Universal Mass

by Coleinger, Ronnie

  Britney was giggling over the first story, but Daniel was not so certain he wanted to laugh. It seemed to him that the cure to the man’s ailment, in all reality, was worse than the ailment itself. Both the ailment and the cure could prove fatal. The man’s fate seemed doomed.

  As the two lovers lay cuddled together, the male reader read a short statement about the next author and then began his reading of the second flash fiction story.

  A Rock From the Main Belt

  As James stood looking out his living room window at a beautiful super moon, he realized that a woman was crawling on her hands and knees across his front yard towards his front porch. The woman fell on her face twice as she crawled, but each time rose up on her hands and continued towards the house where she most likely hoped to get some help. James turned on his porch light so he could get a better look at the woman, not necessarily wanting to open his front door if the woman was simply drunk or high on drugs.

  The woman managed to climb up onto the porch, but collapsed before she could ring the doorbell or knock. James opened his door to check on the woman. When he stepped out onto the porch and kneeled down beside her, it was then that he realized that the woman’s blue shirt was drenched in fresh blood. He reached down to check her pulse, but realized he could see her breathing.

  James stepped back into his house and picked up his cell phone. When he dialed 911 and the dispatcher answered, he explained that the woman on his porch was seriously injured, but he explained to the dispatcher that he could not tell what had caused the woman’s injuries. The dispatcher continued to ask questions and James was getting angry with her for not sending an ambulance instead of asking questions that he had no answers. Finally, he heard sirens coming down his road. He quickly stepped out onto the road to flag down the ambulance driver. When the ambulance stopped and the two EMT’s headed for his porch to help the injured woman, James took a moment to tell the dispatcher he was sorry for yelling at her, since he know realized that she had dispatched the ambulance when he first gave her his address.

  As the medics hooked up heart monitors and took the woman’s vitals, they discovered she had a small wound on her neck just above her clavicle. The wound looked to be a gunshot wound or possibly a stiletto puncture. The medics contacted the nearby hospital and then loaded the woman onto a stretcher. When she was inside the ambulance, a firefighter jumped into the driver’s seat and contacted dispatch. He explained that he would be driving the ambulance so the two paramedics could attend to the injured woman.

  When the woman arrived in the emergency room, the doctor was puzzled over the wound in her neck so he ordered an x-ray of her chest. When the x-rays arrived on the doctor’s computer screen, he sent them to a larger monitor so he could get a better look. The x-rays showed that the woman had an object embedded in her chest cavity. The object was just below and behind her heart. The doctor realized that the object had to have passed within a quarter inch of the woman’s heart. At that point, he decided that he should contact the surgeon and get his opinion.

  Neither the surgeon, nor any of the other staff could figure out what the object was that had imbedded itself in the woman’s chest cavity. The surgeon realized that the projectile had cauterized the wound as it passed into her body. The object had to have been extremely hot when it struck her. The surgeon had only one way to determine the identity of the object. He would have to remove it surgically so he could hold it in his hands.

  Within an hour’s time, the woman was lying on the operating table. The surgeon stood beside his patient, rolling the tiny object he had just removed between his thumb and fingers. The object looked like a small stone, but the doctor had no idea how a stone could have entered the woman’s body unless some force propelled it, a force such as a gun or slingshot. The surgeon placed the object in a glass jar and sent it off with a runner to the lab for analysis. Once the surgeon closed up the wounds on the woman’s chest, he sent her off to recovery. She would be just fine after a few days rest in the hospital.

  Two days later the surgeon opened his email and discovered a copy of the test results for the object he had removed from his patient. As he read the results, he realized that the manager of the laboratory had called in a professor from a local university to examine the object. The lab manager had examined the object and the test results of its composition and decided that the object could be a meteorite. The surgeon laughed aloud as he read the email, but soon decided that the lab manager might be right. His observations during the surgery corresponded to a very hot metal object falling straight down and penetrating the woman’s chest cavity. The spectroscopic results verified that the object was of a material unknown on planet Earth and the professor from the university verified that the object was consistent with a meteorite.

  The surgeon pressed the print button on his computer and sent a copy of the report to the printer. He needed to speak to his patient anyways, so he took the printed copy with him. He was certain she would want a copy to show her friends and family. The chance of a meteorite striking a person while out on an evening walk was quite unlikely, yet that very thing had happened and she had lived to tell the story.

  When Britney’s eyes popped open, Daniel was sound asleep and there was a steady hissing noise emanating from the speakers on the radio. The radio station had long ago gone off the air for the night. She giggled over falling asleep and then reached over and turned off the radio. Her movements woke Daniel and he rolled over on his side with his back towards her. Britney giggled again and said, “Good night lover boy. Don’t think for one minute that I have forgotten your promise to make love to me. I am still horny.” Daniel did not hear her words; he simply rolled over again, this time onto his stomach. Britney turned out the light and rolled over onto her back. She smiled when her fingers found the spot that her husband normally found quite exciting. She struggled to keep the sounds of her heavy breathing under control. Tonight, Daniel seemed more interested in the radio program than making love to his wife. Britney would accept his apologies in the morning while she sat atop his hips and reminded him not to take her needs for granted in the future.

  Chapter 21 – A Slow Recovery for Humans

  When the geneticists’ and biophysicists’ of planet Earth began investigating the purported increase in the sizes of many children entering public schools around the world, they made a remarkable discovery.

  The animal resizing of planet Earth took place around one hundred and sixty five years earlier and no further resizing events had taken place. However, within the last five or six years, it seemed that the size of many species, including some humans had increased by twenty percent. Not all animals increased in size, only those born from the pairing of a third generation (three generations past the resizing event) male and a third generation female. For some species, the magic number was twelve generations or even more, but humans revolved around the third generation.

  The scientists soon discovered that when these children were first born, they appeared to be proportionally sized to their parents, but after a few months, the child would begin to grow larger than a child not of a third generation conception. Within a year, the child would be twenty percent larger than expected. These oversized children were soon nicknamed, Thirdies.

  After a few more years, the scientists’ realized another surprising fact. Animals such as rabbits that reproduced more often than humans, grew the expected twenty percent body mass, however, each succeeding generation added another twenty percent body size. For many of these animals, a full five generations past the original resizing event, body mass returned to the level that existed before the original resizing. Since animals were all reaching the five-generation benchmark at different intervals, the problem of predators returning to full size before their prey became a real concern, most notably for humans. Often times, small sized humans’ encountered full sized wolves, bears, rattle snakes and other dangerous creatures; often times the consequences were not very pleasant.

  Hu
mans on planet Earth were once again struggling to survive. They had lived on the planet for thousands of years as full size beings and then suddenly, their lives turned upside down and they shrunk down to the size of rodents. Later on, as more and more humans grew larger, the Thirties discovered they could not physically live or work in the same structures as their smaller counterparts. They also discovered that the planet’s infrastructure that once supported full sized humans was now structurally inadequate. Construction of many of the buildings occurred during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: Over the century or so since the resizing, much of the infrastructure had deteriorated. Buildings, highways, bridges and most high-rise buildings were now in ruin and rebuilding them would be a monumental task. The entire human population of the world had resigned themselves to the fact that they would remain tiny for all eternity, but now, they would have to begin rebuilding the machines and buildings that lay in a state of decay. Coupled with the coming of another major ice age, how could the human population survive? The task seemed daunting.

  Chapter 22 – The Cities of Modern Day Man

  By the third century after resizing (200 AR), the planet wide ice age had made life on the surface of planet Earth quite difficult at best. Earth’s human population had long ago discovered that living below ground was the most logical solution to their survival. Below ground, living together in communes, growing food, providing safe drinking water and long-term sanitation was much easier.

  Life outside of the major cities was almost impossible. Within the cities, the masses could work together to accomplish the chores required to live within the hostile environment the ice age had created. The ability to drill for crude oil or natural gas through hundreds of feet of frozen earth was beyond human capabilities in the frigid cold. Wind chill factors of one hundred degrees below zero were the norm. The ice and snow had buried millions upon millions of acres of forests around the planet, but humans soon discovered ways to harvest the wood to fuel the steam engines that provided heat and electricity for the communes. The engineers in many parts of the world had begun mining coal from below the surface. With the massive coal deposits and the dead wood from the buried forests, the steam engines would continue to function for the next thousand years or so. One must also remember that the human population of planet Earth was now only ten percent of the level before the resizing. Life on the planet was much too difficult for those unaccustomed to working long hours in the cold. Those that had refused to move into the cities communes soon perished from nature’s wrath. Humans had choices. They could move to countries close to the equator and deal with the disease, insects and horrible living conditions or learn to live with the cold climate of the northern continents.

  Steam powered vertical boring machines began appearing in many major cities. The engineers working for an organization known as, The World Order Constructors created the original master plans for the boring machines. This engineering organization provided assistance to all the world governments. They not only created engineering designs, but they also provided much of the manpower to create structurally sound and energy efficient housing and workplace environments around the planet. Since single-family residences were no longer allowed to be built anywhere on the planet, underground communes consisting of one hundred or more people became the norm.

  The engineers constructed the underground communes by boring two hundred foot deep holes with a diameter of twenty meters (sixty feet). Then they lowered fourteen feet tall inner rings into the holes to form living or working quarters. The engineers even created complete factories with this new design. They could outfit each inner ring with whatever components fit the occupants’ needs. The construction companies used the concrete rubble from parking lots and highways to fill in around the tubes. They also recycled the steel and concrete from the decaying buildings and large infrastructure on the surface of the planet to create the rings.

  The workers had to park each above ground maintenance vehicle in an underground heated area when not in use. The bitter cold temperatures would turn the fuel into a thick jell and solidify the lubricating oils in the vehicles. A vehicle stranded outdoors for even a few hours would require days of hard work before it could return to service.

  Within a year’s time, every major city around the world had followed the design drawings and now had their own vertical boring machines. At certain times of the year, life on the surface of the planet was nearly impossible and the boring machines made easy work of creating buildings below ground where humans could live in comfort and safety.

  The vertical boring machines were a true engineering marvel. Each consisted of a small steam engine that the engineers would place in a concrete encased dome structure beside where they planned to dig the two hundred foot deep vertical shaft. The engine would provide the steam to run the boring machine and then remain with the new vertical structure to provide electricity and heat for the commune, factory, or office complex. The engineers built each boring machine below ground and then drove them to the construction location.

  Within each vertical structure, the engineers built huge freight elevators in the center of each shaft, which connected to the upper level horizontal tubes and people mover belts that allowed easy access to all of the other vertical tubes within the city.

  Humans of all sizes were able to use the new vertical commune structures. The heat from the earth below surface kept the structures somewhat warm, much warmer than what the occupants on the planet’s surface would experience.

  The bottom level of each structure held the mechanical equipment. The next two levels up were growing rooms. The levels above were mostly for human habitation or workstations.

  ***

  One of the mining operation foremen came across a plowed road a few miles north of Hillsburg and they took the time to investigate. They soon discovered tractor tire tracks and places where humans had traveled along the edge of a thick cedar forest using snowshoes. When they put boots on the ground to investigate their discovery, to their amazement, they found people living in a mostly underground structure built into the side of the mountain, which the occupants called, the Mountain House. The underground structure was a working, sustainable, self-sufficient village of sorts. The residents were friendly, but they were unwilling to allow anyone from the outside to enter their home. They most certainly did not want to have a bunch of people swarming around their property, either just out to investigate or with some evil intent, like looting the place. The occupants made it well known that they were heavily armed and quite capable of defending their home. The miners soon moved on with a great story to tell their fellow miners over the evening meal.

  The following morning, two of the senior miners returned. When they knocked on the front door and introduced themselves to the young woman who came to the door. She kept her left hand behind the door as if she might be holding a pistol there. Standing behind her was a man holding a rifle. The miners explained about the new vertical housing in the city and told them that there was plenty of room to house them if they ever were in need. They discussed the availability of food and clean drinking water in the communes and offered their assistance to move them to the city if the clan should ever decide that living in the mountains was too difficult.

  When they finally returned to their tracked all-terrain vehicle, they felt good about their offer of assistance. They had no way to know if the clan that lived in the Mountain House were comfortable, had adequate food and fresh water, and if they were able to remain warm. The men were certain of one thing. At some future time, the clan would run out of food. The global winter had forced most of the food source animals to retreat towards the south as the heavy snow and extreme cold moved down from the artic towards the equator. The mining crews were all certain that the clan living in the Mountain House would soon move into the underground communes in one of the cities or they would cease to exist. What they did not know was that the underground Mountain House was fully self-contained as it had been f
or over two centuries.

  Chapter 23 – Better Times Ahead

  A sickening feeling overwhelmed Betsey as she walked along a well-traveled snow covered trail a few miles south of the cabin. She sat down and tried to regain her sense of balance. No matter how hard she tried to stand, she felt as if she was a rubber ball bouncing around the forest. She finally settled on her back against a large tree stump. When her brain began to comprehend what had just happened, she looked around at her surroundings. It was then that she realized she was getting cold. Her hands were freezing and she had a face full of wet cold snow. She found herself lying along the edge of the trail on top of three or four feet of snow. The mountain under her feet continued moving in short lurches, sometimes moving six inches at a time. Betsy had never felt a major earthquake before today, only small tremors. She turned her head and vomited alongside the trail, trying not to get anything on her clothing. She still had her wits about her and realized that a bear or wolf could easily follow her stench through the forest as she traveled back up to the cabin. The shaking continued in earnest for over two minutes, but then mostly subsided, only quivering occasionally under her feet. The sounds that emanated from the top of the mountain and the small rocks that fell from the sky around her warned her that the mountain was in turmoil.