MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Silliness Friday's question of the Day 03 Oct 08

LazyScot · 10-05-2008, 02:32 PM

<scene: A hive of activity on the edge of a forest as many differently logo-ed trucks and lorries are rapidly set up and configured by teams of contamination protection-suited personnel, as similarly garbed military folks set up checkpoints and perimeters, nervously pointing machine guns at anything that moves.>

<cut to inside one of the larger trucks.>

"Sir? The next stage analysis results, based on the second set of air samples from the UAVs." Said a junior scientist handing over a clipboard with printouts to a besuited officer, who spent a few seconds glancing through the printout.

"Hmm. Confusing." He replied. "What do you make of it?"

"Umm… Well…" she muttered.

"Come on, you're bright. You must have an opinion. And if you want to progress you need to be able to speak quickly and succinctly. And time may well be of the essence for us now."

"Okay. I think we're dealing with two or three contaminants. First off we have a really nasty bio-chemical that is most decidedly not natural. Second is something that appears to be little more than fertilizer slurry. I've no idea about the third, but it's like nothing I've seen or read about."

"Very good. That third one, however. Could it be a result of the interactions?"

"N… Yes! Of course. I'll confirm that in a few minutes. And whoever made the first probably never mixed it with the second, and so might not know of the results… It's probably accelerating breakdown as well" and with that, as she was about to run off he interrupted her enthusiasm.

"We must know the breakdown times. How long till it's safe to enter the area?" he said.

"I'm on it." She shouted over her shoulder, running back to lab section of the truck.

As she did this, the suit picked up his mobile, dialled and reported back his initial conclusions, finishing with "I'd guess about another 15 minutes till it's safe and we can go in and search for the source, but I'm awaiting confirmation. If I had to guess I'd say we have a bioweapon that got accidentally mixed up with some fertilizer followed by aerial deployment. That mixup is probably beneficial as it's destroying the reagents. Oh, by the way, Julie's good. I'd like keep her in my team, if I can; take this as a formal request for her, and the automatic promotion she'll need."

10-05-2008, 02:32 PM	#13
LazyScot DSil Posts: 3,201 Karma: 6895096 Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Hants, UK Device: Kindle, Cybook	<scene: A hive of activity on the edge of a forest as many differently logo-ed trucks and lorries are rapidly set up and configured by teams of contamination protection-suited personnel, as similarly garbed military folks set up checkpoints and perimeters, nervously pointing machine guns at anything that moves.> <cut to inside one of the larger trucks.> "Sir? The next stage analysis results, based on the second set of air samples from the UAVs." Said a junior scientist handing over a clipboard with printouts to a besuited officer, who spent a few seconds glancing through the printout. "Hmm. Confusing." He replied. "What do you make of it?" "Umm… Well…" she muttered. "Come on, you're bright. You must have an opinion. And if you want to progress you need to be able to speak quickly and succinctly. And time may well be of the essence for us now." "Okay. I think we're dealing with two or three contaminants. First off we have a really nasty bio-chemical that is most decidedly not natural. Second is something that appears to be little more than fertilizer slurry. I've no idea about the third, but it's like nothing I've seen or read about." "Very good. That third one, however. Could it be a result of the interactions?" "N… Yes! Of course. I'll confirm that in a few minutes. And whoever made the first probably never mixed it with the second, and so might not know of the results… It's probably accelerating breakdown as well" and with that, as she was about to run off he interrupted her enthusiasm. "We must know the breakdown times. How long till it's safe to enter the area?" he said. "I'm on it." She shouted over her shoulder, running back to lab section of the truck. As she did this, the suit picked up his mobile, dialled and reported back his initial conclusions, finishing with "I'd guess about another 15 minutes till it's safe and we can go in and search for the source, but I'm awaiting confirmation. If I had to guess I'd say we have a bioweapon that got accidentally mixed up with some fertilizer followed by aerial deployment. That mixup is probably beneficial as it's destroying the reagents. Oh, by the way, Julie's good. I'd like keep her in my team, if I can; take this as a formal request for her, and the automatic promotion she'll need."