Busy Skies: The Council Dissolution

by Ivan Svogor

  “Come to think of it, Ashley”, said Dr. Quill, “just two days ago I spoke with councilor Krueger and we agreed on this schedule. Also, by my understanding the exact time of departure is not exactly defined, there is a possibility we will have a meeting after the final address.”

  Ashley nervously said, “OK, but I would need to change the departure arrangements then, thank you sir for telling me this.”

  “Ashley, you really shouldn't worry”, said Dr. Quill with a bit of sympathy upon realizing that Ashley seems to be genuinely under pressure.

  “The councilor has their crews and they know how to take care of themselves. Everything is fine.”

  “OK, sir”, Ashley replayed and rushed off in another direction, but before this happened, Dr. Quill’s phone rang.

  “Hello Dr. Winson, how can I help you today?” - Dr. Quill answered.

  “Dr. Quill”, she said, “I just wanted to tell you that the presentation is finished, however, I have a lot of guys nervous here in the lab. It seems that morale is a bit down.”

  “Thank you Dr. Winson, see you around 13 o'clock”, he said.

  Just as the phone call was over, a small reporting robot came by and displayed a daily report. Those were a bunch of numbers, gauges, and statuses from the facility.

  Dr. Quill looked at it as he was walking and said, “ everything seems to be running nominally. Thanks.”

  Can you please confirm the report Dr. Quill? - The robot asked.

  “I confirm”, Dr. Quill replied.

  From the top floor, Kent Garcia saw Dr. Quill and started rushing towards him. As he finally caught on, Dr. Quill looked at him and asked, “did you get some rest, Mr. Garcia?”

  “Yes sir”, he replied, “thanks for asking, how about you?”

  Dr. Quill just nodded and asked, “so, did we have any unexpected activities yesterday?” Kent replied, “no sir, everything is in accordance with the plan.”

  “Very good”, Dr. Quill said calmly. “Are you excited about the visit from councilor Krueger?”

  Kent replied, “well sir, I didn't think much about it, I just hope that he will be satisfied with our progress here.”

  Both of them had just arrived at Dr. Quill’s office, and as they entered, Dr. Quill sat down at his desk. There was a pile of messages to go through, however, “he took a long stare at Kent, at which point Kent started to be a bit uncomfortable.”

  “Tell me, what do you think about our progress here?” - he asked.

  “Sir, I think that we are doing great, there have been interesting results.” - responded Kent. Dr. Quill raised his hand as if to interrupt him and said, “OK Kent, cut the bullshit.”

  Kent suddenly felt a rush of adrenaline. His surprise at Dr. Quill’s statement slowly turned into anger. She told on him! Jess must have called Dr. Quill to warn him and she told him what she overheard the other day in the lab when he was arguing with Newman.

  Kent's face suddenly changed into a nervous smile and he said, “I don't understand sir, what do you mean?”

  “Kent, don't take me as a fool”, replied Dr. Quill. “I might be old, but that is the point. I am old enough to have seen many occasions when someone was bullshitting me, and for the past few months, something is wrong with you.”

  Finally, Kent locked eyes with Dr. Quill, and by that point, he was sure that Dr. Quill knew that he wanted to replace him, and that Jess blabbered. The anger was now obvious.

  “Dr. Quill”, snapped Kent, “I think that you are too old and slow and that our progress is, in fact, fully obstructed by you.”

  As he was about to continue, Ashley came to the office. “Knock, knock, am I interrupting?” - she asked.

  Kent said “no, I was just about to leave”. Kent turned away and started moving towards the door, when Dr. Quill said, “ Mr. Garcia, tomorrow we will continue this talk. I believe that we can find a role for you that would be better fitting and with which you would be happier.” Kent looked to the floor and thought for a while.

  “Wherever that might be”, said Dr. Quill casually going through his messages.

  Kent sardonically smiled and exited the room.

  “Yes, Mrs. Green, how can I help you?” - asked Dr. Quill.

  “Sir, I've forwarded some of the requests I've got from staff members. We seem to have an increased number of vacation requests.“

  “OK, said Dr. Quill, “I will look into those, just please, make sure that the security department gets the memo to carefully inspect all computers and memory devices that are leaving the facility. Thank you”. Ashley knew it was time to leave and she did so.

  “Computer, please, prepare a facility-wide announcement for all staff members in all the research groups. For those that are offline, prepare a video message however make sure that everyone gets the message.” - ordered Dr. Quill.

  The computer confirmed the message and said, the system is ready for your message Dr. Quill, please proceed.

  “My dear fellow scientists, engineers, and researchers, as you know, today we have several important guests that will be visiting our facility. It has come to my attention that many of you will for the first time be in the presence of a Council member and some military staff. I would like to assure you that there is no need for anxiety or excitement. This is a formal visit through which we have an opportunity to present all the hard work we have been doing here. So please, think of it in that way. You have worked hard and together we have made good progress. Let's proudly show what we have done here, it is our moment to shine. Good luck!"

  Chapter 11

  Jess woke up early on Monday morning to prepare the lab for the visit from the councilor. In the oldest academic tradition, she started working on the presentation several hours before the actual presentation. A robot delivered her a big cup of coffee, along with the fruit smoothie with honey. She needed some sugar in her blood in order to finish this on time.

  Way too much sugar Jess, way too much, she said to herself loudly. She dived into work and before she knew or noticed, the lab was half full of nervous people. She finished the presentation and decided to call Dr. Quill.

  “Dr. Quill,I just wanted to tell you that the presentation is finished, however, I have a lot of guys nervous here in the lab. It seems that the morale is a bit down”, Jess said.

  “Thank you Dr. Winson, see you around 13 o'clock”, responded Dr. Quill very officially and closed the connection.

  Lee overheard this and came up to Jess’s desk, and said, “Dr. Winson, you noticed that a lot of people were nervous? I mean, I am too.”

  “Why?” - asked Jess.

  “Hum”, proceeded Lee, “I am not quite sure, but knowing that a member of the Council will be examining and expecting my work, feels a bit like I have a test in the school for which I didn't study.”

  “First of all”, Jess said smilingly, “I really doubt that that ever happened, because you strike me as a true nerd, and secondly, I don't get why would a visit from the Council be so frightening. He is just a person.”

  “Yes”, Lee said, “but they can shut this entire facility if they assess that this work is not of interest.”

  “And do you really think that is going to happen”? - Jess asked.

  At that point, Carlo weighed in by saying, “nope, this is very unlikely. It is far more likely that we get scrubbed and replaced with someone better.”

  Jess looked at him and after a brief pause said, “sure, that is plausible.”

  She turned away towards her screen to continue with her work, while Lee kept staring at her.

  Her eyes moved first, and then, her head followed. “Yes?” - she asked, looking at Lee.

  Lee watched in confusion and asked, “and that doesn't scare you?”

  “What?” - asked Jess.

  “Getting scrubbed”, Lee replied.

  “Not really”, she replied, “there are plenty of good research facilities to go to from there, and as you know, I am here only temporarily.”

  Lee t
hought for a moment and said, “Hum, yes, there is this team off the coast from the Greece region that is working on pretty cool things.”

  Carlo smacked him on his head, in confusion Lee followed him. Jess rolled her eyes and continued her work, which was interrupted by an announcement from Dr. Quill.

  * * *

  Shortly after the announcement, Dr. Quill’s reminder had him alerted about the pending meeting, and just as we were finishing some documentation, in the distance, off the sky he noticed an approaching light. He checked his wristwatch and made an approving grimace. He headed towards the landing area to greet his guests.

  Several hours quietly landed and after some military personnel briefly inspected the area, Dr. Quill noticed today’s guests.

  Thomas Krueger was very tall, relatively old, however, for his age, he was impressively agile. He was wearing a thin, heated coat under which he wore a recognizable council tailcoat. However, the most distinguishable feature of councilor Krueger was his white hair and a long white goatee. Krueger’s face was stone cold, while one might have a hard time distinguishing the coldness of his stare or off the surrounding wind.

  As he was old, he was experienced and he knew how to talk to people, and how to tap into the interests of certain groups. Among other council members, Krueger was respected.

  Right next to Krueger, just a tiny bit shorter dark-skinned silhouette was coming into the shape of commander Edmund Hewitt. A living legend of the military and a commander of space operations. If there was any kind of a craft coming from the busy sky up to space or beyond earth, with exception to hars, Hewitt was the guy who knew about it. Unlike Krueger, Hewitt had a strong posture and lite steps on the icy surface they landed on. While he did look scary, and there was no question you would like to mess with him.

  Both Krueger and Hewitt were followed by their assistants which were proudly following them.

  Good morning councilor Krueger, commander Hewitt, said Quill warmly and respectfully nodded. Welcome to the Antarctica research facility, please, while you stay with us, feel at home. You are among friends and you are of high regard here.

  While Hewitt very officially nodded to thank Dr. Quill for his hospitality, the face of Councilor Krueger managed to carve a smile through an otherwise cold look.

  “Good morning Dr. Quill, thank you for your hospitality, and thank you for your welcome.”

  “Please, follow me, gentleman”, said Dr. Quill.

  The entrance of the facility is always a spectacular sight, one can feel like being transported from one continent to another. The state-of-the-art glass walls, lights, air conditioning, and flora completely disregarded the fact that it was dark outside and 40 Celsius below. The suits of visitors briefly flashed and made a ping sound as they were turning off the heating functions. Nonetheless, a couple of staff members took the visitor’s coats while the floor pads sucked the melted ice of their shoes.

  The vast hallway was busy with lab members walking between the labs, sitting on the common areas, and discussing their latest progress and issues, while the entrance provided a great oversight of this area. No matter how many times you visit, the sight was still impressive, and Dr. Quill could clearly see that in his visitors.

  Commander Hewitt was in particular impressed by the trees growing in the parks and alleys within, so much in fact that he asked Dr. Quill about it.

  “I noticed that you have some tree species that are not known for indoor parks, how are you managing to do this? Also, from the standpoint of maintaining this facility with a minimal footprint on the environment seems to be very expensive, energy-wise”, asked commander Hewitt.

  “Commander Hewitt”, Dr. Quill responded, “we have some of the best biologists here, and while it is not in their primary focus to grow trees, they do have hobbies. Very often scientists that we host here use their free time and access to this facility to perform other research within the domain of their interest. So, we had a couple of biologists that were interested in indoor parks and less resilient tree species."

  “Hum”, nodded commander Hewitt approvingly.

  “For instance, a couple of years ago”, Dr. Quill continued, “we had a team of medical doctors that were investigating exposure to low temperatures of patients with replacement organs. This was very interesting research that enabled meteor mining and space travel to people that were previously denied that experience. This is an example of research that doesn't directly investigate the Rock, about 50 percent of the staff that we currently have works directly or indirectly with the Rock. We are covering a lot of ground here."

  Dr. Quill’s assistant added, “a couple of years ago, we had a visit from one of our physicist’s husbands, who was a material manufacturing specialist. After a week of staying with us came up with an idea and later prototype of a new kind of sealant that we use for the doors and windows here. It seems that he had misophonia, he didn't like any kind of weird noise, and the spring winds were driving him crazy."

  “Ha ha”, laughed Dr. Quill and continued, “yes, that was an interesting coincidence. Later on, he came back with a couple of acoustic engineers and reduced the facility noise through sound wave cancellation and a new sealant. Quite old, but effective principles. So, commander Hewitt, to answer your question, the facility has a minimal environmental footprint. By choice, it is emitting some light into the environment, almost no noise and temperature as the upper layer is covered with snow. In the lower decks, we keep a miniature fusion reactor and an emergency energy storage facility that can give us up to 30 days of autonomy. We actually combine the two."

  As commander Hewitt was approvingly nodding, councilor Krueger was mostly interested in staff members and was very observant about how they walk and behave. Finally, he looked at his timepiece and commented, it seems then, that this facility keeps giving interesting results, even though some of them aren't planned. That is very admirable and usually a trade of a good talent pool. I am interested in seeing what has been going on here and what are the actual plans for the future, primarily in respect to the Rock. That is what we are here for.

  Dr. Quill sensed a bit of passive-aggressiveness in councilor Krueger’s tone, he continued. “Yes of course councilor Krueger, we have a scheduled visit to lab facilities at 13:00 o'clock, and now, please, join me at my office for a working meeting and a brunch."

  As everyone sat down, Dr. Quill’s secretary was about to sit down, as Newman and Kent walked in. Kent leaned towards Dr. Quill’s assistant and said, “this meeting is classified." She looked at Dr. Quill and he just nodded. As she went out, Kent and Newman took their seats. councilor Krueger made a hand gesture towards the doors and at which time both his and Hewitt assistant stood up and left.

  * * *

  Though Ashley wasn't able to hear anything from within the office, by the gestures, hand movement, and walking it was apparent that Kent and councilor Krueger were trying to convince Dr. Quill on something. There was a lot of waving of hands, finger pointing, and raising eyebrows. As this went on for a couple of hours, finally, the computer interrupted the discussion and it was the time to make lab visits. Dr. Quill stood up, raised his finger, and made a dismissive conclusion, and went to freshen up in his private side room. He waved to Ashley that it is OK to come into his office.

  As she was opening the door, by the side of her ear, she heard Kent saying to councilor Krueger, one way or the other it is necessary to do this and if he doesn't allow it, I will.

  Ashley politely coughed and said, dear guests, I believe you had a productive meeting, please, follow me to our lab facilities, and Dr. Quill will catch up in his lab for the presentation by Dr. Winson.

  * * *

  The tour was long and interesting, even councilor Krueger had questions about Rock research in which he has shown a surprising amount of knowledge about it. Finally, they have made it to Jess’s lab. Jess saw the crew of visitors approaching the lab just a brief moment after she finished the presentation, though there was no time to mak
e coffee, she sipped some energy drinks she had and stood up to welcome the guests.

  In the middle of the presentation Dr. Quill joined in, and Jess noticed a worrying look in his eyes which got her to stutter a bit, however she went through the presentation nonetheless. She showed excellent progress they have made since she joined and a plan for the rest of her stay. Even some of the lab members were impressed by this however, councilor Krueger was indifferent.

  Should you have any questions, I would be happy to answer, or you can approach any of the staff members to see the detailed results, said Jess as she was finishing the presentation.

  Then, councilor Krueger came a bit closer to Jess and started something, that could only be described as cross-examination.

  So Dr. Wilson, he said, am I right to understand that you are the lead silicon chemist that needs to investigate the growth speed of the Rock, and its agility related to the latest claims of its primitive intelligence?