Killing Time

Sazzy and I chilled in the canteen for the remainder of the time until Tom and Ralph called us over. While eating, the both of us had discussed whether we should do anything, or go anywhere to kill time. But the stress areas would probably be too distracting for us to notice their calls. And the brainstorm room, which probably had more entertainment than intellectual discussion, was noisy the last time we visited. It didn't seem very appropriate to pick up a call there. So we just stayed in the canteen.

[You know, it's been less then a week and I already feel incredibly bored in this research company. I don't know how all these people can stand living and working here for years.]

Sazzy groaned as she lay, face flat, on the table. Bored out of her mind.

Watching a Jolt livestream on my personal terminal, I gave a short sound of agreement as Samuel did another one of his wacky ideas. This one was a cooking challenge between him and another livestreamer. The winner gets to post something on the loser's chirp.

Half listening to the stream, I occasionally conversed with Sazzy, and occasionally paid attention.

Finally, near the end when the stream was at its climax, a notification from Ralph came up stating that they were done.

I replied back with a sticker as I stood up.

"It seems that Tom and Ralph are done with the polishing. They said they'll meet us in front of the supercomputer area."

Since we had already cleared up the dishes earlier, the both of us just started walking towards our destination.

"Since this is the last step, we can finally finish our favor from Ken. Then after that, my brother will come home. Speaking of which, how will we receive him? He won't just appear out of thin air right?"

[Oh you don't have to worry about that. He will appear somewhere which won't be seen by people, and my friend will rendezvous with us at a hospital. This will help with our cover up for the trip!]

Sazzy's friend...huh.

Remembering the girl who seemed to have a talent in creating the worst first impression, I had mixed feelings having my brother in her hands.

Reaching the double doors leading to the supercomputer area, we met up with the two men who were holding several items. There was a small box with what looked to be the ingredients required for the neutralizer, as well as a container that held an orange liquid.

Seeing me approach, Tom used his one free hand to wave as hard as he could without shaking the things he was holding too much.

"While we were polishing up, we also made a prototype version of the neutralizer. What we should do right now is to insert the ingredients into the super computer and kind of repeat the steps we did this morning. If the percentage after analysis comes up to more than 99%, we can then test its effectiveness."

While Ralph was explaining, we walked over to the same room we used this morning.

"Since the neutralizer is only theoretical at this point, we will mix it with the poison and then analyze the neutralized product. The super computer will then give us the data we need to ensure that it's safe. This includes the minimum or maximum concentration needed, how toxic it is, as well as whether it is environmentally safe. "

We walked over to the control panel and Tom dumped all the ingredients into the chute as Ralph pressed the buttons.

I was prepared to go over to take some chairs for us to sit, when Ralph caught my arm and said we didn't need to.

Looking over at the display screen, the countdown was only a couple of seconds, and before I knew it, the super computer spat out its percentage.

99.24%

"That's not bad. It's slightly poor for an edible product, but since it doesn't seem like a consumable product we should be fine."

Tom muttered as he pressed more buttons which caused another part of the supercomputer to appear. This time it was not a chute but a cylinder. Tom opened the cap on the cylinder and poured in the preservative, then closed it. He then pressed a button, and a blue light seemed to illuminate the preservative before several data appeared on the display.

After looking over the data once, Tom nodded his head and poured an equal amount of neutralizer into the cylinder. He then closed the cap real tight this time and pushed a button that sent the cylinder back into the wall.

Everyone focused their attention at the display, seeing it buffer for a while before lots of data flashed on the screen faster then I could remember them. Not that I could make sense of them. Then the screen blanked out before it was replaced by a graph with many tiny labels. There were also many more words and numbers beside the graph, which Tom looked over before connecting his personal terminal to the super computer. Probably to download the data.

"Ok, our work for today should be done! I'll send over the recommended recipe and whatnot later, but for now we can call it a day!"

Stretching, Tom then pressed more buttons to shut down the supercomputer before we filed out of the room.

"That's it?"

"Yep! That's it! It might seem a little underwhelming at first, but that means that you helped us quite a lot. If we had to work without any ingredients to start off with, the first round of analyzing could possibly take up several hours. Then after that we would have to find and locate all the ingredients to do the polishing. That would also take a lot of time. Especially if the ingredient cannot be found in the necessity store. And there are also many more rules to follow that take time if we were doing consumable products. Time-sensitive products would be the worst of them all because we have to do several rounds of analyzing with the super computer, since the components would change all the time. Basically, we can just say that you're lucky!"

With a big smile, Tom half complimented me, half complained about his work, as we walked back empty handed.

"Also, do we not have to clean up? We entered so many things into the super computer, does the material just stay there?"

Tom gave a short laugh while Ralph explained to me patiently, with a smile on his face.

"The super computer has a self cleaning function. All the materials we used would be washed away and emptied outside the company, so we don't have to worry about any of these."

...

Glancing at Sazzy's black face, I diverted the topic as we all headed into the canteen.

"Since our work is over, we should go over to the brainstorm room. There's nothing left to do, and we might make it for the Hans and Jen argument show. If I'm not wrong, their current project involves some new ingredients discovered on a new planet a couple galaxies over. After that should be Vicky, Lam and Penny. Their project is pretty intra-company and involves Max from Chemistry, but also Kith from Manufacturing. There'll be some juicy gossip to listen to for that."

Ralph pulled up and checked what was probably the 'itinerary' for the brainstorm room's 'shows'.

[The fact that they have an itinerary is concerning.]

As we walked into the room, I could see there were quite a couple of researchers there. One of them saw us enter, well they saw Tom and Ralph enter, and shouted towards the two.

"Hey! You just made it in time for the lunch specials!"

Tom waved to that researcher and I passively followed behind the two. The new researcher, upon seeing me awkwardly trying to erase my presence, gestured towards me and Tom helped introduce us to each other.

"Henry, this is Alex. Alex, Henry. Alex is the partner in charge of Liz's personal project. Henry is a researcher who specializes in more exotic ingredients. Toxic ones are his specialty. You two might get along."

After we both bowed politely to each other, I was pressured to sit next to him while Tom and Ralph talked among themselves.

"...So, uh, uhh, good afternoon Chef. I have been, uh, watching your videos during the weekends. Unfortunately, I wasn't there for the livestream, but I watched the archives. After seeing the methods, I tried to order some of the ingredients before the officer from Mors set up the food bans and managed to make the dishes myself. Could I ask, how did you come up with the tofu?"

Starting out slightly weak and wavy, Henry's voice soon turned smoother and more confident as he shifted the topic to food.

Feeling slightly happy that I had met another viewer, I tried my best to explain my reasoning between which ingredients I used, as well as explain some tips I had learnt on my own as well as from Margret.

Soon, the conversation turned more natural as Henry enquired about the behind the scenes details of every world we went to. I even managed to pull out information that I had either forgotten to mention in the streams, or was not relevant enough to make the cut.

Henry, as Tom had said, specialized in toxic foods. But he was also incredibly curious about exotic foods from the many planets like Mors and Aquarius.

"But because these planets aren't required to have compulsory education, I never get a chance to create contacts from these planets. And this makes it hard for me to research their foods, recipes and all that. The company also doesn't give us more than 3 days of break time so it's really hard to stay long enough to learn much."

Henry complained in a much whinier voice than expected, and recounted his experience with Mors, which I thought would be pretty easy to make friends with. But he said that other than being really keen to sell you their merchandise, they won't entertain any small talk that would disrupt them from making money. Which meant that it was hard for him to make any contacts unless he went out. But going outside the AT center always had the risk of being poisoned by something you were not supposed to touch.

He sighed as he said that he went home disheartened that day,

Sharing stories with each other, time passed and the two 'shows' that were supposed to be held in the Brainstorm room started. Throughout them, Henry didn't mind if I asked him for context.

In the break between the shows, Ben and Wilber showed up and joined us. Henry seemed a little bit uncomfortable with the noise, and so he excused himself and left the room. The next show then started and Ben and Wilber were making loud comments from the side. During the middle, when the group were complaining about Kith from Manufacturing, Ben and several others had even joined in the complaints, giving personal anecdotes about times where Kith had made their jobs harder, or had argued with them. In sharp contrast, there were almost only praises and whistle calls when there was discussion about Mark from Chemistry.

Speaking of Chemistry, I didn't see Kyle anywhere here.

[Maybe he thinks that unless it's about Chemistry, he doesn't care.]

Sazzy shrugged her shoulders as she listened to the complaints, eyes filled with nostalgia.

When the second 'show' wrapped up, the researchers streamed out of the room. Many were groaning about going back to work.

Walking in the direction of my room, we called it a day. As I took off my suit, I heard Sazzy complaining that she felt we spent more time in the brainstorm room then working.

Well it was certainly quite different from how we usually did things.

"At least when tomorrow comes there will be things to do."

Assuring her, I turned off the lights and waddled to my bed. It was time to sleep.