Determined to find the answers about what lay beyond the rift in the dome, while at the same time making as much distance away from the emergency vehicles as he could before getting caught, Beau sped down the dirt path which ended at the base of the tear in the fabric of the Paradise Dome.

  After parking in the lot, he stepped carefully toward the rift and kept his eyes on the darkness emanating from it. There wasn’t enough light to see what lay on the other side, but he was somewhat relieved that there was not, in fact, any green poison gas leaking into the dome. Before approaching the dome wall, he craned his neck up and examined the tear which was a couple hundred feet in height. It didn’t appear as if the dome’s structure was wobbling or moving in any way that would make him believe the dome was about to collapse. If the dome did collapse, all ten thousand residents inside would be crushed and killed. His heartbeat raced hard imagining such a scenario. Either way, he was in big trouble. All he could do now was prevent any more damage from happening and seeing what lay on the other side.

  Everyone had their own opinion about what lay outside their dome. There weren’t any cameras on the outside of the dome they could check. He imagined there was more forest, and since it was clearly dark on the outside it must have been night time. The gigantic medieval knight’s helmet which had fallen through and torn open the dome wall lay far behind him. At the moment, the object was the least of his concerns. He stepped up to the rift, gabbed the edge of the fabric-like layers whose dead pixels flickered between black and an illusion of a forest, and pulled himself up. He poked his head through the tear and expected to see more trees swaying in the darkness under the moonlight—the real moonlight of the outside world.

  Beyond, the dark world felt like he was peering into a dream. There was no sky. There was no moon. There were no clouds or forest. There was just the cold stale air which smelled exactly like a dust-filled attic. There was also a hauntingly dead silence and stillness to the outside world.

  It seemed safe enough, so Beau stepped through the rift. If there were any dangers, he could always climb back inside the dome.

  His boots touched down on concrete, not grass or dirt as he expected. The flat concrete ground stretched on and on. There was no end to it. The air on the outside felt heavier, like walking on an alien planet. There were faint sounds, creaking like ancient trees, and yet there were no trees. He then heard a distant howling wind from somewhere unseen.

  Beau walked forward, across the concrete, and further into the darkness. After hundreds of feet, when he realized his surroundings didn’t change, he stopped.

  Inside the dome, there were clear limits. The walls formed a boundary. Outside the dome, amongst the darkness, there seemed to be no limits at all. There were no edges, only shadows and more endless space. He seemed to be inside a massive chamber but he couldn’t see the ceiling or the walls. When he looked up, all he could see was a black canopy. What was up there?

  There was a crack of lightning. The sound wasn’t anything like the storms generated inside the dome. The light from this strike was brilliant. The sound from the thunder went off like a bomb and startled Beau so much that he nearly fell backwards.

  For a few brief moments, the dark chamber lit up and revealed more of its secrets. He could now see the edges of the chamber, towering walls of poured concrete. They were miles high. Near the ceiling were windows fogged with grime that lined the top of the structure. As the lightning held—he saw a bird standing on the other side of the window. It was massive and he imagined it was watching him.

  The scale of the black bird was impossible—the sense of scale of the chamber he was in was difficult to comprehend. Using basic reasoning, he figured the bird would have been fifty feet tall at the very least. It looked to be the size of a dragon, but this was a simple black bird. It stood there, neck cocked, wings half-raised.

  The lightning faded and the world darkened again.

  Beau blinked. He was caught somewhere between fear and wonder. Was it really there? So high up? He felt he had stepped into an illusion. Maybe he was imagining all of it, and somehow he had electrocuted himself with his own trap. He could have been dead. The creature beyond the gigantic window couldn’t have been a simple bird. Beau had seen a thousand black birds in the dome’s wilderness. He even held one once and it fit perfectly inside his cupped hands. What he’d just seen in the window wasn’t any ordinary black bird, it was a monster.

  A second lightning strike came—louder that time. The light flared over the dome rounded exterior. The light revealed more of the strange mega complex. He saw towering human forms clad in full medieval armor posed like guardians of some long-lost order. Each one stood frozen in place, spaced out and lined against the perimeter of the chamber. They were plated in steel and their hands rested on enormous swords, spears, or halberds. Beau’s gaze tracked across them. He stopped on the one suit of armor which had toppled over and lay on the busted concrete. Its limbs sprawled out like a dead god. Its torso was dented where it had struck the ground. Sparks flashed from the base of a broken light fixture which lay beside it. There were glass shards scattered around it. Directly above the suit of armor, on the high ceiling, was a sparking bit of hanging wire.

  That was it.

  The circuit inside the dome had overloaded.

  His trap must have surged the power outside of the dome, up to the gigantic light fixture, which caused it to fall and smack against the suit of armor, toppling it over, which sent the knight’s helmet bouncing across the concrete and then smashing through the dome. He perpetuated a terrible chain of falling dominos, a dumb and perfect accident that nearly killed him and everyone else inside the dome.

  He swallowed hard. Before long, there would be a reckoning for his consequences.

  Lightning flashed again. The black bird in the window was gone.

  Was it ever real?

  More of the outside world revealed itself.

  High up on the walls, above the suits of armor, he saw a myriad of weapons secured with hooks. There were gigantic swords and shields which were wide enough to shield the entirety of the dome. On one side of the chamber were hundreds of stacked crates, each taller than the dome. It was just like Warehouse 13 from Indiana Jones. Beau thought about what Indie would have done in that situation. Indie wouldn’t have been scared like Beau. No, he would venture forth. He would have been brave.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  On the other side of the chamber, once his vision adjusted some more, he began to see distant green and red lights that slowly blinked in synchronized patterns. He soon recognized them to be computer servers. There was a whole city of them. Maybe those were the computers which powered and controlled their dome? They were just out in the open. Seeing everything, it was like peeling back Oz’s curtain and witnessing reality as it truly was.

  Lightning flared again. Thunder cracked and shook the chamber.

  The world beyond the dome was not what they were led to believe. Everyone inside the dome had always watched the same yearly video, made by Dr. Randall Gerben, the man who built the Paradise Dome, who ensured them the world outside the dome was dead and gone. Dr. Gerben insisted that the green poison gas outside killed everything and the only way they could go on living was by remaining inside the dome and populating it. And yet, the world outside the dome seemed very much alive. Was everything a lie?

  Then Beau thought back to that giant bird in the window. Was there more life outside of the gigantic chamber? If so, where was the exit?

  Beau then heard the sound of wailing emergency sirens which could be heard through the rift in the dome behind him. It was likely the repair crew who, in times of a breach, were trained to respond first and repair any breach in the dome walls. Oh boy, would they be surprised to discover the truth.

  Beau took one last breath of air. It would probably be his last free breath after they discovered what he did. He would soon face the music. But that didn’t mean he would have to be locked up right away. Maybe he could delay his fate a little longer? Beau ran back to the rift, climbed back into the dome, and sprinted back to his truck. Once inside, he started the engine and sped back down the winding dirt path.

  As he drove, an idea popped into his mind.

  What if he didn’t tell anyone? Could he get away with it? Maybe this could all have been part of a terribly unfortunate series of events that had nothing to do with Beau and his trap. The idea was enticing. He really preferred not to spend the rest of his life in a prison cell.

  Would they even be able to trace it back to him? In those moments, gripping the steering wheel and speeding down the trail, he told himself it couldn’t be possible. The emergency services guys weren’t detectives. The surprise of discovering there was, in fact, no noxious green poison flooding into the dome would make them forget about the possibility that someone could have caused the accident. Yeah…maybe they wouldn’t even be looking for a suspect.

  Beau soon merged onto the paved road. A small convoy of police cars and fire trucks sped past him, their sirens blaring. To his relief, none of the police cars swerved around and chased him.

  He soon entered the city limits of Deadwood. The sound of sirens faded. He spotted some of his neighbors playing catch in the yard. Others walked their dogs. He passed by Victorian Italianate style houses with their tall arch-topped windows and pressed metal facades. Minutes later, he passed by the electric refill station and Bill Humphrey’s tool shop. After merging onto main street, he cruised down the road like there wasn’t a problem. After a little more driving, he found himself passing by the Deadwood town square.

  There were hundreds of people sprawled out along the grass or sitting at the little cafe tables lined in front of the store fronts. Others laughed with family and friends around the fountain in the center, under the big tree. Beau decided he would act normally, so he parked his truck in the closest open spot, got out, and approached the fountain like he hadn’t just caused the biggest disaster in history.

  He spotted five different police cruisers, flashing their red and blue lights, who sped past the downtown square headed toward the rift. But none of them stopped to question Beau.

  As he sat there on the stone ledge of the fountain, he wished he had gone back to dismantle his trap. But it was too late for that. If they found his trap and scrubbed the place for fingerprints, they would discover he was involved. Really, there wasn’t anyone else who had the experience to build such a trap. His gut sank when he realized how easy it would be to link him to the accident.

  A squat and angular police cruiser drove down main street. Instead of hauling toward the rift, it slowed down and pulled into a parking space in front of the fountain.

  Chief Buck Mahoney leaned out the driver’s side window and squinted at Beau. His gut pressed tightly against the steering wheel. The man was broad-shouldered in that unmistakable way that came from hauling lumber. He wore his typical black Deadwood police uniform with a big golden badge.

  “Hey, Beau. Surprised to see you by the fountain.”

  Beau motioned broadly. “Yeah…I just felt like getting out and spending some time with everyone. It’s good to be social.”

  Mahoney nodded. He eyed Beau up and down. “Why are you sweating so much? Are you getting sick?”

  “I just came back from a jog. Nice day for a trail run.”

  “Oh yea? Were you out by the perimeter? Plenty of trails out there.”

  “Oh…I could have been. I wasn’t paying attention. I know some of the trails go out that way.”

  “You see the lights flash? You heard about what happened?”

  “Uh…I saw that it went dark for a second.”

  “Dr. Lorne is worried about it. She says the breakers flipped. She says there was a power surge. Do you know anything about that?”

  Beau felt his heart ready to explode and hoped Buck wouldn’t notice. He rubbed on his legs and tried to remain calm. “I just know what everyone else does. I saw the sun flash out for a second. That was pretty weird.”

  Mahoney nodded. “Pretty weird.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You weren’t setting traps, were you? One of your electric traps?”

  Beau shook his head. “No, sir. I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Listen, Beau. I get it, times are tough. The deer population is growing again. Everyone understands what’s going on. I even get tired of eating canned food. You can tell me the truth.”

  “The truth? Yeah, I get tired of eating canned potato soup like everyone else but I know we all have to make sacrifices.” Beau rubbed his legs some more. He realized his foot was tapping fast like a drummer and forced himself to stop.

  “Say, Beau. Can you go talk to Tessa and Dr. Lorne? You might be the best electrician in the dome besides Dr. Lorne. We have emergency services responding, but we could use your brain.”

  “Yep, yep, no problem Mr. Mahoney.”

  “Listen, Beau. Try to be quick about it. The situation isn’t good.” Mahoney leaned a little more out of the window of his cruiser. “I suggest you run off and fix whatever’s going on. It’s a real mess.”

  Beau rubbed his temple from the stress. “Whatever’s going on, I’ll try and find a way to fix it.”

  Mahoney nodded.

  “Stay away from the perimeter,” Mahoney said. “I know how you like to get. You’re rebellious. We all want to eat better meals…but we all have to sit around the table together. We’re a family. If there’s a problem, it falls on us to fix it.”

  Beau nodded.

  Mahoney rolled his window back up, waved at Beau, then reversed into a wide arc and sped away toward the fracture.

  Beau stood up and looked around. He didn’t see Tessa or her mother so he hopped back into his truck and sped off to find them. He knew a little about electric work, but if there was anyone who could help him get out of this mess before it really got out of hand, it was them.