Chapter Text
Before Nat could begin to comprehend exactly how much stuff she would have to explain, Amy already had her by the hand and was leading her off to a side room, the door labeled in poorly scrawled permanent marker as "mission briefing" in handwriting almost as bad as her own.
"Hold on, hold on... I thought we weren't supposed to have a mission for at least a week... bonding time or something." Nat felt a bit rushed as the words poured from her mouth, not exactly ready to handle whatever was coming in this room.
When Amy finally let Nat free, the door was already slowed behind them, leaving them in a slightly messy room with a folding table in the middle. Classy. "That's normally the case, but... Well, I hope you know who exactly I am and how many jobs I get."
It was a good point. After the whole Tacoma endeavor, her name was splattered all over news boards. Usually with phrases like 'Anti-Business Terrorist' and 'Robot thief.' Even before that, Sareh had been going on and on about how much of a brave person she must be to rescue AI like she did. Hell, even Cluey Dog had talked about her with Nat. It wouldn't be odd for job requests to come flying her way after that.
"I'll take your blank-staring silence as a 'yes, I completely know how swamped you must be' and get to briefing." Nat and hardly noticed that in her thoughts, time had still passed and Amy went to talking. "Simple job, as it is day zero for you- it's on an orbital ship, abandoned for two days already. No detected hazards, low risk of being caught, minimal security countermeasures... etcetera."
Nat could have asked many things. She could have asked to at least get a better understanding of Amy first. She could have asked what company the AI belonged to. She could have asked about the ship where the job would take place. She could have asked anything she wanted to. What came out of her mouth was "What's it's name?"
Amy smiled. "Good question. The AI we're after is named SNOW- slightly more recent core than ODIN, but only by a few months."
Nat finally came to at least some of her senses and spoke again. "What do we have to do? For the job, I mean."
Amy grabbed a tablet from her bag and swiped a few times before a map came projected from a small machine on the ceiling to the table in the room. Three areas were circled, one was starred. "This is the Polaris Station. Used to be a radio management station for Obsidian Star- you know, the multi media thing that nobody uses but somehow still earns money. We'll have to gather data from the barracks, the mechanical repair section, the rec room, and finally the core itself."
Nat was baffled by how simple it all sounded. In the classes she had been taking, they always made everything seem difficult. How meticulous everything had to be, the hand signals for AT control and sign language... why couldn't they just use keyboards? "Amy... why was it abandoned?"
Amy was still looking down at the map as she spoke. "We recieved a transmission from SNOW not too long ago. She asked for our help, so one of Hassan's friends managed to crack the cyber security and simulate a coolant leak. The company freaked, and immediately brought the crew back to Earth. Nothing actually happened in the station... it's still in complete working order."
Nat let out a small sigh of relief. At least she wouldn't be very likely to die on her first mission. Still possible, but... not probable. "So, when do we leave?"
"Ten minutes from now."
"What?!"