The thing disappeared into smoke, this time a lot of it. As cheers rose from the street, she stopped her scooter and got off it and cheered as well, because it was just so wonderful to see that awful thing hurting. An arrow’s gleam, the jet shot up into the tall sky, its afterburners like two bright eyes dwindling to one bright star.

But, no, the thing wasn’t hurt after all, it was maneuvering and opening, the great arms or paddles were opening and something came falling out, little flecks that shone in the sun and fluttered out in clouds around the thing, looking like chaff at first, then, as they dropped closer, like silver gliders about the size of two fists.

Ahead, a woman sat beside an overturned chair in front of a small restaurant. She sat on the curb with her knees up to her chest. She was leaning forward and something was so strange about her head that Kelly stopped to look at her. It was … was it shriveled? Or, no, that could not be. No—but—that was her brains there on her head. Her brains were visible, you could see them right there. Her hair was gone and her scalp was gone and her skull was gone, and as Kelly watched, holding out a nervous hand, not understanding what help she might offer, one of the things from above landed on the woman’s naked brain.

It looked like a big beetle made of shiny silver metal, with long legs and mandibles like scissors. It began to snip at the brain as delicately as if it were doing surgery.

In a thick, slurred voice, the woman said, “Would you please telephone the secretary of defense and inform him that hostilities have commenced. My name is Abby Arthur. I am his mother.”

Could this be possible? Daniel Arthur was secretary of defense and the Arthurs were an old San Francisco family and they might even live somewhere around here, Kelly had no idea.

Other insects came, landing on and around Mrs. Arthur, and in a moment her eyes were being carried away into the sky, held in the claws of the things, which buzzed like insects, but ten times as loud, a throaty, menacing sound.

Mrs. Arthur lurched forward, arms akimbo, and toppled into the street. As she fell, the insects pulled a big, red-dripping sheet off her and carried it away also. As it was taken into the sky, shoes and clothes dripped down from it. Abby Arthur was now a red mass of angles hunched on the sidewalk, unrecognizable as the human being she’d been a few moments before.