Thank you for waiting.

Chapter Nineteen

The others were all there, sitting around the table. There was food on the table, mostly centered around a pot in the center and rolls on every plate. Mr. Nicholson was washing his hands, but Kiki, Ali, and even Will were sitting down, and made sure to give her eye contact when she appeared.

In a snap moment, Kiki jumped over, ran over to Flor, and gave her a warm hug. "A-Are you okay?"

Flor was surprised. "I..."

"Tell me you're okay... Unless you're not."

She smiled. "I am alright."

"Kiki!" shouted her mother, "Get back to the table! We're about to start!"

She groaned, letting go and reluctantly going back and sitting down in her seat. "Talk to you after, I've got somethin' that'll cheer you up!" she chirped.

Flor took a seat as well. "Is it already time for dinner?" She received an array of nods as a response. She let her head go a bit limp. How many hours had gone by?

"I had a good day," said Will, taking up some of the soup, "We had a pack stop by the music store today. The same group from yesterday, actually."

"You let them in?" asked Mr. Nicholson.

He chuckled. "They tried to get Flor back. They didn't know who she was, but I got the idea. It took 'em a whole hour to figure out she wasn't even in the store."

"How did your paper go, Kiki?"

"Great!" she chirped, "I mean, I think they like it. I can't even tell with my class. I don't think anyone really wants to be there."

"You're an anomaly," said Ali, taking a big bite out of a roll, "Can't think of anyone else who likes writing papers."

"Oh, caught another wizard at work today!" chimed in Mr. Nicholson, stirring his rice in with the chunky soup. "She was trying to reverse engineer a joshu. That's a big deal right now, y'know. People trying to make their own joshus. A lot of people going to ken'eki for that."

"Ken'eki?" asked Flor, leaning in.

He nodded. "Yeah. It's like a prison."

"So, uh..." began Ali, putting down his bowl, "You, uh... I take it you're probably not going with me to my Ryonogun meeting tonight, right?"

Flor seemed frozen and glassy eyed for a moment. She slowly turned to the front door, visible to her left, and felt a strange sense of imminent dread in the back of her throat.

"Time to make a tough decision," said Mrs. Nicholson, taking a sip from her water. "Flor, you're not gonna be here unless you pull your weight. You don't have a job anymore, and that language package we got for Ali wasn't cheap. You need to go with him and use it," she turned to her husband, "Or you need to take it back and hire a different robot for Ali. Will can't go with him to practice anymore."

"Why can't they just be like the schools?" he asked, sighing, "I mean, Kiki gets translation service."

"It's crap," she whispered under her breath.

"I'm afraid he will find me," finally chimed Flor, eyes fixed at her plate. Her hands were shaking, folded in her lap like a quivering napkin. "He said he could. He said he was magic."

"She's got a point," replied Mr. Nicholson, "I mean... You won't believe the crazy stuff that I saw on her identification card. Whoever her boss was..." he turned to her, "I don't know what he did, but if it hurts you to explain, I won't ask."