"I know defining people by their careers is a longstanding American tradition, but I'd hope the Martian empire would be a little more enlightened," says Roberta.

"I'm not. I'm judging you for the golf. Golf is mind-numbing," says Bella, smirking.

"As long as you don't comment on the size of my balls, I think I can survive your disdain," says Roberta.

Bella snorts. "I guess not everyone can jump out a window and fly around when bored."

"Yes. Gravity: a tragic human limitation."

"I'm a human. It's the other Bella who's a vampire."

"Silly me," says Roberta.

"Very." Bella takes a long drink of milkshake. "At the risk of sounding both like a cliche and like I'm hitting on you, neither of which is the case: come here often?"

"Not very," she says. "But I appreciate the break when it happens."

"I've only been here four times, this being me on my way home from a round trip," Bella says. "And the first time, my personnel - officer? manager? I need to pick a title for her - found the door. I found it the time after, though. My alternate doesn't encounter it often; it's usually her kid."

"Why doesn't your personnel manager have a title?"

"I haven't been an empress for very long, and getting her one hasn't been a huge priority," Bella shrugs.

"Where did the empire come from, if you don't mind my asking?"

"I went to Mars and terraformed it and declared myself the empress thereof," Bella says. "With magic. I have a fair amount of magic."

"...Has anyone immigrated?"

"A handful of people, so far. We're still working on breaking it to Earth that it's an option, so it's personal friends at this point, but I think the free rent and magical healthcare and teleportation-based subway and stuff are going to get attention."

"Free rent and magical healthcare definitely sound promising," says Roberta. "What's the catch?"

"There isn't one. It's magic. I can offer all that stuff on the cheap. I want people to have a nice place to live and not die or worry about paying the landlord. I get to call myself Empress and lay down magical laws-nigh-unto-physics around Mars so people don't stab each other or set anything on fire, and they get to live in a place where those things don't happen and they get the necessities without a hassle."

Roberta smiles wryly. "Maybe this is my cynical Gotham roots showing, but that sounds too good to be true."

"Gotham?" Bella asks. "I wonder if you're from the same one that my boyfriend's alternate lives in. I don't think there even is a city by that name on my Earth."

"There isn't in a lot of worlds," she says, looking slightly unsettled, perhaps because of what Bella has told her about said alternate. "One of those weird Milliways things. I haven't met very many people here who do have one."

"Weird. I got the impression it was a big place. Do you know anything about how it was founded?"

"Sorry," she says. "All my historical knowledge is a little more recent."

"Oh well. If Gotham is so cynicism-inducing, why is it a big place? Why doesn't everyone pack up and move to someplace nice? You don't have a magic door to a terraformed Mars, but I imagine you have a California."

"A lot of people don't have the option," she says, looking a little withdrawn. "Some of them like it just fine the way it is. And some of the rest of us would like to see it get better."