Zero 'g' Read online

  Hopefully, the state of the world right then would also be a lesson to the government that things had to be changed. If they managed to save the world, surely the government would do everything in its power to ensure that the world took better care of the planet in the future. There would be no more discovering missions, no more daily rocket launches. It was so important to help the world now and let it heal from all the damage they had inflicted on it. Although she hadn’t been directly involved in any of the missions, she still felt guilty that she had always been so excited to hear about the discovery missions that were being conducted. She had always longed to be on one. Yet those missions had destroyed Earth and hurt so many people. They had caused their own Armageddon, and they were darn close to causing their own extinction. The thought was downright frightening. Carly knew that there had always been a reason for the mission—they were trying to discover an energy source to keep Earth out of danger—but by doing so they had brought on that very danger.

  Those days would be behind them now, however; they needed to focus on repairing Earth and restoring it to a healthy balance. That was what was most important, and hopefully the government would be wise to that truth. But it wouldn’t be the first time she would be surprised to see the government fail the human race. She imagined at this point that the human race would fight back if it came down to putting the planet in danger once again. She knew she would certainly have something to say if the government tried to go back to its selfish ways. Her thoughts were broken by Linus’s voice.

  “Are you OK, Carly?”

  She smiled. “Yes, of course. Just have a lot on my mind.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, no kidding. I can’t blame you.”

  She grinned. “Yes, I guess so. I’m so thankful that you guys are here to help me. I have never met two brighter guys than you. Thank you so much. I hope this is all going to work.”

  “Your plan makes sense, Carly. Right now, I can’t find any holes in your plan, either, so how could it go wrong?”

  “Well, we are dealing with forces that we don’t have any control over: Earth, the asteroid, and gravity. We have no idea what’s going to happen once we set everything in motion. We have a theory about what we think will happen, but with forces that are so strong, the result could be unpredictable.”

  He nodded, looking a bit worried himself.

  “So, what do you think, Linus?” Carly asked.

  “Yeah, so now we are back at square one discussing the plan. I know you don’t like it, Henry, but her plan is what makes sense right now. We have to do it.”

  “Yeah, I know. I understand the risks. I’m in,” Henry said.

  Linus nodded. “At this point, given how much time we have, it’s the only way to restore gravity to Earth.”

  “Henry, is Mars closer to Earth?” Carly asked.

  Henry checked some calculations and said, “It is, but it won’t be closer for more than twenty-seven minutes.”

  “OK, I think I have an idea.” She looked at Linus. “Would it be possible to make an artificial magnetic field that circles Earth?”

  Linus thought for several minutes before he nodded. “Yeah, I think it would be possible.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Carly started talking rapidly, as the thoughts were just pouring through her mind. She was confident she had it all figured out now.

  “OK, so once we accomplish that, we just need to get Mars’s magnetic poles matched up with Earth’s artificially created magnetic poles. If we are able to accomplish that, then at that point, Earth would be repelled, thus changing the angle of Earth. Are you following me here?”

  Both nodded and waited for her to finish.

  “Now, if we succeed there, then we could use the Bermuda Triangle as sort of a giant magnet and basically pull the asteroid to Earth.”

  The smiles on the boy’s faces told Carly that she was on the right track.

  Linus said, “Well, for that to be possible, we would have to use the resources here in our moon environment.”

  “Look, guys, let me remind you that the current situation that we have is unsustainable. This is absolutely the only chance we have to save the planet. We really need to make this perfect and make sure there are no mistakes.”

  “You’re right,” Henry said.

  “OK, I will get to work right away on creating the magnetic rings. I will do it as fast as I can.”

  Linus knew that it was a good idea. There was no denying that Carly was smart; he had a lot of respect for her, and he was happy that she was on their team. After Carly had given them the idea of making Earth’s artificial magnetic field, Linus had to think for some time and determine what he needed to make it happen. He then went floating away from the others to the opposite side of the house in search of the objects he would need to create the rings. He floated his way down to the basement, which was no easy task. He managed to find some steel and a very long copper wire. He put everything under his arm and made his way back up to the room where his friends were. They were elated to see his discoveries, and he started right away to build what Carly asked for.

  Both Henry and Carly sat there and watched as Linus worked his magic. Carly was confident that with her idea in the works, Earth was going to get back its gravity. She did have one fear, however; she feared that all the people who were outside floating would eventually die because they were all going to fall on the ground with full force once gravity was back. The thought actually sickened her. She didn’t want to be the cause of more deaths, but she didn’t have any other choice. What was worse was the thought that Rose and Annette might also be outside floating around. Could she possibly end up killing her own family? She couldn’t bear the thought, but she couldn’t give up the chance of saving the world because she hoped that her plan would save them, too. So, Carly wanted to do something about that possibility and decided to share her fear with the two boys.

  “Henry, take this,” she said as she removed her space suit.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Yes, I need to see if there is a way to prevent people from falling to their death. I have to try.” She handed the suit to Henry and asked Henry to help out Linus.

  “I will be back shortly.”

  She took David and headed out the bedroom door to find a solution. She and David made their way to the front door and opened it. She was in awe of all the destruction that had happened since the last time they had all been outside. To her amazement, the Statue of Liberty floated right in front of her eyes.

  “Wow, Toto, I don’t think we are in Washington anymore.”

  David giggled beside her. Carly couldn’t believe what she was seeing in front of her. It was truly Armageddon, and she prayed that everything really was going to be all right. She didn’t want anyone she cared about to die, and she had no idea what was going to happen next.

  She was totally amazed at what she was seeing, the total destruction of the world. And why? Because people decided to play God and disturb nature. Disturb it? They had angered it. If Earth started rotating now, then all these people who were floating would hit one another and different buildings and die. As she was staring off into the destruction around her, Carly got an idea. If they could increase the mass instantly there, then they could themselves become a gravity generator. Brilliant. She smiled.

  The Statue of Liberty…yes, that made sense.

  The Statue of Liberty itself would be a heavy enough mass that a human chain could cover it. Once they did that, then the mass of the Statue of Liberty and the mass of the humans would, in theory, make the Statue of Liberty come back to the ground. It would stay on the ground at least until Earth’s natural gravity came back so that at least some people could be saved from certain death.

  Carly had to ponder the mechanics of her idea to see if it were really plausible. If they were to make a human chain, they would all have to hug the Statue of Liberty from top to bottom. They would have to go layer upon layer until it was covered
and possibly even have people on top of people to weigh it down. One layer of the human chain would hug the Statue of Liberty and then a new layer of humans would start to hug the first layer. They would continue to hug one another, layer by layer, until as many people as possible could be saved. They could possibly have three or four layers of humans before the weight would be too heavy for the original layer of people. She didn’t want to start crushing people, either, though with no gravity, they would be weightless. If that were the case, then maybe she could get thousands of layers of humans to cling to the statue until they brought the Statue of Liberty to the ground, and those people would be saved.

  Carly turned to see Linus and Henry coming out the front door. They must have completed their tasks and wondered what she was up to. She didn’t want them wasting any time with her, so she signaled them to continue on with the mission of making the artificial-magnetic-pole field. They nodded to her and waved, and she watched as they entered the house once again.

  Carly held David tighter to her body and started to make her way over to the people who were floating around in the air. When she got close enough to them, she explained to them her idea about the human chain and assured them that it could be their only chance of survival. She also told them to pass the word along to the people around them so that the human chain could begin to unfold. The closer people came to her, the easier it was to explain the idea and to pass word around quicker.

  Carly knew she needed to get the word out everywhere, not just to the people closest to her. They needed to know what was going to happen to give them the opportunity to save themselves. She wasn’t sure how to do that, however, and as she watched people collect together, she mulled over some ideas. There was no network she could use to communicate with the rest of the world. Then a thought crossed her mind, and she looked down at David with a smile.

  David had a DNA chip in his brain. The best part of the invention was that anyone with a chip could talk to anyone else and pass along information just by thinking about it. The DNA chip that was inside of David was capable of communicating with others in different parts of the world. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. If one person knew something, then so did everyone else with a chip. She had always thought that the parents of these children had agreed to put that type of technology in their kids so that their kids could win every competition and pass every test they had to take.

  David was so young that she wasn’t sure if he would be able to pass along her plan for her. She had to try, however. Maybe the information would get through, after all. She held David nice and close to her and put her mouth up against his ear. She continued to repeat her idea over and over again, hoping it would ingrain in his brain and go out automatically. She only could hope that the DNA chip could communicate with the different children of the world, who could then pass along the information needed to save people. She hoped that the kids would pass along the idea to their parents or elders and then hopefully to the rest of the world, to all the floating people who were looking for help in this crisis. Her biggest hope was that they could at least save some of the people. She couldn’t say for sure, but there was a chance that a lot of people had already floated off into outer space.

  After she finished whispering in David’s ear and hopefully passing along the plan, she started to help the people make the human chains. Right before her eyes, she saw people begin to float to the Statue of Liberty and start to hug it. It was a sight to be seen, how people collected together for one common goal. One by one, they started hugging the statue, and when the layers started to form, they began to attract other people. It wasn’t long before they were joining the human chain as well. Layer after layer wrapped itself around the statue, creating magic right before Carly’s eyes. She beamed with pride as she saw all the people working together.

  Meanwhile, Linus had created the artificial magnetic field that they needed for their mission.

  After failing more than three times, Linus had finally found a solution.

  “OK, Henry, I am going to launch the magnetic field. It will take approximately ten minutes to get the required magnetic field,” said Linus.

  She turned to find Linus and Henry looking at her from inside the house. They stared out the window in awe of the human chain forming. They didn’t know what was happening, but they knew she must have had a plan. Floating in the air, Linus and Henry unknowingly made a human chain of their own and followed others near the statue. It didn’t take long before there were fifty or sixty chains spun around the Statue of Liberty. It was miraculous, and Carly couldn’t believe what she was doing. She had formulated a plan that was going to save the world; not only that, but she had found a way to save people from dying. She hoped the same chain links were happening all over the world. What a sight that would be if the news stations were still running. The thought of it brought tears to her eyes, and she hugged David tighter. She was confident that they would be OK. If people could come together the way they were now, then how could they be defeated in the end?

  Carly smiled as she saw the plan starting to come into action. The chains appeared to be working because the Statue of Liberty started to slowly descend. There had been a few groups of people who had argued with Carly, thinking her plan was dumb. Those people were now watching the statue descend and becoming believers. She chuckled as they moved toward the statue and started forming human chains and tightly hugging the statue.

  When the human chains reached more than one thousand people, the Statue of Liberty made its way down and fell solidly to the ground. She stood there once again proudly, as she was meant to be. Everyone on the statue remained attached firmly to the statue, and Carly was sure that they would all be OK. Carly couldn’t take her eyes off of the Statue of Liberty. Her heart was full at the sight of it; it was truly mind-blowing to see. It stood there proudly right before her, and it was all because of her quick thinking. She was so thankful that she could at least help some of the people and save them from death.

  She turned to find the guys, and then Linus saw her and gave her the thumbs-up. She nodded; he must have completed the rings.

  She was right, because in a matter of minutes, Linus had created from scratch the magnetic rings they needed for their mission.

  The rings went out. As Earth started to rotate due to the repulsion of the magnetic field, so did Mars. The problem was, Mars began to rotate in the opposite direction, thus developing too much distance between the two planets.

  To their shock and dismay, something went terribly wrong, something they hadn’t expected. Both Mars and Earth rotated at the same time, causing Mars to move farther away and Earth to get stuck at an angle of sixty-three degrees.

  Chapter Eighteen

  They hadn’t anticipated what happened between Earth and Mars. She hadn’t taken into consideration that Mars would get pushed so far away from Earth. How could she have expected any of it? It had all been so terrifying to watch, and now they weren’t sure what was going to happen. They had only one chance, and she worried that they had failed so completely that there would no longer be any hope. Was it over for them? Would she be front row center to the end of the world? She thought about all the people out there, clinging to the human chain, hoping against all hope that they weren’t going to die that day.

  Their plan of having the asteroid hit Earth was not going to happen. The three of them watched as things started to fall apart. The asteroid was not able to hit Earth because of the degree change. But then, something miraculous happened.

  The asteroid that they had been betting on wasn’t going to hit Earth, but out of nowhere several previously undetected asteroids hit the one that they were originally planning on crashing into the planet. The atmosphere shook around them, and they had to brace themselves against the wall to avoid being tossed around. The asteroids had just cracked through Earth’s atmosphere and were plummeting to Earth. Everything shook around them, and Carly hoped that the human chains were not goin
g to fall apart. Those people out there were going to need to hang on for dear life to one another. To their disbelief, the Bermuda Triangle pulled the asteroids in and brought them to Earth, sucking them into the mysterious void.

  Suddenly, the shaking stopped, and they were able to breathe again. The Bermuda Triangle had taken in the asteroids and added mass to the planet. That was what they had been hoping for in order to get Earth’s gravity back. Now, it would be only a matter of time before they would see if it would work. Carly wasn’t entirely sure how much mass was needed in order to reverse the gravity exchange, but considering that more than one asteroid had gone into the triangle, she had to assume that they were OK. She needed to believe that the plan had worked, because if it hadn’t, their time had run out to get the gravity back. At that point, they would all just be waiting to die.

  “Oh, my God, what just happened?” Henry asked. Carly looked over at them. Both boys looked shaken up. Poor little David clung to her, terrified. She couldn’t imagine what all of this craziness was like for a boy of his age. She cooed to him until his little body stopped shaking. The asteroids had been sucked into the Bermuda Triangle, which explained why the planet had settled.

  “I think we did it. I have no idea how, but I think we did it,” Linus said.

  “I think some other asteroids smashed into one another in the sky,” said Henry.

  “Thank God for those other asteroids. If they hadn’t smashed into the one we were looking for, we could all be dead by now,” Carly said. She was still in shock. Everything had happened so fast that she couldn’t believe that it had all worked out.

  “That was close. I thought we were doomed. So, what now?” Henry asked. “We did it. So, is it all over with?”