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It had just happened out of nowhere. No one expected it. No one knew quite what to make of it. Some people couldn’t even bring themselves to accept it. It appeared only a few hours ago; the ship, enormous in size, just came from the sky and proceeded to park itself over the bay, covering a bit of the Golden Gate Bridge. And then it projected something: a hologram of a timer. It started counting down from two hours. Some people panicked, flooding the streets and doing things that no doubt gave whoever was in the ship a low opinion of humanity. Some denied it and attributed the whole thing to some hallucinogenic drug the entire world had somehow ingested. Others ran to pray or to drink or to see their loved ones. People tried to contact whatever was inside the ship. Every radio wave, signal, channel, frequency, everything in the entire world was being used by the government, any government, to communicate with each other and with the new arrivals to planet Earth. They kept trying, even as the clock kept ticking.

*

            She had never believed in this sort of thing. She usually laughed at people who did. Now she just felt like some sort of stupid hypocrite, laughing at the people who were still in denial. There was a ship hovering over San Francisco, and some idiots were actually attempting to “rationalize it” and say it was something else. What else could it be? She didn’t know what would happen when that timer stopped ticking. Maybe it was bomb or the start of an invasion. Sounded a tad ridiculous to her. Why would they fly God knows how many light years just to throw their weight around. It’s not like people had done anything to them. Or had they? She had no idea what to believe anymore. For all she knew humans had been rounding up little green men since who the hell knows when. Maybe it wasn’t like that. Maybe they didn’t want to start a fight; they just wanted to get to know their neighbors a little better and had to wait a few hours for their lungs to adapt to the Earth’s atmosphere or something like that. But she didn’t know. All she knew was that everyone in her town was either hitting church or the bottle. They both sounded like fine ideas to her at the moment.

*

Guilt. That was all that he could possibly think of. The crushing guilt he was feeling. They were here, on Earth, and in less than an hour the rest of the world would meet them. He had known about them for a while. Not only that, he had hurt them. He had killed them. His job with the government had demanded he do so. It’s not like he had a choice. And even if he did, they weren’t human. But he had always known that someday what he did to those creatures would come back to haunt them, that he, and everyone else would have to atone and to repent. He guessed he had just hoped he would be dead by the time that happened. They’d never even bothered to explain to him why they were hunting these things down, either. That was the stupid part. He had just blindly followed orders like the good little soldier. He had done it in the service; he did it for the government. He had done it his whole life. When the ship came, he knew that the day had come. Earth’s neighbors had worked out what was happening to their people and wanted revenge. It made perfect sense. He had blown off work, knowing that that meant they’d start looking for him soon. He had tried to tell himself it might not even be the same species in the ship, and even if it was, they might just want answers, not blood. But he didn’t want to take that risk. He knew he didn’t want to watch the world burn because of him. The news reporter on the TV said there was only ten minutes left on the clock, that whatever was going to happen would happen soon. He couldn’t take it. He walked into his bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. He took out the container of pills no one knew he had.

*

            People had always said that they were crazy. It didn’t start out like that though. It started out as just a boy and girl in high school who everyone thought had just watched a few too many episodes of The X Files. But then, as their relationship grew more serious, their passion for what was up in the stars did too. They read the books, went on the websites, and even attended a few conventions. Their families wanted nothing to do with either of them. But they didn’t care. They believed too strongly to care. And then when the ship appeared, they didn’t bother to rub it in. They got to San Francisco as fast as they could and joined the rest of the crowd. It was a strange, surreal sight if ever there was one. Lots of people were holding signs. Some said “Welcome to Earth” or “Make yourselves at home” or “We have always believed” or even “Elvis with you?” Others were more grim, plastered with “Spare us” and other pleadings of that variety. They didn’t bother to bring a sign. They knew that there was a chance that this might not be good. But they didn’t care. They finally had the truth and that was enough. The timer only had ten seconds left on it. They held hands. As the clock timed out and the hatch at the bottom of the ship opened, they kissed.