10 Space Race, Take Two. Part 8: Let’s Start For Real.

While Dorothy got back to her office, I spent the afternoon getting to know Katherine through her work. Looking over all the calculations she had made, her accuracy in those calculations, how many decimal she used in her results, what was her error margin, etc… I needed to show a small decrease in capability for about a week or two because of the "memory loss", but after that period will come to pass, I'll make small improvements, showing how this illness only forced me to work harder and better myself. At least, that's what the world would think happened. In truth, I would do the calculations while Cassie would help me dumb down the first few week's results, before slowly allowing me to show off a bit.

I also needed to show NASA the importance of those big machines they were so afraid of. Those computers taking rooms were only used for a few things for now, and while they will be considered more and more important, I need it to happen faster. As long as microprocessors weren't in circulation, those huge beast needed to do the trick. It wouldn't even take long for them to be replaced. Speaking of computers, I think in was in this year, 1962, that the game SpaceWar! made its apparition. I may have to remind James about it, so that he could make a small trip over there. Though, knowing him and his passion for this kind of stuff, I'm sure he already has an itinerary for the exhibition planned in his back pocket. Anyway, video games have always been a huge medium for cultural and technological change. The importance of the video game industry can't be undermined, its influence on the development of microprocessors, personal computers, and later on laptops and gaming consoles was one of the major factor pertaining to the increase in computing power and other engineering machines. Its development in culture is also very prominent, becoming an entertainment industry bigger than television, movies and in some cases certain sports. We need to make sure this stays the same, and be able to have some kind of influence on it. Video Games have always inspired young people to strive for some things, be it develop their own games, just finish the level, or just improve themselves.

This was a heavy program, and with just the two of us it should have appeared as impossible. However, both James and myself had been considered geniuses in the original timeline, solving problems scientists older and more experienced than ourselves didn't know existed. Another good point is that we had access to Cassie and Nessa. For now Nessa would be in the background, since her capabilities were restricted because of the absence of an extensive network infrastructure, but soon enough it should hold true to its capabilities. Cassie had already proven to be more than useful, first with its impressive database and its wonderful calculation and simulation power. While we could have come out on top without those assistants, it would have been so much more complicated and a very strenuous enterprise. Now however, it all came down to a question of careful planning and research. Although accidents are bound to happen, especially faced with something as fickle as time, at least we should be able to bounce back.

To recapitulate, we needed to advance the technology of this world to various points: the internet, reusable rockets, space stations, solar power, hyper energy food. And that's just the main goals. To achieve those, so many small, medium and large breakthrough are needed in a lot of different fields of research. All of this is also just for me to take care of for now. James needed to focus on politics, commerce, the creation of interest groups for us to act behind the scenes, and other factors. He also needed to find a number of reliable or pliable enough people to do our biddings and pass themselves as authors, artists, scientists etc that we could 'influence'. We both had a pretty hectic agenda in front of us. The girls at home were young, but not that young. Soon enough all of them should leave the house, gifting us with much-needed breathing room. Although they are this body's children, I personally don't have any particular attachment to them, I don't feel they are my daughters, and this is terribly sad, but there's nothing I can do against that. I just hope they'll attribute this shift in personality to the memory loss. Which is definitely at the root of the problem, since Both James and I seem to have replaced their parents...

After reading through Katherine's work, I finally had a place to start. I had fully appropriated her place in NASA — My, place in NASA. The first thing I did was reorganized the desk, throwing everything useless away, taking all her unfinished work in a binder, her finished work in another. After that, the desk was cleared of everything, and I started by taking her work for the coming week and completing it in a day. This should give me some time to work on my own stuff, such as the astronaut's sky map. This is really simple, as Cassie already has it, even more advanced than the original, but I want to do it on my own. It will give me both the proof of my work, but as a personal reason, I don't want to just 'cheat' my way out of everything. For other projects, sure, Cassie wil do most of the heavy lifting, but that won't be a problem for the short term. As such, I take the unfinished files, read through it one more time, and start working. The first thing I do is take it apart, and reorganize it, once again, useful/useless, finished/unfinished. As soon as I'm done with that, I take care of the unfinished calculations, slowly working through them. I mean, slowly for me, I could have been done by the end of the day if I was rushed, but I'm taking my time to comfort the idea that I'm not back at 100% yet. I should be done two days later at this point. Cassie will also remind me from time to time to add a few mistakes, or make it look like I came a few lines back before reworking it.

At the end of the day, I took the bus home with the girls and Dorothy.

"Hey, Katherine, thanks for the idea with the prefilled punch-cards, it should save me quite some time later on."

"Don't worry about it Dorothy, I mean, it was just a small thing, I'm sure you would have come up with it on your own at some point," I mean, obviously she would have, I just sped up the process. "By the way, call me Kath, please. I don't know why but I like it better." Now that I was here, at least I should try to own my place.

"Kath, huh? I like it, it's new. Well, thanks anyway, Kath. I really appreciate it."

"Of course, that's what friends are for, right?"

"For sure. So, have you found your place yet? Started working again I heard?"

"Yeah, I just cleaned up my desk a bit and read my previous work to give me an idea of what I was doing. What about you, how's it going with learning Fortran?" A few heads turned to our direction at that question. A few of the girls knew what Dorothy was up to and wanted to know how she was doing as well.

"I'm making progress, I should be done by the next week-end, and I'll be able to teach it in two weeks and a half. What do you think, girls? Want to learn it and kick some ass?" she asked the girls listening on the conversation.

"Yeah!" they shouted, pumping their fists in the air. The reaction wame a bit unexpected to me. I mean, I knew she was popular and that she had helped them out a few times, but this kind of enthusiasm couldn't be faked. Our plans for a Women's Nasa Night School should work out great with Dorothy at the helm.

As we came closer to home, I couldn't help but bask in the happy feelings in the bus, all these women eager to learn and be a part in something as great as the Space Race. I couldn't help but be proud to have taking this route, and was relieved to have been sent here, at this period of time. I could make great strides towards advancing both mankind and womankind, and was at the edge of a scientific and cultural revolution. I can't help but shake because of the expectations, of the things to come.