“Hope you guys like Hamilton. It’s the only CD I’ve got.”

  Maya tuned out the opening lines of the hip-hop Broadway musical as she stared out the window.

  She could barely wrap her head around what she saw. Maya had never lived in Cincinnati, but the destruction seemed almost total. Entire city blocks sat in piles of rubble, and the ones that had survived the alien weapons didn’t look much better. Hulks of burnt-out cars sat in heaps near intersections. The one thing she didn’t see was movement or people. The city’s residents had either fled or died.

  As she looked out at the broken city, her mind wandered. In many ways, she was still in shock at how the world had changed. She hadn’t had a moment since the aliens had arrived to process any of this. She’d been constantly preoccupied with keeping them all alive.

  Maya began to think about Gerald again. She had made difficult decisions since the dome had first come down over Nashville, but nothing more so than leaving her ex-husband behind out on the wasted highway. But it wasn’t Gerald that she felt bad for, but her kids. She knew both of them were taking it hard, especially Laura. In fact, she suddenly wondered if Laura would ever truly be able to forgive her. Maya had lost her father when she’d been only nineteen and it had been tough on her. But how would her kids react to the circumstances of their father’s absence later on, once all the dust settled? That was if it ever settled.

  Time passed, and the world outside turned more desolate as they moved out of the city and back into northern Kentucky. Nick pulled off the interstate and started down a vacant stretch of bluegrass highway. They’d been driving for at least an hour. Maya wondered where Nick were taking them. She hadn’t thought they’d be going this far from the stadium.

  Nick pulled off onto a dirt road, potholes knocking the truck around.

  “Man, where are you taking us?” Reno asked.

  “Almost there.”

  Maya looked into the back seat and saw the frustration on Reno’s face, and she shrugged to let him know she felt the same way.

  While Cincinnati appeared devastated, northern Kentucky looked empty. No buildings, no cars— trees and fields.

  In her head, Maya felt like she was in a horror movie. As if Nick had brought them out here to kill them and dump their bodies. But nothing about that made sense. Not only was Nick alone, but it made no sense to drive all the way out here to kill them. He could have done that in the Bengals’ locker room.

  They went over a slight hill, the truck kicking up dust all around them, and a house came into sight. The grass in the front yard grew over the fence and the posts on the front porch sat crooked with peeling paint. She saw several rusted cars in the front yard, all of them up on cinder blocks.

  Nick pulled up behind the house and turned off the truck.

  “This is where you brought us?” Reno asked. “I feel like I’m gonna need a tetanus shot if I get anywhere close to that place.”

  Nick laughed. “Just come on, bro.” He opened his door and stepped out of the truck.

  When he was all the way out, Reno said to Maya, “You really want to go in there?”

  “Not particularly. But what choice do we have now?”

  Maya got out of the truck and noticed that Nick hadn’t walked toward the house; instead, he walked deeper into the backyard. He trotted about twenty yards out to a tree before he stopped.

  “He brought us to a tree?” Reno asked.

  Maya noticed that Nick was looking down at something, but it was difficult to tell what through the tall grass. Maya headed over, noticing a strange looking patch of grass on the ground as she did. Nick kneeled down and pulled on the grass. The patch lifted like a rug, unveiling a steel hatch with a handle. Nick then looked up and grinned.

  “This is where I was taking you.”

  16

  “What?” Reno asked. “How did you find this?”

  “You don’t even know what it is yet.”

  Next to the handle was a keypad, and Nick punched in several numbers. It surprised Maya that the hatch would have power running to control the lock, especially out in the middle of Nowhere, Kentucky. But after he pushed a series of keys, Nick grabbed the handle, twisted, and pulled the hatch open. It revealed a ladder leading down into a dark hole.

  “Follow me.”

  Nick put his legs into the hole and his feet onto the ladder, grabbing on and lowering himself down. He didn’t look up to see if the other two were coming—he kept going down into the darkness.

  “This is crazy,” Reno said. “We don’t know what the hell is down there.”

  Maya looked at him and shrugged. “Yeah, well, there’s only one way to find out.”

  She sat on the edge of the hold, dropping her legs.

  Reno sighed. “Jesus. I guess we’re doing this.”

  The daylight faded as she descended deeper into the hold. She could hear Nick below her and Reno above her.

  “Hang on a sec,” Nick said from below her.

  Maya stopped and so did Reno. Nick opened another hatch at the bottom of the pit, and then gave Maya and Reno the okay to continue down.

  Maya’s feet hit the bottom rung and then the floor, and she followed Nick through a door before stopping to wait for Reno. Dim LED lights lined the walls on both sides, providing only enough light to illuminate the hallway.

  Maya looked around. Was this some kind of fallout shelter? It looked like a place that Jack, the man who had helped her escape from Nashville and eventually sacrificed himself, would have owned.

  They went down the hallway until they came to another door. This time, even though there was another keypad, Nick knocked. Maya heard footsteps on the other side.

  “It’s me,” Nick called out.

  Then the door made a grinding noise before it opened.

  A man in a white lab coat stood in the doorway. He looked to be in his mid-60s, bald with a goatee and wearing a pair of glasses.

  “Hey, Peter.” Nick hugged the man.

  Peter looked at Maya and Reno as he embraced Nick, and when he pulled away, he nodded at them.

  “Who are your friends?”

  Maya and Reno introduced themselves, shaking hands with the man in the lab coat.

  “Come on in,” he said.

  Peter led them inside the room lit by several lamps. A large table, like a family dining room table, sat in the middle of the room with papers scattered across the top of it. Although many appeared to hold handwritten notes, Maya saw something else that caught her attention.

  Drawings. Of the aliens. Of the ships. And even of the obelisk and the dome, looking exactly like the ones that had appeared in Nashville. She was drawn to them, looking down at the table and wanting to handle them all until she came to her senses.

  “So, what are you doing here? Surely, it’s not to check in on me,” Peter said.

  The man’s voice pulled her out of her trance, and she turned to face him.

  Nick laughed. “I’d hope you think our friendship is worth more than that. But no, I have to say that that isn’t why I’m here. Truth is, I think you need to talk to these two.”

  Peter looked at Maya and Reno, pushing his glasses further up onto his nose. He then crossed his arms.

  “Alright then.” He looked at Maya, who was standing in front of Reno. “So, what do I need to talk to you about?”

  “First, I’m gonna be honest and tell you that I don’t have a damn idea why we’re here.” Maya glanced at Nick. “Now, I trust you. I mean, we came here with you. But I think I’d like to know a little bit about this place.”

  “It’s a bunker,” Peter said. “Nothing much more interesting than that.”

  “Yeah? All that shit over on the table says otherwise.”

  Reno went to the table and picked up a handful of papers. “What is all this?” he asked.

  “We’ve been studying the aliens,” Peter said.

  Maya raised an eyebrow. “We?”

  Before the strange guy could answer, a door opened behind him. A woman came walking out, wearing a white coat like Peter’s and with the same style of eyeglasses. She stumbled as she came in, surprised to see the visitors.

  “Oh,” she said with a slight laugh. “Hello there.”

  She walked up behind Peter, pushing her glasses up onto her nose. She put her hand on Peter’s shoulder.

  “What are they doing here, honey?”

  “This is my wife,” Peter said. “Robin.”

  She extended her hand. Maya and Reno took turns shaking it.

  “Now, you were saying something about how you’re studying the aliens,” Maya said.

  “Ah yes, very much,” Peter said.

  “We’ve been prepared for this day for a long time,” Robin said.

  Maya laughed inside her head as she thought about Jack.

  How many of these crazy prepper people are out here?

  “But why are you here? Do you have some new information for us?” Robin asked.

  “Tell them what you know,” Nick said to Maya and Reno. “You can trust them.”

  Maya looked at Reno and nodded.

  Reno put his hands on his hips. “I helped take down the dome in Nashville.”

  Robin chuckled, but only for a moment. As she looked at Reno, her face tightened.

  “Wait, really?”

  Reno broke into the shortened version of how they’d been able to destroy the power source beneath the obelisk, which had then dropped the dome. As he explained it, Maya watched Robin and Peter. About a minute into Reno’s explanation, Peter grabbed a pen and paper and started vigorously taking notes. When Reno finished, both scientists looked at him with slackened jaws.

  “That’s amazing,” Peter said once he had processed everything.

  “We’ve had no way, until now, of figuring out their fuel sources—for everything from their suits to their ships. Exploiting geothermal energy totally makes sense,” Robin said. “But we’ve learned quite a bit about their biology and some of their weaknesses, such as light. Some of the technology is advanced beyond our comprehension, like those suits.”

  “What you’ve brought to us is quite a revelation,” Peter said.

  “That’s what I told the damn U.S. Army at Fort Campbell and they didn’t seem to care. They said the governments of the world had collapsed and that nobody was in charge.”

  “Pssh, the government.” Peter waved his hand. “Useless.”

  Maya narrowed her eyes. “So, that’s what we know. What now?”

  “We need to get this information to Clark,” Robin said, stepping in front of her husband. “He bought an old observatory and he’s been looking for signs of extraterrestrial life. Clark spotted the aliens prior to their arrival, but people thought he was crazy. By the time they knew he wasn’t, it was too late.”

  “But this changes everything,” Peter said. “Clark seemed to know about those ships, but he could never quite figure out how to bring them down.”

  Robin added, “Some of our smartest CIA operatives were talking to this guy. Clark’s theory is that if we take down the mothership, the others will leave. He’s a bit odd but incredibly smart. If anyone can use critical information to get a soldier on the mothership, it’s Clark.”

  “You said you’ve been in communication,” Maya said. “Can you contact him?”

  Peter clicked his tongue. “That’s the catch.”

  “We lost radio contact with him a couple of days ago,” Robin said.

  “Well, can you tell us where he is?” Nick asked.

  Robin laughed. “And that’s the other catch. He’s up north, near Cleveland.”

  “I heard Cleveland was domed,” Maya said.

  “It is, but he’s on the outside of it.”

  “Cleveland isn’t that far from here,” Nick said.

  “It’s not under normal circumstances,” Peter said. “But from what we understand, it’s almost impossible to get there. The aliens have destroyed most of the highways and infrastructure.”

  “So, what if we could get to Clark’s observatory?” Reno asked. “I mean, what can some guy in an old observatory do?”

  “He’s working on destroying the ships from the inside out because our conventional weapons don’t seem to do much good,” Robin said. “I’ve known him a long time, and I’d bet my life that he comes up with something.”

  Maya and Reno shared a look. Maya shrugged and sighed. “Well, I guess we need to go back to the stadium and come up with a plan to get us to Cleveland.”

  “Whoa, hold on a minute,” Peter said.

  When Maya turned around, the scientist had a grin on his face, and he glanced at Nick before looking back at Maya.

  “Don’t you wanna see them?”

  17

  Maya walked through the doorway with chills running down her spine. She moved past Peter, who was holding the door open, and he must have thought her jaw was going to scrape across the floor.

  Robin had come out of this room when Maya and Reno had first seen her, and it was apparently another of several rooms in this underground bunker and laboratory. Maya walked to the middle of the room and Reno stopped beside her, his mouth hanging open.

  “Holy shit,” Reno said.

  Maya’s eyes moved from one monitor to another, the entire laboratory looking like something out of a science fiction film.

  Two glass chambers stood on the far side of the room, filled with what appeared to be water—and an alien floating inside of each one. Maya couldn’t tell if the creatures were dead, but they weren’t moving… floating there, in some type of physically-induced suspended animation.

  The scientists must have removed the aliens’ armor because it had been spread across two stainless steel tables, each with a plug and drain line, clearly also serving as autopsy tables. A vest or piece of chest armor hung on the wall to Maya’s right.

  The LED lights kept the room bright and the floor appeared to be marble, smooth and clean. Monitors and gauges beeped and lights flashed, and for a moment, Maya thought they’d stepped inside a space ship.

  “I’m sorry,” Nick finally said. He shrugged. “I hope that now you understand why I thought it was important for me to show you this instead of telling you about it.”

  “Because we wouldn’t have believed you,” said Maya.

  “This is incredible.” Reno left Maya’s side and wandered to the other side of the room, stopping in front of the chambers.

  Maya looked down at the table in the middle of the room. She picked up a helmet, feeling the sleek design and the weight of it in her hand. Nylon? Titanium? The weight didn’t feel right for either material, and she had to assume that the aliens had made it out of a substance that was beyond her comprehension. She walked over and stood next to Reno.

  Maya had come face-to-face with the aliens in the warehouse, but not like this. Other than having seen their faces, this was the first time she’d seen the creatures without their armor. They looked like massive lizards, but with proportions similar to a human. The aliens had muscular arms and legs, and a scaly but thin core. Tiny filaments sprouted from several places on their bodies, like clumps of hair. They both had holes in their chests with black scorch marks surrounding the wounds.

  “This is unbelievable,” Reno said as he stared at the creatures.

  “Isn’t it?” Nick asked.

  “I had a chance to see them up close, but nothing like this.” Maya turned to look back at the two scientists. “How did you get these things?”

  “John and Jane,” Peter said.

  “What?” Reno asked.

  “That’s what we’ve named them. You know, like ‘The Does?’”

  Maya turned around, unsure how the scientists had determined their gender. But then she laughed at herself, thinking that the scientists probably hadn’t. The names seemed cute and clever. Weird, too.

  “We brought them here,” Nick said.

  Maya raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

  He nodded. “Me, Dave, and a couple of the other people got into a fight with them. We killed them and then brought them back here. Dave and Peter are second cousins, so it was Dave’s idea to do some scientific research. Know your enemy and such.”

  “And we have been very thankful for that,” Peter said. “We’ve learned so much.”

  “Like what?” Reno asked. “Have you learned how to penetrate this armor?”

  “That’s been the biggest challenge,” Robin said. “We’ve conducted experiments on the organic material, and we think we have a better understanding, on a cellular level, of the effect of light on them. What’s surprised us the most is that their DNA isn’t that different than ours. I’d say we have as much in common with them as we do a rhino.”

  Maya swallowed as she stared at the creatures floating inside the chambers. They didn’t appear to be human, but calling them humanoid seemed accurate.

  “Have you opened them up yet?” she asked.

  Peter shook his head.

  “Why not?” Reno asked.

  Robin approached the glass chambers. She looked at the two aliens, reaching up and touching the glass.

  “It’s too risky. We don’t know what pathogens or bacterial forms could be inside, types that could kill us immediately or start a pandemic. That’s why we’re keeping the corpses in these chambers, which are filled with a protective mix of enzymes. Believe me, what’s living on the outside of our skin is far less deadly than what’s beneath it.”

  It all came at Maya so quickly. She blurted out a question.

  “Where did this lab come from? Why did you build it?”

  Peter laughed. “We didn’t build it. Well, not with our own hands.”

  “Go on and tell them,” said Robin. “Whatever NDA we signed was no longer in effect the moment our government collapsed.”

  “Right.” Peter talked to Reno and Maya while staring into the chambers. “We used to work for a top secret government agency. They had us stationed in labs in Russia, China—even near Area 51.”