"...I don't know, if I were you, I'd be working towards a society that could handle itself without me," he says. "Like, and then I wouldn't abandon it or anything, but the optimal system is the one that's self-maintaining, you know?"

"Sure, I agree," says Pattern. "But that doesn't mean we'll have nothing to do, it just means we'll wind up doing something that's - scaled a little differently. We like inventing things too; we're more magic geeks than engineering ones but I'd consider it a satisfying day's work if I determined that my society could really use, like, a system that sprockles the widgets, and then I concocted one. Especially if for legacy reasons I get to wear a crown while I'm doing it." (Pattern doesn't in fact wear a crown yet; no one has moved to her Saturn so far and she considers it premature.) "Our gig isn't ruling - that's mostly cosmetic and practical. And also vanity. Our gig is finding things that don't work well enough and making them work better."

"Okay, but I dunno, I feel like if that was my goal I would be actively looking forward to eventually having everything work perfectly," he says. "...Man, I'm such an engineer."

"Of course everything working perfectly's the goal," says Pattern. "But exactly what constitutes perfection might change over time."

"Well, then you just need meta-perfection," he suggests.

"That could keep me busy for a long time, figuring that one out."

"Probably, yeah!"

"And I have a long, long time to think about what to do with eternity, anyway."

"Also true," says Tony.

"And we both have a long time to pick up distinguishing features!"

He giggles.

"My world isn't exactly standard Earth, so there's that, I have a Gotham and most places don't. It's just nonstandard in a way unrelated to my pre-pealing backstory."

"A Gotham?"

"It's this city. It's not very pleasant or safe, several Jokers come from there. I think the nearest equivalent elsewhere is New York City, except we also have New York City, it's just not very big or important."

"Oh, huh," says Tony. "Okay. That's weird, to have one city different between the worlds like that."

"I think it's just the one. I mean, there's suburbs, too, but I haven't run into anyone talking about other major geographical or political differences that aren't chalked up to Bell activity."

"That is really weird, which worlds have it and which ones don't?"

"Origin does, Ghosty's original world does, Queenie's original world does. I didn't check all the miscellaneous unbelled Downside-attached worlds for it - Jane?"

[Two of the miscellaneous unbelled Downside-attached worlds have Gothams, the rest don't.]

"Weird," says Tony.

[If Jokers are going to appear in them it won't be soon. One is currently experiencing 1877 and the other one 1908.]

"I guess we have time to figure out what in the world we'll do if we become aware of a baby Joker. I should ask one of the grown ones about that," laughs Pattern.

"I, uh, haven't had a lot of social contact with the Jokers," says Tony, "except at that one party. Would a baby one be some kind of problem?"

"They have terrible dads," says Pattern seriously.

"...Like, 'my misery will make a funny story in ten years' terrible or 'take the kid away right now' terrible?"