Juno takes us up to the guest rooms and they are nice, they’re not big, but they’re simple and they have everything anyone needs. The whole house has the same minimalistic style to it.
“Well Juno, I didn’t realize how familiar you were with this place. You’ve told us before that you and Thomas were childhood friends, but it seems like you’ve lived here,” I say. She seems to know just where everything is, and she has a carefree familiarity that comes with growing up in a place.
“I spent a lot of time here growing up, my own home life was less than great, and Thomas and his parents loved having me here, I was like the daughter they never had,” Juno replies.
“What is there to do around here? I didn’t see a lot when we were coming in.” asks Cicero. He seems unimpressed with this whole place, Cicero likes places with lots of people, where he can flirt and socialize, and from the looks of it there’s not a lot of big cities, at least that I saw.
“There’s actually a pretty big city a couple hundred kilometers east of here, you would like it there, lots of entertainment. We can go tomorrow, or you can go alone some other time if you want,” Juno says.
“That’s good to hear, should help get this mess we’re in off my mind,” Cicero replies. It’ll be good for him to get away and get some alone time, I’m glad that he’ll have the opportunity.
“Juno, what’s the food situation here? I’m pretty hungry, I haven’t eaten in a while,” I ask.
“I’m sure that there’s plenty to eat downstairs, but we’ll have to actually cook it. We did show up a little unexpected, so I don’t know if he has enough for all of us. I’ll go look and start on something,” Juno says. She’s standing in the doorway to my room, which is closest to the stairwell. She turns around and starts going down. I get up to follow her, none of us brought anything to unpack, so there’s nothing to do up in our rooms. Juno and I walk down the stairs and then down another flight, down to the second floor where there’s a kitchen and a dining table. Juno goes over to the fridge and opens it.
“Go look in the pantry over there and see if there’s anything you want,” she says, pointing to what apparently is the pantry. It is a walk-in pantry, about a meter and a half deep. Inside there’s a bunch of food that I’ve never seen before.
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“Juno, does Thomas have weird taste in food or what? Because I’ve never seen some of this stuff before,” I ask.
“All the food here is local. He gets a lot of things delivered from that city I was talking about, but the rest is from farmers he knows, don’t worry, whatever we end up having will be good. Do you want some eggs?” she replies.
“Sure, I guess,” I say.
She gets out two pans and then takes two massive eggs out of cold storage, they’re the size of a small child’s head. She puts each of them in a pan, then she takes out a knife, she stabs through the shell and twists the knife and the two halves of the egg come apart. She does this for both eggs, then she turns the stove on, it’s a gas stove, blue flames shoot out of the burners under the pans. She takes a whisk out of one of the drawers and starts to whisk the eggs in the pans, when that’s done, she turns the burners down and goes to the pantry.
I walk over to the dining table and sit down; the chairs are all on one side as if to watch the person cooking. Juno comes out with a handful of things from the pantry and starts putting them in the eggs. After a few more minutes she takes out plates, puts the eggs on the plates and sets them on the table.
“Well thank you. I’m impressed, I’ve never seen you cook before,” I say.
“It helps when there’s a kitchen to cook in. I hope you like it; it might taste a little different than you’re expecting, it’s not a standard egg, they’re local to Airis,” she says.
The egg was a lot different than I was expecting, it took me a few bites to get used to the texture, they’re chewy. It was very filling though, and whatever she put in from the pantry gave them some spice.
“Where are Evelyn and Thomas?” I ask. I know Thomas was going to show Evelyn where the substorage access points were, but did they go inside?
“They both are in Evelyn’s room; he’s probably asking her about where she’s been and about what it’s like wherever she’s from. He’s always been curious about what it’s like on other planets. He’s always asking me about where we are. I feel bad for him sometimes, he feels like he’s trapped here, after his parents died, he felt like he had to keep this place maintained, so he stays here,” Juno says.
“He’ll probably know more about her than we do the next time we see them,” I say.
“Probably. The days here on Airis are half a normal sleep cycle, they work on a one day on one day off schedule. I don’t know about you but I’m tired, none of us have slept in close to 48 hours, I’m sure that’s what Liam and Cicero are doing right now. I’m going to bed, I suggest you do the same, I plan on racing tomorrow,” she says. She’s right, we worked straight through the last 48 hours, it’s just been nonstop, so I hadn’t noticed until now. I get up and put away my dish, then I start walking up the stairs to my bedroom, Juno follows me up the first flight of stairs but when I go up the second flight, she’s not behind me anymore. I guess she won’t be staying with the rest of us in the guest rooms, the only bedroom on the ground floor is the master bedroom I believe; interesting.