"Shouldn't look in people's eyes anyway, there's worse things that can happen. First thing my mother ever taught me."

"Oh?"

"There's any number of things that'll hypnotize you with their eyes so they can eat you alive. The Black Court of vampires uses eye contact to enthrall victims and destroy minds, turn you into a living zombie. And I've heard of things that can eat your soul out through your eyes, though there's a fair chance that's a myth."

"Grand. This may be a jaunt that consists entirely of terraforming Mars. Assuming I can ever go home."

"If you'd rather not deal with the unending horror, I can do whatever you need to dismiss you. We're not the best vacation spot, I know."

"If eye contact is the major one I can rig up something with goggles and a video feed, maybe. Save the bees, patch the ozone layer, swing by the NIH and be the Medical Technology Gift Basket."

"You could also wear mirrored shades. Mirrored shades work. Eye contact is not the only part of the unending horror, no."

Cam is now wearing mirrored shades. "Do go on."

"Mostly it's just... there's a lot of supernatural things that prey on humans, and some that would like us to die out entirely. And practically nothing is on our side. So, a human could be eaten by vampires or sacrificed to demons or massacred by zombies at any moment. You specifically are probably safe from most random threats because you're invulnerable-ish, and if you stay anonymous and stick to subtle tweaks then you're mostly safe from magical threats too. But it's never totally safe."

"Subtlety's not my strong suit, but I can rework some of my ideas. I'm not sure how to subtly terraform Mars though. And I've always really wanted to do that."

"You could do it right before you go home?"

"I don't know if I can go home. I've never heard of anyone being summoned to an alternate universe before, and one obvious reason for me not to have ever heard of it is if it's one-way."

"Well... if I can get you to trust my judgment at some point, the Knower would probably have a good idea of whether it'd work. Until then, Mars is probably off the menu."

"Not too far. The apartment's just a couple more blocks north."

Ari also walks silently, his usual chipperness almost fully restored.

How nice for him.

Cam follows Ari in. He'd like to be taking in the decor as a sort of information-gathering practice but mostly he's concentrating on not tripping over his boots.

"I might well like some enchanted shoes. But yeah, nothing about being a demon improves grace. I can make lifesize elephant sculptures out of multicolored corundum if ever I suffer a sudden defect in taste but I cannot ice skate even when I'm not hiding my extra appendages."

"I mean, Sally's kind of clumsy, but I'm not sure I've ever met someone that clumsy who didn't have some kind of neuro thing. Or was drunk, which I assume you're not."