"Gotcha. Hm, and I basically don't have to worry about who speaks English?"

"You don't! It's awesome!"

"Okay. Is there more comprehensive literature on places to live and schools to attend that I could read while I'm here?"

"Try looking over thataway for maps and guidebooks and that way for school and job ads?" Gesture gesture. "There might or might not be much that's useful, it kinda depends on who's donated what lately."

"Great, thanks." Off she goes for school brochures et al.

The Viny Cliffs School of Ecology and Medicine seems to be looking for people who "already have a solid grounding in statistics, the theory of the evolution of species by natural selection, and the relationships of the elements to one another, as well as a passion for the life sciences" and is completely free to everyone who passes the entrance exam. Mesannepada College is also free and advertises courses in statistics, algebra, geometry, calculus, logic, history, music, dance, painting and cinematography. Bronze Heart School of the Mind and Soul, which offers a year of free classes to new arrivals and is fairly cheap thereafter, has math classes from prealgebra through the kind of math class someone getting a PhD might take, as well as classes on philosophy, history, ethics, education, monastic and eremitic traditions, psychology, comparative religions, neurology, and how social science research works.

There's also an ad for a job teaching people to read, and an ad for a job as a lab assistant, and an ad for a nursing job (people don't get sick but they can want to add wings and this benefits from professional assistance), and an ad for an opportunity to be interviewed about life on Earth as part of a research project. There seem to have maybe been others that have all disappeared into the hands of other new arrivals.

How would she go about sitting entrance exams? What kind of lab? How much of a commitment is the interview?

The interview would probably take a few hours. The lab does research on sea creatures. There are times and dates listed for people to show up to take exams, space limited but there seem to be opportunities about every week in some city or other. (There seem to be more entities than have left brochures here making use of the same exams.)

Are there animals native to these planes or are they all Earth imports at some remove?

The brochures do not actually say.

Anything in the way of exam prep to be had?

There's this tutoring service that left a brochure? It's not free but she can maybe afford it if she gets interviewed or definitely if she gets a grant.

Okay. She generally likes the sound of this place.

She goes back to the person. "If I put in an application to live here, but then I turn out to like the vibe in New Jerusalem while I'm waiting there, can I cancel and just live there?"

"Getting vetted doesn’t create any obligation on your part and if you don’t immediately start a crime spree in New Jerusalem or disappear and leave us no way to be sure it’s you, you can pretty much show up at your leisure. You can even concurrently apply here and to the Bastion."

"Does my application stay good if I get accepted in both places and start in one and want to move to the other?"

"Pretty much until you drop off the radar or make it clear we don’t want you. You could run into a weird edge case, maybe, but you’re not competing for limited space or anything. Do report it if and when you decide to move in so you can get your voter registration set up right."

"Of course. I would like to apply to reside here and in the Bastion but if it helps with the paperwork or anything I currently expect to live here for the next while."

"Great! I have forms for you; just bring them back here when you’re done." She adds some papers to a clipboard and offers it and a pen to Bella.

"Thanks." She will go off and get another cocoa and see what the forms want to know.

All fields are optional but she could be denied for insufficient specificity. They would like to know her name, date of death, date of birth, current/previous residence, Resident Identity number, SSN, PAN, New Jerusalem public library card number, Elysian ID number, last five employers, security clearances, parents, current phone number, previous phone number, or whatever she wants to put in this freeform field for other identifying information. They want to know if she has magic and if anyone will vouch for her and if she has a criminal record and if so what kind. They want to know if she has any notable achievements.

She has... some of this information. She never memorized her SSN, and she knows what day it was when the van hit her but isn't sure it didn't take her longer to die. Maybe her dead grandma would vouch, wherever she wound up??

It would take a very unusual person to have all of that information anyway. The form does not know where her dead grandma wound up.

Yeah, but if they have a database by name this is her name and the month and year of her death.

She goes and turns in the forms.

"Thanks! I'll page someone to come take you to New Jerusalem for now if you'd like, and let me just print up your receipt so you can check up on your application later."

"Thanks, you've been very helpful."