What other choice was there for her? She had won the election by the skin of her teeth. She wouldn’t win another one. Running on a platform of law and order was tough, especially for a woman. It had been a results-driven campaign that had threaded a careful line between being too tough on crime for the liberals and not tough enough for the conservatives. She needed an ace in the hole. She needed surefire results. She needed to make a name for herself. She needed to make a bang.

And what better way than to create something that would eliminate crime in the third-most-violent major city in America? She could practically taste the air of the White House right now. Maybe even a Nobel Prize.

But the path to the presidency was paved with men who made backroom deals and sacrifices, and most such rooms were closed to people like her. She had to come out with something so brazen, so bold, so useful that no one could ignore her.

That’s how the Dome was born. A shield to contain threats within until they could be neutralized and dealt with so their poisonous influence didn’t infect everything else.

Putting the half-drunk cup of tea down slowly, she leaned forward. After a few taps on her keyboard, the camera zoomed in. The bull hadn’t moved, but at least it seemed fine. That was more than she could say for the first four test subjects.

Without looking, she reached into her black suit jacket and pulled out her phone. What is going on, she typed, but she didn’t get a chance to send it. The bull twitched, shaking its head violently, and then charged.

Her breath caught in her throat. This could be it. This could be the moment.

Perhaps someone else would have been more concerned with the well-being of the man in the room. Governor Ambrose was not that person.

The video had no sound, but she could practically hear the whining whirl of metal and electricity. She could feel the tension in the room as the muscular bull charged toward the scientist.

This was the moment everything could change.

The distance between the bull and the scientist was less than twenty feet, but it felt like it took hours for the bull to reach him. Well, the bull didn’t actually reach him. There was a pulse of light that rippled outward from the horns when they made contact with something. Again, the bull attacked, shaking its head in frustration. Each time it slammed its horns against the invisible barrier, another pulse of light rippled out, revealing the shape of a fifteen-foot dome for a fraction of a second.