Baron von Blütvinnich’s manic cackles echoed through the halls of his ancestral home as the cathedral bell struck midnight. A bolt of lightning hit the manor’s ornate dome just as the clangs faded away, exactly as he had planned it.

“Ant farms?’

Arthur sat on the other side of his desk. His countenance was inscrutable. But that was what he’d said, wasn’t it?

“Yes. Clearly. Take it from me.”

“But everything?”

“Traditional investments are faltering. The bubble is going to burst. Real estate, energy, pork bellies. It’s all going to crash.”

It started with Delbert and Martha Robinson. At least their incident was the first made public.

Nose popped into their kitchen out of nowhere, glided to the vegetable soup on the stove, then to Delbert’s collar. Next day the Robinsons received an email: Soup needs more broth, Delbert less cologne.—Nose.

The room was festooned with garlands and tinsel. Pinecones and sprigs of holly were taped to the walls, and a foamy blanket of fake snow covered the teacher’s desk. On the chalkboard was a crude drawing of a late-model SUV, along with some dollar signs and percentages.

On the dating app called Gotcha, the tag line reads connecting the unusual, but the mechanics are the same as Tinder or Raya or Grindr. You swipe right for yes, left for no, send winks and pokes and pics. The app has a map thingy that helps you echolocate your date like a bat when you’re matched. This is what Nate did the night he met Peta, following a green line along Des Moines Avenue, all the way to Charlie’s Kitchen, where his destiny awaited.