:...I think probably there are rules about that and someone would get mad? Uh, I can try to Google it for you: 

:I don't know what that is but will trust your judgment on its usefulness:

Marian lights up, bouncing a little. :Oh right! You don't know about the Internet! It's really really cool - it's sort of like a library, does your world have libraries - except it runs on computers, which are–: wow how do you even explain to computers to someone who's never heard of them, :which are really really complicated machines that can store information and transmit it and you can make them follow instructions, and then the Internet lets you communicate that all over the entire world...: 

Leareth stares at her in amazement and awe. 

:Oh, wow, that sounds amazing, I have to learn to read English:

:You should! Uh, I'd offer to start teaching you, except I really doubt I'll have any energy for doing things when my shift is over. ....I guess if you had money you could pay someone for tutoring, I could help you find a person maybe. But that'd mean needing to be able to sell things - or get paid for healing people, you already did a lot of that - and we don't know if that's even legal– Uh, I don't know if it's this complicated in your world, but I'm from another country and I had to do all sorts of paperwork and proving my qualifications in order to be legally allowed to work in this country and get paid. And I at least have a standard university degree from a country that the US has heard of: 

:I am definitely not legally allowed to work in this country if you weren't:

Sigh. :I'm sorry you had to end up in a country with awful immigration policy! It's so frustrating. If you were doing, oh, babysitting or something you could maybe get paid under the table - uh don't tell anyone who works for the government I said that, but lots of people do work illegally in the US - but I can't see the hospital being set up for that. At least Dr Millinger's allowed to get you free food: 

She frowns. :...I mean, I guess there's no reason I couldn't just give you money, if I get cash out there's no way the IRS can tell what it was for, right. ....Uh, don't tell anyone official I said that either: 

Marian is constantly unsure how paranoid to be about getting in trouble with immigration authorities, but then again 'private telepathy' has GOT to be one of the safest ways to communicate without literally any chance that the FBI could intercept it. 

:Okay, but that would be your money and not something I was earning with Healing:

:- I guess, but at least you could buy yourself food and stuff. Or pay someone as a tutor to teach you English: 

:Do you make enough money for all that on top of your expenses?:

:I don't have a lot of expenses right now. The travel agency pays for my apartment, on top of what I get paid for hour, and I'm thinking of moving closer but apartments in Reno are really cheap: And lately she doesn't do anything EXCEPT work, and half her meals are ones the doctors buy for the nursing staff. 

:If... it will not be a substantial financial burden for you... then some slush money until we find our feet and can pay you back would be cool:

:I think I should be able to do that. Although, uh, getting you a bank account would be really hard since I'm guessing you don't have anything the US banking system would accept as identifying documents, and I don't know how you'd pass the background check for renting an apartment...: She grimaces and drags a hand over her face. :Gah. I think we probably do have to talk to, uh, someone official, about your world existing - I just have no idea where to start...:

It feels very daunting. (Probably a lot of this is that ANYTHING paperwork-related feels daunting the day after a sixteen-hour shift.) 

:Your world seems a lot more... institutional:

:I think maybe it's more scalable that way? Er, it's helpful for making things go smoothly when you have hundreds of millions of people in the country, I mean: 

:I guess that makes sense. Just this country is hundreds of millions, wow!:

:China has over a billion people just in the one country!: 

:Maybe we can learn useful things here about scalable institution-building!:

:...China is kind of awful right now. And even worse things happened in their history while they were industrializing – here too, honestly. But I guess they've got a lot of competent institutions, at least: 

:Awful things like what?:

:...Uh, they imprison political rebels without any sort of fair trial system - also a lot of people get killed or tortured probably - the government's basically a dictatorship, they have loads of censorship internally too. Uh, and one of the worst parts I read about is, decades ago they had a thing where they tried to - use a top-down planned economy to advance really quickly? But made a lot of stupid decisions or had wrong science about agriculture, and then millions - I think maybe tens of millions? - of people starved: 

:Okay! We will also learn what not to do!:

Marian shivers, hugging herself a little. :I - I'm not sure if anyone in our world knows what not to do, to - avoid those sorts of things happening... It seems to just be how things go. Even when everyone is - fighting for the right reasons and trying their best...: