" - well, that's a shitty roll of the dice. Super not allowed these days, in case no one told you that yet. None of it. No human sacrifices, no abductions, no concubines. I guess there are still some emperors but all the good planets are democracies."

"What's a democracy?"

"Rule of the people by the people for the people! In a democracy, every single person gets a vote on who the new ruler will be, and whoever gets the most is the ruler - but only until the next election, with rules so no one sticks around forever."

"Ahuh. Emperor's elected."

"That doesn't sound like an Emperor, then, if you can just vote against him a couple years later if he turned out to be a homicidal maniac. - also in democracies you arrest the president if they're a homicidal maniac."

"Huh. I mean he's elected for life. I suppose he's a homicidal maniac, but I kind of figure they all are, Scandinavians. Though I'm not really an expert on Scandinavian politics, it's not really my department."

"Yeah, democracy doesn't really seem like it'd solve the problem if the whole country was homicidal maniacs. Scandinavia, huh, really? All you ever hear about Sweden in my world is that their jails are really cushy and they have a lot of taxes."

"Spent the last six months in a dungeon, but I don't think 'cushy' would be in my top five words for it, honestly."

"What year was this, do you know?"

"Year of our lord ten twenty-four I think. It might have been twenty-five. I dunno how the pagans count it."

"We find Earths at lots of different points in their history, but I think that's the earliest that didn't have dinosaurs. Unlucky for you, I'm sorry."

"Nah, it's all right. I think things are going better now for me than they were."

"No dungeons here! To get to Maria you'll want to transfer in Revelation."

And the bus jumps to somewhere else; some people get off, and others get on.

The bus does this three more times before it reaches Revelation.

She hops off the bus! Is there anyone who looks like they might know where a place called Maria is.

He points her at another bus! The second bus driver confirms that he goes to Maria. 

Cool, cool. She thanks Dave and heads on over to the second weird metal box thing.

The second weird metal box makes its own weird magic hops and drops her off somewhere with canals and tall houses facing them, and people racing up and down the streets. "Do you know where you're going from here?"

"Not a blessed clue. I'm supposed to be finding my sister."

So the bus driver walks with her down to the resettlement office to figure that out.

Resettlement knows her address, and knows the door code for that address, and knows (after texting Catherine's neighbor) that Catherine is presently at church.

"That sounds good for her! Where should I be going exactly."

"If you'd like to go to the house where she lives, I can take you there! If you'd rather live somewhere else, I can set that up for you. If you'd like me to take you to the church to meet her, I can do that, too."

"I think I will go meet my sister, yeah."

"Okay!" He walks her to the church.

Wow that sure is a - structure that may be a church, yes. She'll just waltz in and see if she sees her sister anywhere.

"....Anne?"