Secretary Grahame was relaxing in his office enjoying the afternoon view of the Potomac. He glanced at his office name plate and the word “Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property” under his name and smiled. It had taken him 22 years of but kissing to get here but it was worth it. Just then his assistant called and said the IT manager wanted to speak with him. He decided to ignore it and told his assistant to push him of till next week. Hopefully by then he would give up and quit bothering him. Those geeks never had anything important to say and who could understand their techno babble any way he thought. An hour later he was thinking about going home early when his assistant rushed in telling him the director had called an emergency meeting in five minutes in her office.
The Director was in a foul mood as she slammed the report down on the conference table in front of everyone. With a hiss in her voice she declared “The vault had been breached!” Under Secretary Grahame was surprised at how worried the Director seemed. In his previous position he was responsible for the vault. The vault was just the name for a collection of patents that were not to be made open to the public. It was usually because some corporation had paid for them to stay hidden. As he looked at the material in the folder Grahame finally understood the concern. It was a printout from an online blog detailing the patent for a capacitor array type battery invented 20 years ago. Grahame remembered that one, it was the first patent he ever flagged for the vault and the bribe was what paid for his first house. From what he remembered the device had 8 times the capacity of a standard batter and only half the weight. What also stuck in his mind was the look on that Oil executive’s face when he accidently joked about the patent getting out. From the date on the patent it was now expired and in the public domain, no hiding it now.
* * * * *
The Habitats were expanding on schedule but Daniel was getting reports that pollination was an issue at most of them. He had made sure bees where brought in but it didn’t look like it was working well. Daniel was now starting to realize those middle school lectures on the birds and the bees was not giving the whole story. After checking the internet he found out the shocking fact that although bees get the credit over 1,500 insect species pollinate plants. Even if he stuck to the main ones that would include butterflies, moths, flies, wasps, and beetles as well. Daniel knew he couldn’t handle this himself, what he needed an expert to deal with this problem. Now all he had to do was to find and recruit someone.
Professor Gonzales was in her lab checking on her classes fruit fly experiments. The lab was a pretty well known one involving breeding flies to study inheritance patterns. Students for the last 70 years have been doing it to learn about traits, genes and chromosomes. She even did it herself when she was an undergraduate. After grading student labs for it over so many years it had gotten to the point that she was seeing fruit flies in her sleep. Rubbing her eyes she thought back to when she still had a passion for this sort of thing. When she first got into entomology she thought she would be out in the field doing research not stuck in a classroom doing the same thing every term. For the last 10 years it was the same material rehashed every term for the students while her own research and study had dried up just like her marriage. Now her ex had been made assistant dean and he was making her job more miserable then it already was. He had her doing every crap assignment in the department on top of her teaching and she just knew he was the one who blocked her tenure. Thinking about spending the rest of her life working like this she finally decided it was enough. There had to be a better job out there for someone who wanted to be in the field and had a passion for bugs, she just had to find it.
Surprisingly enough there was a position like that it seemed. The job board she was looking at had a job for a bug lover. It was actually a listing for an entomologist to supervise insect population growth for a reforestation project. She didn’t understand why they would need to do that but the work sounded like heaven to her. She immediately sent her resume off to the email address with hope in her heart. It was a nervous three days until she heard back from the Hawk’s Habitat people that they wanted to interview her.
She was surprised at the application process. After a short phone interview they sent her airline tickets to come to Panama for an in-person interview. Taking a few days off from school should have been straight forward but her ex intervened. He wasn’t happy she wouldn’t be around to arrange the faculty monthly luncheon. She had to make a call to HR referencing her “never taking a sick day in the last five years” record to get him to back off. He did insist on having the last word by telling her she would be doing them the rest of the year when she got back.
Seeing the rainforest outside her window as the plane turned to approach Panama City filled her with excitement. Central America was full of exotic insects that she had never seen outside of a textbook. She wondered if she might have enough time to visit the rain forest after her interview. Last year she had arranged a research grant to study the endangered Fluminense Swallowtail butterfly in Brazil but the final paperwork disappeared. She knew her ex must have done it but there was no evidence just a fake apology from his office with the explanation it got shredded by mistake.
She was expecting the interview to be in an office but surprisingly it was at the hotel they put her up in. When she had checked in to the hotel there was a message to meet a Dan Falke and Emiliano Garcia in the hotel restaurant at 7 pm. Looking at her watch it was 4:00, she decided sadly that there wasn’t enough time to make it to the local rainforest and back. She was tired and suffering from jetlag but opportunities like this didn’t come along often. She decided to head to a local park and see what kind of tropical insects she might find there. If she rushed she could probably get at least 3 hours to field search. Dropping her suitcase off in her room she grabbed her research kit and headed out of the hotel. Daniel was watching her activity with amusement as she crawled around the bushes at the Parque Nacional Soberanía park. Some of the locals were a little alarmed but after watching her a bit they attributed her to being a crazy Americano and left her alone. Daniel decided to help her search out a little and had Hawk transfer a large Hercules Beetle where she could find it. Hopefully she won’t try to take it back on the plane with her. He wasn’t sure what the rules were on importing bugs to the states but a bug that size would definitely scare all the other passengers.
Daniel had already decided to hire her after seeing her enthusiasm searching at the park but to maintain appearances he had Emiliano conduct a proper interview. Daniel had originally planned on not telling her about the portals or Tawny until she actually was about to stepped through but that sounded unfair to her. Normally when a potential employee backed out on Demeter he would pay for their return home by boat. In this case she would be giving up her teaching position to accept the job. The only right thing to do was to tell her all about the portal and habitats before she quit her school. If she decided to back out after that and told then hopefully no one would believe her story enough for it to matter. With that thought Daniel invited her to visit the supposed reforestation project the next day.
Professor Gonzales was unhappy that she wouldn’t have a chance to explore more of Panama’s insect inhabitants. The bug she found was a marvelous example of a Dynastes Hercules at over 7 inches long and she had hopes of finding others. Still the young man Dan Falke was kind enough to invite her to see the reforestation project and that should be interesting. The invite to tour the project made it sound like she might get the position. She was very hopeful and had started to think of how she would tell her Ex off with what to do with her job or better yet where he could stick it.
As they left the hotel in the morning the professor was a little puzzled. She distinctly heard the young man Dan tell the cab driver to take them to the Metropolitan Natural Park. Even she had of Panama’s famous wildlife park. That was a large nature preserve with famous lush vegetation and miles of trails, it had no need of reforestation. When they reached the park Daniel helped the professor out of the car like a gentlemen. She had a puzzled look on her face stepping out on a trail but was happy to see the nature park. As he escorted her down one of the paths the professor treated him to an impromptu lecture on every insect they walked by. When they reached a small gazebo on the trail he asked the professor to sit as he wanted to explain the project in more detail to her.
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Daniel wasn’t sure how to explain portals without giving to much away but he finally decided to just claim it as experimental breakthrough. With that he started in on his explanation. As he talked about the portals and terraforming project he could see the professor’s expression change. It was obvious she didn’t believe a work of what he was saying. He finally decided to just show her and opened a portal from the gazebo to the Ceres transit room. With the portal appearing the professor didn’t seem to understand what it was for a minute. As she stared at it she slowly started to get up and approach it. Unlike everyone else who first saw a portal she was focusing her attention on the edges of the portal. He assumed she was looking for whatever machinery was creating it. Eventually she reached her hand out and pushed it through the portal.
After giving her a few more minutes to study it I held out my hand to her saying “Would you like to take a walk and check out one of our habitats?”
Without waiting on me she said “Sure” and walked on through herself.
I hurried on through to catch up to her as the portal closed behind us. She quickly exited the transit building then stopped outside to look around. Walking up to her I started to tell her what everything was pointing them out. As I discussed the island being our central administration and supply point for the habitats scattered around Tawny she started to ask questions. She wasn’t to interested in the facilities but did make a comment about the lack of insects. I made the comment that we had not made any effort to import them yet and it was causing problems at the habitats. She immediately wanted to go to one of the habitats and check out the situation. With that I decided to take her back to habitat #1 since it had been established the longest the pollination there was the most apparent. Walking her back into the transit building this time she paid attention to the interior walls with archway portals labeled clearly what habitat they connected to. The professor was a smart person so I was sure she noticed there were none labeled for earth and the one we came through was just a blank spot on the wall.
As we walked through the archway to habitat #1 I realized I had never named them. The people living at the habitats would probably like having actual names for their homes rather than just numbers. As we walked through to a small transit building in the habitat the professor again immediately walked outside to look around. Seeing the young vegetation around the camp she immediately headed for the nearest spot. She looked happy as she checked out the condition of the plants and the few bees flying around. Seeing her busy and happy I decided to take this opportunity physically check out how the employees were doing here. Saying a polite excuse to the professor which I doubt she even heard I headed toward the camp’s cafeteria. Sitting around heating is always a good spot for gossip and complaints.
Diego Cabrera was sitting at his usual spot in the cafeteria grumbling to anyone who would listen. If he hadn’t been so drunk that day he never would have stepped through that mysterious portal or whatever it was to come here. He had a good thing going shaking down the other refugees to get food and drink. Yah, the food was better here but there was no alcohol, not even beer to drink. What was even worse was the supervisor was on his case all day to dig and plant. Hell, if he wanted to work for a living he would have stayed at his father-in-law’s store. At least there he could send his kids out to get cerveza for him. For a minute he thought about the wife and kids he had abandon years ago but then mumbled good riddance and went back to his grumbling.
Looking around the cafeteria I could see a lot of happy people with healthy bodies around. It looks like the half starved refugee look they use to have was now just a bad memory for them. Looking at all the content faces around me I suddenly felt a bit of accomplishment with what we had managed so far. However there was one person sitting at a table by himself that didn’t fit in with the rest of the employees. Unlike them he was sitting by himself with an angry look on his face as he mumbling down at his coffee mug. I noticed that everyone around seemed to be giving him a wide berth. I thought about going over to talk with him and see what the issue was but Sammy, Grandma and I were trying to avoid being noticed as being in authority too much. We had decided to try to be viewed as just small members of management rather that high level decision makers. It would be safer for us when the groups on Earth finally realize what we were doing. Instead I decided to watch a bit of his back history to see if there was an issue I needed to address.
Looking at my watch I decided the professor had indulged enough in her bug hunt and went and dragged her back to Ceres. As we sat down in the conference room in the operations center I officially made an offer for her to come work for us. For the first time I saw a smile on her face for something other than bugs. Before she could say anything I quickly went over the confidentiality agreement and the transportation and communication restriction going back to Earth. Since her job would include actually acquiring suitable insects from Earth for populating the habitats her travel was less restricted then most employees. Her expression got a bit off when I started to talk about the travel restrictions but before she could object if continued my explanation. Most employees signed a two year contract witch precluded any communications with Earth for confidentiality reasons. During those 2 years if they quit they would immediately get transportation back to Earth but here there was no contact to anyone outside Tawny. For her and a few others regular travel back and forth was allowed. The only requirement was they would need to travel through Demeter for it. As I finished she thought for a moment before raising a question.
“What about the portal we used to get here from Panama City?” she asked
“Moving one of the portals to a new location is both tedious and time consuming so we only do it for special recruiting” I said with a straight face as I lied.
I’m not sure if she believed me but she did accept it. We then went over job expectations and that my “boss” wanting her initial focus be on insect pollinators so we could get the plant propagation healthy. When I asked her how soon she could start she said with a grin immediately but then paused and corrected herself telling me she would need to go back home to pack and ship her stuff first. With nothing else left to discuss she wanted to head back to Panama City so she could visit Metropolitan Natural Park again before her flight back. An odd woman that professor but I felt we could count on her both for secrecy and to do a good job.
Diego Cabrera turned out to be a bad apple that slipped by our checks. The more I checked on his past the more despicable he became. It seems he married his wife after taking advantage of her at a Quincea?era party after someone spiked the punch. Her friends left her in a back bedroom to sleep it off when he snuck in. After she found she was pregnant her father the owner of a small appliance store tracked him down and forced the marriage. Two kids later he was a mean drunk and a useless husband. After stumbling on the combination to the store’s safe he finally decided to sneak away. Of course that was only after he robbed it along with fencing most of the merchandise. He drifted around Guatemala for a couple of years, the money long spent. He then ran into some more trouble with the law right before escaping over the border. Eventually he ended up in the refugee camp in Mexico and later Ceres.
My initial instinct was to send him back to the refugee camp. It wasn’t completely shut down yet. The government had tried but new refugees were still showing up. After thinking about it I realized that if we sent him back there it might cause issues with future recruiting from that camp. Plus after every bad thing he had done just sending him back there would be letting him off to easy. He was a thief in Guatemala so I decided to let them handle him. Of course the original theft was a while ago and it might be hard to charge him with plus his wife and kids had moved on. Instead I decided to arrange something similar so any punishment would be appropriate.
That night Diego Cabrera found a bottle of Tequila waiting in his apartment. He didn’t know who would have left it but after so long sober he didn’t care. An hour later he was passed out, dead drunk on the couch. The next morning he was woken by the police in the back of a jewelry store. They found him with half empty bottle of Tequila and his pockets stuffed with merchandise. Somehow he had ended back in Escuintla, Guatemala. Things might have gone better at his trial if the owner of the store wasn’t the police chief’s cousin or if he didn’t keep sprouting insane stories of portals and some magical place called Tawny.