The Box arrived on a Tuesday. This already upset most of the planet, because everyone knew that if something important ever came from space, it should at least have had the courtesy to show up on a Friday evening, when people had nothing better to do. It didn’t land in Washington, Moscow, or Beijing. It didn’t hover above the pyramids or land itself on the White House lawn. It simply appeared, without warning, in a small car park behind a shopping mall in Milton Keynes. At fi

Melinda screamed, hot, forceful breath scraping her teeth. She was doing what she was supposed to, that’s how aggrieved mothers behaved. “You want your baby to die, asshole?!” The voice on the other end of the call was deep, distorted–a deadbeat Darth Vader. Offended, Melinda wanted to scold Scott for taking things too far, his inclusion of “asshole,” but much like her screaming, there was a protocol to follow; he was just doing his part. A “fuck” would most certainly be co