Tevun-Krus #114 - Hollow Earth (A Different Earth, Part 2)

Resonances - A Story by @Elisabeth_Long

Resonances

by Elisabeth_Long

"The Earth could be like one giant what ball?"

"Baoding."

"A bow-ding ball?" The reporter laughed. "Is that anything like a Pokéball?"

Across the way, Michaela squinted in the misty, pre-dawn light to catch the network logo on the guy's mic. Fox News. US. Seriously, why were these guys here?

Well duh, the hollow earth hoax/conspiracy angle, what else.

"Baoding balls are metal balls used for meditation and hand exercise." Their team geophysicist, Li Mei, exuded nothing but calm patience as she continued with the reporter. "They fit in the palm and when you rotate them, they produce a wind chime-like sound. Very soothing. I use the analogy of baoding because they are hollow spheres. An inner metal ball strikes a coiled spring set inside them. That's what makes the sound.

Now, there's no actual coil inside the Earth. My theory proposes that the"–Mei paused to make air quotes–"...spring... is actually layers of different densities within a homogeneous substance. These layers could resonate under the right conditions if acted upon by an appropriate external force. Take water, for example. You can't bash your head in on steam but you can on ice."

Hah! Good one! Michaela thought.

The Fox guy was looking a little lost.

"But what we're doing here today really is testing Dr. Michaela Smith's theory" –and here Mei gestured at her– "that Stonehenge was built with the ringing bluestones to transform what I've theorised is our hollow planetary sphere's resonance and, according to Dr. Smith, amplify it out into the sky."

The reporter was quick to latch on to something he understood. "Ok. Right. The sky. For what purpose? So the whole world could... rock and roll?" He chuckled. Not hard to tell how he felt about things.

"More like worlds. Plural."

The man's brows shot skywards at Michaela's words.

"Yes, well, why don't I let our project leader take it from here. Dr. Smith is the cosmologist responsible for all this, after all." Mei was all smooth delivery, which was why she usually led with interviews –that and the fact Michaela hated any kind of spotlight.

Reining in a sigh, Michaela put down the laptop she'd been typing on and started towards the pair.

The Fox News guy stepped back. "Actually, I need to touch base with my producer. Let me get back to you afterwards? Thanks for your time, Dr. Li." The man spun on his heels and jogged back towards his cameraman and their van.

Figured.

Maybe the guy was disappointed there were no Pikachus running about.

Heading back to her post, Li Mei shrugged at Michaela. "Probably for the best. You'd have blown that jerk's one operating brain cell, or dropkicked his rude ass."

"Bao-da-ding, bada boom", Greg Anderson deadpanned as Mei passed behind him. The team's geoarchaeologist was hunched over doing a final calibration of the gravimeter.

Mei smirked at him over her shoulder and flipped him the bird.

"Despite what our esteemed Princeton comedian quips," Michaela said, smiling at Greg's swooning chest clutch, "if what we do here today works, it would indeed point to something generating sound inside an empty shell of planet crust beneath us. So why not some giant marble bada bing, bada booming against some kind of earthen spring?"