Mia was part of the Earth diaspora as well, though she had come from an entirely different part of the world: the area of Southwest Asia formally known as Lebanon. Most of it was in ruins now, what wasn't under water from the worldwide rise in sea levels, and most of its former inhabitants had fled or been wiped out in the last days of the Final Israeli War.

Thankfully, Mia's family had emigrated to Greece before she was born, and she herself had been shipped up to the colonies well before the nuclear assault had begun. She'd grown up a Moonie, orphaned from her home planet. Despite that, she remained one of the most cheerful people Micah had ever met.Mia was sitting by herself at one of the small tables, poking at her food (mostly 3D-printed pseudo-eggs and something that was supposed to be bacon but wasn't) and chatting with her small robotic pet, Draco. His scaly body resembled that of a Smaug giganteus, or Giant Dragon Lizard, a now-extinct species from southern Africa, with thick, armored scales and a wise-looking reptilian face, save that its scales were lightweight emerald-green plastic and had a vocalizer capable of human speech.

They seemed to be deep in discussion over the Spica event. It figured that Mia's VI would be particularly interested in the supernova, since Spica was also called the Horn of the Dragon by the Chinese that now ruled over most of Mars, where Draco and most of their V.I.s had been manufactured.

Mia herself was in her mid-20s, like Micah himself, and though she spoke fluent English she had also studied her native language, what she could vaguely recall her parents speaking before she had to adapt to a life in the strange integrated culture of the Moon. The founders of the colony had been the remnants of the United Nations and European Union, and had seen enough of what the squabbles of different cultural groups could develop into. A fair amount of the damage caused to the homeworld had been nuclear, after all. When Earth first settled the colonies, they tried to keep families together as much as possible, but intentionally mixed as many different cultures together as they could along with them.

Mia was speaking to Draco in her own unique dialect, a strange pidgin of English, Japanese, several Arabic tongues, and a bit of Celtic for flavor. She was a bit of a language scholar, so she enjoyed inventing her own hybrid tongues. Made her shorthand nearly indecipherable, though. Which may have been the whole point. She paused when she noticed Micah had arrived, smiled up at him, and switched to English, Micah's own native tongue. "Continue that analysis," she said, adjusting her black-frame glasses. "Morning, babe. How's it going? Been checking out the fireworks, I bet?"

The glasses were an affectation, of course. All the Moonies who required it had been given basic Lasik surgery upon arrival, in addition to the suite of visual and haptic implants and a variety of vaccinations and genetic tinkering. But Mia liked how they looked on her face, so that was how she customized her real-world look. In AR, she had quite a larger wardrobe at her disposal, but as far as the base materials went, the standard jumpsuits and undershirts were pretty much ubiquitous.

Still, though Micah was hardly an unbiased judge, she made even the reality look quite good. She was one of the more athletic Moonies, considering a fit body a good way to a sound mind, and she and Micah had known each other for quite some time. They had first met playing Valhalla, and had hit it off in both the VR and the physical plane.

Micah was still thinking about what he had seen in the light of Spica's supernova. He was an amateur astronomer, but had already located and named a few features on the outer planetoids himself, and he was excited about what the Overminds would make of the Nemesis twins. He gave her a quick run-down while an androgynous robot server walked over, providing a touch-screen menu that Micah glanced at and selected from without pausing, and dispensing a glass of reconstituted juice.

By the time he finished his conclusions, it had returned with a plate of shaped rations, most likely reconstituted organic material printed into strange pseudo-meats. He gave one deliberate, two-second blink, engaging his AR inputs. He couldn't completely make himself forget he was eating 3D-printed food, but the AR helped him substitute the feedback he got from the fairly basic rations as whatever he desired, and it was certainly better than eating it without any technological seasoning.

It didn't hurt that the scenery in the Augmented Reality was far more interesting, as well.

Mia's outfit was entirely different in the simulacrum, which was what they called the secondary level of reality that existed within their implants and readouts. While on the flesh-and-blood level, Draco was nothing more than an intelligent robot that had sat stoically while the two humans flirted with one another, on the AR level he was a considerably more fearsome construct. Most of their private demi-sphere was Valhalla-based, so they could play at wearing the costumes and the forms that they wore in the game in their casual lives. It beat an outfit of gray jumpsuits with blue moons on the back, at least.

Draco was far more massive on this level, at least twenty feet long from tail to snout; the one Mia had been using as a recording device was only about as long as this one's foreclaws. The wings that had been just a plastic affectation were massive and powerful in this realm, strong enough to lift the massive hunter's body aloft, and the thick, plated scales were even more fearsome. His horns and crest gleamed with arcane inscriptions, green enamel and a queen's bounty in gemstones.

He wasn't showing even the least sign of aggression at the moment, though, seeming like nothing more than a gigantic, scaly sort of tiger, perhaps the dozing pet of some regal foreign queen. One that might occasionally snack upon unwanted visitors. Not that there were many; all the rest of the Moonies would see if they looked at the two was a happy couple chatting away, munching absently at their breakfast, and most gave them their privacy regardless. Within the VR realm, Draco opened a single slitted eye and snorted at him in either greeting or dismissal; its scaled face betrayed little. It adjusted its sinuous, spike-ridged tail and appeared to go back to sleep.

The AR the two of them had set up was a virtual "room" within Valhalla, a personal server for the two of them, set as a small but well-stocked dwelling in an area similar to the north of England. Mia's outfit was quite different within the construct, as was Micah's own. Mia was dressed as colorfully as her regular outfit was plain, with a silver and platinum dress that showed off her figure to a magnificent degree.

She still had her 'true' skin and hair color, but now there were prismatic streaks in it that seemed to be any number of colors, depending upon what angle they were viewed from, mixed in with strands of gold and platinum. Her glasses were now crafted of smooth labradorite, a gray-black stone that would reflect an almost bioluminescent 'glow' when viewed from certain angles, a stone that adorned a number of her jewelry. She was mixing in bits of Selif, her character from the game, with her own virtual wardrobe. She was what was known among Moonies as a 'cosplayer', but as she was also an artist and clothing designer, her VR and AR designs were especially well-crafted.

Micah, for his part, was dressed in his Imperial robes again, the epitome of the Danish king at rest. Instead of the bland and inorganic fare they were actually eating, they fed upon the finest of fruits, the most tender of meats, and an ambrosia-like drink that invigorated both the mind and body. It was illusion, but it was a fine one, and mostly kept them from complaining about the quality of the fare. Mostly.

Their conversation continued to revolve mostly around the supernova, as Mia shared her own observations. As an artist, she had decided to go for the grandest view possible; mighty Jupiter, the most massive planet in their system. Had it devoured the Nemesis twins instead of flinging them out of its realm, it might have become a sun in its own right, but even without a life-giving fusion core, its moons were the home of silicon-based life. Spotted with small A.I. Colonies, largely self-replicating miner collectives that were both more resilient and more expendible than their fleshy parent organisms, the moons of Jupiter had become a rich resource both for the steel-enclosed cities of Earth and for the burgeoning colonies on Luna and Mars. And these colonies were more than capable of directing their sensors outwards, especially for as major an event as the Spica wave.

Mia and Draco had 'flown' to a number of different observation points within the Jovian system, including a number of probes that were in orbit within the ring system. Soaring through the rings of Jupiter, even in a simulation, was an experience not to be missed, especially since the Oort cloud's reflection cast almost enough light to see by, thanks to Spica. And that was without the many computer enhancements that Draco could feed directly into a head's up display, placed directly into her view of vision. She was already excited about some of the paintings she was going to make once she finished with her own colony chores.

For the most part, most true physical labor had gone entirely to the robotic workforce, but all humans had to keep their bodies in shape, especially on a low-gravity environment like the Moon. And since they worked so well as a natural supercomputer, many of them filled their time doing the few jobs that robots could not do; forging communities out of strangers, expanding the boundaries of scientific theory, exploring the lessons of history so that humanity would never again approach the brink that had almost caused its extinction, had it not been for those few with the foresight to continue pushing a return to the stars. Micah was an astronomer; Mia, an artist and designer. But for at least a few hours a day, they helped maintain the delicate balance of Earth life trying to make its home on man's first extra planetary colony.

If the descendants of mere monkeys could learn to walk upon the surface of the Moon, surely there must be a way to learn how to live there, to make this strange environment a place they do more than just survive for a few years. Minerals, water ice and other essentials were in abundance, if not on the lunar surface than in the greater system of planets and asteroids, and while breaking down water ice into breathable oxygen and burnable hydrogen was delicate work, the precision of humanity's technology had hit its height just at the right moment to enable them to survive on such an alien environment as the near-vacuum of cold, dead Luna, just when it became apparent they had little choice in the matter.

Still, as rich of an environment as the minds of men had created, they were still creatures of carbon and flesh, and a fair amount of upkeep was still required. Thus, those colonists who were able to work had to spend at least a few hours either helping in whatever tasks the Overminds felt were most needed and most appropriate for each individual, or exercising to keep their bodies in shape. Fortunately, in low-g, even heavy loads or advanced exercises were far from difficult to handle, as long as inertia was allowed for.

Mia was in the medical field, so she was a few domes over from the hydroponics bay. Sometimes they collaborated with different hybrids that might be applicable in her field, but for the most part, she acted as nurse-practitioner for the robotic surgeons, which were themselves powered by A.I. Constructs based upon humans noted for their precision with a scalpel. While robots could do at least some of the initial information-gathering work, many of the nuances of human physiology (and psychology) were helped along by an actual human to listen to one's problems and arrange for the proper testing. Even if Mia's initial diagnosis proved incorrect, the instrumentation was usually thorough enough that whatever the problem was, she and her team could pinpoint it.

Considering that Amrita colony itself was almost a million people, connected dome by dome by a series of airlocks, being able to pinpoint any problems before they became epidemics were vital. Some of the first dome cities, drowned beneath the expanding oceans, had either not been so fortunate or lacked the foresight to deal with the plagues that could come from such close quarters, and the necessity of proper hygiene. It helped that in space, the only germs were the ones that Earthlings brought with them, and the air systems could detect any microbe above a few nanometers. In theory, anyway.

They both blinked to dismiss the augmented reality, nodded to the robot servitor who stepped in to collect their trays, and exchanged a quick kiss. "Luck at your job," she said, standing and scooping up Draco, who climbed nimbly up to her shoulder and gazed at Micah with reptilian indifference. "I'll see you tonight, around 5pm? I think we can take that so-called Princess of Water down this time. Draco tells me that he has a veritable army of dragons ready to help make the assault on her bloody three-headed snake beast, as well as helping distract her titan and his legion of sea-nightmares. We should be able to pin her in this time, at least long enough for us to seal the portal and banish her back to her watery Hell."

"I'll be there," Micah smiled, turning towards the tunnel that led to his day job.