“The letter is dated tomorrow.” I said, standing up from my writing desk and turning over the letter. “That’s...” I struggled to think of a better word than weird.

“So someone miswrote a date, Dy. Any other cases of the century you need me to solve?” My brother was curled up in his armchair, in the midst of assembling a 3D chess set. There was a feline grace in the way he arranged the pieces, and in the way his gray eyes shone when delivering each one to its place of honor. The pieces themselves looked gorgeous, I’ll grant you, carved from a mineral that sparkled with countless colors as he held them to the light.

I cleared my throat and waved the envelope in my hand. “This is serious, okay? I mean, I can understand being off the date by a day or two, but this is just sloppy. And to think I ordered a crossbow off this guy! You can’t afford to make stupid mistakes when building crossbows. There are so many ways stuff can go wrong.”

“It really makes one question why you’d order something as frivolous as a crossbow when you have a perfectly serviceable pistol at your side.”

I glanced back at the crystal chess set, which must’ve cost at least a thousand greenbacks, then glared at him. Ryan sighed, placed his final rook on the top of the set, and held out his hand for the letter. “The chess set hardly counts anyway,” he muttered as he studied the piece of paper. “I had it specially made so that the pieces could double as flashbang grenades.”

I eyed the chess pieces a little nervously. Part of me wanted to scoff and call him out on it, but you could never be truly sure with him.

My brother frowned as he read, then turned over the letter. “All right, fine. As my assistant, what theories do you have as to why this letter is dated for tomorrow?”

My keenly refined senses detected an impending lecture, and a long one at that. I crossed my arms and leaned back in my office chair, which gave a squeak of protest. “Nope, not getting into that game again. It’s not like I’m acting as your assistant for this one anyway. I’m more of… I don’t know, your client?”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “Let’s go with that, sure.” He tapped the top of the letter. “Look at the date itself. 8/7/2028. What’s that date, if you wanted to state it in words?”

“August 7th. So tomorrow, then.”

“Right. We grew up American, and despite how calling this place a melting pot would be the understatement of the year, the City tends to follow standard American conventions with these things. So we always say dates with the month first, and that’s reflected in how we write down dates as well. But a European would say something like “the 7th of August” instead, and that’s also reflected in how they write dates. So 8/7/2028 for a European would be…”

“July 8th. Jeez, thanks for making me sound dumb.” I frowned at the letter again. “Although the crossbow craftsman I wrote to described himself as born and bred in Palisade, Minnesota. You really think he’d write a date the way a European would?”

“Hmm, not necessarily.” Ryan turned back to his 3D chess board. If you’ve never seen one of those, it’s like someone chopped a normal board into five pieces and stacked them in a tower. Playing on those things is like a headache squared, and I had an inkling he’d try and lasso me into a match as soon as he finished building it.

I snapped my fingers to get his attention. “What do you mean, not necessarily?”

He spread out his hands. “The meshing of cultures in the world provides an infinite net of possibilities, making the science of deduction more and more difficult as — actually no, pass me the letter again. And the envelope, if you will.”

Ryan read through it one more time. “The man’s quite a storyteller, isn’t he? Though that will be for our benefit here. Let’s see, there can’t be many Americans who’d use an “aeroplane” over “airplane” or bring up a “letterbox" over a “mailbox.” And mentioning the boot of a car instead of the trunk is just insulting. I retract my earlier statement completely.”

“So our guy’s European… or a citizen of any country in the world that adopted European customs. Welp, another thing to thank colonialism for.” I rubbed my eyes.

“I’m sure I can narrow it down a bit more than that.” My brother said. “It took nearly a month to reach you; there can’t be that many countries in that radius. And while the postmark’s a little faded, you can still make out the words on the ink.” He squinted. “It’s a foreign language. Let’s see, I can definitely make out a few Cyrillic letters, but I don’t think it’s Russian, either. Anyhow, there’s no way this came from Minnesota.”

I groaned. “You know, you could’ve just showed me the postmark and we could’ve moved on.”

He grinned. “ But that wouldn’t’ve been nearly as educational. I’ll be honest, it’s really quite commendable that you managed to get yourself scammed through a pen and paper post office. How old are you, ninety?”

I scowled at him. “Well, maybe lying about his nationality was just for marketing purposes. For all you know, his crossbows could be fantastic.”

My brother shrugged. “That’s your call to make. Although I’m still going to demand payment for this one. You did call yourself my client, after all.”

The bastard knew perfectly well I’d cleaned out my savings to order the crossbow. “Let’s negotiate. If you do the meal prep, I’ll make a seafood biriyani for dinner tonight.”

“With groceries that I have to pay for? That’s a raw deal and you know it.”

:I gritted my teeth. “A seafood biriyani and a favor, to be repaid at any time of the recipient’s request. You won’t get a better deal than that for five minutes’ work.”

“You’re right, I probably won’t.” He leaned back in his armchair and sighed contentedly. “Isn’t diplomacy wonderful?”