Naomi Spychakov
...It was a morning like so many others for Noami. Smiles for the front office and another for her coworker Mischa. "доброе утро миша, как дела" "good morning Mischa how are you". Mischa meant a good strong cup of hot tea with a sprig of mint and some gossip, so Noami's smile was for real. "Good - Spaciba - Noami". It would have been obvious to anyone looking at the two young girls that they were good friends, something in their smiles and the way their heads bounced when they spoke. It might have been because they were both young, or maybe because both were Jewish and single, but it was good at this particular time in Kyiv for anyone to be happy at all. A bird flew by the window, they were only two floors up in a monstrously large building in downtown Kyiv and it was late Spring and the sun shone kindly on a city that had lost it's heart and soul somewhere in the middle of the last century. Even a little brightness helped.
Noami opened the files for company resources, mostly to check on "coal in the plant". It was her job to make sure there was always adequate coal on hand to keep the generators going. This was not too much of a problem except during long cold spells in the winter when the electrical usage in Minsk usually peaked. Then the rule, as handed down by her supervisor, Yuri Shapir, was to have at least two weeks worth of highest use coal on hand. She remembered his "secret"."Just to be sure that neither you nor I lose our jobs, he confided like one undercover spy to another, 'we' have a secret hidden chamber with exactly that amount of coal", he smiled and raised his eyebrows and said "I will show you this afternoon." Which he did. They were like two children playing in the woods after dark and laughing at the idea of ghosts and wild creatures as they made their way down into caverns that must have been dug out centuries ago. She hoped that she would be able to find the place again and hoped more that she wouldn't have to. Yuri and Mischa were all that kept Noami from being totally bored to death at her job. She rarely considered that it was her personal integrity that brought her to that job and that often she stood as a vital link for insuring electric power to over two million persons in and around the city of Minsk.
A brightly colored ad caught her eye. "How can they just insert stuff like that onto your browser". she thought. It reminded her of grade school. Silly faces and childish smiles. "Come join us on Mars", it read. "What?", she thought and smiled at the idea. "Was this a joke?". She clicked on the "Find Out If This Is For You" button. That was the last thing Noami would do as Naomi Spychakov, assistant to technical director of central power station Minsk Obast. The site simply captured all of her imagination and took her, with building excitement, nearly to the surface of Mars. Well, that's at least how it seemed.
