“That sounds like a woman,” Eleanor said.

“Help! Somebody please! I’m lost!”

“That’s not a woman,” Twista said. “That’s a little kid.”

“Far out,” MaryKat said. She was cataclysmically stoned, and it was all she could think to say.

Pa looked at Ma. Ma looked at Pa. They were pushing sixty now and had been together a long time—long enough to have couples’ telepathy.

“Kid wandered into the grass,” Ma Cool said.

“Mom heard him yelling and went after him,” Pa Cool said.

“Maybe too short to see their way back to the road,” Ma said. “And now—”

“—they’re both lost,” Pa finished.

“Jeez, that sucks,” Jeepster said. “I got lost once. It was in a mall.”

“Far out,” MaryKat said.

“Help! Anybody!” That was the woman.

“Let’s go get them,” Pa said. “We’ll bring ’em out and feed ’em up.”

“Good idea,” the Wiz said. “Human kindness, man. Human fuckin’ kindness.”

Ma Cool hadn’t owned a watch in years but was good at telling time by the sun. She squinted at it now, measuring the distance between the reddening ball and the field of grass, which seemed to stretch to the horizon. I bet all of Kansas looked that way before the people came and spoiled it all, she thought.

“It is a good idea,” she said. “It’s going on for five-thirty, and I bet they’re really hungry. Who’s going to stay and set up the barbecue?”

There were no volunteers. Everyone had the munchies, but none of them wanted to miss the mercy mission. In the end, all of them trooped across Route 73 and entered into the tall grass.

FURTHUR. ⟶    ⟶    ⟶    ⟶

You Are Released

GREGG HOLDER IN BUSINESS

Holder is on his third scotch and playing it cool about the famous woman sitting next to him when all the TVs in the cabin go black and a message in white block text appears on the screens. AN ANNOUNCEMENT IS IN PROGRESS.

Static hisses from the public-address system. The pilot has a young voice, the voice of an uncertain teenager addressing a crowd at a funeral.

“Folks, this is Captain Waters. I’ve had a message from our team on the ground, and after thinking it over, it seems proper to share it with you. There’s been an incident at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, and—”

The PA cuts out. There is a long, suspenseful silence.

“—I am told,” Waters continues abruptly, “that U.S. Strategic Command is no longer in contact with our forces there or with the regional governor’s office. There are reports from offshore that . . . that there was a flash. Some kind of flash.”