Vinyl smiled to herself as she looked over the reports from Mars. So far, those reports were all quite pleasing. Everything seemed to be functioning well within expected parameters, and the few unanticipated hurdles had been cleared readily. With luck, Mars would soon be at the point where it could receive people.
Even the one major hurdle Vinyl had been dreading - the difference in gravity - had a rather elegant solution developed from an unexpected source. Originally, the plan had been to alter Mars' gravity to match Earth's by manipulating its geology, but that had proved to be more than Magma Man could readily handle. Galaxy Man, however, had come up with a solution so simple Vinyl was amazed it hadn't been obvious.
Even on the fastest shuttles available, it still took a great deal of time to transport anything back and forth from Earth to Mars save by teleportation, and the teleport network only reached that far when Earth and Mars were at their closest. Shuttles, however, could be sent anytime, especially when running on Power Cores with plasma boosters, rather than more traditional methods. Galaxy Man's solution was to install artificial gravity systems on the shuttles themselves which would gradually adjust their internal gravity from Earth level to Mars level - or vice versa - during the journey, calculating the exact safe rate himself so those riding the shuttles could adjust to the changes in atmosphere and gravity in the same way those who spent months in deep sea dive stations remained in depressurization chambers at either end of the journey through the ocean to adjust to the new conditions. While they hadn't tested this on a human yet, the first such equipped shuttle to carry small animals had already been and gone each way, with no undue side effects beyond momentary disorientation akin to jet lag.
Vinyl hadn't even been consulted before this method had been first implemented, but she didn't mind. The discovery that it did work so well had made her massively alter her opinion of Galaxy Man's processing capabilities. Because he was small and cute and talked funny, it was easy to assume he was less than intelligent. Then again, he did have one of the most computation-heavy jobs of the entire Mars project, and Vinyl herself had taken advantage of how being small and cute made people - Mega Man especially - underestimate her in the past, so she'd definitely have to do some thinking on that.
It was as Vinyl was thinking about this that her systems received a series of alerts from the Mars systems, of systems displaying massive errors all over the planet. Before she could make sense of it, she received a video communication from Galaxy Man.
"AHHHH!" Galaxy Man screamed on the screen as he floated back and forth, waving his arms animatedly. "Help! Help!" Grabbing tiny mech models - one of his hobbies - he proceeded to bang them against each other while making gunshot sound effects and other fight noises before throwing them into the air with another scream as something exploded behind him. "Heeeeeeeeeelp!" he wailed out again.
And with that, all signal from Mars cut out completely. The only message left was that Mars and Earth were just about close enough for the teleport network to reach, and would actually be close enough for that within the week.
Sighing to herself, Vinyl turned to her vidphone and dialed a number. She then waited for a time...but to her surprise, there was no answer. "Huh. Guess he's not at home. Hmm..." Instead, she dialed a different number.
After a time, the screen lit up, showing a familiar blonde girl who looked a tad disheveled. "Алло?" Kalinka greeted curiously. Her eyes brightened as she saw who was calling. "Oh, Vinyl! I wasn't expecting your call! Did I forget something on our schedule?"
"No, nothing like that," Vinyl hastened to assure her friend. "I was hoping you could tell me where Rock is. He's not answering his phone, and I need to reach him."
"Oh!" Kalinka turned back towards her darkened chamber. "Rock! It's Vinyl for you."
Rock quickly took a seat before the phone...and Vinyl found it rather amusing that he looked somewhat disheveled as well. "What did you need, Vinyl?" he asked curiously.
As much as Vinyl wanted to tease him, more important things were at hand. "I just received some alarming reports from the Mars project. Massive error messages from systems all over the planet, followed by a desperate call for help from Galaxy Man, followed by a loss of all signal from the planet."
"That doesn't sound good..." Rock murmured understandingly as Kalinka gasped in shock in the background. "But why are you telling me?"
"The teleport network will be able to bridge the gap soon," Vinyl explained, "and it's still functional. I was hoping you'd hop over there and see what's going on."
"Why me?" Rock asked directly. "Couldn't you just as easily send Forte? Or Prometheus?"
"I could," Vinyl replied readily with a roll of her eyes, "but then if word got out about the errors, everyone would assume I was covering something up. The Mars project is a corporate endeavor, not just a national one. But if you go to investigate, your report will be an independent audit of the situation. The last thing I need is those conspiracy theories about the Mars project getting more ammunition."
Rock chuckled, rolling his eyes. "Vinyl, nobody actually believes those crazy-"
"I encountered no less than five posts about them just this morning while browsing the net," Vinyl pointed out.
Rock shrugged his shoulders. "Well, if you go looking for them-"
"One was on Garnet's bio!" Vinyl snapped out angrily.
Rock blinked, stunned. "O...kay..."
"Oh!" Kalinka piped up. "Did you see the part about-"
"No spoilers!" Vinyl snapped out angrily.
"I guess I can see the connection...somehow," Rock admitted. "But alright, I'll go investigate. I'll need to teleport back to Light Labs, though. Need my armor for this."
"I'll set up the connection," Kalinka promised.
"Thanks," Rock replied gratefully, giving her a peck on the cheek before heading out.
As Kalinka got to work setting that up, Vinyl smirked teasingly. "So, Kalinka, what were you two up to that got you both disheveled? Were you...making babies?" She giggled teasingly.
"Well, one anyway," Kalinka admitted distractedly.
Vinyl blinked, stunned. "Wow. Um, I'm not sure Rock has the right, uh, hardware-software interface-"
"Wha? No no no!" Kalinka interrupted quickly, waving her hands and flushing as she realized what Vinyl had meant. "We weren't doing anything like that! I'm very traditional in that regard!"
Vinyl chuckled nervously. "Yeah...that's going to be awkward when it comes time for it, though. I mean, the interface alone-"
"Already exists, actually," Kalinka interrupted with a blush. "I...designed it myself-"
"TMI!" Vinyl wailed out, covering her ears as her friend burst into throaty laughter. "TMI!"