And it is. It is. Annie thinks she can remember pulling a plain wooden armchair up to the bed, is sure she can, but it suddenly becomes clear she's mistaken, she is in a McDonnell Douglas ACES II ejection seat, the same type that launched her out of her burning F-16 over Bosnia. She acknowledges this discovery in the same unstartled way as she does the endlessly transforming instrument panels, and the smeary blotch of grease in front of--Mark's?--face, making it impossible for her to discern its features. She is in an ejection seat, okay, all right, an ejection seat. Belted into the safety harness, the recovery parachute container above the headrest against the back of her neck, the data recorder mounted on the side of the chair to her left over the emergency oxygen bottle ...

The yellow ejection handle in front of her.

"Do it, Annie. Bail!" the voice from the bed says in what almost sounds like a dare. "We both know how it works. Catapult will ignite in, what, three tenths of a second? The rocket sustainer less than a tenth of a second after that. Five secs later you'll be separated from the seat and floating down nice and soft in your 'chute. "

"No, " she replies, her own forcefulness catching her off guard. "I won't do it."

"Easy enough for you to say now, but just wait. There's smoke in the cabin! Smoke all around us. "

Again, Annie is hardly surprised to find that he is right, has actually gotten used to these snap announcements of his, which have begun to remind her of hearing a video jock on MTV or VH-1 introduce the weekly hit list. He knows what's cuing up, he's always on top of the game, and if he tells you that there's smoke, you better believe you're about smell it.

Just you wait a second.

At first it is white, vaporous, and odorless as it tapers up from underneath her seat, like the sort of dry-ice smoke produced for theatrical effects. But it rapidly darkens and thickens, rising in dirty gray billows that fill her mouth and nose, threatening to overcome her with its choking stench.

"Go on, Annie, what are you waiting for?" the man in the bed asks in his familiar gibing, goading tone. He props himself up on his pillow, thrusts his seared-to-the-bone finger at her through the smoke, and wags it in front of her face. "Reach for the lever and you're up and out!"

"No!" Annie is even more forceful, more adamant than she had been a second earlier. "I won't, you hear me? I won't!"

"Cut the crap and reach for it, " he snarls. "Reach--"