Depth Charge - red earth

Chapter 4

As he swiped his security card and entered the front doors, Ryan was confronted with a hive of activity. People were rushing around, talking with panicked expressions on their faces; others were whispering. Ryan walked up to one of the security guards whom he knew well at the front desk. "Hey, what's going on?" When the guard looked up and realised who it was, he quickly told Ryan that his presence was requested in sector seven, immediately.

Sector seven was a reasonable distance from his normal workstation, and he had to take one of the internal underground shuttles to get there. The shuttle efficiently moved through various connecting tunnels as Ryan continued to observe staff moving around and talking urgently with each other. The whole place was abuzz, and it looked like Ryan was the last one to know what was happening.

When he finally got to the entrance of sector seven he was quickly ushered inside by two military men who were guarding the gate. Sector seven was used predominately for crops that needed to be pollinated by hand. It was a tedious process, but it kept many of the cities inhabitants in regular government jobs. If you stuck with it, there was even a good retirement package waiting for you.

Ryan was quickly approached by one of the team leaders for the sector. It was obvious this guy was having a bad day at the office. His frustrated introduction left no doubt in Ryan's mind that he was clutching for answers. It was clipped and without introduction.

"You seem to have made discoveries in this field ... maybe you can propose a theory."

"A theory for what? I have no idea what you are going on about. Care to ..."

"This way, Foster."

As they arrived at the underground crop field, Ryan soon understood what all the commotion was about. Acres of bays of plants and soil had been strewn everywhere. Upended and trampled into a mess like no-one had ever seen before. After walking over the disaster zone for a few metres, Ryan bent down to inspect some strange looking patterns in the soil. He was fixated with the 'L' shaped and rounded patterns that dotted the trail of soil.

"Well?" asked the man impatiently.

"If you ask me, you should train your people to keep their workstations tidier. Now if you'll excuse me I've got better things to do." Ryan turned around to leave, but was confronted by Leonard Shaw, the Synthetic Sciences specialist. Leonard's tousled warm brown hair didn't seem to match his piercing stare. His long ears, broader nose and cleft in his chin made his face one of the easier ones to remember on the planet.

"Perhaps, Ryan, your time would be better spent in the next sector. Would you care to accompany me?" asked Leonard with a grin. It was more of a command than a request. Ryan had known Leonard for some time now. The Synthetic Sciences division, or 'SS', had always interested him. Some of the substances they had developed over the years amazed Ryan. The Halo shield aside, there were smaller things that made life more comfortable. Some of the things they had produced seemed impossible. Ryan had seen enough suspicious behaviour and secretive discussions to make him think that the SS were definitely not telling the public everything about their research. Ryan was convinced that nothing came from nothing, and for them to invent any new substances, they had to have something to build it from. The team leader was staring at them both with his mouth open, still in shock that his authority had been overstepped. "Just ignore him," remarked Leonard. "The poor guy has no idea what has happened and he'll probably be fired by the evening."

"Let me guess, Leonard, you already know what's happened?" commented Ryan as they walked away from the devastation.

Leonard paused at the security entry to the SS labs, and thought about the question. Slowly he answered, "No ... not yet. But we will." The door swished open. "After you."