Chapter 3 Preparations
The staff once worked so hard every day in the privacy of this facility. How different things where now to how they imagined them. There was a real sense of being a part of something, perhaps it was the secrecy, the lofty goals. The result was the beehive of activity at Headquarters that created massive secret advancements. Hangar 2 was a testament to the hard work. It was just another hangar in the row of eleven, but it was the cleanest. The rest were a mess, storage or just non-descriptive sheets covering incredible technology prototypes. Hangar two had wax white floors and a Terra-Project logo in the middle, the lights where bright and all-illuminating. It was a dummy set up, a squeaky clean pretend workshop, showing off the best looking goodies. When people came to visit, limited though they were this was what they saw. Alain explained this as his voice reverberated around the huge hall of the hangar. Polished versions of the Terra-pod, non functioning shells, jet engines, Poly-green houses and life support systems all sat around the room in a neat display. The tour worked, they walked by huge machines in awe and stroked the smooth hull of space-ships.
"Leaving dirty fingers on things have gotten people disciplineries before."
Alain remarked to Sahil, who was running his hands along the windscreen of a high speed planetary transport rover. He reeled back but then saw Alain's smile and tapped the hollow screen.
"Okay guys we have a list, and a schedule lets get going play times over."
He began ordering people in groups to carry out equipment to the truck. Sahil walked around the room for a few more minutes as the others got to work. Here was the technology the rest of the world had been chasing. He saw things he had seen in concept online or in meetings.
Sahil had worked for a company that made a successful biscuit tin press stamping its brand onto metal sheets. After a huge financial success the company grew stagnant. People started to create competing machines. After investments in industrial espionage they realised how close other business's were to a similar machine. With all their money, the biscuit tin company hired a group of the highest flying up and coming engineers, put them in a room together and told them to create something. The simplicity of this tactic was effective and patents were filed daily. a few of the team had been spending time focusing on clean energy, Sahil chose Solar. He had been waiting delivery of a part, one he had designed on a computer screen days ago. The office was lit blue only by the bright computer screens and Sahil sat alone in the middle of the room. It was getting dark now, the part wasn't arriving today. He took a sip of his now ice cold black coffee which shook him as he got up from his desk. There was only one staff member at reception on weekends and he smiled as Sahil left the building. A black nondescript car with no discernible features sat next to the curb. From the blacked out window a door opened. A man in a green tweed suit stood next to the car, he made the car look small in comparison. A large man, wide bodied and with such a huge face and hands. He would be intimidating were it not for his feminine stance, he spoke.
"Solicited by a well dressed man in an unmarked car at night, Sahil you are most definitely not in a spy film."
It took some seconds for the statement to register but Sahil's response was to a blank stare.
"Don't worry you've not done anything wrong"
The large man came towards Sahil
"We're looking for people for a new project and we're impressed by your work here."
Still frozen Sahil watched the man reach into his pocket and produce a burgundy business card.
"If you're interested in working for someone, rather than a big company, who has a bit more about them than shed loads of money, get in touch."
In his first move Sahil picked the card from his hand
"Thank you."
He said through a nervous smile. It was in interactions like these that his childhood spent in books and not with people came through. The man half bowed and retreated into his vehicle , sidled his unique frame into the back seat as it roared off. The business card had an email address on in a plain bold font: AdamGressingham .
Nobody except Sahil had asked what fact stood for, and when he got the answer " Field Assessment of Civilian Team" he didn't quite know what to make of it. Acronyms were banned in his work place, so that the upper echelons could understand, or at least Google what he was on about in his designs. He played the sentence back to himself as he sat in the nondescript black car. Still nothing.
"I'll show you, I haven't shown anyone else because, well it's secret, but they wouldn't appreciate it like you."
The car pulled up to a fence, the window on Adam's side slid down and the flash of red beams entered the darkened back of the car as his face was apparently scanned by a camera on a pedestal. His mixture of shock and interest was apparent and Adam reassured him that would not be the coolest thing he saw today. The car pulled up to a huge white dome that looked like it was a stadium. the entrance was a sliding metal door, with another one straight after it. They left the car and the silent gray haired driver sped off immediately. The world was scorching compared to the air conditioned car. once Sahil's eyes had adjusted and he had scanned the building he turned around and looked at the cast expanse of tarmacked area, a flat wide open space with obviously huge buildings so mall in the background and nothing between them.
"Me first"
Adam stepped through the doors that slid closed behind him. Sahil heard faint rumblings of a loud voice inside, but couldn't make it out. The entrance then opened for him and he stepped forward just as Adam had done.
"Welcome please step forward one at a time."
Adam stood beside the door and watched Sahil's eyes as he admired the ceiling open mouthed.
" office floor, admin and such"
He said walking.
" over here we have meeting rooms, boring.
" They walked down a side hall to which Adam occasionally pointed down a corridor and said
" Boring!"
They came to a set of metal stairs, which looked like the kind you would use a fire exit. Adam skipped up them quickly. At the top there was a door that had a tiny square window at head height.
"This is where the magic happens, FACT nerve centre, if you don't have an IQ over 130 you will be incinerated before you pass the threshold of the door."
Swinging the door open Adam shouted.
"Look lively everyone, pretend to be doing something while I give a tour of the place."
Nobody so much as raised their head or flinched. the room had consoles all around the edges of it, and a empty space in the middle, it was no bigger than Sahil's living room. Sahil was drawn to the faint humming of the glass encased computers that stood in a row, each as tall and as wide as a person.
"Ah that's Alis! we wrote her ourselves, she doesn't get my jokes but shes the one who greeted you on the way in."
Sahil smiled at Adam, who really did like it when people got his jokes.
"We operate out of this modest room, some of the greatest minds in the world, we keep TP up and running and find ways our mathematics and tinkering can improve, well, the world."
Adam began walking around the edge of the room. Sahil followed.
" These are the most high-tech, the most secure, the single most advanced computer scientists in the world, undisputed FACT."
"Yeah, why fact? civilian team? what does it have to do with your acronym?"
"Well fact was our mission, to use our mathematics to recruit a civilian team with the necessary traits, but we accomplished that and our skills required use still."
Adam strode back towards the door.
"Okay, bye nerds!"
With this he left abruptly, Sahil caught the door in Adam's wake and followed.
"You know Sahil I would have had you on the team were you not getting spat into space by TP."
Ailbe motioned people to gather round a cloaked item in the middle of the room. It was no bigger than a lawn mower. He stroked the sheet as people filled the room.
"I give you, WOmbl!"
in a swift motion the silken sheet slid off into Ailbe's hands and revealed the glittering robot. It had two circular lights on the front of it that made it look like it had cute baby eyes. The solar panels jutting out of its sides like arms added too the personification of the device that sat before them.
"World Orbiting Mechanical Borrowing Liaison. This used to be NASA's finest earth orbiting repair man, now it is WOmbl, the marvelous recycler of the skies!"
Those who had grown to like Ailbe smirked at his eccentricity, some frowned at his confusing behavior wanting to know why this robot sat in the middle of the room. Ailbe elaborated.
"WOmbl was easier to hack into than a Christmas turkey! I won't elaborate on the complex system of magnets it uses to travel, but this machine can be controlled by me and has thus far converted 7 disused earth satellites to further Lunar base's purpose."
"from this room?"
Chimed Bikaner.
"No, this is a scale model I built, the real one is currently passing over Denmark, attempting to collect an archive of the internet that i believe to be stored temporarily in a communications satellite."
"We can scavenge most the parts we need from headquarters. It's fuel once were in space we need Ailbe, we have no way off getting."
"it's likely that WOmbl Will be able to borrow some from space debris, I'll have a look for you."
'Once we're in space' The phrase resounded amongst those present. The meeting was the night before, and the plan was audacious. It cost millions to get anything into space. It took so many hours of calculations , tests, involving many different specialised people. It was these reason, among many others, that meant it was cheaper to study space's isolation, on the earth. This was why they had been locked in a planetarium and fooled for 8 months. These were the challenges in front of them that were in the way of getting themselves into space, away from the dying planet. The ground work had been laid by The space agency's employees. There was a launch due, had everyone survived, so everything was in place. The group wasn't ill equipped for such a task. Sahil and Ailbe could do anything involving computers. Charlie and Alain between them were knowledgeable mechanics. Primula knew the ship inside and out, everything that could possibly go wrong with it. Roberte was useful as a labourer. Bikaner was the least skilled, Sam spent a lot of her time caring for him. He had Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, or ME. Some days he was up and around, trying to pitch in. But most he was resigned to bed, most days he resigned himself there. He was not trusted with any tasks, due to his unpredictable health.
Auto lights flickered on in sequence along the white hallway. One didn't come on for a second and flickered. Astronaut training, the still white atmosphere of the room, was purposely reminiscent of space. People came here to be trained in the zero error margins of space travel. the ubiquity of the emotionless white washed room was a test in of itself. The recruits would need to be comfortable with isolation for what lay ahead.
" I want provisions in each cell, we will keep the further sections locked down and let them in one at a time to be interviewed in the secure test room. We can talk through the intercom with them."
Primula spoke fast to Roberte as he struggled to keep up with the bobbing pony tailed captain striding down the halls. The interview room at the end was plucked out of a film, one way glass, a single table and two chairs.
" Are you sure about this, going out there by yourself?"
"I would rather be alone out there than with people I might have to look after, cost me my life."
Primula searched him. He was clearly skilled. A hunter he claimed. He was cocky, rude. She knew he wouldn't take any shit if he did find people.
"Okay, Ailbe showed me some satellite pictures of a town, 50 people maybe. Looks like it has big walls, i want you to check it out, surveillance only, use the radio." Her last glance at Roberte was seeing if he was ready. Was she ready? Nobody was ever ready to evacuate earth.