"And so we've managed to select our team now," she began after waiting for everyone to settle down," for obvious security reasons, it's better if they’re the only ones who know of the rest of this plan, so I will kindly ask the rest of you to leave. Thank you so much for volunteering. It helps out a lot. You guys will all be necessary because while the five of them are the ones actually getting outside, there's a few more layers to this plan, one of which we will need a fairly large number of people for. A separate meeting will be called for that one because those arrangements will require more specific attention later. For now, stay safe out there.”
There were several quick farewells and those inside trickled out in groups of three. Mr. Haber and Ms. Johnson were both quickly at the door, timing things to make sure that there were at least twenty second intervals between the various groups.
They sat in a slightly uneasy silence as it took a good ten minutes for the last group to finally exit the room. It seemed like neither party there wanted to speak first, letting the distraction of the people leaving keep them all occupied. Then finally, the door closed with the same mechanical whirr as before. One the last click sounded and Mrs. Kane broke through the silence in the room.
“Alright then guys, looks like it’s going to be the five of you. Shall we start by taking a look at this flaw that we managed to detect in the system. Before we get to the plan itself, I think you guys would probably like to know how the plan works, and its good for you to know too, should any improvisations be necessary, we hope not, but its never a bad idea to be prepared."
Mr. Summers took center stage, He took the offered microphone with a smile. The air felt heavy as Harry's anticipation grew in preparation for the information that was about to be released. He'd seen the flaw firsthand a few times now over the past couple of days as this meeting was being set up. He had plenty of theories on what the exact flaw could be, but getting the professional assessment would let him know which of those wild ideas was actually correct.
"So you all know about the spaceship that recently crashed into that new gate?" began Mr. Summers. He waited as everyone murmured a quick yes. Harry thought it was a bit of an odd question to ask considering everyone should've heard of it, but he guessed Mr. Summers just preferred to build up a point from the ground up.
Mr. Summers continued," And thanks to these three here, that was quite the coincidence by the way. The mathematics are astounding. It makes you wonder about fate. Anyway I am going off topic. You don't want to know about probability. At any rate, this were the ones that notified Alice who let me know and I of course immediately set out to evaluate it."
At this point he paused for a few seconds, to acknowledge the three of them and Mrs. Kane with a nod. Harry nearly wanted to wave at him to go faster. He could understand it was probably mostly for Kathryn and Ryan's benefit, but this was taking entirely too long, especially considering Mr. Summers was supposed to be the impatient one.
"You guys probably wouldn't want to know the technical jargon of how I analyzed, cause of course I couldn't physically go to the door, not with the night guards and the cameras and of course the damn spaceship means there's very little line of sight, so the drone it was with a few modification. So to the actual damage."
Mr. Summers stopped to clear his throat. It looked like he was gearing up for a pretty long explanation.
"I don't know if all of you will understand, but the wires were actually deformed due to long term damage. Not by enough to cause damage of course, not until the ship struck it. That force actually caused a severe deformation. Thankfully that material is very ductile, so it simple stretched a lot but didn't break. I'm probably already diving deep here, but essentially, the wires are at such a point where, the data that they transmit is severely hampered and the bending and deforming has left enough gaps that it leaves the wires open to outside tampering."
"So how does that help us escape?" asked Harry, unable to contain himself.
"I am getting to that," said Mr. Summers," I just want you all to have some context first, or you won't understand the rest."
"It's okay, just continue," said Mrs. Kane, stepping forward," and no more interruptions please. All the questions can be asked at the end of this. At the moment, we're trying to get through this briefing as efficiently as we possibly can. We can't afford to waste any time with the sort of situation that we are in."
Harry turned bright red and quickly mumbled an apology, "won't happen again, mom. Sorry." She acknowledged it with a nod.
Mr. Summers the proceeded to clear his throat yet again and continue," So, yes, to the point I was making. The keywords are outside tampering. The information hampering thing is simply a bonus for us, and actually the reason the aliens haven't been tipped off yet."
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