Hawk looked at the largest of the seas that he created on Tawny. Eventually it would become and ocean but for now it was just a sea. Only a few hundred kilometers in width and less than half of one in depth it only barely qualified as a sea. Following Daniel’s requests Hawk kept increasing the water by 10% every time plankton levels reached above 70% of Earth’s ocean level. At the current rate his estimate placed it reaching an acceptable size for an ocean in 107 years.

Daniel had requested an island be created in the center of the sea. An island that would be used by humans to live and work from as they helped develop the biosphere. He was a bit puzzled by using such an inefficient method for development but did accept the need to include human labor in the development. Daniel had also requested a town be created on the island. Using elements from locations the “Grandma” had identified. These elements included apartment houses, greenhouses, stores, library, entertainment venue and a school. The issue of power, water and waste were discussed by them until the “Sammy” asked him if they could be generated and for the waste disposed of using portals. Water and waste were self evident but power in the form of electron flow was new. Investigating this “electricity” used by humans reproducing its electron flow using a temporal portal’s behavior of state matching would be trivial.

* * * * *

Hawk had finished with creating the island and town on Tawny so Sammy, Grandma and I decided to check it out. After walking around it a bit Grandma commented that we had a company town here. Not something I expected even if it technically was true. Sammy wanted to know what town we used as the model for it since Hawk had to copy it from somewhere. I had to explain to her that it was a jig saw of a dozen different towns across America. The apartment building were from several different timeshare resorts in Florida, the hospital a clinic from a remote spot in Alaska and the stores were major chain. All of which copied from a point right before completion and before occupancy during the after hours.

“Why after hours?” Sammy asked

“Because copying buildings from the past will also copy people’s bodies” I responded

Sammy got a little green at the gills thinking about that. Seeing that Grandma quickly changed the subject by asking me what we should call it. Up till then I hadn’t thought about a name. I also realized the island on Earth would also need a name. Sammy didn’t like my first suggestion of Alpha and Beta but I didn’t like her suggestion of Harmony and Melody. Grandma won with her suggestion of Demeter and Ceres the Greek and Roman goddesses of agriculture and fertility. This island on Tawny would be Ceres and Earth’s Demeter. Looking around at the Ceres facilities Grandma started to put together a list of the people we would initially need. These people would cover the basic functions supporting the people actually working on the biosphere. By the time Grandma finished writing down all the positions Sammy and I could think of plus our best guess on how many for each one we had over 150 listed.

“It looks like we’ll need more than one hiring fair to fill all these” Daniel said

“But you can’t hire them without explaining it’s going to be on another planet” said Sammy

“I know but we can tell them right before moving them over and if anyone wants to quit then they can. It will be too late to matter if they tell anyone then” I replied

Grandma jumped in and said “you better hire three times as many; you know most will head out like a scared polecat when they see a portal”

Sammy and I both shook our heads in agreement. Even if more than the 150 we needed did agree to step through to Ceres we could still use them.

Before we left the island I mentioned we needed a dummy portal installation to fake how the portals were being created and destroyed. Sammy thought we could use a pyramid with weird lights and markings passing it off as a prehistorically lost science type of magic. I was for something a bit more subtle like an underground bunker with weird antennas on the outside. Grandma suddenly reminded us that people would be regularly using the portals to go out over Tawny to work. We needed something mysterious but designed for a lot of traffic both foot and cargo. We eventually came up with the concept of a hub with radial spokes to the portals. Wrapping the portals in an unusual architecture style reminiscent of the old Time Tunnel tv show. Sammy did mention we would need to add special light effects and sounds to help sell it as well.

With Grandma’s list of positions we were now ready to do the initial hiring. For secrecy we needed them all to step through to Ceres at the same time and from the same point on Demeter. That did not keep us from hiring them separately but they would need to come to Demeter through normal travel. Money really wasn’t an issue anymore so we decided on including an airline ticket to Panama then boat to Demeter. They would be the first group to step on Demeter so the secret of the island would definitely be out by then.

Staffing companies in several Spanish and English speaking countries over the next month. Not that we had any country restriction on who we hired but to keep it simple we decided that everyone needed to speak either Spanish or English on Tawny. Some positions were directly advertised for but booths at Job fairs were setup in a few places by the staffing companies. The descriptions for each position was specified including that it was for a long term, offshore reclamation project with very limited communications available. We also included a relatively honest description of what would be available in Ceres as well as the type of work that would be done. We all knew that we couldn’t stop people from quitting after they got there and insisting on returning to Earth so to discourage this “very” generous bonus was included upon completion of their two year contracts. With all this the job listings still came across as a bit mysterious but we thought with enough advertising we would get a decent turnout at the job fairs.

Henry Harrison was enjoying his vacation in Sydney. Working as a Jackeroo out in the Outback wasn’t the most glamorous of jobs but he enjoyed the work. Spending 12 months at a time out in the heat of the outdoors with an occasional visit to town might not suit most people but he was happy. It was how he was raised and at the end of a hard day nothing beats sitting under the stars with a can of beer. Of course it would be better if the beer was cold and he could see some Shelias a little more often but nothings perfect. This trip to Sydney was a special event. Henry had been saving for 5 years for this trip and he intended to see it all. The city might not be a proper walkabout but he intended to wander around and see as much of the city as he could. When he got tired of the noise and crowds it would be time to head back. A few hours later Henry was embarrassingly feeling lost. He could still tell what direction he was heading but he just didn’t know where anything was. Finding his way around all these tall buildings was even more difficult then he thought. After thinking about it a bit he decided to get a bit of height and headed toward the tall building next door. Figuring the view from up top would help him get his bearings.

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Noah’s feet were hurting; he had been standing in the lobby for hours directing people to the employment expo. He really wanted to be in the expo itself sitting at a table checking out the babes instead of standing here in the hotel lobby. His boss wanted a good turnout so here he was trying to shoo people passing by into the expo. Seeing a bloke who looked like he came straight from the outback enter the lobby Noah quickly headed over.

“hey Mate, need directions to the expo?” Noah asked

“Nahmallgood, goin up for a looksee” the man said

“Well after if you want a job go in there” Noah said handing him a flyer and pointing to the expo conference room doors.

After a good look at the city from the rooftop Henry headed on back down. Passing through the lobby Henry didn’t see the guy with the fliers but he did notice the noise coming from the expo room. Thinking about spending another few years out in the outback Henry decided just for curiosity’s sake to check it out. City life wasn’t for him but he was getting a mite tired of the mosquitoes and snakes. Looking around the room he saw the booths around the sides with a large crowd of people moving from one to another. Most of the booths were hiring for city jobs not something he was interested in. One agency at the end was a little different. A lot of people were hanging around it but no one seemed to be filling out applications there. Hangin up on the side was a long list of jobs categorized as working on something called “offshore reclamation”. Not sure what it was Henry was curios enough to ask the pretty Shelia at the booth what it was. With a smile she explained it was mostly planting trees and setting up forest after a disaster. She handed him a page of job descriptions with skills needed and a one page brief about the work environment.

“Our company was hired to do the recruiting is what I was told” she said “We don’t really have much more information then what’s listed there” pointing at the papers she just handed him.

“My boss said they are probably paying so much because it’s in the middle of nowhere where you’ll be planting trees and lucky to make it to town once a month” She added

“So, the outback?” Henry asked

“No, it’s somewhere international. If you get hired they’ll provide transportation to wherever it is and you’re stuck there for two years.” She said “but if you manage the whole two years you get a 50% bonus”

Henry was curios; he wasn’t a kid anymore and wanted to see more of the world. Also going by some of the jobs listed here it looked like there could be some females doing this “offshore reclamation” too. Not a lot of Shelias in the outback and most of them reminded him too much of his mother to even think about “rooting”. After a moment Henry decided to go for it and asked for an application to fill out. After some back and forth Henry was told he had the job and was given a ticket voucher to Panama. Once he got there he was to meet a boat for transportation from there in two weeks. Walking out of the hotel Henry thought about spending two years somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Looking around he decided to see how much fun he could squeeze into two weeks. Two years worth at least he hoped enough to last him until he got back.

Grandma had gotten the last set of approved applications from the staffing companies. With this we now had over 300 hired. They are all scheduled to be in Panama City in time for the boat in two weeks. At that point the plan was to take them by boat to Demeter where they would see a portal demonstration. The ship would stay at the dock there until everyone can decide if they are going or not. With a little luck we hoped to end up with at least half of them staying with us. The one that go back will blow our secret wide open so we needed to prepare for that.

Henry was pretty tired when he got off the plane in Panama. Two weeks in Sydney blew through all his vacation money and he had to spend the last couple of nights sleeping under some bushes in a park. With the time change from Sydney and the lack of a good night’s sleep he was completely buggered. Luckily the travel voucher also included a night’s stay at a hotel after the flight. With a good night’s sleep he felt as good as new. He didn’t have any money left for breakfast but the hotel office did have coffee available. After two large cups he was ready to head down to the docks.

When he got there he could see a large crowd of people had gathered in front of an old cruise ship. It looked like about 300 to 400 people were standing around. Some of them had kids and all of them had more luggage then his one shoulder bag. Looking at all the people and luggage scattered around he wondering if they were all going on the ship with him. This was answered when boarding started and he saw them all get in line. The line moved fast with the crew quickly getting all the people loaded along with all their belonging. An hour later the ship was heading out of the harbor.

After they left the harbor and a mandatory safety briefing by the crew the PA gave an announcement in Spanish and English informed everyone the trip would take about six hours. The announcement also said a few cabins would be available for families with small children and that a buffet was available in the main lounge. Henry hearing that immediately got up from his chair and rushed to the lounge for breakfast trying to beat the crowd. After eating three full plates of eggs and bacon Henry was finally stuffed. He decided to wandered around the ship for a bit and see what was what. He had never been on a cruise ship before. According to a couple of fellow passengers he met this was a pretty small ship without any of the typical cruise attractions. As he walked around he could hear a lot of talk among the passengers about where they were going. The oceans around Panama City were well known and a six hour trip would limit them to only a couple of possible ports. One of the passengers had heard a crew member talking about a mysterious island that was supposed to be somewhere that no island existed at.

The captain was surprised when the main office gave him the rental information for the trip. His Emerald Star was not a big ship and might be showing her age but it could still hold 800 passengers. Long retired from a cruise company she was still in pretty good shape just a little bit beat up. Lately though the only jobs she was hired for was sightseeing trips through the Canal from Atlantic to the Pacific and back again. Renting a ship like the Star for this was not uncommon but it usually was by a large well known company or organization. For a single person to rent it was odd and even more so for a non-tour type trip. In addition they were heading toward a supposed island at a spot that all the charts showed had no island. Islands didn’t just appear out of nowhere. Not that new islands were entirely unknown, both Dubai and China had made dozens of them but none of them were in the Caribbean. Those islands also took years to create. They did not appear out of nowhere like Atlantis rising. The Captain had serious doubts about this rental but the client had paid upfront and in cash so he’ll take them to that spot and see.