“Now, many will take this latest failure as reason to abandon the dreams of our Founder. Feigning the appropriate dismay, as if he didn’t know what would happen despite making a career out of reporting on the last dozen attempts. In the kitchen, the announcer’s face looms large on the wall. She descends back into the house to agonize over it, but the rest of us stick around watching the tangled wreckage burning up in the atmosphere. Mom pinches him for it, noticing Elena’s devastated expression. But the arc intensifies, penetrates the shielding, and the warship erupts in a magnificent fireball.
The shields hold out longer than any prior attempt. Finally, a larger arc than the rest reaches out and connects with the warship. The blue star emits those familiar wispy arcs of blue energy, destroying the missiles before they arrive. Missiles launch, in twos and threes at first. Spiraling green beams leap from the side of the ship, almost instantly traversing the distance between the warship and the blue star. Weapons so new, the televised announcer struggled to pronounce them correctly. The warship began to fire fearsome volleys at the blue star. Both of them waiting complacently for what I also knew would occur. Silently, uncompromisingly orbiting our world. Hanging overhead, radiating its piercing blue rays. I’ve been told there was a time before the blue star, but I cannot imagine a world without it. Ever present, at least so far as I’m concerned. Misplaced, sadly.Ībove it, the blue star. The abrupt, muscular lines of the hull suggest brutality, excess, and confidence. Propelled by the same technology that holds up the platforms, but geared for speed and maneuverability. I raise a hand to my eyes a bit too late. Intense green light bursts forth from the warship’s engines. Waste of money, there’ll be nothing to celebrate soon. I could see small fireworks going off above some of the residential towers. Other homes, offices, parks and so forth spread out below on their own interconnected triangular and pentagonal platforms, as clouds roll lazily past far below. Our home is one of the higher platforms, positioned just about perfectly to spectate. Both look on wistfully as the unmanned warship climbs into the sky.
Mom and Dad are already up there in folding chairs, hair tossed about by the wind.
I remember what it was like when I still believed. Part of me wishes she could stay like this. She’s young enough to have seen only two prior attempts, so there is still hope in her. It doesn’t stop until I relent and, rubbing the accumulated crust from my eyes, follow her up to the roof. “Hurry, it’s already launched!” My sister Elena shakes me violently even though I’m clearly awake. I know what will happen, but by now there’s an element of tradition to it, and it’s always a spectacle. Shortages are hitting craft beer brewers too, because they regularly need carbon dioxide tanks.I no longer mind waking up early for it. To blame are three major factors: ammonia and ethanol production facilities, which make CO2 byproduct, are undergoing maintenance Jackson Dome, part of an extinct volcano far below Jackson, Mississippi, is another typical supply of carbon dioxide, but it is contaminated and summer demand for cold carbonated beverages has already made a hefty dent in dwindling supplies, according to NPR. But they worry a carbon dioxide shortage could cause production cuts and price hikes. “We’ve talked to our supplier, and our supplier basically told us they were not taking on any new clients to make sure that their long-term clients have a steady supply of CO2,” Bryan Van Den Oever of Red Bear Brewing in Washington, D.C., told NPR’s Morning Edition.īeer makers have been dealing with covid shortages (such as cans) all through the pandemic. Otherwise undetectable to our noses and tongues, the colorless gas is what gives beer its characteristic fizz, and it also stops oxidation that would make beer go stale. Supplies of carbon dioxide, an integral ingredient in the beverage, are experiencing steeper cost hikes than any other beer-making component, according to this Brewers Association chart.
Your beer could be in short supply this fall, or become more pricey.
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