Monday's Ear Vu story - characters

Monday next week will see the release here of my story, "Ear Vu".

I thought perhaps you might like a little non invasive back story on a few of the main characters. There are three scientists working in the lab together at the Sonni Facility. Dr. Michaelson, the protagonist and narrator, Dr. Verne Garrison, the lead Scientist and inventor of "Ear Vu" technology, and Dr. Johnson, their final teammember and fellow scientist.

Michaelson has had a diverse background in physics and quantum mechanics. He worked at NASA, and then JPL where he was loaned out to the CIA for a while. He then went to Bell Labs working on charge-coupled device (CCD) semiconductor imaging sensors. Then he worked at Great Britain's National Physical Laboratory and most recently came to the "Ear Vu" project directly from a Quantum Information Visiting Fellowship at the University of Queensland. Since he has been outside of the US for so long, neither Garrison or Johnson have met him. But they had heard of him and he is highly qualified. Personally, he has had multiple and somewhat disastrous relationships partly because he has moved around so much and partly because he simply can't settle down.

Leader of the team, Verne Garrison, taught for a short time at MIT and then worked at Sandia labs and then, CERN. Having done well in the stock market in the dotcom boom of the late 1990s, at that point he simply built his own private lab at his home which is situated on some beautiful and remote acreage. He finally hit a point where he needed access to equipment that he could never afford, so he shopped around and found a home with the immensely powerful Sonni Corporation. Personally, he had once been married and had a family with three children. Though he hasn't seen them in years, he stays in touch with his adult children, all of whom have prestigious positions in the sciences.

Finally, Johnson has a solid background in astrophysics, magnetic and string theory. He knew Garrison before their current work together and had studied under him at MIT. Personally, he has no relationship outside of his work. He is your basic nerd/geek type who finds all the emotional needs in his life supplied by his science and his work. What no one knows is that he put himself through college by making drugs, though he never himself used them. The fact that he compartmentalized well enough that he never got caught and never had a file built with the police, is a sign of his ability to remain calm and manage highly stressful situations.

This is the team that Garrison put together. He has always been absolutely sure of his ability to look into someone to see if they would be trustworthy and dedicated and, up to this point he's never been wrong. He fully believed he had put together the exact team he needed to complete their work. Loyal to one another,  tight lipped, nothing they were working on would be getting out. Security was supplied by the Sonni corporation in a secure building and so, all they needed to do now, was finish their work.

At this point Garrison was quite sure there will be nothing ahead but the joy of working out puzzles in quantum mechanics and building the electronics to play out the puzzles they would all solve together.

His planning had been impeccable. There would be nothing going forward, he was quite sure, but smooth sailing....