"There's a pleasant thought."

"Yeah—if LaSalle says she's going to stay home and send the vice-president, I'm out of here. I don't want to be a hundred and sixty kilometers from ground zero."

"I've got a car," she said seriously. "The trunk's already full of food and jugs of water." She shook her head. "And a gun and ammunition. My father brought it all down a couple of weeks ago. 'Better safe than sorry,' he said. I don't think beans and rice and bullets are the answer."

"But you do keep them in your trunk."

"Yeah, but like you, I'm not so much afraid of the aliens. What I'm afraid of is gangbanging and looting. Like back in twenty-eight, all the grocery stores in flames."

"You weren't alive in twenty-eight."

"Born in 2030. But my parents would never shut up about it."

The air in Dos Hermanos was warm and heavy with spicy cooking smells. It was early, but they got the last table. Pepe waved to his boss and a black woman who looked familiar.

Something in his manner worried Lisa Marie. He seemed to be studying every customer in the cafe as they were led to their table and seated. Looking for aliens, maybe.

"Is something wrong?" he said.

"I was going to ask you the same thing. Just the message, though?"

"Yeah, just. I wonder how many people here haven't seen it." He pointed to the cube over the bar, which showed the message on a flatscreen with a commentator being earnest in front of it. You couldn't quite read the words or tell what he was saying, over the cafe hum.

She glanced at the menu but didn't really read it; she'd eaten here a hundred times.

"It's early," she said, "but you want to split a bottle of wine? Celebrate your aliens?"

He shook his head. "Like to, but it's going to be a busy day." The waitress who came up was the owner of the place. " Buenos dias," he said.

Sara

" Buenos. Your aliens are at it again."

"Why does everybody call them 'my' aliens? They're Rory's aliens."

She looked over at their table. "Her newsie didn't waste any time getting down here. She called in a lunch reservation from her corporate jet, la-di-da."

"Sure glad I'm an overpaid academic," Pepe said, "and don't have to flit around the world at somebody else's beck and call." He ordered chicken fajitas with a double espresso and milk. His girlfriend, Lisa what's-her-name, got a Cuban sandwich and half carafe of white wine.

She was headed back to Jose with the orders when she heard the shrill emergency whistle from the cube. "¡Silencio!"she shouted. "Everybody shut up a minute." She cut her eyes to the cube and saw the unthinkable.

It was a long shot of the White House. One end of it was rubble, gray smoke and orange flames.

"We don't know what's happened," a tight, panicky voice said. "One minute ago, something ... some explosion ... we don't know!"

His image appeared in the corner, the normally unflappable Carl Lamb. "Word just coming in." He put his hand flat against his left ear.

"Oh, my God. The president is dead. Most of her cabinet, too. The vice-president, he, he's ... he was in another room but he's badly hurt. There's an ambulance floater—there; there, you can see it." On the cube, a white floater overshot the flames, spun around, and settled down behind the smoke.

"All the Secret Service can say is it didn't come from outside. It was a powerful bomb that went off in the cabinet room.

"It was an emergency meeting, called about the aliens, the new message. What the Secret Service wonders is how could anybody know they'd all be in that room at that time?"

She sat down in the nearest empty chair, which was Rory's table. "The aliens ... they couldn't've done this?"

Aurora

"I don't ... No. No, of course not." Though it was certainly handy for them. She looked over at Pepe, the only other person here who knewhow handy. He was looking at her.

A young man ran outside to vomit, falling to his knees on the sidewalk. Rory's own stomach twisted. Her head felt full of light, as if she were going to faint. Still staring at the screen, she reached across the table at the same time Marya did. Her grip was firm and dry but she was trembling.

"This couldn't be a movie or something?" Sara said. "This can't be happening."

Marya gulped. "A War of the Worldsthing, Orson Welles? They wouldn't do it, they couldn't."

Rory could only shake her head. She tried to say something but her mouth and throat were suddenly dry. She took a sip of water and it was like glue. Was she going into shock?

"Jesus," Marya croaked. Her dark skin was gray, bloodless. "It's like a palace coup. Who's left?"

Her phone buzzed. She took it out of her purse, listened for a moment, and said, "Okay." She put it back. "They want me to stay here," she said quietly.

There was a murmur of conversation. Two or three people were sobbing.

"Wait," the commentator said. "There is what? There is a message. Our station, many stations, received it right after the tragedy."

He looked off-camera and nodded, openmouthed. "This is Grayson Pauling, President LaSalle's, the late president's, science adviser."

Pauling looked tired and miserable. "Good morning. I have a grave duty today, which must be explained.

"It has been obvious for many months that our president is mentally ill, profoundly so. It has been a source of amusement in Washington, and a weakness for the brokers of power to exploit.

"The union has survived mentally ill and incompetent leaders, and it might have survived Carlie LaSalle, but for the Coming. Especially in light of this morning's message.

"Ms. LaSalle, with the very active cooperation of the secretary of defense, proposes to orbit killer weapons that will supposedly destroy the aliens before they have a chance to land. This would be suicide, genocide ... there is no word for it. The destruction of our entire species.

"She does not truly understand the amount of power these aliens have demonstrated. To the extent that she does understand, she sees it as a challenge to her own power. It is not. It's just a statement of fact."

He looked down and sighed, and then looked into the camera again. "When I was a young man, I was a military officer. Often I had to order men and women into action, knowing that some of them would die. I often went along with them, and the possibility of my own death—sometimes what I saw as the certainty of my death—was of no consequence, compared to the responsibility I felt for them. The guilt, perhaps.

"So today I'm going to die, and in the process, sacrifice the lives of many people who didn't even know there was a war. I'm sorry. My sorrow is no comfort to those of you who are going to lose loved ones. But we'll all be dead in one month if I do not do this.

"When I turn off the camera and set the delay on this message, I will leave for an emergency cabinet meeting set for noon. In my briefcase, I have twelve pounds of C-9, a powerful plastic explosive. When I am in the cabinet room with the president and the secretary of defense, I will open the briefcase and we will all die, as well as others, who are innocent bystanders. Collateral casualties, as they say.

"I have always liked Carlie LaSalle, in spite of her craziness, perhaps because of it, and now I am repaying her trust with murder. History will vindicate me, or at least admit the necessity for this, but that gives me no satisfaction this morning." He reached out of the cube and turned off the camera.