mmhmm. if you want anything else, let me know, we didn't personalize it much.

it’s amazing

thank you

He pulls the little curtain closed, just because he can.

all right

lunch'll be here as soon as the kids finish fighting over who gets to pilot the drone.

sounds like that happens a lot

should i wait to do the plumbing hookup until somebody else is around

yeah, it's important that they learn how to handle themselves.

how sure are you that you can do it without messing anything up?

i’d give it 90/10.

yeah, go for it.

The bathroom is weird mostly in that it wasn't originally intended to be one; it's pretty obvious that it was originally a bedroom and later retrofitted, with pipes running along the baseboard to bring water to and from to the various appliances - the expected sink and toilet and shower, and what seems to be a walk-in bathtub, and also a pair of washing machines and dryers and a related appliance of unclear purpose.

It's not actually that hard to get it hooked up. It screws in between the toilet and the appropriate lines easily enough.

i didn't really think about you having kids here

rescues?

nah, just peoples' kids the usual way. there's places for rescue kids, but we aren't set up for it really.

oh. yeah. i forgot people had kids for a second there.

where else do they come from, z, the street doesn't just spontaneously generate urchins

hehe

the commune and the collective are pretty separate really; it's just life, here. like the cops wouldn't be thrilled about this, either, but it's small potatoes comparatively.

do a lot of people do stuff like this?

like what?

oop, food's here.

Food!

ooh where

sitting room.

There's a drone hovering in the middle of the space, with a tray suspended underneath with a plate of kebabs - beef, as promised, with onions and long slices of green pepper - a garden salad with a tiny bowl of vinaigrette dressing, and a large cream cheese swirled, chocolate chip studded brownie, with a small pitcher of lemonade with strawberries and mint leaves floating in it to complete the meal.

Drone lunch.

He reaches out to take the tray.

"Hey! Whoever's behind there! You've got talent!"

No spilled lemonade or anything.

The drone dips an acknowledgement once the tray is safely removed, and humms back out into the hallway.

she says 'thanks'.

He takes the tray back to his room, because he has a room and he can.

He just has to look at the whole thing, for a minute, before he eats.

thank you

for all of this

He's not, of course, talking about the food.

Is it as delicious as it looks?

The fruit and vegetables are, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the freshest he has ever had in his life. Even with all the fancy parties he's been to.

The beef is marinated in a spicy-sweet sauce. The peppers aren't bell peppers; they're jalapenos. The vinaigrette is homemade, fresh today. So is the brownie; it's even still a little warm. The lemonade is made from real lemons; there's a little bit of pulp in it that made it through the straining process.

So, yes.

This is possibly the best thing he's ever eaten.

holy fuck

do you grow this

how does an anarchist commune have rooftop property

yeah, pretty much all of it. we don't have a rooftop but it's not that hard to bonsai a lemon tree.

you’ve got a pretty good thing going down here.

what’s the catch?