Dawn brought fog to San Francisco, and with it, gray mist that muffled the buoy bells and filled the streets with ghosts. A few taxis and police cars patrolled the rising shadows, as alarm clocks sounded and trucks arrived at loading docks, and people spoke of the thing in the sky, those who had glimpsed it among the clouds. But it was idle, self-assured talk. Nobody was afraid. The general verdict was that it was a military blimp. The East Coast hurricane was a hotter topic of conversation. It had slammed Washington with the worst winds the region had ever experienced and was now moving up the coast toward New York, a great, roaring monster and the center of attention of the nation and the world.

Even so, Today San Francisco producer Zack Messing was getting calls from viewers about the thing in the sky. The station’s Internet servers had been down for hours, and his BlackBerry couldn’t pull a browser off Verizon, either, so he had not seen a picture of it. His cell phone was out, too, but the station’s landlines were still working, and the calls were getting more persistent.

As much as he hated to waste time, he needed to send somebody out to look at this stupid blimp or whatever it was. It was then that the new production assistant, Kelly Frears, came in with the breakfast box from Smitty’s.

“You see the thing?” she asked as she unwrapped his fried-egg sandwich for him.

“The bullshit in the sky? Nope.”

His indifference relieved her. Her aunt had been trapped in the World Trade Center and called her mom telling her that she was burning to death, and Kelly’s mother had screamed and screamed, and anything that was airborne and strange still terrified her.

“Let’s hope it’s nothing,” Kelly said. She went to take breakfast in to makeup, where the on-cameras were having their bags painted out and their wrinkles sandblasted away, at least for a few minutes of airtime.

As she was leaving, the switchboard rang them. Kelly snatched the phone up. “Zack’s office.”

Lucy said, “We’re getting flooded with calls about the UFO.”

Kelly told Zack.

“So go down and see if you can at least see the damn thing. Then get hold of Travis Air Force Base and get their take on it. Probably something of theirs.”

Kelly really did not want to do this and was feeling sick inside by the time she reached the street, looked up, and saw the immense thing in the rising fog.