Mary: "Can I have some pancakes?"
Bellie: "Buttermilk or potato?"
Mary: "Buttermilk, emphasis on the butter."

The diner held a sort of cozy familiarity at 2:00AM, the likes of which you could never quite duplicate in your own kitchen. The buzz of the neon lights and the smell of cooking oil were an instant comfort, tainted only slightly by the realization that they might become even more familiar if she ended up having to work here.

Bellie: "You're up late. Or early, hard to tell these days."
Mary: "I'm not sure which one myself to be honest."
Bellie: "You headed to work?"
Mary: "Not anymore."
Bellie: "You quit, get fired, or just decide not to go anymore?"

Mary couldn't help but laugh at the bluntness of the question, the reality of it all slowly beginning to dawn on her.

Mary: "I went and got myself terminated, miraculously not the lethal kind."
Bellie: "Was your boss the lethal termination kind?"
Mary: "Well I think he is, but he seems to have just about everyone else fooled. I think he kept me alive just to mess with my head."

Bellie: "Seems like maybe you're lucky you got fired."
Mary: "Maybe. Maybe not."
Bellie: "So who'd you work for?"
Mary: "The ubiquitous Mr. Andrew Stone."
Bellie: "Ah yes, Andrew Stone. What did you do to get him to fire you, if you don't mind me prying?"

Mary paused. The truth was she didn't mind talking about any of this with a practical stranger; she knew she wouldn't be able to bring any of this up with Emily without all hell breaking loose.

Mary: "Seems Mr. Stone doesn't take kindly to people breaking into his office at one in the morning looking for clues that he's actually an evil mastermind behind some big diabolical scheme."
Bellie: "You think he's an evil mastermind?"
Mary: "Well, yeah. And the man has no past- I tried checking records at the county clerk's office, the library, hell even the internet. The man didn't exist before 1992 as far as I can tell."

Mary watched curiously as Bellie silently placed her pancakes on the counter in front of her, looking around the diner as if to make sure they were alone. His expression had seemed to darken somewhat, causing her to become slightly worried. Maybe it had been a mistake to talk about any of this with anyone. Maybe Bellie secretly worked for Stone and was now going to do the lethal sort of terminating for him.

Bellie: "Andrew Stone didn't exist before 1992."
Mary: "What do you mean?"
Bellie: "Before that, the man you know as Andrew Stone was actually Andrew Botzcowski. Want some syrup?"
Mary: "Please. And how do you know this?"
Bellie: "My brother and his wife gave him his first job when he was 15…"

Bellie: "They owned a small diner like this one down near Renton. My brother, Roland, would always talk about the changes Andrew went through in the time he worked for them. Now, they didn't know much about his past other than he was in and out of foster care from the age of 8. They didn't think it was really their place to ask for any specifics beyond what Andrew himself felt comfortable telling them. There were scars, though, both visible and invisible."

Bellie: "At any rate, Andrew Botzcowski was the eerily quiet sort- always watching and learning, taking in everything with a frightening intensity. Now, I don't know much about any sort of 'diabolical schemes', but I do know that in 1985 Andrew saved my brother's life."