It was to be the greatest isolation and self-sufficiency experiment of the millennium. A team of scientists working together to sustain a completely sealed environment for up to six years. Six years shut off from the rest of the world, where all they had to live on was the food they could grow and the water they could recycle.
The experiment was also to be a psychological one. These dedicated scientists would have no contact with the outside world in that time. At the scientists' own behest, not even a single phone line made it into the complex. Any situation that required outside help would also spell the end of the experiment, and as such in those circumstances the scientists would simply open the doors for emergency aid.
But of course, for the five scientists that were to embark on this tremendously difficult task, that was the last thing they wanted to happen. The data they would collect from their extended isolation was valuable to not just those of human psychology and endurance, but also many fields of eco-science. Their results could even play a role in learning how the human race could survive climate change or long distance space flight. They wouldn't, couldn't let the project be compromised unless there absolutely was no choice.
Finally, the big day had arrived. Day Zero. Dr Franklyn de Vere, lead scientist of the project and the charismatic eco-visionary who funded a significant portion of it from his personal fortune, stood behind the podium and waved to the press in attendance, the last to enter the dome. Soon, he would breathe his last lungful of the outside air, venture inside and seal the big metal bulkhead behind him. He'd spent the past four years pushing this project forward, but today was the day when the work began.
Dr Newt Mavis sighed heavily. The first team meeting - a mere formality with every project on Day Zero and zero progress to report - was seriously dragging on, proceeding only as quickly as Dr de Vere's ego would allow. Newt sat obediently through another of Frank's inspirational monologues, but he was trying not to listen to that pompous trust fund windbag. Damn, he thought. Imagine living with six years of this!
Newt looked at the assembled team. Aside from Frank he didn't know the other scientists all that well, but including both of them there was a total of three men and two women in the dome. One was Asian, the other a pretty damn hot blond with impressive cans. Newt idly wondered on the nature the latter woman's credentials, or if she was just there to hang on to Frank's cock.
Way back during the planning stages, he remembered Frank the slick bastard talking about the possibility of the first human birth within a self-contained environment and what a headline it would make. Going in with five, coming out with six! Newt shot him a dirty look and Frank immediately tried to justify the remark by talking about the importance of learning about population growth reliant on self-contained renewable resources. Newt chuckled as he thought about that moment again. It was good to know for all Frank's bravado, Newt could still fluster him without a word.
Still, maybe that was the blond's role in this. I wonder when Frank's planning to loose that bombshell on us, he thought. Jesus, maybe she's pregnant already? Deed done, no chance of arguing against it.
Newt made a mental note to learn more about the busty woman sitting across the room. If she was indeed knocked up, it would have a knock-on effect on his own plans.
Newt returned to his quarters and locked himself inside.
The next six years of his life, stuck around that blowhard and his three favourite cocksuckers. Enduring that kind of company for so long would probably drive him insane but - fortunately for him - his project would take care of everything. Not the project he was hired for, but the super secret project he'd smuggled into the dome while Frank had been flapping his mouth to the press. His company was... subject to change.
The closed environment was a perfect field test. The absence of external communications, even more so. That overbearing Dr de Vere as one of the guineau pigs, the sweetest bonus of all. Newt Mavis wasn't stuck in here with them, they were stuck in here with him!
