Rise of Weirdness - Part 25

September 20, 1972

Omaha, Nebraska

Daniella Lawson had 'come out' to her parents. It had become impossible to hide the fact that she was becoming 'Fluffy'. (Her ears were becoming more pointed, and it was not always possible to have her hair down.) They had reacted in the manner she had expected, with prejudice and misunderstanding...

Daniella had came down to the dining room with her hair tied back in a high ponytail, thus clearly displaying her ears, which clearly showed she was becoming an Elf. Her parents both took a double take. “Your ears!” her mother said.

“Yes, Mom, Dad. I'm Fluffy, I'm an Elf.”

“No!” her father had said.

“Stop Dabbling in Magic, young girl!”

“I'm sixteen! I'm not young anymore.”

Then things had gotten worse. Her parents continued to press her to stop using magic, and she lashed out... First her ponytail lifted up so it was pointing 180 degrees away from where it had been pointing previously. Then she emitted a surge of energy. The dining room was a mess. Her mother fled. Her father went to the phone, and called 911.

Meredith Lawson saw her husband exit the house. “What did you do?” she asked, as he came to where she was.

“I called 911.”

“That's an overreaction isn't it?”

“You saw what Daniella did! She's been subverted by those Transformed crazies.”

Meredith sighed. It was no use arguing with him in that mood. All she wanted was for Daniella to see sense, that nothing good came out of using magic.

Half an hour later, the Douglas County Anti-Magic Response Unit had arrived. “Isn't this an overreaction?” Meredith asked one of the officers.

“No one wants another Winchester, Ma'am,” the officer responded.

Winchester. The event the Government pointed to when questioned about the security state that had been built up over the last fourteen years. “Of course,” Meredith groused. She knew that it was a requirement for every County in the country to have such a force as a result of the event in Winchester.

Daniella paced the living room. 'What to do?' she pondered, not for the first time. She didn't want to face the A-MRU!

“Do you promise not to lash out, at your parents?” the officer her mother had talked to called on a megaphone.

“No!” she called. She really couldn't make such a promise.

“We have no choice,” the officer said.

The various vehicles activated their weapons.

Suddenly, a forcefield surrounded the house. 'No choice,' Daniella thought. It pushed outwards, sending police cars flying, damaging the neighbouring houses.

“Neutralise it, quickly!” the officer ordered. Shots were fired from the Assault Vehicles. The forcefield retracted slightly.

Daniella knew that the forcefield wouldn't last long. She decided to do something else. ‘Up!’ she thought, putting her willpower into something else.
The gravitational force within the magic field surrounding the house was reversed. Additional force then sent the house and the ground below it and the yards accelerating upwards at 9.8 meters per second per second.

The house climbed above the city. As it became visible on the radar at the air force base, fighters were scrambled. Daniella realised this. She continued guiding the house further upwards.
However, there was another problem. Her power was derived from the field generated from the Trinity Hellstorm. It didn't extend into orbit. As the house passed above the ionosphere, Daniella knew that the magic was fading as she went further upwards. ‘I have to do something!’ While she did have books of incantations (including the original Sumerian versions) she didn't have time to consult them. But there was something else.

There was Radon in the basement. 'It has to work,' she thought, as she concentrated on the Radon, drawing it into the furnace, and creating a critical mass. “I have become death, destroyer of worlds,” she said, quoting Oppenheimer.

There was an explosion, which shook the house, but it stayed together. Contained in the furnace, was now a microstorm, which had a millionth the power of the one at Trinity. A magical field, surrounded the house, thus allowing it go into orbit.

‘Where to go now?’ Daniella wondered as she looked at the planet below. She then looked at the Moon. "There!" she said.

White House, Washington DC
President Nixon had been notified of the situation once satellites had detected a nuclear incident above Nebraska. Reports from the Omaha neighbourhood were still coming in. ‘So much for reducing NASA’s budget,’ he thought. If they could do that, America needed a permanent presence in space...

September 21, 1972:

Daniela Lawson arrives on the Moon, after leaving Omaha the previous day. She figures out how to keep the forcefield running without constantly maintaining it...

September 22, 1972

Daniella begins planting the food seeds she had found in the pantry, in the yards around the house. She also begins converting regolith into soil in order to expand the gardens that she had brought with her.

September 23, 1972

Daniella uses the Ham Radio equipment in the house to broadcast a message inviting others to leave Earth (and giving information on how she did it.) She also begins exploring the landscape around the house. She doesn't go too far.

September 24, 1972

Daniella again broadcasts a message.

September 25, 1972

Nixon announces increases to NASAs budget 'to allow us to follow Transformed into space'.

September 26, 1972

Daniella sets up a repeater signal.

September 27, 1972

President Nixon orders that the repeater signal be jammed within US territory.

September 28, 1972

Daniella increases the power to the repeater signal.

September 29, 1972

A minor disaster occurs when an Elf in Trondheim, Norway attempts to duplicate what Daniella did. When she attempts to use the the Caesium in a smoke detector to create a microstorm, the explosion is enough to destroy the house and irradiate the entire block...

September 30, 1972

Several Elves arrive at the State of Aphrodite via suborbital flight.

October 1, 1972

Transformed pirates abduct the crew of a yacht into orbit...

October 2, 1972

The MinuteElves rescue the crew of the yacht...

October 3, 1972

A gang of Transformed in Los Angles flee into the Pacific, creating a settlement off the coast...

October 4, 1972

Daniela sends a new message, extending welcome to those who are unsafe, or feel such feelings, because of their Transformed status.

October 5, 1972

Another disaster occurs when a dwarf in Switzerland attempts to duplicate Daniella's feat. Fortunately only his log cabin is destroyed.

October 6, 1972

Daniela is able to use one of her books to make a Spellspace connection to a library in Aphrodite. (Of course, given the distance, the bandwidth is only a few words a second.)

October 7, 1972

The Aphrodite Government releases a statement. That they will support those going offworld...

October 8, 1972

Daniela connects to another library in Aphrodite.

October 9, 1972

Some Aphrodite bureaucrats suggest putting books into many orbits to make a quicker connection to Daniela at Copernicus. This is quickly shot down as impractical (it would require billions of books and lead to Kessler Syndrome situation).

October 10, 1972

The Anglo-French Union begins to try to jam Daniela's repeater signal.

October 11, 1972

In London, the Aphrodite Ambassador files a diplomatic protest about the Anglo-French Union attempt at jamming Daniela's signal.

October 20, 1972:

A second teen elven witch, Hanna Olafsson, from Uppsala, Sweden arrives at Lawson’s house (in the Copernicus crater), having created a microstorm in the engine of a Saab sedan. Daniela welcomes Hanna with open arms.

Hanna awoke and saw that her car was approaching the Moon. It was also upside down. That is the car was, relative to the crater which was her destination. Not surprising, given that the crater was in the Moon's southern hemisphere, and she had departed from Northern Europe. She turned on the radio. She could now clearly hear the repeater signal Daniella had set up. 'But first, I need to make sure I'll land the right way up,' she thought.

She munched one of the nutrient bars she had bought. Then she focused, the car rotated so that it was no longer upside down relative her destination. Then there was another problem. She had departed Earth at a great speed in order to get to the Moon in less than ten hours. (Unlike Daniella, she didn't have much room to move around in.) But how to slow down so that she would stop just at Daniella's house...

Fortunately, Hanna did manage to slow down, and was able to land softly on the driveway. She got out of the car and stretched. She looked at the house. It looked fairly large. 'Maybe the Lawsons were well to do,' she thought.

Daniella looked out the lounge room window and saw the new arrival. She had sensed the approaching microstorm a few minutes before, but was surprised. She tidied herself a little and went outside.

Hanna was nervous, the American was pretty and seemed to be confident of herself, clearly showing her Elven ears. “Hi! I'm Hanna,” she said in English.

“Daniella,” the American said, indicating herself. “But I'm sure you knew that.”

Hanna nodded. “I couldn't stay at home. Fluffys are attacked every day,” she said.

Daniella shed a tear and spread her arms. Hanna accepted the hug. “Welcome to Copernicus.”

November 7, 1972

The population of the house in the Copernicus crater rises to six.

November 17th, 1972:

A seventh person arrives at the Lawson house in Copernicus Crater. A teen elven Witch from Aberdeen, Scotland.

December 9, 1972

A second house arrives at the Copernicus settlement. (Population now at 12).

December 25, 1972
Christmas is celebrated at the Lawson house.

Daniella awoke. It was like every other day for the past three months after she had fled from Omaha, except it wasn't. It was Christmas Day. She got out of bed and looked out the window at Earth in the sky. They were celebrating Christmas back there. 'Just because we left there, doesn't mean we can't celebrate Christmas.”