Page 38 of Ahelno
“Yeah, but it makes him a great protector, isn’t that right, you big lug?” I nuzzled his face with mine, and he gave my nose a lick. “I play the tame pet well,” he thought at me smugly.
“Alright, enough of that,” I said out loud. “Let’s go.”
We led Leo through the city. It was a familiar walk to me by now, and I loved seeing it new again through Leo’s eyes. He marveled over the architecture, and we stopped for some of my favorite street foods. It reminded me a lot of that first walk I took with Andokar a year ago. It didn’t take us quite as long as my first walk through the city, but we took our time. By mid-day we arrived at my house, and I invited him in to take a lunch break.
After taking in my cozy cottage, he went into the kitchen. “I have a present for you,” he said. “You’re going to love this.”
“What is it?” I asked, as I saw him press his wristband to the food replicator.
“Remember how I told you the Grays beamed me up while I was taking out the trash from the restaurant where I worked?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, they got the garbage bag, too. They gave it to Fintak when they sold me to him.”
“Eww. One human and a pile of garbage,” I said.
“Yes, but Fintak was smart. He saw the bag was full of food and other human things and loaded everything into the database of his food replicator.”
“I didn’t know you could do that.”
“Yeah, it scans the item and figures out the elements needed to replicate it.”
“Wait, so it can replicate the food that was in the garbage bag?” I asked.
“Exactly, so now you have an entire menu of food from our restaurant that it can make for you.”
“WHAT?!?! Are you serious?! Earth food? This is even better than the piano!” I thought I would cry from happiness. “What’s in there? Tell me everything!” I begged.
He pulled up a folder on the menu titled “Human Food,” and I saw the list. Ribeye steak, fried chicken, grilled chicken, chicken quesadilla, cheeseburger, shrimp & grits, baked potato, mashed potatoes, fries, macaroni and cheese, house salad, green beans, creamed spinach, yeast roll, salsa, sour cream, and RANCH DRESSING, the list went on.
“Oh my God, this is incredible,” I said. I had died and gone to heaven.
“It gets better,” he said. “The food replicator reproduces exactly what you put in it. So if you put in a piece of the chicken quesadilla, it produces a chicken quesadilla. It can replicate it a few times together to make a bigger version,but it doesn’t know the shape. So sometimes things might look a bit different, but they’ll taste the same. It doesn’t know the shape of a cheeseburger, for example, so unless you scanned in a whole intact cheeseburger, you’ll get a lump of a cheeseburger, but it’s not the right shape. I worked with Fintak for several weeks on the programming, and we were able to reshape and resize things so they’re pretty recognizable, for the most part.
Anyway, the biggest thing was that we were able to take some things apart to get separate ingredients. The salad was the easiest. You can order a full salad, or you could order lettuce, tomato, onion slices, diced cucumbers, shredded cheddar, bacon bits, and a boiled egg separately and make something else with them. Some of the cooked things it couldn’t figure out, like the yeast roll. It couldn’t separate the flour from the eggs from the yeast. But there was a dusting of flour on some of the rolls, so we were able to isolate wheat flour. And there’s a boiled egg scanned in from the salad, but we couldn’t reverse engineer it to a raw egg. You can see the available ingredients here,” he said while pushing a button.
I was absolutely floored. “Leo, this is the best present ever. I don’t think anyone has ever done anything that means so much to me. OH MY GOD, THERE’S COKE?!?!?” I squealed with glee.
I immediately ordered a Coke and nearly fainted when I tasted its bubbly, sugary goodness.
What do you want?” I asked, “I’m trying the shrimp & grits first.”
Leo laughed. “That’s a good dish. I’ll have a cheeseburger with fries, please.”
We settled in, and I had the best meal I’d eaten in over ayear. My taste buds were so happy, and my stomach was full. I was a happy, blubbery mess as I thanked him yet again.
“Don’t forget dessert!” Leo said as he finished his last fry.
“Shut up! What is there?” I hopped up and went back to the replicator. There was a fudge brownie with ice cream, an apple crumble, and a slice of cheesecake. I hadn’t had ice cream since I left Earth, so that was a no-brainer.
“Mmmmm, that’s sooooo good,” I said, as I spooned up the last of the ice cream. It was a struggle not to lick my plate. “Seriously, Leo, that was amazing. I can’t thank you enough.”
“No thanks needed, brighteyes,” he said. “It’s nice to see that what happened to me can finally do some good.” He looked down at his empty plate of apple crumble.
“Oh, Leo!” I said, literally flinging myself at him in a giant hug. “I’m so sorry for everything that’s happened to you. I’ve been so focused on myself and my problems that I haven’t been a good friend.”
“Girl, you’ve known me all of two seconds, and you’re already my best friend,” he said, smiling softly at me, and returning my hug with a squeeze.
