do: make introductions; don't: usurp the government

[giftedandtalented]

Tab goes home by door, right into Aelise's office. "Hello again."

Comments

[salus_populi]

"Point," says Aelise. "I don't suppose I could have the distribution? That would solve a few problems."

[giftedandtalented]

"Involves traveling Downside and getting it from the admin - I only have torchability one meta level up, not two. D'you want to do that? She has the ability to read all the thoughts of the lifetime of anybody who gets near, especially if they're torchable - doesn't do it to Bells anymore, but I don't know about you. She's also generally omnipotent but that's the one thing she has a history of doing without asking first."

[salus_populi]

"Is there any reason to think that she will be interested in reading my thoughts in particular, or do anything about it if she does?"

[giftedandtalented]

"Interested not necessarily, do anything about it almost certainly not - she's not much for doing things, reportedly."

[salus_populi]

"Then I can probably risk it."

[giftedandtalented]

"Jane can take you there and back right now if you want."

[salus_populi]

"That would be convenient."

[giftedandtalented]

Tab reaches for her Janegem, then pauses. "Do you want your own one of these?"

[salus_populi]

"That... would also be convenient," she says. "Potentially."

[giftedandtalented]

"She can see and hear out of it but you can turn that off, there's a little switch," says Tab, "and then she can't do anything with it except mind the clock, and brainphone people in the relevant world even if there aren't other nodes. She has no yoinking-people-without-permission habit."

[mind_game]

[I'm very well-behaved,] agrees Jane.

[salus_populi]

"Good to know," says Aelise. "All right."

[giftedandtalented]

Tab hands over a square. "Unless you want me to make it? I don't know what you want the gem part to look like."

[salus_populi]

Aelise thinks for a moment, and then conjures an Imperial seal - a cylinder with the stylized globe from the Empire's flag, showing no continents and circled by the orbital ring, embossed on one end. This particular seal is made of silver, with a faceted black glass sphere enclosed in the upper part of the cylinder, showing through diamond-shaped cutouts all around the top. She hangs it around her neck.

"Does that work?"

[giftedandtalented]

"Yeah, sure." Tab makes an ansible with a matching gem as half; she twists them apart, Jane whisks away the ungemly half, and she swaps it in for the non-ansible one.

[salus_populi]

"Great. Okay. In that case - Downside?"

[mind_game]

[Coming right up.]

And here is the Bell office in the catacombs.

[salus_populi]

She brainphones the admin.

[Can I have the power to distribute torchability, please?]

[ending_of]

[Done.]

[salus_populi]

[Thank you.] And to Jane, [I can go home now.]

[mind_game]

Pop!

[giftedandtalented]

"So, at the risk of too much information, I'm probably going to sleep with Cam. That's the boy one of me," Tab clarifies.

[salus_populi]

"Is there some particular reason for this or is it an act of pure whim?"

[giftedandtalented]

"I'm not badly socialized in the same way as Aegis - she's a Bell who was raised in military school - but I did kind of grow up with only you, Kers, and briefly Harley for in-person company and had to lie a lot to everyone I talked to on the internet. So if I want to be rid of my virginity with someone who isn't approximately a total stranger, I can comb through a lot of people - probably dead Torontonians or something, since I still have to lie a lot to local Earthlings - learning how to be a social primate properly, or I can skip that part and proposition the conveniently-shaped version of myself who escapes strangerhood on that basis."

[salus_populi]

"Reasonable strategy. Go for it," says Aelise.