WHAT
This should have been my moment of triumph, instead I am almost forgotten, completely overshadowed in everyones minds by a single burning question... What has he been doing for the past 10 years?
It is painfully obvious that he is anything but the failure we had so gleefully assumed him to be. What kind of work gives him a direct line to an Air Force general? What kind of work allows him to mobilise the military without a single word of explanation?
He made one phone call, stated that that there was a situation and that was it. They were on their way. What civilian scientist has that much power? Even when they arrived and the facility was shut down, there was deference in the way they treated him. His word was gold and accepted without question.
His snarky rudeness to the authorities didn't even make them blink. Most of them seemed to know him and when he refused to discuss anything until Dr Keller had been checked out, they backed off. And it was obvious that he expected nothing less from them.
There seemed to be almost an air of, 'just another day' about it. Most of the military personal seemed completely unsurprised that he had come up with a way to avert catastrophe - they seemed to take it for granted. I even heard one of them assure a slightly hysterical man that there had never been any real likelihood of disaster with him there to take care of it. "He's at his best in a crisis" they said. What kind of situations has he been in that would make them so sure of that?.
It wasn't just respect he was shown, though. It was like the military viewed him as one of their own and there was clear affection in the way some of them watched and spoke to him and even in the way the complained to each other about him. Some of them seemed to be swapping stories about situations they'd been through with him, although they clammed up whenever I or anyone else came within earshot. I got the feeling that if anyone else had tried to put him down, they would have been silenced in short order.
I know from long and painful experience that there is little or no respect for brains amongst the brawny. What has he done to earn this kind of acceptance?
Not that he can be completely excluded from the 'brawny' category any longer. The man I knew would not have been capable of destroying a door and then carrying Dr Keller the length of the compound, refusing to allow her to walk on her own.
I see the other women present watching him with admiration, with respect and something more. A man who, the last time we met, no self respecting woman would ever look at twice once he'd opened his mouth, has become a romantic fantasy. I feel like I've fallen down the rabbit hole.
What has he been doing all these years?
What has made him so strong?