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[As the neo-atmosphere stabilizes storms become more common, which is particularly exciting to my coworker, Emma, who noticed me trying to see what she's always staring at. She seemed... defiant. She looked like she expected me to mock her.

She looked at me as if to challenge me to ask her about it, so I did.

"I'm waiting for someone."

I asked who.

Silence. Very uncharacteristic of her to say the least.

I said it must be nice to have someone to wait on.

She scoffed.

In the future I will broach the subject more delicately or avoid it altogether. It's hard to mask my curiosity though.

As I left for my break I brought a small spare wire to donate to Jay and watched it dematerialize out of my hand upon crossing the threshold of my department. I wonder where it took it. Probably to a collection of my pens! How did I not realize what was happening?

I've worked on several outposts before and this is the first the company has implemented anything like this. I wonder if there's someone with a spot on their record to warrant it. I might be able to guess who.

I've invited Jay over tomorrow. I'm going to ask for his help and question his ability to sneak out parts undetected.

I should order more wine.]

--K

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[My mapping of what I now know to be a cave mouth has begun. There are no signs of life in the parts I've explored, although I am limited by the range of my remote scan drone. At about 300 meters below surface level the connection begins stuttering, and I do not want to risk losing the equipment required for my job.

Jay came over last night. He seemed to appreciate my ginger wine, despite being distracted by the pile of spare wires and screws he scattered across my table. My plan of employing chemical help to overcome my issues socializing was successful; aside from several conversational missteps I will ruminate on til the void.

I'm being cynical. It's clear from what he showed me that he's an accomplished engineer and a decent conversationalist which are two things I need right now. I'll invite him over again and ask for his help with my drones.

Emma is as stalwart as ever. Today she spent half of her shift outside of the deployment window fixing the shutter doors. She said that she preferred to work alone, I suspect she wanted an excuse to observe the planet's atmosphere again. Odd, considering that's our main job here, but I guess a radar doesn't capture the same... whatever she likes.

My room is a mess. Talking to people is great and all but I'm beginning to wonder how sustainable this is for me.]

--K

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[Jay came over. I was just hoping we'd drink some of the ginger wine I got at my last outpost and talk, which we did do, but he also brought his own activity. All of those little wires and screws he's been sneaking out somehow ended up strewn about my kitchen table.

We'll get to it. Starting out he brought ingredients for this cheesy bread that turned out pretty well. I think so at least. We talked about work, he actually seems to like his job. Or at least the work? He really didn't have a clear explanation for why he enjoyed being stranded on an outpost on an uninhabitable planet, and he didn't seem like the scientific type. Well, at the time. I lied he is incredibly competent at engineering.

Apparently he's been attempting to tinker but his request for parts was rejected. He said something about his way of getting back for his shipment getting dumped is slowly sneaking scrap out to use instead.

He showed me his latest project and it was obvious he was working under subpar conditions, but he managed to cobble together the beginnings of an oxygen generator. At least that's what it looked like. I work with geolocation systems and bioscanners, so who knows.

Still incredibly impressive. I'm going to be honest though, at that point in the night I had gotten through like, a few glasses of ginger wine. My nerves were shot and that tends to be how I unshoot them. Hopefully I can get Jay back here soon]

--K

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[I saw something mildly interesting today. Outside my observation panel the dust cleared and revealed to me a sinkhole opening. Novel for most but for me this gives my job a whole new level of complexity. Depending on its severity this sinkhole could mean anything from unstable ground to cave systems to previously unobserved material presence on this planet. All of which could change our understanding of the crusts composition or warrant an outpost relocation. Either way exciting for me and potentially good for a resume which means potentially good for leaving this place!

I went ahead and attempted a probe of the hole opening. Starting tomorrow I will begin mapping it to see if it's worth investigating. Hopefully this stays undiscovered for a moment so I can be the one who gets recognition for it. Also hopefully this isn't just the result of the hurricane force winds days prior. Time will tell.

In other news Jay showed me this windup toy he made out of trash. It was simple, and stupid, and kind of impressive. I may have underestimated him, he seems to be a decentl engineer. I asked him if this was the point of the trash he's been showing me and he suddenly became bashful. I told him to show me next time he makes something, and he told me he just might. I think I said the right thing to express my interest in getting to know him, but I suspect he may have just been humoring me. Discouraging. Although I suppose I'm humoring him too, so perhaps one of us will have to be the first to be honest.

Talking to Emma today yielded similar results. Despite her work ethic, she only had superficial comments about her job to offer when prompted. Considering this was the first time I tried to encourage small talk I expected more. I will continue trying.

My night with Jay is coming up. I'll practice then.]

--K

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[I'm doing the bare minimum to get by and I'm still exhausted. I feel pathetic. My supervisor chewed me out but it was clearly just one of those directionless frustrated outbursts she loves so much. Still didn't make me happy.

There was some issue with my mapping system. It looked like it was detecting some protrusions on the surface that probably don't exist. I mean I doubt rocks could flicker in and out of existence without help. I spent most of the day on that actually, massive pain...

Whatever, I got to be by myself in the end so the day wasn't too terrible. I got to see Jay again. I asked him if he stole anything and he shushed me before stealthily revealing another wire. He seemed happy that I asked at least.

We talked a bit about life, about work. And I-well he sort of invited himself over. I at least have a reason to clean my room now. It won't be for a bit, but I think I'm excited. I guess I don't have much to do here. I mainly just... what do I even do with my time? Reminisce? Rewatch old broadcasts?

Maybe I should get some hobbies. There's a workable goal, just try something new. We'll see.]

--K

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[Today I spent a lot of time staring out of the condenser deployment funnel near my desk. I think Emma might have noticed something was off because she got a lot more... confrontational than usual. Lots of elbows and jokes about our supervisor. I can appreciate it in retrospect I guess, but at the time it was too much for me. I just stood in the fog as it rolled out into the atmosphere. It was sort of peaceful, even private with how opaque the clouds were.

Jay brought more contraband to lunch, this time a small frayed wire. I still don't understand the excitement he has towards garbage he sneaks in his pocket but I at least tried to return the energy by bringing a pen again. I guess I dropped it somewhere? Thwarted by my half-heartedness. Maybe next time I'll just clip it to my shirt. It's not like I'm stealing the station's crown jewels or anything it's a pen. I'm not sure why I went to the trouble of sneaking it into my inner jacket pocket.

I finally cleaned my room today. Maybe I'll... invite... well probably not but it's nice to pick my clothes out of a drawer instead of a pile for once.]

--K

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[Today was a bad day. It was storming, probably a good sign considering our goals here, but still very annoying for me. Most of my job is done by what is essentially a giant open window, so I'm not super eager for hurricanes or what have you.

My coworker, Emma, was enamored. She can't even sit down when it gets like this. She acts more jaded than me sometimes, but still takes pride in her work. Understandable I guess, it's not like I can blame her for using her degree, she must see something in all this worth getting soaked for. Still, I don't see why we can't have raincoats, or even just an office. One. I'd even share.

My supervisor held me up and I ended up eating a late lunch. Alone. And wet. I tried to take a pen from my observation desk to show Jay, but it must have been blown out of my pocket or something. I wonder why. Maybe it's for the best, he'd get a big head about being the more successful thief between us and I can't have that.

I should really start making a point to get the phone numbers of people I can tolerate. I'd have like two, two and a half numbers. And it's not like my living quarters are this den of social activity.]

--K

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[Today I got to see Jay at lunch again. He's the only redeeming quality of this place. My advisor tried to separate us like we're children in grade school. She's this like, old doctrinaire. I guess it's easy to be condescending when you have such a straightforward metric to measure yourself against others, who's behind the line or crossed it.

But yeah, Jay, no clue why, but we've gotten pretty close I think. He's not impressive, but is kind of... he catches your interest. I feel like I want to put him in a glass jar and introduce stimuli to measure his responses.

Today he brought in a screw. Just a screw. He seemed to think it was impressive. I asked him why but he just kept saying "I'm in" over and over in this nasally hacker voice. I want to say I didn't, but I laughed. He's hard to stay quiet around...

I did finally get an answer out of him though. He works with barometric air pressurizers in a completely different department from me. Apparently they have a strict policy on stealing from the workplace, and I was being shown Jay's spoils of larceny.

I tried to act impressed, and remember I Jay is not impressive, but even with the layer of stupid humor it seemed important to him.

I wonder why...]

--K

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[Setting up here. This looks like a good spot.]

--K