"This is John Cantrell of Novus Ordo Seclorum and Epiphyte Corporations. For those of you who have reached me using my universal phone number and consequently have no idea where I am: I am in the Hotel Foote Mansion in the Sultanate of Kinakuta—please consult a quality atlas. It is four o’clock in the afternoon, Thursday March twenty-first. I’m probably down in the Bomb and Grapnel."