Sharp

Xavier lay in the spare room, considering the events of the day. The bed was much more comfortable than the incubation sling in the facility and while Jean-Claude had prepared him for possible setbacks, he hadn’t experienced any so far. He evaluated his experiences.

He’d enjoyed eating the food he’d been given, although his internal organs were complaining about the high fat and carbohydrate content and he had perhaps not managed to macerate everything quite as well as he should have, before swallowing. He resolved to address that, the next time food was presented to him. He had an insight into how to prepare food now, thanks to the ‘Chef at Home’ YouTube video about Eggs Benedict that he had watched. He saw there were pictures of several other cooking tutorials on the screen and planned to work through as many as possible, since the taste of what Kim called ‘proper food’ was beguiling. The other tasks he had completed seemed to have delighted Kim and Joe, and were well within his intellectual and dexterity levels. 

Kim’s references to reading and counting interested him and he resolved to absorb that information next. He needed to acquire a device of his own to access this material since he had no need for this ‘sleeping’ that his hosts seemed to require and could make good use of his time alone.

A sharp stabbing pain behind his ear reminded him he had not yet reported back to base. He tapped the node and listened to the machine voice. ex-vee-huff-din. He repeated the reference and began his report.