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Gamma Wind by Ellsworth Sanders

(Book Excerpt)

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Copyrighted© 2015 by Ellsworth Sanders

All rights are reserved. All references to persons in this story alive or dead are fictional and any similarities are coincidental.

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Gamma Wind

Sometimes he slept on the kitchen table sometimes in the garage on top of his tool bench.

Chapter 1

Present day May 19th.

Rick Foster's eyes opened to the morning's first light shining through the dust of his workshop window. The morning sun came soon. Seemed like an hour ago he was sitting on his work bench admiring the work he had completed on his vintage Ford Mustang. It wasn't easy upgrading the old gal's transmission from a C4 to a C6 - but he knew it was worth the aches and pains to do it. It was a mix of labor and agony that equated into a strange love that fired the adrenaline pump in one's body and mind. Coming down was less than sobering, and the last thing Rick remembered was he needed the rest. So this morning Rick found himself cuddled up to his old C4 arm draped over it as if it were an old bedtime companion.

Spending the night on his workbench didn't seem all that uncomfortable - discovering he had slept in a puddle of transmission fluid was. Not that the transmission fluid was harmful in the sense that it caused any skin trauma of any kind; only that it was the last clean shirt he had. Without the time to run a load of laundry, Rick had just enough time to grab a shower. Also finding a set of clean clothes loomed yet another challenge, and that is if the traffic were in his favor he could make it to work on time.

Setting his mind on the day ahead while the warmth of the shower melted away his aches and pains Rick's thoughts kept turning to his next project. All that remained on his Mustang project was cutting seven inches off the driveshaft, and this would require a machine shop to accomplish the task. The other option was to dig through heaps of junked Mustangs in a salvage yard for a driveshaft of the correct length. However finding a good auto salvage yard these days was difficult as many yards have turned to crushing whole cars for scrap metal instead. Junk yards have even changed their names to, "Auto Recyclers". The more things change, the more things tend to stay the same Rick thought. He liked the old way of recycling car parts. Used parts were good parts until they wore out at which time you just rebuilt them. Rebuilt auto parts were good as new and lasted just as long as original equipment parts. Better this way than just tossing car parts into a crucible to be melted down. It was an odd way of thinking perhaps but recycling today's automobiles with its many usable parts were counterintuitive to the claim of recycling. Stepping out of the shower Rick dug through a laundry basket for a towel that didn't smell moldy. While doing so he pondering the idea over in his head--of the lost jobs that resulted from crushing and melting down cars versus salvage yards.

Rick stood before his bathroom mirror shuffling a towel through his hair. His thoughts changed to a few gray hairs he's never noticed before. Just like his father his mop of brown hair had survived the slightest changes for over forty years. A few gray hairs at 53 ain't bad he thought. Living life by the seat of one's pants without a care in the world was indeed impossible Rick knew, but early on in life he strived to avoid stressful situations. Going to work was one of those stressful situations, and applying his mind to planning his day was becoming more and more difficult. So the he felt his stress levels climb, and the time to make a life-changing decision shortly.

~~~~

Once arriving at work Rick transformed from the amateur mechanic and inventor to his chosen profession as an Astrophysics Professor and Earth Science. Rick considered Central Florida Regional College his college of choice, and held a twenty-plus year tenure there. Students entered the college through appropriate entrances to their predestined labs where T.A.'s dictated the days learning material. After they have experienced the duration of their appointed lab the professor would arrive to give a blessing to it all hence began the next step in the mental programming. Those periods between lectures were spent tinkering with Mustangs and hydrogen fuel generators.

Rick entered the college through the faculty entrance with plenty of time to spare and to the odor of which he was accustom to; the smell of freshly buffed floor wax and institutional strength air freshener.

Gregory Miller caught up to Rick as he was entering his office. Greg had this silly grin on his face as it was evident he was on the brink of busting a gut. "I didn't get the memo," he said. "But were we supposed to dress like a lumberjack?"

Greg was a history professor, and he wore it well; right down to his three-piece suits. His breath of knowledge in history was impressive. Rick enjoyed Greg's tales of the battles fought throughout the Civil War era. Greg had a backstory for nearly every battle - some anecdotal some gleaned from old letters and postcard sent to love ones by actual soldiers who participated in the fight. Bringing forward the human element in Greg's history lessons and lectures won his notoriety.

Rick glanced down at his sleeves and tried to brush a few wrinkles out of the red flannel material. "I try to dress casual at all times but today I had this hankering to dress like Paul Bunyan."

"Nothing wrong with that," Greg said while stealing a glance at his wristwatch. "So Rick are you still dabbling in hydrogen?"

Rick smiled. "Yes but with limited success." Hydrogen as an alternative fuel had many shortcomings to overcome before it could satisfy Rick's needs much less the consumer. However, there was a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. Figuratively speaking that light was becoming increasingly dim. Greg understood what Rick was trying to achieve. To find a way of producing hydrogen at a rate higher than what an internal combustion engine consumes would be better than Rick could hope for.

During a discussion, Greg recalled some of the strategies that were employed by both sides of the Civil War. Hydrogen filled surveillance balloons was discussed. Rick took an interest in this story. The idea of a secret operation where volunteer observers were taken up in hydrogen-filled balloons mystified him in more ways than one. First of all such battle side activity had time constraints attached and no one could afford a few days to inflate a balloon large enough to raise a soldier to spy on its enemy. Secondly when Greg mentioned the scientist who invented the hydrogen generator he mentioned that very little was known about him. The scientist bound by his allegiance to the Confederacy kept secret his invention from falling into the hands of the enemy. The mystery scientist had the generator mounted on a buckboard pulled by two of the fastest stable horse of the day. After the war, no traces of the generator were found, and even though the inventor lived many years after the war refused to discuss or reveal the secrets of his field hydrogen generator.

"Well it's good to hear you haven't given up," Greg said.

"I could give up a lot of things but never my hobbies."

Greg took another peek at his watch. "Before you go today check your mailbox."

"I always do."

"I have for you some additional information. I think you might find it interesting. I've been digging around and discovered some interesting facts about the last known whereabouts of our seemingly elusive inventor. Where he may have lived and died that is."

As Greg shook hands and tuned for his office, Rick knew if given the time Greg would solve the riddle to this mystery. It was Greg's way --- history was his profession and his hobby.

Rick ducked into his office and took down the folder containing all his lecture notes for this week's study plan. Rick thumbed through his basic lecture notes in a last minute effort to put himself into his role as an educator. Aside of student text revisions little had changed.

His current events became events with each year's addition of more current events. Rick wrestled out a ball of news clippings from his pants pocket. He sorted them all out on top of his desk unfolding each and pressing out the wrinkles with the palm of his hand. Many of these scraps of paper were current events about his professional field of study. He loved to include them in his lectures and discussions with his scholars. One exciting news development Rick had been following was anything pertaining to solar flare activity. Over the many years of study, Rick's solar flare studies had taken a controversial focus on one single stormy area of the sun many centuries old. This turbulent region of the sun was, and still is under close observation. The intensity of the storm was predictable. The number and intensity of the flares that erupted were not. Every 360 days the Earth would orbit into the path of this storm. The probability of the number and intensity of solar flares from these storms are relative to the intensity of those storms. Based on a field-of-view study scientists were leaking the information that this hot-spot activity were at its highest levels in recorded history.

It was May, and Rick knew the next few months would tell whether or not Earth would experience numerous small flares or one or two big solar flares. The question yet to be answered was the radiation levels of each strike. One thing was for certain; modern science has yet to record such epic levels. Rick surmised such flares struck the earth as little as 75 or so years ago.

~~~~

With notes and folder in hand, Rick walked the hallway from his office to the lecture hall. His head buzzed with thoughts of this being his last lecture before resigning his post and taking on early retirement. As it was, Rick knew he had side-stepped his responsibilities here at the college. 'Side-stepping' was a polite way of saying he had shirked his duties. Shirking was a word that meant shrinking, and in a perfect sense it was how Rick felt. He was shrinking from society. It was a slow process as Rick felt it began the day he finished his dissertation research. For thirty years, he fought to deny it was happening. He fought the naysayers and the critics of his work but even after it all he felt a peculiar sense of triumph. Rick smiled. He graduated with honors despite what some claim was Rick's doomsday speculation. But facts are facts, and no matter how shocking the scientific community swept it all under the rug. Rick decided back then that there wasn't any need to alarm the world on issues that were beyond our control. Such endeavors would create panic and mayhem.

Rick finished his lecture and went forward with his current events topics. He hoped to bring everyone up to speed on the earth sciences end of the astrophysics scale. In the back of Rick's mind, the Earth was on the brink of an unfortunate awakening. In as little as a few months from now life as we know it will vanish---reduced to a level of fundamental survival; foraging for food and working the soil to raise crops. If gamma ray levels remained low throughout the duration of the solar flare exposure soil and vegetation might survive long enough to bounce back. Rick shuffle through some papers while clearing his throat.

He kept his 'notable notes of interest' on recipe index cards. "Historically on this day May 19th, 1998," Rick began, "Millions of pagers nationwide stopped working when communications satellite the Galaxy IV suddenly lost track of Earth." He paused a moment to remove his reading glasses, and while carefully placing them on the podium before him he slowly raised up his face and smiled. "I understand that most of you were too young to remember that event. As I look around I gather most of you weren't even born, and don't know or recall what pagers are."

While scanning the lecture hall, Rick realized he may have spoken too soon. Sitting in the back row was an elderly gentleman perhaps in his seventies. His hair was snowy white and neatly groomed rendering an air of distinction about him that was unmistakable. His dress was out of step with the times yet his suit was neatly pressed as if he just stepped out of the very store from which it was purchased. He sat legs crossed at the knees reading through some papers he held in an open leather folder in his lap.

"Anyone want to speculate what caused Galaxy IV to lose track of earth?" Rick said slowly while keeping a wary eye on the old stranger in the back.

The stranger remained motionless head tilted down slightly while he focused his attention on his papers. Rick assumed this man was just another auditor bean counter or consultant. On the other hand Rick had known guys like him to drop in on his lectures before, but this guest was different in some way that Rick couldn't put his finger on. The hall was totally quiet. All eyes were on Rick. "Conjecture perhaps?"

Rick began to feel as if he had summoned water from a dry well. The well had slowly dried up over the years. Faced only with blank expressions Rick wondered where the enthusiasm for learning had gone. Life was at its best when one looked to the future. It was a simple known fact that a person comes out ahead when they look to the future. Just picking up a newspaper or reading a chapter or two ahead of the crowd was enough to carry a competitive edge over all the others. It had always been Rick's lesson plan to craft his lectures followed by a discussion of current events followed by questions about the topics found in the next chapter of their studies.

Gone were the days of sport and loyalty to one's ability to strive for a brighter future. Rick paused a moment looking down to his notes spread out in the open bay of the lectern before him. It was a beautiful piece of mahogany furniture this lectern darkly stained and carved in its antiquity. A graceful scrolling created the illusion of depth and fold. It too was the all too familiar place to rest hands along her carved banisters and to feel the curvaceous effect of how it seemed to assert a sense of pride. But there was no pride in this hall. Just a growing number of empty faces sporting headphones around their necks. The grip Rick maintained on the lectern banisters tightened. He could feel where the chisels and carving tools ended, and the sculpting created by fingernails began. It was a contrast between life and real life; old times and new, all driven by generations of the past. Rick started to wonder which direction this new generation will take us. That is of course if they survive the great natural occurring disruption which was surely coming their way.

Rick sighed. "Are there no takers in the crowd?"

A hand rose up from the midst of them all. Like a cobra in the tall grass it swayed. Testing the air with a sense of caution for being seen while braving the environment for the chance to survive, she suddenly waved her hand. Rick waved at her motioning her to stand up. As the rules go, set forth by Rick himself, she stated her name clearly. "Kendra Rogers sir," she began. "Nobody knows for sure what caused the Galaxy IV to temporarily go offline. But I believe the satellite may have been in the path of a solar flare."

"You say that nobody knows for sure what caused the Galaxy IV to lose track of earth?"

Out of embarrassment, her cheeks began to blush. A sheepish smile drew her lips thin. "It was what I read in the next study chapter, sir. Sorry."

Rick put on his reading glasses and scanned a student record card for information on Kendra Rogers. "Miss Rodgers," Rick said, "this is why you hold a 4.0 average."

Kendra nodded in agreement. "It sometimes helps me to better understand the current chapter studies."

Rick heard a few moans of disgust in the room. He knew where the cries came from, and he knew they were from the few that barely made a passing grade. As far as Rick was concerned they should drop-out and spend their tuition money on lottery tickets instead.