Sophia listened carefully, feeling oddly reminded of her days in the New Constantinople university, whilst she busied herself directing her robots in the assembly of her laboratory. Setting up the lab’s layout on a holographic display cast from her wrist band, each of her finger motions translated into a precise reaction from the machines before her, who have since revealed a multitude of robotic arms with which they unloaded their crates, opened them, and lifted out a great number of technical components and equipment. Where there was empty space before, soon there were desks, shelves, a variety of freezers and chemical processors and, not least of all, an operating table with terrifying robotic arms built into it.

“What kind of signal? Where from?” Vin asked, returning to the group with a steaming mug in his organic hand. It took him a while to tear his gaze off the spectacle of Sophia’s automated laboratory deployment.

“And is it relevant to the mission?” Cass interjected, “We’re headed inside - and the signal is coming from outside.” Perhaps her tone could be misconstrued as eagerness, she figured, when nothing could have been further from the truth. She knew exactly where Mavriq wanted them to go: a sector of the shaft lovingly named the Dead Zone by other scavengers. It was common wisdom that less people returned from there than entered and not even the corporations were sending teams into that region anymore. Profit margins too low, so the reasoning went. In all of her expeditions, she had to admit that she hadn’t seen the Dead Zone in person either. If nothing else, the job was going to be interesting.

Sophia narrowed her eyes in contemplation, her deft finger motions slowing down. Maybe, she wondered, the signal came from a kind of New Derelict. Its creators abandoned Derelict after some kind of catastrophe and built a new home somewhere else. Curiosity - or worry - compelled them to continue probing this location for signs of activity.

A chill in her spine ended this train of thought, and she quickly rejected her theory as nothing more than a flight of fancy. Certainly she would never talk to anyone about it. She would get laughed out of the office for sure.

“Well,” Mavriq considered as he scrolled through his notes, “much of this is marked ‘your eyes only,’ several technical details that would likely bore you all, but the gist is that the signal does not correspond to any known natural astronomic phenomenon, appears to be noise rather than an actual signal, is on a wavelength outside our normal detection matrix, and evidently emerged according to our astrometrics from a region of space that as far as we can tell is totally empty.”

He paused for a moment to moisten his mouth on a bit of water, then carried on, “Whether there is any relevance will likely be a matter determined by Origin’s decoders and astronomers, but known unknowns are better than unknown unknowns; yes?”

“I’d love to see it, but I’m guessing I’ll have my hands full soon enough,” Vin responded, taking a quick sip of coffee before continuing: “Anyway, what about prep? I’m guessing the bots are down there setting things up, but what are we bringing? I’m thinking we should get as much data as we can down there.”

“And for how long?” Sophia interjected, her voice slightly higher pitched than normal, “Supplies should be budgeted according to the predicted length of our stay.” Well, their stay in any event; by the sound of it, she was scheduled to remain in orbit to finish up her report on the crew. She hated to admit that it was a relief.

Meanwhile, Cass’s eyes wandered over the interior of their head quarters, searching in vain for a label denoting the armory. “Regardless of the length of our stay, we should bring some security equipment to the surface if Mr. Feurtes hasn’t already,” Cass suggested with her usual deadpan voice. Grimly, she added: ”I don’t fancy chasing dead men without some heavy gunnery.”

“Well, Cass, our shuttle is Origin-issued, so it should have an armory. I am sure Feurtes has it fully stocked.” Although out of order, he turned his attention back to Sophia, and clarified, “As for our stay, Doctor, you mean on Derelict? Mission parameters dictate that an individual should not remain within the artifact longer than 24 hours. That seems to be the maximum duration before mental deterioration sets in. In fact, it is getting close to the time we need to relieve Feurtes. He must be getting antsy. How soon can you capture my biometrics, Doctor?”

Sophia’s shoulders sagged ever so slightly in response. “For a full physical and mental analysis I’d like to reserve at least three hours a person - in case we’re pressed for time, “ she added with a hint of ennui, “But if we must depart as soon as conceivably possible, I can limit myself to capturing your vital information; that is, your current health and physical condition, allergies, a record of previous injuries and illnesses, any possible augmentations and their specifications, you get the idea. At a minimum I need to know what I can and cannot do to your body in response to an emergency. In the long run, I need to formulate a detailed psycho-analysis of everybody so that I can properly monitor the effects of the artifact on your mental health. In short, we’ll be spending a considerable amount of time together in the near and distant future.”

The doctor, still detachedly tapping commands into her holo display, remained unperturbed by Cass’s dismissive rolling of the eyes halfway through her tirade. Her hopes that her final remark would be taken as a well-intended jest were sadly dashed when Cass rolled her head back towards her: “You didn’t say how much time you need.”

“No less than thirty minutes,” Sophia hissed like a cornered serpent. Unable to suppress an agitated twitch of her eyebrow, she turned to face her growing laboratory. Cass shrugged in reaction to a subtle shaking of the doctor’s head, clearly unaware - or feigning ignorance - of any misgivings.

“Then you shall begin establishing a baseline on me. Let’s see how much we can get done in two hours. Then Cass and I will head down to the artifact and relieve our Warrant Officer,” Mavriq decided.

“Very well,” Sophia replied begrudgingly, motioning for Mavriq to take a seat on the surgical table.

“Just a moment, boss,” Vin interrupted, raising a mechanical hand to get Mavriq’s attention. Sophia’s eyes narrowed. “Think you could get me a list of our inventory? I’d like to make plans for data collection, and I want to know what we’ve got to work with.”

Mav indicated to Sophia that he was ready for her to begin immediately as he approached her with his dataslate in one hand and awaited her instructions. Meanwhile, not to leave Vin hanging, he tapped a few markers on his slate, highlighted an area, and then pushed it toward Vin. Automatically, the list became available on Vin’s dataslate, a beep from his hip indicating its arrival. 

“Electron scanning microscopes, air-gapped computers, magnetometers, 3D synthesizers, spectro-analyzers, holographic scanning probes, and so forth. You’ll all find a complete list in your inbox,” Mavriq indicated. In the corner of his eye, he could see Sophia scouring a box for a variety of medical tools which she was putting on the side.

Vin’s eyes fell out of focus, his consciousness seeming to drift off into some inner realm, before returning a moment later as if nothing had happened.

“Looks good. Thanks,” he replied, raising his cup in thanks before sauntering off. “Enjoy having your brains picked,” he added as he walked away. “I’ll be getting familiar with the toys meanwhile.”

“I’m sorry that we don’t have privacy yet,” Sophia chimed in, regaining the lieutenant’s attention, “I’ll be looking to have some separator panels installed later. Now, first I’ll be taking a sample of your blood.”

She approached him with a compact blood extractor in hand, its shape slightly reminiscent of a gun. Pulling up his sleeve and revealing his forearm, she continued: “I’ll analyze it later and give you a breakdown of your metrics, if you’re interested.” The extractor’s slim, cylindrical barrel was placed on his exposed skin, followed by a prickly sensation as a needle forced its way into his flesh. The unpleasant feeling lasted for only a moment before the doctor already retracted the tool.

“I would like to get the physical examination out of the way, and for that I’ll need you to remove your outer clothing. I would also appreciate it if you could give the lieutenant some privacy, Cass.” Sophia continued her instructions, casting a brief glance at the bored-looking woman who was vaguely observing the proceedings. “Suits me. I’ll go have a smoke or two,” she answered before getting up and marching out of the quarters. Sophia was not looking forward to explaining to Cass the many failings of her lifestyle.

“Next I’ll take a quick physical measurement of your height and weight, we’ll be re-testing your hearing and vision aptitudes, as well as doing muscle group and joint maneuvers. It’ll be very similar to your initial screening when you joined the military,” the doctor explained as she waited for Mavriq to remove his clothing. On the side, she was still giving instructions to her robot servants.

“Very well,” Mavriq said, his face impassive as his blood was drawn. It was a procedure he was adapted to as a scientist of the Origin Navy’s Science Division. Temporarily placing his dataslate on a table next to him to better follow Sophia’s instructions, he picked it up again as soon as such were satisfied, tapped it, and explained, “I’m verifying the medical history of all parties involved in this expedition are cleared for your access. The Origin files were, of course, transferred immediately. Civilians are notoriously difficult to fetch records for, however, and it is likely that some might not even have a full file. For example, right now it looks like Origin is still negotiating with Mercury for Cass’ and Vin’s are even harder to pin down -- you don’t suppose his augments are black market, do you?”

“I was going to ask you about your records,” Sophia flashed a rare smile. “It’s very foresighted of you to take care of the others too. I have not been able to examine his augs, so I can’t make an educated guess - but I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Well, during my multi-month journey from Earth, I had plenty of time to prepare an agenda,” Mavriq acknowledged.

“Your professionalism is reassuring, lieutenant. I admit, I had my doubts concerning some of the team members.”  Although feigning clinical indifference as best she could, Sophia ended up pleasantly surprised by how much she enjoyed Mavriq’s company during the next hour and a half of his examination. Idly chit-chatting away whilst the doctor took measurements, scans and notes, time seemingly went by much quicker than either of them had anticipated.