"Ohhhhh no," said Alisin, regarding her redheaded loverboy and Katherine with equal-opportunity sadism. "You said dartgun fight, you drag me all th’ way out here… dartgun fight y’r gonna get."

   Alisin was tarted up with extra darts belted onto her biceps and hips, and a camouflage pattern that was apparently designed to blend with polluted swamps, a pattern that extended from her combat fatigues and gloves to her hat and makeup. Her dartgun was a repeat-fire model with a revolving chamber. It was bright orange and pink, and no one would confuse it with a real weapon...

   "C’mon, guys, this is me playin’ with matches instead’a hand grenades. This is just play sadomasochism. Make it rewardin’ f’r me. Don’ make me go back to the hard stuff..."

   ...but Katherine had other reasons to panic.

   "Run!" she yelled to Rikk, NO, RUMY, DAMMIT, and shoved her through the exhibits, out the door, into the hall, and halfway through the Drama Department.

   Alisin paused. "There y’go. Man, I thought Will was the other drama queen around here..." They did look really spooked. What if they really were?… No, she and Rikk had settled that. Trust, it was all about trust.

   And then she was after them.

   Rumy was running even harder than Katherine by now, and vaulted a mobile clothes rack on their way outside. She didn’t think about it, or how hard it would be to do in a borrowed body. The cart was simply before her, and then it was behind her.

   "WHAT DO WE DO?" she yelled, giving away their position as they threw open the double doors.

   "Hhholding... action," wheezed Katherine, barely able to do more than walk at this point. "Whhe jhhust nheed to keep you guys... apart tonight... Tihhm’s working as well as anyone can on thhhis..." They were just ten or fifteen paces from the gallery, about halfway to the History Building’s one-story side entrance. Katherine stumbled… and fell.

   "Hai," said Rumy. Hai meant many things. It could mean yes, it could mean hello, or, as now, it could mean message received.

   Rumy ran another ten paces or so, and launched herself into the air.

   Martial arts, it’s often said, is as much of the mind as of the body. Certainly Rumy’s physical memories let her leap higher than Rikk ever could.

   Just as certainly, it was not Rumy’s best work. She landed HARD against the bottom of the flat, first-story roof, and knew a certain kind of pain that only a male body could feel. Her hands took hold, but Rikk’s body was so weak...

   Not as strong as mine, she corrected. But it is tough. He has recovered from gut wounds, fought infections, married Alisin... he has been brave against pain, and that has made his body strong against it. Some people would not have been able to move at all, after this...

   She got an elbow on top of the roof, then started to swing a leg up.

   About the same time, Katherine went blind. Because she now had a dart stuck to each lens of her glasses.

   "Bang, bang," said Alisin sweetly. "Now, does this mean YOU get th’nickname ‘Deadeye,’ or is that me? How’s that work?"

   "Ha, ha," muttered Katherine, reaching up to yank the darts off her face.

   The sucker heads snapped off the darts' bodies like a tick's mouth parts that keep drinking even after the tick's been squished. "The... what did you use on these things? Crazy glue?"

   "Well, if it popped right off, then what proof would I have that I gotcha? I’m just makin’ sure that nobody tries t’say I didn’ get ‘em when I did! Is that so wrong?... Hey, now that’s ambitious!"

   Without waiting for an answer from Katherine, Alisin walked up to the History Building, just in time to see a familiar head of hair leaving the roof by way of a door to the second-floor classrooms.

   "He musta… musta done some more martial arts trainin’ with Little Miss Ninja Highschooler." Alisin tried to sound casual about the thought, and did a really lousy job of it. Her voice could have frozen milk.

   And if Alisin was starting to get paranoid about keeping Rikk, maybe that was a tool Kath could use.

   "Yeah, he said he wasn’t really up to playing rough tonight," said Katherine. She still couldn’t stand up. "And he seems to think it’s easier to run from you than to tell you ‘no.’ Now, I don’t mean to criticize, but--"

   "Shyeah, right. Y’think he’s too wimpy not to tell me when it’s that time a’th’month f’r him? Y’think we just do everything I want every night?"

   Well... thought Katherine, I did... right up until you said "Shyeah"... and now I’m very, VERY grateful that Rikk isn’t here to look smug at me...

   "After our first big fight, we set up a code word. If he don’ wanna play f’r some reason, he just says ‘break.’ But right now, he is playin’. Playin’ hard t’get, like that scene in Fatal Instinct where th’guy has t’do some breakin’ an’ enterin’ into the chick’s house before he does some breakin’ an’ enterin’ into the chick."

   Alisin wrapped one of her belts around her knuckles, and started walking to the door. "I love that movie."

   Kath was dragging herself upright, but not fast enough to reach her. "Alisin, think of the PROPERTY VALUES--"