Thieren led Stacey to the car. It was parked quite a distance from the very full hospital car park. There were cars waiting to snatch an empty space the moment it was vacated. At a sedate navy blue sedan, Thieren pointed for her to take the front passenger seat, while he took the wheel himself. A pleasant new car smell that inexplicably made Stacey feel happy and relaxed.
"I'll take you out for a meal and show you a bit of the city. You haven't had a chance to see any of CC yet. Ah," Thieren clicked his fingers. "That reminds me, your friend Ken and his family, and the other boy who died, Endo, his family - they both want to invite you over for a meal sometime when you're free. I've told them that's unlikely to happen until the program's over. I hope you don't mind."
"I'd like to meet them if I can," Stacey said. "It looked like I was good friends with them in the recordings."
She spoke while observing all the strange things she felt were wrong with the cars here. She couldn't hear or feel the hum of the engine when he started the car. The only way she could tell the car had started was a blue light that turned on with an ascending five note jingle. The entire wheel and dashboard setup looked unfamiliar. Had cars always been like this?
"I'll tell Last Prose to make sure to include it in your schedule some time in the future then," Thieren said, "but your guards will have to go with you. If I was free, I'd go with you, but with my status, I think I'd just scare those families instead. I doubt they'd try to harm or kidnap you, but I'm still concerned about you. There are still people around who want to hurt you. I'm working on finding you a new personal assistant so I don't have to worry too much and avoid overloading Last Prose and Huo Guard Nine. Huo Guard Nine said you mentioned that you wanted to find your own assistant?"
"Yes," Stacey said, distracted when they passed some oddly shaped buildings and saw a long line of people at a red and white striped store. People came out of the store with happy faces and hot, steaming paper packages in their hands out of which they ate as they walked.
"I can see why after how Imiliana turned out. Her father's still looking for her in beastman communities, desperate to take her home," Mr Huo commented.
"She might not want to go back even if he did find her," Stacey said, making a face.
A fluffy and furry building had windows that blinked like eyes. It rotated its upper storey to watch them drive past. Its ears twitched and a gable on the middle floor snuffled up and down like a nose.
"Who knows? She might have had enough by now, unless she's been taken to the Ancients and changed," Thieren said. "That's an ancestral home of an Ancient family, by the way," he cocked his head at the furry house. "Don't stare or they'll think you want to join them and take notice of you. Then they'd hunt you down and keep you captive."
Stacey quickly averted her gaze.
"If you're not sure or are thinking of who might make a trustworthy assistant, you can get a woman from the Huo guards. There aren't many of them but they'd be good too. Number Nine's sister has been requesting to transfer out of the guards to do something else. There's also a recent trainee who dropped out of training due to an injury who deserves a chance. If you like them both, you can have them both. I'd prefer assistants who can guard you at the same time and know how the Huo guards work already, anyway."
Stacey thought about Thieren's suggestions and felt them reasonable.
"I can consider them," she said. "It's a good idea, but do I need two assistants? Will they have enough work to do?"
"I'll have Huo Guard Nine send you their information," Thieren said. "There'll be enough work for them to do. Don't worry about that. I'm concerned that you may still need more staff in the future, not less."
"Oh. What sort of food are we going to eat?" Stacey asked.
"What would you like? Burger and fries? Steak and salad? Meat pie? Italian? Chinese? Mediterranean? Something else?"
"Huh?"
Those words sounded shockingly familiar. As if she hadn't heard them for a long time. Stacey struggled to remember where she'd heard them from and why they were associated with places and names she'd never seen or heard people mention so far.
"In short, is there anything you've been craving for lately?" Thieren asked. "Although you don't remember anything, I'm sure you've been finding some of the food here unfamiliar."
"Oh," Stacey thought for a moment. "Crispy fried chicken," Stacey said, eyes brightening with the mention of each type of food. "Cream puffs and chocolate eclairs. Instant noodles - a savoury one with rich soup stock, corn, tofu, fishcakes and seaweed. Hot pot. Pizza. A tuna pasta bake. Fish and chips with mustard mayonnaise and gravy. Yorkshire pudding and roasted vegetables. Souvlaki and kebabs."
"Stop, stop," Thieren raised a hand but kept his eyes on the road. "We can only do one meal right now. The rest will have to come later. The area you lived in must've been quite a multicultural area."
"Oh yeah," Stacey agreed, thinking of her apartment and address that the nurses had told her didn't exist. The apartment she remembered had been in a multicultural area. How did Thieren know?
"What specifically do you feel like eating then? It doesn't have to be the name of a dish. A description will do as well."
"Noodles in a thick sauce with crunchy bits. Lamb and gravy with peas and sweet corn. Buttered toast. Pumpkin soup."
"Stop. You're just really hungry, aren't you?" Thieren laughed.
Stacey stared at a glowing ball of changing colours that appeared to be the traffic light and had waving white gloved hands and yellow feet that gave traffic directions.
"Yeah," Stacey breathed, spotting someone eating a bread roll with a thick sausage in it and salad. Sauce squirted out the sides when they bit into it. "A hotdog would do as well."
"We'll do the noodles in thick sauce with crunchy bits," Thieren smothered a grin, watching her wipe her mouth and swallowing her saliva. "There's a dish that's kind of close to your description. They give sliced sausage as a side dish, as well as toasted cheese on sweet corn kernels. The sauce is kind of like carbonara - the original eggy kind, not the creamy kind, with crispy bacon bits that aren't bacon bits but something similar. We can get a toasted bread and dip entree. How's that?"
"Sounds awesome," Stacey said, sitting back when he turned the car at a corner. "Let's do that."
"I can also get you something similar to an avocado smoothie or a lychee sorbet drink if you want."
"Either one is good. The lychee sounds great," Stacey beamed at him. "You know, when you aren't being a boss, bossing people around and giving lectures, or a rude gangster trying to tease me into a hole in the ground, you're pretty alright. I wish you were always this nice and reasonable."
"Thank you. I think," the corners of Thieren's mouth curled up. "Sounds like I need to work harder."