"How did I end up here?" Spiro mutters.

> I believe you took home a stray, despite my advising against it, Orion says on the screen of Spiro's home monitor setup. The white text glows against a blue background.

Spiro sighs.

Across the room, the boy from the warehouse is rifling through his crappy, half-broken refrigerator. He already has half of Spiro's food for the week in his hands. Spiro has a feeling he won't be able to eat most of his own groceries.

"Are you gonna eat my whole fridge?" He says, an edge of temper creeping into his voice. "That's all the food I have for the whole week, you know."

The boy turns around and raises his eyebrows, a slice of bread already stuffed in his mouth.

"You got all this tech shit and you can't even feed yourself?" He says.

Spiro shrugs.

"Most of it is outdated, so I got it from dumps and stuff." He says. "No touchscreens, no reality augmentation, no 3D projection. Stuff like that."

The boy makes a noise.

"Really." He says. He eats half a block of cheese in one bite. Spiro winces. "Could you at least leave, like, a couple meals for me?" He says.

"You snooze, you lose," the boy snorts.

"This is my damn apartment," Spiro says. He feels a cluster headache begins to form. The light of the monitor flickers. When it comes back, it's black.

> I SEE YOU'VE RETRIEVED MY ASSET SAFELY

"Hey!" Spiro says, shoving his face towards the monitor. "You never said the thing you wanted me to pick up was a guy who was gonna eat me out of house and home."

"Shut up," the boy mutters.

> I WILL PROVIDE APPROPRIATE COMPENSATION

Spiro frowns and leans back in his chair.

"How do I know you'll pay?" He says. "I don't know anything about you so far, besides that you don't want to kill me and you don't trust this guy."

He jabs his thumb over his shoulder, to where the aforEmentioned guy is chugging half a bottle of precious filtered water.

> I WILL COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR PERSONAL ASSISTANT

"Personal assistant...?" Spiro mutters, before it clicks. "Oh, right. Orion."

"Who's Orion?" The boy says around a mouthful of food. "Guy you were talking to earlier?"

"None of your business," Spiro says distractedly. "Fine. But if it's not a decent amount, I'm kicking this guy out. He's eating all my damn food."

> UNDERSTOOD

> PLEASE KEEP MY ASSET CONTAINED FOR TWO DAYS

> AFTER WHICH I WILL CONTACT YOU AGAIN WITH FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS

"Alright," Spiro sighs. He leans back in his seat. The black screen flickers away and Orion's familiar blue screen lights up.