They were at the Klinsberg Cafe eating lunch when it first happened. Juliet Baylor was sitting across her two best friends, Katie Deal and Lily Munn, at the table and the waiter, a young guy, brought them their entrees. As they begun to eat, there was an ominous buzzing around the room, only for Juliet to remove her phone from her purse to get the same notification that Katie and Lily got. It was from Circa, and for some other phones from other notification apps, of a breaking news story.
"UKRAINIAN LEADER TOPPLED, NEW PRO-CRENA GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED"
Juliet rose her eyes slowly from her phone to meet those of Katie and Lily. As all three of them were in Kiev, this was naturally bad news. She knew nothing of this new "pro-Crena" government, but she could wager given the suddenness of this notification that it couldn't be too friendly.
"Did you see-" asked Juliet.
"Ya - what the hell," shot back Lily, looking in disbelief at her phone.
"We better get home soon so we see what's going on," responded Katie.
One of the waiters turned on the TV. All three of their heads turned to what was going on. There was live footage of cars being overturned, soldiers in the road, and the government capital on fire.
"Holy shit..." said Lily. "I think we should go now. We are only a tens of miles from this."
She got up. So did her friends.
"Waiter," asked Juliet," could we get our check quickly?"
The young boy returned.
"I'm sorry?"
"We'd like our check."
"Ma'am the whole damn restaurant wants their checks. Our machine is slow, you are gonna have to wait about twenty minutes."
He left.
Lily was angry. She looked sternly at Juliet and then outside. They were eating outdoors so it would be easy to slip away.
"Let's just ditch this place, we didn't even eat. We got to get home!" swore Katie.
Juliet and Lily seemed to nodd in unison at this.
So they took off, quickly heading out. But it wasn't the smoothest of departures because a few sections before being barely out of the vicinity Lily turned her head as the young waiter yelled.