The Adventures of Freefall O'Keefe

When Freefall O'Keefe was born, scientists weren't even certain there were layers in the earth's atmosphere at all. Now he was one of the first to explore deep into those layers. The aeronaut pondered the starlit night, allowing its profound silence and serenity to permeate his grieving spirit. He had felt so helpless during the year following Shade's death, the great enigma of existence nearly overwhelming him. And so doing something as simple as noting temperature and barometric readings made Freefall feel that he was at least taking action, however small, to diminish the power of the Unknown.

Then he heard the sound, a cracking and popping, like wood burning in a fireplace. Freefall looked through his portal facing north. What he saw resembled something he had witnessed during his flights above the arctic circle, the aurora borealis. The aurora is a shimmering curtain of light created when particles emitted from the sun slide down a magnetic funnel at either one of the earth's poles and collide with molecules in the upper atmosphere.

Approaching Freefall's balloon at this moment, however, was something else, an auroral like phenomenon with additional multicolored sparks streaking across it. Could it have been a random wave of electrons from the ionosphere above him? Or some strange result of cosmic rays being broken up by the stratosphere's ozone layer? Maybe it was an unknown form of lightning flashing from one noctilucent cloud to another?

Freefall barely had thought of these possible explanations when the rippling electrostatic sheet passed right though his sphere. It came and went in an instant, giving its sole living witness a tingling sensation and causing his hair to stand on end. Relieved at not having been electrocuted, the scientist-pilot watched through the southern portal as his colorful, snap-crackling visitor receded into the distance. Freefall even smiled at the bizarre encounter. But his amusement was immediately replaced by concern when his radio, lighting, electric heater and other electronic equipment began to short-circuit.

The sphere's heavy hatchway door had been secured with electrically activated explosive bolts designed to blow the door away in case Freefall needed to make a quick exit. He had not anticipated having to leave the sphere at this altitude, however. No parachutist in 1955 had ever jumped at one hundred thousand feet.

Only one of the explosive bolts was set off by the short circuit, but that was enough to loosen a corner of the thick metal door. The pressurized air of the sphere's interior pushed against the door corner, bending it out like a piece of tin foil. Everything that wasn't tied down was lifted by the escaping currents and thrown toward the door. Twisted out of shape, the door moaned, but the sound fled from Freefall's ears on the outgoing tide of decompression.

Captain O'Keefe locked his fingers around a wall grip and stood unsteadily against the newborn wind. The helmet that had been placed to one side now became a projectile shooting across the confined space. Freefall reached out with his free hand and caught the helmet in mid-air. Managing it over his head, he tightened the helmet onto the steel ring collar of his flight suit and activated the suit's lightweight air supply and body pressure unit.

There was a parachute within a small supply cabinet. Could he make his way to it, put the chute on, and still have time to plug the gap? Too late. The door ripped away from the sphere and out of sight.

Now the current became a tidal wave. It took hold of Freefall and ejected him from the sphere like a pebble blown out of a straw. The last thing he saw of the interior as he was forced through the hatchway was the cabinet containing the parachute. Then the sphere and the balloon above it were lost to the blackness.

His twenty mile plummet had begun.