Exactly nothing happened. No turn over. No clicking. No faint flicker of dome light inside.

"Didn't think this old heap had computers," I said.

"It doesn't. The battery is dead, too. Strange." Kirk climbed out and stared with me into the oily blackness of the engine compartment.

He shivered. "Let's try a push start."

I looked around the mostly empty parking area. My eyes had adjusted to the faint moonlight. The worst we could hit was the Dumpster or the half-melted snow mound at the far end.

"I guess. You want me to push?"

"Well, I could push you, but all that will accomplish is give me a hernia." He hopped into the car with a derisive snort.

"I wouldn't want you to strain your milk," I grumbled as I leaned onto the trunk and heaved against the cold metal.

The Duster rolled forward, refrozen ice crunching beneath the tires. Kirk popped the clutch, but the car didn't even buck. It just slowed to a squeaky stop.

"What? You have it in fifth?" I asked.

"Only have three gears. It's like the pistons fell out of the engine." Kirk rubbed his moustache with a knuckle.

As he thought, I pulled back my hood and listened. As dead as campus normally was in the evenings during breaks, an eerie silence permeated the night. No distant rush of traffic heading to Columbia Mall. No crash of freight trains from the nearby tracks. No blasting music from the frats along University Avenue.

"We might as well stay put," Kirk said, warming his hands in his armpits.

Three years up north and he still hadn't acclimated to the cold.

"Let the confusion die down."

"What confusion?"

"You'll see."

Kirk got out of the Duster and opened the trunk after fiddling with the lock. He retrieved a large black case that looked like a soft-sided golf bag and slung it over his shoulder.

"Blackouts do strange things to normal folks."

"An excuse to play some D&D on a work night, huh?"

"Don't have enough candles for that," Kirk said as we abandoned his car to return to the warmth of Witmer Hall.

We stopped at the double glass doors at the west entrance and searched for the right keys.

"Hold it right there!" came a command from behind us.

The campus officer's uniform looked bulky with his jacket and a bulletproof vest beneath and his voice was hoarse from heavy breathing. He wore a white bicycle helmet perched on his large round head. He dumped the mountain bike he was straddling into the dirt-laden snow next to the sidewalk. Probably hadn't exercised this much since he joined the university police force.

"This is my lab," Kirk said, pointing to the third floor.

"Me, too," I added.

"No one is allowed into evacuated buildings until physical plant gives the go ahead," the campus officer said. He sounded young to be a cop and had an odd, clipped accent. "Too many hazards. Can't allow looting."

"Looting?" I asked.

Kirk pointed at the black bag slung over his shoulder. "I'm bringing things inside. That's the opposite of looting, so it should be okay."

"No, not okay."

The officer reached for the walkie-talkie microphone on his shoulder and pressed the button, but nothing happened aside from a plastic click. Must have been reflex.

"I can't check if you're authorized with dispatch, so you can't proceed. It's a public safety issue. You'll have to leave the area immediately."

"I've got keys to prove we're allowed."

I held out my wad of brass-colored do-not-duplicate keys that would make any custodian proud and jingled them as if I was trying to entertain a baby. Perhaps that wasn't the smartest move. Short police officers didn't like big guys like me.

The officer's hand dropped to rest on the butt of his sidearm.

"I am delivering a final warning. Depart the premises."

"Don't you have better things to do?"

Kirk must have thought he was being reasonable and fair. But he really sounded pissed and condescending, which was why he got low teaching evals from his students. It had taken me a few months to get used to him.

"I have to get my stuff. It's in there."

"Show me what's in the rifle case."

Kirk sighed and set the black bag down. He blew on his hands. "It's not a rifle case. It's just my exercise equipment-"

"Open the goddamn case!" The frustrated officer drew his pistol.

I stepped backward with my hands in the air. I thought that was what you were supposed to do. I'd never had a cop point a gun at me. Which was exactly what happened when I suddenly moved. The automatic was leveled at my chest.

Kirk unzipped his case, exposing a handful of smooth sticks.

"See?"

"Dump it on the ground!" the officer ordered.

The gun was trained on Kirk now.

"I'm not dumping anything." Kirk crouched and carefully shook the bag.

The sticks slipped out, but then one of them separated with a gentle click of metal on wood. A shiny length of blade awash in moonlight appeared on the pavement. It was a real Japanese katana-the first time I had seen it-with wooden practice swords sprawled around it. Kirk reached for it. I believe he meant to keep it from getting scratched on the sidewalk.

The recognizable metallic clack of a pistol hammer slamming home made me wince. But there was no bang. We all stared at the gun pointed at Kirk.

"You were going to shoot me!" Kirk sounded offended.

The officer worked the slide as he backed away. The unfired round flipped out. The slide snicked forward. Click. Click. Click. The officer repeatedly squeezed the trigger.

Kirk growled and the katana was in his hand, free of its scabbard like a magic trick, as he rose from his knees. In a single fluid motion, the tip of the blade stopped at the officer's throat.

"You wanted to kill me!"

The officer whimpered with the three-foot length of steel, presumably razor sharp, threatening his neck. His left hand had begun to reach to his belt, but now he seemed frozen. What did he have to counter a sword? A telescoping baton or pepper spray?

"Kirk?" I asked, trying to appear calm. "What are you doing?"

Kirk stood in a deep stance. A martial arts movie pose with arms extended. His back was perfectly military straight. Breath steamed from flared nostrils.

"Self-defense."

"I don't think that works against cops." I eased forward. "Let's not make another mistake tonight. Okay?"

"Drop the gun," Kirk snarled. "Then the belt."

The officer thought about being a hero. I'd seen the same wild animal look countless nights around two in the morning outside bars. However, never with a really, really big knife involved in the decision-making process. The officer dropped the gun and the equipment belt at his ankles.

Kirk withdrew the blade and held it high, ready to strike. "Leave."

The campus officer snatched the bike and pedaled away.

"You're in deep shit," I said. "He'll be back."

Indignant, Kirk said, "He was going to shoot me." He scooped up the pistol and belt.

"And we're both in deep shit, my friend."

The cop didn't come back, but we barricaded the doors with scrounged chains and padlocks and piled classroom desks anyway. We hoped we could explain to the authorities when the lights came on.

DAY 1.

WITMER HALL, UND, GRAND FORKS ND.

The lights didn't come back on, but the sun did rise in the east. The steam radiator beneath the window had lost pressure during the night, the popping and creaks faded, and the building had grown chilly.

I had retrieved my sleeping bag, kept for overnight data collection, from my lab. I sat with my back against the wall in Kirk's office facing the door. My stomach had been in knots all night and I jerked awake at every imagined sound. Kirk sat nearby with his sword across his lap and the cop's gun on the desk.

"I saw you wearing those black skirts in the gym a while ago. I thought you did aikido, like Steven Seagal. What are you doing with that sword? On campus?"

"I practice iaido," Kirk said.

He didn't sound worried at all, explaining as if it was a lecture question I had almost understood, but not quite.

"Same black hakama as aikidoka, but deeper roots. Basically fast draw with a katana."

"Still shouldn't have pulled that on the cop," I said.

"He was an incompetent ass." Kirk gently tossed a large caliber shell at me.

I caught the heavy round and peered at it. The brass casing had a dented primer. "You're lucky it was a dud."

"The second one, too?" Kirk pulled the pistol off the desk.

He racked the slide and tossed the other shell to me.

Dented primer again.

"Bad lot?" I guessed.

"Mistakes that don't go away become facts."

Kirk pointed the pistol toward the wall and pulled the trigger. He worked the slide and repeated. Eleven more shells fell on the floor with dented primers.

"The world has changed, or at least this part of the world."

"Oh."

The power going out was understandable. Computers, too, if there was an EMP. Those events had explanations, although unlikely. But gunpowder? Batteries?

"We need to test the limits," Kirk said. "Find out what still works."

Then Kirk jumped up and went to the door in the back of his office. He carried the sword in his left hand. "Breakfast?"

I followed him to what I had assumed was a storage closet the hundred times I'd been in his office. Kirk opened the door into another slightly smaller, windowless room. Must have been left over from when this was lab space. Shelves were lined with cans of food with faded labels or no labels at all. Water-stained cardboard boxes were piled on pallets. Some bore MARK DOWN and DENTED stickers like a cheap warehouse store. A camp stove sat in the corner next to a cot and a full laundry bag.

"How long have you been living here and does Dr. Rao know?" I asked.

DAY 2.

WITMER HALL, UND, GRAND FORKS.