"I know, right? Super yuck. - how many people here do the thing where they pilot robots made of feelings?"

"About a dozen, but it varies depending on how many people want to do it and how heavy the death and bliss toll has been."

"Okay, that's good, I'd feel pretty bad about raising my baby to probably pilot a robot she'd die in trying to do - something? What are they trying to do?"

"In the short term, we're trying to clear out the aliens from a larger and larger area. If there aren't any aliens in the area, there aren't any drones. In the long term, we're trying to figure out how to talk to them and figure out what they want and why they invaded and if there's a way we can negotiate, and we're trying to understand the dream world better so we can understand how to do things like wake the sleepers. Both of those require a lot of research in the dream world, which pilots do."

"That's actually real cool but I still don't want Catherine to do it." Pet pet.

"She can decide for herself when she's fifteen! I hope by then we'll understand how to make it safer, or maybe not even need it at all."

"Yeah. So do I like - try the different job ideas and see what works?"

"It's your first week, so why don't you try helping out with Ada-- she's the teacher-- for a few days and see if you think you could handle the threes-fours-fives classroom, and do some singing at night to see if people will ask that that be one of your jobs, and if both of those don't work out you can garden?"

"Okay. Do you ever have electricity? There are some pretty light keyboards you could maybe find somewhere if you were looking and I really don't want to forget how to play..."

"Yes, but it's pretty severely rationed. We need it for heating and running the animas and things like that."

"Even if it wasn't turned on I could like, keep the muscle memory till there was a special occasion maybe."

Lev writes it down in a notebook. "I'll do my best."

"Thanks."

"Anything else or should I send you on your way?"

"You said meals in the dining room but I don't know where that is."

He sticks his head out and says, "Can someone get one of the moms? Probably Alyssa?"

Alyssa, when she appears, is in her midteens and has a child old enough to walk. "Hi!"

"Alyssa can show you around," Lev says.

"Hi! I'm Rebecca but if that's confusing with the other Rebecca you can call me Laurel. This is Catherine."

"Hi!" Alyssa says. "I'm going to call you Laurel because the other obvious way to nickname one of you is to call the other Rebecca Old Rebecca and she haaaaates that. She's like 'I'm only 45'! This is my son Shadow."

Shadow clings to his mom's leg.

"Hi there Shadow!" says Rebecca.

Shadow buries his face in his mom's leg.

"He's scared of new people," Alyssa says. "We don't get them much here and, well."

"I'm a new person, I admit it."

Alyssa takes Laurel to her room!

Laurel's room has a bed and a desk and a closet and a window. A handful of items-- soap, a toothbrush (but no toothpaste), nursing pads-- have been placed on the desk. 

"We'll see about getting you some clothes," Alyssa says, "the other moms are doing a collection."

"Thanks! - I also gave birth like three days ago and I'm still kinda bleeding."

"That's what this is for," Alyssa says, pointing to a strip of cloth with velcro on it. "It's pretty self-explanatory, I think."

"...okay."