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

[giftedandtalented]

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

Comments

[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.

[giftedandtalented]

"Plan to. But he was on the stranded welcoming committee, so I think I'll let him settle in to where he lives first."

[salus_populi]

"Yes, that could be an awkward proposition to get out of nowhere while busy."

[giftedandtalented]

"Rather, yes. Jane, what's Corona up to?"

[mind_game]

[In Origin. Doesn't have a gem on him, so I can't be sure about what he's doing, but I can offer an educated guess!]

[giftedandtalented]

"Of course. When he asks you for a lift out of the world can you tell him I'd like to talk to him?"

[mind_game]

[Okay!]

[salus_populi]

"So. What's your plan for reviving Toronto?"

[giftedandtalented]

"After I figure out coin sourcing, one way or another, I terraform a planet, possibly in another solar system so astronomers around here don't notice anything if I'm careless invisibling everything, and ask the admin to instantiate it whole cloth less Delphi and company, where Jane can see it, and Jane puts it where I want it."

[salus_populi]

"Another solar system would be a nice touch. And probably enticing to Corona, as a bonus."

[giftedandtalented]

"Yeah. I think I'll take my guided teleporting for a spin and see if it finds me a nice place!"

Tab teleports - somewhere!

[pythbox]

'Somewhere' turns out to be a planet. It has a purplish blue sky, a breathable atmosphere, and - where Tab is standing - a beachful of glittering silver-grey sand.

Some distance away, the sand gives way to scrubby pale purple grass, which in turn heralds the beginning of a forest. The trees are huge. Their craggy black trunks grow in thick, majestic spirals up to at least a few hundred feet, with branches spreading out in wider arcs from the corkscrew trunks, sparsely near the bottom but in thick sprays up top. The end of each branch has a wide pointed leaf with blotchy zigzag stripes of colour banding from the base to the tip, almost like they were tie-dyed. Colourful vines twine around trunks and branches and dangle like leafy ropes all the way back down to the forest floor.

But there's no sound except the rustle of vegetation in the slight breeze - no squirrels, no mice, no birds. No mobile life of any kind.

[giftedandtalented]

[This place is awesome! Also this air appears to be pretty airlike, want to come see?]