The man - boy? person? - who walks in, sights Stranger standing in the middle of the room and freezes. He's wearing an unassuming but clean dark blue work uniform and a backpack that must weigh a tenth what he does.

He holds up a hand. "I'm Agario. I'm supposed to be demoing something to Levtir here in" he glances at a prominent digital clock on the wall "about a fourth of an hour. This is Conference Room Two?"

The other man in the middle, wearing a slightly-rumpled brown vest and red sash over a frilled shirt, holds up his hand in return.  "Areli Eddin, Lector.  I thought I'd nodded off in the Green Library, but... then I woke up here?  Are you guests?"

Agario blinks, seeming to fully take in "Areli"'s appearance for the first time.

"This is the R&D wing of Ikkeh headquarters in Eastern Aineh." He pulls a lanyard out of his shirt, on the end of which there is a plastic tag engraved with his likeness, a barcode, and a number. "Your ID?"

He reflexively taps a small patch sewn onto his vest, which shows a picture of a golden laurel wreath. 

"The what?  I've never heard of - wait, did you perhaps grab the name of East Avinyah from the eighth century?  But I didn't know we were doing this sort of cooperative project with anyone?"

Agario is not wearing things in very many of the holsters on his utility belt, but he is wearing a gun. His hand goes to it and stays there.

"Put your hands out", he says, watching carefully.

Areli notices the gun for the first time, and his eyes go even wider.  He puts his hands out.

Something weird has happened.  Maybe magic.

"This... isn't the History-Monk Holt, is it?  And you wouldn't recognize the city of Niota?"

With his other hand, Agario reaches into one of his other in-use holsters and pulls out a little plastic radio device. He presses a button on it. "Yeilsi?"

A muffled voice comes out. "Agario?"

Agario is holding "Areli"'s eyes. "I'm in Conference Room Two. There is an unexpected person here, names himself as 'Areli Eddin Lector' but cannot produce an ID, strange clothes, does not seem - oriented to place or time, or something. I'm armed and he's showing his hands."

Muffled radio voice: "I'm sending Dar, Ashwusmei, and Viki for now. Stay on the line."

"Acknowledged", Agario says, and presses another button, which sticks. The radio static stays on, this time. On the other end of the connection, Yeilsi audibly starts calling people, re-explaining the situation, and ordering agents to Conference Room Two to handle an intrusion.

Agario re-orients to "Areli". He simply stares at him, not deigning to dignify the lunatic's rambling until he starts talking sense.

Well, everything else here looks more like technology than magic.  Of course, that doesn't have to be a technologic radio - not that he'd know how to tell the difference even if he could take it apart - but he'll act like it is until he sees something else clearly magic.  Even though he'd really feel better if this man had an undetermined magic device rather than a gun.

"I'd like to help resolve this...  I don't suppose you'd recognize the non-interference pledge from the Order of History-Monks?"

". . . No, I wouldn't. Care to explain why it entitles you to be in the middle of Ikkeh headquarters without authorization?"

"A lot of groups let us watch because of it, because we've promised not to do anything except keep records for the future.  But believe it or not, I don't know how I got here."

"So the Order of History-Monks is an archival endeavor, and your story is that you just fell asleep somewhere else and woke up here."

"Sort... of... yes.  Do you have a better explanation?"

". . . You are a manic psychotic who convinced yourself you had some kind of business here, you are a suicide bomber with a manifesto you know will get read if you blow up a chunk of this building, you are a not-very-wise joker with a talent for pentesting who thought it would be funny. Explanations where you are an unstable element who broke into the building yourself are less complicated than explanations postulating that someone else, for unknown inscrutable reasons, expended a lot of effort to make it look exactly like you are an unstable element who broke into the building yourself, and are therefore more plausible."

Agario is now leaning heavily toward explanations where "Areli" is not-very-wise.

"A suicide - what?  You have those!?  I was going to ask why you're so concerned about people wanting to break in here, but I guess I first need to ask why people want to kill themselves blowing up anywhere!"

"For the notoriety, of course? For you or your ideas. It's not like it happens every day around here, but it's also not every day we get someone with no authorization showing up in the middle of the building, apparently having bypassed all our" state-of-the-art "best-effort security, and talking deranged nonsense."

What is "Areli" playing at . . . ?

"What's that patch on your vest supposed to mean? The one you pointed to when I asked you about ID?" His fingers ready on the gun.

"But there're so many better ways to get your ideas out, like, oh, hosting a speech-ring --"  He throws up his hands.

"This patch?  It's my name-symbol, like people would wear different leaves or twigs back before they could make regular nametags.  Yeah, a patch like this isn't really less difficult, but some of us History-Monks like making the nod to the tradition."

Agario does not have much time to puzzle over how Areli and maybe his whole cult are apparently either actually crazy or smokescreening with a guise of insanity - Dar and Ashwusmei enter through one set of doors, Viki through another, and all three draw on the guy in the weird clothes. They've got their modified pilot's helmets on, thick one-way glass over the face, and Agario sees the subtle cues that they're body-armored under their uniform shirts. 

"Come with us," says Dar, and gestures through the door he and Ashwusmei just left. Viki, staying trained on Stranger, moves toward the other two.

Okay, now it's gone from a fantasy novel to a techno novel.  At least if he can go by aesthetics.  Maybe this secret project building is working on inter-universe technological travel?  Maybe!

He follows.

For two minutes, he is led through mostly-vacant (evacuated?) halls passing open machining workshops and casually arranged but really high-tech chemistry labs, finally to a little thickly padded (soundproofed?) room with dimmer lighting than the conference room they left. One of the men (?) tells Areli to sit on a stool in the middle of the floor, ties his wrists to it with something tough, abrasive, and plastic. Another presses a button in a little tiny speaker-and-control panel on the wall. The third, still aiming at Areli, says "This is our old anonymous communication room. You can't see the person on the other side, they can't see you, although that part isn't relevant to this particular talk - just the part where you can't see out. Yeilsi, today's security manager, is on the other side right now. He can talk to you; his voice will come through this speaker distorted. You can talk back, he'll hear you distorted too, although that part doesn't currently matter."

"Understood?" comes a voice through the speaker, much lower than Yeilsi's was but comprehensible.

"I think so.  Hello; I'm Areli Eddin."

This elaborate setup is a point in favor of their being prepared for people from other worlds with strange dangers.  Though he's not going to mention that, of course; it'll either confirm their guess that he's crazy or make them even more worried that he knows their secret plans.

"Y'all can exit," says Distorted Yeilsi, apparently to the gun squad, because they leave, locking the heavy door behind them.

"Hi. We want to let you out, because it's inconvenient for us to be keeping you here, but first we have to be confident of how you got in and that you haven't done us any harm or prepared to do us any future harm, that we don't know enough about to mitigate or reverse to the greatest extent we can.

I have just personally scanned through all the security camera feeds in the hallways surrounding Conference Room Two for the past two hours. Three other people entered, met, and left, but there was no hint of you. Explain this."

"I wish I could.  I believe I'm from another world.  I'm a Lector in the Worldwide Order of History-Monks.  I fell asleep reading in the library - long story - and when I woke up, I was here.  No idea how; I've never heard of anything like that happening in real life."

Several minutes pass, and then Distorted Yeilsi asks Areli to repeat his claim. It sounds like there's someone else in the background?

He does.  "I don't know how I came here.  I believe I'm from another world - I'm a Lector in the Worldwide Order of History-Monks; I fell asleep reading in the library; when I woke up, I was here in this building.  I've never heard of anything like that happening in real life; I thought I was somewhere else in my world till none of you had heard of the History-Monks."

In retrospect, the gun should've also been a clue - but not that strong of one; there're a few people who wear them for show.

"Thank you.

We have you on record, now, and I have just ordered a genetic sampling kit. It should be here in a few hours. We don't have the equipment here to genometype you, but the lab is taking a rush order and we should know whether you're really from a never-before-heard-of human population within 48 hours. Oh, and have your genetic print. Care to change your story now?"

Yeilsi isn't sure what to expect. Clearly the creepily competent intruder is lying out of his ass, but not in a way that actually stands to gain him anything. Is this normal? Yeilsi's worked here for two years and has only had to deal with one other apparently-intentional intruder (as opposed to pompous ID-loser), who was in fact just a perfectly sane and normal pentester looking for a bounty, which he received.

Yeilsi supposes that it doesn't matter whether the intruder's story is at all plausible if he has them set to blow, but anyway most of the building is evacuated now, they found squat in the conference room, and how could he have planted explosives or chemical weapons without showing up on camera. 

Is this some close alternate world where they'd plausibly have a genetic drift closely overlapping Ev's?  No, not if they have enough "suicide bombers" for that to be something that actually comes to people's minds!

"Go ahead; do it.  I'd love to see how far out we are - we both look human, so maybe our ancestors both came from the same world long ago?  Our ancient history isn't that great, I'm afraid - how's yours?"

". . . Please give me a rundown of how your world's ancient history is supposed to have gone. I wouldn't want to poison the well by reporting ours first. You'll have many opportunities to verify our history yourself, once you get out, and I have no such guarantees for, ah. Your world."

How long can this guy possibly keep this up . . . ?

"Oof, what a lot to summarize, and ancient history isn't my field."

He shakes his head, and then purses his lips for a moment and shrugs.

"So, Terrin would shake his head sadly over what I'm leaving out, but... first at-all-clear records, we've got a few people in different parts of the world building cities and farming and some nobles or priests usually ruling for their own benefit.  A lot of them are talking of a lost golden age; might or might not be true.  Then there are the nomads around the city-builders - there're a lot fewer of them, and they don't leave records so we hardly know anything about them, even when they conquer a city.

"And by the way, one reason I'm being vague here is that we don't know that much.  They didn't have the History-Monks; hardly anyone even knew how to write for some reason even though it's hard to believe - and even when they wrote on clay tablets, a lot of it didn't get recopied and decayed over time without any useful summaries. 

"Earlier than that, we've got religious stories and legends that people disagree on.  One of them says that our distant ancestors got to this particular part of the world on a big ship.  The people who believe it usually think it was from somewhere else on the same world, but now that we know there're other worlds, it's possible..."  He spreads his hands.

"How about the earliest time period you do have a solid narrative for," Distorted-Yeilsi says. It should sound dry, but instead Yeilsi thinks it comes out sounding a little alarmed. Something about the way this guy is talking is freaking him out. He sounds - too calm, too focused, to be crazy, and the story is . . . not the right shape to have been made up for attention or a ruse.

"Really solid?  A little before Year One, when the History-Monks were founded.  The last big classical empire had just fallen apart and the nomadic barbarians had conquered little pieces - they were a lot more numerous now - and for that matter the other empire on the other end of the continent had also broken into a few pieces that never reunified... but we've got millennia of records before then.  All right; some contact between worlds could've happened before then and been lost.  We've even got some myths that might be confusedly remembering it - half the fantasy writers in the world like to pretend it did.  But I'm willing to stake my reputation that there hasn't been any contact between worlds involving more than a couple people since then.  And that's fifteen hundred years ago.

"How long ago does your history stretch?"

Yeilsi knows some part of him will regret not keeping tight lips and a straight face like he committed to, but in a split second he decides that Areli is probably more willing to give up information if Yeilsi plays along.

"Nine gross years and change." Empires, and he'd talked like they were important, like of course they should be the primary social units of reference . . . In the tone of a dryly not-really-indulgent trainer: "Your world's history is made of governments, eh?" This ought to be interesting. On the other, non-mutually-incompatible hand, the part of Yeilsi that is checking his devices for notifications that his team has found something dangerous gets a little more CPU time.

"Nine gross years?  That sounds like my wild guess could be right...  What tales do you have about what happened before then?

"Yes, of course, there're other stories in history too, but even the ancient people knew to have governments.  Though they're a lot different these days - now most of the world has split the territorial and national governments."

Huh? "Tales - like, verbal? We don't have living oral histories that stretch further back than our written ones - just archaeology. Our species has, according to the archaeological record, apparently had fire for about - if I remember right - fifty thousand* years and pottery for about twelve thousand."

*henceforth Bywayean duodecimal will be rendered as Earth-conventional decimal

"So much for that guess, then."  Assuming their archaeologists got that right - he doesn't have that much trust in archaeologists back home - but then they should be better than his top-of-the-head hypothesis.

"I meant... either oral tales or unreliable written tales even if they're called histories.  That's what I was complaining about with the records of the ancient empires - they didn't know how to write history well, or they didn't care to, or something.  It makes for some wild tales, but you can't trust half of them.

"But what tale do you arrange your history around, if not governments?"

"Ah. You got lucky, I went through a history phase" Yeilsi can't believe he's saying this, the two or three successful suicide bombings from modern times keep racing through his head "and from what I understand, the earliest writing we have from 1300 years ago isn't really trusted to be a particularly accurate source for anything, since it's not as though the common people from back then kept diaries that survived to contradict it. But it still counts as history. I mean, it's not as though you ever get people being paid to be historians, and just running around recording things as they happen with no childish bias, that'd be a waste of time and also impossible.

I arrange my history around power. Who has the biggest guns, the most heavily diversified investments and fortified compounds, and how that skews absolutely everything in those peoples' favor - which it should, because they're smart." That should spur Areli into elaborating about the omnipresent all-important governments.

"People just recording things as they happen is exactly what the History-Monks are.  Of course we can't get rid of all our bias, but we've been working on minimizing it or clearly signposting it - it's been centuries; I'd say we've got good techniques by now.  We were originally paid by different kings and churches; now we sell books and teach people but we still get a lot of our funding from different nations' governments because they trust us to do a good job.

"And... big guns and fortified compounds skewing things in people's favor... that sounds something like a government?  Maybe one of the bad governments that doesn't care for its people but just wants to grab things for itself?  We don't see them so much anymore now that nations usually aren't territorial, of course.  Or if they're not a government, are they... large-scale thieves, like some of the Barren-Power folks might've been?"

Yeilsi's veins are admittedly kinda icy by now. If this guy's not actually from an alternate branch of history where governments are the default explanation for everything, he is giving off an impression of that that is starting to convince Yeilsi. Would this be happening if Yeilsi's parents had secured his benighted high chair? Whatever. Stay in the game.

"For-profit companies. And occasionally cults, especially back when the social fabric was thinner so small cults didn't have as much herd immunity to theft."

He's just going to ignore that point about companies for the moment.

"Cults...  We've got a lot of those too, and we still do.  Sometimes one of them gets guns or law-twisters and makes itself a theocracy.  My friend was just fighting one of them last year."

Yeilsi turns halfway to his apprentice. "Oleyyah, do you think you could scribe this in the text editor and still keep your eyes on the cameras?"

Oleyyah considers. He can't see it going horribly wrong. "Yes sir."

"Okay. Don't try to catch up, please, just start with that business about - what did you say, Areli? Your world's cults having 'la-curlers' and 'thecorasy'?"

Blink.  Well, they don't have governments here - at least not going by that name - so they won't have those either.  "Theocracy is when a government makes everyone it's governing practice one particular religion.  Law-twisters are... well, it's not a profession; it's an insult.  People who're skilled at twisting the law around to make it seem to say the opposite of what people think it says.  Some of them in the larger nations do make a profession of it - being advocates or advisors - but usually not, because it looks bad for people to hire them.

". . . sorry I'm stuck on what a 'law' is?" Yeilsi never actually got that into deep government lore, during his egregore-research edgelord phase.

Oleyyah, his anxiety melting to his task of scribing, is noticing that something very weird is going on. He notices himself not expecting the incursion Areli to turn out to have any kind of motivation drawn from the pool of previously known possibilities. But the only other person who would be available for a bet on this topic is Yeilsi, and you do not generally distract your coworkers by betting at work but you especially do not distract your boss with bets when he is busy.

"... What a law is?  Something the nation says you should do, or you need to do? ... How do you settle disputes with people without laws?  Or keep track of your visions?"

. . . Yeilsi wonders if Areli is trying to get away with method-acting like he's gone so insane that he's forgotten what the Code is, so that in the end he can have his reputation cake and eat his suicide-bombing too. It might work halfway on enough particularly stupid and sympathetic fools that 'Areli' would actually have any friends after the dust settled, but it's still the kind of gallingly stupid and doomed idea that's only entered Yeilsi's hypothesis space because nothing about this stranger makes any sense.

"I am throwing out most of all your suitcases here, but - "

A message from Dar brightens Yeilsi's terminal: "Finished. No currently dangerous non-biological hazmat known to us could conceivably be hidden in the section my team and I swept."

Well, that's good, at least. Yeilsi notes the time in a thing-that-would-look-to-Earthlings-like-a-'spreadsheet' in another window. Assuming Dar's team don't turn out to have actually missed anything, in which case they'll be fired and possibly die, they were fast enough that their pay for this event will be steep. Yeilsi sends his acknowledgement and thanks. Now he's just waiting on the others. 

" - but - what do peoples' visions have to do with what a government would command? Don't most governed people end up just - acting as limbs of the egregore, without it being possible to meaningfully say of them that they have individual visions?"

For the villains/[background characters] of this genre of comic book, at least, Yeilsi is pretty sure this trope is almost universal. It wouldn't be much of an egregore-horror otherwise? (Yeilsi's not really the type to get deep into subversive parageneric literature.)

"No - I mean, once people choose a government, they usually live within it - but even so, they want to develop their own visions and emphases -"

He throws up his hands.  "Maybe you've gotten the wrong idea from theocratic cults?  There are cults like that, ones that think the Ideal Life has already been laid out in every detail or ones that entrust all their thinking to one leader or a few leaders or even to random chance.  Maybe in a world like yours where somehow people don't want government, only those cults develop it anyway?"

He's suddenly wondering what would've happened if there hadn't been any kings or emperors before the Shift.  Would people have thought of them afterwards?  Or is it better to think of these people here as not having gone through the Shift?  Or perhaps another Shift in a totally different direction?  But without any idea what caused the Shift, that's not going to give him any real plans except remind him to keep his mind open.

Right, and 'theocrasy' was . . . (he opens a new process/window to peep the log of Oleyyah's running transcript) . . . 

when a government makes everyone it's governing practice one particular religion

. . . Interrogating a lunatic should not feel like Yeilsi is back in toddler-school, unable for the reputation of him to decipher what the sir is talking about. 

"I think we're done here, for now. If you really did, just, materialize here" obviously impossible but Yeilsi can't think what actually happened "my deepest apologies. 

The last two teams should be finished searching the building shortly. I just got word the genetic testing kit is in. If you'll spit in it for us, they'll do a final search of your person and then we have no more reason to detain you here - ah! hold on, actually, here the kit is now."

Box opening noises. Plastic tearing noises.

Yeilsi opens the door to the detainment room, politely holding up a hand, deposits the sample-collection tube on a little shelf, and departs again.

The speaker clicks back on.

"Areli, my apprentice, Oleyyah, has asked about leaving his work early today so he can accompany you in his personal capacity as guide, guard, companion, etc. as you leave today, on the hypothesis that you actually did just materialize here from Somewhere Else." And this definitely doesn't seem not in Ikkeh's interests. "Is that something you'd possibly want, conditional on speaking with him first?"

If this's magic, giving them a sample of his spit is traditionally a dangerous idea.  But he never really thought this world was magical, and at any rate, this person is so surprised and confused about Ev that it's pretty clearly not "a magical world that has secretly-to-Ev been inspiring stories of magic."

More scientific dangers... he was never really up on those stories, but he doesn't mind if some mad scientist wants to clone him.

He spits in the tube.

"Yes, thank you, a guide would be great.  And a guard too, since you don't have any governments."  What is stopping them from murdering people on the streets?  Or, what's stopping the few people who'd want to do that?  Maybe nothing, if people need a guard.

"And speaking of guides... I'd usually ask to see the lecture hall and civic palace, but I don't suppose you have those.  Maybe that's a question for him?  Speaking of which, I'm fine now, but I guess I'll eventually want some food and water" (no, it's useless to worry about fairy food) "and somewhere to sleep."

Oleyyah can feel Yeilsi very politely not making a mocking face at him about how apparently the intruder wants to be fed and housed, good luck, and is irritated. Good luck yourself, Yeilsi. This is not the first time Oleyyah wonders how someone so dull even got this job Anyway!

Great, Oleyyah gets the exciting task of chaperoning the intruder, which someone obviously had to handle and which no one was going to! He won't get paid for the rest of the day, but he's more spoons-constrained than money-constrained right now anyway.

Why would going home early and taking a pay cut, if your boss offers that, drastically decrease your work reputation? You're saving them money??? Obviously they're not going to need you around all of the time???

"Sure, we can figure it out when they release you," says a voice sounding around Yeilsi's age, and a lot nicer and more reflective. 

It is not very long before the other two teams come up empty, come back to search Areli a last time, and clear him to go and the building to be de-evacuated.

Oleyyah and Areli are ushered out the nearest exit. It's pouring rain. It's also only-slightly-the-outer-part of a huge, tightly packed, shining city! No automobile roads, just pedestrian paths - people, mainly wearing hooded light plastic raincoats, which Oleyyah is not, run or walk past.

". . . Um, sorry, we're going to have to dash to the subway entrance," says Oleyyah over the background drone of carplane engines and the rush of rain. "Follow me?"

Areli is somewhat bemused by the final search, but he cooperates, happy to get out.

He looks around the city curiously.  Things look like they're a little more closely packed than in Ev, and more... metallic?  sparkling?  than most cities at home.  He isn't surprised to not see any automobile roads - there're places without them in Ev too, especially campuses.

Huh, what's that drone from the air?

 - His mouth drops open at seeing the carplanes.  "No wonder you don't have roads..." he breathes.

And then he hears Oleyyah mention the subway.  Subways - a familiar thing, unless it's going to be strange in some way when he sees it.  "Subway.  Sure; lead the way."

"Alright then!"

Oleyyah is a pretty fast speed-walker, and will actually half-run if it seems like Areli won't have a problem keeping up, only glancing back occasionally to make sure he's following closely. An undercover operation to kidnap Areli, this apparently isn't!

It would be appropriate to call the big concrete subway entrance 'cavernous' if there weren't brilliant lighting-strips running along the ceiling. People stream, at moderate density, out of their right-hand side, through a one-way barrier, and enter on their left. Oleyyah leads Areli in with the stream on the left and down the stairs.

It's bright, and spacious, and peacefully limited to just the one stop; you can't walk to one subway stop from another. A huge, detailed, clearly labeled map on the wall points out their position in the city, which apparently is 'Aineh'.

He pulls out a pocketwatch - an analog, wind-up pocketwatch - to check the time, then checks over the map.

"I live here," he says, pointing out a spot to Areli that's halfway across the city but not too far from a stop. He has to talk over the crowd, but not too loudly since this room is designed for sound-eating acoustics. "It'll just be a few minutes' trip, and there's a train in ten minutes."

Areli keeps up, though in a bit it'll be pretty clear he's out of shape.  While he's catching his breath, he stares at the map, trying to judge how big the city looks and what landmarks are called out.

Areli smiles a bit at Oleyyah's pocketwatch - it's the most homelike aesthetic of anything he's seen in this world.

"Oh, thank you.  And then... is there anything around there you think... someone like me should see?"  (He doesn't want to mention in public how he's from another world, until he's had a better chance to talk through what that would entail.)

(It'd be difficult, in reality, for Areli to say anything that attracted attention, in public, let alone provoked adverse action. Gaha'eka mind their own business unless it's clear someone is actually causing a problem!)

Oleyyah blinks. "What do you mean?"

(In Ev, if he said outright that he'd come from another world, people would assume he was LARPing.  But he doesn't want to depend on that here.)

"Someone who should know about me, or somewhere to help me understand this place better.  Or maybe the thing I need most is just to talk with you where we can be candid."

"Yeah, that last thing is . . . about what I was angling for."

"I get three days off starting tomorrow - tomorrow's my cult meeting, but anyway I'm not really pressed for time, and you're super interesting." Respectfully curious look. "The most interesting thing that'll realistically happen to me at this job where I was hoping interesting things would happen to me. I don't see why I don't just quit. Might as well wait until the end of my break, though."

"Anyway. I have a spare bed in my apartment for reasons, which you're welcome to until you . . ." handwave "until you are oriented. Presuming you" don't turn out to be way more hassle or ?danger? than you're worth "are up to it."

"Wait, you have a cult - or - are you using the word in a different sense?  To me, that'd mean... a religious sect that tries to govern all your life with its people, not just letting you interpret its doctrine.

"... but thank you; cult aside, I'd be up for that.  Till I get a bit better situated?"

Tries to govern all your life with its people . . . Oleyyah has been letting himself be entertained, but the truth is, this guy's got to be insane. There's no other possibility. But the way Areli is coming at things is, is disturbing, somehow, like Oleyyah had wanted to bet Yeilsi about. Calm. Coherent. Alien.

"Around here, a cult is -" he feels so silly, this is something you only have to explain to two-year-olds. He legitimately doesn't know if he's going to somehow have to explain what a job is, next. "- it's what you do to - change the world, on your own, with people who share some aspect of your ideas about how to do that? Even if you all know that the market won't pay for any of your ideas yet."

Chuckle. "We, um. Don't have much experience with people getting governed, in real life. I'd like to hear about that."

There's no way this seemingly eloquent, civilized person grew to adulthood without knowing what a cult is. So what else explains how he's talking?

"That sounds like a sort of Project - either a charity project or a startup project.

"And we don't have experience with people not being governed.  In my world, when you become an adult, you can choose which nation you want to be part of.  Each nation has its own government; there're at least a dozen in any city.  Then of course there's the territorial government on top of that to coordinate things between the different nations.

"If you don't have that... does everyone join a cult?  In your sense?  Because one of the big things about choosing a nation is getting together with people who share some part of your ideas about how to live life!"

"'Nation', what's - oh, hold on, I'll get back to you in a second, but this is us -"

The train hisses distantly, then zooms - brakes - into the station. It's pretty unremarkable, as a subway train - steel and doors and windows - except that it's fast. The base isn't visible, and the sound it makes is kind of indistinct, but if Areli is familiar at all with maglev he'll probably get that from the speed.

They're first in line for this car, probably because it's the middle of the afternoon. Oleyyah puts some silver coins into a machine, which prints out two tickets. He hands one ticket to Areli and holds his own up to a scanner. The semitransparent gate to the platform swings open to allow Oleyyah through, then shuts. Oleyyah nods at Areli to replicate his action.

Areli has heard of maglev, but he's not familiar enough with it to identify it.

He's very familiar with automatic ticket gates, though, and not surprised to see them in somewhere without a government - in fact, he expects to see a lot more of them to guard things.  He takes his ticket and gets through the gate like Oleyyah did.

The door to the subway car opens for them, then.

It's laid out like the inside of a spacious airliner, but with shorter seat-backs that are made of some kind of white, sheer-tough-soft synthetic material. Some of the seats don't have backs at all. There are armrests and self-stabilization handles all over the place instead. It's overall sleek and uncluttered, and not very occupied. 

Oleyyah will go hover by a couple of the back-having seats, body-languaging awkwardly and perhaps incomprehensibly Areli should go ahead and take the window one.

It seems recognizable to Areli, but sort of... low-budget.  Or maybe they're going for a different simpler aesthetic.

Areli nods thanks and takes the window, not that he's expecting to see much in a subway.  Or maybe there're going to be paintings on the tunnel walls, or maybe this's going to break above ground soon.

"So... nations.  Basically, they're groups of people who've agreed to have the same government, because they want the same sort of government as each other.  If you want a different sort of government, and you can't convince your current nation to change, you'll find a different nation."

Something about that finally breaks through something in him, and his disbelief is suspended.

"Is there anywhere without one?"

"Any where?  Nations are a thing of people not places.  There're some people who don't have a nation, but they're in the desert or jungle or maybe remote islands or somewhere like that.  There're also territorial states, but they're a different thing that makes all the nations fit together..."  He pauses to check if this's too much for Oleyyah.

"How so?"

"Well, if you and your neighbor have different nations, someone's got to set the rules for which nation's court you go to if you want to sue him.  And also, someone's got to build the roads and set the rules for them, and a lot of things like that.  That's basically what the territorial state is for."

"Why does it matter which nation you sue somebody in - and why doesn't a road company just build the roads?" He has so many more questions but only so many moves per conversational turn.