[The simple truth is he thinks she's wrong. He thinks that no one "escapes" Mayfield in any reasonable sense, any more than characters in books escape novels, or SL avatars escape the computer environment. He's not sure what would be involved in an "escape" for a Mayfield resident, but he's pretty sure the answer is not one anyone wants to hear. For example, he's not really looking forward to finding out that the only way he could "escape" would be to be downloaded into another body, like Lucrezia into Agatha.]

[But he loves Ilsa. And Ilsa wants to go -- or to at least find out. He sighs, because he's going to back her. But he's also going to try to warn her, as he did Agatha.]

I don't think it works that way. But...I'll help if I can.

I -- I think we'd be better off trying to learn what it would take to control Mayfield, or at least make it saner than it is. This place really could be heaven, if it weren't so determined to dump mayhem on us...or, worse, set us against each other.