Another door opened above the pit. A second truck was already in position. Bags and steel drums of solid waste were dumped into the deep hole. When they passed by the glowing nozzles, they began winking out, piece by piece.

The backs of both trucks tipped nearly vertical, loosing the last of their cargo. Not a single piece of trash made it to the bottom of the deep pit.

The final floating scraps of paper and plastic caught the dying breeze on their way into the pit. They went the way of the larger trash bundles-erased from the air by some invisible force as they passed the glowing nozzles.

The dump trucks drove away, the doors slid closed once more and the hum of energy faded to silence. As it diminished, so, too, went the nozzle lights. The brilliant white dulled to yellow, then orange.

Sensing their meal had gone, the circling seagulls swooped curiously once more high overhead before heading back down toward the harbor.

The reporters stood in shocked silence, staring down onto the empty black floor of the pit. A floor that should have been lined with trash.

"Where did it go?" one small voice finally asked. President Blythe Curry-Hume stepped forward. "It went where it can never harm the environment again. It went where no beaches are despoiled by medical waste and no neighborhood is poisoned by seeping toxic chemicals. It went where the air is clean and the water is pure.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the leader of Mayana called, "I give you the hope of a cleaner future for all the world. l present to the world its own salvation. The Vaporizer." His grimacing smile of triumph was a little too tight near his ears.

Chapter 2

His name was Remo and he was Master of all he surveyed.

The thought came to him as he stood on a rocky bluff that jutted over the cold waters of the West Korea Bay.

Remo. Master of all he surveyed. Him. Remo Williams. Master Remo Williams. It was a strange feeling and, at the same time, so very, very right.