“Sita, tear down all the interior walls and make buckets, a basic cooking set, and enough chairs for eight people.” She switched on the kitchen and waved away Aunty’s raised eyebrows. “Set the fridge to manual operation. Reconfigure the kitchen to the simple Welga design, no oven, large sink. Change the sofa back to beds.”

What else did they need? “And make three battery-powered lanterns, too.”

“The household materials are insufficient to print batteries,” Sita said. “All other transformations are in progress.”

Nothing to light their way at night, then.

Carma sat on the floor and handed a static doll to her great-aunt, impervious to the activity around her. She whispered in the ear of a ragged stuffed bear that had belonged to Nithya. The storage cabinet doors hung open. They kept most of the static items on the lower shelves, and Carma had raided them thoroughly for anything resembling a plaything.

A roving vendor-bot blared its inventory from the street. Nithya checked the fridge and decided to stock up.

“I’m going down for some vegetables.”

By the time she descended three flights of stairs, a crowd of people surrounded the cart. Of course they would take precautions. For all their modern conveniences, they’d grown up hearing stories about life at the turn of the century, how unreliable services and utilities had been. They jostled against her, as if standing closer would make the queue move faster. Someone near the front raised her voice in protest: “Leave some for the rest of us! You can’t eat all that before it rots.”

After nearly an hour, she reached the front. She had a choice of onions, okra, or cabbage. She took some of each.

Carma glanced her way when Nithya returned to the flat. “Why is the kitchen like that? Is Aunty Welga coming back with Papa?”

“No, but I wish that she was. We might have to do some cooking for the next day or two, until they fix the WAIs.”

Carma giggled. “You don’t know how to cook!”

Bhairavi Aunty snorted. “Don’t worry, sweetie, I do. I’ll teach Amma.”

“I know how to make a few dishes,” Nithya said in a tone of mock outrage. “I may not be as good as your aunty Welga, but we won’t go hungry.”

They would have to eat their dinner in the dark. Thankfully, the stoves still ran on cans of propane gas, so the power outage wouldn’t keep them from functioning.

Silence filled the flat. Usually the climate-control fan provided a steady background noise, or in the cooler months, the sounds from bots and autos outside. The world had gone quiet, and it left Nithya unsettled.

With five minutes left on Krishnamurthy’s deadline, Nithya checked her messages one last time. Zeli had accepted the money transfer before the bank freeze. She’d sent a flight number and arrival time, as well.