From Louise: This thing on? Are you getting this?
To Louise: Hey, welcome to the telepathy club. Glad you finally took the time to get your update. Are we still getting Andrea on later today too?
From Louise: Yeah, Evan’s going to update her firmware in a couple of hours. I wouldn’t expect her to use it much though.
To Louise: Yeah, I kind of expected that. Is she doing all right? She still won’t talk to me.
From Louise: Duh. She never talks.
I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic with me or not. I shift in my chair so that my leg that’s falling asleep gets some circulation.
To Louise: You know what I mean. She won’t interact with me at all. It’s been a year. She’s got to let it go at some point, right?
From Louise: Andrea has a legendary ability to hold a grudge. She’s still pissed that you didn’t tell her you were going to make Jeff kill him. Give her more time. She’ll forgive you eventually.
To Louise: Fair enough. At least she doesn’t hold any of that against you or Evan, right?
From Louise: Of course. I mean, that one really was on just you. Your idea, your choice not to tell her. I still think she would have eventually agreed to it if you’d trusted her enough to let her in on your plan.
My gut twists. She’s right, of course, but sometimes I wish Louise would pull her punches a little.
To Louise: Right. Thanks. I’ll let you get back to work.
I turn my attention back to the files on the Mekong River. We’ll do this one as a group project, like we did Djibouti, Somalia, and Ethiopia with Father. It’ll get them some experience with doing operations before they have to do anything outside the campus without us. And this should be a good one to do together. We can do the whole project in a pretty reasonable timeframe, and the benefits will be immediate and have a huge impact on a lot of people.
The contamination levels in the river are a hazard to the whole region and every effort to deal with it by any of the governments of the countries the river runs through have had any success. We’ll work our way up the river, installing filters all along its length. If we’re lucky, we’ll even get to stop some of the pollution at its source at some of the upstream heavy industries, if we can get permission from the Chinese for that.
I flip to the ecological studies report. Here’s where our tech can do what nothing else can by removing the pollution without disrupting the ecosystem. The filtering and collection systems need to be completely safe for plants, fish, and other wildlife and need to know what to pull out and what to leave. If we just swept it all, we’d take out essential nutrients or the critters that we need to keep the ecosystem balanced and the algae under control. Then we’d end up with either mass fish die-offs or algae blooms that are just as bad as what’s going on now with the industrial pollutants.
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This project means a lot to me. It’s the first big thing we’ve done where I’ve been personally involved in developing the technology for it from the ground up. Applying nanotechnology to solve this problem has been my pet project for literally as long as I can remember. I check through the filter schematics again and correlate their functions against all the pollutants and microscopic life in the ecology report. We have to get this right.
A reminder pops in my console that I need to talk to Chad about the other trip that we’re trying to pull off even sooner than the Mekong project. What time is it in Tanzania now? My index helpfully pops the time difference into my field of view. Yeah, it shouldn’t be too late there for a call. I dial up Chad, hoping he’s near an urban area so I don’t have to deal with the spotty service of the satellite phone.
“This is Chad. What’s up, Noah?” His voice comes in clear. Good.
“Hey Chad, we’re getting ready for the ocean garbage patch project. The Hawaii trip. I’m figuring out transportation. Do you need the jet for the next couple weeks? If you do, no problem, we can fly commercial.”
“No, you can have it,” he answers. “I’m good for a while. There’s lots of work for me here in Tanzania where the jet wouldn’t help anyway. Too few airstrips. Just have Cindy coordinate with my people so she can bring it back this way in time for the next time I need it.”
“Great, thanks.”
“Hey, are you talking to the dev team soon?”
I check my schedule.
“Yeah, I have my weekly sync with Chuck and Marcus on Friday. Is that soon enough? Did you need something?”
“No. Just thank them for the upgrade to the flight suit algorithm. That extra twenty klicks per hour makes a huge difference. I don’t even use cars where the roads are good anymore.”
“Will do, brother. Also, are you still planning to come over and help us with the Mekong river? I’m getting to where I need to commit to things for that one, and I need a head count of how many of us with the implant will be working it for visas and all of that. I still don’t have firm dates, but we’re hoping to start sometime early December.”
“Yeah, that should be fine. Just keep Keeya or Lucie posted as we get closer. They handle all of my scheduling.”
“Sure thing,” I tell him. “Hey, one more thing. I was talking to Smith today—”
“Oh, gotta go, brother,” he interrupts. “I’m coming up on my last work site of the day. Duty calls. I need to get this one installed before it gets too dark. The locals here like to inspect the work before I leave and I need enough sunlight to charge the batteries before I’m done.”
Guess I’ll have the uncomfortable discussion later then. Whatever. Fine.
“Well, keep up the good work, brother. Later.”
I hang up and make a note for my meeting Friday to thank Marcus and Chuck for Chad. It’s almost second nature to add things like that, but sometimes things slip through the cracks. I don’t have long once I learn something before my wet brain loses it so I have to get it into the reliable memory on the silicon side.
Despite my frustration with his efforts to keep up Father’s worst ideas, I have to admit that I do like Chad more and more the less I see him. He was tolerable when he came back to visit last summer, and he’s only seemed better since then. He's shown no inkling that he has any suspicions about the truth about Father’s death.
I pray to the gods I don’t believe in that he never finds out. He’d do his best to kill me if he ever did.