10K in the dome

|Sweetbriar Rose|

It's late in the night when Jim Remy is working on the generator in Rose's restaurant.

"Sorry I didn't get to you sooner Rose, I had to make sure the clinic and nursing home were taken care of first." Jim tells her, finishing his work on the generator.

"Are you kidding me, if you're not careful people are gonna start calling you Santa Claus." Rose replies jokingly.

"Oh god bless you Jim Remy, how much do I owe you?" Rose says as Jim finishes the generator and turns the power back on.

"Ho-ho-ho." Jim replies smirking.

"Oh my god, the lights are back." Alice says walking out of her room with Carolyn.

"Did that invisible wall come down?" She asks coming down the stairs with her wife.

"Well I'm afraid not, but we got the geni's up and running so we have some power and can get back to some sense of normal. I don't believe we've met." Jim replies.

"Council-man Jim Remy, this is Carolyn and her partner Alice. They are staying in my spare room upstairs, they're in from L.A." Rose introduces them.

"Ugh, too bright." 10K groans, sitting up, having been sleeping on the floor in a corner of the restaurant.

"We got trapped, driving through your little town." Carolyn says.

"We were taking our daughter to orien…" Alice starts.

"To camp. But we have to get her out of here, our daughter is sick, she had a seizure." Carolyn cuts her off.

"Does your girl have epilepsy?" Jim asks.

"No, it can happen to anyone. Caffeine, sleep deprivation. I've seen it with my patients." Alice explains.

"She's a psychiatrist." Carolyn answers the unasked question while 10K walks over to them, flopping down on a chair next to Jim.

"Well, sorry you lady's aren't discovering Chester's Mill under better circumstances, but trust me if you're gonna be stuck somewhere, this is the place to be. I've lived here my entire life, no place I'd rather call home." Jim tells them.

"And you kid, I've seen you around before, right?" Jim then asks 10K.

"Yeah, I was in town with my father, we're moving around the globe hunting. We`ve been here for a little over a month I think taking a break from the dangerous territories." 10K replies.

"Ah I remember now, haven't seen your dad yesterday though, everything alright?" Jim asks.

"He's dead, the wall thing cut him in half. Rose let me stay here tonight, since it was already to dark to get back to my tent safely, with the possible damage around town." 10K replies making Rose gasp shocked since she only heard that his father passed away not how it happened.

"I'm sorry kid." Jim says when Linda, a police officer walks in with a big blood smear over her shirt.

"Jim. I need you to come with me, Duke's dead." Linda tells him.

Making everyone but 10K look at her shocked. Jim gets up and follows Linda to where Duke's corpse is.

"Well, first light is coming, I better get back to my campsite and pack it up to move it closer to town." 10K tells the three remaining women in the restaurant and goes over to his equipment, slinging it over his shoulder. "See you around I guess." 10K yawns and leaves to get to his campsite in the woods.

"Be careful." Alice tells him as he leaves the restaurant.

"Do you know him?" Rose asks Carolyn and Alice.

"Not until yesterday, he saved us from crashing into the wall with our car and then helped get our daughter to the clinic." Carolyn tells her.

"Poor kid though, loosing your father like that. Well I'm sure you want to get back to sleep, sorry if we had woken you up." Rose sighs sadly.

"That's alright, thank you for letting us stay with you." Carolyn replies, and she makes her way back to their room with her wife.

"Good night." Rose says and gets back to taking inventory.


|Later that day |

Carolyn, Alice and Norrie were in the "Sweetbriar Rose" when Julia made an emergency announcement.

"I have some news for all of us stuck here inside Chester's Mill. I've just learned that the barrier around Chester's Mill is being called a dome. This information appears to be coming from military sources positioned just outside Chester's Mill. Just outside the dome, we will keep updating you as information comes in so stay tuned to."

"WYBS. The only source of information from under the dome." Phil finishes and turns some music back on.

"What does that mean?" Carolyn asks fearfully.

"I have no idea." Alice replies.
"I do mom, it means we're all gonna die in here." Norrie tells them dramatically.

Soon after the announcement the police force is in the "Sweetbriar Rose" to inform the citizens.

"This dome thing, how big is it?" Rose asks them.

"No idea." Linda tells her.

"Are we gonna run out of air?" A weary man asks walking up to the cops.

"Until I find out how Julia got this information, I think it's best that we all stay calm." Linda replies

"What if it collapses on us?" Alice asks worried.

"Great, now the sky's falling." Norrie complains, fiddling around with a fork.

"If we keep our heads and stick together, we'll get through this." Linda tells them and makes her way outside the restaurant with her two colleagues.

"Hey, we'll get through this? Huh? You don't know what this dome thing might do." Paul Randolph tells her.

"You're right, but the last thing we need is for people to start to panic." Linda tells her colleague.

"That thing took Duke, who is next?" Paul asks her.

"Pull yourself together and get out on patrol. People are scared and when they are scared they start acting stupid." Linda orders.

"Yeah you'd have to be stupid not to be scared. I just hope someone tries to blow this damn thing up." Paul tells her, getting in his car and starting his patrol.


|A few hours later - woods|

10K has made it back to his camp safely and is starting to pack everything up, realizes though that he can't get everything out of the woods at once and packs everything up in two bag packs and two sailor bags.

"Well, I guess I'll bring it to the edge of the woods for now and find a spot to store it until later." 10K says to himself and grabs one bag pack and a sailor's bag, making his way to the edge of the woods, where he finds a huge knocked over tree and puts his stuff under a small gap between the three and the ground below, keeping it secure from the weather and not noticeable enough for other people. After he put his stuff away he starts to go back into the woods to get the rest of his camp until he sees smoke coming not to far from where he is. Deciding to check out what is going on he gets out his smaller bag pack, the one filled with his hunting equipment and runs off into the direction the fire comes from.


|Duke's house|

After at most 10 minutes of running towards the fire he arrives at the scene and sees a crowd gathering in front of a burning house. Deciding to try and stop the fire from spreading to the nearby houses he covers his mouth and nose with his scarf and puts the goggles on his head down, to block the smoke from coming into his eyes. 10K runs over to the place where the flames would most likely spread over to since it's a bush row connected to the house and takes out a hatched from his bag pack and hurries up cutting down a few of the bushes to stop the fire from spreading out farther. In the meantime, most people don't notice him because he is partially obscured by the smoke coming from the house.

When the police pull up to the scene they start to organize people to help them put out the water with Barbie's help. Jim is one of the people who actually notice 10K and is impressed by his courage to be in such close range to the flames and gets the idea to knock down the house with a excavator he stopped earlier that day close to here, so he gets in his car and speeds off towards where the excavator is.

Julia arrives and takes a few photos of the fire, telling Barbie, who is staying with her "Barbie, it hasn't rained in weeks. We're inside a damn tinder box. If those flames spread to any of the other houses it will take Chester's Mill and us with it."

"Hey, everybody who does not have a garden hose, I want you to go get a bucket, a pot, a trashcan, get something that can hold water." Barbie instructs the crowd, which then hurries off to find something to help put out the fire. Linda then hears someone screaming for help from inside Duke's house and rushes in to save whoever is inside, which turns out to be the reverend, who has started the fire to cover up evidence of his crimes with Jim.

The crowd soon has formed three lines from the pool across the street to the house and are passing the buckets through in an attempt to put out the fire, but it doesn't appear to be very effective.

The fire then spreads over to the shrubs 10K is still working on, but doesn't notice the fire coming up behind him, until he feels its heat radiating from directly behind him, when his jacket already caught fire.

"Ahh, crap." 10K yells and throws himself on the ground, trying to put out the flames by rolling on the ground.

Meanwhile in the row of people passing the bucket's through Norrie sees a guy around his age walk around filming what is happening and their eyes meet until she hears something over the yelling, telling everyone to work faster and looks over to the source of the noise and sees the teen she met yesterday rolling on the ground with his jacket on fire. Reacting quickly, she grabs the bucket coming towards her and breaks the line, making people look at her confused until they see her rushing over to a burning teen.

Arriving in front of 10K she quickly empties the bucket on him, extinguishing the flames.

"Thanks." 10K coughs, having inhaled some smoke and looks up to see Norrie standing over him, extending her hand towards him.

"I guess this makes us even." 10K tries to joke between coughs and they move over to the line of people to continue helping to put out the fire.

"I guess it does." Norrie smirks at him.

"The fire's not spreading as far thanks to that kid's help, but it will only be a matter of time before it spreads further as long as Duke's house keeps burning." Linda tells Barbie.

"Or not. Hey make some room. Clear the street." Barbie then yells at everyone, seeing Jim coming towards them with an excavator and Jim makes his way through the people to the house and starts to use the shovel on the vehicle to ram down the posts holding up Duke's house until it collapses in itself and the flames start to lessen.

Half an hour later everyone managed to put out the fire with the bucket rows and garden hoses. The reverend lies to Linda telling her that he was trying to get a suit for Duke's funeral when the house caught fire and she believes him.

After everything calmed down 10K packs away his hatchet and goes over to Norrie and her mothers'.

"Hey, thanks again for saving me." 10K thanks Norrie.

"Glad to see you made it out without permanent marks." Norrie replies looking him over, finding him attractive despite his dirty his goggles, scarf and now burned shoulder pads.

"Yeah, my jacket's not that lucky though." 10K jokes, taking off his burned jacket and putting it in his bag.

"I don't see the difference, looks just as horrible as before." Norrie tells him sarcastically.

"It was all about practicality, not fashion." 10K counters.

"So, a tail as keychain is practical? For what? Becoming one with the animal?" Norrie taunts him, pointing at the tail sticking out of his pants.

"What are you? Fashion police or doubtful girl?" 10K remarks, grinning at her.

"Shut up, at least I'm not walking around catching fire." Norrie counters.

"Alright, I surrender." 10K says holding up his hands in a surrendering gesture.

"You'd better, I'm only getting warmed up you don't want to catch me in a bitchy mood." Norrie warns him smirking.

"Good to know." 10K replies and then turns to the others, who have gathered around.

"Linda, thank you for saving the reverend." Rose says shaking Linda's hand while everyone applauds.

"I'm just doing my job." Linda replies when Jim walks over to her saying "Thank you everyone, for a job well done."

"Well we couldn't have done it without you big Jim." Rose tells him, making the crowd applaud for him.

"I appreciate that, but this isn't about me, it's about all of us. We stood together shoulder to shoulder as a town should in times like these. Now this is not gonna be the last crisis that Chester's Mill faces. But we'll get through the next one, with the same courage and solidarity we showed today. Thank you all." Jim announces.

"Like hell we will. Go ahead, pat yourselves on the back all you want but we're toast. Great you can put out a fire so what? That thing, that thing is trapping smoke and there is no way out." Paul shouts angrily, walking over towards the dome.

"Hey, calm down man." His fellow officer says trying to calm him down.

"Take it easy Paul." Linda tells him, but Paul takes out his gun instead, aiming in the air, making everyone back up scared. 10K moves in front of Norrie while rummaging through his bag, getting out his slingshot and a marble.

"Don't tell me to take it easy, you're just like him." Paul replies nodding towards Jim.

"You know you're lying to these people and you're promising that everything is gonna be OK, but it's not gonna be OK. This thing is never gonna go away and we're all gonna die." Paul yells, shooting at the dome twice, with one bullet ricocheting and killing his fellow officer.

"No, Freddy, Freddy." Linda shouts running over to the shot officer, trying to save him.

10K sees Paul distracted by him hitting his partner and quickly uses his slingshot to shoot Paul's gun away from him and quickly gets out a knife from his back pocket, ready to throw it if necessary but he doesn't have to because Barbie runs over, knocking Paul's feet away and grabbing the gun lying next to Paul, pointing it at him to keep him contained.

"I guess that was kind of impressive." Norrie tells 10K, coming up beside him from her previous position, hunched over behind the boy.

"You haven't seen anything yet." 10K tells her grinning.

"Thank you for protecting us and our daughter." Carolyn says patting 10K's back appreciatively.

"You're welcome. Had I known the dome would ricochet maybe I could have stopped him sooner. 10K replies solemnly while looking at Linda sadly, who is still over her fiancee's brothers corpse, trying to get him back somehow.