TIME HAD STOPPED—not because of any Flashback or roiling time-storm or strange, vague lights in the sky, or because fully three quarters of the human population had vanished without a trace (and been replaced with prehistoric flora and fauna), but because we’d been outsmarted, pure and simple. And now all we could do was watch, as the rows of people in front of us and behind began to lay themselves on the ground and another brought Atticus a megaphone—which he lifted to his mouth while steadying himself with his ax and directed at the rover’s cab.
“Well, just check ... this ... out! Damn!” He acted as though he might slap his knees. “‘Gargantua One.’ What do you know? I mean, what will they think of next?”
The feral kid appeared to laugh as the wind gusted suddenly and the branches of th
