Chapter 14: Protestation

“MMM. COFFEE. I actually missed you this weekend, Baines. Where were you yesterday?” I turned over in bed and reached for the mug of coffee held by my administrative assistant.

“Yesterday? Monday was Veterans Day. No government offices are open on Veterans Day. Why would I come to work on Veterans Day? No one is even in town.” Mattie blinked, apparently unable to believe the ignorance of her boss.

“Ah. Of course. Only the military works on Veterans Day. Never get a day off, do they?” I stumbled as I took another sip of coffee and made shooing motions at Mattie. “Go, go. I need to get out of bed. What is this?” I yelled as my eyes focused on the bedside clock. “It’s only nine o’clock. Why am I awake?”

“You have an eleven o’clock meeting this morning, sir. I thought you’d need a little time to get breakfast and over to the conference room.”

I threw a pillow toward her and Mattie fled.

“We need to start harvesting Mr. Adams’ er ... apples, you know ... so we can start er ... fertilizing prospective eggs.” For a doctor supposedly in charge of artificial insemination of the human populace, Henry Pius certainly had difficulty saying any words that implied sexuality. He could no more say ‘sperm’ than fly.

“Absolutely not!” Dr. Mangeler jumped in. As director of the NRP he was still desperately opposed to the NIP. “Those sperm are needed for research and should not be used until experimentation on the DNA is resolved. We don’t want a world filled with redheaded stepchildren. We need to manage the breeding with dominant characteristics that will eradicate the inferior genes.”

“Dr. Pius, how are the initial phases of the insemination project progressing with donations from the sperm banks? Our records show that over a million different donors are represented in the sperm that was seized in this country alone.” Foster Sporu asked. As SORDID Chief of Staff he needed to maintain tight control over the two main branches of the repopulation effort. And as long as he could keep them competing with each other, they would rise to the optimum solution.

“Ask him!” Pius pointed at Mangeler. “The cryobanks were given into his control and most were contaminated. What few are left either don’t attach to a receiver or won’t implant in the ... host.”

“I take it you are saying the sperm won’t fertilize an ovum or in the cases where it does, the zygote will not attach to the uterus. Correct?” Sporu asked.

“And it’s their fault,” Pius repeated pointing at Mangeler.

“We warned you that we felt the sperm were generally defective. Your insistence on randomly spreading them in any whore’s cunt is your fault, not a problem with our tests for optimum genetic sustainability. That’s why we need the samples from Mr. Adams. We need viable sperm to test our genetic theories on.”

“Our task is to repopulate the earth! We have no mandate to manipulate the genetic code.”

“Gentlemen,” Sporu calmed them. “Why don’t we cut Jack Adams in half and give you each a part.”

“Now that’s the first sensible suggestion I’ve heard so far,” Colonel Smythe said. “We have untested weaponry so finely tuned it can slice right through skin, bone, and tissue in a heartbeat. The patient wouldn’t even feel it.”

It worked for Solomon, Sporu thought. Why didn’t it work here?

“No one wants to kill the prime donor,” Representative Angel Martinez sighed. She’d been appointed by the Speaker to head the Project Oversight Committee. She really thought this whole topic needed another and somewhat larger meeting. “But there is some merit to dividing his sperm equally between the two projects. That way Dr. Mangeler can continue his research and Dr. Pius can start getting women pregnant.” Dr. Pius blushed and nearly hyperventilated.

“Let’s proceed as if that were a plan,” Sporu said. “Now we need to discuss the manner in which the sperm are collected. What does the Department of Collection, Donation, and Harvest have to say? Marcia?”

Marcia Forager hated being referred to by her first name in a meeting where everyone else was a doctor or colonel or representative. She’d been promoted into this position from the Department of Natural Resources and was still trying to establish herself here.

“I’m Ms. Forager,” she started. “I’ve extensively researched the general methods of collecting sperm from a variety of endangered species. In humans, the most common are oral, vaginal, and anal. None of these are normally done under sterile conditions. We have discovered, however, that many sperm banks—before they were all closed by executive order—had begun assisted manipulation. I have put in a call for one of the best assistants I could locate: Sheila Meilleur. I expect her to arrive in DC the week before Thanksgiving. Collection could begin immediately.”

“That won’t do,” Dr. Pius shook his head. “Most of our staff will be on vacation from Thanksgiving till New Year’s. It wouldn’t do to start the project shorthanded.”

“Collection could still begin as long as proper cryogenic precautions are enforced,” Mangeler said.

“We need to discover the donor’s receptivity to collection,” Pius said. “Where is that fellow—Ramsey Smith? I understand he makes any arrangements regarding Jack Adams.”

“Oh. He was here at 11:00, the scheduled start time for this meeting,” said Rosie Palmer, the administrative assistant taking notes at the meeting. “The gavel called the meeting to order at 11:14 and Mr. Smith left the room at exactly 11:15. I am informed by Ms. Baines, Mr. Smith’s administrative assistant, that Mr. Smith will attend only three meetings each week and will stay for only fifteen minutes. Thus far, no meeting he has attended has started less than thirteen minutes after the scheduled start time and he has left the room after exactly fifteen minutes.”

“What does he expect? All of us to be here when the meeting is scheduled? I have meetings back to back and need to use the restroom between. I can’t leave a meeting at 11:00 and enter a meeting at 11:00. It’s impossible!” Sporu declared.

“You need to have a talk with him,” Smythe declared. “He tried to throw our parade timing off as soon as he got here. No soldier would ever be late for rollcall. You should all be ashamed!”

The meeting degenerated from that point with the members of the committee generally complaining about other people being late and wasting time. Ms. Palmer ordered a pot of coffee be delivered at 12:15 and that automatically extended the meeting by forty-five minutes. By that time, it had been determined that the committee needed food to fuel their discussion, so sandwiches were ordered. By the time the sandwiches arrived, it was already nearly two o’clock. After eating, Sporu decided it was too late to accomplish anything anyway and adjourned the meeting at 3:00, suggesting people just knock off for the rest of the day as there wasn’t enough time left to accomplish anything before 5:00. Thus, the one-hour 11:00 meeting extended to four hours and took the remainder of the day.

I was already drinking by then.

I got back from the meeting in time to meet Jack for breakfast at 11:30. Mattie kindly had coffee and a dozen donuts ready for me when I came out of the room after my earlier rude awakening. I left a few for the others, but now that I was back in the suite, I was ready to eat. I got there just ahead of the room service.

The Smiths joined Jack, Mattie, and me.

“Aren’t you two bored?” I asked the MIB.

“We get used to that,” Ms. Smith said. “Most of our division is practiced at sitting around waiting. We monitor everything, but nothing is happening.”

“You’ve turned out to be easier than most details like this. You haven’t really tried to make our jobs more difficult. We’ll be extra alert this week, though. There’s a protest scheduled this week and the loonies have already begun arriving in town,” Mr. Smith said.