"Yeah, it's really the portal, or whatever it is, that's the exciting part," Karen admits, pulling a face, though she's laughing as she does. She finds excitement in far more than that, too, but she doesn't expect everyone to be as taken with all the details as she is, or to want to try to document them. This city, like the one they just stepped out of, has its own definition of normal. She wants to understand what that is and why it came to be, to take in every last bit of information she can, to maybe figure out what's going on under the surface. She's picked up bits and pieces of things, but it isn't enough yet, her picture an incomplete one.

Today, though, isn't about that. Her journalistic pursuits can be temporarily set aside in the name of having fun with a friend. "I mean, aside from the buildings and some of the technology — and, God, the clothes — it's not really too different. Or it is, but not in the ways you can see. But I'm sure we can figure something out."