"Alright, off we go then." Alice turns and starts walking back. If Walta doesn't start a conversation they'll reach the wall in a couple minutes.

No, she's just looking thoughtful and kind of troubled.

Alice will do her best to appear receptive to conversation, but otherwise leave Walta to her thoughts. When she arrives at the door she'll command the interface to unlock and open the door, then holds it for Walta to step through. The rest of the walk back to the home complex will also pass in silence.

"Ranting and raging about this won't help, will it?"

"I don't think so no, but if you want to rant I'm willing to listen."

"I'm good. Nothing we haven't said already, yeah? Stupid aliens, where do they get off doing this, I'm scared and want to go home."

"Yeah, stupid frustrating aliens. I want to go home so much. Do you want a hug?" Alice balances her parcel with one end on the ground.

"Sure." Hug. "Nick is going to work himself into the ground. Either as a distraction, or trying to get out. I can try to help him, but Nick... Is Nick. Do you think Zahn will cope? Any standouts in the rest of the folks who showed up?"

"Zahn, has me. I need to corner him somewhere private soon and remind him to feel for a little while. I usually hate that he's so good at hiding from the world, but in this place maybe it's a good thing on net. That one guy Dale seemed really broken up by all of this, but the pharmacy student seemed as ok as somebody can be, I didn't really get a good read on anyone else."

"...Well, let's go get some sleep. I wonder if some enterprising soul has organized the bedroom wings by gender or if unclaimed rooms are randomly arranged?

"I don't know, I bet at least one hetero couple has shown up so I'm not sure that organizing by gender makes the most sense, but as long as there is a room available and the soundproofing is decent I'll be ok."

"Guess I'm too used to dorm arrangements. Whatever, let's just go sleep."

"Works for me. Do you want to go pick out some clothes after breakfast? I don't want to wear this dress too many days in a row, to say nothing of underwear."

"I grabbed some things earlier, actually. At least the mall was good for that."

"Ah, I might grab a couple things before going to sleep then." And they're back at the home complex. Alice heads inside and starts downwards towards the Mall. "Sleep well Walta."

"You too, goodnight."

It turns out that many of the rooms have been given nametags made from the stationary in that games room. Walta visits the restroom (resolutely ignoring the one other filled stall), and picks an unoccupied one, after knocking to make sure it really is unoccupied, and sleeps.

Alice tucks the relay against a wall in the mall lobby and then goes looking for more clothes. Distressingly, there's a distinct lack of changing rooms but she makes do tucking behind clothing racks to try on dresses. She grabs a handful of sizes near the right ones for underwear and decides to sort it out in her room later.

On her way to pick up a few other personal conveniences she passes a mattress store where a number of mattresses have been rearranged to make a small fort. She walks closer and hears some giggles. She almost says hello but then she hears some heavy breathing and grunting mixed in. She blushes a little and rushes off to finish her other errands before returning to the lobby. She picks up the relay and goes to see if Nick is still awake.

Nick is using power tools in the games room! Various bits of hardware are strewn around on two tables in the back corner. There's shower curtains and poles, pieces of wood, large sheets of plastic. He also has two large open bottles of soda.

She puts her shopping bag down just inside the door and carries over the relay. "Hi there, me and Walta went out to one of the nearby warehouses. It might be a better source of construction materials, if you need stuff in raw form. It also had this thing called a temporal relay I'm not quite clear on what it does but it seems intriguing enough that I brought one back for you." She puts it down on one of the tables that he isn't using.

"Welcome back. Did you get the encyclopedia to cough up anything about it?"

"I haven't checked yet. I was just about to go to bed but I can check in the morning. The interface seems at least somewhat smart, so maybe it'll unlock relevant entries if you have one with you."

"I couldn't sleep. I'll just keep working on the privacy dividers if I can't figure out what a temporal relay does, then. Already feeling the lack - I walked in on that guy who came through drunk taking a shower earlier. He forgot to put up a sign or anything."

"I mean there is that small divider but I guess it's translucent and doesn't cover everything. I'm pretty used to it within genders from the locker rooms at Dojos and Gyms though."

"Guess I'm spoiled for being used to a higher standard of privacy, then."

"Yeah I suppose, it'll be nice to have the dividers regardless though. Thanks for the effort you're putting in."