​     Skip looked perturbed as he came out of his bedroom. This was not a young man who was in the best of shape. He had a bit of a pot belly going. In gym class, he could not do a single push up. "I've never scored so high on Galactic Aces in my ​life," he said.

​     "We're all together now?" Gramps asked. "Good. We're headed for the safe room."

​     "I can't do this," Alison's boyfriend, Brian, said. "I've got to be home in twenty minutes. Mom's going to work, and I've got to watch the..."

​     "I'm sorry, but that probably won't be happening," Gramps said. "You should give your mom a call."

     They began to hear it then, the pounding. Hundreds of replacers pounded on the sides of the house.

     BOOM! BOOM! ​   

     "I'm not kidding," Brian said. "Mom needs that job and..."

     Skip pointed his thumb in the general direction of the thunderous pounding. "You sure you want to go out in that?" he asked.

     They'd reached the safe room by that time. The door leading in was steel and an inch thick. The walls of the room were made of cement and six inches thick, framed by steel an inch thick at the top and bottom. Gramps went right to the weapons rack embedded in one wall. He grabbed a weapon with each hand.

​     "This door will automatically lock itself as I leave," he said. "Do not open it again unless you absolutely know it is me."

​     "Oh no." Abby went to the weapons rack herself. "You're not facing this alone, Dad."

     "I sure am. Along with everything else I'm going to have to do out there, I can't also be worrying about you and the children."

​     Abby pulled a weapon from the rack. "Whoever's coming with me better grab something to shoot with now."

​     Alison separated from Brian to grab a rifle from the rack. Cathy grabbed a pistol with one hand and a rifle with the other.

​     "No!" This came out of Gramps like a dog bark. "You stay here! You ​all stay here!"

​     Neither of the young men had any problem with that. Skip looked around the safe room as if in search of a computer game to play. Brian kept looking at the exit door like that would help him figure out a way to get the hell out of there.

     "Abby, you keep your eyes trained on the door," Gramps said. "Alison, Cathy, you be her back up."

     Alison and Cathy both nodded.

​     Abby said, "Daddy, I really do think that, as a family, we need..."

​     "You need to stay right where you're at." And, with that, Gramps was gone, headed for the foyer.

​     Abby sighed with relief. "Thank God he didn't make me promise," she said. She counted to ten, then, "Ready girls?"

     "Let's go."

     "We're right with you, Mom."

​     Abby said, "Get some headsets on, you two. I want to stay in contact with you at all times. You'd better grab a weapon too, Skip, you know, just in case,"

​     Skip nodded. He went to the weapons rack as the women left the room. There were dozens of different kinds. Gramps'd showed him what the properties of each of the weapons were and how they fired, as Gramps had with all his grandchildren, but Skip'd never retained much of it. He picked the biggest, most bad-ass-looking weapon he saw. It rested on his shoulder and was as big as a​ fish tank. When he pressed the trigger, he figured all Hell would break loose.

​     "You'd better pick one too, Brian," Skip said.

     "But I don't...I didn't..." Brian looked so pale, Skip thought for a second that he might actually pass out. 

​     "I know, I know, you didn't sign up for any of this," Skip said. "We're a family that really shouldn't be around other families but...Alison liked you so much she...anyway. There are times when I lay awake at night just terrified. This is a very dangerous universe we're living in, and we Dawsons know that more than most. Now pick a weapon. Come on over here. I'll help you."  

​                                                   CONTINUE