Submission (#1946) Approved

It was a terribly cold morning. Frost covered the windshield of the N.E.O.N. , Bugberry's research vessel. She had converted it from its original day trip style interior to a more long term living environment as it was her main place of residence. Not the type to stay in one place too long, Bugberry preferred to travel around planet to planet in her ship. But it needed some work...well, a lot of work. Teeth chattering, she dragged herself from her bunk and immediately crawled into a service hatch. After a ton of cursing and banging a loud engine noise came rumbling out of the ship and the heater kicked back on.


Well, she was awake now...no point in trying to go back to sleep. Shaking the fog from her mind she prepared herself some invigorating dazzle berry tea and began the process of gearing up for the day. She had an environmental protection suit, a fullbody polymer suit that allowed her to safely interact with the unknown flora of the planet she was exploring. Her notebook and camera for recording findings and of course, her specimen bag for things she gathers to take back to her mobile lab for study. Her goggles, equipped with infrared vision and powerful zoom sat atop her head. She was ready to take on the day.


She shut down the ship and locked up, heading out into the freezing cold. It was snowy here and it seemed as if there wasn't even any life to study but Bugberry knew better. Underneath this frozen landscape was a vibrant culture of fungus and plants living together. A blueish patch in the distance marked yesterday's find, a blue algae colony. But today she was after something more elusive, a fast moving slime mold. She had heard of it from a colleague and it was the main purpose of this mission. Silvery purple and extremely fast, it supposedly had powerful pigmentation that could be used to color all kinds of materials purple. She eagerly sought any trace of it, leaving careful footprints in the snow as she made her way into the tundra.


One sign she was looking for was its moss symbiote, if she was lucky she would find a small copse of trees covered in moss and that would be her signal that she was close. She spent hours and hours walking and searching to no avail until at last.... she came upon some fuzzy green bark! This might be the place! She slowed her pace and looked around scanning every bit of the environment. There! A slight shine in the snow....could that be it? She dived in and dug at the snow, full of hope and indeed, there it was: the slime mold!

It was rapidly escaping as she tried to hold onto any of it. But alas, it all slipped away and fast as lighting it was gone. Dejected she looked down at her empty paws. They were bright purple!! Well, perhaps no specimen to study but this was some kind of finding for sure! The purple pawprints all over the lab never did clean all the way out though.