Private Anomalies

[Jacob Calhan]

"Hey rookie!" a gravelly voice barked from the door to the break room. Jacob just sighed and took a long sip of coffee, suddenly wishing he could put something a little stronger than creamer in it. "Hey rookie, I'm talking to you." Jacob turned around to see the greasy old man with a black goatee making his way toward Jacob.

"Yes Vincent, I heard you." He answered with open contempt in his voice, and held up his coffee cub. "But since I'm on break and you didn't use my name, I assumed you must be talking to someone else."

"You see anyone else here?" Vincent answered, trying to be smart. Trying and failing miserably.

"Just an angry old guy interrupting my break." Jacob took another sip of coffee. Vincent was the kind of person that thought they were more important than they were. The kind of person that liked to throw their weight around even though they really didn't have much weight. Technically he was Jacob's senior, but only in that he had been working in the lab for years... without a promotion. So of course he liked to act like he was smarter and better than the younger researchers, and those who assumed that his seniority meant he had authority usually let him intimidate them. Jacob had made no such assumptions.

"Is that how you normally talk to your seniors?" Vincent said with a deep frown, and a decidedly un-intimidating glare.

Jacob smirked and raised an eyebrow "Would you be surprised if I said yes?"

"Smart mouthed punk like you, not really. You always have thought you were better than anyone else."

"And I'm usually right." Jacob shrugged and sipped his coffee again. Vincent was a bully. Jacob loved few things more than pushing bullies. As angry as Vincent got, all he could do was make faces and complain. And they both knew it.

"Oh you think so? Is that what you call it when you note an anomaly that isn't there? Huh? I know you told Jilok that I messed up the data, an anomaly with sample 23C. Now he wants to run the whole experiment again. Well I looked at that data, and you need your eyes checked. There is no anomaly in 23C, it's the same as every other sample."

Jacob took a deep breath before replying. "Ok first of all, technically I didn't say you messed up the data. I mean I wouldn't be surprised if that's what happened, but I didn't say that. I just noticed the anomaly."

"There is. no anam-"

"No, see, that IS the anomaly Vince. Sample 23C is the Vornskrs. Vornskrs use the force to hunt. Therefore anything having to do with the force, and I think midi-chlorians count, should not be affecting them the same way they affect everything else. So either the data is wrong, or there is a variable that we're not taking into account. Anything else I can educate you on Vince?"

 

[Ladybug]

The game of life, survival, was not dependent on a financial spectrum; nor was it a contest upon poorly moves on the holographic cheeseboards of Dejarik where so many cast and lost their lot in life. Most found themselves poor, homeless, and destitute. Some turned to the streets in forms of prostitution, others toward criminal activities, and some to strong arm robberies. The lower cast of the Empire was, by comparison. and superior in some aspects of their allies. The Empire's alliances, some held in secrecy, gave them powerful, shadowed friends that wished them to stay quiet upon foundations of success.

However the precautions, anyone falling under the department of Science was subject to be wholly, and painfully, scrutinized for opinions not aligned with the Empire. The policy of insubordination mostly was inclined to exile, imprisonment , or death. However, there was one that could take the condemned from the biting jaws of death, and give them a life of worst than death itself.

The Overseer of The Science Department

The Overseer was a brutal, yet mysteriously fair, in her judgements. She lobbied, helped fund, and overseen the creation of the Science Institute. The Empress, however, had laid partial restrictions upon the science department; many manifests to follow.

But one was mentally defiant.

From behind the classrooms, situated near the lab's path to the inferno, where many a failed subject, project, and proposal was chuted downward to oblivion; tables for the incoming students rested. The proposal of failure upon the Professors was standard practice to second chance them. The Director, differently, felt believed otherwise; failures deserved to burn.

​

 

[Jacob Calhan]

Jacob Calhan was not easily intimidated. In fact many of his brothers and sisters in arms believed he was fearless. They were largely correct. When Jacob was a boy he had lived in almost constant fear. Fear of his father. Fear of school bullies. Fear for his little brother, Levi. Fear of failure. When he became a man he had promised himself that he would never be controlled by fear again. Actually, it was more like he became a man when he made that decision. He had spent his adult life fighting back against his own fears, fostering the strength and power and courage to face anything he decided was in his way. Alien beasts, trained soldiers, even Jedi and Sith had come against him and he had fought back with a smile on his face.

And yet, despite all of his efforts, and all of his progress, there was still one person that Jacob feared. One person who's mere presence triggered Jacob's base survival instincts and sent the familiar chills of fear through his bones. And he could feel that presence approaching the break room now. Jacob hated the Director. Not for anything she had actually done to him, but for what she represented. His surviving fear. His continued shortcomings. He hated her because he feared her. But he had not promised himself that he would not feel fear. He had promised himself that he would not be controlled by fear. And for that reason he loved working for the Director. Because of what she represented. She was fear to be resisted. She was challenge to be overcome. He would not run from her. he would not cower before her. In fact, he would use her.

"Ya know what Vince?" Jacob suddenly snapped, interrupting the tirade that he had stopped paying attention to five minutes earlier. "This isn't up to either of us anyway. Ya got a problem? Take it up with Jilok. Better yet, report me to the director!" Jacob got up and walked past Vincent, heading toward the door.

"Come here, I'm still talking to you!" Vincent spun around and followed Jacob.

"Nope, you want to talk? Report me."

"I don't need to report-"

"We'll take it up with the people in charge-"

"As far as you're concerned I'M in char-"

"Write me up then, go tattle to the director."

"KRIFF THE DIRECTOR!" Vincent finally snapped as he grabbed Jacob's shoulder and spun him around.

"THIS IS BETWEEN YOU AND ME, I DON'T CARE WHAT THE DIRECTOR THINKS ABOUT IT!"

Jacob put a hand on Vincent's shoulder in a display of mock-camaraderie, and allowed himself the satisfaction of a predatory smile.

"Nice knowing you Vince." He whispered as fear walked in the door behind him.
Ladybug