Time Machine

 

concept artwork for Augmented Reality app.

Status: Alive. 

Suit status: Sealed. Functionality 96%.

Solar mirrors: 22% of max.

Battery reserve: 54%.

Respiratory function: Good.

External Air Quality: 

PM10: 702, Hazardous. 

Nitrogen:12, Hazardous. 

Carbon dioxide - 6 Hazardous.

Air Pressure: 1002 rising.

Temperature: 42 degrees celsius.

Visibility: zero.

Environmental Warning Rating: 10

Alarm sounded, Proximity to wildfires 98% probability.

    Another fire. She considers deployment of the fire shelter and decides to wait. Even in the heart of a fire her armour would keep her safe, at its current functionality, for at least 20 hours. The shelter would give her another 24 hours but would be at the limit of it’s functionality and she cannot return it to the corp-gov for repairs anymore.

    She experiences an emotion, (fondness?) when she thinks about functioning as part of the strike team. Usually there would be between five and eight of them; Cleenrs, like her, old people, like her, cyborgs, like her. Deployed on the line to fight wildfires on 48 hour shifts, returning to base to replenish power units and make repairs before heading out for another 48 hours. Over and over, for weeks sometimes. 

    It was like fighting a war. Cleenrs would be called in to the command centre from their usual patrols, or airlifted in from the City. They’d be assigned to a strike team, allocated a coms channel and sent out. Most of them already had the spec, but new Cleenrs would be downloading the wildfire lessons even as they were running toward the burning land...