Dan Black was out running with Julia when they noticed smoke pouring into the sky over Honolulu—or rather, he was getting his ass kicked by Julia after foolishly taking her up on the challenge of a race. Rosanna had tried to warn him. Duffy had made the top one thousand finishers of three New York Marathons, she said. But Dan simply hadn’t believed a woman could get the better of him, and so they agreed on a race and a swim afterward. The loser was to buy drinks that night for all four of them at the Moana. Dan hadn’t felt bad about the prospect of taking Julia’s dough. She said she was carrying about four hundred bucks around in her wallet and the local businesses had been ordered to honor the strange plastic banknotes at their face value.

He knew he was in trouble after the first mile, however, as she maintained a steady flow of chitchat while he labored to draw breath and match her pace. After three miles she’d even spurted ahead a few yards, spun around, and run backward, all while lecturing him on the necessity for universal birth control and an Equal Rights Amendment. He was set to give in and admit defeat when he noticed that the expression on her face had changed.

She slowed down, came to a full stop, and as he drew level with her again she pointed back toward Honolulu.

“Come on,” she said.

He saw the smoke as soon as he turned around. His first thought was of an air raid, but surely they would have heard that.

“Must be trouble,” he panted as they started back into town at an even quicker pace.

“No shit, Sherlock.”

By the time they made the edge of town Dan was in serious pain. A deep, burning stitch ran down the left side of his body, and he could feel the muscles in his legs starting to cramp. Julia was sweating, but otherwise looked comfortable.

The thunder of a riot was only slightly muted by distance. They had entered town away from the worst of the disturbance. Flickers of madness had drifted over, however, like the embers of a forest fire carried far ahead of the main blaze. As they swung onto the main strip a crazy man came at them with a club. Dan barely had time to notice that the club seemed to be a chair leg and that the guy was white and dressed in torn civilian clothes, when Julia suddenly pivoted on one foot and drove her other leg out like a steam piston.