“Won’t they just go into safehold if we lose the connection?” Parkowski asked. In that mode, the ACHILLES units would go into a low-power state until the correct command sequence was given to reactivate.
“Yes, but it takes time to get them back to a normal mode,” the older engineer explained to her. “And there’s a risk that every time you put them into a protected state, they might not come out of it. Design flaw — blame the team down in Seal Beach who made them.
“Don’t get me wrong, I agree one-hundred-percent with my boss with regards to that, there’s a serious risk to the robots. I’m more worried about the fact that there’s an issue with MICS that I’m not sold on. There’s more than enough bandwidth on the relays, there’s no way we… ”
His voice trailed off as he looked away at the small crowd. Parkowski followed his gaze. Rosen had broken off his discussion and was coming towards them with a pair of technicians. “I’m sorry Ms. Parkowski,” Rosen said as the other two men climbed up onto the platform. “But we’re going to have to pull you out of the environment.”
“What’s going on?” she asked, already knowing the answer, as the techs started to unplug her from the system.
“Comm issue,” Rosen replied. “We’ve lost contact with the ACHILLES robots. The mission is on hold until further notice.”
“Got it,” Parkowski said. The senior engineer’s comment left no room for debate.
“I know, it’s not ideal,” Rosen continued, “but it wasn’t my call. NASA leadership at Goddard informed me just minutes before I came in here to tell all of you. They need to take our communications bandwidth,” which made Pham’s ears perk up, “and aren’t sure when we’ll get it back.”
“Will that be hours, or days, or weeks, or…” Pham asked.
Rosen shook his head. “I have no idea, sorry, Jake. As soon as I hear anything, I’ll let you know. I’m just as disappointed as you are.”
Parkowski changed and left the facility as soon as she could.
She wanted to investigate further, but the building was packed with people. She would never make it back into the secure room, even if she got the key, and Parkowski had struck out on every attempt at getting anything out of the internal Aering network.
Her curiosity ate at her, and there was no way to satisfy it.
Negative thoughts ate at her mind.
What if they never started the ILIAD program back up again? Her promotion was probably gone, she had somehow screwed everything up so badly that the entire project was at least temporarily shut down.
Would she need to get a new job? Would they move her to another program? Would Dr. Pham still be her boss? The questions got more and more complex as she drove through the midday LA traffic back to her apartment.
The sun was shining and the November rains hadn’t started yet. Unfortunately, Parkowski hadn’t spent much time outside the last few weeks. She’d have to change that once she got everything sorted out.
She decided to take a shower — she hadn’t done that this morning. While she was shampooing her hair, Parkowski could have sworn that she heard a banging on a wall somewhere in the apartment building, but she ignored it.
When she got out of the shower and started to towel off, Parkowski heard the knocking again. It was on her apartment door.
She groaned and went to check the peephole. It was DePresti, in his Space Force OCPs and carrying a handful of red roses.
Parkowski groaned again. He was the last person she wanted to see right now. She thought she had given him a key to her apartment at one point, her roommate’s boyfriend had one too, knowing DePresti he had probably misplaced it.
“Grace, let me in, I know you’re in there, I talked with your boss,” DePresti said loud enough for her to hear him on the other side of the door. “I called him on the way to Aering and did a U-turn and came here.”
She ignored him.
“I want to talk with you about Bronze Knot.”
Parkowski unlocked the door and opened it a fraction.
“Grace, goddammit it, you were right. I was wrong. Something weird is going on.”
She sighed and opened the door all of the way. “Come on in.”
DePresti stepped through the door and took off his hat. “Grace, I have to tell you I’m sorry,” he said as he handed her the flowers. “I should have listened to you.”
She narrowed her eyes as she took the bouquet.
“Do you know what Bronze Knot is?” Parkowski asked. Maybe she would finally have the answer to her all-consuming question.
DePresti shook his head.
“Then why did you tell me that I was right?”
He sighed. “Grace, go put the bouquet in water and sit down. I want to tell you everything from the beginning.”
She went and got a vase, cut off the bottoms of the stems, and put the flowers in, then sat down on the recliner. DePresti went into the kitchen and got one of her roommate’s beers and opened it before sitting down on the couch.
“A beer at 11 AM?”
“I need it.”
“And in uniform?”
“I really need it.”
“Ok, start at the beginning,” Parkowski ordered.
