Seconds

3

- Lur, have you completed expert system's sequences? - Alem is anxious.

- Relax, these things take their time. RoCo still has to perform the navigation settings. But we are doing everything right, anomalies have not been detected yet.

After 3 or 4 minutes, RoCo confirms:

- Naviga<>tion coordi<>nates se<>tted.

- Thank you, RoCo. Controller, we ask you for permission for the take-off. Everything is ready - Lur smiled while looking at his companions.

Meanwhile, outside the ship some important politician is being interviewed by a lot of TV cameras and radio microphones.

- Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this big advance is due to our research politics, the effort in grants we have given to AVRI (Advanced Vehicle Research Institute) and, of course, due to our awesome team of scientists!

- Do you know that Dr. Alem has been working on this project almost after finishing his PhD, this is, for 30 years? - a young journalist from a radio station replied.

The politician stuttered a bit and answered vigorously:

- My dear youngster, I did not want to diminish the work of anybody. Clearly I have talked clumsily, excuse me for that. The contributions of Dr. Alem and his team's work have been remarkable. But that motor's development was extremely expensive, and it has been our government, sensible to this breakthrough, which believed and wagered for this project.

- So then, do you think that, if your party had not won the elections two years ago, Dr. Alem had been unable to build his motor? - the same reporter insisted.

- Ha, ha, ha, you are awful, you turn everything I say against me! Let us see, why to argue! The fact is that today is a great day.

Some people in the crowd, clearly infiltrated supporters of the politician, started to applaud in order to divert attention and interrupt the sequence of annoying questions.

Again inside the vessel:

- Attention please, there is green light. Spaceship Anacronopete, you are allowed to take off.

- Thank you, Controller - the main pilot said -. Turning on motors in 3, 2, 1,...

The ignition sound resounded inside the hangar. The crowd was looking at the maneuver with attention. Reporters were reporting everything that was happening there. Slowly, the ship elevated a few centimeters and remained floating in the air. It moved in the same slow pace towards the hangar's exit in the skyscraper's 40th floor. Only after fully going out from the hangar, the vessel increased its velocity upwards.

In only a few seconds, the spaceship was above the skyscrapers and moving to the central prism's upper gates.

- Controller, the estimated departure time to the first lock is 3 minutes - Lur reported by radio.

As we already said, hermetic cities are provided with their own vehicles for inner displacements and with the teleporting mechanisms for travelling outside it. However, as a security measure, all prisms have gate mechanisms in their upper side in order to allow going in or out in case of contingency. In this case, this is the only way the vessel can leave the city.

- Our detectors indicate that they are arriving here in 20 seconds. Please, reduce speed. The first gate is opening - Controller notified.

- Understood. Let us slow down.

The first gate completes its opening.

- You are allowed to go through first lock.

- Thanks, Controller.

Lur piloted carefully.

- We are inside.

- Closing gate - Controller told.

Just after the first lock's hermetic gate had shut down, Nat commented.

- Now what happens?

- It is the set<>ted proto<>col, Dr. Nat.

- That is it, now they are establishing the vacuum in the area we are now in, as in the next one - Alem detailed -. When we get to the second lock, after we exit and it closes, we will be outside.

Once the ship went out from the central prism, Lur said.

- Changing the control to the second pilot.

Then RoCo took the lead and started elevating the vessel quickly, but not in a perpendicular trajectory with respect to the prism but describing a parabolic one.