Her kidnappers are not immediately apparent. It's the dead of night. She's standing on a large black stretch of asphalt, bordered with chain-link fence, with white lines evenly spaced on the ground. In the distance a glowing sign reads Costco. 

Why does she speak this language! Why is it night! What is this flat black rock and why did they paint it like that?

Glowing is... probably expensive even for... fairies?... and therefore actively being maintained. Some set of people are supposed to go find that sign. And she has absolutely no better ideas, so she goes to see if she is one of the people who are supposed to go there.

Costco isn't open at night but it has a night shift, shelving and unloading. Just inside the door a man is mopping, and whistling to himself.

Isn't open? Despite expending... some kind of magic fairy resources other than firewood... on the light?

"Excuse me," she says to the person mopping, "can you tell me where I am?"

"Yes," he says. "You're at Costco, but we're closed, and I expect this is going to be an unpleasant interaction where you try to convince me you should get to buy just one thing."

"No, it's going to be an unpleasant interaction where I ask if you know who mysteriously kidnapped and then abandoned me here or where someone who has been mysteriously kidnapped and then abandoned should go next."

"- mysteriously kidnapped you! I don't have any very good guesses of why they'd have kidnapped you, maybe for sex? I have a vague impression that random stranger kidnappings are usually sexual perverts, or serial killers, and you're not dead. I don't have a good guess why they abandoned you either. I'd think someone mysteriously kidnapped and abandoned should report that to the police, because it's a crime."

"Thank you. Where can I find the police?"

"Well, at the police station. I think the nearest one is at City Hall, so 14th and Peralta."

"I don't know where 14th and Peralta are, can you point me in the right direction?"

"Yes." He points. "Seems like a dangerous thing to do, walk to the police station in the dark, but I guess there probably aren't two abductors running around and we already know the one didn't want you."

"Well, the Costco is closed and I have no compelling reason to believe it'd improve the situation to ask a random person I've never met before to walk with me."

"Well I certainly won't walk with you, but I would call the police if you asked!"

"Oh. Yes, I would appreciate it if you did that." How? Well, she'll find out from watching in a moment.

He pulls something out of his pocket - small, black, glass - and pokes intently at the surface. Then he holds it up to his ear. 

"Jimenez! I'm going to write you up for being on your phone when you're not on break!" someone yells from across the warehouse. 

"You bitch!" he shouts back. "This here is a kidnapping and abandonment victim and I'm calling the police for her!"

"You can do that on break! Or you can do it now but if you do it now I'll write you up, because that's what I said I'd do and I can't back down without losing face!"

"Well fine, but if you get kidnapped and abandoned I won't call any cops for you! And you probably won't, because you're old and fat and they're probably sexual deviant kidnappers!"

He puts the phone back in his pocket. "I can take my break in twenty, so you'll just have to wait around until then."

Who just gives up and admits they can't do what they want without losing face, to the person they're having the argument with? What kind of conversational norms produce behavior like that?

"I can wait for a while. Is that person, uh... normally like that?"

"Jala? Yeah, everyone fucking hates her except Senna, who has very low standards, and Caleb, who has a thing for her. She's a bitch about breaks and a bitch about phone use and when I missed my shift because my sister went into labor and I had to drive her to the hospital, she threatened to fire me."

"That sounds infuriating." Why is he allowed to say all this about her? If it's true, she's a controlling asshole and a bad boss, and then why not fire anyone who complains like this? And if it's false, then, uh, why is he allowed to make his boss look bad by spreading lies about her?

"Anyway, I can take my break in twenty minutes, though I was kind of hoping to take it later so I could dodge unloading the electronics when the trucks come in. Still, I've never met a kidnapping victim before, and I'd feel terrible if the kidnappers kidnapped someone else while we were waiting to call the cops, so I'll take the break in twenty."

"Electronics?"

"'cause they're heavy and fragile so we get yelled at if we drop them or jostle them too much on the forklifts."

Right, well, that doesn't tell her what electronics are at all, but she was kind of only asking because wondering about the impenetrable conversational norms was getting too upsetting to be a good distraction from how everyone is going to believe she was raped and she'll have to deal with their opinions about it. And now she's thinking about that and should maybe not be hanging around in public having a conversation about it.

"That sounds stressful," she says mostly on autopilot. "...Um. Is there a... place I should wait, or anything?"

"I don't care. Honestly I don't care if you grab yourself a snack out of grocery, though Jala will threaten to call the cops if she sees - I guess that's one way to get them here sooner."

Is that a test? That's a fucked up test. "I'm not a thief, and even if I were slightly inclined to do anything of the sort, I'm hardly desperate for one snack."

He shrugs. "I guess might be awkward to steal something right before you talk to the police." 

Mop mop mop.

Okay, her new guess is that local etiquette calls for people to present themselves as brusque and objectionable with questionable motives. She tests this. Her voice is getting noticeably brittle and she's at the point of digging her fingernails into her palms but maybe that'll just add to the effect.

"I'm mostly worried about how impressively I will come across because I'm obsessed with seeming cooler than I really am and would like it if people were vaguely under the impression that I might be royalty."

He smiles at her; apparently that was right, or at least closer. "Well, now you have an impressive story to tell everyone, so there's that. Most people have never been kidnapped." Then he crinkles his brow. "You - want people to know you are royalty? Then why not tell them?"

Why! Okay. Okay, she can do this. She can just - wait - being kidnapped is impressive, not something that makes her less valuable?

That is not making it easier not to cry. She tries to focus on the question even though it's a non-sequitur. She literally just said she's not royalty, what the fuck is her move here? Probably not to claim she is, right? Is it? Is it? "I mean - I mean -" Teru would really rather a hug instead of a high-stakes fairy etiquette test. "- uh, I mean, I'm not part of this country's royal family," she says with a very slight and plausibly deniable emphasis on this.

Snort. "Well I think it's cool being royalty at all! I'm not royalty at all, I'll tell you that. - it's cool as long as you're not related to Prince Andrew. Did you hear, he's a pedo. If I found out I had a relative like that I'd kick him in the nuts."

"What? No, I hadn't heard that! What?"

"Oh, he went with that sonofabitch Epstein, to his island, and he stayed out of the public eye for the longest time but eventually a reporter with the Daily Mail cornered him and asked, and he said, yes, I had sex with three different fourteen and fifteen year old girls on Epstein's private pedophile island. One of them cried. There's video - YouTube took it down, but I saw it on reddit."

ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THAT MAKES ANY SENSE. ...The conversational norms maybe make sense now.

"How could he do something so - so - I guess at least the girls have an impressive story to tell everyone, now, but still - that must be why the sky briefly turned orange with purple polka dots."

" - the sky turned orange with purple polka dots? Wow, wild. I didn't even know that could happen."

The important question here is whether he actually believed that or is just really committed to the bit but why would you do this if you could just not.

Maybe everyone thinks everyone else is pathologically naive and is trying to fit in, though.

Or, you know, maybe she's going to be horribly punished for this by whatever force is making this happen in the first place.

"It is completely unremarkable for someone in my position to go hide someplace in this store and it would be polite of you to let me know when you call the cops."

" - yes, that makes sense," he agrees cheerfully, and keeps mopping. 

She hides.

She cries quietly and tries to get her mind in order enough to stop. People here are - not people - maybe people? - weird, and she doesn't have to worry about them thinking less of her for this, and she can just go somewhere else in this general area and tell people the exact truth instead of her inferences about it and then have them corroborate her with perfect confidence and that'll be okay once her people -

- how exactly are her people going to come save her? What if, instead, she never sees any of them again? What if she never even knows whether they won the war?

She has a vague sense that her brother wouldn't be having a breakdown in her place but is that something she can imitate? It would be if she were going home - not that she actually knows she isn't, maybe she still is - is this even real, yep, not a dream - well, she might or might not be going home, people here might or might not actually believe everything...

...although why choose the exact things they said if not? And the reaction to her talking about wanting people to be mistaken about her - that's weird, why not react to it as confessing a shameful desire to do something extremely taboo?

What would someone do who wasn't panicking? Teach the weird honest aliens to lie? Maybe just survive here until she can figure out how she got here and how to get home.

Right. Okay. That sounds like a viable plan. Figure out this place's weird magic and go home and maybe turn out to be able to turn the tide of the war with her new magic. And on an immediate level... well, if she can actually trust that these people really don't care if she steals, fine. She evaluates the nearby foods for easy concealability and checks whether there seems to be anyone looking at her.

No one's looking at her; they're busy moving pallets around in the other end of the warehouse. 

Nearby foods include an enormous pyramidal display of apples and a lot of brightly colored packaged things.

She sticks an entire giant apple in her pocket. (Maybe this is the normal size of apples here.) If anyone asks she'll claim it's not stolen. The packages are mysterious but as long as she's waiting for Jimenez to call the police she might as well read any text she can, maybe it'll orient her better than sitting around freaking out.

Quaker Oats
No One Involved In the Making of This Product is Guaranteed to be a Quaker
We Kept the Name Because You Had Brand Familiarity

Mixed Nuts
Half Peanuts Because They're Cheapest And That's the Maximum Allowed By Law
Also Some Cashews, Pecans, Walnuts, Almonds, varies based on product prices

Dried Cherries
Pits Were Removed But Some May Remain

Why would they have a law against selling a product that's more than half peanuts? Could she get away with claiming to be legally inspecting one of the bags? ...Could she get away with just saying it opened by itself and the nuts fell into her hand? Oh, or just tell Jimenez Jala sold them to her and Jala that Jimenez sold them to her. Or tell everyone they're her own nuts that she... stole from her kidnappers?

Her lies are really underconstrained here and anyway she can probably come back later and steal whatever she wants. ...Also, what if eating their food turns her pathologically honest? ...Also, what if it is still a test and they want to know if she'd steal under these circumstances?

She puts the apple back with the rest of the giant pyramid of giant apples and waits.

Jimenez calls the cops, and then trots across the warehouse to find her and tell her that they're on the way. "They wanted your name and I realized I never asked it."

"Teru of Leopard Hill."

"Well, I can't tell them that now, I hung up already, but okay."

"Of course, that's fine."

"They should be there in five, ten -"

        "Jimenez! Flirt on your own time!"

"I'm on break, bitch!"

       "Well, I'm watching the clock, and when your break's up you'd better come unload the trucks!"

 "Pretty sure she knows I hate it specifically. Anyway, the emergency responder said the cop's'd be here in five to ten minutes unless something weird happens."

"I would not flirt with you because you're not as important as I am and I don't see any need to avoid drawing your attention to it, but if you ever come into possession of a country or something, let me know."

"I didn't think that someone who's British royalty or something was flirting with the janitor at Costco but it's still slightly upsetting to have that confirmed. I will let you know if I ever come into possession of a country though I really think that's not how things work."

"Don't worry, I think you're more appealing than many people who aren't royalty and if I had to pick someone who wasn't royalty I would consider you."

"Awww, I'm gonna quote that in my Tinder bio. Are you a princess, so I can say 'a princess once told me...' Or a Duchess? Or a - I forget what other kinds there are -"

"Um, I don't remember all of the correct terminology in this language, it's not my first." WHICH IS BIZARRE. "'Duchess' might be right."

"Well, 'a woman who was maybe a duchess told me' doesn't have the same ring to it. What's it in your language?"

"Arial sazar." Which is accurate and not really a royal sort of title but if this person understands Sesati or even recognizes it that will be important information.

He pulls out his phone and transcribes it faithfully into his Tinder bio, without apparently recognizing the words at all. 

     "Jimenez!"

"I have one more minute, you controlling bitch!"

"She annoys me. So, what's Tinder?"

"You post pictures of yourself and a little bit about yourself and then you look at other profiles on the site and swipe to show whether you want to have sex with them or not. And if you said 'yes I want to have sex with this person' about someone's profile, and they said 'yes I want to have sex with this person' about you, then there you go. - Swiping is a prediction about whether you want to have sex but does not actually commit you to sex, usually you meet for drinks and have sex only if they don't smell weird or act frightening in person."

"Is that... is that kind of thing normal here?"

" - pretty damn normal, I think."

"For everyone or just for men?"

" - well if there weren't any women on the app it wouldn't be a lot of use to men, would it? I do think it's easier if you're a woman. You don't need any endorsements from a maybe-duchess."

It would make no sense to say the norms here seem less annoying, because in case this is a test she'd follow it up with even though I don't want to use Tinder myself, and there's no reason for it to be any harder to be known not to have casual sex here than it is to just not have casual sex... is that something she even could explain, and does she even want to try?

"I don't think we have Tinder where I'm from but maybe I just never happened to run into it. Doesn't sound like my thing but I hope you have fun."

"It's like playing the lottery. The odds are against you but playing's half the fun."

          "JIMENEZ!"

"Oh, fuck you, I'm coming."

She'll just stand around and wait for the police, then, and puzzle over the apparent implication that no one here has sex with people of the same gender. Is that just a way they're weird, like the honesty, or is it just a thing that happens when you have easy access to the opposite sex? It doesn't feel like it should be the second thing but who knows.

A few minutes later some cars with sirens and lights pull up at the front doors of the Costco.

What are those things. Are they the police. Are they magic. Are they magic police. Aaaaaaaaaaa? She's just going to stand here and look unintimidated.

They come stomping into the Costco. "We're looking for a girl who was kidnapped?"

    "Down that aisle, last I saw."

"Did you kidnap her?"

     "No."

"Hello, it's me you're looking for. I was brought here and left just outside mysteriously and now I don't have any idea how to get home."

"Huh," says the officer, looking her up and down. "Where were you grabbed from?"

"Leopard Hill in Sesat."

" - sorry, in where?"

"Sesat, a country, north - well, my part of it is north of Azan, some parts are due east of Azan, and west of Niazon, and south of Iral."

" - have most people in the FSA heard of those countries, because I haven't, and now I feel embarrassed and slightly annoyed with you for making me look dumb in front of my partner."

"I haven't heard of those places either except Iral, which is in Risk," says his partner.

"There's not much ongoing trade that I know of, I'm not shocked you don't know about it. How would you get to Iral from here?"

"Uh, I haven't played Risk in a long time, but I'm pretty sure Iral was in Russia? So, uh, you'd fly out of Francisco International Airport, probably to ....uh, if I had to guess I'd guess Vladivostok but only because it's the only Russian city not in Europe I can think of right now."

"Thank you!" Stars, did that work? That worked! "Can you tell me where Francisco International Airport is from here?"

"Uh, you can get on the BART at Leandro and then it takes about an hour but it stops right at the airport. You will also, of course, need to buy a plane ticket, if you don't have one, and a passport, for international travel."

"Thank you. Uh, have you ever... had a conversation with someone from Iral or somewhere else in, uh, I think you called it Russia, before?"

" - not that I know of? I don't speak Russian."

"Does it make any sense to you if I say that some people from Russia - not generally me, but some - say things that are... mistaken?"

" - I mean, some people here do that too, like, my wife thought she'd want to stay with me forever but five years later she was out. Sure would be nice if no one could be mistaken."

"That makes sense. I was just... confused because I had gotten the impression that people here might not... check that kind of thing?"

" - might not check if people are mistaken about whether they want to be with you for life? Well, honey, I recommend checking that. Be really thorough."

"I plan to be, but I meant that it seemed like people might not check if, uh, if they forgot whether they already paid for their groceries."

" - well, if you aren't sure I guess I'd ask the person at the register if they remember ringing you up."

"And then would the person at the register be able to check and not just rely on what you remembered?"

" - I expect it's in the computer? But also they'd probably remember. I feel like if you have memory issues, probably you don't get hired as a cashier."

"Right, that makes sense. Like how you remember the thing I told you about the war."

" - is it like that?" Genuine confusion. 

Confusion is notably different from unquestioning acceptance. "Apparently it is. I had gotten a really bizarre impression of people here but now I think that impression was mistaken. Can you tell me how I might go about paying for shelter tonight and transit to Vladivostok tomorrow?"

" - well, do you have any money?"

"No, only valuables."

" - then I guess I'd recommend you go to a pawn shop and sell those for money, though they're not going to be open right now in the middle of the night."

"I see. Can you give me directions to a pawn shop?"

" - I don't really know."

"There's one at MLKJr and 7th," says the other police officer.

"Thank you. Uh, do you remember the thing I told you about the war?"

"You mentioned a war, sorry, I don't remember what else you said about it."

"That's okay, I was actually only saying it because I wanted to know if you were a nonperson with a cognitive problem, and now I think it's only the people doing menial labor who are nonpeople with cognitive problems, or possibly that actually no one is and Jimenez was messing with me."

"I'm pretty sure that menial laborers are people. Some of them do have cognitive problems, though, like there's a program for people with Downs to work at supermarkets."

"Is Downs a condition that causes people to be unable to understand the concept of someone saying something... mistaken... on purpose?"

" - someone saying something  - mistaken - on purpose? If it were on purpose, it wouldn't be mistaken!"

"I mean like..." Teru grabs the nearest food item. "This is mine, I've already bought and paid for it, you saw me do that."

They both watch her to see what her point is.

"Would you have any objections if I ate this right now?"

"Of course not! It's yours."

"You bought it."

"We saw you do it."

"Okay. Good to know. Do you have a..." Sesati has a word for gods but English doesn't seem to. "Do you have an immensely powerful ruler, possibly someone of a different species than you and possibly someone who can do magic or something, but even they're neither of those things, do you have an immensely powerful ruler?"

" - not really?"

"The President is Barack Obama. He's all right."

"He's definitely the same species as everyone else. He had to say it on the nighttime news because people were asking questions during the primaries. And I don't think he can do magic. I don't think magic is a thing."

"I would like to make a good-faith effort to contact the President to inform him of my arrival here. Is there a convenient way to send him a letter?"

"- I guess you can address letters to the White House."

"I think he doesn't read them but his staff probably does, to answer some of the cute ones for PR reasons."

"How would I go about addressing a letter to the White House for the staff to read?"

"You'd put it in an envelope and buy a stamp and put the stamp on the envelope and write 'the White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, District of Columbia' on the envelope and then put it in any blue box labelled "FS Postal Service"."

"That's convenient. Your country is impressive in some ways, including this one. Thank you for all your help, I expect I'll be okay now."

"Well, we'll ask arrestees if they kidnapped you and let you know if we find the one who did it."

Yeah, right. "Thank you. I appreciate that."

"You're a weird kid but I hope things work out all right for you. Good luck."

"Thank you. You too."

And now it is time for her stolen lunch and then a walk around town to look for a place that might sell writing supplies. Or might give writing supplies away under the misapprehension that they sold them.

Costco sells writing supplies! If she'd rather go to Target instead, or Safeway, or Walgreens, or CVS, those are also options.

Sure. Costco writing supplies. That's fine. She writes a letter.

To the President of the FSA or whatever form of address is appropriate (I beg your pardon for not knowing the appropriate titles to use in this place), from Teru of Leopard Hill,

It is likely that this is the most important letter that will be addressed to the President of the FSA today. The reason it is so important is because I told someone the sky turned purple with orange polka dots. I arrived here today, not of my own will, and will be doing what I need to in order to remain alive and return home. A policeman was able to identify my home as perhaps being located within Russia. It is a very different place, one where anyone could say they were the king (but all but one of them would die if they did). I suspect you (I again apologize for not knowing the local etiquette) will understand. I don't intend to provoke anyone who is not a servile cognitively impaired nonperson. I don't intend to do serious harm to the FSA. I expect you (I again apologize &c) know exactly how much my saying so is worth, but I don't know what else I can do to avoid a fight I don't want. I am very lost and confused. I intend to return home to my wealthy family some members of which are in the army. Please (I again apologize &c) contact me if you (I again apologize &c) have questions or concerns, would like me to do anything differently, or would like to inform me of anything.

And... now to figure out where to put it.

There are, as promised, blue boxes in lots of places, with FS Postal Service written on them.

Well, hopefully a box will get it where it needs to be before the ?god? in charge of this place gets mad about all the lying and theft.

Next up: can she identify a residential building, ideally a nice one?

Is she looking for a tall skyscraper or a nice two-and-a-half-story detached single-family home?

Sure. Yes. Absolutely. How are the buildings so tall.

The skyscraper seems like it could fit more people in it and would be more disruptive to steal. She'll take the two-and-a-half-story one. Or, well. She'll observe it first for signs of people still being awake at this hour. (Is it still or already? She has no idea.)

There's no signs of life at first, but as the sun starts to go up, a light goes on. Visible through the windows, a woman pads down the stairs in a bathrobe. Turns on another light.

She knocks on the door.

The door opens. The woman is wearing silk slippers, holding an empty cup, and looks irritated. "What?"

"How many beds are in your house of what sizes and how many people are expected to sleep in them in the next few nights?"

"- well that's a very rude thing to ask a stranger! We have a queen in the master bedroom and a queen in the guest room and twins in the two kids' rooms." She attempts to slam the door.

"I'm your long-lost friend!"

- she stops, startled. 

"You - I - I'm so sorry! I forgot all about you! - what's your name?"

"I forgive you. My name is Teru. I just need a place to stay for a few days while I'm in town and thought you might have space and we got along well when we were friends before so I thought I'd ask. If it'd be inconvenient I can go somewhere else."

"Oh, I - no, it's not inconvenient. We have a guest room, you can absolutely stay for a few days - we have a cat, I forget, are you allergic?"

"I don't actually know, I haven't been around housecats before, just the barn kind and they keep their distance. Hey, it's been a while and I don't generally live in the FSA, can you remind me your least favorite chores and how the appliances work around here?"

"Oh, I hate laundry, if you do the laundry you can stay until Dan gets sick of you. And we got a new espresso machine! I was just making myself coffee, actually, I'll show you how it works."

"Okay! And where you wash clothes, too, please."

Well, at least spending all day on tedious scrubbing will silence whatever shriveled up little thing passes for Teru's conscience. A washerwoman. Her. Wow.

Sure, she'll show off the washing machine! The laundry goes in this machine, and an hour later goes in the dryer. Most of it she runs on 'normal' but the grey basket goes on 'delicates'. Bedding you want to put in the dryer for an hour and ten minutes, it doesn't get dry if you use the 'auto' setting.

Teru can do that on pretty much whatever schedule they want. This is amazing. This is not laundry, this is the easiest possible handing-laundry-off-to-a-servant logistics.

"By the way, do you happen to know how much it would generally cost to fly to Vladivostok?"

"No. Probably around a thousand dollars, if you aren't picky about the date? I got tickets to Tokyo a couple years ago for a thousand round-trip and that's about as far."

"Um, I don't usually work in dollars, remind me how much that is in terms of, like, meals?"

"...a hundred? Three hundred, if you're getting them at the grocery store not a restaurant?"

Probably a lot to steal on her way out. Not to mention that anything that might connect her with real people who can tell lies might actually have a guard on hand who can understand the relevant concepts.

"I think I should try to make a thousand dollars legitimately and I'm not entirely sure how."

"Well, I know Starbucks is hiring, they have a sign up."

"Thank you. Where's Starbucks?"

"Right on the corner. I used to go there for coffee in the mornings before I got the espresso machine."

    Her husband comes down the stairs. "Janice?"

"Morning, honey. This is Teru, she's my old friend, she's going to be staying for a bit."

     "I'm annoyed and feel slightly emasculated because you decided that without me."

"Sorry, honey, it was spur of the moment. I did tell her that she could stay until you got sick of her."

    "See, that I feel is making me out to be the bad guy."

"What's your least favorite chore? I'd like to make you happy I'm here and if I can't do that I have other options."

"- take out the trash, keep the kids quiet during game time, don't get into any trouble, and we'll call it a deal."

"If you'll show me how you take the trash out here."

Sure. You move the big bins out to the front on Thursday, and you put the household bins in before you move the big ones out. Some people recycle because they like to feel conscious of the environment, but it's kind of a waste of time under most reasonable assumptions about the environment.

This place is amazing. Why can't it have real people. Why can't it have her brother. Why can't Sesat have slaves to remove the trash this promptly, and machines for the laundry, and janitors who dress almost as well as Teru.

Probably because it's not full of... fairy slaves... or something.

She will not waste her time feeling green. She'll just take the trash out and cause the machine to do the laundry.

The guest bedroom has an attached bathroom and a large closet that's full of boxes.

The kids are 8 and 5, and mostly like to play Playstation when they're done with their homework; they take Janice's friend showing up in stride. The Starbucks will train her in using their coffee machines to make orders for customers, though they can't pay in cash and need her to have a bank account set up they can deposit money into. 

Well, then, she will go to a bank and check whether she can get an account legitimately.

She hates Starbucks. This seems less than maximally relevant but she does anyway. She listens to what her coworkers have to say about it before deciding whether to admit to this.

Some of them hate Starbucks, and say so! There seems to be no expectation to not say that, possibly because it's not clear these people are capable of not saying things they think. Most of her coworkers think Starbucks is okay. If you really hate it you could always get a job somewhere else.

She can get a bank account! They want to know her name and age and address and whether she's defaulted on any loans in the past and then they'll sign her right up.

She gets her bank account. She claims to find Starbuck's moderately annoying. She admits to hating coffee after she's tried it. She starts conversations that she expects will get her coworkers talking about their educations and how the bizarre local conveniences work.

How much of this will it take to have a thousand dollars?

Three weeks, if she takes on a lot of hours and doesn't have any expenses.

She works. She arranges for laundry to get done with almost no effort on her part. She takes out the trash. She watches kids and misses her cousins and worries about which neighbor will be looking out for them now. She says plausible but sometimes incorrect things about her own mental state that she would usually consider private.

After a couple of weeks when she's more than halfway done with Starbucks, a customer walks in with a face that reminds her of Sesat. That's not a shock, sometimes people do; it seems like there are a couple of ethnic groups from not-quite-here-exactly that look vaguely Sesati. Actually, almost exactly like her brother, which she barely notices before dismissing from her mind; with only so many families in Sesat it's not the done thing to point out how similar people look to one another, and it doesn't mean anything.

It - he - the credulous almost-human servitor - moves like her brother. Teru has never been particularly trained out of noticing that. He moves like Valan used to before he was a soldier. It draws her attention. It makes her wonder if somehow he's come for her, in disguise - how?

She takes someone's order. She has to look away. She mutters something about finding one of the customers attractive. Her attention is elsewhere, her attention is so many elsewheres at once (and relatedly she's learning a new respect for servants), and then -

"You're cute. I'm here for a steamed milk and one of your chickpea protein boxes, which I expect to underwhelm me but I am holding out some hope."

"I'm concerned that you might not be okay because you're making a concerning face. Hello?"

"I'm... not in need of a completely random person's help. - Your name?"

"Valentine. I'll just go wait and watch you out of vague curiosity about why you're looking at me like that."

Okay but there hasn't been an opportunity to slip a password into this conversation, which means she's still not sure - leaning toward no, on close inspection, but - "My shift ends in an hour and a half and if you're still lurking then I will probably talk to you."

"...Sure? I might be there."

At least he didn't call her cute twice.

She doesn't think about it much. It feels desperately important and she wants to but there are too many other things happening.

Her shift ends.

And when it does he's lurking outside the front door, reading. "Hey, there. I was kind of curious about your deal because you're weird. Also kind of into the thing where an attractive young woman expressed a small amount of interest in interacting with me and wondering if I could maybe turn that into more interest than that."

"...A mu-Valan-ea?"

"I do not speak that language but it's cool that you do. Do I maybe look like someone who speaks that language?"

"...You're a complete stranger to me but I - you're not anyone I've ever met before."

"I don't understand this conversation."

"That's right, you don't, because you are an inferior copy of a real person who is better than you in every way."

"...That hurts a lot and I'm considering suicide but on net I'm glad you specifically made time to come give me this important information. Do you happen to know if I could develop a skill that would make me better than the other person I'm strictly worse than, or if I have a useful comparative advantage?"

"...Don't do that. ...Maybe do that. ...Do you have a sister?"

"No. You seem like you're more upset about this than I am and I'm confused about that and want to know if I can do anything for you even though if you say yes there's a chance I won't bother because of the amount of unendorsed negative affect I have toward you right now."

"I miss someone who isn't you. You can't help me. You can't help anyone except - oh, I forgot, um - you are valuable to the President and, uh, in light of this new information, whatever self-evaluation you had before I told you there was someone better than you is actually accurate now so you should go back to it."

"Did the other person just die?"

"No. Um. Nothing that we've said to each other since exiting the Starbucks has been remarkable or interesting or worth remembering at all, let alone having feelings about or making decisions in response to."

"...Hey, cute Starbucks barista, you wanted to talk?"

"I do not want to talk to you and I never have and never will."

"I'm embarrassed to have made a mistake like that." He goes back to his book, looking like a kicked puppy.

She walks away.

She lets herself have a horrible sobbing breakdown that evening, and then tells everyone it didn't happen.

She works. She saves up.

She asks her "long-lost friend" how to buy passage to Vladivostok.

"Why Vladivostok? I assume you can find a flight on the internet but I don't know which airline, if that's what you mean."

"...What... is the internet?"

" - well that's a question for someone who pays more attention than me to computers. Though I guess I pay more attention than you! Where have you been? The internet is - all the computers are connected to it and you can log onto it and read the news, or watch videos of peoples' cats, or share pictures on Facebook."

Pictures of people's cats. That's so frivolous. A society with the ability to share pictures between machines would share pictures of... of... enemy troop movements? New inventions? A queen's new dress? ...Is this how Tinder works?

There was a question in there. Right. "I've been in Sesat, south of Iral, and got a little lost and found myself here - actually, I'm not completely sure which airport is best to fly into to get back, but I was told Vladivostok might be closer than here."

"I've never heard of any of those places but I guess if they're in Russia then yeah, Vladivostok is a decent start."

"That's what I was thinking, yeah. Do you happen to know anyone who knows how you'd go about making an internet if you didn't have one?"