Rocket Season - Chapter 7

Copyright © 2024 D.W. Patterson

All rights reserved.

Second Printing – February 2025

Future Chron Publishing

Cover – Copyright © 2024 D.W. Patterson

Cover Image – Photo 115346712 / Rocket Launch © Nexusplexus | Dreamstime.com

Previously published as:

Rocket Summer

Rocket Fall

Rocket Winter

Rocket Spring

Contains additional material.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission, except in the case of brief quotations for the purpose of review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are products of the author's imagination and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events and people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Hard Science Fiction – Old School

Human Generated Content

CHAPTER 7

Williams' Farm

Hell's Hollow Road

North Georgia, USA

After the eye operation Jack had followed the news more closely than usual using his Tabbie. Today he read about GDP being down more than two percent in Germany as riots continued there, and now the same had spread to Brazil. Japan and South Korea had falling GDP also but were calm as the populations were more stoic. Northeast China had disappeared from the rest of the world behind a new Great Wall of censorship. Australians had voted out their government again, the third time in three months, as their GDP was falling fast. Jack shut down Tabbie and stared out his bedroom window.

The world is worse off than me.

Right after the operation, Dr. Limbaugh had told Jack how pleased he was with how the operation had gone. He remarked about the quality of Jack's nerve endings which were attached to the prosthesis, they were perhaps the best he had ever seen.

After a week of nothing but a confused blur, Jack had begun to be able to distinguish forms. By the following week when he went back to Atlanta to see Dr. Limbaugh he was seeing rather well. The following week he began trying the magnifying effect and was getting quite good at invoking the function and setting the magnification.

But now in the fourth week something else had appeared. Whenever he was talking to another person, Jack began having trouble with the prosthesis, he finally figured out what was happening. It was the voice of the person. The voice was causing a reaction that colored (literally) the interaction. Deep voices, high voices, men's voices, women's voices, all had their own slight colorful sheen. It was also related to the speaker's frame of mind.

At first, he was alarmed that the prosthesis was failing and a call to Dr. Limbaugh had him returning to Atlanta for a checkup.

“Well Jack, there is nothing physically wrong with the prosthesis as none of the tests show any failure. Now I feel, since there is no obvious problem with the prosthesis, that the problem is in the interface,” said Dr. Limbaugh.

“You think something went wrong during the operation doctor?” asked Jack's mother.

“No, Mrs. Williams, I've reviewed the entire procedure that, as you may not know, was completely recorded. The robot, nor I, can find anything wrong. I think this phenomenon is occurring in Jack's brain. Do you remember Jack that I told you the results of the operation can be different for different patients, even if the procedure went similarly?”

“Yes, Doctor I remember that. Do you think that is what is occurring?”

“Yes Jack, I do. I believe, because of how well your optical nerves were at the time of the operation, that your brain and the prosthesis are interacting differently from others who have undergone this operation. It's like upgrading the network connection to a computer, it can process a greater data rate than before.

“The virtual neural MRI did show that the firing of neurons related to that optical nerve were a factor of ten above your other eye. I take that to mean that maybe something like an augmentation has been effected, though we weren't trying for that result.”

“What should I do Doctor?” asked Jack

“Do you think you can live with this effect?”

“As long as there is nothing physically wrong, yeah, I think I can.”

“Well then, I think we should get a vision therapist to work with you for a few weeks and take notes of these occurrences. Maybe then we can come to a conclusion as to what we should do, if anything.”

“Will Jack have to stay here Doctor Limbaugh?” asked Jack's mom.

“No, Mrs. Williams. If Jack would prefer, I think we could find someone to attend to him at home.”

“I would prefer that,” said Jack.

“Okay, it's settled then. I'm sorry about this Jack,” said Dr. Limbaugh.

“It's okay Dr. Limbaugh, as you said before the operation, everyone is affected differently.”

Back home Jack received a message from Dr. Limbaugh's office that a qualified vision therapist had been located nearby and would call Jack within the week to set up an appointment.

Jack was in his room and expecting the vision therapist when he heard the doorbell ring. He knew his mother would answer the door before he could rush down, so he waited. It wasn't long until he heard his mother's voice call to him, he got up from his desk and opened his bedroom door.

“Jack this is Mary, your vision therapist.”

Jack faced a woman probably about his age. She was shorter than him with short brown hair which curved sharply inward in back, her eyes were a soft green.

“Hello, Jack, how are you,” she asked.

“I'm fine, I guess. Are you ready to start?”

“Sure, let's go.”

“Okay. Mother, I thought we might use dad's office if you don't mind,” said Jack.

“Of course, son, that would be fine.”

“Mary, if you will follow me, please,” she said as she turned.

Jack's mom led them downstairs to the office with Jack following. He noticed the way the therapist's hair bobbed as she walked.

Arriving at the office, Jack's mom asked Mary if she would like a tea or something, but Mary declined. Jack's mom left.

“Okay, Mr Williams, I like to start by saying that you may call me Mary if you wish.”

“Thank you, Mary, and you may call me Jack.”

“Very well, now let's get started. My job is to see that your prosthesis becomes a natural part of you everyday life if possible. In other words, I hope that by the time we are finished, you will not notice the use of it or if you do, it will be acceptable to you. The doctor did explain your particular reaction so we will look out for that as we go. To those ends, I have some specialized exercises that I want to teach you. But first I want to establish a reference point and so I will ask you to do a few things. Are you ready?”

“Ready Mary,” Jack said with a smile.

After four weeks of three times a week visits, the rehabilitation part of Jack's recovery was over. He had gotten use to the prosthesis, although he still didn't understand the slight color shifts that occurred sometimes. Mary had stopped coming to the William's home and Jack wasn't sure that he was happy about it. Once Dr. Limbaugh got the results, he left it up to Jack about how to proceed. Jack responded that he was okay with the results.

Sometime afterward, Jack was sitting in his room looking out the window again. The old frame house was a copy of many of the homes seen in that area in the 1800s. Two story with an open front porch and a screened in rear porch. It was designed to look like a farmhouse from that era, but it was built with the newest in engineered materials and some natural wood cut from trees on the farm. Jack's dad had designed and partially built it himself, long before Jack was born.

Jack's room was a comfortable size, twelve by fourteen feet. On the two outer walls, there were two windows and a comfortable chair which Jack used when he sat and stared out. On the far side was his desk, which had a clean top on four sturdy legs and nothing else. On another wall, opposite the door was Jack's bed. The rest of the wall space was covered in shelves which held everything from Jack's bottle rockets he had built as a kid to his collection of paper books.

Jack loved his room and the house, but he hadn't decided if he would stay after the death of his dad. But there were other more pressing decisions he had to make now.

The first decision was whether he would continue his research and his PhD. Actually, he felt kind of indifferent to his studies. With his dad gone, he felt adrift. While his mom had always been supportive of his research, it had been his dad who listened and understood, to a degree, what Jack was trying to do, including the greater implications of Jack's efforts.

One of those implications was the need, now greater than ever because of worsening world conditions, to be able to lift and return heavy masses to and from space more reliably, cheaper, and without collateral damage. Jack's dad, understanding the world's geopolitics, saw that such access to space could provide resources that would cushion the ongoing economic crash. He encouraged Jack to continue his work because the Mach thruster could provide the heavy lift needed without any of the consequences of chemical rockets and at a reduced cost.

But without his dad's encouragement Jack wasn't sure he could muster the enthusiasm to continue. He would ask his mom for her opinion.

Later that day his mom had come up to his room and he had asked her what she thought about him pursuing his degree.

“Well son, I'm glad you wanted to discuss your education because I do have something to tell you. It was, perhaps, fortuitous timing that your father and I discussed this issue just a couple of weeks before his death.”

She paused momentarily as memories flooded her mind.

“Anyway, as you know, your father was much more in touch with world conditions than I, but for some reason that evening he wanted to tell me what he thought was coming and how it would affect us and how you might hold the key to mitigating some of the misery he saw ahead.

“Again, I never paid much attention to these issues, so I took your father's word. I will try to remember those words as faithfully as I can, so in a way you can think of what I am about to say as coming from your father, with me as his spokesman.

“He saw wars coming Jack, even more than we have now. Wars over natural resources, not wars of ideology, but desperate wars fought by desperate peoples because they needed food or shelter or clothing. If I remember correctly, he said that this is a consequence of de-globalization and de-population. He said that too many countries had specialized for far too long in producing widgets, that's the word he used for everything from integrated circuits to oranges, instead of food, and that they had done it so successfully that they had been able to import all the food and other things they needed.

“But with shrinking populations and de-globalization your dad feared a rise in lawlessness and especially a shattering of the global transport system. I remember I didn't understand what he meant, I thought if one country wanted to sell overseas there would always be a shipper to transport that sale. But Jose said that something as seemingly mundane as insurance for the ships would be a problem.

“If I remember correctly, as the United States withdraws its global presence, powers, both state and private, will arise to disrupt international trade, he expected piracy to return, and wars would also interrupt those shipments. And no insurance company would be willing to underwrite the ships, and the ships would have to defend themselves or depend, probably through extortionate payments, on nearby coastal nations to protect them. The result, your dad said, would be such a rise in shipping costs, that it wouldn't pay to ship low worth goods and intermediate parts, disrupting the global economy even more. These disruptions would reinforce each other, leading to more and greater disruptions.

“Under globalization parts made in a multitude of countries, could be economically sent to other countries half-way around the world, assembled into intermediate products and then sent on to another country for final assembly, and that finished product would still be much cheaper than if everything had all been made and assembled in one country. With de-globalization, inflation would soar worldwide, and standards of living would fall off a cliff as most people wouldn't be able to keep up with the soaring costs.

“And that's not the worst thing, Jack, the failure of trade would deny poorer countries their manufacturing advantage and their export economy and they would not be able to import the foodstuffs they needed. The result is starvation on a scale that made your dad cry. I don't want to go through the details, but I will say that he thought space resources, power and asteroid materials for example, things we should have pursued decades ago, could mitigate the consequences. And what you're doing with your Mach rockets could facilitate getting those orbital resources down to Earth.

“There is more Jack, much more, but instead of me trying to remember it all, I will just give you your father's journal. I'll be back in a moment.”

She rose and went to her husband's office to get the journal.

Jack sat there thinking of all the things his mother had just said. Some of it he had discussed with his dad, but some of it was new, especially the extent of civilizational disruption that his dad foresaw. His mom returned.

“Here Jack,” she said as she handed him his dad's journal and sat down.

“Now, I want to discuss your education specifically,” she said. “Your dad knew you were having a problem securing the materials you needed to continue your experimenting, and he did something about it.”

She removed an envelope from her skirt pocket and handed it to Jack.

“In there you should find enough money to buy the material you need and enough to have it processed into your stacks.”

Jack opened the envelope and looked at the check it contained.

“Mom, where did dad get this much money?”

“He sold some of the assets of his business son.”

“He sold a lot of assets mom.”

“That's true son. But you know Marbury Corporation had offered him a lot of money for a long time.”

“He sold control,” said Jack quietly.

His mom was quiet.

“He never wanted to sale control mom.”

“I know son, that is what he thought, but I guess he felt like what you were trying to do was more important. At least, he felt like you were more important.”

Jack was stunned. His dad had always been completely devoted and supportive of him, but this was beyond supportive.

“Well,” said his mom finally, “your sister Clarese and family will be here soon, and I've got to finish dinner.”

“Okay mom, I'll come down when they arrive.”

Jack sat a long time without moving, he was preoccupied, he was thinking.