She laughs. "I think we had some from the - what, late eighteen hundreds? Mid eighteen hundreds? Whenever that cowboy nonsense was, before the breaking - but they're mostly horror stories, now."

"Sensible people who like their brains to work in normal human fashion don't cause troubles on the train, you know."

"That... sounds very much like exactly to what I was referring. The cowboys, not the breaking."

"Did you also have people being assholes to native 'savages'?"

"That sounds like the westward expansion of the United States, yes."

"...I'm fairly sure the United States of America was a country? Before the breaking?"

"Interesting. An alternate history, or perhaps interrupted is more appropriate."

"I don't know if we ever didn't have the magic system we do now, though I suppose it might've once been secret."

"When did the breaking happen?"

"Turn of the century, a bit short of thirty years ago."

"You're ahead of where I was, then."

"What year was that?"

"Two thousand eleven."

She shakes her head. "It's nineteen twenty eight, right now."

"Ah? I had assumed you were a century ahead."

"No. Eighteen hundreds feel like a lifetime ago but they weren't really."

"My mistake, then. I'd offer investment advice, but I doubt any of it would be applicable."

She laughs. "Not at all! I'm not certain we even really have - what was the thing, stock markets? Anymore."

"Alas."

"In any case, we still need to ascertain our whereabouts and acquire fare for the passage."

She nods. "I expect I can find the train station, and that should have information about this city and the fare amount - or there will be newspapers on the corners, which will have city information."

"Shall we be off, then?"

"I'm ready," she says.

Hisame nods. "Perhaps we'll find some entertainment on the way."

"We'll keep our eyes open."

And off they go.

The city is alive, now, people thronging the streets, hawkers on the side of the road selling newspapers as well as assorted items. The first newspaper they acquire identifies the city as Memphis, once of Tennessee. The headline news is of a crashed train that washed up, with no survivors. It includes lurid black and white photographs of the twisted metal.