The call came in the early afternoon, waking Kendra Zenna Joad out of a deep and well-deserved sleep.
She pawed blindly for the ACCEPT pad on the infone beside her bed, in the process knocking over the empty Ouzo bottle beside it, sending it rolling and bouncing away. Finally she managed to find the pad, bluish light from the screen brightening the small, dimly lit stone cubicle. The body beside her, which belonged to an electrician named Buddy Konstantin, squirmed deeper under the covers with a snuffle of protest.
"What?" she growled, her normally husky voice muzzy from sleep. Squinting blearily at the screen, she recognized Stanislaw Mazurowski, Luna Construction site heavy equipment and transport manager. Her boss.
"We need you to come in immediately, Kaze." Most of her life people had called her Kaze. As derived from KZ, and as in rhymes with crazy.
"I just got off a few friggin' hours ago, Slaw," she groaned. "I need sleep."
"I know. But we've got an emergency situation here."
That made her sit up straighter, stiff blanket slowly drifting down in the lunar gravity, leaving her naked from the waist up. "What kind of emergency?"
Slaw shook his head, looking pained and his eyes skidding off to one side. "Just get in here, will you?" he said hoarsely. "Please?"
Normally someone looking away from her like that would have pissed Kaze off, but this was Slaw. It wasn't her skin in particular giving him a problem, he had issues with naked women in general. Plus a couple of the tattoos and odd ring or two only made things worse. She knew he wouldn't have called unless he really had to. After a run, sleep was imperative.
Well, at least after a few drinks, and maybe some boogie to work out the kinks.
"Okay, I'm on my way," she grumbled, clambering off the bed--really just a thin air mattress on the floor--and kicking the infone off with a bare, stubby, beringed toe. Then she bellowed "Coffee!" at the coffeemaker. Knowing what was good for it, the device began chugging away.
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