Read Online The Prometheus Project by Douglas E. Richards - Free Book Online Page A

about it. The only object he had tried that didn’t fit the pattern was the feather. It was the oddball. He dropped the feather by itself a few times and watched it carefully. It didn’t take long for him to realize that it was the air that was slowing it down. Finally, he had his new hypothesis. “All objects fall at exactly the same speed,” he said, “ unless one of the objects is light enough to float in the air.”
    His dad encouraged him to come up with an experiment to test this new hypothesis, and Ryan rose to the challenge. He taped several pieces of facial tissue together until they weighed exactly the same as a paperclip and dropped them both. Sure enough, the paperclip cut through the air and landed quickly while the tissues floated slowly to the ground.
    His dad had suggested another test would be to drop a feather and a bowling ball on the moon, which had no air. If this hypothesis was correct, on the moon the feather and the bowling ball, against all human expectations, should both land at the exact same time.
    Ryan remembered vividly how his father had congratulated him and confirmed that his new hypothesis was, indeed, correct and that sure enough, all objects on a given planet did fall at exactly the same speed as long as there wasn’t any air to slow the objects down .
    The scientific method was simple but it had been responsible for huge advances in scientific knowledge. Could Ryan apply it here? Maybe. An idea began to form in his head.
    “Wait a second,” he said finally, breaking the long silence. “Let’s imagine the city is alive, like an enormous animal.” He had been about to say, ‘let’s hypothesize the city is alive’ but didn’t want to risk confusing his sister. “If we were inside a city-sized animal, what would that make us?”
    “Lunch?” guessed Regan.
    Ryan shook his head. “No, we’d be far smaller than a crumb. Think much, much smaller.”
    It took Regan only seconds to see the answer. “A disease,” she said confidently. Their mom was a biologist and had taught them well.
    “Right. So imagine the force-field surrounding the city is like our skin—our first line of defense against invaders. The best way to avoid an infection is to not let it enter the body in the first place. Our skin helps prevent an invasion by bacteria, maybe the force-field is there to prevent invasion by . . . well, maybe invasion by . . . us.”
    Regan frowned. “Maybe. But if that’s true, it failed. We did get in. We cut the city’s shield.”
    “Right,” said Ryan. “But what happens when we get a cut?”
    “Lots of things,” said Regan, not sure what he was getting at.
    “Our skin eventually heals. It grows back and fills in the gap .”
    Now she saw where he was going with this. This could explain why the entrance was gone—the barrier managed to heal itself.
    “And what happens after bacteria enter the body?”continued Ryan excitedly.
    Their mother had explained this many times. “The body’s defense force comes into action,” replied Regan. “The body’s immune system—antibodies and other cells. They kill the bacteria.”
    “Right. And the antibodies can tell which cells are part of your body and which cells are foreign. Anything the immune system doesn’t identify as part of your body is targeted for elimination.” He paused. “Sound familiar?”
    It did! This theory would also explain why human stuff was devoured and alien stuff was left alone. If the bugs’ job was to protect the city from invaders, they would only attack the invaders.
    “But why now?” said Regan. “Humans have been in the city now for more than a day.”
    “It can take a while for the immune army to build, especially when facing something totally new,” said her brother. “Sometimes the immune system isn’t fast enough and the bacteria multiply so much that they win the battle for a while and you get sick.”
    “It is a great theory, Ryan. It does explain a lot. But then why