area where six screens all displayed satellite weather views of each continent, a reporter’s view of a tropical storm making landfall in Puerto Rico, a helicopter weather report of traffic pileup on a snowy road in Delaware, multiple weather readouts from across the US and foreign countries. He spun around and took in the opposite wall, where another twenty-five or so colleagues on headsets crunched numbers and analyzed reports from the field and occasionally glanced up at the screens that presented everything from oceanic temps and geological readings to solar radiation and magnetic field readouts.
“Amazing,” he whispered as Hespera rubbed her hands together and checked something on her phone. “Oh yes, so this is where you’ll be spending a lot of time, I’m sure. But you’ll have your run of this area and the research rooms which I’ll show you in a minutes, and …”
Her phone buzzed again.
“Something urgent?” Mason asked.
She scrolled down, reading. “Solomon. He’s called an immediate meeting of the upper echelon.”
Mason glanced away, back to a screen flashing with an emergency weather signal: wildfires destroying a huge gated community outside of Phoenix. “I’m sorry, we have an echelon? I thought Solstice was all about equality of its people. The whole idea of a hierarchy seems incongruous with that.”
She smiled at him. “True, but there’s still a need for some top-level decision making, as well as just plain efficiencies from having the various divisions select one advisor to communicate the results and to take feedback to the team.”
“Gotcha. So … do you need to go?”
“Me, no. I’m not on the team, but he’s asked for you. I need to bring you to level six, to the main conference room.”
“Me? But I’m not on the committee either.” And I like it fine right here, he thought, imagining he could camp out and just absorb all this data and lose track of the next eight hours without a complaint.
“No, he specifically instructed that I bring you there. Said you’re needed to help prepare for a major presentation at the United Nations.”
“What?”
“Yeah, apparently they’ve reached out to us after numerous proposals and requests to address the assembly.”
“Really? What does the U.N. want with Solstice?”
“I guess all the wacky weather and natural disasters and things have finally gotten the world’s attention. And the fact that Solstice predicted a few of these dead-on, they’re going to want to know how they can use what we have.”
Mason licked his lips and glanced again around the screens, seeing scene after scene of nature packing a wallop. “So would I.”
He thought for a moment. “But one more question, why address the U.N.? It doesn’t sound like Solomon. I think he would imagine them as a useless overly-bureaucratic bunch that gets nothing done, or if they do, it’s too slow to be of any use.”
Hespera laughed. “Oh he’s not all that cynical. We’re a practical bunch, really. And we know you’ve got to play by the rules a little, at least once in a while, if you want to get anything done in the world.” She winked and started to lead him to the other end of the chamber.
About to follow, Mason saw a little commotion at one of the stations. Three men and a woman crowding around a terminal, shooting glances up to the nearest screen—a Doppler readout of the Southeast coast. Mason saw it in a flash: a super cell three miles long heading into a game of chicken with an equal-sized but nimbler extra-tropical cyclone surging from the south.
Before he knew it, he found himself in front of their terminal, pointing up at the screen. “When did that start?”
The young girl looked up, glassy-eyed, and the other men shook their heads. “Just formed, from what we can see.” She tapped some keys and the large screen adjacent to the one he was focused on blinked out and formed a mirror image—which then reversed and played back. And
“Amazing,” he whispered as Hespera rubbed her hands together and checked something on her phone. “Oh yes, so this is where you’ll be spending a lot of time, I’m sure. But you’ll have your run of this area and the research rooms which I’ll show you in a minutes, and …”
Her phone buzzed again.
“Something urgent?” Mason asked.
She scrolled down, reading. “Solomon. He’s called an immediate meeting of the upper echelon.”
Mason glanced away, back to a screen flashing with an emergency weather signal: wildfires destroying a huge gated community outside of Phoenix. “I’m sorry, we have an echelon? I thought Solstice was all about equality of its people. The whole idea of a hierarchy seems incongruous with that.”
She smiled at him. “True, but there’s still a need for some top-level decision making, as well as just plain efficiencies from having the various divisions select one advisor to communicate the results and to take feedback to the team.”
“Gotcha. So … do you need to go?”
“Me, no. I’m not on the team, but he’s asked for you. I need to bring you to level six, to the main conference room.”
“Me? But I’m not on the committee either.” And I like it fine right here, he thought, imagining he could camp out and just absorb all this data and lose track of the next eight hours without a complaint.
“No, he specifically instructed that I bring you there. Said you’re needed to help prepare for a major presentation at the United Nations.”
“What?”
“Yeah, apparently they’ve reached out to us after numerous proposals and requests to address the assembly.”
“Really? What does the U.N. want with Solstice?”
“I guess all the wacky weather and natural disasters and things have finally gotten the world’s attention. And the fact that Solstice predicted a few of these dead-on, they’re going to want to know how they can use what we have.”
Mason licked his lips and glanced again around the screens, seeing scene after scene of nature packing a wallop. “So would I.”
He thought for a moment. “But one more question, why address the U.N.? It doesn’t sound like Solomon. I think he would imagine them as a useless overly-bureaucratic bunch that gets nothing done, or if they do, it’s too slow to be of any use.”
Hespera laughed. “Oh he’s not all that cynical. We’re a practical bunch, really. And we know you’ve got to play by the rules a little, at least once in a while, if you want to get anything done in the world.” She winked and started to lead him to the other end of the chamber.
About to follow, Mason saw a little commotion at one of the stations. Three men and a woman crowding around a terminal, shooting glances up to the nearest screen—a Doppler readout of the Southeast coast. Mason saw it in a flash: a super cell three miles long heading into a game of chicken with an equal-sized but nimbler extra-tropical cyclone surging from the south.
Before he knew it, he found himself in front of their terminal, pointing up at the screen. “When did that start?”
The young girl looked up, glassy-eyed, and the other men shook their heads. “Just formed, from what we can see.” She tapped some keys and the large screen adjacent to the one he was focused on blinked out and formed a mirror image—which then reversed and played back. And
Similar Books
