'I saw a shop keeper putting up a steel barrier on his window this morning.'

'You see that's precisely the reaction we are trying to avoid, Pierce. That idiot in the State Department over in the US of A who leaked this needs to be put up against a wall and shot.'

I'm sure you don't mean that, Harry.'

Lieutenant General Harry Fields put his pen aside from the pile of memos he'd been briskly working through and fixed his prickly expression on Pierce. 'Actually I do. To have the public know this now is dangerous in the extreme in my view. No one should have been told until we were ready to tell them.'

'But we have time to get ready, two years is enough surely to prepare for an Invasion?'

'You see there's the problem. Ever since the British press has got hold of it it's been an Invasion Force this and Invasion Fleet that. How do they know that based on a just a few grainy pictures? How is it not a Welcoming Fleet, a visit form a Diplomatic Corp from a distant planet or perhaps a wondering group of inter-galactic dog groomers? No, to the press it's an Invasion Force and as a result everybody panics. There is general unrest worldwide, the price of gold has shot up, people are hording food, and in here in Blighty people are cancelling their milk deliveries and the price of steel's gone ballistic as all our corner shop owners bolt metal barricades to their doors.'

Pierce shrugged his shoulders in tacit agreement. 'How did the Americans get the pictures?'

'I'll tell you only because I know some other buffoon somewhere has leaked that as well and it will be in today's rags. The Yanks aren't keen on it coming out you see, cos it'll cause problems with the Rusky's.' The General packed his paperwork into a slim attaché case as he spoke. 'Back in the seventies the Americans developed a new type advanced spy satellite, one in a long line used to spy on the Russians. But this one was something super special, advanced optics, early digital technology, you know- the whole kit caboodle.'

Pierce nodded as he listened, picking nervously at the edge of the buff manila file that lay on his lap.

'Well up it went and just as they were getting it into the correct obit a valve sticks open and the thing is pushed off its path and out into space. Imagine, it's loaded all that technology and an old mechanical valve breaks. ' The General snorted. 'Cock up of monumental proportions, eh?' His bushy eyebrows drew together and momentarily touched each other. 'Well off it went, bumbling its way in the general direction of Mars, sending intelligible messages back to Earth as it went. You see naturally everything that was sent back was encrypted as it was a Military bit of kit.'

'And?' Pierce leaned forward expectantly.

'Well forty years on a young whippersnapper at the Pentagon wonders what all the signal activity is coming in from an old satellite chuntering around in deep space somewhere. He gets hold of some retired buffer from the original program for the decryption codes and low and behold there are the pictures of a fleet of alien ships heading toward Earth. At present speed they should,' Harry pulled up his sleeve and glanced at his Brietling, 'be here in precisely five hundred and twenty three days assuming they don't have to pull over for any toilet breaks.'

'Hmmmm,' Pierce intoned.

'I take it from your sparkling discourse you've something on your mind Pierce. Well let's have it, I'm a busy man.' The General rose from his desk and slapped the table with a pair of heavy winter gloves.

'Well Harry, if you don't mind. I've been doing some work that may be relevant, err, to the current situation, if you'd like to have a look at this. ' Pierce slid his envelope cagily across the table.

'I see.' Harry looked wearily at the file. 'Does this have something to do with the fact that my Brother in Law is the Prime Minister, Pierce? Ah, I see from your expression that it does. You know every charlatan, nut job, moon gazer, tutti fruitti and wackadoodle is currently crawling out of the woodwork asking for money to support their project to save the World from the beastly aliens. We're up to our ears in death lasers, star-ships and teleporting machines. Someone's even proposed a giant invisible toupee thing to drape over the Earth so they just sail right past us. And what's with all those people walking around with tin foil hats on their heads so the aliens can't read their minds!' Harry shook his head in disbelief, did up the buttons on his great coat and paused. 'Anyway aren't you a psychologist, I don't see how any of that flim-flam is going to help us.'

'It's not flim-flam, Harry. Could you just take a look and then I'll explain it.'

'To be honest,' said Harry checking his watch again, 'I haven't got time but if you walk with me you can tell me while we walk. But I'm giving you no promises you understand? Nipper!'

Pierce jumped up as a large black shaggy Labrador shot from under the desk. In its mouth dangled an alien shaped rubber toy with a large green head and three limbs, one evidently having been chewed off. He looked quizzically at the General.

'Not my idea, a present from the men. Come on Nipper. And try and keep up, Pierce, can't have you wondering around the camp unaccompanied now can we?'

Outside, in the frosty barracks trucks roared and belched black clouds of diesel gas into the air. Packs of camouflaged kitted young men, pink faced with exertion ran to and fro loading up a pyramids of green kit bags.

'Been some trouble up in Birmingham last night,' the General rumbled as they walked briskly across to the barracks. Looters, some arson and some other shenanigans. Some of the Regiment have been called up there. The intention is to deal with this properly from the outset, grab the looters and have them hanging from the lampposts by AM tomorrow as a deterrent to the others.'

'But you can't .....' Pierce stuttered.

Harry spun on his heel and patted Pierce on the shoulder, his breath painting the air white as he spoke. 'I'm surprised I allowed you to marry my sister, Pierce, but I suppose she finds your gullibility is rather charming. But emergency courts will be set up wherever law and order breaks down, heavy fines and if necessary prison sentences is the Government line. There's going to be no quiver observable in the stiff upper lip of the British establishment.'

Pierce smiled gently with relief 'I didn't know you had any say in what your sister did?'

Harry grunted and stopped to shout at a solder before turning to Pierce. 'Well get on with it man. Let's hear it.'

'You've heard about preconception?'

'Some woolly arsed theory about seeing future events? Vaguely. Oh no Pierce you're not thinking of something along those lines.'

'No, no hear me out. The area I'm interested in is called Reverse Testing, the retrospective facilitation of recall. I've been doing work in this area for some years, looking at how students perform in tests that they subsequently get to see the answers. I've found there is an observable influence, small but statistically significant.'

'Not convinced. Sorry.' Harry picked up Nippers toy and threw it across the parade ground.

'So look, you give the subject a test and immediately after show him the results, it could be equations, pictures, news articles, anything. Believe me, Harry there is an observable effect in the test results compared to control group who don't see the answers after the test. And the tested subjects can improve with practice. My work's been Peer reviewed, published in Psychology Today and the results verified by two other Universities.'

'I don't see how it helps. Nipper, leave that man alone! Come!'

'Imagine if you could push that recall ability forward say to twenty four hours. You'd then get the opportunity to see events a day hours before they happened. We could train people to look into tomorrow's newspapers and guess what the stories were. I know it's only a small window of time but wouldn't that be helpful to you. To know someone's, something's intent before they acted?'

The General paused from his tug of war with Nipper. 'It would if it didn't sound like it was all made in LaLa land. What is it you want Pierce, precisely?'

Pierce drew in a deep breath. 'Lilian teaches at an infant's school, the minds of five to seven year olds are open and flexible. I want to run a two year program to develop my theory and see if I can get some of them to see one day in advance. It'll only be ten minutes of their time a day I'll need. My University will pay the costs and some pocket money for the kids and it'll all be voluntary. The schools on board I just need it to be approved by the Board of Education.'

Harry clapped his arms around his shoulders to warm himself up. 'God, its bloody cold. All right Pierce, wacky though it sounds, I'm sort of sold. I'll talk to my brother. Please don't cock this up. Nipper!!!'

                                                                        *****

'So Pierce, 'A Day' is almost upon us,' Harry walked quickly along the school corridor, Nipper scampered along beside him a chewy Bart Simpson hanging from his jaws. 'Is that cabbage I smell? Hated it as a kid, love it now.'

'Have you heard anything from them?' Pierce asked through a deep frown.

'No, but that shouldn't necessarily worry us. We are prepared. All of us. And let's face it things have gone remarkable well, all considered since we met that day we met at Aldershot. Your children's powers of foresight have been remarkable. But I must be quick Pierce, I'm due in Westminster in twenty minutes with the report of your outlook for their arrival tomorrow. What did today's tests show? '

'Could we go to the Head Mistresses office. For some privacy.'

Harry stretched his legs out and rummaged through the blank papers. 'Why the hold up, Pierce? Why haven't you done today's test? This is the big one, you should be doing it now.' Suddenly he lent forward. 'What's wrong? You look awful.'

'But that's it, those are the completed results, they're all blank. I'm sorry Harry and god knows I hope I'm wrong but according to today's tests there is no tomorrow.

A bit of wackiness based around some serious studies in Precognition. Professor Darryl Benn, a respected psychologist courted controversy in when he announced a measurable effect in reverse testing precognition tests on subjects back in 2011. His paper was peer reviewed and published.

And yes, there are loads of dogs wondering around on British bases with their service personal owners. :)