Zero 'g' Read Online Free Page A

were
causing more damage to Earth. Not exactly good news. The
opportunities that would be brought about because of the amazing
Particle B would astound the world. It all made it worth it in the
end—at least Iverson hoped so. They were risking a lot, and that
was terrifying to Iverson as one of the lead scientists on the
team. It had to work out in the end, because if it didn’t, he
didn’t even want to think about it. So many jobs and lives were at
stake, and their future—everyone’s future—was depending on what
happened with the rocket. If they failed, then they would have to
start back at square one, and he wasn’t sure if they had that kind
of time.
    They had been trying other means of fixing the damage
already done to Earth in the
hopes that they could reverse or slow down its effects. Every
night, NASA turned on its satellite vacuums, which sucked out
polluted air from Earth’s atmosphere. Every day, the world woke up
to fresh, clean air. The bad air was sent into space near Venus. It
was surprising to Iverson, however, just how quickly the air became
polluted in just one day. There was no break; the vacuums always
went back on at the same time every night to clean the atmosphere
of the damage we continually did to it.
    Scientists also used
various reusable rockets all over the world, across many different
countries. These rockets collected trash, hauled it off Earth, and
dumped the useless material into space. NASA had been able to clear
off most of the world’s waste in a very short amount of time. It
had been one of the agency’s most successful innovations. Again,
though, the continuous launching of the rockets caused damage to
the atmosphere. They needed Particle B to reverse all
that.
    The scientific team was still determining all the benefits
of Particle B. As it traveled
to Earth, they waited to hear more. It would take some time to get
it all there, but in the meantime, while the antigravity rocket was
being launched on one side of Earth, the other side was
experiencing issues with the ice in Antarctica.
    Iverson had just received a report that said the Antarctic Ocean was experiencing
continuous melting of the polar ice caps. The whole continent of
Antarctica seemed to be falling apart, and they were powerless to
stop.
    Iverson shook his head as he finished reading the reports
coming in. Fear struck him once again as he wondered if he would
ever be able to pull off what was required of him. He took a seat
and put his head in his hands as he thought about all the melting
ice in the Antarctic. When the
ice melted in the Antarctic, it changed Earth’s gravitational
field. The more melting that occurred, the more Earth’s gravity
would shift. It would be disastrous if the ice continued to melt.
It had to be stopped as soon as possible. He wondered if they could
do anything to slow things down until they got the particle back.
Time was running out, and he hoped they would get Particle B to
Earth before everything fell apart around them.
    Everything was connected on Earth, and most people didn’t even blink an eye when they
heard the ice caps were melting. But so many things came into play
when events such as that started to happen. It set off a domino
effect of events that could affect the whole world. When the ice
sheets melted, the land that was underneath the ice would slowly
start to rise. As the ground rebounded in that fashion, the gravity
field would begin to change. That was the last thing they wanted to
happen right now. If that wasn’t bad enough, closer to the equator,
they were having problems with volcanoes.
    The scientists were guessing at this
point , but they believed that
the volcanoes were starting to erupt with molten iron. The team
believed that the molten iron was coming up from Earth’s core. It’s
pretty common to have volcanoes erupt, and it’s not normally a
catastrophic event, but lately things were changing, and the team
was paying a lot closer attention to the erupting