Robin clings to both of them.

"Did you get a good look at the guy?" wonders Andi.

"The one who...?" She shakes her head. "No. He was wearing a jacket... I think he had dark hair, not very long or anything... the jacket was red. Dark trousers, too. I never saw his face properly."

"So if he turns up missing and his face is in the paper you can't be sure it's the same guy," sighs Andi. "...Can I go get Bella?"

"...Yeah," says Robin. "Sure. Yeah."

Andi goes. She gets Bella.

Bella follows her into the living room. "You saw some kind of monster and you are very sure it was not a guy in a costume?"

"Very sure," she says. "Incredibly sure. You couldn't have fit a human into that shape. And all his parts moved. He had this great big long tail and you could see how he used it for balance, he'd go one way and it'd go the other, and the feet - he had these massive bird feet. Talons. When he was looking around he sort of - grabbed the pavement with his toes."

"In the interest of completeness - you weren't on anything, more than twenty-four hours' worth of sleep-deprived, suffering from a head injury...?"

She shakes her head. "I was up late, but I slept all right the night before."

"And this is not a charming prank, a test of the extent of anyone's credulity, etcetera?"

"Would you or would you not be asking me the same thing if Andi had told you that I were reporting this experience?"

"No! I wouldn't!"

Ethan hugs Robin some more.

"That's very generous of you," says Bella, looking surprised.

"It'd be one hell of a prank," she says. "Believe me, I couldn't act this shook up if I tried."

"Okay. So - you saw some kind of creature, maybe a really unprecedented special effect but maybe a mutant or a monster or an alien of some kind. This was an otherwise deserted street, no cameras - no obvious reason to be busting out the Muppets or the holograms - Did the guy or the monster say anything?"

"Yeah," she says, "the monster - well, he made noise. I got the sense there were words, but I couldn't hear him well enough to make them out. If they were even in English."

"The human said nothing, though? Where was this?"

She shakes her head and names a street intersection.

"So if one of us goes there - broken door on the shop - would you expect an ash pile or any smears where the guy got vaporized?"

She hesitates, then shakes her head again. "No. I don't know. It didn't look like anything - fell, after. He was just gone."

"Did the monster talons leave marks on the sidewalk?"

"I'm not sure. They might have. Not big ones, anyway, not that I could see from where I was standing."