The Dane Commission (The Dane Chronicles) (25 page)

Late that
afternoon, not long before he left to go home, he received his action items and
request lists back with just one word written and scanned by Dr. Cohen.

“Approved.”

Ryan jumped
up. He couldn’t believe it.

He wasn’t sure
how to take care of these arrangements, but he would figure it out tomorrow.
After packing up his things, he went home to tell Jean.

This was going
to be an awesome weekend.

It was
Saturday morning when the news story broke with a statement from IntelliHealth
regarding the ‘fertility crisis’. Every station was running stories about the
newly discovered problem. Ryan saw the statement from IntelliHealth. It was
watered down, but still potent enough to get your attention. It read:

‘Unfortunately
we must report that recent data confirms the human species is reproducing
successfully at the lowest rates ever recorded. As a species some unknown
factor is causing sterility. We have responded to this report by re-directing
our entire research effort to solving this question. We look forward to sharing
more information as it becomes available. Please remain calm and support your
local city and federal governments during this difficult time.’

As Ryan
flipped between broadcasts, he saw various spins on the IntelliHealth statement
reaching from the radical versions, which suggested the extinction of man, to
the light versions comparing the problem to some sort of virus. A lot of people
seemed to believe that a vaccination would probably be released soon to fix the
problem.

Frankly, he
hoped they were right.

Everyone knew
now, there was no holding back.

Stepping out
to the porch in his back yard, he looked out across the lawn and imagined what
it would be like if no one maintained it. How long would it be before it
disappeared altogether into trees, and undergrowth? Maybe Mother Nature was waiting,
poised to take back what was hers.

Jeff had told
him they were estimating
two
generations.

That little
fact had been left out of the news.

Well, what he
didn’t see were riots, or anything about runs on food, or supplies.

For that he
was grateful.

CHAPTER 11

“Logic will
get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”

 
- Albert Einstein

“Our real
discoveries come from chaos, from going to the place that looks wrong and
stupid and foolish.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

Monday arrived
to find a very sober, and brooding people making their way to work.

Ryan was no
different.

He got off the
elevator, and trudged to his office to find a woman standing in his open
doorway.

“Good morning,
Mr. Dane.”

She held her
hand out for him to shake, seemingly not taking no for an answer, she held it a
little higher. Ryan shook her hand as he tried to understand what was
happening.

He saw men
inside putting his things in boxes.

“Good morning,
Mr. Dane,” she repeated.

“Oh, good
morning,” he said awkwardly, watching over her shoulder as the men loaded up
his computer.

“Very good. My
name is Rosemary Davis, and I am Dr. Cohen’s senior administrator.”

She could tell
that she still didn’t have his attention.

“Mr. Dane, I
have been instructed to move yourself, James Safe and Dr. Vignesh Sarin to an
office suite upstairs. I’ve taken the liberty of packing your things. I trust
you are not attached to the furniture?”

After a
moment, he realized that she was waiting for a response from him.

“Oh, no that‘s
fine. I can use whatever is available.”

As if on cue,
she stepped aside to allow the men with his things out through the door.

“Very good
then, will you come with me now?”

“Yes, of
course,” he said as he turned to follow her to the elevator.

She waved her
ID chip to the side, and Ryan noticed the entire wall was alight with glowing
numbers. They exited on floor 235.

The floor was
a little on the dark side with lots of subdued lighting coming from the corners.
There were lots of plants about, and it was relatively quiet.

‘It’s very
calming here, I like this,’ he thought.

Ryan followed
Rosemary to the back where he quickly began to hear whooping and cheering.

Rosemary
paused, “That would be James, who apparently very much likes his new office.”
Moving on, she led Ryan past Jim’s door. As they passed he could see Jim
actually dancing on his desk.

At the next
door, she entered and held her hands out.

“Mr. Dane this
is the office I’ve chosen for you, will it be satisfactory?”

He looked
around the huge spacious office.

The windows
were like those in the cafeteria, reaching from floor to ceiling and spanning
the whole exterior wall. The furniture was beautiful, with a desk; the
obligatory chairs in front, a couch and a small conference table with chairs.
Around the sides were shelves, cabinets.

He smiled.

“Yes, this
will do quite nicely. Thank you, Ms. Davis.”

“Please, call
me Rosemary. I will be visiting your group a lot over the course of the week to
make sure you are getting set up properly. After that, I will rely on one of my
aids to assist you with any office duties you might need. However, you are to
call on me personally should you need help of a higher order. Do you understand
Mr. Dane?”

“Yes, Rosemary,
I understand, but please call me Ryan.”

“Very good
Ryan. I will leave you, and your excitable friend now.”
 
“I’m off to retrieve Dr. Sarin.”

Ryan looked
around the office. It was unbelievable.

Jim came
running in, “Ryan you did it! These offices are awesome, you rock!”
Jim ran over and hugged Ryan, just as Rosemary came back in.

“Ahem.”

Quickly, they
jumped apart.
“Yes, Rosemary, how can I help you?” said Ryan.

“Do you agree
that Dr. Sarin should go into the office, next door, opposite James?”

“Yes please,
that would be fine.”

“Very good,
sir,” and off she went.

They started
laughing

Later that
morning, after settling in, the three of them met to make a game plan and get
started. They all met in Ryan’s office at his new conference table.

Ryan said,
“Okay, they are taking us seriously now, and now we need to prove we deserve
it. Let's go over what we need to do today.”

“Jeff, please
make arrangements to collect information about the documented cases of
treatment error from all three facilities. Work with Jim to allocate storage
space for the data.”

 
“Jim, work with Jeff to collect that data.
You are on point for the logistics to get it here. After that, I know you have
the twins to look after. Also, please keep pushing to get your monitor script
up and running on the hospital network. I am very interested in what you
discover.”

Jeff said,
“What are the ‘twins’?”

Ryan answered,
“Jim is very excited to help the Zimmerman research group bring in two super
computers. Thor and Loki, if I remember correctly?”

“They are
new-tech machines; almost as powerful as SID,” said Jim.

“Meanwhile, I
am going to contact more facilities, starting with Tokyo. So be prepared if I
bring you more data, Jeff.”

“Does anyone
have any questions?”

They didn’t.

“Okay then,
the first meeting of the Dane Commission is officially adjourned.”

After their
meeting, Jim left to talk with David downstairs.

Going back to
his old cubicle, Jim noticed how lifeless it seemed now that he wasn’t working
there.

And then he
was spotted.

“Hey, Jim;
you’re back. How’s it going?” asked David, looking over the cubicle wall.

“It’s going
well, do you have a few minutes to talk?”

“Sure,” said
David.

Jim went
around the wall and sat down on David’s side.

“Two things Dave. First, I need storage space for some data, probably less than
ten petabytes, and it will have to be secure.”

“Sure, use the
admin server zeta-3. Don’t forget to register the space with the network guys.”

“Okay, great;
thanks, Dave,” he said.

“Second, I was
hoping you would approve my request to begin monitoring the hospital network.”

“Yes, you are
approved. But any information you get regarding this specific project, must be
shared with Information Services as well as the Dane Commission,” David said.

With a serious
tone and a somber glare, he added, “Seriously Jim, I don’t want to be left out
of the loop on this one.”

“No problem
David, you are in the loop. You have my word.”

“Thanks Jim,
and congratulations on your appointment.”

“Thanks Dave,
I’ll see you later.”

Jim went back
upstairs to talk with Jeff.

He found Jeff
trying to move his desk, and not having much luck.

Jim who was
quite a bit stronger stepped up and grabbed the back, “Where are we going with
it?”

“I just want
to turn it 90 degrees so that my back is to the wall, and not the window. I
can’t see anything with all that glare.”

Together they
managed to turn it around.

“Ah, much
better. Thanks Jim.”

“Sure, listen
Jeff, I will send you a message shortly with the location of the storage space
you need. I got us ten petabytes, all secure. Let me know if you need more.”
“Okay, thanks Jim.”
  

Jeff sat down
and thought about what he had to do.

To compare the
data from the treatment errors, he needed to standardize the data.

Of course
first he had to get it. He decided to start with the easiest first, and called
Dorothy Allen.

“Ms. Allen, My
name is Dr. Jeff Sarin. I’m working with Ryan Dane on the Dane commission. I
was hoping you would help us.”
Smiling on the televid she said, “I believe I’m familiar with the Dane
Commission. How can I help?”

Shortly
afterwards, he made similar calls to London and Sydney, resulting in data
transmissions from them as well. The procedures were flowing into his data
storage. Jeff was astounded at how easy it was. As the information was pouring
in, he began some tests, sorting the instances by date, and then by type.
Already he about 400 records, and Sydney was still coming. He decided to
outline categories of treatments. By looking at the types of treatments he
hoped to gain some perspective on the nature of their direction. Maybe start
identifying trends. Already he could tell this would be an interesting project.

In his office,
Ryan was scrolling through contacts for the Tokyo facility. He thought that
this time he would try a direct approach to their Director of Patient Services.
Locally, Dorothy Allen had known every detail of what was happening in the
hospital. He hoped their Director was equally aware of their own hospital. This
would be easier than starting with someone on the front lines.
After a few minutes of looking for the right button, he lowered his wall
screen, and used the televid to call her. A young woman with long black hair
answered, “Ohayoo gozaimasu.”
He was caught a little off guard, and was trying to remember how to say ‘hello’
in Japanese.