Zero 'g' (9 page)

Seeing so much death
,
however, made her long once again to be with her family and to hold
them close. If this truly was the end of the world, then she wanted
to be with them. The problem was, without gravity, it would take
her forever to float her way home. The task might even be
impossible. If she had any hope at all of ever seeing her family
again, they needed to get the gravity back to Earth and fast. Who
knows what other catastrophes could befall them without gravity?
She certainly didn’t want to be around to find that out.

As Carly and the team began to see the devastation around
the world, she couldn’t help but imagine how all these people,
despite living in different countries, were all reacting in the
same way to the crisis.
No one
was out there alone. She saw numerous shots of people trying to
help the wounded and banding together. It warmed her heart to see
it. Humanity wasn’t lost, after all. When it came down to it,
people always wanted to help other people. That was what was most
important.

“
How very sad that it takes a crisis to bring people
together toward one common goal. I mean
, look at all of them—they are all working together.
It’s just amazing.”

The boys nodded.

“
Oh
, my
God.”

Both Henry and Linus looked over at
Carly in alarm. “What is it?” Henry asked.

“
Gosh, I just remembered something. It could be the key.”
Carly tried to
collect the
thoughts in her head before she said anything that would get their
hopes up.

“
What is it
, Carly? Is
it something that can help?”

“
There was one time that I was having lunch in the cafeteria
with a doctor friend of mine
who also works at NASA. We were discussing Particle
B.”

Henry spoke up
. “That
was the project my dad was working on.”

“
Yes, they had a team bringing the particle to
Earth. It was taking longer than
expected, I remember. They had to build the antigravity rocket and
then start the transportation process.”

“
You think this is
connected to Particle B?”

“
I don’t know. Maybe. I
remember that we overheard one of the scientists talking about
Particle B. He was one of the men on the team. He said something
strange. I didn’t understand it at the time.”

“
What did he
say?”

“
He was discussing the
importance of asteroids to the project.”

“
What?” exclaimed
Henry.

Chapter Eleven

Henry was looking at Carly in shock
, and she hoped she wasn’t about to get some bad news.
While she was working at NASA, it wasn’t unusual to overhear some
pretty crazy things. Sometimes both work and personal projects were
going on, and people were making discoveries on their own time. She
was surprised how much Henry seemed to know about the goings-on at
NASA. She wondered if this had more to do with the fact that he was
very perceptive or if he had uncovered some of the knowledge on his
own. The higher-ups would not be pleased to know that a
sixteen-year-old kid knew way more than he should about classified
NASA projects. She doubted that Jim Iverson was imparting all this
knowledge to Henry. That would be highly irregular and not very
smart. No, she had to assume that Henry was bright enough to
stumble upon these things himself.

She had heard so many stories at NASA that it was really
impossible to know which were real and which were pipe
dreams. Some of the stuff discussed
was really farfetched and likely the musings of someone whose ego
was getting too big for his or her body. She had spent a lot of
time laughing with Karina about just that. But was this just one of
such moments? Were the asteroids really a problem for all of
them?

“
Are you serious
,
Carly?” Henry asked. He looked alarmed, and she hoped she wasn’t
frightening them unnecessarily. Who was she really kidding, though?
The world was turned upside down.

“
Yeah
, of course. I
mean, I’ve heard a lot of stuff over the years. It’s kind of hard
not to. Do you guys know anything about the asteroids? Have you
heard anything similar to the discussion I overheard?”

“
Well
, I’m not exactly
sure if it’s the same, but my dad explained some basic information
to me about them. But I never would have thought it had anything to
do with this. That’s insane.”

“
Maybe not.” Carly wished she
had paid more attention to the scientist who had brought up
the topic of asteroids. She just hadn’t believed there was anything
to worry about. Who would have anticipated that Earth would lose
its gravity? Although the world had in fact changed a lot, while
she was mopping the floor at work, she had never anticipated it
ending. That was how she felt when she heard about the asteroids.
That it was just too impossible and terrifying to even warrant
thinking about.

Henry looked deep in thought. When he looked back up at
Carly
, he spoke. “The
scientists at NASA don’t know anything about the makeup of the
asteroids. That’s what I understood from my father, anyway. They
don’t have a whole lot of information themselves. Maybe that was
the problem; they don’t know what they are dealing with. The makeup
is unclear, but they do believe that these asteroids are heavier
than normal asteroids of that size. They believe that these
asteroids are of totally different material, which makes the
asteroids heaver and gives them more mass. But they were still
researching the issue when Earth lost its gravity.”

Carly suddenly felt really sick. “Oh
, God. What are we in for here?” Things were bad,
really bad, and it was hard not to think about her family. She just
had to believe that they were going to be all right.

“
These are scary times indeed
,” Linus added.

Carly glanced at the ceiling where little David appeared to
be still sleeping. She wondered if she should check on him to make
sure he wasn’t dead. She squinted at him and thought she could see
his chest moving with each breath he took. The poor little thing.
She was sure that the shock of everything going on around them had
exhausted the boy. It seemed as if he had retreated into himself.
It worried her
, but there was
nothing she could do about it quite then. She had to focus on the
task at hand because time was of the essence. David would be all
right for the time being. The best way she could help him was to
figure out the problem and get a solution in place.

“
Could the outages have been caused by an asteroid
impact?”
she asked.

Henry scratched his head. “No, there’s no way. If that were
the case
, we would all be dead
right now.”

Carly’s eyebrows rose as the thoughts
ran through her mind.

Chapter Twelve

Carly was terrified.
Earth had lost its gravity, and there was a strong
possibility that they were going to have problems with asteroids.
It sickened her that they had all allowed the world to become a
shambles. She just hoped that it wasn’t too late to save the world
and the people in it. So many deaths had already happened, and they
needed to put an end to the problem before the population decreased
anymore. She wondered where the rest of the scientists were from
NASA. Someone had to do something, or they were all doomed. How
amazing would it be to have a collective group of scientists
working on the problems? Instead, it was just the three of them.
And none of them had any real knowledge of what had gone down
behind the scenes at NASA. She hoped that Iverson was at least
still in the NASA building somewhere. He could be the key to
everything, since he had been working on Particle B. He might know
exactly what had happened and whether or not it could be
fixed.

As
Carly thought about
the loss of gravity, an idea started forming in her brain. For
years, research teams and scientists had scoured Earth for new ways
of creating energy to sustain Earth’s gravity and to sustain the
massive amounts of technology people used these days. Was it
possible that the very act of saving the planet was what was
causing it to fall apart? Had they just done too much at that
point? Earth was now having a hard time surviving with everything
they had taken over the years.

“
OK
, so one quick
question to you guys: what is the gravity of the moon and
Jupiter?”

Linus spoke up
. “The
moon has 16.6 percent of Earth’s actual gravity, while Jupiter has
2.4 times the Earth’s actual gravity. Why do you ask?”

“
Hmm. OK
, but according
to Newton’s law of universal gravitation, the larger an object’s
mass, the more gravity it has, right? Maybe that’s the key right
there. The main problem is that Earth isn’t as heavy as it once
was.”

“
OK
, Carly, so what are
you saying here?” Linus asked.

She was nodding
, still
lost in thought. “Well, I think I may know why Earth lost its
gravity.”

“
We’re all ears,” Henry
said. They watched her intently.

“
So
, my theory is
simple. It’s been right in front of our eyes the whole time. It
happened due to the mining of our natural resources over several
centuries; the continuation of global warming, which made the polar
ice caps melt; and dumping all resources into space. We overdid it,
basically. Because of this, Earth has lost a large amount of its
mass, and that is why Earth has almost zero gravity. As civilians,
we were stupid, and we took more than Earth could afford to give
us. It was pure and simple greed. And now, we are going to pay the
price for it.”

Henry and Linus both nodded their
heads in agreement. There wasn’t much else to be said. They were
all in a lot of trouble.

Chapter Thirteen

Carly and the boys sat cramped in the moon room that Linus
had built. It was truly a marvel
, and it was just another reason why Carly loved science so
much. Where else could you discover such marvelous things? In no
other profession was there the opportunity to be around great minds
and discover new possibilities. To truly search Earth and beyond
for more discoveries…It was enough to make Carly catch her breath.
She loved every aspect about it. Linus’s invention was no less
miraculous. He would go far, especially considering he was only a
kid. How much further would he go in life with such talents? That
is, if they all lived to see their futures. At the rate the world
was falling apart, there were no guarantees that any of them would
even see the next day. She looked around the small room, hoping
that the boys would in fact have a future.

The room was tight and painted blue like a deep night sky.
It had the illusion of stars all around
, which made her smile. There was still a kid in that
young mind, after all. She was still amazed that they were all
sitting instead of floating around. Her body ached all over from
the excessive use of muscles throughout the day. They needed rest
more than anything, but she didn’t think they had time for such
luxuries.

There was enough room for
only two of them due to the gravity exchange. Adding one
more would have offset the balance and had them all floating again
in no time. David had still been asleep on the ceiling, so she had
left him there. He was probably better off there not having to hear
the horrifying things they had to discuss in order to figure out
what to do next. She checked on him often, though; she didn’t want
him to wake and believe he was all alone. She couldn’t imagine what
it was like for a child to be separated from his family at a time
like this. She was thankful that Rose was at least with her mother,
someone she knew would protect her. The day had been traumatic
enough without the boy having to believe he was alone in the world.
She would protect him for as long as she could. She would make sure
that nothing happened to him. That was the most that she could
offer in such a crisis.

“
So
, how do we fix
this?” Linus asked. Carly looked to him for a moment, trying to
gather her thoughts. She was so thankful that she could catch her
breath for a moment and just think.

“
Well
, we know why.
Earth has lost its gravity, right? At least, we think so. So, I’m
thinking the only way to restore Earth’s natural gravity is to
increase the mass of Earth. Makes sense, right?” Carly said. She
waited to see if they would also come to the same
conclusion.

“
Yeah
, of course, it
makes sense. So, how do we do that? It’s not exactly going to be a
walk in the park. In fact, it may be impossible,” Henry said,
shrugging.

“
Yeah, I understand that it’s an extreme course of action.
But what other choice do we have? I have no idea if anyone else is
even doing anything to help. The scientists have disappeared for
the time being. Your dad is missing. We may be the only hope the
world has
, so we can’t exactly
just ignore it,” Carly said.