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code.”
    Amanda glanced over his shoulder; his laptop was paused on a fantasy role-playing game. Kurt followed her gaze. “Oh, that’s the latest version of The End of Time —”
    Before Kurt could explain all the secrets and intricacies of the game, and conveniently slip in the fact that he was the first person ever to become The Grand Executioner, Amanda cut him off. “I think games like that have led to the dissolution of American society.”
    Crestfallen, Kurt’s eyes dropped. “Seven-fifty is your change.”
    Amanda took the money from the sad college student. She didn’t like embarrassing him, but it was important that he remember the image of a twenty-year-old sociology major, five foot two, with short brown hair and stunning green eyes. In twenty, maybe thirty minutes, Kurt was going to get a visit from the FBI, and they would have a seven-year-old photograph of a five-foot-seven blonde with blue eyes who would now be thirty-seven. They would try to convince Kurt that the stuck-up bitch was actually Amanda. In the end, they would conclude that Kurt was an unreliable witness or that Amanda had used a stand-in—either way, the confusion would work to her advantage.
    “’Bye,” she said politely and walked out the door, swinging a book bag over one shoulder. Outside, Boulder, Colorado, was cold, quiet, and asleep. Constitution Avenue, the university’s main drag, was completely deserted, and Amanda’s clogs echoed off the storefronts. She continued up the street as far as the main campus. Comfortable that her deception was now complete, she turned onto Peak Street. Her five-year-old Jeep Grand Cherokee was parked in front of a Starbucks, and she quickly got in.
    “Damn him,” she said after strapping in. Her breath frosted the windshield. It had been a mistake to contact Martin, a mistake to believe that an ass like him could ever change. Now more than ever, she would have to cover her tracks, which meant leaving her apartment, her job, and ultimately her car behind.
    She started the car, and as it heated up, so did she. For more than three months, she had cooperated with them. She had submitted to dozens of their intrusive follow-up exams and had answered thousands of pointless questions, but it never seemed to be enough. They wanted something she couldn’t give them. “That’s not entirely true,” she whispered. She could have given them something; she could have given them the whole truth. It wouldn’t have answered any of their questions, but it would have told them that they were asking all the wrong questions.
    It was Martin who first suspected that she wasn’t completely forthcoming. “Bastard,” she said, without fogging the windshield. “He’s responsible for all this.” That wasn’t entirely true, either. He simply wouldn’t let it go; he wouldn’t let her go. He refused to accept the fact that he would never have his answers. It was more than just professional responsibility. Somehow it had become personal challenge. He would know her secret or he would destroy her life. As it turned out, it wasn’t her life that had been destroyed. She had no regrets about what she had done; she was well past feeling regret by that point. They had put her in a no-win situation, and they were the ones who had lost. For six years, they had hunted her, and up until this morning, the trail had grown decidedly cold. She put the car in gear and pulled out into the empty street, passing a deli on the left. Above the door was a large sign with the words Martin’s Deli painted across it.
    “Can’t shake you, can I,” she said while turning south. There was no point in returning to her apartment; she had planned for this eventuality and had everything she needed in the backseat. Her life in Boulder was over, and so were six years of relative normality.
    She drove in silence; radios only annoyed her. When the car was warm, she shimmied out of her parka and tossed it onto the crowded back seat. She had