[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/qFC355N.png?2[/img][/center][hr][hr][right][sub][color=1a7b30][b]Location:[/b] The Crows' Nest[/color]     [color=A9A9A9]//[/color]     [color=007236][b]Date:[/b] February 25, 2057[/color]     [color=A9A9A9]//[/color]     [color=00746b][b]Time:[/b] 8:55[/color]     [color=A9A9A9]//[/color]     [color=0076a3][b]Interactions:[/b] Nobody, goddammit.[/color][/sub][/right][hr][hr]
Lysandra hadn't expected to be part of the mission, so being pulled from it at the last possible second irked her more in principle than anything. The commune was flying by the seat of its pants, with little organization or long-term planning: cats herding cats with often tragicomic results. It was as clear as Vincent's need to jump through a priceless stained glass window instead of having the brains to use that revolutionary invention known as a door. It was, apparently, an unfathomably complex apparatus and beyond he capability of his tiny pea-brain to grasp. It was not funny or endearing; it was more work for the people who'd been left behind, because they obviously didn't have their own things to do. [color=7FFFD4][i]To think I'd found you hot.[/i][/color] Seated at her desk, Lys shook her head to herself.

She'd made a brief appearance, of course, and said a quick hello to the new weirdo who would either last here or be gone soon, but then she'd ducked back into her workshop. It had started the week in her hands, been cleared to make way for Ionna, been reclaimed, and it now looked likely that Lysandra would be asked to clear it again, because she apparently had nothing better to do. She had already decided that enough was enough. [color=7FFFD4][i]Three times in a week.[/i][/color] She would put her foot down and refuse. Someone [i]else[/i] would take the hit and bend over backwards for group goals this time instead of it being her.

For the past indeterminate amount of time, Lysandra had been doing what she did best: losing herself in her work. There was, to be fair, an awful lot of it. She'd poked her head out that once and generally taken care of the essentials that had called her name. By and large, however, she'd left others alone and been left alone herself.

Eight more rockets for her drones had taken shape, along with more sticky bombs, another high-yield explosive arrow, and the teardown of the Immortals. If they hadn't quite lived up to their lofty billing, they'd been reliably hers for a few years now. Progress was progress, though, and judging by the level of competence she played witness to these days, Lys would likely be forced into a larger role. She was presently engaged with some soddering on Defiant's weapon systems. Mechanically, Enterprise was finished, as was Discovery. The coils on Voyager's higher-powered motors needed some work, but the lions' share of the build was over, and such things had played panacea for Lysandra's woes many times over. All that substantially remained was programming and payloads.

Alas, her attention had worn thin and she was liable to make mistakes like this. She set her tools down, shifted the drone aside, and unlocked her brakes. Pushing herself back from the desk, Lys stretched and stifled a yawn. Throwing her arms out to the side and rolling her neck, she felt the pop and gentle strain of her muscles, ligaments and tendons. She twisted back and forth on the spot, alleviating some of the pain that always bedeviled her back. Damn, it felt good! Normally, this would be the right time to go for a wheel and stretch her arms a bit, but she was wary of being commandeered for something stupid. Instead, the commune's researcher made a few laps around her room, thinking as she paced, and the stained glass windows spilled multicoloured light over her as she passed under their shadows. For a moment, she came to a stop, light spilling over her legs in a pattern that rendered them three different colours. She found herself miffed, once again, at Vincent for just casually breaking something so irreplaceable. It was further proof that he had left his humanity behind: nothing had value or beauty anymore to him. Nothing had [i]meaning[/i]. She shook her head to herself, remembering something, and wheeled back up to her desk, sliding a drawer out. That was not a life she wanted to live. Inside, was an old cellphone: [i]his[/i] phone. Setting it upon the desk, she clicked her brakes into place, tossed the lid on her toolkit open, and got to work. 

The first thing that the phone needed was a power supply. It wasn't charged and hadn't been for years. Unsurprisingly, the port was degraded beyond use, so Lys bypassed it, but the screen was finished too: a spiderweb of cracks and long-dead electronics.  A full salvage operation would've been more work than she was willing to dedicate to this for the time being, so she popped the SIM card loose, fished one of her refurbished phones from a drawer, and slid it into place. She plugged the device into an outlet to charge and, since it took her away from her desk, took a moment to stretch again. Like some sort of overgrown child, Lysandra spent nearly a minute trying to line her legs up with the colours of the stained glass windows so that one would be red and the other blue. At least the black of her leggings was a neutral enough backdrop. 

Yet, the distracted endeavour proved harder than it should have been. From its spot near the window, the intrusive glow of the mistle added white to the palette, and the air shimmered with an unusual dustiness. Lys furrowed her brow, remembering something similar in Amelia's room when they'd been running bloodwork. There had been nutritional deficiencies, almost as if her metabolism had become inefficient at turning nutrients into energy, but nothing to completely explain her deteriorating condition. Lysandra set hands to wheels and, casting around, set upon the sample jar where she'd left the swab from that incident. She remembered the strange whitish film that had clung to the sleeping woman's skin. 

Lys ended up at her second desk, now: one that had not seen as much use lately as she'd have liked. Switching on the fans, she extracted the swab from its container and ensconced a sample of it in a microscope slide. Her stomach rumbled as she made adjustments and opened her notebook, and it rumbled some more as she sat up as straight as she could, annoyingly not quite tall enough to use her equipment properly. She shook her head and settled back down. It was both hunger and a need to visit the bathroom. The mystery, which had been set aside for long enough, would have to wait a bit longer, but she was thinking about it now. It was on her radar... just like food was.

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