Zero 'g' (12 page)

“
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 h
eld 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 going 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?”

Just like clockwork
,
all of the people hugging the statue started drifting back more
deep into the ground. Carly grasped tightly to David to make sure
he didn’t fall. Her heart filled with joy, as she knew exactly what
was happening around them. It was the first time since the crisis
happened that she finally felt like everything was going to be
OK.