After finally finding an empty station, Isaac pulled up every page of designs, modifications, and information packets he had. He walked Eli through his thoughts on the original plans, the modifications he had made, how the new Cradle would integrate with the original plan for the Enuma project and more. Of course, Isaac found himself reiterating the information more and more, new faces joining a growing circle around him. Few questions were asked, the leading consensus being to wait until everyone was present before starting to workshop together. However, as the minutes passed, and fewer people began to join the group, the greater their restlessness grew.
A quarter of an hour, then more than a half an hour passed, and a single face remained absent in the close crowd.
While Sara had succeeded in directing those present to his side for a debrief, what she had not managed was to separate herself from her partner.
Isaac looked over the screen he sat behind, watching as Sara and Maria continued an argument they had been at for… he glanced at the screen, “twenty-six minutes now…” He audibly sighed, for what he could only assume was the thousandth time and threw a look back at the group behind him.
He could tell the majority were growing agitated, frustrated with the forced delay, a sentiment that Isaac could agree with. There was only so much time that could be spent speaking amongst yourselves, waiting to get to the subject that had drawn you, before the stagnation became unbearable.
Isaac sighed once more, turning his head the opposite direction, before whispering to Eli, “Even if Sara has to be brought up to speed separately… I don’t think it would be smart of us to wait any longer.”
Eli threw a quick look around them, “I think it’d be for the best.” He agreed, looking in the direction of the still arguing duo, “If you think I need to stick around to go through all of this with you I will. But I think it might be better for me to walk Sara and Maria’s way and see if I can help them out. Only if you think it’s an option though.”
“Go,” Isaac answered with a second's thought, “As much as I’d like to only do this once - with both of you present - I’m not so self-absorbed as to think this is the only thing of importance to all of you… If you can get them to a conclusion before I’m done, great. If not, I’ll walk you both through when I have you. But her priority is her family, and I won’t force her to choose between me and them if there is no reason to do so. Go.” Isaac reiterated one last time before getting up and turning to the crowd, drawing all their attention to him.
Eli walked off as Isaac began to speak to the crowd, “I know you all have been getting anxious waiting, and for that I apologize,” He slowly panned his sight over the group, seeing that everyone present was paying attention, Isaac continued, “I started out wanting to thank you all for providing your assistance… but you’re not doing this for me and I don’t think any amount of my thanks really matter to any of you anymore. So, instead, let’s jump right into it.”
Turning back to the computer, Isaac pulled up the fourth gen’s schematics, stepping slightly out of the way for everyone to see, “Hopefully by now you’ve all gone over this but - if you haven’t - this is the fourth generation design for our Cradles,” Isaac waved an open hand in presentation, “It is a design made expressly for the Enuma project, with every component of its structure chosen to mitigate the three major problems the design you all have been working on has consistently faced. These problems would be mass-production, power consumption, and active suspension…”
Isaac traced a similar path of conversation as the one he had had with Theo earlier in this very room, going over the problems in detail. In divergence from that conversation, Isaac also went into detail on both how his version of the Cradle differed in both function and composition, as well as how the process of digitization worked and integrated with the original vision of the Enuma project.
More than a few faces grimaced or sickened at the reminder of the cost of the digitization process. But - to credit their professionalism - even when they asked questions regarding the subject, their focus only ever fell in the realm of clarification, insights, or to encourage further description. That aspect of his design was the most questioned section, only a handful focusing on the mechanical aspects, logistics, or, as Isaac was answering now, how they were going to be involved in the design process if so much was already finished.
“-t question. Uh, as much as I would love to say this will be the true final design, I don’t believe it will be. In only the short time I’d been waiting in the other room, I made numerous, small, modifications to various components in the original,” Isaac pulled up another schematic to compare the differences to the first and present versions, “And as much as I’d like to think my first design was great and this new one damn near perfect, I know that’s not the case. There’s only so much I alone can see or think of and that’s where all of you will come in. We have a short window of time to work but we can’t be sloppy. We’ll make a handful of prototypes, put them through their paces, and then come back together to compare.”
“You’d want us to evaluate efficiency, component and mechanism resilience, and the like right? And make modifications where we can?” a voice asked.
“Exactly,” Isaac replied, “What matters is making the most efficient machine we can in… a 24-hour timeframe.” There were grumbles and gasps at his statement, and he raised a hand to silence them in advance, “I know it’s little to no time for something this complex, but I’m operating under worst case scenarios here and the more we wait the greater the risks. Luckily, a lot of the work has already been done, leaving us with essentially just trouble shooting and stress tests. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy, or the only work we have ahead of us.”
Another voice spoke up from behind, over the head of the console, “And when we settle on a prototype, what then?” Isaac turned to find Sara and Elijah standing on the side opposite from him, “Say we make a Cradle that can pass all the tests we can put it through with flying colors? What then?” Sara repeated, “Because, as I see it, the one thing that matters about all of this isn’t going to be tested.”
“Glad to have you back Eli.” Isaac said, ignoring the question before giving Sara his attention, “Sara. You’re correct, there will be no “testing” of the Cradle for the digitization process.” She scowled at his answer as Isaac continued, positioning himself so everyone could see and hear him, “There is no standard of testing for something like this. There likely never will be. Any test we do would result in the death of someone… and there’s no amount of troubleshooting that will answer whether or not the version of the Cradle we settle on will successfully digitize a person.” Isaac dragged his gaze from face to face, holding eye contact with each for a moment before moving on to the next, seeing the discomfort they felt, “Which means there won’t be a test, but a… sacrifice.”
That elicited a response, the crowd’s discomfort replaced by a heightened fear and agitation, “What do you mean by sacrifice, Isaac?” Sara hissed harshly over the sounds of anxiety, “What the hell are you going to do?! Ask someone to die? For-for what?! To see if your idea might work? Are you fucking insane?!” She began screaming at Isaac, eyes wide with fury, the crowd bolstering her with their vocal support.
Isaac huffed into a strangled chuckle, “I’m sure all of this must make me look insane, huh?” He shook his head, looking into the crowd once more, watching as whatever they saw in his eyes caused them to look or step away, “But no. I’ve asked of and done enough to all of you already. I could never… would never ask any of you to volunteer for something like this. Especially now.” Isaac looked away from them all, showing his back, raising his voice so everyone listening could hear, “I’ve lost all of your trust and given how quickly you all are to think the worst of my decisions now, I’ll never get it back. And that… hurts more than I think any of you could understand.”
“That doesn’t answer the question, Isaac.” Sara spoke up again, anger still present in her voice, “What are you going to do?” Elijah’s voice echoed over Sara’s in Isaac’s head, the memory a reminder of his failures. It reverberated in his head with a damning chime, ringing to the tune of a fate sealed, a decision made.
“I’m going to do the only thing I can, Sara.” Isaac spoke with a voice laced in melancholy, feeling the corner of his lip curl in a morbid smirk, “Something I decided to do the moment I came to the conclusion that digitization was the only answer.” He turned to her, Elijah, Killian, and the crowd, “That, when the time comes, only one person has to pay the costs…” He looked over the crowd to the glass windows staring down into the humming foundry below...
“Me.”
―――――――――
Isaac tapped away at a keyboard, the one he had formerly been working at before joining the main room, ignoring the occasional stare being sent his way.
It had taken him an… agonizing amount of time to settle everyone after his declaration; with Eli, Killian, and even Sara being in exceedingly vocal opposition to his choice. They had treated him as though he was suicidal, disregarding the thought he had put into his decision and latching on to what the outcome would be… his death. They approached his choice like he did it solely as some form of misguided penance, like he was striving to martyr himself. “And I certainly understand how it appeared that way,” Isaac thought, seeing how their fears and shock had draped themselves over his words and granted them a life of their own, not of his making.
They had interpreted his words in the only way they could consider possible; that he had lost himself, become mad, and deemed the only way to make up for his mistakes was to die.
Eli, Sara, Killian, and all of those that had listened, considered themselves and the company to be the cause behind Isaac’s supposed… insanity.
But, as much as all of them were a part of Isaac’s decision-making process, as much as they believed they were the reason behind his choice, they were not the driving force behind it. He would have never proposed being the one going into the Cradle first, if he didn’t think it was the right thing to do. “Of course,” he mused, “That doesn’t mean that the impending “end of the world” hasn’t made me a little mad, or that it didn’t cross my mind that there would be a certain… justice to dying in the stead of all the people I hurt. But I had made up my mind long before they knew the situation.”
Isaac sighed at all the time wasted calming the crowd enough that they would pay attention, at how much of an uphill battle it had been just to get to the point that he could make his reasons clear. When he had them, he recognized the anxiety in their eyes, how the narrative they had formulated in their heads of him destroyed what little trust they had in his work. There were no amount of well-constructed explanations that would reach them and shift their perspective.
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So, Isaac had offered them the same questions that had led him to where he was now —
“How many of you would die to save your family?!” Isaac had asked over the crowd’s nervous chittering, watching as they dazedly tried to understand the meaning behind his sudden question, “Well? How many of you would die for them?” Hands hesitantly raised, more and more joining them as others grew more confident in answering, “How many of you would die for them if asked to by someone else… or even by me?” Hands wavered, some disappeared, but most stood strong.
Isaac had let them consider their choice for a moment, allowed them the time to look over those around them and weigh their willingness against the others', before asking them one final question, “How many of you would ask someone else to die for your family? Or for you?”
The question had hung in the air with the same morbid finality his earlier declaration had. Isaac could see the realization sweep through the crowd, like a deathly chill, hand after hand slowly falling, “If none of you can, how could I be any different?”
— That had quelled a great deal of their anxieties surrounding him, forcing them to realize the sort of thought Isaac had to put into his decision, how much it was a choice that went beyond the day’s events. However - as in this moment - Isaac was reminded of the fact that, while it might have gone a long way to quieting their misgivings, in no way did it completely erase them.
Isaac could see it in the way people stole glances at him, as though to assure themselves he was still there. How Elijah hovered around him, just a few paces away at all times, seemingly out of fear that he might do something drastic without his presence. He could see it in Killian’s face every time he looked his way, eyes growing distant and melancholic as he stared… even Sara acted noticeably different around him, endeavoring to look anywhere but at him whenever they interacted, or in how she dove into the work provided to her with a ferocity that just wasn’t present before.
The stares and errant glances continued.
Some of the doubt still remained.
But, at the very least, Isaac looked across the room and saw how engrossed everyone was in their work, he could believe his questions had sparked a certain… intensity in all of them.
“If they would just stop looking at me with the same sort of intensity, I could go back to focusing on other things,” Isaac turned his head, meeting the eyes of an engineer that had been staring at him, and shook his head as the man panicked and snapped his head in the opposite direction, “Which would be nice.”
“Isaac” a voice called, forcing him away from his musings and his work. He turned towards the voice, finding Killian approaching with a mousy looking man, “The first prototype’s been finished; You’re needed for the testings.”
Isaac started, surprised that enough time had passed for the Cradle to be constructed without him noticing, “No time to waste then.” He pushed himself away from the table and stood, looking towards the other man beside Killian, “Micah, correct? I’m assuming you’re going to take me to the Cradle?”
“Y-Yes, Sir.” The nervous man replied, shaking as though Isaac’s attention chilled him to the core, “I mean – yes, I’m Micha, Micha Townsend. And yes, I’ll be accompanying you to the testing foundry.”
Isaac looked at Killian with a raised brow, and the man chuckled, “I’ll be rendezvousing with the team upstairs for a quick meeting and debrief before coming back down. I’ll leave you in Mr. Townsend’s capable hands in the meantime. Isaac. Mr. Townsend.” Killian nodded at the both of them before making an about face, on a trajectory out of the room.
“Well,” Isaac spoke first, “Lead the way Mr. Townsend.” He motioned towards a door in the opposite direction of Killian.
“Of course, Mr. Giovanni,” Isaac flinched a little at the use of his surname, “Right this way.”
The man scurried off ahead of him, and Isaac sighed as he followed after. He didn’t actually need someone to lead him anywhere, the room used for testing quite literally just a door away, however he was aware of the meaning behind the action. It was a small design of normalcy, a return to times lacking in… mortal urgency, as Isaac was coming to think of it. Micah was given a role, even as small of one as just grabbing Isaac and bringing him somewhere as it gave him a purpose, albeit a temporary one, that drew his focus away from anything of the cataclysmic variety.
“If only I could do the same,” the selfish thought slithered its way to the forefront of Isaac’s mind, being reminded of the fact that, if not for all the anxiety he was struggling with surrounded by everyone again, he would likely have long been consumed by his fatigue already. He could feel it in each step he took towards Townsend, the man now shifting in place before the door waiting for Isaac to catch up, how the nervous energy was fading, and the lethargy was growing in its place.
It was like his time down in the nano farms all over again.
Only Isaac doubted any sort of second wind was reasonably in his future now.
Townsend led Isaac through the now opened door, head down in chagrin, the younger man stuck to Isaac’s side like a barnacle rather than running off ahead again. He snorted softly at the man’s drastic re-correction, the action such an unserious occurrence in an all-around mad time that it became… quaint, an almost endearing reminder of a time unladen with the chaos of the present.
But, as they walked through the short tunnel connecting to their destination, and Isaac could begin to feel the vibrations of the foundry’s active machines through the floor, he knew it very well could be the last reminder of the world before he may ever have. The second door opened and unveiled the testing room in full; it was designed in such a way that the room was segregated into numerous parts, each with their own purpose.
On the far wall, the greatest distance away from the windows above, was a veritable wall of running machinery. Designed to be a self-contained production system, with testing berths for rapid diagnostics and adjustive modification, the machines were automated – allowing for minimal human operation if necessary – and ranged from CNC driven fabricators and 3D printers to large robotic assemblages and welders. The machines were fed with materials or, depending upon the complexity of whatever item was being produced, whole components through hidden conveyances throughout that side of the room.
The center of the room was dominated by three large, recessed, squares in the floor, each surrounded by a tall, reinforced glass barrier that also covered portions of the machining section. The squares were empty more often than not, most prototypes being smaller and of a less… volatile nature, but they were not completely bare; small grates lined their outward edges in the case of leaks or spillage, raised electrical columns were dotted with numerous types of outlets for varying levels of power consumptions, and sealed fixtures spotted the floor for attachment points for support braces or, present in a smaller number, hose connectors for fluid dispensation.
As Isaac walked down a short and wide set of stairs into the main floor of the room, his focus was drawn to the central of the three squares and what now occupied its space.
A Cradle lay directly in its center, metal exterior gleaming under the room’s lights. Looking like a scaled-up bassinet with a reticulating metal canopy, earning it its name, the machine dwarfed the size of the common MRI it was often compared against. A thick electrical wire ran from its base to one of the raised outlets and a combination of two large hoses, connected to a buried pipe running to the nan0 farms, and two thinner tubes, connecting to oxygen and anesthetic tanks set into one of the attachment ports, broke the machine’s otherwise sleek presentation. The opened canopy was folded in on itself, revealing a clean white interior with a raised slab for an occupant to lie on and what Isaac had come to refer to as a “mobile,” consisting of numerous ambulatory robot arms for IVs and at the nexus of those arms an extendable breathing mask.
Isaac was tempted to go straight to the machine, run his hand over the patient bed and feel the small nodes that would raise a patient under full submersion to increase the amount of surface area for the nano machines to work with, to run a diagnostic test on the Cradle from its attached computer, to just… make himself comfortable with the machine that would end his life.
But all of that would come in time.
A step behind Townsend, Isaac followed him towards the room’s last major feature, the second control room. Located just below the main room of the PFTU, the testing foundry’s control center was a backup for the one upstairs as well as a protected, close-range monitoring station that allowed for a more… intimate monitoring of any creations undergoing testing. It was a hulking edifice, resembling more of a bunker on the shores of Normandy than anything that would belong in a production facility, but it was designed with protection in mind, so function was more important than aesthetics.
Walking to the far side of the structure, Isaac traced a hand against its reinforced concrete wall as they moved towards one of the two entrances in. Townsend reached the door first, its frame abutting the forward wall, and in a motion mimicking the guard that had opened the door upstairs for him, he waved his wristband across a computer pad beside it. The door slid open, and Isaac noticed Townsend throw a quick glance his way - likely to make sure he was still present and hadn’t wandered off somehow - before disappearing into the room with Isaac snorting while he followed on the man’s heels.
Even being only a handful of steps behind the squirrely man, Isaac lost him as soon as he entered the room, Townsend officially washing his hands of him the moment he successfully delivered Isaac to his destination. He had barely made an initial passing view over the figures arrayed around the space before a voice called out.
“Over here, Isaac.” Elijah’s voice boomed through the confines of the room; hand raised over the crowd to draw attention.
Isaac chose not to interrupt anyone’s focus further by yelling back, choosing instead to raise his own arm in acknowledgement. He noticed a few people look between Eli and him, as he walked his way towards the large man, whatever they had been working on momentarily forgotten at the sudden vocalization and their burgeoning awareness of his arrival. Their stares were loud; each person’s sight holding an uncomfortable amount of emotions. His pace increased, a desperate desire to avoid their gazes fueling his growing stride.
“Elijah,” Isaac nodded at the man, the final foot between them cleared, before granting his attention to the woman beside him, “Mrs. Katagawa.”
“Director,” Katagawa greeted, still using his original title, brushing some of her shortened hair out of her eyes, “Glad to finally have you with us.”
“Glad to finally be here, at this point.”
Isaac maneuvered around the engineer, positioning himself to the opposite side from Eli, while Katagawa turned back to the computer she had been working at. He peripherally watched as she pulled up some diagnostic systems, most of his focus resting on the Cradle just beyond the reinforced glass windows of the control center.
“The Cradle is fully prepped for testing,” Katagawa began to speak while Isaac’s eyes remained on the machine, “With only the large gauge fiber-optic cable for… “transferring” the occupant left unattached. It is my professional opinion that we start with some rudimentary tests first, like filling and emptying the Cradle’s confines with inert nanomachines; before moving on to some of the more rigorous stress tests, as specified in your original plans and that I and the other engineers have concocted.”
Katagawa became silent as she waited for his input, still retaining the same professional decorum she had always shown him, “You know I trust in your work, Misato. Start however you see fit, and I’ll slide in whenever my expertise is necessary.” Isaac replied before looking across to Elijah, “And Eli, if I could have a moment, there’s something we need to talk about.”
Isaac barely acknowledged both of their replies, already looking back towards the Cradle, his attention lured like a siren’s call does a lost sailor, “Soon.” He thought and struggled to drag his focus back to the people around him… and the work still yet to be done.