"Yeah, when Zahn tried to assign a custom code it told him custom codes were currently disallowed."

"Of course. Also, I spent just about all damn day trying to get the satellite phones to do anything related to Earth. No dice. I'll be up in the lounge in a minute, bye."

"Nick's on his way up. He says he couldn't figure out how to get the phones to call home."

"Ugh. Not that I really expected anything else at this point, but ugh."

"Yeah, I feel the same."

"I guess we're going to have to think about what to do here long-term, without anyone else coming along... There haven't been any new arrivals since about midnight yesterday, I think the Earth elevators are probably shut off."

"Probably yeah, I suppose it could just be that nobody expected to be able to show up a day late for the party."

Sigh. "My friend Gren might think of coming and checking on me. Kind of hope she does, and is silly enough to try an elevator code..."

"I hope so too, the fewer people we lose the better."

"She can be pretty... Hm, how do I put it... She has a strong sense of right and wrong."

"People like that are, a mixed bag, if they agree with you it's great but if they don't it can be hard. I hope she'll be OK regardless of her beliefs."

"I think her current issue is... Voting reform and immigration law."

"Well those are both things that could use some fixing, though they might not be as relevant soon."

"My gut says she'll want to organize a Home Complex Senate and work out residency rules, ha. Kind of surprised nobody's insisted on doing that already."

"It's only been a day, maybe we'll see something like that happen once we've settled in a little more."

Nick comes into the lounge at this time. "Phones for all! Take one, pass it around, ask me later if you want your number changed."

Zahn takes one. "Thanks Nick, it's been weird not having a working phone."

Alice takes out her phone and brings up the contacts list. "Can you read me your new number Zahn? I already have Nicks so I just need you Walta and Carl to have all the staff."

They all exchange numbers and then Nick says, "Yeah so I think I'm going to go mess with the ATVs I found some more. I don't like the idea of being stuck in the compound, and they're the most vehicular thing we've got so far."

Zahn dutifully reads out his number.

"...Zahn, by the way, since the elevator codes turned out to be a wash have you finished the mapping program with Nick's drone? Or haven't had time yet?"

"It was mostly finished, I still want to refine it a little bit first. Has anyone grabbed extra laptops from the Mall? It seems weird to have just one."

"Alice and I got a few, some normal some a bit like the library terminals."

"Huh, I wonder if those would make programming the satellite phones easier. Anyway, can you show me where you're keeping them? Also, Nick do you have a flashdrive or something to transfer your code over to another computer?"

He tosses one over on his way out the door.