by A. Bernette
“It was okay for a grown up party,” Stephen answered. “I’m tired though,” Stephen added as he checked the time on his watch and hurried his pace.
Johan just sipped his coffee carefully, trying not to spill it as he walked too quickly for the headache he was nursing and the coffee. Johan wanted to ask what he was doing up so late, but just the sound of their voices seemed to bring the headache pangs back. Instead, he just walked with only the sounds of boots against the floor, hoping the medicine would take full effect before they hit the center and that Stephen would be okay just walking together.
When Stephen and Johan reached the door to the workroom Zura, Rupert, and Mave stopped talking and looked at them. Zura then looked at the time. “You’re late,” she snapped.
“You’re right. I’m Sorry,” Johan responded. She was his boss right now and the full team was there.
“I sent the report soon after I got up this morning. I expect that some of the executives at UniCorps will be checking their messages when they first get up and so we might hear from them at any moment, but definitely before they go into certain profusion of Monday morning meetings. I’m hoping the World Consensus will be a little slower so we aren’t ambushed all at once. I wouldn’t bet on it though,” Zura said already pacing lightly.
“I think we are pretty much ready, Zura,” Mave said trying to bring down the tension that was already built up.
“Yeah, but we need a game plan and we need to stick to what we discussed so that we have measured response that makes sense for them and for everyone else. This needs to be a win for all. Got it?” Zura reminded everyone as she prepared herself. Everyone nodded, except Johan, who simply said ‘mmm hmm”.
“Now, Rupert, I need you to get the absolute latest reports on earthquake and seismic activity and where it is happening overlaid with population density. It will be just about the same as what we gave them but I just want the latest. I need it in a half hour, okay?” Zura requested.
“I’m on it, Z,” Rupert said as he hurried to his workstation.
“Mave, I need you to call one of your contacts at the Science Institute. I know they are the main ones tracking the seismic activity and I just want to see if they can run another report. The last one we got from them showed the same thing. I just want that confirmation again, in case our funders push back. See what you can get them to send by 8:30 a.m.,” Zura said, giving her second order.
“Stephen. You were probably up late working on some models. If I know you, you brought them and I want to see them. I also need to talk to you,” Zura said.
“Okay.” Stephen stood holding a memory chip, not sure what to do as his mother then turned to his father.
“I need to see you, alone, in the lab. I’ll be in there in about ten minutes.” Johan knew what that meant. He looked only slightly better than he felt.
“No problem. Do you want me to look at anything or do anything while I wait for you?” he asked Zura.
“No. Thank you,” she said curtly. He was in the dog house. He took off his boots and refilled his coffee before meekly heading through the door and down the steps.
Once he was gone, Zura pulled Stephen over to a large table and they sat down.
“Stephen, I need to know if you found something, figured something out, or whatever you are looking for, I need to know,” she said looking at him intensely.
He lowered his head from what seemed like her secret seeking eyes. She’d never really pursued developing it, but he knew that she sometimes just ‘knew’ and this was one of those times.
“I made a copy,” Stephen said quietly.
“Uh huh. Ok. What did you do with it?” she then asked.
Stephen squirmed. He’d get in trouble if she knew he’d shared it outside the ARC and their circle. “Nothing. I showed Stella,” he answered trying to keep his face from revealing anything more.
Zura looked at him, knowing he wasn’t telling her everything, but she couldn’t afford for him to shut down. “Okay. Well, what is it that you were working on with what you saw?” she asked.
“Mom, there are files on there that even we can’t open. We don’t have the passwords or a way to decrypt them. What are they? Why are they protected even from you?” he whispered to her inquisitively.
“There are some things that are even above my clearance level and I have access to the things I need for my job,” Zura said, glancing at Stephen. “I was able to get a hold of those other files. I am hoping someone else can access them,” Zura said, looking worried.
“Is that why I gave it to the pilot?” Stephen asked in the same curious whisper.
“Yes. I think he knows someone who can help,” Zura answered.
Mave was in the background confirming that the most recent report on earthquakes, seismic activity, and the underground fissures that they were noticing would be transmitted by 8:30 a.m. She hung up the phone and gave a thumbs up to Zura. Rupert was still pulling his report together when Zura stood up and got ready to go into the lab.
“Give us ten minutes, please,” she said. It couldn’t be more obvious that Johan was in trouble.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Hidden
Antarctic Research Center
Mave was pouring her second cup of coffee and asking Rupert if he’d like another cup when an urgent transmission came through. Zura and Johan were still in the lab even though more than ten minutes had passed.
Mave read the message aloud. “Talk at 8:30 a.m. UniCorps and World Consensus. Confidential.” Mave finished before adding, “Talk about abrupt. This isn’t going to be a friendly gathering.”
Mave prepared to enter the ROC room to tell Zura and Johan the update. At least their funders would get it over with soon and then get on with fixing the problem.
She slipped her shoes off and started towards where she knew Zura was lighting into Johan. Rupert stood to the side watching. He had no intention of walking through those doors with Zura, not if he didn’t need to. Not that morning.
A few moments later, the door leading up from the ROC room opened again. Zura marched out taking her white booties off as she waited for Mave who was behind her. Johan trailed both of them. He’d sobered up a bit.
Zura looked at the time and then stalked over to Rupert. “How are things looking Rupert?” she asked, without stopping as she continued her short trek to her work station. “Mave, what do you have for me?” she asked without waiting for Rupert’s answer.
Rupert handed Zura a small chip, which she loaded in the reader to pull up in front of them all. Not much had changed, but more importantly, she needed to document the full record before anyone had a chance to change it. She’d be holding on to that chip.
“Thanks Rupert. This is just what I needed. I need you to make one more copy and put it in a safe place.” She gave Rupert a look to make sure he knew what she meant.
“I will. Don’t worry,” he said as he went to work on making a second copy of the data.
“Okay, Mave, give it to me,” Zura said, turning her attention to Mave.
“They are working on the report as fast as they can. They should have it by 8:30 a.m. like I asked. We’ll just need to be ready to receive it even if we are already transmitting with UniCorps and the World Consensus.
“As soon as it comes through, make a copy to give to Rupert. I want both of those to be kept safe. I’ll keep the original transmission. We can’t risk losing any of the data we have today. Do you all understand?” Zura looked at the time and then checked her reflection in the glass window.
“Okay, get the equipment ready. Johan, pick up your desk please, it’s visible on the screen. Stephen, you have to stay out of the shot and stay quiet. Technically, you aren’t even supposed to be in here,” Zura ordered.
Stephen sat down reluctantly by the door and then got back up again and moved to the opposite side of where the transmission would take place. He took out a small device and propped it on the table beside him. He would line it up once eve
ryone was on.
Soon there was a beeping sound. “Okay guys. This is it,” Zura said.
The team was seated closely together around a small oval table. Zura pressed a button and in front of them appeared a large holographic image of a round conference table with Representative Gregor Magiro, Dr. Tomas Sporgsman, Dr. Sandy Ashby, and another man who seemed to obliterate the room with his presence. The latter was distracting with his twirling of his large mustache. They were all familiar with Mirkal ‘The Stache’ Dempstead.
Somehow they’d managed to pull both UniCorps and the World Consensus together in such a short time. As they looked at each other the sour looks on all of their faces made Zura even more nervous.
“Good morning, everyone,” Zura said trying to sound cordial and friendly. She wasn’t sure she could set the tone for the meeting given the seriousness of the report.
“Good morning Dr. Bello. Good morning everyone,” Gregor responded, speaking for the room.
Gregor didn’t want to waste time. He knew something was coming but wasn’t expecting it to be this bad. “What the hell is going on, Dr. Bello? I wake up this morning to find this waiting for me,” Gregor said pointing to a projection of a page of the report Zura had sent a couple of hours earlier.
“Yes, Gregor. I do understand the concern,” Zura said. She pulled up her projection as well so that her team could see it.
“As all of you are well aware, the ARC project began more than twenty years ago. We’ve been collecting data before we ever built this place or put the first emission pump hole into the ground. Things have changed. When we started we weren’t tracking the pump holes because those weren’t even in existence then. Before this issue, we were looking at ocean health and using that as a way to measure environmental and ecological health in general.” Zura looked at the team on the other side of the transmission to make sure they were following her.
“Okay. So what does that have to do with this? Sounds like you are saying that looking at all this isn’t even really your job then?” The Stache jumped in.
“You may not know this, but once the pumps went in we were asked to watch for anything else unusual in the high risk areas around the tectonic plates and fault lines in addition to changes in the ocean’s health. We aren’t the only ones looking at that, but everyone else who is looking at it is not looking at the other things we consider.”
“Doesn’t anyone else see a problem with the lack of checks and balances here? Why are we paying all these organizations to look at the same damn thing? You want to talk about waste? There it is!” The Stache attacked again. Zura tried to ignore him so she could maintain her composure through the meeting.
“It doesn’t matter who noticed this. It just so happens that we did,” Johan spoke up in defense of his wife and the work they did.
“Right., and with what we began to see we had to step back and look at the bigger picture. We looked at as much as we could and kept track of it. We didn’t see much outside of what we expected to see at first, but after some bigger disturbances and anomalies we decided to go back and look at our data. These disturbances and anomalies can’t be explained away by the normal shifting,” Zura said and waited for them to respond.
“That shouldn’t have anything to do with our project. We dug those emission holes far away from the fault lines,” Dr. Tomas Sporgsman from UniCorps responded.
“And you can’t really say that without a doubt, this isn’t normal or hasn’t happened in the past,” The Stache defended the pumping again, causing the muscles in Zura’s neck to tense as she shot him a steeled look.
“We built them far away from the fault lines we knew about,” Zura said back. “What we didn’t know was that the fault lines we have known about aren’t the only ones. There are new fault lines that can show up and small ones that can become larger ones.” She paused before continuing, “And they are growing and what we are seeing is that some of them are developing fissures.These small cracks spread a little like tree branches, spreading out and connecting.”
“That’s not this program’s doing. That’s just nature,” The Stache responded.
“Zura, can you definitively tie any of this to our emission pump program?” Gregor asked. He didn’t want to agree with Mirkal’s argument but he had a reasonable point. It needed to be as certain as possible.
Zura looked at Gregor. His concern was genuine, but she couldn’t tell if it was because he was concerned the program might be causing the problem or because he was concerned his program and reputation might be at risk. Or both.
“Not absolutely definitively, but there is a very strong correlation.”
“Correlation does not necessarily imply causation,” Dr. Sandy Ashby said, speaking up in defense. “This has been a highly successful program in eliminating air pollution. Dr. Bello, do you really want to suggest that it is the problem?” she asked Zura.
Mave saw the report from the Science Institute come in but she couldn’t do anything about it without disrupting the conversation. She shot Stephen a look and then tapped her wrist once. He would get the hint.
He left the small device on the table and spun around to pull up what had come through to Mave. He loaded it onto his system’s projector so that the ARC team could see it but it remained out of view for the team in the Capital city.
Zura looked at the woman from the World Consensus. This was what she’d expected. “We don’t want to blame the program. We want to make sure that we are operating safely and that we protect citizens who may become at risk.”
“Are you suggesting we tell people about this Zura?” Gregor asked.
“If it gets worse, yes. They need to know if their lives are at risk.”
“That would cause mass panic and consumer confidence would immediately tank along with our economy,” The Stache said, giving the grimmest image he could imagine.
“Or we stay quiet and those people die, along with your sales to those consumers. Now that could also tank the economy,” Mave shot back.
“Okay. Okay. This is the thing. You are suggesting that we have some time before this becomes really dangerous, right?” Gregor asked.
“It’s hard to tell exactly. We’ve already had earthquakes in Southern Allegiance, ones that have rattled people and caused damage in Northern Allegiance, and other smaller incidents in Southern Liberty. No one is even talking about the earthquakes happening in areas where most people have already left. Some of these earthquakes have been pretty bad but not devastating,” Zura said attempting to conceal the frustration that she could feel just under her skin.
“Take the most recent one in Southern Allegiance. There was very little warning, but what little they had was used to get people to safety. Thankfully, it was only a 5.5 on the Richter scale. Had it been worse and they weren’t warned, it would’ve meant major casualties that could’ve been avoided,” Johan added.
“The seismic activity we are tracking, the tremors, have really been one of our few real warnings, but we don’t know when the next major incident will happen. It could be days, weeks, months, or maybe a couple of years. What we do know is that there are more of the underlying signs. We are seeing more connections,” Mave said, nodding towards Rupert.
“We are seeing an underground map of what looks like these tree roots and they seem to be happening closer to the emissions pump sites than they happen the further away we get. So to your point Dr. Ashby, no, we cannot prove causation, but there is too much correlation for it to be coincidence,” Rupert said, as he pulled up an image that overlaid the pumps and their lines with the seismic activity.
“We think that the emissions being pumped into the ground are the cause of excess pressure and gas. This is building up and has to go somewhere. It appears to be pushing through the earth and causing these fissures. We can’t prove it, but we can’t see any other explanation,” Rupert said, highlighting one of the graphs he’d put together.
“Dr. Bello?” Dr. Tomas Sporgsman called out before a
nyone else could continue. Zura turned her attention back to him. “I just want to remind you that you and your team, which means every person on this project and on the ARC, have signed a confidentiality agreement and a nondisclosure agreement.
There it was. What they’d all expected to be thrown out at them at the start of the conversation. UniCorps and the World Consensus held true to form.
“Sharing of any findings from research conducted on the ARC without approval from the funding committee is not allowed and is legally punishable. The sharing of this information may cause panic and social unrest amongst civilians and could possibly incite illegal behavior amongst civilians. Being a part of or contributing to any of those illegal behaviors is also illegal and punishable under the law. Do you understand this, Dr. Bello?” Dr. Sporgsman finished and awaited her response.
Zura could feel her nails digging into her hand the entire time he spoke his threat in the form of a warning. “Yes, I understand what the law is. Do you understand what our moral duty is to the citizens of the world?”
“Don’t push this, Dr. Bello. We have obligations. UniCorps is obligated to protect the interest of our partner organizations and I’m sure you can understand that the World Consensus has obligations to protect the citizens. That means we can’t allow anyone to incite civil unrest or anything that might endanger the immediate safety of those who entrust their leaders to protect them,” Dr. Sandy Ashby added.
“Zura, you know that what you all proposed as a solution is nearly impossible, right?”
“No. It may be difficult, it may take time and resources, but it isn’t impossible,” she shot back.
“You all proposed the mass evacuation of major cities around the major fault lines because those areas are more likely to become active with everything else becoming weaker. I’m sure you know that most of those lines are centralized around the Ring of Fire. Of course you know, you’re the scientist,” The Stache said mockingly before continuing to denigrate her team and the work they’d done.