test, some to be held for analysis and some to be 
delivered to the new firing range for use in the final phase of the day's 
protocol. There was little talk on the observation platform during that 
wait, as an almost superstitious caution prevailed. 
When McGhan's crew had cleared the test zone, a new countdown 
started - this one leading to a simultaneous five-second activation of 
the test article and the Mark I together. 
All of the test munitions should have been vulnerable to the Trigger, 
and more than one observer steeled himself against being startled by 
an imminent barrage of explosions. But once again, the moment came 
and went uneventfully. There were no explosions, no fires, not even 
the tendrils of white smoke which attended the decomposition of 
certain compounds. 
It was harder to keep the excitement contained during the second 
break. The full-voiced talk was still all business. But Brohier heard 
whispers and murmuring on all sides as McGhan's team moved 
forward to remove another third of the test samples. Then Gordon 
Greene sidled up to Brohier and nudged him with an elbow. 
'This is getting interesting,' Greene said under his breath. 'I especially 
like not being able to tell whether the last man off the range tripped 
over the extension cord and unplugged everything.' He smiled 
impishly and wandered off again, leaving Brohier with his thoughts. 
Each of the day's three tests at the range had a different purpose. The 
first was about system safety, and from it they had learned that the Jl 
test article did not destabilize live explosives and propellants the way 
a Trigger did. The second was about system efficacy, and from it they 
had learned that even a Trigger could not destabilize the samples with 
the Jl exerting its calming influence. 
The remaining question on the program was whether there was any 
memory effect. Looking at the mathematics, Dr Sam insisted that 
there would be; looking at the residue analysis from hundreds of 
Trigger tests, Dr Brohier had doubts. To settle the question, they had 
planned a series of exposures with the Mark I Trigger alone, from 

one-hundredth of a second at ten percent power to three full seconds 
at one hundred percent power. There were ninety separate exposures 
in the profile, but under computer control it would take barely five 
minutes to complete them. 
'Sequencer is ready,' Leigh Thayer announced. 'Range is clear. Dr 
Brohier?' 
'Don't wait on my account.' 
'Then here goes nothing - or so we hope, eh?' 
The moment she activated the sequencer, the chatter on the ridgetop 
ceased. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath as the seconds 
accreted into a first minute, then a second, then a third. Every 
available pair of binoculars was trained on the test stand; those 
without huddled around the data station and peered at the monitors. 
Bennington-Hastings was among them, bouncing and rocking on his 
heels like a restless and impatient child. When he noticed Brohier 
looking his way, the young mathematician grinned broadly and 
offered a two-handed thumbs-up salute. Brohier answered with a 
cautionary look and both hands raised with fingers crossed. 
'We're at full power,' Leigh Thayer announced, a tremor of 
excitement sneaking into her voice. Tentative smiles flickered on and 
off all around her. 
Brohier found the last minute excruciating - a taut wire seemed to be 
wrapped around his chest, cutting deeply into him with each breath. 
Even if the entire test stand went up in the next second, they already 
had enough to call it a very good day. But he suddenly wanted it all, 
wanted Dr Sam to be right and the exposed munitions to be stable, 
just for the pure and beautiful symmetry of the equations, for the 
extraordinary perfection of the moment. Toward the end, he could not 
breathe at all. His lungs burned, his head pounded, even as his hopes 
soared, unchecked by any fear of the consequences of hubris. 
Then, at last, it was over. That's all,' Lee said quietly. 'We're done.' 
Cheers went up all around, anticipation transformed into celebration, 
irrepressible, giddy, proud. In the middle of the tumult, Brohier 
leaned heavily on a railing and somehow managed to force air from 
his lungs and draw a new breath. He heard the voices as though from 
far away. 

'Got to call my broker - tell him to sell that Remington stock -' 
'You're way too late - keep it and hope the certificates become 
collectibles.' 
'Did we do it? Did we do it? I think we did it -' 
'Yes, and I'll be collecting on those bets very soon indeed.' 
'Hey, Gordie - are you sure you put the batteries in right-side-up?' 
'Let's go to the firing range and find out.' 
That's right, people - we're not done yet. Control crew, close out your 
stations and get started on your test reports. Everyone else, the bus is 
waiting at the bottom of the hill.' 
Brohier borrowed Val Bowden's arm for the trip down the long metalmesh 
staircase and into the van. That prompted Leigh Thayer to turn 
sideways in her seat and peer quizzically back at him. 
'Are you all right, Karl?' she asked. 'Do you want to go back to the 
complex?' 
'It's the heat - it wears me out. And the sun has given me a headache. 
But I'm all right - the air conditioning is helping. Let's finish.' 
She looked unconvinced, but turned back to the driver and waved 
him on. 'Let's roll.' 
McGhan's crew had everything set up by the time the van arrived at 
the firing range. There was a weapon for each caliber of ammunition 
and each composition of propellant, and a man in body armor for 
each weapon. The explosive samples were in pits a hundred fifty 
meters downrange, equipped with fresh initiators and wired to the 
electrical detonator. 
'Now, I'd strongly recommend that you ladies and gentlemen watch 
from inside Big Ugly there,' McGhan said, gesturing toward the 
armored personnel carrier. 'We have two periscope monitors set up 
inside, so you won't miss anything - but everything should miss you.' 
Brohier clucked dismissively. 'I like the view from here,' he said. 
'You can begin whenever you're ready, Mr McGhan.' 
After that, there was no getting any of the others near the APC. They 
lingered near Brohier and the van while McGhan walked to the end 
of the firing line, consulted his safety supervisor by radio, then raised 
the red flag. 

Because of the prospect of misfires, McGhan had equipped the firing 
line with an array of revolvers, lever-action carbines, and pumpaction 
shotguns. Over the next few minutes, that proved to be an 
astute choice. One man after another clicked or racked his way 
through a full load of ammunition, then set his weapon down unfired, 
sometimes amidst a scattering of ejected duds. 
It was no different with the high explosives. Three rocket grenades 
plowed into a hillside, each raising no more than a puff of reddish 
dust. Electricity surged impotently through the circuits in test pit after 
test pit. Untreated blasting caps shattered explosive samples, but 
could not shock them into detonating. Steel hammers fell feebly on 
the tips of warheads, and gas-fired rams quietly squeezed plastic 
explosives into heat-fused inert bricks. 
With every failure, part of the weight on Brohier's shoulders lifted, 
until at the end he was feeling peculiarly light and tranquil, like a 
balloon resting against the ceiling. When McGhan dropped the red 
flag and unconstrained raucous cheers went up all across the firing 
range, Brohier did not join in. The most he could muster was a broad, 
happy smile - it felt as though yielding to any more ebullience would 
make him float away. 
No one, including Brohier himself, was aware that his condition was 
in fact precarious. Gordon Greene suddenly appeared in front of him, 
grabbing his hand and pumping it. Grover Wilman was there, too, 
saying something Brohier could not quite hear. Then 
Dr Sam sprang on Brohier from nowhere, assaulting him with a hug 
that nearly knocked him to the ground. Leigh Thayer came to his 
rescue, dragging Dr Sam away by the scruff of the neck -only to 
return a moment later to subject Brohier to a fierce chest-squeezing 
hug of her own. The circle of bodies closed tighter and tighter around 
him, until the touch of panic in his eyes attracted Aron Goldstein's 
notice. 
'Away - away, away,' Goldstein chided, taking Brohier's arm and 
guiding him to the van. 
They sat down together in the open sliding door of the vehicle, and 
Brohier clung to the weight and solidity of the metal. 
'Are you all right, Karl?' 

'It was all - just a bit overwhelming,' Brohier said, his chest rising and 
falling quickly with his sharp, noisy breaths. He tried a smile. 'Who 
knew - one could get this excited - over nothing.' 
'Nothing? Hardly that, old friend.' 
A shadow fell across them, and Brohier looked up to see Wilman 
standing a long stride away. 'They've called for the helicopter and the 
EMT. Karl, can I get you anything?' 
I'm all right,' Brohier insisted. 'A touch of heat stroke, at worst.' But 
he waved away an offer of water. 'One of us should call the President - 
tell him that we have an operational Jammer.' 
'I thought I might fly back tonight and deliver the news in person,' 
said Aron. 'Security, and all that.' 
'Probably the best way to go,' Wilman said. 
'Security,' Brohier repeated. 'Yes - I'm glad you reminded me.' He 
looked up, squinting into the late afternoon sun. 'Grover - this goes 
out just as the last one did. Where is Gordon? Work with Gordon - he 
knows what to do. Do you understand? I don't care about the patents. 
I don't want to make a penny on this. Anyone who wants the Jammer 
can have it. Give it away. Give them a chance. Give them a chance to 
do better.' 
'You know we will, Karl,' Goldstein said, finding Brohier's hand and 
squeezing it. 'You know we will.' 
It took five weeks for the Annex to engineer an add-on Jammer 
module for the Mark I, and eight more weeks for LifeShield Arsenal 
to convert Plants 4, 5 and 9 to Jammer production. 
Then the real work began - and there was more than enough to go 
around. 
'Here we go,' said Tamara Dugan, tugging at the stiff collar of her 
new pale blue uniform as she studied the directory. 'Property 
manager, D. Wright, Three-A.' 
Her partner shifted the tool case to his other hand. 'You do the talking 
if it's a guy - I'll take it if it's a gal.' 
'Why not?' she said, hefting the equipment case. 'It's going to take any 
edge we can find to get these cold sites back online.' 

D. Wright was a dour-faced, round-shouldered man twice Dugan's 
age and half her partner's size. 'Mr Wright - good morning!' she said, 
turning on her smile. 'My name is Tamara, and this is Tony -' 
'There's no solicitors allowed in the complex -' 
'I wish my apartment had that policy,' Dugan said smoothly. 'We're 
from LifeShield Technical Services, and we're here to upgrade your 
installation. I believe you were notified we were coming this 
morning?' 
'Now, I told that girl, we don't use the Trigger anymore -' 
'Is that so? Why is that?' 
Wright snorted. 'As if you have to ask. Too damn dangerous. Why, 
we had a sixteen-foot moving van go up in flames, burn up 
everything the young man owned, just because he didn't know about 
our installation. Our insurance company had to settle on it, and then 
turned around and raised our rates twenty percent. I had it turned off 
that afternoon.' 
'I wish you'd gotten in touch with us when that happened,' Dugan said 
sweetly. 'We could have put you in touch with a cooperating insurerin 
fact, we still can help you with that. But this upgrade eliminates 
any chance of another incident like that -' 
'I don't want it upgraded. I tried to tell that girl who called -' 
'Mr Wright, if you'll read the agreement under which Bellwood Trace 
received its installation, you'll find that we retained the right of access 
and the responsibility for system maintenance. The notification was a 
courtesy.' 
'Then I don't want you turning it back on. In fact, you ought to just 
take it out instead of tuning it up - that'll give me back a storage 
room, and we can use the space.' 
'Mr Wright, have you had a chance to watch the DVD you were sent? 
It explains the new Jammer system we'll be installing today -' 
'Don't you think I have work to do, miss? Do you think all I do is sit 
in front of a screen all day like some glass-eyed nethead?' 
'I'm sure you work very hard, Mr Wright - we noticed right away how 
well-kept the property is. That's why we're sure once you understand 
that your liability situation has changed completely, you'll be glad 

we're here.' 
He squinted suspiciously at her. 'What do you mean, changed?' 
'Well, simply this - now that the LifeShield disables firearms without 
setting them off, the first time there's a shooting here and the victim's 
family finds out you pulled the plug, they're going to end up owning 
this place - and you.' 
'Me?' 
Her partner stepped forward. 'Absolutely. For us to remove the unit, 
you're going to have to personally sign a waiver acknowledging that 
the system was operational and that you chose not to activate it. It's 
all in the original agreement.' 
'I - I'm going to have to talk to the management office,' said Wright 
nervously. 
'By all means, do that,' she said. 'In the meantime, though, we'll get to 
work.' 
'Now, hold on - management's in Bakersfield, so nobody will be in 
the office for a couple more hours,' Wright protested quickly. 
She deftly retrieved a self-dialing identicard from a shoulder pocket 
and handed it to him. 'Here's a number you can call while you're 
waiting, then, to get answers to any questions you have. Our 
information office is open around the clock.' 
'Look, miss -' 
'Mr Wright, even if you decide to live dangerously and sign that 
waiver, we're going to have to upgrade that unit before we install it 
for someone else. So we're going to go ahead and do that now, so you 
have every chance to do the right thing for the people who live here.' 
'All right, all right,' he said, frowning and scratching his forehead. I'll 
get you the key.' 
'No need - we have ours. We'll come back and check in with you 
when we're finished. It's in the basement of building F, correct?' 
'That's right. Turn left onto Foxtree Lane and follow it back.' 
They bit their tongues until they were back in the privacy of the red, 
white and blue LifeService van. 'Oh, man,' Tony said with a sigh, 'I 
hope they're not all like that - a half-hour of yammering to get in to 
do a ten-minute job. They've got us scheduled for twelve of these 

today.' 
'You know, he looked to me like the kind who'd have a forty-five in 
the nightstand that he never practices with,' said Dugan. 
If he does, it's a paperweight now,' Tony said, casting a glance over 
his shoulder. The status display on the van's Jammer showed nothing 
but green. 'If he doesn't go for reactivation, do we tell him?' 
'We'll just tell him we had to turn it on for a few seconds to test it.' 
They found that a key was unnecessary. The lock had been beheaded 
with a bolt-cutter. Inside, they saw that the same cutter had been used 
to remove a half-meter of the Trigger's jacketed power conduit. There 
were also four bright-metal concavities in the system enclosure - 
bullet holes. 
'Okay, so I overestimated him - twenty-two caliber,' Dugan said, 
examining the holes. 'You know, this could turn out to be the first of 
a run of very long days.' 
'Let's get it open,' Tony said with a sigh. I'll start making a list of 
parts.' 
27: Summons to Greatness 
'The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker. This 
honor now beckons America This is our summons to greatness.' 
- Richard M. Nixon 
The office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was surrounded by 
layers of protocol and decorated with icons of tradition. As the office 
of the man sitting at the top of the military pyramid, it was an 
intimidating environment for most visitors. But it was in defiance of 
that protocol, tradition, and power that Roland Stepak had invited 
himself there to confront the occupant of that office -General Donald 
Madison. 
'I was reviewing the latest readiness reports last night, General 
Madison - and I have to tell you that what I saw didn't contribute to a 

good night's sleep,' the secretary of defense said, taking his pick of 
the armchairs. He looked expectantly at Madison, and waited for the 
general to join him. 
'I thought the numbers were very good,' Madison said. 'Eighty-eight 
percent of our aircraft are combat-ready -' 
'This is my meeting, General - don't try to take over the agenda. And 
don't try making any more smoke. There was enough of that in the 
readiness report.' 
'Mr Secretary, I don't understand why -' 
'Oh, you don't? You don't think counting the entire Special Forces 
order of battle as ready for a Trigger-neutralized combat environment 
is deceptive?' 
'No, sir, I think that's absolutely legitimate. Every one of those men 
gets extensive and intensive training with alternative weapons, 
particularly the knife and hand-to-hand.' 
'And every one of them is still being issued a gun as their primary 
weapon. Every sniper is still carrying a gun. Every unit is still giving 
first priority to proficiency on the firing range. And none of those 
units, not even the Rangers, are prepared to deploy in force to defeat 
an enemy that's in the field in force.' 
'Mr Secretary, if the situation arose, there's no reason we couldn't use 
them that way -' 
'Come on, Donald, you're not talking to some wide-eyed Iowa lawyer 
who just got into town,' Stepak said gruffly. 'You and I both know 
that the natural operational unit for Special Forces is something 
closer to the platoon than the battalion. You and I also know that 
using them as primary combat troops means losing them for 
SpecOps.' 
'Why should that matter?' Madison said with undisguised bitterness. 
The President has had half of them standing post, babysitting, for the 
better part of two years now - so it's obvious that their primary 
mission isn't viewed as having any value.' 
Stepak was shaking his head. 'General Madison, that's unworthy of 
you and of this office. But maybe it helps explain the rest of the 
readiness report. The Army has exactly one company training with 
bows, one company training with quarterstaves, one company 

training with electrical weapons, one company training with 
compressed-air dartguns - as if we were only ever going to need them 
in SpecOps numbers.' 
Those are developmental projects. We're still evaluating the weapons 
and the training models.' 
'Of course you are,' said Stepak. 'But speaking of models - the Navy 
has given every carrier task force Trigger-equipped ASW pickets and 
RPVs, but hasn't taken the first step toward creating an alternative 
force projection model - something that could survive a Trigger 
attack, which none of our task forces could today.' 
'It's impossible. We can put five, six, seven hundred ships in the 
water, but unless we can arm them, they might as .well be yachts at a 
regatta. We can't go back to catapults and burning pitch, or rams and 
boarding parties.' 
'Why not? In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. In 
the new order of things, the primary role of the Navy may turn out to 
be delivering troops and materiel, and the primary threat may turn out 
to be small, high-powered, remotely-piloted vessels designed to 
punch holes in the hull, or tangle the props in a trailing cable.' 
'What "new order of things"?' Madison asked, his tone contemptuous. 
The gun, the missile, the bomb, the torpedo, the artillery shell - those 
are still the "order of things", and they will be until long after both of 
us are gone.' 
'Seen any horse-mounted cavalry lately, General? Times change. 
Your problem is that you refuse to see the change that's already here.' 
He reached down beside his chair and lifted his oversized black 
briefcase onto his lap. Pressing his thumbs against the smart catches, 
he raised the lid, then turned the briefcase a half-turn so Madison 
could look inside it. The chairman stared uncompre-hendingly. 
'This is Terabyte's prototype for a briefcase Jammer,' Stepak said 
softly. 'A working prototype. I turned it on outside the main security 
checkpoint, and disarmed every weapon in this end of the building.' 
'You did what?' 
'I turned it on again just a moment ago. There isn't a working weapon 
within a hundred meters of this office, up, down, or sideways. If I 
plugged this into line current, I could make it three hundred meters 

and keep it that way indefinitely. You can check the pistol you keep 
in that safe in your desk, if you'd like. Or call in the guard. You're 
both disarmed.' 
'What do you think gives you the right -' 
'It's my goddamned responsibility, Donald -just like it was yours. But 
you bet on the wrong horse. You didn't like the direction things were 
headed and you took a chance that they wouldn't go any further. Now 
you know you were wrong.' Stepak closed the briefcase. 'It has gone 
further, and we're not ready.' 
'I don't accept that assessment.' 
'Where's your nearest alternative-weapons unit, General? What 
happens when the Pentagon security detachment reaches for their 
guns and finds them Jammed? You kept us in a conventional defense 
posture - which means you've left us vulnerable. You counted on 
your new explosives and new propellants to preserve the status quo, 
and you didn't prepare for the possibility of being wrong. That's 
inexcusable, General.' 
Madison's face reddened and his right hand became a fist, but he said 
nothing. 
Standing, Stepak dropped his voice to a level he was certain would 
not carry beyond the door. 'Now we have to make up for lost time, 
and transform our defense posture virtually overnight. The President 
and I need to have full confidence that the person in this office has 
both the ability and the vision to lead us through that process.' 
He paused, giving Madison a chance to make the offer, but the 
chairman was stubborn to the last, and made Stepak say it. 
'Donald, the President sent me to thank you for your service, and ask 
for your resignation.' 
Madison blinked three times, then squeezed his eyes shut for a 
moment before rising from the chair. 'You may inform the President 
he'll have it by the end of the day.' 
'I know he appreciates your cooperation, General.' 
Stepak moved as if to leave, but Madison edged sideways and 
blocked his way. 'Roland -I did what I thought was right for the 
country.' 

'If this wasn't moot now, I'd ask exactly how dragging your feet in 
complying with a directive from the C-in-C is more like loyalty than 
insubordination.' 
'I did what my experience told me needed to be done,' Madison said 
angrily. 'I only wanted to ensure our security.' 
'I know that, Donald. The problem is that none of our experience 
applies. Everything we know is wrong.' Stepak started toward the 
door once more. 
Madison reached out and grabbed the secretary of defense's arm. 
'Roland - you should understand. You've worn the uniform. I couldn't 
be the one to tear it all apart. I don't believe in it. We teach soldiers to 
love their guns for a reason - a good reason.' 
'I do understand, Donald. I understand all of that.' 
Emboldened, Madison added, 'I always figured, if you beat all the 
swords into plowshares today, you're going to find 'em fighting with 
plowshares tomorrow. You might as well keep the swords, especially 
if you're already good with them.' 
'If swords were the worst of our problems, we wouldn't be having this 
conversation.' He shook his head. 'It's going to be a new world, and I 
don't know if fossils like you and me will ever be comfortable in it. 
But we can't stop it from coming. And if we can't bring ourselves to 
help, the only honorable thing left is to get out of the way.' 
Madison sighed, and in doing so seemed to shrink. 'Yes. Yes, I 
suppose that's what it will take. Perhaps younger, more flexible 
minds may find opportunities where I can only see danger.' 
'I'm sure they'll pleasantly surprise us,' Stepak said. They are our 
children, after all.' 
Showing a wan smile, Madison retreated out of Stepak's way. 'If I 
might be allowed to make a suggestion regarding my replacement -' 
I'll be happy to convey your thoughts to the President.' 
'Thank you,' Madison said. 'Would you tell him, please, that he would 
do well to consider the Vice Chairman - General Heincer.' 
'And your reason for saying this? -' 
'I know Bill's held his tongue in front of the President, out of 
deference. But in the chiefs' private sessions, he's been far and away 

the most vigorous defender of the President's viewpoint - so much so 
that I'm afraid the rest of us started calling him The Lone Ranger. 
Moving him up would send an unambiguous message. I expect it 
could change the outlook of the chiefs overnight, without changing 
any more of the faces.' 
At Stepak's questioning look, he added, 'I'm not protecting anyone. 
The last thing we need now is to create the impression of a revolt of 
the generals, and to have the aftershocks of that propagating down 
through the ranks. That wouldn't be conducive to good order and 
discipline during what we both know will be a difficult transition.' 
Stepak nodded appreciatively. 'I'll be sure the President receives the 
benefit of your perspective.' 
Evan Stolta poked his head into Grover Wilman's office and rapped 
his knuckles on the jamb to get Wilman's attention. 'There's been a 
little movement in the numbers,' he said, his tone upbeat. 'You should 
take a look.' 
Before Wilman could say anything, the senior strategic consultant 
was gone again. 
Wilman sighed. That was the pace of life now at the Mind Over 
Madness site in Georgetown - nonstop motion. In less than three 
months, MOM had doubled in size, tripled in staff, and hived off 
StreetSmart and The Peace Library into their own facilities. The 
growth had come at the price of the atmosphere of earnest dedication 
which had formerly prevailed. It was now more campaign 
headquarters than foundation, more nerve center than think tank. 
Something else had disappeared along with the opportunity for quiet 
reflection. That was Wilman's ability to maintain a hands-on, face-toface 
familiarity with all aspects of domestic operations. There was 
too much going on in too many places, too many shoulders to peek 
over, too many obligations tying him to his desk comset, which had 
become the only window through which he viewed his work and his 
world. 
'Polling, current, trends, on screen,' he said, and sat back in his chair 
to study the charts. The foundation was buying continuous polling 
from two different services on six key attitudinals, looking for 
weakness on either side of the great divide in public opinion. 

On one side were those who saw guns as the greater danger, who 
would gladly live in a residence protected by a LifeShield, and who 
were reassured by the idea that the police had this technology and 
that public places were protected by it. After a steady slide from 
highs of sixty percent or better, those numbers had been stalled in the 
low forties for months. The demographics of this core group were 
slanted toward women, college graduates, parents, older adults, and 
suburban dwellers. The key value that unified them was the 
importance they placed on community. 
On the other side were those who feared the mysterious and 
unfamiliar forces of the Trigger more than the familiar presence of 
firearms, who would rather keep and carry a gun than depend on 
anyone else's protection, or who were more worried about a police 
state than about crime statistics. The hardcore constituency for 
unrestricted gun ownership amounted to no more than twenty percent 
of the adult population - overwhelmingly white men, many of whom 
had a silent agenda of racism, class warfare, or political dissent. 
But this uncompromising nucleus had successfully exploited fear to 
build a majority allied against both government and private use of the 
Trigger. Their coalition drew heavily on rural families, single urban 
men, conservative Christians, the working poor, the disaffected, and 
young liberals deceived into thinking that they were defending 
individual liberty. But the true unifying value, the polls revealed, was 
the community of one - one man, one family, one color, one creed. 
Winning back members of this swing group meant addressing their 
fears and awakening their consciences. Neither was an easy task. All 
too often, fear was deaf to reason, and conscience insensible to an 
outsider's plight. 
But Stolta was right - the new dailies showed a little movement in the 
numbers. 
Looking at the groups involved, Wilman thought he knew the reason. 
The Mind Over Madness action committee had been diligently 
digging up LifeShield success stories from around the globe, and 
aggressively promoting them to the media. In the last few weeks, the 
committee had scored several high-profile placements, largely due to 
events beyond America's borders. 
In the Yucatan, the ancient Mayan cities of Uxmal, Labna, and 

Chichen Itza opened to both tourists and scientists for the first time in 
nearly a decade. The Trigger had brought an end to the civil war 
which had enveloped the archaeological treasures, but it had taken 
the Jammer to clear the sites without further damage to the temples. 
Jerusalem, which had fourteen marked and six unmarked Jammer 
vans patrolling its streets on a daily basis, celebrated the first year in 
its entire history without a single bombing or shooting death. The 
highly-rated video columnist Regina Wickman did the best job with 
that story, demonstrating with dramatic then-and-now footage that 
the soldier with the submachine gun had disappeared from public 
view. 
I've been living out of a backpack for most of the last sixteen years,' 
said Wickman, standing in front of the Wailing Wall. 'I've walked the 
streets of two hundred cities in more than forty countries. But as an 
American traveler abroad, I've never grown accustomed to the sight 
of assault weapons slung over the shoulders of policemen, or carried 
casually in marketplaces. 
To some, those very visible weapons represent security - but they've 
always made me feel anything but secure. No matter how much I 
might find to like or admire about a Kinshasa or a Seoul or a Buenos 
Aires, I cannot say that I'm ever comfortable in such places. Guns are 
a blemish on the face of society - any society 
- and I've never seen a cityscape that wouldn't be improved by their 
disappearance. 
'And that is exactly what has happened here in Jerusalem. In a city 
which has been fought over for millennia, there is now a strange and 
unaccustomed peace. It is not that the old antipathies have been 
resolved, or that the old adversaries have grown weary of the fight. 
But in a city diligently cleansed of firearms on a daily basis, we can 
see the promise of the new technology - killing has become so much 
harder here that it just might be easier to learn to live together.' 
But even talented journalists found it hard to make news out of events 
that never happened. It was easier to note the failures than credit the 
successes. And under the seemingly immutable rules that governed 
human emotional identification, a thousand lives saved in Ethiopia 
counted for less than one life lost in Erie - so long as the face of the 
victim was the same color as the face of the person adding up the 

damages. 
Glad as Wilman was for the good news from elsewhere, he prayed 
for a success story closer to home - preferably a very public one, with 
good camera coverage and a photogenic rainbow of grateful nearvictims. 
Something at a marquee sporting event, perhaps, or a threat 
to Mardi Gras or the Oscars. 
But while he was waiting to hear from god, there was more than 
enough to keep Wilman busy. 
'Senator Wilman?' 
The floor manager for Mind Over Madness's walk-in services had a 
curious note in his voice and a quizzical expression on his face. 
Neither seemed to match the priority cut-in channel through which 
the page had come. 
'What is it, Donald?' 
'Sir - could you please come down to the counseling bullpen? Right 
away, if at all possible -' 
'I might. Could I have a reason?' 
Frowning, the floor manager glanced sideways. 'Senator - it's the 
damnedest thing. Do you remember that conversation we had after 
last Monday's teleconference?' 
'I think I do. We were talking about how to handle priority clients -' 
In fact, the discussion had been on handling possible security 
problems, including a building incursion. Wilman brought up the 
coverage map for the building video intranet and began scanning 
through the stations nearest the one the floor manager was using. 
'That's the one. There's someone down here asking to see you.' 
By then, Wilman had found the view he wanted - one that clearly 
showed the young man with the short black hair and what looked like 
an Imperial stormtrooper's utility belt under his black-and-red flannel 
shirt. 'Someone with a serious problem, I take it?' 
'Well, Senator, he clearly thinks it's serious. And he's asking for you 
specifically.' 
'You can tell him I'll be down shortly. I have a couple of calls to 

make.' 
It was not hard to get his calls taken by the right people. Wilman 
watched from his second-floor office window as the NV25 and 
ActionCam 17 sedans screeched to a stop at the curb below. Soon 
after, a SkyEye remotely piloted hovercam - a civilian spinoff from a 
Hughes battlefield monitor - arrived on the scene and began peering 
in windows with its low-light camera and audio telescope. 
But Wilman lingered, waiting until CNN2 went live with the internal 
security feed he had offered them. He paused before the wallmounted 
flatscreen just long enough to hear the anchor sol-emnly 
intone the introductory voiceover: This is breaking news from CNN - 
Pacifists Under Siege in the nation's capital. The quiet, collegial 
community of Georgetown is holding its breath this morning as a 
bomb-wielding terrorist holds more than seventy people hostage at 
the headquarters of -' Satisfied, Wilman headed for the stairs. 
Up until the moment he announced himself to the tall man behind the 
reception desk, everything had gone as David Thomas Mallock had 
planned. 
His ancient Tracker, bought at auction from a Dallas wholesale lot, 
had held together for the thirteen-hundred-mile drive from Palestine, 
Texas to Georgetown with only two minor breakdowns. He had kept 
his speed down and maintained a low profile on the road - though 
there had been one scare near Knoxville, Tennessee, when a state 
trooper settled behind him and tailed him for nearly two miles before 
taking an exit. Mallock had kept to the freeway motels and truck 
stops and off the money net, stingily doling out the cash he had 
collected from friends and family for his pickup, his stereo, and his 
computer. 
The meeting in Rock Creek Park had gone off on schedule and 
without a hitch. With thundering Beltway traffic masking the few 
words needed for the transaction, Mallock traded the last of his cash 
for the 500 grams of plastic explosive. 
This is virgin?' he had asked. 
'Absolutely - home-grown, off the books. I know the chef personally.' 
Despite that reassurance, Mallock had been cautious. The FBI's 

involvement in the far-reaching Trigger fraud was not limited to 
inserting microscopic radio detonators into commercial explosives 
and surreptitiously irradiating gunpowder supplies. According to the 
Truth Hunters mailing list, the agency also had dozens of operatives 
in the underground, posing as the operators of small-scale 'patriot 
labs' but serving up the same doped formulas. 
So Mallock had abandoned his Tracker in the park, and set off on 
foot for his target, following a carefully mapped serpentine path 
which took him along wooded trails and down quiet streets with-out 
ever passing near an embassy, tourist landmark, public build-ing, or 
posted intersection. If he had been betrayed, and the explos-ives he 
was wearing were tainted, he had been determined not to discover it 
until he was standing outside the enemy's citadel. 
But he had not been betrayed, either by those he depended on or by a 
misstep of his own. He had reached and entered the citadel, had 
looked on the clueless faces of the insects within and called down 
their king to an accounting. It should have been a moment of high 
drama - but it was playing out as anticlimax. 
Mallock had waited in the short line at the contact island, enjoying 
the anticipation. 'I want to see the supervisor,' he had demanded when 
his turn came. When the floor manager had appeared and introduced 
himself, Mallock had steered him to one of the counseling cubicles 
along the west wall. There he had shown the manager the bomb and 
the controller taped to his right hand. 
'I know the truth about the Trigger. I want to see Wilman. You get 
him here without making a fuss, or everyone in the room is going to 
be dead. You get him here, and I'll let these people leave.' 
'I'm not sure where the Senator is at the moment,' the floor manager 
had said. 'Let me see if can reach him.' 
'You'd better do more than try. I'm wearing enough live explosives to 
blow out these walls and bring this building down on top of us.' 
'Can I tell the Senator that?' 
'No. You just get him here. I'll tell him how things are going to be.' 
He had listened in on the manager's conversation with Wilman and 
been satisfied with its direction. Then, at Mallock's insistence, the 
two returned to the reception island to wait. From there, Mallock had 

a clear view of both entrances to the room - the front doors and the 
stairwell on the left side of the back wall. He also had a substantial 
oak-and-steel counter and six employees available as shields should 
someone unwelcome or unexpected make an appearance. 
There were still clients in the waiting area and at the counter, and 
Mallock had told the floor manager to see that his staff carried on 
with business as usual. But as one minute stretched into the next, and 
Wilman still had not appeared, Mallock began to rethink his tactics. 
He had decided to announce himself only to a supervisor because he 
did not want to have to ride herd on a roomful of frightened people - 
they were just as effectively hostages while ignorant of the threat, and 
much less likely to do something stupid. He had decided to insist that 
Wilman should come to him rather than demand to be taken to 
Wilman because of the risk of ambush 
- he did not know the building, and did not want to invite any 
surprises before his mission was complete. 
But the longer he waited, the more he realized that he had not given 
enough thought to the possibility that Wilman was a coward and 
might need to be shamed into acting honorably. The longer he 
witnessed the staff at work, the less harmless they seemed 
- more like termites than sheep, destructive in their own right, 
irredeemable by their nature. And the more people he watched pass 
through the main entrance, the more he worried that the latest arrivals 
were plainclothes police and special ops assassins. 
'What's taking so long?' he demanded of the floor manager. 'Where is 
he?' 
'I don't know,' said the floor manager. 'But I can page the Senator 
again -' 
'No. What you're going to do is close the building. Get all those 
clients or customers or whatever you call them out of here, and lock 
the doors behind 'em.' 
'What should I tell them?' 
'I don't care what you tell them, so long as you get them out, and do it 
now. Gas leak, network crash, fire alarm - you people are good at 
lying. Improvise.' 
But when it was done, Mallock felt no more secure. There were more 

than two dozen pair of eyes regarding him, some expectantly, some 
curiously, one with open amusement, but none fearfully. 
'You don't know, do you?' he demanded. 'You poor fools - you don't 
know that it's a fraud.' 
'What is?' asked the floor manager. 
'The Trigger. It's a hoax. It doesn't exist - everything you've seen on 
the news has been staged by the FBI.' 
'Oh, please,' a woman said, her voice dripping with disdain. 
'It's true,' Mallock said hotly. 'Ever since they took over the ATF, 
they've been looking for a way to grab our guns. They couldn't find a 
way to do it legally, so they're trying to scare us into giving them up.' 
Someone behind Mallock cleared his throat. 'Young man, have you 
been keeping up with your medicine?' 
Mallock spun around, searching for the offender. The FBI's Section 
Zero started doping explosives almost two years ago. They've been 
recruiting Hollywood FX techs for twice that long. Everything that's 
happened was scripted months in advance by the United Nations.' 
'And you know this how?' It was the same voice, and it belonged to a 
round-faced man with a gleaming pate and a short white beard. 
'Do you people think you're so smart that no one could ever figure out 
what you're up to?' That was met with more laughter, and a cold fury 
crept up from Mallock's heart to take command of his features. 
'You'll find out, in a little while. You'll find out the truth, and then 
you and me together are going to teach the rest of the world the truth.' 
'That's what we try to do here every day,' said one of the woman at 
the reception desk. 'Maybe you should sit down with one of our 
counselors and talk out these paranoid conspiracy fantasies.' 
It was his turn to laugh - a brittle, cynical laugh. 'Sit down with one 
of your hypnotists, you mean? Let one of your neurolinguistic 
programmers work me over? I don't think so,' he said, shaking his 
head vigorously. 'It's not really your fault if you've been lied to. I feel 
sorry for you, honestly. But you'll realize when you hear it from your 
own leader.' He turned on Donald and demanded, 'Why isn't he here? 
I want an explanation. I want Wilman, now.' 
'I don't know why he isn't here. But he said he was coming. I'm sure 

he'll be here soon,' the floor manager said, his tone placating. 'And, 
everyone, please - Senator Wilman asked that we cooperate with our 
visitor. Let's do that without being argumentative or provocative.' 
'Fine,' said a tall, slender black woman. 'I'm going to go cooperate 
from my cubicle. I have a lot of work to do.' 
She started to walk away, and Mallock sprang after her. 'Nobody's 
going anywhere,' he said, grabbing her by the arm. 'Wilman's playing 
games. I want you all sitting up on the edge of the counter, facing 
out. You're going to be my shield. Come on -move!' 
A few of the others started to comply, but the woman stood her 
ground and jerked her arm free. 'Honey, it's going to take more juice 
than you've got to get me to let you look up my skirt.' 
'Nettie -' the floor manager said reproachfully. 
'Boss, please - can't I just deck him? He laid hands on me -' 
'Don't you get it?' Mallock screamed in her face. 'I'm wearing a bomb. 
I can kill us all, any time I want to - and if I don't start getting some 
fucking cooperation from you traitors, I'll goddamned well do it. And 
there aren't any magic rays that can stop me -' 
Just then, he heard a pair of loud metallic clicks, and whirled toward 
them. He saw a well-dressed older man holding one of the front doors 
open as a SkyEye flew through the opening, followed by a man and a 
woman wearing Witness bands on their heads and transmitter packs 
on their upper arms. 
'What are you doing?' Mallock screamed. 'That door's supposed to be 
locked!' 
The well-dressed man turned his way, and Mallock recognized him 
as Grover Wilman. 'I'm letting the media in. You wanted an audience, 
didn't you? You wanted to make a statement, right? Well, CNN2 is 
listening now, and so is Reuters, and StarNews, and Associated 
Media. Speak your piece.' 
The rest of the people in the room were suddenly invisible as 
furniture to Mallock. He crossed the floor toward Wilman, shedding 
his flannel shirt and raising his right hand to show the controller 
taped to the palm. 'You're the one who's going to make a statement. 
You're going to end this hoax. You're going to admit your part in the 
conspiracy. You're going to tell the world the truth about the Trigger. 

Or I'm going to set off this bomb I'm wearing, and the world can read 
the truth in our mangled bodies. Your choice. Senator. You decide if 
protecting the lie another five minutes is worth these twenty lives.' 
Wilman folded his arms over his chest and shook his head slowly. 
'Mr Mallock, someone has been feeding you a lie. The truth is that 
the Trigger works. The Jammer works even better. That isn't a bomb 
you're wearing - if it ever was one, it isn't one now.' 
'You're a damned liar,' Mallock said, advancing another step. 'Tell 
them! This is a conspiracy to disarm the American people. President 
Breland has already made a deal to surrender sovereignty to the 
United Nations. But you have to take away our weapons before the 
blue helmets arrive - before the last day of Breland's term. So you 
cooked up this hoax to trick us into surrendering them. That's the 
truth, Senator Wilman.' 
'Who sold you that bill of goods, Mr Mallock?' 
'There was documentation for everything I'm saying on the Patriot 
Crier Web site. Of course, it wasn't there long - the site was attacked 
by mites and maggots, and then crashed by a gridlocker. But I 
imagine you know all about that, since it was your spooks who took it 
down.' 
'You might want to work on developing higher standards of evidence, 
Mr Mallock. I'm afraid someone's been taking advantage of your 
gullibility.' 
'You can insult me all you want - it won't change the truth. And if I 
have to kill all of us to get the truth to the people, then it's my 
obligation as a patriot to do exactly that.' 
'Don't delude yourself, Mr Mallock - you're no patriot. You're just 
another man who's having a hard time dealing with the fact that he's 
not in charge,' Wilman said, and then looked past Mallock. 'Please 
return to your duties, everyone. This man poses no threat to us.' 
'Stop!' Mallock screamed, raising his right hand high above his head. 
'By god, I'll do it - I will!' 
'Do what you think you must, then,' said Wilman. Then he turned 
away as if to leave. 
Receive me with mercy, Lord, Mallock prayed silently. Then he 
squeezed his eyes shut and twisted the actuator. 

It took Mallock a full second to realize that his life had continued a 
full second longer than it should have. Opening his eyes, he stared 
disbelievingly at the actuator, then reset it to try again. 
'Do you need some help, Mr Mallock?' 
Mallock sank slowly to his knees, wearing a mask of incredulity and 
despair. '.He cheated me. Blade cheated me - gave me -' He grabbed 
at the belt, fumbling with the catch, tearing open one of the pouches. 
'What, what is this stuff? Play-Doh? School paste? It was supposed to 
be ammonium picrate and C-l -' 
'It is,' said Wilman, stepping closer. 'But it's been adjusted by our 
Jammer.' 
Shaking his head violently, Mallock said, 'No - no, that can't be-' 
'Why not? Because it would make it inconveniently difficult to upset 
the apple cart?' 
'No, I must have done something wrong - a bad lead, the wrong 
connection -' 
The wrong connection is the one you made between weapons and 
security. Do you really think that those of us who are fighting to drive 
out firearms love freedom any less than you do, care for our families' 
safety any less than you do?' 
'Your freedom - but what about ours? Your families - but what about 
ours? You throw us to the wolves to keep yourselves safe -' 
'We're trying to muzzle the wolves, Mr Mallock, not feed them,' 
Wilman said. He offered Mallock his hand to help him up; after a 
long moment's hesitation, Mallock accepted it. 'If you really want to 
understand, I have a better answer for you than that.' 
Mallock's face wore a scowl, but he quietly said, 'I'm listening.' 
'The only thing that keeps society from being a twenty-four-hour-aday 
bloodbath is the fact that most men, most of the time, aren't 
willing to risk everything on a fight which might leave them crippled 
or dead. And most of the time, even when we do fight, we fight just 
long enough to settle the matter - somebody yields before it gets past 
the bruises and black eyes stage. 
'We spent millions of years working out sane and survivable rules of 
conflict resolution - and then five thousand years breaking them by 

inventing ever-deadlier weapons that can kill more and more 
efficiently from farther and farther away. 
'We're at the point now where all most of us can remember of the 
rules is, "It's good to be king" - a tragic abridgement. Too many 
fathers have forgotten the lessons they have to teach their sons, or 
abandoned their responsibility to impart them - honor to elders, 
service to the community, duty to the family. And too many men 
around the world have seized on the mistaken notion that because 
they can bring down a prince, they deserve to be one. 
'You came here with a bomb, intent on destroying me and claiming 
the power of my celebrity. If I were playing by your rules, I would 
now be obliged to have you killed, for trying and failing. But I'd like 
you to have the chance to realize there's another way, a higher ethic 
to aspire to. So you can go as you came - those D.C. police waiting 
outside would need my help to charge you with anything, and they 
won't get it.' 
Mallock stole a look through the front doors to the street before 
answering. 'Do you think this ends it?' 
'No. But I think that you can end it - you, and those who believe as 
you did when you walked in here.' 
'Do you think that putting on a show of mercy makes us buddies? Do 
you think we're going to just accept the way things are?' 
'You think of yourself as a religious man, Mr Mallock - do you know 
the prayer that begins, "God grant me the courage -"' 
'I know it,' Mallock said sharply. 
'Then you understand that I pray for wisdom, every night,' said 
Wilman. 'I pray you will, too.' 
Evan Stolta was waiting for Wilman in his office when he returned to 
it. 
'Well - how did it play?' 
'Awfully well, I thought - even if you got a little preachy at the end,' 
said Stolta. 
Wilman smiled faintly. 'Comes from having had too much time to 
think about what I'd say. I was beginning to think that no one would 

ever take the bait, and we'd have to go all the way and hire our own 
terrorist.' 
'You realize that if it ever comes out that we planted that material on 
the Patriot Crier site -' 
'It won't.' 
'The media are going to swarm all over this story. I thought you were 
getting awfully close to taunting him with the truth -"Someone has 
been feeding you lies", that sort of thing.' 
'I might have been enjoying myself just a little too much,' 
Wilman admitted. 'But it'll be all right. They won't find our 
fingerprints at the scene of the crime.' 
Stolta shook his head unhappily. 'If he'd managed to get his hands on 
an exotic, or a dust bomb -' 
'Why are you agonizing about this now? It's over. It came out well.' 
'I suppose it's because I still don't understand why you were willing to 
take such risks.' 
'That's because we're different kinds of people. Can you see yourself 
betting a hundred thousand dollars against a million?' 
'I don't think so. A hundred thousand dollars would be a very big 
piece of everything I have.' 
'You see? You didn't even ask the odds.' 
The odds are irrelevant. My father taught me two rules about 
gambling - one, only bet on a sure thing. Two, there's no such thing 
as a sure thing.' Stolta flashed a rueful smile. 'All right, so I'm a 
careful man by nature. But I don't think you've really answered my 
question.' 
'Did you ask a question?' 
'I thought I did - why you were willing to risk a down side that would 
have destroyed twenty years of your work.' 
'Ah. That question,' Wilman said, easing into a chair. 'Well, it's true 
that I was never much of a gambler. I can't stand to sit there passively 
waiting for the cards to come to me.' 
'So why would you just up and decide to play a long shot?' 
Wilman shook his head. 'This undertaking is more like combat than 

gambling, Evan - tactical, not statistical. And more often than not, the 
worst thing you can do in combat is let yourself think about the odds - 
especially if they're against you. If you do that, you never go over the 
top - you never charge the hill - and you never change the odds in 
your favor. What you do from one minute to the next can change 
everything.' 
'That still doesn't explain why you decided to charge up this hill, at 
this particular time.' 
'You're not going to let this go, are you?' Wilman studied the other 
man's face for a moment, then added, 'No, I see you're not.' He 
sighed. 'The truth of the matter is that I'm tired of waiting. I don't 
know how much time I have left, and I want to see the end of this. So 
I'm willing to take some chances.' He paused, as though weighing 
whether he wanted to say more. 'It's not the stuff of heroic legend, but 
a lot of battles are decided by someone who couldn't stand the 
waiting any longer.' 
I'll bow to your experience,' said Stolta, who had never worn a 
uniform. 'But, Grover - you don't think that you converted that mark, 
do you?' 
Wilman smiled and shook his head. I'll be happy if I just discouraged 
him. It's the audience I care about. Speaking of which - let's find out 
how big it was.' 
28: Not Made for Defeat 
'But man is not made for defeat A man can be destroyed but not 
defeated.' 
- Ernest Hemingway 
The walnut block with the bronze emblem of the Missouri State 
Police on top had rested on John Trent's desk for more than six years. 
Though awarded to him for 'Public Service' - the KidSafe Firearms 
Education Program, introduced in the wake of the Truman Middle 
School shootings - it was less a treasured memory than a useful desk 

accessory. Not as a paperweight, which the designer might actually 
have had in mind, but as a front-line weapon in the NAR office's 
ongoing war with red ants. 
When the fist-sized award struck the wallscreen just to the left of and 
slightly below center, it was moving at a velocity commensurate with 
the arm strength of a former high school quarterback who could still 
throw a football forty yards on a line. The wallscreen shattered like a 
giant mirror, and the thump and crash were heard four offices away. 
The aftermath, though, was less satisfying. What remained on the 
wall simply went opaque, without a single satisfying crackle or 
tendril of smoke. 
Trent's executive secretary and chief administrative assistant reached 
his office door together. 'Are you all right?' Jolene demanded. 
Kenneth was drawn to the debris on the floor. 
'Did you see?' Trent shouted angrily. 'Were any of you out there 
watching?' 
'I saw it,' said Kenneth, retrieving the award and carefully brushing 
off the splinters of plastic and glass. 'He made it look like only crazy 
people want to be able to protect themselves.' 
'You get out there and find out for me who Mallock is and what the 
hell he was doing there.' 
'You think it was a set-up?' 
'Hell, yes,' Trent said, weighting the words with all the contempt they 
could carry. 'Wilman's got four major newsfeeds there so quick they 
hardly miss a thing. Four newsfeeds that're covering and crosspromoting 
a live event for one reason only, they're hoping to show us 
a terrorist bombing, a mass murder, in real time. What's Wilman 
doing?' Trent threw his hands in the air. 'He takes the time to give us 
a university lecture on violence and fucking human evolution, 
knowing they'll broadcast every word because we're all tuning in 
hoping to see some carnage. 
'He's not going to do that unless he knows there isn't going to be any 
carnage. You bet I think it was a stunt. And he's going to get away 
with it. It's a great story, courageous crusader, fanatic assassin, 
chilling brush with death. The son of a bitch.' 
I'll see what we have on Mallock,' Kenneth said, placing the block on 

the corner of Trent's desk. 'And order you a new Trinitron.' 
That left Jolene standing uncertainly in the doorway. 'Is there 
anything I can do, Mr Trent?' 
'I don't even know what I can do,' Trent snapped at her. 'Sons of 
bitches - he was laughing at us, Jolene, you could see it in his eyes. 
They're killing people, taking away our guns and sending us out to 
face the wolves - they're murdering the Constitution - and he's 
lecturing us on morality?' 
He snatched up the walnut block and hurled it at the wallscreen a 
second time. This time he was rewarded by some arcing and an acrid 
puff of smoke, but it was not enough to satisfy him. 
'Leave me alone, Jolene,' he said darkly. 
The secretary hesitated, then obeyed, closing the door behind her. 
When she was gone, Trent leaned heavily on his desk, chest rising 
and falling, blood pounding in helpless rage. 'So help me god,' he 
whispered, 'he doesn't deserve to be sleeping well at night. Let me be 
the one to take that from him. Give me courage, and patience, and 
wisdom, and somewhere, somehow, just one clean shot -' 
Then, with shaking hands, Trent sat down and started to write out his 
resignation from the post of President of the NAR. 
Over the next few weeks, John Trent told the friends who called the 
same thing he told the leeches of the media - that he had been 
President for twice as long as his predecessor and was ready to look 
at the issues from a new perspective, that he wanted to take some 
time off to travel and attend to personal matters, that he remained 
committed to an uncompromising defense of the Constitution and the 
essential liberties of citizens, and that he was exploring the possibility 
of becoming more directly involved in politics in ways the NAR was 
forbidden to pursue. 
It was all true, but he made certain that his friends understood it 
differently than the political media, which devoted a couple of news 
cycles to dissecting the history of and prospects for single-issue third 
parties, and then turned its attention elsewhere. 
By that time, Trent had begun to quietly make contact with the 
people he had chosen to make part of his endeavor. He limited 

himself to individuals - no committees, armies, associations, or 
militias. Their record in recent months was uninspiring, displaying a 
sorry lack of professionalism. 
Bob Bowman was dead, having hung himself in a Virginia state 
prison while awaiting trial for running a Jammer van off the highway 
near Raleigh. Zachary Taylor Grant's plot against Supreme Court 
Justice Hannah Loeb was betrayed by a Hedgehog who pocketed half 
a million in FoxMedia payoffs for a video exclusive. Mel Yost was 
publishing Washington War Crimes from Barbados. 
Among others making the headlines, the Boston Riders stronghold 
near Lake Champlain had been disarmed by an FBI Special Tactics 
unit. Three straight failures had left enough forensic evidence to link 
the Riders to the 'red letter' abortion clinic bombings across New 
England. Kelly Martin and the Freedom Sword were still at large in 
the upper Midwest, claiming credit for more than twenty bombings. 
But their choice of targets - mostly restaurants and retail stores in 
smaller towns that had seen few if any Jammer installations - was a 
public relations disaster. 
There were a total of sixteen would-be assassins in Federal prison in 
connection with five different attempts to get to the 
President. There had also been three known attempts against 
Comrade Wilman, eight against the Jew industrialist, five against 
various members of the Cabinet. Most had received little attention 
from the general media, which had apparently concluded that men 
being willing to sacrifice their lives and liberty for principle was a 
non-story. The dead and the imprisoned were heroes to the liberty 
media, but without fad diets, sex and celebrities to pad the ratings, it 
hardly amounted to more than static. 
Patiently and deliberately, Trent studied each operation and all of the 
elements which had figured in the outcome. Not all those studies 
were instructive - incompetence rarely is. But two patterns did 
emerge, one of excessive complexity, the other of insufficient 
boldness. Most of what people wanted to call bad luck, he concluded, 
was not really luck at all. 
Trent took what he learned to Atlantic City - to the New Flanders 
Casino Hotel, a site recommended by Angelo DiBartolo - for the only 
meeting there would ever be of the entire conspiracy. It was to be an 

odd meeting, though. All four of the conspirators traveled some 
distance to be in the same city, the same building, but Trent had 
decreed that they would never be in the same room or at the same 
table together. 
Trent's first recruit had been Terry Stewart, a thirty-eight-year-old 
former CIA contractor who'd lost a lucrative billet as a paramilitary 
unit 'advisor' when Grover Wilman had exposed President Engler's 
covert war in Colombia. Stewart (or 'Gooch', as he preferred) had the 
training of a Special Forces commando, the connections of a 
mercenary, and a profile so low that just contacting him had required 
three intermediaries. 
The second-riskiest job was the one Trent called The Winkler, the 
advance man who would work with all the bureaucracies to make 
arrangements for the confrontation. The Winkler would need to know 
exactly what was planned - it was not a job Trent could hire out 
blind. But his open involvement meant The Winkler would also need 
to be able to deny having known Trent's intentions, to convincingly 
claim he was merely hired by a client to do a job. 
That combination of craven commercial motive, well-scrubbed 
ruthlessness and fluent lying called for a Hollywood lawyer. Trent 
found one in Roy Carney, whose small but well-respected firm had 
represented a number of conservative clients, and whose middle son 
was a member of the California Border Guards, an anti-immigration 
'posse' whose volunteer efforts had put dozens of Hispanics in the 
hospital (and at least three in the grave). 
The last piece of the puzzle was Atlanta security consultant Ben 
Brannigan, the mystery man behind the net postings of The 
Equalizer'. Just days after the Trigger was announced, The Equalizer' 
had penned a speculative, seat-of-the-pants analysis of how it could 
be defeated. His postings since then had contained ever more 
elaborate and authoritative critiques of both the technology and the 
security strategies which depended on it. Calling himself 'a free 
library', Brannigan had devoted himself to becoming the uncontested 
civilian expert on Horton devices. There was no proof that he had 
ever done more than offer anonymous public advice, but Trent 
understood how to tempt a man who had pride. 
They conducted their business entirely over the hotel's fiberoptic 
teleconferencing network, which DiBartolo had assured Trent was 

secure from snooping - even by the hotel's employees. Internally 
routed, a room-to-room call never went to either wire or air, and the 
PGP scrambler boxes in each suite thwarted local eavesdroppers. 
'My family likes the Flanders,' DiBartolo had said, smiling genially. 
'We've been holding reunions there twice a year for three years, and 
never had any trouble. They know how to be discreet. They know it's 
important to the health of their business.' 
Taking that as gospel, Trent assumed that it was DiBartolo, then, who 
was responsible for the two microtransrnitter bugs Trent's squealer 
found in his suite. Trent had gone to DiBartolo for suggestions for a 
safe meeting place, but had neither told the mobster the purpose of 
the meeting nor invited him to take part in it. In that light, DiBartolo's 
curiosity was understandable. But Trent flushed the bugs down the 
toilet all the same. From that point on, he swept the suite after each 
time he slept, or left it, or a housekeeper entered, though he never 
found any other placements. 
If DiBartolo was listening, he learned everything he needed to know 
in the first ten minutes, save for the names of the other players, which 
were never used. 
'I intend to kill Senator Grover Wilman on live television,' Trent said 
calmly. He did not bother to offer any justifications for his decision; 
either he had properly judged the disposition and mettle of the three, 
or he had not. 'Your part in this is to help place me, Wilman, a 
weapon, and at least one working newscam in the same room at the 
same time.' 
'Wilman doesn't go anywhere without a Jammer van. He lives in 
Horton space,' said the Equalizer. 'Are we going to try to coax him 
out of it, or beat his strength?' 
'I can make him take whichever card we want him to be holding,' said 
Trent. That's what we have to decide together. But my first choice 
would be as much like a replay of Mallock as possible - face to face, 
in space Wilman thinks he controls.' 
'Psych ops,' said Gooch. 'I approve.' 
'I have a question about your scenario,' said the Winkler. 'Why did 
you include yourself in it? Or the cameras, for that matter. Just 
putting the bomb and Wilman together would accomplish the same 
goal - and that might be hard enough to pull off.' 

'Not hard at all,' said Gooch. 'Just takes a big enough bomb.' 
'And a sacrifice,' said the Winkler. 'But why go there? There are other 
ways to get him. He receives constituents. He travels between home 
and office. He goes to church.' 
'No, he doesn't,' said Trent. 'He's a humanist - an atheist.' 
Then we don't have to worry about god saving him, do we?' Gooch 
said with no hint of a smile. 'Look, a military sniper rifle has a useful 
range approaching a thousand meters. At anything under six hundred, 
even I can make that shot. He can't possibly be blanketed so deep 
under Jammer fields that he never pokes his head out, or wanders 
near the edge.' 
'He almost never leaves the District of Columbia now, and D.C. is 
blanketed,' said the Equalizer. 'How are you going to get him out in 
the open for a head shot from five hundred yards?' 
'No.' Trent was shaking his head. 'Listen to me, all of you. It isn't 
enough to kill him. There are a hundred ways we could do that and 
gain nothing. His death has to say that his cause is futile - if Grover 
Wilman isn't safe, how can any ordinary person hope to be? Better 
off with my own gun than counting on magic rays. And it has to be in 
public, with the cameras on. He loves the cameras. Before he dies, 
I'm going to show everyone that under the bluster, he's a liar and a 
coward. An impotent coward.' 
The Winkler pursed his lips. 'Are you at all afraid of making him a 
martyr?' 
'No. No, not for a moment,' Trent said emphatically. The real martyrs 
are the people who're dying because Grover Wilman disarmed them. 
It's for them that this needs to be done. Someone needs to rescue all 
those people at risk. Someone needs to set the balance right again. 
We can do that, gentlemen. I believe we can do that.' 
'You know we can,' said Gooch. 
'All right, then,' said the Equalizer. 'We're going to need to get him 
out of Washington. The question is, where to? Then we'll figure out 
how.' 
'Let it be somewhere he thinks he controls us,' Gooch said. 'We'll 
teach him he's wrong.' 

It was the closest Evan Stolta had ever come to screaming at Grover 
Wilman. 
'Why are you even considering this? He's a loser, Senator, and all you 
can do is give him credibility. He lost his big case, his big push in 
Congress lost steam, and now he lost his job - you know they pushed 
him out. Why rescue him? Why elevate him to your level?' 
Wilman smiled tolerantly, infuriatingly. 'Why let what he says go 
unanswered? Why be afraid of a little debate, if we believe in what 
we stand for?' 
'So why does it have to be you? Let Martinson or Rocannon or 
Schultz do it,' Stolta insisted. 'You've got enough on your table. Gil 
Massey is threatening to bring S.B. 50 back to the floor, and you 
could be doing filibuster duty again before you know it. In fact, what 
if John Trent is still working with Massey? What if this big public 
challenge is just a game they're running on you?' 
'To get me out of town, and slip the bill through Congress while I'm 
not looking?' Wilman laughed. 'You're a bit of a nervous Nellie, Ev. 
The Senate doesn't move half fast enough to pull that trick. I won't be 
traveling by carriage and plank road.' 
Wearing a grim frown, Stolta sat down on the arm of one of the 
visitor's chairs. 'It's the traveling that worries me. Senator -' Stolta 
shook his head vigorously, searched for words. 'Things can happen. 
Why does this have to be done in person? You could have a huge 
audience in VR.' 
'We can debate in person and still have a huge audience in VR,' 
Wilman said. 'What kind of things?' 
'Grover -' 
'I just want to see if you can say it.' 
'All right,' Stolta said angrily. 'Because there are people who want to 
hurt you, goddammit. I don't think you should be giving them extra 
opportunities.' 
'Do you think that's news to me, Ev?' Wilman said, his tone mild, 
almost diffident. 'I've been reading the hate mail every morning since 
before you came aboard. I know most of them don't mean it, and I 
know that some of them really do. I'm the lightning rod for every 
rabid-dog king-of-his-castle who thinks his world will collapse if he 

has to give up the right to shoot his wife, his kid, his neighbor, his 
boss, or the drunken tourist knocking on the wrong door.' 
'I think you're stealing my lines, Grover. Isn't that my argument?' 
'How do I win under those rules? Do I change what I believe, to try to 
make them love me? Do I go into hiding, so they can't touch me?' 
Wilman waved a hand dismissively. 'I know you know the answer. I 
have to be who I am, Ev. Living afraid is not my way. If it was, I'd be 
the one holed up in Nowhere, Idaho, sitting on a National Guard 
armory and eighteen months of stale crackers.' 
A reluctant laugh softened Stolta's features. 
'Besides, you're wrong about John Trent,' Wilman added. 'He wasn't 
fired. He really did resign.' 
'Why would he do that?' 
'So he could take the gloves off and call me out,' said Wilman. 'This 
should be fun. Work something out with that Roy Carney.' He 
laughed. 'Fifteen rounds of bare-knuckles should be just about right.' 
There were eight hovering SkyEyes, nearly three hundred people, and 
three hundred empty seats in Tufts University's Cohen Auditorium 
for the debate between Grover Wilman and John Trent. 
Ticket distribution had been handled by The Fletcher School of 
International Affairs, under rules intended to produce a diverse 
audience for what the dean had called 'an important affirmation of the 
democratic traditions of free speech and the marketplace of ideas'. He 
apologized to the participants backstage before introducing them. 
'I'm terribly embarrassed - there was strong demand for tickets - our 
students are not apathetic, they're very socially and politically aware - 
'
'Maybe the rumors about a riot had something to do with it,' Wilman 
said, looking levelly at John Trent. 
'Riot? My god! What rumors are you talking about?' the dean 
demanded. 
'My staff tells me that in the last few hours, there's been anonymized 
netmail coming into your system, addressed particularly to ticket 
holders,' Wilman said. 'One version said that you weren't going to 

show up, Mr Trent. Another said it would be smart to stay away, that 
there was going to be a riot in the auditorium -' 
'A riot at Tufts - absurd,' the dean expostulated. This is not some state 
university party school. This is Tufts.' 
The mail I was shown also included a bomb threat, naming me as the 
target.' 
That's shocking,' said Trent, though his face showed no shock at all. 
'Has the university received any threats directly?' 
'Oh, no, no,' said the dean. 'I spoke with the chief of campus security 
just a few minutes ago. Everything's quiet outside. We've been 
discouraging everyone who doesn't have a ticket from coming into 
the area. But if what you heard is true. Senator, perhaps it explains 
why some of our attendees decided to stay home and plug in instead.' 
He shook his head sorrowfully. 'It's very, very unfortunate, but I'm 
afraid it's too late to do anything about it. At least you can count on 
those who are here being highly committed - attentive listeners.' 
That's fine,' said Trent. 'I welcome an informed audience. My hope is 
that they'll be even better informed when we're done.' 
The conspiracy's shortlist of prospective sites for the debate had 
included Princeton, the University of Pittsburgh, Columbia, Harvard, 
and even Carleton University in Ottawa - all home to notorious 
graduate schools of international affairs which would jump at the 
chance to bring Grover Wilman on campus. Brannigan had 
pronounced the logistics at Harvard and Columbia impossible, and 
Carney argued that Princeton had too positive a public image. Trent 
had ruled out Carleton on the grounds that crossing the border 
muddled the message, even though Brannigan had promised that an 
operation at the Canadian school would be a cake-walk. 
The final decision between Pittsburgh and Tufts came down to two 
facts - that The Fletcher School had accepted nearly half a million 
dollars in research grants from Mind Over Madness, making itself a 
partner in Wilman's treasons, and that the campus, despite being 
cheek by jowl with greater Boston, had no permanent Jammer 
installations of its own. MOM's mobile unit was lined up with the 
SkyEye control vans in the nearly filled parking lot adjacent to Cohen 
Auditorium, perfectly accessible, the rear doors and half of the right 

side exposed. There were campus cops on foot on that side of the 
building, but they were paying no special attention to the Jammer, 
and the Jammer's two-body support crew was sitting in the front seats 
of the van, bored. 
Brannigan's own van, bearing the logo of a German publisher's New 
York-based imprints, was just three spaces away from the Jammer 
van. More than close enough to get the job done without interference. 
Pretending to watch the opening statements on the full-screen comset 
on his lap, he mentally rehearsed his movements, waiting for the 
signal from Terry Stewart, analyzing his own chances of walking 
away when it was done. Better than Stewart's, whose were better than 
Trent's. There were advantages in being the one to strike the first 
blow. 
It was clear early on that the audience in Cohen Auditorium was 
tilted in his favor, but, even so, Grover Wilman could not help but be 
pleased by the response to him. After a warm welcome, he had been 
interrupted by strong applause four times in five minutes. There had 
even been some cheering mixed in at the end, though the moderator 
quickly chided those who took part, reminding them of the ground 
rules. Even so, it was good theater, and presented Trent with a hard 
act to follow. 
Surprisingly, he seemed almost oblivious to the audience, addressing 
himself entirely to Wilman. 
'It was very clever of you, Senator, to try to frame the question as 
mind versus madness,' said Trent, without so much as a sideways 
glance out into the auditorium. 'If we let you get away with it, then 
anyone who opposes you has the extra burden of proving that they 
are not insane. 
'You and your allies have worked very hard, in fact, to create a 
presumption that anyone who advocates private ownership of guns 
and the measured use of force is irrational. 
'I'm here to refute that presumption. I'm here to defend the deep 
conviction of tens of millions of reasonable Americans that it's 
disarmament that's tragically, fatally irrational. I'm here to say 
without any shame or hesitation that picking up a weapon and killing 
someone can be an absolutely logical act, the product of the highest 

level of moral reasoning - and you are going to help me make my 
case.' 
'I don't think so,' Wilman said, turning a smile toward the audience. A 
wave of titters swept the first several rows, and the moderator chided 
Wilman for the interruption. 'My apologies, Mr Trent,' said the 
Senator. 'Do continue.' 
The expected angry flush did not appear on Trent's neck. 'Senator 
Wilman, in all the many times you've spoken on this subject, in all 
the propaganda you and your organization have showered on us, 
there's one question I've never seen you address. When you're all 
done disarming the men with guns, what do you propose to do about 
all the men with knives? You slide around the question, telling us that 
of course the police will still be armed, that of course we won't allow 
an enemy to gain an advantage, that we can still travel in groups and 
form neighborhood watches and study martial arts. 
'But that means that your brand of disarmament is a fraud. You don't 
want to get rid of guns, Senator - just our guns -' 
Though that sounded like a cue line, it was Stewart, not Trent, that 
Brannigan had been waiting for. He answered the chirping comset 
eagerly, impatient with waiting. 
'I'm in position,' Stewart said. 
I'm moving,' Brannigan said. He purged the fullscreen comset's 
memory and left it on the passenger seat; like the van itself, it was 
borrowed property, and he had no further need of it. 
He took only the long, black six-cell flashlight on which he had 
lavished so much time and attention. Stewart had mocked it as his 
'sawed-off, two-stage stealth shotgun', but nevertheless appreciated 
the cleverness of the mechanisms they had worked together to fit 
inside it. 
There was no one within thirty meters as Brannigan emerged from 
his van. He walked along the backs of the parked vehicles swinging 
the flashlight easily, moving in the general direction of the rest room 
being used by the media. As he crossed behind the Jammer vehicle, 
he suddenly changed direction and moved toward it. Two long strides 
was all it took to put him in arm's reach. 

Holding the shaft of the flashlight with both hands, he pressed the 
wide ring of the lens flat against the left door and slid the switch 
forward. The tool jumped in his hands, and there was a sound not 
unlike a car door slamming. The sound was made by the hardened 
steel spike, punching a hole through the sheet metal on the strength of 
a compressed air charge. 
The hissing that followed might have been mistaken for a tire going 
flat. That sound was made by the conductive aerosol blasting through 
the ruptured tip of the spike. In barely two seconds, it stopped. 
Everything stopped, waiting. 
The right front door of the Jammer van was flung open with enough 
force to strike the adjoining vehicle with a crunch and slam shut 
again. 
Brannigan dropped the flashlight and backed away. His glance went 
to the blind-spot mirror, and met the eyes of the driver. 
A moment later, there was a muffled whump as the aerosol created 
dozens of arc paths for the high-voltage current flowing through the 
Jammer and its generator. Brannigan saw it in the mirror behind the 
driver: lightning, dancing furiously in its metal bottle. The throb of 
the generator became a whine, then silence. The men in the van were 
silent as well. 
Brannigan turned and walked briskly away. A campus police-man 
wondering at something he thought he had heard passed within five 
meters, but did not confront him. As soon as he could, Brannigan 
made a beeline for darkness. 
'Gooch, come on in,' he said into his personal comset. 
That was his last obligation to the team. From there on, he could look 
out for himself. He had done his part. There was a breach in the 
shield around Grover Wilman, a breach that reached up into the night 
sky. And as Brannigan fled, a black ghost came spiraling down 
through that breach on black wings as silent as a whisper, carrying 
with it a round black bundle of death addressed to Cohen Auditorium. 
The moderator's tone had turned sharp with repetition. 'Your time has 
expired, Mr Trent.' 
John Trent reached down and stilled the comset vibrating against his 

thigh. 
'I'm not finished,' he said.' Senator Wilman, you're a liar.' His mic 
went dead then, but he did not need one in that room. 'You promise 
them that if we all gather together in a herd, no one will be in danger 
from the wolves. But the people who find themselves living on the 
margins are in danger. Some of them will die appeasing the 
predators. It won't be me, and it won't be you, because we know how 
to stay in the middle of the pack - we have alternatives.' 
'We all have alternatives,' Wilman said. 'We can choose to be 
civilized.' 
'More lies,' Trent said, stepping out from behind his podium. 'You 
don't want the animals on the edge of the herd to know what's going 
to happen to them. You don't want them armed and able to defend 
themselves, because they might just think to ask why it is that they're 
the ones at risk. 
'Your entire posture is a fraud. It's based on the premise that you'll 
still be safe when we give up our guns.' 
'I didn't know you were going to speak for both of us tonight,' 
Wilman said to laughter. 
'I'm throwing your own words back at you - interdepen-dence. Group 
hugs. Neighborhood watches. Multiculturalism in the schools. Global 
economic planning. International peacekeeping forces. Community, 
community, community. It's all about keeping with the herd. 
Conform and take your chances -' 
'Families that work are made up of people who pull together. No 
household worth living in ever saw the parents armed against each 
other, the children taking orders at gunpoint.' 
At that point the moderator threw up his hands and left the stage, 
eventually taking a seat in the sixth row. 
'And we're just one big family here, aren't we, Senator? Grandpa's not 
a psycho - Sister's not a thief - Dad's not a rapist - Junior's not a 
murderer. We can all sleep easily in our beds. That's the reasonable 
thing to do. That's what logic dictates. We can all be happy here in 
the herd. It's madness to believe that there are wolves.' 
'It's madness to try to face them alone,' said Wilman. 'Which is where 
your worship of self-interest always leads. Why do you think we 

invented families, and tribes, and nations? What's the value of group 
identification, if rugged individualism is really the winning hand?' 
'You've lost sight of the real question,' said Trent. The real question is 
whether a reasonable man can find enough reasons to arm himself. 
The real question is whether a reasonable man can find enough 
reason to kill. Your entire argument in defense of disarmament rests 
on the answers. If the rational mind answers yes, then there's no 
madness in bearing arms - the madness is laying them down.' 
The dean reappeared on stage while Trent was speaking, and drew 
Wilman away from his microphone for a hushed conversation. In the 
meantime, Trent turned his attention to the audience for the first time. 
'And here we have a room full of reasonable people - smart, welleducated, 
well-to-do young men and women who are used to settling 
their disagreements with other smart, well-educated people though a 
war of words. You came to this arena to see your champion gird on 
his logic and ideas, his science and humanism and philosophy, and do 
battle. But not one of you gave any serious thought to the possibility 
his opponent was not going to play by your rules. 
'No, because if you had, you would have listened to the warnings I 
sent you this afternoon.' 
The dean had started across the stage, but Trent's offhanded 
confession stopped him short. 'You, too, Dean Franklin? And with all 
your worldly experience - oh, but I forget, you're a graduate of this 
university, too. Another smart, well-educated man living in a wellmannered 
world. Why don't you tell them all what you just told 
Senator Wilman?' Trent suggested. He found he was enjoying the 
moment immensely. 
'Mr Trent, I think we need to wrap this up.' 
'As you wish,' said Trent. 'I'll tell them. Ladies and gentlemen, Dean 
Franklin would like you to know that Senator Wilman's Jammer has 
experienced an unfortunate malfunction, and is not presently able to 
protect you.' He peered out at them, disappointed by the lack of 
reaction. 'Perhaps the Dean can tell us what the reasonable response 
to that news would be. Or the Senator? No?' 
He turned back to his podium, grasped the sloping top with both 
hands, and twisted it. It came free, and he dropped it to the floor with 
a clatter. Reaching inside, he grasped the pistol concealed within and 

raised it over his head for all to see. 
'How about now?' he said in the hush of their caught breath. 'How 
about now?' He pointed the weapon out at the audience, sweeping it 
slowly from one side to the other. There were no cries or screams, 
just a rustling and an angry murmur. 'I recall our President doing this 
in Congress, and thinking it was educational. So let's call this a 
lesson, too. You - you, on the aisle, sit down. You are not dismissed.' 
Turning, he brought the pistol to bear on Grover Wilman's chest. 
'You're a very thoughtful man, Senator Wilman. Everyone tells me 
so. I'd like you to analyze this situation and tell me - wouldn't you 
rather be the one holding this gun?' 
'It's been here since before the Jammer went down,' said Wilman. 
'Are you sure it still works?' 
With the SkyEyes closing in and jostling each other for the best 
angle, Trent raised his hand slightly and fired a shot over Wilman's 
head. It buried itself in the mock wood paneling of the acoustic shell. 
The sound was convincing enough to embolden a dozen or so 
members of the audience to bolt for the doors. On stage, the Senator 
started but did not flinch, while Dean Franklin dropped to a crouch 
and stayed there. 
'Azides,' Trent said by way of explanation. 'Dean, why don't you go 
take a seat with the other students?' 
'What's this about, John?' asked Wilman. 
'Don't try to "handle" me, Graver. Just answer my question,' Trent 
said. 'I want the truth - wouldn't you rather be the one holding the 
gun?' 
'No.' 
'Liar.' He looked out at the audience again. 'You know, they really 
don't understand the herd concept you've been shoving down their 
throats. If they were to all storm the stage, they could surely disarm 
me. If they were to all head for the exits, most of them would make it. 
Isn't it strange? They don't want to be one of the ones who'd die. 
Now, would you consider that a reasonable state of mind?' 
'What is it that you're after, Mr Trent? Me? Then let them leave.' 
'Sorry. I need their assistance to make a point. Yours, too,' said Trent. 
'Here they are, just as you wanted them to be, unarmed and helpless 

in the face of aggression. Don't you think some of them wish they had 
a gun right now? Don't you think they're finally learning something 
about the real world? Tell the truth this time, Senator - how do you 
like being the one who's powerless?' 
'I was just thinking,' Wilman said, still annoyingly calm, 'that I didn't 
choose which podium I was going to use until five minutes before we 
came out.' 
Trent laughed. 'Good - very good! Then maybe you should look in 
your podium.' 
With obvious reluctance, Wilman twisted the top of his podium. 
When it moved, he lifted it deliberately and gently set it aside. The 
SkyEyes swept stage left to peer over his shoulder as he frowned 
down at the contents of the compartment. 
'For those of you not watching at home, Senator Wilman has now 
discovered he has a gun just like mine,' Trent said. 'Senator, what are 
your "rational" options now? Are you considering any new ones? 
What do you think your friends in the seats expect from you? How 
about a little Jimmy Stewart, Liberty Valance-style. How about a 
little John Wayne?' 
'I always suspected that you learned everything you know about guns 
from Westerns, John. Are we doing Shane now? "Pick up the gun, 
boy-" 
'Well, why don't you? Pick up the gun, and maybe you can rewrite 
this scene.' 
Infuriatingly, Wilman lowered his hands to his sides and took a step 
away from the podium. 'Is that what this is all about? You need 
public justification, or you can't kill me?' 
'You can't talk me down, Senator, so don't bother trying. I'm a 
reasonable man who's made a rational decision. Now I want to see 
how your moral logic works.' 
'No,' said Wilman. 'I'm not playing.' 
'If saving yourself isn't reason enough to pick up the gun, I can offer 
you more motivation.' Trent pulled his comset from its leg pocket and 
unfolded the antenna. 'I think the first use of a cordless comset as a 
remote detonator was the Mall of America incident, wasn't it? Of 
course, the poor fellow forgot to screen out those courtesy calls from 

his wife's credit card company, so things didn't work out quite as he'd 
planned.' 
'You are insane, John Trent,' Wilman said with a gratifying hint of a 
snarl. 'Where's the bomb?' 
The word alone was enough to elicit gasps and cries from a suddenly 
agitated audience. Trent allowed the warm glow of accomplishment 
to suffuse his being before answering. 'It could be anywhere, couldn't 
it? Outside a bar. Under a bridge. In a lecture hall where kids on dates 
are watching a film that's older than they are. 
'But where would be the justice in that? What have they done to 
deserve it? Did they conspire to make America weak and its citizens 
dependent? Did they offer a false promise to a gullible nation? Did 
they deliberately set out to destroy a fundamental Constitutional 
freedom in order to secure their own power? 
'No. You did that. You, and all your friends from The Fletcher 
School, and The Elliott School, and The Woodrow Wilson School, 
and The Kennedy School,' Trent said, indicating the audience with a 
sweep of his free hand. 
'You didn't take that field down for these guns,' Wilman said slowly. 
'You didn't need to.' 
'That's right, Senator. Analyze the situation rationally.' 
'It's here,' he said tightlipped. 'Goddamn you, it's here, where the 
cameras are.' Wilman started waving his arm in the direction of the 
audience. 'Get out,' he shouted. 'Go, get out now.' 
A few started to move, but most were frozen to their seats. 
'I don't think they should do that, Senator,' Trent said, taking a step 
toward the edge of the stage. 'I might get flustered and push the 
wrong button. Why not pick up the gun instead? Look at how many 
lives you could save by rearming.' 
'You could save just as many by disarming,' Wilman shot back. 
'True enough - but it would mean surrendering to something I believe 
is evil. And that is not my rational choice. Would a countdown help 
you focus. Senator? I don't intend to wait for the cavalry to arrive. 
Ten - nine - eight -' 
Answering Trent's words with a look of rough, unvarnished hate, 

Grover Wilman at long last lunged toward the podium and snatched 
the pistol out of the clip that held it there. As he did, Trent lowered 
his own pistol to his side, squeezing and holding the trigger. There 
was no report. There were no more cartridges - the clip had been 
replaced by a transmitter pack, and the second trigger pull sent the 
arming command. When he released it, the detonation command 
would follow. 
From barely five meters away, Wilman pointed the pistol at Trent's 
head. 'There,' he said. 'You have the picture you wanted. It's going 
out all over the world right now. You've won. So put those down, just 
set them down on the stage. Tell these people they can leave.' 
'I can't do that, Senator. If I do, we'll never know if this was all just 
another pose.' He started to raise the comset to where he could read 
its display. 
Wilman grimaced, moved his gun hand down and to the right, 
thumbed off the safety, and fired. 
The bullet slammed into Trent's left shoulder, tore through sinew and 
vessel, shattered bone. The shock, not the impact, stole strength from 
his legs and staggered him backwards. He stumbled into the podium, 
dropping the comset from a numb hand. He was vaguely aware of the 
tumult in the auditorium, as a frightened exodus finally began. 
'Thank you,' Trent gasped, still clutching his own pistol tightly. 
'Now I know - you understand the calculus. Here's your Trigger, 
Senator.' Shakily, he raised his pistol overhead, pointed it up into the 
maze of catwalks and cables above them, and allowed his index 
finger to relax. 
There was already a woman screaming, angry shouts, pleading. No 
one else could have heard the click as a lever moved, a ratchet fell, a 
contact closed. But it was thunderous in Trent's ears. He never heard 
the explosion itself, eight kilograms of shape charge blasting 
downwards toward the stage through the top of the fly. He heard only 
the cries, the choir of raised voices, that he thought were for him, on 
this, his day of triumph. 

29: To Promote Peace 
'I like to believe that people, in the long run, are going to do more to 
promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people 
want peace so much that one of these days governments had better 
get out of the way and let them have it.' 
- Dwight D. Eisenhower 
Over the years, the trees on the north side of the White House had 
been allowed to grow to the point that there were only three windows 
from which one could see Lafayette Park. But even before the arrival 
of the Trigger, the landscaping had less to do with the security of 
Presidents than it did with their insecurities. 
Lafayette Park was, and had long been, the favorite gathering place 
for America's political protesters and social reformers to voice their 
complaints. They were there every day, in all kinds of weather, 
raising hand-written signs on balloons, programming electronic 
placards, and declaiming amplified diatribes. It was, in the words of 
one pundit, 'Washington's permanent carnival sideshow - a motley 
collection of political and philosophical oddities given dignity only 
by their earnest innocence.' President Engler, whose policies had 
given almost everyone something to complain about, had dubbed 
Lafayette Park the Thorn Garden'. 
But in the wake of the Trigger announcement, there was a new and 
larger presence in the park - a decidedly more mainstream, middleclass 
population that looked more like families than fanat-ics. That 
presence had grown until it filled the park by day and overflowed it 
on evenings and weekends. But it was a well-ordered assemblage, so 
much so that even the Park Service was unable to help the Secret 
Service by finding a pretext for closing the park or thinning the 
crowd. 
Calling themselves the Liberty Militia, the squatters provided their 
own toilets, picked up their own trash, stood patiently in line every 
day at Gate 5 to file their individual requests to see the President, and 
even sang respectably in tune during their nightly rallies. Raised on 
several thousand voices, those martial hymns and patriotic anthems 

could be heard anywhere on the North Lawn, for blocks in all 
directions, and inside the White House itself through any open 
window. 
The only jarring note was that nearly every man, woman, and child in 
the park carried a firearm - a chaotic assortment of rifles and 
shotguns, pistols and revolvers, of all vintages and calibers. As a 
practical matter, none of the weapons posed a threat to anyone, 
because the park was well within the range of the White House's 
Jammers. But as a matter of the laws still on the books, every one of 
the Liberty Militia's weapons was a violation not only of Federal 
statutes (for possession on National Park Service property), but also 
District of Columbia ordinances (for transporting them there through 
the streets of Washington). 
The militia's occupation of Lafayette Park could easily have become 
a public relations disaster on a scale unseen in the capital since the 
1960s - the jails filled, open-air stockades being built, and still more 
protesters arriving to take the places of those arrested. But law 
enforcement officials had seen the civil disobedience trap being laid 
for them, and agreed among themselves to leave the 'broomstick 
brigade' unmolested. Even so, to have that citizen army camped on 
the White House's doorstep was still a powerful symbol. And to Mark 
Breland, it was also a troubling one. 
At least once a week, the President found himself caught at one of 
those three windows, watching and listening as the militia prayed, 
sang, and marched in review down the closed block of Pennsylvania 
Avenue. He did not understand why they were there, not even after 
hearing the reports from the agents the Secret Service sent into the 
park. He knew only that he had failed to reach them with his 
message, failed to convince them that it was time to find another way. 
Breland's brooding preoccupation with the Liberty Militia troubled 
his staff, but no one knew how to constructively address it. It fell to 
Breland's new chief of staff, Charles Paugh, to finally broach the 
subject. He did so after discovering Breland in the Lincoln Bedroom 
at dusk one evening, standing at an open window and staring out as 
the strains of The Battle Hymn of the Republic rode in with the 
breeze. 
'Mr President, please. This does no one any good. And when they 
catch sight of you watching, it only encourages them.' 

'What is it they want, Charlie?' 
'Bullets, I believe,' Paugh said, with his characteristic bluntness. 'Why 
do you subject yourself to this? You'll never convert them. The gun 
lobby is immovable. Didn't Trent just teach us that? They don't 
recognize any middle ground.' 
'I just can't believe that they'd feel safer down there if we turned off 
the Jammers, and tomorrow all those guns were full of live 
ammunition. I can't believe they'd be safer.' 
'That's moot, sir. It's what they believe that matters.' 
'I know, I know.' Frowning, he finally turned away from the glass. 
'Unloaded or not, Charlie, I feel like all those guns are aimed at me.' 
'They are. At you, and at the next person to sit in your chair.' 
'But those aren't criminals out there. Those aren't extremists. I don't 
understand what I did that was terrible enough to make god-fearing, 
tax-paying families lay siege to the White House.' 
'You asked them to trust people instead of shoot them. Come, Mr 
President - the New World Order Cabal is waiting for us downstairs.' 
T want to talk to them.' 
'What?' 
'I want to talk to the Liberty Militia.' 
'Oh - oh, no. You really don't want to do that.' 
'Charlie, you're my chief of staff, not the thought police. Get in touch 
with John Burke and tell him I'm going out to the park.' Burke was 
the senior agent in charge of the President's Secret Service detail. 
'To the park? Jesus, Mark, do you have a death wish? If you're going 
to insist on giving them a free shot at you, at least do it here, where 
we can keep things more or less under control.' 
'That won't do.' 
'Sure it will. They file a thousand requests a day to see you - so, okay, 
tomorrow we shock the hell out of them and pick three lucky lottery 
winners. We bring them into a conference room, let them curse you 
and yours for half an hour, and maybe you can let go of this thing you 
have about reason being the common language of society. And then 
we can get on with business.' 

'Charlie -' 
'Bzzzzt. Reality check. These are the people who send out cute 
pictures of their kids in camouflage and semi-automatic with their 
Christmas cards. They're not going to listen to you.' 
Then I'll listen to them,' Breland said. 'Find Burke. I want to do this 
now.' 
'Mr President - this is not something to rush into. They'll be there 
tomorrow, and the next day, and the next -' 
'Charlie -' Breland's voice had a warning tone. 
Paugh raised his hands in resignation. Tine. I'll let Burke argue with 
you.' 
'You do that. Oh, and, Charlie - let's leave the bullpen out of this,' 
Breland said, referring to the complex of tiny West Wing cubicles 
occupied by the press. 'I don't intend for this to become a media 
event.' 
Paugh grimaced at the thought. 'Believe me, I'll do everything I can 
to keep it from becoming one.' 
There was no chance that John Burke would ever say he was satisfied 
with the security arrangements for the President's startling proposal. 
But with Breland so stubbornly determined that he was prepared to 
enter Lafayette Park without any escort at all if necessary, Burke 
made the best accommodation he could under the circumstances. 
He alerted the rooftop bow snipers, and doubled the patrol on the 
north fences. He sent a dozen crowd management specialists ahead 
into the park to scatter among and monitor the temper of the 
squatters. Finally, he assembled the six best hand-to-hand fighters on 
the night roster as an escort unit. Carrying quarter-staves which were 
a head or more taller than they were, Breland's entourage had a 
decidedly medieval aspect as they moved out toward the park. 
By then, the rally was over, and most of the crowd had dispersed into 
the streets. Only a few hundred overnighters remained, staking down 
pop-up tents, laying out bedrolls, and completing the nightly cleanup. 
But Breland and his escort were spotted immediately by a militia 
sentry standing watch at the park's periphery. 

'South Post One, hail the company,' the young sentry cried. 'It's 
Breland - the coward-in-chief.' He repeated his astonished call into a 
headset mic. 
Breland changed direction and headed directly for the sentry who had 
given the alarm. As he came near, he received a sneering challenge. 
'What do you want here?' 
'Is someone in charge, son?' 
'Colonel Harris is the watch commander.' 
It was a name and face he knew from Secret Service security 
briefings on the Liberty Militia. 'That'll do. Where can I find her?' 
'You don't. I notified the HQ tent. If she wants to see you, she'll come 
here. If it were me, I wouldn't bother.' 
'If it were up to you, son, they'd have made you watch commander.' 
By then, a small crowd had begun to converge on the spot where the 
two stood. Breland's escort did not allow them to approach too 
closely, but there were more hostile and mocking jeers. Breland tuned 
them out and continued looking past the sentry, scanning for Colonel 
Harris. He finally spotted her approaching in the company of her own 
entourage of broad-shouldered young men. Sidestepping the sentry, 
he went to meet her. 
'Colonel Harris.' 
She nodded, but did not salute or offer her hand. 'Mr President. You 
surprise me.' 
'That's a beginning.' 
'It might also be the end - I'd like to be able to say that everyone here 
respects the office even when we don't respect the man. But the truth 
is, that distinction gets to be pretty fine when your grievances pass a 
certain threshold. What is it you want?' 
'To understand why you've given up your lives to be here. And 
maybe, if you care, to try to help you understand why I've given up 
mine to be in there,' he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder toward 
the fence and the White House looming beyond. 
'How much do you really need to understand when someone attacks 
you?' said a man to Breland's right. 
Breland turned that way and found him - a gaunt-faced man with 

thinning black hair combed straight back from his wide forehead. 
'Attacks you?' 
'Goddamned right. You take away my ability to protect my family, 
my wife's right to protect herself when she has to work late and walk 
to her car alone - you take away my boy's chance to protect himself 
from homosexual kidnappers and drug addict muggers - you make us 
defenseless in our own homes, and you'd better believe that's an 
attack. That's an attack on the family, that's an attack on the 
Constitution, and that damned well makes it an attack on me.' 
That speech earned the speaker some hearty applause and a few 
vigorous claps on the back. That's tellin' him,' someone called out. 
Breland cocked his head. 'Your name is -' 
'Larry Dillard. You can tell your IRS attack dogs to look for me in 
Cross Plains, Wisconsin.' 
'I don't believe in punishing people for speaking their minds, Mr 
Dillard. Could I ask you a few questions, though?' 
Dillard shrugged, though he looked vaguely uncomfortable at the 
prospect. 'Sure.' 
'Is your family all right now? Everyone well, I hope?' 
'As far as I know. My middle child's here with me - my sons are back 
home with my wife.' 
'Good. Good - I'm glad to hear it,' said Breland, with a sincerity the 
audience was reluctant to credit. 'Can you tell me some more about 
these crimes, and how what I've done figured in them?' 
'Watch it, Larry - he's baiting a trap for you -' 
Dillard shook off the warning. 'Crimes - no, you weren't listening, 
how do you expect to understand? I didn't say we'd been victims. But 
you're setting us up to be victims. My wife weighs a hundred and 
sixteen pounds. How is she supposed to fight off a rapist your size? 
How's my son supposed to make it home if the Muslim gang at 
school decides to pick on him next?' 
'Your wife went everywhere armed?' 
'And shot at the practical range once a month for proficiency.' 
'And your son took a gun to school?' 

Dillard stiffened, but defiance won out over discretion. 'You're 
damned right he did - until one of your Gestapo squads showed up 
and turned the campus into a Constitution-free zone.' 
'Wasn't taking a gun to school already against the law?' 
'So's assault, but that didn't stop the damned Muslims from putting 
one of Ken's friends in the hospital for three weeks.' 
'So you were willing to teach your son to break the law.' 
'When the law's wrong. When the law's unconstitutional. That's a 
citizen's duty.' 
'I see,' Breland said, nodding noncommittally. 'Did you like your 
odds better when the rapist and the gang were just as likely to have 
guns as your wife and son?' he asked. 'Did you think that kind of 
arms race improved their chances of coming home?' 
'What choice did we have?' a woman nearby interjected. 'Never 
leaving home? Expecting the police to protect us, when they've told 
us that's not their job? Forming gangs of our own? Or maybe you 
think we women should just lie down for the rapists. Maybe that's 
your idea of a civil society.' 
'What reason have I given you to think that?' Breland asked. 'Why 
would you believe that I only care about murder, and not about other 
kinds of crime?' 
'How can we believe anything else?' Dillard demanded. 'You 
obviously don't care about the crimes that our guns prevent - if you 
did, you wouldn't have taken those guns away from us.' 
'Mr Dillard, I'll thank you to let me speak for myself,' Breland said. 'I 
know there are studies which claim that arming good people thwarts 
two million attempted crimes a year. When I talked to the FBI 
director about it, he told me he believes the number was closer to five 
or six hundred thousand -' 
'Making it easier for you to ignore the victims,' someone taunted from 
beyond the first circle. 
'Now, now, that's not fair,' another voice called. 'Maybe he likes the 
idea of more crime. Disarm the public, and we have to come begging 
to the government for help and protection. This city loves us 
dependent.' 

Breland spun around, searching for the speaker. 'Why is it you'd 
rather make up my positions for me than hear what I have to say? If 
it's because you've already decided not to believe me, why are you 
even here?' He turned a half-turn back and caught the colonel's gaze. 
'I was on my way to pointing out that if you count the crimes guns 
prevent, then you also have to count the ones they permit.' 
That's nonsense,' scoffed a short woman at Colonel Harris's elbow. 
'Guns don't turn people into criminals. That's magical thinking. My 
brothers and I were raised with guns. My husband and I've raised our 
kids with guns. Not a single bloodthirsty felon in either litter. Explain 
that.' 
'Good parenting. Good sense about alcohol and drugs. A light hand 
with the kids and a kind word for each other. Enough control over 
your own lives that you've been content with them. No little bit of 
good luck,' Breland said. 'But we don't have to be naive about this, do 
we? It's no accident that people reach for a gun when they want more 
say in how things are going to go. No difference between lawbreakers 
and law-abiders there.' 
At that. Colonel Harris's expression frosted over, and hers was not the 
only one. 
'Well, that explains a lot,' Dillard said, 'that you can't see any 
difference between the murderers and people like us. I think we all 
understand you a lot better now.' 
The President scowled. 'That isn't what I said. Come on, there's no 
audience to play to - these people are all with you already,' Breland 
said, making a slow circle with hands extended to both sides. 'Can't 
we have a little honesty? Whether it's a bad guy sticking a gun in a 
good guy's face or the other way around, you all want the same thing 
at that moment - juice, leverage, weight - control.' 
I'm one of the good guys,' said a round-bellied man carrying an 
enormous shotgun. 'I just want to be left alone.' 
'Which is wanting the world to be the way you want it to be -which is 
control. This isn't some secret truth that can't be spoken, is it?' 
Breland appealed. 'Guns are just like armies - there's only two 
reasons you point them at someone -' 
'Coercion, and deterrence,' said Colonel Harris. 

'Yes. You pick up a hammer to drive a nail. You pick up a gun to 
make somebody do what you want them to.' 
'Now, wait a minute,' called a short young woman with long straight 
hair. 'You're making it sound completely grim and serious. What 
about target shooting? Skeet? Trap? What about the history, the lore, 
the reenactors? What about hunting? Guns are fun. Is there anyone 
here who didn't get a rush the first time they fired a gun?' 
'Got a bigger one the first time I hit something I aimed at,' some wag 
said dryly. The laughter of self-recognition broke the tension that had 
been building. 
'There's a little honesty, thank you,' Breland said. 'Look, maybe you 
can help me understand something. What have you really lost that 
would make you want to go back to the way things were before the 
Trigger appeared? Because everything the FBI can tell me says that 
crime isn't going up -' 
'I haven't heard that,' Dillard said. 'What I hear is that we're seeing 
two, three, four or more lowlifes working together, breaking into 
houses, mugging people at ATMs, dragging women into cars -' 
'You're right,' Breland admitted, to his counterpart's evident 
astonishment. Team crime - that's what the FBI has decided to call it. 
We are seeing more team crime, and I'm not sanguine about it. I don't 
know what the solution is -' 
'How about the team of Mr Smith and Mr Wesson?' 
To Breland's surprise, it was Colonel Harris, frowning across the 
circle toward Dillard, who took that rhetorical bullet for him. 
The truth is, the President's right,' she said. 'You can find yourself on 
the short end even when you're carrying. And being outnumbered 
with guns isn't any better place to be than being outnumbered without 
them - especially since carrying just gives them reason to shoot first.' 
Dillard spat angrily. 'Goddamn - Colonel, don't give this fascist aid 
and comfort.' 
'I'm not giving him anything. The truth is the truth. Speaking of 
which -' She looked to Breland. 'When the FBI didn't come out with 
its preliminary crime stats for last year at the usual time, a lot of us 
thought we knew the reason - they were bad, and you were trying to 
figure out how to clean them up.' 

Pursing his lips, Breland shook his head slowly. 'No, if anything, the 
numbers are too good. Even with some criminals changing tactics, 
the final figures should show homicide down fourteen percent, rape 
down at least ten, aggravated assault down nearly twenty, armed 
robbery down almost a full third, most of it in the commercial sector - 
'
'Oh, this is pure propaganda,' Dillard said in disgust. 
'No, this is good news,' Breland shot back. 'It means we can still hope 
that Americans are as civilized as the people of Europe or industrial 
Asia or Canada. It means we found a way to change the rules and 
make things harder for criminals, and some of them lost their nerve, 
or their angle. It means the Trigger and Jammer saved a hundred 
thousand or so of your countrymen from becoming victims.' 
'Then why are you holding it back?' Harris demanded. 'Why hasn't 
this been all over the media?' 
'Because I ordered the FBI not to release anything until all the 
numbers were unimpeachable. Because I knew some people would be 
skeptical, and I don't want to help anyone convince themselves that 
the numbers were cooked.' 
'Well, I don't believe them, not for a minute,' a young man interjected 
angrily. This is the big lie, your reelection strategy -to piss on us and 
tell us it's raining -' 
'That's enough. Private Terrell,' Harris said sharply. 
'What? 
'This is the President of the United States. You will show respect.' 
'Respect? Oh, this is insane - I can't believe what I'm hearing. I'm 
supposed to respect a coward - a traitor? This man cut the heart out of 
the Second Amendment, and the watch captain's falling all over 
herself to make nice to him. It makes me want to puke,' 
'Master of Arms, escort Private Terrell to the galley area -' 
'No, it's all right,' said Breland, stepping closer. 'I want to talk to him. 
What's your name?' 
'Steve Terrell.' Defiance blazed in the young man's eyes. 
Breland nodded. 'You've got your facts wrong, Steve Terrell. This 
technology came out of the private sector, without a penny of tax 

money or a whisper to Washington that it was coming. It's the private 
sector that's been making it go. And the reason is something you don't 
want to admit to yourself - that most people don't want to have to be 
gunslingers to get by. That's not how they want to live.' 
'I'd bet even most gun owners don't want that,' someone said quietly. 
Breland went on, 'Now those people have a weapon of their own, one 
that turns that Winchester you're carrying into a museum piece, or at 
best an expensive club. Everything changes. The Bill of Rights didn't 
promise you eternal technological superiority for smokeless powder 
and the rifled barrel.' 
'It damn well did promise that I could keep my gun, so I could blow 
away any fascist traitor who tried to take it away from me.' 
'Is that why you're here, Mr Terrell? Are you hoping for a second 
chance?' 
I'm here to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and 
domestic. You were supposed to do that, too.' 
'I did,' Breland said. 'If we were the fascists you think we are, we 
could have taken this technology, put together a fleet of stealth 
helicopters and black vans, and disarmed whole cities overnight -' 
'If you were the patriots you should be, you would have grabbed up 
this technology and lost it at the bottom of Lake Superior.' 
'So you expect us to disarm your neighbor, but not you?' Breland 
asked, cocking his head. That's an interesting double standard you're 
setting up there. Unfortunately for you, the Supreme Court didn't go 
for it.' 
Terrell scowled. That decision was bought and sold by the power 
brokers - the elite has never wanted the common man armed.' 
Breland's stare was an indictment. 'You are much too fond of your 
fantasy of persecution, Steve Terrell,' he said, and turned back to the 
colonel. 'I did not disarm you. You can still have your guns on your 
own land, if that's what you and your family choose. You can still 
take your guns into the wilds to hunt. You can still go to the firing 
ranges and shooting clubs. If you live and work and play in the empty 
spaces of the continent, you can still lead the self-reliant life of the 
frontiersman. None of that's been taken away. 
'But when you come out of your private spaces and down from the 

hills, when you come into the villages and towns and cities where 
most of us live, you're going to find more and more places where 
your guns are neither needed nor welcome. And you're going to have 
to make a decision. 
'Are you going to turn away, and stay outside? Are you going to join 
us, and accept our rules? Or are you going to push your way in and 
try to make yourself and your guns the new rules? That's what I 
wonder when I look out from those windows back there - which 
choice you'll make.' He slowly surveyed the circle, trying to read the 
unreadable expressions in the darkness. 'When you've made it, I 
suppose you won't be here any longer.' 
'You're not going to be in there much longer,' someone shouted 
gleefully from the dark. 
'Probably not,' Breland agreed. 'And I know you won't miss me. But 
wherever we go from here, we're all going to keep living in the world 
we create with our choices. You can make that a world of individuals, 
with everyone looking out for his own. Or you can take a measured 
risk, throw in with the rest of us, and try for a community.' 
'Collectivist pap.' 
'No - it's something called teamwork,' Breland shot back. 'I know 
how much it can do. I'm sorry you don't. I don't think human beings 
were made for living alone in fear of each other. I think all of our best 
moments have come when we let go of that fear and come together - 
even though there are predators out there, and some of us will lose 
our gamble.' 
'You volunteering?' 
'If it comes to that,' Breland said. 'If all we think about is ourselves, 
what do we have? Think bigger. Kant called it the moral imperative: 
Act in such a way that what you do might serve as a universal law. 
Do you want to live in a world in which ten billion other humans 
follow your lead? That's the real test to apply. That's the choice we're 
really making. 
'And that's all I came out here to say - though I didn't know it until 
just now. Be sure you know what choice you're making.' His eyes 
sought Colonel Harris's, and he smiled a tight smile. 'Thank you for 
hearing me out.' She nodded acknowledgement, and he turned away. 

Inevitably, there were some in the crowd unwilling to give Breland 
the last word. He was followed to the edge of the park and beyond by 
a small coterie of detractors who shouted their challenges and 
imprecations from beyond the ring of Secret Service escorts. 
One young man in fatigues wasn't content to hurl words. As the 
President neared the gate, he came charging up from behind with a 
fist-sized rock clutched in each hand. 
'You think you're safe? You're not safe!' he shouted from ten meters 
away, then wound up and let fly. 
But by then one agent had already shifted into a blocking position, 
and successfully deflected the missile with his staff. It clanged 
harmlessly against the steel fence. At the same time, a second agent 
charged the attacker with his staff lowered like a lance. The agent 
dropped the young man with a single blow to the abdomen, then 
retreated to close the circle around Breland. 
That was all Breland saw - he was surrounded, pushed forward 
through the gate, and hustled across the grounds by his escorts. 
Charles Paugh met him on the walk, and his chiding tone was little 
different from those who had reproached the President on the other 
side of the fence. 
'Predictable. Completely predictable. You disturb hornets in their 
nest, and they're going to attack. I hope you satisfied your curiosity, 
because John Burke is going to want to throw a bag over you and 
lock you in the basement for a month.' 
'I still think it was worth doing,' said Breland. 'It just ended badly.' 
But he could not pretend that the attack had not unsettled him. 'I'm 
going upstairs. Tell John if he wants to spank me, he can do it in the 
morning.' 
'I'll tell him. - Hey, and stay away from the windows for the rest of 
the night, will you?' 
But John Burke did not take the hint. A half-hour later, he was on the 
phone with the President, asking for ten minutes. 'I want to show you 
something that I think might let you sleep a little easier.' 
'You have the guy?' 
'The assailant is in custody, yes.' 
'That's good enough for me.' 

'I can do better, Mr President. You won't regret it.' 
Breland relented, and shortly thereafter Burke emerged from the 
elevator with a memory block in his left hand. 'Your study?' he asked. 
'Whatever.' 
Burke led the way and settled himself, control board on his lap, in the 
chair nearest to the media center's wallscreen. Breland stood near his 
favorite working chair, a well-worried leather recliner. 
This is the attack, from camera sixteen,' Burke said as a ghostly lowlight 
image appeared on the display. 'Watch the upper left corner for 
the assailant - there, and now he stops to shout at you - that's Agent 
Frank Baines who steps in and fouls off the fastball -' 
'Good stick,' Breland said approvingly. 
'I'll tell him you said so - he'll like that, he's a Dodgers fan. Now 
here's the part you didn't see. That was Agent Toni Waters who laid 
the assailant out. The reason she did not pursue and restrain is me - 
my orders to the detail were that getting you inside took precedence 
over everything else. So the assailant had an opportunity to get his 
legs back under him and run -getting a little help there from a couple 
of buddies. I'm sure we would have found him - the dye mark from 
the stick goes right through clothing and deep into the skin -' 
'Wait a minute - "would have"? Didn't you say you had him in 
custody?' 
'I did. This is the view from camera eighteen, about ten minutes later. 
Those are our people, at the bottom, organizing to sweep the park - 
there, top center, that's what I wanted you to see.' 
Breland squinted. A clot of six people was emerging from the park, 
and it was apparent that one of them was being dragged along against 
his will. Is that our guy?' 
'That's him - David Joseph Markham.' 
'Your people in the park grabbed him, then.' 
'They didn't get a chance to,' said Burke. 'The militia grabbed him for 
us - citizen's arrest. That's the night commander and the sergeant-atarms, 
there, bringing him out and turning him over to the agent in 
charge.' 
'I'll be damned -' 

'When I first saw this, I thought maybe they could see we were 
getting ready to roust the lot of them, and that they weren't going to 
be able to hide him, so they might as well surrender him. But then I 
heard from our agents in the park - the guy wasn't stopping, he was 
heading straight for Liberty Avenue, yelling for his buddies to run 
interference. I guess he had fewer friends there than he thought. They 
took him down north of the fountain.' 
'I would never have expected this,' Breland said, shaking his head. 'I 
wouldn't have expected any help from them.' 
Burke turned off the replay, which had frozen at the last frame. 'Well, 
maybe that's why Colonel Harris said what she said. I didn't quite 
know what it meant.' 
'What are you talking about?' 
'When she surrendered Markham, she gave the agent a message for 
you.' He pulled a white card from a hip pocket and squinted at the 
scrawled handwriting. 'She said, "I'm taking a chance on you, and 
Kant, and community - and hoping there's more here than fine 
words." I guess this is her signature here.' He dropped the card by the 
console and looked up. 'Who's Kant?' 
But by then, the President was no longer listening. He had turned 
away and was looking out the window toward the park, even though 
the dense leafy boughs of a sugar maple blocked his view. 
'Me, too, Colonel,' Breland said softly. 'Me, too.' 
Breland sat up alone for nearly an hour, thinking about Grover 
Wilman, and letting himself shake just a bit over his close call with 
the Liberty Militia. Now that his frustration had been displaced by a 
weary resignation, going into the park seemed like a damned reckless 
thing to have done. 
Not until he finally rose to leave the room did he touch the card 
Burke had brought him. He picked it up meaning to pocket it, giving 
it only a casual glance. 
But that glance fell on an embossed silver Q with an arrow pointing 
to the right. Beside it was the name Carol Westin Harris, and below 
that a Net address. On the back, what Burke had called her signature 
was an echo of the printed sign, squeezed into the lower right-hand 

corner. 
'What the hell - Burke!' he shouted, starting toward the door. 
By the time he reached it he was running. 'Charlie!' 
No one answered. Breland ran back into the media center and vaulted 
into the lounge chair in front of the wallscreen. 'Vox. Log on. 
Security, Post 1.' A low-resolution image of a young Marine seated at 
a desk flashed on the upper right quarter of the screen. 'Who is that, 
Corporal Mackie?' he demanded of the guard. 'Who's in the house, 
Corporal?' 
'Mr President, sir. You can see the gate log on channel thirty from 
any command node. Sending a snapshot now.' 
The list of people in the White House filled the entire right-hand side 
of the screen. 'No, dammit, just staff - executive branch. Where's 
Charlie Paugh?' 
'Gone, sir.' 
'Burke?' 
'Captain Milton has the watch tonight, sir.' 
'Mrs Tallman? Oh, hell, I sent her home, she was having company for 
dinner. Is there anyone over in clerical? In the library? What time is 
it, anyway?' 
'I show an imaging technician in the clerical suite, no one in the 
library. It's oh-two-ten hours, sir.' 
Breland waved a hand impatiently. 'Vox. Close and clear.' He 
pondered for a moment. 'Vox. Net search. Quote - Futurians -dose 
quote.' 
Twenty minutes of brute-force Net-sifting turned up a comedy 
ensemble, a keyboard trio, two groups of science fiction fans (The 
New Futurians and The New Original Futurians) and one of dead 
writers (but not including Sturgeon, the one Wendell Schrock had 
mentioned), two novels, a 2-D film, a VR adventure game, and a 
superhero comic book series - none of which seemed to be associated 
with the Q-and-arrow symbol. 
That he found on several of the sites devoted to Sturgeon, along with 
some appealing quotes on the subjects of love, reason, and world 
peace. But there were no ties to Schrock or Harris, no mention of an 

Alliance for a Humanist Future - which had no presence on the Net at 
all, which Breland found baffling. And even the high-powered Net 
agents supplied for his account by the National Information Office 
couldn't connect Wendell Schrock and Carol Westin Harris. 
The hell with etiquette, Breland thought, and placed a call to Schrock. 
It took another toy from the NIO's toolkit to punch through the 
analyst's messaging system and force his phone to ring. 
'What's going on? Who is this?' Schrock demanded sleepily. 
'I need to talk you, Wendell,' said Breland. 'Vox. Send video.' 
'Mr President.' Surprise was audible in Schrock's voice. 
Breland reached out and held Harris's card in front of the close-up 
lens. 'I had an unexpected favor done for me tonight,' he began. 
'Yes, I heard,' Schrock said. 
'What - you say you heard? How?' 
'There were at least three minicams in the park, Mr President. It's a 
top story on the overnight news.' 
'Son of a bitch -' 
At that moment, incoming video put Schrock's tousled-hair 
countenance on the wallscreen. 'It's actually playing fairly well, sir. 
Also, I heard about it from Carol, in meetspace.' 
'She is one of you, then. Is this what we talked about before? Is this 
the help you said might be there?' 
'No, sir. You were just damned lucky.' 
Breland glanced away, gave his head a little shake, and then looked 
up again. 'Wendell, I really would be grateful for an explanation. 
Who are you? You know, there's no flipping way to enter that symbol 
of yours in a Net search.' 
Schrock laughed lightly. 'You just have to know how. All right, an 
explanation. There's no creed or charter I can quote from, so you'll 
have to settle for the Gospel according to Wendell. I'll tell you how it 
was, and then I'll tell you what's changed in the last two days. 
'The Futurians were born on the Net, and couldn't exist without it. 
The Net is where the founders met and where today's mem-bers keep 
in touch and do most of their work. It happened that way because the 

Net is drowning in ignorance, misinformation, hostility, quackery, 
propaganda, credulous pseudoscience, ration-alization, and just plain 
sloppy thinking. Futurians are people who find that all dismaying, 
because we think we can reach a little higher, ask a little more of 
ourselves and each other.' 
'You said something about that after you briefed me.' 
Scrock nodded. 'We think there's a spark of reason in every human 
being - and in its light you can catch a glimpse of the commonality of 
humankind and the road to our future.' 
'I may have to steal that.' 
'Please do. So to belong, you don't have to say you believe A, or not- 
A - just that you know there's a rational way to choose between them. 
Being a Futurian means making a commitment to ask the next 
question, to keep an open mind, to test ideas -especially the 
comfortable and appealing ones that so often slip past the logical 
defenses. We profess an irrational faith in the power of reason. 
Passion may take us farther, but reason takes us higher. So we try to 
be the friends of reason wherever and however we can.' 
'How many of you are there?' 
'Not many. A few million who know they're members. 
Optimistically, a few billion who don't - like you.' 
'International -' 
'Of course. That's the unrealized promise of the Net - a stateless 
community of educated people working toward enlightened goals, 
including the pursuit of truth. A civilized New World Order in which 
you don't kill people for believing differently than you -you educate 
them if you can, learn from them what you can, and promote mutual 
tolerance.' 
'I hear no small amount of idealism there.' 
Idealism is the horse,' Schrock admitted. 'But reason is the rider. 
Well, that brings me to tonight.' 
'You said something had changed -' 
Schrock nodded. 'Some of us - a lot of us, I think - have been 
working the disarmament issue for some time. But the events of the 
last two days have galvanized the membership in a way I've never 

seen. We've been meeting continuously in the well since Senator 
Wilman was murdered, and I've seen as many as thirty thousand 
avatars logged in at once. And out of that came something I never 
expected - we formed a committee. We're going to organize a 
coordinated effort in support of you and Mind Over Madness - there 
are already thousands of volunteers.' 
'To do what?' 
'To resist those who want you to fail, who want disarmament to fail, 
who think loss of privilege is too high a price for peace. They've been 
out there for months, pushing hard. We know they're organized - 
everyone speaking with one voice, making the same monkey-brain 
appeals. They don't debate, they propagandize. And they're very good 
at making themselves heard. 
'We're going to bet on reason winning out over propaganda. There are 
countless places in the real and wired worlds where people gather to 
talk - chat rooms, public meetings, reader forums, talk Web, bars, 
park benches. We'll be there. We'll make sure that there is a patient, 
thoughtful voice speaking up for sanity. And we will make ourselves 
heard.' 
'I envy you your optimism, Wendell. I confess I've been struggling to 
find mine.' 
'Don't give up, sir,' Schrock said earnestly. 'I could not have been 
more proud of my President than I was watching you wade into that 
crowd just forty-eight hours after your friend was murdered. You 
changed one mind tonight. We'll change ten more tomorrow, and a 
hundred the next day. Just keep speaking to that spark of reason, and 
little by little we'll breathe life into it.' 
The briefcase Jammer made its debut at the Consumer Electronics 
Show in Las Vegas. Toshiba showed a slick three-piece system with 
a powered docking cradle for the home, another for the car trunk, and 
an eight-kilo briefcase capable of an hour of continuous operation at 
short range or three long-range bursts. It was aimed at executive 
anxieties and came with a five-figure price tag which did little to 
dampen interest. Safeco introduced the Safe Passage, a civilian 
version of the Suppressor backpack which police forces in twentyeight 
countries had adopted, and the Sentry, an add-on to its modular 

home-defense system. 
But the runaway hit of the show was the Celestial Silver Shield, a 
bare-bones Jammer packaged for the home. Built from less-refined 
components than the other offerings, the Silver Shield was the size of 
a small end-table and the weight of a small refrigerator, with the 
voracious electrical appetite of a resistance heater when set in 'continuous' 
mode. But it was offered for the price of a good television, 
and the packaging and positioning - straddling the line between an 
appliance and furniture - was inspired. Show preorders soared to 
record levels, and within six weeks Celestial had sold the entire first 
year's projected production, sending Goldstein to the Asian Rim on a 
quest for more capacity. 
The sudden emergence of Horton devices as a commodity brought a 
swift response from Congress, which tried to strangle the infant 
market with regulation. Senator Hap Neely's 'Self-Defense Parity and 
Fairness Act' was a bald attempt to hamstring privately-owned 
Jammers by limiting them to a range of thirty meters or the nearest 
property line, whichever was less. It passed with a veto-proof margin, 
but lawyers for LifeShield Arsenal buried it in paper before it went 
into effect. 
'If the authors of this legislation want to come forth to publicly 
demonstrate that the firearms and ammunition commonly in use have 
a range of only thirty meters and respect property lines,' the lead 
attorney said from the courthouse steps, 'the plaintiffs will gladly 
withdraw their petition. Otherwise, we count on the court to expose 
this law for the sham it is.' 
The district court came through, but Congress went right back to 
work. This time, it was a triple-barreled attack using the Federal 
bureaucracies. 
A House committee ordered the Federal Trade Commission to 
investigate 'health and safety issues' regarding prolonged exposure of 
young children and pregnant women to Jammer fields. A Senate 
panel directed the Federal Aviation Administration and Federal 
Communications Commission to jointly investigate the possibility 
that a VentureStar crash in Dallas was caused by interference from 
the Jammer installations at the spaceport. And the Food and Drug 
Administration was asked to look into reports that Horton devices 
were killing people by damaging the microprocessors in medical 

implants. 
Bach and every charge was specious, even fraudulent. But together 
they offered not only the prospect of months of bad publicity, but of 
the whole spectrum of regulatory actions from recalls to outright 
bans. 
It was all part of the ongoing war of perceptions being waged on 
every front where public opinion was shaped. But as the year wore 
on, that struggle more and more strongly resembled a desperate 
endgame with an outcome that was foreordained. There was not 
going to be a grass-roots revolution against the government. The 
middle class was not signing up for a civil war. 
Instead, there were signs of an evolution in public attitudes toward 
not only guns but violence - an awakening of outrage and revulsion, a 
retreat from the casual cynicism which had allowed the country to 
accept the slaughter with a shrug of inevitability. 
'Now that we finally know we're sick, how will we know if we're 
getting better?' asked the hero of the sell-out stage hit Asylum. 
Little by little, an answer emerged. 
30: Harder than War 
'Making peace is harder than making war.' 
- Adlai Stevenson 
For the first time in history, the number of Federally licensed 
firearms dealers fell below the number of National Health Service 
crisis counselors. By then, storefront gun dealers were already an 
endangered species. In the span of only a year, one out of every three 
had closed up shop, and only stubbornness was keeping many others 
open in the face of unrelenting red ink. The gun-show circuit simply 
imploded, with sellers outnumbering buyers and prices in free fall. 
The firearm and ammunition manufacturers were scarcely better off - 
a wave of mergers, acquisitions, and bankruptcies had thinned their 

ranks, and still no one could say how many bullfrogs the shrinking 
pond would support. Remington-Colt went through four rounds of 
layoffs. Winchester's parent company spun it off to a German tooland-
die concern more interested in its factories than its products. 
Seeing the criminal use of firearms plummeting, the State of 
Massachusetts repealed all of its 'time, place, and manner' regulations 
on firearms - and added a law which made disabling or deactivating a 
Horton device a felony. Within a month, thirty-five other states 
followed a similar course. 
Ordinary citizens were seeing less crime as well. Millennium Media, 
the largest English-language program syndicator and push-cast 
server, dropped the Crime Witness channel from their Home 
Essentials lineup due to 'ratings erosion'. Crime Witness had fea-tured 
around-the-clock live video of crimes in progress and police pursuits 
from six continents. It was replaced by Wonderful Planet, a new 
virtual-tourism feed from National Geographic. 
The bad news continued for Crime Witness, which was forced to cut 
its rights payments by a third and go to a 'deja vu' schedule with 
twelve hours of repeats a day. Those steps were not enough to save it. 
Two months later, after a key advertiser bailed out, CW tried to carry 
on as a subscription service. In another six weeks, it was in 
bankruptcy. 
That key advertiser had been rental property and relocation giant 
Halstead Homes, which had been pitching the security features of its 
premium rental communities with the slogan 'Sleep easy - come 
home to a Halstead Home'. With occupancy rates falling, Halstead's 
president announced that the company was repositioning itself as the 
'middle-class luxury and convenience alternative'. 
'You can't sell people what they already have,' she told the Wall 
Street Journal, 'We need to offer more than personal safety to entice 
the step-up relocator to move.' 
Whether all those developments were truly as connected as they 
seemed was open to debate. But the debate did little to stop the 
connections from being drawn, or hope from starting to bloom. 
To be sure, there were still places which were not safe, and people 
who could not be trusted. But there were signs of a determined search 

for ways to address that reality without recourse to the gun. 
In the often-quoted words of New York City's 'blue ninja', Detective 
Sergeant Jan Flynn, 'Being armed isn't the same as being safe - and 
being unarmed isn't the same as being helpless.' The petite, blue-eyed 
Flynn made herself into a symbol of the new attitude, tirelessly 
demonstrating both propositions in auditoriums and studios 
throughout the northeast. Hundreds of community-ed programs 
adopted the NYPD Guide to Self-Defense as the Bible for their new 
adult classes. 
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania went a step further, mak-ing not 
only self-defense but anger management training part of their new 
common-schooling curriculum for children aged five to fifteen. 
Incorporating scream-offs and foam-bat duels, the train-ing copied 
successful pilot programs in Youngstown, Ohio, and 
Baltimore, Maryland, where juvenile assault rates were down more 
than ten percent. 
In Los Angeles, the charismatic leader of the Islamic Confraternity 
declared that Allah had blessed husbands and fathers with 'the 
antidote to emptiness, the essence of togetherness, and the key to 
righteousness.' Warning that the 'idle hands' of a man who was not 
married by age twenty were a danger to himself and his community, 
Benjamin Muhammad announced that the Confraternity would begin 
arranging marriages for single men as young as fifteen and single 
women as young as fourteen. 
'It is only when we know our place that we can find our way,' he 
proclaimed at the mass wedding of the first twenty-one couples 
joined by the matchmakers. 'Love civilizes us, and marriage fulfills 
us, and faith uplifts us.' 
In Atlanta, an alliance of Southern Baptist churches recruited a team 
of ministerial mediators with the idea of doling out a different flavor 
of street justice. Armed only with a folding stool and the moral 
authority of the collar, the mediators set about to resolve conflicts 
where they arose, conducting their cleric's court on street corners and 
playgrounds and front porches. The compromises they arbitrated 
were sealed with a handshake and a hand on a Bible, and enforced by 
the expectations of the witnesses to that oath. 
In community there was conscience, and in conscience, community. 

 But however many such collective affirmations could be found, in the 
end change depended on individual acts of courage and commitment. 
Most such acts were private, invisible, and uncelebrated. But some 
found a place in the public spotlight, and their influence went far 
beyond mere example. 
Fifty-eight-year-old widow and grandmother Marge Winkins, a 
branch bank manager from Rochester, New York, awakened to the 
sound of breaking glass in the rental half of her duplex, occupied by a 
sixty-six-year-old retired schoolteacher with osteo-arthritis. 
Concerned for her tenant. Marge picked up a can of wasp spray and 
an Indian juggling club and went to investi-gate. 
She surprised two teenage intruders armed with knives. One burglar 
went to the hospital with severely bruised testicles; the other, blinded 
by poison and bleeding above the ear from Marge's blows which gave 
him his concussion. 
I'll say you surprised them. But why didn't you call 911 first?' every 
interviewer asked as Marge made her tour of the talk shows. 
'Why, because I was there,' Marge would reply. 'You would have 
done the same for your friend, wouldn't you?' 
Pop music idol Kip Knight, lead guitarist for the power-improv 
quintet Mach 5, shattered his own devilish playboy image with a 
video confession on the front page of the Mach 5 Web site. 'I'm a 
drunk. And when I'm drunk, the nasty shit I carry around inside me 
leaks out. I've hit and hurt every woman I've ever cared about. And a 
lot of the women I didn't care about - all those eager women who got 
the nod from the manager to come backstage and come back to the 
hotel - got the same treatment. 
'I'm not gonna talk about why, about where all the anger is coming 
from. But I want to apologize to those women - to Dove, and Paula, 
and Noria, to Sam and Mackie and all the rest - for not finding 
another way to handle it, for taking advantage of you that way, 
because I was Kip Knight and you knew there was a long line of 
women waiting to be where you were. I shouldn't have done it. I wish 
to Holy Pete I hadn't. 
'And I want to say something to the guys. This'll be short, because it's 
not at all complicated. But listen hard, because it's important: of all 

the stupid things we do, the worst of all stupidities is to raise your 
hand to someone who loves you. Whatever your problems, whatever 
your demons, whatever flavor of poison you've been sucking up, 
don't do what I've done - don't throw away those gifts. Find another 
way. That's what I've got to do now - find another way.' 
The response to that appeal was so extraordinary that Knight joined 
forces with three other celebrities to found Another Way, a 'nosupport 
group' for abusive men. 
No one, however, surprised more people, stirred a stronger or fartherreaching 
response, or more aptly symbolized the evolu-tion than 
media commentator Herbert Rogers, whose top-rated broadcast 
Funhouse was almost as influential in the entertainment industry as it 
was with the consumers who checked in twice a week to hear his 
opinions. 
'Those of you who can remember the twentieth century know I've 
been reviewing popular entertainment since the days when "movie 
theater" meant a projector and a flatscreen and "home video" meant 
VHS tape and a nineteen-inch television in 4:3 aspect ratio,' a somber 
Rogers said at the opening of his People's Choice Awards special. 
'In that time, I've willingly allowed the images of the murders of tens 
of thousands of human beings to enter my eyes and thoughts. By my 
calculations, I've seen more crime scenes than any detective, more 
combat than any career soldier, and more corpses than any 
pathologist. 
'I'm embarrassed to remember how many times I sat here and 
recommended that you pay someone money to push those same 
brutal images into your thoughts. But I'm far more troubled by the 
realization that, over the years, I became so numb to violence that 
more often than not I sat in the screening room watching blood fly 
and bodies fall and was bored. 
'Along the way, I shrugged off complaints that the film industry had 
turned killing into a spectator sport. It's a violent world, I told myself, 
and these films are only mirroring reality. 
'I dismissed charges that those action-adventure blockbusters cater to 
paranoid power fantasies, that they're a pornography of violence. 
These films are cartoons, I told myself, that no one could take 
seriously. 

'I shook my head at the idea that the mutilation and execution of men 
for entertainment was the product of a vicious sexism. I told myself 
that the real sexism was selling tickets to see young actresses' bare 
breasts. 
'I was wrong. I was wrong right down the line. 
'Our entertainments depend on our willing suspension of dis-belief. 
We trick ourselves into thinking that what we're seeing and hearing is 
real. Well, it's worked too well. It's worked so well that we can never 
quite get those images out of our heads. When I wonder if I 
remembered to lock the back door, it's not the reality of my life that 
makes me bounce out of bed to double-check - 
it's the demons from a thousand horror flicks and crazed-killer 
mysteries, still alive in the back of my mind. 
'We all want to hear stories that confirm our view of the world - but 
we've turned things upside down, and now expect reality to be like 
our fiction. Fact: even before the Trigger showed up, most police 
officers went their whole career without firing their weapon at a 
suspect, much less shooting or killing one. Where can you look in the 
Blockbuster catalog to discover that reality? 
'Many of us firmly believe we live in a dangerous place at a 
dangerous time. But the truth is that only a few of us actually do. 
How many real people did you see beaten or stabbed or burned or 
blown up or shot this year? How many imaginary people? Now think 
about the body counts you'd run up in a lifetime of "entertaining" 
yourself. 
'Why have we allowed the lie to drown out the truth? Why are we 
assaulting our senses and poisoning our sensibilities this way? I can't 
find a good answer - and that tells me that it's time to stop. It's 
nothing more than an addiction to adrenalin. 
'Well, enough, then. I'm going into detox. I'm giving up the juice. I've 
seen enough of war and murder and deaths that only matter because 
they connect page two of the script with page four, enough of gangs 
and gangsters, ruthless terrorists and crazed serial killers. 
'I want to hear from writers and directors who know something about 
the rest of our lives, about all the kinds of moments that fill our days 
and make being human so glorious and perplexing and tragic and 
paradoxical. That's this man's choice. From here forward, I want to be 

connected to life, not disconnected from death. 
'Meet me here next time if that's what you want, too.' 
Not every viewer did - Funhouse's ratings dipped sharply at first, and 
Rogers's mail was full of complaints about 'censorship' and 
'paternalism' and even 'creeping cultural fascism'. But after the first 
wave of defectors had departed, Funhouse's ratings began a steady 
climb to levels that equaled and then exceeded the old numbers, and 
the mail started to praise Rogers's 'uncommon sense' and applauded 
the 'outbreak of sanity'. 
Still, a thousand philosophical miles away from Jan Flynn and 
Herbert Rogers, there were those who viewed any accommodation 
with the new order as treason, and who were inalterably opposed to 
allowing it to become the status quo. These dissenters had been 
unaccountably silent, but they were about to be heard from. 
'You're paying with cash?' 
Jeffrey Horton nodded wordlessly and fanned six twenty-dollar bills 
out on the check lane. The young grocery clerk's surprise was nothing 
new to Horton. Even in the small nowhere towns to which he had 
been restricting his visits, buying more than a few dollars of goods 
with cash marked one as, at best, an eccentric. Ever since thumbprintsecured 
debit cards had become the principal medium of exchange, 
the shrunken remnant of the cash economy belonged to small-time 
tax evaders, anti-establishment iconoclasts, debtors on the run, and 
other assorted cranks and petty criminals. 
Horton did not mind being thought of in that company. Indeed, his 
beard, now full enough to dramatically change the shape of his face, 
and unfashionably long hair invited the association. An unsavory 
image brought a certain kind of privacy - while people might stare 
and regard him warily, they were less inclined to approach and 
engage him in conversation. 
Besides, there was really no choice - green-palming was the only way 
to escape his notoriety. All but invisible in the digital transaction 
registers which could document most lives in startling detail, he 
moved through the Northern Tier states as a ghost, leaving as few 
traces of his passing as possible. He no longer used commercial 
transport of any sort, or public accommodations - his Nomadpop-up 

van conversion fulfilled both needs, and much more discreetly. He 
could go weeks without needing to use his identity, and months 
without hearing his own name. 
True, the periodic cash withdrawals did momentarily betray Horton's 
location to anyone with access to his bank records. But those 
withdrawals were always the last thing he did before hitting the road, 
supplies replenished, for a new and isolated locale which might be 
500 klicks or more in any direction. He would then stay in that spot 
until his privacy was invaded or his supply of cash exhausted, at 
which point he would return to town and begin the process anew. 
He had been robbed once, by someone who had taken note of the 
thickness of his billfold and followed him back into the woods. He 
had had three close calls with bears, the last of which had found him 
wishing for a gun as a seven-hundred-pound black bear threw himself 
against the camper and tore pieces of trim and the spare tire off the 
rear door. He had been rousted by rangers and game wardens more 
times than he could count, though less often since he had acquired the 
200mm widefield autocorrelating telescope. 
But none of those dangers was nearly as threatening as the prospect 
of reentering his old life. Even on the worst days, that option had no 
appeal, and he gave it little thought. The camper had become a cozy 
home base, especially now that he was working again. 
For the telescope had given him more than a plausible excuse for 
being where he was. It had allowed him to reenter the world of 
science in a comfortable way, challenging his mind and keeping his 
hands busy. He was still learning both the sky and the instrument, but 
had already begun taking advantage of the clear, still North Woods 
nights to go comet-hunting and count meteors. 
Beyond that, he had his books - a lifetime archive of fiction and 
nonfiction for which there'd never been time - and a Martin steelstring 
acoustic guitar which he'd always been too busy to master. 
When he got lonely for the sound of human voices, he could pull in a 
zonecast from the Netcom 9 platform or Canada's CBC-West 
satellite, or use his anonymizer and find a chat online. When he grew 
hungry for human touch, a truck-stop brothel was never very far 
away. 
If he could not quite call himself happy, he could at least take 

comfort in having found enough purpose to keep getting out of bed at 
the start of his day, and enough peace to get to sleep again at day's 
end. 
Then came the call that turned everything upside down. 
His comset was still configured to defer all calls to v-mail, and to 
automatically purge all mail with no priority flag. There were very 
few people who had Horton's current priority key - Lee, his family, 
Karl Brohier, the Terabyte business office, his lawyer, his accountant, 
his personal DataSearch librarian - and he still had the priority alarm 
disabled. Once every few days, usually in the middle of the night, he 
would check the queue of waiting messages, replying to some, 
archiving others, disposing of the rest. 
The message tagged as USGOV|TREASDEPT-MOST URGENTTO:
JHORTON had been waiting for two days before Horton saw it. 
Its envelope was double-encrypted, both Personal and Secret. Both 
bindings dissolved with no alarms, leaving a short but chilling v-mail. 
'Dr Horton, this is Agent Keith Havens of the Special Protection 
Division of the Secret Service. Please contact me immediately when 
you receive this message. Dr Karl Brohier is gravely ill, and insists 
on seeing you. I'm to arrange your transportation to the secure facility 
where he's being cared for.' 
Horton tried calling Brohier instead. There was a personalized 
message waiting for him. 
'Jeffrey - it's just my luck that when you finally do decide to call me, 
I'm indisposed. Count it as payback for making yourself such a 
hermit these last few months. Pour yourself a glass of wine - I'll call 
you back before it's gone.' 
It sounded like something that had been recorded a long time ago, 
and Horton did not trust Brohier's promise. He reopened the Havens 
message and clicked the SecureCall icon. 
'Dr Horton.' Havens was wearing an olive-green't-shirt, and his 
crewcut hair was matted. It was obvious he had been sleeping. Thank 
goodness. Where are you?' 
'Wisconsin.' 
'What's the nearest town?' 
'Eh - Grandview.' 

Havens looked away and squinted, as though at another display to the 
side. 'Chequamegon area?' 
'Yes.' 
'Do you have a vehicle available?' 
'Yes. A camper.' 
'Very good.' Havens looked back toward Horton. There's a civil 
airport at Hayward, on County Road Twenty-Seven. We can have 
someone there in two hours. They'll identify themselves to you with 
the codeword "Candyland".' 
'Like the game?' 
'Like the game.' 
'I'll be there.' 
Havens nodded approvingly. 'Dr Horton, there's a great deal at stake - 
personal considerations aside, it's extremely important to the security 
of the nation that we get you and Dr Brohier together in the same 
room. I strongly recommend that you try not to call attention to 
yourself while you're out there alone. Stay off the air - stay in your 
vehicle until you're contacted. You'll have answers to all your 
questions in a couple of hours.' 
It was a perfect set-up. Worry clouded Jeffrey Horton's thinking; it 
did not even occur to him to doubt the authenticity of the message. 
Though Brohier himself had never spoken of it, Horton knew from 
Lee's letters that the senior scientist was being treated for an enlarged 
heart, and that he had been 'swallowed up by Washington' after the 
successful Jammer tests. 
So neither the news nor the source of it raised any warning flags, 
especially since all of the security keys on the message behaved 
exactly as expected. When a dark blue SUV turned into the airfield's 
grassy parking area a few minutes after sunrise, Horton regarded it 
hopefully. When two men with military haircuts and a wary, alert 
bearing emerged and approached, Horton felt an eager relief. 
'Good morning, Dr Horton,' said the older of the two, bending at the 
waist to peer through the partially-lowered driver's window. 'We're 
your escort to Candyland. You can call me George.' 

At that point, Horton experienced his first and only quiver of 
uncertainty. 'I was expecting a helicopter, or something.' 
'It's en route - there was nothing suitable for this field at Grissom, so 
we had to go all the way to Scott for a C-12. You managed to pick a 
state where we don't have many resources.' 
'Sorry about that.' 
'It'll be fine. Are you ready to go?' 
Horton patted the soft-sided sport bag on the seat beside him. This is 
all I need.' 
'Good.' George jerked his thumb in the direction of his com-panion. 
This is Agent Loomis - he and another agent are going to drive your 
vehicle in, so you'll have it available to you when you're ready to 
leave Candyland. If you'd care to wait with me in the four-by-four, 
we can let them get started - they have a long drive ahead of them.' 
'Of course,' Horton said. He climbed out, bag in hand, and 
surrendered the keys to Loomis. The papers are in the door pocket. 
Oh, and watch it - the parking brake sticks.' 
'We'll be careful,' said Loomis, who nodded - more to the other agent 
than to Horton - and clambered into the seat. 
Horton would end up replaying the next few seconds over and over in 
his mind. While he crossed the grass to the passenger side of the 
SUV, Loomis backed the camper out as if to leave. But at the last 
moment, he braked hard and stopped short behind the second vehicle, 
blocking the view from the main road. 
'Hurry, Doctor - we have company,' said George, grabbing Horton 
and shoving him forward. Horton did not resist, thinking that the 
agents were protecting him. The door in front of Horton flew open, 
and other hands reached for him and hauled him inside. Lying on his 
back on the floor, Horton looked up into the face of the man who had 
called himself Keith Havens. 
'Change of plans, Doctor,' the man said, and sprayed a bitter-tasting 
aerosol in Horton's face. 
The next thing he knew was blackness and silence. 
Jeffrey Horton's senses returned one at a time. At first, everything 

they told him only confused him. Even once the messages became 
persistent enough that he had to accept them as real, his staggered 
mind had trouble assembling them. 
He seemed to have no limbs. There was a constant roar, punctuated 
by creaks and banging. He was being violently jostled within a 
confined space made of hard, irregular surfaces. Burnt oil and mildew 
jousted in his nostrils. His face was frozen into a mask that had no 
mouth. He was in darkness, but there was light just beyond. There 
were voices, but none of the words made sense. 
Then there was a sound he recognized - car doors opening and 
slamming shut. 
And something that was not quite silence, but passed for it after the 
bath of noise in which he had been submerged. 
More door sounds, much closer. 
Sudden light, blindingly intense, as the blanket covering him was 
jerked away. 
A rush of clean, sweet air. 
At last, recognition: he was lying on his side in the rear cargo area of 
the SUV, wrists and ankles taped. 
'Dr Horton. Not too uncomfortable, I trust.' 
It was a now-familiar voice. Squinting out through the open rear 
doors of the SUV, Horton recognized the face that went with it. The 
duct tape across Horton's mouth would have prevented any reply, 
even if he had not still been too stunned to speak. 
'Get him out of there.' 
Two men moved forward, grabbed Horton's elbows, and hauled him 
out and to his feet. Horton's legs almost buckled under him; only the 
hands firmly holding him kept him upright. 
'It's time for a proper introduction,' said the man who had spoken - 
the man whose v-mail had precipitated everything. I'm Colonel 
Robert Wilkins, regional commander of the People's Army of 
Righteous Justice. And you, Dr Horton, are a prisoner of war.' , 
It was only then that Horton could identify a sound which had been 
pushing at his awareness since the vehicle's doors had been opened - 
the intermittent sound of gunfire, coming from beyond the trees. 

31: From Savage to Scholar 
'War is not the normal state of the human family in its higher 
development, but merely a feature of barbarism lasting on through 
the transition of the race, from the savage to the scholar.' 
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton 
The tape came off Jeffrey Horton's ankles and knees, but remained on 
his wrists and across his mouth for the walk through the forest 
compound of the People's Army of Righteous Justice. Along the way, 
Colonel Wilkins said nothing, but allowed Horton to see enough to 
raise his already high level of apprehension to the level of near-panic. 
There were camouflaged vehicles - SUVs, pickups, one Hummer, and 
two vans - concealed under netting at the edge of the woods. At least 
three of them had mounts for automatic weapons. Others had metalplate 
armor around their engine compartments, and flak batting on 
the doors and tailgates. 
The sounds of gunfire were coming from a marksmanship range with 
six shooting stations on one side of a sloping clearing and a bankedearth 
target barrier on the other side. Nearby, Horton caught a 
glimpse of a practical shooting course set up amongst the trees, with 
pop-up and drop-down targets in human silhouette. 
Even away from the ranges, there was plenty of firepower in 
evidence. Every adult male was armed, most with both a rifle and a 
sidearm. The rifles tended toward Colt AR- 15s and other militarystyle 
semi-automatics, though Horton spotted more than one true 
assault rifle. At the other extreme, several of the older militiamen had 
bolt-action deer rifles, and one short-legged, round-bodied gnome 
carried a Winchester lever-action carbine. 
In all, Horton counted at least twenty-six armed men and a dozen or 
more women. He heard children's voices, but the youngest person he 
saw was a boy of twelve or thirteen, and as he was armed, Horton 
counted him with the men. 

Above ground, there were two long buildings that Horton took for 
bunkhouses, a cook tent surrounded by split-log benches, a 
bathhouse, and a rank of portable toilets in drab olive green. The 
bunkhouses were old, and reminded Horton of a seedy summer camp. 
Summer camp for toy soldiers - 
Some distance from that cluster were two new steel sheds with 
guards posted outside. All the structures were hidden in the trees, 
invisible from above. 
At ground level and below, the compound boasted slit trenches on its 
perimeter, foxholes in its interior, and half a dozen low earthen 
mounds with metal storm-shelter doors. It was to one of these that 
Horton was led. 
Wilkins opened the single metal door, then turned back to Horton. 
'It can get a little close in there, and I don't want you choking on your 
vomit,' he said. Then, with one quick motion, he reached up and tore 
the wide band of tape off Horton's mouth. 
It took patches of beard and skin with it, leaving Horton gasping with 
sudden pain as the escorts pushed him through the open door and into 
the pit below. He rolled over twice, awkwardly, and ended up facedown 
in a dank, fetid mat of sodden wood chips and mud. When the 
door clanged shut above him, he was in darkness once more. 
By the time they returned for him, it was nearly as dark outside the 
pit as in. The cool night air that swirled through the opened hatch 
brought his own humiliating stink to his nostrils - he had lost the fight 
and fouled himself hours ago. 
'Get him out of there,' someone said from above, and hands reached 
down to grab him by the arms and drag him roughly up through the 
hatchway. 
'He's seriously skunky, Colonel. I pity the next person who has to use 
Shelter Six.' 
Horton swung his head around, searching for Wilkins. He found him 
when the Colonel spoke again. 
'Clean him up and bring him to the men's cabin,' Wilkins said, 
meeting Morton's angry gaze with a cool detachment. 'And then burn 
his clothes.' 

There were too many strong hands to struggle against. Horton was 
stripped, stood up against a tree, and doused with bucket after bucket 
of well-cold water. Then, naked, dripping wet, and shivering 
uncontrollably, he was quick-marched to one of the long houses and 
ushered inside. 
By the light of three single bulbs hanging below the roof trusses, he 
glimpsed a long wall of triple bunks, a desk with a comset, an empty 
rifle rack, and a silent half-circle of men awaiting him. In the middle 
was Wilkins, his expression unreadable. 
'Vincent, get Dr Horton a towel,' he said quietly. 
The balding man at the right end of the circle brought Horton a 
rectangle of cloth no bigger than a kitchen towel. Still shivering, 
Horton dabbed at his sodden hair and wet shoulders, trying 
unsuccessfully to forget his nakedness. As though reading Horton's 
thoughts with his coolly appraising gaze, Wilkins raised a hand in 
signal to someone standing behind him. 
'Some clothes for Dr Horton,' Wilkins said. 
The clothing was a prison-style jumpsuit in bright hunter orange, but 
Horton was grateful for it nonetheless. He was also puzzled by the 
consideration. Forcing him to stand there naked and chilled to the 
bone would have been more in keeping with the treatment he'd 
received so far - and probably recommended by whatever psych-war 
handbook Wilkins had learned his trade from. 
'Did you all know that Dr Horton and I have an acquaintance in 
common?' Wilkins asked, glancing sideways at his companions. 'Did 
you know that, Dr Horton?' 
'It's a small world,' Horton said with a shrug, refusing to be tempted 
into asking. 
'She goes by Pamela Bonaventure now - but that's her married name, 
right, Jeffrey? When she won her Olympic shooting medal, she was 
known as Pamela Horton.' 
Hearing his sister's name from Wilkins's lips made Horton acutely 
uncomfortable. 'Where would you know her from?' 
'Well, unlike you, Jeffrey, she's not in hiding. Our paths crossed at 
the NTSA Sport Pistol Nationals. She shot very well, considering 
she's only had the Weiss-Gushing for a few months.' 

The discomfort exploded into a fearful rage. 'What - have you ' been 
spying on her?' 
'No, hardly. We had a nice lunch together after the match, that's all.' 
'You?' 
'Why not me? And then we went out to the range and traded pistols 
for a couple of dozen rounds.' He laughed to himself. 'I'm afraid she 
very much had the advantage over me - the targets I practice with 
have bull's-eyes the size of a head.' 
'If you're trying to tell me you can get to my family, too -' 
'Get to your family - oh, no, Dr Horton, you misunderstand. I simply 
want you to know that we're aware of your background. We know 
that you and your family are shooters. We know about Pamela. We 
know that your father is a Life Member of the NAR.' 
'And what does all that mean to you? What does that have to do with 
my being here?' 
'It means that we're prepared to believe that you were an unwitting 
participant in Breland's great treason,' said the man sitting to 
Wilkins's left. He had a crooked nose, an American flag pin on the 
lapel of his dirty yellow shirt, and a restless right hand. 'It means that 
if you tell us you didn't know what they intended to do with your 
research, you'll find that we're disposed to believe you.' 
'And then I can leave?' 
'And then you can join us,' said Wilkins. 'You can help us put things 
right.' 
'How can I do that?' 
Tell us the secrets of the Trigger and the Jammer. We'll take care of 
the rest.' 
The secrets of the Trigger,' Horton repeated slowly. 
'Yes,' said the second man. 'How to shield an armory, and how to 
detect a Jammer field before you're inside it.' 
'What types of explosives are immune -' offered a third man, and 
others joined in. 
The true maximum range.' 
'Which of the new satellites contain the big zappers.' 

'What the UN troops are going to be using in place of gunpowder -' 
There are no secrets,' Horton said, interrupting. 
'Excuse me?' said Wilkins. 
There are no secrets. I released everything. Nothing was held back. 
It's all in the packet we published to the net.' 
'What about the Jammer?' 
'I didn't work on the Jammer,' Horton protested, then frowned. 'But 
it's no different - it's just a refinement of the Trigger. It works on the 
same nitrate chemistry. It must have the same attenuation curve. The 
electronics must be vulnerable to an electromagnetic pulse, just like 
the Trigger and your comset and most everything else that goes into 
civilization - you don't have any nukes, do you? I suppose not.' 
'You're not telling us anything that we couldn't have found in Popular 
Science,' the man with the crooked nose said, scowling. 
'Don't you understand? That's the point,' said Horton. There isn't 
anything to know that hasn't been in Popular Science. I gave it away 
so everyone could have it. I wasn't going to let it disappear, and I 
wasn't going to let it be controlled by the people who liked the status 
quo. If that means I'm back on your traitor list -' 
He shrugged, affecting a casualness he did not feel. If his life 
depended on being useful to them, there was not much cause for 
hope. 
'If you don't try to help resist a tyrannical government that's 
disarming and enslaving the people, then you are a traitor.' The 
speaker spat contemptuously. 
'I disarmed them first. Isn't that enough?' 
'Hell, no!' one of the men tersely. 'Our arms are what gave us a 
chance against them. They can replace their guns - they have all 
kinds of power. They can replace them with sheer numbers. They 
control the media, and the purse-strings, and a nation of sheeple 
sucking at the tit of statism. We have to have our guns, Doctor, to 
break their hold. We have to be able to count on our guns if we're 
ever going to be free again.' 
There's no way to shield an armory. We never learned how to 
remotely detect a Trigger field. So if that's what you expected from 

me, you made a mistake bringing me here.' 
'If we made a mistake, we'll correct it,' said Wilkins. 'But are you 
absolutely certain you have nothing for us?' 
It was a question with ominous overtones, and Horton cast frantically 
about for some bone to toss them. 'I can tell you that you can stop 
worrying about satellites. The range varies with the cube of the 
power, just like it says in the manual - so it's easy to make the little 
ones go and just this side of impossible to make something that'd 
work from orbit.' 
'Not even powered by a nuclear power plant?' 
'The kind we have down here, maybe. Not the kind we can put up 
there.' 
'So it would be possible, with enough power.' 
Horton turned his head in the direction of the voice. 'But there isn't 
enough power - that's the point.' 
The man's expression turned to one of disgust and contempt as he 
looked to Wilkins. 'How can we believe anything he says? Either he's 
not far enough inside to know about Pink, or he's so far inside that 
he's gonna lie about it.' 
Horton also looked to Wilkins. 'What is he talking about?' 
'DARPA has had an operational deuterium microfusion plant for 
twenty years,' the colonel said slowly, stretching his legs out. 
'Oh, that's nonsense. An Internet hoax.' 
'Hardly. It was developed for the Shark and Falcon long-duration 
stealth spycraft. Project Pink Drum. But they're everywhere now - 
key government installations, radio stations, anything they're going to 
need when they start the blackouts. You can detect a Pink with an oldstyle 
AM radio - you pick up an interference band at twelve-forty 
when you get within a couple of miles.' 
'What blackouts?' 
'It's part of the Federal pacification strategy, in case of civil 
disobedience.' 
As far as Horton was concerned, the conversation had abruptly 
veered off the road and into the deep underbrush of surrealism. 'Are 
you getting this from a newsfeed, or your kid's comic books?' he said, 

his contempt getting the better of his caution. 
But Wilkins did not show any sign of having taken offense. 'Even 
someone of your intelligence and accomplishments can be 
compartmentalized and propagandized - our enemies are very 
practiced in mind control and deception. We will help lift the fog 
from your eyes, Dr Horton - and when you are seeing clearly, I have 
no doubt that you will apply yourself and your talents to our common 
cause.' 
'So am I a prisoner of war, or a recruit?' 
'Which do you want to be?' Wilkins said, standing to signal the end of 
the audience. 'We will give you the facts - the real truth. You will 
make the choice.' 
As they ushered him out of the long house, Horton took notice of the 
time displayed on the comset's screen-blanker. With that piece of 
information, it would take only a few seconds' glimpse of open sky 
for him to gauge how far he had been moved, and in what direction - 
the rotation of the bowl of the sky would reveal all to those who 
knew how to read it. 
But the group's anxieties about being spied on from above thwarted 
him. The heavy canopy of leaves under which the camp was hidden 
yielded him only a fleeting glimpse of a tiny patch of night sky on the 
way back to Shelter Six. 
Horton begged a side trip to the latrine before they locked him back 
underground, but all he gained from it was a peek at his own face in a 
metal mirror. He looked haggard, haunted, and unaccountably old. 
'Do you have Dr Brohier, too?' he asked as he was led back to his tiny 
prison. 'Is he in another one of these holes?' 
'If I knew, I wouldn't be authorized to tell you,' one of his escorts said 
affably as he threw open the shelter door. 
They left his hands unbound, which was as great a mercy as the fresh 
layer of wood chips. 
He fell asleep to the sound of distant voices singing hymns to the 
glory of god. 
Monica Frances could not believe what she was reading. The weekly 

surveillance report on Dr Jeffrey Horton had been tendered with 
standard priority, even though its contents were potentially explosive. 
After securing her desk comset, she stormed down the corridor of 
Section 7 in pursuit of the report's author. It was not enough to sit 
there and send her sprites after Benhold Tustin -she needed to breathe 
fire in his face. 
She found him in the 'cave', the windowless home of the Technical 
Services Division and its ultrasecret data-gathering technologies. He 
was in a secure booth with a Techserv resource librarian, and the 
expression on Tustin's face when he saw her told the rest of the story: 
he knew how serious the problem was, and had been hoping to 
resolve it before it came to her attention. 
'What happened?' she demanded. 'You were supposed to maintain 
contact with him. That was the President's direct and explicit order.' 
'I don't know what happened. We're just not getting anything back 
from our pings.' 
'What does the tracings book say?' 
'No activity on any of his comm accounts. His credit card was used a 
few hours ago in Evanston.' 
'Chicago! He hasn't been near a city bigger than Fergus Falls for as 
long as we've been tracking him.' 
'I'm aware of that,' Tustin said grimly. 
'Could he have discovered our trackers?' 
'He's not supposed to be able to.' 
'Is there anything else in the tracings book?' 
'Just the GPS history for the transponders. The comset trace ends 
north of Eau Claire, a day and a half ago. The camper trace 
terminated about sixteen hours ago, near Iron River, in the Upper 
Peninsula. It's just possible that those are two points on the same 
route' 
'So the van went to Michigan, and the debit card to Illinois?' 
'I suppose he could have sold the van -' 
To finance an irresistible craving for Chicago stuffed pizza, I 
suppose? Why didn't you bring this to my attention sooner?' 

'We really don't know that there's a problem -' 
She looked past him to the librarian. 'Check that Eyanston transaction 
- find out if it was thumbprint verified.' 
A few moments later the librarian had the answer. 'It was a nocontact 
purchase - gasoline and a car wash at an automated station.' 
'I'd say we have a problem, Mr Tustin. How long has it been now?' 
Tustin glanced at his watch. 'Forty-four hours, give or take.' 
She shook her head. 'We'd better go see the Director.' 
Jacob Hilger, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, studied the 
incident map and timeline Monica Frances had thrown together. 
This has been a strictly routine tracking job from day one, correct?' 
'Absolutely,' said Tustin. 'There's never been any interest from the 
White House. We've never gotten a request to get any closer. I don't 
even know that anyone other than Mrs Frances has ever seen our 
reports.' 
'What about that?' Hilger asked, looking to the project security 
supervisor. 
'He's right. By the time we located and tagged Dr Horton, Dr Brohier 
already had the Jammer operational and had brought in Dr 
Bennington-Hastings. The other shoe never dropped. We kept up 
with Dr Horton anyway, just in case.' 
'How?' 
'Piggyback transponders on the global-position circuits in Dr Horton's 
camper and comset. Our agents did a black-box swap on the van and 
replaced the comset with a doctored dupe. At every tenth refresh, we 
received a location report. And we could ping the transponders at any 
time for a real-time fix.' 
'So long as the parent systems have power,' Tustin added. 
'Did you ever have a data blackout before?' 
'Just one, on the camper, about seven hours long. But that same day 
he had an emergency road service call and a repair bill for a new 
alternator.' 
Pursing his lips, Hilger shook his head. 'I can't see the same scenario 
here.' 

'No, sir,' said Frances. 'I think someone's grabbed him.' 
'I read it the same way. Do you have anyone in the field on this yet?' 
'Three teams - one in Chicago, one en route to a trace in the U.P., and 
one heading for Dr Horton's last known fixed location in northern 
Wisconsin.' Frances glanced at the clock. 'They should be arriving on 
site just about now.' 
'They won't find Horton,' Hilger quietly predicted. 
'Probably not, sir. But maybe they can find something that'll lead us 
in the right direction.' 
'Finding the camper would be a good start. Who's coordinating on the 
ground?' 
'Captain Whalen, with the Crequamegon Forest team.' 
'How about on the water?' 
'Excuse me?' 
Hilger traced the serpentine Lake Superior shoreline of northern 
Wisconsin with a fingertip. 'Look where he was. This is the gateway 
to the Atlantic - not a single security checkpoint between here and 
Europe, or Africa, or South America. Dr Horton could have been put 
on any boat bigger than a Boston Whaler that put out from any dock 
along here in the last two days. And he could have been moved to 
any other boat since.' 
'Or to a float plane,' said Tustin. 
'Bite your tongue. It'll be hard enough if he's still on the water. You'd 
better bring the Coast Guard in, have them get some people to the 
Soo Locks fast, try to keep the cork in the bottle. And in the 
meantime, get with the National Reconnaissance Office to see what 
they can tell us about traffic on the lake.' Hilger sighed. 'Summer on 
the Great Lakes. We may need to call in the whole Section.' 
'Are you going to notify the White House?' Frances asked. 
Grimacing, the director said, 'Let's see if we can't find out what's 
happened first. Let's wait for the first reports from the field.' 
The first reports were in by midnight, and the story they told brought 
a reluctant and unhappy Jacob Hilger to the White House gates. He 

showed his ID to the scanner and his face to the security detail and 
was directed to the East Wing gym - a former staff office Breland had 
had outfitted with Nautilus gear, a treadmill, and a rowing machine. 
Before Hilger reached the gym, he passed through two more Secret 
Service checkpoints and was joined by Chief of Staff Charles Paugh. 
'Leaving Amanda to fend for herself with the new baby tonight, eh, 
Jacob?' Paugh said cheerfully. 'How is Gavin?' 
'Growing like a weed,' Hilger said. 'Do you ever go home, Charlie?' 
'Why would I? I have a closet under the stairs, a bedroll, and my very 
own flashlight - plus I know where the State dinner leftovers are kept. 
Here we are, right through here.' 
They found the President sitting on the end of the back bench, 
mopping up perspiration with a small towel. His gray Philadelphia 
Phillies workout jersey was soaked almost to his waist. 
'Has either of you gentlemen noticed that once you're north of forty, 
you end up just as tired and twice as sore doing half as much?' 
Breland asked, dabbing at the side of his neck. 'I don't know how 
Ryan and Spahn played as long as they did.' 
'I don't know who Ryan and Spahn are,' said Paugh. 'Did either one of 
them have a decent jump shot?' 
'Heathen,' said Breland. 'Jacob, what do you have for me?' 
'Jeffrey Horton has disappeared. It looks like he's been abducted.' 
Breland let the towel drop to the floor. 'The hell you say. What 
happened?' 
I'll tell you what I can, which is less than we'd like to know,' said 
Hilger. 'Two days ago, Dr Horton had a secured conversation with 
someone who was spoofing a DOD account. We don't know who he 
was talking to or what was said, but it appears-that shortly afterward, 
he packed up and drove to Hayward Municipal Airport. Something 
happened there.' 
'How do you know?' 
'From that point on, the traces for Dr Horton's comset and his camper 
separate until they're about twenty-five kilometers apart, heading 
south on US Fifty-Three toward Eau Claire.' 
'Two vehicles.' 

'Presumably - and no telling if Horton himself was in either of them. 
The trace for the comset vanishes around Chippewa Falls. The trace 
for the camper continues east to Wausau, then back north again into 
Michigan.' 
'Wausau? That takes us pretty close to Tigerton, doesn't it?' asked 
Paugh. 
'Yes, we noticed that.' 
Tigerton?' asked Breland. 
'Former home of the Posse Comitatus,' said Hilger. 'If they still 
existed, they'd definitely be on the list of usual suspects.' 
'Are we sure that they don't?' 
'Well - the JATF should be able to tell you better than I can,' 
Hilger said, looking uncomfortable. 'What we do know is that the 
camper was abandoned on a dirt road on the edge of the Ottawa 
National Forest. It had been stripped, and someone had tried to bum 
what was left with an incendiary bomb - the smoke attracted a Forest 
Service ranger, which is how we got our hands on it so quickly.' 
'A bomb? Not a match in the gas tank?' 
'No - military-issue magnesium flare, probably with a timer or a fuse, 
so they're long gone when it goes up. We had to take a serial number 
off the rear axle to identify it as Horton's.' 
'Jesus,' said Breland. 
'I need to know how far you want us to go with this,' said Hilger. 'We 
really don't have the expertise or the authority to do criminal 
investigations - though we're ready to support one with all the 
domestic intelligence assets we have. But somebody else needs to 
take the point.' 
Breland looked to Paugh. 'What options are there? FBI?' 
'Going by the book, we should give it to the FBI,' the chief of staff 
agreed. 'But their rule book is the thickest, which means they can't 
always move the fastest. What's at stake - Horton's life, or some 
larger national security interest? What good is he to whoever grabbed 
him? What does he know?' 
'Not very much,' Hilger said. 'By his own choice, he's been out of the 
loop for some time. Besides, most of the Trigger material has 

effectively been declassified already, thanks to those Terabyte people 
giving away the store. I'd judge the national security risk slight.' 
'But would whoever grabbed him necessarily know that?' Breland 
asked. 
'They might. They knew enough to get Horton's private address and 
flag codes, and to spoof a secure DOD commlink. That's the real 
national security issue here - that whoever grabbed him had help 
from someone inside the Pentagon's comm net. That's reason enough 
to go hard at this.' 
'Dr Horton's life is reason enough,' Breland said sharply. 'He may not 
have been kidnapped for information. There's more than a few people 
who might want revenge.' 
'If you want revenge, you kill him nasty and then leave the body 
where it'll be found,' Paugh said grimly. 
'And what's to say that's not where this is going?' asked Breland. 
'What are the other options, Charlie?' 
'Army Intelligence could take it on the strength of the DOD 
penetration. For that matter, so could the CIA, if we're willing to 
pretend to know that the penetration was foreign, not domestic.' 
'If it was your brother - or your son - and your first consideration was 
finding him and getting him back safely -' 
Paugh and Hilger exchanged glances. 'I'd want to keep it all as quiet 
as possible, so as not to spook them,' said Hilger. 'Zero public profile, 
completely compartmentalized within the intelligence and law 
enforcement communities. I'd say Unit Thirteen - the Special Forces 
Unified Command domestic counterterrorism team. We plug them in 
with Defense Intelligence, CIA, National Recon Office, NSA, and 
give them their head. Odds are that they might have a list of likely 
suspects already in hand.' 
'What will it take to get that started?' 
'General Stepak can coordinate,' said Paugh. 'Everyone we want 
involved already reports to him, except the Company - and that can 
be worked out.' 
'All right. If I have to sign something, get it drawn up.' 
'That can be taken care of later,' said Paugh. 

'I have a question -' Hilger began. 
'Go.' 
'Dr Brohier. Should he be notified? Should any of the Terabyte 
people be involved?' 
'Where is Dr Brohier now?' asked Breland. 
'He's been staying with Aron Goldstein in Maryland, working there in 
the mansion. As fragile as he is, he shouldn't be working at all - he 
should be in a hospital. But he won't stand for it.' Hilger chuckled 
ruefully. 'So Mr Goldstein has turned two rooms at the far end of his 
mansion into an emergency medicine field hospital, with a full ER 
staff - including a cardiologist - on duty around the clock. Last I 
heard, Dr Brohier still has no idea that they're there, or that he has a 
full suite of biomonitors in his bed.' 
'I think he would want to know about Horton,' said Breland. 
'What use could he make of the information?' Paugh asked. 'Is there 
some up side here that I'm not seeing? We can tell him when it's over, 
one way or the other - and spare him the suspense.' 
Breland looked unhappy at that, but did not argue. 'I guess I'd better 
go wake up General Stepak.' 
Dawn gave Jeffrey Horton his first look at his prison cell. He had 
already explored it with his hands, but only his eyes could make it 
real. 
The soft glow of daylight leaking in revealed the three gun slits 
which also served as air vents, and the fist-sized chimney overhead 
which provided the draw. The steel cone which formed the ceiling 
also had empty spring clips which might have been meant for water 
bottles, lanterns, and other supplies. Three rungs of chain ladder 
dangled below the door. 
Below the ceiling cone, the walls were packed black dirt threaded 
through with wiry, shovel-cut tree roots. Shelter Six was just deep 
enough for a standing adult to fire through the gun slits at shoulder 
level, and just wide enough for a family of four or five to huddle 
around the shooter's legs. 
The presence of the shelters in the living area of the camp spoke 

volumes to Horton about the outlook of those who had built them. To 
Wilkins and his army, it was perfectly conceivable, an ordinary 
expectation, that if they were discovered they would be attacked with 
deadly force. Horton doubted they saw any other possibility. And if 
they were attacked, surrender was not an option - they were prepared 
to send their families to the shelters and resist to the death. 
Those were the rules of engagement they had prepared for. They 
were already at war - at war against the world he had forsaken. 
And, realizing that, Horton understood that his only choices were to 
join the revolution, or rejoin the world - and that he would pay a 
terrible price if he made the wrong choice. 
They came for him early, and allowed him to use not only the latrine 
but the shower before bringing him to the meal circle for the last 
plateful of eggs and hash scraped from an enormous skillet. It was the 
first food he had had since the Reese's cups he eaten while waiting in 
the camper at the airport, two days ago - or was it three? He ate 
greedily, barely tasting what passed his lips, and washed it down with 
mug after mug of bottled water, until his shrunken stomach felt 
uncomfortably full. 
He had nothing to say while he ate, and the women and children who 
were finishing up their meals as he arrived had nothing to say to him. 
Their quiet conversations were so self-consciously banal that they 
made him acutely aware of his status as outsider and pariah. 
It was not until Colonel Wilkins appeared and settled on the bench to 
his right that Horton felt the chill begin to thaw. 'Feeling a little better 
with a little something in your stomach?' 
'Almost civilized,' Horton said. He hesitated, then added, Thank you.' 
'Oh, it's Jean here that you should thank,' Wilkins said, gesturing 
toward a wide-hipped woman sitting half-way around the circle, 
quietly sipping at a cup of coffee. 'The menu's short at Cafe Bivouac, 
but Jean has a way of turning plain into fancy, even when we won't 
let her have more than one pot and one skillet.' 
She blushed at the praise, but her features frosted over when Horton 
tried to meet her eye and add his thanks. 'Your first thanks should be 
to the Creator, not to me.' 
Wilkins laughed lightly. 'Skipped grace, did you, Jeffrey? You'll 

discover that's not done lightly at Jean's table.' 
'I'm out of the habit, I'm afraid.' 
'We can help you with that,' Wilkins said. 'All done there?' 'Yes.' 
'Then let's walk.' 
Wilkins dismissed the two men who had been standing guard over 
Horton, and led him eastward along a wooded ridge line at a leisurely 
pace. 'I understand you've been asking about Karl Brohier.' 
'I want to know if you have him. I want to know if he's all right.' 
'I can answer the first of those with more confidence than the second. 
No, we do not have Dr Brohier. His age, his socialist political views, 
and his unreconstructed atheism made him unattractive.' 
Then explain to me how you knew that your lie about him being sick 
wouldn't trip you up. If I'd gotten Karl instead of that message -' 
'Your calls were diverted at the satellite. A simple matter of 
incrementing the address with a virus. You never had any chance of 
talking to anyone but the voice flies on a comset closer to the Rockies 
than the Smokies.' 
'So Karl is okay?' 
'I don't know,' said Wilkins. 'The fact is, he dropped out of sight 
about eight weeks ago. Maybe if you tell us where he is, we can try to 
find out how he is.' 
'I don't know where he is.' 
'I see,' said Wilkins. 'Are you a student of history, Dr Horton?' 
'No more than I had to be to satisfy my undergrad social studies 
requirements.' 
Wilkins nodded thoughtfully. That makes you a perfectly average 
American, I'm afraid - blissfully ignorant. The rigorous study of 
history was chased out of the schools by feminists and black racists, 
on the grounds that we had nothing to learn from the lives of dead 
white men. You were probably subjected to Contemporary World 
Studies or some other flavor of fuzzy feel-good multiculturalism.' 
'SS-201, "Contemporary Problems in International Relations".' 
'Where "contemporary" means "within the lifetime of the teen-aged 
students". You see, they really don't want the public to understand. It 

isn't education they're offering - it's programming. You can be sold 
any sort of spoiled fruit if they can keep you from remembering what 
the real thing tastes like.' 
'So what's the missing context for this?' 
That every genocide of the twentieth century was preceded by gun 
control. That every totalitarian regime of the twentieth century sought 
a monopoly on the power of arms. That history reveals there is a 
natural affinity of governments for tyranny, and demonstrates the 
only hope of successful resistance lies in the natural right of free 
people to keep and bear arms. 
That's the only reason the Constitution contains a Second 
Amendment. It's not so the hunters can keep their sport, or the 
wealthy can keep their possessions. It's not even so women can fight 
off rapists, or men can defend their families from predators - human 
and animal. 
'No, we need our arms because we want the government to be afraid 
of us. And if they forget to be afraid of what three hundred million 
weapons in the hands of seventy million patriots can do to police who 
won't protect and judges who won't punish and lawmakers who make 
rules for everyone but themselves and soldiers who obey 
unconstitutional orders, then we are morally bound to remind them.' 
'"The tree of liberty -"' 
'" - must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and 
tyrants."' Stopping, Wilkins rolled up his right sleeve to reveal a 
tattoo of a tree with red roots just below his shoulder. 'Dr Horton, 
those words should have been written into the Constitution - into the 
Second Amendment itself. The Founding Fathers missed a chance to 
make their meaning inescapably clear. But those who study history 
know that the Second Amendment was meant as the central 
government's self-destruct button. And I'm afraid you are responsible 
for cutting the wires.' 
That's not fair,' Horton said. 'The Trigger was discovered by accident - 
scientific serendipity. We weren't working on disarmament. We 
weren't working for the government. Discoveries come when they 
will. If it hadn't been us, it would have been someone else, and not 
long after.' 
'I have no complaints with your conduct as a researcher, Doctor. It's 

your conduct as a citizen that I have to question. Just imagine what a 
powerful tool for democracy the Trigger would have been in the 
hands of the patriot militias. The next time the government dared to 
send out its armies of oppression, we would have been able to send 
them back disarmed, disabled, and disheartened -with no idea how it 
had been done.' Wilkins smiled wistfully at the thought. 'Oh, to see 
that day -' 
Then he shook his head. 'But giving it to Washington - no, that was a 
horrendous mistake. And unless you act to undo your mistake, you'll 
also be responsible for the tyranny that's sure to follow. They have 
nothing to fear now.' 
'I gave the Trigger to everyone,' Horton said. 'Karl did the same with 
the Jammer. That's the way it should be. No monopolies. No 
imbalance of power. No secret weapons.' 
'I'm sure you thought that that would be the result. But you still 
haven't gauged the depth of their deceit. You were betrayed.' 
'What are you talking about?' 
'The federates haven't canceled or retired a single weapon system. 
Every grunt still spends as much time training with his M-16 as ever. 
The Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Missouri is still going 
strong. Every major police force in the country still has a Gestapo 
unit with a rack of AR-15s.' He stopped walking and turned toward 
Morton. 'Now, why are they going to all that expense and trouble, if 
these tens of thousands of Triggers and Jammers in basements and 
closets and trunks and briefcases have rendered the gun obsolete?' 
'Inertia. Familiarity. Professional caution. Future shock. Political 
clout of enormous military contractors -' 
'You're overlooking the obvious explanation.' 
'Which is -' 
The government got the public to bring the Trigger into their lives 
like it was some sort of cute puppy that would grow up to be their 
kid's friend and protect the house at night. The only problem is, the 
government had already trained it to lie down on command - so it's 
no threat to them.' 
Horton squinted at the militia commander. 'Sorry, I'm not following.' 
'They kept their guns because they know they're still going to be able 

to use them. They allowed us to have Horton devices because they 
know they can shut them down at any time - which they'll do as soon 
as we've finished disarming ourselves for them. They were never 
going to let us disarm them, Dr Horton. Never in a million years.' 
'You think there's some sort of remote control circuit in the civilian 
Triggers? A secret kill switch?' 
'It's the only reasonable explanation. But in all of them, not just the 
civilian model - weapons have a way of changing sides during a war.' 
'I don't believe this.' 
'Oh, it's there. And you can find it for us, Dr Horton - if you don't 
already know where it is.' 
Wilkins resumed walking, giving no sign he noticed or even cared if 
Horton was following. The physicist took a quick survey around him 
to see if anyone else was watching; when he found no one in sight, he 
gave a passing thought to bolting into the woods. 
But it was too early. He had no resources, no firm idea where he was, 
and therefore no real chance of escaping - especially wearing a bright 
orange jumpsuit. Instead, he made himself hurry after Wilkins. 
'Look, Colonel, this just isn't possible. Those systems were made by 
Aurum Industries. I can't believe Aron Goldstein would have any part 
in such a wild scheme.' 
'Why not? The propertied elite have always supported gun control. If 
you own factories and banks, you have the army and the police to 
protect you and yours - and every reason to want the poor and the 
wage-slave working poor disarmed. The wealthy are the government, 
Dr Horton.' He sniffed disdainfully. 'Besides - a Jew, selling 
merchandise at cost? What more do you need to hear?' 
'He's a humanitarian, for Christ's sake - he believes that guns are tools 
of oppression, not liberation. And with no small reason.' 
The proof of what he really believes is etched in the control circuits 
of every Trigger and Jammer he sells.' 
'I'm sure it is - and just as sure that you're wrong about what it is.' 
Horton felt the flush of anger creeping up his neck. 'Do you have one 
here?' 
'A Trigger? Yes, of course. Knowest thine enemy, says the Good 

Book. Ah - here, come this way. This is what I wanted to show you.' 
With an exasperated sigh, Horton followed Wilkins through a nearly 
solid wall of brush that blocked their way. At the other end of the 
invisible trail, the ground fell away before them, descending steeply 
to a rocky valley meadow cut in half by a shallow stream. Beyond 
were more hills, some heavy with trees, some as bare as the slope at 
their feet. Wilkins had wedged himself into a perch between the trunk 
of a hickory tree and a large rounded boulder bulging out of the 
ground. 
'You could have just sent me the postcard,' Horton said. 'I don't know 
what I'm looking at.' 
'I know you don't,' said Wilkins. He swept his hand from side to side, 
taking in the entire panorama. 'This is what it all looked like before 
human beings arrived. Not a sign anywhere of our hand on the land. 
Do you know how rare that's become?' 
'Are you a conservationist, then? I wouldn't have guessed that as your 
motivation.' 
There's a great lesson in front of you, if you'll allow yourself to see it - 
'
"'Mind your step" is the first that occurs to me.' 
'The essence of nature is freedom. There are no statutes and 
ordinances and treaties out there, no forms and lists and taxes. Man, 
in his natural state, is also free. That's what our natural rights are, 
Jeffrey - God's guarantee that we have a place in His creation, and the 
necessary tools to fulfill our part in His plan. That's what the 
Constitution was supposed to protect - the right of free Christian men 
and women to follow their faith and conscience. No laws but His 
holy law. No authority higher than His truth. 
'We strayed from that purpose, and our people, our nation was cast 
into the darkness. But we have found our way back, and we will lead 
the way for others. We are living in the Light, Jeffrey -the Light of 
His love. You have to choose whether you want to live in the light, or 
return to the darkness.' 
Was it a threat, or merely the fervent rhetoric of a True Believer? 
Horton could not tell, but it did not matter. He had already made his 
decision. 

'You said you have a Trigger back at the camp?' 
'A Trigger and a Jammer both. - Defanged, of course.' 
'I'll look at them,' he said. 'I'll see if I can find your remote control. 
But I want it understood I fully expect to prove to you that you're 
wrong.' 
Wilkins showed a tolerant smile. 'And if you should happen to find 
that I'm not - will you allow yourself to accept it?' 
'I can promise you that my mind is at least as open as yours is, 
Colonel.' 
'Is it?' Wilkins said. 'Let us see.' 
Mark Breland had instructed General Stepak to bring him updates 
three times a day - at eight in the morning, two in the afternoon, and 
eight at night. But it was hard for him to stay away that long from the 
lower-level Situation Room from which Stepak was directing the 
search for Jeffrey Horton. 
The rest of Breland's schedule was not compelling enough to fully 
distract him - a preliminary face-to-face meeting with Congressional 
leaders on the budget, a weekly teleconference with Party leaders on 
the fall campaign, a ceremony in the Rose Garden honoring the year's 
Presidential Scholars, a private luncheon with Aimee Rochet, a 
Softball game on the South Lawn with the outgoing Presidential 
pages. 
But only the luncheon could be canceled without complications, and 
Breland did so, with a kiss, an apology, and a promise. He took 
advantage of the hour thus freed to go to the Situation Room, which 
by then had been transformed from its usual somnolence into a busy 
crisis management command center. More than a dozen intelligence 
specialists were staffing com stations, with a variety of senior suits 
and uniforms peering over their shoulders, huddling together over 
display tables, and consulting with Stepak. 
'Any progress. General?' Breland asked as he joined the secretary of 
defense, who was standing with the CIA domestic intelligence liaison 
by the map board. 
Stepak whirled around in surprise. 'Mr President, good afternoon - 
I'm sorry, I didn't see you come in.' 

'Well, it's my fault. I won't let them pipe me aboard.' Breland looked 
past Stepak to the thin-faced man with the intensely alert eyes. 'Mr 
Thorn, isn't it?' 
'Yes, sir. I was just telling General Stepak about the assets now on 
task.' 
'By all means, continue.' 
Thorn nodded. 'We now have eight Global Hawk RPVs in the air 
over Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana, Michigan, and southcentral 
Canada. The Keyhole-15 satellite has also been repositioned 
to give us better coverage in the primary search area. We're 
concentrating our attention on known anti-government groups 
operating in the five-state region, using information provided by the 
Joint Anti-terrorism Task Force. But we're also allowing the 
operators some latitude, since a new group might be involved.' 
'Any possible sightings yet?' 
'Not in real time. But an analyst at NSA dug a couple of images out 
of the archives - Horton's camper at the Hayward airport, and then 
traveling in convoy with an SUV on US 53 about ninety minutes 
later. We lose them both under some cumulostratus that had 
everything from Bau Claire west to Sioux Falls blacked out. But we 
got a good infrared profile on the SUV - if we see it again, we should 
be able to recognize it.' 
'What about the search on Lake Superior?' 
Stepak said, The Coast Guard's handling that, though they're shorthanded 
enough we've put all of UDT-12 and SEAL Teams Four and 
Six on the water in four-man boats and borrowed three float-copters 
from the Canadians. Nothing so far, though. My gut feeling is that 
our perpetrators are home-grown, and they and Horton are still in the 
neighborhood. The problem is that with every passing hour, the 
neighborhood gets bigger.' 
Breland looked across the room and allowed his gaze to settle on 
Monica Frances. 'How did this happen, Roland? The DIA was 
supposed to keep contact with Jeffrey. I gave Hilger that order 
personally.' 
'It's hard to keep contact with someone who doesn't allow a lot of 
contact,' said Thorn, answering for the general. 'You end up having to 

rely on technical rather than human resources, and by the time you 
know you've had a breakdown, you've lost them.' 
Still frowning, Breland sighed. 'Maybe it's time to come up with 
some sort of personal tracer you can put right in the body.' 
'In inventory, Mr, President. But using 'em generally calls for the 
cooperation of the person being traced,' Thorn said without missing a 
beat. The ingestible version passes in a few hours. The injectable 
requires an incision and periodic induction recharges.' 
'I guess I haven't been keeping up on spycraft.' 
There's a way to do anything you can imagine,' said Thorn affably. 
'What you need is a reason.' 
For two days, Jeffrey Horton enjoyed what he thought of as a 
probationary membership in the People's Army of Righteous Justice. 
While he was still obliged to wear the walking-target orange 
jumpsuit, he was given a bunk in the men's long house, the right to 
take first meal with the men, and the freedom to go back and forth to 
the bathhouse and latrine unescorted. He earned those privileges by 
spending the greater part of both days inside a stuffy, windowless 
metal shed, analyzing the command and control logic of a late-model 
Trigger from Sears and an early-model Jammer from ADT. 
The output stages of both units had been replaced with simple status 
lights by Wilkins's chief technician, Frank Sender. Schrier also 
hovered at Horton's elbow the entire time he was in the shed. The 
combination of the tech's preemptive tinkering and his constant 
presence made Horton's faint hope of using the devices against his 
captors vanish. 
That left the even fainter hope of emerging from the makeshift 
laboratory with the kind of incontrovertible proof that would change 
Wilkins's mind - or his own. 
They had, at least, provided him with a table full of the best tools. 
The logic probe was a PM Technologies CodeBreaker, found in 
reverse engineering labs around the world. The diagnostic analyzer 
was Zoftwerkz Mastermind, favored by designers and code thieves 
working on both sides of the law. And the benchmark reference was 
familiar enough - it was Horton's own public domain release of the 

Trigger technical guide. 
Even so, it was a job that either Gordie or Lee would have been better 
equipped to tackle. Both were more familiar with not only the 
original designs, but the process of reading another designer's 
firmware from the inside out - in this case, in search of anomalous 
code. Horton tried to use his inexperience to lower expectations, but 
Schrier warned him that Wilkins would not stand for footdragging. 
'One of the reasons I'm here is to keep things moving forward,' 
Schrier said. 'The Colonel always has a timetable, and it's not a good 
idea to be the one who's holding him back.' 
'Have you already gone through these systems? Do you know if what 
I'm supposed to be looking for is here?' 
'If they'd been sloppy enough that it was something I could spot, we 
wouldn't need you, would we, now?' 
Horton began to see signs of Wilkins's impatience by the end of the 
second day. After leaving them alone on the first day, he stopped by 
the shed three times in the course of the second to check on their 
progress. When he showed up for the last of those, Wilkins's mouth 
was pinched, and he spoke only to Schrier. He was not at all happy to 
hear that they had only begun work on the second unit, the ADT 
Jammer, at midafternoon. 
'How much longer?' Wilkins demanded. 
'At this pace, Colonel, it could be three more days. The Trigger was 
open and basically clean. The Jammer has logic traps and looks like 
it's full of junk.' 
Wilkins held Morton in a coldly appraising gaze. 'Services are in 
twenty minutes. I expect to see you both there. Then you can return 
to your work and see if you've been blessed with the guidance you 
need to bring it to a speedier conclusion.' 
Horton had heard the communal singing every night since he had 
been brought to the camp, though the preaching and praying 
interspersed between hymns did not quite carry to the depths of 
Shelter Six. But on his first night of 'freedom', he had gotten an 
earful, even though he had exercised that freedom and stayed behind 
in the men's long house when services began. The preaching was one 
of two reasons he shortly thereafter left the long house and struck out 

into the woods. 
The other, more important reason was to see if the camp's perimeter 
security was more porous during services. If he had not come across 
any of Wilkins's men, Horton might have just kept walking. As it 
was, he had come close to getting himself shot by a two-man foot 
patrol for whom he had no good explanation for his wandering. 
'At night, Dr Horton, you want to make sure you stay inside the green 
perimeter,' the militiaman had said from behind his bug-like nightvision 
goggles. 'Another ten steps, and you would have been in our 
free-fire zone.' 
'I lost track of where I was,' Horton had said weakly. 
'That's a mistake I'd try not to repeat, Doctor. We'll escort you back.' 
Wilkins had not said anything to Horton about his perambulation, but 
his hard look and pointed invitation said enough. The next evening, 
the physicist made sure that he was among the early arrivals when the 
women's long house began to fill in response to the call to worship. 
Horton had not been inside a church since forsaking his parents' lowkey 
Lutheranism at age fourteen. He was surprised at how many of 
the melodies were still familiar - some because they were borrowed 
from German Romantics and English folk tunes he now knew better 
from a different context, but others awakened unexpected echoes of 
childhood Sunday mornings. 
The words, however, were another story. No congregation Horton 
had ever been part of before had sung 'Onward, Christian Soldiers' 
with a verse about the 'martyrs of Waco' or 'the heroes of Tigerton 
Dells', or The Ballad of Gordon Kahl' to the tune of This Is My 
Father's World'. But almost as startling was how martial some of the 
unaltered lyrics were, straight from the well-worn reprint of the 1933 
Hymnal someone helpfully gave Horton when they saw that he was 
not singing: 
Soldiers of Christ arise, and put your armor on. 
Leave no unguarded place, no weakness of the soul. 
Tread all the powers of darkness down, and win the well-fought day - 
Once, Horton would have read those as metaphors. But surrounded 
by the people of the Army of Righteous Justice, seeing not only the 
fervent and unquestioning commitment on their faces but the 

weapons cradled in their arms, he knew that that distinction did not 
apply. He mouthed the words, unwilling to give them voice. 
The service went on for nearly two hours, with more than a dozen 
men and women rising to offer witness and lead the group in prayer. 
Horton wondered how much of it was for his benefit, or because of 
his absence the night before. It was almost as if they were testing 
him, expecting the power of their own faith to bring about a public 
conversion, hoping to see him suddenly filled with the Holy Spirit 
and recanting his scientific sins. And while he could not say that he 
felt like the center of attention, he could not shake the feeling that 
everyone in the room was aware of him - especially when Colonel 
Wilkins rose and led the final responsive reading. 
The Lord My Strength,' he announced, looking directly at Horton. 
The entire group answered with thunderous and unselfconscious 
vigor. 'The Lord is the strength of my life - of whom shall I be 
afraid?' 
'When my enemies and my foes came upon me to eat up my flesh, 
they stumbled and fell.' 
'The Lord is the strength of our family - of whom shall we be afraid?' 
'Though war should rise against me, my heart shall not fear.' 
'The Lord is the strength of our church - of whom shall we be afraid?' 
'My head shall be lifted up above my enemies round about me.' 
The Lord is the strength of our tribe - of whom shall we be afraid?' 
'The kings of the earth set themselves against the Lord, and against 
His anointed.' 
'The Lord is the strength of our nation - of whom shall we be afraid?' 
'We shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like 
a potter's vessel.' 
'Blessed are they who serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with 
trembling.' 
'Blessed are they who put their trust in Him, from whom nothing is 
hid, and whose judgements are altogether true and righteous,' Wilkins 
proclaimed. 'Amen.' 
The cry came back: 'Amen, and praise be to God.' 

Horton shuddered involuntarily, his skin prickling with goose-flesh 
despite the heat in the long house. He was almost insensible to the 
words of fellowship being offered him as he stood and headed for the 
doorway. Outside, he sought out Schrier, seizing him by the arm and 
turning him away from the woman he was speaking to. 
'I had a thought,' he said. The same code would have to be in both 
units. Can we just run a compare on the Jammer using the anomalies 
we found in the Trigger? That would save us from having to work 
through the Jammer's base code.' 
'But the override command could be part of the base code.' 
'It's not,' Horton said firmly. The base code is my lab's code. If this 
thing is there, it's something that was added later.' 
'How sure of that are you?' 
'As sure as I am of anything at this point,' said Horton. 'Come on, we 
have a couple of hours until lights-out.' 
More than twenty years had passed since Roland Stepak had given up 
the cockpit for a desk, but he had retained one essential skill of the 
combat pilot - 'power napping' or 'sleeping fast', the knack of diving 
deep into sleep whenever and for however long the opportunity 
presented itself. His four-hour nap in one of the Japanese-style 
capsules attached to the Situation Room was .enough to sweep the 
weight from his eyelids, and a hot shower helped wash the vaguely 
sick ache of fatigue from his limbs. 
He had left a lieutenant colonel from Army Intelligence in charge 
while he napped, so he was surprised to find Morton Denby of the 
CIA riding the hot seat instead. 
'Caught a small break, General - we've identified your mole in 
Defense Communications,' Denby said, rising to surrender the chair, 
'Is that where Lieutenant Colonel Briggs went?' 
Denby nodded as he slid sideways into the next seat. 'The mole is one 
of theirs - a civilian technician attached to the Signal Corps, working 
the graveyard in the GLOCOMNET traffic management center. 
David Luke Wickstrom, age thirty-four. It looks like he managed to 
access secure addresses and verifiers for several Terabyte principals, 
and upload a routing filter to the satellite network.' 

'You should have wakened me,' Stepak said. 'Where is the mole 
now?' 
'That's the thing- there was no point in waking you. Wickstrom's 
scampered. He may have been tipped off when GLOCOMNET 
security spotted the virus and started taking the satellites offline to 
flush it out. He took a sick day yesterday, and last night his apartment 
building was gutted by an arson fire that started in his apartment.' 
'Let me guess - military-grade magnesium flares on a timer.' 
'Looks like,' said Denby. 'Army Intelligence is on the scene, going 
through what little is left. FBI is going into his background, trying to 
get the egg off its face for clearing him for the post.' He clucked and 
shook his head. 'Pretty cold business, General - the fire killed three 
kids, burned out half a dozen families.' 
'Any sightings or traces on Wickstrom since?' 
'Nothing. Personally, I wouldn't bet on him going anywhere near 
wherever Horton is being held.' 
'No,' said Stepak, leaning back in his chair with a deep frown 
creasing his face. 'But he'll be in touch with them - which means that 
they now know that we know. And I don't think that's good news for 
Jeffrey Horton.' 
32: Never a Bad Peace 
'There never was a good war or a bad peace.' 
- Benjamin Franklin 
It was midmorning, and the light rain which had been falling since 
dawn had finally percolated down through the trees to land on the 
work shed's metal roof as fat, percussive drops. The sound was 
grating on Jeffrey Horton's nerves, already stretched taut by the 
cumulative stress of imprisonment. 
'Nothing,' Horton said, pushing back from the table where the 

analyzer and the Jammer sat side by side. 'There's nothing there. 
Right? You didn't see anything, either, did you?' 
'There were no matches -' Schrier began. 
'I expect you to tell Wilkins that.' 
'- But that doesn't mean there's nothing there. The code might be 
different for a Jammer. Or you might be wrong, and it could be 
hidden in the base code.' 
'Or I could be lying.' 
'Or you could be lying,' Schrier agreed. 'But I think you're too smart 
to lie about something when you might be caught at it. I think you're 
too smart to underestimate us.' 
'I'm not the enemy,' Horton said, shaking his head. 'I just want to go 
back to my life. But if Wilkins makes me choose, he could turn me 
into one.' 
Schrier pursed his lips and said nothing. 
Horton sighed. 'What now?' 
'Keep looking. Who knows how many add-ons there are in this 
system? From what we've seen so far, I have a feeling it's a junkpile.' 
Easing his chair forward, Horton said tiredly, 'Eeny, meeny, miney, 
moe -' 
They had only another hour to themselves before Colonel Robert 
Wilkins threw open the door to the work shed and filled the opening 
with his silhouette. 'Report,' he said curtly. 
'Yes, sir, Colonel, sir,' Horton muttered under his breath. 
'Nothing to report, Colonel,' Schrier said, standing. 'No matches 
between the two systems that aren't covered by standard control 
functions.' 
'You have nothing to show for three days' work? You're letting this 
man stall you.' 
'Oh, we can show you a lot,' Horton said, coming to his feet behind 
Schrier. 'We can show you a little picture of the project supervisor for 
ADT, complete with horns and a funny mustache. We can show you 
the scores of the last ten football games between Texas and Texas 
A&M, the phone numbers of three women of dubious virtue, and 

about five hundred words of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.' 
Horton stepped around the technician and stood face to face with 
Wilkins. 'Oh, no, we didn't miss anything - we found the places 
where people slipped in their kids' names, or their tribute to a sex 
star, or their favorite quote from Calvin & Hobbes or In Sanity. But 
what we didn't find is any goddamned secret backdoor boogeymanconspiracy 
remote-control kill-switch gateway, because there isn't 
any. It only exists in your paranoid fantasies. No, not paranoia - 
wishful thinking. I'll be damned if I know why, but you love this - 
you actually want this war.' 
'War is a moral necessity, Dr Horton, when you're faced with an 
immoral enemy. There's no pleasure to be taken in it.' 
Horton's eyes poured out his contempt. 'You think you're fit to judge 
what's moral? You think you're sitting high enough to judge me? 
Have you looked in a mirror lately?' 
'Have you, Doctor? Your march-of-progress pose doesn't wash with 
me. You scientists gave us Zyclon-B, AIDS, abortion on demand, 
evolution, and now this. You never count the cost. And you, Jeffrey 
Horton, personally betrayed seventy million law-abiding American 
families. You condemned ten thousand good people to death at the 
hands of thugs and thieves. Don't strike a noble pose with me, 
Doctor. You're as guilty as if you murdered them yourself.' 
The militia leader's impenetrable self-assurance roused a terrible fury 
in Morton, and he struck out at Wilkins with a torrent of angry words. 
'You need to be a hero so badly that you're making up enemies as you 
go. But if that's what you want me to be, all right. I'm sorry that what 
I discovered cost some good people like my father their hobbies. And 
it does bother me that there's other people out there who got hurt 
because they didn't have a working gun to protect themselves. But 
I'm damned proud to have gotten in the way of a terrorist like you. 
You're a selfish little man with a head full of delusions, and anything 
I can do to put a crimp in your plans is a public service. Your 
revolution would be a disaster -' 
Something Horton said must have found a weakness and pierced 
through Wilkins's armor to his tender pride. The colonel slammed 
both his palms against Horton's chest, driving him backwards into 
Schrier. 'You think you've accomplished anything? You think you've 

disarmed us?' He turned away into the drizzle. 'Bring him!' he snarled 
to the guards. 
Horton was seized by both arms and dragged bodily along in 
Wilkins's wake, scrambling to get his feet under him and his 
emotions under control. Don't beg, he thought. Don't give him that- 
Wilkins's long strides led them to the second metal shed, standing by 
itself a hundred and fifty meters from the main camp. 'Cuff him and 
control him,' he said as he bent to the lock. 
In the next moment, Horton found himself dropped face-down in the 
grass, with a booted foot on the back of his neck to hold him there. 
His arms were twisted behind him and his wrists bound together by a 
thin plastic tie that cut deep into the skin. He heard the door squeak 
and then clang open. 
'Bring him in,' Wilkins said. 
Hauled upright once more, his shirt and the side of one face painted 
with mud and dead needles, Horton fought the impulse to resist. 
Unaccountably, a quatrain from Matthew Halverson came to mind: 
Control is an illusion, 
order our comforting lie. 
From chaos, through chaos, 
into chaos we fly - 
As he was pushed through the doorway, the lights inside the shed 
came on. They revealed it to be an armory, with the four walls hung 
with assorted weaponry, all military grade, all heavier than the 
personal arms carried by the militia - SAWs, light machine guns, 
grenade launchers, a 40mm mortar, a pair of Stinger antiaircraft 
missiles. The base of each wall was lined with ammunition boxes 
stacked two and three high. 
The middle of the floor was empty except for four square panels of 
wood slats, each with a rope pull. Wilkins stood on one of those as he 
turned to face Horton. 'You say you've stopped us, and yet every 
weapon in this armory is fully functional. I'm sorely tempted to prove 
it to you using your own flabby body as the target, but that would 
keep you from appreciating the fine irony about to be revealed to 
you.' Then he called an armory guard in, and gestured toward one of 
the wood panels. 'Bring up a canister from Bunker Two.' 

'Yes, Colonel.' The guard pulled up the panel, revealing a man-sized 
tunnel opening into the ground below. He dropped through the 
opening as though it were a practiced thing, and returned not long 
after carrying a cylinder as long as his forearm and the diameter of a 
tennis ball. 
'Now one of the aerosols from Three,' Wilkins said, taking the 
cylinder from the guard and moving toward Horton. 'You see, 
Doctor, we're very, very good with our guns, and we hardly ever hit 
anything we haven't aimed at. But if you do manage to take our 
precision tools away from us, don't ever think that leaves us unarmed. 
'Maybe you've forgotten that gasoline makes a perfectly fine 
explosive, and it's conveniently available most everywhere.' The 
guard reappeared then, holding what looked like a small pressurized 
bottle. 'And when it comes time to start killing traitors faster than we 
can do it with K-Bars and garrottes, well, the Lord shall provide.' 
He held the olive-drab cylinder up in front of Horton's face, allowing 
him to read the words and numbers stenciled on the side. Beside him, 
the guard did the same with his burden. 
'What is this?' Horton asked. 
'Chemical weapons and biological aerosols don't require conventional 
explosives, Dr Horton,' Wilkins said with smug triumph. 'What do 
you think about that?' 
Horton slowly raised his gaze from the stenciled lettering to Wilkins's 
chiseled face. 'I think it means my work's not finished - and the 
sooner I get back to it, the better,' he said quietly. 
'Son of a - get this bastard out of my sight,' Wilkins said, the cold 
malevolence of his soul finally revealed in the bloodless hate in his 
eyes. Throw this animal back in his cage - now, before I rip his 
fucking throat open.' 
'Yes, sir!' 
Horton was unceremoniously dragged backward out of the shed. 
Wilkins's voice followed him, rising in pitch and volume with each 
succeeding word. 'You better think about this! Think long and hard, 
Mr Fucking Boy-Genius Presidential Hero. You're gonna decide 
which of these weapons gets used - the ones on the wall, or the ones 
in the hole! You, Jeffrey goddamned Horton, you're going to decide 

how many we have to kill and how ugly they die. Think about that, 
Doctor - you think about that!' 
But all Horton could think as they threw him down into Shelter Six 
and clanged the hatch shut above him was, I got to you -I finally got 
to you - and now I know exactly who you really are - 
Aron Goldstein watched as the Pennsylvania Railroad GG-1 electric 
eased into Broad Street Station pulling a string of six purple and 
white passenger cars - the 8.40 from Newark. Just below it, a long 
slow freight made up principally of Erie & Lackawanna boxcars 
trundled northward along the river. 
On the broad panel display before him was the engineer's-eye view 
from the tiny camera in the scale model GG-1. Since it would be 
stationary for several minutes while the mail was unloaded, Goldstein 
touched a control bar and changed to the view from the freight's 
Number 1 engine, just before it passed under a stone trestle. The track 
ahead included a pair of tunnels and a glimpse of the Zoo - one of his 
favorite sections of the lay-out, and an agreeable meditation to 
distract him from other matters. 
But before the freight reached the first tunnel, Goldstein was 
disturbed in his sanctuary by one of the nurse-practitioners who had 
adopted house staff attire so that they could monitor his house guest 
in person. 'Mr Goldstein, Dr Brohier is asking to see you.' 
Thank you,' Goldstein said, starting to shut down the running trains. 
'Is he in his workroom?' 
'No, he's still in bed.' 
That report hastened Goldstein's hands. 'Has he said anything else?' 
'Only that he's tired. He ate almost none of his breakfast.' 
'Let's get Dr Hubbs up there, now,' Goldstein said. 'I've given that old 
curmudgeon his way long enough.' 
'I'll go get the doctor.' 
Goldstein found Brohier lying propped up against a mound of 
pillows, his digital desktop resting untouched beside him on the 
blankets. His gaze tended in the direction of the east window, but 
seemed slack and unfocused. 

'And what's with you this morning, Karl?' Goldstein asked gently, 
approaching the foot of the bed. Too much wine with your veal 
marsala last night?' 
'Ah - Aron. There you are. What did you ask me? Oh, the food. No, I 
do not blame your cooks.' The effort expended for just a half-smile 
and those few words left him momentarily breathless, and the deep 
breath he drew to catch up started him coughing. 'Nothing feels right, 
and I hardly have the energy to care. If I were younger, I might 
suspect something like the flu. Of course, in my dissolute state, the 
flu can surely kill me as well as anything.' 
'I've asked Dr Hubbs to come over and take a look at you,' said 
Goldstein. 'I expect you to behave when he gets here.' 
'Witch-doctor nostrums,' Brohier said disdainfully. There is no 
antidote for entropy, Aron.' 
'Perhaps not. But there's no substitute for letting a good geriatric 
diagnostician have a look at you now and again.' 
'I already know everything he can tell me, and none of it is 
important,' said Brohier. 'But I'll let him poke and prod me if that 
means we can talk about something else.' 
'Of course, Karl.' Goldstein moved to the side of the bed and sat 
down. 'Been doing some work?' he asked, nodding toward the digital 
desk. 
'I was trying to write a letter,' he said. 'Where did you go last night? I 
heard the helicopter.' 
'Washington,' Goldstein said. 'Another boring meeting.' 
'Meetings - yes, thank you, now I remember what I wanted to say. 
Aron -' 
'Right here, Karl.' 
'Don't turn Jeffrey into an administrator. Don't let him do that to 
himself. Find someone else to write the letters and run the meetings. 
He needs to be in the laboratory. He needs to hear his own voice 
above the noise.' 
'All right, Karl.' 
'That's what he's been having trouble with. That's why he went away, 
you know. I want to know that you'll keep the door open for him to 

come back.' 
'Of course. Only -' Goldstein sighed. 'Karl, at that meeting last night - 
I'm not supposed to tell you, but I don't know how they can expect 
me not to. Although maybe that's why they didn't tell me until now.' 
'Stop babbling, Aron, or I may not be here when you finish.' 
Goldstein nodded apologetically. 'Karl, I have some news about 
Jeffrey. He's missing. He was kidnapped a week ago - they think 
possibly by some sort of domestic terrorist group. There's been no 
word of him or from him.' 
The only visible reaction from Brohier was the way his gaze darted 
about the room. 'That's all right,' he finally said. 
'A week's a long time for a kidnapping,' Goldstein said, shaking his 
head. 'They're doing everything, but - Karl, the FBI didn't hold out 
much hope.' 
'Jeffrey will be all right.' 
'Of course that's what we all want,' said Goldstein. 'I just thought we 
might talk about what we'd want to do with Terabyte if for some 
reason Jeffrey doesn't come back.' 
'A waste of time and energy - something I find myself rather sensitive 
about at the moment! He'll be back, Aron,' Brohier said. 'He knows 
where he belongs.' Then he let himself sag into the pillows, almost as 
though he were attempting to hide under them. 'Your doctor friend is 
here.' 
Goldstein looked behind him to see Dr Hubbs standing just inside the 
doorway. 
'I have your word, Aron?' asked Brohier. 
'Yes, Karl.' 
Then come on, Doctor, and don't tarry. You're the last promise I have 
left to keep.' 
For more than a day, Jeffrey Horton was left alone in the dank, 
claustrophobic confines of Shelter Six. No one came to check on him, 
or take him to use the toilet. No one brought him food or drink. No 
one threw open the metal hatch to allow so much as a few seconds of 
light and fresh air to relieve the gloom. 

He made the best use he could of the neglect: within an hour of being 
returned to the dirt-walled cell, he started trying to dig his way out. 
The only tool available was one waffle-soled ankle-height hiking 
boot. His captors had taken his boots along with his clothes on the 
first day, but had returned the boots to him - sans laces - during his 
probation. Somehow, he had managed to keep the right boot on while 
being dragged to and from the armory shed. Where the left boot had 
ended up, he did not know, but the right had kept him company when 
he was enthusiastically and unceremoniously dumped through the 
hatch. 
After seeing the tunnels in the armory, Horton wondered if all the 
camp's structures were connected underground, even the shelters - 
especially the shelters. But rather than search for a sealed-up tunnel 
that might not be there, he chose what he hoped would be the fastest 
and shortest way out - making a shimmy-hole under the edge of the 
steel cone roof. He started at the top of the wall directly beneath the 
hatch, where it would be hardest to see from outside, and spread the 
dirt evenly across the shelter floor with his bare feet as he worked. 
Even near the surface, the soil was dense and claylike. The boot 
quickly proved better suited to scraping than digging, and not terribly 
well suited to that - the cleats clogged up after only a few passes, and 
it took longer to clear them with his fingertips than it did to fill them 
again. After a while, he stopped bothering, finding that the edge of 
the heel gave him the best leverage, and the two-handed grip that 
required gave him the best results for his effort. 
The one advantage of the boot was that it was virtually silent, no 
matter how hard or how quickly he worked - even when he 
accidentally struck the metal roof itself. So it did not take him very 
long to find that the way was blocked - the roof did not merely rest 
on top of the ground, but atop a circular steel collar that extended 
down into the ground. There would be no quick and easy shimmyhole. 
Undeterred, he scoured his way down the wall until he found the 
bottom edge of the collar. There he started working his way sideways 
again, worrying out a hollow that slowly grew into something that 
could aspire to be called a tunnel. He worked until his face was 
streaming with sweat and his arms were screaming with fatigue, and 
then a little longer. He rested until his chest stopped heaving, and 

then started all over again. 
They were singing hymns in the women's long house when Horton 
started to uncover roots. The farther he went, the thicker and denser 
they got, until he could no longer tear them away with his aching 
hands. Trying not to think about the wasted effort, he turned to 
another part of the wall and started over. 
By the time morning light showed at the vents, the tunnel was half as 
long as Horton was tall, and, by his guess, a little more than half-way 
to the surface. It was not enough. He sat atop a mound of freshly dug 
earth, exhausted and discouraged, fully expecting his efforts to be 
discovered at any moment, and, in discovery, defeated. 
But they did not come for him. And when he belatedly realized that 
the moment had not yet passed, he attacked the tunnel with renewed 
vigor. The boot was long past being useless - squeezed into the 
confined space, he clawed and dug at the packed dirt with his bare 
hands, nails bitten down to the quick to try to save those he had not 
already torn and bent back. The dirt caked his face and hair, choked 
his every breath. But he did not stop until his fingers reached the 
outside edge of the conical roof, and he knew that all that separated 
him from the surface was a few inches of overburden he could clear 
in minutes. 
He stopped then because he had a decision to make - whether to 
chance an escape in the daylight, or chance waiting until night 
returned. 
If their neglect of him was the product of nothing more than Wilkins's 
rage, then it could end at any moment. But if it was the beginning of 
a calculated effort to break him, it was likely to go on for days. 
Morton guessed the latter, and decided to wait. 
He guessed wrong. They came for him just before the dinner hour. 
Colonel Robert Wilkins cocked his head questioningly at Jeffrey 
Morton's appearance as his guards pushed him down on the log 
bench. 'What's this about?' Wilkins said, gesturing at Morton's filthy 
clothes. 
'We found him trying to tunnel out of the shelter, sir.' 
The militia leader clucked disapprovingly and shook his head. 

'Really, Doctor, you should have known better -' 
Watching Wilkins's eyes, it came upon Morton with a sudden sinking 
certainty that this was not news to him. 'You have some kind of 
monitor in the shelter.' 
That would be telling.' 
'You just wanted me to start to think I was going to make it, so you 
could take it away -' 
'Dr Morton, the only reason I have for locking you up is to keep you 
from getting hurt. Honestly, now, you're only a threat to yourself. 
And if you happened to wander away without telling anyone, you'd 
stand an unacceptably high chance of getting yourself shot. Have you 
ever been shot, Dr Morton? Have you ever seen anyone shot with a 
NATO round from a combat rifle?' 
'No,' Morton said quietly. 
'Well, I hope you'll take my counsel on this - it's definitely something 
you want to avoid.' He looked up and away toward the three other 
men standing nearby. 'Frank, are you ready?' 
'Yes, Colonel.' 
'Let's have it, then,' he said, patting the bench beside him. 
Schrier came forward and laid a Celestial 3000 comset and its battery 
pack on the bench. There was a familiar scuff mark on the edge of the 
comset's plastic case - it was Morton's. 
Thank you,' said Wilkins, making no move to pick up the unit. 
'Would you tell Dr Horton what it is you've done to his property?' 
'I pulled the GPS locator module and then dropped a dummy module 
in its place. That way the system diagnostics won't know the 
difference, and there won't be any fault messages sent to your 
provider.' 
'And this is the same treatment you give all our comsets, correct?' 
'Yes, sir. Nothing special. Takes more time to set up the workbench 
than it does to do the work. But remember, we don't have any helpers 
upstairs anymore - they can still triangulate on a comset call if we 
give them enough time.' 
Wilkins nodded. That's all for now, Frank.' He turned his attention 
back to Horton. 'People don't think about the fact that every time they 

use their comset, they're notifying the government where they are - 
all because some dumb bitch with a cell phone got herself lost in a 
snowstorm and almost died, twenty-five years ago. Every time 
something bad happens, you can count on some liberal to come along 
with an idea about how, for just a little bit of our freedom, we can 
keep this terrible calamity from ever happening again. Personally, I 
have a philosophical objection to advertising my location to anyone 
who might be interested. You can understand that, I expect.' 
'I can sure understand why you wouldn't want your location known.' 
'I hope you're not holding a grudge over words spoken in anger, Dr 
Horton - especially since I had the fellows fetch you here as a 
courtesy.' 
'A courtesy?' 
That's right. A little while ago, I got word that Dr Karl Brohier has 
died -' 
That's a good start,' one of the guards said snarkily. 
'Now, Michael, don't be insensitive,' Wilkins said. 'Dr Horton and Dr 
Brohier were friends.' 
'Why should I believe you?' Horton demanded. 'You've lied to me 
before to get me to do what you wanted.' 
'I anticipated you might have a certain degree of skepticism.' 
Wilkins picked up the comset and slid the battery into its recess. 'So 
I'm going to let you call the President, and hear it from him. And 
while you have him on the line, I'll have a few words with him 
myself.' Cradling the comset loosely in his right hand, he offered it to 
Horton. 
Morton's hands stayed in his lap. The fact that you want me to do this 
is enough to make me want not to.' 
Wilkins gestured with his other hand, and the rifles of the two men 
standing with Schrier came down off their shoulders. With no further 
warning, one fired a three-round burst that whistled just above 
Morton's head and thudded into the trunk of a tree a dozen meters 
behind him. 
'Please,' said Wilkins. 
His heart racing and his mouth suddenly dry, Horton took the comset. 

'An authenticated call, please, so you can both be sure who you're 
talking to.' 
'What makes you think the President takes my calls?' 
'I think he will,' Wilkins said. 'I'll even bet that his address is in your 
personal directory.' 
'Do you really think I'm worth enough to them that they'll give you 
what you want?' 
'With Dr Brohier dead, I should imagine your market value has gone 
up considerably. And I don't intend to ask for very much. Besides, 
isn't that the liberal mantra? "If it saves one person's life -" They can 
save yours.' 
Horton placed the comset back down on the bench and pushed it 
toward Wilkins. 'No, thank you. The price is too high. You can call 
the President yourself. I'm not going to help.' 
Wilkins moved with catlike quickness - Horton never saw the blow 
coming. One moment they were both sitting on the bench, and the 
next Morton's head was snapped sideways by a slap so powerful that 
it knocked him to the ground. Dazed, he tried to struggle to his hands 
and knees, only to have Wilkins shove him back down with his foot. 
'Do you think you're too valuable to hurt?' the colonel screamed, 
standing over Horton. 'Is that it? You think you're something precious 
now?' The kick to the abdomen that followed was hard enough to 
nearly lift Horton off the ground. Gasping for breath, he tried to roll 
away from the next assault. As he did, Wilkins grabbed his right hand 
and bent the thumb down toward the wrist until Horton could not 
hold back any longer, and screamed in pain. 
There, that's better, now you're starting to understand,' Wilkins said, 
maintaining the excruciating hold as he settled back on the log bench. 
'Doctor, there are a lot of ways to hurt you that will leave you quite 
capable of coming back an hour later to be hurt some more. I've been 
giving you benefit of the doubt, assuming that as an intelligent man 
you'd be insulted by such crude tactics. But maybe I've overestimated 
you. Right now, you don't seem nearly as bright as your press 
clippings claim.' 
Every word of Horton's answer was an effort. 'What do you want 
from me?' 

'You're not paying attention. Doctor,' Wilkins said, squeezing harder. 
'I want to know how to beat the Jammer. I want that goddamned 
disable code.' 
Horton squeezed out his answer from between clenched teeth. 'There - 
is - no - code.' 
'Your credibility is suspect. Doctor. I want to ask someone else - 
someone who might value your life a little more than you seem to.' 
Abruptly, Wilkins released Horton and walked away toward his men, 
leaving Horton writhing in the dirt. 'Gaylord, you keep up with these 
things. Has anyone tested to see how long an amputated thumb will 
green-light a comset's fingerprint authenticator?' 
'It's longer than you'd think,' said the soldier. 'Ten, twelve hours if 
you take steps to keep it from drying out.' 
By then, Horton had hauled himself up to a sitting position, cradling 
his injured thumb in his other hand. 'Let me get this straight - the way 
your mind works, you now expect me to be more cooperative?' 
'I expected the same finely-tuned sense of self-preservation that 
makes you gun-grabbers afraid to live in a world of armed free 
citizens to kick in,' Wilkins said. 'But since you're having trouble 
getting there, let me simplify things for you. We're the bullies. You're 
the geek. Nothing's changed. You're still in high school, and we're 
still on top. If I want your goddamned lunch money, 
I'm going to get it. The only question is how much pain you want 
before you give it up.' 
Horton slowly pulled himself up off the ground and onto the bench. 
'You want the President to know you have me, right? That's what you 
want now.' 
'That's right. That way I know they'll listen to what I have to say.' 
Nodding slowly, Horton said, 'I don't suppose I really have anything 
to lose.' He sighed heavily, then pointed at the comset, which had 
been knocked off the bench into a clump of grass beside it. 'May I 
pick that up?' 
'By all means.' 
Moving gingerly, Horton hobbled the couple of steps, then crouched 
down and clasped the comset firmly in his good hand. He started to 
rise, grimacing as he did. His thumb slipped easily into the hollow on 

the side of the unit where the personal authenticator grid was located. 
'Personal directory,' he said. 'Open secure folder. Scroll to Breland.' 
As he did, he saw in their faces that they were enjoying their triumph, 
saw them relax that little bit he had been hoping for. He reached up 
as though to enter a number on the datapad. 
But, instead, he grasped the comset firmly with both hands, and 
allowed his legs to turn to rubber beneath him. Adding his falling 
weight to every bit of strength remaining in his arms, he smashed the 
unit against the edge of the log bench. The blow was agony to his 
injured hand, but produced an agreeable scattering of plastic and 
metal bits. A second blow, struck from his knees, shattered the guts 
of the comset and spilled them into the dirt. 
The nearest guard tackled him before he could complete his 
demolition. The impact drove him backwards onto the ground, and he 
quickly lost the fight for what was still clutched in his left hand. But 
it didn't matter - the largest piece remaining was the battery pack. 
From his back, oblivious to the weight on top of him, Horton 
searched for Wilkins, and met his disbelieving stare with a lopsided 
smile. 'To hell with you,' he said. 'I never could respect a bully.' 
They beat him until he nearly passed out, then bound him facing a 
tree trunk while they argued about what to do with him. He tried his 
best to follow the argument, but his guards made it difficult - any 
time he stopped moaning long enough to hear the voices clearly, one 
of them would hit him again. 
They left him hanging there while they broke bread together, the 
smell of food drifting in the evening air almost as great a torment as 
his aches and bruises. They left him hanging there while they prayed 
and sang in fellowship, washing the blood from their hands with the 
bleach of ideology. 
Then they came back to him, surrounding the tree as they cut the 
nylon cords that held him. With Wilkins leading the way, they took 
him a long five minutes into the woods, away from the camp. Horton 
was certain that they had decided to kill him, but the truth was far 
worse. 
When they stopped, he was pushed down to his knees in a large patch 
of bare earth, and made to watch while four men with long-handled 
shovels dug a shallow trench directly in front of him. The rest of the 

gathering stood shoulder to shoulder in a circle around the spot, with 
even the children clasped in arms or peeking between legs eerily 
silent. 
That will do,' Wilkins said finally, unholstering his pistol as he 
stepped forward. 
Horton found it almost impossible to breathe. Strong hands on his 
shoulders made it impossible to run. 
'Bring the first one in,' Wilkins said. 
The circle opened, and two militiamen dragged a slightly-built 
woman to the center, forcing her to her knees on the other side of the 
trench. Her arms were bound behind her, and she was gagged with 
duct tape as Horton had been that first day. Blood from a gash on her 
temple had stained the breast of her pale brown uniform. He did not 
know her, but he knew all the colors of fear and confusion in her 
pleading eyes. 
'What is this?' Horton demanded. For his curiosity, he earned a rifle 
barrel jammed sharply into his ribs from behind. 
Wilkins raised his left hand in rebuke. 'No need for that. I'm sure I 
have Dr Horton's full attention,' he said. 'Jeffrey, I'd like you to meet 
Sheriff's Deputy Shannon Drayton. She's twenty-eight years old, the 
single mother of two children. 
That's offense enough against God's plan for us. But she also works 
as a dispatcher, helping the local thieves in uniform confiscate the 
property and curtail the freedoms of sovereign citizens. That makes 
her a traitor, and we have every right under the rules of war to 
execute her on the spot.' 
Drayton could not answer with more than a whimper, but her eyes 
were pure, wild terror, searching for understanding, pleading for 
mercy. Strangely, she did not struggle against her restraints -her 
limbs seemed to have no will left in them. 
This is insane -' Horton began. 
'Listen carefully, Jeffrey, because the offer I'm about to make you is 
available for a limited time only. I'm going to give you a chance to 
save Shannon's life -' 
'How can you expect anyone to follow you down this road? You're 
far more of a tyrant than Breland could ever be.' 

'- and return her to her children. Since the lives of innocents mean so 
much to you, I am giving you the chance to intervene in those lives. 
Tell me what you've been holding back, everything you know, and I'll 
pardon this woman.' He raised his pistol and pointed it at the woman's 
midsection. 
'Colonel - Robert - for mercy's sake -' 
Wilkins held up his hand. 'No, you're right, that wouldn't be humane. 
Belly wounds hurt so much and take so long to kill. This is better.' 
Wilkins moved to the side and raised his arm until the barrel of the 
pistol was a hand's-breadth from the woman's ear. Talk to me, 
Jeffrey.' 
'Don't do this -' 
'You can stop me. Tell me how to block a Jammer. Tell me how to 
neutralize a Trigger. I hold the gun, but you hold her life in your 
hands.' 
'For mercy's sake, there are children watching.' 
'Good. Let them learn the price of treason.' 
This is pointless! I can't give you what you want! It doesn't exist - it's 
nothing but your fantasy!' 
'Shannon is real. Where's your compassion for her, Jeffrey? Here you 
are with a golden opportunity to prevent a needless firearm death. But 
you're running out of time. When this offer expires, so does she.' 
'You don't want to do this,' Horton said, desperate to believe his own 
words. 'You don't need to do this. There's no goddamned code! Ask 
me for something I can give you. Give me a real choice -' 
'I think I know what your problem is, Jeffrey. I think that on some 
level, you just don't believe.' 
'No, no, no, don't,' Horton pleaded. 'Please - Wilkins!' 
There was no sign that Wilkins was even listening. In the span of a 
few seconds, with a chilling deliberateness, he bent the woman 
forward with a foot planted in the middle of her back, then reached 
down and fired one bullet into the base of her skull. 
The report seemed thunderous, and yet the trees swallowed it up 
almost at once. Something warm and wet flew through the air and 
spattered Horton's face. He began to retch as the shattered, empty 

flesh that had been Shannon Drayton toppled sideways and slumped 
half-way into the trench. 
Unbelievably, Horton heard cheers. 
Tears were running freely down his face by the time Wilkins looked 
up from his handiwork. 'You bastard,' the physicist whispered. 
'You're damaged goods, Wilkins. You sick, murderous bastard.' 
But Wilkins's affect never changed, not the slightest bobble. 'In my 
world, that was an execution, for good and just cause. But you 
murdered her, Jeffrey - you made the choice. I only held the gun for 
you.' He looked away to the circle. 'Bring in number two.' 
'No!' Horton shouted. For just one brief moment, he managed to fight 
free of the hands holding him, long enough to stand and advance a 
step. Then something hard struck him behind his knees, and he 
toppled face-forward into the dirt and gore, only inches from the edge 
of what was now a grave. 
'Ah, so you do care,' Wilkins said, crouching beside him. 'And I can 
see that you now do believe. Maybe that will make the next decision 
easier.' He waved a hand, and Horton was hauled backward and again 
forced to kneel and face another hostage. This is Ray Macey, Jeffrey. 
He's an appraiser for the county tax assessor -' 
'No!' Horton shouted once more. 'I will not play your game. You can't 
shift the responsibility to me - you're responsible for everything that 
happens here. This is your little cult, and these are your crimes. And 
you'd better kill me next, because if you don't, I'm going to be the 
happiest witness you ever saw when I testify at your trial - all of you, 
every one of you standing here who could have stopped this, except 
you were too much of a coward or too much of a robot to do anything 
-' 
Wilkins said nothing. He simply walked behind Ray Macey and 
pressed the barrel of his pistol against the base of the visibly shaking 
hostage's skull. Then Wilkins looked across at Horton with a defiant 
gaze that said Choose. 
Closing his eyes, Horton drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. 
When he opened his eyes again, he had calmed himself enough to 
speak the thoughts screaming inside his skull. 
'You really don't understand how little power that gun gives you,' he 

said. 'You've fallen for your own myth. You're trying to use guns to 
control people, when all they're really good for is killing them.' 
That'll do until something better comes along!' a voice called from 
the circle. 
'Something better has come along,' Horton retorted, then fixed his 
gaze on Wilkins. 'But even if it hadn't, you'd still be wrong. All you 
have in your hands is the power to inflict death, arid that's nothing 
special. That's something so ordinary that every living thing and most 
of mindless Nature has it, too. And it isn't nearly enough to make me 
into someone else. It isn't enough to make me into you. 
'I don't have what you want, Colonel Wilkins - no one does. But if I 
did, that gun couldn't make me give it to you. It's fear that controls us - 
it's controlling you, right now. But I'm not going to let myself be 
afraid of you, or what you decide to do. I know where my 
responsibility ends, and yours begins. And this poor woman is on 
your ledger, not mine. Come on, point that damned thing at me, 
instead, so I can say "Go to hell" one last time and be done with you. 
You know you'll enjoy killing me much more than you will killing 
him.' 
'Nice speech. Very philosophical. Here's my rebuttal,' Wilkins said, 
and pulled the trigger - 
- to silence. 
Macey whimpered and snuffled. 
Frowning, Wilkins racked the slide and cleared the misfire, then once 
more jammed the barrel against the appraiser's skull. In the heldbreath 
silence, the entire circle heard the tight metallic clank of the 
hammer falling, but nothing else. 
'What the hell -' Wilkins said. 
Then Horton heard the whisper of the helicopter blades, and a few 
seconds later the roar of the downdraft. Then came the cracking of 
branches overhead as the weighted lines tore through the canopy, 
with a Special Forces commando riding each bucket to the ground. 
'Maintain the formation!' Wilkins screamed. 'Shooters, face out - 
everyone else, move to the center and get down on the deck! Fire at 
will!' 
The unit discipline of the Army of Righeous Justice lasted just a few 

seconds. That was all it took for its members to realize that they had 
been Jammed, and none of their firearms were going to work. Then 
the circle broke and scattered like insects from under a rock that's 
been kicked over. 
Wilkins screamed at them to fight, and a few battle-eager militiamen 
responded by drawing knives or fixing their folding bayonets to 
charge the invaders. But Horton saw more of them reaching for their 
wives and children instead, and retreating in the general direction of 
the long houses. Some merely huddled on the ground where they 
were, arms raised in surrender. 
Those who did go on the attack found themselves facing what 
seemed to be an ever increasing number of opponents, not only 
sliding down the bucket lines, but closing in through the trees from 
every point of the compass. The commandos were armed with 
quarterstaves and compressed-air dart guns, and wielded the former 
with such skill and efficiency that the latter were superfluous. 
And as the short-lived battle began to wane, Wilkins and Horton 
found themselves momentarily alone in the middle of the chaos, one 
man's face painted with incredulity, and the other man's painted with 
delight. Their eyes met for a moment, and in that moment both men 
remembered things they had momentarily forgotten. 
In the next moment, Horton lunged for Wilkins. His charge was 
turned aside with embarrassing ease, and Wilkins compounded the 
insult by paying him no further attention. As Horton lay gasping on 
the ground, Wilkins broke into a run, angling off into the trees. 
'Stop him,' he croaked, pointing after Wilkins. 
No one took notice. Horton pulled himself up to his hands and knees 
and tried again. 'Please - listen - you can't let that man get to the 
armory! There are chemical weapons. Stop him!' 
His voice was stronger now, but there was no one to respond. The 
scattered fighting had moved past him. The only commando within 
twenty-five meters was fully occupied, herding at least a dozen 
prisoners. 
Grabbing a long-handled shovel that was lying abandoned on the 
ground, Horton staggered to his feet and set off in pursuit of Wilkins. 
He was still wheezing, and he knew he had no chance to overtake the 
rangy, fleet-footed colonel. But he did not know what to do except 

try. He stumbled on roots and rocks in the gathering darkness, falling 
headlong before he had gone twenty strides. Gathering himself to his 
feet, he went on, barely noticing that the blade of the shovel had 
deeply gashed his forearm. 
By the time the armory shed came into view, Horton had long since 
lost sight of Wilkins. But the physicist's persistence had finally 
attracted the attention that his pleas had failed to. Two commandos 
appeared from nowhere, and one took Horton's legs out from under 
him with his staff while the other struck the shovel from his hands. 
He fell hard, but made his first words count. 
'Let's take it easy, now, your war's over -' 
'Soldier, there are chemical and biological weapons in that shed,' 
Horton gasped. 'If the door's unlocked, it means the militia's in there 
after them.' 
One of the commandos shined a hand flash in his face. This is the 
hostage - this is Dr Horton,' he said in surprise. 
'Stay with him. I'm on it,' the other said, and sprinted away toward the 
shed. 
'I'll try to get you some backup, Badger,' the first said, and reached 
for his throat mic. 'Warthog to Lord of the Forest - I have the package 
in hand, repeat, package in hand. We have a structure unsecured, 
northwest section, reported possible Charlie Bravo munitions.' 
'We're coming, Warthog. Get the package out of there.' 
'That's you, Doctor,' the commando said. 'Can you walk? Sorry about 
the takedown - we didn't know.' 
'I can walk,' Horton said. 'But, look, that armory's more important 
than I am -' 
'Badger is a Recon Marine, Doctor,' the commando said. 'He'll get it 
done.' 
By the time Horton's escort located the assault commander, a bank of 
portable floodlights was turning dusk to midday. The commander 
took one look at Horton, insisted that he sit down, and called for a 
medic. The medic, in turn, took one look and called for a stretcher. 
I'm Captain Sandecki of Unit 13, attached to the 641st Tactical 

Brigade,' the commander said, squatting on his heels and offering his 
hand. 'You look like hell, Doctor. I'm damned sorry we weren't fast 
enough to spare you some of that. But it's over now, and I can tell 
you that your friends back East are going to be real pleased to hear 
that you're okay.' 
'How did you find me?' 
'Got a ping from the backup locator DIA put in your comset. Then 
a.Global Hawk out of Minot located the camp and kept the area under 
IR and SSR surveillance until we could hoof it up here.' 
Horton nodded, though he understood hardly a word of it. 'Captain - 
where's here? Where the hell am I?' 
The nearest town is Babbitt, Minnesota - about ninety klicks and a 
hundred years north of Duluth.' 
He took a moment to absorb that. 'Can you arrange me transport to 
Columbia, South Carolina?' 
'I sure can - so long as you don't object to an itinerary that includes 
stops at the nearest military hospital and a hotel suite in Washington. 
There's some folks at both very eager to see you.' 
'I just want to go home,' Horton said. 
Sandecki smiled understandingly. 'You have family in Columbia, 
then?' 
'Not to speak of. Not at the moment,' Horton said, lying back and 
allowing his eyes to close. 'Seems I managed to leave the pieces of 
my life scattered so far apart that I'm not sure where home is. But 
maybe I can put them back together, if I get a second chance.' He 
grunted, then added. 'Not sure I deserve one.' 
'Well, hell, Doc, who really does? But it looks to me like that's what 
we're all trying to do, make the most of a second chance,' Sandecki 
said, and patted Horton's hand. 'You and your friends gave us that 
chance. If there's any justice - and today, I'm willing to say maybe 
there is - you've got one coming, too.' 
III: Killer 

Even though the narrow gravel path took the most direct route 
through the campus woodland, it was still nearly a kilometer's walk 
from the main complex of the Terabyte Corporation's Columbus 
facility to the contiguous Brohier Foundation Laboratory for Peace 
Technology. 
The isolation gave the twenty-two researchers at PeaceTech the 
elbow room they needed for advanced work in H-wave mechanics 
and defense engineering. The gravel path gave Terabyte research 
director Jeffrey Horton a reason and a place to find a few minutes of 
solitude and exercise in the middle of the day. Except in the worst 
weather, he made it his habit to walk back and forth between the two 
nodes of the campus at least once a day. 
He did so despite a slight limp and the ever-present aches in his legs 
and right hip, in part a legacy of a nightmare now almost two decades 
removed. He did so despite the campus's cutting-edge 
communications net, which could drop him into a high fidelity VR 
space with anyone on Terabyte payroll, from the office next door to 
the Nevada Annex or the Joint Materials Process Module orbiting 
12,000 kilometers overhead. 
He did so because he liked the woods, and because he did not want to 
surrender to time or to the pain, and because the walk had become a 
mind-clearing meditation. He invariably left his comset behind in his 
office, and his staff knew better than to disturb him on 'his' trail, even 
on those occasions when he loitered an hour or more in making the 
transit. 
That morning, however, he was not loitering. The message from 
Jordan Kilmer, a member of the Biophysics workgroup, had been 
equal parts urgency and intrigue: 'Director, we've had an unexpected 
development in the TOCS project. Please come to the lab at the very 
earliest moment possible, so I can brief you - and you can advise me. 
I'm sending the rest of the team home until we talk.' 
TOCS was the Trace Organic Contaminant Separator, a direct 
descendant of Horton's modification of the Mark V Trigger for 
deactivating chemical weapons. The goal of the TOCS project was to 
produce an analyzer-projector which could swiftly break down 
poisons already ingested by a living organism. The unsolved 
challenge of TOCS was to refine the selectivity of the projector to the 

point where only the contaminant was destroyed - and not any 
structurally similar compounds necessary for life. The toll in research 
animals had been so high that Kilmer's nickname was 'Killer', and 
Biophysics was commonly referred to as the Morgue. 
Horton found Kilmer tuning his test rig in Biophysics 3, an otherwise 
deserted lab whose high windows admitted light but allowed no view. 
The test rig filled a large utility cart. Five meters away, a cage 
containing a dozen guinea pigs rested atop a lab stool. 
'Hey, Jordan. I thought you were working in Two,' Horton said. 
'Director - Christ, I'm glad you're here. I got this out of Two and 
locked it up as soon as I realized what was happening,' Kilmer said, 
straightening up. 
'Why, what's going on?' 
'We upgraded the analyzer with the new long-molecule smart filters 
yesterday. I've had three people working on them for four months - 
organic chemistry married to high-level Boolean logic -' 
'I remember. Teething pains?' 
'Not exactly.' Kilmer moved around to the other side of the test rig, 
and waved Horton to follow. 'Watch the cage. Keep your eye on the 
big one on the right.' 
'With the mostly black face?' 
That's the one my sample came from,' Kilmer said, and started the 
analyzer. The test rig's displays were busy with numbers and 
waterfall graphs for more than two minutes, then became quiet again. 
'The system's locked in on the sample, and selected an H-wave 
profile. I'm going to give the go-ahead for treatment.' 
'Okay.' 
Kilmer pushed a safety interlock and turned a spring-loaded knob. 
The test rig hummed briefly, and as it did, the black-faced guinea pig 
collapsed. 
That was fast,' Morton said. 'Is it dead?' 
'Extremely,' said Kilmer. 
Horton was a touch surprised by the indifference of the other guinea 
pigs, which continued to nibble lettuce unconcernedly. But the result 
itself seemed quite in keeping with TOCS's previous problems. 

That was the only one of the group contaminated, I take it?' he asked. 
'None of them were contaminated,' Kilmer said, shutting off the test 
rig. 
Horton's eyebrows narrowed. Then what was your sample?' 
'One strand of fur plucked from its back.' 
Horton stared at Kilmer, then at the cage. 'What happened, Jordan? 
Explain this to me.' 
'A single simple error in twenty-six billion bits of code - a NOT 
where there should have been an AND. The analyzer selects for the 
DNA pattern of the sample, instead of excluding it. It's almost like a 
mutation, really. But you see why I had to close up shop. One 
microscopic flake of someone's skin hitting the open sample tray, and 
-' 
'Are you saying that you can selectively tune for any DNA pattern 
with this?' 
'Yes.' 
'How selectively?' 
'I don't think it could distinguish between identical twins,' he said. 
'But other than that - well, all of those animals are litter-mates.' 
'Sweet mercy,' Horton said. He cautiously approached the cage, his 
eyes wide with awe and dismay. 'So, in theory, you could target any 
individual organism -' 
'Not in theory,' said Kilmer, following. 'I just did it. I did it three 
more times this morning, and twice yesterday. Given enough markers 
from a DNA profile, it will zero right in on a single individual. All it 
takes is a drop of sweat or blood, a flake of skin, a hair -' 
Standing on opposite sides of the cage, they stared long and hard at 
the dead guinea pig and its unknowing siblings. The perfect murder 
weapon,' Horton said hoarsely. 'An assassin's dream. It'll kill only the 
person it's tuned for, and no one else in the entire world -' 
'You see why I had to lock it up?' 
'But you can't lock it up, Jordan. Don't you understand?' There was 
anger in his voice, and fear. 'Nature doesn't keep secrets. She won't 
play along, no matter how you cozen her.' 

Horton turned away suddenly, and in doing so his gaze settled on the 
brass plaque beside the lab door - the plaque which bore the face of 
PeaceTech's benefactor, and his old friend and mentor. 
'What now, Karl?' he asked despairingly. 'Now what shall we do?' 

