"Mari...Mari..."

Perez's voice floated to her from a great distance, meeting her ear with a strangely muffled urgency.

"Mari, Mari, you have to get the hell up. Something's happening. I think you might want to stop a massacre."

She startled awake. "Did I faint?" She could barely form the words, but she pushed on anyway, determined to get focused.

"Yes, you fainted."

"Seriously?" In her thirty years on earth, she never once, not a ...