CONVEX

9: Town Meeting

To accommodate the town meeting, members of the city console take the time to set up lawn chairs throughout the gymnasium. The gym itself, a simple workout facility, reeks of sweat. A vast assortment of treadmills, stationary bikes, and weights sit near the edge of the room. Most of the townsfolk feel a growing sense of anxiety from the gym's claustrophobic atmosphere, but it's the only building in the entire town of Redwood capable of accommodating a large meeting like the one in the next ten minutes.

Jeremy stays near one of the weight lifting benches, carefully shuffling through his notebook to review some last minute data. Unlike the rest of his notebooks, the newer information contains hasty scribbles along the margins. Addendum after addendum cover the notebook until no viable space remains on the lined pages. At Jeremy's hip, Hector rolls on his back and spreads out across the bench.

Hector looks up at the ceiling. He doesn't even look at Jeremy. Instead, he studies the fluorescent blue lights overhead. "Aren't you overthinking this a little?" Hector asks.

"No," Jeremy replies, "I'm underthinking it! The minute I say the word prokaryote, I'll probably be dealing with one of the largest simultaneous cases of aneurysms in recorded history or, worse, irrefutable facts on the "validity" of creationism. You know how most of these people stand with my kind of work."

"Aren't you worried?" Jeremy replies. The biochemist wastes no time shoving Hector aside to sit next to him. "You've got to lead this one. I'm technically your assistant, remember?"

"Say what!?" Hector exclaims.

Jeremy crosses his arms and glares at Hector.

"Don't look at me like that!" Hector shouts, "You're the smarter one! I thought you'd do all the work."

"Where'd you get that idea?" Jeremy snarls back.

"If the married couple over here is done arguing," Michael interrupts sarcastically, "we're ready to hear from you." The bartender approaches them from the other side of the room and drops a microphone in Jeremy's lap. The sound of the microphone rings throughout the room when it slips out of Michael's hand.

Jeremy winces at the sound of the noise and picks up the device. After bringing the microphone to his lips, he awkwardly begins, "Uh ... hi."

The biochemist looks out to the crowd. To his left, he sees a very sympathetic smile from Molly. Michael stands protectively near the two and glares pointedly at Sarah's section of gymnasium, who wrinkles her nose at Jeremy and Hector. Surprisingly, though, the overwhelming majority smile in the biochemist's direction.

Jeremy doesn't know what to make of it.

Hector wastes no time swiping the microphone from Jeremy's hand and straightening his shoulders. The biochemist glances at Hector, who begins, "When we first came here, Dr. Miles and I came to investigate the Moving Mountains. There's been a couple of people that tried to do the same thing, and they all failed."

"Some of you are scared," the paranormal investigator points out, "When I talked to most of you, a lot of you didn't know whether to believe this was just a string of freak accidents or an act of god."

"Thing is, though, Jeremy and I aren't here to tell you what to believe."

"Instead, we're going to tell you what we know," Hector continues, "If we can't figure out what's going on around here, then someone's going to pick up where we left off until we know what happened to every single one of those people."

"Rachel Simmons, Nathan Brown, Robert Jenkins," Hector recites, "The forty three people who disappeared don't follow an age, gender, or occupation. Rachel Simmons was a three-year-old child. Nathan Brown was a disabled man in his seventies, and Robert Jenkins was a forty-two-year-old husband and a loving father when he disappeared. Some were mothers, others were fathers, and a couple were scientists just like us."