Scott Mackay - Phytosphere

number of phenomena. “You can see that the cellular electrical activity within the flagella has increased tenfold. In other words, they’re flexing their muscles and joining up with each other. And look at this.

They’re actually producing the scaling material for the carapace. Probably not at the same rate they actually do in the phytosphere, because we haven’t provided this sample with any water or light, but I think we can safely conclude that gravity is definitely the trigger. Without gravity the xenophyta more or less remain in a state of stasis. Add gravity, and it’s like rain has come to the desert. Everything starts to grow.”

“So how’s this solve our problem?” said Mitch. “How can we possibly take the gravity away and put the phytosphere in stasis mode? We would have to take the whole Earth away in order to stop the gravity trigger.”

Stephanie put her hand on Gerry’s shoulder, as if preparing him for the blow of what was looking like another impasse.

“We don’t have to take it away,” he said. “We don’t even have to worry about the Earth. It’s the Moon we have to concern ourselves with. The Moon creates the stress band, and that’s the key to solving this whole problem. We just have to fool around with it. What happens when the stress band passes over the flagella? I always knew there had to be a connection between the two. You see how there’s an excess of electrical activity in the flagella? And look at this statistic. About two percent of the flagella are shorting out completely and not coming back online after the stress band passes. The other ninety-eight percent all seem to experience some kind of seizure activity before going back to their usual profile. Because the stress band isn’t strong or constant enough, it gives the small percentage of destroyed flagella a chance to regenerate. If it were strong enough…”

Mitch looked more closely at the readouts. “Gerry, I think you’re onto something.”

“Let’s increase the Moon’s gravitational field. I want to see if we can increase the short-out rate by upping the pressure of the stress band. In fact, I want to increase the gravity until we get a hundred percent short-out rate. Let’s kill all those damn things if we can.”

“Gerry… are we working toward a model here? Because how the hell do you expect to increase the Moon’s gravity in real life?”

“I expect to do it on a shoestring budget, like I do everything else.”

Mitch hesitated, but finally gave his technicians a nod.

The technicians keyed in the necessary commands to increase Platform 2’s gravitational field.

As the strength of the gravity increased, Gerry watched the readouts carefully, making sure all of them were recorded, particularly the short-out rate. The short-out rate in the flagella increased from two percent to five, and then ten percent, even as the temperature of the stress band rose dramatically. As the short-out rate reached fifteen, then twenty percent, the color of the small phytosphere changed, becoming a light green. Its entire surface quivered. The short-out rate jumped exponentially to forty percent, then to eighty percent, as the mock-up Moon exerted an ever stronger pull on the scale-model Earth.

At last the whole phytosphere crumpled.

As the stress band passed around it one more time, it exploded in a sloppy and gelatinous splash, like a water balloon filled with mint jelly.

Kev was left standing there in a hazmat suit covered with green slime. Smallmouth 2 hovered up near the singularity.

“Okay, you can cut the fields,” said Gerry.

Mitch had his technicians do so.

There was a feeling in the room of fundamental and groundbreaking discovery. As the fields hummed down to silence and Platform 2 rolled to a stop, everyone stared at the splattered control area. Gerry looked at the readouts again. Theoretically, it was possible. But how? And with what resources? The Styrofoam ball plopped to the floor.

He glanced at Mitch. Mitch was looking at him in… amazement .

Yes, theoretically, it was possible.

If only he could figure out how.

Darkness was her world, and her car was her life.

At last they reached Georgia. Glenda couldn’t believe how long it was taking them to travel the four hundred miles from Raleigh to Marblehill. She was anxious because her charge was getting lower and lower, and Hanna’s coughing was getting worse and worse. They were well up in the mountains and, luckily, there hadn’t been any more road washouts or landslides. The rain had stopped, and the hills were holding. What bothered her were the immense fog banks—fog so thick it was like cheese, with a stench like rotten algae.

She took 441 south through Clayton, Tallulah Falls, and Turnerville, glad to reach Turnerville because the hills and valleys weren’t so big, and the road didn’t wind so much. Also, there was some farmland, not the chilling and grotesque dead forest all the time, which was really starting to frazzle her. But she was also unnerved to reach Turnerville because Turnerville was where they really had to start looking out for Buzz.

Though it was ten o’clock in the morning, the sky was black. The only light came from her headlights.

They pierced the misty gloom like twin swords.

Ten miles later, they came to Clarkesville. She veered onto 17. The charge needle was on empty. Yet Clarkesville was a heady milestone to Glenda, the last town they passed before they reached Marblehill.

She remembered the road now, and didn’t need Gerry’s old map. Seventeen twisted north to 75, at which point she turned left on 75 and headed west again on an old blacktop highway that looked as if it had been abandoned by road crews years ago.

She was no more than a mile along 75 when a cloud of flies enveloped the car. She slowed right down because she couldn’t see through the flies. They landed on her windshield and didn’t blow off. This made seeing difficult. She turned on her windshield wipers and brushed them away. But too late. She bashed into something, and the car lurched to a halt. Her kids jerked forward in their seat belts. The pressure of

Hanna’s seat belt against the girl’s chest made her cough again, and it was a miserable, exhausted cough.

“Jake, give me the handgun,” said Glenda.

“What’d we hit?”

“I don’t know. I can’t see a thing. These damn flies.”

Jake handed the gun to her, and she got out of the car.

She shut the door so the flies wouldn’t get in, and walked around to the front. The flies immediately got in her hair, eyes, and ears. She brushed them away as best she could, but there were so many that she made only a halfhearted effort, and then resigned herself to suffering through them.

She shone the flashlight on the road and saw that she had run into a dead horse. The horse looked as if it had been shot through the head. Who would shoot a horse through the head? The animal was horribly emaciated, and starting to putrefy.

Shining her flashlight further up the road, she saw three other dead horses blocking the way at various distances. At last, far ahead, she saw a truck with a horse trailer, the trailer jackknifed across the road.

She cast her flashlight along the shoulder and wasn’t sure if she would have enough room to get by.

She approached the truck slowly, walking through this bizarre scene of equine mayhem with an overwhelming sense of apprehension. The other three horses looked as if they had also been pulled out of the trailer and shot. The flies got thicker, and the stench was horrendous. This was what she hated about her new world, how every so often a scene from Hell would arise, and there would never be any emergency crews to clear it away, only the terrifying effects of nature on dead flesh. She lifted the handgun and walked closer to the cab.