It was 3:14 am in the Salazar home. Its owners, Anthony and Monica, slept deeply and breathed heavily in their marital bed.

I stood over them, still and silent, mentally preparing myself to execute the final part of the plan.

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.

Monday: Heads up, Aries! Life changes ahead! You thought your years of wiping noses and bottoms were over, but think again! It’s time for you to enroll in a program and get that nursing degree you’ve always longed for! Yes! It’s finally here! The world of caring for others awaits! Soon you will be the Angel in the White Cap, the Florence Nightingale you were always meant to be, emptying bedpans and changing adult diapers and tending and caring and washing and injecting people who need the kind of care only you can provide! Your future is calling, Aries!