"Ms. Firen, I don't believe you have the unilateral authority you think you do to keep this unclassified, if it is determined to be a matter of national security." Someone else spoke up. "While Kyle needs to not get nearly as worked up as he is, you're asking for a lot of effort. Effort that would normally be qualified as homeland defense. Means and methods for military actions are almost always classified even when the action is public, and stationing soldiers for combat at a site where cultivation is better would most assuredly fall under means and methods."

"Besides," the now named Kyle spoke again, "would you allow anyone access to the site? I'm not even speaking of you using the military as what amounts to tour guides, I know there's been local issues with the ecoterrorist group ELF. Would you like to let them in and get stronger as well?"

"Excuse me?" Brent interrupted incredulously from where he was sitting.

"I'd rather hear Nicole's thoughts, Mr. Russell." Kyle shook his head at him, and I looked between the two for a moment.

I was missing something between them. "ELF? No. From everything I've seen and heard from them already, they're less an ecoterrorist group at this point and more a Jonestown cult. I'd be willing to try to entice some of their people out of ELF, but," I paused, assessing this Kyle. "But that's not even what I'm saying, so you're dragging me off topic."

I looked past Kyle and to the others in the room. "You're not classifying the existence of these hidden forests because you can't. People are already talking about ones in other countries and exploring them. I've been talking to people in Florida to try to find that one. Means and methods for military actions? You already don't let people onto base without permission or into combat areas unless you're part of the military. Those requirements are already there. I just want to ensure people are actually kept safe since this isn't some location in another country things are happening in."

The room was quiet. "So you're not opposed to military control of these resources then?"

"The military has already taken ownership of the one in Mark Twain." I countered. "So, not in these circumstances. Not as long as people are being protected from what could come out of there. I'm not that hypocritical to deny that DARPA and the military have provided a massive amount of support we likely couldn't have gotten elsewhere. But we've been publishing all of our findings, and I see no reason to stop that."

I looked to Brent who was looking unhappy towards Kyle, then looked at Kyle who apparently had finally gotten hold of himself and was blank faced. I then addressed the room again. "However, that doesn't address the general issue of other hidden forests, or swamps, or any other thing we might discover that the government doesn't control but will probably have useful things. Human nature, overall, is to be greedy. We seem to only work together better when there is something we can't do for ourselves."

I motioned towards the screen, still showing the grotto and the crystals. "I can't change human nature. What I want is to make sure that everyone looking at us sees there is a greater benefit to working with us, rather than hoarding knowledge and power to yourself. My longterm goal for this? Beating the alien, which means being able to stand against him whenever the Heaven realm matures, whatever that ends up meaning. We are struggling against someone who knows all the rules of his game and the only thing we have on our side is numbers. We have to be ten billion people on one team against him, not ten billion teams."

"As optimistic as you are, Ms. Firen, your own words betray you." Kyle spoke up once I'd finished. "You're not going to get the leadership of other countries to offer up any secrets they have because you're not bringing anything to the table they can't get for free. And you yourself are not completely unique. I'm fairly certain I can find someone serving in the government with an internal dantian at I-5 or 6 that correctly understands the need for secrecy that could take over being the face of this project for you. Then you can return to doing the research you want to do without needing to worry about how the government is using the results you're willing to give away."

I stared at him for a moment while no one else in the audience countered him before another voice finally spoke up. "You're completely out of line, Kyle." Brent stood up from where he was at, nearly spitting his words. "This meeting is to go over findings of one facet of this project and the way forward, not dig at the entire project's foundation because whatever classified projects you have running may not be returning nearly the same level of results."

There were a few looks from the audience at me at that statement, but seeing as this was the first time I'd even met this guy I had little clue about what other projects there might be. It did make the animosity between the two make a little more sense though.

"I started out doing this four months ago." I interrupted them and pulling attention back to myself. "We're all still learning everything about any of this. You're getting results from what you've made into my project. Go fix a real problem instead of making me into one when the Seekers are not."

I took a deep breath as I realized I'd gotten myself worked up enough that my energy was overflowing out into the room, though nowhere near enough yet to actually mess with anyone else's cycling. I reined myself in though. "Does anyone have any questions that relate to the Mark Twain area, or the grotto specifically?"

"Actually, yes." Another man spoke up, tapping on his own tablet. "How many people do you see being able to utilize the grotto's effects at once? The notes for this grotto say energy sources like people cause oddities?"

I smiled at him, glad to pull the meeting back onto a useful track. "That's one of the things we're still in the process of validating. It looks as though letting the energy of the area settle after introducing small numbers of people works to bring more in, but I don't have hard maximum numbers yet."

~~~

An hour later, after answering enough pertinent questions, the meeting was over and everyone else had left. I sunk back down into a chair on the dais.

I looked at Brent. "I pretty much expected them to want to claim sole ownership of the area. I'm not surprised with having to argue against hiding everything about it. But what the hell was with the guy trying to rip everything out from underneath me?"

He sighed and shook his head. "Kyle's a retired Army general now working with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. ODNI likely has several classified projects that he's responsible for that you're not authorized to know about, so even if I know something about them I couldn't discuss them with you."

I thought about that for a moment in light of the previous meeting. "And he wants to bring us in under his control, instead of DARPA giving us freer rein?"

"I'll have to let you draw your own conclusions there, unfortunately. I'd personally like to believe he just wants to keep your discoveries to the government, but his actions today make me not so sure."

Brent stood. "I am sorry though. You shouldn't have been the target for Kyle trying something with your project. That sort of fight should have happened with my boss. I'll bring it up with them."

"I shouldn't have been the target for Barry either, but here we are." I stood as well. "I'll just start expecting it next time I have to give a brief on our stuff to anyone outside the Seekers."

"So will I, apparently." Brent replied with a sigh.

~~~

"So how'd the meeting go?" Melissa asked as she walked into our conference room in the Rolla Seeker office. She was the last to show up for my sudden meeting with our core group. Ash, Karen, and Danny were already here with Brent having been left back at Leonard Wood to deal with his bosses.

I shook my head. "We've got at least one person that wants to close off and classify everything about the grotto and the forest. And considering most of the rest of them didn't disagree with him, I don't know how many people are actually on our side of things."

"So, you think they're going to kick us out of there then?" Danny asked.

"No, because they don't have someone to replace us with. Yet. So we're going to have to ensure that sharing this information is actually for the best." I answered him.

"The forums have been taking off a bit since we posted up the Iver's overflow technique and people realized we aren't going to take credit for their stuff." Karen offered from where she was sitting. "I've been watching the technique subforum and there's been several people complaining they could have provided that too."

"I don't think I've seen anyone claiming a bounty though?" Danny voiced another question. "Are they actually posting up anything new?"

"Yeah, there were a few things." Karen frowned. "How much did we actually publish the bounty thing?"

"Enough that Arthur figured out we had one." I answered. "But that's one of the things I want to start pushing harder. I want more than just our names splashed across the techniques page, or anything else that someone's got a good idea on."

"One of the things. What else?" Melissa asked.

"Five breakthroughs or better for everyone here, and I'm going to push my eighth one. Ash, Karen, I know that's asking more of you guys, but I'm also going to stick you two into the grotto testing group as much as I can if it helps you. We're going to need data that isn't filtered through a soldier first, just to make sure it's not being withheld from us to start with."