ANXIOUS TO ADDRESS THE continuing news coverage, Molli and Ears started early in the day.

Molli: “Let’s meet at Peter’s. He’s not home.”

Ears: “Now?”

Molli: “Yes, if you can.”

Ears: “Subject?”

Molli: “Red flags up. Red lights flashing. Media frenzy.”

Ears: “Understandable. Why meet?”

Molli: “Discuss pod format. Implications of social media reactions. Circus medius.”

Ears: “K. Just two hours tho.”

Molli: “K.”

Ears arrived in minutes at Peter’s and rushed into the studio. “What’s up?” he asked Molli, who was watching the vidscreen.

Her legs were perched on a stool. A bag of multigrain pita chips was open and empty, as was a plastic carton of hummus. Her jeans were covered with crumbs.

“Glad you left a little for me,” Ears teased. “Did you stay the night here?”

“With Peter? Oh, I’m sure he wishes.”

“He probably does.”

“Well, he never indicated anything to me, but that’s a topic for another day. Thank God it’s Monday and I have a lousy day off. We need to review the format and questions for Wednesday’s show, of course. But I can’t get my mind off the media as of late. All-consuming, apocalyptic, and nonstop fear-mongering.”

“Yeah, it’s unfortunate. Mind if I turn up the volume?”

She nodded.

“Volume up!” Ears commanded.

A woman was reporting from the White House lawn, with other news outlets nearby doing the same in the background.

“This news leak of the Dyson sphere does not necessarily imply any correlation to the Canadian obelisk,” the reporter confirmed. “The only verification we’re getting from NASA is that, unlike other Dyson sphere candidates, they see a precise regularity to the orbit of the sphere around the star. This has not been the case for other objects speculated to be Dyson spheres. To remind everyone listening, a Dyson sphere is a theoretical construction of an alien structure so large that it obscures the light of the star it surrounds. Imagine a few hundred Jupiter-sized objects created to capture solar radiation, naturally orbiting the star via its own gravity.”

“What is so different with this one?” the anchor inquired.

She continued. “Both public and private astronomers and astrophysicists compiled a clear view of this object. It has unique properties attributed to intelligent life. For instance, the shape is like a geodesic dome of the Buckminster Fuller kind. Second, it consumes particular segments of the light spectrum while casting off others, generally not believed possible in astronomical terms.”

“How far away is this?”

“It’s in our galaxy, roughly a hundred thousand light-years away. Essentially on the other side of the Milky Way.”

The anchor twirled her hair nervously. “Has anyone determined its relation to the obelisk?”

“None that government officials will admit. We won’t turn the cameras, but you can hear the protestors in the background even though the area around the White House is cordoned-off for crowd control. With the increasing numbers of calls for a specific response from our government, the White House remains under tremendous pressure to calm the nation. As the de facto leader of this hemisphere, anyway, everyone is waiting to see what responses are being considered.”

“Those being what, for example?”

“The usual assortment reported thus far in the news, ranging from expanding our nuclear arsenal, to creating global poison pills, to advancing genetics and hybrids, or varints. Any options within the distant realm of possibility are under consideration.”

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Molli called out “shut off” and the vidscreen went black, then she turned to Ears. “Trouble on our hands, and we’ll get our own little piece of that in a good way, I hope.”

As she finished speaking, an explosion of grinding metal slammed the garage door. Acoustic foam flew off the door, exposing a crack of daylight into the otherwise dim room.

“What the hell?” Ears screamed as he jumped up, severely pained by the noise. He covered the four ears on his head and neck as if that would diminish the misery.

“Other side!” Molli shouted.

They ducked under the desk to get closer to the door into the house, anticipating a second crash.

There was only silence.

“I don’t hear it, and I’d say it already left,” Ears whispered after a minute. “It was electric. No gas engine. A Toyota. I could almost tell you the model since their motors are distinctive. Little likelihood we’d find it, given these carbon fiber bodies and no denting.”

Molli realized she had been grasping Ears’ shirt on his backside. Cognizant of the sensitivity of the ears on his back, she asked, “Sorry, did I hurt you?”

“No, I’m fine. It was a hit and run, and Peter won’t be happy. Let’s sneak out the back door and circle around to the opposite side of the street.”

“Good idea.”

They slipped quietly from the garage, through the back yard and around the block, appearing as if they had been casually walking around the neighborhood.

“I have a queasy feeling about this,” Ears gasped.

They hurried past the house, noticing with side glances the damage done to the metal garage door, then returned inside. After locking the doors, they both sat stunned in Peter’s kitchen.

“About as serious as you can get, assuming it was intentional. Whoever it was, that person knows where he lives,” Molli surmised.

“Peabrained Peter keeps his home address on the website. I told him to take it off, but he liked the physical fan mail and is too cheap to get a PO box. The insurance deductible he’ll incur for this would’ve paid for a few years of PO.”

“PO’d indeed. Major PO’d he’ll be.”

The police arrived and took a report. Peter had been out riding his bike, on his media diet again without his cellphone, and the two told him what happened when he returned.

After surveying the damage to the garage door, they walked inside to the kitchen. Peter was insistent on carrying out their plan unhindered.

“We’ll still do it here on Wednesday. I’ll drive my car into the driveway and throw bricks under the wheels. It’ll be tough to push anything through that and should give us time for a quick exit if need be.”

“I’d be considering a little armory, Peter, given the evolving craziness. People are vexed, and it’s not subsiding. This is not just a temporary insanity – it’s an intentional insanity,” Ears cautioned.

Molli tapped her finger on the kitchen table. “I go back to find other times when society was so worked up and can’t think of any. That right-wing and left-wing populist personality cult crap of the teens and twenties might appear equivalent. It showed the world is full of people who are readily swayed by emotion, lies, and lack faith in their own ability to control themselves or discern evil from good. I honestly didn’t think the world could sink much lower after that American debacle and the horrific messes it created in its wake. Consider the rise of global autocrats and further disparities between the rich and poor. But all that dystopia and hatefulness seem almost tame now compared to the lunacy we’re seeing since the obelisk landed. I can hardly stomach the news, yet I can’t keep from being sucked and suckered into it. It takes all my self-discipline to stay calm, even for me, the self-proclaimed bastion of cool and collected.”

Ears was multitasking during the conversation as he normally did, staring at his phone while listening. His other ears were helpful for this since he could cordon-off conversations and attune a part of his brain to one task, like a video feed, while using different parts of his brain for other needs.

“Get this, guys,” he requested, not lifting his eyes from the screen. “More news coming in. Someone apparently released Toxo into various cities’ public water systems, all around the globe.”

“Toxo?” Peter wondered, his eyes squinting.

“Of all people, you should understand what that means. Toxoplasma gondii, if I pronounced that correctly.”

Peter’s eyes dropped to his screen to locate the news feed. “Why release a parasite into water systems?”

Molli looked puzzled. “You guys are ahead of me. I’m a Sociology major. You two are nerds. What is this Toxo?”

“Parasite,” Peter responded. “A cat parasite that makes affected humans appear emotionally charged and risk-prone, even schizophrenic. Lots of experiments have been done in lab rats and other animals, but as I recall, most humans are already exposed because it’s carried by house cats. Beyond a few corner cases, nobody’s ever seen a true epidemic of odd human behavior from Toxo.”

“Read what it says,” Ears pleaded, “as this is a new, genetically modified version. It can now multiply inside human digestive systems and is engineered to thwart our immune systems, potentially creating mental havoc in those infected.”

They looked up from their screens.

“Ears,” Molli insisted, “you must find a Toxo expert somewhere in your network. Let’s get them in fast. Can you imagine anything worse right now than a parasite that makes people more upset and crazier than they already are? What else could go wrong?”

“I can imagine screwier stuff than Toxo in today’s societal meat grinder,” Peter moaned. “Hey, I need to replace the garage door, but that’s unlikely to be fixed in two days. I’ll glue the foam back on, which won’t take long, and we’ll plan to do our Wednesday show here in the studio with Poison Paul. Ears, that’s a great name for the guy. Okay if we give him a full intro?”

“I’m still clarifying. What is said in public by folks like him can sometimes take on a life of their own. He might prefer ‘Poison Paul’ instead of his real name, and we may need to mask his voice.”

“Whatever. For credibility’s sake, it would be nice to cover his credentials, but we can veil that, too, if needed. He’s not the only nuclear physicist in town. Around Boston, I imagine there’s one in every restaurant either eating or working in the kitchen.”

Molli smiled. “I need to leave, too. See you guys Wednesday – and watch out for stray cats."