DARK MATTER Justin Mark O’Brien [email protected] Category: Grade 2-5, Age 7-10 Genre: Chapter Books Dark Matter Table of Contents Chapter 1...…………………………………………………………………………………...……1 Chapter 2…………………………………………………………………………………………..5 Chapter 3…………………………………………………………………………………………..9 Chapter 4 ……………………………………………………………………………………...…14 Chapter 5………………………………………………………………………………………....18 Chapter 6……..…………………………………………………………………………………..20 Chapter 7………………………………………………………………………………………....24 Chapter 8…………………………………………………………………………………….…...27 Chapter 9………………………………………………………………………………………....29 Chapter 10……………………………………………………………..........................................31 CHAPTER 1 A bright yellow drone zips through the darkness of space. This is not your regular drone flown by a child. This is a small car with eight helicopter blades buzzing around the perimeter. Inside, Mark Pennywell sings along to the song “1999” by Prince. “They say two-thousand-zero-zero party over, oops out of time,” Mark sings. “So tonight I'm gonna party like it's 1999. Well. 2199!” Mark pauses to pour cheese balls into his mouth and takes a slurp from a fountain drink cup branded with a logo reading Fornax Corporation, only to realize it’s empty and tosses it over his shoulder onto the floor of his drone. Mark is 24 years old. Naturally fit, but doesn’t workout. Some call him a 'man baby’ because of his short temper and childish ways at times, but really, those people are judging a book by its cover. Mark is this way because he never grew up. 15 years prior, Mark’s parents spent their life savings on one-way tickets to planet Proxima B for him and his twin brother, Zeta. They knew that the Pennywell name would end if they didn’t escape the inevitable demise of planet Earth. So once Proxima B was discovered as a 1 habitable, near-clone of Earth, they took that opportunity to leave. With Proxima B being just four light-years away, a new Space Race emerged with Fornax Corporation winning by a long shot. Fornax Corp, for short, was the first company to arrive on the planet and made Earth sized land grabs. Their brand name is plastered on almost every Proxima B building, bus, and billboard. Mark navigates his drone sideways through two prison bar-esque laser beams. The lasers surround an entire asteroid. “Ooo suck it in Queen Bee!” Mark talks to his drone like it’s his baby. The drone barely clears the lasers. “Woo! That’s my girl!” He pats the dashboard like a good dog and rotates the drone back to parallel with the asteroid. One of Fornax Corps' many income-producing ventures is mining asteroids for raw materials and precious metals, this one specifically being gold. Mark lowers the drone just above the surface of the asteroid, then taps a button on his dashboard console. Clang! “Woah, easy girl,” Mark chirps confidently as if he's done this a thousand times. A metal pipe with an auger head extends down from under the spacecraft. The auger head bangs into the surface of the asteroid, jarring Mark in his seat. “Oops. My bad,” he cringes but quickly pushes a lever up on the console which triggers the noisy drilling vacuum apparatus. Mark monitors the gauges as gold shavings are sucked up the pipe, entering the hopper mounted below Queen Bee. 2 Mark’s done it again. His motto is to take just enough to not get caught! He turns the radio up and leans back in his chair, nodding his head to the beat. Moments later the laser beam security perimeter shuts off. Mark leans forward, turns the radio off, and scans the darkness for any signs of life. He pauses, mouth agape, waiting. Zoom! A Fornax Corp branded Stingray spacecraft flies quickly overhead. “Crimony!” Mark shouts. The large Fornax Stingray ship pulls up and then barrel rolls back towards Mark’s drone. Mark quickly pulls the drill arm lever down and smashes a console button to cease the gold mining. Nothing happens. “Oh bee, sweet bee. No no no, not today!” Mark repeatedly taps the button again. Nothing. He bangs the lever up and down. Notta. The Stingray ship is seconds away from smashing little Queen Bee into a million pieces. Mark shakes his head in defeat and abandons his gold haul by flipping up a protective box covering a switch on the console. He grimaces and toggles the switch on. The gold hopper drops to the surface of the asteroid, disconnecting from Queen Bee. Mark screams, “Ya greedy pigs!” He slumps forward in his chair as he slings the drone into a downward reverse flight path, narrowly skimming underneath the Stingray passing overhead. Once clear, Mark turns the drone 180 degrees and makes his escape. He’s done this a time or two over the years. Mark glances at the video display screen on his dashboard revealing the Stingray making another turn. The ship is gaining on him. 3 “Oh come on! Really? Ok. Ok!” Mark knowing he can’t out race the bigger ship, he pulls up on his control column until he is flying straight at the Stingray… upside down! “Wanna play chicken?” Mark says with a crazy look in his eyes and lets out an evil laugh. The Stingrays tail begins to rotate up over the ship. Mark confused, “What the-?” The tail is pointed directly at Queen Bee now. The tip of the tail begins spinning in a circular shape like a lasso. Mark veers the drone left. The rotating tail of the Stingray ship is now an illuminated, arcing electric blue circle. Queen Bee begins to stall out. Mark pushes the throttle to the max, “Come on!” The drone stalls completely and floats in gravity-less space for a moment, before jolting backwards towards the Stingray. The spinning tail seems to be sucking the drone in slowly, like a fishing rod reeling in it’s catch ever so slowly. Mark frantically tries nearly every button, lever, and widget inside the drone. He whips his head around for a glimpse at the Stingray's tail just a few feet behind his drone. It looks like a blue electrical hurricane! “Hold onto your butts!” Mark jokes, but is clearly scared. The drone disappears into the swirling vortex. 4 CHAPTER 2 Mark blinks awake. He squints to adjust to the bright light and is startled fully awake. “Goo! Dude!” A big-boned ogre stands bent over inches away from Mark’s face. A native to planet Proxima B, he has green skin and wooly green hair. “What the heck, man?!” Mark sits upright. “I was wondering when you’d wake up!” He plops down on the cot, uncomfortably close to Mark and extends his hand, “Hi, I’m Clyde4!” Mark reluctantly shakes his hand. Clyde4 shakes his entire body with his brute strength. “Easy, Hulk!” Mark says, shooting him a glare. Mark clenches his hand in pain, “Name’s Mark.” Clyde4 lets out a nerdy laugh and asks, “So what was your criminal act?” Mark finally takes a moment to acknowledge his surroundings —a jail cell. “Um. I. Uh.” He is still clearly getting his bearings. Clyde4 points at Queen Bee parked on a landing bay at the end of a long hallway of prison cells, “Is that yours?” Mark looks up. 5 “Yes! Poor Queen Bee,” Mark replies longingly. He stands up and thinks out loud, “Oh man, Vega is gonna kill me.” “Wait, Vega? Vega Vega?! The most wanted space pirate, Vega?!” Clyde4 questions. Mark replies, “Yeah, him. I work for Vega. Well, I mine asteroids with his gear and make a cut--” “Illegally mine asteroids.” Clyde4 interrupts. He gestures to the cell surroundings. “Well. Yeah. Illegally,” Mark regretfully replies. “Go on!” Clyde4 grins. “Ok, so I was illegally mining asteroids and a Stingray came out of nowhere!” Mark starts to pace in the cell and flail his arms as he tells Clyde4 his story. “But this was no regular Stingray. No, no. This one had something different on the tail. It spun?” Mark points at Clyde4 while rotating his arm in a circle. Clyde smiles and nods, clearly enjoying the story. Mark continues pacing, “And then it started spinning so fast it created this like, blue electric vortex which slowly sucked my drone in, inch by inch.” Clyde4 leans in for the finale of the story. “But then. Poof! That was it. Black. That’s all I remember. Then I woke up to you huffing onion breath in my face.” Clyde4 lets out a loud laugh while holding his big bouncing belly, “Oh, I do love onions! You know what they say? Onion a day, keeps the doctor away!” Clyde4 grins ear to ear. Mark shakes his head, “Huh? No. That’s not the saying.” “Yes it is!” Clyde4 replies nodding. “No it’s not! It’s an--” 6 “Yes it is! And that blue vortex you described wasn’t electricity. It was dark energy.” Caught off guard by the bold statement Clyde4 just spouted off, Mark replies confused, “Wait wait, hold up. Dark what?” “Yes, I built that dark energy harvesting technology for Fornax. Well, I originally thought I was developing it for Fornax, but it ended up being a fraudulent company just using their name on the invoice at my engineering shop on Proxima B. Oddly enough, they were working for Vega as well and I was arrested for affiliation to the whole thing,” Clyde4 rambles on like Mark is the first conversation he has had in years. Mark interrupts, “Wait, so how did you end up officially working with Fornax to develop the Stingray thingamajig? I mean, are you working here or in prison here?” Clyde ponders for a moment, “Hmm, a bit of both, you could say.