You could probably get your hands on it, but you'd just be doggy-paddling in circles. I hear if you get too far from this place, you drop dead. Something about a Core in the middle of the city that's way too much bullshit for me to repeat.

[He hesitates, then asks:]

You're from Washington, too?

[Because she bears a bucktoothed resemblance to someone he knows, and it's starting to get freaky.]