History Changers: Expedition 2022 Read online

History Changers: Expedition 2022

  by Beau Cornerstone

  Copyright 2012 by Beau Cornerstone

  1st Edition

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  Other ebooks in the Rebelutionaries series

  Book 1: The Weathermakers

  Book 2: The Codetalkers

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  For further reading

  Other Rebelutionaries ebooks & info about vouchers

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  Chapter 1

  The wise man must remember that while he is a descendant of the past,

  he is a parent of the future. -Herbert Spencer

  December 23, 2022 06:00 hours.

  “Well this is it, Kojak...Get a keepsake photo of us, eh?”

  “Say Cheese!”

  The young scientist managed to smile.

  “Done.”

  “Hey Kojak... if one of us don’t pull through this, I’ve enjoyed trail blazing with you.”

  “I’m confident we’ll both pull through this. And that we’ll be able to recommence work on your transporter project again together as soon as it’s... feasible.”

  The young scientist drew a deep breath.

  “I’m looking forward to that mate... Shut down sequence commencing now...”

  The young man reached forward and flicked a series of switches. He wistfully rearranged the protective foam, closed the door and bolted the lead-lined metal cabinet.

  He looked around. The silence was unsettling. Foreboding.

  He glanced at his monitoring equipment. The magnetic field had crept past 37 degrees of north... He double-checked his monitoring equipment against a military hand-held compass and moistened his lips. The monitoring equipment was still accurate.

  Crazy fools. How dare they call themselves scientists! Why couldn’t they call off their experiment in case disaster really was imminent?

  38 degrees of north. An almost imperceptible rumble in the belly of the earth registered on his equipment. The countdown had begun.

  39 degrees of north. The earth grumbled her protest. Something pelted on the roof of the double walled sea container. The young man tried to dismiss his dry-lipped fear as wisps of acrid smoke permeated the container... The sea container was anchor-bolted to bedrock well away from flammable vegetation. In theory he wouldn’t be burned alive even in the event of a scrub fire and the container would remain fixed to the ground. In theory...

  40 degrees of north. The earth heaved violently and buckled beneath him, before resettling... It was like the container was out at sea, not anchored to a rocky outcrop in the middle of the remote Kimberley.

  41 degrees of north. An agonizing two hours had passed since he had last spoken with Kojak. The roof of the container was being bombarded now. It sounded like a constant shower of rocks, except the young scientist knew they were meteorite fragments... Right now houses, schools and shops would be being pelted worldwide. Catching alight as hot metals struck flammable material. Surely Rick Dawk and his team would stop now!

  42 degrees... Clearly they hadn’t stopped their electromagnetic oscillating experiment. They were going to go all the way, irrespective of how many lives were lost... Purple-white lightning sizzled around him, blanketing out the video footage of what was happening outside of the container... Ear-piercing thunder shook the walls of the container... Hail pelted on the roof, as though it was fighting to get in.

  Look on the bright side.... At least the ice would help extinguish any brush fires...

  43 degrees... The sea container jolted violently from side to side. Except for a few loose objects, everything remained in place because it was bracketed or strapped in place by tie downs. So far, weeks of meticulous planning seemed to be paying off...

  44 degrees... It was weirdly still. Like the eye of a storm in the middle of a cyclone... Almost three hours had passed since he had spoken with Kojak and so far he’d survived. He could almost hear Rick Dawk gleefully telling swarms of reporters that his team had proved that the minority of scientists who believed Sarfati and Humphreys were wrong. Maybe Sarfati and Humphreys were wrong... He wanted them to be wrong... Yet he’d been over the calculations several times and tried unsuccessfully to flaw the minority group’s reasoning...

  45 degrees of north... The container lurched forward at a 90 degree angle, then toppled over. Everything hung momentarily in the air - like it was floating without gravity, then gravity violently drew everything down again. A shrieking sound like a human scream reverberated around the container. He looked around apprehensively, then shielded himself as instruments exploded around him. A plasma ball formed in the container and drifted lazily around... The young scientist’s eyes followed it... captivated by the unexpected... His fascination gave way to terror as over in the corner of the container, his unfinished transporter module took on a life of its own...

  A bioluminescent violet light filled the module... violet-indigo rippled and liquefied into blue... then shimmering aquamarine flowed out... followed by a undulating yellow, which fused into orange and crimson... then... in the middle of the pulsating kaleidoscope appeared a youth.

  He was at least a foot shorter than the well-built scientist... Under normal circumstances the scientist would not have felt threatened. But these were far from normal circumstances... He’d expected the earth tremors, the meteorites and the wild weather. But the last thing he’d expected to see was a gaunt teenager appear in a locked sea container in the middle of nowhere. The scientist fought to keep his composure as the youth grinned at him, pulled something over his eyes, then disappeared in a burst of blinding white light.

  Dim light replaced the intense prismatic colours. The scientist drew a calming breath and tried to rationalize away what he’d just witnessed. He wanted to believe it had been a trick of the eye, but the broken instruments told him it hadn’t been. He gingerly opened the sea container door and surveyed the charred devastation. Something whistled past overhead. For a moment he thought it was a bullet, then realized it was a meteorite fragment. He took his military compass out of its lead-lined protective pocket and held it with shaking hands. It confirmed his worst fears. Rick Dawk’s team had moved magnetic north to 45 degrees, then the earth had flipped 135 degrees on its axis. North was now south and south now north. Life on planet earth would never be the same again...

  I can never consent to creep, when I feel the impulse to soar.

  -Helen Keller

  December 20, 2057 18:00 hours

  “GAME OVER - I WIN!!!!

  The words flashed across the screen of the disc I was holding. I smiled faintly.

  When not in use, the disc slotted into a waterproof, shatterproof pendant which I wore around my neck. The disc itself looked like an oversized coin, but it was actually a powerful personal computer - nicknamed Kojak - which responded to both touch and voice prompts. Mum said Kojak’s voice sounded similar to Grandpa’s. Which was cool because I had never met Grandpa. So knowing what he sounded like kinda connected me to him.

  Kojak was... well it’s a little hard to describe him. He was our family mentor... our helper... He monitored our family’s fitness and health and acted as our bodyguard... He even acted like a pet if prompted. Except he never nee
ded feeding.

  I switched Kojak from GAME MODE back to GENERAL PARTICIPATION MODE and went to put the disc back. GENERAL