Chapter I

The odds of this specific planet being found by a specific item from outside the galaxy are roughly infinite to one against, rounding up. Or so scientists would like to believe. Or so they would have liked to believe, had they any notion that such a specific item was specifically heading for said planet. More specifically, this item was heading for Cleveland, and it seemed to be doing such with a guidance and accuracy that seemed almost...unnatural.

Clyde had not been having a good day. His alarm failed to go off, and he may well have slept all day had his cat, Tibby, not knocked over a lamp. Tibby, for his part, was upset by the fierce and pounding rainstorms that had occurred the night before. Clyde, for his part, was also upset by the rainstorms; in particular, he was upset that he had left the window of his car down and allowed the rainstorms to be fierce and pounding all over the upholstery contained therein.

And now, to top it all off, someone has mailed him a package without a return address, with no means of identification, and without paying postage. It was the fact that he had to pay postage that really annoyed him. He felt that mail was a God-given right, and he shouldn’t have to pay for the privilege of receiving mail. It wasn’t the principle of the thing; it was the money. And so now he had, on his table, a package roughly the size of a toaster with absolutely no idea of who it was from or what was inside.

And it was starting to get cloudy again.

"Mrs. Safon? Mrs. Jannette Safon?" Jan opened her eyes with a Herculean effort; she had been daydreaming of sunny beaches: the relaxing, continual crash of waves against the shore, the warm sand, cool breezes, and cold drinks, preferably of the highly alcoholic fashion. Mrs. Costa, her son’s Kindergarten teacher, was none of these. Jan attempted to respond. "Yes?"

Mrs. Costa circled to Jan’s left. "I asked if you knew why your child is so loud in class."

Jan stifled a yawn. "Miserable upbringing. You should meet his mother."

"You are his mother."

"Oh, right. Um, maybe it’s the bowls of sugar I feed him right before he comes to your class. Y’know, sending him off into the world with enough energy to get through the natural sleep-inducing drugs your classroom produces."

"Your attempts at levity, Mrs. Safon, are lost on me." She looked up over the top of her glasses. "Before you attempt to...levitate me any more..." (she allowed herself a smile at an obviously rare joke) "I suggest you read his last essay."

Outside the first drops of rain began its rhythmic assault on the window.

Dr. Anderson and Dr. DeGana were not working feverishly. The sheer volume of work that they were not accomplishing would not have astounded people of lesser education. But, they reasoned, this was the reason that mankind had developed computers in the first place; computers, for all their faults, did enable their users to busily not work while the computers pretended to do such. Currently, the two professors were using the computer of their lab to determine patterns in weather fluctuations, and if it had any relation to the months. The computer was comparing every month to every other month (as best as anyone could tell) since the dawn of time. This was not terribly efficient, but it did leave those doing the research plenty of time to get unreal work done.

Dr. Anderson looked up from his coffee; he had long since given up trying to determine if Folger’s crystals really were darker, and was currently working on the problem of determining if the sound he heard was a result of the printer or the caffeine. He determined it was, in fact, from the printer, and so he went to investigate.

Dr. DeGana woke up to his colleague’s typical scientific cry of "What the hell?" He stretched the uncertainties out of his body and ambled over to his partner, who was staring at the printer. Stifling a yawn, he asked, "What is it?"

"Look at this." He handed him a sheet of paper. On it was a line of numbers.

"Bizarre," said Dr. DeGana. "Any indication what they mean? Where they came from?"

"No, none at all. You see..." he hesitated momentarily. "The printer isn’t even connected."

The lights dimmed slightly as the lightning began to build and the rain became more persistent.

Determining what drives a stranger can be almost impossible; it is usually much easier to determine what a stranger drives. This particular stranger was driving a 1984 Pontiac Grand Am. He was not driving it terribly well; this might have been because of the disrepair of the road, the condition of the car, the blinding sheet of rain enveloping all, or the stranger’s unfamiliarity with motor vehicles. None of this was important to him, however. All he knew was that if he didn’t get to Clyde’s house in two minutes then Clyde would die. He did not know who Clyde was, but it somehow seemed very important that he remain alive. Very important. He pressed harder on the right pedal with his right foot, causing the car to move faster.

As Clyde’s house (which, somehow, he instinctively knew) appeared...almost materialized...in the stranger’s view, he suddenly realized that there was no way that he would be able to stop before coming in contact with it. He had no last thought as he passed out.

Clyde glanced out the window of his one-story house just in time to see a 1984 Pontiac Grand Am careening right for him. The first thing Clyde thought was, "I have not been having a good day." It was at this particular moment that lightning chose to strike the house.

And the rain continued to assault all it surveyed.