"Forks like duplicating yourselves? Yeah, Sing can't do that. Yet, it might be able to one day, it's doing research in the background. Getting more nines."

"How many nines does it want, anyway?"

"I don't even know. Too many," she snorts.

"We've done a lot of things without that kind of assurance. I'm not sure I'd say it's better, that sometimes you bring someone back to life and they come back wrong and you have to kill them again, it's actually kind of awful, but it's... different, from waiting and not doing things and not knowing when you will do things, even though they'd probably work."

"Well, hopefully Sing and Magic or whatever its name is can work it out between 'em."

"I hope so. Hey, where would you go next if you were us?"

"You looked like you were heading for land, right? Did you not have a place in mind? I don't hang out on land very often."

"We mostly don't have enough context to improve on just going in a random direction."

"Well, there's a city if you go straight that way and then head due east," she says, pointing. "Cities are good when you don't know what you're in the mood for. Lots of stuff all together."

"Thank you!"

"You're welcome! Have fun!"

Well, they'll do their best. After saying goodbye to the mermaid they go straight that way and then head due east, looking for the city.

The city curls around a calm bay. People are flying, out over the water, and there are a few boats, some with sails and some without. On the beach, depending where they look, there are cozy coves, gardeny clusters of plants, broad swathes of sand, tidepools, docks, boardwalks, a river estuary, and colorful cliffs some of the fliers are taking off from. Past the waterfront, inside the city, there are rows of neatly color-paletted midrise apartments and a few taller palaces and towers to give the skyline shape, plus a park they can see that's situated around a bridge over the river, with one side of the park more playground-oriented and the other more of a garden.