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have.
    A quick surf on his laptop, however, had
confirmed the incredible news. An entire classroom filled with students had
seen one of the aliens on a video link and the British Home Office had released
a press package that confirmed the incident and urged citizens to Keep Calm
and Carry On .
    Now, standing in Kim’s back yard, he looked
across the causeway at the cruise ships docked at Dodge Island. “Do you think
people will still want to pay for cruises?” He looked over at Kim, who was
poking unnecessarily at the sausages while Ivan dozed by the pool. “With a
possible invasion just around the corner, would you want to spend a week or two
stuck on a boat?”
    Davidoff finally left the poor sausages
alone and stared across the water at Fury , the last ship to come out
before the Leviathan class. He shrugged. “Too early to tell,” he said
simply. “It could go either way; people will either hide in their basements or
decide that life is too short to deny themselves the good life.” He grinned.
“You know the old saying. Live every day as if it were your last ,”
    “And one day you’ll be right?” Frank cut
in, one eyebrow raised. “So, it’s either business as usual, a huge jump in
business or a complete collapse of the cruise industry?”
    “In which case, we would need to get the
hell out of Dodge?” Davidoff smirked at his own wit.
    “See your problem,” Frank sighed, “is that
you think you’re funny, but you really aren’t.   You’re so un-funny
that it’s kind of amusing.”
    “Exactly!” Kim pounced on Frank’s last
sentence like a triumphant cat on a mouse. “It’s part of my natural charm!”
    Frank nodded absently, looking down the
waterway as his boat, a confection in fiberglass and horsepower, came rumbling
towards the dock. “I suppose that’s why you’re in your fifties and still live
with your dad?”
    “Hey, Dad lives with me, with us,” he
asserted with a smile. “It was Sarah’s idea, by the way. I never would have
expected those two to get along but they sure as hell ganged up on me!”
    “A likely story,” mused Frank. “As soon as
she’s finished tying up my boat, I’ll go down there and ask her.” He looked
over at Kim who was rooting through his cooler, sacred ground at the Davidoff
household.
    “What you’ll do,” Kim said as he stood and
twisted off a cap, “is shut your damn piehole and have another red ale.” He
handed over the bottle, trading it for his friend’s hastily drained empty.
    Blackmail accomplished, Frank enjoyed that
perfect first taste of a newly opened beer and treated himself to a moment of relaxation. Aliens or not, I’ll land on my feet somehow, he thought, waving  to
Ellen as she walked up the Davidoff’s private jetty with Sarah. It’ll be at
least another six months on my current project before I would have to look for
work. They couldn’t afford to cancel at this stage.
     

The Prime Minister’s Office
    10 Downing Street, London
    January 9 th , 2026
    J an was ushered into the room by an aide. The Prime Minister, at
least, was easy to identify: he was the man behind the desk, frowning up at
her. There were six other people standing in front of him and they all turned
as she entered, all but one frowning in confusion and lack of recognition.
    Jan had been picked up at home where she
was grading papers over a bottle of wine. She had been on her third glass when
the policeman knocked on her door. A flurry of preparation had ensued, a quick
pass over the hair, and a change of clothes – one didn’t go to the PMO in a
vest and jogging bottoms. She left the half-empty bottle sitting open on top of
a stack of boxes labeled Edward . Stopping at the door, she had taken a
quick look around the flat, eyes resting on the stack for a moment before she
turned off the light and closed the door.
    Now she stood looking back at the assembled
group as another door quietly closed behind her and she began to feel annoyed. They
called me