Pulse: When Gravity Fails (Pulse Science Fiction Series Book 1)

by John Freitas

“Swollen,” Michael said. “Sprained. Stretch out your leg for me.”

  Roman extended his knee. Michael started gathering small sticks and pulled a section of cord from one of his pockets.

  “Why did you help me?” Roman asked.

  “What do you mean?” Michael took out a knife and cut off a section of cord before putting the knife away.

  “You did not know I would be helping you. You needed to avoid discovery,” Roman said, “Why risk it on me?”

  “My brother Carter saves people.” Michael braced the sticks around Roman’s ankle and wrapped the cord around them.

  “You trying to better up Brother Carter by saving a dirty Russian, Captain Michael.”

  Michael tied the cord off and tested the sticks. He continued wrapping the cord higher on the splints. “No, not trying to be better. Maybe just as good. He is a firefighter. He saves people every day. I thought maybe I should do it at least one day.”

  “I picked the right day to meet you then,” Roman said.

  “Why did you help me?” Michael asked.

  “You saved a dirty Russian in a smooshed tower, man. I owe you.”

  “No, but you still didn’t have to risk your freedom by running with me. Why are you sticking with me?”

  Roman looked away. “My mother is Jewish.”

  Michael stared at Roman for a moment. He went back to tending the ankle. “Are you trying to be better than your mother?”

  Roman laughed. “Not possible, man. Well, she was nice to our family. She could be mean to others. But still. We had trouble with people and she kept her secrets. She wanted democracy like in Israel or in America, but for Russia. She thought Russia was empty democracy. One thing on the outside, but nothing to it inside. She made my father lose his hair with all her talk. Our family got in trouble and I was sent out here. I was too unimportant to really punish, so I only got this half punishment.”

  “So, you helped me for democracy?” Michael asked.

  “I learned English and Yiddish because my mother loved what those countries had – America and modern Israel,” Roman said. “I learned English better. America is more flashy. I like the TV, man. When you helped me, it was like all the American hero men in the TV shows. Like all of the men your brother Carter is, right? It stopped being flashy for me and felt real – like something on the outside and the inside like my mother always wanted, but never got while she was alive. It is probably still a mistake to help you, Captain Michael, but that is why. This is all the fault of my Jewish mother and Brother Carter.”

  Michael laughed and tied off the end of the cord. “Okay, does that hurt?”

  “No, it is side to side that hurts.”

  “Let’s try to stand up,” Michael said and pulled Roman to his feet.

  He pressed down on his ankle. “Feels good. Brother Carter could have done no better if he were stranded in Russian wilderness.”

  Michael took Roman’s arm over his shoulder. “No wilderness hopefully. Just the big city of West Memphis. Let’s see if we can find a spot to hide.”

  “Oh, wow, Brother Carter lives in Elvis’s town. He has it better than you right now, Captain Michael.”

  Michael nodded. “Elvis was the other side of the river, but close enough. Yeah, he does have it better right now probably.”

  11

  Dr. Paulo Restrepo – Marlo-Pitts Observatory, Colombia

  Data was pouring into Dr. Restrepo’s e-mail and file server faster than he could organize it. It was as if he was the only one asking the questions and observers around the world were dying to tell someone. Paulo swallowed as he scanned through the images and partial reports. Maybe I’m the only one who is listening, he thought.

  The director spoke behind Paulo and startled him as Dr. Restrepo had forgotten he was even there. It had been so long since he had spoken as he stared over Paulo’s shoulder. “I’m suspending all other observations until further notice. You have all the hard drive space you need. Call me again when you know something.”

  Paulo answered. “I know we may be in serious trouble.”

  “I surmised that. I’m going to set up some calls. When you are ready to present to authorities, let me know.”

  Paulo did not look, but heard the director walking to the door. “Which authorities? Which governments?”

  “All of them, Doctor.” The director closed the door leaving Paulo alone with his thoughts and data.

  He opened a separate Internet connection to search details on the earthquake near where his daughter lived. She had assured him more than once that everything was fine. Paulo knew that it certainly was not okay on a cosmic scale and probably she was withholding details from him on a local scale too.

  As he scrolled through disconcerting pictures from Arkansas, he found details of other quake activity around the world that concerned him more. The patterns were more obvious when he had the data to tell him what to be looking for.

  In China, Russia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, the reports were of crushing G forces that were bringing down buildings and trees. Planes had been pushed down from the sky in what Paulo now knew to be an unprecedented gravitational anomaly.

  In Spain, West Africa, the United States, and Central America, reports of objects floating and weightlessness were filling the Internet.

  He scrolled through more examples. An observation post in Antarctica reported rare tidal waves striking the ice shelf. The waves appeared to be an accumulation of three separate ocean quakes. The smaller, but still deadly individual waves were reported in Chile, South Africa, and India.

  He turned back to his data. Paulo drummed his fingers. He started running his own calculation from the raw data of separate, global sources. A wave passing through the Earth’s crust itself could create quakes.

  “Pressing down as it pushing through China,” he said aloud. “Pulling up as it came out through my daughter’s living room?”

  He shook his head. The Earth rotates as it revolves. We would be in a different relative orientation and different sides would face the oncoming wave, if it has an extra-solar source which it must be.

  Paulo took a pencil and scribbled a separate calculation on a notebook as the computer ran more complex numbers for him. He figured how many relative kilometers the Earth would travel in orbit before the same side of the planet were facing the same relative point in space. He became more specific and drew stars outside his numbers as dots giving them initials for his rough star chart.

  “Eastern hemisphere,” he said. “Entry point … each time would be facing …” He slid the pencil point out to a dot marked AC.

  Paulo squinted. He pulled up the distortion images and traced his finger over the band of incorrect space representing the incoming gravitational waves. “Double stars,” he said as he looked along the edge of the distortion.

  He flipped back and forth between five images in a cycle. “Double stars … and missing stars.”

  He returned to his scribbled calculations and drew curved lines out from the dot marked AC like ripples on a pond. “We are rolling in and out of the passing ripples. This has to be more than a super nova though. Less than a quasar or the planet would be swept of life. Less than a micro blackhole or a primal particle or we would have super volcanoes and it would only happen once. Not a passing wormhole or our sun would collapse too.”

  He paused and tapped his pencil. Paulo tilted his head. He looked back at his Internet connection still on the story about the super tidal wave striking Antarctica. “Three separate quakes.”

  His eyes widened. Dr. Restrepo returned to his paper and drew a triangle between three dots. He drew ripples out from each one and marked X’s where they combined. He knew this was scratched speculation and not real numbers yet, but he was working on a theory from the moment – or the idea of a theory.

  He drew one last dark curve around each dot and drew lines pulling the curves together where they would meet for one combined tidal wave.

  Paulo swallowed and
switched the computer to a new calculation. He needed the details of the waves that had passed already, the available data on the three stars, and an exact magnitude of the final wave. That was a lot and he suspected his time was short.

  It was probably time to call the director to set up that call, but he had to be sure. If the final wave was going to be large enough to knock the Earth out of orbit or to cause the collapse of their own sun the way it had done to the previous stars, then it would just be cruel to tell people.

  “I’ll make the call, if there is hope we could survive,” he said. “If …”

  12

  Holden and Grant Grayson – Arkansas

  Holden stared out the window at the passing countryside. They had left Little Rock a while ago and were on open road again. Grant was playing with his blocks. Every time he dropped one, Holden reached down to retrieve it and gave it back to his brother before he had time to cry much.

  Uncle Carter and Mom had been laughing, sang along with the radio, and played twenty questions with Holden through Little Rock. Now they were back to talking in hushed tones. Carter had turned up the radio a little, but they weren’t singing along. A report about global earthquakes had come on and Carter quickly switched to a CD. They still weren’t singing along. They were quietly arguing the way that mom and dad used to do before they split.

  Holden decided they were probably talking about dad. He stared out the window.

  Leaves blew in the wind above the ground in a pattern that made sense and Holden sighed.

  Then, he saw the stick. He sat up to get a better look. It wasn’t exactly large, but it was too big to be carried by the wind. Holden squinted and watched it turn in the air.

  He whispered. “Playground magic.”

  The stick coiled and turned around on its self. It was too flexible. As its head lashed out angrily at the air, Holden realized it was a snake floating several feet above the ground. He shivered and looked away.

  Grant pointed out his window. “Look.”

  Crater and mom were still speaking in their secret tone and not paying attention to anything else.

  Holden sat up and looked where his brother pointed. A field of cows ate grass. One turned in a circle kicking its feet a few inches off the ground. If they hadn’t been looking right at it, the boys probably would have missed it the way the adults seemed to.

  Another cow jumped and bobbed higher in the air.

  Grant laughed and touched the window as he pointed. The spit from his finger being in his mouth smeared the glass over Holden’s view of the flying cow. Grant said, “Over the Moon.”

  Holden nodded, but stared in silence.

  “Don’t smear Carter’s windows, Baby,” Mom said.

  Holden looked forward to see if she saw it. She was back to talking with Carter. She saw the glass, but not the flying cow outside it.

  Grant dropped another block and it floated through the air to Holden’s side of the car. Grant stretched his arm out toward his older brother. “Hey. Mine.”

  Holden flicked the block with one finger and it sailed back to Grant’s side. Grant caught it. “Got it. Hey, Mom. Watch what we can do.”

  “Not right now, Honey. The adults are talking. Don’t interrupt.”

  Grant stuck out his bottom lip and released the block again. It floated out a few inches, but then dropped like normal to the floorboard again.

  Grant let out a long, shrill whine and reached for the floor as far as he could from his car seat. Holden leaned down and picked up the block before handing it back to Grant.

  Grant stared at the block and back at his brother. “Over the Moon?”

  Holden shook his head and put a finger over his lips.

  13

  Michael Strove and Roman Nikitin – Russia

  Michael moved back from the mouth of the cave farther back on the damp, muddy floor in the dark. The opening was covered, but not enough and the search parties were getting closer. Their pattern was meticulous and he couldn’t imagine them missing the hiding spot once they got close enough. If he tried to flee now though, they would be on him for sure.

  Michael had tried to sleep, but couldn’t stay out for more than a few minutes at a time. Pain and stress were robbing him of the ability and he knew it would catch up with him soon and at the worst moment.

  Roman’s eyes were open across from him.

  Michael fished out a protein bar from his pocket and broke it in half. Roman accepted the half he was offered. “Yum. The breakfast of an American champion, no?”

  Michael took a bite and unlatched the canteen from his belt. “You need to stay off the Internet, Roman.”

  “I have for years now,” he said between bites.

  Michael nodded. “So your family got you into this trouble?”

  Roman shrugged. “Not so bad a place until the invisible tiger started crushing towers with me inside.”

  Michael smiled. “It would be a beautiful place if the Russian army wasn’t hunting me and the trees would stop falling down on us.”

  Michael offered Roman the canteen, but Roman waved him off. Michael knew Roman needed to drink, but he did not have the energy to try to force him, so Michael just took another swallow for himself.

  Roman said, “You know family names are new in Russia?”

  Michael narrowed his eyes. He thought this was the opening for a joke, but Roman wasn’t smiling. Michael said, “You didn’t used to have a last name?”

  “Less than a hundred years,” Roman said. “Most families made them up during the census after the czars and the communists. Russia needed them to track the people, so we made them. If not for the census, I would just be another Roman with no family name to be punished for. Most Russian names mean ‘belongs to.’ So, we all belong to someone and all the trouble that family brings.”

  Michael nodded. “I guess that is true of all families.”

  “Does Captain Michael and Brother Carter come with trouble?”

  “Sometimes.” Michael smiled. “Our father was a religious man, a part time preacher.”

  “He would have liked my mother, no?”

  Michael nodded. “Probably. It was a strict house. Lots of demands. Carter and I spent a lot of time trying to do better than the other so that our dad would ride the other about doing better. It made us competitive for our parents’ approval.”

  “That is how most brothers work, I think.” Roman smiled and finished his power bar.

  “I love him, but we both cast shadows that make life hard for the other one. It made things tense sometimes. It made it hard for people outside our families to love us, I think. Neither of us is married or has kids. I think that made our parents sad while they were still around. Just another time we disappointed them. We spend a lot of our lives chasing something, but what exactly, I don’t know.”

  Roman pointed at the entrance of the cave. “Now you are being chased.”

  “True.”

  “So Captain Michael becomes US Airforce fighter pilot and Brother Carter becomes American hero firefighter and that is not good enough for either one of you to think you made it?”

  “That about sums is up, Roman.”

  Roman nodded. “I’m in exile for my mother’s dreams of a better Russia. You and Brother Carter exile yourselves when you already live in an awesome democracy.”

  “It sounds bad when you say it like that.”

  Roman laughed. “Don’t pay attention to me. I learned all my English from movies on the Internet.”

  An explosion outside vibrated the ground under them. They looked at each other and crawled to the mouth of the cave together. Smoke rose up, but then raced back down and crawled along the ground. Soldiers collapsed and lay on their bellies about a quarter mile away.

  “We need to go for the station now,” Roman said.

  “The sun is still up,” Michael said.

  Roman pointed. “The invisible tiger is over there, but not here. We need to move now while they are held down.”

/>   “The gravity might travel over us here. It has happened the other times.”

  “It might not,” Roman said. “We should go now. Trust me.”

  Michael looked at Roman and nodded. He looped Roman’s arm over his shoulder and they limped out of the cover of the cave together.

  14

  Dr. Paulo Restrepo – Colombia

  He held his cellphone out at arm’s length so he could see it as the woman dabbed make-up on his cheeks. “I’m announcing a global disaster. Why does it matter if I have shine on my nose?”

  She said, “You will be seen all over the world in a few minutes.”

  “Still doesn’t answer my question.”

  She continued her work without responding.

  The lights flared on bright and he blinked against the glare. Someone rolled a video monitor showing a star chart into Paulo’s line of sight. Someone put a clicker on the arm of his chair.

  He held his phone out in the light. He had a signal, but it was weak. He pulled up the number and selected it before bringing the phone to his ear.

  “Jenny … no, stop talking a moment. I need to talk quickly. Are you near a television? … Yes, turn it on … Now. It doesn’t matter which one … Is that firefighter boy with you … I’m not making fun. Is he? … Okay good. Stay in your house. Listen to the broadcast and do everything I tell you … I don’t have time to explain now … Do you have it on? … Jenny? Jenny, are you there?”

  He held the phone out and cursed. Paulo scrolled to the number again. Someone took the phone from his hand and disappeared out of the light. The make-up artist vanished too. Someone put the clicker in his hand.

  A voice from out of the darkness said, “You’ll be able to hear the others through your earpiece. The red light will come on in a moment. Do not start until we say though. The others will talk first. I’ll count you in and point when you are to begin. Okay?”

  Paulo nodded and looked at the star chart on his screen. Green spots danced in his vision from the bright studio lights. He could not remember what he was supposed to say.