The Flying House, Part 4

So what did Rei and Rome do after lunch? Again, this was explained before Rome's Revolution was condensed into a single book.

     In the afternoons, during their leisure time, Rei taught Rome Earth games, or at least, games from the Earth of his time period. She learned card games, checkers, chess and more. Rome was surprisingly competitive for a person who had subjugated her will her whole life and surprisingly brilliant for someone who had been taught to not think for herself. To an outside observer, it would appear as if she had been saving her brain and was now using its reserves all at once. Rome was blossoming before Rei’s eyes and it was a wonder to behold. Every thought, every feeling that Rome experienced showed on her face as delight and Rei loved just watching her absorb and integrate each novel experience into her new-found autonomy.
     In addition to all this, after their evening meal, they worked on Rome’s unending art and design projects and they listened to music. She even learned how to dance. Early on into their trip, Rei took exactly one harrowing space-walk to the vast cargo compartment of his ancient spaceship, the Ark II (described in much more detail in Rome's Evolution), and had recovered his personal music collection from there. His music was stored on a solid-state music slab, a gift from his parents which was designed to survive over the centuries. Rei’s music, along with the algorithms that OMCOM had uploaded to MINIMCOM before they left the Tabit system, meant that not an evening went by when they didn’t listen to what Rei called the classics or an original composition from MINIMCOM who was getting very, very good.
     Infused with all this music, Rome was learning to sing and what a beautiful voice she had. Who would have guessed? She loved Handel, Joni Mitchell and Jeriko but her favorite performers were the Moody Blues which suited Rei perfectly. They were his favorite too.
     Rei also tried to introduce Rome to movies. He got MINIMCOM to try to animate some of his favorites. The first one he tried was Gone With The Wind but that was a disaster because he couldn’t remember it well enough. The second was Sleepless in Seattle. Rome was kind enough to tell him she understood its appeal. The only one he really aced was The One That Got Away (aka Future Past) which was the true story of his grandfather who appeared on a TV reality show. He had memorized that one, right down to the dialog. It was an interesting experiment but their other activities amused them more.

Tomorrow, a topic nobody wants to hear about: Vuduri bathrooms!