Pulse: When Gravity Fails (Pulse Science Fiction Series Book 1) Read Online Free
Author: John Freitas
ladder and felt the rust grind off under his hands as he climbed. On a few of the steps, he felt the ladder waver on its connecting bolts. On a few other steps, he felt the entire tower shift with his weight and a light wind.
He reached the belly of the observation deck and pushed against the underside of the trapdoor. It was jammed shut from wear, rust, and the constant shifting of the poorly maintained tower. He pounded up on it until his wrist hurt.
Roman spouted out every Russian curse he knew twice plus a few Yiddish ones he had heard from his mother at night when she argued with his father. Roman twisted around on the ladder so that his boot was above him against the hatch. The entire ladder rocked hard to one side with the off balance stance. He fully expected to have the rungs snap under him and he would fall bodily into the jaws of a giant tiger sneaking through the trees below.
He bent his knee and kicked once, then twice. The door gave slightly. He drew back and kicked again feeling pain lace up through his joints. “Why do I go on with these empty comings and goings? I kick against the goads like a stupid donkey.”
He kicked again and the hatch burst open with a crash.
Roman righted himself and climbed up onto the deck. Safety regulations called for closing the hatch back, but Roman pictured himself dying of starvation trapped above the Russian wilderness. He determined to just not stumble through the opening and fall to his death.
He spoke a phrase in English he had learned from TV shows on the Internet before he was assigned a post with no electricity. “Note to self.”
Roman raised the binoculars to scan over the top of the forest looking for lost hunters, loggers, or evidence of giant tigers. He saw none.
The sound of another crack and crash rolled up past his ears in the tower. He leaned his elbows on the wood shelf of the open observation bay and scanned again.
He still didn’t see it, but kept his eyes to the lenses and the glasses aimed out toward the west below him. He mumbled in English. “Tyger, Tyger, burning bright …”
Roman knew the story of the meteorite striking in the middle of Siberia and flattening miles of forest in an instant. It had happened in the early part of the twentieth century, but like most stories in Russia, it was told as if it happened yesterday. The impact had been so great that it was like an atomic blast before the Americans ever invented and dropped the first bomb. Like most stories it Russia, some told it as something beyond natural – the invasion of some dark force from beyond this world.
Roman was farther south and east than the tundra of Siberia in the temperate forests of the Taiga. Also, if an atomic sized meteorite strike happened, he would not have time to wonder what it was. But maybe a shower of smaller rocks could strike. They might cause a fire that he had no chance of outrunning or one might punch right through his skull. No one would even notice I was gone , he thought.
“Taiga, Taiga, burning bright … Note to self: Do not get killed by falling space rock.”
He saw the tree go down and then the sound hit his ear a fraction of a second later. He looked for motion or a cause from the ground, but saw none. An entire row of trees went down like a band across the forest.
For the split second between the sight and the sound reaching him, Roman thought of loggers clear cutting, but that wasn’t right. The new clear space was also clear of people and machines. The drop had been instant like a great, invisible weight had fallen onto the forest all at once.
In the midst of the larger, felled timber, Roman saw smaller pines bent down along their flexible trunks. He thought they might be pinned under the larger trees, but some were standing alone near clearings. It was as if the smaller trees were bowing in respect to some unseen force.
Roman cursed in Russian and said, “I should have listened to your crazed rantings about spirits more
He reached the belly of the observation deck and pushed against the underside of the trapdoor. It was jammed shut from wear, rust, and the constant shifting of the poorly maintained tower. He pounded up on it until his wrist hurt.
Roman spouted out every Russian curse he knew twice plus a few Yiddish ones he had heard from his mother at night when she argued with his father. Roman twisted around on the ladder so that his boot was above him against the hatch. The entire ladder rocked hard to one side with the off balance stance. He fully expected to have the rungs snap under him and he would fall bodily into the jaws of a giant tiger sneaking through the trees below.
He bent his knee and kicked once, then twice. The door gave slightly. He drew back and kicked again feeling pain lace up through his joints. “Why do I go on with these empty comings and goings? I kick against the goads like a stupid donkey.”
He kicked again and the hatch burst open with a crash.
Roman righted himself and climbed up onto the deck. Safety regulations called for closing the hatch back, but Roman pictured himself dying of starvation trapped above the Russian wilderness. He determined to just not stumble through the opening and fall to his death.
He spoke a phrase in English he had learned from TV shows on the Internet before he was assigned a post with no electricity. “Note to self.”
Roman raised the binoculars to scan over the top of the forest looking for lost hunters, loggers, or evidence of giant tigers. He saw none.
The sound of another crack and crash rolled up past his ears in the tower. He leaned his elbows on the wood shelf of the open observation bay and scanned again.
He still didn’t see it, but kept his eyes to the lenses and the glasses aimed out toward the west below him. He mumbled in English. “Tyger, Tyger, burning bright …”
Roman knew the story of the meteorite striking in the middle of Siberia and flattening miles of forest in an instant. It had happened in the early part of the twentieth century, but like most stories in Russia, it was told as if it happened yesterday. The impact had been so great that it was like an atomic blast before the Americans ever invented and dropped the first bomb. Like most stories it Russia, some told it as something beyond natural – the invasion of some dark force from beyond this world.
Roman was farther south and east than the tundra of Siberia in the temperate forests of the Taiga. Also, if an atomic sized meteorite strike happened, he would not have time to wonder what it was. But maybe a shower of smaller rocks could strike. They might cause a fire that he had no chance of outrunning or one might punch right through his skull. No one would even notice I was gone , he thought.
“Taiga, Taiga, burning bright … Note to self: Do not get killed by falling space rock.”
He saw the tree go down and then the sound hit his ear a fraction of a second later. He looked for motion or a cause from the ground, but saw none. An entire row of trees went down like a band across the forest.
For the split second between the sight and the sound reaching him, Roman thought of loggers clear cutting, but that wasn’t right. The new clear space was also clear of people and machines. The drop had been instant like a great, invisible weight had fallen onto the forest all at once.
In the midst of the larger, felled timber, Roman saw smaller pines bent down along their flexible trunks. He thought they might be pinned under the larger trees, but some were standing alone near clearings. It was as if the smaller trees were bowing in respect to some unseen force.
Roman cursed in Russian and said, “I should have listened to your crazed rantings about spirits more
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