the bottleneck years

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 98 Table of Contents Chapter 100 Chapter 99 The Third Day, March 22, 2061 I had two classes Tuesday morning and was not able to watch the trial as it happened. I got back to my office in the early afternoon and, again in the privacy of my office, settled in to watch. The trial was not being broadcast. I checked a news portal and learned the trial was over. I went searching for an archive. Jon was not in the court. They used a video link up. An old fashioned flat screen monitor showing Jon sat on the desk beside the young lawyer. There was…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 97 Table of Contents Chapter 99 Chapter 98 The Second Day, March 21, 2061 On Monday morning, I watched the second session of Jon's trial alone in my office at CCU. I didn't have a class until mid-afternoon, so time was not an issue. Jon was led into the courtroom in shackles, his hands bound in front of him, his feet less tightly bound. He was wearing a bright orange one piece suit. As he moved I could see his hands and feet were wired to a metal saucer shaped connector that hung about his knees. He was deposited in a steel chair beside…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 96 Table of Contents Chapter 98 Chapter 97 The Trial, March 18, 2061 Although I had resolved never to expose Edie and Anna to Jon's vitriol since the first call, I didn't have a lot of choice when it came to the trial. Unfortunately, I had a class at the same time. By the time I got back to my office, it was over. The video transcript was not yet online, so I headed home. It was a warm day. As I walked along the lake, the trees were turning green. Birds were singing. Ducks splashed in the water. It was beautiful, but I rather dreaded what I…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 94 Table of Contents Chapter 96 Chapter 95 Four Mouths, October 4, 2060 Having a baby in the house again was not at all the same as with Anna. This time I was not a curious bystander. I had duties. We took turns getting up at night, but sometimes I was slap-happy from lack of sleep, With Andrew taking so much of our attention, Anna's birthday was in danger of passing without making a ripple, so both Edie and I went out of our way to celebrate her day. Anna invited some friends from summer school. We had cake and ice cream and a crying baby. I…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 93 Table of Contents Chapter 95 Chapter 94 Andrew, September 21, 2060 Edie woke me from a deep sleep. "Luc. It's time." It was 2:45 in the morning. We had planned for several possibilities. I called a cab, then I called our next door neighbour, Bessie Waters, to watch over Anna. We were just getting in the cab when Bessie came around the corner of the house. She stood by the foot of the back stairs and waved goodbye as the cab pulled out. "Did you leave the back door open?" asked Edie. "She has a key." Until this point, I had been going…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 91 Table of Contents Chapter 93 Chapter 92 Ultraviolet, September 4, 2060 I came back from the Arctic to more news of meaningless deaths. While isolated in the North, it is easy to forget the numbing effect the constant drumbeat of tragedy has on a person. It catches me every time. A dike had burst in London and a major fire in the American west both claimed lives. The hurricane season was particularly bad. Australia, Japan and Florida got battered. Several thousand people died. It was an unending litany of suffering. What my father had…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 90 Table of Contents Chapter 92 Chapter 91 Second Tour, August 30, 2060 The second tour was supposed to be primarily photographic. No stopping for samples meant it would be shorter as well, only four or five weeks. I met my pilot in Churchill again. This time it was a taciturn fellow named Louis Lasseur. He flew the plane and kept his mouth shut. After listening to JJ go on and on about nothing for hours, I didn't mind in the least. I can live with no nonsense. We encountered the anomaly on the 13th day. It stood out like a sore thumb as we…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 89 Table of Contents Chapter 91 Chapter 90 Ecology 330 -- Extinction, July 7, 2060 I only had time for a few weeks of classes while I was back. The students were eager to hear of my exploits in the North and what I had learned about EF1. I related several tales and then brought them back to course content. "The subject of this lecture can be disturbing. When I first started to study the patterns of life on Earth, I several times found myself unnerved at contemplating extinction --- the deaths of so many life forms. "It is important to realize…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 88 Table of Contents Chapter 90 Chapter 89 The Beating, June 24, 2060 I hadn't spoken to Jon for 7 weeks. Quite frankly, I wasn't looking forward to it. I didn't know what his long term reaction would be to my asking about Mai Ling, but I suspected it wouldn't be good. I called Haverfield at the designated time and was informed that Jon was in hospital. They wouldn't say why. I called Bergmann, but he wasn't in his office and I didn't have a personal number. I left a message and began to prepare for the last class of the day, an introduction…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 87 Table of Contents Chapter 89 Chapter 88 Going North, June 15, 2060 I was worried about going North and leaving Edie alone while she was pregnant. She had another opinion. "Don't be silly. I'm a big girl, Luc." She took my hand and held it to her barely showing stomach. "I can take care of myself, besides I have Anna and my friends to protect me. You go and do what you have to do." She had that look about her. I knew it would be no use arguing. We compromised by arranging for Mark, the share-crop gardener, to check in when he did the garden…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 86 Table of Contents Chapter 88 Chapter 87 The Chinese Girlfriend, April 15, 2060 At the end of an Ecology 110 lecture the other day, Carman unobtrusively entered the back of the room and sat down. I was going through the history of DNA reading devices from Sanger and the discovery of Polymerase Chain Reaction [PCR] through the first microarrays to the terahertz readers and cascades of today. I finished up by mentioning I would be away for most of the summer trimester on my trip North to document EF1. After the class, Carman walked up to me. "…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 85 Table of Contents Chapter 87 Chapter 86 And Baby Makes Four, March 18, 2060 At the next UNGETF meeting, Rhamaposa reported that Group 12 was sponsoring an Arctic sunbug project. He didn't have a lot of details, just that Group 12 had contracted with Graves and Lorenz LLC to do the work. "What you will hear in the media is a dispute with local Inuit over the location of the ground receiving station. Like all colonized peoples, they have a long history of fighting the powers that be." I had sent Peter a report on my investigation of the…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 84 Table of Contents Chapter 86 Chapter 85 Tephra, February 3, 2060 I got a late night call from Rhamaposa that shocked me awake. "I just wanted to check how you were coming with that Cambridge Bay inquiry," he said. With a sinking feeling, I realized that between my funk and the holidays, it had completely slipped my mind. For a second, I considered a Matt-style gambit, but I opted to come clean. "I'm sorry, Peter. I have been a little overloaded and haven't got around to it yet." He took this admission in stride and signed off saying, "Okay…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 83 Table of Contents Chapter 85 Chapter 84 The Sorceror's Apprentice, January 27, 2060 A couple of days after the December UNGETF meeting, I got a call from Drew Matheson in Yellowknife. He was a field worker slash forester reporting to Group10. Behind him as we talked I could see great swathes of lichen, covering a stand of pine trees. I assumed it was EF1 --- it was blue-grey. He wanted to know if I had investigated the interactions of EF1 and northern pine before I released it. When I admitted that I hadn't, he looked more annoyed than…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 82 Table of Contents Chapter 84 Chapter 83 The World Park, December 3, 2059 The next UNGETF meeting opened like an autopsy. Peter started with a catalogue of the destruction wrought at the L1 point. "The command centre has been destroyed, as have several dozen of the 1 km. sunshields. But there were more than 2,000 of them, so a sizeable number still exist. Some were damaged by flying debris; many were not." "Some factions have expressed a desire to repair and rebuild the cluster; however, with the AU forbidding financial support, Group 5 has…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 81 Table of Contents Chapter 83 Chapter 82 Rescued, November 20, 2059 The next day, Jon was formally charged by the IEC. they called it ecological crimes against humanity. Suddenly everyone had something to say. The media showed up. There were vloggers and agency stringers waiting for me when I left the university. I answered a bunch of questions, many of them repetitious and silly. I had just declared, "the next person who asks me how I feel and not what I think will end the scrum," when a new stringer rolled up with half a dozen newseyes…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 80 Table of Contents Chapter 82 Chapter 81 Visitation Rights, November 19, 2059 I watched the days tick by, waiting for Wednesday. How would Jon receive me? What would his state of mind be? I was on tenterhooks when I placed the call. I should have known better. "The prisoner Jon Fontaine can only receive visitation between 1400 and 1500." I was informed by a bored looking official. It was just after 8 in the morning, and there was a one hour time difference which meant I had another 5 hours to wait. Plus I had a lecture scheduled at 10:00. I…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 79 Table of Contents Chapter 81 Chapter 80 Makeba, November 14, 2055 Aretha, I would like to call your attention to an SRM device of which I have recently been apprised. The rough theory is in the UNGETF database, keyword Sunbugs. An implementation is to be found in the FabNet archives, same keyword. It requires a Fraunhoeffer chemical synthesizer to which I do not have access, but I believe you do. It might be a viable replacement for the sunshield. Trust you are well. cordially, Luc Fontaine Excerpted from _The Bottleneck Years_ by H.E.…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 78 Table of Contents Chapter 80 Chapter 79 The Military Industrial Prison Complex, November 14, 2055 What do you do when your brother is locked up for an unconscionable crime and you have good reason to believe he is guilty? You see that he has a good lawyer. I spoke to a friend in the law faculty and got the number of a lawyer in Ottawa who came highly recommended. Then I tried to contact Jon. The Ottawa police were unhelpful. They didn't have him, they didn't want him and they didn't know where he was. The ecocops, or more properly the…

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 74 Table of Contents Chapter 76 Chapter 75 Ottawa, November 7, 2059 Over the next month I watched and waited from my vantage point in UNGETF for some Solar Radiation Management [SRM] scheme to take the place of the sunshield. None was forthcoming. There was talk about restarting the Japanese Group 2 effort, even funding Baumgarten, but there was also opposition. The long and short of it was... no other SRM technique was forthcoming. Finally I felt compelled to act. I was still worried about the unknown actors involved in Matt's death, so I…