A new noise made Swift jump in surprise. Her boyfriend did too, but not in the same way. He was reaching for his phone, but that wasn't his usual ringtone.

"Who's that?" she asked, watching the phone emerge. It was not his usual phone. When did he get another phone?!

"Hello," he said into the phone like it was nothing. "Uh huh? Uh... huh? You know, I'm..." He glanced at her, attention clearly on whoever he was talking to. "Fine, alright." He hung up and stuffed the phone away.

Swift pushed away the little tray that had once held her food, devoured as it had been. "Who was that? When did you get that phone?"

Mike frowned, still actually a pony in disguise. Her phone was not Mike's. That hadn't been disguised. She'd have to learn how to do that, or accept that was a weakness in her armor. "You wait here. I'll be right back!" He hopped up to his feet. "Mom gave me this phone just in case."

"Oh!" That sorta made sense. "They know where we are?"

"Yeah," he promised without actually having a clue. "One sec." And off he darted out of view.

Which left Swift sitting there, confused. "You have explaining to do." What in the world could he have to do?! She suddenly laughed. "Oh.... wait..." He could have had to actually use the bathroom, but he also could have just said that...

"Swift!" came Mike's call. There he was, with the rest of the family... and another family, and also a famous person she just met and three seals for extra points. "There you are." He hurried towards her, the adults speeding up with him as they came rushing up on her.

Swift got up so quickly her chair went flying backwards to crash to the ground. "You jerk!" she cried, meeting him partway. "You knew they were coming and you didn't just tell me?!"

This left a very confused Mike, being prodded at by an irate Swift. "Huh? We were looking for you."

Paul stepped to the side to let the mother zoom in and grab her daughter. "We're glad to see you're alright. Where were you?"

Swift patted her shivering mother. "I'm alright! I was just following that creepy lady." She turned a thumb at Mike. "Then I ran into you. You didn't tell them?" But Mike looked just as confused. "Mike! We went out to eat since you gave him money."

"I did no such thing," huffed out Mobile. "Mike was with us the entire time." She leaned in, pecking Swift on the head with a sharp break. "Now you stop lying! I'm glad you're back." The violence turned back into hugs, a softer form of violence. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"I'm fine," whined Swift. "But I don't get it." She glared at Mike, who had done nothing wrong, from his point of view.

"Where's your father?" asked Paul, changing the topic abruptly. "He was with you, wasn't he?"

"Have nice nice day." The otter that ran the small place waved at the sudden crowd that didn't seem to be coming inside to eat.

Swift wriggled a few fingers at him, just to pause. "Hey!"

"Me?" The otter pointed at himself? "Something wrong?"

"Him." Swift thrust a finger at Mike. "He was there, with me, right?"

"Um." The otter was soon bobbing his head. "Hey pay, he eat. Good? Yes. Ate fast, good good." He nodded with the confidence restored in his cooking.

Swift set her hands on her hips, glaring at Mike with renewed irritation.

"But I wasn't here!" he proclaimed in feeble cry of innocence.

It was to his benefit that the adults were there, looking confused. They had certainly had Mike by them the entire time.

"Seriously, I had her wrapped around my finger." A new thing to have. Cozy walked down the road with a casual saunter. "Why am I dropping everything?"

"It's all out of control," growled Grogar. "I'm sending a pickup. You're returning to base. This chaos will only end with our failure. That isn't what you want, is it?"

"Hay no," half-shouted Cozy. "Look, I wasn't 100% before, but this thing? I like it." She shook her rump as she walked, tail swaying. "Creatures see me how I want them to see me, not just the little filly I was forced to work with. That's not even getting into what happens with the humans."

"Then we'll take that as a silver lining, however slender it is." A sigh over the phone. "Come home. We will make our next action with purpose instead of flailing wildly. Oh, did you leave any loose ends?"

Cozy considered that. "I have a group of human stallions in my hotel room, knocked out."

The groan, it shook the phone. "Get them out, subtly. We don't need anycreature learning of your identity, do we?"

"Right right." Cozy waved it off like it was a mild annoyance at best. "I'm on the case, golly."

"We'll be there soon."

The trip was over. The missing humans showed up at different places around the city, as if they had just... gone for a walk and got lost, which was what each of them reported when asked. The seal nation was not nearly as filled with cameras as America. The chances of backtracing any of them was small enough to be effectively zero. There was no common point among them, at least that any investigating it could find. Cozy's name didn't come up.

Paul went home, but he left as he came, with a cheerful family. Two, in fact. They didn't have to come with him, but neither family was opposed to it, even as he assured them he'd be alright.

Head Stream was sipping from a small cup of soda given on the airplane. "Look, it might have been cut short, but this is not a vacation I'll forget for a long time. Isn't that the mark of a great vacation? Nocreature got hurt, maybe a little worried, but we're all going home, nice and safe."

Mike had his arms crossed, seated next to an equally pouty Swift. "I wasn't there."

"I heard you."

"Then why do you look so angry?" He looked to her. "I didn't do anything wrong."

"Someone did something wrong." She gripped her armrests firmly, also laying claim to them. "And I don't like it."

Mobile peeked over the back of her seat. "Me neither! You didn't lose your family." She stuck out her tongue at the cheerful Head Stream. "Easy for you to laugh it off."

Paul waved downwards. "Easy, easy. I'm just glad this had a happy ending." But that didn't mean he was satisfied. That something had happened, impossible to argue. Secret Service agents did not typically wander off. Two of them? Now you're in the lotto winning level, and Paul preferred to not rely on luck. Something had happened. But what? "Thank you all. You really didn't have to--"

"Belay that," squawked Mobile. "I can't relax on the same beach that happened on. Our vacation was over one way or the other. You just got us a nice comfy ticket back home, so thank you, Paul. That was very kind of you."

"After what you all did?" Paul laughed gently. "I owed you at least that much." On the plus side, he wouldn't be paying for the hotel stay of the rest of the planned vacation. On the other hand, he had to pay full price for those air tickets. A loss, but not a critical one.

"I don't..." Tim had a hand on his head. "I wanted to find something, for you."

Mobile prodded him firmly. "You were supposed to find those guards! You scared me to death! Do you see me? I am dead. You killed me. I hope you're happy."

Tim rubbed over her arm gently. "We can't have that. What will Swift think?"

"She'll think her father is a murderer." Mobile stuck out her tongue in defiance, but she wasn't resisting being gently pet on the arm.

"I prefer to slay you in more fun ways." He leaned in, and a smooch was soon happening. Forgiveness, it seemed, had arrived.

"Seriously!" she sighed out, placing a talon on his closer hand. "You are not usually so--"

"--Neither are they," cut in Paul. "I refuse to accept this was all a wild chance. Something happened to him." He pointed to Paul. "And the agents."

"Speaking of those." Swift climbed up to look over the back of her seat at Paul. "Where are they? I didn't see them on the plane."

"They were replaced." He pointed to the two new guards sitting next to him, looking severe and ready. "I imagine they were just as confused as Tim was." There were so many questions, but... "I'm sure they're looking into it. For now, I'm glad you're all here, and alright."

"What?"

"Missus President." The man nodded, still standing at attention. "The director of the Secret Service has submitted a report. They had agents on the field when the attack happened."

"The explosion?" It was a hot button topic, both in and outside the oval office. "Well, good. What's the news?" She steepled her fingers. "Tell me they know something."

"Nothing definitive." He set a folder before her for review. "For your eyes." With a firm nod, he turned and marched off.

Jill reached for the folder, flipping it over and scanning quickly. "Huh, hm... Eh?" Her brows came down together. "Really?" Two trained agents, just going AWOL with no memory of the event. The only reason they weren't chewed out already was the matching evidence of civilians that had suffered the same fate. About ten in total showed up, dazed and confused at different parts of the city. There was no pattern to where they ended up.

The explosion, suddenly less pressing. Something had happened... but what?

"We've been attacked." A new person at the door. "We are losing contact with satellites."

Jill stood up forcefully, her hands on the desk flatly. "In a specific area?"

"Everything at the 30th latitude and rising, rapidly." He slapped down a new paper on her desk, showing a map of their strange new world, littered with dots of the missing satellites. "GPS will be down in minutes. Internet is already suffering and that's getting worse. Observation is degrading at a rate I don't have a word for. It's a complete collapse."

Each satellite was millions of dollars, tens to hundreds. The destruction being laid before her was a complete disaster. "God above," she got out tensely. "What is the air force doing?" The air force was in charge of space. The space force division had never been announced on that shard of America. "Do we have eyes up there? What's doing this? I need intel!" President Stein brushed the damage report aside angrily. "All you've told me is that we're in trouble. I can't act with that!" she angrily shouted at the man. "Don't stand there, go!"

The activity level in the office grew as people rushed to get on top of the situation. Jill sank, sitting on her desk instead of in her chair. "This can't be a coincidence." Well, it certainly could be, but the odds seemed against it. But what force would be attacking their satellites, exploding off the coast of a beach resort, and leaving several people, top trained service men included, confused and lost. It all seemed so random.

But it was all happening. It was all going on during her watch, and she'd take all the blame for it, good or bad, and it sure seemed it was going to be bad. She grabbed the office phone off the desk and got to dialing. Bemoaning her fate wouldn't get her anyway. "This is what I'm being paid for," she grunted out. There was nobody anywhere that promised her title would be an easy job.

It had been too good to be true, that America could declare itself master of space with no opposition of any kind.

Author's Note

Okay, phew, finally. We can pull away a little from that EXTREME CLOSE UP. It's really hard to do global situations when we're following a specific person/group around step by step. Chrysalis proves she can get things done. How pleased will Grogar be?

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