"I like Offspring," Trevor said. He was sitting on the floor, using his hand to spin the front wheels of his skateboard.

Chandler was casually flipping through a stack of CDs, looking for a computer game. He made a puke-face to show his opinion of the band. "They eat shit."

"Do not."

"Do so."

"Do not."

Chandler held up a CD. "Here it is--'Final Doom.'"

"Is that the one where they tear the heads off?" Trevor asked.

"No. But you can shoot them with all kinds of heavy weapons like rocket launchers and flame throwers."

Trevor considered the appeal of such mayhem.

"Do they burn?"

"Sometimes." Chandler waved his arms and made a pained expression to illustrate the agony of the victims. "And some of them go 'ahhhhhh,' when they go down."

Trevor jumped up. "Totally bad. Let me see."

The computer screen flickered and flashed as e-gladiators charged through a hail of flame and exploding shrapnel. Chandler gave the joy stick to Trevor, who was soon scoring points as he bombed and flamed the digital foe.

"Your house is so neat," Trevor said. "You get to do all this stuff."

"It's nothing," Chandler replied.

"No, seriously," Trevor said, handing the joy stick back. "I can't do nothing. My mom always says it's too much this or to much that."

"Does that mean no Internet?"

Trevor struck the skateboard wheels, which made a long "wheee" sound. "My dad sits for hours on the Internet," he said. "But my mom says I'm not mature enough to make decisions."

"What decisions?"

Trevor used his hand to stop the spinning wheels. "I don't know," he said. "Not to look at any good stuff, I guess."

Chandler put the game on pause. "Let's do something."

"I know," Trevor said, "if we string a wire across the bike path, when kids come whizzing along real fast, it'll cut off their heads."

"How you know the wire won't just bust?" Chandler asked.

"My dad gots this special wire called cable. It can't break."

Chandler was unconvinced. "I bet it can too break."

"Can't."

"Can."

Chandler and Trevor skated over to Trevor's house. The cable was in the garage, but it was too tangled to use.

On the way back to Chandler's house, a passing car made Trevor fall and bang his knee.

"I bet the wire wouldn't cut off their heads anyway," Chandler said.

"I bet it'd be awesome if it went through their stomachs," Trevor replied. "I mean, they'd get cut right in half. How long you think the top half could keep screaming, anyway?"

Chandler thought for a moment. "Probably only, like five seconds or something."

"What if the guy was holding his breath?"

That brought a look of disgust to Chandler's face. "Dumb-ass. You can't yell and hold your breath."

Trevor hobbled around to test the condition of his knee. "What about if you shoot a guy through the throat with a bow and arrow? Would they stay alive very long?"

"I don't know," Chandler answered. "Your knee OK?"

"Yeah. I heard you can make a bomb out of bleach and...something else...I forget."

"That's nothing. I know how to make the Oklahoma City bomb. You know, the one they blew up the building with."

Trevor winced as he put his weight on the leg. "Where'd you get that?"

"Internet."

"Did not."

"Did so. Plus, I found a bunch of porno stuff like 'Teen Sluts' and 'Perverts Dot Com.'"

"Show me," Trevor demanded.

"What? Bomb or sex?"

"Sex. No--bomb."

Chandler typed an address into the computer. A few seconds later a banner appeared on the screen, "The Anarchist Web Page." Trevor clicked on the "Activities" icon, then scrolled through the choices until he found the bomb recipe: