Excerpt: Great Divide

“BOSS!” The voice rose steadily as it echoed across the room. Hannah closed her eyes and lowered her head. The shift barely started fifteen minutes ago and already Jeffrey seemed lost in his position. She questioned why the Consortium chose to hire the bumbling know nothing, but, as a supervisor, her role didn’t allow for control of the hiring of personnel. Wish With a soft push on the console access panel, Hannah grabbed her morning stimulant cup and stretched as she got to her feet. After Hannah took a sip of the now cold beverage, her feet pivoted and brought her to the other side of the lab where Jeffrey stood staring at the readout screen presented by the seismographic computer. His brown head bobbed in motion as he switched the display between data sectors, though they all appeared the same from what Hannah could assess. She focused on her coworker, more concerned with his report than his data.
“State your malfunction, Jeff, so I can get back to reviewing the previous shift’s logs.” Her arms crossed over her chest as she buried the temptation to dump her cup of stimulant over Jeffrey’s head. Jeffrey jammed a finger at the display screen, highlighting a section of data and expanding it. The line listed a flat series of the same number, which showed nothing new for this region of the world. They always felt some tiny tremor under their feet. It had gotten to the point that Hannah didn’t even notice the minor tremors any more.
“We have no reading from this seismography equipment.” Jeffrey spoke with a quick, clipped accent which took a moment for Hannah to translate this early in the morning. Sipping her morning stimulant, she looked closer at the screen as she uncrossed her arms. This forced her to notice that the scale on the screen showed at zero and the straight line ran from that zero. Not normal after all.

“Well, the machines must have lost their calibration.” Sighing, she turned on her heels again and walked across the laboratory to the opposite side where a bank of monitors displayed holographic feeds of each sensor planted on the site. For the last twenty five years, they had watched this area due to its constant state of flux, replacing technology with the latest and greatest to keep things interesting. Now, she gazed at the laboratory’s charges and noted all the green indicators that everything worked correctly. Reaching out, she placed her cup of stimulant on the nearby counter and touched the control for the first sensor. Flashing three times, the sensor grew to life size and allowed a thorough examination of every nook and cranny by Hannah’s critical eyes. All of the feeds ran to their appropriate connectors, no chips in the insulation, no gnawed wires, just a fully functional sensor. Grunting, Hannah returned the first sensor holograph and called up the second one. She repeated the steps for the fifteen sensors that their laboratory held responsibility, but saw nothing wrong. As she turned to grab her cup of stimulant, Hannah nearly ran into Hussan as he set his cup next to hers.
“Double checking my work?” Hussan joked as she felt him look at her and her frown. Hannah shook her head. She and Hussan worked together for many years, with Hussan being hired just one year after Hannah. One might call their work relationship a sibling rivalry, but they held together as good friends who supported each other through any hardship. At work, an agreement existed that they didn’t step on the other’s turf without fair warning or else it left the flank open for friendly ribbing. Hannah knew that she crossed that agreement at the moment because of the sensor issue, but she felt she had no choice to keep the consortium happy.
“No, Jeffrey’s sensor data suggested that the calibration might be off, so I wanted to check them on the sensor’s holographic.” Waving her hand over the three rows of five holographs, she sighed. “From these, however, everything appears fine.”

“They should.” Hussan seemed to preen a moment. “Routine maintenance on the sensors was completed last week. No new components to install, so the work went quickly. Our team verified that everything worked correctly so we didn’t have to keep checking.” Much as Hannah wanted to trust the teams that Hussan ran, she worried about someone new making a mistake.
“Did you double check their work? Verify the calibrations?” Hussan frowned.
“Breach my office without fair warning? Insult my teams and my integrity with a question like that? What is with you, Hannah?” Stabbing his hand out, Hussan grabbed a cup of morning stimulant from the counter and stomped out of the room. Taking a breath, Hannah reached out and grabbed the remaining cup. Her hand shot back to her side almost immediately as it nearly burned her hand. She turned and crossed her arms as she leaned against the counter. Hussan would be back, as he hated cold stimulant and the insulation of the cups prevented them from losing such heat in the short period of time they spent talking about the sensors. Lifting her eyes to the top of the door, she watched the digital time display tick past the seconds, knowing that she had maybe another minute. Stomping confirmed her suspicions as Hussan marched back into view at the minute mark, holding out Hannah’s cup with a look of deep seated disgust on his face.
“How can you drink this so cold?” Hannah laughed.
“Years of practice, my friend.” Taking the cup from Hussan, Hannah sipped the drink and sighed. “I didn’t mean to suggest that that you and your team had no integrity. It’s just that the trust leaned on the big bosses and they leaned on the next level down, which means I’m getting leaned on to produce viable results.”

Nodding, Hussan reached out and grabbed his insulated cup, cradling the hot heat within his large hands. “So now we have to question every step, every little nut, screw, bolt, or connection for their benefit? I should go back to government work.”
“You hated the politics there more than here.” Guiding her aging frame from the counter, Hannah tapped her finger against the side of her cup. “Let’s take a field trip. You and I and a set of portable sensors.”
Cocking his head to the side, Hussan’s features softened as he processed the request. “I’m guessing your certification is coming due and you need the field work hours?”
“Sounds like an adequate excuse to me.” Hannah walked to her desk, stared down at the shift logs and shook her head. They could wait until the fifteen sensors got checked and verified.