Travis' breakfast tray was a terrible attempt at a conceptual architecture as art display – a precariously balanced stack of bacon towered over his tray, tilting and jostling with each step he took down the hallway. His orange juice stood, stoically watching the impending doom of the bacon edifice, and the raison toast was too busy trying to keep its own balance to notice either of them.

Johnny was a scant few steps behind him with his own breakfast banquet with bacon, sausage, eggs, hash browns, toasts, corned beef and hash, eggs Benedict, fresh fruit of at least four varieties, fried french toast sticks, little single serving syrup packets, pancake wrapped sausages on a stick, actual pancakes and a few boxes of single serving children's cereal boxes, a glass of milk and a glass of orange juice were all elegantly stacked into a culinary coliseum – all eyes were on the bowl of oatmeal in the center who would be the first to die.

As they turned the corner, a sense of deja vu pervaded the hallway when, Travis saw an armed guard standing outside the door to the airlocks at the entrance of Eluria's dormitory and his office.

Johnny took in the same sight, was wrapped in the same sense of deja vu, and would have been ashamed to admit a small font of dread welled in his stomach and sat heavy like a stone.

As they came closer to the inevitable, Travis' change in posture put Johnny at ease – if Travis wasn't worried about this guy then Johnny needn't be either. Travis was relieved to see Corporal Krans outside as opposed to First Sergeant Thompson.

"Morning fellas. That's quite the haul you've got there Doctor, a solid plate full of bacon. I hear that's bad for your heart."

"Probably, but if it was good for me, it'd taste like shit. Besides, working here, I don't think I'll live long enough for the fuckin' bacon to kill me – especially with First Sergeant Thompson running around here roided out of his fucking mind looking for a fight."

"Yeah, I heard you two had some trouble the other day. It's what brings me here, by order of Director Phleer herself – First Sergeant wasn't happy about that at all, I'm officially on the shit list."

"Shit man, I'm sorry about that. I personally requested your presence here, on behalf of Eluria. Apparently you made a good impression the other day."

"Don't worry about it, Doctor. I assume the First Sergeant will be on his way out before long, and this post is probably the most interesting and the best for my career, as far as building security goes."

"Hopefully not too fuckin' interesting. Hold this for a second, please?" Travis handed Corporal Krans his breakfast tray and badged himself through the airlock, motioning for him and Johnny to follow.

"Uh, Doctor?" Corporal Krans asked, hesitantly "I'm not actually authorized in your office, I'm just the door guard."

"My understanding is that it's a bit of a gray area and I'm hereby using what pitiable authority I have here to authorize you, so hurry up and get the fuck in here so we can eat. If this blows up, it's on me and you were just following orders, right?"

"Sounds great, just trying to cover my ass."

Once they'd all made their way through the airlocks, not an easy feat getting three people and two absurdly large breakfasts through the airlock without either of them closing and spilling something, Travis sat down at his terminal and ran through the morning checks.

"Sorry about that guys, I need to get some more chairs in here."

Johnny dismissed him with a grunting mouth full of food and Krans waved him off. "It's fine, I've only merited a chair for like six months now, you know how it is. I'm still used to sitting on the floor."

Travis definitely knew "how it was", generally only sergeants and up actually got somewhere to sit. If there were enough chairs, corporals got to sit too, but usually not.

Everything appeared normal, the biometrics showed Eluria as "asleep" and a quick lifting of the black paper he'd taped over that section of his camera bank showed that she was doing her usual comatose routine – she generally didn't sleep, but instead projected her consciousness somewhere during the night until around nine in the morning. She'd told Travis she liked to give him time to get into his morning routine – to wakeup and eat some food and just kind of relax for a little bit before he went to get her breakfast and was officially "working" for the day.

His