“We’re going to take care of you, ma’am,” Maya said. She turned to Reno. “Keep her stable and stop the bleeding. Is there anyone else who needs to get to a hospital?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Maya ran to the rig and retrieved the stretcher from the back. She unfolded the legs and hurried back to where Reno had been holding gauze pads over the woman’s wound, replacing them when they turned a deep, crimson red. Some people ignored the injured woman, but others had circled around her, giving Reno room to work and clearing a path through the crowd for Maya.

  At least people still care about their fellow humans. For now.

  Maya lowered the stretcher and, with Reno’s help, loaded the woman onto it. They rolled her to the rig and secured her inside. Reno jumped into the back with her, shutting the doors.

  Maya climbed into the driver’s seat and threw the rig into gear. She took one last look at the crowd and the police trying to maintain some semblance of order.

  I hope you guys are on the other side and far away from this thing. But if you’re not, stay away from it. Mom is coming.

  She turned on the siren and sped away.

  13

  Transcript of news broadcast, WLVG Channel 2 Las Vegas

  Sally Whitehead: For breaking news, we’re going back to Ashley Acuff, who’s been covering this story for almost 36 straight hours—even before the mysterious dome dropped over the city of Nashville. We had made some jokes about what was happening, but this is no longer a laughing matter. In fact, on behalf of WLVG, I want to apologize if those jokes inadvertently offended anyone, now that we’re all seeing how serious this is. Ashley, what are you hearing?

  Ashley Acuff: Yeah, Sally, that’s right. Things here are much different than they were when the astronomers were still analyzing the data feed from the gamma-ray observatories. It has become evident to not only the scientists, but to everyone, that there is something headed our way. The level of gamma-ray emissions first detected over 300 light years from Earth was just the beginning. It seems as though the emissions have been tracked from deep space to our solar system. And just a few hours ago, I was told that some of our top-level military satellites detected a physical object passing around the sun, and on a trajectory headed straight for Earth.

  Sally Whitehead: I don’t understand, Ashley—what exactly does that mean?

  Ashley Acuff: Well, we’re no longer talking about the stuff of science fiction movies, I’m afraid. It’s obvious that sentient beings created the gamma rays that originated from that distant galaxy. And what we know now is that they have sent something to Earth. We can’t say for sure yet what that something is, but we do know that it is a physical object, dare I say an alien spaceship.

  Sally Whitehead: Have the astronomers confirmed this yet? Have they gotten any images from our satellites? It seems like we’d be able to detect an alien spaceship approaching Earth.

  Ashley Acuff: Surprisingly, no. Most scientists agree that space is so vast that it’s impossible for us to detect everything flying through our solar system. In fact, there have been several asteroids that have flown right by the Earth and we didn’t know about them until they passed. Our computers are constantly gathering data from the skies above, but we simply don’t have enough scientists to interpret and analyze it all in real time.

  Sally Whitehead: But we would have known about an alien civilization so close. 300 light years is not far when you’re talking about space. Where are they coming from?

  Ashley Acuff: When I first spoke to Dr. Helson of the National Science Institute, he had said that Einstein was one of the first to acknowledge the possibility of wormholes—a theoretical tunnel that goes through time and space which would allow travel to and from distant points across the universe. Our technology isn’t advanced enough to even test this theory, but its quite possible that an advanced life form could.

  Sally Whitehead: Are any officials from the National Science Institute talking to you now?

  Ashley Acuff: Nothing. I’ve heard that they know the general shape and dimension of the object, but they’re not releasing any specific details at this time.

  Sally Whitehead: It sounds like they’re withholding information from the public, Ashley.

  Ashley Acuff: That’s what our entire newsroom thinks, as well. None of the scientists I spoke to earlier are returning my calls. Developments are being channeled through a dedicated media spokesperson who can’t—or won’t—answer our questions.

  Sally Whitehead: Things have changed dramatically since yesterday. I think most scientists realize that what’s happening in our solar system is directly connected to the dome over Nashville. Have any of the government spokespeople shared any information on that?

  Ashley Acuff: None. Nothing at all. Even the President has been silent on the matter. I’ve got to tell you, there’s a growing sense of anxiety and discontent on the streets. Either our scientists don’t know exactly what’s happening or our government won’t let them talk about it. And if the dome and the gamma-ray emissions are in fact connected, in any way, there’s no telling how people are going to react or what’s going to happen.

  Sally Whitehead: What is your advice to our viewers? Reports tell us this object is currently behind the sun. Do the scientists know when it will arrive?

  Ashley Acuff: The media spokesman has not given us any specifics. However, I have gotten an unverified communication from someone inside of NASA, a person I believe to be reliable. This person claims that whatever is in the sky, and behind the sun, will reach our planet in three or four days. This is based on the trajectory and speed measured across the solar system. But that’s all we know, and again, I must stress, this is from an unnamed source, if a reliable one.

  Sally Whitehead: Thanks, Ashley. Well, as you’ve all heard, there are things about the Nashville dome that remain a mystery. For now, sit tight and stay tuned to WLVG as we continue our live coverage of what the media has dubbed, “Gamma Gate.”

  14

  Maya maneuvered through the crowded streets to the hospital while Reno tended to the gunshot victim. He had kept the injured woman stable, assuring her that her injuries weren’t life-threatening. The deeper they drove into the city, though, and as they approached Centennial Park, the traffic and crowds swelled. Even from miles away, Maya could see the strange obelisk in the sky. People on foot pointed at it as they presumably headed there to get an up-close glimpse of the strange monstrosity which had destroyed the beloved Parthenon.

  “Are we almost there?” Reno asked Maya.

  “Working on it. I’ve never had to drive through this many people in the middle of the street.”

  “I need to talk to my husband,” the woman said. “He needs to know I’m okay.”

  Reno answered her, his voice as calm and professional as ever. “I promise they’ll do whatever they can at the hospital to get in touch with him, but we can’t call him right now. All right?”

  Maya glanced at the obelisk on the horizon.

  I don’t think they’ll be calling him from the hospital, either.

  Swerving around abandoned cars and pedestrians, Maya laid on the horn. But sirens sounded throughout the city, constantly, and people had begun to ignore them. When Maya finally made it to 20th Avenue, she sighed and hit the gas, relieved to be within two blocks of the hospital.

  A line of rigs stretched from the ER entrance all the way to the street. Maya pulled up behind the last one, jumped out, and ran around to the rear. She opened the doors; Reno already had the stretcher ready for them to unload it.

  “We’re here, Linda,” Reno told the injured woman. “Deep breaths, all right?”

  Maya and Reno pushed the stretcher past all of the other rigs and to the entrance of the ER. Several other paramedics stood outside, and they seemed to be arguing about something.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Reno said.

  Doctors and nurses ran through the crowded room, most gesturing and yelling at orderlies who pushed patients to the appropriate spaces. They had long since filled all the individual rooms, and had begun treating patients in the waiting room. The place smelled of body odor and a sickly scent, like slightly rotted cabbage. Several men stood in between the automatic sliding doors smoking cigarettes, ignoring the security guard’s incessant threats. To Maya, it felt like the situation had started to unravel—and not all of the people who were coming apart had responded with empathy and goodwill.

  Maya and Reno pushed past the smokers. She grabbed a burning cigarette from one man’s hand and threw it out the door. He started to curse at her, but then reached into his pocket for a new smoke instead. An ER staff member stood near the door holding a clipboard as a fit, young man shoved his finger in her face, but she kept talking as if she’d already grown used to people treating her as he was, saying for the second time in a row, “I’m sorry, sir. We’re doing all we can.”

  The woman saw Maya and Reno with the stretcher and stepped away from the angry man. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and her glasses had slipped down to the tip of her nose. She took a deep breath and held up her clipboard.

  “Injury?” the woman asked.

  “Gunshot wound. Right shoulder,” Reno said.

  “Did you stop the bleeding?”

  “Mostly. But she’s lost a lot of blood.”

  “All right. We’ll have someone check her vitals. Please, roll her to that area over there and we’ll get her registered.”

  Maya looked around. People on stretchers had been lined up on the far side of the room. Nurses moved from person to person, checking their blood pressure while monitoring heart rates and taking other mandatory steps before a doctor would see them.

  “It hurts so much,” Linda said. “Please help me.”

  “But she’s been shot,” Maya said to the hospital attendant. “This isn’t a broken bone or a concussion.”

  “Her injuries aren’t life-threatening. We’re doing what we can, but we have to prioritize care. Now please, roll her over there, and we’ll make sure she’s seen as soon as possible.”

  Reno pushed the woman to the designated area while Maya leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. The room felt unstable around her, and she slapped her hands on the wall before she realized that it wasn’t another aftershock—she’d almost passed out.

  “You’ve lost all the color in your face,” Reno said.

  “I think I need to step out and get some fresh air.”

  Reno put his hand on Maya’s back and guided her past the smokers and into a patch of bright green grass between the sidewalk and the building. The cigarette smoke around them made it even more difficult for Maya to breathe. She sat down on the grass, looked down, and ran her hands through her hair.

  “Better?” Reno asked.

  “Yeah. I think it was too crowded in there. And I’m feeling overwhelmed.”

  She lifted her head and glanced at the paramedics on a smoke break. One of them stomped away, waving his hands at the others.

  “Enough of this shit,” the man said. “This whole town’s gone nuts. I need to protect my family.”

  Two of the other paramedics, one female and another male, walked away, saying what amounted to the same thing.

  “Is that how you feel?” Reno asked Maya.

  Maya looked at him with heavy eyes and snorted. “I don’t know how I feel.”

  “I’m with you no matter what you want to do. I’ve lost track of how many hours we’ve worked. If you want to find your family now, then that’s what we should do.”

  Maya tried to focus her thoughts and say something intelligible, but a dull throb had begun at the base of her neck and crept through her skull to her forehead. She winced as every siren felt like a dagger in her ear.

  “We have a responsibility to help people,” she said as a roar erupted from the direction of Centennial Park. She glanced down Church Street to where people were marching west toward the park.

  Maya stood. “Come on.”

  She jogged to the corner of 20th and Patterson Street, around the hospital, and back toward Centennial Park. Smaller crowds marched down Patterson, as well, but not nearly as many as those who had been crowding up at the corner of Church and Elliston.

  Police had the perimeter of Centennial Park roped off. Hundreds of people had flocked there to catch a glimpse of the obelisk, but nobody wanted to get too close to the strange object. Officers in riot gear stood behind a single strip of caution tape. Most carried assault rifles.

  Maya pushed through several people and then stopped.

  “This must be what that guy meant back there when he said the town is going nuts,” Reno said.

  “I’ve got to get to Aiden and Laura,” she said, nearly to herself. “They’re at my mom’s in Hendersonville.”

  Nearby, a man laughed. He looked at Maya, and she glanced around to see if he could have been laughing at anyone else. His dark brown hair had been pushed around his head, and his beard was in desperate need of a trim. The man’s dark eyes flashed at her, and Maya wasn’t sure if she saw intelligence, insanity, or both. He appeared to be in his mid-forties, about six feet tall and slightly under 200 pounds. His jeans had been smeared with motor oil, and Maya could barely make out the Yazoo Brewing Company logo on his faded t-shirt.

  “Are you laughing at me?” Maya asked.

  “You’re nuts if you think you’re getting to Hendersonville.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He doesn’t,” Reno said.

  “I do. I know what’s causing all of this, too,” the man said, waving his arm in the general direction of the obelisk.

  “Good for you, sir,” Reno said. He put his arm around Maya and turned her away from the man, but she stopped and peered into the man’s eyes. He grinned from ear to ear, and it sent a shiver down Maya’s back.

  A news helicopter flew overhead, above the trees but close enough that Maya could see the cameraman pointing the lens out of an open window. It soared over the crowd and headed for the obelisk. The pilot brought the helicopter up to hover near the structure for a moment, and she thought it appeared as though he was going to fly over the top of the structure.

  “They’ve known for a long time,” the disheveled man said, his eyes locked on Maya’s. “I can tell you what’s really happening.”

  “Look,” Reno said, stepping in between Maya and the man. “I’m tired of your—”

  An explosion rocked the sky as debris rained down on the massive crowd. Maya looked up to see a fireball where the helicopter had been a second ago. Blue lightning flared out from the flames.

  “That helicopter!” a woman screamed. “It exploded!”

  “Run!” someone else yelled.

  The crowd scattered, sprinting in every direction and trying to avoid the hunks of burning metal and plastic falling from the sky. The dome seemed to repel the helicopter fragments at a high velocity, sending debris back onto the crowd below. Maya turned and sprinted toward the hospital, a throng of people coming up behind her.

  Reno grabbed her arm. “This way!”

  The crowd filled the street as Maya and Reno dashed toward the underground parking garage on their right.

  “Look out!” came a warning from someone in the crowd.

  Big hunks of the helicopter tumbled to the ground in balls of fire. A blade from the main rotor slammed into the middle of the street, landing on three people who couldn’t get away in time.

  Maya’s eyes went wide. She dove under the overhang of the parking garage entrance, Reno right behind her. They rolled over and looked out as more debris fell, killing people in the street.

  “We have to help them. We’ve got—”

  “No!” Reno said, standing up and getting between Maya and the entrance. “There’s nothing we can do for them right now.”

  She stood still, and then nodded, realizing that they’d be no help to anyone if burning debris killed them, as well. Maya had to stay alive to help others. To find her kids.

  Reno and Maya ran deeper into the garage, down a ramp to the first subterranean parking level. There, they listened to the screams above as they caught their breath, doubled over with their hands on their knees.

  “That wall isn’t a wall. It’s a dome,” Reno said. “The helicopter flew right up into it.”

  “There has to be a way out.”

  “There’s not,” came a voice from the dark shadows of the garage.

  They both stood and turned to see the middle-aged man with the Yazoo t-shirt. He’d followed them into the garage.

  “I will mess you up, man,” Reno said. “Leave us alone.”

  “It’s a beacon.”

  Maya furrowed her brow. “A beacon? For what?”

  “Don’t listen to him, Maya,” Reno said. “He’s a damn lunatic.”

  “Perhaps. But I know what’s going on, and nobody else around here seems to have a clue. I’ll tell you if you give me a ride home. My wife and child are there, and they need me. An emergency vehicle—like an ambulance—is the best chance I have of getting there.”

  “No way,” Reno said.

  She thought it was unlikely that this crazy guy knew anything, but he hadn’t seemed aggressive, and they could put him in the back, just in case. And what if he did know something? Didn’t she owe it to her children to consider all the possibilities? An obelisk had caused an earthquake and obliterated the Parthenon, and now an invisible dome had dropped over Nashville. Maybe this man wasn’t so crazy after all…

  “You talk to us while we drive. And you tell us everything you know.” Maya said.

  “You’re not really thinking about giving him a ride?” Reno asked.

  “We’re running out of options, Reno. And if this guy is for real, he could help me find my kids.”

  Reno exhaled. He put his hands up in the air and walked away.

  The old man smiled.

  “Thank you, Maya. But you must understand, once you know the truth, you can’t ignore it. You’ll be universally obligated to act on behalf of all humanity. No going back.”