Elevators Through Time - Book 1

Part 35: A Step into Space

Part 35: A Step into Space

Year: 2038

Time: 4:12pm

Location: SpaceLift Transit Area, Pacific Sky-Lift Base Station, Pacific Ocean

Level: Level 3, Inner Area

'Vast' is not quite the word for such a construction as this.

If an ant walked up to a child's elbow joint then it would be decent to call it 'large'. If an ant were to look at a puddle then maybe it would be fair to call that 'vast'.

In our case, we were ants looking at an elbow joint the size of a car wheel and tire!

The joint needed to be this large to compensate for the Coriolis affect and let the elevator cable sway and move a little due to varying factors, such as atmospheric pressure and resistance and the weight of the cable as a whole.

The geostationary orbit of the Stratostation and it's overall weight did keep the cable taut, but a super-long super-straight cable will not last long under static tension alone. This problem is seen in most skyscraper-type constructions. This shaft was designed to be tight yet remain flexible, like a bamboo shaft.

"Hello, these are our keys. We have paid at the desk." I said to the attendant/guard who was eyeing up everyone very carefully.

His expression softened and he smiled an nodded as he let us through.

He and several teams of people were operating mass scanning machines that searched for metal, weapons, drugs, chemicals, and various other threats in the entire crowd. This system sped up customs time by 700%. It used a non-invasive but highly sensitive multi-detection system that searched the mass of people moving around for suggestive shapes or chemical traces or other signs of uncommon matter to human flesh.

Vector-DTec Systems were the first and still the leading producer of mass detection systems for high traffic areas, much thanks to Que'nesian scanning technology. They do the individual scanning and tracking through a large network of scanners and cameras spread throughout a building.

It even checks the stress, hormone levels and certain patterns of alpha and beta brain waves that show signs of mal-intent.

This of course was controversial but nonetheless it worked.

"This is the safest place in this region," I said to Kate after reading various facts like those on plates around the lift shaft's anchor point.

"I would certainly hope so, there are so many people here. I don't think causing a fuss in a place like this would be proper." She replied. I admired her tact.

I held Kate's hand as we both entered one of the six elevator s to reach one of the six large passenger sections of the SpaceLift shaft-climber.

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The elevator itself consisted of 6 large passenger compartments (with seats and windows), 2 large freight compartments, and 2 control areas where a small crew operated and maintained the systems as they transit from Terra Firma to La Spacia Incognita.

Imagine segregating the space inside the shell of a turtle for different storage purposes and then have the brain as the command centre and you'll get the idea.

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Kate was still a little frightened after what had happened during the Sydney Centrepoint elevator drop, but she was enjoying herself so much that she didn't show the fear.