Glam take a deep breath, open the door and don’t step outside.

The night is over, but there is little light. Grey curtains of rain are waving by. Yesterday’s mosaic of puddles has merged into a lake. It stretches as far as the eye can see, turning all the shelters into islands. A foaming river running through the lake signals the location of the cobbled path Glam are supposed to walk, if they insist on leaving the building.

Fascinating, how the river has decided there is some kind of downhill to flow towards.

The neighborhood is as flat as a slice of powersquashed termite protein, before it starts crumpling in the frying pan. Same for the whole city, and the wider metropolitan area. The former rubbish dump, now a nice forested hill, with a wildlife sanctuary, is as mountainous as terrain gets, in the Favogoro region.

The impromptu river has gotten its direction wrong. It flows away from the coastline. Someone even farther inland will get very wet feet, and the mess will stay put for as long as the rain lasts.

Glam consider pitying the poor folks getting flooded. Too busy feeling sorry for themself, they quickly discard this option. One face-to-face office day per month to endure, and they had to get picked for the date with the worst weather, again.

In December, they had to march through a thunderstorm. In January, the wind was blowing so viciously it got very close to being called a tornado. And now the kind of downpour that sends edgy folks checking their emergency floats.

Still standing in the precarious shelter of the doorway, Glam wonder. Three ordeals in a row, that’s a lot. There’s a pattern emerging. And where there’s pattern, one has to wonder about intent. An intent that would be malicious in their case, obviously.

The quantum computing freaks in R&D have been promising big advances for ages. The ultimate weather forecast, reliable months ahead, that would be a mighty breakthrough, a life saver for millions.

When Glam were in kindergarten, their parentals used to debate whether or not to keep the catastrophic weather event insurance, and which part of their flimsy housing to fortify next. They made heroic efforts to stick to an outdated way of life that was getting more outrageously expensive by the month. The holidays were cancelled first, then the rare weekend trips, and in the final phase even the monthly BBQ.

Took Glam’s parentals five years and hundreds of rows to get themselves ready to cope with the inevitable and move to a first shelter. And what a rudimentary affair they chose, by current standards. Bit on the thick and slow side, totally unlike Glam.

With a reliable long term weather forecast, it would be possible to harass people by forcing them to commute on the worst days, a brutal form of cloud mobbing. But such forecasts would still be great to have. Weather is a life-or-death issue, and not just for the outdoorsy professionals in the high paying hazardous jobs, like agriculture.

Billions and billions have been going into improving forecasts, over decades, without much to show for the expense. There was some incremental progress, of course. The autonomously relocating offshore wind turbines are getting their positioning right more often, power supply has become pleasantly steady. But a reliable long term weather forecast, that’s on a different page. Glam know such advances don’t just pop up, their scientific mind doesn’t do fairy tales. But they would like to ask someone, about the chances of sudden progress in forecasting.

Unfortunately, they only know one scientist working at the cutting edge of weather research, Sark from Cloud Seeding and Advanced Mitigation. They had to go full blunt on that unbearable character, because hints didn’t do the trick. Only when they shouted, for all the department to hear, that nothing, not even a free two year naturafood subscription, would ever make them consider a shared glider ride+, and that they’d rather forgo their precious Optiboost than spend time together, did the premium nonitohape retreat.

Glam don’t have anyone to ask, about imminent weather forecasting progress. Thinking Sark is a downer. They can’t keep standing in this doorway. They’re getting wet, even though the rain doesn’t hit them directly. Either they dive into the mess, or they retreat inside and call the HR bot, to claim non navigable weather.

Previewing this call does Glam’s mood no good. They might as well hand in their resignation. This weather sucks, but it isn’t the kind of calamity that allows one to call in commute impeded. The HR bot will take less than a second to assess and discard, before reassigning them to a job with an even longer commute.

Time for Glam to choose between horrible an atrocious.

Stepping onto the cobbled path will get them ankle deep into fast flowing water that carries along all kinds of yuck. The thick layer of foam veers between a yellowish white and outright brown, not a good sign at all.

The still part of the lake looks better. But underneath its alluringly foam free surface lurks the mattress of carbon capture moss, currently a soggy mess that won’t carry Glam’s weight. They’re sure to sink in knee deep. That’s not just disgusting. The telltale green stains would get them fined for environmental vandalism.

The foaming cobbled path river it is, then.

Time for a good fat dose of Optiboost.

Glam press their left earlobe to activate the device. Next, they silently count down from thirty. The hormonal cascade works fast, but the effect is far from instantaneous.

By the time they’re done counting, the weather has turned alluringly interesting. Who would prefer walking a sunny path to splashing around in a foaming river? Certainly not invigorated Glam.

They gingerly step into the brownish foam and enjoy the challenge of the slippery cobbles. Thankful for an exciting day, they discard their conspiracy theories. 

###

Watching Glam struggle by means of a surveillance duck prepositioned in the vicinity of their shelter, Sark look forward to revisit this footage whenever they recall the sting of the rejection.

Being a nice person, they would never publish such material, they record for strictly private consumption.

Being also a diligent person, Glam decide not to publish yet.

This local weather management prototype shows promise, definitely. Three successful trial runs prove that it is perfectly feasible to cajole wind and rain into bundling in one designated location, to spare the rest of an area. Precipitation and gusts can’t be avoided, but a certain level of control is surprisingly simple to achieve, if there’s enough power for the catalyst.

Glam are proud of their invention. They look forward to all that praise, for saving lives and advancing the common good. There’s some urgency, of course. But one shouldn’t rush out new tech. Much better to do more testing, much more consumer friendly.

And, by a happy coincidence, more testing also gives them the chance to ruin on more commute, for Glam. With a little luck and a slight increase of the test area, to increase the amount of rain and the water level, they’ll trip and dip next time.