Not Your Typical Tattie

Humming an upbeat tune, June sits at the terminal looking through files trying to find more additions she can add to the suit. “Man, sometimes I kinda wish I didn’t ask them to let me handle my EVA suit's ENTIRE rigging and setup process. I could be out there exploring and adventuring. But now I gotta look for it and do it all myself,” June's voice echoes slightly inside of the space pod. Her face droops with boredom.

A whiteboard embedded into a wall inside her pod sits above the frame of her bed. On it, she wrote Today's Goal: find sustainable food and water. In the top right of the whiteboard, she has a single tally marked to represent days that have passed on earth to keep her days organized. Despite this, the sun has yet to set on Bonnie, only sitting a bit past its peak in the sky.

June looks over at her goal on the whiteboard and then back at the mess of holographic files in front of her. “C’mon June, guan yersel’, ye got this, this ain’t so bad,” Her attempts to encourage herself just barely sparks her motivation to finish downloading a couple more things and finish what she needed to in order to start today's goal.

What June has just downloaded consists of a scanner that breaks down certain compound components of something she scans. The second is a radar for finding water nearby, and the third one is for being able to set up holographic waypoints that can be displayed and followed by planting a signal with her suit. That way when she travels she will easily be able to find her way back home and back to the waypoints.

“Well let's see, I’ve been waiting on this! This is bloody exciting, just barry!” She rambles on as her door opens “I’m gunna get to try non-synthetic food for the first time Bonnie! Ya hear that? Non-synthetic!” Her voice bounces off the nearby trees.

“Oh, wait!” June rushes back inside, scrambles to turn on her terminal, and skims through a bunch of files. “I NEED this!” June excitedly says, holding her breath in anticipation as she scurries for what she's looking for.

After spending about ten minutes searching, she finds a file named “Helmet Modifications”, a step-by-step guide given to her as per her request to the engineers at Project BC. This special modification will grant the suit the glorious ability to allow her to smell this planet and all of its funk. June spends the next thirty minutes at her engineering table following the directions and successfully setting up her smelling receptors WITH an on/off switch.

According to what June said when she put in the request, “Some smells are pleasant and fun to smell, like fresh tatties or lavender tea. But I’d be a balloon if I didn’t consider an on/off switch. If it smells like someone just took a fat jobby and that rank stench floods my smellin’ receptors with no way to stop it, I’d end up needin’ to boke in my helmet and then-” After that, June goes on to yap about a bunch of nonsense in which the engineers didn't bother to listen to.

Stepping outside, she puts her new helmet installments to good use by testing it out inside the dome. The same fresh tatties smell came through just the same as if she didn’t have her helmet on.

“Wish I could’ve made the full thing myself but ‘Oh June, you don’t have time to do it before the trip by yourself, we have to do it for you’” June says mocking the engineers “7 days was plenty of time for me to come up with the blueprints and install it directly into my suit by myself. I didn’t need their fancy team. But noooooo, they don’t believe me.” She pouts obnoxiously to herself.

A sly look leaks over her face “At least they used the base idea I had. I definitely didn’t plant those unofficial anonymous blueprints that ended up being the draft for their final design, aint that right Bonnie?” June looks up at the sky and smiles a cheeky kind of grin “That’s right, lil ol’ me had nooooo part of the process”.

”Heh, damn balloons. They really didn’t even try and figure out where the drafts came from, just went with it and stole the credit” She mutters under her breath with mild pride followed by mild annoyance.

“Good thing now I’m all alone. Well not totally alone I guess. You're with me, Bonnie. I don’t have to worry about you stealin’ or being annoyin’ to me. You're just living your best life!” She laughs and her smile becomes more neutral, the corners of her mouth curling up slightly “I am too now that I’m here with you”.

June walks out of the dome and takes a deep breath in, testing to see if the smell is working in contingency with the oxygen tank. “Hell yeah! It works, I can smell, and breathe!”.

Her face goes from an excited look to a more curious excitement “Makes me wonder if it would be possible to reverse engineer some of this tech and fully filter out the air outside, reducing significantly the usage of oxygen while I'm away from the base. Maybe if I reverse engineer the tech behind the dome, I can ditch the bulky helmet and use a mask instead!”.

As various upgrades and possibilities flash through her mind, her mind spaces out momentarily, falling back to reality after several seconds. “Whew got lost in thought for a second there. I guess now we put some of these other tools to use”.

After snapping her fingers, holograms appear in front of her. She scrolls through and selects an app with a compass called “Water Finder”. After turning it on, she now can see a little compass pointing her in the direction where the nearest source of water is supposed to be.

“Well Bonnie, let's see whatcha got for me!” June begins bubbling with excitement as she jogs off into the direction the water is in.

As June Journeys into the distant land, she treads across hills adjourned with grey and greyish-pink hues. The ground feels almost crunchy beneath her feet, yet the soil slightly molds to the print of her boots as she walks.

After about an hour and a half of walking up and down many hills, and sometimes around when it made more sense to do so, in the distance June could see a little valley nuzzled between two large hills. Large trees with their Crimson Canapys cover the valley below.

Within the valley, June's eyes meet with the surreal sight of a bright green spring of water. The spring is surrounded by large rock formations, saturated with spring water that drips down over it, collecting at the bottom where the spring lies. Little canals seep out of the valley slowly carrying the water out to a very distant river that fades with the horizon.

“Wow, this is wonderful, Bonnie! You’re bloody beautiful!” June's eyes gleam with anticipation as she scampers down the valley, sliding down the hill recklessly. She didn’t notice before back in the dome, but gravity seems to be a little lighter on Bonnie. The low gravity isn’t nearly as intense as the earth's moon, but significant enough to notice when falling a little bit.

“Woah Bonnie, I didn’t know even your gravity was cool! But I gotta get down there and see what this spring is about” After several minutes of reckless traversal, June reaches the water at the bottom.

She crouches down and scoops up some of the spring water into a sample tube and sticks it inside a compartment in her suit meant to perform a surface-level scan of things. June reads the info aloud to herself “So, the water is exceptionally pure! Ph level reads at an even 8, no poisonous compounds detected, and according to the scan, it's pure and fully safe to drink! Oh man, I’m so bloody intrigued to figure everything out about this. I will definitely be back!”.

She looks over some think greyish-pink foliage, noticing something hiding at the bottom of the dense bush. As she ruffles through the vines and leaves, her pupils dilate, and the smile she already has turns to a jaw-dropped expression of disbelief.

Long yellow, leaves with soft spikey edges, stick out of the ground. “No way, Bonnie, you're joking, right? You can’t truly be this amazing” June grips the leaves with her gloves and yanks out a massive vegetable resembling a giant, pale-yellow potato.

“Bonnie, I bloody love ya. You’ve just given me the best welcoming gift I could ask for! A bloody tattie!” She picks up the potato and drops it in her satchel. “I don't wanna cut it up until I’ve analyzed it, I’ll keep it in here until I’m back.” She drops the whole nearly five-pound potato in her satchel.

“I will absolutely be back here very soon, but for now I gotta get back and analyze this stuff!” June opens up the waypoint app and puts a marker right next to the spring. Afterward, waving goodbye to the water and the tattie bush.

After waving goodbye to the valley, she headed back home on her journey toward the waypoint she placed in front of her pod before leaving. The waypoint shows as a holographic icon of a little house. Underneath it shows 4,632. That number represents how many meters away from the waypoint June is.

Once she returns, she walks up and leans in next to her pod puts her hand up to her mouth, and whispers to the pod “Mrs. Pod, You are not gonna believe the welcoming gift Bonnie gave me!” June walks up the ramp and closes the door behind her. “YIPEE!” Her scream radiates loud enough to be heard even from the outside of her pod.