The Greenhouse Effect

By Michael Drake

This is a short science fiction story for young teens. In her new home under dome on an asteroid, a young girl, Mei finds herself on an unexpected adventure with new found friends. They work together to solve the mystery of their missing parents and keep an experiment from going out of control. In the process they learn more about their new home in space and discover a special gift from its Makers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Drake
• Release date: Feb 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311545459

Michael Drake

Michael lives in New York State. In addition to writing he enjoys gardening and has recorded several music albums over the past few decades. He is an avid science fiction fan and enjoys the challenge of the short fiction story form - Flash-fiction. In addition to his Flash-fiction collection he has written a science fiction story for youth.

Book preview

THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT

By Michael Drake

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Michael Drake

Cover Art Copyright 2013 Michael Drake

This is a short science fiction story for young teens. In her new home under dome on an asteroid, a young girl, Mei finds herself on an unexpected adventure with new found friends. They work together to solve the mystery of their missing parents and keep an experiment from going out of control. In the process they learn more about their new home in space and discover a special gift from its Makers.

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. Reviews appreciated.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 1

There were only two times that Mei could remember being scared. The first time was when her mother died and she and her father fled their home, leaving everything she knew behind. This was the second time.

It was the middle of the night when her father awoke her from a sound sleep by shaking her shoulders. She tried to ask what was happening but he put his finger to her lips and shushed her to silence. He scooped her up into his strong arms and hurried her out of her warm bed, down the stairs of the Grand house and out to the greenhouse in their backyard. He may have thought he looked reassuring but Mei could tell that he was worried about something.

The chill air followed them into the greenhouse where Mei's father hustled her down the stairs to the safe house below. The safe house was an underground sanctuary, for the two of them, should anything go wrong with the dome outside. Mei’s father carried her down the hall and into a bedroom half the size of the room she had just left in the Grand house. He tucked her into her second bed which was raised over large built-in storage drawers. The safe house had all the conveniences of home spread throughout several rooms. It was this one Mei used as a second bedroom.

Please don’t worry, said Mei’s father. I have a very important task that requires me to leave the Grand house and I may be away for awhile.

But he wouldn’t say how long and that scared Mei.

I’d feel better if you stayed in the safe house with NORA. You are not allowed to leave the greenhouse and go outside for any reason until I come back. Understood?

Mei nodded a wide-eyed agreement, peeking out from underneath the comforter on her safe house bed. She didn’t like the thought of her father leaving her, even for a short time. She had already lost her mother; she was scared she would lose her father too.

Don’t forget the food storage area behind the kitchenette. Treat yourself to anything you want and remember there’s fresh veggies in the greenhouse. Now that I think about it why am I telling you all this? You’ve cooked down here plenty of times. We've talked about how tomorrow you will finally receive your special gift from the Makers. I hope you’ll accept my apologies if I don't make it back in time to be with you for that. I love you Mei, he said quietly.

He gave her a big hug and was up the stairs and out the door into the chilly night air before Mei could say anything.

Mei, too scared for her father to go back to sleep, let her thoughts drift to her mother and their last day on Earth together.

Earth's population had been increasing by hundreds of thousands of people every day. The challenge of feeding the population became insurmountable. Mei and her parents had been caught up in the Terrible Famine. As more and more crops failed food became scarce. Turbulent weather caused by global warming ravaged crops worldwide. In some areas it was drought that baked the soil to a hard pack with no relief of rain for years, while other areas experienced flooding leaving crops in ruin. Despite the effect the weather had on food supplies it was corporate sabotage that had led to a global famine. Food supply companies, greedy to be the only source of food for the world, sabotaged vast supplies of their competition's crops with gene mutated versions that would rot in the fields. But those mutations couldn't be contained. Soon they spread to even the smallest farms all across Earth causing food riots and eventually wars between people and even countries.

It had been a late September afternoon when the violence swept into the village where Mei had grown up. Mei remembered first seeing smoke coming from across the village as she stepped into her backyard. She had been planning on using a shade tarp to cover their small garden from the unrelenting sun. As she puzzled over the source of the smoke she heard the sound of a mob, their angry voices rising as they got closer. Tarp forgotten, she raced back into the house to tell her mother. She found her at an upstairs window shouting frantically