"Lady Goldman?"
The women's dorms at DTU were, in a word, cramped. If Zoe had her thesaurus on her, she also would've gone with "incommodious", "circumscribed", and "very small". But she didn't, so she didn't. She liked to consider herself a clean, organised person, but the precious economy of space had made her resort to piling important books and documents and whatever else into out of the way nooks and crannies. This, along with her roommate Wanda's own infrequent messes, served to only further exaggerate the claustrophobic atmosphere. Still, it was her space, and at least she wasn't wanting for living arrangements. She liked it this way. It'd almost feel like a betrayal clearing out all this junk.
"Lady Goldman, please."
After a few moments of silence, Zoe finally managed to peel her eyes away from her laptop, on which rested an assignment for Basic Net Theory, already half done. It wasn't due until next week, but Zoe always liked to get a head start on things. That kind of attitude was also what lead her to ignoring her Navi's usual pleas for action. She knew he got all antsy without something to apply himself to, but that didn't mean she had to bend over backwards every time CT needed to bust some heads. She had, by her own admission, way too much stuff going on for that. This time, though. This time would be one of those rare instances where she folded. You keep an active Navi all cooped up like that for awhile and you start to feel guilty, like you're neglecting a puppy. That was what CentaurusMan was, really, a big, dumb, armored puppy.
She reached over, groping half-blind in the artificial dusk of the window blinds, and dragged her PET over from the far corner of her desk. Squinting, she brought the screen up to eye-level, leaving her face to face with the T-shaped visor of CT's helm.
"What is it, what's the problem?" Mostly, she was asking for his sake. She already knew what the problem was.
"As much as I'm loathe to interrupt your studies, m'lady," If he noticed Zoe's brief, involuntary grimace, he was too polite to say anything. "I wonder if we might be able to embark on a virus hunt this eve? It's been many a moon since our last, and our coffers have run quite dry, no? He was right on that count. She could barely scrape together enough Zenny for dinner, let alone clothes or new chips or whatever it was they needed now.
"Iunno. I'm getting pretty involved in this paper here. I can't just break out of my groove now." Of course, just because she agreed didn't mean she couldn't tease him about it some.
"Lady Goldman, please reconsider! I-"
"Yeah yeah. I was just messing, you big lug. We'll go ahead and jack in in a sec. Just gotta save this thing and we're off, okay?"
"Very well! You shan't regret this, I promise you as much!" If it weren't for the helmet, Zoe could've sworn he was blushing.
Zoe saved what progress she'd made and closed the document, then readied her PET.
"A moment, my lady!"
"Huh?" She paused, PET halfway towards the port.
"Don't you feel we're missing something of import?"
"That being...?"
"You know full well!"
Zoe sighed exaggeratedly, but still she smiled. "Alright, fine. But just this once."
She rised the device above her head and struck as dramatic a pose she could without standing up.
"Jack in! CentaurusMan, execute!"
[To ACDC Net]