Rise Of The New Alpha: Moonfall

"The science excursion class"

Cate ran out to the waiting school bus. Jess bounded beside her, her jaws were clamped on Cate's backpack, refusing to let go of her. She slowed down and turned to Jess.

"No Jess, not today. You stay back. I'll be back soon. It's just another day at school."

The huge dog sat down hard and whimpered nervously, struggling to obey the command. Cate frowned at the dog, something was scaring the dog and Cate could tell it was trying to communicate her fears to her.

She fondled Jess's ears and said coolly.

"Go back home, girl. See you soon"

She leapt up onto the bus as the door whined shut behind her and the bus's engine revved to life.

She slid into an empty seat beside the window and pulled her headphone over her head. She stole a quick glance over her shoulder to the rear of the bus and her eyes abruptly caught that of a long-haired guy who had been staring at her. For a split second their eyes locked, Cate felt an electric tingle that traveled from the top of her toes to her scalp. She felt butterflies in her belly and knew she was blushing, as she suddenly felt hot and tight. He was uncommonly handsome. That was just the right word to describe him. And she noticed that a few girls were leering close to him, trying to get his attention. He nodded almost imperceptibly at her, his lips curling at the corner in a hint of a smile.

She looked away immediately and sighed. She just doesn't like guys that have hordes of girls swarming them, especially due to their looks. They were playboys and always up to no good, but yet still there was an animal magnetism about him that seemed to pull at her.

The bus, from time to time, slowed to a stop to pick up more students. Cate sighed in relief when she spotted Olivia and Jenny who were behind her, climbed onto the bus as it stopped at S. Hwy 77 street bus stop.

"Hiiii"

"Hii" The three girls hugged and greeted each other. Today was the science excursion day, where they would be visiting the feynman particle-collider at lincoln . Apparently, there was to be a test firing of the new acceleration technology the company had developed – atom smashing day, Olivia had called it. Their class was chosen to attend because of its grade point average prominence in the state.

Though Cate loved science a lot, she had an idea what to expect from the lab visit – a robotic voice would count down to some sort of initiation event, light fslashed on monitor boards and screens, ignition would be called, everyone’s breath would be held ...and then a technician would say, test run complete, and that’d be it. Everyone would be invited to look at rows of numbers scrolling down a computer screen. Riveting! It was going to be a far cry from what science fiction writers had described in countless novels he had read in the past. The reality was always uneventful – and mind-numbingly boring.

More students filed past seeking seats, Cate pulled down her headphone so she could converse properly with her friends. As if by magic, her headphone was snatched from behind her.

Cate turned to stare into the comically brutish face of Lucas Barkley. Fremont High was ranked in the top five per cent of colleges nationally, but looking up into the face of Barkley made Cate wonder whether every now and then someone bubbled up through the academic cracks – justt to ensure that life doesn’t become too comfortable for normal people.

"Hey, give it back!" She rose to her feet to confront the bully.

"What's the matter, girlie? You don't mind Barkley borrowing your stuff for a while, do ya?" He sneered at Cate.

Olivia stood too, her eyes blazing in agitation. She looked like she'd spring on Barkley and scratch his eyes out in anger, but three of his friends fanned around him, sniggering contemptuously.

"Take it easy, cat woman" Barkley brayed as he waved his hand at Olivia to stand back.

"One wrong move there, and you'd end up with a really bad day."

He glared at Olivia with his pair of piggishly small eyes.

Jenny just looked on wide-eyed, but Cate could feel her anger blossoming. Before Barkley could say something else, a hand tapped on his shoulder from behind and he spun to see who the intruder was.

It was the guy that had been staring at Cate earlier.

"You got somethin’ you want to say, Simeon?" Barkley snarled at the boy.

So that's his name... Simeon, Cate thought.

"Not really, but just leave them all alone. Let em be"

"And if I don't?" Asked Barkley, smiling mischievously at the guy with the gorgeous looks. Barkley was confident enough that in a fist fight, Simeon wouldn't stand a chance against him. Lucas Barkley's large size meant he wasn't one that any would like to engage in any form of fist fight.

The tension between the teenagers was palpable and Cate knew it wouldn't take long before it would escalate into a heated fist fight. But before Berkley or anyone amongst them could make any further move, the deep rumbling voice of their physics teacher, Mr. Hemsworth, echoed down the aisle of the bus.

"In your seats now, all of you."

Berkeley looked like he wasn't done yet. He gritted his teeth and was about to deliver another insult or a stream of unintelligible cursing, but Mr. Hemsworth tapped him on his shoulder.

"Berkley, to your seat...right now".

Cate snatched her headphone from the still fuming Barkley's hands.

"See ya later, girls". He turned to glare at the long-haired boy, Simeon, and jabbed two fingers close to his face. "And you....I have a bone to pick with you."

He lumbered away, first towards the front of the bus, and then changed his mind and bullocked his way down the back with his two goons trailing after him.

Simeon looked at Cate with a sorry look on his face, shrugged and walked back to his seat.

Cate sighed and sat down. She kept wondering how they let Barkley into Fremont high school. He just doesn't fit in. Olivia chuckled beside her; "That was intense, things would have gone really badly."

"I ain't scared of him" Jenny said in disgust.

"Neither am I" Olivia replied.

* * *

Cate was jolted from her sleep by the bus driving over speed humps.

Her head throbbed, making her to groan, and she glanced around to see her two friends had also been dozing off. She was relieved to have woken up, as she had been embroiled in a nightmare. In it, she had stood before a monstrous hulking figure that towered above her and was staring down at her with frightening yellow eyes like that of a large cat, while someone was screaming her name in the background. There was an enormous blood-colored disc of a moon in the night sky. She didn't know why she hadn't tried to escape from the monstrous creature in her dream, rather she stood her ground and then charged at the creature before she woke up abruptly.

They were now passing a roadblock on a side road outside northern Lincoln. She yawned and craned her neck to get a better look at a group of squat, grey, fortified buildings in the distance.

Men in green fatigues stood out front in pairs – military for sure. She could just make out one of the buildings, built like concrete-and-steel blister with a flat iron door – not a roller door, but more like a solid heavy plate and marked with a lightning bolt held in a gauntleted fist. She nudged Olivia and Jenny, who were also rousing up from their sleep.

"Fire in the hole!"

Olivia looked up and blinked several times like a mole coming to the surface of its burrow, and then focused on what Cate was nodding her head at. She snorted. ‘It’s an armoury. Rumour even has it they have experimental mini-nukes down there – shoulder mounted – like an RPG, but could flatten a mountain range. That structure is just a cap; it’s supposed to drop twenty storeys below the ground to a command centre. If the big one drops,

The brass can keep belting out the orders from down there." she sat back again.

Jenny stared at her, wide-eyed and scoffed.

"You’re making that up, right?"

Olivia shook her head without looking up from her phone.

"The Internet is a wonderful place, isn't it? You've gotta immerse yourself in it to stay informed."

Cate shook her head.

Mini-nukes, she thought. Not Cool.

Her foster mom has always said the third industrial revolution has paved the way for a whole new dangerous world. Now she believes it.

* * *

About an hour later, and now late morning, the school bus turned into Pine Road and motored towards an enormous three-legged tripod iron sculpture that reminded Cate of one of the Martian ships from War of the Worlds movie.

"Quick, look up." Jenny pushed Olivia’s head closer to the window so she could watch as they passed below the weird sculpture. She then said, "it’s called Broken Symmetry; it’s sort of an illusion. From below, all three legs look exactly the same, but...." She held up her finger as they continued under, and then past the sculpture. They looked back at it; "....But when you see it from the side, you can see that all three legs are different sizes."

"Hey yeah, you’re right – that's...spooky.’ Cate watched the sculpture recede for a moment and then sat back. Jenny also sat back and got busy with her phone again;

"It’s actually made of the deck plates from the USS Princeton."

"Well, you’re a living encyclopedia of information, aren’t you?" Cate didn’t doubt for a minute that it was true and was surprised also by Jenny's knowledge.

"I don’t always concern myself with music and art, you know", Jenny raised her middle finger at Cate and put up a mock-hurt look on her face. Cate laughed and looked forward through the window towards their destination. Mr. Hemsworth had told them in their briefing that it was the particle collider's main auditorium and Cate could see a tall building looming up in front of them that looked a little like two bits of sagging white bread stacked together. She grunted and nudged Jenny.

"And what’s the story about the weird building?’

Jenny looked up at the structure for a second or two, then shrugged.

"Dunno – wino architect, maybe."

They passed various personnel on the ground, walking large dogs. Some looked to be security personnel, but others wore white smock laboratory uniforms, and carried electronic notepads as though they were testing the animals. Cate counted at least two dozen huge beasts before the bus pulled away from them. They reminded her of Jess, her German shepherd back at home, but there was something like a primordial mutuality she could feel as she stared at the dogs. It felt like some sort of broken connection that she couldn't quite place. One of the wolf-like creatures paused to stare, its eyes fixed on Cate in the bus's window, and creepily intelligent as it watched the vehicle pass by.