MINDLYFT (COMPLETE)

CHAPTER 18

"Three, two, one, launch...." And the rumbling of a rocket engine blasted beneath my chair. The lights dimmed and all I heard around me was the vibration of the cabin and a crashing sound that reminded me of rough surf.

After about two minutes the vibrations and rumbling were replaced by a smooth humming noise, which I assumed was the magnetic rail taking over the Lyft, as the G-forces intensified and I sunk into the cushion of my seat, feeling my facial muscles tighten against my cheeks, lips and forehead. Two more minutes and then weightlessness. Or at least as much as I could experience it wearing a seat harness. I did see someone's satchel float by me.

There was a noise on the outside cabin as drones locked on and then started moving us through orbit to the base station. All of it surreal, I only saw the images of where we were and what was happening on the displays along the cabin's interior skin. When we arrived at the station we were ushered out of the cabin, floating about, into an airlock waiting area, and then moved into the rotating section of the station, experiencing Moon level gravity for the first time.

There was a VendingBot on the station while we waited half an hour for the next leg of the Lyft, directly to the Moon. That Lyft cabin was the same type and the experience similar, although the entire journey was magnetically powered and we were on the rail for two hours. Luckily there were restrooms on the station and on the Moon bound cabin. It was slightly larger with a VendingBot, bathroom and lounge. There was enough prolonged acceleration to mimic a light G-Force that was just enough to keep us from losing our bearings or floating into someone's feet.

Once on Moon Base I was fitted with a GravityOutfit, given a brief tutorial about safety and evacuation procedures, and then directed to an office where Hinka HellsPath worked. When I arrived, she was seated at her desk, an oval shaped window behind her with a beautiful view of the MoonScape, including a massive crater just below a cone shaped mountain. The Earth was setting along the horizon.

"Welcome to Tranquility," said Hinka as soon as the door behind me slid closed. "Glad you took the initiative that your coworkers didn't. Sometimes you have to walk that extra mile, or several miles in this case, to get to your destination."

"Thank you," I said, barely keeping my smile in check. "I think you'll find everything I do is extra." I thought about hinting that I should be her second in charge but didn't want to push it.

"Clearly. A woman who employs Clones to work three jobs is obviously an overachiever," she quipped, without showing the slightest irony in her expression. "Sit down. I'm going to explain our operations and the objectives of the project to you. I'll need you to explain it to the new members tomorrow because I'll be in Chicago for a meeting."

"Of course," I said, as I took a seat on the sofa next to her desk.

"As you may or may not already know, or guessed, this project is of the utmost importance because we will be devising a way to protect the Earth from 'near Earth asteroids' and 'civilization detriments' also called "Global Killers". Meteorites large and powerful enough to cause massive damage to the Earth, no matter where they impact. Impacts that could end life as we know it on the planet. Be assured this is no theoretical project. We've already identified one such asteroid on a collision course with our world. It's estimated to smash into the southern hemisphere of the planet in five years three months."

When she said it, a holographic display emanated from a platform on her desk, depicting the asteroid's path with the Earth and the impact.

"The resulting explosion," she continued, "will punch a hole in the Earth's crust half-way through the mantle, expel poisonous gasses everywhere around the world, and dust that will block out the sun for a thousand years. Global cooling, lack of sunlight, radiation, toxins and volcanic debris will destroy cities, transportation and communication infrastructure, agricultural platforms, and sea farming world-wide. Hundreds of millions of people will die instantly and billions more will suffocate, starve, freeze and burn to death in the days, weeks and months to follow. We calculate that perhaps a few hundred thousand will survive past the first year, perhaps in underground shelters. There are boi-labs programmed to reignite human life once the atmosphere has become hospitable again but that may not be for tens of thousands of years if not millions. Orbital and Moon bases should survive unscathed, so we're not looking at total extinction, though that is a possibility."