An Atypical Typical Meeting

Floe Island, Sevii Defense Forces Main Base

"So. Only the three of us?"

Mercifully, light streams into the room, providing some much needed vibrancy that the conference table dominating the space cannot. There had never been a time when sitting in here hadn't felt stifling, but at least it didn't shut out the sunlight like a coffin; those higher security rooms buried deeper in the building might as well have been prison cells.

"Um," Celio ventures, "Jaclyn still intends to be here. I think. I haven't heard from her, but she never said she wasn't coming."

"I don't doubt that she meant to come here." Seated at the head of the table, alert and attentive, Rochelle cuts a rather commanding figure when compared to the scrawny nerd to her left, his face half-buried in a laptop even now. "But she'll mean to go home, and spend an hour flagging down a Seagallop because she tried skipping a five minute walk." Her comment earns a half-shrug of resignation, half-nod of agreement from Celio. 

"If she has something to report, she can barge in on me anytime." Her nails tap against the table as she looks over her shoulder to check the clock ticking on behind her. "Meetings," she shakes her head. "There's too many. Who went and convinced the whole world you can't say anything until some pencil-pusher puts draws X on a calendar…?"

"My calendar has enough on it without this meeting running over its allotted time." Enter Gideon, butting into the conversation with a huff, arms crossed in a petulant fashion as he, too, looks towards the clock.

"Fine, fine." Taking up a folder in her hands, Rochelle kicks off the proceedings properly, casting a final half-hearted glance around the room to make sure the doors and window are shut. "You know what we're here for by now. I'm not bothering with this whole agenda business."

"Following a suggestion by Officer Davies," she begins immediately, "we dropped buoys in the waters around each of the chambers. Tracked them three days. Couple almost made it four. In under 96 hours, the seas swept away every one of them. No sealed transmitter or black box could still be drifting around the chambers three weeks on."

She tilts her paper down, peering over its edge at the two men before her. Clicking and clacking fill in the silence like water rushing into a vacuum, Celio furiously typing away while Gideon merely looks over a folder's worth of notes of his own.

"Great. Very productive discussion." She sighs. "We just couldn't operate without these interpersonal collaborative sessions." No amount of apologetic wincing from Celio can temper her exasperation, but onwards she continues anyways, letting the paper slide from her hands entirely. "Another full search of the chambers and surrounding islets turned up a whole wad of seagrass and not a bit more. We're running out of explanations. You boys brought any to share with us?"

"Consistent with the period ranging from the 3rd of April to the 10th of April, there have been no observations of atmospheric phenomena this week." Gideon jumps in without hesitation, drowning out Celio's timid squeaking. "The results of ongoing environmental monitoring within the chambers themselves have proven more… intriguing. Anomalous temperature swings, repeated shifts in local gravity measurements, clocks desynchronizing, unexplained variation in humidity measurements… Fufufufu…"

"Will you be reporting your conclusions soon, Mr. Science, or are you considering a new career in acting?"

"An extraordinary hypothesis requires extraordinary observations! I will not present my results without the gravitas they're due!"

"Why don't you worry about when they're due - now - over what they're due?"

"I have reason to suggest," he begins again, choosing to yield to Rochelle's demand as he slides sheets of data across the table to her, "that the Tanoby Chambers house localized dimensional anomalies!"

Jumping from his chair and slamming his hands on the table earns Gideon not a standing ovation, but blank stares and silence. Rochelle merely coughs as she waits for him to continue before she cuts out the middleman and begins perusing his tables and reports.

"That's… great, isn't it?" Celio's quizzical tilt of his head belies his feigned excitement. Questions arise more from sympathy than from an understanding of the significance of the findings. "That could explain the signal. It's leaking through… from… another dimension?" Huh. Suddenly, this news felt more concerning than encouraging…

"If we're picking up on an extra-dimensional S.O.S., there's going to be trouble." Concurring with Celio's unvoiced fears, Rochelle rises up out of her own chair, leaving Gideon to grumble and sit back down as she begins pacing. "It's going to be hell asking procurement to find equipment rated for 6D space."

A pity chuckle from Celio. Really? That's it? Kids these days… Ultima would have cracked up at that one.

"Is the signal coming from another dimension?" She drops the levity quickly, chilling and hardening her tone.

"I've made no such claim. I can only posit that it's possible the signal is coming from another dimension. It remains possible that the signal is coming from our dimension and we haven't elucidated its cause or the mechanism of its movement."

"How do we get from 'possible' to 'yes or no'?"

"Additional equipment. I'll-"

"We'll."

"Fine, yes. We'll need equipment able to take direct measurements of interactions between dimensions and non-relativistic space-time distortions."

"As… multi-talented… as you are, Gideon, we'll need… outside experts. We can't justify that expense without a specialist who can train our boys on the tech." The words flow as smoothly from Rochelle's mouth as does butter plucked from a freezer - barely, and only with coaxing.

"Oh, experts on multiple dimensions?" Celio's head shoots up and his fingers fly, the tech specialist punching in a few keystrokes and turning his laptop towards Rochelle with a handful of articles displayed. "We could try contacting the Planeswardens. I've been reading about them and the work they do is amaziii-" He trails off, dialing back his excitement as he catches himself launching into rambling exaltations. "...They usually focus on large interdimensional threats, but maybe they could spare some equipment and a specialist, since it's possible someone, somewhere, is in distress."

Spending half a minute leaning forward to squint at a screen and read headlines proves quite uninformative! "It's better than going off of nothing," Rochelle concedes aloud after letting Celio spin his computer back around, giving up on gleaning anything right this second. "Send me any contact informat-"

THUD

Someone throws one of the doors open. All three meeting attendees snap to attention, whirling around to catch sight of the sudden interloper.

"Li-Listen… Lo… Long story, but…" In stumbles a woman, drenched in sweat and gasping for a breath. "...the chambers… the island… They're…" She doubles over, resting her hands on her knees after flashing up a finger to request a moment. Whatever had left her overheating, her coat does her no favors as she tries to cool down.

"Gods' sake, Jaclyn! You take a scenic hike down Mt. Ember!?" As Jaclyn tries to cool off, Rochelle rushes to her side, making sure she doesn't collapse before shooting a look at the two men in the room. "You boys! Get her in a chair! One of you, get fanning! I've got water!" Rochelle's orders prompt a response, Celio scrambling to Jaclyn's side as Gideon searches for anything suitable for use as a fan other than his folder.

xxx

A few minutes later, Jaclyn re-enters the meeting room, this time trailed by a Slowbro dutifully spritzing her with an Icy Wind mist as she fans herself, an empty water bottle in her hands. Inside, a discussion of history unfolds, Rochelle and Celio huddled around the latter's laptop while Gideon stands off to the side, tapping his foot.

"And this one is?"

"This is from the library's archives. I'm… They asked if someone could help set up a system for digitizing and tagging their records, so, there's not a publicly searchable digital database yet, but…" The computer specialist points at his screen. "See? It's a third, or, first, maybe, really, report of an aurora over Quest, and the description makes it sound pretty similar to the one we saw."

"What we observed was an 'atmospheric phenomenon', Gideon corrects. "Its appearance was consistent with an aurora, but unless we find evidence that magnetic activity caused it, it's irresponsible to use that term. You're creating a false impression that you know the cause."

"So we have three reports of aurorae over time." Rochelle glances up at the returning Jaclyn, signaling for the woman to join the meeting - which had, indeed, run far over its allotted time - properly. "March 20th to March 24th, this year…"

"May 31st of 2016," Gideon adds in, having finished his grumbling.

"And, according to this, about twenty years and one month before that," Celio finishes off, leaving Rochelle to pace about, bowing her head as she considers the significance of the reports.

"Every possible lead has to get more and more cryptic, huh? How about you," she says, nodding to Jaclyn, now comfortably seated alongside her Slowbro. "Come to tell us that Shellder have grown two percent thicker in the past week?"

"Actually," Jaclyn begins, "I- No, Actually Actually, sorry for causing a scene earlier. I couldn't take the short way here. My mind was racing. It was hard enough getting back to the chambers. I ran all the way through the canyon, then-"

"You went to the chambers today?" Rochelle succeeds in cutting Gideon off before he can interject, casting the researcher a sharp look to keep him quiet.

"I thought I'd go this morning. To see if I felt anything," she explains. "I thought I'd have enough time before the meeting if I warped from the chambers directly to the docks, but…"

"Aw, you really didn't have to rush that much for us. Everyone understands it's not something you can help. I couldn't keep my mind clear enough to do what you do."

Jaclyn shakes her head, rebuffing Celio's words. "No, it wasn't that this time. I ended up on Birth Island." The comment earns a raised brow from Rochelle as Jaclyn composes her thoughts, but nothing more. "I know it's just barely close enough, but I haven't even thought about Birth Island once this month. I know I wasn't thinking about it when I teleported. I couldn't fathom how I ended up there. But I had to get here to tell you. It didn't feel random."

"You think it's connected to…?" Rochelle gestures futilely at the entirety of the room.

"I don't know," she admits. "It's just a hunch, but my hunches are usually right, aren't they?"

"You didn't see anything out of place?"

"It was as flat and barren as ever."

The military woman sighs. "At this point, I'm not writing anything off until we poke at it. Three weeks of this," she mutters as she shakes her head, as if in disbelief. "Is that all we have this week, then?"

Not a peep from Jaclyn, Celio, Gideon, or even Slowbro. The quartet simply shake their heads, one by one, as she looks to each of them for any final comments. A typical meeting. It had gone on too long, drained everyone involved, and produced no results.

Still, there were a few leads, if tenuous ones. "Celio, stay in touch about those Planeswardens. I'll take our third aurora report to our weather girls. Jaclyn, Gideon, when your duties allow, I want to send you both to Birth Island with a search team - a search team of one, but it sounds better than saying I'm sending you with a scout. We'll pretend it's for fun. It's no less productive than searching the chambers a fourth time!"

With one final exasperated declaration, she shuffles out of the room, leaving the others to gather their things and to follow her out. Even with all of the new nuggets of information today had provided, one message plays on repeat in her head, that original broadcast, going out over the air for most of the first week of this whole affair.

"SOS WHERE ARE YOU SOS WHERE ARE YOU SOS WHERE ARE YOU"