The shuttle dropped through the haze of New York airspace. Fog encapsulated the city like a horror film. The hull vibrated. John clenched the armrests. Beneath him, police officers and UEF marines cordoned off a perimeter. Vehicles blockaded streets. They stationed missile batteries on the tops of towers. Marines stood shoulder-to-shoulder. He didn’t see any civilians. Evacuated, he hoped. Journalistic drones hovered above the city and flew in circles. The city and the entire solar system watched the mechanoids descend from the Meridian Gate toward Earth.

  John swallowed hard. His throat felt stuffed with cotton.

  Inside the shuttle, former marine and current Ambassador to Earth, an athletic blonde thirty-two year old woman named Sam Crowe sat beside him. John only knew a little about her. She gave up her life of kicking down doors and killing terrorists for long meetings and arguments with bureaucrats, but she carried a sidearm like most politicians did those days. Like a good soldier, she didn’t rely on someone else’s warrior instincts.

  Sam restlessly fidgeted with her shoulder-length blonde hair and obsessively poured through the notes on her tablet—as if she could ever prepare herself for what came next.

  President Carthage sat across from John. He didn’t know the man personally, but as President of UEF whose colonies stretched across eight planets and swaths of the asteroid belt, everyone knew him. Before he was elected, he was a seventy-two year old senator from Vermont with a forty-seven year career. He won the presidency by a landslide. At the moment, he dabbed sweat from his brow with a pocket square. He barely spoke the entire shuttle ride, only mumbling to himself and reading through the speech that Sam wrote for him. He always looked so strong on the television. But now, his obvious fear made him more human than John had ever seen.

  “Mr. President,” John said. “Central Park…it’s difficult to secure a large area like that. Are you sure we have enough security?”

  “What can I do?” President Carthage said. “The big alien wants to talk in Central Park so that’s where we’re going. We have all of the forces we can muster in such a short amount of time. My hands are tied.”

  “Do we have a line of communication with…” Sam hesitated. “...the aliens?”

  “Yes,” President Carthage said.

  “How do we know they’re not here for something sinister? I suggest we contact them and reroute to Wyoming. It’s neutral. There are big open spaces and no people.”

  “Why did they request Central Park, of all places?” John said. “Did you give them a tour beforehand? It’s a little crowded, isn’t it?”

  “They knew everything about us,” President Carthage said. “Everything. Like I said, my hands are tied. We can’t afford to offend them and mess this up.”

  President Carthage scratched at the back of his neck. He left a pulsing red streak. “Maybe they’ve always known. We have to deal with this.” He cleared his throat. “I have to deal with this…I just…” He mumbled the rest of his thoughts.

  “Are you okay, Mr. President?” John said.

  President Carthage glanced at his aide, a young female lawyer, who handed the President an amber vial. He uncorked the top and popped two green pills into his mouth. He chased them down with a sip of whiskey from a crystal glass.

  John leaned forward. “Mr. President, you’re the best humanity has to offer.” He took the tablet from his hands. “You’ve been pouring over this speech for hours and you don’t need it. Speak the truth. Speak from the heart.”

  “You’re new to politics, aren’t you?” President Carthage said.

  “I was never a fan of politics,” John said.

  President Carthage nodded.

  “We’re all afraid,” Sam said. “Nobody can prepare for this. We are with you sir.”

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  President Carthage downed the rest of his whiskey. He poured another glass and downed it. “Okay. That’s enough courage. Thank you, John. Thank you, Ambassador. Let’s not speak about this to anyone.” He looked toward the pilots. “Same goes for you both.”

  Both pilots shot their thumbs up.

  John turned to Sam. “You spoke with the Hyperions? What did they say?”

  “We had a brief exchange. I met them out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean where they hovered over the waves. I spoke to them from the shuttle. They spoke English, loud and booming. You heard it over the rain and thunder. Their demands didn’t make any sense. They wanted engineers…they said they needed a donation.”

  “What does that mean?” John said. “They need our help?”

  “They asked us to repair them?” Sam asked.

  “At too great a cost,” President Carthage said.

  “They refused to speak with us before making a deal…and since the nature of the deal was too heinous…we had to refuse it. The meeting with their leader, Thariel, lasted about five minutes. They told us to meet the following day in Central Park for another round of negotiations. I’m worried what they will do if we disappoint them again.”

  “We don’t know anything about them,” John said. “I opened the Meridian Gate. I’m partly responsible for their arrival. I think you should stay behind, Mr. President, and let me speak with Thariel. There is no telling what he will do. It’s an alien, sir. We can’t assume we know its intentions. It may not be as logical as you or I.”

  “You activated the Meridian Gate,” Sam said. “but if it were another day it would have been another pilot. Whatever happens, happens. Either way, this is something we all have to deal with.”

  “Valentine chose me to go out there because I’m decorated,” John said. “It’s good for publicity. And nobody flies like I do.”

  “That hardly matters anymore.”

  John shrugged. “Maybe not. Either way, that thing is not a person and seeing it up close in a crowded place isn’t something I condone.”

  “He’s the leader of his people,” said President Carthage. “I don’t think he would do something stupid to ruin this encounter between our people. He knows what he is doing.”

  “Those things aren’t people,” John said.

  Sam shrugged. “You don’t get to decide what classifies a person. Maybe they’re friendly.”

  “They don’t look friendly,” John said.

  The shuttle landed.

  John’s chest tightened.

  Outside the shuttle, everything felt surreal. It was like the world stopped just for them. There wasn’t a day or night that went by when Central Park wasn’t full of bustling street vendors and pedestrians from across the solar system, but on that day it was completely cleared and replaced with the small army who surrounded it.

  The air rippled with tension.

  A low-pitched frequency hummed through John’s bones. Every soldier around Central Park straightened and gripped their rifles. Their eyes looked around, curiously. Every bird fled from their nests in the trees and from the tops of towers. Heavy clouds moved overhead, stuffed with freezing rain.

  Something enormous moved above the skyline.

  And then it descended.

  Thariel.

  An armored suit of alabaster metal veined with golden energy hovered ahead. It had wing-like constructs on its back that propelled him with precision using advanced thrusters. He wore an imperial style white helmet. His face was an emotionless pearl mask. He landed. The ground shivered, crushing the grass beneath his grieves. Lightning crackled across the darkening sky.

  John’s legs felt weighted by chains.

  Beside him, President Carthage gripped a Bible. His fingers were white. His lips trembled. An aide whispered something soothing in his ear which caused his hands to stop shaking so much. President Carthage handed her his Bible. He whispered something in her ear, gave her a pat on her shoulder, and stepped on the path toward Thariel.

  The Hyperion stood motionless; and yet, his unbearable presence weighed on John. It weighed on everyone. The mechanoid felt older than Earth. It may have been older than time…and John opened the door for it.

  His mouth felt dry. His skin itched.

  He turned to Sam. “Are you sure he just wants to talk?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  Something was wrong.