Big Waves
Have a nice nap?” Lucy was tele-operating the Pixie “I hope you did. We have a lot to cover to get you up to speed. We have a long ways to go and a short time to get there. I have other places I have to be soon so I can’t linger or waste any time. Lives may be in the balance.”
The pixie avatar pulled a pendant necklace out of ....er...she produced the pendant from SOMEwhere and handed it to him. “Here, take this and put it around your neck. It will bite you but just ignore that part, be a MAN. I gots some ‘splaining to do and this will make it much faster.”
What else could he do? When a little sexy pixie told him to don a necklace...he did so. It did bite but it wasn’t bad, he’d hurt himself worse before with his zipper( before he switched to button up pants), then a whole new world opened before him. Lucy appeared before his eyes in virtual reality and confirmed his suspicions...she WAS sexy...even more so than the pixie..
Unfortunately she wasn’t in the mood to flirt, she was in a hurry. She began to force feed him information. Oddly enough it stuck. It must have had something to do with that necklace...he’d have given a LOT to have the capability to absorb knowledge so fast years ago when he was in college, or later when he was doing...other things.
So it went through the morning. He got a crash course in Structural Smoke.
Then she was gone.
She’d left him with enough information and enough Structural Smoke to survive....maybe. It was up to him now.
But he missed her.
So it happened world wide. The rains had stopped, the clouds and fog had receded. The sun was visible again and the people had relaxed a little bit. Only to find out, too late in many cases, that dropping their guard had been a mistake. They should have run for the High Ground. The New Madrid, and other Faults were disturbed by the weight of the water, or for what ever reason they let go.
Disaster ensued.
Untold Gigatons of soil had been washed down the rivers into the oceans by the months long torrential incessant rains. The soil had settled into place on the seafloor and increased stress on the escarpment of the continental shelf. The intense EarthQuakes that had shaken the land, in many places had shaken it loose. A great many undersea mud-slips and avalanches ocurred. . Gigantic Tsunamis were thus formed that had devastated anything low enough for the waves to reach. That would be everything on the planet below half a mile above the old sea level. That didn’t leave much that wasn’t at risk.
Almost anyone not on high ground...died.
Almost.
Mother was Kedging down the Mississippi River just south of what had been Vicksburg Mississippi. The submerged remnants of the town hadn’t yielded much carbon. It appeared that most people had managed to escape the flood in it’s early stages by using their automobiles. They’d driven away leaving what they couldn’t carry behind.
However, outside of town on what had been a small peninsula before the flood, was a number of oil refineries and chemical plants. THEY had yielded a great many tons of SCrystal.
After cleaning up the corpse of Vicksburg Mother had JUST returned to the Navigation Channel in the river when the wave was sighted.
The wave was impossible.
Captain spotted the wave while it was still over the horizon. He immediately sounded the alarm
“What’s the matter?” the Dragon Lady asked over VR. She was at Ernie's in conference with the Maggi.
“Extended surveillance bugs report the impossible.” Captain Parmalee told her. “There are a number of huge waves heading this way”
“How huge?” The Dragon Lady asked
“Real huge.” he said “Perhaps a hundred foot high.”
“Impossible.” She said
“That’s what I said” he replied.
The proper response to hundred foot waves weren’t in the Dragon Ladies Skill Set. She looked at Shelby and the other Maggi. Perhaps they had a clue.
“How deep is the river here?” Shelby muttered as he accessed that information himself. “Ah...it’s fairly deep. We’re heading for the center now...and submerging.”
Mother did that.
“Warning! Warning!” no one could ignore the sound that vibrated their very teeth. Elvira had a definite knack for getting attention.“Tsunami alert, tidal bore, big waves a coming this way.....bracing for impact!”
Through out Mother the air thickened....it turned to Jello.. The pervasive Structural Smoke that permeated it’s interior become more and more dense. Soon everyone and everything was embedded like a fly in amber... oddly enough they could still breath.
Then the wave struck.
WHUMP
The water around mother became instantly turbulent. What had been a twenty foot depth seconds before, instantly became over a hundred foot with the associated exponential increase in water pressure to over forty pounds per square inch, enough to crush many structures or vessels.
Shelby had been faced with three choices and very little time to decide between them.
- Do nothing, certain death.
- Ride the wave...which would have entailed extreme structural stress. Mother was built of fantastically strong stuff...but hundred foot waves were no laughing matter..
- Duck and Cover...which was what he did. He took the fox hole route.
Mother turtled up...she squatted down into the deepest part of the river, held on tight as the waves rolled over.
It worked. Nobody died.
To Be Continued
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Disclaimer
The Hobo Picture is a Public Domain image from
Samantha at the Worlds Fair
by Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
Illustrated by
Baron C. De Grimm published by
Funk and Wagnall's Company 1893
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The Badges are graciously provided by
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Unless otherwise noted
All other Illustrations are from
Pixabay