Lewis needed that pep talk. He finished his work that needed to be done right then, before coming up with a plan. He created programs to keep running his work and collecting data. Every scientist in this agency had a tracking device, Lewis just happened to know how to stop it from working time to time. He did that to his. Lewis didn't bring anything with him except his clothes and a few other items. He walked into town where Tyler was headed to Bixby. Tyler was confused by a scientist just walking alone in Perfection. Lewis asked for a ride into Bixby saying that his vehicle was needing a part. Tyler offered to look at his vehicle, but Lewis declined. He knew how to take care of machines as well. Tyler shrugged it off and just brought Lewis to an auto parts store.
When Tyler was long gone, Lewis walked off towards a bus depot. He bought a ticket to Utah.
Tyler's tours had been on the steady due to the season change. Most of it was retired or elderly, but those were paying customers none the less. Jodi and Larry picked up on the age range as well. Must be snowbirds. It was getting to that season of people coming down to the hotter areas to stay out of the cold.
Wes and Rose were swabbing away slowly at the lab. Since it was rainy season coming up, Rose wanted to take the pace down a notch. This was her first year here. She didn't want to rush things especially when it came to big changes like seasonal. Who knows exactly what changes happen in the lab as it soaks up more water around it? Would that have any impact on Mixmaster.
On the days that it would rain, the two would stay inside working on other things. One day, Wes noticed how focused she was on one of her work assignments. He watched her with curiosity. She threw her arms up in the air in celebration.
"HA! I did it!" She smiled.
"What did you do?" Wes was waiting with anticipation. She moved around for him to see what she was doing. His spark of curiosity drowned in utter disappointment. "You've been playing with Legos this whole time?"
Rose took offence to that. "Not just any Legos," she scoffed. "Larry handed out bags of blocks at the Halloween party to those who wanted to try their hand at making the graboid life cycle. Grady and him are trying to get that license agreement. I just sent him an email detailing all of my builds. Aren't they cute?" She smiled at her blocks. Wes couldn't help but laugh. They were.
"So, are there going to be townspeople?" Wes was curious about this.
"Yes," Rose nodded. "Larry has done the drawings for each of the townspeople. Jodi is working on building her own Chang's Market. Larry is doing the rest of the town. He even made us but we are actually 'tourists.'"
"Oh," Wes gave a slow nod.
"The same with Casey and Roger," Rose added. "We are the 'tourists' on Tyler's tours. We're still involved but secretly."
"Is Twitchell one too?" Wes came over to see the builds.
Rose nodded. "Got to have that government employee to keep the endangered species safe. At the next potluck, Larry is going to show everyone Lego Perfection. As well as Lego graboid incidents. They also will have Val, Earl, Rhonda, all of the original Perfectionites from the first incident. From there, they will have the second incident with the shriekers in Mexico that includes Grady, Kate, and some of the others from that incident. And then current Perfection. Speaking of which, I am going to schedule us going back to lab on a hotter day during this winter. I want to get a live specimen of the grasshopper scorpion that you arbitrarily stepped on."
"You have it scheduled?" Wes knew that weather changes constantly and meteorologists can only make educated guesses with all the information given. It's not always accurate.
"Don't worry," Rose moved the builds to the side so she could build stuff with the other blocks. "It's a small window. I have computer AI that will inform me when it's a good time to go. Since the rainy season is upon us, we will be doing more work outside too. I want to do core samples on the outside of walls of the lab. Just so I know what type of dirt we are dealing with. Would do core samples for the lab, but I worry I may actually unearth something."
The two kept their slower pace as Lewis finally made contact with his new 'boss.' He was sitting in the office side of a mobile home. He went through some security and background checks. His fake identity checked out. Lewis almost gave himself away when they confirmed it. It would seem passable because he wrote the code to make it passable.
A woman in a fancy pantsuit sat down before him. She gave him a brief smile. "Doctor Louis Thorne. You passed with flying colors. Now the real test, can you make it in a fast-paced environment?"
"Yes, fast-paced, goal driven, treat you like a family," Lewis replied. "Those are all covers for work is work and you must have results." She raised an eyebrow, intrigued by his answer. Lewis continued. "You must be flexible, learn things on the fly or teach them yourself. I didn't go into science because it was black and white, I went into science because not always one way can get you the answer."
"I like the way you think," she was feeling more comfortable around him. "What do you think of the government?"
"You mean a social construct humans agreed upon with a set of words arranged in some order?" Lewis shrugged his shoulders. "It's a social construct. Just like money. If we stopped believing in it, there would be no effect anymore. We may have sworn oaths but those are just really empty words. Nothing concrete, nothing sound."
"Good," she stretched out her hand. "Welcome aboard to PF Research and Laboratories." He shook her hand. "I am the acting CEO and director, Caitlyn Proudfoot."
"Honored," he did a firm shake and released his hand.
"Let's get you setup and ready to start working," she got up from her chair. He followed suit. Caitlyn showed him around the buildings until she came to the last one. "This is where you will be spending most of your time."
When she opened the door, all of the other scientists stopped what they were doing to look at her. Some were afraid of the same scenario happening again, while others were waiting for a raid to happen. Either way, all of them were anxious of something.
"This is your newest teammate, Dr. Louis Thorne," she introduced him. "Remember I have yet to get any blueprints from you. Time is ticking away. Make sure to keep him informed." They all gave her a slight nod. She then left him alone with the other scientists.
One scientist came over to Lewis. He caught him up to speed on what was happening. Lewis couldn't believe it. She really did have several Assblaster eggs. This was a good idea to go with his decision. He was in awe looking at all of the eggs. All seemed to have the same age according the carbon footprints.
"So do you have any ideas?" The scientist asked Lewis.
"Huh?" Lewis almost forgot about the life and death situation he also got himself into. "Oh, yes." The other scientists perked up. "But um, I don't know if those have already been shot down yet. Oof sorry. Didn't mean to phrase it that way."
"None taken," the scientist understood. "We didn't think she would shoot us down either. Now all our lives are on the line. The ideas that were shot down seemed practical but wouldn't actually hold a graboid or any of the other cycles."
"Are you all now working as a team?" Lewis looked around at them. He saw the exhaustion of thinking something coherent wearing on them. Some of them nodded. "I'm guessing you all are trying to be on a team but also if all of you bring something and it doesn't work you are all afraid, she's going to literally shoot you down." All of them nodded. Every one for themselves but also still trying to be a team. It sounded like Burt. He was such a lone wolf type of person but he made sure to protect his pack and others whenever he could. He even had his own den. This thought brought on an idea. "Hold on."
Lewis grabbed a pencil and a paper. He sat down at the closest table. "I don't know much of your ideas but my assumption is that you may all tried to do a three in one type of holding cell. Not going to work. Not really. Each cycle is unique." He thought of the concrete box Burt made for himself out of protection. "We can assume that the graboids are going to start out small since those eggs are about the size of an ostrich egg but a graboid grows, with proper feedings, to full size in about three months. The same way we keep a graboid out, we can keep a graboid in." He started to draw a long rectangle. Some of the scientists were also drawing skepticism on their faces. "Concrete walls killed the first graboid in the first incident. Burt Gummer has graboid proofed his home. Concrete on the bottom and walled around. Now what if we put a graboid in the concrete box? It can't go anywhere. Make some adjustments here and here." He penned more rectangles connecting to one another. He put some slashes between some of them. "We can create like 'pens' for them. Moving steel plated slabs so they can move to a bigger area. Don't know how the growth rate is and how it will impact them, so we can shield ourselves with more protection by using more steel plated slabs. Put in cameras and seismos, we won't have to actually be there to document their growth. A win-win."
Just then a hand snatched away his drawing. Everyone froze when they turned to see that Caitlyn had come back. She was now giving her full attention to the piece of paper. No one made a sound until she was ready. "I like that idea. Put more effort into it. How big does it need to be? How many of these? Since all of you get one batch of eggs, its safe to assume it can be like fish hatcheries. Can we do this above ground?"
Lewis glanced around. It seemed like they were too afraid to add in anything. "Yes, we can. Could do it half and half." He grabbed another piece of paper. "Concrete walls need to be at least two feet thick, steel reinforced. For the steel slabs, they need to be ten inches at least. The ground inside of the concrete boxes need to be Pleistocene alluvial soil. We want optimal conditions for them to grow in. Wouldn't hurt to do desert in one box, desert rangeland in another. See how they can manage in different types of soils and ecosystems. Could do more of a circle with these concrete boxes. You have the infant to adolescent here. Move through boxes, getting bigger as they go leading to large growth. Making the walls higher up here so near full maturation, see how and what critical point is needed for graboids to beach themselves and produce shriekers. Shriekers are adaptable and can use each other to gang together and take on prey. Second graboid incident in Mexico, where shriekers have created a pyramid of themselves to get to Burt and Earl on an oil rig. Really cheeky there.
"Over here we can keep a lower concrete box but higher air field as we can continue the growth of shriekers to find out the same threshold point for them to turn into assblasters," Lewis grabbed more pieces of paper. "Assblasters need to fly. We want to know how much food they can handle, what their threshold is for egg production. Also need to know if they are still alive after egg production. Is there a continuous longevity to assblasters with a continuous supply of eggs?"
"Everyone," Caitlyn spoke during one of his pauses. "This is your new lead scientist. Help him out and all of you can live in glory. Work as team. Run this idea all the way through. Bring it to me once its finished. It sounds plausible." She placed down the paper and walked away.
Once she was gone, the other scientists cheered. They no longer cared if someone came up with a good idea, they only cared that they wanted to keep their lives. They asked Lewis all sorts of questions. One scientist decided to draw out in detail of the rough sketch Lewis had done. Another was getting more items for them. Lewis couldn't believe how great his ideas were. He had been thinking about these questions for a while now. He kept adding a new question to a small journal he had. Now, with other minds he could talk with them freely about some of his questions. The concrete box wasn't really his idea to begin with, it was Burt's. Lewis just decided to think inside the box. He also started to leave breadcrumbs in the computers they were provided. He wanted to make sure all of his data would still be his after everything.
In a week with all the minds around him. Lewis had his idea turned proposal ready for Caitlyn. She read it over in silence. He didn't leave as she could always retract her statement from earlier. Caitlyn smiled bright. She handed the documents over to a bodyguard. "Get working on this immediately. I want it built and ready to go by January." The bodyguard nodded his head before taking it to a group of construction workers ready to build. "You and your team of scientists will also be on standby to oversee construction. Take this time to make sure these will work and how you will attack our next phase, hatching graboid eggs."