IT WAS NIGHT NOW and Michelle liked the night. She could watch the Simpsons, reruns of Friends. Laugh a bit, like before everything had started, like when she was a kid in Eau Claire.

They'd had to ditch the Oakland apartment where they had lived for the past six months. Now they'd moved into Julia's house in the Berkeley flats.

And they couldn't go out much anymore. The situation was too tight. Sometimes on TV she saw a photograph of Mal, except the news reports called him Stephen Hardaway. Robert had moved in, too. It was the four of them now. And maybe Charles Danko would show up soon, too. Supposedly, he had the final plans, the endgame, which Mal promised would blow everybody's mind. It was huge.

Michelle turned off the TV and went downstairs. Mal was hunched over the wires, tinkering with the new device, the latest bomb. There was a plan, he said, how they were gonna get this baby inside. Just being in the same place with the damn thing freaked her out.

She crept up behind him. "Mal, you want something to eat? I can fix you something."

"You can see I'm working, Michelle." More of a snap than a reply. He was soldering a red wire into a wooden table leg that she knew encased the blasting cap.

She put a hand on his shoulder. "I need to talk with you, Mal. I think I want to leave."

Mal stiffened up from the bomb. He pulled the lens............