The story opens with a clock announcing that It is time to wake up and a hint of premonition that perhaps no one will. In the kitchen, the stove cooks breakfast and a voice from the ceiling announces the setting: Allendale, California, on August 4, 2026.

The automated house prepares Itself for the day, but its inhabitants have not responded to several wake up calls, breakfast, the weather box, or the waiting car. The robotic mice finish cleaning the house, and it is revealed that the family who lived in the house-two parents, a daughter and son-have died. They are now "five spots of paint" against a house covered with a "thin charcoal layer." The city is in rubble and the "radioactive glow" emitted in the area indicates that an atomic blast has wiped out Allendale, if not the world.

The family dog returns to the house and...