Going for a run was a habit built long ago, back when they still had legs that moved without assistance, back when they had the wild open fields under Titan’s open sky to take in, paths that snaked through the wheat and let them feel rich soil under the pads of their feet. A habit they’d kept, on Khola, running on Vodin-provided treadmills with holo-surroundings to make them feel like they were running anywhere, and on Terra Nova, through the crowded and rundown streets of the slum they lived in. Just because the force moving their legs wasn’t their own muscles anymore didn’t mean the workout didn’t do anything for them. It kept their quads and calves from atrophying, got their heart rate up, and the endorphins still worked like a charm.
The gravity here meant they could go faster, push harder– not that their body was the rate limiting step with how fast or far they could run anyway, the mechanisms whining and whirring in protest as they sped up, approaching the tents again on the wide circle they’d made of the outskirts of camp. Even with the days starting as early as they did, Arcadia’s star was just beginning to lighten the gray of the sky and make the stars at the horizon start to fade away for the day. A couple hundred meters more and they’d be circling back towards home, with plenty of time to rinse off the grime of the run, relax for a while before their work began in earnest.
And then a noise– a voice, accented and cursing, from the nearest tent– caught their attention and pulled them off course as they slowed to a walk, moving towards the entrance of the tent to look inside.
“Everything alright in here?” they called out as they spotted the figure crouched towards the back of the tent, red hair just barely visibly over the bulk of some of the equipment in there. They didn’t have a gun on them, didn’t think they’d need it for an early morning run, but maybe that had been misled: if the noise had been anything other than another human, they could have been in trouble.
At the sound of tent flaps moving, Mirren's head shot up. With her hunched posture and startled, wide green eyes, curls sticking out in every direction, she must’ve looked a lot like a guilty animal that’d just been caught digging around in the trash after dark.
She didn’t know who'd could possibly be awake at this hour. She was never awake at this hour. Mornings held no appeal to her; one of her least favorite memories from the academy (and there were many of those) had been the rigorous routine of running tour in full gear at 0-500 hours (or earlier, on days when the lieutenant felt that a few extra laps might sort out her miserable combat scores, and her mouthy attitude to boot). But given her choice, she could sleep well into the day- as soundly unconscious as if she’d been dealt a sledgehammer to the temple. Under normal circumstances, at least. These weren’t exactly normal circumstances, and maybe she wasn’t the only one who had the willies.
Everything alright in here? “Uh, yeh...” she replied, sheepishly looking down at the mess she’d made. Wires lay limp on the ground, half a dozen disconnected from their rightful place in the inverter- might’ve gotten a little carried away, maybe. She looked back up at the other figure still standing in the doorway, recognizing them after a few seconds of lag; a grin spread across her face accordingly. If it was one of the engineers she probably would’ve gotten an earful, but this encounter had the promise of granting her a potential ally. “McNamara,” she began, holding up her dead tablet, “I’m on a mission to get some juice fer this baby. Y’know anythin’ about solar power conversion?”
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