Chapter 8 – Project Report Part 2

Date: May 23, 2667

I’m 2 minutes late to calm myself down, I smoked 2 sticks.

Without letting a beat passed, I asked the head of the Project Zeus regarding his progress.

“Let’s resume the reports, Professor Glen, how is the construction of the 3 anti-matter reactors?”

“It is going smoothly; the reactor is completed like Prof. Rick we are waiting for the metal to create walling of vacuum-sealed chamber and system for auto shutdown when it detected anomaly inside the chamber is already installed but Prof. Jean why do we need three reactors? A single reactor is sufficient enough to generate power for the whole facility.”

“True. One reactor is sufficient but we need the two more as a backup reactor in case one of them shut down, since of The Nest will need a lot of energy because of the cold sleep machines that will be used to preserve the life of humans here inside the facility.”

“I see. . . Oh! By the way, Prof. Rick is it possible to create smaller sized laser guns?”

My answer satisfied him, and he asked the talk went back to a headache causing invention.

“Hmmm, it is possible to create smaller version but to be précised how small is it?”

Prof. Glen is holding his chin while in deep thoughts. The other scientist began talking among themselves since they don’t want to speak about the topic.

“Hmm, I think about the size of rocket launcher like an RPG?”

Everyone eyebrows are knitted while looking at Prof. Glen when he said the size he wants but Riley questioned his intention.

“I don’t mean any disrespect but what are you planning on the Laser Guns and what are you purpose?”

“Yeah, I can’t tell your intention professor.”

I also supplemented Riley’s question, but he answered with a grim and intimidating face.

“The answer is simple, for the protection of the Reactors and The Nest, because we don’t know what will happen in the future once the earth stabilized again. The possibility of new generation of dangerous animals or even new species of human is high because even we manage to do many things with science, we still can’t tell the beginning of life on Earth.”

Other is showing signs of agree with his, but the rest including me are skeptic about his the possibility of new species.

‘We can debunk his statement about the species since he is right, but there is also no proof that the possibility is zero’ i thought while listening to their conversation about the topic of new species.

“Ok I’ll permit It, you can build a Laser Gun in the Reactors and The Nest since it better to be safe than sorry, how much time do you need to finish a gun with that size?”

“Hmmm, with my current manpower….. About 20 mounted laser Guns in a month, and there is no need to worry about the system since I can use the satellite system as a base.”

“Good.”

Glen's face becomes bright after hearing that I gave permission to used smaller size as the defense of two areas, and for Rick, he is making a big ear-to-ear smile.

“Let’s proceed to Project Factory, Andrew tells us your progress.”

“There is no need to elaborate this matter; the factories need for mass constructions of Cyber-Soldiers are already operational, and Blake is currently monitoring the production rate. Factory for the Miracle Metal is already on stand-by, and waiting for the metal to be mass produced. That’s all.”

Andrew is making a triumph expression after he summarized the report about his project; well he is the first one to finish the given project.

“How about the Project Metal progress?”

“There is no problem about since I have the old documents about the organism that is living in the metal. It is truly exciting kind of organism rather than destroying the metal, it actually strengthening it. All I need to do is culture the organism and place it a metallic object, and it will do the job by itself.”

Rily answered my question like he rehearsed it for many times.

“I see, did you discover any new things about the Helios Organism?”

The name Helios came from the scientist that discovers the organism during the study about the miracle metal, he said it is an alien organism that cannot be found inside the earth and the organism is multiplying every millisecond.

“Yes, during the first study Prof. Helios said that It only eats iron, but it is wrong. The organisms feed everything that contains carbon, and it will convert it to some kind of new strain of metallic structure, and addition to we also discovered the metals used to create this vast facility has the same structure as the miracle metal.”

“Regarding of the time needed to culture the organism, how long will it take?”

“Honestly, when I say culturing the organism, I mean by putting it in place with lots of metal, and it will multiply until the every metal is converted to Adamantine.”

“Adamantine?”

“Yes it’s too boring to call it miracle metal, so I changed its name to Adamantium which is cool and match the description of the metal right?, an Indestructible metal that can withstand the different harsh environment from freezing temperature to extreme hot temperature.”

He answered Glen and Ricks question about the metal and his discovery.

Well, I do also think that the name miracle metal is dull, so I agreed to, there is something that is bugging me about the organism.

“You said that it will eat anything that has carbon right, then that means it is harmful to a human being because a human body contain carbon.”

“It is not detrimental to any living species that have carbon in the body because the organism is afraid of water. Using a rat as a test subject, I placed a small amount Helios Organism in the skin, but there is no reaction occurred during the test, rather than converting the body of rat into metal. The Helios Organism dies with just a few seconds. I conducted a different kind of test to find out the reason why the organism shows that the organism will die because of hydrogen.”

I’m convinced now this organism is safe and cannot harm the human once the human entered the Cold-Sleep Machine which is 100% Adamantium metal.

“Then we can abandon cold-sleep machine and just live here forever until the outside world is safe again.”

Blake remarked after hearing the explanation about the metal heat resistance and pressure resistance.

Andrew shook his head when he heard the remark.

“Blake that is impossible. Indeed the metal is indestructible, but the problem is the human necessity itself. Even this facility is big enough to shelter thousands of human, food and water will become scarce.”

“Then we can just raise some animals and plants here for food and for water we can make pipes made from the Miracle Metal and connect it to a water source.”

“I told you, Blake, that is impossible because once the earth reaches the time limit. Major Volcanic Eruption will occur alongside with an earthquake, that possibility of movement of earth’s crust is eminent and most of the land surface breaks down and become part of the ocean floor or soil above the facility will become thinner. As you know if a strong earthquake occurred in the Sea, it will be followed by tsunami swallowing the land and the once the ice in Arctic region melts. The sea level rise and the earth will become a water world for several hundred or billions of years.”

“Then how can that be threat to us!?”

Andrew’s explanation is very smooth that I nodded my head in agreement but still Blake is starting to get hostile, and he doesn’t understand our situation, and so I continued the explanation.

“Blake here’s the deal, listen carefully. If the pipes are connected to the surface world once the earth becomes a water planet, that means this facility will be submerged for about 20,000 to 35,000 feet below sea level. The water will flow down here, and we can secure water, but we have two problems the first is the pressure that will enter the facility and second is the heat in the facility walls when you combine that two problems the whole facility will become a giant pressure cooker killing everyone.”

“That notion proposed a long time ago, it happens before the discovery of the metal.”

Blake bit his lip when the explanation is over, he sat down in a rude manner, and Riley’s remark made him more agitated.

I raised an eyebrow while looking at Blake and said to me ‘why is he agitated?’

The last person will now make his report, I need to here is progress since he didn’t report anything.

“It’s your turn Blake, is there any improvement done with the cyber soldiers?”

“First the total quantity of the Cyber Soldiers we have 45,500 excluding the deployed units. Once the A.I system is completed, the system of cyber soldiers will automatically connect with the A.I, and thus they will function without human intervention. In the case of emergency, there is a manual system that can be used if the A.I system shutdown.”

“Then are you telling me that my A.I system will fail!?”

Adam raised his voice when he questioned Blake’s remark

“Prof. Adam, calm down, I didn’t say that your system will inevitably fail, but the manual system is for emergency use only.”

“tsk, then tell me how can the manual system operate if all the humans are currently under cold-sleep!?”

“The manual system is made of two parts. The first part is the Human intervention which an individual must insert a command in the system but if there is no human to use it and that time the 2nd part will work; the backup data will kick in after an hour without human intervention. All of the cyber soldiers will follow that backup data’s command.”

Glen becomes meek and silent when his question is answered smoothly.

“Blake how is the progress of investigation about the stolen weapon in the armory?”

“All suspect is now in our custody, but the stolen gun is nowhere to be found, because according to our interrogating team, the guns and ammunition are given to someone and brought it out of the facility. We are reviewing the cameras and I deployed 3 units to track them down.”

“Good, since the entire project is in the final stage, all of the available cybernetic soldiers will be reconfigured to assist the work in those projects. The faster we can finish the project; the chances of survival will be higher, Blake coordinates with the project head about the reconfiguration and number of the cyber unit they need. The rest I want you to finish all everything within 6 months. Every can go home now and rest because tomorrow will be the busiest day of our life!”

I looked at my watch to see the current time.

The meeting lasted for 5 hours.

“I guess I’ll go back home and check my grandson, let’s go home together.”

“Yeah, let’s go, dad.”

And thus the final race against time will begin tomorrow, I hope we can make it on time, and there will be no more problems that will arise.