EVERYTHING IS FINE, reads the wall in front of her.

Does it.

"Veronica?" says a woman poking her head out of her office. "Your turn, hon."

"My turn to what?" But she does get up.

"Well," the woman says, "first things first, I'm Johanna. And you're dead."

"...nice to... meet you?" Is she for real?

"You too! You can verify that you're dead by holding your breath for a full minute, or by stabbing yourself in the hand with this letter opener and observing how you don't bleed."

Johanna offers up a letter opener.

"Do you say that to everyone or just the ones who look at you skeptically?"

She takes the letter opener. She does not stab herself in the hand with it.

"The latter. You in particular, because I thought you might be amused."

She clears her throat. "That being said... ultimately, what you need to know is: The people on Earth had it broadly right. While 'heaven' and 'hell' as you know them aren't real, there is a good place... and a bad place. The universe cares about what people do. Good things, bad things. And when you're done, you get what you deserve. And you deserved this." She pauses for effect. "The Good Place."

"I did?" she says blankly.

"You're very modest. I guess I'd expect that, from someone with your record! You helped so many people - saved so many people. It's folks like you who make me wish we had something better to offer than eternal happiness."

...okay. So. That's happening.

...the only play here is to play along, right? Because, if she buys into this story at all, then there is a Bad Place and she belongs there, and somebody fucked up and sent her here instead, and simple self-preservation dictates that she try to drag out this misunderstanding as long as possible.

Question one: how the fuck does she pretend to be whoever they think she is? She saved people, apparently? Who does that??

After a pause that is really kind of too long, she ventures, "Did I really...? I mean, obviously that's what everyone hopes for, right, but I don't...you always worry in the back of your head that nothing you're doing really matters..." Ugh, she can't believe those words just came out of her mouth. Is she sure this beats being on fire?

"Well, believe me, it did. Everything matters. What you did just happened to matter more than most. And you devoted so much of your life to it - learning philosophy and law, devoting all the privilege you inherited to traveling the world contesting unfair legal decisions and reversing wrongful judgments. The final count, if you're curious, was eighty-seven people saved from unjust imprisonment and two hundred and three saved from unjust execution." She lets the numbers sink in. "It's amazing. And to have your career cut short because you were..." She squints at the page in front of her. "Hit by a car while jaywalking? Is monumentally unfair. But it does mean you get your eternal reward that much sooner."

The first thing she thinks about those numbers is that they seem way too big and the second, weirdly, is that they seem way too small—surely someone who devoted their whole life to making the world a better place could have had a bigger impact? Well, maybe not at her age—and then she hears 'hit by a car while jaywalking' and the memory of her death blots out everything else.

It hurt, which was bad, but that wasn't the worst part; the worst part was how crushingly stupid it felt. Lying there with her vision slowly darkening and nothing to blame for it but her own carelessness.

After another too-long pause, she opens her mouth hoping that words will come out. They don't. She is completely unable to come up with a single thing to say. She makes some sort of a speech-like noise and closes it again, hoping that everyone is this supremely awkward five minutes after dying.

(—and wait—they're wrong about everything else but right about that? How??? How is that the single thing they know about her?)

"I'm sorry. I know it's a lot to take in."

"...thanks. Is, uh... what... happens now...?"

Suddenly, they're standing in a field of chairs. "Well, we have an introductory presentation in a few minutes. Then, an eternity of happiness!"

"...neat?"

Wow, could she have thought of a more inane response than that?

Johanna pats her shoulder. "You'll love it."

Then she's gone.

Somehow, she gets the feeling that she is not, in fact, going to love it.

Okay, chairs. Where is the nearest chair. There? Great, hers now.

And a gentleman looking uncomfortable in his suit sits next to her, with equally little consideration of his options.

"Hi," he says. "I guess you're, uh, new here too?"

"You could say that."

"Cool. I'm Ari. Really looking forward to the part where we're happy forever."

"Veronica." (They called her by name, right? Yeah.) "Same, I guess." She should probably make some kind of comment about how she wishes she'd had more time to help people or whatever but that sounds exhausting.

"Nice to meet you, Veronica!"

The presentation begins.

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?"

"You, uh... yeah, you could say that, I think." Maybe if she is MAXIMALLY NONCOMMITTAL she won't trap herself into revealing anything she shouldn't.

"I could! Excellent. Now, I, perhaps like you, was informed upon my arrival in this place that all Earthly religions were wrong. This did not come as a particular surprise to me. Perhaps it came as a particular surprise to you! But as a man who has spent the majority of his life interacting with systems of moral and ethical logic, I have long believed that Earthly religions mostly lacked internal consistency. They did not have, as you might say, the spark of the divine. They had the spark of the tragically mortal. They sought to explain why, not how. - I'm getting distracted. People talk about the 'seventy-two virgins,' a muddy and ill-considered mistranslation of the Qur'an. People talk about 'a land of milk and honey'. Heaven, in a word, is pleasure."

He turns to Veronica, his eyes just a little bit wild. "Veronica Chaplin, have you experienced pleasure in this Good Place?"

She opens her mouth and what comes out of it is, "Coming on a little strong there, aren't you?"

No! Bad! Should not talk to her quote unquote soulmate like that!!

"—sorry," she says, in a voice that sounds as though someone is trying to squeeze the sarcasm out of it with some kind of industrial sarcasm press. The strain is palpable. "Um. No, I have not... as such... I mean, it's just orientation, right? Everything is very... nice... here, I'm just... ad...justing?"

He barks out a laugh, then - holds himself very still and breathes in and out. "I apologize. I have no intentions on your virtue. I - this is a stressful situation for both of us, I think, and I should not be taking it out on you, certainly not if you are - going to be living with me." He collapses back into the ostensible chair. "I have access to information which, currently, you do not - which, ostensibly, no one else does. That information colors my perception of this place quite strongly."

He grits his teeth. "You are, perhaps, under the impression that we are 'soulmates.' I have my doubts about that concept in and of itself - but coming as it does from a source which should have no reason to mislead us, I might accept it - were it not for this fact that I have hidden from the world."

He looks Veronica in the eye. "I am not attracted to women. I am, in fact, attracted to men. It would have to be a rather poor Heaven that picked you for my soulmate."

...that gives her pause.

Her face passes through several expressions in semi-overlapping sequence—surprised, confused, taken aback, thoughtful, considering, reconsidering—and she concludes, "Reasonably sure I'm not a man."

"I am, if not happy to hear it, then pleased to have saved you the discomfort. But perhaps you understand now - some things I can overlook. The general air of unease, the adherence to a tacky Americana-centric standard of happiness, the - clowns - I could live with those. But the idea that God in His Heaven looked down and knew enough about my internal motivations to set me confidently in the Good Place, but could not penetrate my closet - something is wrong. This Good Place is not functional. And I want to investigate if it is only me - and if not, why. I made inroads with a girl at the orientation, and I intend to visit her, ask her some probing questions. If you would like to come with me, you are welcome. I intend to bring her some baked goods."

"I... am gonna be totally useless at the baked goods part, but sure, I'll tag along, I guess."

The second the words are out of her mouth, she regrets saying them. She's barely holding it together in front of this lunatic, how is she going to handle even more people? But it's too late now.

"Excellent! If you don't mind, you can still assist me with the baking - it should only take about half an hour, and I could use an extra pair of hands no matter how inexperienced."

Tintin makes a pan of brownies. They come out slightly too crisp, but it's difficult to really mess up brownies. Then, holding the pan between a pair of oven mitts, he turns and says, "Janet?"

"Yes?"

"Please take us to the house of the nice girl I met at orientation."

She does so.