MASK OR MENACE

In many ways, it's a day in Heropa like any other day. Humid and glaring, even in the earlier part of the morning.

In other ways, it's anything but typical. For one thing, it's the third or fourth time they've all lived this day, with the exception of those of us who have died.

The dreamers have set up just outside the city. Even at a distance from the road, the noise of traffic is chaotic. People trying to drive out to see meteor shower based on the pop culture surrounding once-in-a-lifetime! phenomena, people trying to drive out and evacuate based on rumors, and of course, people trying to drive in for their ordinary workday because the rumors are obviously ("obviously") bullshit and the fad of snapping low-quality cellphone photos of celestial bodies careening around in the sky is some hippy/millennial/choice of disagreeable insult nonsense.

But for Ronan, Kavinsky, and the handful of ImPorts rushing out to meet them, it's nothing of the kind.

They found a hangar up for sale and, for lack of a better term, broke in. The Porter sits in the center of the gloomy concrete space. Steps echo and words reverberate louder than they should.

Long before the bombs start to fall, it smells creepily of desperation in here. The day of the network post, Ronan and Kavinsky have already struggled— and failed twice alone. The boys look stressed to the point of ageing, and painfully sober despite the bottles of liquor already scattered around along with a handful of stolen furniture. A prize lab, this is not.