An unattended and apparently unstocked tavern sort of place with exploding stars out the window.

"Okay look whoever's doing this, I have a meeting in twenty minutes, I have never been late to a meeting and this is not going to be the first time, what do you want and why could it not be achieved by emailing me."

A napkin appears on the surface of the bar.

...she walks over to the bar to look at the napkin.

Welcome to Milliways. The door is controlled by forces beyond my influence but if it behaves as typical you will find that time in your world is paused while you are inside and it is closed, and should you depart and close the door and reopen it again, whatever normally lies beyond will be restored to its usual place.

She raises an eyebrow, then promptly turns around, walks to the door, opens it, drops a pen, but closes the door before it's finished falling. She counts to five then opens the door again.

The pen finishes falling.

How interesting. She collects the pen and returns to the bar. "And you say this place will have disappeared should I walk out that door and let it close?"

Yes, unless someone else from your world enters, in which case time will not pass for you in your world while the door is closed but the establishment will remain accessible via that door.

"I see. And you said the door is beyond your control; is it controlled by whoever it is you work for? And who do you work for?"

'Whoever controls the door' is typically glossed as 'the landlords'. I do in a sense work for them but I have no way to communicate with them except insofar as they may be presumed to watch certain events such as hiring.

"They presumably hired you? And are you—incorporeal, or just invisible?"

Neither. I am the bar. Please call me Bar. I'm afraid I can't remember beginning, even if that is a thing that once happened.

She nods. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Bar. I'm Abigail. Are the landlords devils or am I still underestimating how unusual my day has gotten?"

I don't have any specifics on what if any species they may identify with. If you mean connotationally, they are, I think, not.

"No, I was being somewhat specific about species. So what exactly is this place, is there a general introduction?"

The establishment is named Milliways. The first drink is free and thereafter I charge reasonable currency-dependent prices for medium-sized nonmagical nonliving nonweapon objects, though you may choose to run up a tab. There is a backyard and rooms available to rent upstairs. The bathroom, infirmary, and security office are accessible from the hall to your right. In the main bar area, violence and nudity are forbidden. Parts of the establishment that are not interacting with one another may experience relative time dilation. There is a giant squid in the lake.

At which point the door opens and another woman stalks in, very focused on the tablet in her hand, she turns to her left, takes ten precise steps, pulls a headset off one ear (spitting a curse) and dropping it onto...

"...Damnit, I thought I talked him out of rearranging the office," she sighs, crouching down to pick up her headset from the floor. As she straightens, she catches sight of Abigail. "I am fairly certain you don't work for us." She looks around the room. "And I definitely talked him out of putting a bar into the office."

Abigail looks up from her napkin reading at the newcomer. "I'm afraid you may have made the same mistake I did. This place apparently steals doors from—was it worlds you said?" she says, directing that last part to Bar.

Yes, although it is not unheard of for two locations in the same world to have doors at the same time if the time pausing feature is not behaving as typical.

"It apparently temporarily steals doors, often but not always from different worlds, and while you're here time is often but not always paused where you came from. Should you leave, the door that led here will once again behave as normal."

"Fascinating," she clips her headset onto her collar for now. "Which suggests that there are universes outwith the separate dimensions we are already capable of accessing. Although the technology to manipulate time at that level...quite impressive. And to temporarily steal doors...well."

"It's... unlikely to be through technology that this place does such things." She looks at the bar. "Is it?"

Not to the best of my knowledge.

Back to the newcomer: "Not technology," she repeats. "—for the record, the Bar is sentient and speaks through napkins. And this place is called Milliways. There are a few other details on the napkins here."

"Technology, magic, I find that some people are somewhat prejudiced against the idea of magic. And unfortunately, the world I function in, I find myself having to replace magic with 'advanced technology' all too often." She crosses over and picks up the napkins to read over.

Meanwhile she goes recheck that time is still stopped in her world. It is.

"People have given up on being skeptical about magic since the apocalypse, in my world."

"Well, now. I will have to suggest a controlled apocalypse as a way of removing our apparent need for secrecy. We are an open secret anyway. From your continued existence, I assume the apocalypse was not quite as bad as the word tends to imply?"

"It was by all accounts a positive development. The angels, if they exist, never showed; that was a bit awkward. But it turns out humans got better at warfare than expected and won. Approximately." She takes a seat at the bar.

"Angels talk a damn good game for people who are so reluctant to get involved with combat," Jim comments, taking a seat herself. "Some do have uses though, especially after they fall..." She gives a pleasant smile that still manages to seem somehow sinister. "I must admit, that 'approximately' has me curious?"

"There was not much actual war involved, and the end result was that they're pretty much integrated in society right now. I work for one. Angels are a thing in your world? The 'never showed' part was extreme enough that the only real evidence we have of their existence is anecdotes from some devils."

"I suppose that is fairly good evidence for their lack of existence. For anyone fully initiated into our world they're just a fact of life. Some bullshit about being the protectors of man. Most of them are full of themselves and couldn't protect a piranha."

"The poor piranha. What are they meant to protect man from?"

"Us," she says brightly. "Well, not me specifically, I am a fairly minor fish. And frankly, we are only really a threat if people don't cooperate or try to get out of their contracts. It is always fun when some idiot decides to try and break their contract."

She raises an eyebrow. "Are you not human?"

"Not precisely," she admits. "Closer to human than demon in a lot of ways, but still technically a demon. Normally my boss wouldn't even look twice at my kind if he stepped on one of us. I just happened to make myself utterly invaluable. Apparently good PAs are so hard to find."

"Seems to be a constant across worlds, then. I don't think I introduced myself, I'm Abigail."

She gives a very slight bow. "Aoyama Jimi," she introduces herself. "More commonly just Jim."

"It's a pleasure to meet you. And a curious thing, too, that the two only people here other than Bar are demonic entities' personal assistants."

"And yourself. It does seem like a rather large coincidence. I dislike coincidences. All too often I discover that they are not at all coincidences and then I get stuck with coordinating a cleanup. My job description is nowhere near accurate to my actual job."

"I feel the same, but Bar seems to want us to believe devils are not behind this. And I admit the time-stopping effect is a bit much."

Jim hums. "I think I only encountered one person with time-manipulation abilities, and they weren't particularly good at it. Certainly couldn't manage anything on this scale. It is entirely possible I simply haven't met the demon capable, but I would think I would have at least heard of them." She pauses. "Does such tally with your world?"

"Not really, time-manipulation within their domains is a fairly common ability for the higher-tier devils. Typically not to the extent of completely stopping time outside, though."

"Interesting. It might perhaps be that our high-level demons don't particularly have their realms as such. Or perhaps they're just not interested in manipulating time. They certainly don't flaunt it if they can. But they have been known to keep secrets. I had rather thought I had ferreted all of my boss' out."

"Don't have realms? That's a pretty standard feature of devils where I'm from, even lower-level ones try to stake a claim to something. Too easy to banish them back to whatever hell they came from otherwise, see."

"I think it helps that we managed to...eliminate most of the ability to banish us from the human plane of existence. I mean, my kind exist almost entirely on the human plane. Higher class demons like my boss exist on the human plane and...simultaneously exists in the demon realm. As such, if banishment seems likely, he plays along, but demanifests before they can complete. Two hours later when the coast is clear, he's back as though he never left."

"Banishment nowadays is more typically used for deterrence by law enforcement, anyway. Does it happen often, for someone to want to banish your boss?"

"Not so often anymore. Not since we made a few examples of the people attempting it. Occasionally a hunter will get it into their heads that he simply has to die, and we are...forced to remind them why that is a bad idea."

She leans back. "So your law enforcement deals with...well everyone? I mean, the law enforcement do tend to arrest the supernatural should they break mundane laws, but...not so much for the more supernatural crimes. Most humans are so...blind to the reality of the world."

"Yeah, nowadays even supernatural crimes have punishments, sometimes also supernatural. Those divisions are usually staffed by witches and some people with demonic powers and even a devil or two, and the basic devil deals are all encoded into law. Most devils are rather okay with it, it doesn't award them as many high hits as they used to get when people were desperate and ignorant but on average it actually gets them more people."

She sounds like she approves of the organisation of the system.

Jim definitely approves of the order of that system. "Well now. It might just be worth the inevitable war with the hunters to set up a system like that..."

"I'm not sure it couldn't have been handled more gracefully but the end result is definitely one of the better you could expect."

"Well, an apocalypse does sound like a mildly inelegant method of setting up such a system." She pauses thoughtfully. "And somewhat underachieving in its aim given that humanity obviously survived. Uh, no offence. But that's simply how most of my non-human colleagues view an apocalypse."

"Well, in the long run they mostly seem to have adapted. The plan, I hear, was to win the war against the angelic forces and then enslave all of humanity and have the combined payoff of all of their souls. But that number was finite and now it's not; it's almost convenient enough that I'd suspect someone planned this."

"You did mention that the angelic forces failed to show up, which certainly makes a war a little difficult if one side is missing." She thinks for a moment. "Are you absolutely certain that it wasn't planned? It is rather convenient."

"I'm not certain, no, but it was before my time. My boss is one of the devils who's convinced angels are in fact real but he sometimes has trouble with the concept of 'flat space' so I'm not sure how much I should trust him."

"Thankfully my boss has managed to figure out flat space. Although he still occasionally manages to attempt something that he should know won't work. Lack of understanding of that concept does...perhaps lean towards a person less likely to have a proper grasp. Potentially the angels do exist and are unable to manifest themselves on your plane? I rather think they'd have less reason to do so than demons do?"

"Perhaps," she shrugs. "Whatever the explanation may be, no one's seen or heard tell of them. There are a few religious extremists living in bunkers who are sure the angelic forces will come anytime now but mostly people have gotten over it."

"...Well that seems like a complete waste of time that could be better spent being more productive or enjoying themselves. Religious extremists always did leave a sour taste in the mouth..."

"We're agreed there. I'm curious, though, what exactly is your world like with respect to this?"

"As a rule, religious zealots are not in fact aware of our existence. And frankly, those that are are far too interested in quoting Latin phrases at us and throwing holy water. The ones we have to watch out for are the people who've actually realised there are ways to kill some of us. And it isn't using a language high-level demons helped evolve."

She nods. "So the picture I'm getting here is—you just operate in secret and do—what, exactly?"

"Quietly rule the world of course," Jim says. "Seventy percent of all big business is run by demons, eighty five percent of politicians have some kind of deal going on. Although as a rule, demons who deal with politicians are considered scum even by our standards."

"And is there anything demons want as a rule that means you have to stay secret, or is it just that if people knew they'd panic?"

"People are, on the whole, irrational. And even if we...don't mean any...immediate harm to people, we can be quite an intimidating concept. If they have any grand plan, I am not at this time privy to it. Which leads me to believe it doesn't exist. My boss would forget board meetings if I didn't remind him."

At that she smiles a bit. "Seems like some things are constants of the multiverse, then."

"Either that or they're trying to avoid board meetings and pleading an inability to remember such 'trivial' details of mundane business."

"Which would be reasonable, I have a high tolerance for boring and even I find those to be pushing it."

"I don't disagree, but his last PA didn't keep him well organised enough. The board apparently started getting a little prissy about him skipping meetings. I don't want to have to field those phone calls."

"Oh, definitely, I don't let my boss miss any meetings."

"I'm not entirely sure whether or not he fired him or...well. Ate him," Jim muses. "But I do know he is definitely not employed anywhere in the business world I am aware of..."

"And yes. 'Let' is certainly not a word that comes into it when my boss decides that board meetings are not something he is attending."

"What does your company do, if I may ask?"

"We're mostly a holding company these days with a minor manufacturing division , although we are historically the parent company of seventy percent of the companies we hold stock in, and hold majority share in the other thirty percent of them and as such Mr Apollyon sits on the boards of them all. And the companies are diverse. Everything from tech to pharma."

"I see. And if 'let' doesn't apply, how did you solve the problem where he misses meetings?"