The dawn sun jittered along like a water drop on a hot iron skillet. Still, it managed to progress from horizon to horizon with admirable majesty. It set twenty minutes later accompanied by the usual boom. The noise echoed between the neighborhood buildings, rattling the cracked glass in my patio door. From the third floor apartment, I watched plaster shake loose from the townhouse across the avenue.

Wind howled between the buildings, carrying a slurry of brown debris with it. Somewhere in the streets, a shotgun fired. The ground shuddered. I thought to sit another twenty minutes through the short night and watch the sun come up again, but the cat was probably right; it was time to get busy.

"Vell, Tomas, haff you thought it ovfer?" asked Reems.

Reems Rottengall, my cat, tucked his paws in reflexively, blinking at me, patiently awaiting an answer.

"Long walk, Reems. Sure you're up for it?"

"Ze streets, zey are dry, unt ve half to rezupply soon any-vay."

"Alright. I'll get the lamp."

Traveling through town was annoying. The booms shook down loose brick sometimes. A twinge reminded me that I still nursed a bruised leg from the last trip. Plus, you had to switch the light on every twenty minutes because of the rapid day/night cycle.

The city arboretum was a gauntlet of a hike, but the only nearby source for fresh produce. Remembering the state of our larder, I grabbed both the rucksack and a canvas bag, intending to scavenge one of the super-marks for canned goods on the way back. I glanced at the Mossburg 12 gauge pump propped in the corner, but I had no shells for it anymore. Prepping to leave took up the whole day and part of the following night; almost an hour.

"Okay, let's hit it."

Reems seldom went out by himself. He normally just prowled the apartment building for mice and such, preferring to stay in. Lazy.

Dawn had cycled around again by the time we made street level. Slitting my eyes against the wind and its load of blowing grit, I pulled up my hood. We dashed for the far side of the street, then threaded our way uptown, dodging between rusting automobiles and other litter.

My cat, a real Rottengall, leaped from crusty pile to rubble heap, always within twenty feet of me, but almost never right alongside. The sun cranked across the sky, evoking shadows that lengthened, rippled and flowed ceaselessly. I always find this spooky and a little disorienting. The sun set with another boom. I waited a minute for my eyes to adjust, then flicked on the lamp.

"Reems?"

"I'm fine. Ve should hurry along."

We fought our way left onto the parkway, sticking to the center median. That was safest. Barren cement pots with rotting stubs of old trees lined the metro. Some had a few scraggly weeds growing in them, but not many.

You'd think more plants would grow outside of greenhouses, but the quick light/dark cycle played holy hob with their transpiration. Those that grew were mostly sick and toxic. I found that out the hard way.

Midway to the arboretum, Reems froze, then hissed, "Daniel, es gibt Kreeb! You see them?"

Not again. This one had just turned the corner of Almot, which put us in full view of it. The Kreeb scuttled forward, poking one claw-like appendage into its ubiquitous sack. Out came the usual brochure, which it waved at us as it advanced down the gusty avenue. The three ring sigil of its sect glinted momentarily on the beetle's polished carapace, under the shifting sunlight.

I relaxed a little. The ones with three circles didn't try to grab you, they just dunned you with their pamphlets.

A gassy whistle screeched out as it rushed into the roadway, just audible above the moan of the wind. The bug adjusted something on a hunk of plastic slung around what I guess could be called a neck. I'm sure bug-guys have a better name for it. A digitized voice buzzed from the device, overlaying the bug's clicks and clacks, now that it was closer.

"Wait, indigenous persons. This Society of Sentience person has words for you!"

Okay, this was really going to slow me down.

"Vell?," said Reems, "do ve run?"

I closed up my jacket hood tighter, and shook my head. "No point. The Kreeb will have already broadcast our position. We'll just be accosted another fifty times between here and the Arboretum by his pals. Best get it over with now."

The Sun set with a boom, and I shivered as the temperature dropped instantly another ten degrees. I didn't bother to turn on my lamp. Let the Kreeb use up his own electricity. The Kreeb fiddled with a control, and the underside of its shell lit up. Having made it to the street center, the bug forced the pamphlet on me. I grabbed it before the wind took it away.

The Kreeb's mouth parts wriggled and clacked on, while the box interpreted. "Are you Saved? Have you considered the succor of your genotype? Do you believe in the propagation of universal intelligence? Let us bring you forth from extinction, and into the 390-750 nanometer EM spectra."

I pretended to glance at the flapping paper. An indecipherable set of vector lines dotted the pamphlet, complete with mathematical formulas and what appeared to be orbital paths of some sort. A bunch of circles and ellipses. It made no more sense to me now than it ever had.

"We're kinda busy,” I shouted into the rising storm. “On my way to get some food..."

The Kreeb wriggled mouth parts at us and remonstrated, "We are as one. First there was Ribonucleic acid, from whence came the Prokaryotes, then the Eukaryotes did come forth, and it was seasonable...."

"Actually, my parents were Mormons..."

Reems flopped down on his side, and yowled at me petulantly. "Should haff run."

I made placating gestures with the pamphlet, smiled, and nodded. The sun would be back in a moment. A boom announced it, and the roadway began to light. I motioned the cat up.

"We have to go now, thanks for this." I waved the wind tattered brochure. "Promise to consider it. Goodbye."

The Kreeb followed for a while, yammering away, giving up after a block or so.

The Arboretum came into sight.

A dark unpaved service drive ran along the left of it, clotted by rusting trash containers that alternated in size like broken teeth. There was a blur of movement in the alley. Three Kreeb had cornered some unfortunate citizen. The Kreeb shell patterns were of the 'Enlightened Servitor Church', two triangles inside a square, which was bad news. A golden energy web bloomed into existence around their victim, and the Kreeb lofted the man and scuttled off with him. The victim was probably a member of the Greenpeace gang. This was their turf. They had beaten the snot out of me last week, and taken my canned goods, so I wasted no tears on the guy. We picked up our pace, dashing for the arboretum's gated iron front.

Crandall, who runs it, has an electric gate lock on the entrance that runs on the batteries I bring him. He buzzed us through, meeting us halfway inside the place. He waved, then waited as we approached.

"Lost another one," he said.

"I saw. Why don't the bugs rush the Arboretum?"

Crandall shrugged under his shoulder-length white hair. "Don't think the other sects let 'em do that. Dunno though. My Dad might've known more about why the bugs do what they do, but he's passed on. Me, I just take care of th' crops." Crandall puckered in his horse-like features and spat on the tufted remains of what used to be the arboretum's reception lawn. He bent over a portable generator, filling it from a rust speckled gas can. Upending it into the generator emptied it. He stood back up, shaking it with a sigh.

"Your dad was deceased before they ever got here," I reminded him.

"That's what I meant, dude. Peace-love, guy."

"You two talk too much," purred Reems. "Get on wiz your business, Tomas, undt ve vill start back soon, nein?"

"What have you got left?"

Crandall brightened. "Beans! Wax and green pole-beans just harvested, man. Some corn next month, likely. Oh, I got some grapes left, you have to pick em' yourself though." He waved toward one of the garden plots, which sprouted a rickety assembly of trellises covered in leafy vines.

"I'm gonna run for the Supermark when I'm done here," I said. "Want me to pick you up some canned meat or something?"

"Naw man, still a vegetarian. Like those fresh. No old canned stuff. It's cool. But if you're truck'n around town, try to find me a gas station that still has fuel in its underground tanks, okay?"

Crandall bent down and picked up a small box, passed it to me, and wiped his hands down the front of his tie-dyed tee-shirt, looking thoughtful.

"Too long a haul, getting my veggies over to a corporate co-op to trade for gas. Could use some more small boxes or bags, if you find any."

"I'll check behind the counters, thump some tanks for you. Be a few days before I'm back this way though."

"It's all good, man.” Then, making conversation, "I think the shooting star will be up pretty soon. You might want to stay inside for a while."

Every so often the sky lit with the passage of some giant ball of...whatever. Seemed pretty regular, though there was no way I knew to time its appearance. Guess you could spend however long it took to count day cycles. Then do it again until it returned, and figure it that way. But it would be a full time job, hundreds of twenty minute cycles, too many to bother with.

"How do you know?"

“Bio-rhythms, man. I just always seem to know."

A useful insight, if true. Tremors, wind, and other things rode along with it. I took the cat on a fast pass through Crandall's garden patches. After filling my rucksack, I traded Crandall some batteries and plant fertilizer I'd scavenged over the week.

Reems arched his back, and wound once around Crandall's legs. "Ve should go, Tomas."

"Right. Take care, and thanks, Crandall."

"Peace, Tomas. You too, cat."

We dodged out into the street, and made for the Supermark's side entrance. The door was blocked with fallen carts and trash, but I managed to force it open. A blast of musty air poured through it. Reems scurried between my legs and disappeared inside, leaping onto a counter. I threaded in behind. Night was falling again, so I got my flash ready just in time for the next boom, and switched it on. Outside, through the glass front, Reems and I saw a triplet of Kreeb. Two triangles in a square festooned their carapaces. Shit. I dowsed the flashlight and dodged behind a long emptied shelf. Reems, prowling the store's front, leaped down off his counter, bowling over an opened tin can, which went clanging and skittering across the floor. I winced, and shrunk down. The front entrance doors creaked, and I held my breath. If they had only seen the cat, they'd probably ignore it. Rustling noises drifted through the store, quieting before I could get a good fix on them.

Suddenly, there was light, a plasma flash of yellow, then an intense pain struck me, and I spun into darkness, passing out to the yowling of Reems.