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‘Lilith?’

No wife. No servants. Where the hell is everyone?

He fumbles his way down the hall, the numbness spreading to his feet and ankles. He pauses at the open door to one of the guest suites, hearing voices. ‘Lilith? Lilith… you in here?’

Lucien staggers into the bedroom.

Stretched out across the king-size water bed, staring at her reflection in the ceiling mirror, is his young bride.

‘Lilith, help-’ Lucien falls to his knees, the sharp pain in his gut overwhelming. Numbness rises past his ankles to his hips. ‘Call Gill. Get me to a hospital, I think it’s my heart!’

‘No need to worry, sweetie, it’s not your heart.’

‘How… how do you know?’

‘Darling, it’s just the poison I’ve been feeding you.’

Lucien’s blood runs cold.

‘Now die like a good little rich boy, and don’t stain the carpet.’

Lucien collapses facefirst onto the plush beige rug, the numbness rising past his chest, the ringing in his ears insufficient to mute the cackle of laughter coming from his murderous wife’s voluptuous lips.

University of Miami

The Jerome Brown Memorial Athletic Center is located on the north side of the University of Miami campus, adjacent to the MTI basketball arena. In addition to its indoor track, pool, weight room, and conditioning equipment, the JBC is equipped with a press room and media center, complete with global uplink capabilities. At the heart of the facility is a circular broadcast chamber, its tinted smart-glass walls designed to conceal a myriad of cameras and lights, microphones, special effects boards, and technicians.

Diane Tanner enters the interview chamber, wearing her standard skintight designer ESPN body leotard. The voluptuous blonde takes her place opposite Samuel in an identical crushed velvet chair and adjusts her cleavage. ‘Nervous?’

‘Should I be?’

‘This is a live interview.’

‘Won’t be my first.’

‘I make you nervous, don’t I?’

‘Do you always come on to the athletes you interview?’

She smiles. ‘Only the cute ones.’

‘Stand by, Diane.’ The voice, coming from a hidden microphone. ‘Five… four… three-’

Diane switches to a more professional smile. ‘Welcome to This Week in Sports. I’m your host, Diane Tanner, and with me today is University of Miami’s star tailback, Samuel “the Mule” Agler. Sam, thanks for taking time to be with me.’ She winks.

‘My, uh… pleasure.’

‘Sam, pro scouts have already anointed you the most prolific running back ever to play in the professional collegiate ranks. Before we talk about your accomplishments on the field, I thought we’d take a quick peek into your private life. You were born in Chads Ford, Pennsylvania, is that right?’

‘According to the birth certificate.’

‘Your mother died when you were three. What happened?’

‘Drunk driver. This was before the new safety protocols.’

‘Of course. So your father, Gene, moved the two of you to Hollywood Beach, Florida, to start life over. Why Florida?’

‘Job transfer. He took over as principal at Pompano High.’

‘How old were you when you started playing football?’

‘Five or six.’

‘And the rest, as they say, is history. Star tailback your freshman year in high school. Led the nation in scoring and total yardage for four straight years. The most recruited PCAA athlete in history. Scored a perfect sixteen hundred on your entrance exams. With your scores and grades, you could have accepted an academic scholarship at Harvard.’

‘I suppose. But I wanted to stay close to home.’

‘Because you fell in love with your high-school sweetheart. How romantic.’ Diane allows the sarcasm to drip.

‘She keeps me in line.’

‘I bet she does. You don’t drink or Bliss. You donate your time to anti-drug messages. Jesus, Mule, you’re every American mother’s wet dream.’

‘Some of us were raised the right way.’

‘Hmm, now how does that old song go… “ only the good die young?” Anyway, let’s talk football. Tell us what it’s like to step out on the playing field and have 120,000 crazed fans screaming your nickname? How does it feel?’

Sam offers a half grin. ‘Feels kind of good.’

‘Good? I’d think it must feel incredible, unbelievable. When you scored that touchdown against FSU-what a rush, huh?’

‘Yeah. That one felt great.’

‘Did it?’ Diane sits back, the fly now snug in her web. ‘Let’s take a look.’

The lights dim, the smart glass becoming a circular hall of projection screens, Sam’s image on every panel.

Sam takes the pitch from his quarterback Cuts to his right Pivots back toward the line, evading tacklers… punching his way to daylight The cameras zoom in from a dozen different angles – focusing on his facial expression as he sprints down the sideline.

The image freezes. The lights come back on.

‘Sam, that certainly doesn’t look like delight on your face to me. It looks like, well… like fear. Were you afraid of something?’

‘I, uh…’

‘You seem kind of worried, like you might have just screwed up royally. How could you have screwed up by scoring a touchdown?’

‘I was just winded-’

‘You must’ve had trouble regaining your wind, you only gained sixty-two yards on the ground the rest of the game.’

‘It happens. FSU had nine defenders in the box. There were no holes.’

She smiles coyly. ‘Since when does the Mule need a hole?’

‘What’s your point?’

‘This was the biggest game of the year. Billions of dollars had been wagered in the federal government’s weekly football pool. The ’Canes were a six-point favorite. The final score was FSU 16, Miami 10. The game was a “push,” generating a cool 2.3 billion for our friends in Washington, DC.’

‘Are you accusing me of throwing the game?’

‘Of course not, not you, Mr. Perfect. But hypothetically speaking, how much would someone, say, Florida’s governor Ryan Wismer, have to pay you to pull up lame?’

‘You lousy fushcubitch! ’ Samuel stands.

The cameras keep rolling, Tanner far from finished. ‘Any truth to the rumors the PCAA is launching its own investigation?’

‘That’s it, we’re done. Shut it down.’ He searches in vain for an exit.

‘Sammy, darling, before you dash off, explain to my viewers why you ran out of bounds in that third quarter drive. Samuel “the Mule” Agler never runs out of bounds.’

Sam targets a mirrored panel. He jumps off the stage, pivots in midair, and executes a devastating side kick, his right heel striking the smart-glass like a sledgehammer, shattering it into a thousand smoking shards.

Diane ducks, unable to avoid the shrapnel. ‘I’m, uh, Diane Tanner, and that’s This Week in Sports!’

Sam hurtles past the stunned technicians and out the door.

UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI MAIN CAMPUS, CORAL GABLES, FLORIDA

November 21, 2033 7:18 a.m.

Lauren Beckmeyer stands at the dais, rechecking her notes and display disks for the third time. Seated before her are four of the five committee members assigned to the university’s research grant council. English Lit., Asian Studies, Physics, and History… everyone here but my Geology guy…

Professor Christopher Laubin, the fifth member of the council, hurries down the aisle.

‘Sorry I’m late.’ The Chair of the Geology Department nods to the other members of the committee, situates himself in one of the gold-cushioned high-backed chairs, then turns his attention to Lauren. ‘Are you ready to proceed, Ms. Beckmeyer?’

Been ready, you old… ‘Yes, sir.’

She inserts a disk, activating the first series of images-a sequence of moving photos of the Mount St. Helens eruption.

‘On May 18, 1980, at 8:32 A.M., a magnitude 5.1 earthquake shook Mount St. Helens. Within fifteen to twenty seconds, the volcano’s bulge and summit slid away in a huge landslide. This landslide depressurized the volcano’s magma system, triggering powerful explosions that ripped through the sliding debris. Rocks, volcanic gas, ash, and steam were blasted upward at speeds exceeding 300 miles per hour. The blast cloud traveled 17 miles north, its lateral blast producing a column of ash and gas that rose more than 15 miles into the atmosphere in less than fifteen minutes. Over the course of the day, prevailing winds blew 520 million tons of ash eastward across the United States and caused complete darkness in Spokane, Washington, 250 miles from the site.’