Rei's second joke

In the original version of Rome's Revolution, Rei's character was much more shallow and joked around lot. Too much. The current version of Rei has a sense of humor but some of his funnier jokes got excised. Here is the joke he told Rome when she was in respiratory distress in the Vuduri compound in the second book aka Part 2. The leader of the Vuduri, Pegus, is about to connect her to the Overmind of Deucado. Rei has to rub her belly to distract her from the pain.

     “Keep rubbing while you are thinking,” Rome said.
     “Oh yeah,” said Rei. “OK, I’ve told you all about my world. You know that we had lots of crime and police officers that help the victims and try and find the perpetrators?”
     “Yes, like our Cavaliers. I understand,” Rome replied.
     “OK, here goes: The story takes place in New York which was our largest and the most sophisticated city in our country.”
     “You have explained this to me,” Rome said. “Go on.”
     “OK,” Rei continued. “A turtle was walking down an alley in New York City…”
     “A turtle again?” Rome interrupted him. “Is that the only type of joke you know?”
     “It’s kind of hard for me to remember a joke that doesn’t have all sorts of cultural references,” Rei answered defensively.
     “All right, continue.”
     “Anyway, the turtle was walking down an alley when he was mugged, that means attacked, by a gang of snails.”
     “Snails?” Rome asked. “The kind that crawl?”
     “Yes, snails,” Rei replied. “A police detective came to investigate and asked the turtle if he could explain what happened. The turtle looked at the detective with a dazed expression on his face and replied ‘I don't know, it all happened so fast.’”
     “Snails? Oh!” Rome said. “So fast. Yes, I get it,” she said and she started to laugh. “Oh! Oww!” she said plaintively. With a tortured look on her face, Rome closed her eyes and forced herself to cease acknowledging sensory input from the outside world.

Rei was pretty funny!