Installment #5

Chapter 10

Maria Santos was a paradox. On the surface she was an incredible sexy, desirable woman. Her raven hair, almost transparent brown eyes, and tight, lithe body, made her almost irresistible to men (and to many women as well). But beneath that attractive surface lay a toxic personality. There was no word in the English language that could capture how damaging she was to everyone she interacted with. Bitch. Black widow spider. Venus fly trap. Sexual quicksand. Every man who had crossed her path had a different word or phrase to describe her. But nothing captured her true evilness. She understood exactly what she was, and used it to her advantage.

Adrian ran into her early in her career. She was not, he had decided in hindsight, as completely evil at that time as she later became. There was some humanity yet inside of her. Wickedness had not yet consumed her; had not yet killed everything sweet and good inside of her. He had fallen in love with the innocent woman he first met. And that love led him to ignore her growing malevolence until it was too late. She burned him – badly. It made it impossible for him to trust any other woman enough to truly love her. No matter how nice a woman was, how consistently loving and gentle she was, he could not trust her not to turn into a monster.

So, needless to say, he was not pleased that she would be on this mission. Everyone on a dangerous mission had to be able to rely on everyone else to do their job. You had to be able to trust everyone implicitly. He didn't think he could trust Maria. She was there for herself, not for the team, or any individual on the team. And Adrian had no doubt that she would not be there for him if he needed her. And he wasn't sure that he would be willing to be there for her either.

What he could not determine was how their dysfunctional relationship could impact the security of the entire team and the potential success or failure of the mission. They eyed each other, but did not speak. The tension in the room was palpable. The others didn't know what the story was, but it was clear there was no love lost between these two.

The tension was broken by a booming voice coming from the video screen on the far wall A large image of an elderly man was staring at them. "Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming to Jupiter on such short notice. My name is Matt Campbell, CEO of Juno Mining. I have a very important assignment and I need your help. Some of you have been briefed, but not all of you. So I will provide you with a short overview of the mission. Ms. Winchester will fill you in on the details."

A rendering of a large structure appeared on the screen. Campbell continued to talk. "This is a diagram of Site 209. It is a specialized mining structure that extracts rare minerals from the Jovian atmosphere, processes them, and prepares them for transport to the space station you are standing in. From there the minerals are transported to manufacturing facilities throughout the solar system. The mine was established over a decade ago. At the time we realized that it would be directly in the path of "The Red Spot" supercyclone. As such, it was built of the strongest materials.

The structure is controlled by a computer system that maintains the living environment, as well as maintaining the structure. The system is called JENNI, which stands for Jovian Electronic Neural Network Interactive." At the time it was developed, it was the most sophisticated computer system ever designed. It served as the prototype for all subsequent control systems on all of the Juno Mining sites. JENNI was specifically designed to maintain the site during the supercyclone when the site was evacuated. The storm took 18 months to pass over the site."

The picture changed to a somewhat murky video. "This is the latest video we have of Site 209. It was taken from the transport taking the restart team back to the base approximately 10 days ago. As you can see from the video, there was some damage to the structure, but nothing that JENNI could not repair. The restart team landed, entered the mining site, and reported that the life support systems appeared to be working properly. Further efforts to communicate with the team have been unsuccessful. Efforts to communicate with JENNI resulted in a couple of unintelligible responses. Then . . . nothing."

Campbell paused. He took a couple of short breaths and shuddered visibly. Adrian thought he saw a tear in his eye. "I have asked you to come her as a rescue team. While all of the rescue team members are important to me, I have a personal reason for hiring each of you. My daughter was on that mission. She is my only child. She is a structural engineer. I need to find her. I need to know what happened to her. Please help me." He couldn't go on and shut off the transmission.

Amy Winchester didn't miss a beat. "As Mr. Campbell indicated, this is a priority mission. I have been authorized to offer each of you a $100,000 bonus for finding and bringing back his daughter Carla – dead or alive. Obviously, he is hoping that she is still alive. But if not, he wants his daughter to have a proper burial."

Maria interrupted. "Do you have any further information on what happened down there? Or are we going in blind?"

"Mr. Campbell has given you all of the information we have on the restart team's situation."

"I have a question," Adrian said. "I know this is a crazy question, but in that video of the station taken from the transport, it looked like there were insects crawling on the roof. Was that my eyes playing tricks on me?"

"Not at all, Mr. Masters. The entire station is designed to be self-repairing. There are robots that crawl the outside of the structure, looking for any damage to the shell which might result from meteorites, or in this case, the storm. If they detect any damage, they report back to JENNI, who then instructs them in repairing the structure. Those robots work continuously since even a small hole or crack in the shell could result in a catastrophic breach of the structure with a loss of atmosphere and possible death to any people in proximity to the breach. JENNI controls a wide variety of robots both inside and outside the structure to maintain the site. They range from the giant robots you saw on the outside of the structure, to nanorobots that inspect the wiring to insure no shorts or breaks. The system was operational the entire time the station was evacuated, and from the video, it appears that whatever damage that was sustained by the station was repaired. The system worked exactly as it was designed to. If not, the life support systems would not have been working properly when the restart team first arrived."

Michael Strong, who had sat motionless throughout Campbell's presentation stood. "My partner was one of the restart team. He was sent to evaluate the condition of the station and of the computer system. He intended to download the status data from the system, which would give us minute-by-minute snapshot of what had happened during the storm. This information would show us what problems, if any, the mining site endured during the storm. That would help us modify the system not only for Site 209, but for all of the other mining sites that use the JENNI system. I have been asked to accompany you to retrieve the data, and hopefully, to find my partner alive."

Amy looked around. "Any other questions?" No one moved. "OK," she continued, "the transport will leave for Site 209 in four hours. Workers will transfer your gear to the transport. All of the other supplies have already been loaded. There will be a security team accompanying you – just in case. Lt. Col. James Snyder will lead the six person team. He has extensive experience in rescue efforts in and around Jupiter and its moons. He is ideally suited for this assignment. You will meet him and his team at the departure gate. You should get some rest. We will come for you in 3-1/2 hours."

Amy walked to the door. The assembled group followed her. Maria held back and walked over to Adrian. "I was surprised that you asked for me on this mission. What with the problems we had last time we worked together."

"Don't flatter yourself. I didn't ask for you. Campbell hired you without my knowledge or assent," Adrian replied. "Obviously, he thinks your skill set is what is required. Let's hope he's right."

Adrian turned and walked out the door. He could feel her eyes following him. Seeing her again open wounds that he thought had long-ago healed. She also brought up emotions he thought he had permanently blocked. He was concerned about what it might mean for him and the mission. But there wasn't much he could do about it, but try to get this mission – his last mission – over with.

[Word count this installment = 1,570]
[Total word count = 9,246]