Busy Skies: The Council Dissolution

by Ivan Svogor

  Several hours passed and both of them realized they skipped lunch. Lee picked up a phone to order some food from the upper decks, while Jess headed to the hallway and sat on the bench to admire the clear view of the Rock. For a second there, her thoughts ran away on the journey of the Rock. What this rock must have passed along the way to the Earth. The planets it passed, stars systems it visited, and finally, it has landed here. Hum, what are the chances, she thought to herself, and further what are the chances of it landing on a volcano at the cold South Pole. On the other side, the ice protects it from overexposure to oxygen, while the volcano provides high temperatures for it to remain reactive.

  Her thoughts were soon interrupted abruptly as Lee almost broke his nose by trying to carry lunch to the small desk in front of her. Clumsy as he is, he did manage.

  As they sat together, Jess said, “I was just thinking, that if the trajectory of the Rock was just a tiny bit different, ridiculously tiny on the cosmic scale, we wouldn't even be here, and my work would probably be completely different.”

  Lee just took a bite of his food, and as he was chewing, he said “Confirmed, yes! But thanks to the LGM!”

  Jess looked at him confused for a second there and realized that Lee probably said something that is classified, clearly thinking that she has clearance.

  She quickly smiled and said, “Yes, LGM for the win!”

  The conversation continued along the way of the history of their work, how they decided to work on what they currently do, and eventually and inevitably ended up discussing the policy of the latest mandatory space stays.

  Finally, a staff member came to greet them and inform them that their suits have been generated and that the last team within the dome was there still for two hours. - Since just to get dressed, it usually took half an hour, Jess decided that now is the time to move.

  After some suiting and gearing up, Jess found herself walking several feet distanced from SV-01, silicon viventem 01, or as everyone calls it, the Rock. Jess took out her multimeter and started mapping one of the sharper edges of the Rock. In her head, all sorts of calculations were happening, as well as trying to understand how some of the new data influences her work.

  One hour in, one of the on-duty staff members in charge of safety, waved at them to signal that it’s time to move to the exit. Jess was just getting her grasp, and her initial excitement finally settled so she could think straight, and start doing some work, “ah, come on, already?” - she asked. The technician didn’t have any understanding and he just waved again. Jess shrugged and placed her samples into the sample briefcase. All of a sudden a piece of ice broke off and smashed into the Rock, just where Jess was a few minutes ago. She looked at the Rock, then at the place from which the ice book was off, and felt slightly shimmering.

  It was happening again, just as it did yesterday evening. On the other side of the Rock arena, she saw several other scientists and devices flashing the Rock with some kind of light. She noticed that the beam of light bounced off a glossy briefcase and was reflected above Jess, where the Rock broke off.

  Lee was shouting at someone and then went to check if she was OK.

  “Jess, are you alright” - asked Lee.

  “Yes, I’m fine. What was that about?” - she asked.

  Lee offered her a helping hand to get on her feet, and said, “ah, that mister”, and he seemed to emphasise the mister part, “Kent, that is Mr. Kent Garcia, and Dr. Newman. They are somewhat a competing team that works on their own thing, for someone from the Council, but they always do that kind of shit. Assholes!”

  Chapter 6

  After a few minutes, Jess was completing her sample sorting, however she noticed that some researchers that were also there seemed a bit nervous all of a sudden, including Lee. He was walking towards the exit and had waved to her to come along.

  Beep, beep, sounded a device mounted on the Rock and on its holo screen it said, Sample collection complete. That was just one last sample she took with one of her personal sensors. She took it and placed it next to other test tubes in her sample collection briefcase.

  Finally, she closed the briefcase and was about to go. By that time, Lee ran to her and helped her with another bag and said, “let’s go Jess.”

  “Why is everyone so nervous”, she asked. “They have told us that after they signal us to exit we have ten more minutes, we still have four left.”

  “Because the technician signaled imminent danger, and you never know in which direction it’s going to shift. We already lost one very good man on that, and some rules have been put in place to prevent that”, said Lee.

  Jess’s facial expression revealed to Lee what he forgot. She was not fully briefed because they went directly down to see the Rock. While she was simultaneously surprised and worried about the last remark that Lee made.

  Lost a man, she thought to herself. So Hank wasn’t really trying to scare me. Finally she asked, “what did you just say about losing a man?”

  “Damn it, you weren’t fully briefed in the morning, or cleared for that”, said Lee worryingly. “Ah shit, there goes my loud mouth”

  When they finally went back in, into the quarantine room that connected the Rock dome with the institute, she started removing her suit and throwing the pieces of it around. By that moment Lee was pretty sure that she was upset by what he blabbered out, as the clearing robots were all over the room carefully picking up suit parts, while Jess kept throwing those around. She headed outside gaining a hasty tempo, while Lee was trying to catch her.

  When he finally did, he stopped her by stepping in front of her and asked, “where are you going?" For the first time, funny Lee was gone and this was a completely new dimension of him. His facial expression was serious and concerned. She was trying to exit without decontaminating.

  She said “I'm going up there to ask Dr. Quill”, “Mike!”, she shouted, “what the hell is happening in this place, what's up with all the secrets, and why the secrecy? What the hell are you guys up to?! People dying? Fuck, nobody ever told me that before.”

  Lee's sunny disposition was back as he said, “please Jess, we must go into the decontamination room. You of all people should appreciate the importance of that." Visibly upset, Jess realized what Lee was saying and that they need to be decontaminated first.

  “Yes, of course, I'm sorry”, she said.

  “And then, after you decontaminate, you can go up there and ask all the questions, but please, don't tell them anything about what I was blabbering back there, please?” - asked Lee, making a smiling grimace from ear to ear.

  They headed together towards the decontamination zones, Jess cooled off briefly, looked at Lee and said, “it’s very, very wrong what you guys are doing here. We have been an open society for centuries and we learned that classifying information, playing hierarchy roles, and fear... FEAR! For fuck's sake! You guys need to be reported to the Council of Earth.”

  Lee sighed and said, “please Jess, calm down, let’s do this first, then relax and let’s go up to set up a meeting with Dr. Quill.”

  * * *

  The decontamination zone was a glass tube in which one steps in and then a familiar procedure starts. First, a set of nozzles sprayed her from all directions for several minutes. Normally this included a variety of chemical compounds, usually finishing with water. Then her helmet visor turned blue as she was in the second stage, light treatment, which included light-based disinfection through the specter. Finally, she was scanned in detail for any possible contaminants. As she finished, a particularly careful robot arm took her shoes off, when she was sprayed with the decontamination fluid and immediately dried. In the dressing room, a new set of clothes were waiting, of course, her favorite combination.

  Dr. Winson, you look upset, can I interest you in any of your favorite meals or drinks?

  She looked at it and said, “sure! I'll have a peach marmalade croissant.”

  Is there anything else I could do with you? - You know, it continued
, people often find an escape from worries through exercise, socializing, doing work, or even...

  Jess engaged in a casual chat with the robot, and shortly an autonomous cart brought her the doughnut she ordered, along with a strawberry smoothie.

  Dr. Winson, I know you didn't say anything else, but I would suggest a smoothie after the croissant, you know it has been proven that higher fiber intake also improves happiness and overall health, said the robot.

  She smiled and took a sip. Just as she was about to take a bite of croissant, Lee came by. His judging look at Jess told her that he isn't much of a sugar guy and that he wouldn't do that. However, after he caught Jess's look, he realized what he had done, and remembered how the entire experience must have been traumatic for Jess. Jess, took a bite of the croissant with a “watch me bitch” stare and then, as if to any of him, offered a byte.

  Lee declined and thanked, at which moment another automated cart brought ginger ale to him. As the robot waiter was just leaving, he said, it seems you both are getting your I-am-upset drinks, so I will leave you to discuss.

  Lee said we have a meeting with Dr. Quill in about 10 minutes. Jess stared at him, and said, “this isn't OK you know?”

  Lee blushed and said, “yes, I know, but it's for the greater good.” - Disappointed with that remark, Jess repeated, “greater good? Was burning nuclear waste near the planet's water reserves also for the greater good? Was the mass gas sterilization of what used to be China also for the greater good? Was the greater good when the religion was...”

  Lee interrupted her, “I know Dr. Winson. I understand, but this time it's different.”

  “Is it?!” - asked Jess.

  “Dr. Quill will explain everything soon”, replied Lee.

  Chapter 7

  Dr. Quill's office was big and very elegantly designed. There were a lot of wood and glass combinations which made you feel like sitting in a library. The shelves were stacked with books, and on several workbenches, there were a plethora of scientific instruments. There were clearly older pieces, not used anymore, and predominantly for decoration. Though, the instruments that were there suggested how old Dr. Quill actually was.

  “O hello, Lee, Jess, what a pleasant surprise, please, sit down”, he said.

  Jess's heart started to beat more rapidly as she saw how calm Dr. Quill was, and she was completely certain that Lee informed him about everything that happened. “May I offer you something…”.

  Jess snapped at this and said, “no”, a bit louder than she intended to. Surprised, Dr. Quill said sarcastically, “I was always wondering about the acoustics of this room. It certainly isn't used to shouting.”

  “Dr. Quill”, she started explaining, “Lee and I were in the exploration dome collecting some samples of the Rock when again, there was shimmering. Yesterday you've suggested consciousness which raised some interesting thoughts for me. But as the piece of ice broke off, when another team there were performing their experiments the Rock moved a bit, were micro-movements. I’m talking millimeters, and if the beam that they were focusing at in any way made it move, this suggests sensing, consciousness. Maybe intelligence? However that thing has a higher level of awareness than I first thought, or for that matter is publicly known. In the past 24 hours, everything I thought I knew about the Rock is wrong, and I am wondering, why isn’t any of this information available in the scientific records? I would really not like to be rude or suggest anything, but it seems to me that the information collected here is intentionally being hidden. Dr. Quill, please, can you put me up to speed so I can get to the bottom of this? What kind of an operation are you running here exactly?”

  Dr. Quill looked outside the window, sighed and said, “Dr. Winson, there is no easy way to put this, however, here is the thing. We invited you here because, as I mentioned previously, your extensive knowledge of silicon compounds and your prediction models have by far the most successfully described what is happening here. You did mess up the scaling, however, that is because you don't have the real numbers.We have decided to slow down the data publishing rate because we are scared of mass hysteria. History records witness what happened several hundreds of years ago when humans found primitive carbon-based proteins”.

  “Yes”, Jess said, “I know the history of searching for life on the solar system. It was very unfortunate how quickly it was able to bind to our RNA and kill off half of the planet, that we already didn't kill”.

  “Exactly”, confirmed Dr. Quill and continued. “We were troubled by the wars, and nobody listened to the scientists, and once they did, it was too late to stop the spread. Quarantines didn't help, and when finally the wars stopped, when the economy was crushed, people started starving, our cities collapsing and it was the time to start from the beginning”.

  Annoyed by this lesson, Jess said calmly, “Dr. Quill, I am aware of what happened, I am aware what was the price for us to enjoy the current lives we have, and that previously that would be hard to imagine. I understand we evolved but did we? Data publishing slows down, what right do you have to do that?”

  Dr. Quill gave her a stern look, and said, “it's not me. The Council asked me to not publish any data related to the Rock that might cause panicking and hysteria we already once did in history. We are to learn from our past. They want us to collect all the information we can, and then, go public. Once we are 100% certain about everything.”

  Jess visibly rolled her eyes and said, “well, this time it is different, and we know that for a while now Dr. Quill, Rock is silicon-based, and we know that no RNA binding is possible. Besides, the Rock has been here for a century now, and we are still here. The original discoverers would already be dead if there was anything that we are missing”.

  “Dr. Winson, but we are”, he replied. “The rock is not a primitive life form that just grows in the warmest direction, we have reason to believe its presence in the South Pole is intentional. Think about it, would any of the silicon-based chemical compounds be even remotely possible if it was not for the high temperatures that the volcano can provide, while simultaneously the ice protects it from oxygen exposure? -The current data suggests that it is self-aware and aware of us. The shimmering is actually real movements, and what we have are many meters at a time, and in various directions. However, this happens only when we apply high energy, more precisely heat. One of our scientists went a bit too far, Dr. Don Barrowski. He created a directed heat beam and pointed it to the rock for so long when the rock finally did not grow a huge spike destroying the beam and also killing him in the process.

  There have been theories it is capable of defense, it has a complex thought and that it can willingly grow in the direction it desires. Some data suggests it grows, and that it will continue growing, and that it feeds off the heat from the volcano, and some even suggest that it might be artificial life being sent here. Some of our friends in one of the Lunar observations are really pushing that idea, along with one of the councilors. So you see Jess, we need to be very focused and get to the bottom of this before we get public. Do you think that publishing all the ideas I’ve mentioned would leave all the people rational and calm?”

  “I don’t know”, answered Jess in amazement. “What about communication, did you try to communicate in any way?”

  Dr. Quill continued, “yes, I personally led a biology team that was supposed to discover how we can communicate. However, we have nothing. Zero results. Looking at all the biology we have here, it’s just another rock, which is a bit weird. However, when we take measurements something completely different comes out.”

  “Personally, I don’t think that preventing publications is a good idea, but when a counselor gives you a request, you don’t simply deny it. To be honest, it has been very frustrating and we wanted you here. We hope that the new sensor grid that Lee is building, along with your expertise in silicon compounds can finally show as a direction that isn’t a dead end. We actually almost gave up everything, but the council was insistent we continue. They
are interested in how to destroy it.”

  “We are also a bit concerned about water supplies and the Antarctic ice sheet”, said Lee, and Dr. Quill continued, “yes, one of the researchers found out that if the Rock keeps growing it might endanger the water supply, however, destroying it could also contaminate the ice in ways that are simply unknown to us.

  Unconvinced, Jess stood up and said dramatically, “well Dr. Quill, let's then start working on my research plan and discover how fast can this thing really move and spread before we pull out the lasers and contaminate the entire water supply of this planet.”

  Jess headed outside to take her equipment, but Dr. Quill stopped her by asking her to sign a document, stating that she is fully informed of the sensitive nature of this work and that with revealing this information she will be under prosecution from The Council of Earth. She must abide by confidentiality even after her work at the Antarctic research facility, and until the research is cleared to be publicized by the Council.