AIQ

Part 2

The Donner-Packer Facility was hidden deep within the mysterious forested landscape of upstate New York. Bathed in green spruces and cloaked by tall pines, it was nearly impossible to detect or be found without exact geographic coordinates. At the surface, the compound looked like a simple one story cabin, even having a modest chimney and several very dark tinted windows. Once entered inside, however, you found yourself facing a terribly large elevator which whisked you down to an huge complex of caverns and rooms and electronic eyes that watched wherever you where and wherever you were bound to go. There were literally no humans around for tens of miles in all directions - an army base was about a mile away, although it had more important things to be doing than constantly guarding the facility. Instead, a computer watched all, making sure no problems arose and no mischief was caused.

       There were only 3 doctors who worked at the facility: Karl Frasier, Jack Rubin, and Emily Savage, who all had a history with each other. Ten years ago, Jack was a prodigious professor at MIT, famous for his ability to teach and inspire the next big minds in science. He had also been classmates and roommates with Karl. Emily was one of Jack’s old students, who after years of hard work had risen through the ranks of the scientific community and been awarded a Nobel prize for her work in the development of Argus, the powerful computer which was actually being used to monitor the facility at the moment. Beneath the fake cabin and within the walls of the mess hall, Rubin and Savage were playing a game of Chess, which both were excellent at. Rubin, however, had just beaten her. “Bishop takes Rook. Checkmate.”         

       Savage frowned. “What? Oh… damn. I didn’t even see… alright, Jack, that was a good game; you were slacking, but good game, all in all.”

       Shaking hands, Jack began to smile, knowingly. “You’re a good sport, Ms. Savage, and you did almost have me. Next time though, watch your knights! My defenses were down at one point, and with a few good knight moves, my king would have been yours.”

       “Ugh! Should have seen it.”

       “Aw, don’t worry; nobody has ever beaten the master! Good show, though, very good show.”

       As Rubin paraded around the dining hall, Savage threw a piece of her bread at him, which hit him square in the skull. “Ouch!”

       Rubin chuckled and picked up the bread, throwing it back at her. A food fight probably would have commenced had Frasier not entered the dining hall at that moment.

       Savage looked at Frasier and tried to suppress her laughter. “Ha. Hello Karl.”        

       Frasier eyeballed Savage. He did not particular like her, but she seemed to show some sort of an admiration towards him. She was friendly, and often tried to make jokes or other things, but Frasier wanted none of that. He wanted to keep things at a completely professional level. He did admit though, she was quite intelligent – he would even admit he found her beautiful, on certain occasions. But any formation of a relationship between them could interrupt the project, and that was something he could not allow.

       So in response to her hello, he gave a nod, and walked to a separate table from the both of them. Rubin was a man of about fifty-two, though he retained a youthful head of red hair and a relatively un-wrinkled face. He was four years older than Frasier, but acted as if he was forty years younger. He was a person of good spirits most of the time, and he had a reputation that once drunk, could name all fifty states and their capitals in twenty seconds flat. He was easy to talk to, meaning he was also very laid back, and thus he was an infamous procrastinator. He did get the job done, but Frasier knew that he did not like authority and thus he was not the right man for this project, no matter what the investors believed. He was a slacker and it was showing in something as high-maintenance as this.