The Quest For Perfection (Is A Damn Fine Thing)

Part II: The World Beyond The Water - Chapter 14

14

The water hit her face with the same force a shot of caffeine had when it hit the bloodstream, jolting her into existence and bringing her mind round to the fact that she was up at such an early hour. That was the one thing that Dr. Isabel Wyatt hated about being the head of the program; the hours. And the responsibility, now that it was no longer shar—no, don't think about that, don't start your day off the wrong way. Come on Issie, wake.

Something had gone wrong throughout the night, she knew that much as soon as her phone rang at 8.00am playing the part of an alarm clock rooster and now she had to go and either solve the problem, find a solution or face the music with the financiers. Those boys at the Wells Foundation, the funders of the programme, were deep of pockets but empty of soul. There had already been enough problems since the project began that she knew they were getting itchy fingers just waiting to pull the plug; it was only a matter of time. But every single time that the shit hit the fan she had been able to pull them back from the brink, convincing them that they would ride out the storm and the answers they would get would change the course of human history. At first, she believed it. Now? She was just reading off a script, keeping the money coming in and the project going for as long as possible in the hope that some sort of result would prove to everyone that it had all been worthwhile.  She'd know it when she saw it. But right now, it was nowhere in sight and she had to be "the boss" when all she wanted to do was fucking sleep. Or as much sleep as her mind would allow her these days anyway. Shoving on jeans and a t-shirt (she had a freshly pressed suit in her office she could change into) she called her car and waited outside.

Outside, the air was cool. Cool without the breeze but when the breeze picked up it was like getting stung by an army of angry bees. With the travel cup of coffee the only thing keeping her warm, she watched as the shuttle bus picked up a few workers, huddling together for warmth or still trying to fight the early morning sleepy eye and couldn't help but smile. When the project was first starting up, she and Tom would ride the shuttle bus in together, forgoing the offer of a private drive. They liked to listen and learn about the people who they would be spending such a lot of time with in the coming months; they'd even go as far as to make up histories for those of the employees who would sit on their own and not talk to anyone. Most of them were people who'd spent too long out of work and too many days on the couch that they were just happy to have a wage, a routine and somewhere to go in the morning. But it was less fun to know them like that, so she and Tom decided to know them the way they wanted too. As the shuttle sped past, brushing past her a gust of that sharp morning air, her smile slowly faded. They stopped riding the shuttle bus after the project had officially begun. People would begin to stare, the odd disgruntled employee would accost them on the bus, telling them exactly what they thought of them and their "nightmarish little puppet show" they had going on. Those were the people who were no longer on the books -where exactly they went she didn't know but she knew it wasn't an all-inclusive holiday. That was, what felt at least, like a very long time ago and now Issie couldn't even take pleasure in the memory without it being embittered by the paths of their past and the missing pieces of her present. And it was the missing pieces of her present that she missed the most.

The sun was doing its best to fight through the dark grey clouds, but Issie still shivered in the cold, the wind cutting through the abandoned island she called home. They had been lucky to find such a place, somewhere isolated and somewhere they could on (and under). They now had a facility that looked like it belonged to NASA and it was busy, like they were competing in their own Space Race.  But the race to explore outward had faded away years ago, replaced with the increasing obsession of exploring inward – something that benefited her and Tom immeasurably. All the resources, funding and Government backing went to the projects that were exploring the human condition. Experiments and explorations into the human psyche, into the things that plague our everyday, were the projects gaining all the grants. She thought then of Tom in those meetings with potential funders, whirling about the room gaining their trust and their fascination whilst bringing her and Tom's own story to the fore, making their ideas go beyond science and drill right down to the thing that made them sign the cheque – emotion & perfection.