Geoterra

John Ferguson had been the head of security on the alpha platform for 5 years. Alpha platform was the largest of seven floating rock formations that occupied sections of the Geoterran skies. John was of medium height and build, but he stood out as very fit compared to the local academic crowd, which was all that inhabited Alpha platform. As the security head, it was his job to perform any tasks that would involve judgments, ruling, or contracts for the platform. John had accepted the posting right out of the law academy, not really knowing much about platform life. As it turned out, the Alpha platform was home to the center for scientific advancement and was inhabited by perhaps the largest concentration of law-abiding bureaucrats on the planet. In the last 5 years there had been only one occasion where a dispute resulted in more than a heated discussion.

Life for John on the platform meant that he was always on call, but without any scheduled duties, he was entitled to all the benefits of the institute staff. He wasn’t crazy about science, but he did have a passing interest in communications and was a real sucker for a mystery. Perhaps that's why he found an odd looking posting for a research assistant so appealing.

The communications master at the center was Holly McClain. Holly was the youngest faculty head at the Center, having completed all of the required certifications by age 12 and logged 20 additional years instructing. Holly had dedicated herself to her career and had achieved all that she had originally envisioned. Faculty head had been her life goal and she had held that position for 5 years. At first glance, anyone would figure her for another academic. It was evident from Holly's outer appearance that she did not put much emphasis on looking feminine. If one were to look closely however, one would most certainly notice that she was very well proportioned and had the makings of a very attractive woman. Although Holly didn’t have a work out regiment, she managed to stay is remarkably good shape.

Holly's interest in ancient history had laid the groundwork for her latest research project. She was reviewing some of the earliest entries in the global persistence when she came across some interesting references. She originally chalked them up to the ravings of a mad man, but discovered similar entries in other sections of the persistence that talked about technologies and capabilities that implied the members of the first colony had more advanced technologies than existed in the current day. Sifting the vast amounts of data, even with the help of the center's record management systems was more than she had time to spare so she decided to see if she could find an assistant.

It was a particularly slow and boring day when John finally decided to go out on a limb and answer the posting he had found for a research assistant. John was more than pleased, however, when he found out he would be working with the master of the communications faculty. Work in any capacity with someone at that level would look good on his work record. John was a little put off at first by the one-track nature of the master's research, but he had plenty of time on his hands and there were a limited number of places to spend it.

After the first 5 days of research the work really started to drag. John decided that if he treated the research project like a mystery, the hours seemed to pass a bit faster. Although he had never had the opportunity to actually work on a criminal case, with a little imagination he could find parallels that would make the dry research more interesting. 

His new approach to research made the time pass quickly and John had impressed himself with the quantity of information that he had collected from all over the persistence.

John's position as head of security had allowed him access to some sections of the persistence that even the communications master could not access and he hoped that it had scored him some points on a personal level. He followed the master’s instructions to the letter and there was no shortage of information. The thing that puzzled him was that the data he had collected seem to have no common thread. If this were a mystery that he was trying to solve, he felt that he would be far from any amazing discoveries. He didn't even know what he was looking for. Each time he asked the master about the project, she told him that it would be obvious if the research proved the theory. John knew that if he understood what he was looking for that he would be a more effective researcher, but he didn’t know this master well enough to make such a suggestion. As time progressed, John began to think of the master as Holly, even though he had restrained himself from using her given name. He didn’t want her to think that he did not respect her position as department head.

One particularly long evening John was working through one of the research assignments that Holly seemed to think was very important when he noticed an anomaly in the fabric of the persistence. The anomaly would not have been detectable from a normal access terminal, but at the time John was accessing the persistence in full sensory mode. Full sensory mode provided for visual and tactile queries of the persistence. He had heard some old timers refer to this mode as virtual reality mode. He figured the name was appropriate, as it was fairly easy to misplace hours at a time plugged into the persistence in this fashion. John was walking along a data tunnel in a very old portion of the persistence when he tripped over something. The optical equipment did not register any anomaly but when he reached down John could clearly feel a ripple in what should be a smooth data pathway. John noted the co-ordinates of the effect but he was starting to feel tired and figured he had better get some rest before he starting making more mistakes.