Backwater, perhaps. Backwards, certainly. She knew how Replicants were treated back home, how Joe had been used and then they'd tried to discard him when he seemed to get too close to answers to the mysteries.

"Oh, it's a book! A wonderful book about a young man who pulls a sword out of a stone and is crowned king. Everything goes wonderfully at first, he's a kind and caring king, but his wife has an affair." And her eyes and voice grow sad. "That's the ruin of everything, everything the king had worked for is destroyed. But...may I ask what Omoikane is?"