Echo didn't know what 'purity of blackness' meant, but what the older woman was describing sounded like an experiment gone wrong. She shuffled her feet, watched a random sheet of newspaper blow past her. Her expression was troubled.

"I didn't know places like that were real," she said, gesturing with the hand not holding her bag. "Laboratories where they do...things...to people. That's part of why I'm so careful. I don't want to end up on a dissection table."

She looked down at the toes of her shoes, which were dusty. If she felt like an alien no matter how human she looked, how must the other woman feel? Especially if she'd been dragged from another plane of existence to occupy a form she considered lesser?

"Are they after you?"