Xabel and Alex keep on talking a long while about all these strange changes in the center without getting any explanation for it. Meanwhile in the other part of New York, Nic leaves its RES to visit his friend Walter.

VOICE IN OFF:

Walter is a very special person and it is necessary to know certain important facts about him and his life. Years ago he lost both legs in an accident while helping a young colleague who was trapped in a transportation belt. Walter sacrified his legs to save the life of his friend. Then the STAT wanted to compensate him. But Walter only asked to get a proper RES and be free to enjoy his hobbies. Here it is to know that one of his hobbies is to collect and repair old machines (forbidden in this age). Since then he lives in his RES, designed by him, and he spends his time repairing “old stuff”. Walter, without legs and without prosthesis, decided to adapt the RES to his reduced body-heigt (means, that his chairs, tables, bed, wardrobe… do not have “legs”!). And to move around he uses a cleaning robot changed to a kind of wheel-chair.”

Nic arrives at the RES of Walter, opens the door with its old key and enters.

-Walter? It´s me, Nic.- he shouts out, bending his head a little bit.

-I see you, my friend! How are you? Welcome back, big boy! You know the way, I am in the garage.-  Walter answers from the back of the flat.

Nic, with the head shrugged between his shoulders, enters.

-How were your holidays? Tell me!- Walter embraces his friend.

-Happy to see you, Walter, because you won´t imagine what happened! I don´t stop thinking about what you told me about the saturation in the ionsphere, do you remember?-

-Why? What happened?-

-Well, listen Walter, in our flight back from Spain to New York we passed through an enormous storm. The airplane had technical problems with the navigation system, the music was failing, and then I took your key, this one here, and I searched another metallic object in the airplane, but there was nearly no metallic thing around, the seat-belt are made of other material, but then I went to the toilet - and what do you think what happened?-

-The key was magnetized.-

-Yes!! The key and all screws I found! All was magnetized! You are right, Walter! It is happening! It hurts all systems. All! Allthough the airplanes keep on flying as normal as before.-

-I knew that, Nic. Yes, I knew it. Come, there are a lot of things I would like to show you.-

Walter moves to his “studio”, a mix of office, laboratory and police-sample exhibition. The walls are completly covered with newspaper-reports, maps, schemes, the table is full of papers, files, the computer, a big chaos, perfectly controllled by Walter. He loves photography, computer technology and all kind of machines which require a high technical knowledge and so his RES looks like a garage or museum. (And not to forget about the rule that in the present society it is strictly forbidden to collect personal objects, and less if do not work!)

-Listen, Nic, all meteors entering into the atmoshere explote and since the 20th century this is strictly controlled. All satellites are equiped with infrared telescopes with a detector net formed by mercury-cadmium which transmit images in two dimensions like radar more or less. These satellites, in former times, were used to detect explosions and missle-attacks, but they also detect the entrance of meteors into the terrestrial atmosphere. If a meteor of a certain size enters into the atmosphere it is captured by the infrared signal and produces an electric power of averagely 1 kiloton. That is the normal way. But imagine, they registrated explosions producing more than 600 kilotons of energy. Compare it with the explosion of the Hiroshima-bomb with 12,5 kilotons.-

-Uff, that is really heavy, Walter, you make me nervious.-

-Don´t worry, Nic, these infrared-signals are taken by SBIR (Space Basic Infrared System). This system realizes statistics with all the incoming dates. So far, so good. But since 2 years they don´t realize any statisic because they don´t get dates. And if you analyse these 2 years before, the increase of the number of explosions was enormous, even of the smaller ones. I tried to find out the reasons of these dates and I searched more information. So, listen, Nic, at the end of the 20th century the number of explosions per year was 10, but the last realized statistic shows a number of 3000 explosions. And if in the 20th century the produced energy was about 1 kiloton per explosion, finally they calculated more than 20 kilotons per explosion. The speed of the radio waves increased a 200 %. And as far as I am informed they did not send new satellites into space in the last 20 years and neither we know about space shuttle-projects.-

-Puh, but what are the conclusions, Walter, I am getting to feel sick.-

-Conclusions? O.k. Let´s say, that we are trapped in a kind of magnetic bubble, growing and growing and - well - our present technology is not prepared to handle and to fight these high magnetic fields.-

VOICE IN OFF:

“In the 20th century the main problem of humanity was the climatic situation, that means the increasing temperature of the whole planet with the destructive effects for the ocean level or for the eco-system like the artic or antartic one. But in the middle of the 21st century the shockof a big meteor in the siberian desert of Rusia changed the angle of the axis of earth rotation. This shock accelerated the warm-up and defrosting of the poles. And although the scientists were calculating a big catastrophy, this shock did not produce the climatic break down on earth. It was the high energy consumption and the enormous pollution that finally caused the most serious health crisis in human history. This enormous crisis was the reason why the political system changed, the world power became unified and the STAT was “born”. A new life-style started, with less individuality (no properties, no private cars, new job-system and so on) and so the environment was saved and as well the natural resources.”

-And what more, Walter? Does it have any positive effect?-

-Never knows. Let´s say that mother nature is wise. Probably the increase of the ion-particle density gives more sun-protection to earth, maybe it will even stop the warm-up of our planet.-

-Yes, Walter, all that is possible. But, the STAT must be informed of all these things, mustn´t it?-

-For sure, the STAT is informed. And that is the critical point I am worrying about. It is really strange, Nic, because once the STAT was formed to continue research development and take care about the ecological control of our planet.-

-That is true. But, coming back to what we talked about before, if this “bubble” even protects us, why does the STAT keep all these facts in secret?-

-Because the negative effects of this “bubble” will attack our digital technology. And the STAT and all its systems are built up on the digital technology. Logical that they do not inform.-

-But there must be more behind!- Nic says.

-Yes, there is. Listen, Nic, 50 % of world economy is based on turism, right. That means, if there will be a risk for life to use airplanes, for example, people will stop travelling and break down the balance of our system. They can´t permit that.-

-But, Walter!! So the STAT is fully aware that millions of persons are in danger of life daily?- Nic is really upset.

- Yes, Nic, it seems so.-