[3] The protagonist, a store owner Ed Loyce,[4] is disturbed when he sees a stranger hanging from a lamppost, but finds that other people consider the apparent lynching unremarkable.
[5] He finds evidence that alien insects have taken over, manages to get out of town, talks to the police commissioner, who believes him, and after getting all the information about what Ed knows, explains that the body was hung to see whether anyone reacted to it, anyone they didn't have control over.
[6][4] The protagonist, Philbert Noyce played by Mel Rodriguez, is a low-motivation quality-control worker in an automated factory.
[7] Noyce hears and sees the phrase "kill all others" used during a television appearance by the sole candidate for the presidency in the one-party state of MexUsCan.
His wife, workmates, and fellow citizens remain unconcerned by the "kill all others" message and by their society's heavy-handed responses to his concerns.