[color=fff79a]"Ugh... Thank you Holiday. Please activate my morning routine."[/color] Isaac opened his eyes, groggy after a full 7 hours of sleep. As per his command, soft [url=https://youtu.be/WnqmshjB3pk?si=eS5jKGWRHlzFePgl]classical music[/url] began to play as the windows of his large bedroom untinted themselves. For a moment he closed his eyes again and groaned, wanting to say 5 more minutes. [color=fff200]"...New log, Isaac Kaplan. Day uh... 55, 56? Thank you Holiday, day 56 without stimulants or sleep aid. Immediate impression on awakening: It does not seem to get easier. Will continue report after a morning shower and coffee."[/color] It seemed that as always, doctor Kaplan aimed to get that overtime as he, technically, punched in and began accumulating these hours. A man perfectly conditioned to the expression 'the boss makes a dollar and I make a dime, so I shit (and shower and eat and exercise) on company time.'

The groggy doctor let out an old man grumble as he got out of bed and into the shower, listening to the daily reports from Holiday.

[color=fff200]"Hm, good, maybe the wider availability of alcohol will diminish the presence of low quality erzats products. Did we ever find who's responsible for this awful cider?"

"I see. Set blanket approval for Holo-Suite requests with an exception for pornographic content. I don't know if the sticky bits of floor last time is was caused by what kind of liquid content and I don't want to know."

"Yes, how gracious. Holiday, give me a reminder to request a custom departmental event if we meet production targets. No, the standard pizza dinner is probably overdone at this point. Gather ideas from other departments and make a presentation for me later."

"Blighted-" [/color]

Something happened to his beautiful grass? And a cow got sick?! This caused the doctor to frown and immediately cut his shower short after quickly finishing scrubbing.

[color=fff200]"Delay breakfast, I'm going on the scene right now. Status of the other employees? Still having breakfast?! Bunch of lazy..."[/color]

He sighed as he moved to a stack of clean clothes on a chair and took a pair of shorts and matching black shirt with the Concern (TM) logo on them before starting to jog down the residential building and toward the blighted area, a small drone following him around as he got his exercise in and worked out his annoyment at his low performance crew. Was it so hard to have some work ethics and healthy habits? Actually it kinda was, Kaplan had the luxury of having a cerebral work where he could log his every thinking moment as billable work hours, meanwhile the rest had to do grunt work that left them with no time for anything else. The New England scientist however either didn't know or didn't care about that.

[color=fff200]"Holiday, make sure the samples of grass are not genetically related to those of experiment C34, I am THIS close to publish my article in the Pan-Eurasian Journal of biology, if this is more than just oil poisoning it would be a disaster. Record that I have arrived at the blighted area and... oh god. Oh my goooood! My grass!"[/color]

The patch of grass looked... normal. Maybe a bit more yellow than the grass around it, if you squinted really hard? But Kaplan seemed about to have a panic attack as he ran up to it and went on his knees, getting his face almost shoved in the ground as he looked at every single blade of grass with deep concern on his unshaven face.

[color=fff200]"Already evidence of toxiplasmosis underneath the leaf, leaf is... dull, slightly engorged... How can a cow not make the difference between this and healthy grass?! Holiday, patch me through the local coms."[/color]

[b][color=fff200]"This is Doctor Kaplan speaking, move your asses people, we have a crisis on our hands! I'm at the disaster site and it's bad. Rossi, I need that cow monitored and stool, blood and bile samples sent to the lab every hour. Yingxue, find me if there is anything wrong with that bovine and Chivu, I don't know why you're not already analyzing that grass. Eel, Nielson, take 57104 with you to the sub levels and find me that leak. Cross will handle that mechanical issue with the harvester."[/color][/b]

Kaplan got up from his knees and looked at the 'disaster site' with a frown. Damn it, this was a catastrophic start of the day!