In the first port, Simon collected and handed out gas masks.  After handing them out, Simon offered a brief demonstration on how to properly put them on and use them.  Speculation about the intensity of the next room was on everyone's minds.

"Let's proceed." Simon announced.

The next door opened and they walked into a much larger room than the power one.  This room seemingly stretched a mile.  There were shelving units all with various plants growing in them.  Long plastic hoses protrude from a cylinder above these shelves. These tubes fed into each individual plant through the makeshift soil they were planted in.  Every twenty feet or so, there was another cylinder feeding a liquid to the plants.  There were three rows in total.  Each row had a different size plant.  

Notably, the smell wasn't nearly as bad as everyone had been imagining, Jim thought to himself.  Sure, he thought, there was a minor odor of methane, but nothing life altering. Certainly no different than being near a portable toilet from about 10 yards away.  He wondered why the masks were necessary, but he didn't question it too much.

"This is our agricultural center." Simon announced.  "We have a few of every plant on earth that we could find that bore significant life-sustaining vitamins and nutrients." Simon continued.

"What about other crops? did we just let them die and go extinct?" Veronica jumped in."

"No." Simon began "I sent a handful of research teams to travel the globe to learn about local plant life.  These research teams took living plant samples to determine the best of the bunch for use in this facility.  As for the rest of plant life on earth, it's simply impossible to collect every species in existence.  We as humans hadn't even discovered every species.  We know this, because it's statistically impossible.  However..." Simon continued "Any plant that was found to have essential nutrients and vitamins to any reasonable degree was also collected for samples and stored in a separate manner to preserve them for potential future use.  We couldn't, I couldn't bring myself to allow life-sustaining resources to simply vanish from earth.  Call it preservation if you will." Simon walked over to one of the cylinder modules. "This is the reason for the gas masks.  purely safety protocol." Simon touched the plastic lines. "These lines are a synthetic polymer. These lines are what feed the plants.  The liquid inside is a highly concentrated plant food.  This liquid helps maintain a very specific soil pH for the particular plant's needs.  The primary nutrients involved..." Simon was cut off

"Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium." Veronica blurted out.  Simon looked at her in mild shock.

"Yes, actually.  or NPK for short." Simon continued looking at her as did everyone else. "Your memory seems to be coming back to you, my dear."

Veronica shrugged her shoulders and head as if almost embarrassed.

"Anyway..." Simon continued "Along with those three essential nutrients for plant growth, that are a host of other vitamins involved.  Any food scraps that are produced in the preparation of our own food is chemically broken down to separate the remaining nutritional value and repurposed into this very special, very potent concentration.  These plants are essentially feeding themselves.  however, we do utilize a mirror system to give them all artificial sunlight." Simon pointed to his own gas mask. "This mask is simply a precaution in case something were to ever go wrong with the plant food.  While it is generally considered toxic in its basic form.  The highly concentrated nature of this liquid could cause very unintended side-effects if its fumes were ever inhaled by any one of us.  I'm not saying any of you would die, though admittedly, we never saw an instance of that.  However, you would certainly be feeling under-the-weather."  

"Got it, so mask up at all times in here, or potential death." Connor interjected somewhat sarcastically.

Simon simply looked at him in a 'really?' way.  He brushed it off.  

"There is one other aspect to this room that should be known..." Simon sort of glanced at Veronica, but was speaking to everyone. "The upkeep for this room is simple, as long as you know what to look for.  When the plant has bore fruit, and matured, you will place the harvest in this panel on the wall.  This is attached to a complex system that takes care of the rest of the process.  There is all of the information you'll ever need on crops in our information database found in your personal tablets.  I would study them, it's valuable information that could always prove useful.  Veronica here..." Simon looked at her. "Seems to already have an idea of what's going on." Simon looked pleased.

Simon motioned back towards the door they came in from.

"Shall we?" Simon's British accent was always strangely satisfying to hear.

Everyone once again made their way through the doors.  Once back in the main hall, everyone noticed Simon staring at the third door.

"What is it?" asked Jim.

"Well, this would be the next room logically, but I'm hesitant to go in at this moment." Simon said with concern

"What do you mean, why the hesitation?" Jim followed

Simon turned away from the door and approached the main computer.  Everyone turned and very curiously followed him over.  Connor looked at Jim very confused.  Mostly why Simon hadn't answered the question.  Simon pressed some keys on the keyboard.  Simon was going through various menus at a rapid pace.  Jim couldn't even follow what he was doing.  Simon finally came to a page titled 'Individual Radiation Levels', Simon finally responded.

"Sorry, for the suspense, my brain sort of works like that..." Simon paused and pointed at the screen. "I had to check radiation levels for the next room because that's where we'll be conducting the testing on our suits."

Jim understood and looked back at Connor who also now understood.

"Considering the chamber in there is designed to allow outside air in, I thought it best to check the radiation levels first, make sure the safety seal hadn't malfunctioned." Simon answered.

The explanation was sound enough to Jim.  Everyone else was nodding their heads in agreement.

"And?" Lydia spoke up. "How does everything look in there?"

"Low enough that we can enter.  The chamber before it will have our radiation suits just like the other room had the gas masks.  However, I'm very serious about this." Simon's face turned completely serious. "No one is to enter that room without a suit on."  The lack of a gas mask will lead to very unpleasant abdominal pains for what will feel like forever.  The waste system will thank you, but your body won't.  Not wearing a suit in that internal chamber, depending on radiation levels, will cause your entire body to shut down and bleed out.  All this could occur in a few days to a few minutes.  The radiation out there is no joke."

Everyone stood silent and stunned in morbid reflection. Thinking about the potential outcome of a suit not being worn properly leading to near instant death, really emphasized, vividly, the intensity of the outside atmosphere.  Simon began to speak again

"Given that the levels are where they are currently, it would be relatively safe enough to enter..." Simon paused "But... I would feel much better about it, about our personal safety if we gave it another day.  You are all too important for our mission to succeed to lose even a single one of you." Simon paused again, this time looking for acknowledgement and understanding from everyone.  Satisfied that everyone had received his message clearly.  He looked down at his wrist watch.

"Good heavens, is that the time?" Simon looked back up. "What say, all of you, to lunch?"

Suddenly everyone's stomach began to growl. 

"I'll take that as a yes." Simon smiled and began to walk toward the stairs.

Everyone in turn followed up. 

More food sounded fantastic to Jim.  Veronica following close behind him grabbed his hand once again and gave Jim another wink.  Jim reciprocated and they both once again followed behind Connor and Lydia into the food hall.