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Falling Stars, Rising Hopes

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It is May 10, 2164. A meteor shower will be visible in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, and people around the globe gather to watch it. Little do they know, it will permanently divide the world into Before and After.

Tanya Kerrigan is just another resident of Louisville until the meteor shower comes. As its aftereffects shake the world, she, her cat Handful, and her new friend George Whitfield evacuate to Base 92, hidden near the edge of the Hoosier National Forest… and straight into the center of a seemingly impossible project boiling with controversy.

When the truth of the project is revealed, hidden forces begin a plot to take it down. A traitor lurks inside Base 92, waiting for a signal. They are perfectly willing to destroy the entire project… no matter what it takes.

Tanya has always been an eloquent, passionate outsider. George has been a calm, dependable friend of everyone. In the face of a new reality unlike any they could ever have imagined, they must work together and push themselves to their limits if they can have any hope of stopping the traitor, saving the project…. and possibly determining the fate of the human race. There is a glimmer of hope for the future, and they must fan it into flames if the world is to have any chance of survival.

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A Night to Remember
 Chapter 1     No one saw the disaster coming. No one even realized there was a disaster until it came crashing down on them. Literally. At 9:15 P.M. on May 10, 2164, Tanya Kerrigan was sitting in an old ball park on a peaceful Tuesday evening, surrounded by three thousand other residents of Louisville who had come to watch the meteor shower. Her cat, Handful, sat next to her, ignoring the curious stares in their direction. Animals were almost impossible to find outside of farms, so Handful drew a lot of attention. Some people took pictures, blue headcam lights glowing, seeming to find her more interesting than the light show above them. Tanya hoped she wasn’t in any of them. Her abnormally pale skin and hair seemed to glow in the moonlight, and she felt like the most visible person in the world.     As a whole, though, the whole scene was peaceful, magical, and totally worth the stares. Meteors filled the sky, more than she had ever seen, streaks of light that reminded her of silver fireworks. Is this why people invented fireworks? To make their own shooting stars? Tanya wondered. She didn’t know. Maybe I’ll look it up when I get home. A particularly thick patch of meteors flashed across the sky, and everyone gasped. But there was something strange about it, something that caught their collective eye.     One meteor dipped lower than the others, closer and closer to the ground. More of the cloud followed, like there was a magnetic tug pulling them out of their places. A few worried murmurs drifted to Tanya on the gentle breeze, but she could barely hear them over the rustling tree branches. The errant shooting stars grew closer, until even her non-mathematical eye could see that each had a slightly different path. Something was wrong. Something was seriously wrong. Meteors didn't act like that.     Tanya tapped her watch. It whirred for a second, recognized her fingerprint, and went to its clock setting.     “Live stream meteor shower,” she hissed, and it quickly called up a suitable site. The air shimmered, and the four-inch-tall hologram emerged, a black rectangle outlined in white. Streaks of light zoomed across the sky, while others fell towards the Earth. Some were already near the bottom of the screen, and the ones on the right side glowed yellow briefly as they passed over the white border. Keeping the volume low, Tanya listened intently. Murmurs nearby told her she wasn’t the only one who wanted to know what in the world was going on.     “All around the world, meteors are dropping out of the sky. None of the astronomers we’ve talked to can say what is responsible for this phenomenon. We will have to wait until the meteors strike to truly understand what is happening here.” The watch beeped as an alert came through.     “The National Weather Service in Louisville has issued a severe impact warning from 9:35 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time to 10:45 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time for the following counties.” The mechanized voice rattled off a series of counties for Kentucky, then for Indiana. “The National Weather Administration has predicted that around five hundred four-foot long, two-foot wide meteorites will land in north-central Kentucky and south-central Indiana. The following areas will be affected.” It rattled off another list. Louisville was about halfway through. “If you are outside, please go into the nearest building immediately, along with any robots you may have. If you are already inside, get as close to the ground as possible in a sheltered location. This is an emergency. Repeat. The National Weather Service in Louisville has issued a severe impact warning from 9:35 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time to 10:45 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time for north-central Kentucky and south-central Indiana.” It ended with another beep, then went back to the live feed, where the hosts were talking with a NASA astronomer over a holocom. The timestamp in the lower right-hand corner said 9:21 P.M. They had fourteen minutes before the meteors would hit.     “Our observatories report that these objects are made of an unknown metal, and, thus, are not natural meteoroids.” The astronomer spoke calmly, but her eyes, small as they were in Tanya’s screen, glinted with excitement.     “Could they be from aliens?” the host asked. His dark brown hair framed a face twisted in an expression of worry.     “Our current hypothesis is that these are alien vessels of some kind, but they could also be some form of missile.”     “When will they land?” he asked, even though they all knew the answer.     “The first ones are expected to land in about fifteen minutes, and the last ones will reach Earth about an hour and fifteen minutes later.” She said more, but it was impossible to hear over a security guard’s shout.     “Okay, people! Let’s get moving here! We have fifteen minutes to get everyone inside before these crazy things come shooting down on us, so follow the lights as quickly as you can!” Tanya looked around as she shut off her watch. As she rose to her feet, she noticed that the emergency pathway lights were on, marking the shortest ways out. There were two barriers, at knee and waist height, to keep people from wandering off. She felt a sudden jolt of fear. The lights were purple, meaning a bomb threat. Handful pressed herself against her leg, not needing the leash to stay close. Tanya guessed that, in her mind, everything was new and scary and she didn’t want to wander away from the one person she knew.     Shoved from behind, she followed the people in front of her down the bleachers, along a winding path, and to a long, low building. The path widened as it approached the building, and people started shoving past Tanya, desperate to get to safety. Some of them were screaming in terror, but it was the quiet moans of panic that made the hair on her arms stand on end. She thought she was more dignified than that, but in the chaos, it was almost impossible to tell who was making any particular sound.     Most bomb and tornado shelters were made of titanium-reinforce concrete covered in synsilk, synthetic spiderweb used in construction, and this one fit the pattern. With only one story above ground and the roof slanting towards the front, it radiated an overwhelming sense of function stripped down past any sense of beauty. There were guards in front, hoping to maintain order, but the sliding steel doors were held open by the mass of people shoving to get inside. While most people who had them had removed their headcams, some were still recording what would later be called “the night it all went wrong," "the night of chaos," "the night of the arrival," and several other similar names ranging from the poetic to the practical. None managed to convey its true terror.     When Tanya stepped inside, she went down two flights of stairs to the utterly dark third level. It felt like humanity had been taken back to prehistoric times, huddling together in the dark, with only tiny sparks of light to protect them against the monsters “out there.” Only now, the lights were different colors as the watches strained to get a signal through two stories and the heavy concrete roof. The flickers of light they threw off illuminated their users faces, making them look like skulls. The urge to hear news fought against the human instinct to stay quiet in dark places as they fiddled with the volume. People clustered around certain spots to get the best signal, but she avoided them, choosing to watch from a corner like always. She was enough of a spectacle already. There was no need to draw even more attention to herself. The sound of explosions filtered through the building, but it was only sonic booms pushed ahead of the fake meteors. Tanya hoped her hovercar’s windows would withstand the blasts. They were expensive to replace, and she didn’t have that much spare money. Most of it went to feeding Handful.     A dull thud echoed through the building as one of the things struck, and she checked her watch. It was 9:57 P.M. A quick flick of her thumb turned off the light before it disturbed anyone. The object rolled off the roof with a quieter series of thuds, and everyone froze, straining their ears for the sound of the next impact. Nothing. Just more sonic booms shaking the city. Someone turned the volume on their watch all the way up, and the volume control rang as they did so. Tanya was impressed. Getting a decent signal was almost impossible with so much to block the radio waves. They had found the Central News Processing Station, or CNPS, the world’s main news hub, which aired at eight and eleven, except in emergencies.     “Throughout the world, chaos reigns as people try to stay under cover. Satellite images show massive destruction in Brazil as these objects tear through the canopy of the sss jungle. Hydrodomes in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans report seeing several floating in the water. No damage to the Hydrodomes has been reported as of yet, but this is no guarantee of their future safety.” The reporter was clearly trying to stay calm, but the stress in her voice was clear. Tanya hoped the Hydrodomes would be safe. With four hundred feet of water above them, a single crack in the shielding would endanger everyone inside. Her thoughts were interrupted by the next thing the reporter said.     “Also, there is significant damage to New York City and other major cities around the world. These oval objects have smashed through the top floors of about fifty percent of skyscrapers around the world. This accounts for almost all of the damaged property recorded so far.” Tanya remembered the solid thud of the object hitting the roof and imagined the damage it would cause a skyscraper, built to withstand winds rather than objects. There would be a whistling noise, then a pair of crashes as the thing smashed through the ceiling and floor, repeating the process until its momentum died. Suddenly, the idea that a turtle shell like this could keep them safe seemed like nothing more than wishful thinking.     She reminded herself that they were underground, and, thus, basically safe. If something managed to break through the synsilk, concrete, titanium rafters, and two titanium-reinforced concrete floors, it would have to be a rocket stronger than diamond. Metal ovals, even when no one knew what kind of metal they were, were not going to get through the building. Their paths had probably been designed for gentle landings, since it didn’t sound like there was much ground-level destruction.     Probably, the only reason the skyscrapers were being damaged was that whoever launched them didn’t realize some of them would be landing two thousand feet higher than the others. Or maybe they knew and didn’t care. The thought sent a shiver down her spine. But if they didn’t care, why would they be landing gently? it didn't make sense, but then again, none of this did. Handful mewed plaintively, rubbing against her leg.     “Kitty?” someone called. Maybe. It was hard to hear any particular conversation over the others. “Come here, kitty.” She definitely heard it that time. Tabby stripes almost invisible in the darkness, Handful sauntered over to investigate the man.     “Careful, Handful,” Tanya called, but softly. “No wandering off, now. I don’t want to lose you in this crowd.” She reduced the force field to five feet, and Handful came sauntering back, clearly trying to pretend the return was her own idea. But she wasn’t alone.

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