Rice and beans were cooking on a small stove situated at the end of the corridor where her bed was located. Clara hadn't had anything to eat since she shared her Installation Way food with the water taxi women. All that remained of what Donna and the food truck man had put in her backpack were two individual foil-wrapped bags of sour cream and onion potato chips.

She was interested in trying the tacos, pizza, Chinese noodles and Indian buffet available on the visible-through-the-window street, but she was not sure whether the money she had left -- after paying the water taxi women and the hostel proprietor -- was adequate. In Septemberclaver, only the Systems Operator and her father, the games master, had access to money.