They stare at each other for a second, then simultaneously blink and say, "Woooah."

"That's creepy. Cool-creepy, not sketchy-creepy. Dale, I think they're telling the truth. Here, look at me."

"If I try this farce and it doesn't work, can we move on?"

"Yeah, yeah, just look."

They link. Dale hiccups and says, "...I guess I have nothing to say to that. Um. Do you four know how to get - back?"

"Unfortunately, no. Zahn has an idea that may or may not work but it's going to take some time before he can even try it. Otherwise we're stuck with a bunch of long shots. Nick wants to try to learn enough to reverse engineer interstellar teleportation."

"You're engineering majors? ...I don't know how well any of us could help with that. Law, business administration, history, geology, accounting."

Suddenly these guys' festive spirit seems to have been dissipated. 

"We should make introductions. I'm Nick. I've got a lot of studying to do before I can even begin to try things, but I'm going to try things."

"I'm Walta."

"I'm Alice, I'm political science so I'm no more useful to an engineering project than you."

"I'm Zahn. I'm computer science, so it's possible that if my first idea falls through I'll manage to find a security flaw with the computers, but that's not my specialty so don't hold your breath."

The two stoners introduce themselves as Mina and Grace, and complain that this is "Such a pooped party." The skeptic is Dale, the jock calls himself Arch, and the drunk guy is Joe.

"...If we're going to be stuck here, I'd like you four to explain everything you've found out so far. What you did, why you did it. I don't want anybody to trigger something by being hasty."

"Chill out, Dale. They got caught here same as us. Jesus."

"I'm just watching out for us."

"Alright, I'll try summarizing feel free to ask more detail if something is confusing. The building we're currently in is called a Home complex, it has 4 levels. We're on the top level here which in addition to this lounge/kitchen area has 24 bedrooms and a large luxurious but somewhat lacking in privacy bathroom. The next level down has a Library, a Medical center, a Movie room, a games room, a dance studio, and a greenhouse. The library is where you can access the computer system from. The next floor down from there has exits to the outside. The basement lets out into a massive mall that has a pretty wide variety of stores. We haven't really explored that yet."

Mina suddenly looks attentive. "Do the stores have, like, employees? Or was there just stuff lying around with nobody watching?"

Arch looks concerned. "There were about a dozen other people with us. We were going to use three different codes for the trip and see what happened... Think there's other Home complexes?"

"At least if we're gonna get kidnapped by aliens," Joe suddenly says, "They're treatin' us pretty okay if there's really all that stuff."

"I don't think that there are employees in the stores but we haven't actually explored the mall at all, so anything's possible. According to some things we've read the Mall is the way to reach the other five home complexes, but it's a six kilometer trip. Nick did you figure out where the nearest bike store is?"

"It's actually only a couple hundred meters bridgeward from our mall entrance, apparently. There's a few more down our spiral - oh, they're laid out really stupid. Six long, long, long hallways. They only meet at the center. I guess the aliens have a nonstandard view on mall architecture."

"Guys," Mina says, "I'm gonna go find a bike and then explore the mall. Save some chips for me, yeah?"

"I'll show you the way, do be careful, I don't think there's anything all that dangerous in the mall but cell phones aren't working so if you get hurt there isn't going to be anyone around to help you for a while. You might want to bring a friend with you. Also, if you see see any elevators either don't open them, or write down the code. We don't have a way to change the ones in our spiral yet and we won't be able to change the ones in the other spirals any time soon."

"I'm too stoned to remember codes and stuff. I just wanna go shopping for free. Chance of a lifetime, alien mall. Grace, why don't you come with?"

"You're way too excited about this. Why aren't you freaking out?" Grace looks nearly in tears.

"Well, I could cry or I could go shopping... Show me the bike place please."

"Sure... does anyone less stoned want to go with to um, make sure nobody gets stranded alone?"

"I'd volunteer but drunk isn't better." Joe looks miserable enough, at least, like he wants to sober up.

"...I'll go," Arch volunteers. "Can't let Mina hurt herself, and I can definitely keep up."

"Alright, do you have something to write down codes in if it comes up? Anyway, this way." He leads them out of the room and down the spiral ramp.

He shrugs. "I'll start a text on my phone."

Down they go. 

Halfway down Mina freezes. "Wait a minute... Oh man, I bet I can't get more weed here. Wait. Unless there's a Green Man store somewhere around. Phew."

"I haven't checked for that specific type of store but there's sixty kilometers of mall so I wouldn't be surprised. Also, Walta has managed to get the computer to put her in charge of the gardens around her so that might be something she can tell them to grow."

"Yeah? I don't expect folks to let me grow that stuff easily, I'll ask though."

Arch sighs. "Just remember I don't like the smell and only smoke it in your room or outdoors or something. And I really hope you can get us all home, Zahn."

"I hope so too, ideally, we'll be able to go back and forth, this place has tech that could jump Earth forwards by decades. I wish I know who made it and why though."

"Makes sense." They reach the bottom. "Arch, old buddy old pal, would you terribly mind fetching a couple bikes from that bike shop over yonder? You know I'm nowhere near as fit as you."

"Sorry Mina, but you're not that out of shape. Thanks for showing us down here, I think we got it now."

"Sure thing." Zahn heads back upstairs.

While they were gone, Nick described his plan to get supplies from a few hardware stores he read about on the terminals and build crude privacy dividers in the bathroom. Dividing each section halfway between male/female, with the laundry machines shared. "Could use some strong arms to help do that, but it seems like the number one quality of life improvement we need."