The Last Guardians : The Blood Of The Archibald

Chapter 2 : The Project & the Swallow

"It's 7:38 in the evening, damn, I didn't see the time pass".

Remembered the professor, lifting his nose from his file and consulting his watch, "I will be late for tonight"

He got up and grabbed his hat, umbrella and jacket. Closed the office behind him and ran down the steps four to four before reaching the elevator area.

He met colleagues who were also coming down. As a rule, when they crossed paths, it was quite brief, a hello and from time to time they chatted about the weather or the news, but no more.

Indeed, he had trouble sympathizing with his fellow men.

He had tried to be friendly and open with them, but when he had to give them instructions, direct or correct their research, the bellows fell rather quickly.

There was there, the flower of scientists recruited in the 3 worlds.

But they could not be made aware of the real reason why they were there. For them, it was a top-secret government technology hub with research applications in nano technologies, basic research, applied mathematics. There was also a good place in the organization chart, research on electromagnetism and fluid mechanics.

And this site was part of a larger complex that spanned the 3 planets.

Participating: universities, several companies obtained state funding for R&D, if they followed certain research processes. Thus the whole of the economic-scientific-indistrieble ecosystem found itself directly or indirectly involved in defence research around the "swallow" program.

The various agents involved did not imagine the level of convergence of their respective research and the most talented were entrusted with programs with budgets up to the task.

Thus, most of them, took him a little for a brilliant solitary and eccentric inventor, always absorbed by his work, the first arrived and the last party. They thought he had no privacy, which was entirely true.

Colleen's ex had tried to put up with him, but after six months, she found a good party and it seems that he had put the ring on her finger.

He was one of the sons of the Susanoo clan. She had to live on the planet Curax with her new husband who owned a very lucrative breeding complex. This should make him pass his hatred for this people.

Even if he wanted to, it would have been impossible for Patrick to give him more time, but it is true that to hear him complain and whine about his sad fate as a neglected woman seemed very pathetic to him in view of the situation of the world. He could therefore not favor Colleen, by giving him more attention so he had let him go with good grace and so it had been 5 years that he had no privacy.

Now he read in the eyes of his colleagues of fear, mixed with commiseration. But he had no cure, only the project counted. So many lives depended on this program.

His parents Conrad and Wilma were in town tonight for an exhibition and invited themselves to dinner at his house.

Patrick only visited them for a week every year during the holidays.

After all, Twin Island was a real paradise on earth, but he now lived on Coleos Prime and Patrick firmly believed that there was no exhibition that required his parents to take an interplanetary flight together to get there. Or rather, he thought that it was only a pretext found by the latter to pay him an impromptu visit. They were probably going to assail him with questions about his private life.

He stopped at the supermarket to get a good bottle of red wine. When you are the son of a winemaker, you must know how to welcome your parents as it should be. Regarding the dinner, he had ordered from a caterer who would deliver it on time.