---

_{January 12 2079}

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-”

“Okay, alright! Let me grab my jumpsuit and I’ll get right to it.” She replied testily, it was too early and she just 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.

A few hours later…

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.

---

_{January 12 2079}

Varya nodded when Oleg beat a quick retreat, someone pulling his attention away. The work order popped up on her tablet. She blinked then swiped through the order, reading the details. Artem’s hand nearly retracted when she had blatantly ignored it.

She tugged it back with a rough shake of her own, “Kozlov. Call me Varya.” She mumbled then let his hand go. One foot steadying on the hover dolly.

The tech hummed as she scrolled then passed it to Artem. “Looks like it’s a rush order, just pulled in and the vehicle is still cold. We’ll need to warm her up.” Kicking the dolly in front of her she assumed Artem followed as she made her way through the shop toward the docking bays. She made a quick stop at the power tool workbench signing out a couple space heaters. With some difficulty she hauled the large industrial sized heaters onto her dolly, awkwardly sidestepping with both hands on the leather handles. The dolly groaned and flared weakly in protest with a complaint at the weight, she loaded two. Then with both hands she pushed them into the bay.

Down the line of vehicles parked mechanics worked through their own orders of the day. Some complained mildly of their stubborn persistent problems. Others hummed, happy with their compliant project. Otherwise the atmosphere among the tech and mechanics was always a light one. Oleg commanded respect, doled out fair work for everyone and had a knack for managing people. He paid attention to skills as much as he paid attention personalities, pairing up accordingly. It was a lot of work to take such care, but while he had expectations for all his employees he never asked of them what he wouldn’t ask of himself.

Varya certainly held him in high regard, the man had given her a chance where others laughed her out of her incomplete education. She earned her position as a tech in the shop.

Bay doors opened and closed around them, brushing cold January air lifting the hair on the back of her neck she they walked down the line.

When they arrived to the vehicle, it’s wings were still frosty, in serious need of deicing. The electrical panels off to the side of the cockpit needed to be thawed before they could access anything really. The only areas warmed were engines. The pilot hopped out, looking at the ice with a whistle. “Whoops, be sure to chip it all off. Let the deicer actually dry this time, wrenchmonkees.” He was stylishly dressed, a professional chauffeur with a shit attitude to match.

Varya stared at him, gritted teeth, an aspect of the job she hated was dealing directly with the clientele.

“Right away, sir.”

---

_{January 12 2079}

While Artem messed with the radio Varya busied herself setting up the space heaters dragging extension cords across the floor. She went to the bay cleaning station, snagging a few rags to stuff in her back pocket. Tugging on some mechanical gloves, she opened the door to the vessel, taking a peek inside the lush interior. Creamy white leather seats, carpeted flooring, and a mini bar for the passengers to enjoy. In the corner was a large tv panel, closed currently but much like Varya’s tablet it could be opened to reveal the plexiglass screen. The cockpit was spotlessly clean, air freshener was recently used, and some heat escaped.

“Yeah, I’m running a diagnostic. There’s usually some bugs, leftover data from software updates, garbage memory slowing down the system. Replace the odd wire, then it’s done. These small passenger vessels are usually pretty straight forward.” She said over her shoulder before stepping inside.

She sneezed into her arm, the air freshener was a bit too strong.

She plopped down into the pilot’s seat, bouncing a little on soft seat. She booted up the system, opening up the maintenance panel below the console. Without needing to look she patted along the inside freeing the appropriate cord plugging it into the tablet. Moving through the factory settings and menus for maintenance. A full system scan progressed, she watched Artem move to the next wing deicing it. She had a few questions come to mind, curiosity taking precedence. He seemed too easy going, like most things could roll of his back like rain with his attitude. How he looked was the opposite. Like if she said one wrong thing he’d come snapping her head off.

Varya wanted to see which happened first.

“So what stupid thing did you do to lose your arm? Take a nap in the snow trying to sober up, losing it to hypothermia or came too close to the plasma cutter? Come on, Dzagoev. How the hell do you afford that much modification on our wages?” Varya asked deadpan, sitting up and watching for his reaction.

“Or you’re drowning in debt.”

_{January 12 2079}

---

He wasn't sure if his new colleague was deliberately trying to get a rise out of him or if she really was so oblivious to social etiquette, but the only response Artem could muster was a slight grin. As he swept around the car he could feel her eyes fixed to his expression almost taunting him.

"I was in an accident when I was a child. I got hit by a car, my arm got crushed. Thankfully we got enough money from the settlement to pay for the damages."

Water began trickling off of curved silver panels draining along the small canals set into the floor. Slightly adjusting the aim of a heater Artem inspected the diminishing coat of ice. The thin metal plates that made up his forearm silently bounced and jinked out of place every time he squeezed the bottle of deicing spray.

"What about you? no bionics, no nothing?" He pulled a pack of cigarettes from him pocket, plucking one free between his lips. "You know they can make you taller."

His impish grin quickly returned as he fired back. Pulling a lighter from the opposite pocket Artem lit his cigarette. With pursed lips he sucked the smoke into his mouth before taking a deep breath. With some semblance of surprise he quickly tilted the heater once more realising it had almost made it through the ice. It took a moment for Artem to exhale, there was no noticeable smoke on his breath and had they been in a deathly quiet room Varya might have heard the vents in his neck whirr into action. Regardless of his array of macabre tattoos there was nothing that quite made Artem look as sinister as his neck vents when he smoked.

The cigarette was quickly thrown on the floor and snuffed out as Artem saw the burly figure of his boss burst through the door at the end of the bay. Normally Artem would take a moment to compose himself but thankfully he was not the focus of Oleg's attention. Climbing the rusted iron catwalk stairs two officers followed en-toe. He had seen them once before, it was odd that they would be back so soon especially considering the shop hadn't had any issues with break ins. With a squint of his eyes Artem began to ruminate as to their true reason for coming back. Oleg shuffled them into the first floor office before closing the door behind them.

He looked back at Varya, the technicolor plexiglas screen in hand. With a flip of a switch Artem turned the two heaters off, their feint buzz replaced by the drips of water pouring off the car. He gave her a quick smile, obviously not genuine as his mind was now elsewhere.

---

_{January 12 2079}

"What about you? No bionics, no nothing?" Artem had began pulling free another cigarette. "You know they can make you taller." He quipped back at Varya, unperturbed by her rude comments and even smiling about it. So the obvious wasn’t going to get under his skin, Varya decided she wanted to know what did. Figure it out, much like a puzzle. In that, it provided a challenge. Ultimately capturing her attention successfully.

What was interesting was his childhood injury, she figured with his ease and comfort level of his bionics he had many years to grow used to the artificial limbs. She wondered how many years it was ago, how old was Artem when it happened and how old was he now?

“I was born with this body and I’m going to die with this body.” She replied, the scan progressed further. “Who wants to spend a fortune on extended knee caps when a pair of stilts does the same without invasive surgery-” She shot back sarcastically, the scan complete. She glanced down from Artem and swiped through the reports pulling up the error list. She saw on that was a bit of a weird bug attached to the navigational systems probably causing a small hiccup in the onboard access to the maps.

"If the bionics don't chase someone off the tattoos must. You're pretty transparent Dzagoev."

She tapped the bug and held down to open up a menu. She deleted the bug and immediately her tablet lit up with red error messages piling one on top of the other, “The fuck!”

She quickly swept away the messages trying to get back to the diagnostics screen. Her grey eyes grew wide at what she saw now, a full blown virus was quickly deteriorating the navigational hardware frying the board. Replacing something that important on the vessel would cost far more than what the client was expecting to pay for. They could fix it with premium rates… but her ass would be fried up for not catching it before it did any real damage. She shook her head, pushing the idea out. Trying to isolate the aggressive virus, not pausing to think where the original bug was picked up. The hardware began to smoke through the outside.

“Dzagoev! Artem, hurry up and disconnect the onboard navigation. Pull it all out! Now!” She furiously began pulling apart the console herself, if Varya and Artem were fast enough they could minimize the damage and fix it in time for the client’s return later.

---

_{January 12 2079}

Varya jerked up from under the console checking her tablet and the errors quieted. One more irritable pull of a wire, she yanked it free. Brushing away a stray hair from her forehead with the back of her hand. Varya put the tablet down then moved out of the cockpit. Stepping up to Artem squinting at what was under the hood. “What are you smirking at, Dzagoev? Run out of smoke breaks?” She said pointedly poking his chest pocket the crinkle of the empty packet evident. She finally flashed a crooked toothy smile herself, amused.

“We’ve both got our work cut out for us today, I’m elevating the work order up a tier so Boss man knows.” She said reaching forward and wiggling the chip set free of the navigator box. They were hot to the touch and she winced fanning them about. Examining the fried piece of tech. “Fuck, these are in bad shape. I can salvage what data I can and just install new chips. Which is minimal compared to installing a brand new navigator box.” She commented turning them over in her hand looking up to Artem. “I’d be here all night trying to salvage all the data stored in there just to get the onboard systems back up to functionality.”

“So... thanks for not wasting time and staying calm.” She said with firm sincerity, making eye contact. A pause hung after she said her thanks, then her expression dropped back down to something rather deadpan once again. “I sincerely hope that the tattoos you got were because they looked scary versus the amount of people you killed with a spoon or some shit.”

“I think that would max out my capacity for stupid for the day.”

And so, they worked. It took the better part of the day for both of them to do their respective areas. Even breaking for lunch and eating together. Varya considered her snarky remarks to be on the gentle side, but if she were pressed to admit that was...largely a subjective point. He returned the same level of banter, poking fun at her in a similar way she did to him. They drifted between bouts and comfortable quiet with the radio droning on. When the work was finally complete the hour closed in on pick up time.

They tidied up. Buffing fingerprints from the hood, rubbing away the watermarks on the wings. Neatly tucking wires away, returning all idling screens to their original settings. Whatever evidence they had of having touched the vehicle was removed ready for the client to resume.

Oleg came to check in, doing a final once over and grunting his approval signing off on the work order as complete. “Good job handling the unexpected repairs, keeping cost to a minimum for the client. That’s what I like about the pair of you. Don’t need me to hold your hand, you figure things out for yourselves.”

Varya smiled a small smile, “Thanks, boss.”

He turned next to Artem, “Sharp eye on that engine. Others would have passed that up and let it go for another few months only to get worse, then cashing in on a pricier repair. Thanks for being honest.” He fished out of his pocket a fresh pack of smokes, the same brand Artem liked. “If I catch you smoking these inside I will drown you in grunt work for a week, ya hear me?”

He laughed at Artem’s expression, a big barrel of a laugh.

Varya grinned, Oleg’s infectious good nature difficult to not appreciate.

---

_{January 12 2079}

Varya was pleased with the praise from Oleg, it carried weight. He never said things lightly nor gave praise easily. Oleg carried on once he signed off on the order, bidding the pair of them a good night. She wrapped a long extension cord around the crook of her elbow, Artem had packed his own equipment away.

“Hey, Varya. I know this place. Cheap drinks, alright music. Lets head over there later, I think you owe me a round after I saved your Nav-box.” She looked up, clearly caught off guard by the invitation. Before she could reply with a yes or no he already had a set time and place. “I need to get changed though. If I text you where it is want to meet? say eight?”

He left it at that then disappeared into the locker rooms. Varya hummed, tying the extension cord out then hanging it up. Her eyes roamed away from his retreating back. Would it be appropriate to meet with a coworker? It was generally a normal thing, to catch up afterhours with friends from work. It felt weird to Varya, she hardly wanted to seem the part of a loner. She shook her head, when did that ever matter to her in the first place?

Varya dropped her tablet off at charging table then headed to the locker rooms as well. Ready to head home.



When she arrived home, tapping her boots free of snow she called out, “Papa! I am home!”

A text-to-voice mechanical reply came, “Var-ya. Welcome ho-me.”

She stripped free of her winter gear, walking through the small two bedroom apartment to the living room where the blinds were pulled back and her father was sitting up in his wheelchair, short cropped black hair, glasses wrapped around his head, the text-to-voice speaker hanging off his shirt. Little transmitter circlet sat comfortably around the crown of his head. He smiled with some difficulty up at his daughter.

She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, “How was your day? Did Ms Petrov visit today?”

He replied, “Yes. She spent a few hours with me while she kni-tted, reheated the left-overs for me. Appar-ently her son is single.”

Varya laughed patting his shoulder heading to the kitchen, her father followed her. “She was ve-ry pushy.”

She rummaged about the kitchen, it was in decent shape. Some dishes leftover in the sink, counters wiped down and the floor swept. Ms Petrov usually more than happy to help, good neighbours charmed by her father’s witty company rather than pity. Anton kept in good humour making it easy for visitors or friends to feel at ease with his new life.

“Things will never be right until I have snatched up a husband it seems.” Varya said with a grim sarcasm, “I’ll cook us some dinner but I guess I’ll be going out after.”

“Oh?” He hesitated, curious.

“Not sure if I want to, worked with someone new today and he invited me out for drinks tonight.” She said, sipping at a glass of water drumming at the countertop. “I spent the majority of the time insulting him-”

“Var-ya” He snapped quickly, making her wince. Insistently ploughing into a lecture, “You will push the wrong butt-ons one day and you will get in serious trou-ble. You need friends who will supp-ort you where I can-not.”

“Please relax, he laughed it off and dished it back.” She reassured him. “I can support us, Papa. Please don’t worry.” Finishing off her water, then hugging him in a quick one arm.

He hummed with discontent, she knew that's not what he meant. Varya wasn't interested in continuing that lonely line of thought. Friends she made in school didn't have time for a visit while online the friends she made were countries away. They were not wholly interested in seeing through a healthy friendship as opposed to who can help hack their ex boss' email database to retrieve a poorly worded message written when one of them was drunk. Business e-mail servers were unsurprisingly difficult to break undetected.

“You’re hungry right?”

Having served the pair of them up some dinner, she packed away the leftovers into the freezer quickly heading into the shower to rinse away the shop. She left her hair down then bundled up once again, receiving the message from Artem she swiped the address to search for it but the bar sounded familiar. A popular spot. She replied a confirmation, short and pointed. Braving the cold once again she headed to the bus stop to catch a warm ride over to Tsentralny District.

She elbowed her way into the bar, past some crowds hanging about by the door for a smoke. Descending down some stairs, white lights dotting the way down. She pulled off her hat stuffing it into her small pack, pulling the zipper of her jacket open greeted by the warmth. Varya wore nothing actually nice, an old blue short sleeved shirt with a black skirt and black leggings. The skirt had pockets hidden in the seams, she loved it. Her winter boots squeaked across the floor.

Curiously she looked around at the colourful aesthetics, art and general splashes of colour wherever she turned. Once past the doors it was a quiet night. The tables were sparsely occupied, there were a few people on the dance floor, while there were open barstools. There were various age groups and types. What caught her eye was the android bartending, long light brown hair flipped over one side of her head, exposing her smooth head. Seams of intersecting faceplates curving with a natural line of her nose and cheeks. Some reparation scars along her temple, bright white mechanical eyes made eye contact with Varya welcoming her without a word. She wore a tank top exposing her chest, on her shoulders was a small fashionable leather jacket. At the bar was Artem he waved her over, wearing a characteristically charming smirk.

Hesitating she stepped over the threshold approaching the bar, shrugging off her jacket hanging it up on the back of the barstool back. Stainless steel barside and weathered leather seats, probably more comfortable the drunker one became. The bar was arguably low-tech, the backdrop of various liquor bottles behind the bartender was on mechanical arms extending out to her solely as she reached for them. She expected some sort of menu glasstop to be displayed at the bar to connect instantly to the android. She sat beside Artem even sitting taller by his torso alone. She brushed her hair away.

“Hi, can I please get the cheapest vodka you have on the rocks. Something indistinguishable to mouth wash.” Varya asked, addressing - she squinted at the name printed on a tag. “Elena, thanks.”

The android laughed, smooth movement as she moved away. “Sure, please refrain from gargling at my bar.”

“Bet you’re surprised to see me actually show up.” She commented to Artem waiting for her drink. “I surprised myself, actually. Who knows how on the nose I was with the spoon thing.” She joked.