[center][url=https://fontmeme.com/fonts/sudegnak-no3-font/][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/171031/b10c648088433cf11935ff0b1b0a4ef8.png[/img][/url][/center][hr][h3][color=magenta]Chapter 1[/color][/h3][color=darkgray][sub][i]January 12 2079[/i][/sub][/color]

Purple neon of all the colours, has an almost ethereal glow against fresh snow. Soft. Making the coating of snow glitter unusually across the steel bannister. Some jackass overnight replaced the harsh fluorescents with the coloured neon. The apartment building was hardly one would call shabby, but pranks like this were the direct result of a lazy superintendent of the building. 

A young woman, Varya Kozlov, though one could hardly tell under the winter gear, stared absently at the purple light. She was bundled in an old wooly brown hat, scarf and a dark blue heavy winter jacket with pants to match. Pants made of a warm polymer but thankfully more flexible and non-bulky. A backpack slung around her shoulder, mittens settling on the straps as she made her way down three flights of stairs to the street. She was on the small side standing just over five and a half feet, blonde hair whipping free from the scarf by the pull of wind, gray eyes squinting against the very same wind. It smelled vaguely of the baltic sea but was surely replaced by the rank smells of the city. Garbage, synthetic oils, cigarette vapours. It’d be offensive to anyone else save for a local.

She was on her way to work, the sky was beginning to brighten at the dawn offering more natural light as opposed to the flashing signs of billboards, LED street lamps and their artificial shadows. It’d be another thirty minutes of walking before she arrived on time and early. But never earlier than her boss.

Zero-One Shipyard and Repair was found above the bamble of the streets, where sky cars and shuttles could easily access the garage. Varya rode the open industrial elevator up, used by the sky docks employees. While a private elevator was reserved for clientele, those with legitimate business. Assuming the upper classes to ride the same elevator as wrench jockeys and beta coders was appalling. Stepping out to the docks already noting a few small personal sky cars tied off. She hurried her pace crunching across scrapped ice.

She pushed on through the backdoor, removing her hat and scarf immediately. Oleg, the tall hulking mass of a man with an impressive dark brown beard to match, waved her over. Already hard at work doling out work orders for those here early like himself. 

“Kozlov! Hurry up, you’ve got a mountain of work to do today. Debugging Mister Genberg’s fueling systems, rewiring Missus Verlot’s command panels, running prelim scans for Missus Lie-”

“[color=B56A7B]Okay, alright! Let me grab my jumpsuit and I’ll get right to it.[/color]” She replied testily, it was too early and she [i]just[/i] walked in. Oleg levelled a glare at her attitude. She tacked on a ‘sir’ after a second. That got a bright smile out of him as he handed her the red tablet, the plexi glass screen littered with oily fingerprints. She scrolled through the mountain of work order, scratching at her forehead moving into the locker rooms with a knowing sigh. 

Another day, another credit.
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[i]A few hours later…[/i]

Crouching on a eight by twelve hovering dolly, the vessel she was working on was rigged up above the shop, where below she could see large engines being work on as well. The shop used it’s space well. Varya held up a handheld scanner, a laser pointer hovering over several wires. Her brow was furrowed, her long blonde hair tied away out of her face. A small HUD visor resting at the top of her forehead, a pair of wireless headphones blocking out the background noise of the shop filling her ears with whatever was on the satellite radio. Picking carefully through the wires, her hand jerked suddenly away at the sound of Oleg’s voice coming in over the headphones.

“Kozlov, front and center. Gotta talk to you.”

She growled to herself and pushed them off looking down, irritated to be interrupted. Oleg was motioning her down and beside him was another man. One of the wrench jockeys, she struggled to remember his name but the highly detailed set of dog teeth tattooed under his neck and what tattoos she could see peeking out from under the collar, at least, placed familiarity. Her irritation was instantly cooled with curiosity. When she hovered back down to the ground level she stared at the other mechanic, noting as she had multiple times before his left arm was bionic and his right arm had cybernetic enhancements as well. She waited for Oleg to tell her why she was suddenly pulled away. Remaining silent while she unabashedly stared up at him, being several inches taller than her.