He holds the napkin up in front of his face. "It is NOT the absolute truth! That's... how do you explain- the- you can't have been- you never answered the thing about where you came from! Who are you?! Why do you think this is possible?!"

He's this close to demanding to see the manager. He has not, so far, considered the question of whether the staff have a policy on ejecting rowdy guests.

My memory is very good, but does not stretch back as far as it would have to for me to recall my origins, says a napkin. And the landlords don't tell me anything.

"Can my 'mon get free first drinks too?" wonders the girl, still transcribing napkins.

I don't see why not.

"Okay, can I get a aspear smoothie for me and qualot juice for Zag?"

A cup for her and a bowl for her Pokémon appear. The Linoone starts slurping up his juice happily.

"Guh- this! This is useless! You- either you're lying to my face and I don't have the first clue what I could do to convince you to not do that, or you're being manipulated by someone who doesn't think you'd do your job better if you were better-informed! What am I supposed to..."

He drops his hands and takes a seat at the bar.

"...I'll have a coffee. Lot of cream and sugar. Please."

Here is a lovely coffee with lots of cream and sugar.

I think I do my job very well, remarks a prim napkin.

"Your boss- or bosses- who you've never met- think it's a good idea for their clientele to show up here completely unexpectedly and against their will, with absolutely no way to find out how or why they got there? I-"

He sips the coffee. It's good.

"I'm sure you're great at, whatever this is, the serving drinks- but clearly whatever whoever made you was optimizing for... was something they didn't think you would optimize for if you knew about it."

You are not a prisoner, says the bar. You may leave if you would prefer not to be here. By far the majority of patrons are less upset than you are.

The girl's transcription is starting to catch up to the current napkin. "How often does the door thing happen? I've never heard of it."

Some people get doors routinely, some even more or less on demand. Others get them only rarely or once, and many people never find Milliways within their lifetimes.

"So the door discriminates. It has preferences about who it should bring in and who it should ignore, and- I'd put money on its selection algorithm taking that "less upset than me" into account. This is not something most people would be totally okay with, if I know anything about most people."

He sips his coffee again. It's suspiciously good coffee.

"...so it wants something from people. Wants them to be comfortable but not knowledgeable, wants them to accept their situation and do something with incomplete information. It puts in a polite talking bar, to give you anything you want as long as it's not too powerful or dangerous."

Manipulation. There's manipulation happening here. But to what end?

"Well, how non-dangerous?" wonders Bella. "Assuming I had a lot of money - hey, can you sell 'mon?"

I don't sell living things, except insofar as things like yeast count, says Bar. And I have some discretion in avoiding selling, for instance, weapons, to people likely to misuse them. The door tends to avoid people who will cause large quantities of trouble while they're here, but not necessarily people who could if they chose, as yourself.

Max chuckles darkly. "'Weapons, to people likely to misuse them.' Called that one. Would've tested it, asked for a gun. They don't want anyone making trouble, for whatever it is they're up to. It's a restaurant, I'm a guest, wouldn't want to make a scene..."

Something should be happening, right now or soon. To take advantage of reciprocity, of course. Something the bar's going to ask him to do...

But there's the door. He could leave whenever he wanted. What is this place playing at?

"But like she said, the bar doesn't keep out people who could make trouble. I have a beltful of 'mon, and you don't have any, if I wanted to mug you or something I could."

Well, Security would intervene, but not necessarily instantly, clarifies the bar.

As soon as the girl is done transcribing the napkin, he picks it up and reads it. It falls from his hands to the floor.

"What's Security?"

Security is a staff of sometime-patrons who choose to work for the establishment in quelling in-bar conflicts.

"Ooh -" The girl flips back in her transcription. "And we go back to the time the door took us from, right? So basically they can put in work and go back home without having wasted any time?"

Under normal circumstances, yes. Your universe will not wait for you if you are not in fact ever going to return to it, or if you cannot do so until conditions requiring the passage of time in your universe are met.

Oh. Okay. That's less scary. Max was afraid Security would have been like the Bar, as in some sort of inhuman force that existed to do its job. Or, her job.

The next napkin reminds Max about the universes thing.

"Okay okay okay HOLD on a second. Universes. I wasn't dealing with that until just now, that's the big thing. What do you mean universes, what- how are universes different from each other? How many are there? Are there other places they connect? What- how can there be Pokémon?"

I can't comment extensively on how else it may be possible to travel between Milliways apart from via the bar, says the bar. Universes differ in an enormous number of respects and there is an unlimited number. The existence of Pokémon is a comparatively minor one.

"Do people who pick up Security jobs get doors more often so they can show up to work?" wonders the girl.

That sometimes happens, but it is not a guarantee.

He contemplates ripping this napkin in half as a dramatic gesture, but is unsure if that would constitute violence against the Bar.

"Is this your game? You play dumb to get me to call you a liar, so that when it's time for you to really lie I'm too embarrassed to call you out on it? I know a thing or two about the... quantum thing, and I know that infinite universes doesn't mean 'sometimes there's Pokémon!' What's really going on, here?"

I assure you that I have none of the malicious motives you're attributing to me, nor does it amuse me to see you upset, says the bar. Your foundational assumptions work only locally, and you have left your locality.

"Don't be a jerk to the nice bar," says the girl. "There's no 'mon in your entire world? That sounds... super different. Huh." She scritches her critter. The critter makes noises.

"Wha- my foundational- no, that's not!"

He sputters for a bit, trying to find words.

"No, this- this implies that my foundational assumptions don't even work locally! I... I'm a human being, and my world's foundational assumptions predict that our existence should be extremely unlikely given starting conditions, and our fiction even more unlikely than that... but a completely different set of foundational assumptions taken from a random alternate universe, the kind that enable that thing-" - he points at the Linoone- "also produced human beings?!" - gesturing at the girl.

"There's... are most visitors here human? Did the door just select us from our universes because our dominant lifeforms were so unusually similar? What- how could there be a match like this?!"

Humans are commonplace but by no means the only visitors, says the bar. I don't know why you are here at the same time on such a slow day.

"Have you considered the possibility that somebody learned about Pokémon here or something, and then went home and made a video game about them because they're cool?" inquires the girl.

He pauses. "That... makes sense, that addresses that problem, but... humans are commonplace? That wouldn't be... my 'local' foundational assumptions, they give rise to explanations about... how human beings happened, and how they function as a result of how they happened, as a product of those assumptions. If an infinite number of universes contain... if humans are common, then... the unlikeliness built into our physics is incoherent."

Unless...

"Unless... you said there were an infinite number of universes, but the door... we know the door discriminates about where to open itself. Humans... may still be improbable under a wide set of possible... physics-s, but the door ignores the universes that don't contain... things that it understands, humans or things close enough to human that this bar would make sense. Am I close?"

"Elves?! That- for god's sake, I suppose that's one of those nonfiction things, too... but as for speculation, it'd mean... the bosses, the door, the whoever... they prefer... it's an obvious anchor, they're human and prefer doing... whatever it is they're doing, to other humans, or people close enough to humans."

There's that manipulation at play again. Silicon-based hive-mind aliens with inhuman psychologies, less likely to be manipulated in the usual ways. Bring in people you can understand, who you can control...

But that comes back around the the same question- he mutters it under his breath- "why?" Why the bar, why the door, with the power to open doors to anywhere... what could they be after that they couldn't take for themselves?

"Do 'mon ever find the door by themselves?" the girl asks the bar.

I don't recall any specific instances, but it may have happened at some time in the past.

"Great, okay. I'm sure that's really convenient for you, with monsters roaming around who know how doorknobs work. My question is..."

His question is "can I get another coffee", because that was a good coffee, but... it's only the first one that's free, isn't it? If there's a trap, it's here. He asks a different question.

"What would another coffee cost?"