Oh good, the presentation means she doesn't have to make conversation anymore. What a good presentation.

...cancel that, this presentation is mystifying and kind of worrying and, wow, really? Someone's been keeping track of this? Except apparently not very well, because they got Veronica mixed up with someone who did actual good in the world.

(Or did they? Now is hardly the time to start taking people at their word.)

Her companion seems less confused. Probably because he's supposed to be here.

Johanna appears after the presentation. "Veronica! Come with me, I'm gonna introduce you to your soulmate."

"Oh... good?" No, less sarcastic. Be less sarcastic. She attempts a normal smile, like a normal person who is going to be introduced to her soulmate and finds this prospect pleasant and not deeply unsettling.

"I really think you're gonna like him," Johanna says.

Then they're standing in front of -

- a man shorter and thinner than Veronica, who twitches slightly at their abrupt appearance.

"Hello!" he says, standing from his chair and extending his hand. "It's lovely to meet you. I'm Tariq - call me Tintin - you are?"

"Veronica." She shakes his hand. She mostly manages to conceal how weird and awkward she feels about it. "Good to meet you too." Dropping his hand as quickly as she can get away with, she says, "Soulmates, huh? That's new."

"Isn't it just! Johanna, is that - baked in somehow, a fundamental fact of reality, or merely one of your probabilistic calculations -"

"The answer to that question is approximately 'both' and also 'neither' but mostly 'ask me again after a few thousand years studying the fundamental nature of reality'."

"Johanna has been saying many cheerful things like that."

"Cheerful," she repeats, trying for sincerity and making it about five percent of the way there. "Yes."

"I've also been informed that - what was it, Johanna? The Good Place is so thoroughly optimized that -"

"- even a blade of grass out of place could cause a cascading system failure. But don't worry, we've got automated systems for that now. After your first few grass disasters - disgrassters, if you will - you learn to be pretty careful."

"Just so. I really consider that to be a fascinating revelation about the nature of reality. Veronica, would you care to visit our undoubtedly delightful new house, in which we are to spend the rest of eternity together?"

This is the face of someone who is trying SO HARD not to give any external evidence of a sudden attack of grass-displacing urges. Smile! No, more innocently than that! No, less innocently than that, that's too innocent and she probably looks like she's up to something!!

—right, a conversation is occurring, which she is a part of—

Somewhat stiffly, and still with that fluctuating smile: "Yeah sounds good."

"Johanna, if you would."

And they're standing in front of a house.

"You two have fun, I'm off to introduce some more soulmates." And Johanna is gone.

Veronica, still a bit panicked from the effort to conceal her thoughts of vandalism, wrenches open the door without really looking at it and strides into the house.

She freezes, then, carefully, without turning around, backs out again. She has forgotten to take down the Innocent Smile and it's beginning to look a bit glassy.

"I was not ready," she announces, in a slow, unsteady voice, "for that amount of clown."

Tintin opens the door and peeks inside.

"Bit blatant, isn't it," he comments obscurely. "Most of this has seemed - well, plausibly deniable."

"—uh, sorry, plausibly deniable...?"

"-oh, I'm sorry, I suppose it may be less obvious to you. Something's wrong." He pauses. "Actually, let me rephrase that. Everything's wrong."

"You... may have to start from the beginning here. Also, should we, uh, go into, the," she waves vaguely at the door, "clowns? I'm not super enthusiastic about going into the clowns but neither do I want to stand here all day." Oh shit she forgot to pretend she's a good person. "...and maybe you'd like to get off your feet?" she adds, weakly.

"Yes, let's go into the clowns."

They enter the clowns. Tintin sits in an appallingly ergonomic chair.

"Perhaps I should introduce myself properly. Doctor Tariq Saint-Martin. Professor of ethics and philosophy at Oxford. Or, at least, I was, until I performed some unwise political activism in my home country and was shot. Yourself?"

"Veronica Chaplin." Shit, did they use her last name? Fuck. She's pretty sure they used her last name but what if they didn't??? "I..... did.......... things." GOD SHE'S SO BAD AT THIS.

"I suspected as much."

Tintin hops out of the putative chair, strides over to a liquor cabinet, finds it filled with a wide variety of cocktail mixers and no actual alcohol, nods briskly. "Allow me to make some presuppositions. I'm a philosopher, it's a habit. One. You arrived here - the Good Place - following an untimely death. Two. Since arriving here, you have felt off-balance - off-kilter - out of sorts. You have been awed by the splendor, but not positively - you have thought wow, I bet I would love this if it weren't for... Three. No one else has seemed similarly off-put. Indeed, the other residents have struck you as almost inappropriately happy, for people who, much like yourself, recently passed away."

He uncaps a bottle of Lonely Gal Margarita Mix for One, sniffs it, makes an appalled face, and turns back to Veronica. "Are my hypotheses correct?"