PROLOGUE:

Water dripped, somewhere.  Rhythmic, echoing.  As soon as she 
became aware of the sound, the scene around her changed.  
High catwalks, coated with slime, crisscrossed above her.  
Below her, channels of water ran between the maze of pathways 
on which she walked.  Something splashed below her, surfacing 
for an instant and sinking back to the murky depths.  She had 
a brief image of a hideously deformed man, mottled white skin 
and a round mouth, full of teeth.  Soulless yellow eyes.  She 
walked faster.

The dripping sound came from a door at the end of the 
walkway, a warm yellow rectangle, promising relief from the 
foreboding dampness.  She hurried toward it, stepping through 
into the light.  The room was comforting, filled with soft 
terry and warm, scented steam.  A claw footed bathtub stood 
under an incandescent bulb, filled and inviting.  She turned 
away from the tub to the sink, and began to undress.  A face 
gazed back at her from the mirror, familiar, but different, 
younger.  She wiped the steam away for a better look, and 
noticed someone perched on the edge of the tub.  She was sure 
he hadn't been there before.  "Do you have chemically treated 
hair, girly girl?" the man asked.

She raced from the room, the words inciting a nameless 
terror.  The strange, wet, landscape was gone, and she found 
herself in another room, candlelit, with tired, cheap 
furnishings and stains on the carpet.  A man stepped forward 
an embraced her.  She was suffused with a sense of safety, 
contentment.  "It's okay, they're just mosquito bites," he 
said.  Then he stepped back, growing taller, menacing.  The 
contentment evaporated, the fear returned.  She tried to run, 
but the big man picked her up and hurled her against the 
wall.  The pain of it tore at her back, but the wall gave 
way, and she was falling, falling, falling...

Dr. Melissa Charles woke with a gasp of fear, the thin dawn 
light creeping in through the parted curtains.  The dream 
drained away rapidly, but she knew she would not return to 
sleep.  Better not to try.  She struggled to recall the 
obscure images, but they were already gone.  She sighed. 

"Lights, half intensity.  Time."  She called out to the 
household computer.

The room lit with a pleasant glow, and a voice called out, 
"The time is 6:17 AM, Eastern Standard."

Class would begin in a little under three hours.  She might 
as well get ready.

-------------------------------------------------------------

When David Mitchell rolled over and stretched, the sun hit 
him undiluted in the face.  He woke immediately, suddenly 
suspicious of its angle and brightness.

"What time is it?" he called out.

"The time is 8:47 AM, Eastern Standard," replied the 
disembodied voice of his organizer.

Crap.  He was going to be late.  First day of Molecular 
Xenobiology, and he'd heard that the new professor was a 
hardass.  What was the name?  Dr. Chanlin?  Charles?  
Whatever.  Some old-school, ivory-tower, master of the 
monograph researcher.  Hardass.  And he was going to be late.

"I told you to wake me at 6AM," he grumbled, hopping on one 
leg to keep his balance while he got into his pants.

"It is currently 5:48AM, Pacific Standard," replied the 
organizer.

"We're not in Pacific Standard Time you idiot, we tubed east 
last night.  We're in Savannah, which is Eastern Standard 
Time, and you're waking me 3 hours late.  If you know what 
time it is here, why do you still have the alarm set for 
home?"

"The alarm request was made in the Pacific Time Zone.  No 
reset was requested," came the matter of fact reply.
David shook his head, stalking into the bathroom.  One thing 
remained true in the 250 years since some blockhead ran a 
current through silicon.  Garbage in, garbage out.

He turned on the sink to brush his teeth, while 
simultaneously pounding on the connecting door of the 
bathroom that led to his roommate's bedroom.

"Jerry, are you up?  Get up, we're late."   The sound of 
something crashing to the floor on the other side of the door 
assured him that his friend was roused.  He picked up the 
toothpaste, and put it down again.  Time was short.  Instead, 
he chewed up a breath capsule, wincing at the strong taste.  
With the few minutes he had, he'd rather indulge in a shave.  
He ran a comb quickly through his thick brown hair, lathered 
up his face, pulled out the old straight razor his father had 
given him, and began the smooth, long strokes.

"I don't know why you persist in that ancient ritual," Jerry 
commented, entering the bathroom, already dressed.  "If you 
want a smooth face, you can have the growth inhibited."

David grinned at his friend in the mirror.  "I don't believe 
in medically altering my appearance."

Jerry gazed at him steadily.  "And yet you're studying to 
medically alter entire bodies."

David shook his head.  "Someday I *will* succeed in teaching 
you the concept of irony."  He shrugged.  "People want to 
look young.  I want to be rich.  And anyway, I'm already good 
looking.  Ouch!"  He wiped the blood off the small nick with 
his thumb, and looked at it.

"Arrogance doesn't flatter you," Jerry said seriously.  "And 
you're wasting your intellect."

David put the razor down and rinsed his face.  "Are you 
channeling my mother?  Just because I've chosen a cosmetic 
specialty doesn't mean I won't be learning anything else.  
But there's not a whole lot left to conquer, you know?  The 
world's a healthy place."  He looked himself over in the 
mirror one more time.  His hazel eyes had paled to the gray 
tone they took on when he was upset.  The small part of him 
that used to be ambitious was nagging at him again.  Ambition 
was so damn draining.  Wanting to be the best only meant you 
were more likely come up short of your goal.  No, he would 
settle for very good, very stable, very comfortable.  And 
these days, that meant xeno-genetic cosmetic-retroplasty.  He 
shoved the voice down where it couldn't be heard, and 
resolutely regained his typical, optimistic outlook.  He 
turned back to his friend.

"Jerry, fix your face.  Are you still asleep?  You look 
sloppy."

Jerry straightened up, and David watched as his friend's face 
morphed more firmly into the familiar features he had known 
since childhood.

"How's that?" he asked.

"Same old Jerry," David replied, smiling.  They crossed into 
David's room just as the organizer announced, "Wake up call, 
wake up call.  Six AM Pacific Standard Time."

David grabbed a shirt and a jacket, shrugged into both, and 
grabbed the organizer.

"Definitely late," he said, stepping into shoes.

They left the campus housing at a jog, David buttoning and 
zipping as they trotted across the common area, Jerry as 
always, tidy and impeccable.

"You know," Jerry said stiffly, "I heard that Dr. Charles is 
a hardass."

-------------------------------------------------------------

Dr. Mel Charles gazed out across the faces of her Molecular 
Xenobiology class.  The enrollment was relatively large for a 
graduate course, thirty-five students.  She knew what was 
drawing most of them to what had once been an obscure 
elective.  She also knew that nearly half of them would not 
survive her course.  They were still shuffling in as 9 
o'clock approached, chatting quietly with friends, an 
occasional burst of laughter coming from the corner of the 
hall.  The display on her desk finally rolled to 9:00, and 
she adjusted the jacket of her conservative dark suit as she 
stood.  Showtime.

She fixed the class with her coldest regard.  In short 
moments, the murmur began to abate, as first one student, 
then another, noticed her glare, and nudged friends into 
silence.  By 9:01 she had their undivided, and clearly 
unsettled, attention.

Without preamble, she launched into the first day lecture 
that she had given so many times before.  Glancing behind her 
to verify the display was working, she wrote on her desk.  

"Address you organizer to the node I'm writing on the 
display.  The class syllabus can be loaded from this node, 
along with the required text and a recommended bibliography.  
Class notes will be available for loading during the first 10 
minutes of lecture.  I want you listening and thinking, not 
copying.  But I pull them down again immediately after that 
interval.  If you're late, or miss a lecture, it's your 
problem.  Get the notes from a classmate."

Dr. Charles took a breath, and without raising her head, 
regarded the bustle of activity as students pulled out styli 
and accessed the notes.  The classroom was briefly filled 
with the sound of busy tapping.  She was already categorizing 
them.  Some seemed timid, unnerved by her demeanor, and no 
doubt by her reputation.  Others strained at nonchalance.  A 
few simply got the notes in a business like manner and waited 
expectantly for her to continue.

"As you are all no doubt insufferably aware, you are among 
the elite of humanity's current crop of medical and genetic 
science students.  For that, you have the honor of having me 
as visiting professor here at South Eastern University for 
the next sequence.  I presume my reputation precedes me."

A few students dared to snicker.  Dr. Charles made a few more 
mental notes.

"Show of hands.  How many are familiar with my research?"  A 
few hands.  "How many have heard I'm a hard-ass?"  No hands, 
a little shuffling.  "The hands up before were brown-nosing.  
The hands down now are lying.  Science requires the open and 
honest exchange of ideas.  Once more, how many have heard I'm 
a hard-ass?"  Hesitantly, a few hands went up, others, 
bolstered by their classmates' courage, followed.  Dr. 
Charles delivered the fatal blow.  She favored the class, 
with a brief but brilliant smile.  "Put your hands down.  
We'll begin." 

Many in the class looked openly confused, now.  She knew she 
was not what had they had been expecting.  The nature and 
depth of her research generally caused people to assume she 
was very old.  Her reputation as tough generally made people 
assume she was large.  The most frequent assumption, from 
those who didn't know her, was that she was a man.  When she 
turned out to be a small, relatively youthful and attractive, 
if graying, woman it generally elicited surprise.  

Usually she did nothing to dissuade any preconceptions.  She 
liked to work alone on her research, and valued her privacy.  
Collaboration with colleagues was generally done 
electronically, and without a visual feed.  There was no need 
for her appearance to get in the way of ideas.  She was 
scathing in her reviews of other's research when the 
researcher's bias was evident in the results.  She was also 
usually the first to recognize a genuine insight in others' 
work.  She was as a result loathed by as many as she was 
admired, but she was respected by all.  By and large, she was 
content with her reputation.

Teaching is different, though, she reminded herself.  She 
would have to connect with these students, something she was 
a little out of practice with.  Her rattling performance was 
meant to shake loose their preconceptions, their complacency.  
Real insight required wonder.  And real science, she had 
learned long ago, required the scientist to be able to 
consider the extreme possibility alongside the more mundane.  
She wondered if any of these students would prove to have 
that kind of courage.

It was why she had come out of seclusion after all, and 
accepted the position.  She needed a protege.   She didn't 
really expect to find one among those who were only here 
hoping to unlock just enough genetic secrets to get rich 
catering to the vain.  But maybe the stimulation of teaching 
would help her break through the wall she'd been fruitlessly 
battering for the last three years.

"How many of you are in this class as part of a biotechnology 
degree program?"  Dr. Charles continued to size up the class.  
"How many are planning careers in medicine?"  A smaller 
number.  "How many plan to do pure research?"  Only two.  
"How many are here only because you're looking for 
information on new ways chromosome six of the Smith-alien 
race might be put to profitable use."  Back to the hushed 
shuffling her hard-ass question had elicited earlier.  "I 
see."

Dr. Charles had a fair weight of regret for her part in 
publishing the research on that topic.  Maybe not the kind of 
regret Oppenheimer had lived with, but it was there, never 
the less.  She had been intrigued with the physiology of 
these shape-shifting aliens, but as it was impossible to find 
any willing to take part in a physical study, her research 
had been restricted to what was known of their genome.  Her 
successes were frankly remarkable, given that she lacked 
access to a living sample of the genetic code she was 
attempting to decipher. The aliens who shared the Earth were 
not protective of what they considered basic, encyclopedic 
information about their technology and science.  But they 
were also uninterested in providing human scientists any 
guidance in interpreting or using that information.  The 
Grays insisted that such behavior was in humanity's best 
interests... that to be given scientific insights sooner than 
we could discover them ourselves would somehow bring ruin.  
Dr. Charles thought that was a crock.  At least the Smiths 
lived with humanity, co-mingled.  The Grays remained isolated 
in their settlements on the African continent, rarely 
venturing out, and allowing only infrequent human visitation.

Her research on the Smith genome opened the door for others, 
with less pure ambitions. Given one small key to the shape 
shifting ability, they managed to engineer a modified version 
of the gene which when introduced to a human host, conferred 
just enough of that ability that with practice, an older 
person could morph their features back to a more youthful 
appearance.  It was tricky, expensive, and all the rage.  And 
very likely incredibly dangerous.  Because only the old took 
the treatment, no one had researched whether the changes 
would be heritable, and if so, how it might affect the next 
generation.  It was nothing she had intended or even 
considered when she published.  She wasn't even certain if 
the surge in interest in Xenobiology and Xenogenetics was 
going to prove to be a good thing, given the initial 
application of her discoveries.  Although, for the short run, 
it did mean she could look forward to a growing population of 
peers that she could discuss her research with.  Some of them 
might even come from this class.

"Let me be very clear.  While we will be discussing the known 
features of both the Smith and the Gray genomes, this is not 
a trade school.  I will not be discussing the latest 
techniques in xeno-genetic cosmetic-retroplasty in this 
class."

A late arriver skidded through the upper door of the hall on 
the heels of her words, fresh faced, but misbuttoned.  She 
glanced down at her desk for the roll, which had been taken 
automatically as the students had downloaded their notes.  
Only one name was missing.  

"Mr. Mitchell, please take your seat and try not to disturb 
the class.  You have just under two minutes remaining to 
download the class files.  You will be here, seated, on time, 
from now on.  I do not tolerate tardiness or interruptions.  
Is that clear?"  She looked up at the young man to whom she'd 
had to deliver the supplemental dose of "professor ice" and 
was for the first time in recent memory, herself unsettled.  
She found herself staring.  There was something familiar 
about him, compelling.

The short spell was broken as he stammered "Y-yes ma'am."

She noticed the young man following David Mitchell as he 
struggled toward an empty seat.

"Excuse me.  But now that Mr. Mitchell has graced us with his 
arrival, I have no one else expected on this roster," she 
addressed him.

Jerry looked expectantly toward his friend.  "I'm..." he 
began.

"He's auditing," David finished.

Dr. Charles looked at the young man more closely.  Oh.  Few 
humans could tell just by looking, but she'd been around a 
bit more than most, and she was pretty sure she was right.  

"Mr. Smith?"  

The young man nodded.

"Take your seat, then."

Her lecture began in earnest then, no slow ramp up for the 
first day.  She could see the alarm at her pace in some of 
their faces, heard the grumbling at the amount of work she 
was assigning.  She decided to throw them a bone.

"Right now, you do not have the tools to even understand the 
following problem, let alone solve it," she said, penning a 
long nucleotide sequence onto her desk, so it appeared behind 
her on the large display.   "However, if you are diligent, 
you should be able to fathom the question by about halfway 
through our first trimester." She continued sketching a 
series of complex molecules.  "Any student who succeeds in 
solving this problem before our full sequence together has 
ended is guaranteed an A.  I don't grade on the curve, so 
this may be your only hope."

They didn't know if she was kidding.

Later, she sighed quietly at the students shuffling out, 
while she cleared the desk for the next class.  What the 
hell.  It was absurd to think one of these students would 
actually solve a problem she'd been banging at for three 
years, but she remembered her own student days, and it was 
amazing what desperation could lead one to.

-------------------------------------------------------------

First break was a week of freedom that came three months into 
the university sequence.  David had been eager for the 
respite, eager for a chance to go inland, to camp in the 
sparsely populated mountains, and test himself against the 
steep formations, an adversary he understood.

Now, he had lost track of the time.  It was serene on the 
mountain, near the ruins of the old tower.  He'd chosen the 
steep face and made the ascent fast, working off his 
frustration, forgetting it completely in the several areas of 
technical ascent, when his entire concentration was consumed 
by where to put his toes next, what nub of granite would 
provide the best grip.  Jerry had accompanied him, of course, 
never taking the lead, even though he showed few signs of 
exertion during the climb.

He'd collapsed when they had reached the top, and lay gazing 
back down over the valley and the sky.  It seemed bigger 
here, and helped him find perspective.  It was quiet, too.  
Not a lot of people lived on this part of the continent any 
more, and nature had been busy at reclamation.  The town that 
once lived at the foot of the mountain was visible only by 
the unnatural pattern of straight lines in the meadow grass 
that had overgrown its ruins.

He finally responded to the weight of Jerry's gaze, which 
he'd been feeling upon him for more than a while.  

"What."

David's tone made Jerry discard the line of questioning he'd 
been contemplating, and instead simply state "We should begin 
our descent soon, if we're going to make camp by nightfall."

"We can wait a little longer."

They fell back into silence, and David closed his eyes.  The 
air today was still, and had been surprisingly warm in spite 
of the altitude.  But as the day lengthened, the faintest 
breeze began to stir.  With his eyes closed, it felt like a 
touch, tickling his face and riffling the hair lying across 
his forehead.  It complemented the feeling from the sun, 
baking into his face, and heating his legs in his dark 
trousers.  Soon he'd hear it in the pines, sighing, and when 
the sun went down, the air would cool.  So different from the 
dense mugginess at school, where the constant sweaty drone of 
cicadas felt like it lay on his skin along with the humidity.  
He never wanted to be outdoors, there, even though being 
confined indoors for long stretches made him restless.  He 
grabbed a handful of lichen and held it to his face, enjoying 
the mossy scent mixed with the rosin still on his hands from 
their climb.  He heard the rustle of something small 
scurrying nearby.  Probably a chipmunk, they were everywhere 
here.

"Why do you suppose she insists on physical attendance?" he 
ventured.

Jerry looked at his friend's profile, still gazing out toward 
the east.  He wasn't sure what the question meant.  "It *is* 
her prerogative," he answered simply.

"If she would just broadcast, we could stay here longer.  I'm 
sure I could get a feed."  He stood up, grabbed a piece of 
the faintly pink granite near his feet, and threw it as far 
as he could, listening to the faint clatter as it met the 
ground far below, where the cliffside was angled less 
steeply.

Jerry stood up as well, brushing the dirt from his legs.  
"It's not the same experience."

"Yeah.  No kidding."

Oh.  It wouldn't be long, Jerry thought, before he finally 
learned what was troubling his friend.  He'd watched him grow 
quieter and less animated over the past several weeks, but it 
wasn't in David's nature to complain.

They took a different route back down the mountain, following 
the gentler descent of what was once a road.  In places the 
black surface was still fairly intact, in others, the roots 
of trees had crumbled it as they pushed up through.  David 
thought about the ghost town they had hiked through on their 
way to the tower, and tried to picture it with whole 
buildings, instead of mossy foundations.  Tried to picture 
the energy and bustle of a large town in this remote place.  
He couldn't do it.  Even the small community of Denver, one 
of the few places with a tube stop near the mountains, seemed 
out of place.

"Do you ever wonder what it was like?" he mused aloud.

"What what was like?" Jerry responded.

"Here.  Earth.  Before the wars."

Jerry looked at his friend and then forward again.  "It's not 
my planet.  We have little history here."

"My grandmother says this continent wasn't empty in the 
interior, the way it is now.  That it was full of towns and 
cities as large as on the coasts, even here in the mountains.  
She says her grandmother remembered."  He was silent for a 
while, missing the woman who had raised him after his parents 
died.  He briefly wished he had gone to visit her on his 
break, instead of going camping.  Next time for sure.  "I 
wonder if it seemed crowded, then."

"Perhaps," Jerry countered, "it would seem empty now to 
someone of that era."

History from that time was vague, and conflicted.  No one 
denied that there had been a tragic loss of life when Earth 
had been caught up in the Gray's war, but at the same time, 
the people of that era were often characterized as ignoble 
and petty.  Decimating the plant's resources at breakneck 
pace, and fighting among themselves even in the face of 
destruction.  The Grays had stayed on Earth at first to 
provide aid during the reconstruction, helping humanity back 
onto their feet.  They had stayed since then because, well, 
no one really knew because.  But they kept to themselves, and 
the planet seemed to have resources enough for everyone.  The 
last 100 years had been something of a renaissance.  It 
wasn't a bad time to be alive.

They hiked overland for a little while, the smell of the 
short mountain grass coming off their heels, burrs sticking 
to their pants, heading steadily for the mountain meadow they 
had researched as a likely campsite.  David pulled out his 
goggles and adjusted them for distance.  He compared the view 
with the information displaying on his organizer, his exact 
position pinpointed by the network of satellites in low 
orbit.  He could see a distant break in the meadow grass that 
was probably the small stream that was a landmark on the 
organizer.  The remaining hike would probably take only 
another 45 minutes or so, then they could set up the tent, 
erect the emitters that would keep the wildlife at a 
distance, and run a few gallons of water through the 
filtration system.   They finished the rest of the hike in 
contemplative silence.

-------------------------------------------------------------

When Jerry awoke during the night, the tent was empty.  He 
sat up quickly, the material of the tent swishing faintly 
against his sleeping sack, and reached for the door flap.  
His alarm abated when he spied David sitting by the banked 
fire, his silhouette lit a milky blue in the moonlight, and 
outlined by the orange embers in the firepit.  The air had 
cooled considerably, making wraiths of every exhaled breath.  

"I didn't mean to wake you," David said, without turning 
around.

Jerry walked the few steps to the firepit, the ground 
crackling underfoot in the cold.  His concern returned 
slightly when he noticed the organizer open on David's knees, 
his face looking sallow in the yellow glow from its display.   

"I see you're not enjoying the scenery," he said simply.

David smiled up at his friend, and switched it off.  "You 
make a good point."

To the west, the Front Range was a deep shadow, sparkling at 
its crests.  The awesome height of Pike's Peak dominated the 
scene, its snow capped summit glittering in the moonlight.  
He took several lungfulls of the crisp thin air, and thought 
himself a proper fool for wasting such a spectacular view.  

Folding himself down to the ground, Jerry asked, "What were 
you looking at?"

Glancing sideways before answering, he confessed, "Dr. 
Charles's extra credit problem."

"Why?"

He shrugged.  "Ace the class, never have to go back?"

"I thought you liked the Xeno classes."

"I do," he insisted.  Then,  "I did.  I don't know..." he 
trailed off.  After a moment, he continued.  "I think Dr. 
Charles really dislikes me.  I don't think she'll let me 
pass."

"There's no evidence that her grading is anything but 
objective," Jerry countered.  "You know that."

David sighed, and lay back on the ground.  "She rides me 
really hard in class.  I feel like I'm back in undergraduate 
courses."

"She's hard on everyone.  She's demanding and very serious.  
She also has more to offer than anyone you have ever studied 
under."

David grimaced.  "I knew you were going to say that."

"You know that I'm right."

"You're always right, Jerry.  Do you know how insufferable 
that gets sometimes?" he demanded, exasperated.  They were 
silent for a moment, but as always, David relented.  "I'm 
sorry.  I shouldn't be taking it out on you."

Jerry lowered his head in mute acceptance of the apology.  "I 
think you're overreacting," he offered.  "You're not doing 
badly.  In fact, you're doing better than many.  Seven 
students have already dropped the course, and so far, you're 
maintaining a B."

"Minus," David added.  "On the ragged edge of a C."  It was 
demoralizing.  Academics had always been his arena, the place 
where he shone.  His mother had been so proud of him, before 
she died, when he brought home his standings.  And it had 
been so easy to please her, that way.  He had charmed his 
early teachers with his quick thinking and eagerness to 
learn, all of them sending home glowing reports.  He'd been 
only a child when his mother had fallen ill, so he had to 
concentrate to bring the image of her face into his mind.    
"My little genius," she had called him, blue eyes shining.  
And then she'd died, of a quick, wasting disease.  An 
impossibly rare occurrence in these times of genetically 
manipulated immunities.   From then on, he'd always 
considered excelling as a way of honoring her memory, and 
life sciences his hope of one day understanding what had 
happened to her.

But years had passed, and his spotless academic record became 
a burden in its own way.  He was too invested in it to let it 
slide, but he was tired of being enslaved to its maintenance.  
So he had made a compromise with himself.  The cosmetic 
specialties had easy coursework, and he could be done in only 
one more sequence, out of school, into practice.  If he could 
get certified in the new xeno techniques, his practice would 
be a rich one, allowing time for his own studies on the side.  
He *did* like the Xeno sciences, was utterly fascinated by 
them.  He just didn't want to be judged any more.  And he was 
so damn close.  Until Dr. Charles.

"You know what I really hate?" David asked.  Without waiting 
for a response, he went on.  "It's when she stops lecturing, 
and starts that drill routine.  Firing off questions like 
darts, running you over if you can't figure out the solution 
immediately.  And you know why?"  Again, he didn't wait.  
"Because I *can* see the answer about half the time, but she 
*always* nails me with the ones I can't.  It makes me feel 
like an idiot."

Jerry considered that for a minute, and concluded, "Then 
you'd feel better if you always knew the answer, wouldn't 
you?"

David sat back up and faced him.  "I'd have to drop all 3 of 
my other classes in order to devote enough time to make that 
a reality."

Jerry looked at him steadily.

"Oh, come on.  That would mean another full sequence."

Still, Jerry didn't speak.

"Stop giving me that inscrutable look, and tell me why I 
would possibly want to do this."

"You would beat her.  You would win."

David bristled.  "It's not about that.  I don't want to beat 
anybody."

"But you don't want to be defeated, either, do you?  A minute 
ago you believed she was out to fail you."

"I don't want to beat her," he repeated.

"Then what do you want?"

The silence hung long after Jerry's last question.  Finally 
David whispered, "I think I want to impress her.  I don't 
know why.  And I'm not sure that I can."

"I'm sure," Jerry stated.  With no more to say, he stood and 
headed back to the tent.

After a moment, David followed.

-------------------------------------------------------------

By morning, David had decided, and having that effort behind 
him, he felt immeasurably better.  Jerry noticed his improved 
demeanor, but didn't comment, merely breaking down and 
packing up the campsite, and preparing for their hike back.

They began the day heading north, in the predawn twilight.  
The eastern sky was just beginning to take on shades of pink, 
and the grass underfoot soaked their shoes with dew.  They 
moved quickly to stay warm, stopping only when the sun broke 
the horizon, to admire the sunrise over the mountain plains.

When the sun had risen enough to begin to bake some of the 
dampness off their feet and packs, they picked up another old 
road.  David paused to pull out the goggles and see what lay 
along it.   In one direction he saw more meadows, like that 
they had camped in.  In the other direction he saw -- well 
that was weird.

"Hey Jerry, what do you make of this?" he asked, handing over 
the goggles.  

Jerry adjusted the view for his better eyesight, and finally 
concluded, "It must be a tunnel."

"It's not on the map.  The organizer has nothing on it, and 
the satellites have nothing to add.  It's a blank."  He 
lowered the goggles and squinted into the distance.  "This is 
really strange.  Usually, there's all kinds of useless 
information.  Like that ghost town we hiked through 
yesterday?  It was called Colorado Springs.  But this place, 
nothing."  

They stood side by side, staring into the distance.

"It's probably dangerous."  "Let's check it out," they said 
simultaneously.

Jerry sighed.  He was unlikely to win this one.  "Why do you 
want to go there?  If the satellites can't read what's in 
there, then they won't be able to find us in there either, if 
something happens."

"What's going to happen?" David grinned. "Come on, it will be 
an adventure."

"David..." Jerry warned.

"It's a mystery.  Don't you want to *know*?" He bounced on 
the balls of his feet, excitement straining at his bond with 
the ground.

Warily, Jerry gave in.  There was no fighting him when he was 
like this, and it was at least nice to see his friend more 
like himself.  "Ok, but just a quick look..."  He sighed.  
David had taken off at "O", and he ran to catch up.

-------------------------------------------------------------

In spite of the long run, David was literally hopping with 
excitement when they reached the mouth of the tunnel.  

"This is incredible," he breathed in awe.

The mouth of the tunnel was covered by a pair of huge metal 
doors, their giant locking cylinders frozen permanently in 
their protracted position, preventing the doors from closing.  
A gap, big enough for a man to pass, led into the mountain.  
He pulled his goggles on once again, and adjusted them for 
darkness.  "Let's go," he said.

The first few yards inside the mountain were covered with 
debris that had blown in over the years.  It crunched loudly 
beneath their feet, and echoed hollowly in the cavernous 
entryway.  David sneezed as the stale dust tickled his nose.  
"What do you think this place was?"

Jerry didn't answer.

The passage continued, wide and unremarkable for some length, 
but the air felt heavy, as though the weight of the mountain 
above them were pressing down.  His enthusiasm waning at the 
lack of artifacts, David was about ready to turn around, when 
a glint of machinery caught his eye in the distance.  They 
picked up the pace, their footsteps clattering loudly back at 
them from the walls of the tunnel.  There were vehicles of 
some kind, wreckage.  The metal of which they were made was 
twisted violently where they had contacted the walls, and 
each other.  Many of them seemed perforated with hundreds of 
small holes, and shards of glass remained sharp on the 
ground.  Something clinked across the ground as David's foot 
kicked it away.  He bent down to look more closely, and found 
the ground littered with hundreds of small metal tubes, 
closed on one end.  Curious, he picked a few off the ground 
and pocketed them.

Behind the tumble of metal, another door stood ajar, this one 
sized for men, not for machinery.  It was pitch dark beyond.

"Let's go back," Jerry said, though he didn't expect 
compliance.  He wasn't disappointed.

"No, I want to see."  He climbed over the wreckage, and into 
the heart of the mountain.  

At first, they were faced again with a corridor, this time 
tiled and smooth.   "Have you got your breadcrumbs ready?" 
David joked, when they came to the first of several 
junctures.  They followed the widest corridor, and sucked in 
surprised breaths when it at last opened out onto an enormous 
room, packed with old technology.  The centerpiece of the 
room was a huge display screen.  A string of letters 
stenciled beneath it was still clear.  "What's N-O-R-A-D?" 
David wondered aloud.  This deep into the mountain, very 
little dust or debris had penetrated.  The sensation was 
eerie, as though the lights would come on at any moment, and 
someone would demand to know why they were trespassing.  The 
floor of the room held rows of old computer keyboards and 
monitors.  Looking closer, David saw that between the 
credenzas of equipment, nests of blankets and metal dishes 
littered the floor.  "I think people were living here, once," 
he whispered, awed.  But no sign of the inhabitants 
themselves could be seen.  "I wonder where they all went."  
He stepped forward to the nearest of the little nests, and 
bent down to look more closely.  Reaching out his hand, he 
came back with a small stuffed bear, its glass eyes 
glittering harshly in the enhanced light from his goggles.  
The hairs began to rise a little on the back of his neck, and 
he replaced the toy with a faint shiver.  "Let's see what 
else there is," he said, retreating from large hall.  

Many of the rooms off the narrower corridors revealed similar 
scenes, although the people living in those rooms had at 
least had the luxury of a cot, a table, and a door.  In every 
case, signs of living stood abandoned, as though the 
inhabitants had just gotten up and left during the middle of 
a meal, or while reading.  He shuffled through the items on a 
shelf above the cot in one of the rooms.  Books, mostly.  An 
old Bible.  A stack of scientific papers.  He looked at the 
titles.  'Variola Virus.  Dr. Bonita Carn-Sairs.' Most of the 
papers seemed to focus on biological topics.  There was one 
exception, on physics: 'Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New 
Interpretation.  Dr. Dana K. Scully.'  A smaller stack of lab 
books, filled with notes in a tight, neat, feminine hand.  He 
warred with himself for a moment about taking some of the 
items with him.  Archeology?  Or sacrilege?   The ever 
growing prickling on the back of his neck convinced him it 
would be better to leave it behind.

The final doors at the end of the deepest corridor opened 
onto a familiar sight.  A laboratory, with long black-topped 
work benches, and sinks.  The timeless shapes of petrie 
dishes, beakers, test tubes, and erlenmeyer flasks.  Racks of 
equipment, still recognizable in spite of their out-of-date 
design: centrifuges, microscopes, more of the old computers.

Strained by both providing the only light source, and working 
at peak efficiency to amplify it, David's goggles began to 
dim in the way that warned him the battery was in need of 
restoration.  He turned the amplification down by half to 
preserve the power that remained, but still ventured further 
into the laboratory.  Near the back of the lab, some sort of 
struggle had taken place.  The bench had been swept clear, 
and broken glass lay thickly on the floor beside it.  A 
bootprint was still visible on the counter, and David looked 
up, to see why someone had been standing on the bench.  
Something glinted near the ceiling, and he thoughtlessly 
repeated an act that must have taken place almost two hundred 
years earlier, jumping onto the lab bench and reaching up 
toward the ceiling.  It was a small gold chain, with a tiny 
cross, broken, and caught in the nappy fabric of a pants leg.  
A pants leg?

Oh.  Oh, man.  

"Jerry?" he called out tensely.

"Here."

"I found somebody."  Hearing Jerry's footsteps approaching, 
he reached up and plucked the necklace from its perch, 
pocketing it, before taking a firmer grip on the boot hanging 
out of the vent.

"What are you doing?" Jerry demanded, alarmed.  "Leave it 
alone.  What's here belongs to the past."

"Don't you want to--"

"No!  No, I don't want to *know*!  It is wrong to disturb 
this site.  Leave the dead to their rest."  He pinned him 
with his stare, never more serious than this.  David's 
goggles chose that moment to give another dimming warning, 
and he was forced to turn them down yet again.  Between the 
waning of his vision, his now almost constant sense of 
unease, and the deadly earnestness of Jerry's regard, he 
decided for once to listen to his friend's conservative 
advice, and jumped down from the bench.

Something hit him squarely from behind, knocking him to the 
ground, and he screamed.  A weight pressed him into the 
floor, and he scrambled forward, heedless of the broken 
glass, frantically working to dislodge it.  

"David!  David!"

Jerry's voice cut through his rising panic, and strong hands 
dragged him to his feet, the weight falling away to the 
ground with a sickening crunch.

"It fell, David!  That's all!  When you jumped, it fell."  He 
modulated his voice to a more soothing tone.  "They just 
fell."

They both looked back at the grisly sight.  Two leathery, 
desiccated corpses, locked eternally in a mortal struggle.  
One was a man, dressed in olive green from head to toe, his 
head arched back and face in rictus.  The other had the large 
head and liquid eyes of a Gray, dimmed and sunken, a part of 
its neck blown away.  The Gray's arm was completely through 
the ribcage of the man, emerging out the back.  A narrow 
sliver of light cut across the floor, shining from the place 
in the ceiling from which they had fallen.  It was the 
entrance to a ventilation shaft, cut all the way through to 
the surface.  

The scene was even more shocking than the fall moments 
before.  It fit none of what David understood about the wars.

"What the hell happened here?"

Across the fall of the light, something black and oily 
glistened and flowed.

"Jerry, what the hell is *that*?"  David pointed.

Jerry reacted instinctively, yanking David back several feet 
by his pack straps.  "Don't let it touch you," he hissed 
urgently.  They watched in horror for a heartbeat more, as 
the oil oozed in their direction.  Then the panic set in, and 
they bolted from the lab.

They ran back the way they had come, scrambling over the 
wreckage with far less grace than they had on the way in, 
Jerry frequently pulling a stumbling David up by his jacket 
sleeves, and finally leading him when his goggles become too 
weak for him to see clearly.  They didn't stop until the 
colossal doors were a mile behind them.