Rowan and Shane had walked on in silence. Central Park wasn't exactly a small park, they just walked around the edge until they reached a pond. The water was calm and there weren't many other people around, so they sat down on the grass close to it. There were some bushes and a lone tree that partially obscured them. 

The path was about 50 yards away from them, and Rowan stared intently at the figures walking across it. Shane said nothing and just stared ahead in the general direction of the water. They both remained silent, Rowan found the figures more interesting for now. 

She didn't think they were actual people, they looked strange and behaved even stranger. She knew how people behaved, she had seen and studied them in many dimensions because she liked doing that, but there was something wrong with them. It just didn’t look right.

She saw the people walking over the paths. Only adults, no elderly, no children. No one was playing, no one seemed out of step. No runners, no slow people or people passing slow people. There weren't even cyclists. They were only walking, mostly in pairs. No groups, no families. They didn't point at things, they didn't look at things. No tourists, no people on the grass. Suddenly she realized what was going on.

“They’re robots,” she concluded out loud.

“Robots?” Shane repeated surprised. 

This made Shane look up and stare at her. He still looked like he lost all hope, but there was also a glimmer of curiosity that she had managed to spark with a single word. Rowan nodded determinedly, she'd figured it out. Now she also knew why she didn't recognize it. Robots didn't buy drugs, they didn't use them at all so there was no need to go here.

“Yeah, robots. Oh, and I’m 23.” 

It took a while for her words to really get through to Shane, that she was talking about robots and that she meant her age when saying 23. It mostly took a while because it felt like he had to reboot his brain after the realization that they were still in the wrong dimension. He slowly blinked at her. 

“Robots?” he repeated himself, this time he sounded less out of it. “But they seem so human…” 

Rowan sighed and she rolled her eyes, but at least this time she didn't snarl at him. She probably understood his situation and why he was acting like this at the moment. 

“Robots,” she also repeated. “There is only one dimension that's this advanced and I think has robots as primary residents. The 9th, but I don't really know the history or anything about it. We never go here because they don't buy anything here anyway. There is nothing to sell and nothing to earn.” 

“How does it look this much like my New York?” he asked, he still sounded a little defeated. 

“Well, the theory is that everything originated in one dimension., but every time someone makes a choice or does something, dimensions with every possible outcome will split off from the original. Or something along those lines,” she explained. “There's a lot of them, but most of them aren’t within our reach. Sometimes new ones are discovered, they can have a lot in common when they split off at a later point in time, as it were, but if it happened very early, everything can be different. It’s just hard to find out how to get there.” 

Shane nodded understandingly and let himself fall back on the grass. He stretched his legs out and put his hands under his head. The sky above their heads was blue, with a few fuzzy white clouds. Like this it just felt like any other summer day in Central Park. 

It all sounded very logical but also a little unfathomable. There could be a million dimensions that all looked like this and he was a little glad that it seemed like they could not be reached that easily.

“I just hope we won’t discover any new ones,” he mused. “The ones we’ve seen seem bad enough. Imagine finding worse ones.” 

“Hm… We might have a problem if we end up somewhere new. Or not. We’ll make it anyway.” 

She didn't seem that confident about this particular thing, but he did trust her because of everything she had done to help him so far. This time probably wouldn't be particularly difficult either. They just had to wait until the Tuner had cooled down enough to be turned on again. 

He preferred to wait a bit longer this time around because he was afraid that the Tuner would give out if they didn't let it cool for long enough and it was in their best interest to keep it working for as long as possible. Suddenly he shot back up and looked at Rowan.

“You’re only 23 and you’ve been doing this for eight years?” he asked as he suddenly realized this. “That means you were like… fifteen when you started.” 

Rowan nodded and shrugged, seemingly to try and brush it off like it wasn't a big deal anyway. She pushed a strand of blonde hair out of her face and behind her ear. She sighed and looked up to the blue sky for a moment before turning back to Shane to say something.

“We all do what we have to do to survive.”

She said it like she was just reciting facts, instead of talking about her own life, calm and without any trace of emotions. It seems like she reverted back to speaking like this any time she would talk about herself, which wasn't much to begin with, even though it was probably just to distract him from the fact that they were in the wrong dimension, which was very kind of her.

“Yeah, I guess,” he said, not really knowing how to respond.

He decided not to say anything else about it, realizing that she was just trying to protect herself by pretending it wasn't about her and he wasn't about to scare her off now that she was opening up a bit to him. 

The same was probably true with her sarcastic remarks and fairly blunt behavior. It was easier to act like that than to be nice to people and let them get close. He wondered if she had a family at home to provide for, or if she was just simply surviving like she said. 

The only thing Shane could think of was how unfair it was, that her whole dimension was probably unfair, her government or whoever was in charge there. But he realized that his words would not change anything and didn't really mean anything. She probably wouldn't want to hear it anyway. 

Even in his dimension, many things were still unfair and there was nothing he could do to change it. Even though it was a great place to live for many, it wasn't great for equally as many people. 

With a sigh, he slumped back on the grass and folded his hands under his head again. This time, however, he closed his eyes and did not look up to the sky. When he closed his eyes, he could hear the noise that sounded so familiar and it felt like he was at home. As a result, he slowly dozed off.