all the time, and it annoys the hell out of me. I mean, Iâm no slouch when it comes to reading, but heâs a freak. Heâs so quick that . . .
Put it this way, one day when you have nothing better to do with your time, see how much you can take in in a single second from a 68-centimetre screen full of Research data.
Galen can read it, then quote it chapter and verse. And he can keep it up for ages. Itâs scary to watch. And itâs damned annoying when he speeds the scroll rate up towards fifty or sixty pages a minute to review a whole project and youâre vainly trying to keep up with him.
He doesnât read like that all the time, of course. Once he has an overview of what heâs looking at, heâll slow down and go back to the start, studying it one page at a time, at something near a normal human rate. And usually thatâs when I come in. Heâll give me the digest-version, and weâll get down to the nuts and bolts of analysis. Itâs a good system, and itâs worked for us ever since we started working together at the Academy.
But this wasnât just any Research project. I was getting a particularly uncomfortable premonition about what was unfolding in front of us, and I was impatient. I wanted to know now, not when Galen Sibraa, boy genius, was ready to let me in on the secret.
I reached across him and deliberately slowed the scroll-rate to snail-paced. He looked at me like he was about to say something, then he smiled.
âSorry.â And he almost sounded it. âDo you want me to go back andââ
âNah.â I sat on the console and stared down at him. âJust bring me up to speed, and we can go on from here.â
My eyes were glazing over.
Fourteen hours and ten litres of Ocra later I was way beyond overload. So was Galen, but there was no way we could stop. What we had in front of us was a minutely detailed description of the Apocalypse, coldly stated in objective scientific language.
In the end, I think that was the most frightening thing about it â the fact that there were people who could look at the facts and statistics and the projected fatalities of worst-case scenarios and see only the numbers.
The end of the world as we know it . Wasnât that the old phrase?
And the idiots at the GHO had been treating it as an exercise in corporate damage-control. If itâs good for profits, itâs good for the corporation, and screw the human cost . . .
Okay, Iâm an idealist. So shoot me. At least I wouldnât have kept something like this under wraps, just because it might have an effect on company profits.
When I start waxing philosophical itâs a sign that Iâm getting tired.
Suddenly Galen shook his head and thumbed the controls of his chair, reversing into the centre of the office, before doing a two-wheel, seven-twenty, twice around clockwise with his eyes shut tight.
I stood up and moved across to where he was sitting. I placed a hand on his shoulder. âYou OK?â
âJust stretching my legs.â
He opened his eyes and stared into mine. Most people I know get pretty self-conscious around Galen. I donât. I stared right back and blew him a kiss.
He smiled. âTease!â
I returned to the desk and I knew he was watching the way I moved. And for just a moment I didnât give a stuff about CRIOS or anything else.
He manoeuvred himself back behind the console, just as I brought up the next screen. Another report:
----
GLOBAL HEALTH ORGANISATION
Confidential Memorandum
(punishment code # 23/513 applies for any breach)
----
PROJECT:
CRIOS
STATUS:
ALPHA (LEVEL FIVE CLEARANCE â NTK)
SITE OF DATA-SOURCE:
SEOUL BIO-CONTROL STRATEGY CENTRE
(RELAYED FROM GHO CENTRE FOR COMMUNICABLE DISEASE CONTROL, NEW YORK, ATLANTIC/NORTHWEST SECTOR)
FILE ORIGINATION DATE:
09/12/2332 ad
TOPIC:
COSTA RICAN ISOMORPHOUS OSSIFICATION SYNDROME (CRIOS) MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES
RELATED DATA:
#
Put it this way, one day when you have nothing better to do with your time, see how much you can take in in a single second from a 68-centimetre screen full of Research data.
Galen can read it, then quote it chapter and verse. And he can keep it up for ages. Itâs scary to watch. And itâs damned annoying when he speeds the scroll rate up towards fifty or sixty pages a minute to review a whole project and youâre vainly trying to keep up with him.
He doesnât read like that all the time, of course. Once he has an overview of what heâs looking at, heâll slow down and go back to the start, studying it one page at a time, at something near a normal human rate. And usually thatâs when I come in. Heâll give me the digest-version, and weâll get down to the nuts and bolts of analysis. Itâs a good system, and itâs worked for us ever since we started working together at the Academy.
But this wasnât just any Research project. I was getting a particularly uncomfortable premonition about what was unfolding in front of us, and I was impatient. I wanted to know now, not when Galen Sibraa, boy genius, was ready to let me in on the secret.
I reached across him and deliberately slowed the scroll-rate to snail-paced. He looked at me like he was about to say something, then he smiled.
âSorry.â And he almost sounded it. âDo you want me to go back andââ
âNah.â I sat on the console and stared down at him. âJust bring me up to speed, and we can go on from here.â
My eyes were glazing over.
Fourteen hours and ten litres of Ocra later I was way beyond overload. So was Galen, but there was no way we could stop. What we had in front of us was a minutely detailed description of the Apocalypse, coldly stated in objective scientific language.
In the end, I think that was the most frightening thing about it â the fact that there were people who could look at the facts and statistics and the projected fatalities of worst-case scenarios and see only the numbers.
The end of the world as we know it . Wasnât that the old phrase?
And the idiots at the GHO had been treating it as an exercise in corporate damage-control. If itâs good for profits, itâs good for the corporation, and screw the human cost . . .
Okay, Iâm an idealist. So shoot me. At least I wouldnât have kept something like this under wraps, just because it might have an effect on company profits.
When I start waxing philosophical itâs a sign that Iâm getting tired.
Suddenly Galen shook his head and thumbed the controls of his chair, reversing into the centre of the office, before doing a two-wheel, seven-twenty, twice around clockwise with his eyes shut tight.
I stood up and moved across to where he was sitting. I placed a hand on his shoulder. âYou OK?â
âJust stretching my legs.â
He opened his eyes and stared into mine. Most people I know get pretty self-conscious around Galen. I donât. I stared right back and blew him a kiss.
He smiled. âTease!â
I returned to the desk and I knew he was watching the way I moved. And for just a moment I didnât give a stuff about CRIOS or anything else.
He manoeuvred himself back behind the console, just as I brought up the next screen. Another report:
----
GLOBAL HEALTH ORGANISATION
Confidential Memorandum
(punishment code # 23/513 applies for any breach)
----
PROJECT:
CRIOS
STATUS:
ALPHA (LEVEL FIVE CLEARANCE â NTK)
SITE OF DATA-SOURCE:
SEOUL BIO-CONTROL STRATEGY CENTRE
(RELAYED FROM GHO CENTRE FOR COMMUNICABLE DISEASE CONTROL, NEW YORK, ATLANTIC/NORTHWEST SECTOR)
FILE ORIGINATION DATE:
09/12/2332 ad
TOPIC:
COSTA RICAN ISOMORPHOUS OSSIFICATION SYNDROME (CRIOS) MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES
RELATED DATA:
#
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