It's getting late. I should go back to the dorms and sleep. I can't remember what I read this morning anymore, which is a warning sign that I should stop doing any decision making. I’m sure I did some things before lunch, but without looking back in my log I couldn’t say what. I do remember the stuff I'm working on now though. I'm sure it doesn't require too much context. I can keep working a little longer.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch isn't going to magically clear itself up and I need to make sure we'll have the resources we need to build the rigs that will take care of it. The plastics that make up most of the patch will provide most of the raw materials for the floating platforms we’re planning, assuming Marcus and Chuck come through for me on one of their tasks. What we’ll need to bring with us is the metal for the moving parts of the collectors, so I'm looking at old mining sites across the Hawaiian islands to see where we can get mineral rights for the cheapest.

While a part of my electronic mind scans and scrapes the data for the mines, I consider the best way to haul the materials out into international waters where we’ll do most of the work. I think a small group of fast boats is our best approach. The electric motor cruising catamaran design gives us both speed and stability, and spreading the load out across a bunch of vehicles simplifies the design requirements and minimizes losses in case disaster strikes. Of the dozens of options I’ve evaluated, I think it’s the best one. We can even cannibalize the boats for their component materials as they empty out to maximize our efficiency. All we need is a nearby source of aluminum.

There. Perfect. An abandoned bauxite strip mine on Kauai. The owners extracted the easily accessible minerals and left the site when it stopped being profitable, but our techniques are infinitely more efficient. We can probably get the mineral rights for free if we offer them some good PR by cleaning up the site and donating it to the community as a usable green space. I send out some emails and write myself a detailed reminder for the calls we’ll need to make tomorrow, since I know I’ll forget all this by morning.

It's still weird to me how much power my father's name gives me. Everyone seems so eager to have Tom Butler’s kids come do projects anywhere near them. Sometimes they don't even bother to ask what we're going to do. Half the time they don’t even seem to care that I’m barely old enough to vote.

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It’s past twenty-three hundred hours now, making this my fourth eighteen-hour workday this week. On Monday, I slacked off and only worked sixteen hours. Mrs. Hastings gave me a disapproving look earlier tonight when she dropped off my dinner, but she’s given up telling me directly to get to bed. Usually she just sends one of the kitchen staff to make sure I remember to eat. She only comes in person when she’s extra worried about me.

If she knew me better, she wouldn’t worry about me like this. She would smile to think of me working myself to death. But I can’t stop. If I stop, I think about it. I don’t want to think about it.

I’m tempted for the fourth time that I can remember, and by that I mean the last dozen or so hours, to remove my reminders and let myself forget it all. I shake off the urge.

I deserve this hell.

DOPE_ME

I work for another hour.

I finally get up from his desk and trudge out the doors and across the grassy commons. It would be so easy to let my cloud carry me, but I’m already getting weak from my desk-bound lifestyle. I don’t hit the rec room anymore. The minimal exercise of walking around the campus is all that’s keeping me from going completely sedentary.

I can feel the whole campus, but I don’t pick up a living soul except for one member of the security team watching the monitors in his office. Everyone else is in their bedrooms, where my bots don’t go. I’ve programmed them to stop at residential doors and windows and not peek inside unless I order them to. I wonder if they’re all asleep, or if some of them are working late like I always did. My bots stop at residential doors unless I’m curious what’s going on inside. I idly wonder if Evan gives Valerie full privacy, or if he takes a peek now and then. I make a point of not checking on that. It’s none of my business, and love, lust, and romance are for better people than me.

I finally reach my room and crash onto the bed, letting my bots remove my shoes before I close my eyes. I’ve got another long day tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after. Forever, really, because this work of saving other people’s lives and easing their suffering is the only atonement I can think of for my sins.