It was approaching 11am, and Dr. Foley had been trapped in the conference room they called Coriander for most of the night, having only slept on a nearby couch for a few hours. Each time he felt he could just go get some sleep and review the progress in the morning, the team came up with another crisis. The original cause for alarm had been a mismatch in the number of Rashja plants leaving their facility vs the number that arrived at the new farm destination. Security insisted it was a mis-count, while logistics suspected a security breach. Half the night the security team had spent painstakingly using archival security footage to attempt a recount of the plants before they were packaged and sent. It had been a good idea late last night, but it only led to more problems. The team had spent hours arguing about how many plants were behind blurry or odd-angle sections of the footage. The process was so unreliable, it was like scientists trying to determine whether one-thousand-and-one or one-thousand-and-two quarters landed in a bucked by listening to the clickity-clank sound they made. 

The environment only became more stressful, when after three hours of counting, the security team had counted exactly twenty plants more than they expected to find if there had been a mis-count on the sending side. Twenty plants seemed to round and large a number for small mistakes, and it was exactly the number that existed in a planter tray. Security wanted to just call the re-count a success, assuming that twenty more meant that they had simply counted one too many trays on the video. Logistics didn't accept that there was a counting mistake, and insisted on a recount. Everyone was on edge, everyone was over-tired. The environment was going from bad to worse, and Dr. Foley suspected if he kept them at this emergency any longer, nothing would come of it. 

They were back at work laboriously trying to re-count plants on video streams when Dr. Foley called for their attention, "Listen up. Brad. Steve. Everyone. I believe we've learned as much as we can about this discrepancy." His word choice was careful not to imply blame or assume outcomes, but he had his hunches. A four hour video count exactly one planter off was not very likely. "The next step is two-fold. First, I want you all to get some sleep. Brad, when you're team is refreshed, go through your previous logistics logs, see if you can spot any possible explanation for a clerical error on your side. Perhaps a plant was removed and not logged. Perhaps our uniform counting encouraged not counting at all. Look through your harvest numbers, anything you have. Report back by tomorrow morning." Brad nodded. His persistence through the night that there was no way this was a logistics mistake, that there was a plant missing, was beaten down by his desire to finally get some sleep. "Steve. I'd like you to put your best men on finding out where a missing plant would have gone. If it accidentally disappeared, it's out there somewhere, and you can find it. If there is foul play involved, then someone took it, and if someone took it, there is probably a buyer. Scout the 'nets, see if you can find anything that might lead you to an answer." The entire security team was relieved to finally be going to sleep, so they didn't say much as they quietly receeded to the door to get some sleep.

-- 

Dr. Foley was in a daze walking the corridors, wishing he were already sleep. His mind drifted to his date before the emergency, his connection with Cheri. In his currently state it seemed like a dream he couldn't really trust. Had it even happened at all? He didn't even remember walking through his dorm as he flopped down on the still-made bed and drifted off to sleep.