The office lights flickered on, and the door softly clicked shut. Gabe finally made it to his office after getting delayed with an extremely embarrassing conversation with Speaker Diane.
Gabe slumped to the ground leaning against the door. He needed some time to recover and reset his head.
It took a few minutes of a breathing exercise he found on the Holo to reset himself and begin organizing his thoughts on what he needs to get done before the vehicles for the operation leave.
He had a lot of logistics requests and other planning to do before military personnel hopped on transports to the event locations.
If it wasn't packed to leave with them, they'd have to wait until a supply run could be made, and who knew when that could happen.
He started to organize his thoughts but quickly realized that he was going to need some help. He couldn't remember every plan and contingency he thought up. He needed an assistant to help write everything down and organize it.
He let out a big sigh before pushing himself up. He finally took a look around his new office. The council meeting yesterday kept him occupied, so he didn't have time to check it out then.
The office was very cramped. His predecessor kept a lot of old plans in paper filing cabinets around the room. Just from that he could tell that the old man before him was definitely one of those people that refused to adapt with the times.
The room itself was actually quite big; it was easily the size of a 3 car garage. Most of the space was taken up by a Holo table with chairs and tables around it. This allowed strategy planning like what old war movies depicted, just without small figurines and paper maps.
His desk took up another corner of the room with 3 Holo projectors on it. Holo projectors basically functioned like computer monitors.
There was a smaller desk next to his. He assumed that was where his assistant would work. There was a small partition to keep the two spaces separate.
The rest of the room was filled with filing cabinets and other random bits and bobs. He noticed some outdated weaponry sitting on a table that looked like a display case along one wall.
He thought the display case was cool and was definitely going to keep it and probably add to it later.
The last thing he noticed were a few Holo Projectors on the ceiling that looked like old security cameras. These would allow him to have holo displays appear anywhere in the room.
Compared to what he used in school, this much workspace felt like a luxury and would definitely help him do his work.
He finally sat down at his desk and sighed in comfort. This was by far the most comfortable and ergonomic chair he had ever sat in.
He looked over his desk and noticed several piles of paper. He definitely did not mean to push them on the ground and have his future assistant clean it up when they cleaned the whole office out later.
"Damn that was fun," he whispered aloud with an amused tone of voice.
"Ok, a new assistant. Let's get started," he said while cracking his knuckles. He raised his arms over the desk, and a blue light responded to his hands. Text appeared on a deep blue background.
"AUTHORIZING."
"AUTHORIZING.."
"AUTHORIZING…"
"IDENTITY CONFIRMED. BEGINNING FIRST TIME SETUP… IMPORTING USER PREFERENCES… WELCOME, COMMANDER IN CHIEF, GABRIEL ROMAS."
"Oookaay, I need to find Algo, no idea where that is… let's see," he said to himself while familiarizing himself with the new Holo system.
"Ah, here it is. Let's see, I just need to open a new slot for an assistant, and Algo will do the rest. That's simple. I was expecting to have to input a bunch of parameters of what type of person I'm looking for. I guess I don't need to since Algo knows everything about me and who would work best."
Gabe made his selection, and he immediately received a response from the core server system.
"Job selection algorithm search initiated…"
"Potential candidates: 278,566,781"
"Personality parameters generating… Done"
"Skill compatibility test generating… Done"
"Performance matrix generating… Done"
"Performing candidate culling… Done"
"Remaining potential candidates: 18,723,901"
"Remaining candidate numbers: Excessive"
"Performing deeper candidate culling… Done"
"Remaining potential candidates: 619,745"
"Remaining candidate number: Satisfactory"
"Performing Deep Sync Scan…"
"Projected time remaining: 3:46:57"
"Ok, I've got about 4 hours until my assistant is chosen. No idea how long it'll take before they start working for me, though. Guess I need to switch gears to the operation. It's now 1412 hours. The scan should be done around 1800. I think when Algo finishes his business, I'll head down to dinner."
Now that Gabe had a plan, he settled in for work. He familiarized himself with the rest of the systems in the room and began planning as much as he could.
File after file of contingencies were scattered on the walls. A list of supplies was listed prominently over the Holo table. The Holo table itself was split into 4 different parts. Each was the location of an event they had decided to investigate.
The 4 events were located close to inhabited locations. They were at most 25 miles away from a sub-base. This provided a short resupply location or fallback point should anything happen.
The 4 locations included the modified wheat field Intelligence recorded and showcased during the meeting. The wheat field sits at the bottom of the slopes west of Denver which is about 8 miles out of the nearest sub base.
The next location is a barren area 12 miles outside of Melted Ice Port. The port sat on the southernmost point of the Andes Mountains in the Argentinian region. It was the key shipping port connecting the Western Nation to the Antarctic Archipelago where the majority of collected resources passed.
The third location is in an abandoned oil field in the middle of the old USA. While the field dried up years ago, it lies along a key logistics route connecting the Rockies and Appalachian regions. This is the farthest location from a sub base at 24 miles.
The final location sat along another key logistics route in Latin America. Due to the raised sea levels, there is very little dry ground which resources can be transported up from Melted Ice Port to the rest of the Western nation. If something were to happen here, the northern cities would be left with nothing to manufacture with.
This isn't much of an issue food wise because all cities in the Western Nation are actually food self sufficient. However, with the need to replace hundreds of acid rain proof uniforms and gas mask filters each day, if the resources to produce those stop, people will suffocate and literally melt away by the thousands.
After hours of planning, Gabe took a step back and admired his work. Almost every inch of the walls were covered in planning documents. He moved back over to his desk and saw that he still had about 15 minutes before his assistant was chosen.
"I think I'll have time to call her," he thought. Using his Holo, he reached out to Kelly Sherman, the head of logistics. She answered after a few rings.
"What do you need, punk? I'm busy moving all the stuff you need."
"I've got one more request, and then I think I'll be able to relax a bit."
"Don't keep me in suspense here. Hurry up with it."
"I want a full compliment of powder-based and laser-based weaponry sent to each location. Enough ammunition to support sustained fire for 5 minutes I think should be good. I also want peacekeeping equipment like electric batons and tasers. This is in addition to the standard E-Mag equipment the marines normally use."
"Sseeshh kid. That's a lot of extra stuff you're throwing on me. You expecting some kind of engagement here? And what's with the nonlethal equipment? You planning on taking prisoners?"
"I'm not sure, Kelly. I've had a bad feeling in my gut all day, and the only thing that makes it go away is sending that equipment. You think you can make it happen? I know it's on short notice."
"We might have to delay setting out if you want them there with the marines. Most sub bases don't store those types of weapons. The environmental cost is too high to use them normally. Peacekeeping stuff is really only stored in large cities, too."
"That's ok as long as they receive them prior to the projected continuous event. There's also a few questions I wanted to ask you," Gabe said. They chatted for a few minutes before Kelly cut him off.
"I think I can manage all that. Ok I've got work to do, bye kid," Kelly said and abruptly ended the call.
"That went better than I expected. I guess Kelly really only cares about getting her work done," Gabe thought.
Just as Gabe was about to relax in his chair, his Holo dinged with a notification. His Assistant had been chosen.