Silos of Man

Chapter 5 - Correlated Confusion

During breakfast, before I gather enough confidence to open the data that may disprove my genius, Ryann is far quieter than usual and I'm proud of myself for noticing, given how preoccupied I'm feeling at the moment.  I was assessing whether to prod or not when she opens with, "So, you know how George and I had the conversation with that active NASA astronaut last year?"  "Yeah." I remember because she talked about one of the astronauts for months before and after the interview, and it stressed me out.

"Well, it turns out that our request, which they just admitted to having found "quaint" and "eccentric" at the time, their words not mine, wasn't too hard to oblige, again, their words not mine.  It also fulfills their required NWG quotient for Corporate Community Collaboration, so they made the requested adjustments to a few of their commonly used astronomical sensors and applied it to the areas we requested."  She pauses for dramatic effect, which isn't in least bit necessary, because this is already pretty dramatic.  "And presto", she continues,  "They found an unidentified level of energy zipping around the universe."  What the fuck!?  "Wwhhat?  How?" was once again today, all I could say.  This has got to be some sort of daily WTF record!  Trying everything I have to sound excited and not exhausted, I asked what this meant for her and for us?

"Yeah, so, thankfully not too much.  Well, for us.  We don't have to go anywhere but we will likely be transitioned into Third or Fourth Category – depending on how quickly this gets picked-up and how deeply it's thought to impact humanity/progression and/or everyday lives."   Jeeze, she's quoting the World Allegiance Pledge.  "But that will be it, just a few more personal resources for us, and maybe a little more time at the lab for me, but not enough to impact our lives much at all.  It'll be a while before we know what all this means for sure, but the buzz started a couple of days ago and now proponents of the Realm Theory are going berserk, so Ritchie thinks it's going to be picked-up for confirmation tests quickly."

"What does this mean for your theory?"  I was excited for her now.  This could mean big things for her career.   "Well, not my theory, but thank you.  It basically means that there may be a stepping stone of scientific clues to actually finding and tracing physical evidence of the human soul.  The few things that appear to be true so far, only serve to corroborate the ideas within the Theory and support the various tenants thereof."   Holeee-shitballs!  "That's kind of huge, isn't it?"  "Yeah babe, that's kinda' huge.", she confirms with modest pride.  She's got some kind of magic-touch with reconciling oxymorons.  The same way she's both the most adorable person and the sexiest person I've ever met.

"There I was, thinking your career was going to catapult us into a Four someday, and here I may be doing it."  A modest smirk this time.  She's teasing me because we joke about there only being one real scientist in this relationship, and she's just about to prove that it was her this whole time!  Thank the universe that I didn't tell her about the possible 'Strong Correlation'!  The 'Not Correlated' would have looked and felt like an even bigger failure next to this new, enormous success of hers.  I'd have become terrified that she may feel sorry for me, so at least I'm spared that.

Later that day after our round two, I poured over the data from the seventeen other labs, each of which also commissioned three or four of their subsidiaries to confirm the results.  I dissected the policies and procedure, observations, timelines, recording and experimental tool lists, and nothing was missed.  My mind raced.  Okay, so then we have to check all of our equipment, our apparatus – we have to check it all!  This is obviously pointing to faulty lab equipment.  I dig to the bottom of the attached documents, and find an unnamed file, not listed among the others.  In it are the records of a lab whose scanned written notes seemed to observe the cessation of the peptide split on the Y in the exact same sequence and timeline as we did, but confusingly, the concluding write-up to this experiment claimed "results inconclusive".  If our results were anomalous because of faulty lab components, then there's no way, another lab could have the exact same results, unless they too had the exact same faulty lab-component anomaly.

On top of all the confusion, the analysts aren't giving an adequate explanation for this one experiment in sector 19 confirming our experimental results, or for the discrepancy between all other findings and ours, aside from possible 'anomalously-faulty lab equipment components'.  This was their final conclusion, along with a back-handed remark suggesting that perhaps I somehow misinterpreted my own data/results!  Being here and re-reading this shit is stupid.  I need to run the process again!

I find her in Warrior Pose when I pop my head into our study-slash-yoga room to tell her that I'm heading off to the lab for a few hours.  I see the mild disappointment on her face when she tells me that she was hoping to watch some of our show tonight.  She'd never try to hold me back from the lab, she just wants me to know what I was missing out on.  "Ouch baby!  K, well I don't want to miss that, so if I see what I need to early-on, then I'll rush back home and maybe we can catch an episode or two.", I say as I lean over and kiss her on the forehead.  

I'm anxious to get there and can't find my car keys anywhere.  I call up, "Hey Ry – can I please take your car?  I can't find my keys anywhere!"  "Sorry babe, Blake has it.  Hers is still in the shop".  Fuck.  "But I saw your keys next to the fridge".  My saviour as always!  I spot them in the kitchen.  "Got 'em, thanks doll!"  I'm careful not to close the front door too hard and interfere any further with her Zen.