He nods and glances at his watch.

"Let's see if we run across what we need in the next hour. After that, we should start looking for a place to hide."

"Okay."

Kyoya lapses into silence and starts looking. It's not difficult to find bookcases here. Finding a ladder is a little harder, but he climbs up on one of the bookcases and manages to spot a one before the hour is up. 

With some difficulty, he manages to shove two bookcases together to create a surface on top that is plausibly large enough to hold the ladder.  The ladder is of the folding, free-standing variety. 

"Do you want to try and use the ladder to get up there?" 

"I'll give it a shot."

She manages to ascend the ladder, although she is almost comically slow and careful.

He holds the ladder steady as she climbs and then follows her up. 

"I hope you're not superstitious," he says, "You're going to need to sit under the ladder."

"I'm not," she says. She sits where directed.

With some difficulty, Kyoya manages to pull the ladder up to the top of the bookshelves without knocking either of them off and arrange it so it's relatively stable. 

"This is not as secure as I would like, but it will have to do. Would you mind holding on while I climb up?"

She does so.

Kyoya carefully climbs the ladder. It rocks a little, but does not overbalance. 

Once he reaches the top, he spends a few minutes looking around and sketching a rough map in his notebook, then climbs back down. 

"No door out unfortunately, but I did see a kind of barricade that way," he points, "that might be a settlement."

"Well, it's better than aimlessly wandering among the MALMs and POANGs."

"And it's probably the safest place we'll find tonight."

He lowers the ladder and then descends, carefully, from the bookcase. He turns to steady the ladder once he's on the ground.

Down she gets. "How far is it, about?"

"Three kilometers?" he guesses, "if we could walk there directly. Maybe twice that with all the turns we'll have to make."

"All right. I can do that. But if it gets late we can only make a run for it if we find something with wheels and you push me."

He nods.

"As far as I can tell, they don't have any supernatural ability to detect people. Hiding in a wardrobe or a cupboard works as long as you're quiet and they don't see you enter. So far, I haven't run across more than one at once. If I have to run for it, it should chase me and you'll have time to tuck yourself away."

"I'll keep an eye out for wheels and wardrobes both, then."

"What's 2015 like?"

"Could you be more specific?"

He considers.

"I wouldn't expect too many drastic changes in only two years. I suppose the more subtle ones might be hard to describe. Is there anything that would've obviously surprised the you of two years ago if she'd heard about it?"

"I mean, I wouldn't have predicted individual newsworthy events, but nothing dramatically out of character for the time period, no."

"That's reassuring," he says absently. 

"And nothing from the astronomers? No strange movements in the stars?"

"Uh. Not that I heard, but I'm a doctor, not an astronomer."

"What I'm concerned about would've made headline news. Though I'm not entirely sure what I'd do with the information if you'd told me the stars had all changed position. Try a little harder to make it home I suppose."

He shakes his head.

"I would have counted that among notable natural disasters. Very literally."

"Would you? It wouldn't have killed anyone or caused any property damage, though it probably would be one of the first things to mention regardless."