Walking into the kitchen from the break room, Mick guided Jill around the many devices. "Here is a beverage maker. It will give you sodas and teas, warm drinks. The flavor packets are in with the cups in the the cupboard up there. We have some quick snacks in the cabinet here, and there's the refrigerator and the freezer for storing prepared food or perishables. You know what a refrigerator is, right?" Jill nodded. "Good."
Next to the drink machines was a black device that bore the brand name Hydrostar 5505E. It looked like two small rectangular toaster ovens, one on top of the other. "We have a hydrator here for foods that come in packages that say 'hydratable'. We keep those in the freezer. There are more downstairs. Remember to take stuff out of the package before you put it in the hydrator. A lot of people from low-tech worlds leave it in the package the first time."
"I did not." Celestia calmly protested her innocence.
Mick did not mean to imply anything against her. "No. You listened, and I’d learned to put more weight on the point by the time I picked you up."
Alex had a good guess as to why the other residents from low-tech worlds had made the mistake. "Did you forget to tell the others?"
Mick admitted it. "I forgot to tell one person. The next guy was just dumb."
Sitting next to the hydrator on the long kitchen counter were a pair of devices that each looked somewhat like a microwave oven with six removable modules above the control panel and a larger hatch above them. The six modules each had a small light glowing a shade of green, some a bright green and some a dim green. Mick described these appliances. "These are the extruders. They can make all sorts of things out of basic protein and carbohydrates and give them different flavors if you want. Look over the menu and see if you find something you like."
Mick saw that one of the module lights on the second extruder was glowing a dim yellow. "These are the flavor packets. We're almost out of green." He opened the nearby cabinet, pulled down a wrapped package, split it open, and placed it on the counter. He pulled the offending module out of the extruder and lifted its hinged metal ring. There was a thin disc of green gelatin at on the bottom. Mick scraped the jelly disc out of the module and stuck it in his mouth. While sucking on the expended flavur packet, he opened the wrapper and drew out a taller disc of green jelly, placing it inside the metal ring. It fit perfectly. He returned the reloaded module to the extruder.
Mick took the expended wrapper to the far side of the kitchen and placed it in what looked like a cross between a trash can and a dispensing machine. with a small lid at the top and a nozzle in an inset area in the front. He opened the lid, tossed the wrapper in, and took the flavor disc out of his mouth to talk. "This is the recycler. Food wrappers go in here. Food does not. It is not a trash can. You can also put in any broken dishes and utensils that were made on site with the maker in the basement."
Mick sucked on the flavor disc one last time and took it to the sink. "Waste water and waste food goes down the drain." He tossed it in, ran some water over it, and turned on the disposal. A vaccuming noise was heard, not unlike that of a toilet flush. Mick continued. "... and it goes into the reclamation systems downstairs."
Jill noticed that a few common pieces of kitchen equipment were missing. "I don't see a stove or an oven."
"A stove? Like, for camping? We have one downstairs. The oven is up here." Mick opened the door of the small microwave oven in the corner. "This for reheating cold food from the fridge." He opened some cabinets and a drawer, revealing "plates... cups... silverware." The cutlery was sporks and knives made of plastic, not silver, but Celestia had surrendered this argument some time ago. Mick turned to Jill. "So, what are you in the mood for eating?"
Jill did not know what her options were. "What do you have?"
Mick grinned. "What are you in the mood for?"
"Um..." Jill settled on a simple breakfast. "Could you make me some eggs and toast?"
"Toast?" Mick was somewhat surprised that someone would want toast, but... "You're not the first person to ask for that. That's actually something we don't have but we can make you a biscuit." He took a plate to the nearest extruder, placed the plate inside, and started tapping on the console. "Okay, let's get you two eggs. You want salt and pepper?" He looked back. Jill nodded. "... and a biscuit." The machine hummed as Mick activated it. "This'll be ready in about a minute."
Jill looked through the patterned grille in the extruder door to see two nozzles squirting gummy liquids onto the plate while another overhanging nozzle deposited a yellow string in a spiral pattern. The sight ruined her appetite.
Mick offered her a drink. "You want something to drink with that? Some tea?"
Put off by the scene inside the extruder, Jill answered without thinking about it. "Tea sounds good."
Sitting on the couch in the break room, Jill looked apprehensively at her meal. She had expected eggs to be made with eggs. Instead, her plate held a white gummy area of some unknown material with yellow gummier circles on top of them. The biscuit looked like a fake imitation of a biscuit, with no variation in its color or shape. She poked at the egg-white with her plastic spork and did not try to cut into it.
Mick settled back into one of two large lumpy spheres that resembled a bean-bag chair but seemed to be filled with a compressible gaseous or foamy substance rather than beans. It collapsed under his weight. He chuckled at Jill's hesitation and commented. "There's a very old saying that you don't want to see how food is made. Try it. You'll like it. If you don't like it, we'll get you something else."
She took a sip of her drink instead. "The tea is good." It was surprisingly good, enough to give her confidence to sample the food.
Alex had her own opinion. "The beer is better."
Mick had an idea. "I know..." He leaned forward to try to stand up. "Tia, can you give me a hand up?" He reached out his hand to the armored swordspell.
Celestia held her hand out, palm up, and raised it. Mick was lifted out of his seat to his feet and almost stumbled forward. "Not so fast!" Mick complained as he steadied himself. "Alright, that's good. Thank you." He walked toward the kitchen.
Jill saw her sister Anna sitting on the other sphere-chair, smiling and watching. She blinked and shook her head. The chair was empty. She looked down at her food and decided to sample the biscuit. She picked it up and cautiously bit into it. Its uniform consistency was soft but not fluffy, chewy but not tough, and it did not taste like bread. "This tastes like spaghetti," she concluded with some surprise.
Celestia recognized that word. "Spaghetti is what Mick calls one of the wire foods."
"Wire foods?" Jill did not know what she meant.
Celestia was not that certain of it herself. "It is made with the wire, a spool of... food." She did not know what food it was supposed to be, only that the extruder turned it into other foods. "Spaghetti is lengths of the wire with a sauce on it. The extruder produces different sauces."
Mick interrupted this conversation as he walked back into the room and placed an orange sphere on Jill's plate. Jill's eyes widened with pleasant surprise. "Is that a...?"
Mick smiled. "It's an orange. I hit a fruit stand several hops back. The food is good and fresh but you have to eat it right away. It dies in no time at all, even in the fridge."
Jill tore a hole in the orange's rind with her teeth. Its juice ran down her chin. She set the orange down. "Napkin."
Mick turned toward the kitchen. "Ah. You need a towel. Yes."
Several minutes later, Mick took away Jill's empty plate which had only the towel, utensils, and orange rind on it. She had eaten the meal without any apparent consequences. It had not been as bad as she had feared it would be, but it was definitely not what she had expected.
Celestia sat on the couch next to Jill, with her own cup of tea, while Alex sat on one of the round chairs. Jill silently shared glances with them. Celestia sipped her tea. Jill sipped hers. The sound of running water came from the kitchen, followed by the buzz and flush of the disposal.
Mick walked back into the room and took a seat on the other sphere. "I figure we can relax for a bit and let your food settle before we head off to the arena. You don't want to fight after you just ate or you'll be seeing your breakfast again and it'll look worse than what came out of the extruder. Am I right?"
Jill leaned back into the couch. She looked at Alex and Celestia again. "If we are relaxing, are you two going to take off your armor?"
Alex and Celestia answered in unison. "No."
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