Nope, that's all. Bill puts her plastic bag of perishables in her cold bag - which turns out to be metallic silver on the inside - and the cold bag in the space he's left in the box for it, and hands it over, and goes over to check the list for the next person to call in while she leaves.

Wow! The inside is silvered? But...she feels the inside of the bag, and it's soft, and not cold like metal. She'll have to ask Denice what it's made of later. She will thank Bill again and leave, and suppress the joyous squealing that is threatening to erupt from her.

After she leaves, she'll check in on Denice with her ward before returning to the house. How is she?

Not in view, though the tote bag is still there.

Great! She will now return home with her quest rewards, and probably be faster now, now that she's already traveled the route and not need to consult her map so much, and also because she now knows how to navigate the Red-Yellow-Green Light zones.

The most interesting thing that happens on the walk home is that she encounters a woman walking a dog that really, really wants to see what's in her box; she stops and holds him back before he gets close enough to jump on Marina or anything, saying 'sorry!', and a quick detour onto the grass is all it takes to resolve the problem.

She is so confused? What was the woman doing with the dog – was she being pulled by the dog, like a sled? Surely not. Is it like, some sort of trained dog that can do tricks or tasks? In any case, she's glad that the dog didn't get too close, otherwise she might have had to use Telepathy or a scary glamor to tell it to go away, which might have exposed her.

She'll check in again about a block away from the house where Denice is, to be on the safe side.

She's back reading her printouts; everything seems to be fine.

She will enter through the back door. Is it locked? If it is, she'll call out to Denice to open it.

And then she will show her what she got! It's so much food! Food food food. And other stuff besides. She got soap and spices too. And a silver bag! She is radiating happiness and she will not do anything to suppress it this time.

It's not locked. Denice is pretty excited about the food too, and wants Marina's help pulling the refrigerator out enough that they can get behind it to plug it in.

Oh! She asks Denice what a refrigerator is through Telepathy, and figures out that it's an icebox that makes its own ice! So cool!!

She will be able to help. Her being a Flowers practitioner means that she is much stronger than she looks. With another person helping, they should be able to pull it out without too much trouble, even if she has to provide most of the strength.

:Will it start getting cold when we plug it in?:

:I think so. I've never done this before but all the other houses' refrigerators are the same except that they're plugged in, so probably.:

She will plug it in. It's quite intuitive. Does it work?

Relatedly, she'll show Denice the rectangle. :They took my picture there and gave me an 'aidii'. Do you know what this is? They said I should bring it with me whenever I come, or I won't be able to get any food otherwise.:

It hums to life! It's not immediately obvious whether it's getting colder inside.

:An ID, identification. So they know who you are. I think this is just for that one place, it has their name on the back.:

She'll check on it in a little while to see if it gets colder. She didn't expect it to be instant.

:Oh, I see! You mentioned identification yesterday, and how not having it makes things harder. It would have been nice if I could use this to be able to access other services. But at least it will work for the food bank.

They also told me a bunch of things which might be useful to us, like help about getting a house. I'm not sure if it will be applicable to us, but it's something we ought to check out. I can tell you about it while we eat. What do you want to eat, anyway?:

Hm. She realizes that she doesn't know how to open the cans. She's looking for some sort of tab or handle or rope you pull, or a cap that you twist, but she can't see any. If it's pre-cooked...is it sealed? She doesn't have a knife on her. Oh well. They can eat the other things instead until they get a knife or some sort of opening tool.

:We need dishes and utensils for a lot of this stuff. I'll go get some tonight, there's a place not too far from here that has a bunch of things like that that we need. We can do sandwiches with the bread and meat and cheese right now, though.: She checks out the packaging. :Turkey and salami. Do you care which one we eat first?:

Is she going to steal plates and cutlery.

:Ah! Where will you go for the dishes and utensils? And yes, those sandwiches sound lovely. I'm not sure what salami is. Will it spoil faster than the turkey? We should eat the one that will spoil first, in the case it takes time for the refrigerator to get cold.:

:Right.: She examines the packages closely. :Salami is also meat but it's saltier and fattier and spicier. ...the turkey expires in two weeks and the salami expires in three.: She puts the salami back and attempts, unsuccessfully, to open the turkey container by pulling at a corner.

:What meat is salami made of? And in that case we should eat the turkey, then. Do you know how long it will take before the other things spoil? Also, do you think you could read the stuff that's written on the other food packages for me? I don't recognize most of the words.:

:They have the dates they're good until written on them, I can check. They also say what they're made of...: she gets the salami back out and reads its ingredients list; it's made of chicken, beef hearts, pork, corn syrup, water, mustard seed, garlic, sugar, and several ingredients that she doesn't know anything about besides that they're probably kinds of salt. And then she can read off the nutrition information (what is a calorie? we just don't know) and the blurb about who it was distributed by, and point out the brand logo on the front, the printed seal asserting that it's been inspected, the name of the food and brief description of it, the printed seal asserting that it was Made in the USA, the refrigeration instructions ('Keep refrigerated. For best quality, purchase and use by date shown. Once opened, use within 7 days.'), and other less comprehensible markings ('est⁰ 1883', 'NET WT 16 OZ (1 LB)').

:That's a lot of ingredients!: She's not surprised about the listing of ingredients – the Federation does that too – though she is surprised by the specification of eat-by dates. She also has no idea what a 'calorie' is!

:Thank you very much. I don't think it's super important, but I'll record the words I don't know, and also the ones you don't, and the next time we go to a library we can go look them up.: She does so.

:Sure. These are all kinds of food I'm used to eating but maybe there's something we should know.:

She checks the expiration dates on the rest of the food, and it's a jumble; the bread and milk unsurprisingly expire soonest, at about a week, but then the others range at random from expiring in a few weeks (the cheese crackers) to expiring in three years (the peas). Marina may also notice as Denice does this that she's hesitant to handle the chocolate chip package.

She notices, but doesn't know how to interpret it. And in any case, she does know that chocolate lasts seasons, so it's not a priority to eat it now.

:Where are you planning on getting the utensils and plates? Do you want or need my help? I can talk to you about what they talked to me at the food bank.

Oh, and if you need help on opening the turkey container, I can help you. How do you open this package?: She has noticed that Denice has issues with fine motor control.

:It says 'pull to open' and the arrow points that way, I don't know what I'm doing wrong.: She passes the turkey over. :A few stores have plates and stuff but the big ones have cameras, so I can't go there. There was a little one you passed that had those and clothes and books and toys and stuff, I'm thinking I'll go there - you can come if you want but it might be safer just with me, if I hear something bad I won't have to figure out how to explain it. I was listening to you at the food bank but we can talk about it if you want.:

:Alright, I'll take a look.: What does the turkey container look like? Her expectation is that there's a lower container and then some sort of lid. Is it that the bottom part of the container is solid, whereas the former is a film? In that case, there might be a way to separate the film from the container and pull it off. She'll try doing that.

:I admit I feel very uncomfortable with stealing, but I understand that we have little choice at the time. I think it's wiser for you to go alone – I don't have your super senses: and because she might get a bout of non-antisocial-ism and back out.

:I see! I wasn't sure that you were getting everything, but if you already heard, then I won't explain it to you. I'll ask you to help me with some of the vocabulary later, though.:

:Yeah, I don't think I have another choice besides stealing, or dying, or going back, and I knew before I left that it was going to be like this. If there was a way to do it without anyone getting hurt I'd do that but I don't think there is one and I think I have been hurt enough, I want to do something else now.:

The turkey is indeed in a more-solid container topped with a taut film; the film is already separated from the container at the marked corner, so all she has to do is grab it and pull.