By the time people started realizing something was wrong, it was nine in the morning. By the time the Councilors were notified, it was nine-thirty. And by 11 o’clock all of the Councilors had made it to the Councilors Room so that they could be debriefed about what was going on.
The Councilors Room, formally known as Abel’s Room, is a fairly nice-sized wooden room that has most of its space taken up by a large office table in the middle of it. On the left side of the room, where the door is, is lined with bookshelves that hold the transcripts from early Council meetings. In the center of the bookshelves is a bust of the most revered Council member ever Abel Reed.
On the other side of the wall are tinted windows that allow sunlight to enter the room.
The front wall of the room is blank, but there is a small podium at it so that people that are presenting can be seen by all the councilors. And on the opposite wall, behind the first seat, is a mural of the first Council members.
Right now each of the 13 seats at the table is filled with a member of the council by their position. The head of the table and the first seat is taken by Toa Chin. On Toa Chin’s right is the second seat to the through seventh seats and on his left is the thirteenth to eighth seats. Right now all the Councilors were intently focused on the podium.
On the podium, a very excited bespectacled man is talking while carelessly tossing papers once he finished reading and explaining them. The ground had already been littered with a few and one was currently falling.
Behind him, an image is being projected onto the screen of the things that the man is reading off. This is the part that most of the Councilors are paying attention to as it is in the most digestible format for them.
“From here we can assume that if the cell is used correctly the amount of energy that will be out-”
“Sigh, Dr. Jesle.” In the seventh seat, Hector Vaquero interrupted the enthusiastic man, with a tired look.
Everyone in the room turned to him with a questioning look. Unfazed Councilor Vaquero continued
“I understand that you are excited about the project, but could you please get to the point. Is this device feasible, or is this a hoax?” he said as he brought up what everyone else was thinking. The information they were receiving was too good to be true.
Dr.Jesle’s face went serious for a second as he thought about the question posed to him. After a moment of thinking, he came up with his answer.
“Councilors, I can not give you a hundred percent answer to the question you just asked.” The face of the councilors crunched up when they heard that but the Dr quickly continued
“Do I believe that all of this is true? Absolutely. From all the calculation we have been able to run, that has been provided in this report, everything points towards it being the truth. But due to the complexity of what we are talking about here, we have not been able to test and run the calculation on everything just yet.” although none of them showed it on their face, he could feel the energy around certain Councilors shift.
“-But my team is currently working on it as we speak! And we should soon be able to verify just how feasible this is. Right now I am just explaining everything in the report as I was asked to do. If you will give us a few more hours I am sure we can get back to you all with a specific answer.” the Dr said as he looked each of the Councilors in the eyes.
He is not afraid of them, and while for others it might seem crazy not to be, he knew it was one of the reasons he had got the job. When it came to something he was passionate about, he would hold his ground. And it just so happen that Thermodynamics was his bread and butter.
“Hmm, ok. Sorry for my interruption” Councilor Vaquero apologized to the other Councilors and sat back in his seat.
Dr.Jesle nodded his head and continued back to the report, his enthusiasm once again showing itself as he read and explained everything. But this did not last long as about ten minutes there was a knock on the door.
“Come in” the elderly voice of Toa Chin sounded out.
Slowly the door opened and a thin young man, holding a stack of folders, slowly crept in. Only to be met with the gaze of everyone in the room, although it wasn’t intentional all of the people in the room gave off an intense vibed which momentarily shocked the young man. The man paused for a bit before quickly getting his barring. “Councilor Newton, I have the information you requested,” he said as he looked at the Third Seat Councilor.
“Hmm, good pass them out to everyone. Also, I heard there was a video among the files that we were sent. Is that ready?” The bald elderly woman asked as she took a folder from the young man.
“Yes, ma’am the video is ready, though it is a bit… “ he said as he passed out the folders.
“A bit what?” Councilor Newton asked.
“...I guess unprofessional would be the best way to put it.” he gave the last folder to the First Seat, who thanked him and made his way to the door.
“Hmm, ok. I will call you back in when we are ready to watch it.” She replied, once the young man had left the room she turned to Dr.Jesle.
“Dr. Jesle, I will have to ask you to leave for a moment while we discuss an important topic. I will call you back in along with Adam to watch the accompanying video with us, maybe you will gain some insights into the project.”
Dr.Jesle frowned for a second before nodding and leaving. Once he was out of the door the other Councilors looked at the Third Seat waiting for her to explain.
“I know, you all are confused but I felt it would be best if we looked over this in private.” she conceded
“And what might these be?” the Ninth Seat Johannes Strömberg questioned as he motioned toward the thin blank folders that sat in front of all the councilors unopened.
“This is the file for the young man who has made the nuclear fusion cell, that our head of R&D was salivating over. I think you all will find it interesting.” The Third Seat replied with a bit of jest.
The Councilors gave her varying degrees of confused looks before they proceeded to open the folder and read its contents, or the little bit that was there. The folder was only about two and a half pages long. After about two minutes all the Councilors had finished reading.
“There’s… not much here.” the Twelfth Councilor Evangelia Arvanitoti said as she flipped through the pages.
“Hmm, but from what we have we can infer a lot.” commented, Toa Chin.
“Hmm, indeed.” the Second Seat Pania Kaaka said as she began to summarize the information in the folder “Kamara Faye, born raised, has never left, Aline, Georgia. Believed to be a functioning autistic, that lives life as efficiently as possible. For a brief period, his mental capacity as a child was questioned because he never showed any emotion whatsoever. But upon study by a specialist, he was deemed fine. And since then he has not visited a doctor for anything.
Both parents died in an accident when he was ten and was then raised by his grandfather and grandmother until they passed away when he was 18. Leaving the now, adult Kamara with a large inheritance totaling 38 million dollars and a house within one of the residential districts near the city center of Aline. Throughout his schooling, he has received only c’s regardless of grade level, only ever doing just enough to get by within class. Besides that, he has never shown any aptitude for…anything. After the death of his grandmother, he moved into a small apartment within the city center and has lived there for the past two years. Only going to three or four places ever. All of which are within a two-block of the apartment. That is until a week ago on March 6th, five days ago, when his address was updated with the Central government. He has moved back into his childhood home. Maybe the most boring person to have ever existed” the elderly woman joked as she finished reading.
“Where did his aptitude for science come from if he has never shown anything?” the Fourth Seat Babacar Mbaye asked after she finished.
“Yes, that is peculiar. He has shown not a lick of aptitude in anything, yet here he is inventing things our best scientist could only hope to do. But that is not the only interesting thing about Mr.Faye. What I find most interesting is his last name. Mansa Mamadi, that name should ring a bell, shouldn’t it?” the Second Seat asked as she looked at one of the younger people in the room. The perpetual holder of the 13th seat, the Mansa of the Mali City-State, and head of the Keita Dynasty, Mansa Mamadi.
“Hmm?” was all Mamadi let out as he lazily looked up from the document.
He had not been paying attention throughout the whole meeting and was doing his best to not be caught sleeping. When the folders had arrived he had been pretending to be intently reading so that he could get some good shut-eye while acting like he cared. It had been working until just now.
The Second Seat gave an unbothered response, “I asked does the name Faye ring a bell?” she had gotten used to repeating herself over the last twenty-four years.
“You know that it does, but why are you bringing it up? She has nothing to do with this,” he asked as he wrested his head in his hand, his eyes barely open.
“If you would actually look at the paper and do your job, instead of pretending! Mansa Mamadi, you would realize what Councilor Kaaka is talking about!” A feminine voice said, clearly annoyed by the nonchalant of the Mansa.
Mamadi looked towards where the voice came from, it is a seat close to him, the 11th seat Claudia Peña. He looked at her and nodded “mm, thanks for the advice. I will take it to heart” he remarked listly.
The rest of the Councilors shook their heads at the situation, most of them had been on the Council just as long, if not longer than the Mansa, and understood his personality. They had all, at some point, tried to change him, but nothing has changed in the last twenty-four years. His personality is still similar to what it was when he was fifteen.
Not bothering with the glare he was getting from Claudia, Mamadi looked briefly at the file and stopped when he saw the name of Kamara’s grandfather. A small smirk appeared on his face as he read it “oh, now that's interesting.” a light briefly flashed through his eyes as plans, theories, and ideas started to run through his head about how this had come to be.
“maybe council life isn’t so bad,” he mumbled a bit too loud to himself causing all the others to look at him with blank expressions. When he realized what he had said, he chose to intently focus on the paper in front of him instead of looking up.
“Hmm” Tao Chin cleared his throat to break the tension in the air. “While I can see why Mr.Faye’s ancestry could be of interest, right now we are not here to discuss that. Let us get back on topic. We have all read the information provided to us from Maeve, now I feel that it is time for us to watch the video that the young man so graciously sent us, yes? ” he asked.
Seeing that nobody said anything Tao looked toward the second seat “Maeve, if you will, please call the young man back into the room so that we could start the video.”
The Third Seat nodded and called out to the two waiting outside “Adam, Dr.Jesle you may come in now.”
