Post by Seth Kerin on Jun 29, 2007 14:39:48 GMT -5
Well, in an effort to get this board rollnig a little more, here's the first chapter of a Sci-Fi novel I'm writing. It's probably a little rough (no editting as yet) but I think it might be something real good. No title yet, but I'll work on that. Read on:
Silas Covre kissed his wife goodbye, as he always did. It was little more than a simple peck on the cheek, but it told Bev, without actually saying a word, that he loved her the same as when they had met ten years before at flight school. It told her that “all is quiet” – their personal code for “everything is fine, nothing much has changed, no news is good news.”
Silas didn’t look back as the door closed behind him. It was, after all, just an ordinary day. The sun was shining off the morning dew, the birds were chirping their first greetings of the day, and the neighbors – a nice retired couple – were out for their morning stroll. Silas gave them an acknowledging nod as he passed them by, and continued the short, brisk walk to the Port Authority.
He was always amazed, no matter how many times he made the three-quarter mile walk, that so much traffic in and out of New White Plains could happen so close to his quiet two bedroom ranch and yet he never heard a buzz. As he turned the corner, he could see the great Flex-Glas dome of the Port Authority, a building that could easily hold the rest of New White Plains within its translucent walls. Despite its size, the building was no eyesore. It blended in with the sky, reflected the trees and buildings that surrounded it, and somehow almost vanished unless one was looking right at it.
“A marvel of engineering,” he mumbled, using the words that the Port Authority had often used to describe the oft delayed and grossly over budget project. But as he neared the entrance tunnel, he found he could not disagree. Advances in technology usually came with an exponentially higher price tag.
Silas, briefcase firmly in hand, reached the entrance tunnel, one of many spoke like structures that emanated from the Port Authority into the various suburban neighborhoods that surrounded it, providing easy and secure access points. The tunnel had no door or turnstile or any other physical restraints. It was just a large clear tunnel, made of the same Flex-Glas material as the rest of the Port Authority, with a simple Safe-Crete sidewalk. Small benches dotted the length of the tunnel between the small gardens of year-round blooming wildflowers. The whole thing looked pleasant and inviting, and certainly not secure at all.
Silas knew that looks could be deceiving. Every bench and some flowers, if one were to believe the rumors, were rigged with all manner of sensory equipment. Simple cameras were used, but much more sophisticated scanners were employed as well. Rumor had it – Silas enjoyed listening to them, yet prided himself on not spreading them – that the P.A. used full body scanners, much like the old time CT scans, and that within three steps of entering the tunnel they could tell if you had any manner of weapon or foreign substance.
“A marvel of engineering,” he muttered again.
What Silas found more interesting, and far more unnerving, was that there were not even rumors about what happened to people who had some ill will toward the P.A. or other organization. There were those who had tried, that much was clear. The nightly newscast occasionally noted that so-and-so tried to sneak an explosive into the Port Authority, but they always stopped short of speculating what might have happened to the culprit. All that was ever stated, for certain, was “the criminal was stopped near the beginning of the entrance tunnel.”
There were never any witnesses. No one so much as suggested a possibility of what might have happened. The only thing that normal folks like Silas were fully confident of is that they were safe in the P.A.
Silas continued his walk through the tunnel, passing some people and being passed by others, yet he kept his gait steady and straight as always. He offered waves to folks coming from the opposite direction, the night shift leaving for their own suburban homes. He kept up his pace until he reached the inner edge of the Flex-Glas tunnel, bearing right toward an access ramp that was lined on either side by more flowers and grasses – the Port Authority building was often called The Greenhouse for just that reason. He walked up the ramp, taking the right fork when it split, heading toward his commuter transport.
The ramp flattened and widened, maintain a constant aesthetically pleasing flow, into a large boarding platform. There were nearly a hundred other workers like himself already there, and as if on cue, when he stepped onto the platform, the transport doors slid open and mumbling crowd started shuffling toward the half dozen cars.
Perfectly timed again, Silas thought, smirking. He had never much cared for waiting in lines, and he knew the transport would not leave while someone was still on the platform, so it stood to reason that he did not need to be there even a second ahead of schedule.
Silas was, as usual, the last aboard in car number six, netting him a standing room only place by the door. It was the perfect place, as far as he was concerned, for he had the best view of the morning commute – a view he never grew tired of, no matter how many times he saw it.
A pleasant tone sounded throughout the transport cars, and the doors slid closed, pressure sealing with a hissing noise. Silas stood directly in front of the door, looking through the Flex-Glas window, and though he was forty-five years old, he couldn’t help a boyish grin as the transports began moving forward. There were no jerks or bumps or jolts – it was as smooth a ride as one could get, almost like not moving at all, but it still reminded Silas of the roller coasters that he had always loved. Of course the new wave of coasters were faster, with more loops, corkscrews and so on, but to him nothing could beat the centuries old wooden coasters – the best of which was The Monster. A great deal of money had been put forward by private donors to keep the rickety old thing in working order, and once a year a lottery was run to see who would get to ride The Monster.
He remembered the feeling of opening the video message informing him that he had won the right to one of the coveted seats on the annual Monster ride. The speaker had given him all the details, but Silas had to play the message again later to get the important bits. He was far too stunned by the news to process the details. Bev of course had gone with him, though she wasn’t allowed to ride. She had watched with pride though – no envy, she never did like the roller coaster scene – as Silas lived his dream.
Three, two, one.
The first turn on the transports, the first shift that let them know they were moving at nearly five thousand miles per hour, swung them about as the tube curved from straight and horizontal to almost straight vertical. And like that they were free of the translucent launch tube and hurtling toward the upper reaches of the atmosphere.
Silas watched as the ground fell away beneath them at an unnerving speed, still with the grin and still with memories of the diving turns of the wooden roller coaster. As he did most every morning, he thought to himself that the best part of his job as Supervisor of Lunar Mine Safety was the morning commute.
Less than a minute later, they were free of the atmosphere and chugging their way through space toward the moon. It would not take long to get there, as they continued to accelerate, but other passengers were already engrossed in E-books, scheduling meetings or filling out forms on their Wrist-tops, or quietly napping. As he glanced around, he saw one man set his E-book in space in front of him, the palm sized device hanging in mid air, motionless. It was second nature to people. Weightlessness carried no wonder any more, it was just another modern convenience that was only available during commutes. Silas had seen the man before, and knew he would take his E-book back just moments before the moon’s gravity began affecting them with barely a thought.
Silas turned away, his boyish excitement replaced by the more practical stoicism of early middle age. The best part of the commute was the thrill of the launch, the view of the world shrinking away, but the worst part was this. Realizing that no one else cared. Realizing that not one other on the transport had cut open their shoes to see that they had small but powerful electromagnets inside that were activated on any civilian space flights. Silas, as he did every day, felt he was the only one who still wondered how things work – why things work.
That’s why you’re still Supervisor of Lunar Mine Safety, the voice of Bev said in his mind, as it did every morning at about the halfway point of the commute. You wonder why – you find out how things work. That curiosity shows you problems that other people don’t see.
How many times had Bev said that to him? How many times had she soothed his worries and frustrations, sometimes without even knowing what they were? Smiling, Silas was again reminded that he had the perfect wife. Bev was always supportive, always fun to be with, still as stunning as the day they had met. She was a little old fashioned – she insisted on doing the cooking and most of the cleaning – he was relatively certain because the times he tried to help resulted in food that looked like charcoal and laundry that might fit a toddler – but she was his best friend.
As the transport began to decelerate, Silas looked out the Flex-Glas window again. He could clearly see the grey, pock marked surface of the moon – Luna – and he knew that they would land within minutes, and he would be on his way to the second stage of his commute. He could see the large white domes that were scattered along the surface, interconnected by tubes similar to the tunnel he had earlier walked into the Port Authority. He was again amazed by the number of people who were likely walking through those passages between domes, all without a care in the world as to why their bodies weren’t being bombarded by solar radiation, or where their water came from, or their air for that matter.
They don’t know, and they don’t care, he thought, noting the man who absently took hold of his E-book. A moment later he felt the gentle tug of Luna’s gravity, and he knew that the tiny electromagnets in all their shoes were self-adjusting so that walking would not appear any different than normal. He could feel the burn of the transport’s attitude jets, bringing them down onto the appropriate landing pad with computer controlled precision.
There was just the slightest jar as the transport settled on the surface, not enough for anyone buy Silas to notice. Outside the transport shuttle, a dome was rotating into place over the circular landing pad, obscuring it from the outside such that it appeared no different than the other domes that spotted the lunar landscape. Silas listened for the telltale hiss as the dome was sealed, and a moment later a tone from overhead alerted the passengers that the transport door was about to open.
Even as Silas, last aboard and thus first to exit, was moving across the landing pad toward the exit tunnel, the tunnel itself was lengthening like a telescope, making a bridge to the next nearest dome.
Silas, briefcase firmly in hand, made his way briskly down the
tunnel. A few people were chatting as they walked behind him, and one woman rushed past – obviously in a hurry to get to her post. Silas ignored them, moving at his typical pace, and soon found himself in the sub-lunar transport terminal. It was a much larger dome than the landing platform dome, but aside from size there was little difference. A few vendors were set up near the center of the chamber, selling E-news, dehydrated snacks, and drinks in bottles that would not leak and send liquid drifting off through the dome. Near the top of the dome were a series of vents that circulated the air and filtered all the incidental particulate matter that came part and parcel with humanity.
He paused as a man behind him sneezed, and Silas – his natural curiosity taking over – could not help but watch as a spray of saliva and mucus flew from the man’s mouth, arcing upward toward the vents where it would be filtered out of the breathable air. It was at once disgusting and, in a strange way, mesmerizing.
“Mr. Cover?”
Silas turned. “Covre,” he corrected, pronouncing his name Covray.
“Mr. Covre,” the woman said, her dark eyes penetrating as though she knew everything about him.
Except how to pronounce my name . . . but maybe she knew that already.
“You will not need to report to Luna-Soil today, Mr. Covre. You have been reassigned.”
1.0
Silas Covre kissed his wife goodbye, as he always did. It was little more than a simple peck on the cheek, but it told Bev, without actually saying a word, that he loved her the same as when they had met ten years before at flight school. It told her that “all is quiet” – their personal code for “everything is fine, nothing much has changed, no news is good news.”
Silas didn’t look back as the door closed behind him. It was, after all, just an ordinary day. The sun was shining off the morning dew, the birds were chirping their first greetings of the day, and the neighbors – a nice retired couple – were out for their morning stroll. Silas gave them an acknowledging nod as he passed them by, and continued the short, brisk walk to the Port Authority.
He was always amazed, no matter how many times he made the three-quarter mile walk, that so much traffic in and out of New White Plains could happen so close to his quiet two bedroom ranch and yet he never heard a buzz. As he turned the corner, he could see the great Flex-Glas dome of the Port Authority, a building that could easily hold the rest of New White Plains within its translucent walls. Despite its size, the building was no eyesore. It blended in with the sky, reflected the trees and buildings that surrounded it, and somehow almost vanished unless one was looking right at it.
“A marvel of engineering,” he mumbled, using the words that the Port Authority had often used to describe the oft delayed and grossly over budget project. But as he neared the entrance tunnel, he found he could not disagree. Advances in technology usually came with an exponentially higher price tag.
Silas, briefcase firmly in hand, reached the entrance tunnel, one of many spoke like structures that emanated from the Port Authority into the various suburban neighborhoods that surrounded it, providing easy and secure access points. The tunnel had no door or turnstile or any other physical restraints. It was just a large clear tunnel, made of the same Flex-Glas material as the rest of the Port Authority, with a simple Safe-Crete sidewalk. Small benches dotted the length of the tunnel between the small gardens of year-round blooming wildflowers. The whole thing looked pleasant and inviting, and certainly not secure at all.
Silas knew that looks could be deceiving. Every bench and some flowers, if one were to believe the rumors, were rigged with all manner of sensory equipment. Simple cameras were used, but much more sophisticated scanners were employed as well. Rumor had it – Silas enjoyed listening to them, yet prided himself on not spreading them – that the P.A. used full body scanners, much like the old time CT scans, and that within three steps of entering the tunnel they could tell if you had any manner of weapon or foreign substance.
“A marvel of engineering,” he muttered again.
What Silas found more interesting, and far more unnerving, was that there were not even rumors about what happened to people who had some ill will toward the P.A. or other organization. There were those who had tried, that much was clear. The nightly newscast occasionally noted that so-and-so tried to sneak an explosive into the Port Authority, but they always stopped short of speculating what might have happened to the culprit. All that was ever stated, for certain, was “the criminal was stopped near the beginning of the entrance tunnel.”
There were never any witnesses. No one so much as suggested a possibility of what might have happened. The only thing that normal folks like Silas were fully confident of is that they were safe in the P.A.
Silas continued his walk through the tunnel, passing some people and being passed by others, yet he kept his gait steady and straight as always. He offered waves to folks coming from the opposite direction, the night shift leaving for their own suburban homes. He kept up his pace until he reached the inner edge of the Flex-Glas tunnel, bearing right toward an access ramp that was lined on either side by more flowers and grasses – the Port Authority building was often called The Greenhouse for just that reason. He walked up the ramp, taking the right fork when it split, heading toward his commuter transport.
The ramp flattened and widened, maintain a constant aesthetically pleasing flow, into a large boarding platform. There were nearly a hundred other workers like himself already there, and as if on cue, when he stepped onto the platform, the transport doors slid open and mumbling crowd started shuffling toward the half dozen cars.
Perfectly timed again, Silas thought, smirking. He had never much cared for waiting in lines, and he knew the transport would not leave while someone was still on the platform, so it stood to reason that he did not need to be there even a second ahead of schedule.
Silas was, as usual, the last aboard in car number six, netting him a standing room only place by the door. It was the perfect place, as far as he was concerned, for he had the best view of the morning commute – a view he never grew tired of, no matter how many times he saw it.
A pleasant tone sounded throughout the transport cars, and the doors slid closed, pressure sealing with a hissing noise. Silas stood directly in front of the door, looking through the Flex-Glas window, and though he was forty-five years old, he couldn’t help a boyish grin as the transports began moving forward. There were no jerks or bumps or jolts – it was as smooth a ride as one could get, almost like not moving at all, but it still reminded Silas of the roller coasters that he had always loved. Of course the new wave of coasters were faster, with more loops, corkscrews and so on, but to him nothing could beat the centuries old wooden coasters – the best of which was The Monster. A great deal of money had been put forward by private donors to keep the rickety old thing in working order, and once a year a lottery was run to see who would get to ride The Monster.
He remembered the feeling of opening the video message informing him that he had won the right to one of the coveted seats on the annual Monster ride. The speaker had given him all the details, but Silas had to play the message again later to get the important bits. He was far too stunned by the news to process the details. Bev of course had gone with him, though she wasn’t allowed to ride. She had watched with pride though – no envy, she never did like the roller coaster scene – as Silas lived his dream.
Three, two, one.
The first turn on the transports, the first shift that let them know they were moving at nearly five thousand miles per hour, swung them about as the tube curved from straight and horizontal to almost straight vertical. And like that they were free of the translucent launch tube and hurtling toward the upper reaches of the atmosphere.
Silas watched as the ground fell away beneath them at an unnerving speed, still with the grin and still with memories of the diving turns of the wooden roller coaster. As he did most every morning, he thought to himself that the best part of his job as Supervisor of Lunar Mine Safety was the morning commute.
Less than a minute later, they were free of the atmosphere and chugging their way through space toward the moon. It would not take long to get there, as they continued to accelerate, but other passengers were already engrossed in E-books, scheduling meetings or filling out forms on their Wrist-tops, or quietly napping. As he glanced around, he saw one man set his E-book in space in front of him, the palm sized device hanging in mid air, motionless. It was second nature to people. Weightlessness carried no wonder any more, it was just another modern convenience that was only available during commutes. Silas had seen the man before, and knew he would take his E-book back just moments before the moon’s gravity began affecting them with barely a thought.
Silas turned away, his boyish excitement replaced by the more practical stoicism of early middle age. The best part of the commute was the thrill of the launch, the view of the world shrinking away, but the worst part was this. Realizing that no one else cared. Realizing that not one other on the transport had cut open their shoes to see that they had small but powerful electromagnets inside that were activated on any civilian space flights. Silas, as he did every day, felt he was the only one who still wondered how things work – why things work.
That’s why you’re still Supervisor of Lunar Mine Safety, the voice of Bev said in his mind, as it did every morning at about the halfway point of the commute. You wonder why – you find out how things work. That curiosity shows you problems that other people don’t see.
How many times had Bev said that to him? How many times had she soothed his worries and frustrations, sometimes without even knowing what they were? Smiling, Silas was again reminded that he had the perfect wife. Bev was always supportive, always fun to be with, still as stunning as the day they had met. She was a little old fashioned – she insisted on doing the cooking and most of the cleaning – he was relatively certain because the times he tried to help resulted in food that looked like charcoal and laundry that might fit a toddler – but she was his best friend.
As the transport began to decelerate, Silas looked out the Flex-Glas window again. He could clearly see the grey, pock marked surface of the moon – Luna – and he knew that they would land within minutes, and he would be on his way to the second stage of his commute. He could see the large white domes that were scattered along the surface, interconnected by tubes similar to the tunnel he had earlier walked into the Port Authority. He was again amazed by the number of people who were likely walking through those passages between domes, all without a care in the world as to why their bodies weren’t being bombarded by solar radiation, or where their water came from, or their air for that matter.
They don’t know, and they don’t care, he thought, noting the man who absently took hold of his E-book. A moment later he felt the gentle tug of Luna’s gravity, and he knew that the tiny electromagnets in all their shoes were self-adjusting so that walking would not appear any different than normal. He could feel the burn of the transport’s attitude jets, bringing them down onto the appropriate landing pad with computer controlled precision.
There was just the slightest jar as the transport settled on the surface, not enough for anyone buy Silas to notice. Outside the transport shuttle, a dome was rotating into place over the circular landing pad, obscuring it from the outside such that it appeared no different than the other domes that spotted the lunar landscape. Silas listened for the telltale hiss as the dome was sealed, and a moment later a tone from overhead alerted the passengers that the transport door was about to open.
Even as Silas, last aboard and thus first to exit, was moving across the landing pad toward the exit tunnel, the tunnel itself was lengthening like a telescope, making a bridge to the next nearest dome.
Silas, briefcase firmly in hand, made his way briskly down the
tunnel. A few people were chatting as they walked behind him, and one woman rushed past – obviously in a hurry to get to her post. Silas ignored them, moving at his typical pace, and soon found himself in the sub-lunar transport terminal. It was a much larger dome than the landing platform dome, but aside from size there was little difference. A few vendors were set up near the center of the chamber, selling E-news, dehydrated snacks, and drinks in bottles that would not leak and send liquid drifting off through the dome. Near the top of the dome were a series of vents that circulated the air and filtered all the incidental particulate matter that came part and parcel with humanity.
He paused as a man behind him sneezed, and Silas – his natural curiosity taking over – could not help but watch as a spray of saliva and mucus flew from the man’s mouth, arcing upward toward the vents where it would be filtered out of the breathable air. It was at once disgusting and, in a strange way, mesmerizing.
“Mr. Cover?”
Silas turned. “Covre,” he corrected, pronouncing his name Covray.
“Mr. Covre,” the woman said, her dark eyes penetrating as though she knew everything about him.
Except how to pronounce my name . . . but maybe she knew that already.
“You will not need to report to Luna-Soil today, Mr. Covre. You have been reassigned.”
