This is a Test

Ch. 6 - Part III - Show Time

The next scene was the morning meeting. They showed clips of Roger arriving before the others, and once all were shown waiting for a while except Cashe. Miranda smiled. "We probably shouldn't hold everyone up." Her words were cut off as Cashe entered and took his seat. While the straps of the air rig showed, the view of his head stopped at his hairline so the mask on top was not visible.

"First, we should go over last night's test," Miranda continued. "I'm sure we all feel a little sleep-deprived after all the commotion."

Cashe shook his head. "I slept quite well."

Miranda acknowledged him with a wave. "Okay, and that's great. Rest is important to a person's well-being, but I think we can now see some of the tests we are going to face on this mission. Everyone is carrying oxygen, correct?" A round of nods from the others as they showed their canisters. Cashe pointed to the one on the table. "Well, let's try and develop a structure of how we will coordinate our day."

Thankfully, the announcer stepped in to summarize so Cashe wouldn't have to endure their blabbering once more. Several times as Miranda yapped, images displayed of Cashe grinning like an idiot as if entranced by Miranda's speech. He never remembered a moment of joy from the meetings. Well, there were some, like when he came up with 'cluster' or read through the EULA.

The next series of clips involved scenes of the other colonists talking in the Garden. Cashe zoned out on these parts. He generally didn't care about his co-workers' conversations when he was a part of them; he certainly didn't need to know about the ones he missed. Dante yabbered on about some idiocy when the room exploded with the gas attack. A few shots of Dante and the women looking up before each rushed to protect their mouths with their masks.

"Don't worry, ladies," Dante yelled. "We got this."

The clips showed them working like a well-oiled machine. No screaming, no calls for someone named Randy. Karina followed one set of signs to find the right part sitting in an illuminated shelf while Dante followed the other set of arrows to find where the circuit board went. Karina rushed over, one hand holding her mask and tank near her face. Dante saw her approach with the part, yanked the old one out, and slipped the new component in with ease.

"And got this, they did," the voice-over stated. "Through the use of teamwork, the problem was solved in no time."

The time reflected in the show was less than thirty seconds. Cashe knew they had been off screaming and yelling for a good five minutes. While the imbeciles on the screen removed their masks to catch their breaths, Cashe pondered the narrator's mention of teamwork. Was this their way to try to tell him that working together would be critical, and that he was being judged on that? Should he have rushed to help? Was that message directed at him? He tended to think so.

The show became interesting again when Cashe re-appeared, inspecting their work. "Everything looks to have been properly installed. Excellent job."

"Thanks," Karina said.

Next were clips of everyone beaming as if they were all aglow with his praise. He knew these shots were all stolen from other moments.

The contaminant test went by quickly on screen. Cashe's contributions were all but ignored while Roger was shown as industrious and good natured. Clips of the geologist laughing and having a good time were interspersed with shots of his crawling under the Rover and getting all the spots that Anoptica chastised him for missing the first or fifth times. No audio played of his cursing, grumbling, or bitching, and the AI's repeated admonishments of how he messed up sanitizing the same places over and again were deleted. Cashe could imagine that to the average viewer, Roger would come off as hard-working and meticulous, a travesty of monumental proportions.