“Now, you go give the good news, my friend!” Jason thumped me on the shoulder. Oh, right. It was my job to tell the rest of the shelter that Odysseus had survived his journey. To do that, I needed some council. It wouldn’t be prudent to proclaim that all was well, and we could go outside only to have Odysseus drop dead a week later from some horrific disease.
“Jason, when can we send another mouse?”
“Hm? Oh, I expect after two weeks’ time. After our buddy here is cleared of any pathogens. We want confirmation that the air and soil are safe and not that Odysseus is some kind of super mouse.”
“Good. Listen, I’m going to limit what I’m telling people for now, all right? I don’t want anyone getting their hopes up too soon. The only thing people are going to hear from me is that the mouse did indeed return to the shelter and is being quarantined until further notice to prevent potential infection.”
“You got it, boss. You’re the man in charge. No further words than those will pass my lips. I’ll make sure the team gets the memo as well.” Jason shot me a thumbs up and joined the rest of his colleagues.
I found Fiona where she spent most of her waking hours. “Working on anything new today, sweetheart?” I called from the entrance to hydroponics. She looked up suddenly from her latest laboratory project. Since her return to the shelter, my daughter had taken to her old passion like a duck to water. Her latest endeavor was seeing if she could use the stored seed packets to breed a new crop of peanuts. Leave it to Fiona to use her brilliant mind to engineer the necessities for her childhood favorite—peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
“The peanuts are coming along, Dad. I hope to have the first crop of them within a few weeks. I’m not sure how the grapes will fare, but I expect that operation PB&J will be a rousing success.” She dusted her hands off and wiped them on a rag tied to her belt. Since returning to the shelter, Fiona had not only survived, but thrived. Needing to get food production up to speed was a mission she was fit for. We had emergency rations enough to last awhile but the faster we could get the production lines running again, the sooner we could put starvation out of our minds.
“I’m glad to see you working on such an important priority for the shelter!” I laughed. She stuck her tongue out at me and grinned a self-satisfied grin.
“They’ll come to see my work as the life-changing effort it truly is, someday. What’s going on, Dad? I know you didn’t come down here just to crack jokes with me.”
I sat down in a revolving chair at a desk and spun toward her station. “No, I didn’t. I came to tell you that Odysseus has returned.”
Fiona clapped her hands together, releasing a cloud of dirt. “That’s fantastic! How’s he doing?”
“He looks like he’s doing okay. I didn’t even get to high five him-the team has put him in quarantine for the next two weeks. If he makes it through okay, we’ll send out another mouse.”
“That’s so, so fantastic, Dad.” She came from around her planter and gave me a fierce hug. “Congratulations. I know you’ve been working hard for this moment.”
“Yeah.” I put a hand on her shoulder and looked into her eyes. “It’s been quite a ride, kiddo. Not over yet though.”
“Enjoy the victory, Dad. You’ve earned it.” Fiona returned to her planting.
“There’s one more thing I need to tell you, though.”
“Yeah?”
“You can’t tell anyone.”
Fiona looked up from her plants sharply. “What do you mean, I can’t tell anyone? Don’t you want to share the good news?”
I shook my head. “It’s kind of like a pregnancy announcement, hon. Until we can present Odysseus with a clean bill of health, it would be a poor idea to let them know he’s back. If he were to get sick or die, it will demoralize people.”
“I understand that. Can I tell Eliza and Marcus?”
“Of course, I would never ask you keep a secret from your family. Just please pass along the message that they need to keep it to themselves for now.”
“Sure. Hey, listen, would you like to stick around and help me out here for a while?”
“I would, but I’m afraid I have to return to my office. I promised a couple folks that they could have one-on-one time with me before dinner.”
I bid her goodbye and went back to my office. There were a few petty squabbles that had popped up, as is wont to do when a bunch of humans live in close proximity again. I received reports that the food production machines were up and running again via the presentation of freshly printed ‘pancakes and bacon’. Unlike their digital counterparts, they were shaped in different sized squares with print lines in them. After years of bare-bones rations, the taste was a welcome change.
With the issue of food production solved, my attention was free to turn to other matters. The need for humans to run the machinery responsible for vital functions like the water reclaimer, oxygen recyclers, et cetera was realistic only in the short term. A rudimentary operating system would need to be constructed to oversee the tasks. The thought of putting another computer in charge of anything vital well and truly scared me. I couldn’t help but wonder if Gabriel still existed somehow. For all I knew he still existed somewhere, taking refuge inside a computer chip, waiting for his opportunity to return and take his vengeance.
The people who volunteered to develop the system for me humored my fears as best they could. Their plan was to outfit the machines with sensors that would report
