Silos of Man

Chapter 4 - Disappointed Confusion

I race to work that morning, confident that the rest of my research team is doing so too.  I actually got a goddamn speeding ticket notification – the bastards!

"All hail the Y-God", I hear a choir-of sorts sing as I enter the lab.  I see bedazzled Ys and flowers adorning my desk.  This was all them because no one else knows yet.  "You're a funny gang!" was the best I could come up with as I roll my eyes at them.  "You know this was all of us" I say modestly.  It really took a village worth of effort to get this thing done, but it's true that it was my science that led us here, and so I am kinda' the god of this thing, but never, ever, would I say that.  I hope she does though.  I hope as soon as I get home, she throws her arms around me and calls me the saviour.  I haven't told her yet, but we're expecting the Very Strong Correlation confirmation today.  Once it's confirmed, the lab will make an announcement on the Global Media Platform.  She'll see it on the Global Feed later today, which she checks pretty diligently.  She'll see my name as head of the research project.  She'll credit me for saving them and she'll be mine forever.  Jeezus, I'm so insecure!

We all pretended to busy ourselves with other pressing research matters but the reality is that we're all as clouded with anticipation as each other, and not a thing is actually getting accomplished right now.  What's taking so goddamn long!?  Our results are observable within hours of application, so they should have had this thing sewn-up by now.  Their observations should have easily been made, even if they wanted to run it a dozen times, it would only take a day or two, max.

As the day winds down to early evening and everyone is uncomfortably packing-up to go home, with confused head shakes to me and one another, I hear Joan on the phone.  She's loud, sounding more concerned than pissed, but I can't hear what she's saying.  We've all run the experiment a hundred times, we know the results – what is going on!?  I can't take this anymore.  I'm out.  I need to get home or I'll have to explain why I've been so consistently late, and I don't want to let on to Ryann that I'm in limbo.  The most challenging piece is going to be acting like everything is normal when I get there.

I grab my case, offer some morose head-nods to my colleagues on my way out of the lab, and head to my car.  My head spins the whole drive home, such that I don't actually remember driving here.  I'm acutely grateful for my automatic steering – as long as my eyes are open, which they were, and I'm not under the influence of anything, which I wasn't, then I'm legal.

I enter our apartment to the hum of a happy woman.  Ryann's flitting around cleaning the place for Friday.  One more workday before I get to sleep-in with her again.  I'd so prefer to have her work-from-home arrangement, especially if we could both work from home, where we could arrange our own work/life schedule.  Sleep until 9, start work at 10 and then work until whenever, interspersed with eating and sex.  Not surprisingly, she prefers the antiquated notion of everyone in society getting up early - early bird gets the worm as they used to say - and then commuting to their place of work, which actually contributed a great deal to the environmental disaster seen early last century.  That was laid bare during the 2019 plague, when the environmental damage healed a little just in the few months everyone was quarantined.  Her counter-argument to this is that since the commercialization of hydrogen vehicles, employment-related commuting transportation is now emissions-less and therefore no longer harmful.

"Hey gorgeous, how was your day?"  I love it when she calls me that.  "Same.  Still waiting on results."  "Yeah, that's sorta' your whole gig though, isn't it?  Waiting around for germs to get their groove on?  Trying to find out how and what they kill, and then how and what kills them?  So just another day at the office then, my brilliant Germ-Nerd?", she teases.  She has no idea of the torment I'm going through waiting for the correlation confirmation.  I want to share this anxiety with her so badly, because if anyone could ease my burden, it's her, but I want too deeply to overwhelm her with positive impressions of me, that I won't let on my disappointment over possible failure.

"The place looks great!", I affirm her efforts, but really, I couldn't care less.  She's the clean-freak, and it's her family we're trying to impress, although that really isn't necessary.  Quite frankly, they couldn't adore either of us anymore than they already do, and quite frankly, the feeling's completely mutual.  I adore Blake and their parents.  Honestly, although I did Ryann the favour of getting her little sister into the lab, which earned me invaluable points with her family, Blake has returned the favour ten-fold through all the work she's put in, and all the great stream-lining ideas she's had to find research routes, as well as some of the really critical catches she made on data-analysis a few times.  "Thanks!  We're having leftovers, so go do your wash-up thing."

After many ridiculously futile attempts throughout that night to sleep, turned into a battle to get my exhausted ass out of bed the next morning, I win and stagger downstairs for some caffeine.  I realize as I fumble for my mug, that my beleaguered brain was so foggy with questions and anxieties about my correlation confirmation, that I didn't actually touch her this morning.  That is one of my pleasures in life and I missed it.  Because I was too busy?!  Too preoccupied!?  I won't let that happen.  Not to us.  As I turn back around and head down the hall to reach her, my device rings.  What the hell time is it?!   No one calls me before 10!?  I get to it before the second ring and Joan's voice solemnly says, "I wanted to catch you before you race in here this morning."  "What is it?" I say hoping that she mercifully gets right to the point of the alarmingly early call.  

"Not Correlated".  What the actual fuck!?  "Wwhhat?  How?!" I managed to squeak out.  "I've been going over it all night.  I'll send you the data and you can go over it from there.  You're going to feel pretty shitty today, Dany, so don't bother coming in because you'll just be spending your day reading this stuff anyway.  You may as well do it in your pyjamas at home where there's weed."  I can hear the concern in her voice.  I'm gonna' bust – tears everywhere.  I need to hold it together!    "I'll go through it and get back to you.", is all I could muster.   

I hear my computer's familiar email ding as I head back down the hall. Yep, that can wait.  I'll face my disappointment in short order, but for now I need her.  I slip back under the covers and she rustles.  It's been a warm August and she slept naked again last night.  I love it when she does that.  "Did I hear your phone ring?" she mumbles sleepily.  "Yeah, it was just Joan telling me that the load is light today and so I should just spend the day here going over some data.  Saves the commute and dressing etiquette, so I'm game."  She shares a practically imperceivable chuckle and I gently pull her into me.  I was spooning her warmth when she giggles  "And maybe a little noon-er or two to seal the deal?"  "Noon and Two – it is a deal!"  Within seconds we're entwined and the morning suddenly becomes a whole lot better.