Amateur ‘ologists
Connor
Day 5 — 00:05:05:00
Mariana was right, this was a mess. After what happened to Thompson everyone and their dog became amateur zoologists, entomologists, dendrologists and every other type of ologist you could imagine. Now, I’m not usually one to begrudge good intentioned assistance, and I know that these people are just trying to help, but this has really gotten out of hand.
“How do you like your new job so far?” I asked Kara, gesturing at the mess of impromptu sample containers she was trying to catalogue. I turned to R.Eddings, who was carrying the crate of the samples Jai, Sin and I had been collecting. “Put it down over here Red.”
“Is that…” she began.
“More samples? Yup.” She groaned. “No, no, don’t worry. These,” I tapped the crate, “are different!” She raised an eyebrow.
I walked over to the table that had the samples stacked on, under and around it, as organized as they could be under the circumstances and peered in at the disarray. I sighed. I haven’t done any real zoology or veterinary work in almost a decade and this is how I have to start off?
“Alright, forget these. For now at least. Start on these.” I opened the crate and took one small container out, handing it to Kara along with a small memory disk. “They’re all numbered. When we collected the specimens we photographed them and entered location, time of sample, notable characteristics, specific suggestions on tests, etc. After you download them you’ll still have to enter them into Mariana’s database, but the real work is going to be trying to cross reference all of the amateur samples with ours. Most of those will probably be duplicates of things we’ve already got, but if there’s any question set them aside for Jai, Sin or I to double check. Oh, and some of my ‘samples’ are still skittering around, so be careful.”
“Damn. You have no idea how much that helps. A good half of that lot don’t even have locations, and I’m pretty sure people were only sampling things that they had already seen other people touch. Which is probably for the best, all things considered. If I need any help I’ll give you a shout. I’ll get you the disc back tonight.”
“Yeah, I’ll see you then.” I’m glad this project was finally underway. After what happened to Thompson who knew what else was waiting to surprise us?