Lou Corlin was relieved that Eli hadn’t been too obnoxious about getting criticized. Whether he’d take it to heart and stop showing off what he knew in front of the younger kids, only time would tell. In the meantime, there was no use worrying about it when he had work to do.
He was surprised to discover some bench work already waiting for him. From the look of it, most of it would be routine. Check out a hard drive that was acting flaky, run memory checks on a printer that kept choking on larger print jobs, the usual.
While he was doing basic continuity tests on three mice from the testing center, Juss Forsythe came in. “How closely have you been keeping track of stuff going on down on Earth?”
“Not all that closely,” Lou admitted. “Things have been pretty busy lately, so most of what I know is from friends who are in communication with people dirtside. What’s on your mind.”
“This.” Juss set a tablet on the desk. “These are composite images taken from Freedom Station. The first was about six months ago, and the second was last week.”
Lou was familiar with images of the Earth’s night side, of the bright lights of cities trailing off into suburbs and exurbs, connected by the strings of pinpoints that were small towns along the major highways. He could pick out most of the major cities of the US, as well as those of Europe, Asia and Australia.
But looking at that second one, the one showing the situation only a week ago, was alarming. Whole regions had gone dark. While it might be unsurprising in Africa and parts of Asia, it was alarming to see dark patches scattered here and there across Europe, like mold on a loaf of bread. Could things have broken down that bad, that they couldn’t even manage to keep the lights on? What did that mean for other basic things like clean water and sanitation?
At least on Earth they didn’t have to worry about breathable atmosphere. But everything else that made civilization possible depended upon an infrastructure that had to be maintained — and if it wasn’t, how long would the cities remain liveable? How bad could things get before they broke down altogether?
“I’d heard some rumors about rolling blackouts in some areas, but I hadn’t wanted to give too much credence to rumors. You know how that goes.”
“Completely understood. I’ve had to get after a few of the younger kids myself. But this isn’t rumors. This is photographic evidence.”
“And the worst thing is, there’s not a whole lot we can do about it. Maybe give advice — but we’re not a normal broadcast station. We’re an Internet streaming service, so people can listen to us only if they can get Internet where they are, and there’s enough bandwidth to support audio streaming.”
“I know. I just wish I had some better ideas.”
“But maybe we know someone else who has better ideas than we do.”
“Let’s hope.” Juss cast a significant glance at the clock. “Right now I need to get going.”