“…the Military Police’s press office stated that the officers caught on video have been suspended while internal affairs investigates possible misconduct,” says a robotic little voice with journalistic cadence over the speakers of the TV mounted above the diner’s entrance, competing for the attention of staff and customers with the sizzle and pops of the griddle, the blender churning juices, and the wet clatter of dirty dishes in the sink.

  Anderson, in suit and tie, remains oblivious to the lunchtime bustle: his head is plugged into his phone by a pair of earbuds like an umbilical cord, eagerly consuming the stream of voice messages pouring into the work group chat on WhatsApp.

  “Forecast: dry air and the heatwave continue this week across the Federal District,” the news broadcast continues.

  Anderson sees message notifications from his boyfriend and glances quickly to check it’s not an emergency—but no time to reply now—he’ll understand. It’s the third (and hopefully final!) day of the federal budget vote in Congress, and Anderson needs to keep his head in the game to assist the congressman he works for.

  In times of indiscriminate budget cuts across every government office, the fight for public funding has drawn diverse interest groups into the chamber and corridors of the legislature: Indigenous people and land-grabbers; landless peasants and oligarchs; unionists and corporate lobbyists; youth and retirees; the upper crust and the underclass, left and right, progressive and conservative—the entire political fauna of the nation in one great thunder dome, from which, if the Ministry of the Economy has its way, no one will make it out with anything.

  “Today’s the day: asteroid DR-6420 passes close to our planet. NASA scientists say the rocky body, with a surface area of thirty square kilometers and expected to pass between Earth and the Moon, will be the brightest object in the night sky throughout the Southern Hemisphere until dawn. But don’t worry: according to specialists, there’s no risk of collision. DR-6420 has an exotic orbit and is estimated to pass by Earth once every hundred thousand years—so don’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime chance to see it, with the naked eye or through a telescope,” the anchorwoman continues, as Anderson hurriedly pays the bill and orders an Uber back to the monumental axis.

  Lunch only took twenty minutes, but he’ll still have to cross the crowds surrounding the National Congress, caught in a cacophony of opposing chants barely contained by the National Guard.

  ***

  “Close the door! Close the door, quick!” pleads Congressman Luiz Franco, overtaken by panic. They've managed to take shelter in his office—besides him, there’s his aide Anderson, a team of Canadian documentarians making a film about Brazil’s chaotic political moment, three delegates from the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and two from the National Student Union; also nine congressional staffers and, lastly, Congressman Pastor Emiliano with five of his church’s faithful.

  There’s not much space for so many refugees, who grouped together while fleeing in desperation through the underground tunnels linking the chamber to Annex II—farther from the epicenter of violence and apparently safe, at least for now.

  “What the hell was that!? What’s going on!?” Franco continues, trying to clean himself with a handkerchief, rubbing and slapping in fear at his once-white shirt, now soaked in blood.

  Pastor Emiliano gathers his followers and launches into a loud prayer circle, oblivious to the movements of others in the room. They call upon the Lord with all the strength in their lungs—but even then, they cannot drown out the warzone uproar that has taken over the government plaza. Gunfire, bombs, armored vehicles—even tanks—speeding in all directions; helicopters flooding the ground with light and air force jets screaming overhead; the desperate screams of people in the congressional hallways.

  But nothing chills the survivors’ spines more than the primitive roars now joining the surreal symphony engulfing the Capital.

  “Kid, did you get that on tape!?” Franco asks one of the documentarians, who doesn’t speak Portuguese. Anderson translates.

  “Yes, I did! Let’s see this, I still can’t believe it!” pants the cameraman, opening the side screen of his digital camera and selecting the file.

  The first attack in the chamber happened around 11 PM, when a morbidly obese congressman was mid-speech, spewing spittle and slurs from the podium. “And so, dear colleagues, in defense of the traditional Brazilian family—” he was saying, when a deafening scream like a siren bird silenced the heated mutterings.

  With a leap, a massive bird-like creature with a lizard’s face landed on the Speaker’s table and bit into the president of the house, yanking him from his chair and shaking its long, muscular neck to tear him clean in half, showering guts onto the stunned deputies below. Other similar beasts, with Cristiano Ronaldo legs and Horacio arms, immediately burst into the galleries, kicking off a frantic stampede for survival.

  “No way... it’s a Santanaraptor!” stammers one of the scientists, an archaeologist attending the session to advocate for the reinstatement of frozen public research grants. He couldn’t identify the feathers, but years of research had etched the proportions of that extinct creature into his memory. Watching the footage calmly, he becomes convinced he knows the bones beneath those rainbow-feathered flanks and behind those golden eyes.

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  “A dinosaur!?” another scientist exclaims, stunned.

  “Eddie, come here! Film this!” says one of the Canadians to the cameraman, cracking open the blinds for a view of the plaza.

  Outside, the night sky glows with a soft pink hue radiating from the crimson dot streaking across the heavens, erasing all constellations. The scene through the window is unbelievable: Massive mastodons charge police tanks, flipping them with ease; Terror Birds scatter riot troops with zero effort, impervious to the hail of bullets; Saber-Toothed Tigers chase civilians across the lawn, unfazed by whether they wear green, yellow, or red; flocks of Anhangueras soar through the air, challenging helicopters, taking out military drones with pinpoint wing strikes.

  “This makes no sense, these species aren’t even from the same epoch...!” the archaeologist mutters, still watching.

  “That’s what doesn’t make sense to you!?” Franco snaps back.

  “I have a theory,” declares the third scientist, a physicist from Unicamp. Everyone turns to him, craving explanation. “See, there are some theorists who believe the universe is a holonomic structure. That is, any part of it—regardless of size or makeup—contains all the information of the whole system.”

  “Speak Portuguese, man!” interrupts the congressman.

  “Well, it’s complex. But let me show you...” the scientist says, suddenly reaching into a trash bin and setting something on the table. “What do you see here?”

  “A can of Fanta,” says Anderson, confused.

  “I see six million dead Jews,” the doctor replies.

  “What!?” gasps one of the protocol staffers.

  “When the U.S. joined the war against the Nazis, they embargoed the Reich. As a result, German soda factories couldn’t get the ingredients to make Coca-Cola, so they used orange pulp to make a new drink—Fanta. It was such a hit that, after the war, it was kept in production and launched worldwide. So that name, that formula, this particular construct of mass and energy, exists only because of that historical context; that’s why this can is here, in this physical-chemical form, in front of us. This item contains all that information.”

  “And what does that have to do with anything!?” Franco demands.

  “Look, I’ll keep it simple. What I think might be happening is some unknown quantum interaction between the asteroid and the Earth, which is retrieving and somehow reactivating the informational structure of these extinct animals that once roamed Brazil. That’s why nothing can hurt them: they don’t exist in the present, physically—they’re just the informational imprint of those bodies, occupying roughly the same space.”

  “Prehistoric ghosts?” Anderson sums up.

  “Yeah… in a way,” the scientist concedes.

  “Then how are they hurting us?” the aide counters.

  “I never said I knew everything about the phenomenon. It’s even possible none of this is permanent. That everything resets once this entanglement ends. Or not.”

  “Enough heresy!” Pastor Emiliano shouts, waving a Bible in the air. “These are lies from Satan! People of God, come with me! The power of the Word will cast out these demons!”

  “Are you nuts?” Franco retorts.

  “Nuts for my Lord Jesus Christ! And you—bragging about your guerrilla days but cowering like a dog!?”

  “Watch your mouth, bastard! If you knew anything about guerrilla warfare, you’d know that surviving means hiding real good. And didn’t you vote to arm the population? Where’s your gun now?”

  “Right here!” the pastor says, thrusting the Bible toward the congressman. Emiliano gathers his faithful and opens the office door. His group begins chanting in unison: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” but don’t get to finish before being mowed down by a stampede of Toxodonts thundering through the hallway.

  ***

  In the underground bunker beneath the presidential palace, the President of the Republic, his Vice, and the Head of Institutional Security—flanked by armed guards—scramble for information on the situation.

  “Goddammit, Mariano! Those ABIN assholes don’t know shit!” the head of state barks.

  “Mr. President, things are bad out there. There’s no way to gather intelligence. Best we can do is keep striking. The Supreme Court and Congress have already fallen!”

  “Well, good riddance! Serves ‘em right! But enough—we’re ending this crap now, Mariano! My sons are still out there!”

  “We’re trying, sir! But honestly, it’s unlikely they’ve survived this long…”

  “They’re armed, goddammit! They know how to handle themselves!”

  “The problem is nothing seems to harm these monsters!”

  “Then fuck it! Burn it all! Authorize the Air Force—I’m ordering it! Bomb the whole damn thing! We’ll survive in here, right? So that’s it. This is a commie plot from China to take me down, that’s what it is! First that virus, now this!”

  “So this is how the New World Order begins…” whispers the pale Vice President.

  Their conversation is cut short by a massive impact that shakes the bunker with a thunderous boom. Before anyone can speak again, another violent blow crashes against the shelter, and the warped surface of the heavy door reveals something is trying to cut through the steel.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. President! Nothing can break into this silo!” Mariano assures—just as a third strike smashes through the metal, crushing him into a splatter of red paste. Blocking the only exit, a massive Megatherium bellows with deep resonance, placing four tons of muscle onto its long, lethal claws. It advances slowly into the presidential bunker.

  “Holy hell… it’s the Mapinguari…” the Vice mutters, tears flooding his face, as he recognizes the folkloric beast of his homeland.