While Teddy reassembled her chair–or, as she put it, "improved it"– Noble headed down to the floor below to get to work. While the meeting with Fort was necessary and government-related, it was not the reason she was there.
Other pressing tasks needed to be accomplished.
The place where Noble worked was very different from the offices above. It was large, comprised of two smaller rooms with a main area in between.
The walls of these rooms were all white and lacked decorations of any kind. The only thing that gave the room any color was the screen taking up one of the walls in the largest of the three rooms.
It was in this converted laboratory where Noble spent half her days. After a month in the sterile surroundings, the professor was growing used to the lackluster decor.
Entering the reception room, Noble was welcomed by a thin young man who stood from behind a desk. His dark hair and dark eyes stood in stark contrast to his fair complexion.
"Greetings, Awakened Noble. Is everything alright?"
'I must look displeased,' Noble noted, pressing her lips together. Her children often asked her if she was angry or upset when she was just deep in thought. The young man seemed to share their opinion.
Noble plastered on a smile. "I am just fine, Everin. Thank you for asking. How are you?"
"Ever the the same for this humble Rin. It is very Noble of you to ask. Speaking of Noble," The young man's dark eyes twinkled, "What do you call a Noble, who is also a mathematician?"
"Someone likely overworked and underpaid," the professor answered with a smirk.
Everin shook his head and answered brightly. "A Count!"
"Ah, I wasn't accounting for that answer, was I? I needed a moment of levity. Thank you." Noble chuckled. "Now, to business. How are things going here?"
Everin was assigned as Noble's government assistant. While the professor worked at the Academy in the mornings, Everin completed any tasks that he could to speed up her work when she arrived. He also helped her get access to things and connect her to anyone she needed.
The dark-haired man looked down at his datapad. "Things were rather exciting this morning. There have been a dozen more data points discovered overnight. A few are believed to be from the previous days that were missed, but two of them are new."
Noble frowned. It wasn't the first time that the data had come in a sudden burst. The professor had almost accused the government of withholding information until Fort told her that fewer resources are used to search for gates in uninhabited areas. The less frequent sweeps meant information often came in batches.
"Thank you," Noble motioned for him to follow her.
'If twelve were caught, how many more were missed?' The question rattled around in the professor's mind as she hurried into the lab.
Of course, worrying about new data wasn't really part of her job or even her concern. That was the responsibility of...
"Manager Wailin," Noble greeted the tall, toned government official.
The project manager looked at the professor with a weary expression. "You are late."
"Deputy Director Fort asked me to meet with him on official business before I came to you. I will let you know next time I am going to be delayed," Noble dipped her head.
Wailin was not an Awakened but spent enough time around them that he had lost all the awe and reverence that most people felt. His frank and open manner had taken Noble a while to get used to.
She didn't want to cause trouble and respected the chain of command. When Wailin said to do something, Noble listened.
"Before you get to your usual tasks, I want to talk with you about something in a moment. I'll call you when I am ready." Wailin walked off, not waiting for an answer.
Noble and Everin exchanged a glance and shrug. They would just have to wait to see which one of them the manager was talking to.
In the room, a dozen people worked counting Noble and the other two men.
Three sat along a long desk facing the screen on the wall. The desk itself had spelltech incorporated into the top to make a seamless interface between the wall and the tabletop work.
While she waited, Noble strolled over to one of the computer specialists. He was staring so intently at the screen that the professor hated to bother him.
Dino's fingers flew across the desktop's pad without him having to look down. That wasn't surprising. Although he was young, the Awakened had a close relationship with the technology he was manipulating.
Part of his Ability fueled the spelltech which was currently analyzing all of the failures of the Obel scale. Today, that task was labor-intensive.
"Twelve gates that had almost no warning," Dino said over his shoulder to the Noble. "Math is not my strong suit, but that seems like twelve too many."
"I agree," Noble said.
"There is something poetic in seeing warning signs in the fact we are not being warned. Like a silent scream." The analyst sighed.
They stared at the map on the wall for a moment. Every new gate from the past six months all over the world stood out like an angry pockmark on the landscape. The new twelve were a darker red than the rest. The newest of the wounds inflicted on the earth.
"What was the average time between the notification and the gate opening?" Noble studied the locations of the new spots.
"For the ten old ones, I have no idea. Our satellites are stretched too thin. We will get new ones up soon. Until then, we are a bit blind. But for the two newest ones, the warning time for each was a minute and a half." Dino refused to look away from the screen.
Noble could feel the tension radiating from his body. She gently sent a bit of calm towards him, inviting him to accept or reject it. Dino inhaled deeply.
"It's too short." the young Awakened continued more calmly. "And there are too many of them. I need more of your information to compare it to."
"I'll get on it as soon as I finish with whatever Manager Wailin wants. I will have Everin bring a copy of the transcripts to you when they are completed." Noble glanced at her assistant, who was mesmerized by the screen.
Everin snapped from his reverie and nodded with a small smile. "Of course! I will be happy to run them over the moment I am asked. Anything to jog Dino's memory into solving this mystery."
Dino raised one eyebrow at the assistant.
Everin shrugged. "What? Was that a step too far? Sometimes I have a one-track mind. I will try not to jump the gun with my puns again."
Dino clicked his tongue. "Your puns make me cringe, but I am strangely feeling better. Thank you."
"Anytime," Everin's grin grew.
Noble was relieved that her efforts to calm Dino had been successful and also had not been attributed to her at all. It was an accomplishment, albeit a small one.
'Hopefully, more victories will come soon.'
"Keep up the good work, Awakened Dino. I am glad to be on this team with you." Noble dipped her head. She could sense the mood shift behind her.
"Awakened Noble!" Manager Wailin called from the far side of the room.
Noble straightened her back and put on her most polite smile. The sooner she got this conversation over, the sooner she could get to her actual work. Though at the rate she was going, dinner would come before she was able to look at a single page.