From the expression on the General's face, it was apparent he was at least half-joking. But the shock of seeing one of the Army's highest-ranking officers walk in through the door had Matt staring at the General incredulously, just the same.

“Relax, Colonel. Get your butt over here and take a seat. I've only got twenty minutes to get you up to speed, and then we have a conference call to make,” General Draper said with a slight smile.

Fitch quickly took a seat across from the General, confusion obvious on his face.

“Colonel, I've read your reports, and I find your whole project fascinating. But I need some straight answers now. We'll let you know what we can, as we progress. Right now, I need a clear picture of where this Sleeper Project is, and where it needs to go,” the General explained.

“Yes, sir. Have you seen the report I filed two months ago?” asked Fitch.

“Yes, that's why it was decided to get you involved. No games, Colonel. Was this as successful an experiment as your report makes it sound?”

“Absolutely sir. In fact, probably more so. As far as I'm concerned, the fatality was irrelevant to determining the success of the test. And while there were some extremely minor hardware issues, these have been addressed, and those failures helped prove that our fault tolerance was up to speed. Since submitting that report, we've just about finished analyzing the massive amounts of data which was automatically recorded during the tests and there are no other new issues to report. The sleep project is a success, far more so than we had even hoped for,” Finch admitted. He couldn't hide the burst of pride in his voice as he spoke.

“Good, that's what I was hoping to hear. What else is needed for you to go live with this?” the General asked.

There was a definite pause before Fitch responded. “Go live? I guess that depends on what you're looking to do, sir. The only application of this technology that we can come up with is for long-term space flight. Or possibly, to sleep people with specific diseases until cures are found.”

The General leaned back in his chair. “Let's say, hypothetically, I wanted to take a group of people and put them to sleep, completely unsupervised for up to twenty years. What would that take?”

Matt did a few mental calculations before he answered. “With a few minor modifications, we could do it now, as long as we could sleep them in our current facility.”

“How many subjects can you manage in your current facility?”

“We're currently set up for twelve at any one time. If needed, we could add half a dozen more units, but it would take some time,” Matt admitted.