Zero 'g' Page 5

  “Stop, Henry, I have an idea. We can use the rocket principle of moving in zero gravity,” Carly said.

  He stopped and watched as she started to kick at the exhaust pipe. It was beginning to rust, so it was easier to get off than she’d thought it would be. She heard a crunch and ripped it the rest of the way off. She handed it over to Linus and asked, “Just turn the exhaust pipe in the direction you want it to go, and it will turn so much easier.”

  “Yikes! This thing is too hot.”

  “Oh, gosh, sorry. I hadn’t noticed .”

  “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to turn it, it’s so hot.”

  She turned to David, who was smiling. He was still young enough to be in a diaper, which gave her a brilliant idea. Carly removed the wet diaper from the child and handed it to Linus.

  “What am I supposed to do with that?”

  She laughed. “Improvise. Hold the exhaust pipe in it, and it won’t burn you. At least till its gets evaporated and the diaper gets burned completely.”

  “That’s so gross, but I guess we don’t have another choice.”

  Smiling, she said, “Don’t worry, Linus. He didn’t go for a number two.”

  Henry started laughing, and Linus rolled his eyes.

  “Cool. Great idea, Carly. Thanks.”

  “Hey, Toto, I am not going to leave you like this ‘Nangu-Pongu’ . We will use this handkerchief as a diaper for now.”

  She smiled. “No problem, Toto. Let’s get going.”

  Linus used the exhaust pipe to try to change direction, but instead of turning right, the motorcycle kept revolving.

  Linus, Henry, and Carly feared that they would hit a wall or building and get killed, but little David just laughed and enjoyed the ride.

  “Stop accelerating, Henry!” shouted Linus.

  Henry stopped accelerating, and David stopped laughing, hoping to have more rotation.

  “I will tell you when to accelerate,” said Linus.

  The plan worked with the help of Linus’s instructions. He sat backward on the motorcycle to see well. They drove like that for more than an hour before they ran out of fuel.

  They all got off the motorcycle in dismay. “Well, it was fun while it lasted,” Carly said, trying to keep the tone light. They didn’t need to lose hope. They had already come so far, and they weren’t far from Linus’s place now.

  “We will just have to use the parachute again; that’s all, And we can only use the parachute as long as there is air present,” she added.

  All four again attached themselves to the parachute. It wasn’t long before they arrived, exhausted, at the house where Linus’s family lived. Even the house seemed to be suffering from the loss of gravity, as it leaned at an odd angle with mud and trees floating in the air.

  Carly wondered if this plan would work. Then again, the house was still on the ground, maybe because of Linus’s room.

  “I guess my family isn’t home, after all,” he said with no small amount of disappointment.

  Carly put her arm around him. “I’m sorry, Linus. I’m sure they’re OK. How about you show us this moon room of yours?”

  Chapter Eight

  The four of them made their way slowly through the hallways of Linus’s home. The house was a fair size, so it took them some time to cross the main floor. It wasn’t easy for any of them to travel; it was almost like having to swim everywhere. It was worse if you weren’t a very good swimmer. It was a painstaking adventure, one that Carly wished she didn’t have to deal with. She had a hard time not thinking about Rose, and she wondered where the little girl was. The thought of Rose being hurt or in danger was enough to make Carly want to crawl into the fetal position and never come out. That sort of fear could immobilize her and make her useless to the team. She needed to focus on the fact that Rose was probably just fine and unharmed in any way. She hoped that Annette was handling the situation OK and that she hadn’t had a heart attack. Her mother was a healthy woman, but no one would ever expect anyone to deal with the situation they were in without a little bit of shock and fear. She hoped they were both OK and unharmed; that’s what she needed to believe.

  Carly stayed ahead of the team, making her way toward Linus’s room. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen when they found it, but she had confidence in the kids. Both of them seemed very bright. She had never met Jim Iverson personally, but she had heard enough about him from her friend Karina to know that he knew what he was doing in the field. He had a bright kid, and Linus seemed to be the same way. This moon room might be the best place to look for answers, and maybe they would be lucky enough to find more people. At the very least, the room would allow them a break from fighting through the air.

  It was too bad that Iverson wasn’t with them currently. She could use another adult’s advice, especially since he had been working with the space program. Who better to get answers from in finding out what went wrong and how to fix it? He had been privy to information that she just didn’t have. He might actually know what had caused the problem. She felt at a loss being in charge of a bunch of kids, despite their intelligence. She just hoped that Linus and Henry would be able to pull off their plan without a hitch. If they couldn’t, they would have to start over at square one and figure out another way. She had no idea how much time they had before the gravity would be completely gone from the planet. When that happened, things would really start to get scary.

  As they made their way up to the floor where Linus’s bedroom was, Linus explained a bit of his plan to the group. Carly was shocked at how in-depth he was about it all; he had definitely put some thought into things. Most boys his age would be on the football team and chasing girls. They would be dealing with pregnancy scares and where the next big party was, not dealing with the end of the world. Not too many of them would have any idea how to solve a real-world problem, especially one that was causing deaths all over the world. The sad truth was; he probably knew more about what was going on than she did. Henry at least had been in the office with his dad on numerous times while she was pushing a mop bucket around. She blushed. She had no reason to be embarrassed about her position at NASA; it was still a really good job.

  “My father has been a great influence on my life. He’s trying to get me into the best schools in the country. I have been working on a few projects myself. But Linus here really did something extraordinary. He seems to care less about academics and more about what he can sneak into through hacking.”

  Linus beamed with pride. “I have been working for the last year on creating a moonlike environment in a small space. I never thought I would get the chance to use it. But it works, and it has gravity in it, so we got lucky. It’s probably the only place in the world that has gravity at this point. We can sit in there and rest, if we have to.”

  Henry nodded. “Well, my father never mentioned that losing gravity was even a risk. I’m surprised that he wouldn’t have known something like this would happen. I would think all the scientists at NASA would see something like this coming a mile away. But he never said anything to me about it.”

  Carly turned and looked at Henry with interest. He was clearly a smart kid. “Is that right? He might not have had any idea.” Though she really didn’t believe that, she actually found it hard to believe that a scientist wouldn’t have known that losing gravity was a risk. She wondered if it was a conscious choice to continue research, knowing that disaster could strike. She had heard enough from Karina to know that there was something going on behind the scenes at NASA that could have some serious consequences for everyone. Was this it? Had something finally happened that the scientists could no longer control? She would give anything to have Karina by her side to discuss these issues. She hoped that her friend was OK.

  “Yeah, I’m not sure if that’s true. But anyway, yes. The same idea can be applied here. It would help us to live as if there was gravity in the room.”

  “How so?” Carly asked. She wondered why Henry thought his father might
be involved in what was going on around them. She wanted to question him further about it, but they were almost at Linus’s room, and they had bigger problems at the moment.

  They continued down the hall until they reached the stairs. Thankfully, it wasn’t a long flight of stairs they had to climb. They all started up the stairs, bracing themselves against the wall to avoid floating. They looked uncomfortable, and Linus had to use extra effort to ensure that David didn’t get hurt. She still wasn’t sure what they were going to do with him. What if they never found the kid’s parents? What would she do with him? She could take him home with her and Rose. But then what? She certainly wasn’t prepared to raise another child, but she had also thought the same thing when Rose came along. She wasn’t about to abandon the child. He would stay with her as long as he had to, and they would just keep looking for his parents.

  Henry piped up. “This is getting exhausting. You really don’t realize how much you take the simple act of walking around for granted. Who thinks of using gravity? It’s just there. But now, it’s all we can think about because we are helpless without it. I could have been to my room in seconds, but I think it’s been fifteen minutes since we entered the house.”

  Carly laughed. “You are incredibly bright, Henry. Your father must be very proud.”

  Henry grinned. “Oh, he is. He lets me know it all the time. I think my father has a bigger plan for my future than even I thought about. But I guess all parents are like that.”

  “Oh, trust me—they are. Parents just want the best life possible for their kids. So please, Linus, continue to explain the room. I’m fascinated that a kid your age would even be interested in something like that.”

  Henry interrupted. “He’s not the smoothest with the ladies.” He started laughing, and Linus swung at him playfully.

  “I’ll have you both know that I have a girlfriend. I just don’t know where she is right now.” He chuckled sadly.

  “I’m sure she’s OK, Linus. I’m sure all our loved ones are.”

  Linus sighed deeply and continued with his explanation. “We can live there in that room with gravity in the same way you can on the moon. All we would need is one-sixth of Earth’s actual gravity. So I can mimic the same thing on Earth, like I did with this room. It will also boost the suit, Carly, so you can actually wear it.”

  “Really?” she said with a smile.

  “My room's really small, so it'll be a tight fit for all of us, but at least we'll have gravity.”

  The idea was incredible, and the fact that Linus had pulled it off was even more amazing. A room with gravity—it was the best thing she had heard about all day. Who would have thought? And he had created it just in time. Was that a coincidence, or did Linus know more than he was letting on? She looked at him with interest, but she couldn’t read his expression. It had to be a coincidence, right? Regardless, they would be able to utilize the room and figure out their next step. The four of them couldn’t just live in a room together and forget the rest of the world. No, they needed to save it. Carly just didn’t know how yet.

  Chapter Nine

  One by one, the countries all over the world began to lose gravity. Chaos ensued as people frantically tried to find places to hide and wait out the disaster. No one knew what was going on, and panic mounted, causing more chaos. Governments were at a standstill trying to determine the cause and hoping desperately that scientists could be found to fix the problem.

  Civilians all over the world assumed that this was the end of the world. Movies had been teaching them that for years. Chaos of that magnitude must mean that it was over. People continued to die as the gravity disappeared all over the world. People felt lost and hopeless, trying to get to their loved ones, hoping that they were not already dead. Time was of the essence, and yet the experts had no idea how to turn everything around. How did it happen? How did everything get so out of control?

  The president of the United States was in a secure facility, wondering if this was entirely his fault. Had the antigravity rocket been a mistake? He had to wonder if they should have just left Particle B alone. But they had been bringing it to Earth to save it from such disasters.

  Telecommunications networks all over the world began to fail one after the other as satellites moved out of Earth’s orbit, sending the world into a form of seclusion. The ability to communicate electronically had completely disappeared. People couldn’t call their families to determine where they were, and the government was at a complete and utter loss as to what could be done to restore it.

  Carly and the boys arrived at Linus’s bedroom and found it was empty. Carly checked her sixth-sense bracelet for the hundredth time to call her mother, but it still had no signal. Carly figured that all over the world, the signals were lost, but she didn’t want to miss any chance. She was dying to call her mother, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen.

  “Telecommunications seem to be out. We have no way of contacting anyone. Linus, do you have any idea where your family might be?”

  Linus shook his head. “I have no idea. I thought for sure that they would be here.”

  Henry turned to Linus, who was trying to get a grip on one of the desks. “Can you hack into the network and get things going?”

  Linus was a skilled hacker; he had been breaking into networks since they were kids. It was something he usually kept under wraps since Henry’s father worked for the government. He could make his own mobile network in his home by powering up by using various connections.

  “Yeah, of course, I can. It will be a piece of cake. I just need to get stabilized here.”

  Carly went to Linus and helped hold him into position while he logged into the computer and then the mainframe of the laptop on the desk. Henry wondered if he should let Linus hack into the private files his father had at NASA. Maybe then he would find out what his father had been up to and whether it had anything to do with what was going on in the world. He decided against it for now. He could always fall back on it at a later time, but he didn’t want to violate his father’s trust without having a good reason. He had a feeling that all the secrets would be revealed now that the world was in such crisis. The government would be digging into everything trying to scramble around and figure out what was going on and how to fix it as quickly as possible. They would want to minimize any damage, especially if it reflected badly on them in any way. Henry hoped his father had done nothing wrong because he would have a lot of people to answer to about some very serious matters. He would be ruined not only as a scientist at NASA but as a human being in the United States. People would hate him if he had caused Earth to fail.

  Henry shook his head, refusing to let those thoughts get the best of him. They had a problem in front of them, and they needed to devote their attention to it. If Linus could get the network going, they might be able to communicate with the outside world. He moved alongside Linus and held on to the desk to steady himself. He watched as Linus worked his magic, his fingers moving seamlessly over the keyboard.

  Carly, on the other hand, was lost in her own world. She was still holding on to Linus to ensure he didn’t float away, but she wasn’t focused on what Henry and Linus were doing. She was looking up at David, who appeared to be resting against the ceiling. He had been so good the whole time, not crying or freaking out, and she was starting to worry that he might be in shock. The poor thing. He must be so upset to not be with his family and instead be stuck with a bunch of strangers. He stared silently down at her, and she hoped that she would be able to keep him safe so that she could return him to his parents safely. That was what she wanted most in that moment. A small smile formed on his face, and she almost laughed. She hoped that everything was going to be OK for all of them all over the world. What was happening right then was terrifying, and she had no idea if they would even live on to the next day, but she was damn well going to try.

  Looking at that boy, little David, she couldn’t help but think of her own little girl. Her heart ache
d at the thought of little Rose. Was she confused and tearful, unsure of whether she would ever see her mother again? The thought just pierced Carly’s heart. She wished in that moment that she had a partner. Someone that she could count on in a crisis, a person who she knew would fight just as hard to find Rose even if she couldn’t. But Carly was all that Rose had if anything had happened to Annette. She couldn’t bear to think about it, but she needed to be realistic. The world was falling apart, and she had no idea how her mother had handled it. People were dying all over the world, and she had to accept the possibility that her small little family hadn’t made it.

  She stayed focused on David’s face, willing herself not to cry. She felt a panic building up inside of her. She was sickened with worry about the safety of both her mother and child. She needed more than anything to help reestablish Earth’s gravity in the hopes that her family wasn’t lost forever. If they were still alive, she needed to do everything in her power to make sure that they stayed that way. These boys’ lives weren’t the only ones she needed to protect, and the only way she could protect her family was to get the world back in order and then return home. She just hoped that she had something to return home to.

  Tears welled up in her eyes, and her jaw clenched. She would not cry in front of these boys. She was the only adult in the room, and she had to remain strong for everyone. It was the only way. The only way that any of them would survive is by solving Earth' problems. If she fell apart, they could also start to lose faith, and then where would they all be? But what about Rose? Her sweet, little Rose. Lost in a world gone crazy. She didn’t deserve this; she deserved a better world. One that wasn’t falling apart. God, how had they come to this? This crazy world that couldn’t even protect its own anymore.

  She smiled softly at David. She pretended that she was also smiling at Rose, assuring her that everything was going to be OK. Rose had nothing to fear, because she, her mother, was going to find her and keep her safe always. Carly had to believe that. She needed to quell the panic for now, keep it hidden under the surface. It would do her no good now; she had to ignore the panic and get down to business. Reestablishing Earth’s gravity had to be their top priority, or all would be lost. She turned from David and looked to see what Linus was working on.