The fog had closed in again. “I guess we missed it,” she said, relieved. But as she was turning back, she saw him starting to shoot, and she realized why: The thing was visible in the swirling fog—just—as a great, looming shadow.

Then, in the abrupt way it so often does in San Francisco, the fog blew off, and she saw the whole object, and a shock like a slap went through her because it was absolutely and totally immense. On top, long, tapering antennae reached at least a couple of hundred feet into the sky. Below them was the body of the thing, a vast ring of metal with these huge wings coming out front and back. In the middle of the ring was that other antenna, that pointed toward the ground. The tip of it glowed purple, and a haze of purple light extended down into the streets below.

The thing itself was totally silent, but rising from all around the city, she could hear sirens. They were echoing, blasting, one joining another—and then a fire truck wheeled around the corner and went thundering past in the direction of Polk.

“What is going on?” she asked nobody in particular. Mike was lost in his world of taping. Then Zack came running out with Hildy MacIntyre and that Gary guy who was a gaffer, and a couple of other guys, all hauling cable. Like, hey, they were taking this live.

There was a distant, ringing boom, then another, closer, then another and another, and the manhole cover across the street flew into the air and hit the sidewalk with an echoing clang.

Everybody stopped. Everybody looked. Then they looked at one another.

“Get inside,” Zack said.

“Shot of a lifetime,” Mike muttered.

“Get inside!”

The crew began rolling back cable. Mike, on batteries, kept his camera trained on the object. As Kelly started into the building, she saw something moving in the manhole. She turned, looked more closely. A face had been in there, eyes bright. The instant she had spotted it, it had disappeared. She decided right here and right now to do the same.

As she went down to the garage, she said nothing to Zack, who would have a major hissy, given that they were live in eight minutes. But she was just going to be gone, that was all there was to it.

She kept her gorgeous red Vespa GTS 250 locked tightly to the bike rack, largely so that Rick Heimer wouldn’t come down here and try to wire it, if only just to rev it. He needed to get one. He needed to face this.

As she took the stairs three at a time, a sound rose toward her. Rumbling. An earthquake? No, there was no shaking.