I still have no clue where this is going

Flennish bolted down the corridor, using his tentacles at full stretch to grab walls, floor and ceiling and pull himself along. The mob was close behind him.

A left turn, into another corridor, this one door-lined. He tried each door as he hurtled past. One opened. He jerked himself to a halt, barrelled in and slammed the door shut.

"What kept you?" Treugenth was sitting on a small round rug, smoking a hookah.

"How--how did you--" Words failed Flennish. He sagged against the door as the mob pounded past outside.

"This corridor is the most likely exit from the hall for a speaker running for his life. This room is the only unlocked one. Simple process of elimination." Treugenth looked at the stem of the hookah with distaste. "I have no idea why we do this."

"Those people--" Flennish fought for breath. "Those people--"

"Well, you did just question their reality. And yours, of course, but that probably got overlooked in the confusion. Calm down. Come and have a seat."

Flennish moved tentatively away from the door.

"I left the emergency exit door at the far end open. With any luck they'll all have a jolly time looking for you in town, and probably end up at a pub drowning their sorrows." Treugenth made to proffer the stem of the hookah, saw Flennish's expression and thought better of it. "Poor Flennish. It's hard when illusions are shattered."

"What illusions?"

"Well, for one, the illusion that other people are as intelligent as you are. Everyone has that one, except of course very stupid people."

"They wanted to destroy Earth!"

"And you pointed out that the Earth in this universe is just as much a fictional creation as the rest of us are, so destroying it would be completely pointless."

"And they said it would send a message!" Flennish mopped the area just above his eyes. "Send a message!"

"Yes, it will." Treugenth held up one hand to the side of her face, thumb and little finger splayed. "Hello?" she said. "We're really stupid and badly written, and you should go away and write something else. I hear paranormal romance is big this year."

Flennish was beginning to recover. He pointed an accusing tentacle. "Anyway," he said, "you did not believe me at all."

"Of course I didn't believe you," Treugenth said impatiently, around a mouthful of smoke. "I'm a scientist. Science isn't about whether you believe something, it's about whether something is true. The anomalous phenomena you pointed out are real enough, and they require explanation. At the moment the only explanation we have is yours, and while it's bizarre and implausible all right, it's something we can work with till something better comes along. Plus, I respect you. We don't always see eye to eye, which is hardly surprising given our relative heights, but you are neither a crank nor a fantasist, and if you put forward a bizarre and implausible theory, it's because you've thought about it and found nothing better that fits the facts." She paused. "So, what's our next move?"

Her unflinching calm was driving back Flennish's impulse to panic in spite of himself. He took a deep breath. "This must be investigated," he said, "and preferably before the governments of the Federation declare war on this universe's Earth. Unfortunately, I would estimate our chances of obtaining funding for such a project at--"

"Slim to none," Treugenth agreed. "So we'll have to do it ourselves."

"We?" Flennish parroted stupidly.

Treugenth looked impatient again. "You don't think I'm passing up the chance to investigate something like this, do you? If you're right, it could upturn all our ideas about the nature of reality itself. And if you're wrong--"

"Yes?"

"Then," Treugenth said with a nasty smile, "I get to be the first one to laugh."