I nodded quickly, feeling a little excited at the idea that I might help Dr. Selvig with his research. I left the lab and quickly ascended the stairs until I reached the command center. Panting a little, I found Sullivan talking quietly with another man holding a tablet.
"Sullivan," I breathed, approaching him slowly. He glanced over at me and waved the man away instantly, reaching for the touchscreen computer. I left him to his business and walked over to an empty computer station, reading the screen. All these bars had risen to the top of the small graph, and weren't lowering.
Making a note of the funny symbols and numbers, I jogged back down the stairs. A smile touched my lips when I wondered if the other computer technicians were wondering what I was doing.
Dr. Selvig was still bent over, poking at the Tesseract with a frown on his face when I arrived. I repeated the information back to him and the frown set deeper.
"I'm no expert in thermonuclear astrophysics, sir," I asked curiously, looking at the floating wisps of energy. "But...what's the problem?"
"She's misbehaving, the Tesseract," Selvig muttered. "I don't like it. First off, it's not supposed to be on."
"What is 'misbehaving?'" I shuffled forward to get a better look at what Selvig was doing. He was attempting to poke the Tesseract again, but suddenly, a small blue force field formed around it, and blue sparks flew from the contact.
"Er...that's misbehaving?"
Selvig stood upright. "These levels aren't looking good. "Srini!" he barked. A young Indian man jogged over to the platform, adjusting his classes. "I want you to contact Director Fury. There's something wrong with the Tesseract." Srini nodded quickly and sprinted in the direction he came.
"Sir, these readings-!" I looked away from the Tesseract and noticed computer stations and monitors set up behind the Tesseract. An older woman with blond hair and glasses was frantically typing at a computer. "They're off the charts! It shouldn't be releasing that much gamma radiation!"
The other scientists in the room were becoming aware of the situation in the room. Each person began typing frantically on their touchscreen computers. The guards in the room looked a little unsettled, and some of them craned for a closer look at the screen. I turned my attention to the Tesseract. The blue glow it emitted grew stronger, and I watched with amazement as a few wisps of energy suddenly escaped from the box and began to float towards the ceiling.
"Um...sir?" I called anxiously. If that cube is pure energy...I thought back to my readings. Does that mean it just released pure energy?
I glanced over at Dr. Selvig, not sure what to make of it, and his face had a mixture of confusion, surprise, and fear.
"Elena, we need to order an evacuation. Now."
Only a few times during my tenure at S.H.I.E.L.D. had I experienced an evacuation. The past few times it had been over something minor, for example, a small fire. An evacuation was ordered because S.H.I.E.L.D. keeps so many weapons stored, and one of them could have gone off.
This one, however, was bigger and more alarming than I had expected. In all of the confusion, I found myself working with Sullivan, and with a new title: Data Modeler for Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S.
After Selvig contacted Director Fury and explained the situation, I found myself assigned to the task of creating models of data flow of the Tesseract's energy output.
Like I said, I don't understand astrophysics. But I could tell for the most part that the Tesseract wasn't supposed to be giving off so much energy. In the midst of the evacuation, I sat with Kat as we compiled data readings into charts, which were transferred to touchscreen computers and given to heads of divisions in S.H.I.E.L.D. One of the first things done was the evacuation of weapons. I kept hearing the word "Phase 2" being yelled around the command center, but I didn't have time to figure out what it was.
Kat looked a little over-excited during this as she read off numbers to me every minute. Her blue eyes had lost their fatigue were as excited as the day I first met her.
"This looks dangerous!" she gasped, her eyes widening at the screen. "That's a lot of energy, Miss Elle."
"You're telling me," I said, shaking my head nervously. My eyes darted to the video feed of the Tesseract on the large monitor. "It's gamma radiation, which makes it worse."
"I thought you said you weren't an astrophysicist," Kat accused me.
"I'm not."
"Pedagia, I need an update, these touchscreen computers are acting funny!" Sullivan's voice said in my ear.
"Still at 1.5 gray, sir," I responded, looking at the chart. "It hadn't moved since."
"It'd better not," Sullivan muttered hastily.
"What are 'gray', Miss Elle?" Kat asked me curiously. I exhaled nervously, looking around the frantic command center.
"Gray are...units of measurement in radiation. And Dr. Selvig said that exposure to 5 or more gray of high-energy radiation leads to death in 14 days. He says it's low levels of gamma radiation but I don't want to be near any kind of radiation except for x-rays," I added anxiously, tapping my fingers on the table. The blue wisps of energy inside the Tesseract were moving faster now. What does it mean?
"Pedagia," Sullivan's voice said again, but he was behind me this time. "There's something I need you to do. I don't trust anyone to deal with this shit, but everyone else seems to be content scrambling the National Guard."
I turned in my chair, tripping over my words, "What do you need me to do?" I stood up quickly.
"Gena, you take over. And don't screw up," he added, pointing at her.
"I won't, sir, I promise you. When we're all done here, I'm gonna bring ya'll some peach cobbler to celebrate." Kat saluted us energetically and turned to the computer.
"Don't understand how that girl's always happy," he muttered. "Out of the way!" Sullivan shoved a young white coat as he marched down the downstairs. I followed him quickly, managing not to trip over my feet and shooting the white coat an apologetic look.
Downstairs, other white coats were busy packing up important materials into big white containers. Some were going through checklists ten times over.
"You have experience in network management," he assumed, striding quickly past the lab.
"Yes," I panted, running to keep up with him.
"There's some damn important data from the mainframe that you need to get out of there with this." He pulled a small box out of his jacket pocket. I took it from his outstretched him and opened it. Inside was a small, silver disk, about the size of an earring.
"A disk?"
"It'll write all the information about S.H.I.E.L.D. onto this disk. This information has to be kept safe."
Shit. I lose things before I even know I had it. "Sir, why are you entrusting me with this, I know I don't have the classification level-"
"You have it now!" Sullivan exclaimed, stopping in his tracks to turn on me. "Since Selvig decided to include you in this, you may as well bypass all the other rules, too."
I felt a mixture of confusion and embarrassment as he continued walking past the lab towards a locked door in the corner. "What do you mean?"
"Selvig appointed you liasion between the command center and lab. He has no goddamn power, but since he's the scientist of the decade anything says goes," he added bitterly. "And you don't talk, you're awkward, but you're smart, so you'd had better not screw up or S.H.I.E.L.D. will have your head."
No pressure.
Sullivan unlocked the door with a swipe of his card and it slid open. Sighing angrily, he dragged me inside.
Stepping between the room and the laboratory area was more or less like stepping into a dream. Inside, the room was dark, illuminated by a green screen that nearly reached the wall. Attached to it was a large keyboard, with main control panels on either side of it.
The nerd inside of me was stunned to see what appeared to be the largest computer I had ever laid eyes on since my days at MIT.
