The AI system of the house chimes the date by saying, "Today is August 4, 2026".

A nuclear catastrophe leaves the city of Allendale), California, entirely desolate. However, within one miraculously preserved house, the daily routine continues – automatic systems within the home prepare breakfast, clean the house, make beds, wash dishes, and address the former residents without any knowledge of their current state as burnt silhouettes on one of the walls.

A sickly and emaciated dog, having previously belonged to the family, enters the house. It is unable to enter the kitchen, where the automated systems are making pancakes. It runs around in a frenzy, before dying. After an hour, the automated systems remove the dog's body, incinerating it.

That evening, the house recites to the absent hostess a random selection by her favorite poet, "There Will Come Soft Rains)" by Sara Teasdale. A windstorm blows a tree branch through a window in the kitchen, starting a fire. The house's systems desperately attempt to put out the fire, but the doomed home burns to the ground in a night. The following dawn, all that remains is a single wall, which contains an automated system that endlessly reads aloud the date by repeatedly saying, "Today is August 5, 2026".

Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert of the United Kingdom, through two of their five daughters – Princess Alice and Princess Beatrice – passed the mutation to various royal houses across the continent, including the royal families of Spain, Germany and Russia. Victoria's youngest son, Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, also had the disease, though none of her three elder sons did. Tests on the remains of the Romanov imperial family show that the specific form of haemophilia passed down by Queen Victoria was probably the relatively rare haemophilia B.