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There’s something strange about Ed’s office when he arrives. He prepares for the worst, knowing full well that people are bound to be angry with his tardiness...he is rather surprised to find that this is NOT the case. The building turns out to be “a ghostly, indistinct gray.” A section of it falls to the ground in “a torrent of particles.” Undeterred, Ed walks in to find that everyone in the building is completely motionless. They turn to ash at the slightest touch. Nevertheless, Ed continues on to his office — a real estate business. Once there, Ed sees the first living people he’d laid eyes on since entering the building—men in lab coats. They rush after him shouting strange things about him not being “de-energized.” They chase him out of the building, which promptly collapses into ash as he crosses the street - only to find everything perfectly normal when he looks back at it. It’s solid as ever.

Later on, Ed approaches his wife to meet her for lunch. The two discuss things over lunch. She’s remarkably level-headed about the whole thing and encourages him to come with her back to his office. Whatever was waiting for him, they would face together. She’s a remarkably strong female character for sci-fi of this era. Evidently she’s very attractive as well, as people who work in the building comment to Ed as he and she return to his office.

The office is perfectly normal — exactly the way it always had been, so his wife leaves to head back to her workplace. Ed goes to face his boss and attempt to explain why he is late, only to find that his boss was younger and looked nothing like he had before. Ed panics and runs away. The men in the lab coats trail him, capturing him this time. They explain to him that they are part of an organization that keeps track of things, nudging them in a direction that’s positive for civilization. There’s a rather crucial real estate purchase that the older head of the business wouldn’t have gone for. Only a younger head of the business — one more willing to take risks would’ve gone for it, so they replaced him. They replaced everyone else in the office to make sure no one suspected anything.

Ed was supposed to be replaced as well, but he hadn’t arrived at the office on time. Ed doesn’t want to be replaced by an exact replica of himself, so he agrees to keep quiet about things. The one problem with this, of course, is the fact that he’d told everything he knew prior to that point to his wife. If he told her, they would both have to be “de-energized,” and replaced with exact replicas (the Adjustment Team needs to work in complete secrecy, evidently.) He assures the team that she thinks he’s just had a nervous breakdown. They trust him, but will obviously be watching him very closely. Of course, Ed’s wife is concerned about him and demands to know where he was for the rest of the day when he gets home — evidently he didn’t return to work. He tries to tell her that he merely went for a walk for the rest of the day. She’s not buying it, but everything seems fine. She drops the subject entirely as the dog begins to bark in the back yard. She’s distracted enough to forget about it. Somehow, it’s likely that things are going to work out after all.

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