"Hi. This is an interplanar bar, apparently," says a human sitting at the (interplanar) bar.

"Interplanar? Do you know where they've put the train station?"

"Uh, my understanding," she holds up a napkin with writing on it, "is that the train station you were looking for is where it's supposed to be, but the door you went through happened not to lead there this time, but if you go back and close it it'll be back to normal."

She looks relieved.

"Oh. Thanks. So, Interplanar means the door sometimes leads here and sometimes doesn't? When does it lead here?"

"Infrequently? I only know what's on this napkin." She offers the napkin.

"Thanks."

She reads the napkin.

It describes the workings of Milliways!

Sadness looks surprised.

"Different universes?"

She thinks.

"If that's true, you'd wouldn't be from Riley. Are you from Riley?"

"No, I don't think I've ever been anywhere called Riley. I'm from the Imperium. Well, an Imperium."

Sadness is fascinated.

"What's an Imperium? What are they like? I've never met anyone who wasn't from Riley before."

"Uh, it's a large monarchy with a bunch of provinces and a decently high standard of living at least for humans?"

"A Monarchy? That's- a sort of country right? I hope things aren't too bad for nonhumans there. Who are you from?"

"...what do you mean, who?"

Sadness is looking anxious and speaking hesitantly again.

"Like- I'm from Riley, she's twelve years old and she plays hockey and lives in San Francisco? And you must be from someone else?

San Francisco is a city."

"I'm... uh... how are you from a person?"

"Oh! You mean you aren't? You're an actual real human, not just an imaginary one?"

"I am a human. I'm not sure why you'd think I was imaginary."

"Um. Wow. I've never met a real human like this before. I think maybe I should get the other emotions?"

"...the... other... emotions?"

"I'm Riley's sadness. That's how I'm from her."

"How do you... be... someone's... sadness...?"

"I live in her head and make her be sad about bad things?"

"She can't, uh, do that herself?"

"She can't."

"That... seems like an awkward problem to have."

"I don't think it's normally a problem?"

"I guess not, if she has you and the... other... emotions... as prostheses? Is this normal where you're from?"

"I think so? I've never been in anyone else's head, but we always assumed they thought the same way Riley did?"

"Does Riley know about you?"

"Not consciously."

"Hmm."

"Is something wrong?"

"I'm pretty sure people don't work like that where I'm from and I'm not sure how it'd work."

"Well, we have a control room where we watch what she sees and listen to what she hears and so on, and we talk about what she should do and we have a control panel we can use to direct her feelings and thoughts and desires in directions that we think are helpful to her? Recently I've been helping her find ways to get back the parts of her life she lost when her family had to move from Minnesota to San Francisco, so I've been getting her to think about those things a lot. Also she was really rude to one of her friends and I've been getting her to look for ways to make up for that."

"Do you have emotions?"

"Yes. Mostly sadness, but not just sadness. I don't think mine are people."

"How would you know? Riley doesn't."

"I guess they could be? Do you think it might just keep going on forever?

You said you were pretty sure your emotions weren't people, is there a way to check?"

"I'm pretty sure because I'm a subtle artist - a telepath - and I'm studying to be a therapist, and part of that involves looking at how people's emotions work. They don't seem like people are directing them, and if I assume someone's directing them anyway, it doesn't seem like they're trying to be helpful. Also, you read to me like you're a person all by yourself, but people back home only have one person-signature, not several."

"Oh. I don't think our world has telepaths. I think we do have people who study how emotions work but Riley isn't one of them so I don't know how much they understand about us."

"I feel like twelve would be a little late to leave, uh, having a talk about the emotion-people who live in your head and... control your thoughts... if that were a known phenomenon... and she has generally responsible parents?"

"I guess it would be, yes. So I guess they must not know we're people?"

"Seems likely. Do you have any way to communicate more, uh, precisely with Riley?"

"No. I guess I could try to persuade the people who make her dreams to give her recurring ones about something?"

"That might work if they're precise and she's good at remembering dreams."

"She sometimes remembers dreams, and they can control her dreams precisely if they make an effort. But I don't know if the dream producers would agree to it. I'll tell them they should."

"What are their, uh, priorities? What kind of dreams do they usually give her?"

"I'm not sure what their priorities are. I think they probably enjoy making dreams, and like entertaining people with them? Recently a lot of the dreams have been about being lost in the corridors of her new school or the streets of her new city, and finding weird places there like a classroom that's set up like a regular one but is being used for gym class."

"These are entertaining to - other - residents of - Riley?"

"Yes."

"Does Riley like them?"

"She hasn't been remembering them much lately. She likes some of the ones she remembers."

"I mean while she's having them. Do humans in your world have nightmares?"

"They do. She doesn't enjoy the dreams about being lost when she's having them, she enjoys some of the other dreams she has though."

"It seems sort of mean to make someone have dreams they won't like and don't know why they're happening to entertain other people."

"I suppose so. Do you think we should try to get them to only give her happy dreams? I think Fear, Disgust, Anger and I would find it annoying to never get to be in control while she's dreaming, but I guess we can cope.

Though that's still assuming we can convince the dream producers to do things differently, and we might not be able to."

"What exactly is the, uh, relationship between you - emotions - being in control and the dreams' content?"

"Well. I like dealing with stuff like Riley losing important things forever or realizing she made a terrible mistake, but I don't have much idea about what to do about Riley flying through a beautiful landscape. So even when it's just a dream and it doesn't really matter if she reacts to things appropriately, I'd rather operate the controls during the dreams about loss and let Joy handle them during the dreams about flying. But I suppose I could try to stay away from the controls at night even when we get dreams about sad stuff."

"Is it a, uh, skill thing? You not having much idea what to do, such that you could pick it up? Or do you need to - be - a, um - a Sadness?" Is she being racist against Sadnesses? She hopes she is not being racist against Sadnesses.

"I don't think I can not be a Sadness. I tried not to be for a while when I was younger and didn't manage. And it wouldn't have been good if I had; Riley does need to be able to be sad."

"I'm not saying I'd want to limit her emotional repertoire, but most people who are sad a lot aren't benefiting from it, so it seems like if her life got to be very nice you'd maybe get bored, if you're, uh, doing your job as described."

sigh

"I guess so. I don't think I make her sad more often than is good for her but it's hard to know. I want her life to be nice."

"Maybe people with emotional disorders have, uh, emotions who don't want their lives to be nice. If emotional disorders even happen in your world. I'd think subtle artists could notice if people on my plane worked that way."

"Maybe that happens. Some people in our world have problems with their emotions but we haven't heard much about how. Riley had something wrong with her emotions for a day when Joy and I got lost, maybe some peoples' emotions get lost for longer."

"How did you get lost?"

"We got into a fight and dropped the core memories into the tube to long-term, so we went after them to get them back. Then the Personality Islands started collapsing and cut off the route we'd meant to take back to Headquarters."

"Personality islands collapsing sounds really bad."

"It was really bad. We've managed to rebuild most of them now."

"What does collapsing personality islands actually do? What are personality islands?"

"They're islands that define aspects of Riley's personality. When Goofball Island collapsed she stopped being a goofball, and when Friendship Island collapsed she gave up on her friendships, and so on."

"What made them collapse?"

"The Personality Islands are powered by the core memories, so they collapsed when they got stress put on them while the core memories were missing."

"...and what's a core memory?"

"Core memories are memories of events that were especially important to Riley and helped her become who she is. Like the first time she scored a goal in hockey or the first time she told the truth even though it was hard."

"Hm. This is all really interesting, although it's - hm - did someone have to build those islands or decide that those memories were core or did they just happen?"

"They just happened."

"Are there other things that just happen?"

"There are other things about Riley no-one controls- the Personality Islands mostly operate automatically and influence her thoughts and decisions, and abstract thought is also mostly automated."

"...where 'automated' might also mean 'Riley does it'."

"Yes."

"I wonder what it's like to be Riley, not - doing most of her mental stuff on her own. Maybe it doesn't feel any different."

"Maybe.

You said you were telepathic?"

"Yeah. You have to be to be a therapist in my plane."

"If you met Riley, would you be able to tell what it was like to be her?"

"If she wanted me to. I don't do that without permission."

"Would you be able to ask for permission telepathically?"

"Uh, I guess, yeah."

"Her mind is on the other side of my door. I guess you could also tell her about us that way."

"I could try but I don't know if it'll work from - that - direction."

sigh

"I guess it might not.

Shall we try now?"

"If you want, but I might want to know more things before I try to explain them, especially to a kid."

"I don't know where to start. Riley has five emotions? Me, Joy, Anger, Fear, and Disgust."

"- do you combine somehow to make other emotions, or are other things that I consider emotions handled some other way?"

"Sometimes two of us working together or at cross-purposes give Riley complicated feelings about something? What other emotions are you thinking of?"

"Uh - surprise? Excitement? Boredom? Confusion? Frustration? Loneliness? Embarrassment? I imagine some could just be specialty applications of you five, like it sounded like you were handling guilt more or less on your own?"

"Surprise and confusion happens while we're all still trying to figure out how to respond to something. Joy also does excitement, I do loneliness, Anger does frustration, Disgust does boredom and Disgust and Fear do embarrassment."

"Relief? How do you all handle empathy for other people - how does stress as a general parameter work - what's going on when she's generally apathetic -"

"Joy does relief. We all do different bits of empathy- I do being sad for other people, Joy does being happy for other people and so on. We don't do stress intentionally but me, Fear, and Disgust all do it unintentionally sometimes. Riley doesn't generally get apathetic without getting bored, but I assume if she did that would mean none of us were doing much."

"I guess you're all the same age she is?"

"We're all twelve. Only Joy started the same second Riley did, 'though, the rest of us are a little bit younger."

"...aww. Were you... babies? In the way that humans are?"

"I don't think so- we knew how to walk and handle things and talk to each other from the beginning, even 'though we didn't know what we were yet."

"How'd you find out?"

"We did what felt right and when I guided Riley people said she was sad and when Joy did they said she was happy and so on."

"Huh. I don't thing people frequently narrate to small children that they're disgusted, did Disgust use to have a different name until you learned the word?"

"We used to call her 'Eww'."

"- hee hee."

Smile

"So, what else do you want to know about how Riley's mind works? I told you about us emotions and about dreams. There's also people who do imagination and people who work in her long term memory, throwing out things she doesn't need anymore to make room for new things and recalling stuff when it's relevant. And workers who maintain everything."

"- people who do imagination. How is that done?"

"There's the imaginary people themselves- I thought you were one when I saw you. And there's also all the people who design and make imaginary things and set up imaginary places and schedule imaginary events. And people who film the vivid stuff."

"- imaginary people are people?"

"Yes."

"How does that work?"

"Sometimes imagination crews come and film them for daydreams and speculations and so on? When she imagines herself doing things the crew stands in for her."

"I mean how does a person being imaginary work? Do you just mean, they're a resident of her mind like you who features in imagination-generation, or do you mean they are - fictitious themselves somehow?"

"I mean they're characters in her daydreams and speculations and that's why they exist. For example, Riley used to have an imaginary friend and he helped me and Joy get back to Headquarters. He's dead now. And recently she's been imagining having a boyfriend a lot and Joy made some copies of him to help us get back to headquarters. They died too. The copies, that is."

"How did they die?"

"Bing-Bong was on a ledge that collapsed when Family Island did. The boyfriends- Joy got them to stand on each others' shoulders to make a tower with her on top, then throw themselves forward at just the right moment to get her to the cloud I was on and push us both straight towards Headquarters.

Joy isn't good at noticing the downsides of things."

"I... see. It seems odd for imaginary people to be subject to falling."

"Why?"

"- if Riley imagined them again, would they just be similar people, or would she bring them back to life?"

"She could imagine similar people again, but not exactly the same people.

Oh- an imaginary person could have fallen to their death and survived if they'd done it all in Imaginationland, but these ones fell into the Dump."

"Can everybody in Riley's mind die?"

"I don't know. So far only imaginary people have died but so far only Joy has fallen into the Dump and survived, and she managed to get out again pretty quickly."

"What's the Dump, besides what it sounds like?"

"It's a pit where we throw stuff that isn't worth the space it takes up other places anymore- obscure knowledge, unimportant memories, imaginary stuff that isn't being used anymore, and so on. Stuff left there mostly eventually vanishes, some things quicker than others."

"Space is limited?"

"Yes. Around nine square miles."

"By... what?"

"Riley's mind is round- go far enough and you come back to where you started."

"So it's not enclosed, it's space-warped?"

"Yes."

"Huh. Has it always been that size?"

"No, it gets bigger over time. But only slowly."

"Huh. What does an imaginary person who doesn't fall down and doesn't get imagined any more do?"

"Bing-Bong traveled around Riley's mind and collected old memories after Riley stopped imagining him, but I don't know if that's normal."

"Don't explore much?"

"I don't. It always seemed like too much effort. And too much of an imposition on everyone. And recently I've been busy."

"- are you yourself generally sad?"

"Yes."

"Is... that... okay with you?"

"I wish I had less to be sad about, but I don't think I could not be mostly sad and still be who I am."

"I guess that makes sense. Are the other four the same way?"

"Yes- Joy is happy most of the time, Fear is scared most of the time, and so on."

"Sounds rough to be Fear."

"Yeah."

"How much of the other stuff you've mentioned was there when Riley was born and when'd the rest of it grow in?"

"The Dump was there from the beginning. So was Long-Term Memory but it used to be a lot less well-organized. The Dream Studio was there from the beginning but used to be a lot smaller and less well-supplied. Somewhere that would become Imaginationland existed by the time we were one, but it was also pretty small and simple to start with. Abstract Thought's newer, it was only built about two years ago."

"How did stuff get more organized and built up, did people do it or is that just one of the things that happened? And what happens in Abstract Thought and who built it?"

"Mind workers organize and improve stuff, and build Abstract Thought. Abstract thought-"

she winces.

"Basically it takes concrete concepts like, say "these apples" or "these trophies" or "mom and dad" or "Cathy's mom and dad" apart into more abstract ones like "groups of objects" or "parenthood" and uses the more abstract concepts to figure stuff out, sometimes stuff that will apply across lots of different sorts of situations."

"- is abstract thought a sensitive subject -"

"I got stuck in it while it was running once. It was really scary."

"While it was running?"

"Well, there weren't actually concepts in there so I assume it was some sort of preparatory run. But normally we only run abstract thought when there's something Riley wants to think about that way, and it started abstracting us."

"...abstracting you."

"Taking us apart into abstract concepts. We managed to get out before it did anything irreversible."

"...I'm glad of that."

"Thanks."

She holds Bella's hand.

...Bella pats the back of her hand a little awkwardly.

After a bit:

"Should we go see if you can talk to Riley now?"

"I'm not sure what I'd say. Maybe first I should see if I can talk across the door - I don't want to, er, go in."

"Why not?"

"It seems like it might be a bad idea for a human to be in another human's mind."

"Oh- yes, that makes sense."

"So who in there should I talk to?"

"Well, if you can't just talk to Riley, I think Joy and Fear would definitely like to know about this and Anger and Disgust probably would too?"

"- at a guess Joy's the pleasantest conversationalist?"

"I guess she is. Recently, anyway."

"Recently?"

"She used to be kind of mean to me."

"...in... a... happy way?"

"Not really. She's happy about a lot of things but I think she used to really not like me."

"That sucks, I'm sorry."

"Thanks.

We've gotten on a lot better since we got lost together, 'though. She's been helping me with getting back stuff Riley lost in the move and we've started reading tragic romance books together."

"- where do you get tragic romance books? Do you just read them through Riley - how do you get Riley to read them -"

Sadness smiles

"We do read them through Riley. Joy put together the idea to try reading tragic romances in the first place, but now there's a personality island for it."

"How do you put together ideas for things like that? How many personality islands are there?"

"One of Riley's friends talked about how much she enjoyed a tragic romance novel. So on the next school day Joy called up that memory and something to do with the school library- maybe just the knowledge that it exists- and sent them to Friendship Island to be associated into an idea to look for that book in the library. Then come lunchtime Joy plugged that idea into the implementation socket.

Riley has nine personality islands now- Family, Friendship, Goofball, Honesty, Hockey, Tech, Tragic Romance, Fashion, and Boy Band."

"That's such a - peculiar collection of things - what's hockey - what do you mean by tech -"

"Hockey's a sport Riley plays. There's an ice rink with a goal at either end, you try to hit a rubber disk into your team's goal and keep it out of the other team's goal. Tech Island is about trying to know all about all the different phones and computers and so on people can buy and having opinions about which ones are best for which things."

"- phones and computers? Really?"

"Yes? Some phones have better cameras than others, some have the operating system code available to the public so people are more likely to be able to fix stuff that goes wrong with it, that sort of thing."

"The translation effect is making it sound like you have - science fantasy stuff."

"Maybe our world is higher tech than yours? Cellphones and computers would have been sci-fi stuff a hundred years ago."

"We call it enchantment and mirrors and crystal balls."

"Do yours work by magic? Those sound like things out of a fantasy story."

"- yes, of course they're magic... since it's real life... not a science fantasy story..."

"Ours aren't magic, they run on electricity. I don't think we have magic outside of peoples' heads."

"- so you're actually from a science fantasy world? Or, uh, Riley is from one, and you're from the differently strange world of inside Riley's head -"

"Yeah. Well, we just think of it as the world but it sounds like compared to your world it's science fantasy."

"We can't have technology like that in my world."

"Can't?"

"Nah, doesn't work. If you try to invent, like, precision instruments based on experimentally derived facts about the world, you eventually probably die and your neighbors'll be lucky if that's all."

"Oh. That sucks. At least it sounds like your magic makes up for a lot of it?"

"Yeah, things would be a lot worse if we didn't have magic."

"What's it like, living in that world?"

"I'm not sure how to answer that."

"What sorts of things do each day? What sorts of problem do you have?"

"I'm in university, so I have classes, and homework, and I go to skirmish games, and avoid various campus hazards..."

"I don't really know what university's like in our world either. But I think that sounds pretty similar to what we do at school? What sorts of hazard do you have to avoid?"

"Violent students, wandering monsters, religious proselytizers, that kind of thing."

"Huh. We don't have monsters. What are they like?"

"There's a ton of different kinds - we have a recurring problem with ghouls."

"Ghouls?"

"They're a kind of undead."

"Like vampires?"

"Vampires are smarter, but yeah, also undead."

"What turns people into ghouls and vampires? In our world they're only in stories."

"I don't remember the exact conditions that cause ghouls to rise but you can prevent if you get a religious burial under most religions. Vampires are contagious if they bite you and do some other stuff."

"Why do some people not get religious burials, then?"

"Some people die in circumstances where nobody's around to do that, or where there were other plans for dealing with the body that got interrupted."

"Oh. Sorry."

"It's just one of those things. If we stay in protected civilized areas undead aren't a huge risk."

"That's good."

"Yeah. And one can learn to set them on fire with magic and whatnot."

Sandess is quiet.

"Anyway, science fantasy world, that's cool, what's - uh, Riley's - day to day like with the science fantasy world?"

"The science fantasy stuff isn't that big a thing day-to day. We go to school in the morning, go to classes about- well, we have science classes, I guess you'd have less of that without technology. There's also maths, English, gym, social studies and Spanish. And at lunch Riley hangs out with friends. After school she has hockey training three days a week and after that and on other days she does homework and sometimes visits a friend to do it with them. And then if we gets time after that she hangs out with friends more, or reads, or Skypes friends, or listens to music, or looks stuff up online. Skyping is a way of talking to people in other places. Kind of like a phonecall but using a computer and you can see each other."

"We have magic mirrors for calling people. English and Spanish are - languages?"

"Yes. English is the one Riley speaks. Uh, she also speaks Spanish in Spanish class and for practice but not as well."

"She has to take a class in the one she speaks natively?"

"Yeah. The class is more about reading stories and writing essays."

"Oh, like a literature class and a composition class."

"Yeah."

"Those are good to have. What do you do for gym?"

"We play hockey there too when it's an option. But currently it isn't so we're doing soccer, which is another sport."

"These games aren't translating, so I'm guessing they aren't very much like skirmish or gladiating."

"Probably not. Those sound like they're fighting games, and hockey and soccer aren't."

"We have other games for little kids, but I think people Riley's age have started learning to fight. Maybe you have fewer monsters and it's less of a life skill."

"We don't have monsters."

"None at all? Gosh."

"I guess it might depend on what you mean by 'monster'? There are dangerous animals in the world, but we don't call them monsters. And we don't have any dangerous animals in California, which is where Riley lives."

"What's California like?"

"Hot and dry. San Francisco is also busy and crowded and loud and confusing and foggy. And there are lots of homeless people there. The food is weird. There's not enough open space, and there are cars everywhere, and it's really hilly so it's hard to walk anywhere."

"Sounds inconvenient, but maybe you'd list inconvenient things about anywhere you lived because you're a Sadness?"

"I guess so. Minnesota was really nice, but I didn't really appreciate it until Riley's parents decided to leave."

"Makes sense. - does it make any sense to ask how you feel about being a Sadness?"

"I'm proud of being a sadness."

"Huh. Why?"

"I'm an important part of Riley. And I'm- who I am. And I used not to like myself so now I try to like myself a lot."

"Progress!"

Sadness smiles and nods.

"Yeah."

"I have no idea what to say to Riley. I'm sort of trying to figure out what I'd want to ask about if someone claimed to be speaking to my younger self on behalf of my autonomous-person emotion of sadness, but she'll probably have completely different questions than I would have."

"I don't know what she'll ask, it's not something she's thought about before. We could ask the other emotions before we contact Riley-as-a-whole and try to figure it out? She'll want to know whether other peoples' minds are like hers, but we don't know that.

I want to make her worry about bad stuff happening to imaginary people. But I don't think she can stop imagining bad things entirely. And trying could be bad for her."

"Yeah, it could. A subtle artist might be able to change it so she can imagine things the way I do, but it would be so dangerous to try and I'm the only one around..."

"Oh. Why would it be dangerous?"

"...because it would involve messing with her mind and nobody even has practice doing it since nobody imagines things that way where I'm from."

"Yeah.

And I guess there isn't a way for you to get practice safely, either."

"Nope. It's a problem with telepathic arts, all the practice has to be on someone. The safe way is very tentatively with someone who has experience supervising so they can undo anything you do."