Chapter 10

"Oo, exotic fresh meat," the woman said, eyeing Qi up and down. "It looks like Quiyo brought something yummy home for dinner."

Qi looked at her with pure annoyance on his face. "That's it? You've had almost an entire shift to think of something to throw at me and that's the best you could come up with? Quiyo said you guys were smart. Which sister are you?"

"Asshole," she said.

"No, I'm pretty sure you're either Fatn or Lia, but if you want me to call you asshole, I'm game," Qi said.

"Well, you have more spine than Ferro," she said, giving him a second glance up and down. "I'm Lia. Fatn is the one with the thick thighs in case you get confused."

"Thick thighs," Qi said. "There are many things I see when I look at a woman and 'thick thighs' isn't one of my usual priorities. Maybe the color of her hair, how tall she is..."

"The size of her tits," Lia said, crossing her arms. The effect of her arms hoisting up her breasts wasn't lost on Qi. He found the pose amusing.

"If you insist," Qi said. "I would say that yours are one and a half to two handfuls each and they look quite good on you from where I'm standing. You wanna give me any more shit?"

"I could but Quiyo gets all bitchy when I play with her toys," Lia said.

Qi looked at the four mats placed in each corner of the room. There wasn't a double mat to be found and he wasn't about to ask his new roommate. She would probably tell him the wrong corner just for the later chance to laugh at his embarrassment.

He looked at the mini-kitchen to his left. "Can we cook or are we expected to go to the mess on this level?"

"Can you cook?" Lia asked.

"Spam," Qi said. "I'm a master at cooking spam."

"What is spam?" Lia asked, sounding as if she expected a trap.

"Take nasty, unidentifiable meat, grind it, bulk it up with crusty bits of something you wouldn't expect to eat, and season it heavily to mask the origins. Serve it on a slice of bread. One serving will fill you for a day, guaranteed. Ah, those were the days."

"Great," Lia said. "You sound like the elders remembering the Temperdis. Thankfully, civilization does flourish here and as of today, our cooking unit has been re-installed. If the vat grows it, we can eat it."

"Pity," Qi said with bravado as he scanned the menu on the cooking unit. "Pork rinds ... pork rinds ... there's no damned pork rinds in this pre-programmed menu. Who the fuck ate this rabbit food?"

"The unit can be revamped later; we are expected in the mess," Lia said. "You are the fresh meat for the Family and everyone wants to meet the man who actually snagged Quiyo."

"A snack?" Qi said, not turning around. "A little greaseball of joy to hold me over?"

As he was leaning over the scrolling menu, Lia smacked him on the head. Qi ducked his head under his raised forearm in order to keep reading the menu. She gave him a quick jab in the kidney that made him stand up straight.

"I'm hungry!" he protested, finally turning around.

"Then we will eat but we are going to do it with everyone else," she said through clenched teeth. With all possible drama, Qi dropped his shoulders and started to march towards the door. Lia took his arm and walked him into the corridor, merging with the crowd.

"What are pork rinds?" Lia said as they walked.

"Fried pig skin cut into strips," Qi said. "If you have a beer in one hand and a bowl of rinds in the other, then you know the next few hours are going to be pure joy. Or is it flash: the next few hours are going to be flash."

"I never imagined that you would give me such a colorful reason to hate normals," Lia said. "They say that Volentin is barbarian and yet normals spend their leisure eating fried animal skin. The universe really is upside down."

They turned into the mess. Lia handed Qi a tray and walked him up to the line. She skipped ahead and left him to plod through the various fresh courses that were prepared in bulk. Fresh courses came from the same vats but they were combined and cooked with other ingredients. Having been raised on terrestrial foods, pure vat foods tasted flat and less textured on Qi's tongue. Terrestrials ate real meat, a heresy on the space stations. Qi's childhood was drenched in hot pepper and strong tastes. The space born looked at spicy foods as a peculiar extra rather than a normal ingredient, which was part of Qi's upbringing.

As he waited for the serving spoon to dip into a faux meat dish, he felt a nudge in his ribs. He ignored it until he felt another, stronger prod. Qi turned to question the source of his annoyance.