Koen's first thought upon seeing the bazaar was to check his bug and make sure it hadn't said "sports arena" instead. Or maybe "small, well-lit war."

"What is this?" asked Laura, who had decided to stop pressing Koen to take them home.

Koen knew Laura wasn't having a good time and felt responsible for it. Perhaps if he could explain what was happening, everything would be all right. "I, uh, I think I've read about this." He groped for sense. "Competitive solidarity. The Quotidians have a conflicted relationship with commerce."

"And each other," said Laura.

The concept of "ground level" didn't usually mean much in the Zogreion. The lattice of artificial branches and vines extended tens of meters both above and below the original soil of the mouth of the alternate Hudson River. Where on the humans' Earth, a tunnel connected Lower Manhattan to Jersey City, the Quotidians had constructed a "shopping arcade."

A straight line had been slashed as if by giant machete, cleaving the city into two cliff-like sides around a long alley. The city spotlights, always uncomfortably bright, had been turned up to actinic levels, flooding the alley with the sort of shadowless, overwhelming illumination usually reserved for Hollywood movie scenes set in Heaven.

And across this sea of light, Quotidians sallied forth in battle. They would dart from the shadows of one edge of the alley and fling themselves at the other. Some would be knocked down by Quotidians running the other way, some would be surrounded by defenders, and some would make it to their goal, where they would scream wetly.

After watching for a minute, Koen realized something. He was in the right place. "Do you see those chariots behind some of the, uh, combatants? I think those are shopping carts."

"Oh," said Laura in resignation. "We are in the right place."

Koen gave her a concerned look.

Laura wanted him to say, "let's go home," but instead he said, "Do you want to go home?" The dunderhead.

Laura considered how selfish it would be for her to answer honestly.

"No," she said.

Koen smiled. "That's the spirit." He turned back to the rushing battle before them, and displayed significantly more understanding of it than of the emotional state of the human standing next to him. "You know, I think this is something like a live action role play. You know? A video game in real life."

Laura didn't need the definition. She'd once participated in a Glasgow Vampire Event. That had been fun, hadn't it?

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She tried to remember how it had felt not to have an office of diplomats looking over her shoulder.

"Hey, remember how we used to go shop in Sol Nascente? Didn't we find some cool stuff there?" asked Koen.

Laura looked over her shoulder and saw only Koen. She was, she realized, alone with him. And, just at the moment, she didn't need to run an embassy.

"Well," she said, and at much higher volume. "Come on, warrior! What are you waiting for?"

"Huh?" But Koen's arms and legs tensed.

"Into the breach!"

"Okay!"

Laura raised her fist and stepped forward. "May our savings last ten thousand years!"

***

A confused, shrieking, over-exposed battle later, they found themselves in a shadowed grotto. Koen's translator bug told him its name was "The Stall of the Twine of Seafood."

"Seafood," gasped Koen. At least he understood that word. And yes, there was a salty, fishy smell to the air in here. He looked down at the floor, into which ceramic troughs had been sunk. Foamy water filled the troughs, thrashing with, presumably, live seafood.

Something clattered and sluiced in the darkness on his right. "Avast, invaders from beyond the tangle of quantum branches! I declare my intention to strenuously defend the territory of my clone-stock, brimming as it does with the fruits of the unbounded salt-canals. Choose, now, the manner in which we will bribe each-other out of mutual destruction!"

"What does your translator bug say?" Koen asked in English. "The Dutch version sounds like a pirate."

"The Chinese version too!" Laura was smiling and red-faced. The sustained increase in heart-rate had released endorphins, which they both enjoyed.

"I'm glad you came with me," said Koen. "This wouldn't have been half as fun without you."

"I'm glad I came, too. I…it feels safe when I'm with you," said Laura, switching out her pronouns just in time.

"Bribe me!" shouted a Quotidian.

They jumped, and the stall's proprietor lurched out of the darkness, armor-clad abdomen held high and pulsing, eye quivering.

"Of course," said the Quotidian, whose in-game name was Twine, "if you don't want to battle."

Koen assured her that they did not want to battle, they wanted to buy seafood.

" 'Buy'? Don't use that word. Stay in character." Twine squatted irritably. "If you don't want to battle, bribe me with a promise of retribution from your clone-stock."

Laura motioned Koen to lean closer and said, "I think she means 'money.' "

Twine, whose translator bug had heard and passed on that exchange, said, "Didn't you eat the rules?"

"What?"

"Clarify?"

"Never mind. You bribe me with money to escape, and I bribe you with fish to leave me alone. Understand?"

"Oh, I see," said Laura. "All right. We'd like some fish."

"Don't request! Demand! You're invaders."

"Oh, right. Give us your fish!" Slap.

"Ow! That's more like it."