Housekeeping

[Fairchild]

Jera chuckled. "Oh, if you think a shuttle can scratch those carboncrete walls, you're overvaluing your ship a great deal. But, right. Let's go."

They both directed their steps towards one of the corridors. The first couple of doors opened automatically as they approached. Soon, they encountered one with the Wisp logo painted over them. Jera waved her bracelet in front of another reader. Behind those doors, the corridors looked very differently. Sterile, silver walls gave place to cozier, purplish plascrete and the uniforms of the people walking past them changed from white with a snake staff symbol to violet with the Wisp Innovations logo.

"I'm going to introduce you to our sysop. He's... a bit weird, but aren't we all in a way. Be prepared for a riddle." Jera smiled.

They took a few turns and after a moment, they both stood in front of a door with a simple plaque on it that said "Administration". Jera opened the door and walked inside, waving at Thallia to follow her.

The inside was almost dark, with a man sitting in front of a console with six screens - not the new Ageira holoscreens that were all the rage now, but regular, old, 2D monitors. The top three had a lot of numbers and messages running across, the ones on the bottom were static, with a Neural Net news site open and feed from a few cameras. Jera cleared her throat.

"Dr Thorn, this is Thaddeus Edwin Douglas Bagbiter, our system operator. Ted, this is Dr Thallia Thorn, a scientist." she made the introductions. "She needs an access card."

The sysop turned around, revealing his bearded face. "A scientist, hm?" He eyed Thallia impolitely. Before Jera had the chance to respond he rapidly asked "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"