Microstory 2170: Twist in My Life

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Oh man, big news today. I got a new job, sort of. I wasn’t looking for a new one, but it fell into my lap, kind of literally. The warden came by to inform me that he and the governor had been in talks with my employer for a special new contract. He gave me the paperwork while I was sitting in my recliner. I’ve yet to tell you who I work for, or what I do, and I still won’t give you specifics about it, but this wouldn’t be the first time they’ve loaned employees out to other companies for this sort of thing. They’re a consulting firm, and while I didn’t actually work as a consultant myself prior to this, I’m getting a sudden promotion into it for an entirely new sector of the industry for us. This new department will be helping other organizations who need to manage large groups of people. We’ll help them figure out how to sort them in the best way to be productive and healthy. They call it Team Dynamics. I may not be explaining it right, because I’m not in charge of that. I’m not the head of the department as a whole, just the first team. They’ll give me a new boss once they figure out who that’s going to be, whether they promote someone else internally, or hire from the outside. Until then, I’ll be officially operating out of the jail, but I can work from home when my team doesn’t have to meet in person, especially now in the beginning, before I’ve gathered the team in the first place. Which is good, since I’m still in recovery. My future superior may have different ideas later, but that’s the plan for now. This is all moving so fast, it’s crazy. I mean, we were talking about the prospect of this sort of thing, but I didn’t think that it would actually happen.

This is a huge opportunity for me. I’ve been in leadership positions before, but never formally. When I was a teenager, my scout troop started letting us join a second fake American Indian tribe. I don’t want to get into all that, but we were primarily in the “competing” tribe, so for this second one, I was one of the older boys. I helped the younger ones figure things out, even though we were all new. I started managing a team of new recruits when I volunteered after a huge hurricane when I was only eighteen, just because someone caught wind that I was good at computers (even though it was just about being young enough to be familiar with them) so I already had the list of volunteers in a spreadsheet, and all the real supervisors were away from the shelter when the newbies showed up. When I worked for a tax prep company, they put me in charge of the seasonal temps, even though I was also a temp, because the permanent employees didn’t want to have to do it. So I’ve never been a real boss before, and I’m pretty nervous about it. It will be my job to figure out, not only what kind of people need to be on the team, but also to locate the specific professionals. I’ll have to interview them, and make a hiring decision if they end up being a good fit. I don’t mind admitting that I don’t super know what I’m doing right now, so my first order of business is finding an advisor. This is what I naturally know how to do. I recognize talent in others, even if it’s not in a field that I’m familiar with. I assigned those other scouts to various jobs by recognizing their strengths, and also noticing what they weren’t very comfortable with. I’m nervous, but I’m hopeful. My sentence has been officially commuted by the governor, at least in terms of the jail time. I’ll still be required to finish my community service, and report to my parole officer weekly. I don’t have an issue with either of those things, though. I’m excited and hopeful about this unexpected twist in my life.

Microstory 2096: Before I Came Out

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When I was pretty young, my dad told me that he once jumped off a cliff in Boy Scouts. I think he said it was a hundred feet or something, which may or may not have been an exaggeration. Because of the way my brain works, I interpreted this to mean that jumping off a cliff was some kind of a requirement, which immediately took me out of the running, because I’ve always been afraid of heights. That’s not a phobia, by the way, because it’s not irrational. You fall down, you could die. It doesn’t even have to be that high. You could fall from your own height, and still crack your head wide open. Some time later, I either learned that it wasn’t really a requirement, or I forgot all about it, because I did join Cub Scouts, and eventually moved up the ranks as appropriate. I graduated to Boy Scouts with a group of other boys, and we stuck together for a little while. Over the course of the next several years, almost invariably, when one of them would attain the highest rank of Eagle, they would stop coming to meetings and camping trips. I started noticing this throughout the whole troop. If they didn’t quit sometime before, they ended up seeing reaching Eagle the end of their journey. By the time I turned 18, I was one of only a few kids my age left. Everyone else was younger, placing me in a de facto leadership position in many cases. Despite the fact that I initially ranked up faster than most of my peers, I was the last to finally get Eagle. In fact, it was four weeks before I turned 18. I don’t think there was a rule that said that I was disqualified at that age, but I definitely wanted to finish by then either way.

Shortly thereafter, we went on a canoe trip, which we would do every year. It was set to be my last. I knew that I wasn’t going to be involved in the organization for much longer. Since all of my “friends” were gone by then, I shared a canoe with my dad. In the middle of the trip, we came across a cliff that looked like we could climb up to from the side. It was not a hundred feet up, but it wasn’t six feet neitha, I’ll tell ya that much. I was still afraid of heights—which, like I said, is rational—but older, stronger, and more confident in my abilities. So we got out, checked the depth of the water below the cliff, and then made the short trek to the top, where we jumped off together. I dunno, I think it’s rather poetic that the one thing that almost stopped me from experiencing those ten years of my life was one of the last things I did for my scouting career. I left the scouts, and I never looked back. I don’t regret the activities that I participated in, but I can’t look back on the whole experience fondly either. Those people suppressed my sexuality for many years beyond that. I just got so used to being someone that I wasn’t, and it took a lot for me to decide to live as my true self. I was in my 30s before I came out as omnisexual, and I will never forgive them for that. I could have been so much happier. How many others went through something similar? I’m still attracted to women, so at least I wasn’t lying about everything, but there are those who can’t express themselves at all, and that was never okay. I do not tolerate the excuse that it was a “different time”. A part of me wants/wanted them to change, but another part of me just wants to see them destroyed. I’m vengeful like that sometimes.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 14, 2398

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Leona stands on the edge of the field as the helicopter drops from the sky to land on the grass. Leaves, loose blade, and other debris assault her face, but she remains steadfast. Her colleagues are more easily flapped. “Aren’t you nervous?” one of them asks, trying to whisper above the noise.

“Why would I be?” Leona asks.

“It’s a United States senator, coming here to evaluate your work.”

Leona waits until Senator Honeycutt is within earshot, and the bird quiets down a little. “He’s just a man; not someone to be feared.”

Her colleague is even more scared now.

“Thank you for taking the time, Dr. Matic,” Senator Honeycutt says, ignoring her remark in the way a statesman should.

“Same to you,” Leona replies sincerely. She does recognize that he’s busy, and the tour will eat into his schedule significantly. She genuinely appreciates it. “Follow me.”

She leads him across the grounds, and into the building. This is not the underground lab where the rocketship was constructed, nor the little lab that the Honeycutts gave her and Ramses. It’s a decommissioned muscle car factory about an hour from the KC metro, which came ready with the space, ventilation, and powerload operationalization potential that they require for this venture.

Petra is in the lobby, and only didn’t greet the senator on the lawn so she could present all the team leaders in a neat, orderly row, like the children in The Sound of Music before bedtime. They seem to be standing in order of height, though that may be a coincidence. One can only hope. It’s nice that he’s here, but Leona wasn’t being facetious when she said that he was just a man. He nods appropriately as Petra lists off the team leaders’ names, and each time she does, that leader runs off in a show of work ethic that suggests they barely have enough time for even a moment such as this.

“Could I please see the staging area?” Melville asks.

Petra is perturbed. She had more grandstanding and fanfare to go through.

Leona saves it. “Of course, sir. Right this way.” He follows her onto the mezzanine that overlooks the factory floor below. They walk along it, to another section.

Most of the space has been devoted to part fabrication. The area where they will all be put together into the form of a working fusion reactor is small. Early reactors in the main sequence were gigantic because they had to be to get anywhere close to net positive output. Leona has decided to not worry about doing this. She considered starting them off slow, but she promised them a fusion-powered rocket, and she may not be around long enough to see it through if she doesn’t jump right to real progress. Hopefully the Prime Directive isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

All businesslike, with a brilliant poker face, Melville looks down at the space. He snaps a few photos, and nods. “How long does it take to build one reactor?”

“One year for the first one,” Leona replies. “With staff experience, we’ll cut that down to seven months for the next one...should you want another.”

“Oh, we’ll want more,” he says. “We’re currently scouting eighty-two more sites which...” He makes a quick calculation on his handheld, “...based on your estimates, means phase two manufacturing will take less than four years for all major U.S. cities.”