Connor Charles "C.C." Jones's Story

If there was one man that seemed to never require sleep on Maziah, it was probably Connor Jones. Ever since university he had needed only a few hours of sleep (around three) per night, a quality that had carried on through adulthood. He was seemingly robotic in this aspect, up into the waking hours of the night completely uninterrupted by any seeming signs of tiredness. He was either in his office reading, or in his lab, experimenting or monitoring his precious observation equipment.

Today was no different. After a brief nap, Connor crawled out of the cot in his lab and began to check his equipment. He had heard the kids leaving earlier, figuring that they would be out for a swim, as was their tradition. And then, a few minutes later, Camille. He rolled his eyes at her morning routine; for a scientist, she didn't spend much time focusing on studies, and as such he had had to pick up the slack. While checking his monitor bank, Connor noticed that a sensor was offline. He had posted it just off the coast, some two hundred meters from the boat launch. He sighed--this was a frequent occurrence, as at least twice a day someone would come tearing out of the launch, not paying attention, and would clip the delicate sensor with a boat, going quite fast, and damage it. He had considered relocating it, but it was positioned so that there was a full perimeter around the island--an adjustment any larger than a few meters would leave a breach in the area's surveillance, and that would be unscientific of him. He grunted as he looked at the screen, tapping a pen against the desk--a nervous habit of his--before he slowly stood up and went to the lockers, pulling himself into a pair of swimming trunks and a loose-fitting white cotton shirt. He plopped a straw hat onto his head quickly and walked upstairs, through the maze of a house, and out to the boat launch.

A few seconds after unmooring the family launch, a geriatric old vessel with a hacking, wheezing combustion engine, he arrived at the buoy marking where the surveillance station was suspended in the water. He anchored the boat quickly, watching the weighted hook plunge down into the blue before following the line down, holding his breath tightly and kicking hard. Connor wasn't a strong swimmer, but the man himself was quite capable of doing so when necessary. He blinked away the salt-water sting as his eyes adjusted to the growing darkness, and quickly noticed the problem. One of the monitor's power cables, connecting the sonar suite and cameras to the battery in the buoy, had come unplugged--likely in heavy seas or a boat impact. Connor carefully picked up the thick wire and swam up to the buoy, weaving the wire through the superstructure before plugging it into the waterproof dry-cell inside and climbing back into the launch, shaking the water from his hair and puttering back to shore.

When he returned to the house, Camille was there in the foyer, looking bored, as she was wont to do. Connor smiled lightly. "Good morning," he intoned, moving quickly through the foyer and heading for the lab.

"Morning." She smiled brightly and followed him to the lab. Camille looked around the lab and smiled she did enjoy her work just she also enjoyed talking so she was always slightly behind. She walked over to a project she had been working on and quietly revised everything shed done in a soft mutter then started working again as if she had a inspirational moment but like Camille always did ten minutes later she was working at a slower pace as somehow she got confused over her own notes. She looked at the project for one maybe two seconds then when back to working as if there was no tomorrow.

Camille looked down at her project she knew she still had maybe two days work left on it but she really wanted to leave the lab now and go swimming but she continued to work anyway. Camille wasn't aware but like every morning she had failed to remove every last grain of sand from her hair you could see that. Camille's brown eyes were fixed on the task in hand now however much she'd rather sit on the beach and have chat. She laughed at her own thoughts She loved work just not as much as the beach but thats the same for about everyone surely? Realizing she was getting distracted she turned her thoughts back on to work rather than the beach.