New York City, December, 2077, Wednesday…

Andrew J. Ballantine III walked slowly around the deck of the cruise ship, enjoying the fresh salt air. The ship would soon leave New York, bound for Miami and points in the Caribbean.

Andy had only been working as a safety inspector for two months. He had taken the job to prove to his old man that he could amount to something. At least, until last week, that had been his reason.

Now he had a more important reason. The previous Thursday night he had been in a small bar in Manhattan when a man and a woman approached him. The man opened his coat, showing a gun in a shoulder holster.

"You will want to come with us."

A simple statement that was changing his life.

Andy had never been much of a radical. He had played the pills and done a few snorts on his way through Yale. His political opinions were practically non-existent. That was obviously not why they had picked him.

A C average kept him out of graduate school, so his father, ever practical, arranged it so that he could get an inspector's license with the DHS. That job made Bravo Islam interested in him.

He had said OK, he would do it just once. Since they had said they would kill him if he didn't, he felt he had no choice. Besides, the ship was full of old and rich mother-fuckers like his father that the world wouldn't miss anyway.

It had been simple. He distributed the little packs of C4 with their radio detonators as he made his rounds on the huge ship. After he finished, he went up to the con tower and handed a copy of his inspection report to the first mate. He then made the long way down and around, disembarking in time to beat the crowd of tourists.

Somewhere off the coast of North Carolina they detonated the bombs. There were seven survivors.