A redhead with a baby steps in, dozily swaying on her feet and singing: "- and if that pirate will not dance, Mama's gonna take you to Paris, France, and if the Eiffel Tower's down, Mama's gonna hire you a birthday clown -"

The man looks up and waves a (six-fingered) hand. "Excuse me, ma'am? The door took you here instead of where you might expect; this is a restaurant between worlds."

"And if that -" She trails off. She blinks blearily at the hand, trying to make it resolve into a normal number of fingers. "Wha?"

He does not let himself hide the hand. "The first drink is free, if you want tea or exciting alien beverages or anything?"

"Tea is... illegal?" she says.

"What? No, it's not! Or - you must be from a different world than mine. It's not illegal here, anyway. The bar is a person and would probably give you some if you wanted, although she offers infinitely many other choices if you'd rather not?"

"I... don't want to do illegal things? In front of my baby and everything?" She sways with the baby, who is drooling on her shoulder but not quiiiite asleep.

"Fair enough! What's your baby's name?" He smiles and waves at the baby, but seems to be looking in some confusion for something else on or around her.

"Catherine!"

"hi, Catherine" he whispers.

"... My apologies if he's just small right now, but where is her soul?"

Rebecca blinks at him a few times.

"Her soul?" she says, eventually, like she must have heard wrong.

"I believed witches kept their souls with them at least into late childhood and wanted to make sure he wasn't lost or stuck? My nephew's used to sometimes get twisted up in blankets and keep him up. I may be misinformed though, sorry."

"What?" says Rebecca eloquently. "Is this a video game? I don't really play video games."

"No? This isn't a game, arcade or otherwise. Are – sorry ma'am, are you not a witch?" The creature on his shoulders starts to look them over in some agitation.

"I'm a Mormon, I don't think we're allowed to be witches."

"I'm not familiar with the term, what does that mean? I don't see your soul with you, what are you if not a witch? Is her soul with her in there, do you need help?"

"I think I've slept about half an hour in the last four days so I really don't know how to figure out what you're talking about."

"Oh no! I'm worried that something is wrong with your souls, the parts of you that look like animals and hold your personalities. I'm a theologian and might be able to help find them?

"- Actually, the sleep issue sounds more pressing, if less overall important. Is coffee also illegal in your world? Some parts of the restaurant do time dilation, I could watch Catherine for a bit while you sleep in one, if that would help, although it would be totally reasonable if you didn't want that?"

"Coffee's illegal too but if you wanna watch Catherine I am actually totally cool with that wake me up if she starts nuzzling you," she says, handing over the baby and weaving over to a couch to faceplant on it.

Catherine, in arms, continues to have no visible soul.

"Sleep well!"

He can totally take care of a maybe-zombi baby! Tiny warm baby who is basically indistinguishable from a baby with a tiny hiding insect soul.

If he moves very slowly, can he pick up his notebook and head over to Bar without waking her up any further?

Yup. Catherine drools dozily upon him.

Good! Tiny sleepy zombi baby!

"Bar," he whispers, "do you happen to know which areas of the restaurant move most slowly in time, relative to the couch the woman whose name I have just realized I do not know is sleeping on?"

I'm afraid it's not consistent moment to moment, but you can arrange to be in potentially different flows of time as long as you aren't directly observing her.

"Is there anything I can do to make it likelier that more time passes for her than for us?"

There are various superstitions but nothing substantiated. Would you like to borrow a clock to watch?

"Yes, thank you."

A clock appears, ticking.

"Thank you!" He carefully takes the clock, then goes to sit at a table facing away from the non-witch to add the new information about time dilation and notes about his encounter with the woman and baby to his notebook, assuming that he can do so without waking her up if he uses his other hand.

He can do this, though she does stir and make a noise before settling back down to drool on another part of his shirt.

(Zombi-baby saliva doesn't seem to be particularly dangerous, and he's lost shirts to monster fluids for worse reasons even if it is. What a cozy, sleepy injured baby.)

He adds speculation about what might have happened to them and how and why in the margins of his notes in a simple Julian cipher, on the grounds that one shouldn't have plaintext speculation about brainwashing via intercision or reversing the effects thereof, even in a temporary set of notes.

Rebecca sits up after a bit. "Uh," she says, sounding much better, "mister armadillo-wearing dude?"

He turns, relieved. "Ma'am?"

It might be rude to correct the witch-or-zombi about his soul being a pangolin, so he doesn't, although she climbs to stare at the woman over his head.

"Thanks for watching Catherine, that must have been forever, I feel so much better, did she not wake up?"

"Good! It was no trouble. She didn't, but time sometimes passes at different rates here, for people who can't see each other. Do you want to take her back?"

"Yes please." Scoop.

Deposit!

"Now that you're better rested, and I'm sorry if this is rude, but did something happen to your souls?"

"I think our souls are fine? I mean, she hasn't been baptized yet, but I think our souls are fine."

"No, I mean, your souls aren't with you? Regardless of their state of salvation?" He looks baffled.

"Where... else would... they be?"

"I don't know! Mine is right here," the pangolin waves, "but if yours are missing and you don't know where they are, that's probably bad?"

"Your soul is an armadillo?"

"She's a pangolin, actually, but yes?"

"Um... why? Is your spirit a mandolin?"

"Because she settled as one when I was thirteen, and it was the most appropriate shape for her? What species is yours?"

"I'm a human? You mostly look like a human but with a mandolin."

"I am a human! All humans have souls shaped like other animals? I thought you might be a witch instead of a human, because witches can go places without their souls, but you said you said you weren't allowed to be one? And I don't think even witch babies are supposed to be away from their souls?"

"Somehow you are managing not to make sense even now that I'm not so sleep deprived."

"I'm sorry. I'm worried because it looks like your souls, where by 'soul' I mean the part of you that takes the form of a talking animal and helps you have feelings and make decisions and interact with people, are not here. Are any parts of that wrong or confusing?"

"Yyyyes, the part where you expect us to have animals that do those things. That's confusing."

"You don't have them at all?"

"No."

"Oh! Sorry for the confusion, then, I suppose that isn't an emergency. Everyone in my world has them. Can I ask you about what your world is like?"

"Sure, I guess, but I'm not doing super well in school."

He nods sympathetically. "I'm curious about how society without souls, or at least external souls, works, but it would probably be hard to figure out the specific differences. What species of people are there in your world?"

"Of people? Humans. I guess maybe there's aliens but I'm not super clear if the aliens are just on different planets or in whole other universes."

"We haven't found aliens on other planets yet either, but we've only actually been to the moon. Although there are apparently aliens in at least one other universe! - Speaking of alternate universes, what year is it in yours? One of the many-material-worlds hypotheses is that all universes are the same age."

"It's 2040."

"It's 2026 for us. That might just be due to a difference in calendars? What's technology like for you?"

"Um, do you wanna look at my phone?"

"Yes! If it's close enough to the door you came in through that I could see it without letting the door close?"

...she reaches into her pocket and hands him a phone.

He and his soul inspect it with delight!

"Do you know how it works? It's not connected to anything! Do calls still go through an exchange?" He turns its screen on and off a few times, then starts gently looking for opening compartments.

"I - I think they had cell phones in 2026."

"I'm a little behind on news in that sort of invention, but I'm reasonably sure that if my world has portable phones anything like this, they aren't public? As of a few years ago, the closest published designs are the Svedish radio-telephone, which is about the size of a briefcase and only works within a few cities, and the New Danish phone that can place calls from moving Cthonic trains. And I think the Muscovites might be working on improving the range and reducing the size of portable communications radios?"

"We have Sweden but I think the Danish are old not new and don't know what thonic or muskratites are."

"Oh! Our countries and maybe our continents might not be the same!" He hands back her phone to sketch out a loose map of Earth's continents. "A Cthonic is a train that goes underground in cities. New Denmark is here," he points to a region of northeastern land including about a third of Gilead and a tiny bit of Canada, "and Muscovy is somewhere over here, I think?" Vague gesture around eastern Europe and western Asia.

"Are your continents like this?"

"The shapes look right? But this is Gilead and Deseret's tucked into it here and this is Mexico and there's Cascadia. And that's Canada. I don't know that much about Europe."

He labels countries accordingly. "Okay. For us, that's New Denmark, except for the Republic of Texas down here. Then, most of Mexico, Deseret, and this little piece of Gilead are Hispania Nova, Cascadia is pretty close to Astoria, and the rest of Gilead and Canada are split between New France and Beringland, I think. Where are you from?"

"Texas is a state of Gilead. I live in Deseret."

"Huh. My world's Texas is pretty vehemently independent. What's Deseret like?"

"It's - very Mormon? Like not everybody there is Mormon but most people are."

"What does that mean? I think you said it was why you couldn't be a witch, aside from already being a human?"

"It's a kind of Christianity! Has it not been founded yet in your 2026?"

"I don't think so, or at least not by that name. We have... Orthodox Catholic Magesterialism, Reformist Magesterialism, Byzantine Catholicism, and Solae Evangelism, are I believe the main ones. And Alleghenic Rebaptism, but that's only really practiced in Texas and southeastern New Denmark? The newest are Solae Evangelism and Alleghenic Rebaptism, the others have existed for around a thousand years, depending on how you count them. I think some restorationist branches also came to or formed in New France, New Denmark, and Astoria, for the nominal religious freedom, but I'm not sure what they're called, or how large any of them are."

"Back home there are Catholics but I think they're just plain Catholic... and Baptists but I don't think Rebaptists... and evangelists but those are mostly Gileadites, I don't know what Solo Evangelism is..."

"I believe the schism between the two branches of Magesterialism was rather violent until they settled which was allowed to call itself 'Catholic', but both of them believe that the Magesterium in Geneva has divine authority, while the Byzantine Catholics do not. Rebaptists baptize people again as young adults, in case it matters whether they made a decision, and Solae Evangelists believe that only people's private interpretations of scripture matter for their salvation, rather than tradition or theological consensus?"

"I'm not gonna remember all that."

"That's fair. What distinguishes being Mormon from other kinds of Christianity?"

"Oh, uh, we have extra Scriptures is I guess the big one? And littler stuff like the coffee and tea thing. I think some kinds of Christians think we aren't because there's some thing that we don't think is exactly right that they think is a requirement for being a Christian but other than that we're obviously a kind of Christianity."

"If it does exist in my world, it's almost certainly on this continent, because extra scripture is illegally heterodox in Europe, but just discouraged in most of the countries here?"

"Oh. Mormonism started in the United States back when there were those. Joseph Smith founded the church after an angel told him some stuff."

"Neat! I'll need to research to find out if Mormonism exists or ever existed in my world when I return. I've been working on trying to experimentally prove the existence of angels."

"That's a funny sounding project."

"Yes, it wasn't my original plan, but I noticed some interference in the measurements for my main project with similar patterns to those recorded the last time angels were reportedly observed. –Have they figured out how to get pictures of angels to develop correctly in your world?"

"I... don't think people have tried taking pictures of angels. We don't see them that often."

"Oh. That's too bad. We've only had a few reported sightings in the last century, and it was mostly a matter of luck that the most recent, about twenty five years ago, was in a research chapel that was recoding measurements at the time."

"Wacky."

"Yeah. Unfortunately, most of the other details of the circumstances were censored, so there's only a little bit of data before and after it was there, and about half of the readings in the middle were redacted."

"Oh, how come?"

"They didn't release an explanation, but presumably the experimental-supervisor from the Magesterium decided that something in it might accidentally mislead or confuse a layman into believing something false, or heretical?"

"Sounds kinda Gileadite."

"Huh. The same region in my world was rather revolutionary for not requiring the supervisors. What's Gilead like, then?"

"They censor a lot of science and a little math because if they let people learn it they think it'll make them stop being Gileadite somehow."

"Weird! The Magesterium meaningfully censors maybe fifteen percent of theological and artistic works, and almost nothing from the other sciences. ...If their theories are contradicted by validly done math, wouldn't that just prove them false?"

"I don't really know a lot about it."

"Okay. It doesn't sound like a particularly good or useful system to spend the time to learn about."

"I was actually meaning to say I don't know much about math. Anyway, my church doesn't suppress any academic anything, there's some blockers on the internet so foreigners don't put porn on our computers but that's different."

"Oh. Well, good for your church. They got an internet working in your world? That's amazing!  –and people use it for porn? That seems like a waste; I'm glad they've figured out a setup to help avoid it."

"People use it for so much porn. You don't have an internet but you know what it is?"

"That's too bad. Yes, assuming it's an interconnected network of computers and ordinators, between many smaller networks, probably using something called 'packet switching'? My friend was closely following publications about developing an internet a few years ago, he'd hoped to join the International Computing Network project."

"I dunno what an ordinator is but that sounds right."

"They control computers and circuits according to some set of rules, I'm not sure how exactly they work. Does it connect the whole world, or only individual continents?"

"Whole world!"

"Wow! That must help so much with publishing information! Maybe my friend isn't wasting his time on personalized computers. -Global internet doesn't actually bring about world peace, does it?"

"No. Not at all."

"Oh well. People like to say that about every new hypothetical invention, but it would have been nice if it were true."

"Do people actually like to say that? I don't think I've heard it."

"About all sorts of things! Atomics would make the cost of war too high for anyone to accept, people wouldn't be able to hate people they saw sympathetically on television, nobody could deny that their enemies are people with particle-counters, and so on."

"Particle-counters?"

"Specifically Rusakov particle-counters, because the particles are attracted to people?"

"I never heard of a Rusakov particle or a particle that was attracted to people."

"Oh! Your world might not have discovered them yet! Souls are mostly made of them, but yours seem to be internal, and everything else they do is much subtler. People used to think they were the physical manifestation of original sin, but it was proved that the relevant measurements were being performed incorrectly. Would you like to try to determine whether your world has them?"

"I guess if you think that sounds fun I don't mind."

He grins. "Okay, stop me if you get bored or lost!

"So, Rusakov particles, colloquially called 'Dust' are elementary particles, like photons, anbarons, and neutrinos. They're about the size of protons and neutrons, the largest common subatomic particles. Do you know if your world has those?"

"I think we have protons and neutrons and photons. I'm not sure about neutrinos and I don't think I've ever heard of an anbaron."

"Hmm. Neutrinos are really small and difficult to observe, but I think if you have protons and neutrons, you have to have anbarons and neutrinos?

"Do you have circuits? Computers and phones run on circuits, in my world. Currents are created by anbarons traveling through wires, because they're attracted to the opposite charge of protons."

"I think maybe you mean electrons."

"Oh! Yes, it's a bit archaic, but they were called that before we discovered the direction of current; the direction of current is the direction anbarons travel, but was the opposite of the direction of electron travel, under the old model. But they refer to the same particle, yes."

"If you say so!"

"Okay, so the subatomic particles seem to be the same, which implies that at least the other elementary particles are the same? I assume you don't have emulsions for developing photos so that adults show up brighter than children? Do you have auroras, colorful lights in the night sky, usually near the poles?"

"Adults aren't brighter than children in photos but we have auroras."

"I'll try and remember the formula for the emulsion later if you want. Do people sometimes see cities or landscapes in the auroras, maybe while meditating or praying?"

"I don't know why we'd want bright adults in photos? Mostly we want photos to look how the things look in real life. I don't think I've ever heard of the cities thing."

"If the emulsion works, that would confirm that your world has the particles at least, and might let your world's theologians move on to other discoveries about them? I'm not sure why the cities wouldn't show up. I'd expect that to be difficult to successfully censor if it happened at all."

"Theologians don't study particles."

"Experimental theologians if you're being formal? Or is particle physics and philosophy treated as a different form of study in your world?"

"Philosophers do like... what is the meaning of life, and theologians are like, how do we interpret Scripture, and particle physics are like how are all these particles bopping around, they're totally different."

"Huh. My world's philosophers do what's the meaning of life and what are the rules everything in life follows and why, and theologians do interpretation of Scripture and study of Creation and interpretation of Creation? And then physics emphasizes studying movement, and experimental theology emphasizes studying what the world is like, rather than interpreting its meaning?"

"I guess that's a way to do things!"

"It seemed like the only way, it's interesting that it can be done differently. Are experimentation and research completely non-religious in your world, or do your theologians and philosophers still interpret discoveries about the world, but without participation?"

"I guess they interpret things? You get newspaper articles about what the Church thinks of a new biotech thing or whatever."

"Cool. It seems like poorly executed studies with a specific intended conclusion that hope to sway religious policy might happen less often that way. Does the Church set legal policy from its interpretation of research and technological development? Which kinds of technology does it generally have official opinions about?"

"I really don't know a ton about this. Uh, you need special permission to go on birth control and if a new medicine comes out which depresses fertility they decide whether that counts?"

"Okay, I can stop asking about it. I'm not sure if we have that in particular, but it sounds like one of the same categories. I suppose the control systems of your world have empirically produced superior technology."

"Control systems?"

"Sorry, it's not a specifically meaningful phrase. I just meant that the systems of laws and culture your world has seem to have led you to develop technology ahead of ours. Possibly with the exception of particle-discovery, if you actually have Rusakov particles, but if your world doesn't have external souls or magic, then I'd imagine that they won't be very practically useful?"

"Yeah, not obvious what you'd do with them. But Oliver says that about lasers, somebody invented lasers but didn't know what they were for and now they're for a jillion things."

"That matches! When I was young, I thought it would be possible to make a perpetual motion machine with them, but it didn't work out. Who's Oliver?"

"He's this missionary with an online mission, I started talking to him to find somebody to talk to a Gileadite I follow on Tumblr who was having problems."

"Oh. I suppose an internet would allow for remote missions. Tumblr is a server on the internet?"

"It's a website, I guess that's like a server."

"Neat! Was he able to help?"

"I don't really know, I don't get updates. I hope so."