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anyone who says differently is selling something
pyramid scheme victim imrainai meets sunnyverse celegorm in milliways
Permalink Mark Unread

She's gonna be late. She hates this, hates risking the job she just got, because yeah, maybe she hates the job, too, but she has to bring in money somehow, even without the vampire debt collectors that are apparently going to be part of the equation now. Cashiering is better than some things. At least you get a paycheck of any kind at the end of the month. She pulls on her clothes, tries brushing her hair for three seconds before realizing that she doesn't have time, pulls the tangled mess back into a ponytail, yells to her cousin that the kitchen sink is broken and that if she needs water for cooking she can get it from the bathroom, tugs on her sneakers, and blearily heads out the door.

She's... in a bar. Where the hallway to the rest of the world is supposed to be.

Definite magic nonsense. Possibly kidnapping magic nonsense? She's really unclear on why anyone would want to kidnap her, but - well. She clutches her purse tighter and tentatively looks around.

 

"Hello?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Stars explode confusingly out the window.

Permalink Mark Unread

Well that's terrifying. 

She - should leave the bar if it's a kidnapping plot because being kidnapped by magicians is bad, but on the other hand anyone who can cause a magic bar to appear outside her house is probably so enormously powerful that it makes more sense to roll diplomacy against them instead of escape artist, and ack she's gonna be late for work, and if this had happened five years ago she'd've thought that was a stupid thing to worry about, but it's happening now and she actually really needs to be able to hold down a real job where she really gets paid.

She's so tired.

 

She sits down on one of the barstools and waits rather miserably to see what this is all about.

Permalink Mark Unread

Hello, reads a spontaneously appearing folded white cocktail napkin, welcome to Milliways. First drink is free, can I get you anything?

Permalink Mark Unread

- Mom always said not to accept opened drinks from people you don't know very well, even if there isn't any alcohol in it, and she's not sure whether the same applies to magical kidnapping bars but she figures she should err on the safe side. 

"Not right now. Thanks. Do you know what I'm doing here?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Occasionally, via a process I am not privy to, the door to this establishment subsumes an ordinary door. When you leave, if you allow the door to close behind you, it will tend to resume being the door it normally is instead of a Milliways door. In general patrons find that time is paused in their worlds while they are here.

Permalink Mark Unread

 

"Huh."

She glances over at the closed door.

She really shouldn't trust strange magical kidnapping bars, but it would be such a weird lie that she doesn't really know that she thinks it is one. Of course, people have told her a lot of enormous lies in the last while, so, you know, maybe that's just a thing that people do. And if people do it, maybe magical kidnapping bars do, too.

On the other hand, she is demonstrably not going to work today either way. 

"...what kind of drinks do you have, exactly?"

Permalink Mark Unread

I can serve virtually any drink from any universe! The exceptions are that with a few exceptions I cannot provide any item that is alive, magical, larger than this room or microscopic, or a weapon, and some drinks have one or more of these characteristics. I can still do yogurt even though it is alive.

Permalink Mark Unread

- if it's legit then she should probably be trying to get as much as she possibly can out of this, but if it doesn't serve magical items then there's probably a limit to how great a drink can be. Unless there are universes with drinks that have nanobots in them that make you a superpowered cyborg, or something, she could go for being a superpowered cyborg, except for the part where this is a terrible idea and she should probably have learned her lesson by now about trying to get more out of things than she really should.

Also, she's been living off of pretty much macaroni and cereal and rice and PB&J and milk for, like, weeks.

 

"Can you do, like, a really big banana strawberry milkshake, with little strawberry bits and whipped cream and like six cherries? The dessert kind, not the nutrition kind."

Permalink Mark Unread

Of course!

Here is nearly half a gallon of milkshake, made to order, with a little umbrella in it and a thick straw.

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"Awww. Thank you."

She sips her milkshake.

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He hasn't talked to a human in three years. 


He doesn't totally endorse everything about how he is handling this but he endorses that. Anyway if he were more willing to interact with humans he'd probably be drunk all the time and that probably wouldn't be great. Unlike this, which is great. He wanders around the wilderness walking and killing things and occasionally sleeping. 

He's paying very little attention to his surroundings so when he notices that the trees are implausible for Alaska he isn't sure how long this has been true. But these trees sure are implausible for Alaska. And that's a building in the distance. And the air smells funny.

Probably he's been pulled into a different dimension. That is the sort of thing that just happens sometimes.

He climbs the nearest tree and tries to eavesdrop on the building. 

Permalink Mark Unread

Karen is very much enjoying her milkshake. It almost makes up for the probably losing her job.

"So are there a lot of universes?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Oh yes.

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"What're they all like?"

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- he jumps down from the tree. 

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I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific.

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"Well I dunno, I just didn't know there were any others. Can you, like, describe one of them?"

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He opens the door. 

 

He is really tall, unhealthily thin, with elaborately braided blond hair coiled up on his head. He's wearing bear fur.

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"Karen!"

He bounds across the room towards her.

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She makes a very undignified squeaking sound and half-falls off her chair in an attempt to step away from the random interdimensional visitor.

(She immediately feels very sad about having abandoned her milkshake.)

Permalink Mark Unread

" - sorry." He doesn't look very sorry, he still looks incredibly happy. "Let me guess, you don't remember anything and have no idea who I am."

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" - I remember some things?" she says, uncertainly. "None of them have to do with you so much."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Okay." He takes a step back. "Okay, that's fine. - how are you doing?"

Permalink Mark Unread

 

 

"Not great?"

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Nod. "What is this place?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I, uh, I don't really know but it says it's called Milliways and that people from lots of different worlds come through here and that time is stopped while they are, and I don't know how much of that is true but it gave me a really nice milkshake so I'm having just a little trouble keeping up my default level of paranoid skepticism." 

She tentatively moves to recover her milkshake.

Permalink Mark Unread

He doesn't stop her but he looks very suspiciously at the milkshake.


"Connor's safe, Azalea's safe. They moved out of Sunnydale after you died and they're - not really talking to me, understandably, but they're okay."

Permalink Mark Unread

She looks.... very unsure what to do with this information.

 

 

"Azalea's dead," she says, eventually.

Permalink Mark Unread

" - I am pretty sure that is not the case."

Permalink Mark Unread

"OK, well, I am pretty sure I attended the funeral and have been taking care of her kids for two years, so."

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"So, uh, the way I remember it you have been dead for four years."

Permalink Mark Unread

 

"What happened to me?"

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"Uh, a lot of stuff. You, uh, got sucked into a alternate history through a spell backlash and you sacrificed your baby to win a war with a god and then you were murdered."

Permalink Mark Unread

 

"Wow. OK. So. None of that has ever happened to me."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Great! That's good."

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"I guess? Or - being murdered sounds bad. I guess. I am trying to avoid that thing."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Well, I obviously can't credibly assert that there's nothing that can get through the two of us but there isn't much."

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There is a long, visibly confused pause.

" - the two of us?"

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" - yeah? Uh, we worked together. Before you died."

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"I just don't feel like - if I were going to pick someone to keep me from getting murdered I wouldn't really pick, uh, me."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, uh, are you not - do you get prophetic dreams and are you mysteriously way stronger than a normal human?"

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"Uh, no, I am pretty sure that's not - no."

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"Huh. Okay. I think you are from an alternate universe where you are not the destined vampire slayer."

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"Oh," she says, hollowly. "OK."

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"I'm so sorry about Azalea."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's OK," she says, even though it isn't. "M'sorry about your Karen. She sounds cool."

Permalink Mark Unread

"She's great. So who's trying to kill you?"

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She stirs her shake. 

"I mean they probably don't want me dead, you can't really extract money from a corpse. Just, if you don't have any money the corpse is worth more than nothing. Least if you hire vampires."

Permalink Mark Unread

"There're vampires after you for money?"

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"Yeah. Well, the guy's not a vampire, I don't think, he just has some."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Has some vampires?"

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"You know. Working for him. Or something, I dunno if vampires operate using standard employment contracts. Very good for scaring people, though. - look, I'm sorry, I have very boring problems."

Permalink Mark Unread

" - Karen - are you named Karen - since my Karen died I've been wandering around in Alaska picking fights with bears, I'm really not very - 

- uh -

- it's not a boring problem at your challenge rating?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, I'm Karen." She smiles very slightly at the use of the phrase 'challenge rating'. "I guess all of my other problems are even more boring."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Werewolves running up your electrical bills?"

Permalink Mark Unread

- she tries to come up with something funny, and can't, and sips her shake.

"Don't exactly need any help running them up," she says, quietly.

Permalink Mark Unread

" - do you know, if I leave this place, if I'll be able to find it again?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Bar?"

Permalink Mark Unread

I'm afraid it's not consistent. Some people only find Milliways once.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Well, that sucks."

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"Yeah."

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He paces. "Okay. I think I'mma go back to your universe with you, my family has ways of getting me back if they resurrect Karen and they know not to bother me if they don't. Not now, we should stay here as long as we can probably, but - I don't have money on me so I don't know how long that'll be."

Permalink Mark Unread

" - and you're who, exactly?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh. Uh, Tyelcormo. Karen called me Alex. There's a bunch of other nonsense but none of it matters, I can help with the vampires. And maybe the electricity bills, depending how hard it is to get identities when you can cheat?" He considers this more. " - nah, it'll be no problem."

Permalink Mark Unread

"So you're like, a person from another dimension who supposedly knew a weird destined superhero version of me, and who is dangerous enough to be able to take on vampires, and you want me to take you home to my dimension so you can help me out of the goodness of your heart."

She sips her shake. Her expression suggests that she is maybe special-casing the shake and has not run out of paranoid skepticism in full generality.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yep."

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"I see."

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He sits down at the bar. "Are there other people here?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Not that I've seen. Bar?"

Permalink Mark Unread

I can't comment on whether there may be people occupying the hotel upstairs at this time. The security office and infirmary are stocked.

Permalink Mark Unread

He glances at it, looks startled, glances at it more closely. "What kind of traffic do you see normally, though? Will a few more people come through here today?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Time passes inconsistently within the establishment and the rate of new appearances varies too. If you go somewhere out of line of sight of this main bar area then several million people might pass through before you returned five minutes later. If you remain here you might meet many people or none, even if you stayed here for years. I do not usually experience more than a few minutes with no patrons about at all but that doesn't imply anything about what you will experience.

Permalink Mark Unread

Sigh. "Kay."

Permalink Mark Unread

"There's a hotel?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Yes. It costs reasonable currency-dependent prices, as does most of what I sell, but employees of the establishment including security, infirmary, and janitorial staff are entitled to free rooms on the ground floor.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Well, are you looking for employees? And do they otherwise get paid?"

Permalink Mark Unread

I can hire new employees. The janitorial job is compensated with the room only, but the infirmary and security jobs also pay in the currency of your choice.

Permalink Mark Unread

"And does anyone here sell stuff other than drinks?"

Permalink Mark Unread

I can sell most medium-sized nonweapon nonliving nonmagical objects. Drinks are just the only thing that is traditionally free unless someone of a species that cannot drink enters and I may offer an equivalent.

Permalink Mark Unread

" - okay," he says to Karen. "I don't suppose you have a portable phone or that there's a phone within reach of where you came in."

Permalink Mark Unread

"We have a phone. I - dunno how exactly opening and closing or propping the door works, but I don't live alone, so I could probably get someone to call someone, if they needed to?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't know if your universe has me but if it does then everything'll be a lot easier and we won't have to scramble for money because normally the people I work for have plenty. So I want to try to call people who'll know me if I exist."

Permalink Mark Unread

 

"Bar, will the door close if someone tries to prop it open?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Generally no. Only a native of a world, or someone who for some reason counts as one, can hold the door open to that world.

Permalink Mark Unread

" - what happens if Tyelcormo opens the door?"

Permalink Mark Unread

It will open to somewhere in his world. Since he entered through the back door there is no precise means of predicting where; it's likely to be a recent door he used, or somewhere personally significant.

Permalink Mark Unread

" - see, good job, that was smart, I didn't think of that. I guess in that case plan A is contact my people in my world."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That makes sense. If you wanna try that."

Permalink Mark Unread

He heads over to the door, and opens it.

 


It opens on the last place where he closed a door, which is .... a den formerly containing vampires, in Hooper Bay, on Alaska's western coast. The floor is splattered with blood. There are chains on the walls. No bodies, of course, 'cause he dusted them. 


He tries for his family. Not very optimistically; he's mostly been keeping out of their range, on purpose. 

 

 

 

Nope. 

Permalink Mark Unread

"....not a nice place?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's out of range of my family. And I'm guessing you won't want to go to the convenience store and make a phone call, am I guessing right?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeaaah, not super eager to do that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I can try to prove I know you and I'm not evil if you want  but I won't unless you want me to."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...admittedly curious to see what you think counts as evidence of the second thing."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Bar, can you do, like, conditional drinks? Like, if I have lied to Karen about anything I would like a glass of milk and if I have told Karen the truth about everything I would like an orange juice?"

Permalink Mark Unread

I do not have access to the truth values of most of what you have claimed.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh, which bits do you know?"

Permalink Mark Unread

I can independently verify medical, especially diet-related, facts about you, and can access published information in any world, and would be able to verify your possession of a line of credit if you presented one versus a forgery.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Can you verify my family has a lot of money without me presenting anything?"

Permalink Mark Unread

If you have a credit card number or equivalent memorized I can accept that.

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He actually, after frowning and concentrating for a long time, does, but it expired three years ago.

Permalink Mark Unread

That credit card number is no longer valid.

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"Figures. Okay. Not your fault."

 

He contemplates his options for a while and then closes his eyes and starts singing the Easter Mass.

 

He's a very good singer.

Permalink Mark Unread

Karen has in fact never heard Mass sung. She recognizes that it's an Easter thing, but that's about it.

 

"It's pretty."

Permalink Mark Unread

He looks slightly surprised, but mostly hides it. He stops after a while. He sends a memory, instead. Karen attended Easter Mass with Azalea and Connor, here they are wandering in together, sitting down, laughing, happy -

- here they all are around Azalea's dinner table, Azalea looking suspiciously between Michael and Alex -

- Karen shoving the mummy girl off of Alex and yelling at her, Karen and Alex training in the woods, Karen and Alex co-teaching archery club, Karen and Alex fighting vampires, Karen and Alex learning to take vampires alive and hand them over to the government, Karen fighting with Wesley over this choice, Alex racing to get to Karen when Spike trapped her -

Permalink Mark Unread

"She seems really cool."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah."

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"I just, um - assuming you're not evil, hypothetically, I still worry you're gonna - be expecting someone cooler. If you start trying to help me. 'Cause I think - I know we have the same name and the same sibling and the same face and stuff, but - I'm not really like that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's not about expecting anything. - also it really does seem like you're the exact same person without superpowers, but even if you weren't, even if you were just - even if you were a completely terrible person who happened to be raising an alternate universe Connor I'd have to do this just for him. You're not, but if you were. There's no way Karen'd be okay with it if there was a Connor somewhere I wasn't helping because his caretaker was the most incredibly horrible person I'd ever met, so, uh, any ways in which you aren't that are just lucky I guess if you want to think about it that way."

Permalink Mark Unread

 

"Oh."

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"Really kinda seems like you're Karen but if you want me to have low expectations I can do that."

Permalink Mark Unread

She stirs her shake. Really great how she has this shake here, this would be harder to deal with if she didn't have this shake to fiddle with.

 

"The problem," she says to her shake, "is that if you actually maybe can help, then that makes this, like, an important decision, and means that either way, if I get it wrong, there'll be really bad consequences. So I have to make a good choice. And I have a really bad track record when it comes to making good choices."

Permalink Mark Unread

"The superpowers didn't come with magic good judgment."

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"How good was she at deciding stuff?"

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"Really good. Really, really good, and more when it was important."

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Stir stir.

"Then maybe we're not really very alike."

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"Also totally consumed by self-doubt all the time, though."

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"Oh, well. At least we have one thing in common."

Permalink Mark Unread

"If you were my Karen you'd need a hug really badly right now but it wouldn't be great if I asked because you'd - she'd - feel like -"  he runs out of words and gestures unhappily.

Permalink Mark Unread

She half-laughs, bitterly, and buries her face in her hands.

 

"Supposing I believed you about not being evil, and about wanting to help because you have some kind of duty to a deceased version of me. What would the plan be now."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Check if my family exists in your world. Double-check the time dilation with respect to our home universes. We can just open the door and try to arrest a napkin in the middle of falling to the ground, probably. Ask the bar about getting jobs here that pay enough for food so we can stay a while - maybe if janitors normally get free accommodations and we only want one room between us we can get food money too - we can take the room in shifts, I mean - 

- anyway, wait and see what traffic is like, see if we can find someone who will make that convenience store run for me and get my family, because they'd love this place. If after a couple weeks we haven't found anyone we can give up on that and go to your world and make money and solve your vampire problems and skip town probably, it's not a good idea to get attention if you don't have backup."

Permalink Mark Unread

" - uh, OK, so, first part of that mostly sounds good except that Bar says that time passes differently between different parts of the bar and if we're not going to stick together we have to keep that in mind. Second part of that sounds - I can't really easily just leave town, but I guess there'll be time to explain the specifics of the situation after we figure out more about where we are now."

Permalink Mark Unread

" - I mean, we absolutely can stick together, I'd much rather never lose sight of you again, it's just, I have met a Karen before and I was guessing that plans to share a room would freak you out."

Permalink Mark Unread

"No, yeah, correct, just - if one of us wanders into a room alone then we shouldn't have a plan that could result in one of us spending three days waiting for the other to show up. Or anything."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That's good to know. Hmm, I wonder - I can communicate telepathically with people, I wonder if that will just fail to work if we're in different rooms." 

Permalink Mark Unread

"I guess it's safe enough to test, as long as one of us goes and gets the other after it's been a minute or so?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Sounds good."

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"Uh - how exactly does the telepathic communication work?"

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"It's the thing I was doing when I showed you my Karen, except I can do it with words too and I can hear you if you think back at me."

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"Ohh. - OK. I'll - step upstairs and see if I can hear anything like that?"

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"Sounds good."

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She steps upstairs and waits to see if she hears anything.

Permalink Mark Unread

Karen?

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Yeah, I can hear you.

Permalink Mark Unread

Then it should be pretty noticeable if we're off from each other in time.

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Yeah. Makes sense.

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"How do you apply for a job, Bar?"

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I can provide an application. Which job would you like to apply to?

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She comes back downstairs.

"I can do janitorial stuff. If I'm gonna be hanging out here anyway."

Permalink Mark Unread

A janitorial staff application appears.

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Karen fills it out!

Permalink Mark Unread

And presently she gets an employee handbook describing cleaning policies and the keys to room 1943.

Permalink Mark Unread

"What're the qualifications for security?"

Permalink Mark Unread

I can accept disparate qualifications for security because the door contrives not to have anyone on shift who cannot reasonably arrest any patron making trouble. You qualify. The application is longer.

Permalink Mark Unread

He's significantly slower than Karen at filling it out.

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Bar is patient.

Permalink Mark Unread

Applications are stupid and terrible. 

 

They should have a good try at not giving up access to Milliways, obviously, but on the other hand all the time that his world is paused and the dimension where Karen is trapped isn't is additional time she's suffering and it makes him want to leave this place immediately.

 

Eventually he finishes it.

Permalink Mark Unread

He gets an employee handbook too. It's also longer.

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He heads off to read it outside in a bit of a bad mood. He keeps looking through Karen's eyes to stop them from slipping off into different timestreams.

Permalink Mark Unread

Karen is reading her handbook.

It's nice, knowing that time is paused, at least if that's actually what's happening. She feels like it's been a really long time since she's been able to take a break without being irresponsible and letting something important slide.

Permalink Mark Unread

He moves to somewhere where he can see Karen and has periodic stabs at reading his handbook and watches her.

Permalink Mark Unread

When Karen is done reading she will ask Bar whether there are any pressing janitorial tasks in need of doing. Also whether her room has any means of storing the rest of her shake.

Permalink Mark Unread

Your room does not come with a refrigerator, but you may borrow one; the cost of items you borrow is added to your tab but will be refunded in full when you return the items.

Permalink Mark Unread

Hmmmmmmm.

"What if it breaks or something?"

Permalink Mark Unread

If it breaks your refund will be partial.

I am not aware of any mechanism to require or enforce the repayment of a tab. Some patrons are superstitious about it, but I believe as many of those prefer to leave some unpaid tab as prefer to make sure it is always paid down.

Permalink Mark Unread

"I just don't really wanna owe people money. Since I don't, uh, have any. And it seems not to go very well in general."

Permalink Mark Unread

I understand.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Thanks anyway."

 

I'm gonna go check out room 1943, OK?

Permalink Mark Unread

I can sing the milkshake cold, though that's not really a permanent fix.

Permalink Mark Unread

- are you just listening to everything I think, or -

Permalink Mark Unread

No! I was just listening to your conversation with the bar.

Permalink Mark Unread

Oh. Right, Star Trek alien senses. OK.

- uh, I don't super expect the shake to be a recurring problem. And if I cared that much about it I could theoretically hand it out to Connor to put in my existing refrigerator. S'not like it has much in it right now.

Permalink Mark Unread

Right, so getting a refrigerator is probably excessive, but I can sing for it if you want.

Permalink Mark Unread

Oh.

If you want.

Permalink Mark Unread

Singing is fun.

Permalink Mark Unread

I'll, uh, leave the shake with you, then?

Permalink Mark Unread

Sounds good.

Permalink Mark Unread

She opens the back door, sets it down outside, and heads off to see what her room is like.

Permalink Mark Unread

It has a nicely made bed, a nightstand with a lamp, a ceiling light, an ensuite bathroom with bar soap and toilet paper and towels but nothing else stocked, and a rug on the floor.

Permalink Mark Unread

She hasn't slept in an actual legitimate bed in months. Hasn't been super easy to take regular showers, either, given that her apartment at home has five people and one bathroom. 

She's just gonna spend some time showering and brushing her hair and sleeping in a bed and generally becoming less of a swamp thing.

Permalink Mark Unread

He sits outside and sings to her milkshake and tries to figure out the least creepy way to be in time-dilation-avoiding telepathic contact with someone who can't keep him out and is taking a shower and decides to take his chances on the time dilation and ignore her a while. It's very hard. She's Karen and she needs help and what if she changes her mind and leaves without him. (He turns to sit where he can see the door.)

Permalink Mark Unread

She doesn't leave without him. She sleeps and washes her face off and eventually heads downstairs and starts cleaning things up.

Permalink Mark Unread

Milkshake: still cold.

Permalink Mark Unread

Neat.

Room's free, if you want it.

Permalink Mark Unread

Thank you.

 

He takes a shower and washes his clothes in the sink and hangs them up to dry. I'm going to sleep; if it's been ten hours for you then come and get me, okay?

Permalink Mark Unread

Will do.

She cleans.

"...so the janitorial position is just room, no board?"

Permalink Mark Unread

I'm afraid so. I'm not at liberty to set the wage.

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's fine. - what, um, are you?"

Permalink Mark Unread

I'm the bar.

Permalink Mark Unread

"...were you, like, created at some point?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Perhaps, but I'm afraid my memory doesn't stretch back that far.

Permalink Mark Unread

"I guess it doesn't for most people. Do you have, like... any very cheap breakfast options?"

Permalink Mark Unread

I can get you a bagel with cream cheese of whatever flavor you like for 53¢.

Permalink Mark Unread

"That sounds OK. Strawberry cream cheese, please."

She leaves exactly 53¢ on the table.

Permalink Mark Unread

Her bagel appears with an apparently complimentary glass of ice water.

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"It's very good," she says, after taking a bite. When she's done, she sips what's left of her milkshake.

This is a nice place. She can't camp out here forever, and she feels like she's gonna be pretty bored for the ten hours it takes Tyelcormo to sleep if time doesn't do anything weird, but it's a nice place.

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It doesn't take him ten hours to sleep; it takes four. (Two pass in the main bar.) His clothes aren't dry when he's done but he declares them close enough and, after some consideration, leaves his hair down, pinned back just so it won't get in his face. 

Anyone come by downstairs?

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Nope.

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Too bad. He descends the stairs.

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He smiles again when he sees her.

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This level of happiness about her general existence weird but also kind of endearing but also kind of making her nervous about how much cooler the other Karen probably was.

"So, uh, plans for today?"

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"You wanna tell me what you know about the debt collecting vampires? At least until my security shift starts?"

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"Oh, um. They're vampires? They work for this guy named Adam Lin? I've, uh, only run into them once and I don't really know how many warnings you traditionally get but I'm guessing not many?"

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"How'd you know they were vampires?"

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"Fangy faces. There's - kind of a lot of weird stuff in LA. I'm not really an expert, or anything, at all, it's just - around."

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"You know vampires can't get into your house, right? Unless someone invites them in."

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"I, uh, kinda have to leave my house on a regular basis."

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“I figured. They also can’t do daylight.”

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"Plan A is in fact to hide in my apartment whenever it's about to get dark and, uh, hope I get enough money to pay people off before something less specifically vulnerable to daylight comes by and kills me."

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"See, that's very sensible. If everyone was that sensible I'd have way less to do."

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"So far it's mostly leading to problems on the feeding myself front."

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"Isn't America supposed to have food stamps or something? - not blaming you, just."

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"Well, yeah, if you can go to a government office and prove that you have less than two thousand dollars in assets including your car. The kids get free lunches at school, but - yeah. And, look, it's not like things have been like this for that long, OK, I'm still - figuring stuff out."

They've kind of been like this for a while but she doesn't really wanna get into all that.

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"How many kids are you looking after?"

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"Two."

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"Connor and..."

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"Zana. Suzanna Tiu, Azalea's youngest."

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"How much younger?"

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"She's six. Connor's twelve."

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"Huh. I think Azalea just didn't have her, in our timeline."

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"Ah."

This makes some degree of sense, given the circumstances surrounding Zana's birth, but it's sad to think about anyway.

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- he caught that but hadn't meant to. He decides not to ask.  "In our timeline Connor's father was dead by the time Karen's parents died, when Karen was fifteen. Karen survived because of her slayer powers and moved in with Azalea in Sunnydale."

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"Oh. ...my parents are alive."

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"Oh! That's good. I think there was a boating accident."

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"Huh."

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"How much money do you owe?"

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"Like six thousand dollars."

(She should never ever ever ever have gotten into this situation, but she's in it now, and she's not gonna get out of it by pretending she isn't. The stabby embarrassment pain from talking about it is probably about what she deserves.)

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"Okay. We'll get it sorted. Fast if we find my family and a little slower otherwise but no matter what we'll get it sorted."

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"OK." She doesn't actually look at all cheered by this.

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This is not surprising. He wishes he had a better sense of how money works; he doesn’t know how much jobs pay or anything.

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Karen mopes for a bit.

"Shouldn't've asked for it," she says, eventually, even though this makes the stabby embarrassment pain worse. "Should've worked at, like, Wendy's, until the frosties killed me."

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“That doesn’t especially sound better but I guess I’ll take your word for it.”

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"Well, the frosties take longer about it and don't menace your kids. Also presumably at some point you get sick of them and go back to eating broccoli."

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“I haven’t given a lot of thought to how Karen should live her life without superpowers but I wouldn’t go with Wendy’s. Taking care of kids in foster care, maybe?”

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" - literally nobody would let me do that. And it doesn't pay enough to live on anyway."

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“If we get a fancy house then I bet they’ll let you. I don’t really know much about how it pays.”

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"I'm, like, a poor single twenty-two-year-old high school dropout who's already living with two kids and her great-grandmother. wouldn't let me adopt kids. And I really don't think it pays like a job, mostly just enough for expenses."

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“Okay, but would it be good for you?” 

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" - that's not really relevant."

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“That’s pretty much the only thing I’m here for. Well, also whether it’s good for the kids but good for you is good for them, mostly.”

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"I don't think predictably wrecking more things will be good for me."

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“Kay.”

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"M'sorry."

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“I’m really glad whoever did this to you is a vampire so I can murder them.”

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"Has vampires. - and not even really him, I did this to me."

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“If he’s not himself a vampire then I probably can’t kill him.

 

Might be a demon,” he says more cheerfully.

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She misses her shake. Stirring her shake would be awesome right now.

"No one else - we were fine, and then I made choices, and they were bad ones, and now I can't feed my kids, and I'm sorry that this is not a very sympathetic backstory, but it's how things are."

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“I mean, at some point vampires got involved. I would not be very surprised if that wasn’t the first sketchy thing that happened.”

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Sigh. "Well, I wish you luck in fighting the vampires."

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Sigh.

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"Sorry."

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“You keep saying that.”

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"My Karen does too so maybe it's not a sign anything's wrong but it seems like it also might be a sign you're - "

 

He pauses, unhappy, for quite a while. 

" - it seems like it's maybe a sign you're vastly, vastly underestimating how much it'd take to annoy me."

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"...possibly. 

 

"I'm annoyed with me."

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"That makes sense! And being annoyed about the situation also makes sense, if I were in it I'd be miserable, just - just don't be expecting I'll care? Because I'll leave if you tell me that you really honestly want me to even if I'm telling the truth about everything but there isn't anything else that'd make me leave."

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"...OK. I don't - super want you to leave but I'm not really holding my breath for this to fix anything. Except the vampires. I guess I would be unsurprised if you fixed the vampires."

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"I am honestly pretty sure I can fix the vampires and make six thousand dollars though I don't know how long it'll take and then we can figure things out from there."

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"How're you planning to do the second thing?"

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"Is there the slightest chance that if I say 'don't worry about it' you won't worry about it?"

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"Nope, that's literally impossible."

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"Figures.

 

 

I won't hurt anyone or steal anything."

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"...I have no idea what you consider to be hurting people. Especially if stealing things is in a separate category."

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"Making fake invoices for $600,000 in HR services and sending them to IBM and getting $600,000 doesn't hurt anyone but it's stealing and I won't do it, even though I have been taught how in case of emergencies."

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- she actually super doubts that this is a victimless crime but it's not like she knows anything about anything or is qualified to have any sort of opinions about money.

"Fine, whatever. I just can't actually accept large sums of money from random people, especially if I don't know where they got it."

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"Okay. I'll tell you what my job is once I have one. I don't really know yet what options I'll have." He has a guess but he will responsibly apply for lots of normal jobs first.

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"OK. - isn't Bar paying you for stuff?"

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"Yeah. It might've said somewhere in the handbook how much, I didn't finish reading it."

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"I could finish reading it. If you want. I don't have anything to do here besides clean things anyway."

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"That'd be helpful."

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She'll just read things then.

Anything about reimbursement?

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Security staff receive an amount in their preferred currency equal to 512 skloradikon standard electrum ingots in value per subjective day on shift. (A helpful chart indicates that 512 skloradikon standard electrum ingots can buy 6,023 of the median-priced drink sold at Milliways.)

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"Bar, how much is the median-priced drink sold here in, like, dollars?"

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Nine cents. The water is free.

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Scribble scribble -

- that can't be right, she does the math again -

 

" - you're gonna pay him five hundred dollars a day?"

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It's hard to retain qualified personnel. That's actually one of the lower pay grades.

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"OK! My revised plan is that we stay here for no less than two weeks, because in two weeks you will have more than six thousand dollars."

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"What?"

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"Bar's gonna pay you about five hundred and forty dollars per subjective day. I guess if you take two-day weekends it'll be a little bit longer than two weeks. Also that's, like, insane, but apparently it's, uh, hard to retain qualified personnel."

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"Huh, okay. Maybe I should stay here for a couple years until I can buy you a nice house where you can retire and raise foster kids."

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"...I wouldn't, like, stop you. I'd probably have to stay here, too, but - I can do that, I guess. It seems like maybe a kind of sensible way to approach finding a magic bar that pauses time."

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"If you don't want to lose five years of your unless-I-fix-that mortal life you could step through the door into my world, I could close it, supposedly no time would pass for you."

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....she is not super sure whether she trusts the Star Trek alien to open the door again. The Star Trek alien does know an awful lot about her, and is also wrong about a bunch of things the way you would expect an actual mirror universe person to be, if you were for some reason expecting alternate realities to be a thing, but maybe the Star Trek alien has been planning this for, like, a really long time, or something. Somehow.

 

"Are you gonna get, like, lonely?"

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"Nah. Might get bored. Maybe I will try to learn a human trade or something so that when we go to your world I can get a better job."

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"I'm not really sure they have better jobs, pay-wise. Other than, like, brain surgeon."

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"I mean better than what I could get now, not better than Milliways security. I could learn to be an electrician or something. Then I could build your house. It's actually kind of embarrassing that I couldn't build your house right now."

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- this is actually legitimately endearing.

"I think you need, like, a permit."

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He makes a face. "Usually other people do that stuff for us. I guess if we have enough money we can figure it out."

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"Yeah, probably. I - think I wanna double-check the time freezing in both universes with the napkins, and then maybe take a couple days to, uh, sleep, and then - maybe."

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"Okay. It's fine if not, it's fine if you only wanna do two weeks, it's just, five years is nothing for me and would pretty much solve your problem so we should think about it."

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"Yeah, no, it totally makes sense. I just, uh, don't want something to go wrong and for me to get stuck separated from Connor and Zana."

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Fervent nod. "If you're trapped in my world you just gotta walk to the convenience store and call my brothers, but yeah, still."

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"I see. - you should, uh, possibly give me their numbers, then, just in case?"

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He rattles them off. "We can write it on your hand or something."

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"I have paper. - uh, we can do both, I guess, if you think something's gonna happen to the paper, but stuff on hands gets smudged."

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" - yeah, that's fair. We can write it down on paper and you can call from the convenience store and they know how to do interdimensional transit, it has come up before. Though it would be better to avoid."

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"They've done interdimensional transit before?"

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"Yeah, uh, it's a long story but I got trapped in an alternate history and while they were trying to get me back so did Karen but eventually we figured out how to send ourselves back."

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"...huh."

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"Stuff comes up."

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"Sounds like it, yeah."

 

Milliways really is kind of boring when there aren't any other people. There's cleaning to do, but you can only clean so much if people haven't been by to mess things up again.

"Hey Bar, you have, like, books, right?"

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I do. Many patrons use me as a library.

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"...does it cost money to read things if I return them?"

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No, as with the hypothetical refrigerator undamaged items refund your tab.

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"This place is so good. - can I borrow stuff that hasn't been written yet in my timeline?"

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Yes, although of course even if I try to otherwise closely match the worlds you may find that your local product diverges should it ever arrive.

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"That's OK!"

No one has ever had so much power and all of her sorrows are as a passing shower. Probably she should be doing something really important like learning how to cure cancer or something.

" - can I have every single Remnants book?"

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If by 'every single' you mean all versions across all universes, no, not simultaneously, they would collectively violate the requirement that items fit in the establishment.

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(There are so many universes with so many versions of the exact same people!)

"Wow. - can I have version of the Remnants sequence that makes sense with the books that have been published in, uh, whatever you call the universe I'm from?"

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I don't assign them names, but yes, I can do that.

Stack of books.

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"You are the very very best bar."

She takes her books and says something that maybe sounds like "byeTyelcormoseeyou!" and heads back to her room to read.

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He should also do that but he super super super doesn't want to. 

 

 

Ugh.

 

"Do you have, uh, history and science books written in Valinor in the last couple of centuries -"

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Yes. She provides a selection.

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He retreats to a corner to give himself a headache and mope and figure out what they've been up to.

 

 

They have not been up to much. That is soothing.

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She's... just gonna monopolize her room for several hours and think about this rapidly dwindling cast of a characters whose problems are way more dire than any of hers. That'll be fine. When she gets thirsty she'll drink water from the tap, and when she gets hungry she'll ignore it, because fixing this problem would require either paying for things or directly asking for questions from her alternate self's Star Trek alien best friend.

Eventually she runs out of new books, reflects on how she is really failing to actually solve any problems this way, and heads downstairs to return her books to the Bar.

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Bar accepts the books, disappearing them as they are set on her surface. Can I help you with anything else?

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"Uh - I should think about how to be responsible about using the books. I should also probably eat something. I guess."

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Do you want me to put a meal on your tab?

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Mrrrgh.

 

"- you're, uh, good paying stuff off after you get paid, right?"

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"Hmmm? - oh, of course, of course. Eat something."

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OK then. Gotta order something like a reasonable person. She'd ask what they have, but she's pretty sure they have, like, everything, which means she has to produce some kind of preference without any sort of, like, prompting.

 

"Can you do, um, fried rice and crab rangoon and sesame chicken, but like, all of those the way they have them at the Kung Fu Buffet in San Jose?"

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And here they are. Big ol' heap of rice, six crab rangoons, pile of steaming hot chicken.

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"Thank you."

(It's been a really long time since she's gotten to have something this good and safe and home wrapped up in a food.)

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She needs a hug so much and he can't hug her. It's terrible.

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Tragic, really.

She very contentedly munches her food.

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He turns back to his stupid horrible books.

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"So what'd you get? Books-wise."

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"Uh, I was checking in on what they've published in my dimension of origin since I left."

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"... isn't it supposed to be, like, paused?"

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"Not since I got here, since I left there, eight hundred years ago, except actually before that I was busy being dead so I haven't been there and alive in like thirty-five thousand. It's a long story."

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"Ohh. - seems like that'd be a lot to catch up on."

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"I'm not gonna get through all of it."

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"Yeah. I mean, nobody could. Probably. Unless your dimension has, like, twelve people in it."

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"I just wanted to skim for important stuff but I hadn't actually given a lot of thought to how I'd do that given all the books ever and no one to talk to."

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"Yeah. - I keep thinking I should be, like, asking for a cure for cancer, or something, but it's not like I'd understand it if I read it anyway."

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"My family would, they'd get in here and solve everything. 'S why I want to figure out how to get them."

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"Maybe I could call them. I guess."

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"You don't have to. The vampire lair that is apparently the last place I went that had a door doesn't have any vampires anymore but it's still pretty unpleasant."

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"I mean, I think maybe so is having cancer?"

She doesn't even actually know what she's trying to argue herself into, here, but if she's willing to step out for a second and trust him to open the door again at some point, then in theory finding a phone shouldn't be that much more of a risk, and it seems like a bad thing not to consider it at all.

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"That's a very Karen sort of answer."

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She sighs at her food. Somewhere in the multiverse there is - no, was - a Karen who was much less of a loser than she is. She isn't at all jealous of that person, but their existence does sort of make her want to hide in a hole for twenty years.

Thing number one: Tyelcormo is the only person here who can open the door for her. Even if she called in someone she trusts from her world (so... Connor, or possibly her cousin), they wouldn't be able to open the door to where she was. She has no particular reason to believe that Tyelcormo is going to turn out to be randomly malicious, other than that people sometimes are, but she feels like she should still be weighing the possibility. He could, in theory, shut the door and leave through the back. He could also do this if she steps out without the intention of calling his family. He could probably even do it now, honestly, just grab her and shove her out the door after opening it, and the fact that he hasn't suggests that either he isn't this variety of evil or that his evil plan is very complicated. Probably it's the first thing, since the only reason she can think of why he might need to lure her instead of shoving her is that it might be important that she not realize that he's evil, and if he shuts the door and leaves through the back then she's going to know, because time will be passing and the door will be shut.

Thing number two: she's going to have to call smart important powerful people she doesn't know on the phone, which is horrible. 

Thing number three: if she succeeds, Milliways will be full of smart important powerful people, which will mean that she will probably not ever be able to spend any more time relaxing in Milliways. 

None of these are really reasons not to ask someone if they could maybe stop by and cure cancer. It's going to blow up somehow, because good things always blow up, but this is not really an excuse not to try.

She miserably pushes the rice around on her plate.

"Where do you think the closest phone is, from there?"

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"You can see the town once you get outside and there's a convenience store there which has a phone. We're in no hurry even if you do want to do it."

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"I guess. - Maybe in a couple days, or something."

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"Mmkay."

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She does not sigh at her food again. She doesn't have to be happy about giving this place up, but she doesn't have to be dramatic about it, either.

She finishes her food. It's a lot, but she has a hard time not eating food placed in front of her, given all of the everything. She asks for another novel, but when she gets back up to her room, she doesn't read it. She paces. She makes an effort to breathe disappointment out and breathe calm, levelheaded consideration in. She turns the situation around in her head, over and over and over, smoothing out the corners so that the sharp parts don't sting.

It does make it hard to feel like she's going to be able to spend any more time here relaxing, though. Crushing responsibilities are bad for that.

Eventually, when she's pried out most of her attachment to this place, she heads back downstairs.

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He has given up on his book and is sitting there weaving baskets.

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"I can do the thing. If now's a good time."

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"- yeah, now's good."

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She pulls out a pocket notebook. "I need a number to call and - when I get them what do I say?"

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"Alex sent you, there's a magic anomaly here with controllable time dilation and lots of books, they should come by real quick. Should they ask Azalea if she wants to come?"

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- different Azalea, not hers. Probably way cooler than her in some way. But an Azalea who's missing her Karen - and therefore going to be really disappointed by what she gets - although honestly it's really hard to picture Azalea ever being disappointed in her for any reason - that's her Azalea, though -

"...do you think she'd want to?"

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"Yeah of course."

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"OK. Then - sure."

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"So then tell them to get Azalea because our Karen isn't here but an alternate universe Karen on the run from vampire bounty hunters in LA is and she could use a hug and sure can't help."

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"I will, uh, try saying something to that effect. You good to hold the door open until I get back?"

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"Yes."

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"OK then. Did the lair, um, have another door?"

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"Yeah. It's a basement, you'd wanna go up the stairs."

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"OK. I'll - see you in a bit. Probably."

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"I'll listen the whole way and if anything seems to be going alarmingly wrong I will shut the door and open it once I have a solution."

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" - OK. Sure."

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He puts his basket down and opens the door.

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Deep breath. Ignore the blood.

She heads through the door and up the stairs and out of the building and looks around for a convenience store. There, OK. She heads in, brute-forces the bare minimum amount of human interaction needed to figure out where the phone is, and calls the number on her paper.

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Someone answers. Not in English.

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"Umm, hi, this is Karen Tiu and I'm calling this number because Alex told me to?"

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"Oh! Hi, Karen - wait, Karen who?"

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"It's - nevermind. There's a, uh, some kind of magical anomaly here that opens doors into other universes, and I'm from one of those, I guess, and Alex thinks I'm a version of someone from this universe who died? Or something? And also if you go in you can access published materials from virtually any universe that exists, supposedly, and Alex says you should come here and see."

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"Okay. Are you at, uh, ... store in Hunter's Point, Alaska?"

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"Probably?"

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"Okay. Is Alex there too?"

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"Sort of? He can't leave the anomaly on this side without closing it."

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"Okay. Backup's on the way. Anything else?"

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"Um. He thinks maybe you should tell Azalea that there's a Karen here. Sort of."

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"Will do. Do you want us to bring her once the area's secure?"

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"Um. If she wants. Yeah."

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"All right. Looks like the first people will arrive in about three hours."

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"OK. I'll, um, go tell Alex. Thank you."

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"Of course."

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She waits a few seconds, realizes she's stuck, says "bye", and hangs up.

It's less terrible crossing the street back to Milliways. Not because anything has improved, really, she just doesn't have any phone calls to make on the other side of the street. She has enough presence of mind this time to notice that it's cold outside.

"They said people will arrive in about three hours."

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"Oh good. Are you okay?"

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"Yeah! Fine."

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"Great." He keeps holding the door.

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"I'm gonna go... clean stuff," she says, even though this is not terribly necessary, because it is theoretically her job or something.

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"Okay."

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She'll just do that. And try not to think very hard about anything for the next three hours.

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They are, as promised, there three hours later. They get an explanation from Celegorm before they're within sight. 

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They walk in, request a long list of books from the bar, and then request a room and head up to it to read them.

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Should I give the money to you or her -

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I don't know! I'm not good at people stuff even when I know the people! - maybe to Azalea?

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Kay.

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Two minutes after they arrived they have all vanished. 

 

"I'll have to bring them food sometimes."

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Oh good. If they're not doing things in her vicinity then she doesn't have to be conspicuously superfluous.

"Yeah. I guess so."

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"Otherwise they'll all starve, they're a bunch of dumbasses." He says it very fondly. 

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"Well. Lucky they have someone to think about food and stuff, then."

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"Yep, I stab things and feed the smart people, that's how everything works."

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"I mean that's cool? I don't really do anything, so."

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"- you're not raising two kids and working full-time and dodging vampire loan sharks?"

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"...technically. Except the working full-time, I think it's probably impossible to make it to work by a reasonable time from this particular vantage point."

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"Okay, sensibly working around the vampire loan sharks."

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" - I just mean I'm gonna get fired today. I try at things sometimes. I don't so much succeed."

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"I got my Karen killed before she was even an adult."

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"Was that actually your fault?"

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"Well, yeah."

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"Oh, well. Maybe we are both bad at things, then. I wouldn't know."

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"Everyone's bad at things, Karen. There's a lot of things."

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" - yeah, but some people are good at some of them. And some people are bad at most of the things that matter."

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"I think most people are bad at most of the things that matter as soon as vampires are around mattering."

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"Plausible."

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“When I saw where the door opened I figured you’d be too freaked out to go get help, but you were fine as soon as you decided it was important.”

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"I'm freaked out by lots of stuff. Just not, uh, mostly things that it makes very much sense to be freaked out by."