Jordan stared open-mouthed at the smear of blood on the glass where the boy had fallen. The sun shone through it casting a hue as deep as a garnet.

She had been sitting in the dome after having gotten up early to assist with prep work for breakfast, mixing dough for fresh bread, peeling a bucket of potatoes, and slicing a ham before the morning crowd arrived. After everyone had been served, her last chore of the morning was to take the trash to the composter while the others finished eating. It was just what she needed to find a place where she could be alone to mope and feel sorry for herself before going to the labs for another boring science lesson.

Lying on a flat rock under the dome, she could not help feeling for the hundredth time she was living in a snow globe. She stared up at the large expanse of glass running from the ground and soaring over the two mountains it bridged. Like a lizard sunning itself, she lay on her boulder with her eyes half-closed and picked at her nails.

Looking past the glass, she stared vacantly at the layered bands of oranges and ochres exposed thousands of years ago. It all looked like some crazy diorama put together by a third grader. The cliff face looked like ribbon candy, while the boulders looked like animals pounded out of hard clay.

One boulder reminded her of a buffalo she had seen grazing on the plains when she had gone to Colorado with her parents three years earlier. Even the color was enough to fool the eye on a quick glance, but it wasn't likely that a buffalo would be in this area. The valley on this side of the dome was enclosed on all sides by steep cliffs.

Jordan absently recalled a childhood story of how a band of Native Americans had chased buffalo into a canyon during a hunting expedition and pictured one crashing over the edge to the sandy floor below while an Indian brave's mount reared up at the lip above.

The dome's glass contained a filter that blocked UV rays, but the sun still felt warm against her skin. She was comfortable in the controlled atmosphere of the dome but closed her eyes against the glare. Bright spots danced across her eyelids, and she watched the colors expand and contract like some sort of psychedelic tie-dyed artwork.

When she opened her eyes, she was shocked to find a boulder moving. She stood up and moved to the glass. It was definitely not a boulder.

Jordan's eyes grew large and her heart pounded as she watched a stranger limp toward the dome. Only when the man got closer, and she could see the softness in the curve of his jaw, did she realize he was close to her own age.

She froze. He would be looking at a reflection of himself. If she moved, he would discover the window was slightly opaque. She had been surprised the first time she stood outside the dome and discovered she could see through the reflection. People working inside looked like ghosts beyond the glass.

As the person reached the glass, he stumbled and fell to a knee. Even on one knee, he was tall enough that Jordan was looking straight into his brown eyes. He was close enough that, had there been no dome between them, she would have swiped the lock of hair that had fallen across his temple.

"Close enough to kiss," she thought with wonder.

He raised his hand and placed it on the glass. Jordan reached up and placed her hand on the glass mirroring his. She closed her eyes and rested her cheek against the glass. "Hello, stranger. Are you my knight in shining armor?"

Sensing a subtle shift in light, Jordan lifted her head and found herself staring into the boy's pained expression. His brown eyes pleaded in concert with his cracked lips, "Help me."

When his knees buckled, his hand slid down the glass and left the wet garnet smear.

Jordan snatched her hand away from the glass and looked at her palm. When she dropped back a step to stare at the blood, the boy looked up from his crumpled position, and she knew he had seen her. She watched his eyes roll back into his head as he passed out.

Alarmed, she raced to the closest seal. Without thinking, the door badge was in her hand and ready. Just as she moved to swipe the sensor, she stopped.

Opening the doors would trigger cameras. Security logs would show her going in and out, and video would show her helping the boy. In frustration and unsure what to do, she tapped the badge on her chin and thought.

There were two ways out of the dome. One was lightly monitored, thanks to the researchers who continuously went in and out at that location. She turned and ran for the greenhouse. Midway across the valley floor, she changed direction and headed to the labs.

"Jinho!" she yelled as she banged into the lab. Across the room, Jinho looked up from a microscope. Aurum fluttered at a perch nearby. She waved him over and hopped from foot to foot while he took a slide mount from the microscope and wiped it clean.

As he walked across the room, Jordan waved at him again.

"Hurry," she hissed. Everyone was looking at her, so she turned her back on them and whispered, "I saw a guy at the glass."

"You saw a guy at the glass?" he asked aloud in confusion.

"Sh! Yes!" Jordan pulled his hand to drag him out of the lab. "By my boulder. You know, the one I like by the cornfields. He's bleeding and he needs help."

"Why didn't you open the seal or get someone in the gardens to help you?" He dragged his feet in resistance.

"He's bleeding! We need to help him, not debate the best way to help him. I couldn't open the seal because the alarm would go off." She let go of his hand and backed down the hall. "Are you going to help?"

"What about Aurum?"

"Unless he can fly him out of the canyon, leave him!"

He took a deep breath and blew it out. His lab coat found a hook when he tossed it at the wall near the door.

"Where are we going?" he yelled as he ran to catch up.

"Out the greenhouse. It's not monitored."

"The greenhouse...there isn't an easy way to get out of the canyon from the greenhouse. We will have to go through the-"

"I know." They reached the greenhouse and Jordan slowed to a brisk walk. She flashed her badge at the sensor on the door and it opened with a hiss. When she pushed through it and ran out, Jinho was close on her heels.

"Which way are we going?" Jinho asked her.

"Through the caves." She hid behind a boulder and observed the guard shack. The guard inside was reading.

Jordan slipped under the gate and waited for him at the corner of the shack. She peeked around at the guard and without looking at Jinho waved him through.

He slid under the gate and joined her. "This is not a good idea."

"You'll be fine." She sprinted away, staying behind bushes and boulders as she ran.

Reaching the mouth of the cave, Jordan slipped her flashlight out of her shirt and ducked into the crack in the mountain wall. She felt Jinho's hand pressing the small of her back.

"I'm getting you a flashlight for Christmas," Jordan murmured as she grabbed his hand and made her way to an opening separate from the one that led to the pool. It looked like a small fissure where the wall met the ground.

Dropping Jinho's hand to get to her knees, Jordan sat back on her heels and shined the light into his face. "You'll be fine. I'll be right in front of you."

Before he could answer, she bellied into the crack. It was a low, flat tunnel leading down, and she had to stay on her hands and knees until she felt the slope angle back up. At that point, she stood up inside a small cavern and turned left to squeeze around a rock that ran the length of the space. Jinho's movements echoed around her, and she waited for him to stand up before moving into another narrow channel where they climbed upward at a quicker pace.

Jordan blinked in the sudden bright light at the end of the channel. She twisted sideways when she came through the opening and grasped the wall so she wouldn't fall off a rocky ledge that fell to the jagged valley floor below. A knotted rope dangled off the side of the ledge and Jordan wrapped her leg around it ready to descend.

"Jordan?"

"I'm on the rope. Just come out slowly and reach out for it. I'll try to get it close to you." She grabbed the jagged rocks to maneuver closer. Jinho's hand stretched out from the darkness of the hole.

Once he grabbed the rope, Jordan slid past knots and waited patiently at the bottom. Jinho was fine once he was on the rope, but he did not like maneuvering over the narrow ledge and he moved slowly until he felt safe on the rope.

On the far side of the small valley, they came to another rocky face and climbed. With plenty of hand and footholds to work with, they quickly reached a plateau. They sped across the top, stopping to look down when they came to the lip overlooking the dome's valley.

"I don't see anyone."

"He was there. I swear he was there." She chewed at a fingernail. "He has to be down there somewhere."

Jinho moved away and scouted the ledge. "Then we need to find a way down."

He picked his way across the plateau and jumped a long crack that ran through the rock. Jordan followed behind, and they came to a wider fissure.

When Jinho got close to the edge, rock broke away under his feet and he dropped back into a seated position. Jordan grabbed his arm.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm good." He stood up and dusted off the seat of his pants.

They walked the gap and stayed clear of the edge until they came to a spot Jordan thought they could jump.

"It's a little wide," Jinho murmured.

"We can make it."

"It's a little wide for me."

"You want to wait here?"

"No." He stared at the gap. "Throw me."

"Throw you? Are you crazy?"

"Crazy enough to follow you into the desert to save some stranger."

"Right." Jordan looked at him. "Jinho, listen."

He looked back at her.

"Helicopter," they said together. Jordan crouched down and scanned the opening in the rock before them. "We have to hide."

"I'm not climbing in there."

"We have to. There's no place else to hide."

"I can't!"

"You can! Let me help you."

Jordan lay down on her belly with her legs dropping into the gap and patted the ground beside her. Jinho copied her. "I'm not going to-"

"There's a ledge just below your feet. Put your toes on it."

They ducked with their toes perched precariously on the small ledge as the helicopter swept by overhead. Jordan closed her eyes tightly and pressed her cheek against the stone while her arms shook with the strain of hanging on.

As the throb of the helicopter's rotors receded, Jordan swung her foot back up onto the ledge and climbed out. She rolled flat on the ledge until she could reach Jinho and grasped his hand. He pulled himself up and laid there panting.

"Ready?" Jordan waited by the ledge. "Run at me with your hands out. I'll swing you across."

Jinho nodded and got to his feet. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and ran. Jordan caught his hands and hurled him with all her strength. He cleared the far side with room to spare and Jordan followed him over.

"There!" Jordan shouted as they returned to the cliff overlooking the dome. She gave a tug on a rope dangling over the side. "That hook looks new. It has to be his."

She pulled the rope up and Jinho tied it around her waist. When he dropped the slack over the side, she wrapped it once around her hand and slipped over the side. "No footholds."

Jinho groaned.

"It's okay. It's a short way down. On your stomach like me. Go slow."

"I was just thrown over a chasm waiting to eat me alive. Piece of cake."

Jordan lowered herself down, hand over hand, until she reached the bottom and untied herself. Jinho pulled the rope up and secured it to his waist, then slowly worked his way down to join her.

"Stay behind the rocks and corn. Anyone looking out could see us."

They crept past the corn toward the dome.

"Is that blood?" Jinho pointed to a rock.

She nodded and looked around in desperation. "He's here somewhere."

She pointed. A pair of legs stuck out from behind a boulder. They weren't moving.

~~~ * Author Note * ~~~
The scene with Andrew slipping down the glass was a dream I had before I wrote Argent Glass. From that one scene, I developed this whole story. I woke up wondering who he was, who the girl was, and what was the big wall of glass between them. From there the story developed into the rest.