The harsh fluorescent light burned her eyes, . Twenty O- Blackjack, blinked, scrunching her eyes up and turning to the side to avoid the light. 

“Twenty One of Fifty, you are to report to Airlock Six at 09:00 hours, it is now 08:15 hours, you have fourty five minutes to prepare, this will be an extended-

She turned over, blocking out the noise and light with her arms, not bothering to listen to the rest of the announcement as it blared in a mechanical monotone. She knew what she would be doing today, she’d been preparing for three months. She’d be going outside the dome to retrieve… something. And interacting with people who could actually speak more than affirmatives and negatives or researchers, interestingly enough. 

She wasn’t actually sure how she felt about that, the researchers were hard enough to communicate as it was.
______________

Five minutes after the harsh awakening, she was half dressed in an undersuit and gulping down a drink and nutrition tablets. The large pills often made her gag, something she’d long ago resigned herself to, though she still wondered what actual food would taste like. 

Throwing the now empty cup in a small container, she walked towards the rack that held her gear, pulling off the armored hazmat suit and slipping into it with trained ease. She quickly buckled on the long vest and extra armor it came with, performing a quick check to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be. She grabbed the gas mask/helmet hanging on a small hook and strapped it to her face, sealing the cowl of the attached hood to the hazmat suit and opening the small side vents to avoid using the filters until she had to. Last but not least she pulled the revolver off the wall, strapping it to her thigh and slinging her rifle over her shoulder. 

One last check to make sure she had everything, including extra gas mask filters, ammunition, and food, and she set out towards the small elevator that would take her to the surface.
______________

Idly tapping her armored foot against the ground to an unheard rythym, Blackjack remarked that she really needed to find a nickname that rolled off the tongue better, and that there appeared to be nobody else at the designated airlock yet, despite the very clear number displayed above it and concise instructions to get there. 

The large and imposing airlock door dominated the area, with several guards patrolling the area and machine gun nests every three meters. Despite being created to operate around people like this, she couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable and bored. She dug around in a normally hermetically sealed pouch, pulling out a small electric tablet Dr. Stein had given her and flipping through some books stored on the device. The device itself was an interesting combination of field analysis tool and smartphone, able to take a beating and also record scientific data unaided, it also functioned as a multimeter and radiation detector and could easily hold several terabytes of… whatever she felt like putting on it. All it currently had were some books she’d found in her off times, notes on equipment maintenance, and the programs used in analysis.

She turned her vision upwards, watching the relatively barren street that led to the airlock for anybody else who looked as though they were ready to venture into a toxic wasteland.