Metafire

Erisa found a moment while the others were busy to move next to Randy. "Randy," she whispered quietly, "I want to talk."

"Let's go into the cave." Randy figured they could get maximum privacy in the nylon sheets of the cave.

Once they found a place out of the way, where they could also observe the proximity of others, she said, "The bombs. Randy, do you think they are going to blow them up?"

"One of them, no. It's already functioning as a power unit. They need the power unit, I think. The other one, I don't know. What are you thinking?"

Erisa wanted to reason her thoughts out with Randy, "We could start screaming about the bombs, and Jack and the FBI would hear, but Metafire would silence us. These people are really smart. I have no idea what they would do, but I'm guessing they already know we could do this."

Randy responded in kind, "Yeh. They all seem awfully smart. I think they really mean to let us go. If they don't let us go, then we have no reason to live. These people are all intent on dying. They would know that once we are out of hope, we'll cause a lot of problems for them."