"So 7416 himself is still unaffected. I have a hypothesis. Would several people please step outside of the safe radius?" the doctor continued, adjusting her glasses with one hand in a motion that signified pure professionalism.

Several staff members obliged, and Sambre looked back towards the anomalous organism.

"Gasp! Doctorate Sambre, your time-flow-speed has increased to 49 per cent!"

"Okay, that's as much confirmation as we're going to get." she replied, nodding. Sambre then turned to address the gathered crowd. "Whatever it is that 7416 has that allows him to disrupt the time-stop event, he only has a limited bandwidth for it. We still don't have an explanation for why people count towards the limit but inanimate matter seemingly doesn't, but it's looking like we're going to need to operate on a skeleton crew in order to actually move fast enough to make progress. Director?"

Borgmann nodded slowly, albeit slightly faster than he would have before. "Alright, we'll need some volunteers to re-enter stasis. Anyone who wants to wait it out, step out. Lawbert, let us know when we hit full functionality again."

One by one, the Foundation workers bowed out of the imminent call to adventure, until Lawbert cheerfully reported that the time-flow was hunky-dory once more with only four remaining. Borgmann did a bit more organizing and swapping of people, until the final roster was completed.