You rock back in your chair, stretch your arms above your head and yawn slowly. There is a gentle hiss as the cushion on the headrest deflates slightly, becoming noticeably softer, allowing your head to tilt back and tempting you into sleep. You make a conscious effort to sit up straight and feel the head cushion and back support stiffen. It was a long day on duty yesterday and you’re hoping for a quiet morning.

You scan the wall in front of your desk, covered by a panoply of projected images. You have feeds representing most of the key deployed assets. Tactical surveillance imagery, dynamic maps, even footage from various commanders’ helmet cams. In the centre of the array of rectangular image panels is one enlarged view showing a live stream of operational text messages coming in. It gives you a view of all of the communications coming into the HQ from the field. You chuckle to yourself as you follow the ongoing events relating to an overturned livestock lorry on its way to the market. You trained with the lieutenant who is currently trying to get his soldiers to herd goats back onto the truck.

You hold your fingers out over the desk in front of you, and look down to check that the projected keyboard is illuminated on the flat surface. You start typing on the desk, tagging your friend, the lieutenant: Please keep us updated on the goat situation. Should we classify them as hostiles?

You feel your eyes sagging again and lean over your shoulder. “Monty, can you sort me out a coffee please.”

Your colleague sitting next to you perks up at the sound of your voice. “Monty, me too please,” she calls. She’s currently dealing with an area evacuation caused by a suspect vehicle near a school. There have been loads of these hoaxes recently, probably kids just wanting a day off school.

A couple of minutes later a cut glass accent speaks from behind you. “Sir, Ma’am. Your coffees.”

You turn around and take your drink off the tray being presented to you by the office robot, currently under the control of your personal assistant, Monty. The robot looks like a large upright vacuum cleaner, with a vertical screen attached at head height.

“Thanks Monty,” you say, as the robot trundles off on its small wheels, fulfilling some other duty on behalf of someone else’s personal assistant. It always feels odd when Monty hops bodies like that.

You place your coffee cup down on the desk. The red light on the lid shows it’s still too hot to drink.

You continue to watch the live communication feeds. A message pops up, that catches your attention. Its text is red and in bold, the system’s natural language processing picking up on the importance of its content and highlighting it accordingly.

You read the message. A contact has been reported by a unit near the school being evacuated, it’s close to the market square. You look around urgently for any relevant live footage amongst the different projected images on the wall. Each expands in size as you stare at it. It’s no good, there are too many to search quickly.

“Monty, can you find me anything related to the reported contact. Get rid of everything else.”

Most of the images disappear and four larger rectangles project onto the wall forming a quadrant pattern. The operational messaging remains in the top right, you are also presented with video from one of the armoured personnel carriers patrolling with the attacked platoon, overhead imagery of the incident and a dynamic map showing the live location of all of the soldiers and platforms in the area.

Your other colleagues have started to gather round your desk space. The incident is occurring in the AOR you are monitoring and all eyes are on you. Your OC is now also standing by your chair. He asks you for a sitrep. You talk him through what has occurred, enlarging the projected dynamic map on the wall so you can point to the location of the incident.

“Right, this looks serious.” He says. “Carry on dealing with it while I inform the colonel.”

He summons the office robot and dials through to the colonel on its telepresence screen. You see the colonel’s face appear on the robot’s screen, she looks serious, presumably sensing that she has been contacted because of something critical. Your OC walks off out of earshot talking to the colonel’s image, as the office robot keeps up with him.

“Monty, can you set up a line with the lieutenant please,” you say as you put your earphone headset on.

“He’s on the line now,” Monty responds.

You hear ragged breathing in your earphones, then a clear voice. “This is F13. We have requested a CASEVAC, over.”

“Roger, F13.” You look at the message board display and can see the bottom line, in red text, is a request for a helicopter to evacuate a seriously injured casualty. A blue response comes through, the medical evacuation coordinators have dispatched a helicopter. “A helo is on its way. ETA 10 mins, over.”

You try to gather your thoughts. Where will it land? The evacuation rendezvous point for that sector of the city is the market square, but it’s market day today. “F13, we are just working out an RV for your casualty. Standby to receive coordinates, over.”

“Roger.” You can still hear F13’s breathing over the line, then some shouting in the distance.

You put your call with F13 on hold and turn to your colleague, motioning her over to the large table in the middle of the ops room. “We need to refigure a landing site for this CASEVAC. Can you get the imagery of the market square?”

She gestures over the top of the table with both hands. A 3D image of the city projects above the table’s surface. It shows the whole city at a small scale. Your colleague flicks both her hands apart in a coordinated movement and the map zooms in. After a few more manipulations, she has the image centred over the market square. At this scale you can see individual buildings and vehicles moving about. The image has a heat map, representing the density of people in the area. You can see the market square is virtually all red and orange. There’s no way a helicopter can land there.

“Monty, can you get me our local police liaison officer please.”

“Patching you through now Sir.”

You quickly explain the situation to the liaison officer, who says she will get the local law enforcement presence to clear a landing site for you. You lean over the operations table and rotate the 3D view slightly using your arms.

“Make sure the landing area is towards the centre of the square, away from those high buildings on the eastern side.” You finish your call with the police liaison officer and a light beeping sounds in your earphones, signalling an incoming message.

“This is F13, can I get an update on the RV please, over.”

“We’re just clearing a landing zone in the market square,” you respond. “Look for a local police cordon. How is the casualty being moved to the RV? Over.”

“We’re loading them into an APC.”

“Roger, over.” You zoom out from the view and see three APCs highlighted blue in the 3D image, all in the vicinity of the incident. Each has an ID number hovering above it. One of them is also tagged with a red cross symbol, indicating that it is medically equipped. You confirm with F13 that he will be using this vehicle and then end the call, allowing him to get back to managing the situation.

You zoom out further on the 3D image and can see the inbound helicopter coming into view, highlighted in blue. You also notice some green vehicles driving into the market square area, representing the local police presence. You watch as the population density in a segment of the market square reduces. Now you can send the coordinates for the landing site through to both the APC and the helicopter.

You glance at your colleague, who is currently talking to the helicopter pilot, and afford yourself a smile. Your OC walks back over towards you, accompanied by the office robot, swaying slightly on its wheels. He has obviously finished his call with the colonel.

“How’s it going?” he asks.

On the operations table, you can see the helicopter has landed and the APC has nearly reached the landing site. You move your hand quickly across one corner of the operations table. The 3D image clears from this small section of the table and is replaced by a flat display of the message board. You watch as a number of messages come in confirming that the casualty is now aboard the helicopter, the helicopter has taken off and the medical team in the hospital are waiting to receive the casualty.

“I think it’s under control Sir.”

He mutters something about a job well done, and that he should go and tell the colonel how he has successfully managed the situation. Then he walks off, leaving you standing alone with the office robot.

You look across to your desk and notice the light on top of your coffee cup has gone blue, indicating your drink has now gone cold.

“Monty, be a good chap and fetch me another coffee will you?”

“Of course Sir.” The office robot turns through 180 degrees, and wobbles off towards the kitchen area. “It would be my absolute pleasure.”