Chapter Text
To say that the early days of Gyaxa were chaotic would be to do chaos itself a disservice. No one in their right mind would look at the handful of men and women standing around by a construction site and think “Ah, yes, this is the future of technology for our country!” Yet there Aura was, out of bed far too early with the knotty bun to prove it, waiting on their director to finally turn up. But damn, she knew the risks when signing up for this to get her research in and complete her doctorate. If this all went tits up at least she had the experience to shoot herself elsewhere.
Aura was around the first to notice a new figure had begun power walking up to the group, feet clapping loudly against the asphalt, long ponytail swaying behind her. One by one, the group's heads turned to look.
“Oh, wasn't the director..?” murmured one of them.
“Maybe they made a typo or put the wrong file,” whispered another. “Yuri is a pretty ambiguous name, right?”
“Eh, I guess... Hey, Director Cosmos!” The power walker looked back over her shoulder. “Er, Director?” She paused for a few more seconds, processing.
“Oh, has the director not arrived yet?” she asked, breathing heavily.
“You're not..?”
“My name is Dr Cykes,” she said in explanation, bowing with her hands clasped in front of her. “Nice to meet you.” A few people mumbled in vague reply before going back to whatever conversations they'd been having before. Aura, not having a conversation to go back to, offered a tired smile to Cykes.
“Good job on not technically being late,” she said jovially. Cykes smiled back then, and damn it Aura knew it was just her being polite but she hadn't got enough caffeine in her system to deal with the butterflies invading her stomach, and now she could feel her face getting all warm and she probably looked like a tomato and all thanks to a whopping one pretty lady being nice. How the hell had her lesbian ass made it to 24? “Uh, so, what did you get brought in for?” Crap, that probably sounded rude.
“Well, my doctoral dissertation was on the application of psychological analysis to the development of artificial intelligence,” Cykes said smoothly, one finger resting elegantly beneath her bottom lip as she gazed into the middle distance. “So I'm here to work in robotics.”
“Ah, you're my superior then, since you've got your doctorate under your belt already!” ...Of all the benign statements she could've made.
“One of them, at least.”
“O-one of them?”
“The doctorate in Artificial Intelligence, yes.” She sighed, eyes closing. “But I've nearly completed my master's in Psychology, so give me a couple more years!” Aura just looked at her, jaw slack. This was actually the perfect woman, standing right beside her right now. “What about you, Ms...”
“Oh, Aura Blackquill!” she rushed, reaching for a handshake probably too eagerly. “Master's in Robotics, still working for a doctorate! Need to get my experience up, so... here I am!” Cykes smiled again; Aura's predictable heart jumped on cue.
“Hm, I may well capture you for my research assistant in that case,” she smiled.
“Hah... I guess so!!!” If steam was coming out of her ears, Aura wouldn't be surprised. Interested in the inhuman phenomenon, but not surprised. Subtly she adjusted the collar of her button up. Yep, no inappropriate thoughts going on here thank you, just her and the California heat.
As if someone on high (read: one of the crane operators) had heard her turmoil, a jackhammer started off again, rendering all verbal communication basically worthless. A collective grumble arose. Cykes frowned towards the source of the noise.
“That's been going on and off all morning!” shouted Aura over the racket. From the small motions, she guessed Cykes had sighed, but then she quietly placed her hand on Aura's shoulder and leant their heads together.
“They expect us to work with delicate machinery while all that is going on?” she said. Or at least, that was what Aura thought she'd said; she could hardly be blamed for her brain being too frazzled by the dizzying combination of that damn jackhammer and the fact that up this close she could actually, if she had some sort of strange desire to, count each one of Cykes' eyelashes.
“I'll guess they'll have to stop during work hours,” Aura said once her brain had caught up and processed everything.
“For a researcher,” Cykes said seriously, “there is no such thing as 'work hours'. There are only 'hours'.”
“Okay, but,” replied Aura, “at the moment everyone here is still human. And needs sleep.” She looked up to pointedly glare at a cluster of bright yellow machinery. “And they decided not to build the residential halls for us to do that in until way after everything else.” Cykes grimaced.
“I suppose it's for the best,” she said to herself. “My daughter would never agree to stay here while they're still building.”
“You have a daughter?” Aura asked incredulously. How could one woman have a complete doctorate, half a master's, be not obviously much older than Aura herself and also have a kid... Oh. Dammit. She already had a partner, didn't she.
“Yes, she's the reason I was late today,” chattered Cykes, apparently oblivious to Aura's disappointment. “It's a lengthy ordeal, trying to get her off to school, you see.” And a school age kid to boot. So there was probably commitment there. So Aura was going to die of thirst by the end of the month, great.
Abruptly, the construction noise ceased as a black car swooped up the drive to where they all stood. The back door opened and out stepped a short, stocky, middle-aged man. Deciding that this had to be the director this time round, one by one the group stood to attention. “Morning, Director!” someone barked. The director saluted back at them and strode, hands behind his back, to stand proudly before them.
“Welcome, all,” Cosmos began in a booming voice, “to the humble beginnings of the greatest venture of this country in fifty years!” Aura rolled her eyes. What, was this a space centre or a bloody theatre? “As a selection of the brightest minds in California, you will bring humans once more to their home among the stars!” Unable to help herself, Aura glanced to see Cykes' reaction to it all. The woman had a good poker face, that was for sure.
Director Cosmos' speech was... not short, and Aura's legs were beginning to complain about standing around for so long. Meanwhile Aura's mind was beginning to complain that he hadn't said a single thing about the robotics department that she and Cykes were allegedly going to be working in.
“Any questions?” asked Cosmos, finally. Most of the people gathered stayed quiet, several looking a bit dozy. Aura raised her hand.
“Yeah, where do the robotics goals fit in all this?” she said loudly. Cosmos fiddled nervously with his moustache.
“Truth be told,” he said, “we couldn't go ahead with the rest of the project without having active research for that too. Our private sponsors have been very generous about competing in the space race once more but, alas, federal funding had different desires.”
“So we're basically here to cheat money off the government,” Aura snapped before she could stop herself. Cosmos was looking extraordinarily sheepish now.
“Why don't we begin the grand tour!” he declared instead. “I think it's more than time to show you all your new workplace!” Aura huffed. This was going to be a long stint.