Falling Against Gravity Read online

  Back on the ship, Nikola finally found Fort. Excitedly, he explained his theory while Fort smashed at the last bolt. “The Teslum is magnetizing the whole building. It’s trying to lift everything all at the same time. We need to get it out of here. It’s like a falcon in a cage. It wants to be free!” Nikola grandly threw his arms up. “After it is outside, I think I can stabilize it.”

  Inside the closet, Fort walloped the bolt harder and harder, “For the last time! It’s! Not! Teslum!” With the last smash, the bolt came free and the ship lurched to the side. Fort frantically roared into the etherphone, “Zoya, we’re free. Get us out of here.”

  Zoya’s voice cracked through the transmitter, “Are you through speaking? You didn’t say ‘stop’.” Fort could hear the sarcasm through the static. Nikola snorted and tried to hide it with a pretend cough. “Regardless,” Zoya continued, “the roof still isn’t open and we can’t go through it, we’ll tear the plates off. The metal is too soft. Plus, I’m worried if Leroy is out in this mess. He could be hurt and need help. Stop.”

  “Hold it steady. I’ll look for him. Stop!”

  Fort climbed out of the closet and pushed past Nikola. He shambled up the tiny stairs, racing to a porthole facing the roof controls. From the porthole, he could see his weightless best friend go flying off the levers as he switched them. Fort couldn’t believe his eyes as a tattered, flapping and bloodied Ripley spun slowly towards him. Ripley gave Fort a goofy smile and gestured upward before the majority of the remaining glass broke free from the roof panes and drifted chaotically around the hanger. Ripley curled into a fetal position in this giant, menacing snow globe. He drifted on an angle towards the rear propeller that was starting to free turn as Zoya precariously tried to extricate the massive vessel through the slowly opening roof. As the sphere of magnetic influence moved upwards with the ship’s core, metal tools started to drop off of the buildings frame, loudly clanging to the floor.

  The Nimbus slowly started to rise like a bubble blown out of a child’s wand. It crept upwards until its top plates were cresting the roofline. Then it stopped dead, frozen in its assent. There it hovered with electricity crackling off its exterior and arcing to the building’s metal framework.

  Inside the engine room, the brief moment of elation stopped as all the gauges went haywire. Fort and Nikola raced back and forth to different control panels, frantically trying to understand what had gone awry and what was now holding them in place.

  Dark clouds continued to grow more menacing outside and the rain paused as an eeriness enveloped the area. The stone at the center of the maelstrom started to glow red and a dark smoke started to build around it. Nikola declared in a panicked voice, “It’s going to burn up or burn out, Fort! We are locked in a magnetic shell. It wants to take the whole building with it and it won’t let go! We’re going to destroy the specimen. We must not destroy the specimen!”

  Fort felt helpless. If they shut down the power, the entire ship would crash into the hangar’s concrete floor. If they didn’t, they were going to burn everything on board to a crisp and then maybe crash to the floor below. This was a no-win situation.

  Zoya applied more turbine propulsion to wrench them from the stasis but to no avail. Nikola turned to Fort, “There is one thing left to try. But it could be dangerous to your little friend if he is still in the building…”

  “What are you talking about Nikola, spit it out!” Fort demanded.

  “Well, we have built up an enormous charge. It holds us like a magnet caught between two positive charges. We could release the dampener for a split second and dump the extra charge. You know, like off and then on very fast.” He looked up and frowned. “But it might electrocute any one in the building, namely your little friend.” Nikola shrugged his shoulders like it wasn’t a big deal. “And maybe the Turkish soup man.”

  The metal frame on the ship was starting to warp and shift ever so slightly. They knew they were running out of time. Fort stopped stone cold for a moment. He stared at Nikola. Difficult evaluations were racing through his troubled mind. He cared deeply for Ripley, maybe more than he cared for anyone else in the world, but there were three lives and a lifetime’s potential of work and research at risk right now.

  Without waver in his voice or his eyes Fort clearly stated, “Do it. Now.”

  Nikola smiled, climbing in behind a control panel. “Brace yourselves,” he called out. Fort grabbed a rail and looked out a starboard port hole. Ripley, he thought to himself, forgive me, old friend.

  Then Nikola turned the hidden switch back and forth quickly.

  Outside, the wind went calm, and for a moment time itself seemed to stop. Without warning, a thousand bolts of lightning dropped down from the low cloud cover in a half mile radius, striking everything that was over a few feet tall. Every fence post, every tree, even the auto-car with Envar in it were struck at the same time. And the largest bolt, as thick as a hundred year old maple, came down out of the heavens, straight through the center of the Nimbus’ Gyrocore and into the hangar floor below. Thunder, like no human had ever experienced, ripped the night asunder, deafening all who heard it.

  Zoya shrieked and Fort fell to his knees, holding his head. Poor Ripley, who was drifting helpless in the air, became momentarily blinded as he felt every hair on his body and every tattered thread on his clothes sizzle and singe slightly. He screamed with a fatal fear as he dropped ten feet to the floor.

  Slowly, as if cut free, the Nimbus started to rise. Zoya scrambled to gain control. She realized that they might be leaving the frying pan for the fire as they got higher. She took four deep breaths to calm her speeding heartbeat. She had been imagining this moment for weeks, strategically mapping how the controls would react. The hardest part was not letting the vessel shoot up too fast.

  Fort’s ears were ringing so hard it made him dizzy. He scrambled from porthole to porthole looking for any trace of Ripley. Fort was relieved when he finally saw him, clumsily crawling for cover as the glass and debris continued to rain down like sparkly rain. Ripley had faint traces of smoke still coming off him. He wearily looked up at Fort in the porthole. Fort opened the small window, stuck his head and arm out and waved back excitedly. A beleaguered Ripley gave his friend a weary thumbs-up to indicate he was okay.

  A loud metal-on-metal grinding sound started to build as the aft port turbine caught on the opening roof. The crew winced as the sound reached a grinding apex and abruptly stopped. The ship was clear. Fort raced to join Zoya on the bridge.

  Zoya coaxed the ship as it wobbled in the air above the hangar. “Don’t worry, girl. Nothing too high yet. Easy. Let’s just go over there, away from the hangar,” she encouraged the mechanical beast as she gently guided it. The expansive yard was littered with small fires still burning in the treetops. Electricity sizzled and snapped all across the controls and Zoya’s entire body hummed with static.

  Fort noticed Nikola en route to the bridge. Nikola lifted his goggles and growled, “I think there is a polarity problem with the Faraday shielding. I want to try reversing it before we are too high off the ground. Have Zoya land it on grass.”

  “Land it? Are you sure?”

  “The amperage is jumping up and down erratically. We must stabilize it.”

  “Is that safe to do?”

  “No,” Nikola responded. “But it is best alternative. Nothing we are doing here is safe. It never has been.”

  “Alright.” Fort nodded. His teeth hummed, which was very disconcerting. He clenched them shut to decrease the sensation, but to no avail.

  Ripley watched the vessel drift past the building, lightning randomly shooting off into the sky. He picked himself up and wandered up the stairs and over to a broken window. The ship’s underside brushed a smoldering tree as it floated along.

  Onboard, Zoya felt the resistance from the tree and cringed slightly. Fort rested his hand on her chair. “You’re doing great. Can you set it down over there?”

  “Maybe…” She adjusted
a couple of small toggles beside her seat, and pushed the steering controls out. The turbines responded accordingly, dropping the ship down slowly. Out in still smoldering trees, glistening from the glow of the bridge lights, Zoya could see a small face staring at her. It was the little white owl from her dream. Her father always said to watch for the signs the universe gives us. She thought it strange and wondered what it meant.

  Ripley couldn’t believe his eyes as the ship touched down several times before coming to a stop. He put his fingers between his lips and let out a loud, joyous whistle. “They really did it,” he whispered to himself.

  Lightning leapt off the ship, splitting a nearby tree and leaving it to catch alight. Small electricity arcs sizzled between various objects on the bridge and in the engine room. Zoya yelped as she touched the controls. Fort zapped himself as he tried to rest his hand on her chair. “Aaaagh. Nikola! We can’t touch anything up here!” he yelled as he walked gingerly across the deck plates towards the top of the stairs.

  “I know, I know … Hold on. I am going to reverse the polarity on the shielding.” Nikola got down on his knees to reach inside a control panel hatch. Angrily mumbling to himself, he started to shove his whole head and shoulders in the hatch. “Oh there you are … finally, you little bugger. Ready now, one, two, three...”

  Ripley watched as the ship shot straight up so fast it looked like it evaporated. But that wasn’t possible. “What th…?” He ran back through the devastated hangar and looked up out the open roof. He frantically searched the expanse of the sky above. Stars twinkled in the quiet night. But there was no sign of them. Everything was completely still. It was as if they had never existed.

  CHAPTER 14

  Thinking about the little owl, Zoya resisted closing her eyes as the ship wildly ascended. She wasn’t sure what was happening exactly. It felt like falling but she thought they were shooting up. Inertial forces pulled her into the pilot’s seat, hard. Her arms felt extra heavy as she struggled to reach the controls. As she finally got her fingers to the control arms, she questioned what to do, but she had to try something.

  Fort lay pasted to the deck of the bridge unable to move. It was a most unsettling feeling. He wanted to open his eyes but the fluttering feeling below his stomach forced him to keep them shut or he might vomit. What is happening, his brain screamed as he sluggishly forced his head to the side. He opened his eyelids a crack and saw Zoya reaching for the steering arms as if in slow motion. As she determinedly got a hold of one and pulled it towards her, the view out the front window changed drastically from black to spiraling stars as the ship started to spin, as well.

  Fort slid along the floor plates to the railing at the rear of the bridge, clutching on for dear life before he fell down the stairs to the engine room. “Zoya! Make it stop!” he screamed.

  With her teeth firmly clenched, she tried to lift her other hand, but her weak shoulder was making this a formidable feat. With all her strength, she tried to reach the control arm. The spiraling starlight was making her so dizzy, but still she would not close her eyes.

  In the engine room, Nikola knew exactly what happened and he immediately regretted removing the positive feed cable from the Farady field generator. Not as much as he regretted the day he met Thomas Edison, but very, very close. He was stuck headfirst inside an access panel with no idea what was happening outside, but he knew he did it. He futilely tried to reinsert the cable, but in all the jostling and low light could not get it in. He knew they were in trouble and that time was running out. Cinching his fingers slowly up to the cable’s end, he tried to pull himself further into the access panel. Over and over, he tried to get the cable back into the port. Centrifugal forces were crushing him as he pulled his face in close to the small target. He struggled to move as he wrestled his other arm up towards his face. He shoved his goggles up off his eyes and squinted hard in the dark space as he tried to fix his miscalculation.

  Fort felt like he was in a cement mixer riding a wild mustang. With only one hand still clinging to the railing, he was being flung and smashed around and around. He wasn’t strong enough to regain any control over his body. He had been willing to risk everything to get this ship in the air but now he questioned for the first time whether he over-committed. This terrifying fate was not worth it. As he pieced together what was happening, he wondered how high they were and if they were actually in the nebulous aether of space.

  Zoya finally reached the second control arm and moved it towards her. The spinning changed slightly and she realized there was likely nothing she could do to change their momentum and they would possibly fall forever. Her thoughts drifted to her parents’ smiling faces and happier times as a warm darkness began to envelope her.

  Nikola could smell his own hair singeing in the small space crammed with wiring and vacuum tubes. He pulled himself in tighter so that his nose was almost touching the port when he finally inserted the cable back in. He had a brief moment of elation before electricity crackled all around the area, shocking him unconscious.

  Abruptly, the ship stopped as if it were a hot air balloon on a tether. Zoya was again thankful of her seat harness as she watched Fort go flying face-first into the main bridge windows. As Fort splatted into the forward windows, he had the wind knocked out of him. He instinctively braced himself in the large brass window pane, fearing falling backwards again. As the spinning slowly stopped, he gasped to regain control of his breathing, but the marvel and beauty before him took his breath a second time. There, beyond the clouds and beyond the sky itself, the stars were so clear. They looked as if they could be scooped up in his hands like diamonds on black velvet. There were so many colors. It was the most beautiful spectacle he had ever experienced.

  Slowly, he felt the urge to slide down the glass as Zoya righted the ship to a level plane. When he reached the deck, he turned over to a sitting position facing Zoya. “Are you alright?” he asked, rubbing his face.

  “Yes, I think so. My chest hurts and it is hard to breathe. I feel like my lungs have collapsed.”

  Fort got up and steadied himself, he felt beat up and woozy. “How did you stop the ascent?” he asked.

  “I don’t know … I wasn’t ... I didn’t do anything. It must have been Niko.” She held her chest around the ribs. “We should go find him and make sure he’s not hurt.”

  Fort gasped to breathe and was starting to hyperventilate. He got a concerned look on his face that turned to panic. “Do you have steering control?”

  “Yes ... Yes, I think so.”

  “Take. Us. Down. Immediately!” He panted. “The air … is weak up here. Just like ... in Tibet.”

  “We’ll pass out … and suffocate.” He fell to one knee. “Take us down ... NOW!” he panted as he warbled slightly before falling face first into the metal floor.

  Zoya eyes widened with disbelief and shock, then they narrowed with determination. In two smooth actions she plunged both sets of control arms forward. She could see a horizon come into view and it gave her the sense they were heading downwards as she struggled to draw in air. Spots danced in her vision as she became light-headed and drowsy. Zoya gasped shallow breaths as she fought to keep her eyes open as she, too, felt consciousness slowly yet forcefully slipping away.

  CHAPTER 15

  On the third day after the ship disappeared, Ripley continued his mission to tidy up the hangar. He swept up piles and piles of glass out of puddles of rain water but it was a never-ending effort. With his bandaged fingers he gingerly picked out all the screws, bolts, washers, and nuts he found and sadly dropped them into cans spread around the hangar. Any time he thought he was close to completion, another stash of it would appear. Ripley was certain that his lungs were just as battered from the glass as his hands and arms. There was no escaping the microscopic pieces floating around the air, waiting to be breathed in. Nevertheless, he continued to sweep, taking on the task like a martyr, almost happy it was causing him pain. The guttural, soul-crushing sadness and guilt of los
ing his best friend made it difficult to feel anything but misery with each new breath.

  Fort’s beautiful hangar was looking rough. There were large pools of water still on the floor from the other night’s rain coming through the broken roof. Ripley woefully wondered about Fort and the others. Where had they gone? Were they gone for good? How would he report this to the authorities? Or even to Anna? Fort never discussed any of this with him.

  Ripley just wanted to stay around the hangar and wait for them to return. They had to return. It couldn’t end like this. He wasn’t ready to face the real world or the consequences. Whatever would he tell Anna? How do you tie up loose ends when someone disappears in an electrified magic ship? Would they put him away if he told the truth?

  Envar checked on Ripley each day. Envar was quite shocked over the state of the hangar and the potential loss of his employer but he took it all in stride. This wasn’t the first time Fort had disappeared. Besides, he was paid to be a driver and a butler, as well as protection, but protection was something Envar did on his own terms. He provided protection against people, not whatever mad science took place the other night. Envar had tended to Ripley’s cuts and even gave him a total of seven stitches. Through limited conversations, Ripley gleaned that Envar knew battlefield medicine. He did pretty good suture work. Being accident prone, Ripley had his fair amount of stitches, so he knew good work when he saw it. Envar gruffly mumbled that he was going to sew Ripley’s ear tip in to a point, but Ripley felt pretty sure he was trying to lighten the mood. Or at least he hoped. Ultimately, his ear was sewn together in such a way that Ripley couldn’t even see the thread.