Arrival

Alicia awoke bright and early to the pseudo ringing of the pseudo alarm clock on her very real mobile telephone. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she wandered downstairs to the hangar where her craft was surrounded by miniature mountains of items she'd need on her upcoming mission. She ignored the friendly needling of the Other who was once again convinced that Alicia had overestimated the Usable Volume (UV) of her SpaceCraft(tm) and began packing. An hour and a half later, the SpaceCraft was filled to the brim and humming in anticipation. Alicia made one last check of the program code of the Other, set a return date for a few months thence, strapped herself into the craft, and entered a course in her craft for Probable Adversity (PA).

It wasn't long before the last vestiges of her dreamscape evaporated from her waking consciousness and she began mentally plotting out the rest of the day's activities, which would commence directly after she checked in with Mission Management in PA. Her immediate tasks appeared relatively straightforward: arrive unscathed at base, transfer her cargo from her craft to her Temporary Quarters, unpack, pass some as-yet-undefined situational Evaluation, and await further instructions. Satisfied that she was as mentally prepared as possible, Alicia set the craft on auto pilot and captured a few more hours' sleep.

After the usual too-short period, she was jarred out of her repose by the unexpected sight of daylight as she approached the base in Holetown. Apparently the Others running this particular base had decided to spend a few extra MegaBucks (MB) up front in order to dispel the incoming recruits' preconceived notions of Holetown's weather patterns. Well. They'd learn soon enough; it was just a matter of time before Holetown's limited bandwidth system used up the administration's surplus MB and returned to its usual dreary demeanor. In the meantime, Alicia had more pressing concerns such as - for example - new recruits wandering around the streets in Chipmunk Valley as though they owned the place.

It wasn't that they were wandering around, she reflected as she did a magnificent job restraining her urge to make meatloaf out of the next ten jaywalkers she spotted, it was that they were wandering around in a haze of total confused oblivion which gave the entire neighborhood a disconnected, uncomfortable aura. Not only that, but they got the in the WAY of oncoming traffic. A new set of more Libertarian traffic laws could surely remedy the situation, but that was neither here nor there (sadly unlike the new recruits...) After successfully navigating the horde, Alicia lost no time in becoming reacquainted with her Biggest Holetown Pet Peeve, namely the Existence of Legally Parked Vehicles in The Middle Of The Fucking Traffic Pattern.

Finally, after narrowly avoiding collisions with only one (as opposed to the usual five or six) Inanimate Disruption of the Traffic Pattern, Alicia pulled into a space in the TQ parking deck. Wait, no, scratch that.

Literally. Alicia groaned to herself as the grating sound of metal on metal echoed through the garage. This was not only not a part of the original plan, but it had the utmost possibility of becoming a major hindrance to the rest of the day's productivity. Pausing only for the briefest second, Alicia did what any other upstanding member of the New Age Religious Federation would have done. Fingering the medallion around her neck, she asked herself, "What would Gaius Baltar do?"

Right. She sped away, to the upper level of the parking deck. She felt vaguely sorry for the poor sap who got his car scraped up, but it wasn't her problem. He shouldn't have parked there if he didn't want to risk the damage.

Wait. Something wasn't right. The Corps had been coming down hard recently on devotees of the NARF, and she was suddenly willing to bet that the car downstairs had been deliberately placed in the flight path. This HAD to be that vaguely defined "Personality evaluation" they'd mentioned earlier. Choking down her disgust at the Corps' self-righteous meddling in her personal Religious Philosophy, she drove back down a level and left her contact information tucked inside the windshield of the errantly placed vehicle. This was just like the Corps - they were never satisfied with just evaluating your general outlook, oh no, they would actually force you to sacrifice a hard-earned paycheck or three to prove your loyalty.

After carefully avoiding any further mishaps in her craft and acquiring the passcode to her TQ during check-in with MM, Alicia began the arduous process of transferring her belongings down the flights of stairs in the parking deck, through length of the TQ complex, up the elevator, and through another length of compex into her room. Completing this phase of her mission took approximately twenty-three million years, during which scientists on the planet Earth apparently perfected transporter beam technology and then refused to share it with anyone else. During trip nine thousand seven hundred and sixty five, she observed how little had changed in the building during the past few months.

For example, from the smell of things the fish special at Kevins Deli was still the exact specimen from last spring. Additionally, the old ladies were still selling the same items at the same bake sale in the Credit Union, and - yes, even the bulletin board at the salon was nearly identical (same pictures, different title.) On trip nine thousand seven hundred and sixty eight, Alicia made a mental note to find out Kevin's birthday so she could give him that extra apostrophe she'd picked up last June at Gram-Mart's clearance sale.

Finally, she was able to move onto the "unpacking" phase of her endeavors. This took surprisingly little time, and soon enough she was enjoying dinner with an Old Friend. After returning to her quarters she made brief contact with Mission Control, at which point she discovered to her immense annoyance that the Parking Deck Incident was actually due to an honest operator error (wait, who plotted the course in the first place...?) and had nothing to do with her actual evaluation. Great. Murray, the desk operator at MC, was predictably obtuse and told her only that she'd want to make sure she was as "confident" and "well-informed" as she could be in the morning, and to report to the HUB for her evaluation...

Fair enough. No sense in worrying about it too terribly much. After showering and burrowing deep into the nest she'd made for herself in the TQ bedroom, Alicia fell into a deep, dreamfilled sleep. Odd dreams ensued, but no nightmares...overall, she reflected the next morning, an auspicious beginning.