Posted at 7:34 am on Jun 26, 2015 by:
Derrick Scrivens
More Bad News
Scriven's sat down in his usual seat at one end of the table in the meeting room. It appeared that Faust called in everyone for the meeting as there were soon no empty seats at the table. This included the other two main critics of his work: Walsh and Adler. He watched as they all chatted idly. He secretly wished that Faust would just start the meeting already. He knew nothing of the circumstances behind his project going down. Conveniently, Faust chose to leave Scrivens in the dark. He probably expected to amuse everyone by getting some kind of emotional reaction out of Scrivens with the delivery of the details. Scrivens didn't consider himself to be much of an emotional man to begin with and he sure as hell wouldn't be giving Faust the satisfaction of such a reaction.
"You all know why we're here this morning," Faust finally began, casually leaning back in his seat at the other end of the table as he spoke. "Last night, at approximately 9:00 PM, CP-ZERO of the Cybernetic Prototypes project went offline due to its apparent destruction. The exact details of its destruction are still unclear at the moment, but it seems that it was in the middle of engaging the targets it was assigned to eliminate."
Faust paused there, his eyes focused on Scrivens, waiting for that reaction. Scrivens face remained blank, or at least as blank as he could make it considering the news.
It certainly wasn't news that made him want to smile. He wanted to know exactly what happened. He wanted to know what allowed them to get the better of CP-ZERO. He knew of its missing gun arm, which it successfully replaced with a new gun. Then there was the individual they'd yet to identify who kept interfering and was responsible the removal of the arm. He'd never expected any of that to lead to its total destruction though, certainly not before eliminating its targets.
"Since it was your project, Scrivens, I'll allow you to speak on this matter first." Faust leaned in, eyes still on Scrivens along with the eyes of everyone else in the room.
"While this news comes as a shock to me, I don't think the failure of one, and might I add, the very first subject, of my project means that all hope is lost," Scrivens immediately began. He knew Faust expected him to beg for mercy, for forgiveness of his failure. That wasn't going to happen either. "This is exactly why I refer to them as prototypes for the time being. CP-ZERO was something never before seen and certainly never before used in the field. Even just a decade ago, a cyborg was something out of pure fantasy, a fantasy I don't believe any of you can deny that I made come true. With the right resources and time, any future cyborgs will only be an improvement over the last. Research has even already been done on technology for them that would make their possibilities virtually limitless."
There was whispering among the others around the table after he finished his statement. The only one not whispering was Faust. He was instead still staring at Scrivens, who stared back, watching as a small smile formed on Faust's face. Not a smile of approval over what Scrivens had to say. A smile for the questions and criticisms he knew were likely about to be thrown at Scrivens. A smile that Scrivens would love to slap right off of his face.
"I see no reason why any further resources or time should be put into the Cybernetic Prototypes project," Adler started. Even though she was sitting closer to Faust than Scrivens at the table, he could smell the unpleasant perfume she poured on every day. "I think too much has already been put into it as is. And for what? A cyborg that failed to even accomplish its first task? It seems to me that a far cheaper and far better solution could be thought up in the time that it'll take you and your scientists to even come close to perfecting your cyborgs."
An expected response which had others nodding in agreement before more whispering occurred. She would never side with Scrivens. It was something he'd learned to accept long ago.
"I agree fully," chimed in Lombardi, who proceeded to basically recap everything Adler just said in a less coherent manner. For not the first time, Scrivens wondered why Lombardi was brought into the meetings. He topped off his recap with a question that made Scrivens want to slap the shit out of him too: "Does anyone even really have a use for cyborgs these days?"
There was far less whispering and no nodding that time. Scrivens wondered how many others at that table wanted to give Lombardi a good slap. He'd be willing to bet that the majority of them wanted to.
Walsh decided it was his turn and said, "I too agree that the resources and time could go to another, more effective project and would like to remind everyone of the success that my missile department has seen in recent months." He wiggled his wide ass in his chair, a half eaten doughnut with another uneaten one next to it on a napkin in front of him. Scrivens was pretty sure there had been a third sitting with them not long ago too. The man loved to talk about how great his missile department was almost as much as he loved to eat. "Not only do we currently have a 98% success rate, but we also are constantly coming up with new and improved designs."
It was here that Scrivens began to lose interest in the meeting. It was clear that they planned to crush his project. Only a couple others even spoke, mostly just briefly agreeing with Adler and Walsh. If anyone did care about his project at all, they didn't speak up.
"I'm sorry, Scrivens, but I'm immediately cutting off all funding and other resources to your Cybernetic Prototypes project," Faust said to close the meeting. At that, everyone except for Scrivens stood and exited the room. Scrivens wasn't even sure how long he remained seated there, staring off into space. He saw little reason to rush off to his office.
