Tear Drop

By Colin Rock

Sam’s father is a marine scientist, part of a team testing a new submersible, ‘Tear Drop’, deep in the Southern Ocean. 15 year old Sam, housebound back in New Zealand, is avidly following their course. He and his father are also conducting a non-sanctioned experiment with Virtual Reality communication. The project is being monitored by the American Ice Station Kennedy outpost in Antarctica.

Sam’s sister and boyfriend are eco-warriors, incensed by the threat of toxic waste disposal. A laden ship owned by a rogue corporation is currently zigzagging through the Pacific seeking a disposal site. They must be stopped!

The rogue ship jams transmissions and attacks the scientists’ ship. Sam picks up a garbled message and tries to get help. No one believes him. He uses VR technology to break through the ‘jamming’, gain control of ‘Tear Drop’, and save the day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Colin Rock
• Release date: Nov 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466066274

Colin Rock

Colin Rock has written for Radio, Theatre, Television and Film, as well has writing adult and children's fiction, non-fiction and music.

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Stamping Ground

Published by Colin Rock at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Colin Rock

All rights Reserved.

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* * *

TEAR DROP

‘Gotcha!’

Sam cackled to himself. This was too easy. The school blueprints flashed up on screen and he traced his route along the corridor, through the ‘staff only’ door, then burst into the headmaster’s office. Snotty Scottie was sitting there, and right next to him was the electric bell push.

Sam had a sudden itch and he had to scratch it, but he couldn’t scratch it because it was on his left leg and his left leg was in plaster because he’d broken it being a hero. It was murder. He took off the Virtual Reality headset and pushed a pencil under the plaster. Too short: it was useless!

The VR world was all very well, but you couldn’t actually reach out and flick Snotty Scottie’s ear, or reach over and press the bell push.

Sam withdrew one hand from the electronic glove and punched a key to bring up a separate window. There was more than one way to skin a cat. He highlighted ‘electrical circuits’. Heating system, telephone...ha, the blue wires travelled right back to, yes, Snottie Scotty’s office. This was definitely too easy. He re-routed the circuit to ring the school bell, gave a loud cackle of victory, plugged in the code to trip the fuse, then logged off.

On the main screen his Sam character, who didn’t have a broken leg and was thinner, taller, and fantastically handsome, burst triumphantly through the window without breaking it and did a brilliant forward roll, the sort of forward roll which would really impress a certain girl who was sitting with Peter Cosgrove and who thought it was funny when a bloke fell off a wall right in front of her and broke his leg.

AT SEA

The scientific research ship, Pelagius, was rolling on the long swell of the Southern Ocean. Everybody was crowded over the rail to watch ‘Tear Drop’, the Remote Controlled Submersible Probe, emerge from the ocean depths and be winched aboard.

Her transparent nose cone protected camera and recording devices that measured infrared and ultraviolet levels of light penetration, analytical tools to examine salinity, currents and thermals, along with sensitive sound equipment to monitor marine life. Sam’s father, Toby, thought she was the most beautiful machine ever made.

Toby controlled Tear Drop’s movements through a Virtual Reality unit. Wireless communication was unreliable at the depths she explored, so the titanium tether cables, which could extend for ten thousand metres, had a fibre optic core. Toby lived in fear that the cable would break and he would lose