"Oh shut up..." Mila muttered. Her interface continued beeping. Mila slid her gray heat-generator blanket off of her body and rolled out of bed. She landed with a thump on the floor.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
"Coming, coming!" Mila groaned. She got up from the floor, still sleepy, and rubbed her gray eyes. "Interface, what is it?"
-Message from Jakk Cynor-
"Why didn't you say so in the first place?!" The interface did not respond. Cheeky little thing. Mila thought. Maybe I'll get it replaced.
Interfaces were the way that the inhabitants of LuCA communicated with each other. The lunar colony was expansive, so the development of interfaces allowed colonists to send messages to each other quickly and efficiently.
"Play message," she said aloud. Jakk's voice came through the interface, as clear as if he was standing right next to her. "Hey, Mila. Sorry to disturb you so early, but one of my rovers is fried. I need you to come right over and take a look at it ASAP, k? After you check it out I'll buy you breakfast at Geal's. Bye." The interface clicked off.
Mila rolled her eyes. "Interface, send a reply to Jakk." She waited for a minute, then recorded. "Jakk, that breakfast better be good. Mila out." A ping sounded. -Message sent-
Mila slipped out of her one piece sleepwear and pulled on her dark yellow jumpsuit pants. The pants were DuraCloth, a material that was resistant to tears and burns. The DuraCloth pants had several pockets, which were littered with spare lunarcoins, bits of paper, and tools.
Over that, she put on a dark gray-blue work shirt. This shirt was less high-grade than her pants, but it had stuck with her ever since she had started work at age 13. It also had a sleeve pocket, in which she stored her ID chip.
Mila pulled on her brown DuraCloth socks and bright orange boots, clipped the overall straps on her pants to each other and swung her dark brown pack over her shoulder with a clink of metal. She crossed to her door, pulled it open, and stepped out into the transporter's bright light.
☯☯☯
Mila loved transporter travel, but the thing she liked even better was rover travel. Unfortunately, GOM, the government of LuCA, had suspended her rover license two terra months ago. There had been a little accident involving a couple of broken labs, and even though Mila had fixed everything, she had only just gotten her permit back. She decided that taking the transporter would be a better way to play it safe.
The doors hissed open in front of the door to Jakk's lab. Mila stepped out of it and pressed the blue button by the door. "Jakk? It's Mila." she called. There was a pause, then Jakk's voice came back through the speakers. "Come on in." The silver doors slid open, and Mila walked into the dark lab.
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