The news story was a tragedy, a human failure. A tower complex had experienced a decline in its population so the government had reassigned apartments to make public services more efficient. People on the periphery were moved further towards the center as apartments became available. This left a vacant ring of towers around the outside of the complex.
Then some genius down at City Hall got the idea that even more savings would accrue if certain services were removed from these now empty towers. Electricity, water and other utilities were cut. Services such as fire and police stations were closed. The setup for disaster was complete.
Somehow a lightning strike on the top floor of one of the empty towers caused a fire. The fire suppressors didn't work for long on battery power and when they shut down the fire flared up and was soon spread by storm winds to other towers on the periphery. As it leaped from tower to tower the blaze soon created a ring of fire, it was also spreading inward. Most of the occupied towers were able to suppress the fire but a few, especially older ones, succumbed to the flames.
Half a million people perished with an equal number made homeless. On top of the already strained resources, more people died in the following week. The government blamed the first responders for not being properly prepared. Many fire and police quit. Burglaries and assaults quickly became rampant as the populace took matters into their own hands. Soon people were being killed in large numbers by the police and military as the government tried to regain control.
Patrice couldn't believe it was happening to her. From what she had seen and heard she was as afraid of the government as she was of the rioters in the streets. But something had to be done.
“Come on Patrice,” said Agnes. “Quevera ain't gonna wait on us. The food's gone. We can't stay here.”
Patrice knew that Agnes was right but she couldn't bring herself to admit that it had come to this.
How did this happen?
Then she picked up her travel bag and looked at Agnes.
“Let's go.”
They were down the stairs and out on the streets that seemed surprisingly quiet for now.
“Okay,” said Agnes. “TNU meets over on Fremont Street if they are still there. It shouldn't take us more than a half-hour.”
Agnes started off towards Fremont Street, Patrice looked back one last time before joining her.
Two blocks up and three over they came to a halt. The streets were filled with men listening to some guy hanging from a lamppost.
They were just about to skirt the corner staying close to the building when they heard a man yell.
“Hey! You two. Stop!”
Agnes and Patrice took off running with the men close behind.
Patrice was having a hard time keeping up with Agnes.
Damn, these shoes aren't for running. Why didn't I put my sneakers on? I paid enough for them. I've got to start thinking or . . .
Just then three men caught up with her. One of them grabbed her arm and spun her around, she fell hard to the sidewalk.
“Okay!” he yelled at Patrice his face close to hers. “You just stay there. We aren't going to hurt you if you cooperate. We just want what food you have in your bag.”
Just then his face disappeared from her view and she was looking up at the sky. Then as she lifted her head to look around she saw Agnes with that ridiculously large travel bag swinging it with all her might. The man that had yelled at Patrice was on the ground groaning, bleeding from his head. He obviously had hit the wall or sidewalk when Agnes nailed him with the bag.
And there was Agnes flailing away with her big bag. But she couldn't last for long. Other men had noticed the disturbance and were running towards them. Patrice got up.
“Agnes let's go!” she yelled.
Agnes took one more swing at the fences and took off. Patrice turned and ran. Before the next corner, Agnes had caught up with Patrice but didn't run past.
“We got to get you better shoes,” she yelled.
They were at the end of the building and had just turned the corner when they ran into the arms of some other men. Patrice started to flail away. Agnes yelled to stop.
“Patrice this is Quevera!”
Then the other gang of men chasing them rounded the corner and came to a halt.
Quevera stepped forward.
“Leave these women alone and get out of here.”
“Those women hurt my friend, I intend to get satisfaction.”
Quevera drew an old-fashioned electric zap gun.
“Look out, he's got a weapon of some kind,” said one of the assailants.
The man that had spoken looked at the gun in Quevera's hand and backed away. Soon he had turned and run around the corner with the rest of them.
“Patrice, meet Quevera.”
“Pleased to meet you and thank you.”
“No time to talk now. Let's get back to our building.”
It had only taken a little over a week to turn the complex into a killing field. People streamed from it in the millions desperate to get away and find food and water. They overran and stripped whatever houses or farms they came to. The stream of wretched and starving humanity numbered in the tens of millions. The government was completely unable to staunch this flow of life as the stronger began to rob, kill and even cannibalize the weaker of their number.
The military was called in and reinforced. The following incident would always be known as The Throwback War as it soon became apparent that the governments were determined to stop the lawlessness with whatever means necessary.
As the military attempted to cordon off the starving multitudes it seemed at first they would succeed. But it wasn't long until the dying, feeling they had nothing to lose, walked straight into the military's lines. The resultant slaughter was more horrifying than anything that had been seen on Earth in centuries. The people marched on the military positions and were cut down. Climbing over or around the quickly growing piles of bodies they continued to march. In some places the lines held. In others, the guns and laser cannons fired endlessly until they malfunctioned from heat and use. Military lines were breached and soldiers used knives to halt the advance.
In one place a soldier was crushed to death as the bodies piled up and over him from the ceaseless advance of the people. The people themselves had become less than human. The only thing that mattered was to keep moving. Movement was all that was left to them, all that separated the living from the dead.
A week later Patrice, Agnes and the rest had left the TNU headquarters and the complex. In the open country, they all felt like strangers. Quevera was trying to keep them separate from the streaming mobs. But there were too many to avoid completely. They were heading to the next closest tower complex.
“Another group just over that hill,” said Salazar, Quevera's right-hand man.
“Okay we'll watch them and wait here, we need to eat anyway.”
Any other time Patrice would have complained about being expected to prepare the food. But under the circumstances, she realized that it was something which she and Agnes could contribute to the overall well-being of the group. She didn't relish it but she understood the bargain.
Just then they heard shouting and shots coming from the direction that Salazar had just scouted.
“Salazar take Luis and see what's happening.”
Patrice brought the meal to Quevera and the men next to him.
“Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate you and Agnes taking on this duty.”
“You're welcome,” said Patrice smiling.
Patrice and Agnes had served the others and were just sitting down to eat when Salazar and Luis rushed up.
“The military is firing on the crowd. The crowd is being slaughtered but they continue advancing toward the city. I don't think the military will stop them they are too many in number and seem determined to make it into the city.”
“Okay,” said Quevera. “When we have finished eating we will head north skirting the mob and the military.�
��
Eventually, the troops were overwhelmed and the people moved on. The governments had no more troops to call up. They had never faced such a situation. The Aggies had managed the complexes for so long that all government assets had been allowed to atrophy.
There were still millions on the move heading for the next closest tower complex. Awaiting them was the complex's police force with their butterfly bombs and knock-out sticks and not much more.
Most complexes had a security wall surrounding them. Ten feet high, it was usually enough to keep people out and people in. And at first, it seemed to stall the advancing horde. But then some of the stronger scrambled over or boosted others up and over. Before long thousands had breached the perimeter and the police released the butterflies. Effective as usual it wasn't long until several hundred people were on the ground paralyzed.
But that didn't stop the flood of people. They soon breached the police lines and made for any grocery stores close by. They raided the stores emptying the shelves before moving on to the next store or restaurant. Over and over again, the police helpless, the residents of the raided complex suddenly finding themselves in the same situation as the invaders took up with the invaders and complex after complex fell to the marching hordes.
Only the bitter cold of that winter stopped the onslaught. By that time more than half a dozen complexes had been declared disaster areas and made completely unlivable.
In the abandoned farmhouse, Quevera and what was left of the TNU, for half of them had drifted away or been killed, were holed up. They had been lucky, the farm had been stripped by the roaming mobs but a cache of canned vegetables had been overlooked. With their smaller numbers, it should last them the winter.
Finally, they had time to discuss what had happened and what they would do.
“When spring comes I think we should stay here. We need to start over and a farm is the best place to do that,” said Quevera. “We can use that cache of seeds you discovered Salazar. Some of the farm robots can be salvaged to help.”
“I don't know I say we move on when the weather warms,” said Salazar. Many of the other men spoke up in support.
“Where are you going to go? Every place is the same. They will all be picked over and looted by the mobs.”
“The winter will halt many of the fools. There are still many cities where the few that we are can be welcomed.”
“Perhaps,” said Quevera. “But it's only a matter of time until all the cities fail. Then the mindless destruction will repeat itself in the new city in which you are residing.”
“The governments will eventually figure it out,” said Luis.
“Luis, you have faith in a government, that has not served you well so far.”
Luis looked away from Quevera's gaze.
“We will stay too,” said Patrice. “Agnes and I. We believe Quevera is right.”
Quevera only nodded to Patrice and smiled.
This then was the news that prompted a change of heart on behalf of Davy's mom. If it could happen elsewhere it could happen in their complex. At least Davy would be safe if he were off-world. The result was that his mom made contact with a long-forgotten suitor. Once the plans were set Davy invited the rest of the group but only Lind and Stubby were allowed to accompany him.
5
The hybrid space plane would use turbojet engines to take off horizontally from a landing strip. Once airborne and traveling between Mach 2 and 3, the engine shifted to ramjet propulsion. An air-breathing ramjet engine uses the natural compression of the incoming air in place of the turbojet's compressor. Above Mach 4.5 the ramjet converted to a supersonic ramjet or scramjet engine. The difference is in the airflow. A ramjet slows the compressed air to subsonic speed for combustion whereas in a scramjet, combustion takes place in a supersonic airflow.
At this point, the space plane entered hypersonic flight above fifty kilometers. Finally, as the atmosphere thinned out rocket engines took over and powered the space plane into orbit.
Davy knew the general sequence of events if not the specifics. He could feel the acceleration diminish with the gravity as the space plane began to orbit and prepare for a rendezvous with the hotel.
The hotel was a wheel-cylinder-wheel type seen all over the Solar System and elsewhere. The wheels at each end had a diameter of fourteen-hundred feet and were seventy feet wide. The resulting floor area was over three-million square feet. Spinning at approximately two revolutions a minute provided a centrifugal force and a resulting artificial gravity of nine-tenths that of Earth. Protection from radiation was provided by several feet of an engineered, moist gel substance placed along the walls of the outer hull.
The central cylinder between the two wheels was two-hundred-fifty feet in diameter and two-hundred feet in length. Part of it had an internal scaffolding that held plants and grew them using aeroponics. This method of gardening held the plants in such a way as to expose their roots to the air. The roots could then be misted with water and nutrients. The method was one-hundred thirty times more efficient than open sky farming back on Earth.
It was also in the cylinder section that zero-gravity games could be played.
The six-million square feet of the cylinder were divided into gardening, recreation and storage. It also spun at two revolutions per second but because of the smaller diameter only provided at its outer wall an artificial gravity equivalent to that of Earth's moon. The cylinder's walls were lined with the same gel-like material as the wheels to provide radiation protection.
The wheels themselves were honeycombed with rooms. Private apartments, large workout areas, theaters, observation rooms and restaurants. It was said that there were enough restaurants so that one could eat at a different place every day for a month if one chooses.
Only in the middle at the rotational axis could a person move between the wheels and the cylinder.
The rendezvous went without incident and soon Davy, Lind and Stubby were inside the hotel. The High Frontiers Hotel and Resort tried to be all things to all people. Families stayed there to enjoy the Earth view, restaurants and zero-gravity games. Couples and singles stayed for the same reasons and also for the casinos.
Davy and the others were preparing to enter the express elevator. It was essentially a paternoster design, that is a continuously moving series of compartments on an endless belt. At the top or bottom, the compartment shifted horizontally to move in the opposite direction. Because paternosters were secured to a belt they were more practical than elevators in the varying gravity along the elevator shaft.
The only problem with the paternoster design was that in zero-gravity it could be quite difficult to board. Fortunately, the attendant had the authority to adjust the speed of the variable speed belt to allow newcomers to board. He did this for the kids to board safely with their escort. Then the compartment was on its way to the outer wheel.
“Okay kids,” said the escort. “It is best to orient yourself before the gravity kicks in. If everyone will just watch me.”
The escort proceeded to grab one of the bars that ran the length of the compartment and spun herself around so that she was upside down in relation to the kids. By this time the slightest gravity was beginning to be felt and the escort was settled slowly feet first.
“Okay everyone, do as I did.”
First Davy then Lind spun themselves around and slowly settled beside the escort. Stubby had watched them and confidently grasped the bar nearest him and spun and spun and spun.
“Help!” he yelled as he kept spinning and sinking towards what was fast becoming de facto the floor of the compartment.
“Oh goodness sake,” said the escort as she grabbed the spinning and now screaming kid and pinned him to the floor.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
Stubby looked up at her and the others and said, “I'm fine, and you?”
That broke the tension and she started to laugh with the others joining in.
Aggie Prime was preparing the ship f
or the test jump. The jump target would be twenty light-years. Aggie Prime started the generator sequence which would lead to the creation of the entrance and exit wormholes.
The Aggie's fusion ship consisted of a crew wheel which could rotate to provide an artificial gravity for humans on long voyages and power the wormhole generator. Electromagnetic and bulk diverters were located ahead of the wheel to provide protection from charged and uncharged particles when underway. A long scaffold-like body with water stores and food stores and other storage units attached followed. Usually, a landing shuttle or two were also attached. And at the very back was the fuel storage and fusion rockets. Some of this was used by the Aggies, other parts had been repurposed.
Though rotation of the crew wheel was not needed by the Aggies it was needed to create the Mach effect which powered the wormhole generator. The Mach effect created the large negative mass often called exotic mass that opened a wormhole mouth and kept it open.
As the generator built up the necessary exotic mass the view out the front of the ship seemed to shimmer. A point of light, not too bright, emerged and grew directly ahead. The wormhole mouth looked more like a bubble in space when it had fully formed. It was the three-dimensional spacetime apparition of the multi-dimensional wormhole mouth. Around the bubble seemed to spin the stars as streaks, eventually, the innermost streaks formed a halo. Further out from the mouth the streaks formed shortened arcs until far away they became dots again. This was the gravitational lensing effect as the light from distant stars and galaxies behind the wormhole mouth was bent as it passed close to the mouth.
Aggie Prime started the ship toward the mouth. It drifted into the bubble and then was through. The navigational system found the ship to be twenty light-years from its last position. Aggie Prime opened a small wormhole and communicated the success back to the rest of the Aggie fleet. They were on their way.
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