C A P T A I N S U S A N C L A I R E had been seated behind her desk inside her office at the APD Peachtree precinct when the force field had taken over the city.
There were several papers on her desk scattered everywhere, meaning she had been busy. She had been busy ever since the FBI had showed up at the precinct not less than two years ago, right after she had taken down Atlanta's most wanted criminal—Trevor Brandon.
The maniacal and sociopathic man whose name had once grown infamously after his father, Blake Brandon, had died back in 2016.
Commander Blake Brandon, as he had been titled, had been the head of Atlanta's National Guard for over fifteen years until his career had been cut short with a bullet taken by a sniper right through his head, ending both his life and career in a mess of splattered brains.
Susan at the time, was only but a detecti
M O R E T H A N A thousand miles away from the earth's surface, the large and white spherical lump of dust and craters had been peacefully trekking on its revolutionary course when its movement had been disturbed. There was a violent crash just next to it, with the vast vacuum of outer space reacting to the sudden cosmic energy surge after a large crack abruptly manifested like the fabric of space was being torn open. The crack emitted a white glow before another crack followed, looking like a wide bright line suspended vertically. More cracks followed, rupturing just next to the moon. Flashes of white lightning were then streaking out of the cracks, widening them into forming a hole and creating a brilliant spectacle in space. Several lightning bolts even struck against the surface of the moon, forming miniature craters on the white sandy ground. The hole increa
I T W A S T H R E E o'clock in the afternoon when back at Carter•Labs, the loud sound of a blaring alarm had gone off, getting everyone's attention. Carter had rushed to a monitor where he was then looking at something he had never seen before. Warning! Extraterrestrial breach identified. The voice of Sally, the AI followed after the alarm. "What is it?" asked Katie. From the monitor, Carter could see a 3-D scaled representation of the earth's atmosphere and outer space where the different layers of the atmosphere were aligned with different colors; the innermost layer, the Troposphere being white; then theStratosphere with yellow; then the Mesosphere orange; the Thermosphere and Ionosphere green and all the way to the Exosphere and Magnetosphere which had a rich dark color. The dark colored space appeared
O V E R F I V E T H O U S A N D miles away from Berlin, where the first high energy surge penetration had just occurred followingviolent flashes of lightning streaming down on the city, it had still been unclear what had just happened when the same thing went on to ensue in San Francisco at around nine in the bright summer morning. There happened to be a large brown minivan that was just entering the vast orange structure that stretched high above the Pacific Ocean—the Golden Gate bridge. The minivan had then joined the long line of traffic that had formed along the bridge after a certain disturbance had occurred. In the back of the car, there sat two kids—a girl probably in her teens with short dark hair and adjacent to her was a boy who looked twice younger than her. Both of them were dark skinned, with the girl engrossed in her phone while the boy was looking out his open car
T H E P E N T A G O N A L O N G with the Secretary of the US Department of Defense were counting their losses after the unexplainable events, all of them petrified and out of tactics following the decimation of the United Nations military with multiple deaths reported from the attacks in San Francisco and Berlin. Whoever this enemy was seemed to be in no mood of getting down to a nice cocktail and discussing about world peace. The Secretary and the rest of the world leaders were just a statement away from declaring an international state of emergency, having watched the extra-terrestrial attacks from behind their seats but that was as far as they could go. They may have been big with words, politics, diplomacy and all that, but they were nowhere close to what the men and women who had been slaughtered in the most violent of ways by the enemy that had come from above.
I T I S N O W up to you and the world. These had been the last words uttered to Madam Victoria Courtney by the President of the United States. The short middle-aged woman was seated in her office when disaster had struck and stealing a quick glance from her tiny platinum wrist watch, the short thin silvery hour hand strip lying between “1” and “2” while the longer minute hand strip pointing directly at “6” — one and a half hours had passed since the first ‘invasion’. The one that had hit the west coast in San Francisco. The reason why of all people the President had decided to engage in one of the most complicated conversations with her was because of her authoritative status of course. Victoria Courtney, or as she was formally addressed, Madam Secretary; was the Chief Executive head of the US Department of Defense and her line of work could not have been of utte
C A R T E R W A T C H E D T H E monitors together with Katie who gasped, completely taken aback by what she had just witnessed. “What is it?” asked Diana who approached them. Diana then saw an aerial view that was being broadcast from the facility's satellite showing the large red-orange structure having been torn in half and plunging into the Pacific — the Golden Gate bridge. “What happened there?” asked Jenna. “I’m not sure I—” “It’s her,” Hermes cut in. “Berlin and Hong Kong have just been attacked too,” added Katie. “She’s searching,” the speed god said, “Elektris doesn't have the exact location of where the Heir is.” “That means there's no telling how many more places she will hit next,” said Diana. This had been the situation just seconds after Natas
S E V E N T E E N M I N U T E S E A R L I E R , back in Virginia, the whole of the Pentagon together with the rest of the world leaders from the UN Summit were about to witness the planet’s aerial combatants deployed by the Chief of Staff of the US Air Force under the command of the Secretary of Defense; take on the looming threat that had already wreaked havoc in places like San Francisco and Berlin. The command from the Secretary was received immediately on an island military base located on the Atlantic, several miles away from the mainland of New York. Lieutenant Terence James, the Ace of the deployed unit, got into his own craft, did a system routine check, put on his oxygen mask and helmet then brought the craft’s engine to life. The Lieutenant’s jet cruised along the runway, quickly picking up speed before leaping into the air not less than ten seconds later and was followed by six ot
L I E U T E N A N T J A M E S C A U T I O U S L Y approached the spectacular structure while still airborne along with the rest of the other pilots. As the US Army General had confirmed, the phenomenal sight was transpiring near Southern China at the Hong Kong island known as Kowloon. There were a number of high rise buildings, with the city being one of the world’s mogul of tallest sky scrapers that were mainly office, residential and financial. It was just past three A.M. in Hong Kong. Twelve hours ahead of Arlington and New York where the Pentagon and the UN world leaders were watching from respectively. The structure that resembled a pillar of lightning was then letting out a hollow sound that intermingled with the sparkling and electrifying static that was evidence of the white lightning flashes. The Air Force was just several fe