“This whole trip is above our pay grade,” Ava muttered. She looked at the FINNA. The arrow in the center of the console still moved as she did, directing her toward something. Oddly, it wasn’t pointing at the now-digesting plant. “This thing is still telling us she’s out there, though. Piece of crap.”

She dropped it and began setting Ursula’s purse back to rights. The granddaughter would probably want it back, but she wouldn’t miss a couple of cough drops, and Ava’s throat was sore from screaming. She popped a cough drop into her mouth and sucked on it.

Jules was squinting at the FINNA’s instructions. They liked to talk up their French fluency, but Ava knew that their reading was rusty as shit.

“What color is the arrow in the console?” they called out.

“Yellow?”

“Huh,” Jules said.

Ava looked back at them. “What? What is it?”

“It says here that the arrow is green when it locates the exact match of the person being sought. But if that person is indisposed—and I’m guessing they mean dead—the light will change to yellow and the FINNA will locate instead …”

They trailed off, looking stricken.

“What?” Ava asked. “Locate what?”

Jules closed the booklet. “An appropriate replacement from another universe.”

Ava sat up straighter. “Appropriate replacement?”

“That’s what it says.”

She bellowed, “Appropriate replacement?!”

“I am literally just translating.”

Ava dropped the FINNA and put her face in her hands. She wanted to scream again, but her throat was still too sore. She crunched the cough drop vindictively.

“This is so fucked up,” she said between bites.

“Capitalism,” Jules said philosophically.

“Yep.” She took her face out of her hands. “So we’re supposed to find some alternate universe version of Ursula and bring her back instead?”

“I guess,” Jules said, though they sounded conflicted about it. “That’s better than coming back empty-handed.”

“Is it?” Ava asked. “Is it really? Or is that sorta messed up?”

Jules shrugged. “It’s messed up either way. I’m not really in a hurry to go back and tell this girl her grandma is …”

They both looked at the Ursula-sized lump in the plant. Ava shuddered.

“Besides,” Jules said, “I’d still rather be out here than back in the store and getting grilled on my gender by random customers.”

Ava side-eyed them. “You almost got eaten by a chair.”

Jules shrugged, and Ava could see the response coming. “What’s life without a little risk?”

“You know,” she snapped. “I really wish you cared about yourself as much as other people cared about you.”

Jules whipped around. “What the hell does that mean? And who the hell are you to say that?”

Ava was caught off guard by the ferocity in their voice.

“You made it abundantly clear that you didn’t care about me anymore,” they said. “You can’t just, just say stuff like that when you don’t—”