Tag: Louis Corlin

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Narrative

Peering into the Mists of Time

Spruance Del Curtin didn’t usually go down to IT to talk with Lou Corlin. But after Dr. Doorne had given him a totally new group of data sets, he wanted to talk to Lou where they’d have ready access to the heavy iron.

Especially if this is part of something that IT’s processing.

Lou was back in one of the big server rooms, busy at a terminal of some sort. He looked up as soon as Sprue walked in.

Lou’s dark eyebrows drew down in a scowl. “Who sent you back here? This area is supposed to be authorized personnel only.”

Sprue jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the corridor. “The girl out front said you were back here. She didn’t say anything about having to wait while she got you.” He pointedly didn’t add that he’d spent several minutes flattering her before asking Lou’s whereabouts, buttering her up so she’d be more likely to let him through.

“Dang, Julie’s brand new down here. You do realize you may have just gotten her in a whole lot of trouble, if Steffi comes around and finds you back here with me. These are supposed to be secure servers that handle sensitive information. They don’t even have direct Internet connections. If we have random people coming and going, we don’t have secure servers any more because someone could just help themselves to the data.”

“Crap. I didn’t realize it was that big a deal. I just wanted to ask you about some data Dr. Doorne was having me work on. The stuff she had been having me go through is pretty clearly demographic, and I think it has something to do with the pandemic. But this stuff is completely different. I mean, the fundamental structure of the data is different.” Sprue described some of the variables that he’d been working with.

“That sounds like astronomical data. The drives that came in from Mars on the Soryu must’ve finally cleared quarantine and been cleared–“

“Data from Mars? What would she be doing with that? I mean, she’s a radio astronomer, not a planetary geologist.”

“Hasn’t she told you anything about her work? She’s one of the principal researchers in a big study that’s using FSRA and the new radio array on Mars as a truly gigantic baseline radio telescope. It’s a really complicated thing that has to adjust for general and special relativity to pull all the data together, so her background in signals analysis is absolutely critical. They’re hoping to be able to detect objects further away than ever before, and thanks to the speed of light, that means further into the past. If they’re right, they may be able to sort the last echoes of the first few mintues after the Big Bang from the cosmic background radiation from the Big Bang itself, and determine if the universe is actually part of a multiverse of universes that interact at the quantum level.”

“Wow. That sounds pretty cool.”

“Which is why you’d better get out of here, now, if you don’t want to get kicked off all her projects with a big fat black mark on your permanent record. Come over to our module lounge after supper tonight and I’ll tell you more.”

Although Sprue didn’t like being dismissed, especially not by a clone of a member of the third astronaut selection group, he could tell that persisting would only risk attracting attention. So he took his leave as gracefully as he could manage, hoping it wasn’t too obvious just how intense a curiosity was burning inside his mind right now.

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Preparations

Lou Corlin didn’t mind the occasional “crunch time” project. He understood the necessity of going beyond normal working hours to get something done by a deadline because unexpected complications had resulted in delays. Equally, he understood that things could come up suddenly and necessitate long hours to get them done on time.

However, he was seriously wondering why NASA had ever allowed so much vital electronic equipment to be put in the topmost levels of the settlement. And it wasn’t just the admittedly hasty expansions that had been constructed right after the Expulsions, when they had to make room for so many unexpected residents. What they were moving right now had been installed in the original construction effort, over a decade ago. Surely someone at one or another of the various research centers had at least heard of the Carrington Event.

Unless they thought it was something so rare that it could be considered effectively unique.

It would certainly go a long way to explain why so much important equipment, especially in Agriculture, was at ceiling level rather than in sub-floor plena. Half the water pumps for the hydroponics would have to be shut down for anything but the mildest solar storms, and in a major one there was a real risk that the power cables would produce enough system-generated EMP to arc over the switches and burn out the windings.

And all this could’ve been prevented if someone had just considered that lower means more shielding.

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Interruptions

Lou had thought he’d be able to get right back to Autumn with the translation of the Japanese text she wanted to know about. After all, it hadn’t taken that long for Tristan to go through it and point out where they’d been misreading key kanji, usually using a native-Japanese reading when they needed to be looking at one of the various readings that used the sound of the Chinese word to represent something in Japanese, often something abstract or peculiar to Japanese culture.

However, getting back to the station had proven more difficult than Lou had anticipated. He’d never expected to have so many people wanting to ask him questions about this, that and the other thing — and he had his own obligations that had to be tended to.

Maybe it had been a mistake not to just e-mail her the annotated document, rather than try to get back to the station and deliver it in person. The idea had been to be available to answer questions in realtime, and it was looking more and more like that simply Wasn’t Happening.

As it turned out, he wasn’t able to get free of his various obligations until almost suppertime. When was it that Autumn had her shift as a proctor at the Testing Center?

Maybe he’d better check if she was available. At least he’d be able to send her a text, since the proctors weren’t required to surrender their phones on check-in like examinees were.

He’d no sooner sent it than Autumn responded. Don’t worry about it. Tomorrow will be soon enough.

Thanks. I have some studying I need to do.

Good luck.

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Awkward

Usually Lou Corlin was reasonably confident about his Japanese reading comprehension. Not enough to provide a formal translation, but at least enough to get the gist of a text and confirm Autumn Belfontaine’s understanding of it before she put anything on the air.

However, today he wanted to run some rather sensitive text past someone who had a lot more experience with Japanese than he did. While Lou had studied conversational Japanese an academic subject, his clone-brother Tristan had spent significant amounts of time in Japan and Edo Settlement, and was fluent not only in the every-day language, but in technical vocabulary and usage. Not to mention some of the finer points of cultural nuance, which could be at play here.

Making connections with Tristan had proven easier said than done. Which was especially awkward when Autumn was waiting for him to get back to her. But he’d just missed Tristan at lunch, which meant tracking him down in Miskatonic Sector, where he was preparing for a class.

At least study lounges provided plenty of good places to consult. On the other hand, this particular one had a lot of younger kids coming and going, and about half the time they were singing rather garbled versions of the lyrics of whatever was playing on the stereo.

As half a dozen kids came traipsing through on their way to class, belting out a song he knew a little too well, Lou glowered at the stereo. “Sprue, why did you have to play that song right now?”

Tristan looked up from the tablet. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t think a lot of people realize just how hentai that song is. Starting with the fact it’s about bukkake, not jewelry.”

As understanding dawned, Tristan grinned. “Especially you realize that bukkake became such a big trope in erotic anime because they had to work around Japanese decency laws. Sliding crap past the moral watchdogs’ radar has a long history on both sides of the Pacific.”

“Yeah. And there’s a bunch of that band’s stuff that probably went right past old Tipper because she didn’t know the slang meanings of certain words. Heck, she probably didn’t even know those words had dirty meanings.”

Both of them started laughing, then looked at each other. “Good grief. Here we are, in the middle of a solar storm watch that may turn into a warning at any time, talking about double meanings in music. And everybody thinks our geneset is such a bunch of straight-arrows.”

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Evening Thoughts

Lou Corlin was just finishing reviewing some notes on his current training sequence when he noticed the module airlock cycling and someone entering the lounge. He looked up just as a Shep walked in.

What are you up to now, Sprue?

Spruance Del Curtin just flashed him that big Shepard grin that could be annoying or amusing. “I thought I’d find you up here. Brenda having you watch her kids again?”

“Actually, they’re visiting Grandma tonight.”

Sprue leaned forward a little, interested. “So she’s over at her mom’s?”

“No.” Lou stopped, realizing it might not be the wisest thing to just tell Sprue just where Brenda had gone. “Did something come up at the station that you need to talk about?”

“Actually, no. Drew just texted me. He’s worried because she hasn’t answered his texts.”

“Got it. I see why he’d want you to check around.” Lou considered how much to tell him. “From what she said, her dad wanted to talk to her privately. Apparently something about the space weather situation.”

“Right. And it probably wouldn’t be too wise to nose in on her. So I’ll just let Drew know that his wife is in a private conference and probably has her phone switched to vibrate. Thanks.”

“No problem.” Lou watched with some relief as Sprue sauntered back to the module airlock. At least he wasn’t up to anything that would’ve gotten both of them in serious trouble.

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At Table

Although in theory only the pilots’ tables and the Medstaff tables were reserved for the exclusive use of particular groups, people still tended to sit with those they had something in common with, whether friends, family, or colleagues. Brenda usually sat with her children, but today they were eating with their training groups, so she was sitting with some of the other DJ’s. Not that there was a formal “radio table,” but she’d noticed several other people passing them by, even when there were empty seats.

Because who wants to sit here and listen to us talk shop and not understand half of what we’re saying.

Brenda could understand the feeling, since she wasn’t all that strong on the technical side of streaming Internet radio herself. Lou Corlin was talking about some issues IT was having with the streaming server. Nothing critical, nothing that would disrupt transmission, but still something that was obviously of concern. However, a lot of it was going over her head, for the simple reason that she wasn’t an IT specialist.

And it looked like she had some company. Sprue was trying not to look overwhelmingly bored, but he wasn’t doing nearly as good a job of it as he thought.

Recalling something Drew had mentioned, Brenda caught his gaze. “So how are things going with the new project of yours? Did you finally get to talk to Chandler?”

Sprue’s expression became awkward. “I’m not really supposed to be discussing it in a public place like this.” He extended a hand to encompass the dining commons, the crowd of people sitting at the tables or moving between them. “But Chandler did have a few ideas for things we might want to look at. You know, ways of analyzing data to tease out a little more meaning.”

He said “we.” Is he finally figuring out what it means to actually work as part of a team, or is he just saying that because Dad or Dr. Doorne put the fear of God in him for a change?

However, there was no time to ponder it, let alone ask any probing questions. Right then Captain Waite came in and took his place at the head table. Except he didn’t sit down to eat. Instead, he addressed the crowd: “If I may have your attention, I have some important announcements to make.”

Brenda’s gut clenched with anxiety. What was going on now?

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Under a Shadow

Although Lou Corlin understood why Brenda Redmond had insisted on being the only one to take her friend’s situation to Medlab, he really wished she’d let him join her. It wasn’t like he was a little kid who needed to be protected from potential fallout. He was a legal adult, and he was accustomed to shouldering adult responsibilities.

Still, once Brenda had made that decision, he pretty much had to respect it. She hadn’t completely shut him out of the loop — she’d let him know that higher-ups on Medstaff were looking at the situation, which indicated that she hadn’t gotten into immediate trouble. But she’d made it clear to him that she wanted him to stay out of it from here on out, if only to protect him from any possible fallout.

So here he was at the station offices, having finished his air shift, listening to the Timeline Brothers cracking jokes and generally cutting up. The Alternative Lunch was both alternative music and alternate history, and today’s book was about a world in which space exploration stopped after the early lunar landings instead of consolidating those gains for a push to Mars. Needless to say, the Timeline Brothers pretty clearly considered the whole idea ridiculous. Why would either the US or the old USSR put all that much money and effort into building a space infrastructure to go to the Moon, and then abandon it all?

Except he recalled something Cather Hargreaves had said when talking about their ur-brother’s narrow escape and its historical significance, which only made sense if one presupposed that such a world did indeed exist. Lou knew that Cather and his family listened to Shepardsport Pirate Radio pretty often, even if it wasn’t exactly a station in good odor with command over at Grissom City. What would Cather think to hear those remarks?

As Lou came out to the front office, he noticed Cindy Margrave gathering up her belongings. She was usually out by the time he’d finished the handoff and logged his final set of songs, but today she must’ve had to deal with something at the last minute and was running late.

“How are things going?”

“As well as they can, given the situation.” Cindy was trying to sound positive, probably from the habits of working here, even if she was now off duty.

“Want to walk to the dining commons together and talk?”

Cindy hesitated, then agreed that, given they both worked here, it would probably pass muster as professional rather than personal.

After a little shop talk, Lou finally broached the subject more directly. “How’s things going with Amy?”

Cindy glanced away, a momentary visual flinch. “We’re in contact, but they still won’t let her have her phone back. Everything’s coming through someone at that makeshift orphanage of theirs, like they don’t trust her to communicate directly.”

“And they’re probably acting like you should be grateful they allow her to communicate at all with someone who’s under a Writ of Expulsion.” Lou might not work in the newsroom, but he was all too aware of the political situation.

“Ain’t that the truth.” Cindy was definitely shedding her professional receptionist persona and letting her teenage self back out. “I don’t think the people running that place appreciate the idea that one of their charges has connections. They don’t dare completely cut her off from the outside universe, but they sure want to make sure only things that make them look good get out.”

“Color me shocked.” Although Lou wasn’t usually much for sarcasm, right now it seemed appropriate.

Then he switched back to a more serious tone. “So how are her folks doing?”

“Not well. Apparently her dad didn’t make it, and even if her mom pulls through, she’s going to need a lot of regeneration. And that’s assuming she can even get it, and they don’t just go here’s your wheelchair, here’s your prosthetics.”

“Which means that in either case, she’s not going to be in any shape to take custody of her children for a long time, and with things in such complete chaos, there’s no way to get in contact with extended family unless they’re right there in Houston.”

“Which they aren’t, as I understand. She’s got grandparents somewhere in Kansas or Nebraska, but that’s assuming they haven’t succumbed to that virus. Even if travel weren’t pretty much shut down right now, there’s no way they’d be sending children off to stay with elderly and vulnerable family members. So it looks like she’s going to be stuck indefinitely, with the staff being as crazy controlling as Brenda’s afraid her friend’s parents are.”

“Not a good situation. But at least it sounds like she’s alive and healthy, and this thing isn’t sweeping through that place like a prairie fire through dry grass.”

Cindy admitted that it did appear that way, as long as the staff wasn’t fabricating responses in an effort to conceal a far worse situation. In any case, they were approaching the entrance to the dining commons. It was probably best for them to enter separately, since they’d probably sit with their own friends and family.

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We Must Do Lunch Sometime

Brenda Redmond found it strange to be coming up to the dining commons without the children in tow. Almost as if she were naked.

But both of them were having lunch with their training groups today. It wasn’t an every-day occurrence that lessons ran over and they had to have a meal sent to their classrooms, but it was rare that both her children would on the same day.

No use worrying about it. She’d gone to lunch alone a lot of times when she was single. Even if she did still live with her folks, both of them had jobs that tended to make it difficult to eat lunch as a family. Heck, half the time Dad had been so busy he couldn’t even get away from Engineering for supper.

Things had settled down as the settlement had expanded its life-support capacity to handle all the Expulsees with a comfortable margin of error. But by then she’d married Drew and tended to sit with the other pilots’ families, and once the kids came along, she’d gotten used to eating as a family, reminding the kids of their table manners when they’d rather play with their food and goof off instead of eating and freeing up the seats for the next person.

As she was walking through the dining commons in search of a free seat, she heard a familiar voice calling her name. She walked over to join Lou Corlin. “You must’ve made good time up here.”

“The Timeline Brothers showed up early, so we got most of the handoff done before it was actually time to sign off. That and I got lucky at all my airlocks.” Lou helped her into her seat, a gallantry that seemed like something out of a movie. “So how did it go?”

“Gym went fine. I think we’re finally getting a handle on the wear and tear on the equipment, especially now that the new gym has room for three times the amount of machines. Right after the the first wave of Expulsions, Dad was complaining that Fitness shouldn’t be so astonished they were having constant problems when their machines didn’t even get any down time for preventative maintenance.”

Lou lowered his voice. “Actually, I was wondering whether you learned anything at Medlab.”

“Yeah, right.” The words came out awkwardly and Brenda could feel her cheeks grow warm. “I talked with Dr. Gorman, and he did seem to take me seriously. But he said he’d have to pass it to someone with more authority, so right now I’m playing the waiting game.”

Lou commiserated. “Do you want me to let Toni know now, or would it be better to stand pat until we actually know something?”

Brenda considered that question. “Maybe tell her we’re hitting some delays, but don’t make a big deal of it. She’s pretty high in the IT hierarchy over at Grissom City, so she’s probably got a lot of stuff to keep her occupied as it is.”

Lou allowed that she was probably right, and shifted the conversation to something more neutral. The table was starting to fill up, and it was inappropriate to carry on a conversation about private matters in front of others.

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Good Night Moon

There was something really strange about reading the old childhood classic Good Night Moon to your children when you were living in a lunar settlement. But Brenda knew her kids got a kick out of the story of a dirtside kid determinedly dragging out the process of going to bed by saying good night to everything in the room. It was almost as fun as Marvin K Mooney, Will You Please Go Now, but less likely to get them wound up into fits of giggles.

Finally she had both children tucked into bed in their respective sleeping alcoves, favorite plushies in hand to comfort them. Now to rig her own bed for the night. She folded down the desk into a nightstand, then set her phone on it.

Better check to make sure she’d set the alarm. It wouldn’t do to oversleep and miss her air shift.

Having your phone chime while it was in your hand was always a little weird. Brenda nearly dropped it, although with the Moon’s lower gravity it wasn’t as likely to do damage as doing so on Earth.

Still, it was a bit surprising to get a text from Lou Corlin at this hour. He had the air shift right after her, so he didn’t usually stay up overly late.

Just heard from Toni Hargreaves. She’s thinking someone at Medlab might be able to get the geolocation metadata from Robbie’s phone if we can convince them that she’s in danger.

Brenda tried to figure out how that could work. Although she knew senior Medstaff could use their authority to access a lot of databases that were usually covered by privacy restrictions, they were typically medical information. Phone metadata seemed unlikely — unless one was trying to determine whether a particular person was within a disaster area.

Except the whole planet was a disaster area, from everything Brenda was hearing. Trying to argue on that basis that one person’s metadata should be accessed sounded a little shaky.

On the other hand, it was a thread of hope. I suppose it might work. What do you need to know?

Right now, whether you’ve heard anything else from her. We sure don’t want to go getting Medstaff involved when she’s actually safe at a friend’s place.

You’ve got a point. Let me double-check.

Brenda took a look through both her SMS and mail apps. No, that text seems to be the last one.

Then our next step is figuring out how to approach Medstaff so they don’t blow us off. You may want to take care of this one, since they’re a lot more likely to take you seriously.

Brenda could see Lou’s point. Although they weren’t that far apart chronologically, she was married and had two kids, while he was still single and living in bachelor quarters.

OK. But let’s think things through overnight. It’s been several days now, and a few more hours shouldn’t hurt. And we’re a lot more likely to get a negative response if we go in their looking rushed.

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A New Lead

It was really too early to turn in for the night when Lou Corlin got back to the residential module. So he sat down in the lounge and got out his laptop. Some people might’ve played games or got on social media, but he decided to take a look at some of the upcoming materials for his current class. Study ahead a little and he wouldn’t be left scrambling if things got busy elsewhere.

And they could, especially at the radio station. DJ’s might not get as much extra work as the news team, but it wouldn’t be inconceivable for Autumn to pull them into the newsroom if something really major happened.

Lou had just opened his coursework when his phone chimed incoming text. He halfway expected it to be Autumn, or maybe someone else from the station. Instead, he saw the name “Hargreaves” and immediately thought it was Cather — until he looked closer and realized it was Toni.

What was she doing texting him directly? So far, she’d let her husband pass the word back and forth.

Unless he was busy with the situation over in Grissom City. He was the deputy chief of Safety and Security over there, focusing on the health and life safety side of things, while his boss dealt with the policing side of things.

In any case, Toni was asking him Can you talk? Realtime?

Sure. Go ahead and call.

Moments later the phone rang. He tapped accept and put his ear bug in. “Hello.”

“Lou, I just got an idea. If we can’t figure out any other way to find out where Brenda’s friend is, contact Medstaff. If you can convince them her home isn’t a safe place to be, they have some options that wouldn’t be open otherwise. And your Medlab’s still small enough that they can be a lot less formal about stuff–“

“But Dr. Thuc’s Vietnamese-American. I know she’s Catholic, but their culture’s still steeped in that whole Confucian tradition of filial piety.”

“And she’s a doctor, and therefore a mandatory reporter. When Cather was an EMT and a paramedic, he was always a mandatory reporter, so I know some stuff about that. In fact, everyone in Medlab who deals with patients should be a mandatory reporter, so you could talk with someone else.”

“That’s good to know. But before I get the big guns involved, I think I’d better touch base with Brenda, make sure she hasn’t heard anything new in the meantime. I’d hate to cause a huge ruckuss and it turns out she’s safe at a friend’s place, but Brenda just didn’t think to pass the word to me.”

“Good point. Keep me posted.”

“Will do.”

A quick exchange of parting pleasantries, and they ended the conversation. Lou looked at his phone’s clock display. Should he text Brenda now, or wait until tomorrow?

SMS was asynchronous, and if she had her phone set on Do Not Disturb for the night, it shouldn’t even chime. So he could go ahead and send the text, and she could deal with it whenever. If things had reached the point of being an emergency, Brenda would’ve contacted him already.