Over the next few days, Seaplane provided further updates, revealing in greater detail the ever growing scale of the threat. Galileo frowned: "Look at this latest message...the threat seems destined to expand beyond our current location...to other American cities and regions...and perhaps even other continents. We'll have to really scramble to adequately prepare for Hyde Rival's arrival on Earth!"
Olympia nodded: "OK, first order of business...we need to enhance our JE headquarters, to enable more robust surveillance and coordination of responsive actions...and we must also accommodate the additional staff members we'll need." They began by consolidating the most critical activities into a single large “situation room,” achieved by converting the spacious lounge into a more efficient central headquarters operation with multiple interlinked work stations. That consolidation freed up several separate small offices for other uses, notably expanded staff housing and related services.
They worked hard to ensure that operations at the enhanced JE headquarters could coordinate effectively with other stakeholders. Galileo set the stage: "Given the highly dystopian situation, we face the challenge of cooperating with security offices of private mega-corporations...obsessed with maximizing profit...as well as overwhelmed official government departments...often torn between competing factions." Olympia agreed, and added an important proviso: "Of course, JE must focus on counteracting Hyde Rival's particular mischief...we have no authority, or really even interest, in comprehensively policing the city and beyond. Although JE's work inherently constitutes only a tiny facet of the big picture, our efforts might well prevent the threat from metastasizing and spreading throughout the larger society."
Monitoring the threat would prove critical, from the very first and continuing indefinitely. Galileo happily reported: "Fortunately we've succeeded in tying into the private and official surveillance networks already in place throughout the city. Despite our misgivings about privacy intrusion, the location tracking and CCTV images will be absolutely essential, to provide the information necessary for us to respond effectively."
Olympia reported another success: "We've established a more robust communications capability, with much improved coverage of the local urban setting...and even more important, also capable of quick and effective expansion to other cities, other regions, and indeed eventually even to other continents, if necessary."
With these important capabilities in place, JE staff hoped they were sufficiently prepared to cope with whatever mischief emerged when Hyde Rival began his malevolent operations on Earth. As we'll see in upcoming episodes, they didn't have to wait long to find out!
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