Bleeding edge help

[Izver Izver]

Hi everybody, I'm new on this list, currently I'm reading "Bleeding Edge"
and I'm not a native speaker of English, so there are a couple of sentences
that I really don't get. Can somebody please help me out?


For example, chapter 31:

One day Maxine finds Eric in the spare room with a 27-ounce spray bottle of
Febreze, spritzing his dirty laundry, item by item. “There’s a laundry room
in the basement, Eric. We can lend you detergent.”
He drops the T-shirt he’s holding on to a pile of already-Febrezed laundry
and remains pointing the bottle at his ear, as if about to shoot himself
with it. “Does it come with Downy April Fresh Scent?” Diminishing returns.
But he also has a worried look.

-What does "Diminishing returns" means in this context?


Chapter 26:

“Your husband tends to run to extra dimensions,” Maxine supposes.

-I completely miss the meaning of this one :(


Chapter 38:

“Igor Dashkov said you talked about trying to seek some kind of asylum in
DeepArcher. Is this who I’m really talking to now, Igor? Misha, Grisha?”
“Don’t think so, I say ‘the’ too much.”
“All right, all right. Assuming there’s still an edge somewhere. And beyond
it a void. If you’ve been out there—”
“Sorry. Just a mail-room scrambler here, remember? You want prophecy, sure,
I can do that, but it’ll all be bullshit.”
“How about at least letting me bring you back up. Whoever you are.”

-What 'edge' is she talking about? And what is a "mail-room scrambler"?

Chapter 12:

Maxine is no stranger to the Upper East Side, though it still makes her
uncomfortable. As a kid she went to Julia Richman High—well, she could’ve
been on the natch once or twice—over on East 67th, rode crosstown buses
five days a week, never got used to it.

-Does this mean that couple of times she's been to school while not being
high? It certainly reads that way, but wouldn't it bee a bit too hardcore
for more-or less normal person that she is?

Many thanks in advance!
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