T
EMPEST
Studying the weather report on the heads-up display, Jason watched the giant dust storm carefully. From harmless dry dirt devils, to F6 strength twisters, could arise from these storms. He was absolutely terrified of getting caught in one of the red hurricanes because of the tornadic signatures associated with this type of meteorological activity. Although frightened of the less predictable sandstorms, he was truly amazed by the Giant Red Tempest that continually circled near the Earth’s equator. The Pipe ran deep at the equatorial regions, so he didn’t have to worry about traveling the surface in this area.
“Amazing wind speeds inside them…” Jason spoke openly while focusing on the furiously swirling red spot projected from the satellite imagery.
“Inside the giant anti-cyclonic storm circling the Earth, located at 23 degrees south latitude, and 90 degrees longitude?” Sofia asked for more specificity.
“Yes, Sofia, and as usual, you are precisely right.”
“Top wind speeds have been measured near three hundred miles an hour,” Sofia replied. “We are crossing the Milwaukee deep, and departing the Pipe in twelve minutes; and we will be Offing just west of the Puerto Rican Plateau.”
“Thank you, Sofia…” Jason said while touching the heads-up display with his index finger and thumb. Spreading them apart he zoomed in on the satellite image, and continued saying, “What is the information lag time on the imagery, and weather reports broadcasted from the Pipe Information System?”
“Approximately fifteen minutes, Jason.”
“Sofia, run a Weather Simulation for the next twenty hours.”
“Please specify location, Jason.”
“From our Pipe Off Point, across the Texican Salt Flats, all the way to our Pipe reentry point near the mouth of the Mississippi Basin.”
“I calculate ninety-six viable possibilities for the weather forecast.”
“Give me your top three projections, Sofia.”
“Be my pleasure, Jason.”
With close attention, Jason studied the simulated imagery before saying, “Sofia, I’d like to stay in front this high pressure ridge moving through the area…so the minute we leave the Pipe, do a current Terrain Survey, and calculate our fastest speed across the Texican Salt Flats.”
“Jason, Off Piping in five minutes…please, buckle-up your seat restraint.”
“I love entering the outside world,” Jason commented sarcastically.
“Readjusting hover pads for Energy Wave Spikes,” Sofia warned Jason.
The Chameleon slightly buckled at the sudden but gradual deceleration when the synchronous oscillations of the Pipe’s Electromagnetic Waves began to react inversely different.
“Slowing from six hundred miles per hour, and coming to a complete stop, in an enclosed tunnel, what an outrageous proposition,”
Jason thought to himself as he pulled the spider harness down over his shoulder, he then clasped it together across his chest.
“Are you sweating?”
“No, Sofia,” Jason nervously replied
“Would you like me to adjust the air-conditioner?”
“No thank…” Jason re-evaluated his perspiration, and changed his tune in midsentence, “…yeah, would you please make it cooler in here?”
“My pleasure, Jason,” replied Sofia. “Entering Off Pipe Section in…three, two, one,” Sofia said as the Chameleon smoothly swung to the right.
“Nice transition, I hardly felt the shift.”
“Thank you, Jason.”
“We will be at the Reverse Pressure Gate in less than thirty seconds.”
“Thanks for the heads up, Sofia,” sardonically, Jason responded.
“Do I sense a bit of sarcasm in your voice?”
“Do you think?”
“Yes, I think you are patronizing me.”
“Sorry, Sofia, and I do appreciate the information. Keep up the good work.”
“Then why the contemptuous attitude, Jason?”
“Well honestly, I could see the information tabulated on the heads-up, and I just felt the verbal information was a little redundant… Don’t take it personal, Sofia.”
“My program enforcement is designed to inform you of all changes.”
“Yes, and again, thank you for the hard work you’ve been doing, Sofia,” Jason answered trying to end the debate.
“If you wish me to change my logic algorithms, I can schedule an appointment with SYNTECH.”
“That won’t be necessary, Sofia,” Jason rolled his eyes, and continued, “Change of subject.”
“My pleasure, Jason.”
“Boy, she sure is sensitive…”
he thought to himself as the ship precipitously jerked to a complete stop. He then spoke, “Give me a visual of the doors.”
The heads-up display blinked, and the tunnel popped in view, giving Jason nearly a one hundred and eighty-degree view. Immediately, Jason noticed the scrolling communication on the Membrane above the Pressure Chamber’s doors, it read, “THANK YOU FOR USING THE POLARIS PIPE… WE HOPE YOUR TRAVEL WAS SMOOTH AND ENJOYABLE… HAVE A SAFE JOURNEY, JASON BJORN…”
T
EXICAN
S
ALT
F
LATS
Bulky yellow safety lights flashed next to the two large doors; and an emergency horn blared a warning. The large metal hulks, began to open from the middle, revealing the Pressure Chamber. Inside, negative air pressure is reversed, and positive airflow keeps dust or any foreign contaminate from entering the Pipe.
“The Chameleon occurs to be fully autonomous from the Polaris Pipe,” Sofia notified, Jason.
“Slowly push into the PAC, Sofia.”
“Autonomous movement commencing,” Sofia responded, and by wireless network, she increased power and tilt to the hover pads.
After the independently controlled, three-level Land-Ship was put forward, the Polaris Pipe Chamber shut behind them.
“External Pipe doors unlocking,” monotonously, Sofia informed.
“Dim the heads-up display,” pleaded Jason while squinting from the bright flash of light emitting between the two exterior Chamber doors. “Feels like my eyeballs are burning!”
“I detect no cellular damage to your ocular structures… Assessing medically, I do detect hypochondriacism,” coldly, Sofia responded.
“Just a little sarcastic small talk, Sofia…don’t get your panties in a bunch.”
“Bunching is impossible for the reason, I am not wearing panties, Jason.”
“It’s just a figure of speech, Sofia,” he said reproachfully.
“Please explain?”
Jason sighed before saying in a tiresome tone, “It means, don’t worry about the small stuff in life.”
“I will log, said ‘Figure of speech,’ into my Neural Reminiscence Bank.”
Caused by the reversal in air direction, a howling wind roared past the Chameleon. The glowing hover pads growled at a fevered pitch, carrying the vessel out of the tunnel’s opening, and into the parched Texican Salt Flat.
“I’m a little hungry…think I’ll head to up to the galley. Oh, Sofia, keep an eye on that High Pressure Front.”
“My pleasure, Jason,” she harmoniously replied.
After swiveling out of his chair, he stepped to the cabin’s bulkhead, and touched the Skin. Designed for maximum efficiency and room, the bulkhead unfolded inward, and where a flat bulkhead full of utilitarian draws once existed, now a narrow staircase ascended to the Second Deck. Besides the galley, the Second Deck contained three sleeping pods, and one bathroom. Unlike, Low Gravitational Remediation Sleep Chambers, the pods only offered basic sleeping arrangements for any passengers the Chameleon transported.
“Jason…”
“Yes, Sofia.”
“Before you eat anything, could you please affix your vitamin patch? You left it sitting on the bathroom sink.”
“Thanks for reminding me, I almost forgot.”
“I disagree, you did forget.”
“She is driving me nuts,”
Jason thought to himself before he spoke stiffly. “Whatever, Sofia.”
“Jason, I detected sarcasm in your response, and I don’t care for it at all. And just another reminder, my programming will guarantee that I tend to your mental and physical wellbeing, ensuring a healthier you; this includes informing you to affix your vitamin patch.”
“See, I put it on…” Jason pulled up his sleeve, and pointed at the patch as he exited the bathroom.
“Let us not make this a routine,” Sofia added in an overbearing motherly tone.
“Change of subject, Sofia!” Jason snapped brusquely as he entered the Galley.
“My pleasure, Jason,” Sofia compliantly replied.
He then commandingly spoke. “Sofia, I will have: two eggs, bacon, hash-brown potatoes, toast…and fresh squeezed orange juice, please.”
“I love your comedic overtone.” Sofia dispensed a gruel looking paste into a bowl.
Jason smelled the steaming grey pile, and sarcastically mouthed, “Fresh as ever, just as I like it, Sofia.”
With breakfast in hand, Jason stepped over to the flat galley bulkhead containing drawers and touched the Skin membrane. Just as on the first deck, the bulkhead folded inward, creating a narrow staircase leading to the Observation Deck. Outside of the observation platform, the third deck contained: two sleeping pods, one bathroom and an exercise room. And part of the Chameleon’s Integrated Weapon Systems also shared space there too.
Many hidden compartments between the Chameleon’s dynamic outer shell, and interior living area, housed the majority of the ship’s functional quantities.
“Let’s see what the world has to offer today… Sofia, activate Observation Deck Canopy,” Jason said after walking to the front of the vehicle.
“Activating Observation Deck Canopy.” She obeyed, and the entire curved ceiling and wall came to life; the Sun’s rays brilliantly reflected off the hard crackly compact surface.
“Dim the brightness by twenty-two percent, please.”
The projected view diminished in luminosity. Jason stood between the two rows of lounge chairs and looked out at the sterile landscape in wonderment, and he thought,
“Texican Salt Flats, I can only imagine that this was once the bottom of a great ocean, stretching around the Earth.”
“This portion of the extinct ocean we are now traveling across was once called the Gulf of Mexico.” Sofia spoke as if she was reading his mind.
Jason just nodded, and for a split second, he truly wondered if her technology could detect his thoughts. He knew the government was trying to develop the telekinetic thought technology. However, he then remembered, he was standing on the observation deck, and concluded that it was all part of her programming.
“Thanks for the travel tip, Sofia,” he said before plopping down in one of the pleathery lounge chairs.
“You are welcome, Jason.”
“Project the latest Off World View of our travel?”
“Jason, how close would you like the projection?”
“Start at one thousand feet, Sofia…” in real time, a large satellite image of the Chameleon, racing across the Texican Salt Flats, burst upon the display, “…zoom in four hundred feet.” He stared closely at the image before continuing. “Good… leave it, and park the feed to the side.”
Jason waved his left hand down, and the interactive Skin reacted by decreasing the feed in size.
Jason Bjorn ate his breakfast in silence while watching the landscape quietly rush by and his mind dipped to the ancient past.
“I wonder what the Earth must have been like, before all the water vanished under the brutal heat of the Sun?”
Thirty-five hundred years ago, the Sun started belching off heavy materials, leaving more hydrogen and helium at its core. This molecular upheaval unbalanced the life giving Sun, causing the Earth’s once hospitable center of the solar system to burn hotter. The Sun was just aging, and doing what all stars do when they get older. They grow in size, and burn faster.
By the middle of the Twenty-Second Century, the Earth’s temperature raised enough to cause all the glaciers around the globe to disappear. This killed nearly a billion people through starvation, and war. Without glacial run off, the massive Southwestern Asian crops failed. Countries fought bitterly over diminishing resources, and people died in the millions fighting over fresh water. The irony of the situation; Earth was being swamped by rising sea levels; and they rose to epic levels, triggering a mass exodus of people from the coastal areas, and cities across the globe became unlivable.