* * PROJECT OMNI - OFFICE OF COMPUTER SYSTEMS SUPPORT * *

            When Miral entered the room, it occurred to her that its inhabitants' mommies must always be very mad at them. Her mommy would never let her leave her room like they left this room, with their toys all thrown around and piled up in corners.

            She couldn't see her mommy here. In fact, she couldn't see anything. The pile of junk littering the floor made doing so impossible, so she quickly scanned the room for a place where she could see over the debris. She found a wooden table to her left. Around the base was situated the same clutter that covered the rest of the floor, and on top of the table sat a series of three black boxes, out of which came scratchy music.

            Miral made her way through to the nearby table and, standing on some of the stuff on the floor, she managed to scale the height. She pulled herself onto the table top and plopped herself down behind one of the three boxes. She stuck her head out from behind her hiding spot and could now see the room in its entirety.

            Unfortunately, her mother wasn't in this room. Instead two figures sat, engrossed in work. The closest figure was a lanky human with dark hair seated behind a computer console. Nearby on a workbench, another human of similar build but with lighter hair was hunched over some half-built device. The second man would occasionally pick something out of the junk pile and connect it to the device, examine the combination closely and then put the new part back in the pile. Presently, he attached a different piece from the pile onto his device and a strange noise sounded from the device, followed by a shower of sparks.

            Zzzzzzit!

            "Arrrgh! Son of a… Yeow!" The man shook his hand violently and sucked his index finger.

            The first man spoke up. "Not having any luck with that corrupt circuitry, Dave?"

            "Ow! Yeah, Frank, I guess you could say that. I did some rewiring here, but it just exploded like a defective pack of sparklers… "

            Lt. Frank Hall looked up from his console at Lt. Dave Forrester and gave a small chuckle. "Don't worry Dave; I'm sure you'll get it sometime."

            "So how's the debugging going?"

            "Good. I've been at it for an hour and I'm almost done with the subroutine. One down, twenty four more left to go," he added with a grimace.

            Dave chuckled at the sarcastic jibe, "Well, good luck, but I hope you aren't looking to trade jobs here. I'd rather be shocked than sit squinting at that terminal all day long."

            Frank had heard this all before and let out an audible groan. "Okay, just don't give me the 'I'm a hardware person speech' again."

            "I don't repeat things that much, do I?"

            Frank chuckled again but then added with good natured sarcasm, "Nah, you don't, Dave…"

            Meanwhile, on the wooden table and concealed behind a stereo speaker, Miral had quickly lost all interest in this room. It was clear to her that her mother wasn't here and the two occupants of the room were no fun at all. So she scrambled for the edge of the table and promptly fell off, smashing the equipment strewn on the floor.

            Dave looked up from his friend, "What the hell was that?"

            "I dunno."

            Dave walked over to the wall from where the noise came and was greeted by the little girl, who was rubbing her leg and grimacing.

            "There's a kid here, Frank."

            "What, a kid?"

            "Yeah…" Dave examined Miral. "And you get three guesses as to whose kid it is."

            Frank joined Dave and saw little Miral. "The Chief's kid? I didn't know she took her here today."

            "I'm surprised she didn't leave her at the daycare center."

            "You nuts? That Browning lady scares the crap out of me. She's too… happy."

            Dave turned towards the little girl, "Are you all right? How'd you get in here…?"

            Miral looked curiously at the man. "Have you seen my mommy?"

            Dave turned back to Frank. "Yeah, Frank, you seen the Chief around today?"

            "No, but Rona was telling me this morning that her friend in biotech said that the Chief has been raising hell over there… something gone wrong with the gel packs again."

            Dave turned back to the little girl, "Well, would you like us to take you to her?"

            Miral stared at the strange man. Her parents had drilled into her head many times that she shouldn't go with strangers, but was it different if they worked with mommy…? She settled her indecision with the reasoning that if she was going to find her mother, she'd do it herself. She furiously nodded 'no' to the engineer.

            Great, Dave thought, she doesn't want to go, so I guess she plans on staying here all day. I've really got better things to do. "You really should let us take you to her," was all Dave voiced of his opinions.

            "No. Wanna go alone."

            "A Starbase is no place for a young lady your age," he said. "Come with us and we'll make sure you get to her all right." He moved closer to little Miral.

            Certain that this strange man was coming to take her away from her family (as her parents had often warned her strangers did), the little girl stood in terror before loudly shouting, "No, no, no, no! NO!" She took off on her heels and ran for the door, clipping a table leg in her rush. As she ran down the hallway, the sturdy office doors muffled the terrible screeching noises made as the combination of a ripping vinyl disc and a falling stereo system filled the air, mixed with surprised shouts from the two rather unfortunate men caught underneath the avalanche.