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shrugged. "Your choice."
    She had figured they would, but it wouldn't matter. They could split up if they wanted to. She had asked them to bring padds so they could keep track of where they'd been. If they decided to split up, she wouldn't let them look at each other's padds even though they'd heard the adventure. She would have to modify things slightly if they took a path someone else had walked first.
    "I'd like a companion or two," Mayweather said.
    "Me, too," Anderson said.
    "Who am I to argue?" Novakovich said.
    Since they reacted the way the game required, Cutler said nothing. If the other two had disagreed with Mayweather, though, she would have pointed out that he had the highest charisma score now that Hoshi was gone and he would be their leader.
    "I vote for the bridge," Anderson said.
    "I think I'm with him," Novakovich said.
    Mayweather just shrugged, sitting back and smiling. "Why not? I'll go along for the meantime."
    "So now we're trudging to the bridge over the sand," Mayweather said. "Right?"
    "You've already reached the bridge," Cutler said. She hadn't thought of putting any problems right outside the landing area of the ship. She should have, though. She remembered playing on computer. The best games started with a crisis right up front.
    "So what's this bridge like?" Anderson asked.
    Cutler glanced at her notes to make sure she was remembering all the details she had worked up right. "The first part of the bridge looks sturdy. But once you get a third of the way across you see a large hole. The hole is too big to jump and the bridge is crumbling away under you."
    "So," Anderson said, "let's get a plank long enough to span the hole to make a way across."
    "Okay," Cutler said. She glanced at her notes again. She had prepared for this idea. "Where does the plank come from?"
    "How should I know?" Anderson said.
    "The crumbling part of the bridge," Novakovich said.
    "That makes the hole bigger," Cutler said.
    "Well, we can't very well take it from the other end," Mayweather said.
    She rolled bolts to see if they could dislodge the plank without hurting themselves. They did. She had made this part purposefully easy. Once they set the plank down, she said, "You have a seventy percent chance of making it across."
    "I'll go across first," Anderson said.
    Cutler handed him the cup of bolts. "Anything more than two red bolts and Mr. Doom makes it."
    Anderson nodded and shook the cup, causing a few nearby diners to glance their way. Then he tipped the cup upside down on the towel.
    One red bolt.
    Mayweather and Novakovich both burst into laughter.
    "Mr. Doom has fallen off the plank and into the water below," Cutler said, also laughing. She glanced at her notes. "Since he has a strength quotient of five, he survived the fall. Now what are you going to do?"
    "Swim for shore," Anderson said, not happy with the situation. "And fast."
    "Roll the bolts to see if Mr. Doom made it," Cutler said, gathering them up and putting them in the cup. "With a strength quotient of five, Mr. Doom needs a seven or more to make it."
    Anderson again shook the cup of bolts and tipped it over the towel.
    Three red bolts.
    "A mutated Martian canal trout over fifty feet long has seen Mr. Doom swimming, came up and bit him in half," Cutler said. "Mr. Doom is dead."
    "Dead?" Anderson asked. He sounded shocked.
    "Dead," Cutler said.
    Mayweather and Novakovich almost fell off their chairs with laughter.
    Anderson kept staring at the three red bolts. "That's not fair. You just wanted Doom out of the game."
    "No," Cutler said. "I gave you the odds before you rolled."
    "But my character can't die."
    "She said he could," Mayweather said, his laughter gone except for that twinkle in his eye. "She said we all could just a few minutes ago."
    "I thought she was kidding."
    "I don't kid about the rules," Cutler said. "I warned you this was a dangerous mission."
    "Just like in real life," Novakovich said. "And I got the pimpled face and sand under my skin to