In Washington, despair swept over the men huddled in the Capitol when the news came in that the Army's line had been broken and that they were in retreat. In the old gymnasium where Stephanie and the others were hiding there was a wild celebration.

"We still don't have any orders, though," Mindy grumped. "Still don't have anything to do except sit and wait."

"I wouldn't worry about it," Conch told her. "I do believe we'll earn our keep yet, one way or another."

"I think you're right," Stephanie agreed. She leaned back and watched the news feed coming in over the Internet. Rebel forces in Alexandria. Rebel forces to the north of the city, and to the west. The army and the DC police holding a line at the Beltway with difficulty on those sides. And from the east, Melanie's forces now advancing unimpeded, and expected to reach the Beltway by mid-afternoon. The Army--what was left of it--was fleeing back toward the Beltway, where, the newscaster said, they planned to make a final desperate last stand.

Melanie's forces had taken fearful losses. More than twenty thousand casualties, at least twelve thousand of those dead. Stephanie, watching, realized that she had not even come close to understanding the desperation of the average American, watching terrible things happen and being helpless to stop it. Unified now, and with a chance to win, those citizens had not hesitated to give their lives for the cause. Story after story emphasized the role of the women in this war; they had by no means stayed home and allowed their men to fight, they had in many cases led the way, and by the thousands they had rushed to their own deaths on the front lines. The media had managed to get a few reporters in to take video of some of those battles, and Stephanie watched in awe as the groups of college students, dressed in thin camouflage outfits or totally naked, threw themselves into gunfire and bayonets, dying by the hundreds but finally winning the day.

The newscaster announced a feed from Bowie, and, after a moment, a picture came up. Here, Melanie's forces were still passing on the highway; these were, the reporter on the scene explained, fresh troop, groups that had been too far back in the column to see combat during the two days of fighting. Another group of college students, dressed in the manner they'd all adopted, came by, waving and smiling at the camera as they went. This group--the newsman said there were about five hundred of them, all from the University of South Carolina--looked to be about sixty or seventy percent female. They were dressed as they were, the newsman explained, in conformation to the "Melanie and Harry look" which essentially all of them had adopted.

The group following them, which appeared to be generally older--from late twenties to forties, with a few older and younger--was larger and at least slightly predominantly male. The men were dressed in various ways, but most of these women wore their own sort of uniform, T-shirts and very brief shorts. There was a cut to an earlier interview the reporter had managed to get. An attractive woman, perhaps thirty years old, with short black hair cut in bangs, introduced herself as Ann Lederer. She was, she told the man, a businesswoman from West Palm Beach, and she'd joined Melanie's army as it passed. Her group, and many like them, were organized by geographical area, hers representing West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and the surrounding area. They came from all walks of life; businessmen and women, laborers, technical people, academics, and so on. As they had started, she said, the women had been dressed in various ways; a group from the Keys, the original starting point, had adopted the short-shorts and T-shirt uniform, and the idea had spread. A clothing manufacturer near Savannah had had tens of thousands of them made, in all sizes, and they'd been distributed free all along the route through South Carolina and in Annapolis. The men had not been as interested, she told the interviewer, but for the women the idea of unity was generally strong, and dressing alike emphasized that. She smiled as she noted that their group had originally had included a fairly large number of high school students, but these had for the most part joined the college groups and adopted their "look."

"Maybe we should have a 'look' too," Mindy commented.

"We could always wear our gladiator's thongs," Peter suggested.

"Hey!" Stephanie protested. "I don't have one! Neither does Conch or Prof."

"When we go out again," Mindy said, pointing at her, "you are wearing your fucking leather. That has worked entirely too well for us to give it up now! Besides, you take people by surprise when you run in those heels. It looks fucking impossible."

"It's summer, and the leather's hot," Stephanie complained. She smiled. "I could take on the collegiate look..."

"That sounds real good to me," Peter said with a grin.

"Not to me," Mindy said firmly. "You go out there naked and you're announcing who and what you are. You wear the leather." She puckered her lips. "Please?"

"Well, since you put it that way," Stephanie said with a laugh. She turned back to the computer; the newscast was now showing an independent rebel force moving down I-270 from Hagerstown toward Washington. These people, according to the newscaster some 10,000 strong, had not had the direct support from the Navy and were much more lightly armed than Melanie's main force; there were a lot of shotguns, handguns, and hunting rifles in evidence, and at least one man who marched by was carrying nothing more than an axe. The camera panned to a group of young people, apparently students, showing that the "Melanie and Harry Look" had been taken up by these, as well. The other "uniform," the brief shorts and T-shirts, was not much in evidence, though. These, the reporter went on, would probably be the first rebels to actually enter the city, in the sense of being the first to cross the Beltway. They were somewhat closer than Melanie's main force, they were marching along virtually unopposed, and they faced light resistance from the Army and police at the Beltway--resistance they would encounter, the newscaster went on, within the next half-hour.

"I don't understand something," Mindy said. "The Preserve was enormously popular among those who could afford it. RFK was full every Sunday when there were games and the TV ratings were sky-high. Phil Phips' shows were always top-rated. Millions of people loved seeing young women being killed. Where are they now? How come we don't have a counter-army of civilians marching against Melanie?"

"Well, some of them are a part of Melanie's high command," Conch noted. "Like the Admiral, like David O'Neill."

"Special cases," Mindy said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Decent guys with a fantasy who found out the hard way that there's a difference between fantasy and reality. Take my word for it, those people who filled RFK every Sunday were not all decent guys!"

"For the most part," Prof said, "those folks who filled RFK and those who made Phips' shows some of the highest-rated of all time are sitting in their homes watching all this unfold on TV. In the first place, they've had 'authority' to fight for them; but secondly, and I think much more importantly, for them this was entertainment. There are millions of them, but they are in no way willing to come out and put their lives on the line for it. The other side, the rebels--I'd say the word 'noble' applies, I don't want to take anything away from them, their courage has been incredible to say the least. But they are also acting out of self-interest, their own personally and that of the group they see themselves as a part of. There is a vast preponderance of young and attractive women in the rebel force, they are far more heavily represented there than they are in the general population. That only makes sense; they were the ones being killed. If they die in the fighting, well, they've served their group and their cause and they felt they were at risk of dying on the TV shows anyway. Many of those men you see are their boyfriends, husbands, fathers." He shrugged. "They're just like us. No, rather, they are us. All of you were being exploited by the system. Conch lost his daughter to it. So here we are. Are we willing to go out there and die for the cause? Absolutely."

"All but you, Prof," Stephanie noted. "If you lost a loved one to the system, you never mentioned it, not in all the years I've known you on-line."

"I haven't been out there fighting, either," he countered.

"Bullshit," Mindy put in. "You risked your fucking life coming in here, bringing us weapons. You know it. What's your story, Prof? Are you one of the true nobles? Just here because you believe in it, not because it's ever touched your life?"

He sighed. "I'm not very comfortable with that term," he answered. "I'd like to think it's just that I understand. I'm a scientist, a geneticist. What was happening--I've been saying it for ten years, Prof and Insider are just sick of hearing it, I know--that the system was going to make a basic change in the population of the United States. Attractive women are seen as attractive by their potential mates for a biological reason, it isn't something that happens at random. You selectively pull them out of the breeding population and a weakening of the whole species--at least the local population within the US--is absolutely inevitable. Helping to stop that is, as I see it, the most important thing I could ever do with my life." He looked up at Mindy. "But no. Other than the fact that I work at a University and I could see my students disappearing, it has not touched me personally. I have not lost a loved one to it."

Mindy looked at Stephanie. "He is a hero," she said. "We need to get him a fucking white hat."

Prof ran his hand through his graying hair. "Just give me a few more years," he said. "I won't need it."

Stephanie smiled, then looked back at the computer, where the news link was playing yet another clip of the day's fighting. There was a closeup shot of one of the women wearing the shorts-and-T-shirt uniform, a very appealing strawberry blond. Just seconds after the camera focused on her she was shot cleanly through the heart. She posed for a moment, up on her toes, her head thrown back and her body arched backwards, her arms outspread. She looked like a ballet dancer in some sort of classic tragedy. Then she fell, face down, and she did not move again. Stephanie's smile faded. "I just hope," she said quietly, "that we all can be given a few more years."