Vin exhaled in relief and felt his tension leave with the crowd; he’d passed, it seemed. He made a note of the other remainees – [i]of course[/i] White-Hairs was still there – before looking down to study the file he’d received. Paper again, he observed, but this looked to be the cheaper synthetic kind. And at least it made sense for a hand-out like this. 

He quickly flipped through each page and committed them to long-term memory, before returning to page one for a more thorough pass to give his meat computer a chance to catch up. Facilities looked good – seemed like he didn’t need to worry about finding a place to sleep. The lab, he wagered, would probably have access to some pretty noteworthy computing power, given Origin’s resources. It also looked like they’d have access to a lot of research made into Derelict, most of which tended to be locked behind paywalls and corporate veils. Juicy. He continued reading, vaguely aware of White-Hairs asking some question, but he paid her words little attention.

“Holy shit!” shouted Cass, before exclaiming her apparent willingness to do anything for that kind of salary. Vin formed a mental image of her step-dancing in a tutu and suppressed a chuckle. She didn’t seem the type. He flipped through the pages and looked up the salary as White-Hairs snapped at Cass; it really was good money, he thought and gave a quiet whistle. He’d have to celebrate later.

The woman was interrupted once more as a trio of humanoid robots marched into the room, lining up neatly and introducing themselves to “the ORIGIN-tagged MOS presence”, as the speaker succinctly labeled the interviewing duo. It referred to itself by the catchy moniker A10-2022A. More serial number than name, Vin noted as he imprinted the string into memory. 

It seemed the trio were from MRS – [i]Martian Robotics and Security?[/i] he ventured from fallible human memory, but his interface was quick to correct him. [i]R is for Research[/i], he repeated quietly to himself. He wasn’t too familiar with their A-series lineup, but did recall having run into an old A6 model on an asteroid mining installation a few years prior. Still looked more or less the same, but he reckoned most of the improvements were under the hood. No need to change a functional design, he supposed. Vin respected their utilitarian approach to aesthetics.

D’Agenais went on to address them, apparently deciding upon some esoteric nickname for the thing before introducing the team. As Vin’s name came up, he offered the machines a laid-back wave and a smile. Couldn’t hurt to be friendly; he’d heard personality prints were getting pretty advanced these days.

---

As they finished up and filtered out into the street, Vin stretched his arms and turned to the group. He was in a good mood, and not even his instinctual dislike for White-Hairs could bring him down. Hell, there was a chance she might not even be so bad, once he got to know her. More than her, however, he wanted to pick Cass’ brain. Fifty-six was a hard figure to swallow, but even if the actual number of expeditions was only a fraction of that he still wagered she’d have some stories to tell.

“Drinks, anyone?” he addressed the group in general. “That pay is worth celebrating.”