By early afternoon they had come out of the lower woods and onto the rolling foothills they had seen from the cliff. The grass was waist high on either side of the track they travelled. Fields of tiny wildflowers clustered in white, yellow and purple patches as bees busily tried to visit each one. Up ahead they could see a small set of buildings standing alongside a low, bluish green tube lying on the ground. The tube stretched from forever on their left and ran right between the buildings ahead of them. It continued out the other side of the tiny settlement for a ways to their right then made a turn and ran off into the distance until it was lost in the shimmering waves of the horizon.
As they drew closer Tressa could see the little village consisted of about ten buildings clustered around a circular structure with a stubby power umbrella projector sticking out of the roof. They all felt the tingle of entering a weak area of power and Fergus drove up to one of the closest buildings marked ‘Top Peake #2’ and hit a button on the dash of the wagon. A set of doors noisily clanked and creaked open and he drove inside. As the doors closed an overhead light came on and shed weak light around the barnlike structure. The only other thing in sight was another electric wagon from Top Peake. Fergus pointed to it and said, “It’s an unwritten custom for an outgoing group to check on the truck of the incoming group. It’s always nice to come home and find the batteries charged and supplies ready for the trip home.”
After the trio unloaded their wagon they prepared the other wagon with water and food and double checked the batteries. A couple of them were low and needed to be hooked up to the solar array on the roof, but Fergus was sure by the time the incoming group arrived it would be fully charged. Mason stood up and wiped the sweat off his forehead with a rag and said, “I can see why this makes sense. Who would want to be this close to home and have to wrestle with all this stuff after being gone so long?”
“See, I knew you were a smart one, Mason,” quipped Fergus.
Once these chores were completed Fergus led the kids out the front door and pulled open a small cover near the door opening. Inside was a keypad with a red and green light above it. After pressing a few buttons the red light came on indicating the building was locked and Fergus led the group across the dusty street toward the larger, circular building. A stenciled sign above the arched doorway proclaimed FLATLAND STATION in faded red lettering. More recently, someone with a sense of humor and written below it “If you can read this you probably want to leave…” Mason pointed out the graffiti and chuckled. Tressa just shook her head at what some people thought was funny.
Inside Fergus dropped his pack on an empty bench. Actually, it was the only bench. In fact, the bench was the only thing in the whole room. The remnants of some kind of paper schedule were held to the wall with tape that had long ago yellowed and curled. The most noticeable difference in this building from the others they’d seen was the lack of a rear wall. A bright, electric blue line traced the opening that led into the tube area. It went up one side and across the top of the opening then down the other side to the floor.
Fergus pointed out a wide area inside the tube and informed them this was the loading area for a Magno-Bus which would be how they would get to New Omaha. “The bus is powered through a low level energy contained in the walls of the tube and it floats above magnetized tracks at the bottom of the tube,” he instructed them. “During the Technology Age this tube line was used for high-speed travel across what was the upper mid-west of the United States of America. The tube is actually made of harnessed and restrained energy.” Fergus demonstrated his point by walking over and pushing his hand through the wall of the tube and withdrew it without harm.
“After the Incidents there were very few people left and then resources became more and more scarce. The country ended up divided by all the different groups trying to survive. That’s when our people went into the mountains and established Top Peake.
The remaining groups sometimes worked together and other times squabbled over borders, crops and power. We stayed out of those problems, and managed to maintain trading relationships with most of the low-land groups. The founders figured they would be in Top Peake for a generation or so and then return to the low-lands. Instead we found it easier to remain there. To keep ourselves informed of events we started sending out the Storytellers to bring us back news from around the world. Since our power umbrella has never run out there has never been a reason to leave. So here we are like your ancestors over 300 years ago...waiting on a bus.”
The travelling trio took turns sitting on the bench, walking around the station and kicking a neglected rock against the wall. Mason said, “I’d like to add to the sign on the front of the building that ‘…if you can read this you’re probably bored to death!’” Tressa and Fergus both laughed out loud.
Tressa walked past Fergus and out into the loading area. She looked up at the sky and it had a deeper blue than earlier. The tube colored everything she could see with a bluish haze. She did notice storm clouds on the horizon and they were moving fast toward the station. More quickly than she would have thought possible the temperature dropped and the wind picked up outside the station. Dust swirled in eddies up and over the tube and lightning was racing toward them at breakneck speed. Without warning the clouds opened up and rain poured down.
Tressa was mesmerized at the rain popping and crackling as it made contact with the top of the tube. She could see the water run off the tube and down the sides. It was perfectly dry inside even though rainwater was overflowing from every low spot in the fields around the station. Water was sluicing off the roof of the station and running down a gully between the buildings formed by previous storm water. Fergus came up behind her and said, “I’ve always thought that was one of the neatest things I’ve ever seen. The power tube keeps the rain and snow from blocking the track.” Tressa agreed and asked, “If the power tube can keep the rain off us why don’t we set up our umbrella at home to do that, too? Then we wouldn’t have to worry about getting wet in the summer or shoveling snow in the winter.” She felt foolish as Mason answered, “We need rain for plants and crops. And the snow helps to refill the lakes and rivers we use to fill the household cisterns.” As she walked off she managed to mumble, “Well, it’s still really cool.”
The rain continued for two hours before letting up into a steady drizzle. The sound of the rainwater running off the tube covered the approach of the bus arriving and caught all three travelers napping against various piles of bags and backpacks. The bus conductor beeped the horn twice and as Tressa jolted awake she hit her head on the bottom of the bench where she had sprawled out on the floor. Rubbing a small bump on her head she helped by grabbing some luggage and carrying it out to Mason who was loading it into an open storage trailer attached to the back of the bus. He grunted and heaved and eventually got it all settled and secured.
The conductor came back from the restroom with a contented look on his face. “Long trip between stations,” he said to Fergus, and, as he passed by, patted him on the arm and then hopped up into the bus. Fergus looked at his arm and grumbled, “Hope he remembered to wash after.” The conductor was a tall, skinny man with rough hands that indicated they had spent a lot of time figuring out fixes and repairs on technology that no one wanted to spend resources on to update. In a voice that said he had long ago gotten over the novelty he croaked, “All Aboard!” The little bus gave a shudder and started to move forward with a little back and forth swaying motion. Tressa and Mason noticed a low hum as the power from the tube was absorbed and transferred into forward momentum. Fergus was asleep again within ten minutes of leaving the station, obviously accustomed to this kind of travel.
Tessa found a fairly comfortable but worn out seat to herself in the row behind Fergus and in front of Mason. She sat down and wanted to be interested in the countryside but it was so vast and flat she couldn’t see how they would make any progress. Eventually she nestled down against her pack and lazily drifted off thinking perhaps Fergus knew
a good idea when he saw it.
Mason was restless after sitting around the station all day and went forward to talk to the conductor. He asked, “Sir, can you tell me a little about how this works?”
“Sure, as long as you call me Mick and not ‘sir’” said the conductor. “I only have riders on this part of the track about three or four times a year so it’s nice to have someone to talk to. Well, a long time ago I would’ve been a bus ‘driver’ but since this thing can’t go no way but straight ahead I’m pretty much just a ‘rider’ same as you. I do have to make some small fixes here and there to keep this old girl going, and when she behaves we can move right along. The reversed magnets help keep us afloat and the power from the tube is used to make us go forward.”
He stopped and cranked his long arm up around behind his back and scratched a spot that Mason thought was the exact center of his back.
“Think about the magnets you played with as a kid. Line them up one way and they stick together. Turn them over the other way and they repel each other. It’s basically the same thing here. The track we ride over is all one polarity. The bottom of the bus is the same polarity. That means each one wants to repel the other. That’s the part what keeps us up.
Moving forward is another matter altogether and the one that keeps me busy. There’s a small apparatus on the bottom of the bus that does two things. It neutralizes the magnetic charge of the rail directly under it and changes a small section on the bottom of the bus in front of it to the opposite charge. That causes an attraction and the bus and rail want to meet in that one spot. So the bus slides forward and tries to meet the part it finds attractive. Not too pretty, but attractive.” Mick jabbed Mason in the ribs. “That’s a little conductor humor – feel free to use it if you want.” Mason was quite sure he wouldn’t find a reason to use it. “Where was I? Oh yeah, but just before they get into balance the apparatus turns that piece back to the same polarity and starts the process one more section ahead. It happens terrifically fast and over and over again. What keeps me hopping is when the rail and the bus don’t work together. In other words, for us to get along I’ve got to make the bus and rail get along so they don’t get along. See what I mean?”
“Sort of, but why not have the whole thing run on batteries and get rid of the tube? That’s how our trolleys work at home,” asked Mason. “Why then, young man, you’d get wet when it rained!” joked, the conductor. “Actually, you need a whole lot of batteries to go as far and as fast as I do and their weight would eventually cancel out their worth. This set up relies on a low level power umbrella with a steady power supply. Of course, it has to run just right or else the two magnets would just balance each other out and you wouldn’t get anywhere fast. In fact, you just wouldn’t get anywhere. Nope. Stuck is where you’d be. And I’d be out of a job.”
Mason wandered back to his seat unsure if he had learned anything or not. Though he was pretty sure he had learned that spending too much time on the Magno-Bus alone may not be good for your brain.
Chapter 8
A few hours later, as Tressa’s stomach started growling, the bus finally pulled into the next station. Mick turned around and evidently decided to reach far back into his training at the conductor academy and shouted into a microphone next to his seat “NEXT STOP… FLATLEY! FLATLEY…NEXT STOP! As the ringing subsided in all their ears Fergus, Tressa and Mason gathered up their belongings and shuffled out into the FLATLEY station. Tressa yelled, “Did any of the windows get blown out of the bus by that announcement?”
Mason shouted back, “WHAT?”
“Never mind.” She smiled.
“You get used to it once you know it is coming” Fergus chuckled. “Welcome to Flatley! Exactly twice the size of Flatland with exactly the same amount of ambiance.”
About that time Mick came over to Fergus and told the group that the bus and rail weren’t getting along all that great and he’d probably have to get them seeing his boot to their backside so they’d see eye to eye with each other in the morning. “May as well get a couple rooms at the Flatley Hotel if they have space. Things here should be perfect as a square root by the morning.” He told the trio.
“Yes, we’ll rush right over to beat the crowd to the hotel,” Fergus replied as he looked around the empty station, but the conductor had already marched off. He was on a mission and perhaps needed some obscure part.
“This would be a good opportunity for you two to practice in front of an audience that doesn’t know you. That’s the best way to get a true reading of how well you’re doing.”
Mason asked, “How do you think they’ll react?”
“If they like you they’ll clap, if they don’t they’ll boo you and, if they really don’t like you, they’ll throw stuff. Try not to have them do that.” Fergus said.
As near as Tressa could tell in the dark the town of Flatley did consist of twice the number of buildings as Flatland. As they crossed the damp street she saw the largest building in town lit up with warm light spilling out and reflecting off the drizzle in the air. Someone had spent way too much money on a powered sign that read ‘Flatley Hotel…the best for miles around!’ “That slogan doesn’t make me feel any better,” Mason muttered as they entered the lobby.
Predictably, the Flatley Hotel had two rooms available for Fergus and the young storytellers. The innkeeper was a round, little sweaty man who acted like he had more things to do than he had hands or minutes on the clock. As he turned around to take some old fashioned keys off a peg board they realized that they had their choice of all but two of the rooms. The proprietor spoke to Fergus and said, “We’ll get a pretty good crowd in tonight with you all here. We always like to have Top Peakeinese stay and tell a few stories if they wish.”
“Yes, uhm, it’s Peakians, and my young charges would like to practice if you think we’ll have a decent crowd.”
“I think I can arrange that. Big Mary and Little Jim are around and of course, Old Herbert and Young Matthew are staying here, too. If I remember right, Tall Tom and Short Sal had planned on eating here, too. Should be pretty full for you.”
Tressa whispered to Mason, “What’s with all the names?”
He whispered back, “I guess there’s only a few of them so they see each other all the time. Using nicknames might just keep it from being too boring. Either that or they’re all a little nuts.”
Tressa had the last room on the right upstairs and Fergus and Mason shared the room across the hall. It wasn’t much bigger than her room at the Institute but she was happy to trade sleeping in the back of the wagon for a bed with fairly clean sheets. She dropped off her pack and lay on the bed for a while as she considered which story she would tell tonight. Once she had decided she quickly cleaned up before heading downstairs to dinner.
The Dining room at the Flatley Hotel was a long room with a high ceiling. Large ceiling fans lazily stirred the air above two sturdy tables at one end. Each was large enough to seat about 10 people and built out of stout wood that looked like it had been there for several generations of Flatley’s citizens. Brightly colored pictures of seascapes, woodlands, beaches and mountains covered the walls.
The other end of the room had a wide stone fireplace with windows on each side. There was no need for a fire at this time of year and someone had placed a decorative display of local wildflowers in the hearth to soften the feel of the room.
Tressa happily sat down on the bench next to Mason where he had saved a seat for her. Dinner consisted of roasted chicken and some local greens for a salad. Most of the talk at the table centered on the regional power plant being blown up by saboteurs. Without Perpetual Power constantly providing steady power for the umbrellas in the larger towns, they would have to rely on rechargeable power cubes. Evidently, this was the second bombing of a power plant in the past year and the damage to both was so bad that the technology wasn’t repairable. Both those plants had been permanently shut down. The security force for Perpetual Power was being increased at the othe
r ten power plants in case they were targeted by whoever was doing this. If all twelve plants were destroyed even the power cubes couldn’t be recharged and eventually the whole world would go dark. Of course, there was always solar power but the Technology Age research had been put into clean efficient nuclear power rather than solar power. It was still pretty good for things like recharging an electric wagon but not near strong enough to run a town’s power umbrella.
Because their umbrella had never run out Tressa wasn’t as worried as she might have been. “As long as things are okay at home,” she thought to herself. Tressa hadn’t realized how hungry she was and try as she might to fill up, her stomach was doing flip flops. She tried to get her nerve up as she prepared to speak in front of these strangers. “What story are you going to tell?” she whispered to Mason. “Captain Holly in the Orient” he replied. “What about you?”
Tressa said “I like The Fox and the Hare. Out here on the flat, open plain they may enjoy something from the woods. Look, there’s even a painting on the wall of a woodland scene.”
The Dining room started to fill up as word spread that some Storytellers had arrived. Dinner drew to a close and coffees were poured for those that wanted them. Fergus stood up, walked in front of the fireplace and with a flourish and wave made a short bow to the assembled crowd.
“Ladies and Gentlemen of this delightful community of Flatley, I am Fergus Mumfree of Top Peake.” Waiting for some recognition, Fergus stood there with his mouth open for a moment. When he realized no one had ever heard of him he managed to stutter, “Lend me your ears for a few moments and, uh… you will be entertained by some of the newest and perhaps brightest storytellers of Top Peake.” Fergus paused for a moment expecting some applause. Since no one moved he cleared his throat, fidgeted with his hands and said, “Er, well, they would like to practice and maybe you haven’t heard these ones before…so…here’s Mason Rockwell.” Fergus slumped over to the table and sat down heavily on the bench almost bouncing Tressa up into the air.
Perpetual Power Page 5