Making a Dollar or Two- BOOK THREE

[KSK]

The subtlety - it hurts.

[Confused Scientist]

Chapter 11- Don’t Go Back to Rockville

By sunrise, Jeb was wide awake. The red glow of his alarm clock cast pale shadows across the room and mingled with the sunlight meshing through the drapes. Down below the loft, in Jeb’s workshop, all the half-completed projects and inventions had been disassembled, their parts packed away in plastic tubs and crates, and the crates loaded in the back of a truck. The roar of jet engines was constant, and Jeb could picture the jumbo jets taxiing outside, filled with the most delicate and important aerospace tooling ever developed, ready to begin their marathon relay between Crystal City and Juno’s Landing. Beneath the whine of the jets, there was the rumble of semi trucks as they began their cross-country trek, across mountains and through deserts.

With a barely audible click, Jeb’s alarm clock flicked over to the top of the hour, but before the radio even came on he punched the snooze button, yanked the plug out of the wall, and dropped the clock in a suitcase. He got out of bed, already dressed, shoved his feet into a pair of tennis shoes, zipped the suitcase, and carried it down from the loft and out into the tropical sunrise. He joined Bill on the porch, closed in on one side by a caravan of trucks, some heading to the port, others to the rail yards and a few beginning the hours-long drive to Crystal City, and on the other by cargo jets lining up on the runway. “Goodbye hurricane-drenched radioactive suburban swampland,” Jeb muttered, “and hello movie stars, endless sunsets, and redwood trees. Think about it, Bill. All through high school, before the war, we wanted to get out of Los Ruidos, out to the big city- Crystal City! Cottonwood! Bel-Pair!”

“But Juno’s Landing is our home now, Jeb.”

“I know,” Jeb sighed. He got up and Bill followed him to his office- still fully furnished, as he knew he would need to come back to Juno for every launch and to keep quality control up to the old standards.

“You grab what you need here,” Bill told Jeb. “I’m going down to the flight line and getting our jet ready for the flight. See you there.” As he walked away, he heard the phone ring for a few seconds before Jeb picked up. The conversation went like this:

“Hello, you’ve reached Jebediah Beto Ker… Oh, hey, Lucy. What’s… Are you serious? But we’ve got airplanes and boats and trains and trucks! We can’t just have all of them turn around… It’s not the bill I’m worried about, it’s the logistics of… hello?”

Jeb ran to catch up with Bill and swore. “Oh, you are not going to believe this.”

“Try me.”

“So it turns out Edsel Kerman-”

Bill stopped. “Hold it. Edsel? He was like three hundred years old last time we saw him, and that was back in the ‘60s. How can he still be alive?”

“No, this is his son. So, Lucy just got a call from Edsel Jr., and he says he’s changed his mind. He wants KSC2 in Rockville.”

“Rockville… what’s that, just some suburb of Crystal City? I’m sure we can truck everything over-”

Jeb shook his head. “No, no, no, that would just make too much sense. Rockville is three thousand miles from Crystal City, up in the northeast. It’s a suburb of Cletroit.”

“We’re going to have to live in Cletroit?”

“Yep.”

“You mean the city that has lost three million manufacturing jobs in the last eighteen months?”

“Yep.”

“You mean the city that gets forty feet of snow every winter, the city that has had five mayors in the last seven years, the city with a football team that hasn’t won a single game in this decade, the city where the river caught fire sixteen times?”

“Yep, yep, and yep.”

Bill frowned. “I think my grandparents used to live there. Well, let’s go.”

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As Val shoved her luggage into the little cargo pod in the belly of the K-37, she closed her eyes and listened to the waves rolling across the distant beach. Jeb and Bill had Los Ruidos, and Bob had Mayberry, but Val had been on the move her whole life and had never really felt like she had any hometown before. Even the station at Gilly just blended in as the latest of endless truckstops and deadbeat towns she’d holed up in for a few months, but Juno’s Landing… she’d fallen in love with the city. Well, she reminded herself, of all the places in Orchidia, Crystal City is the one most like Juno’s Landing.

Her radio crackled. “All aircraft at KSC center…,” Bob called, “all aircraft at KSC center… This is tower. We’ve just got word of a change of plans. Immediately after departure, turn right heading 078 and fly north of Juno to waypoint Victor, then turn heading 052 and take that all the way to Cletroit Metropolitan Airport. Apparently, some rich idiot who’s also our boss thinks we should have our new headquarters in some lousy northeast city. Lousy corporate bigwig thinks he’s so… whaddya mean, this is an official frequency? I have to… ow! Hey! This infringes on my right to- Ouch! Fine, I’ll get off the air. Sheesh, give it a…”

Shaking her head, Val climbed up the steps into her jet, closed the canopy, and taxied over to the end of a long line of jets waiting to abandon their tropical home. One by one, they rumbled down the runway and took to the skies reluctantly until finally only Val was left, staring at the exhaust of a cargo jet as it banked left over the ocean. Grasping the throttles in her hand, she took a deep breath and waited as the afterburners shoved her back into her seat. The VAB and the control tower flashed by and then the jet was airborne, with the wheels already pulled up and Juno’s Landing flashing by outside the canopy. Val saw trains and freighter ships unloading their containers at the port and tiny cars like toys lining the highways, the morning sunlight glinting on and off of them as they rounded the curves of the Interprov, merging and shifting like a metal river of lemmings. And then the jet went into a cloud, and Val saw nothing else.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Bob: Flaps twenty.

Lucy: Mhm.

Bob: Do you think you’ll miss Juno’s Landing?

Lucy: I’ll miss working for Mortimer. Edsel Kerman was a lousy boss, and his son’s just plain stupid. You’re gonna be surprised by what you see once we land.

Tower: Bloeting Charter 2971, turn right heading 170 and maintain until runway in sight.

Lucy: Looks like fog and freezing rain in Cletroit today. That’s what the weather report says, anyway.

Bob: I forgot to pack any long-sleeved shirts.

Lucy:  I don’t own any.

Bob: Hey, look… a gap in the clouds.

Lucy: Farmland, suburbs, grey office towers, and a giant frozen lake. This is a northeastern city, all right. I can see the hopelessness from here.

Bob: Gear down.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Gene shivered as he stepped out the door of the jumbo jet. “Come on,” he told Wernher. “Let’s get my bag out of the cargo hold so I can get my jacket.”

Wernher shook his head as he followed Gene down the staircase. “So this is what winter feels like. I miss the hurricanes already.”

Over the whine of the cold winter wind, Gene heard a motor. “Look over there,” he whispered.

Wernher followed his gaze. “Now, come on,” he complained. “What kind of jerk needs a double-decker limousine?”

The moonroof on the top deck of the limousine rolled open, and a kerbal with unkempt blonde hair shoved his head out. “Hello, onlookers! My name is Edsel Kerman, Jr.!”

“Yeah, we’re onlookers, all right,” Gene muttered as the car crept along the tarmac. “Hello, Edsel! Can we catch a lift in your limo? We’re cold.”

“Why, yes, I suppose you two could partake in my magnificence,” Edsel replied. “Just give my driver time to stop.”

Edsel’s chauffer slammed on the brakes, and the limo came to a dead stop in a little under fifteen seconds. “Welcome aboard my ride,” Edsel said as he opened one of the bottom doors for Gene and Wernher. “Like my limo? I call it the Inertiameister.”

Wernher looked around. “Does it have satellite navigation?”

“Yeah,” Edsel replied absentmindedly, “it has a satellite, but I think I sold it. Come on over here to the fireplace and we can chat.”

“Well,” Gene murmured, “we really should be getting back to our employees, but I suppose we could discuss-”

“Hold it.” Edsel looked over his driver’s shoulder. “We’re down to three-quarters of a tank. Start looking for a gas station or we’ll run out of fuel in about five minutes. Then once we’re done doing that we can head over to the KSC2 campus,” he explained to Gene and Wernher. “It’s about ninety minutes from here.”

Wernher sat up in his chair. “Ninety?”

“Yeah, decentralization is key.”

Gene looked around the massive limousine, noticing for the first time the fish tank that wrapped around under the seats and the chandelier dangling next to the grand piano. “Yeah,” he replied. “I guess it is.”

Edited January 23, 2020 by Confused Scientist

[KSK]

Have a 'like' since it appears that the one-click version is also in Gene's luggage somewhere. Assuming that it hasn't been sent to Crystal City by mistake.

 

[KerballingSmasher]

*like* And the same as @KSK

[fulgur]

1. *Like*

2. If 3/4 of a tank = 5 minutes, then 1 tank = about 7 minutes.

90 minutes / 7 = 12 gas station stops. Assuming each station ha a delay of only 5 minutes, the journey is lengthened by 60 minutes = 1 hour.

That means that 2/5 of the journey is waiting at gas stations.

Also assuming that each station costs $10, that is $120 down the gold plated fish-tank chandelier drain.

3. In consequence, Gene needs to buy a better car than Edsel has.

[DunnoAnyThing]

1. *Like*

2. I feel like I need a map  

[KerballingSmasher]

On 9/28/2019 at 7:49 PM, DunnoAnyThing said:

1. *Like*

2. I feel like I need a map  

yes and yes.  And also yes.

[Confused Scientist]

On 9/28/2019 at 11:49 PM, DunnoAnyThing said:

2. I feel like I need a map  

Here you go! I've broken my "thousand words is worth a picture" rule against images and given you a map. It's ultra-zoomable, which is good, because some of the names of the cities are hard to read. Also, if anybody's wondering, the base layer I used to make this map came from an image @DrLicor posted here.

Edited October 4, 2019 by Confused Scientist

[Tsar_bomba]

Wow... I love KSP story’s and, yes, I am late, but keep up the good work.

[Tsar_bomba]

Spoiler

_{Should I start a YouTube channel?}

Not related, but why not

EDIT: if i do i will give a shoutout

Edited October 10, 2019 by Tsar_bomba

[Confused Scientist]

Chapter 12- Say Nice Things About Cletroit

-----Dedicated to Aleksei Leonov, 1934-2019-----

 

Physician Name: Robert Alfred Kerman

Patient Name: Jebediah Beto Kerman

Address 1: 289 Sycamore Ln.                   City: Rockville     Province or territory: Pontchartrain

Address 2 (use at patient’s request): 100 Booster Bay Rd. (Apt. 7)    City: Juno’s Landing        Province or territory: Pascua

Date Admitted: 09-17-93

Symptoms: Slurred speech, staggering gait, limited awareness

Diagnosis: Stroke, partial paralysis

Medication: Preptizone blood thinner- 100 mg by mouth with water twice a day

Outpatient treatment: Continue Preptizone treatment and rehabilitation at home in Cletroit and at Rockville Clinic

Special considerations: Patient suffers degraded emotional state due to loss of mobility and recent death of longtime friend Valentina. Recommend contacting primary physician in Rockville and requesting psychiatric history, with possible grief counseling. Patient’s friends seem caring, but are emotionally absent due to stress at work, particularly recent departure of a beloved boss named Gene.

Additional notes: The patient is currently employed for the Bloeting Corporation as an astronaut. Please contact Dr. Sanjay Kerman at Cletroit General Medical Center and forward him Jeb’s treatment and rehabilitation plan. Also contact the Bloeting headquarters in Crystal City and the KSP2 campus in Rockville for further advice on re-qualifying Jebediah for spaceflight. We believe that it would be highly beneficial for the patient’s emotional and mental state if he returned to active duty as soon as possible. The patient expressed his desire to fly a mission to Munbase and his frustration that his boss always assigns him to ‘routine’ flights to the Cuyahoga space station; contact Bloeting CEO Edsel Kerman in Crystal City and advise him to place Jeb up high in the crew rosters for deep-space missions as soon as he is re-certified for flight.

I, Jebediah Beto Kerman, have read the attached documents and confirm that I am of suitable mind and body to care for myself outside of this hospital. I will seek additional medical care for any new medical problems and will obey any and all medical advice given to me by the staff of this hospital, my primary physician’s practice, or the staff any other medical facility I am admitted to.

Signed, Jebediah Beto Kerman

Date of Discharge: 10-28-93

 

Valentina A. Kerman Memorial Hospital – 1700 Central Avenue, Juno’s Landing, Pascua

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Two years earlier...

Val sighed as she lugged her cardboard box down a windowless hallway that still smelled of fresh paint and plaster floating in the air. She shivered in her new winter jacket and looked at the thermostat at the wall. Sixty-three degrees, she read. I bet I can turn that up…

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” she heard a voice call just as she was about to touch the dial. “Haven’t you read your employee policy?”

Val turned and groaned as she saw Edsel approach her from the stairwell. “What employee policy?” Val asked. “I already signed everything K.R. gave me.”

“Really? You never signed this?” Edsel reached into a folder he was carrying and pulled out a single document. Val noticed that even though it was perforated down the sides, like it had come from a drum printer, the manuscript was actually mimeographed. “Read Section 17.22.6.54-A,” Edsel told her, opening the booklet.

Thermostat Policy

            Employees level Deputy-Assistant-Secretary to the Vice President and below are fordibben from touching the thermostat. If any common employee adjusts the thermostat, they shall be punished by having lunch with Edsel.

Note: Employees are permitted to make their offices colder in the winter or warmer in the summer.

 

“What is this?” Val asked.

“A subsection of our climate control policy,” Edsel replied. “Read this, right here…”

Window Policy

            It is a privilege for employees to have natural lighting and a secondary fire-escape route in their office, not a right. If an employee allows heat to enter the building (in the summer) or to exit the building (in the winter), then their window shall be covered with plywood and immediately ground into bits to use as stuffing in beanbag chairs in Edsel's office. Note: This penalty applies regardless of if you have opened your window or the blinds.

 

Val glanced at Edsel. “Well, Mister Comic Sans, I think thermodynamics has a bone to pick with some of your plans.”

“I’d like to see entropy try and unionize,” Edsel scoffed. “Since I took over from my father as CEO, the profitiblity of this company has plummeted, and what I say in this office goes!”

Val rolled her eyes and continued the trek to her office.

“Well,” Edsel continued, talking to the empty space where Val had been standing, “I hope we had a fruitful and productive inquisition. I’m off now to receive a delivery for a new top-notch product called a Segway. Looks like my days of walking around like a fool are over! Oh, and Val? One last thing?”

Val turned around. “Don’t forget your coat when you go home. The high temperature today is negative five degrees Fahrenheit. Or, as we call it, 'Cletroit Summer!' Have a nice first day at Bloeting, Val!”

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Jeb: I miss the Bungalow.

Bob: You’ve said that four times already.

Jeb: I miss Juno’s Landing.

Bill: I know.

Bob: At least this place is warm. I swear when I got in my car I had to use a towel to soak up some oxygen that had liquified on the driver’s seat. And then I had to walk like five blocks just to get to this bar-

Jeb: You did? I found a spot right out front.

Bill: Really?

Jeb: Yeah. All the snow was cleared out and everything! I just had to move some chair that was in the way, and I was good to go.

Bob (sighing): Jeb, people put those chairs out on the street to reserve a spot after they spend hours shoveling all the snow out of the way. The first rule of driving in a northern city is never move the chair.

Jeb: Oh, that’s just some myth. My parents used to live in Mayberry and I never heard them say anything about-

Bartender: Hey! It’s him! It’s that [CENSORED] who took my spot! Get ‘im, boys!

Jeb: Gotta run!

[Footsteps are heard sprinting through the bar and out through the door. The howl of a  winter wind rushes through the bar as the door squeaks on its hinges, and then dies down.]

Bartender: Eh, he ran away. So, what can I get you folks?

Bill: What kind of microbrews do you have on tap?

Bartender: Micro-whats?

Val: Microbrews.

Bartender: What-brews?

Bob: Okay, scratch that. Do you at least have any dark beers?

Bartender: We’ve got Budhauser, Budhauser Lite, and Budhauser Blue Ribbon. Don’t know if that’s what you’re lookin’ for…

Bob: I’ll just have a water.

Val: Hey, buddy, can I ask you a question?

Bartender: Fire away.

Val: My friends and I just moved here from the tropics. Can you give us some tips on what to do if the pilot light goes out on our furnace?

Bartender: Sure things. Eh, what’s your name?

Val: I’m Val. That’s Bill, and Bob, and the guy who just ran out the door is Jeb. Cut him some slack; he’s kind of got his head in the clouds.

Bartender: Sure thing, Val. Name’s Bryan. Now, with that pilot light, the first thing you gotta do is take the front panel off your furnace…

Bill: Uh-huh.

Bartender: Get in there with a match, or maybe a lighter…

Bill: Uh-huh.

Bartender: And then give up and call a repairman. You’ll never get that pilot light lit again, not unless… well, how old is your heating system?

Bob: Our employer paid for our furnaces, so I’m guessing they were manufactured sometime before the Orchidian-Sierran War.

Bartender: Yeah, you’re [CENSORED]. That pilot light will go out on you like that. My advice is to stock up on some wood and learn how to build a fire. Don’t forget to open the flue in your fireplace, though.

Bill: What’s a flue?

Val: It’s a… thing… that does… fireplace stuff. Right?

Bartender: Close enough.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Jeb stumbled out of the bar past the angry mob beating his car with a wooden chair and folded his arms tight across his chest, shivering as a cold wind blew down the alley. He looked up at the stars, past layers of dark grey clouds, and tried to remember the city lights of Juno's Landing. As he did, a single snowflake landed in his eyelashes; snow was piled up at the sides of the streets, but this was the first snowstorm to pass through Rockville since Jeb had arrived. He craned his neck higher, and above the bitter wind and the rumble of distant traffic he heard a faint roar. Turning, he saw a jet low on the horizon, climbing through its takeoff from the airport where Jeb had climbed down the steps from a cargo plane just two days ago. Those two days felt like a year, and as Jeb squinted he could see the Alliance Air logo on the tail. He watched the plane as it began a long turn to the southwest and pictured it returning to its hub in Juno's Landing, the crew stepping out into the humid air and coming home to their families in air-conditioned as a full Mun shone above. Jeb tried to look for the Mun, but it was hidden behind a grey cloud.

The jet also began to pass through wisps of cloud, but as it disappeared into the cold night, Jeb could just barely make out the details of how the engines were mounted and how the navigation lights were positioned; both were slightly different than how they appeared on the planes rolling off the Kontinental assembly line. It figures, Jeb told himself, and he wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. That jet's a Bloeting.

Edited February 29, 2020 by Confused Scientist

[Tsar_bomba]

[Confused Scientist]

 Chapter 13- Unlucky Numbers

“Is it almost ready?” Sunny asked. “I have to get on a plane in an hour to go to Cletroit and report on this flight and the Bloeting executive meeting.”

Sean Kerman glanced up from his flight director’s console. “Yeah, we’ll be ready for liftoff in about thirty minutes. Uhhh… CAPCOM, Flight.”

“Go, Flight.”

“CAPCOM, tell Bob that our clocks are synched with theirs and we’re go if the Phoenix is go.”

“Roger… Bob confirms that the Phoenix is ready for liftoff from Munbase.”

Sunny glanced at her clipboard. “You say you’ll be taking off in thirty minutes? That’s too long. Call me in Cletroit if you have anything from this launch that needs to be put in the press conference.”

Sean nodded. “All right… just try not to make too big of a deal about the new mission control in Rockville, could you? Lots of people down here are still hurting from the relocation. Other than that, you can tell Gene everything’s good down here and we’re looking forward to having him on shift for the splashdown.”

“Got it.” Sunny left the control room and stepped out into the heat and humidity of a Juno’s Landing sunset, baking under the heavy pants and sweaters she had put on in anticipation of the cold rental car that awaited her in Cletroit. Crossing the street, she heard something strange- nothing at all. No jet engines, no motors, no welder’s torch. The KSC was a city nearly abandoned, only coming to life for launches and to continue the occasional odd research program and cargo flight to Cletroit. Unnerved, Sunny picked up her pace down the sidewalk towards the JRT station, ignoring the signs warning of its impending closure.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Heads were turned, ties were straightened, and Edsel stood at the end of a long table. Wrapping around at the fringes of the room, Gene, Wernher, Jeb, Bill, Val, Lucy, and Sam sat with cups of coffee and printouts of graphs. In one corner, an empty seat was reserved for Sunny.

Edsel stood up. “Good morning,” he chirped, “and welcome to the Bloeting-Kontinental organization meeting! Right here, we have an open forum to discuss whatever problems we’re having with the merger-”

“You mean takeover,” Val interrupted.

“Good!” Edsel replied. “Let’s start with that. We’re having some problems taking over R&D operations from the original KSC campus in Juno’s Landing.”

“Well,” Wernher suggested, “why don’t we just keep some of them there? The mayor of Juno’s Landing and the governor of Pascua have offered us some insane tax rebates to keep hypersonics and propulsion research at the old space center. Spacecraft systems and booster technology, on the other hand, I see as having a place here in Rockville.”

Bill nodded. “Cletroit has a proud history in computing and with lots of heavy industry in the region it would make sense to move our booster production up north here and use the Bloeting 400 jumbo jet to fly subassemblies down to the KSC.”

Edsel blinked. “But our headquarters are here in Cletroit.”

Jeb sighed and leaned over in his seat. “It’s amazing watching this whole thing fall apart in slow motion,” he whispered to Val.

“Edsel,” she replied, “seems like the type of guy who would start a forest fire after detonating a sack of blue gunpowder with a machine gun in a gender reveal party… not that he’ll ever be able to get married.”

“Jeb,” Edsel called, “what are you and Val talking about over there?”

“Uh... well...” he stammered. “Uh... we want to talk about the Millennium Fleet Project. In the short term, we would replace the Raven with two completely new reusable spaceplanes- a small, six-seater lifting body for flights to a space station that will be assembled with a delta-wing heavy-lift spaceplane. In the long run-”

“No, no, no,” Edsel interrupted. “Quit spouting nonsense.”

“For the benefit of the engineers in the room,” Jeb continued, raising his voice, “in the long run, we envision an orbital depot assembled by this heavy-lift spaceplane, with a smaller counterpart at the Mun and nuclear ferries running between these two stations. At each end there will be fuel depots and labs, and enough room to support fifteen kerbals on the Kerbin end and six kerbals on the Munar end. Crust research from the current Munbase suggests that at the edge of some of the larger impact craters, we could find ice. A newer, larger munar surface base will be placed there, with four times the lab space and a massive refinery and a fleet of ferries to convert the ice to rocket fuel and ship it up to the orbital station. There will also be a large rover for overland research expeditions along the crater. With this system, we could cut our operating costs thirty percent while boosting our revenue from research contracts. After about thirty years, this infrastructure would be in place and within a decade we would have enough cash reserves on hand to send a mission to Duna. At the same time , we would be using each of these spaceplanes to increase our turnaround on satellite missions; in the next two decades, we expect the overall satellite market to quadruple as more companies rely on high-speed, long-distance telecom for their day-to-day operations.”

Jeb took a breath. “Anything else to add?”

Val stood and reached into a manila folder. “Edsel, we’ve compiled cost reports, market forecasts, and a three-decade master plan all typed up for you. The only thing you need to do is sign this budget authorization sheet, and commit to some red ink for a few years. We’ve just come out of a recession, so we should be able to run some deficits for a while as the economy grows.”

Val held her arm out; a single bead of sweat ran down her brow despite the chill in the drafty conference room. In her hand, she held a choice of futures. If Edsel made the right decision, kerbals would find a new home among the stars. As Val contemplated what would happen if he handed the manila folder back to her, her mind filled with visions of brutal Cletroit winters, repeating thirty or so times until one final nuclear winter descended over the land. Val could still remember surviving it once before, and she would do anything to leave Kerbin before then.

“No,” Edsel said, “that won’t do at all. Don’t you have any respect for the shareholders?” He set the folder down in front of him and began walking over to the wall. “Modern business is a simple matter of maximizing short-term profits as much as we can,” he explained, turning off the lights in the room. “I’ve made a slideshow to help you envision some designs I’d like you to get working on. They’re a few simple things that we can build without any budget.”

He brought up a slide. “Look at this.”

Val gasped. Gene swore. Wernher jumped out of his chair. “Good Kraken!” he shouted. “Look at this thing! What have you done, drawn wings on the Raven service module?”

Edsel smiled. “Yep. I figure, if we can keep costs down on boosters and land the service module back at the KSC, then we’ve just saved a ton of money. You know, it’s like those spaceplanes you kept talking about.”

“But… but… but…” Val sputtered. “It’s a service module. How will it survive re-entry?”

“Coat it with ablative heat shielding,” Edsel suggested.

“That won’t work,” Val sighed. “What about the solar panels? What about the RCS ports? With the command module attached, this thing will have a glide ratio of…”

Bill looked up. “Assuming we keep the same size engine, some back-of-the-napkin math gives me a glide ratio of… zero point nine to one.”

“A glide ratio of less than one?” Val shouted. “That doesn’t even count as flying! It’s going to take a boatload of money to refurbish this thing after flight, we’re going to add a ton of weight with longitudinal braces for the wings and the landing gear, and the engine weighs more than the rest of the ship combined, so no matter how far back we move the wings it’s going to be super unstable… and I don’t see any vertical stabilizers. This thing will go into a hypersonic spin at forty kilometers. It’s a death trap!”

“Relax,” Edsel told her. “You’ve been selected to fly the first mission.”

“Really? Well, then I guess I’m going to die.”

Wernher stared at the diagram. “This looks like something a sixth-grader would draw in the back of his pre-algebra textbook. You, sir, are nothing more than a fancy suit filled with bull-”

He fell silent a set of double doors burst open at the end of the room. “Okay, okay, don’t panic,” Sunny shouted into her cell phone. “I’m here. I’ll let him know.”

She stared down at the table at Gene. “Your bird’s in trouble,” she told him. “Come save it.”

Edited November 17, 2019 by Confused Scientist

[KSK]

Hang on - is Val going to close her loop? Or has she already done so. If the Big Winter is on its way and she was old enough to remember it the first time around...

Somewhere out there right now, might be a baby Val being born.

Edit. Re-read the last part again. Guess not.

Edited October 31, 2019 by KSK

[Confused Scientist]

 Chapter 14- Back From the Dead

“Juno, do you copy?”

The Munar regolith spreads wide and large, more rugged and more desolate than any desert. A kerbal is just a speck on the horizon; a footprint, utterly insignificant. No matter how much of the Mun kerbalkind colonizes, there will always be more wilderness just like this: barren and unrecognizable.

“Juno, do you copy?”

This landscape, however, is no longer alien. A metal disc, about a foot in diameter, lies on top of the dust. It is welded to the jagged remains of a hinge, and then a little ways away there are larger sheets of metal and copper wiring, shards of solar panels and what seems like miles of pipes and valves, scattered out across the plain with no respect for the way they had once been assembled, looped around engine bells and coiled beneath propellant tanks.

“Juno, do you copy? This is Ozymandias, over.”

Harbrett shook his head. “Forget it, Bob. The radio’s dead. The only thing left is the power and comms we have in our suits.”

“But how could the radio die? It’s self-contained, with its own batteries and temporary power supply separate from the main bus. It’s meant to survive a collision that would destroy the Phoenix and kill us instantly.”

Harbrett looked out through the hole in Ozymandias’ hull to the debris scattered across the regolith. “That’s true. But nobody ever said the radio would stay attached to the ship if we crashed.”

“All right. Let’s go out and survey the damage.”

Bob, Harbrett, and Alice unstrapped themselves and climbed down from their seats to where the new floor was. Looking up, Bob grew dizzy as he took in the sight of the Phoenix’s cabin turned upside down, with the black sky outside betraying the analog displays of the navigation consoles, which had been frozen in gimbal lock since before the crash. The analog clock was also stopped, and everything digital was simply gone. With growing dread in his heart, Bob got down on his hands and knees and crawled through the hatch. Normally, he would make his way down the ladder to the base of the lander, but now he stepped right into the munar dust, which spilled into the cabin as he stood up and surveyed the wreckage.

Bob was at the bull’s eye of a sea of metal scraps and shattered plastic. Countless pieces of wrecked spaceship stretched from horizon to horizon, and somewhere a few hundred feet away white smoke rose from a shattered piece of the ascent stage.

“It’s on fire,” Harbrett mumbled. “We’re in a vacuum. How could it be on fire?”

“That,” Alice replied. “Is two hundred pounds of liquid oxygen boiling off.”

“Oh, no,” Bob gasped. “Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.”

“Bob. What’s wrong?”

“I… I think I’m g-going to be s-sick. I f-feel dizzy, and I wanna get out of my suit… let me out of my suit.”

“Bob,” Alice told him, “listen to me. Breathe. Close your eyes. Turn up your oxygen and your air conditioning, and breathe. Don’t focus on the big problems right now.”

“Okay,” he gasped. “Ah, I think I’m supposed to be feeling a burst of adrenaline right now, but I used it all up in the crash. I just feel so empty, and small…”

“Don’t worry. Focus on something else. Did you get the flight data recorder before you left the cabin?”

Bob squeezed his eyes shut. “No. I was going to put it in my suit’s sample pouch, but I nearly tripped over an extra glove that had fallen out of one of the storage lockers and I brought that with me instead.”

“Okay. Why don’t you go get the data recorder?”

“Good idea.” As Bob turned back towards the crew cabin, Alice lowered the sunshade in her visor, hiding the worry on her face.

“Okay, I’ve got the black box. I’m thinking that the first thing we need to do is repair the radio. If it survived the crash, all it probably needs is to get hooked back up to a power source. Harbrett, you can survey the wreckage for anything useful. Alice and I will handle the radio.”

The three astronauts split up, and after a few minutes, the radio had been found among the wreckage. “It’s not a long-range signal,” Bob explained. “It’s a low-power setup, and all we need to do is get a signal to either a Raven or a comms satellite in Munar orbit. That means a small battery will be enough for a few hours of two-way comms.”

Alice reached down and opened up the radio casing. “Here’s something even better- the built-in backup battery. Looks like it just got knocked loose during the crash.”

“Yes!” Bob shouted. “That’s even better. It’s meant to keep the radio working if everything else dies. Of course, this piece-of-junk casing wasn’t enough to hold it in place.” He crouched down and laughed. “Yep, it’s got the Bloeting logo on it; no wonder it’s such a shoddy piece of equipment. Wait a minute…”

“What is it?”

“If that’s the Bloeting logo,” Bob muttered, “then I must’ve…”

“What?”

“No, nevermind,” Bob replied, “it’s all right. I just remembered something important. Wire up that battery and I’ll be back in a minute.”

Alice got on her knees and began to work, but she was interrupted by Bob again. “Bingo!” he whooped. “Jackpot! Score! Hole-in-one! Every awesome, epic, incredible thing ever!”

“What is it?” Alice asked, breathlessly.”

“Remember our cargo manifest? Munbase had three old, worn-out EVA backpacks they needed to get rid of, and decided they’d send them with us. The only thing is, the old backpacks were right by the airlock, right next to that new shipment we’d brought in. I’d forgotten what the Bloeting logo looked like, so I couldn't tell them apart and I took the new backpacks by mistake.”

Out in the distance, Harbrett was listening into the conversation. As Bob spoke, his eyes widened. “That means,” he interrupted, “the old backpacks had been stripped clean for supplies, and they didn’t have any oxygen, or water, or batteries, or anything. But since you took the new ones instead, they’d have all those things.”

“Exactly!” Bob shouted. “And they’re the new long-endurance model, meant to keep a crew alive all the way back from the Mun even if the Raven depressurizes. That means we have three extra days of air, water, and power! I can see them now… looks like they got torn away from Ozymandias during the crash. They’re underneath the crew module, so I’ve gotta crawl in there…”

In the crew module, Alice was almost done connecting the battery terminals. “Yeah,” Bob continued, “crawl in there… just move this boulder out of my way…”

Just as he said this, Alice made the final connection, and she felt the crew module tip. In that brief moment, she felt the cabin lurch, falling from the perch it held on top of the boulder Bob had just pushed aside, and then come to rest as a scream filled her helmet.

“Bob!” she shouted. “Can you hear me?”

No answer came, but only more screams. Alice fell to the floor and gripped her helmet, overwhelmed by the numbers flowing threw her head. The crew cabin by itself, without the ascent stage, weighed just under two tons; even in Munar gravity, that would be enough to kill a kerbal depending on how it fell.

And then, at the edge of her hearing, behind the screams and whimpers of her crushed companion, came a fainter voice:

“Ozymandias, this is Juno. Do you copy?”

Edited November 20, 2019 by Confused Scientist

[roboslacker]

Dang

[Tsar_bomba]

Well, 2020 is boring. I hope your next chapter is coming along well.

[fulgur]

Dammit, forgot to keep up. And out of rep...like...things.

[Confused Scientist]

 Chapter 15- Happy New Year*

“Good morning, and welcome aboard Alliance Airlines Flight 5015 with nonstop service from Juno’s Landing Valentina A. Kerman International Airport to Cletroit-Mayne County International. Our estimated flight time today is three hours and twenty-seven minutes…”

As the pilot continued her announcement, Bob leaned back in his seat and glanced over at Jeb. “All this extra leg room is neat, huh?”

Jeb just shrugged, and Bob remembered that, except for a quick visit to Val’s grave, the only time Jeb had been outside the hospital in the last two months was when he had left this very airport after a fourteen-hour flight from Finchernia, walking on his own two legs without any thought of the blood clots drifting up from his legs towards his brain. Bob thought briefly of the crutches in the overhead bin, that Jeb had used to take the last few steps from his wheelchair to his seat, and then tried once again to cheer his friend up. “I probably shouldn’t tell you, but Wernher’s planned a big surprise party for you when-”

“Excuse me,” a flight attendant said, walking up. “You two are aware that you are seated in an exit row?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jeb replied.

“And you have read the safety instructions in your seatback, and you are capable of operating this exit in an emergency?”

Jeb rolled his eyes. “Take one look at my legs and tell me if I’m capable of operating anything.”

“Well, sir, if you can’t assist in an evacuation, then you’ll have to be reseated.”

“Now, hold on,” Jeb said, raising his voice. “When I checked into this flight I told the customer service representative that I require extra legroom for a medical condition, and when I boarded the flight I reminded your gate agent of that fact. This is the seat they gave me, and I assumed that this would not be a problem.”

“I’m sorry, sir. Federal regulations prohibit this flight from leaving the gate until you are reseated.”

Bob glanced up. “Uh, perhaps you could reseat us in a bulkhead seat?”

The flight attendant shook her head. “Those seats are reserved for our Platinum Club customers.”

Jeb shook with rage. “Now, I’m entitled to equal treatment just the same as anybody else under the Orchidians with Disabilities Act, and I-”

“Jeb,” Bob whispered, “that law isn’t going to be passed for another two years.”

“Whoops.” Jeb looked back up at the flight attendant. “Fine. What are my options?”

“We can rebook you on a later flight-”

“Fine,” Jeb sighed, “sounds good.”

“-and we will hold your checked bags for you upon your arrival in Cletroit.”

“No!” Jeb exclaimed. “I gate-checked a wheelchair, which was way nicer than the one your gate staff gave me to board this plane. Can you take it out before we take  off?”

“I’m afraid not, sir. After we land in Cletroit, this aircraft has a very tight turnaround to-”

Jeb swore. “Forget this,” he said. “Bob, grab your things. We’re moving to another seat.”

“But your doctor said-”

“I know what my doctor said! I just don’t want to be stuck here in Juno’s Landing anymore. I have very fond memories of this city, and I’m not going to ruin them by staying here in my… present state. I’m going to need every bit of strength I can get if I’m ever going to walk again and leaving Cletroit sounds like the perfect motivation. The next time I come back to this city,” he declared, “I’m walking down the beach on my own two feet.”

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Two years earlier…

Bob’s screams had stopped, and all was silent among the scattered debris of the Ozymandias wreck. “I think he’s unconscious,” Alice panted. “I’ll go down and check… oh, man, this is gonna be bad…”

In mission control, Gene turned away from his console, unnerved by the sudden silence. “Okay. Geez. Uh, can we get a doctor in here?”

Next to Jeb, an intern stood up. “Yessir,” an intern said. “I’ll get the flight surgeon right away.”

She ran off, and Gene looked out over his engineers. “Well,” he told them, “don’t just sit there. Just, uh, start talking about our options. We need to launch a rescue mission as soon as we can. We need a surveying team to find the crash site, and then they can decide if Ozymandias is close enough to Munbase for us to send off an overland rescue team. If it’s not, then we need to get somebody on the next flight from Cletroit to Juno to start prepping an emergency launch.”

Gene’s telephone rang, and Val reached over his shoulder to pick up the receiver first. “Hello… uh-huh, uh-huh…”

She frowned. “It’s Edsel. He wants to tell you that to save money, he’s just removed our quick-launch rescue capabilities from the KSC.”

Bill ran up behind her from the flight controller’s trench. “Hold on,” he said. “Does he know that we have a… crisis here?”

Val shook her head and picked the telephone back up. “Edsel, we have a situation here. The Phoenix just crashed during its takeoff, and Bob has been injured very badly. We need a booster at the Cape ready for flight as soon as… yes, I know that you’ve… oh, for the love of…”

She put the phone back in its cradle. “Edsel says that there is one munar-capable booster at the KSC, already vertical and ready to be moved to the pad.”

“Yes!” Bill hollered. “We can-”

“Except,” Val continued, “Edsel says he realized that if he delayed the mission for three months he could save five thousand dollars, so twenty minutes ago the booster was moved back to the VAB and destacked.”

In the back of the room, Jeb stared at the blank console screens in the engineer’s trenches. “I think,” he said, “we should get a priest in here to read the crew their last rites.”

“Not so fast,” came a voice. From out of the shadows, Sam Kerman stepped towards Gene’s console. “Jeb, look at these Munar topography maps.”

He handed Jeb a thick book and opened it to a page halfway through. “Ozymandias crashed on top of Carpenter Plateau. They’re close enough to Munbase- about thirty kilometers- to send a rover, but the slope to the top of the plateau is too steep. If we could send a rover in the other direction, however, it could make the downhill run to Munbase in a few hours.”

“But,” Jeb replied, arms straining under the weight of the atlas, “they don’t have a rover.”

“There’s a Raven stacked for a flight to Cuyahoga on the pad right now in Juno’s Landing,” Sam explained. “If we burned up all the fuel in the booster and three-quarters of the fuel in the service module, a two-person crew could send a rescue package to the crash site about six hours after launch. During transit, the astronauts would prepare an inflatable shelter and abandon the Raven in deep space. Then the Raven would make a pre-programmed maneuver to shift its trajectory from a close Munar flyby to an impact near the crash site, and the remaining fuel in the service module and the capsule’s abort motors would slow it down just enough for the rover to stay intact. Meanwhile, as the Ozymandias crew makes their way to Munbase, we dispatch another rescue mission to pick up the stranded Raven crew as they head out to a point about halfway to Minnmus on a highly eccentric orbit. Right now, there are three astronauts on the surface of Minnmus. In this scenario, they end their mission early and send their Raven to rescue the stranded astronauts in the shelter. Then, they drop them off at Cuyahoga and we focus on getting Bob, Harbrett, and Alice home while the Minnmus crew returns to Kerbin and the rescue team waits for another Raven to come up and get them.”

Val blinked. “Sam, you… Wow. Attention all stations, did you just hear what he said?”

A few controllers nodded. “Good. Get on it.”

Jeb sighed and pinched his brow. His other hand, however, still held the atlas, and it fell from his hands and crashed into Val’s foot. She swore and fell over, clutching her shoe as a doctor came in. "That looks like a pretty serious injury,” she said. “Come to my office after we’re done here.”

“Don’t we have some bigger problems here?” Val gasped.

“Yes,” the doctor replied, “we do. You’re grounded until that foot is healed, so Bill will have to take your place on the rescue mission and you’ll have to stay here and do CAPCOM duties.”

“Uh,” Jeb asked, “who are you?”

“Irene Kerman,” the doctor replied. “Now, before you and Bill head to the Cape, I’ll need blood samples from you both.”

“Why?”

“Because Bob’s in really bad shape. It looks like the Phoenix crushed his abdomen; even in Munar gravity, that’s pretty serious. His liver, kidneys, or lungs could be seriously damaged, especially if the circulation to those organs gets cut off. Luckily, because Bob is a Silver Creek veteran, he gets to cut the line for the transplant wait list, but if there were any astronauts or really anybody at all at Bloeting who were willing to give him an organ, it could help save somebody else’s life down the line. I’m sure you know that the waiting list for an organ is-”

“I’ll do it,” Val volunteered from the floor. Next to her, Jeb nodded.

“I don’t think anybody here would refuse,” the doctor explained, “except maybe the boss. But even if you gave up part of your liver or a lung, I’d still be able to get you back on flight status a few months after the surgery. After all,” she said, “if you end up in a worse wreck than Bob, a missing lung isn’t going to be what kills you.”

 

 

*Two months??? Man, I can be lazy sometimes. Really, I just had no idea how to write this chapter, and I didn't want to post something I knew I'd end up hating. Luckily, I have a clear vision for where to go from here. With that in mind, enjoy!

Edited January 22, 2020 by Confused Scientist

[Confused Scientist]

 Chapter 16- Red Metal (Thanks, Percy Shelly)

“Lift up your arms.”

Thirty pounds of synthetic fiber settled itself around Jeb’s shoulders.

“Tuck your head and brace your neck.”

The rubber neck dam pulled at Jeb’s hair and twisted his ears, and then the helmet popped down onto his neck.

“Breathe steadily and swallow to equalize the pressure in your ears.”

The glass visor came down and the suit tightened as air was pumped in through a compressor somewhere. “Okay…” came Val’s voice from somewhere far away, muffled through the synthetic fabrics and the weight of an extra quarter of an atmosphere pressing down on Jeb’s eardrums. “Everything looks good. I’m going to equalize the pressure in your suit now.”

The orange fiber settled over Jeb’s limbs, and he slouched a bit as his ears popped. Opening his helmet, he glanced over at Bill, who was also finishing his pressurization test. Val, standing next to Jeb, closed a few more valves in her suit and then hobbled over to the door on crutches, her left foot in a cast. “All right, you two. Start your prebreathe and let’s head to the pad.”

Jeb and Bill picked up their portable ventilation units and carried them by their side as they exited the crew quarters and climbed into the waiting van, the door sliding closed behind them as reporters crowded around. “Any last things to add before we start the mission?” Bill asked, looking around. Gene, Wernher, Sunny, and Doctor Irene sat on the bench opposite them. Sunny and Irene looked over some papers they held in their hands, Gene and Wernher glanced around nervously.

“Yeah,” Alice said as the van started off. “I just got a memo from the boss. Edsel says he doesn’t want any more ironic spacecraft names.”

Bill glanced out the window as the Moa booster came into view as the van rounded the VAB. “What does he mean, ‘ironic spacecraft names’?”

“You know, things that wouldn’t look good in a crash, like Titanic or The Invincible. Consider, for example, this poem:

            My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
            Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
            Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
            Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare.

“Now, keeping that in mind, have you seen the satellite pictures of the crash site? ‘That colossal wreck’ sums it up pretty nicely. So, when you decide on a callsign for this mission, just try to pick something that won’t end up looking all ironic or hubristic if you die. Can I ask what you have in mind?”

“Uh,” Bill muttered, “we have a few ideas-”

“We’re going to call the spacecraft Shackleton,” Jeb replied.

“No!” Alice shouted. “Why can’t I pick the names for these things? I’m sick and tired of reading off press bulletins that sound like, ‘The Bite the Wax Tadpole ascent stage has rendezvoused with the Bill Berry’s Eyebrows command module in low Munar orbit and the crew is scheduled to splash down in the Azuric Ocean in three days’ time, where they will be met by the S.S. Banana recovery ship.’ Where do you guys come up with these names?”

“Shackleton rescued his crew from the polar sea ice,” Jeb reminded Alice. “It was a magnificent rescue, and I hope we can pull off one that is just as great.”

“True,” replied Wernher, gazing up at the Raven as the van pulled up to the launchpad. “But keep in mind that it is also Shackleton who stranded his crew in the first place.”

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Across the brief but insurmountable gulf between Kerbin and the rolling hills of the Mun came the call: “Cletroit, Ozymandias.”

Alice sighed. “Don’t call us Ozymandias. The spacecraft has been destroyed.”

“Sorry. Cletroit, uh, Phoenix Number 31, a rescue mission is about to be launched from Juno. Gene is down there now overseeing the countdown. Please prepare for a nearby supply drop in under eight hours.”

Harbrett looked up at Kerbin, closed one of his eyes, and watched it disappear. “Copy.”

“And please confirm that Bob is still wedged underneath the crew cabin?”

“Affirmative. We’ll have to move him sometime, but I don’t want to risk some kind of spinal injury.”

“Understood,” the Capcom replied. “We’re going to be sending some harnesses and light excavation equipment with the supply ship so you can extract him safely.”

Alice glanced over at the Phoenix, only a few feet away from where she sat drawing in the dust with a broken landing strut, and looked into Bob’s reflective faceplate. “All right. To conserve power, we’re going to turn off our radio now and check in on you in thirty minutes. If there’s an emergency before then we’ll call you.”

“We copy,” Capcom replied. “Cletroit, over and out.”

“Phoenix Number 31, over and out.”

There was a click. “Okay,” Alice said, “hi-gain radio off, and we’re back on the local freq. How’s our O₂ doing?”

“Not great,” Harbrett replied. “Bob’s using up air faster than I thought he would… I think I’ve changed out his oxygen tanks at least two or three times so far.”

“Don’t worry. The Shackleton will get here tomorrow and then we’ll have two days of oxygen for the five-hour drive back to Munbase. I guess I should-”

At the base of the crew cabin, the regolith shifted. “Unnhhhh….”

“Bob!” Alice shouted. “Are you okay?”

“I can’t… can’t breathe too well…”

“That’s okay,” Harbrett replied. “You’re still trapped under the Phoenix, so it’s natural that-”

“What? Why haven’t you tried to save me?”

“We were worried you’d have a spinal injury,” Harbrett told him. “If we moved you, you could be paralyzed for life. Can you feel your legs?”

“…Not really.”

Harbrett took a breath. “Okay, that probably means you just don’t have any blood circulation in your extremities right now. We’re going to try pulling you out now.”

Alice ran over. “I’ll try to lift up the Phoenix a little and you can grab his arms. Three, two, one…”

She was about to say pull, but she was deafened by Bob’s screams. Harbrett swore, but Alice only saw his lips move; he was silent beneath the symphony of pain. Slowly, inch by inch, Bob emerged, his suit scraping against the dirt on one side and the jagged skeleton of the crew module on the other. Finally, he was out, and he lay gasping on the Munar regolith. “No,” he cried, “can’t do that again…”

“It’s okay,” Alice told him, bending down. “You’ll be fine. Look, your pressure suit’s still intact. That’s good!”

Bob shook his head. “Don’t you know, Alice? The acceleration couches, the pressure suits… They’re designed to keep working in some pretty hostile conditions, long after we would’ve been killed. The suit’s fine, but…”

He exhaled, clouding up his visor for a moment. “The body within may be damaged beyond repair.”

“When we get back to Kerbin,” Harbrett told Bob, “all the best doctors in Orchidia are going to be there to make you well again.”

Bob closed his eyes. “Not good enough. Alice… If I don’t make it…”

Alice leaned closer. “Tell Jeb… Tell him Electron Blue is… fake. Tell him it’s… a delivery system.”

“No!” Alice exclaimed. “What does that mean, Bob?”

“He’ll know… what it means. Remember… Electron Blue is fake. It’s just… a delivery system.”

Even though his eyes stayed closed and his breathing stayed shallow, Alice realized that Bob had succumbed to unconsciousness again. “I… don’t know what that means.”

Harbrett gazed down at the fallen astronaut. “I’ll tell him, Bob.” He glanced at Alice, and then back at Bob, trained his vision on the gradual, tenuous motion of his chest as it rose and fell, ever so slightly…

“Do you think he’ll dream?”

Edited February 4, 2020 by Confused Scientist

[roboslacker]

A conclusive statement at last.

[Confused Scientist]

15 hours ago, roboslacker said:

A conclusive statement at last.

But I always end these chapters with a one-liner quote, like.... Oh. You mean about Electron Blue. Fun fact, that's originally an R.E.M. song about "a drug made out of light". Michael Stipe was probably talking about a narcotic made out of light, but Big Pharma is actually more interesting for the purposes of this story. Whenever I can't think of something to write about, I usually end up stealing a song. Take, for example, the Cuyahoga space station, or something even more obscure that inspired a story about spinning a capsule around to get it out of orbit way, way back in 2018, or how about They Might be Giants? Of course, those are just a few examples (The Velvet Underground and the Old 97's have probably both worked their way in here a few times before) and there's way more than just music that I take my inspiration from (thanks, Andy Weir). That being said, I do think Townes Van Zandt might fit in nicely somewhere in the next few chapters...

Also, I considered naming this previous chapter the "Making a Dollar or Two Iowa Primary Caucus Special", even though it had nothing to do with the Iowa caucuses*. Luckily, it also turned out that the Iowa caucuses had nothing to do with the Iowa caucuses.

*For our friends from outside the States, Iowa is a place whose political importance depends mainly on whether or not the current year is divisible by four. Even though its population is relatively small, for complex reasons they have an important role in nominating a Democrat and a Republican to run for president, and they do this using a caucus, which is a system of voting which has significant benefits and drawbacks compared to normal polling methods but this year it got messed up and nobody knows which Democrat won yet (and this time it's not Florida's fault). I also think the people in Iowa like that they understand what a caucus is and the rest of us don't.

Edited February 5, 2020 by Confused Scientist

[KerballingSmasher]

On 2/4/2020 at 6:41 PM, Confused Scientist said:

and this time it's not Florida's fault

Do I sense some 2000 salt?

[Confused Scientist]

21 hours ago, Kerballing (Got Dunked On) said:

Do I sense some 2000 salt?

I think that's the most topical I've ever been! I'm only two decades late to a joke!

Edited February 7, 2020 by Confused Scientist

[KerballingSmasher]

On 2/7/2020 at 5:20 AM, Confused Scientist said:

I think that's the most topical I've ever been! I'm only two decades late to a joke!

Yes... only... XD

 

Don't worry, at least you aren't the joke!