© 1982, 2002 by James Graham. All Rights Reserved.

In addition to the above, I had completed an English class under Mr. Monahan in which he'd brought to our attention how overused the word "said" is. Since then, I have done my utmost never to use the word "said" where something more descriptive would work better. In conversation, however, "said" is more likely what will come to mind than anything else, so I tend to leave it in the dialogue between characters.

Mark jerked the moving and firing controls on the brightly colored game. He yanked and shoved the two joysticks in an effort to save his little video humanoid from destruction. As a stray shot from the humanoid met its mark, destroying the last object on the screen, a multicolored wave of ripples emanated from the center of the screen. As the ripples cleared, a message flashed across the screen. It read:

BIRTHDAY R.A. NEXT WAVE 2097

Mark Harrison pondered over the message as he worked the controls even more furiously. "Who is R.A.?" he wondered. He kept firing and moving frantically; shots from his humanoid's enemies crowded the screen as their deployers perished, disintegrating into glowing multicolored particles which faded after a few seconds.

Now one enemy remained, firing at Mark's little man as fast as Mark could fire back. Sweat trickled down the side of his face, and his short, wavy dark brown hair was matted down by the perspiration drawn out by nearly an hour and a half's play of the game. "R.A.," he pondered. The screen reflected off his green eyes, and his hands moved even faster. His score was phenomenally high: Two million ninety-five thousand seven hundred and seven.

"Seven!?" Mark thought. "Something is crazy here. The scores can end only in increments of twenty-five."

He returned the 'droid's fire faster now, and the droid fired back just as fast. "Rann-Algor--no, that's Rann-Talgor--Ron Arbuckle, Ralla Andrews, Ricky Allan--no." Here he stopped firing, as did his screen foe. They stood motionless for what seemed like an etermity. Mark took this time to down his last swallow of Coke from a bottle near the base of the machine.

Five seconds later he found himself in front of a computer terminal watching a series of special effects being displayed on a screen of almost photographic quality;, effects he had stored on a disc back home. He looked around his new area. He sat in a huge air-conditioned office and several executive director types stood in back of him, in a semicircular formation.

After about three minutes, the effects ceased, and the execs applauded. One of them, evidently the president or chief of wherever he was, stepped forward. "Well, Mark. You've got something there. All right. I'll give you the next two nights off, and I'll have five thousand credits added to your personal account, with more on the way."

"Thank you," Mark acknowledged gratefully.

"Thank you, what?"

"I don't mean to sound disrespectful, and I may lose my job, but I have never called anyone 'sir'!"

"I like a strong-willed worker. Keep it up." The execs left. Mark saved the previous program on a disc and then set to work on another program.

"Roanne, this'll be the hottest birthday card you ever got," he vowed. He leaned back and shut his eyes in concentration.

The setting sun shone orangish-gold on the metropolis of San Francisco. Many large high-rise buildings lined the streets, and atop a hill the one remaining house stood. It was a good-sized house -- two stories with eighteen hundred square feet of floor space to each floor. It was the most luxurious living space in all of San Francisco. The rest of the people lived in twenty-by-twenty-by-seven-foot cubicles. A sign, perhaps a sign of kindness, stood on the front lawn. It read:

Inside, on a bed in one of the rooms, a girl of about twenty sat gazing wistfully out at the town.

She was a beautiful girl. Her long blonde hair hung lightly about her shoulders, extending to about the middle of her back. Her shining green eyes complemented her delicate face features and overall pleasing figure. The sun gave her hair a reddish-orange tinge as she leaned against the bed's headboard. She shut her eyes as though she remembered something, someone close to her. Without warning, a message pulsed inside her hear, seemingly in front of her eyes. It flashed in blue and yellow, reading:

    HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ROANNE!

She opened her eyes in disbelief, and then closed them again, to make sure that she wasn't hallucinating. The message remained for a half- second more, and then a new message formed. This new one was in a language which only one other person new.

    KI RANI TU LALTOR

Roanne felt her skin go pale with the reaction of being startled, then she opened her eyes, smiled, then grinned, then let forth a yell of delight. "He's back!" After she had calmed down a bit, she sent a message. "WHERE ARE YOU?"

I'M AT YNTERPLANETARY EXPANSION SYSTEMS. I'M MAKING SOMETHING.

"WHAT ARE YOU MAKING?"

CAN'T TELL YOU, came the reply. I'LL BE OVER AT AROUND EIGHT TO SHOW YOU. YOU'LL LIKE IT.

"ARE YOU SURE YOU'LL MAKE IT?"

TRUST ME. With that, Roanne dashed into the kitchen one room away. As she fixed herself a sandwich, she smiled again. A happy tear rolled down her cheek, and she placed the top slice of bread on top of a generous helping of salami. "Telepathy is so handy," she thought.

She returned to her room, laid lay back on the bed, set the plate with the sandwich on the nightstand and went to sleep.

At seven-thirty, she woke, completely refreshed, and she strode over to her desk and turned on her computer. She typed in "CHEM" and a "K" appeared in the left hand margin. She toyed around with a few chemical equations. These were graphically illustrated on the screen, and they were accompanied by sound as well. As the tenth one finished, a message at the top of the screen interrupted her. "It's eight o'clock," the letters read.

"It's eight o'clock," came a voice from behind. Roanne turned, and as soon as she saw who stood in the doorway, she leaped from her chair and ran over to him.

"Mark! Oh, I'm so glad to see you. How'd you get here from 1985?"

"Through Robotron."

"Through a video game? Wow! I made a wish last night that you'd be here by some subtle means."

"Your wish power must be something extraordinary. You did that a year ago, too, on my first trip here." He paused, then really looked her over. She was dressed in a black corduroy suit, and she looked good.

"You're looking beautiful tonight."

"You're looking sharp, yourself," she replied.

Mark extracted a disk from his jacket pocket; the disc was packed in a sleeve as tan as Mark's suit. He plugged it in to a slot in Roanne's desk, and he motioned for Roanne to join him. "Happy birthday," he wished her.

"Thank you."

"I think you'll like this 'card'."

"What did you program?"

"I am not under proper authority to divulge any information."

"Do you think," Roanne asked, "that you could translate that?"

"Yeah," Mark grinned. "It means that I'm not going to tell you."

A silence ensued as Mark loaded the program from the disc. "I missed you, Mark," Roanne spoke again. "I never thought I'd see you again."

"Nor I you," Mark replied. Then suddenly, "Oh, Harold," he mimicked in falsetto.

"Oh, Marcia," Roanne answered in a mock bass voice. She looked at Mark, and Mark at her, both keeping a straight face, then Mark turned to the keyboard, and Roanne watched the monitor.

And, at the same time, they burst into laughter, sitting and laughing for almost five minutes.

When they had composed themselves, Mark typed in "RUN". The screen cleared, and Mark explained, "There are quite a few sequences to this thing."

A multicolored wave of ripples started in the center of the screen and emanated outward, then the screen cleared in the same fashion. Now, on the screen, was an almost visual-quality picture of a lake. The lake was surrounded by mountains, and a full moon shone brightly in a starry night sky. Below the scene, in white letters, the words "And life goes on within you and without you" were printed. The lake rippled, and the words faded from white to red to green to blue to red, and so forth. The ripples grew more violent, and the scene changed. Roanne looked on, speechless.

The second scene showed the black silhouette of a mountain range against a quickly brightening sky. White letters were being written in front of the range, and they presented this message:

"Yesterday a morning came a smile upon your face

Caesar's palace morning glory, silly human race

On a sailing ship to nowhere, leaving any place

If the summer changed to winter, yours is no disgrace."

The rim of a bright orange sun peeked over the mountain range, and the orange brightened to yellow, then to white, at the same time changing the whole screen to that color.

The third scene showed a view of the ocean as seen perhaps from a fishing boat. An orange-red sun showed partly, and it descended slowly behind the horizon. As soon as it set, the sky faded quickly from blue with clouds to black with stars. In ever-changing shades of blue, another saying was displayed:

"And I do think very well that the evenings take you, silently..."

The rainbow of ripples happened again, and this time, only the ocean was showing, along with the sky. The sky was a bright, deep blue, and the water was dark blue flecked with white where the sun reflected off in place.

This message floated on top of the video "water":

"'The time has come,' the walrus said, 'to talk of many things.

Of why the sea is boiling hot, and sealing wax, and rings...'

"What do you think?" Mark asked.

"That was beautiful! How'd you do that?" Roanne enthused.

"Oh, that's just something I threw together¹," Mark shrugged. "It works best on a holographic screen like yours."

Without warning, the multicolored ripple started up again. "I like this part especially," Roanne commented. This time, though, the wave did not stop at the edges of the screen, but continued past, seemingly erasing everything in its path. Within ten seconds, Mark and Roanne found themselves in a desert-type area, near a multilayered cliff.

The sun's position² indicated that it was around one in the afternoon, yet the sky was clear and black ². All around them a violent sandstorm raged, the miniscule particles being driven into their faces by the high-speed, gale-force wind hurling the grains through the atmosphere.

They turned away from the wind, and Mark pointed at an opening in the side of the cliff. "Look there! It'll give us some shelter."

Roanne nodded, and they made their way to the hole in the wall. They climbed hurriedly into the hole, and almost immediately they realised that they were inside a huge cave.

"Roanne, are you there?" Mark called through the almost perfect darkness³.

"I'm here," Roanne answered from about twenty feet away. "Are you all right?"

"Got a bit sandblasted, but that's it," Mark replied. Then, suddenly: "Ow!"

"What happened?" Roanne hailed him.

"I ran into something. I can't tell what it is, but I do know it's a good- sized object."

Roanne made her way towards Mark, guided only by instinct, and she strained to see what the object was.

"Can you see anything, Roanne?" Mark whispered.

"Just barely. It's a sleek-looking thing with a well-engineered combination of straight lines and curves. How about you?"

"Sorry, Roanne. I don't have any straight lines."

"Except in your head. I mean, can you see anything?"

"Not a thing, although it's beginning to feel more and more like a vehicle of some sort -- Wait! I've found a button or something--" He pushed a small square-shaped object; it gave, and a click sounded, followed by a whirring noise. When the whirring noise stopped, a dim light from inside this "thing" lit the interior of it. Mark could now see a collection of levers, a computer which gave off an eerie multicolored glow, two seats split by a center control console with two more levers, and a two person bunk to the rear of the seats. The whole vehicle measured a mere twenty feet long by about seven feet wide.

"What a lucky find! A land craft of some sort, with a bed..." Roanne started.

"Don't get any crazy ideas, now. It's been a while, you know."

"Now what'd I do? I'm just tired, and I want to lie down," Roanne protested.

"Well, hop in the back while I try to figure a way out of here." He climbed into the front left seat and examined the controls.

"All right, hot shot." Roanne climbed into the other seat and asked, "Mind if I help?"

"Not at all. See what the computer says," Mark instructed.

"It's asking for the code sequence to start the engine."

"So type 'START' and hit return. If that works, I have some ideas in mind."

Roanne followed Mark's instructions, and a hum began to well up. After about a minute, the hum became a pleasant sound, almost like a major chord on an electronic organ.

"All right, that worked. Now tell it to close the cockpit cover."

The soft sound of Roanne's hands typing rapidly across a soft-touch keyboard sounded, followed by another whirring noise. A clear, round dome now enclosed the cockpit. The interior remained lit.

"Anything else?" Roanne asked.

"Have it print a visual display of the controls and what they're supposed to do."

Roanne typed in a few commands, and a piece of paper popped out of the dashboard, from an unseen slot.

"Now type in 'STOP'."

Roanne did so, and the engine's chordlike whine decreased to a hum and then stopped altogether. With that, the lights dimmed and turned off.

"I think I'll turn in, Mark. How about you?" Roanne asked quietly.

"I'm with you," he replied. They both climbed into the rear bunk and laidlay down. Mark fell asleep first, and Roanne looked over at him, although she could not easily see him.

She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. "Sleep well," she whispered, adding "hot shot," then she relaxed and fell asleep herself.

Mark awoke, sitting up slowly, cautiously, in case his head had hit the roof / or ceiling. He climbed into the front seat and strained to see the entrance to this huge cavern, but to no avail. He fumbled about in the pitch-black of the cockpit until he found the keyboard to the computer, and then he felt around for the monitor switch. Finding it, he clicked it on and, hunting-and-pecking, typed in the word "START". The hum from the engine started again, building back up to the "major chord". Satisfied that the engine was running, he typed "LIGHTS ON". Immediately two spots were projected on the floor of the humungous⁴ cavern.

"Wrong lights, you damned computer," he sighed, typing "INSIDE FRONT LIGHTS ON". The lights nearest him lit up, and he plucked the piece of paper from the dashboard.

"Hmm," he mused, looking over the paper and glancing at the controls all around him. "We've got to get out of this cave." Two joysticks sat in front of him on the central part of the dashboard, one stick to the left, one stick to the right, both the same central distance from the center of that area.

The stick on the right had a button mounted on top, evidently leading to a switch inside the handle. The top of the button just protuded from the joystick.

"This looks familiar. I wonder if this is my design..." Mark tapped the button. Two beams of bright blue light flashed through the damp atmosphere for a split-second. At practically the same instant, an explosion sounded and lit the cave momentarily. After it had died down, a gaping hole remained.

Mark pushed one of the dashboard levers over to the right to release it from its locked position, then he pushed it forward. The vehicle began to creep forward, straight towards the hole which Mark had just created.

"Yep. This is my design." Now he eased another lever forward, and the vehicle began to pick up speed. "The hole's large enough," he muttered as he guided the vehicle through the hole.

A loud scraping noise made it quite evident that Mark would have to learn how to operate the craft in close quarters.

"Ack! Thank God I designed it with shielding," he breathed as he eased another lever forward. This time, the vehicle levitated about fifty feet off the ground.

Mark looked out the window to take in the scenery. As it turned out, there wasn't much to take in -- the terrain as far as he could see through the clear, starry night⁵ was all sand. Only burnt, charred and and shredded scraps remained as evidence that other structures had even existed at the time, and even these were barely visible.

The whole surface seemed to be one violent, turbulent, raging storm of sand which seemed to dissipate as one rose in altitude.

Mark glanced around nervously, almost positive he was being watched. "There's something terribly wrong," he thought, "but I don't know just what. Still something tells me --" A rocket of some sort streaked by the left side of the craft, barely missing it, exploding about a hundred feet in front of it. "-- that I'd better watch my step." He jammed the throttle forward, and the craft leaped ahead, gaining speed at a terrific rate. After about ten seconds, the computer's screen showed that the craft's velocity had leveled off in excess of two hundred miles per hour.

"This must be a figment of my imagination. Come on, someone, wake me up!" Mark muttered. He drove on for a few hours, setting the computer to respond to food and water.

Behind him by about a thousand yards, another craft followed, swiftly, silently, unseen.

The sun rose and the stars dimmed in the still black sky. The atmosphere no longer really existed ⁶ except for a nine-foot surface layer of breathable air with lots of sand. The rest of the atmosphere was something else. "Probably not breathable," Mark thought.

In back, on the bed, Roanne stretched and yawned, then she sat up behind Mark and looked out the front window. "Where are we?" she asked sleepily.

"I don't know. I'm just cruising the area until I find a town or something."

"How do you know there are any more?"

"There must be. Someone tried to blast us out of the sky this morning."

"Are you sure we're not being followed?" Roanne asked skeptically.

"Of course we're being followed. That's my life's story," Mark replied wryly.

"Oh, stop," she giggled. "You must have a good life," she remarked, kissing him on the cheek. "Would you like some help up front?"

"Yeah, would you keep an eye out for any towns or life forms that might be in our area?"

"Sure." She climbed into the front right seat and began feeding more information into the computer. She shivered at the first reading. "The first town is nineteen thousand miles away. At our present speed, the trip will take four days."

"I just don't want to take the chance of going further if I turn around, so I'll just maintain my present course."

"We could die up here."

"Not if we hold on." Mark paused solemnly. "Are you with me?"

"I'm with you," Roanne answered immediately.

"Did you find any life forms?"

"Yeah. There's one right behind us."

"See?" Mark grinned. "I told you we were being followed." He turned the ship around to face the direction which had been backwards before, and smoothly shifted into reverse so that they were now flying backwards at two hundred miles per hour.

Before them, Mark noticed a small black speck following them. A bright flash came from the front of the other craft; five seconds later, Mark noticed a missile of some sort heading right for his own craft. Quickly, Mark grabbed the right joystick and moved it a bit, at the same time hitting the fire button twice in rapid succession. Two flashes of twin blue beams extended into the sandy atmosphere ⁷, one destroying the missile from the other vehicle, the other destroying the vehicle itself.

Mark sort of sang along with his action. "Reach out -- gotcha, chump! -- reach out and touch someone...Well," he commented as a large explosion lit the distant semi-void momentarily, "that settles that." Satisfied, he shifted into forward as he brought the car around.

He sat back and withdrew a notebook and a pencil from his inside pocket.

"Do you love me?" Roanne asked quietly.

"What?" Mark answered incredulously. "What kind of question is that?"

"Perfectly legitimate. I want to know: Do you love me?"

"Yes," Mark whispered. He took her hand and began to massage it gently. "Yes, I do." They stared deep into each other's eyes.

After almost ten minutes of analysis, Mark released her hand and began to write in the notebook. He jotted down lyrics to songs, observations, tales, even his restarting relationship with Roanne. "Just in case," he thought. The date on the computer read "December 27, 2111". Mark took note and wrote it down.

Mark awoke to his aching stomach and sore throat. "Anything for a glass of water right now," he gasped.

Roanne guided the car towards a speck in the distance. The speck flashed in all different colors, and somehow the computer managed to identify it as "round" -- yet it could not give any further data except that it was a town that had a latest population estimate of fifty, and that one half hour more would get them there.

"Are you awake, Mark?" Roanne asked in a now scratchy voice.

"I'm here," he replied hoarsely.

"We're almost there. Another half-hour should do it."

"Do you think you can land it?"

"Sure. Why?"

"Good," Mark grumbled. "I'm going back to bed."

"No, you don't. I'm going to need you to establish communications with the town so that we can get in without getting our heads blown off."

"Okay, okay." He climbed into the front right seat and kept his eyes on the computer's screen, watching for any changes. After five or so minutes, he started typing in a communique which read: "REQUEST PERMISSION TO LAND IN TOWN. IN DESPERATE NEED OF FOOD WATER AND FACILITIES."

He received the following: "SHIP NUMBERS?"

"NONE. FOUND VEHICLE," Mark returned.

"OK, GRANTED. (LUCKY S.O.B.)"

"Okay, we've got clearance. You sure you can land this thing?"

"Go back to bed, Mark," Roanne chuckled.

The multicolored, transparent force field subsided, and Roanne landed the vehicle in the center of a dusty lot, near an old building. Mark opened the cockpit dome, stopped the engine, turned the monitor off, and he and Roanne climbed out of the car. Neither he nor Roanne could stand too well, being weak from non-nourishment.

"Jeez," Mark commented, "I'd almost forgotten what it was like to stand."

Roanne had her mind on a nearby sign which read "HOTEL". "Look there," she pointed.

"Far out." They both staggered into the lobby, and Mark's face appeared to lose all hope. "There's nobody here," he shook his head sadly.

Roanne collapsed onto the floor, and Mark staggered a few steps, fell to his knees, clutched Roanne's hand and collapsed next to her.

When Mark awoke, he found himself in a room of fairly large dimensions -- about thirty by fifteen by seven feet. He himself was comfortably stretched out on a huge bed. To the right of him were a black shirt, some black corduroys, a pair of socks and a pair of black boots.

A door on the wall, to the right of where Mark lay, opened, and a middle- aged man entered with a huge tray loaded with food. He set it on a table next the bed, the only other piece of furniture in the room, and then he left. "Enjoy," he called over his shoulder.

Mark got out of bed and dressed, then he indulged in the many dishes and glasses of food and drink that the tray held. After an hour, he had finished, and he leaned back on the bed, satisfied.

The door opened again, and Roanne walked in carrying a huge pile of gleaming black material. She set it at the foot of the bed, and Mark sat up.

"What was that?" he asked.

"What was what?"

"What was that stuff you were carrying."

"Oh, that was armor. The manager told me we might need it."

"Armor? What kind of armor would weigh practically nothing?"

"I don't know, but I do know that's armor. It's made out of a material that's a bit too heavy for heavy-duty clothing. Plus it's equipped with shoulder and wrist blasters."

"Are those for blasting shoulders and wrists?"

"No, Mark. These are for blasting anything hostile that gets in your way."

"That was a joke. Where's the car?"

"Half a mile across town."

"What?" Mark screamed. "What the hell's it doing there?"

"The hotel manager put it there," Roanne replied.

"Oh, jeez. Now we get to go out and get our heads separated from our bodies while we look for our car? Thank you, no."

"How do you know we'll be attacked?"

"The number twenty-one twelve has a nice ring to it. Sort of like the word 'terminated' sounds compared to 'killed'."

"What? What are you..."

"You've not read the prophecies of 2112, have you?"

"But..." Roanne objected.

"Last world war -- 2112." Mark had started donning his armor.

A loudspeaker blared from an unseen location. "Enemy forces have penetrated the force field! EVACTUATION is advised IMMEDI---" Static cut briefly across the loudspeaker, and then everything was silent. Roanne and Mark looked at each other, motionless.

After a few moments, explosions and screams came from outside. "Get your armor on. We've got little time."

"I'm with you." She began pulling her armor over her clothing, and she had about finished when a violent explosion rocked the building.

Mark caught her as she fell, and he helped her with her armor, then they dashed from passage to passage trying to find their way out.

Actually, the had only one choice: forward. The rest of the corridors collapsed behind them.

After five minutes of hectic running, they came upon a door. "This must be the back way," Mark thought.

Once outside, in the dark, Mark noticed that there were very thin lines on the armor where stitched seams would be on clothing. These seam-like lines alternated regularly in a two-to-one, red-to-yellow pattern twice every second. They radiated light, and Mark groaned. Roanne and he would be seen more easily with armor than without it, he knew, and he telepathed this to her.

"OH, WELL" was her only reply.

They ran stealthily through town, both following their instincts, and both following the same path.

After about two minutes and a few hundred yards, an imperative voice, heavily accented with what Mark recognized as Russian, called, "Stop where you are, or--" It never got past "or", for Mark had fired a well- aimed laser blast at the source of the voice. A trooper of some sort fell back with a smoldering hole in his chest.

"I hate shooting people," Mark commented.

"Better to be alive," Roanne returned. "Let's go."

Another two hundred yards of instinct-guided, broken-field running brought them to the side of a building. Cautiously, they peeked around the wall, and they ducked back immediately.

Their craft was there, but it was guarded by ten soldiers in pure black armor. The area was dimly lit, but lit enough for Mark and Roanne to see clearly. One of the soldiers held a microphone, and he spoke.

"Notice to any survivors," the loudspeakers echoed his harsh voice, "we are sending out troops to apprehend and/or terminate any stragglers. Fight or Die!" He clicked the mike off. "I'm expecting two other troopers to arrive and dispose of this vehicle very shortly. I must check the other sectors. To your posts!" The commander and all but two troopers departed.

#WHAT A BREAK!# Mark telepathed."

#LET'S GO,# Roanne answered.

They walked casually into the area, and Mark told the two troopers, "We're here to appropriate this craft."

The troopers nodded, and they opened the cockpit. Mark and Roanne climbed in, started the engine, covered the cockpit and drove off, slowly increasing speed.

As they neared the edge of town, they noticed that the force field had been regenerated.

"Something's strange here," Mark commented. "I feel that something odd will happen pretty soon."

"I feel it, too," Roanne answered.

The car coasted effortlessly through the force field, and Mark boosted the car's speed to maximum. It cruised the large desert plain smoothly, not affected by any bumps, due to its antigravity coils. Another glowing speck showed in the distance, and Mark pointed the car straight for it, then turned to the back bunk to grab a pillow. A breathtaking sight met his eyes.

There, on the bunk, lay a heap of futuristic weapons, along with two medieval swords. "Oh, my God!" he breathed. "Roanne, take a look at this!"

Roanne turned around, and she gasped at the sight of the armaments. "Oh! Where'd these come from?"

"They were here as we drove off, evidently. Did you notice the handles on the swords? They look like they're made of pure gold!"

"Yeah, they do!"

An explosion from outside jostled the car, knocking Mark's head against the low rear ceiling. "Ow! What was that?"

"We've got company, Mark."

"How? What's our speed now?"

"Four hundred miles per hour."

"And they're still catching us?" Mark asked in disbelief.

"Evidently. But that speck's getting closer."

"So what We don't know what 'that speck' is!"

"It's a tunnel," Roanne stated matter-of-factly.

"How do you know?" Mark asked.

"Because it's right in front of us!"

Mark looked up just in time to see a rapidly growing rectangular speck expand its boundaries of darkness past the edges of the windshield.

Strips of rainbows began flying by, faster and faster, until they became blurs of light. The multicolored wave of ripples that had started Mark's program now started, and it expanded outward, past Mark and Roanne's peripheral vision.

Ten seconds later found them in Roanne's room in front of the computer. The calendar clock on her wall read "8:01 pm July 7 2097".

"Mark," Roanne whispered, "what would you say if I told you that that was only a dream?"

"I'd have to agree with you. I know that our minds have been linked for a year, now."

"But what about the scratches on your face?" She smiled teasingly.

"I was at the beach yesterday. Windy as anything. What's your excuse?" Mark retorted playfully.

"I did a chemistry experiment yesterday, and it exploded on me," Roanne replied innocently.

"Okay, okay," Mark laughed. "Remember our dinner?"

"Sure do."

"Well, I know a real nice place down the street."

"I'd like that," Roanne smiled warmly.

"Let's go." Mark opened the closet door to get his tan corduroy jacket, and as he shut the door, he froze. "I didn't put my jacket in there." He opened the door again, and he smiled in awe.

For there, on the rack, hung two gleaming black suits of armour. And there, on the floor, laid carefully, were the weapons. All of them. Mark reached down to feel the sharpness of one of the sword blades. Yes, they were real, all right. Mark shut the door to the closet, and he turned to Roanne. "Shall we?"

"Let's shall," she replied. They left the room, Mark shutting the door behind them.

As they walked along the streets, through the light of dusk, Roanne put her arm around Mark's waist, and Mark put his about her shoulders, and they drew closer together. A half-moon shone down on them, the streets were alive with the evening folk, the live crowd, and the air was clear, free of pollution and dust.

And Mark smiled.