Up until now, Margot thought she had seen everything. Even when the men with guns forced their way in, shouting threats and throwing punches as they drove Margot and her colleagues into a corner at the back of the newsroom, she resisted the impulse to panic. It’s the Monday after the weirdest weekend of her life—of everyone’s life—and if she’s held it together this long, she can get through anything.
She didn’t panic on Friday when the first emergency alert went out and scared the living hell out of everyone on the bus. Dozens of smartphones all screeching in unison, harbingers of bad news.
“A sudden shift in the tides.”
“Unprecedented lunar activity.”
No one knew what any of it meant—not then, not now. None of it makes any sense at all, but chaos is the theme these days. Margot’s job has been to document the decline for anyone curious or literate enough to keep track, though that’s been a losing proposition for years now. The newspapers that haven’t died are half in the grave and local news ratings have been trending downward for more than a decade. Do the militiamen know that?
The first evacuation orders went out on Saturday. On Sunday the Atlantic Ocean swallowed most of Florida. FEMA camps along the Gulf Coast were quickly overwhelmed. Margot’s texts and calls to her brother in Miami have gone unanswered. And still, she didn’t panic. She went to work like usual on Monday morning, prepared to face another day of chaos and despair as illustrated in video feeds and dismal press releases.
And then the militiamen showed up, and after fifteen minutes of screaming and threats, Margot finally understood what true chaos is. Even now that things have calmed down and they’re all huddled in the back of the room like a litter of terrified kittens, Margot can’t shake the sense that a long-spreading apocalyptic madness has finally bled into her quiet corner of the civilized world.
There are six men, each decked out in body armor and his own small arsenal of guns and ammo. Five stand guard in front of Margot and her colleagues. The sixth demanded to speak with “the man in charge” and is now in her boss’s office. She can hear them talking, though she can’t make out much of what’s being said. No raised voices—surely that’s a good sign. No more outbursts. Margot risks a glance down the line at Barry. He’s sitting in the corner of the newsroom with his head tilted back, blood streaming from his broken nose, staining the front of his shirt and suit jacket. A man in body armor stands over him, a handgun clutched in black-gloved hands.
“It doesn’t work that way,” she hears Anderson say to the group’s leader. “I don’t make these decisions.”
“You said you’re the director of programming,” replies the man with the gun.
“I don’t—”
“You’d do it if it were breaking news,” he says. “I’ve seen you guys cut into regular programs for car chases—OJ, that kinda thing.”
Margot’s eyes meet the frightened gaze of a colleague, a woman named Patricia. Beneath layers of numb terror, she wonders if they’re both thinking the same thing: Is this guy even old enough to remember OJ? Margot herself was in grade school when the white Bronco chase dominated national airwaves, and the militiamen all looked to be at least ten years her junior. And that was national news, not some backwater market that didn’t even crack the top 25.
“Someone would have to call the hub,” Anderson says.
“The what?”
“Master control.”
There’s a shuffling sound, and then Anderson appears in the doorway of his office, the militia leader standing behind him.
“I need the number for the hub,” Anderson says.
No one responds. Maybe they’re all afraid. Maybe they know Anderson already has the number for master control, and this is surely just a tactic to delay whatever bizarre mission the militiamen have taken up for themselves.
The leader speaks. “You heard your boss, this is breaking news.” He jabs his gun into Anderson’s back. “Tell them.”
“We’re cutting into programming,” Anderson says.
An exchange of glances among the hostage staff. When no one moves, the man who broke Barry’s nose cocks his weapon and points it at Barry’s head.
“I’ll call the hub,” Margot speaks before she has time to regret it. A dozen frightened faces look on in disbelief as the militia leader gestures for her to get up. She looks at Anderson, but his face is blank.
“Tell them you’ve got breaking news,” says the militia leader. “You’ve got a special announcement and it can’t wait.”
She nods. “The number is in the booth.”
“Where’s the booth?”
“Down the hall.”
He looks at the guy who broke Barry’s nose. “We’re going for a walk. Don’t let anyone leave.”
Anderson suddenly finds his voice. “I can show you where it is.”
“Thought you said you didn’t know. That’s why you were asking your loyal workforce.”
“She’s just on the web team, she doesn’t—”
The man rams the butt of his rifle into Anderson’s ribs. It happens so fast, that Margot perceives it as barely more than a blur of motion that ends with her boss doubled over on his knees, wheezing in agony.
The door to the control booth is at the very end of the hall. Countless times she’s run down this corridor for one urgent reason or another but now that her life depends on it she’s actually moving surprisingly slow, hands raised and palms open, fully aware that there’s a weapon pointed at her back. The booth is cold as usual, chilling a sheen of sweat on her skin that she hadn’t even noticed until now. She shivers in spite of herself.
A wall of LCD monitors lights the room. A cluster of live cams in the upper right corner displays four scenes from around the country—a city skyline at night; a protest at one of the FEMA camps; an empty podium surrounded by flags; and a surprisingly clear image of the moon. Of course, it’s a full moon, she thinks. If we make it through this alive, maybe we’ll all look back on it and laugh. The thought is almost obscene. Typical newsroom humor, rarely funny in the moment.
The phone is mounted on the console at the front of the room, next to the producer’s computer. The number for the hub is taped to a panel above rows of glowing orange buttons. As she picks up the phone and starts to dial, Margot realizes she’s not sure what to say. Reluctantly, she looks at the militia leader. His face tells her nothing.
“Master control,” says a voice on the phone.
“This is KNRC. We need to cut into programming.” Margot is impressed by the calm in her voice.
“Okay. You need to cut in right now?”
“We’re… preparing a special report.” The man with the gun smiles in a way that makes her skin crawl, but she keeps talking. “We’re getting ready right now.”
“Okay, standing by.”
Something is happening in the studio. Live video from camera 2 shows an armed man dragging Barry to the anchor desk and forcing him to sit down. Someone has done a half-assed job at wiping the blood off his face, but his nose is swollen and crooked and his eyes are beginning to blacken. Whatever this special announcement is, the militiamen apparently want it delivered by the station’s star anchor, even if his handsome face is currently unrecognizable.
Noise at the doorway. Patricia enters the booth, closely followed by a man with a rifle. She sits at the director’s end of the console and starts logging into the computer.
“Look at that,” says the leader. He’s gesturing at the cluster of live feeds. The crowd at the FEMA camp is becoming more raucous. “They know what’s up.”
“Only a matter of time now,” says the rifleman.
Margot looks to Patricia as though her coworker might have an explanation for what’s happening, but she’s busy coding a rundown with a gun pointed at her head. Her hands are trembling a little as she types. More than once she has to backspace and correct her code, but the rifleman doesn’t seem to notice. He and his boss are watching the monitors.
“Is that the president about to talk?” he says.
“Sure looks that way,” says the leader. He turns to Margot. “President’s gonna talk. Were you gonna show that on your channel?”
“I… think we were going to livestream it.”
“But not put it on TV?”
I’m just on the web team. Fortunately, Patricia interrupts. “Okay, we’re ready.”
The men both looked at Margot, who had forgotten she was still holding the phone. “We’re ready,” she says to master control.
“Okay, cutting into programming in thirty.”
“Thirty seconds,” she says to Patricia, who nods solemnly and repeats the time cue into a microphone mounted on the panel.
Barry looks unwell. He’s holding a worn-looking piece of paper, presumably a script prepared by the militiamen. His face is pained and confused.
“Ten seconds,” Patricia says into the microphone.
“It’s happening,” says the leader. It takes a moment for Margot to realize he’s not talking about their rogue broadcast, but the feeds from the live cameras—one feed in particular. Not the one showing the crowd at the FEMA camp, which has by now descended into an all-out brawl with the National Guard. Not the camera pointed at the podium, still empty. Not even the live picture of the city at night, where the sky is rapidly taking on a strange color that Margot can’t quite identify.
No, he’s talking about the live picture of the moon.
“We’re up,” Patricia says.
The cop show that normally runs in this time slot instantly disappears, replaced by the battered visage of Barry Boswell, the city’s favorite newsman, reading a script at gunpoint.
“Good evening. I have an announcement by…” he looks down at the paper. “An announcement by the… the Soldiers of the Mare Crisium.”
Margot doesn’t hear the group’s name, and barely even registers the rest of the absurd script. Her attention is fully on the live feed of the moon. The moon, which seems to be changing shape.
“Long have we lived by the light of the sun. We have worshiped—” Barry coughs and clears his throat. His broken nose makes it hard to speak but there’s a gun pointed at his head and he forces himself to keep going. “We have worshiped false gods under the bright light of the daystar. For thousands of years, our true Father has slept in what we foolishly believed—” He gags. A viscous mix of blood and snot dangles from his jaw. For the first time in his professional life, Barry Boswell is not pretty to look at. Fortunately for him, very few people are watching. Even the men with guns seem to have lost interest.
The world is watching the moon. And the moon is transforming.
“—what we foolishly believed to be a dead rock in the sky,” Barry finally manages to continue. “A blind eye that paid no mind to the sins Man committed under cover of darkness. But tonight we see—we all see the truth.”
A crack is forming on the lunar surface, a great black scar creeping upward from its south pole.
“It is not a dead rock, but a living egg. A great… silver womb.”
The crack widens as the video starts to break up. Margot catches a glimpse of something slithering out of the fissure as the feed cuts out completely.
“And our Father shall be born again when—”
The sky explodes in brilliant, alien color. As every screen goes black Margot barely has time to muse to herself that finally, she has seen everything.