Lyre climbed the stairs to level 4 and walked along the serrated steel catwalk past rows of numbered miniPods to thas mother's unit in aisle P. The door was slightly ajar, so tha called in: "Mom? It's me, Lyre".
"Oh, you startled me," said her mother, Pool, as tha bumped against the door, knocking it closed. "Just a second," tha called in a muffled voice through the door, "I have to move this chair". Scuffling sounds and seconds later, Pool opened the door wide and hugged her daughter on the step. "Honey, it's so good to see you! And such a long time. Come in, come in."
Inside, the miniPod was compact. The galley kitchenette, in faux white oak paneling, was accessible once the bed had pivoted into its wall closet. A table, with attached stool, unfolded cleverly from a drawer. Pool had brought in a card table chair for the occasion of Lyre's visit, but it took up most of the floor space and had to be folded to open or close the door.
"Sit down, sit down," said Pool. "Let me pour you some Sparkling Green. Tell me about your new job."
"Oh, so far so good," tha said. "But mother, I wouldn't call it a job, at least not the way you think of jobs. It's more like busking for tips. When they lose interest and stop tipping, that's my hint to move on."
"But honey, you're so smart and hard-working and beautiful they must want to keep you," said Pool.
"Hm, let's hope. What's for supper?"
"Edgar?" said Pool towards the kitchenette. Edgar.shurpa, who had been displaying in two-dimensional mode to save space, turned sideways and revealed thas full width. Tha was a right jolly old elf dressed in a chef's double-breasted jacket and toque blanche.
"I'll be serving soyweed cakes with spiced honeylent sauce," tha announced. "Real honey," tha added with a wink.
"Real honey? Where did you ever find that? Haven't honey bees been extinct for a decade?" asked Lyre.
"Oh, Edgar found it, didn't you Edgar?" said Pool. "Tha's so clever. You were right about shurpas being handy. Somehow tha found out there was a jar of honey in Stalin's bunker, buried for the last 100 years. They were selling it at some sort of auction."
"Are you sure?" asked Lyre. "Mother! You bought a jar of Stalin's honey at an auction? How much did you pay?"
"Edgar took care of all the details, just like you said tha would. I didn't have to worry about anything."
"Edgar! How much did my mother pay for the honey?" Lyre asked the chef with some alarm.
"Our winning bid was 17.3 million Rubles. Additional taxes, duties, currency exchange, transfer charges and the necessary insurance are still being tabulated, although I was able to take delivery on a special rush basis to use it in the sauce tonight, as your mother requested," said Edgar.
Lyre's folding chair collapsed as tha stood to face Edgar. "Edgar, what is your grocery item max price setting?"
"That setting is zero, which in practice means no limit," Edgar chuckled with a flourish of his whisk.