Soaked and stinking of beer, Xavier grumpily stepped out of customs. He ignored the sniffs, smells, and stares at him by everyone else there. He just didn't want to see his family like this.

But to his mixed expectation, anticipation and disappointment, he saw his dad, mom, and older and younger brothers in the airport's arrival hall. They cheerily waved their small handheld American flags and held up their poster sign that read "Welcome Home, Xavier."

"Xavier!" cheered Dad.

"Yo, bro!" went the younger brother.

"Welcome home, pumpkin pie!" chirped his mother, rushing up and hugging him. "You're home! You're back! You're -- wet!" And she stopped and sniffed. "And you smell like a brewery!"

"What happened?!" asked the younger brother befuddledly. "You take up drinking in turbulence?"

Xavier sighed. "No such luck, Hogan. Just before we landed, some guy, British, I think, walked up to me with two beers." He pointed at his Stars and Stripes flag/"Made in the USA" lapel pin on his black T-shirt. "He asked me if I was an American. I said yeah. Then he dumped both of them all over me, said, 'I hate you,' and went back to his seat and high-fived his buddy."

"Dang. Didn't you sick a flight attendant on him?"

"Didn't want airport security to delay me."

The older brother's face hardened nastily. "What's he look like? Is he still around here?"

"Forget it, Keith. We're not hunting him down."

"You don't mess with family, man. Where, is, he?!"

"Listen to your brother, son," Dad went. "We're not spending Xave's homecoming night bailing you out of jail."

"Can we just get to the baggage pickup and get my suitcase?" Xavier asked. "I just want to change into something cleaner."

***

After a wait by the luggage carousel and another wait by the men's room, Xaiver emerged in his not-as-dirty Dr Pepper t-shirt and church-going khaki slacks. And with that, they packed up in the Buick, and zipped homeward down the interstate.

"So how's the town held up?" Xavier asked between yawns.

"Jones Meadow's done some growing since you've been away," Dad said. "They added 3 screens to the Movieplex, and the old drive-in's been torn down."

"Aw, that stinks."

"They're building a new shopping center on top of that," Hogan said. "The Chinese restaurant folded, and that sushi place didn't last long. Got a new Outback Steakhouse, though."

"The church is having their bazaar/bake sale," Mom said. "I went ahead and donated your old clothes and video games you'd gotten tired of."

"Aw, no! You didn't!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, pumpkin, I didn't know you wanted to hang onto them."

"No, it's not that. I probably could've gotten a better deal selling the stuff on eBay and donating the money."

"Ah well," went Dad. "Anyway, enough about our old, moldy town... tell us about teaching English in Taiwan!"

"Hey, can we talk about it over dinner?" Keith said. "I'm hungry. And I bet Xave is, too."

And so they talked about Xavier's times in teaching, and relished in sharing some Alice Springs Chicken and onion blossoms with their long lost boy. (He didn't mention he'd eaten at their restaurant in Taipei.)

***
After flipping over and over in his old bedroom, Xavier had to face facts: 18 hour flight or not, he couldn't sleep. That Chocolate Thunder from Down Under revisiting him didn't help much, either. So finally he pushed the comforter off, swung around the legs, got out of the bed, and tiptoed lightly to the computer room.

But someone was already there by the iMac: Hogan. He was checking a telescope aimed out over the deck, too. "Oh, hey, Xave. Jet lag?"

"No thanks, already got some. Doing the old astronomy, I see."

"Yeah. Big meteor shower tonight. Gonna be a beauty. You want on the computer?"

"Nah, I don't wanna mess you up. It's cool."

"Hey, you won't mess me up. Just open and use another window while I'm out here."

"Thanks." And Xavier opened up Firefox and checked the Drudge Report. A few minutes later, he groaned. "Why do we bother?"

Hogan looked up. "Bother?"

"Going out in the world." Hogan walked back indoors, and Xavier pointed at the screen. "Just look at the news. The mess in Iraq. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Snobbishness in the EU." He reached over to a globe and idly spun it. "We try to protect it... shut down the bad guys, buy their stuff, teach them English... and the whole world hates us."

Hogan stared at his brother. "Dude, this isn't just about that beer jerk on the plane, is it?"

Xavier shook his head sadly. "I mean, even the students back in my schools are giving me stick." He spread out his arms. "I mean, look at me! Do I look like some gangsta thug? Do I scare folks THAT badly?"

"So you're thinking about quitting and coming home?"

"I probably could teach better in the States. I can do more when the others can speak my language."

"Hey, prob with that there. You give a student a D in the States, you get a call from their folks. You give them an F, though... and you get a call from their lawyer."

"I... I mean, it's not like... aw, crap, I can't get my words straight after an international flight. It's just ... we're doing this for their own good."

"Don't let it get ya down, bro," Hogan offered. "I'm hearin' ya. And ya got some time at home to not think about it."

"Hmnh," Xavier grunted. "I say we just pull in the goalies and take care of our own--"

"Huh? What was that?"

"What was what?"

"The meteors..." Hogan dashed toward the telescope and peered through it. He grunted unapprovingly.

"What's wrong?"

"Too soon... and if I'm reading this right... they're way too high up to show up and burn in entry like that... You see the observatory readout?"

Xavier checked Hogan's astronomy page on the computer. "Whoa! THAT was off."

"I didn't know you did astronomy."

"I don't. But even I know meteorites don't pull right angle turns like that."

Just then, Weird Al's Angry White Boy Polkafication of Papa Roach's "Last Resort" chimed from Xavier's nightstand. He hurried over quietly, and picked up his cell phone. And he squinted puzzledly at the number. David Chung? His roomie and assistant teacher back in Taipei? He flipped it open. "Yeah, Dave, what's up?"

"Xavier!" said a Chinese accented youth's anxious voice. "I very sorry to waking you right now at night in America--"

"Don't worry, don't worry, I couldn't sleep," Xavier reassured. "What's wrong?"

"You see what going on in the sky?"

"What, the meteor shower?"

"No! Is daytime here! Flying things! Spaceships!"

Xavier flinched. "Say WHAT now?"

"Man! Turn on TV! Is all over Asia!"

Really befuddled now, he went over to the den, found the TV's remote, pointed, clicked, made sure to lower the volume for his sleeping parents' sakes, and surfed over to the Worldwide News Network.

"-- are flying all over the planet. The six biggest objects: as you can see here, are over each of the oceans, over the North and South Atlantic, the Indian, and the North Pacific, with two craft hovering over the South Pacific."

Onscreen, he saw the caption: WNN Live: Unidentified Flying Objects Appear En Masse. And on video, he a satellite pic of what looked like a giant seven petaled lotus flower made of bright pastel rose-colored metal. And out of each of the tips flew the standard issued frisbee-shaped flying saucer craft. Hundreds of them.

The commentator switched to a graphic showing a scale picture comparing the flower motherships -- each one was roughly the size of Alaska.

"Xavier! You still there?!" David said.

"Uh, yeah."

"They flying across Taipei! One floating over court in front of Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial! Don't know why, or what they want! Army on alert, stand by!"

"Xavier?" said a sleepy voice. "Can you keep it down? I know you probably can't sleep, but we want to." It was his dad, all mussy haired.

"Uh, Dad, I'm sorry," said Xavier, "but... you'd better be up for this." Back to his phone. "Sorry, Dave, Dad's awake. I'd better let him know what's going on. Thanks for the tip-off. You be careful over there, okay?"

"Know what's going on?" Dad demanded.

"Yeah, you too," went Dave. "Bye."

Xavier flipped his phone shut. "Uh, Dad, I think you'd better check the news."

The reports came in. The hundreds of city-sized flying saucers flew and peppered the planet. Many of them congregated over the world's trouble spots: Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Zimbawe, Rwanda, Venezuela, Columbia, Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan... and all throughout Middle East. But no continent anywhere was untouched by the mysterious saucers' shadow. In fact, one hovered over the Midwest USA, one over California's mountains, and a third uncomfortably close to Washington D.C.

Xavier's mother then crept into the den in her nightgown. "Honey?" she asked. "What's going on?"

Father and son just silently beckoned her to sit on the couch in front of the TV. Hogan scurried between the telescope and the iMac's news websites and observatory readouts.

"Yeesh," Xavier muttered. "I'm having a bad ID4 flashback."

"Yeah, well," Hogan said, "about the one bright spot is that about everyone around the world has called a cease fire over this."

And at last, the cameras in London saw a winged pod the size of a compact car fly out of the local hovering city-saucer. Shortly after that, around the world, each city saw its saucer send out a winged pod, which flew over the first public clearing it could find. In front of the Brandenburg Gate, Red Square, Tianamen Square... all across the globe. WNN focused on the pod hovering 100 feet over the Washington Monument's reflecting pool.

And then on its underneath, a hatch slid open, showing a glowing light. It cast a long piercing beam, like a wide spotlight.

Every pod around the world also cast its light. And each one showed the same thing:

Right in the light, flickered a gigantic hologram: a tall, statuesque, deep-chested muscular woman in a white, red, and golden toga.