Medusa: THE BEGINNING - pocketboek

People were going a little crazy - that was understandable. Nobody knew definitively what was going on; the past several hours had been trying ones for everyone.

With the Object just hovering out by the sun, the communications blackouts, and now the messages, everyone was on edge. But to say that there was now a spacecraft over the city, and not only that it was here, but that it was that big, I shook my head. What kind of a ship covered a city that was over sixty-eight square miles? This was truly madness.

I waited for the elevator.

The doors started to open, and I was bowled over by Daniel Spotnitz as he charged through the still widening portal.

"Sorry, Stromberg, wrong floor. Did you hear? I'm going downstairs now to see for myself. You should come and see for yourself too. This is a historymaking event. Don't you want to be able to say you were there?"

Spotnitz did not wait for an answer as he ran back into his conveyance. And if I had responded I was not sure he would have heard me anyway. I let him go, his elevator was full.

I took the next one. As we descended to the ground floor, everyone around me was talking animatedly about the starship overshadowing Washington. Could this really be true? As soon as the doors opened, people dashed out, some sprinting down the corridor.

I let myself be carried along with the crowd heading for the exit doors. I wondered at my strange reticence to go outside to see what all the excitement was about. I had thought I would have been one of the people racing outside to get the first look at our visitors. But now that it was really happening, I wasn't as eager to see our lives change. I wasn't afraid to admit that I was frightened.

The day had turned gloomy. No sun shone through the many windows. And then I remembered. Perhaps it was the ship that was blocking out the sun. I smiled sardonically, yeah right!

People continued to rush past me, and around me, heading outside. I was pushed along by the eager crowd.

I stepped outside and stood in the parking lot with almost everybody in the building. My mouth hung loosely as I looked on in amazement.

Above me was an object that took up most of the sky, and more and more sky disappeared as I looked on. It seemed the rumors were now fact. I was looking at it.

In those first few seconds, none of us spoke. None of us moved. Time came to a standstill. It was as if we were all trapped in a science-fiction movie and someone had touched pause on the remote control for the DVD player. The seconds ticked by as we waited for that hand to hit play.

Time started to move again. It advanced unhurriedly, frame by slow frame, because it seemed the hand had hit progressive scan instead of play.

Breathe, I told myself, breathe. I tried. It was a challenge.