Local Weathermen were saying that the fireballs were all just debris from a recent meteor shower.

NASA scientists confirmed it: natural phenomena.

Tony’s WeTube video got a million hits in the first day alone, with a lot of people laughing about my mom saying I’d peed my pants, and a lot of other people saying his ‘cinematography’ was too slick, that it looked like Hollywoodland production values. But Tony was an amateur filmmaker, and a brilliant photographer. All anyone had to do was look at his other work, right there on his channel, and they would see how good he was. I got so mad when I read those comments that I stopped feeling embarrassed about peeing my pants. Now I see how funny it was, the way my mom’s voice trailed off.

When a fireball hit the Labs and destroyed a bunch of administrative buildings, everything changed. My mom worked there, her friends worked there. A lot of people died that day. There was a guy who started posting comments on Tony’s page, that day, right after the fireball hit. The comments said that Tony was part of the attack, that the ‘fireballs’ were actually debris of alien spacecraft shot down by the International Space Station. It also said that all of the recent push to colonize Mars was the White House backpedaling as they tried to keep the lid on what was, “ … an all-out alien invasion.”

I think it was those comments that brought the FBI to talk to Tony.

When the neighbors saw the agents coming to our house, they panicked. It was smart panic, quiet panic, but it was panic. Just like those dreams I used to have about an earthquake up 680 into the Bay, flooding all the way down to Dublinton and Altamont, people began packing and leaving.

The Ambersons did it first, and I think they might have actually gotten out before the quarantine. Mr. Amberson was a geologist at the Lab. He was standing there, watering his lawn when the car pulled up. He smiled and waved at the agents, watching them until my mom let them into the house. When the door was closed, he waved me over, and knelt down to talk to me, pointing at a dandelion on the edge of his lawn.

“Marie, honey, do you know those men?” he said.

“Nope, but I heard them say FBI to my mom. They asked for Tony,” I said.

“Okay,” he said. “I think it’s time for a family vacation. You want to come with us, Marie.”

“I have a dance recital,” I said. Ballet was really important to me back then. I was determined not to piss my tutu for a third time.

“I know that, honey, but you should tell you mom, as soon as those men leave, that we’re headed up to the Lakes, in the mountains. She knows the way. Tell her I said, just like we talked about. Can you do that, honey? Say, George says, ‘Just like you talked about.’”

“George says, ‘Just like you talked about.”

“Good. And if they ask, I was telling you about dandelions. And how they spread on the wind. To take root far, far away.”

Mr. Amberson got his family together like they were going on a picnic. In under twenty minutes.

He drove away slow, waving and smiling, but his eyes were serious.

Mrs. Amberson was staring straight ahead, tears streaming down her face.

I forgot to tell my mom.