He was gazing at the package—filled with these thoughts—when the marauder burst through the kitchen door.

He had had some warning, subliminal and brief, enough to start him turning toward the house. He felt it as a disturbance among the cybernetics, and then as their sudden silence.

The marauder was dressed in what Ben recognized as military armor of the late twenty-first century, an armor rooted deep into the body, a prosthetic armor tied into the nervous system. The marauder would be very fast, very deadly.

Ben was not without his own augmentation. As soon as the peripheral image registered, emergency auxiliaries began to operate. He ducked into the meager cover of a lilac bush growing at the edge of the lawn, some few feet from the forest. He had time to wish the lilacs were in bloom.

He had time for a number of thoughts. His reflexes were heightened to the inherent limits of nerve and muscle. His awareness was swift and effortless. Events slowed to a crawl.

He looked at the intruder. What he saw was a blur of golden movement, the momentary shadow of a wrist weapon poised and aimed. Ben couldn’t guess what had brought this man here, but his hostility was obvious, the threat unquestionable.

Ben was weaponless. There were weapons hidden in the house, but he would have to pass by the marauder to reach them.

He stood up and dodged left, beginning a zigzag course that would take him to the side of the house and then around to the front, a window or a door there. As he stood, the marauder fired his weapon.

It was a primitive but utterly lethal beam weapon, common for its era. Ben recalled photographs of bodies burned and dismembered beyond recognition, on a battlefield years from here. As he stood, the beam scorched air inches from his head; he imagined he could taste the bright, sour ionization.