Haley was a scientist and believed in her trade. Theories, hypothesis, tests, trials, errors, more tests, experiments, discovery, wonder. Testing her ideas and figuring out new secrets about the universe based on skill alone was such an intoxicating idea. It was a drug. Haley wouldn’t admit it openly, but she got such a rush of energy when she finished even the most mundane of tasks. When she was younger, she used to think that there may have been something wrong with her dopamine reactors and that they fired randomly. Now, she theorized that her rampant drug use in her younger days had scrambled her sense of what was rewarding. That was something she could test.
After she finished this experiment first.
Lights flickered overhead, bulbs cracked. Somewhere in the distance, a door banged closed because of bad circuitry. Half of the room was shrouded in darkness. The computer screen in front of her blinked, random numbers appearing out of order, trailing from one side to the other like a stream. A stream of information. There was a large, glass wall in front of her meant for prisoners or traitors who were on the ship. It was a one-way window.