"They have a Christmas themed country called apparently Aldovia! Which I don't have but I guess that is not definitive evidence for you."

"I haven't heard of every country..."

"It's in Europe and they speak English, I would be way less confident if it were in central Africa."

"Oh, that is weird.  ...Do you want some of the," he checks the label, "Cheeziots?"

"Sure I'll try one." Theft of a Cheeziot. Cronch.

It is a cheesy potato-based puffed cylinder.

"...I'm curious to hear more about the other people you were with?"

"Xavier and his niece or I think actually some kind of complicated cousin situation that rounds to niece, her name was Ari. House kinda in the middle of nowhere, I think she doesn't usually live there but he had a second bedroom. He cooks. They have vat meat here!"

"What?"

"Like they can grow meat that isn't an animal. They do like, weird hybrids, you can get orca and stuff, it's cheaper and I found it indistinguishable except in shape, they still have the normal kind for like snobs and stuff but presumably a lot less."

"I don't want to eat that."

"Suit yourself? I doubt there is any in the Cheeziots though I cannot confirm right now because I cannot read."

"I'm a vegetarian," Julien nonchalants.

"For health reasons?"

"No."

"...we can talk about something else if this is not so much a talkativeness subject."

"- Sorry.  I'm sorry."  Cling.

"- I got found by a lady on the street, I didn't get her name, and she was sitting with me in a cab to the hospital but then at a stop light the driver got held up with a gun and they took me out."

"That's a lot faster than I got kidnapped, I guess I must have been one of the earlier arrivals."

"You were," Svetka confirms.

"And then I got asked a lot of questions, and blindfolded and taken some places, and then there was I guess a fight scene about me and here I am."

"Kinda questions did they ask?"

"Um, stuff about what I'd been doing, what my world was like - I guess it made it to you that I'd lied about my name..."

"Yeah she said Martin at first. She's got maybe freaky movie-character-quality lie detection? She had me lie to her presumably to calibrate that. I'm not good at it though."

"She is very scary and I will do whatever she wants."