Author: self_composed | Wisconsin fast plants (so called because they are from Wisconsin, fast-growing, and plants) are the subject of Bella and Bridget's chosen bio experiment. It involves taking at least some measurements after sunset - Bella managed to find an exact specific experiment design that hasn't been done before, when she heard they were allowed to choose their own, and even though all it will determine is whether indoor plants without windows can "tell if it's night" even if you leave the light on all the time, she is slightly excited about this.
She meets Bridget there. They measure their plants in the lit room and the dark room, take pictures, and write down subjective evaluations of leaf droopiness. They leave.
They're about a third of the way to Bella's building when a man's voice behind them says, "Hello, girls." |
Author: regularsized | Oh. Great.
Bridget ignores him. |
Author: self_composed | Bella does too.
"I said hello, girls," repeats the voice. The footsteps are following them. |
Author: regularsized | Bridget glances over her shoulder, irritated rather than unsettled. |
Author: self_composed | "Just wanna talk," says the guy. He's tall, and not much of his face is visible in the dark. He's also wearing sunglasses for some reason. "Isn't it much nicer when people can talk to each other? Goes much smoother. Say hello." |
Author: regularsized | "Get lost," she suggests. |
Author: self_composed | "That's not hello," says the man.
There is a loud bang.
Bella ramps up to 6x and whirls around with what seems like absurd slowness at that runspeed. She's not in pain - he missed or didn't shoot at her - but she has coins, she triangles the gun jammed, that could happen by itself, right? She pentagons aikido, knocks his gun arm aside like she's still afraid of it, locks his wrist when he grabs for her and drives him to the ground and breaks it. "Bridget. Bridget, are you okay?" |
Author: regularsized | "I'm fine," Bridget says wryly.
A flattened bullet falls to the ground from somewhere in the vicinity of her shoulderblades. There is a large, obvious hole through the back of her jacket that matches another large, obvious hole in the shirt beneath, but her skin is unmarked. |
Author: self_composed | Bella stares.
She didn't do that.
The guy is trying to kick her from his pinned position. She twists the broken wrist again and he screams.
"Call the cops," she says.
Pause.
"If you tie your jacket around your shoulders they'll be less likely to haul you off to a lab and prevent me from asking you a great many questions." |
Author: regularsized | "I hate when that happens," says Bridget, although she doesn't clarify what exactly 'that' is.
She also, after a little rearranging, manages to find a configuration for the jacket that does not reveal any suspicious holes. Then she picks up the ex-bullet and tucks it into her purse. Then she calls the cops. |
Author: self_composed | "They're going to know the gun was fired," Bella says under her breath. "O Dr. Physicist, put it somewhere so it could've flattened against a wall or the sidewalk and bounced there, please."
"You freaks," starts their attacker. Bella puts her knee on his neck in a cheap version of a sleeper hold and his eyes roll back in his head and he falls unconscious. |
Author: regularsized | Bridget shrugs, walks down the street a little ways, polishes the ex-bullet with the sleeve of her jacket, and tosses it at a sewer grate. It falls in. |
Author: self_composed | "That works too."
Bella gets up off the guy - she'll be able to catch him if he wakes up sooner than she expects. She waits for the cops. |
Author: regularsized | When the cops do show up, Bridget is unusually soft-spoken and laconic. She does a credible imitation of someone who was just shot at and is finding it a traumatic experience. |
Author: self_composed | Bella's impression is of someone who has actually practiced aikido at some point. (She's going to have to think of a place she could reasonably picked that up; Youtube demonstrations wouldn't give her muscle memory.) Also someone whose response to trauma is mania rather than withdrawal. She jabbers quickly in grammatically incorrect sentences and has to expend a square to actually produce the name of the throw she used. She waves her arm wildly when asked where the gun was fired. "It didn't hit me but oh god it was so loud and I thought he got Bridget and I just it was like oh my god!" she exclaims, trembling for effect. |
Author: regularsized | Bridget's main contribution to this line of inquiry is looking subdued and nodding along with Bella. |
Author: self_composed | The police collect phone numbers and escort them to within eyeshot of Bella's building.
"Okay," Bella says. "Spill." |
Author: regularsized | "By 'spill' do you mean tell you why I am impervious to bullets?" asks Bridget. "Because it's kind of a long story and not one I am particularly keen on dragging out in the middle of the street." |
Author: self_composed | "Janine is home. Do you have a better idea for a location?" |
Author: regularsized | "I'm not sure if my place is really a better idea, considering it's a fifteen-minute walk away, but it's an idea." |
Author: self_composed | "Are you also invulnerable to motorcycle accidents?" Bella asks, gesturing at Tegu in the parking lot. |
Author: regularsized | "Completely." |
Author: self_composed | "I bet it's a shorter ride than a walk," says Bella, stalking towards her bike. "Shall we?" |
Author: regularsized | "Okay," says Bridget, following. |
Author: self_composed | Bella keeps the riding gear in the saddlebags, which have combination locks on them now; she doesn't bother with the full kit, but does put on the jacket and the helmet. "On you go," she says. "Point, within my field of vision, for turns; I might not be able to hear you," she adds before dropping the helmet in place and putting one leg over her bike.
When Bridget is securely in place, Bella starts up and heads out. |
Author: regularsized | It is in fact a pretty short ride on the bike, to a small, unremarkable apartment building where Bridget leads Bella up to a small, unremarkable apartment.
"Do you mind if I change my shirt first?" she asks as she closes the door behind them. |
Author: self_composed | "Go ahead," says Bella, sitting in the first chair she sees. |
Author: regularsized | Bridget darts into her bedroom and emerges about ten seconds later wearing the first shirt she grabbed.
"There, that's better," she says, and leans on the arm of her couch.
"So, I'm impervious to physical injury. I haven't always been. It started when I was a kid. You remember I told you my parents weren't funny? Well, my dad was the kind of not funny that lends itself to noticing when one day you can't get hurt anymore. I hope I don't have to draw you a picture."
She shrugs.
"Questions?" |
Author: self_composed | "Do you happen to know how you developed this power?" |
Author: regularsized | "I don't have any unshakeable theories, no. There were no fairy godmothers involved." |
Author: self_composed | Bella thinks.
"Did anyone besides you and your dad know exactly how not-funny he was?" |
Author: regularsized | "...Why is that relevant?" |
Author: self_composed | "You said no fairy godmother, but if it wasn't your own doing, and it wasn't your dad's, and people spontaneously becoming physically invulnerable isn't something on the books as a normal childhood event, maybe somebody else did it, because of that, and then if I want to find out what's going on I know where to look next. So. Non-fairy godmother? Your mom? Siblings cousins friends aunts uncles next-door neighbors?" |
Author: regularsized | "Why is someone else doing it any more likely than it happening spontaneously, if you've never heard of either?" |
Author: self_composed | "I didn't say I ruled out it happening spontaneously, but I can't get as far on that possibility through mere conversation," Bella says. "Or other routes either, really - I'm not qualified to look at your genes or whatnot even if you were inclined to let me, which, why would you, if you wanted that done you could do it yourself." |
Author: regularsized | "Well, to answer your question, I don't know for sure that anybody knew but there's some people that I don't know for sure that they didn't. Needless to say, I'm not in contact with any of them anymore." |
Author: self_composed | "Was there anything special about the day it happened, or the day before?" |
Author: regularsized | "Special meaning what? I was eight. I wasn't that observant." |
Author: self_composed | "I don't know, this phenomenon is weird enough that it could be related to anything. Was it your birthday? Did interesting things happen at school? Was the weather funky? Did you meet a strange old lady with whom you shared half of your lunch?" Bella shrugs. |
Author: regularsized | "You're a very curious person," Bridget observes. |
Author: self_composed | "Yes. Yes I am." |
Author: regularsized | "Okay," says Bridget. "What if I told you I'm not the only person I know who has mysterious powers spontaneously developed during childhood?" |
Author: self_composed | "That would be very interesting. Is the other person also indestructible? Did they also develop the power at age eight? Was it also uncommonly useful to them relative to the general population?" |
Author: regularsized | "I'm reluctant to tell you too much about them without asking them first, but: no, I don't think so, and less than it was for me." |
Author: self_composed | "Do they have an idea about where their power came from, perhaps one they haven't told you?" |
Author: regularsized | "If they have an idea, they definitely haven't told me about it. Our best theory so far is 'it just happens sometimes'." |
Author: self_composed | "How did you meet them? How'd you find out they had a power too?" |
Author: regularsized | "Nope," says Bridget. "I will ask them if I can talk to you about all that." |
Author: self_composed | Bella grumbles. "Fine. Back to your power. You've got an experimental mindset, haven't you, do you know your tolerances?" |
Author: regularsized | "I know my tolerances are mostly beyond my ability or inclination to find," she says. "Cold weather is uncomfortable but I didn't manage to give myself frostbite the one time I tried. I don't need oven mitts. I don't get chemical burns. I have yet to meet the impact that can so much as bruise me, and I am impermeable to sharp objects including needles, knives, and any power tool you can name. Which was very exciting to test, let me tell you. I also don't get sick, although I haven't deliberately tested my resistance to infection in any systematic way." |
Author: self_composed | "That must have made getting your vaccinations for school interesting," comments Bella. |
Author: regularsized | "If I'd gone to a school that cared, it probably would have." |
Author: self_composed | "Ah."
This is truly fascinating.
"What else do you know about the power? Does it vary at all with time or circumstance, does it interact with the other person's power...? Exactly how does it protect you if you're forced into some position humans typically can't occupy without injury, like if I tried that same wrist-break I used on that creep only I was also half-steamroller? Do you just fail to twist past that point, or do your various parts extend their tolerances as they go so you could in theory turn your head all the way around like an owl if you had the right machinery?" |
Author: regularsized | ...Bridget laughs. "You have a positively vicious imagination," she says. "I haven't tested that specifically, but if I had to guess, I'd say the first one. I have broken a few drill bits, stripped the teeth off a chainsaw, and now flattened a bullet." |
Author: self_composed | "Would you mind awfully if I did try to break your wrist, to see for myself?" |
Author: regularsized | "Go for it. Where did you learn to break people's wrists, anyway?" |
Author: self_composed | "Snuck to aikido lessons for a while when my mom thought I was at various other things. Didn't want to tell her because she'd think it meant I felt unsafe and do silly overprotective things - and couldn't keep up when I moved, but there's Youtube and my boyfriend let me toss him around. I didn't know till tonight if I could pull it off in reality." [Fictitious backstory update: I have practiced aikido on you and can totally kick your ass therewith. We can make that non-fictitious if it appeals to you,] she informs Alice.
Bella then gets up, takes hold of Bridget's hand, and attempts the throw. "Erm," she says, when Bridget just stands there. "Oh, right, usually your tendons would be screaming at you to get on the floor now - but the technique can work on people who can't feel it if you push a little harder, by sheer leverage. Cops use it on people too drugged to feel anything all the time." She follows through harder, Bridget goes down, and she leans on the wrist.
It does not go.
"That is really fascinating." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Hell yes that appeals to me,] says Alice, predictably. |
Author: regularsized | "Ta-daa," says Bridget, somewhat deadpan. |
Author: self_composed | [In other news Bridget is physically invulnerable.]
Bella lets her up, applauds politely, and says, "Is it hard to keep this under wraps?" |
Author: regularsized | "Less so than you'd think," she says, getting to her feet. "I haven't been made like this in a long time. As long as I don't rely on it, which I don't, it's pretty easy to avoid demonstrating." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Sucks to be Bridget,] is Alice's first response, because of course it is. [That's kinda awesome, though. Did you tell her about your brain?] |
Author: self_composed | [No. Have not told her about my brain, or anything about coins - which is the only way we could know about my brain. And I don't think it sucks to be Bridget, unless she would otherwise have had the chance to do wishcoining.]
"Huh," says Bella. "Does anything hurt you? I mean, you said cold weather is uncomfortable - do you get hungry? Cramps around your time of the month? Migraines, gas, flashes of bright light, loud noises? Cayenne pepper?" |
Author: regularsized | "I do get hungry, I don't get cramps or headaches, loud noises are annoying and no I have not tested whether I am susceptible to hearing damage, spicy things taste like spicy things but they don't really hurt." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [But what if she's really into pain and doesn't know it 'cause she can't get hurt? That would suck!] he insists. |
Author: self_composed | [She didn't always have it, she developed it as a kid. Apparently she gets hungry, so if that were something she were into - which I hope you realize is ludicrously uncommon, especially at your level of intensity - she could starve herself for a bit and enjoy lovely abdominal agony. She has run tests, but not as many tests as I would expect you to run if you woke up with her power and were frantic for a loophole.]
"Hmm." Bella taps her chin. "What if you tweeze hairs out of your leg or something? Will they refuse to come out, or does it just not hurt when they do?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice is momentarily distracted by that thought.
It is kind of genuinely horrifying in a way that very few things are, until he remembers that Bella has magic pain powers, which makes it a little better, and then he remembers that he could have magic pain powers if he wanted to and could use them on himself, and then it's fine. |
Author: regularsized | "I have not in fact tried that bizarrely specific test," she says. "I do shed hair sometimes in the normal way." |
Author: self_composed | "Have you got tweezers?" Bella says. "I'm curious!"
She hits Alice with a comforting medium-square amount of "tension headache" flavor, as a screwed up long-distance substitute for a pat on the head. [There there. You are very unlikely to wake up with her power.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He hugs himself and grins, appropriately comforted. [I love you.] |
Author: regularsized | "I don't have tweezers," she admits. "Sorry to disappoint." |
Author: self_composed | "Rats. Hm. What else hurts but doesn't really injure... I assume you can cut your nails, right? Or they'd be ridiculously long. What about the nail that's still right over the nail bed? For most people any direct contact with the skin under the fingernail will hurt." Pause. "Am I being creepy? I am concerned that I am being creepy." |
Author: regularsized | "I am more entertained than creeped out by a long shot," says Bridget. "I will let you know if that changes. I used to chew my fingernails when I was a kid, post-miracle, and I never managed to hurt myself that way; does that adequately answer your question?" |
Author: self_composed | "Depends on how aggressively you chewed them." |
Author: regularsized | "Pretty aggressively, but then, I don't know how much chewing is usually enough to hurt." |
Author: self_composed | "Enough to get down to the pink. I encourage you to mess around with that if you care, but I'm going to file that under 'probably doesn't hurt'. Hmm. What if you sleep on a terrible bed for a week solid, or drink preposterous amounts of things like alcohol or coffee or other things that can kill you in quantity?" |
Author: regularsized | "I haven't experimented with either of those. How do you come up with these things?" she wonders. |
Author: self_composed | "I'm very creative," says Bella. "You are old enough to drink, right? I'm assuming. Perhaps you are an absurd prodigy with a PhD at age twenty." |
Author: regularsized | "Arguably I am an absurd prodigy, but not quite that absurd, no." |
Author: self_composed | "How old are you then?" |
Author: regularsized | "Twenty-six. I started my PhD when I was twenty, is that absurd enough for you?" |
Author: self_composed | "That is quite absurd," says Bella, congratulatory. |
Author: regularsized | "Thank you," says Bridget, amused. |
Author: self_composed | "So you can see if you can get a hangover, and if you can't, increasing attempts at liver poisoning would be fascinating, although I'll understand if you don't care to risk the latter." |
Author: regularsized | "I haven't experimented with hangovers, but I feel pretty safe in saying I don't get them." |
Author: self_composed | Bella chuckles. "I'm led to understand that you are lucky in this respect as in others." |
Author: regularsized | "Yeah, so I've gathered." |
Author: self_composed | "If you and something else experience a lot of friction, like if you'd fallen off my bike and gone skidding across the road, does it generate heat that simply fails to hurt you, or fail to generate heat at all? I think it would be obvious if you were absolutely frictionless, but in the same sense that your wrist failed to go past a certain point perhaps you don't generate friction past a certain point?" |
Author: regularsized | "Good question. I haven't investigated it specifically." |
Author: self_composed | "You probably don't have any sandpaper or matches or whatever, either," says Bella, sighing. |
Author: regularsized | "Have I mentioned you have a vicious imagination?" |
Author: self_composed | "Something to that effect, yes. Do inform me if I become creepy." |
Author: regularsized | "As promised. But I don't creep easily." |
Author: self_composed | "Which is why you're getting to hear the vicious ideas instead of me keeping them to myself. Hmm. I suppose if you were tossed into a large piece of machinery, it would break, and you would give whoever threw you there a withering look, but could you actually get out? I mean, are you only particularly tough when stuff is trying to break you, or can you exert the same defensive force outward and break stuff at the location you prefer? Be all 'no, comically enormous clockwork, you cannot move my arm there before this gear twists into uselessness, do it here instead'." |
Author: regularsized | "...I'm having trouble picturing exactly what you mean, but the images I'm generating are hilarious," says Bridget. |
Author: self_composed | "Okay, lemme pick an easier to imagine example than comically enormous clockwork. Suppose you stick your arm through the bars of a cage which contains a tiger. It bites you. It can't break the skin, but you aren't made of rock, so it can get hold of you and pull anyway. Can you just stand there - can you basically lean on the fact that your shoulder will not come out of its socket and the teeth will not go through your skin, to also keep your feet planted - or is the tiger going to get you up against the bars of the cage and hold you there until it gets bored?" |
Author: regularsized | "Good question," she says. "Although I refer you to the chainsaw example—if your tiger bites hard enough, it'll break teeth." |
Author: self_composed | "It is a relatively friendly tiger," Bella suggests. |
Author: regularsized | "Well, I'm not keen to wrestle any tigers to find out, but it's possible I might break its teeth in the process of trying to get my arm back." |
Author: self_composed | "Interesting. But can you just break stuff when your bodily integrity isn't so obviously on the line? If you push on a wall really hard, that probably won't hurt you even if you fail, but if you did it hard enough it might make a regular person's hand slightly uncomfortable - would the wall break rather than 'pushing back' enough to make you slightly uncomfortable?" |
Author: regularsized | "If you can suggest a test, I'm all for finding out." |
Author: self_composed | "Find a wall you don't care about that I can't knock over with a good solid push, and push on it." |
Author: regularsized | "Well, do you know any good walls?" |
Author: self_composed | "Not off the top of my head. I will let you know if I find one." |
Author: regularsized | "You do that." |
Author: self_composed | "Hmm, what else..." Bella taps her chin. "I may actually be running out of other questions. For the time being." |
Author: regularsized | "I am genuinely astonished," says Bridget. |
Author: self_composed | "It had to happen eventually. Oh! I was wrong. I suppose the whole thing applies to all of you. What happens if you bite your own tongue?" |
Author: regularsized | Bridget tries it.
"Sore jaw muscles," she concludes. "Now that's interesting." |
Author: self_composed | "It is!" Bella agrees. "Hmmm. Ooh - if you hold a hot thing, it doesn't hurt you - I imagine you can tell it's warm, but perhaps you are nonetheless thereby more insulating than regular people. Either that, or the heat does go into you and simply fails to do damage - a lot of things simply fail to happen to you, it seems. I'm not sure of a good way to test this that doesn't involve a human who is not you holding an equivalent hot object so we can measure the temperatures of yours versus the control, though." Alice would so do it, but Bella doesn't want to explain to Bridget why she'd be willing to inflict burns on her boyfriend for science. |
Author: regularsized | "Hmm," says Bridget. "Yeah, that's a tough one." |
Author: self_composed | "I guess you could hold a hot thing and we could take its temperature anyway, and compare against some naive model," Bella says. "How far will a needle or a knife go before it won't anymore? A relatively dull one should compress before it pierces, normally." |
Author: regularsized | "I think the best way to put it is that it acts like it's not sharp," she says after a moment. |
Author: self_composed | "Hm. But even a not-sharp narrow object would eventually compress enough to do damage - I'm just curious how far in that turns out to be on you." |
Author: regularsized | "Got any sharp objects handy?" she asks dryly. |
Author: self_composed | "Not on me, but this is your place - haven't you got kitchen knives? Scissors?" |
Author: regularsized | "I do," she admits. "All right. For science, or a reasonable approximation."
As she turns toward the kitchen, she asks over her shoulder, "Is this your first experience with what I will loosely call the supernatural?" |
Author: self_composed | "Far as I know," Bella lies easily. "I suppose there are all kinds of exotic powers I could have manifested and never noticed, but I don't have anything like yours. Why? Do you run into lots of people who've seen supernatural things and don't mean the Virgin Mary on toast?" |
Author: regularsized | "It gets hard to sort out the genuinely quasi-magical from mere wishful thinking," says Bridget, returning with a large, sharp knife. "But I've seen a thing or two. Nothing as immediately visually impressive as this, however."
She presses the edge against her arm with obvious force. It makes a polite sort of dent, the kind you might get from poking yourself with your finger. And in much the same way, a paler line along her skin is briefly visible when she drags it away. |
Author: self_composed | "Interesting," says Bella, watching raptly. "Does that dull the knife particularly?" |
Author: regularsized | "Probably at least a little bit, but once again, I haven't done a formal study." |
Author: self_composed | "Huh. I might be out of ideas," Bella muses. "Although we know what happened the last time I thought so..." |
Author: regularsized | "Yep," agrees Bridget. "I'll go put this away," she makes an understated gesture with the knife, "and we'll see if you've got another one by the time I get back." |
Author: self_composed | "You don't have any ability to suppress your power, do you?" Bella calls into the kitchen. "Even if you really wanted to?" |
Author: regularsized | "I don't particularly want to," she calls back, "but I did try once for the hell of it."
She reappears in the doorway.
"It didn't work." |
Author: self_composed | "What did you try exactly?" |
Author: regularsized | "Various mental configurations of wanting it to take a hike for a while," she says, shrugging. |
Author: self_composed | "But not, say, prayer or incense or putting yourself in a situation where being invulnerable would be worse than not under really high stakes." |
Author: regularsized | "I am definitely not ever going to do the last one on purpose," she says, "and the first two fall under 'too much effort for too little reward'. I'm not going to exhaust the possibilities of how to accomplish something I don't want to do in the first place." |
Author: self_composed | "Fair enough," Bella says. "I suppose at this point you have plenty of reason to believe it won't suddenly fail you under adverse circumstances."
She considers. "Your jaw muscles got sore when you bit your tongue - I wonder if you could cause them actual damage? Or if you just aren't strong enough to do that?" |
Author: regularsized | "From experience, although granted not experience trying to hurt myself, my muscles just stop getting more sore after a while." |
Author: self_composed | "Huh." Bella had been considering flicking a triangle of sore-jaw-muscles at Bridget to see if it would bounce off, but she doesn't really need that information and it might be noticeable. "What experience is relevant here, if not that?" |
Author: regularsized | "General exercise?" |
Author: self_composed | "Hm. Are you sure it's all muscle soreness, not tendons or something?" |
Author: regularsized | "I haven't made any intense effort to find out." |
Author: self_composed | "Did it hurt when I twisted your wrist at all? That would be mostly tendons." |
Author: regularsized | "Nope." |
Author: self_composed | "Inconclusive but suggestive. I suppose if someone else hits you in a place where any pain would be partially muscular that also fails to hurt though, so perhaps it's only internal exertion. Hmmm." |
Author: regularsized | "My best guess is that it's related to being able to build muscle," she offers. |
Author: self_composed | "Which I presume you can do? Or you'd be a stick." |
Author: regularsized | "Exactly." |
Author: self_composed | "Is there an unusual upper limit on the amount of that you can do - or the speed at which you can do it?" Bella inquires. |
Author: regularsized | "Not especially, that I can tell." |
Author: self_composed | "Have you done enough weight training or whatever that you'd have been liable to notice?" |
Author: regularsized | "No, I don't think so." |
Author: self_composed | "There's something you could try if curious, then. Hmm." |
Author: regularsized | "If curious and suddenly oversupplied with free time," she says dryly. |
Author: self_composed | "Hm? Aren't you in three classes that are well below your academic competence, and you do - origami? Was it origami?" Bella tries to fake forgetting nonessential things, when she remembers. "What else is taking up your time?" |
Author: regularsized | "I allocate at least one day a week to enjoying the fact that my busy-ness level is not at the saturation point." |
Author: self_composed | "Fair enough, but what about what remains of the other six?" |
Author: regularsized | "Insufficient time to take up bodybuilding as a new hobby." |
Author: self_composed | "I don't think bodybuilding and weight training are the same thing, but the point stands, I guess." Bella shrugs. "Can you think of anything I should've asked and unaccountably haven't?" |
Author: regularsized | "Well, if I were you I'd be wondering why I was so cooperative, but I don't actually have a good answer for that one." |
Author: self_composed | "That occurred to me but I didn't want to jinx it. Do you have bad answers?" |
Author: regularsized | "I have no good reason not to indulge your curiosity. I think that's pretty much it." |
Author: self_composed | "So you don't think I'm asking questions in order to figure out how best to destroy you, mwa-ha-ha? That's good," Bella says, laughing. |
Author: regularsized | "No," she says, also laughing. "Definitely not. I haven't been getting the impression that I am that bad a friend." |
Author: self_composed | "Indeed not," Bella says. "Although I wouldn't be feeling that kindly disposed if you were being cagey. I hate not knowing things." |
Author: regularsized | "I know the feeling," says Bridget. |
Author: self_composed | "Do you have any battery of intrusive questions for me?" Bella asks. |
Author: regularsized | "Not currently. Maybe if you exhibited some obvious magical powers," says Bridget. "Although that's less of a novelty for me, naturally." |
Author: self_composed | "Sorry to disappoint," giggles Bella, all innocence. |
Author: regularsized | "Don't worry about it," Bridget says dryly. "Lots of people don't have magic powers. I'd venture to say most people don't have magic powers, even." |
Author: self_composed | "Care to hazard a guess at a percentage? I think you know more people with magic powers than I do."
Actually, as far as Bella knows they're tied, and will be until Bridget meets Alice or Bella meets the mystery other person. But it would not do to share so. |
Author: regularsized | "I don't have a big enough sample size to even begin to make predictions," she says, "especially because most people I meet could have magic powers and I wouldn't know unless they decided to tell me." |
Author: self_composed | "True enough, I suppose. But how many people do you know who you think would tell you, if they did?" |
Author: regularsized | "I couldn't begin to say. How would I know?" |
Author: self_composed | "Other direction then - would you have ever told me, if you hadn't gotten shot right in front of me? Have you told anyone else besides Mystery Power Person? Did they have to see you get mysteriously not-injured first?" |
Author: regularsized | "I might have gotten around to it eventually. The main thing stopping me is the fact that it's hard to demonstrate without unnerving people." |
Author: self_composed | "You have experience with that?" Bella asks. |
Author: regularsized | "I did actually try to tell a couple of my friends in high school. They thought I was kidding and they were creeped out anyway. I didn't ever get to the demonstrating part." |
Author: self_composed | "Huh. So you're not overly worried about the being-whisked-away-to-a-lab thing." |
Author: regularsized | "Well, that is another, somewhat longer story," she says ruefully. |
Author: self_composed | "Storytime!" exclaims Bella. "Do tell." |
Author: regularsized | "Skipping most of the irrelevant details: I have been whisked away to a lab, it is not my favourite memory, and I have reason to believe it won't happen again." |
Author: self_composed | "Please, lay on the irrelevant details," says Bella, finding this explanation unsatisfactory. |
Author: regularsized | "Not my favourite memory," she repeats firmly. |
Author: self_composed | Bella is displeased. She files this away for later. "Fine. At least tell me how careful I have to be about telling other people." |
Author: regularsized | "I would appreciate it very much if you didn't mention my superpowers to anyone who doesn't already know." |
Author: self_composed | "Do I know anyone who already knows, at this time?"
Also, Alice totally already knows. Har har. |
Author: regularsized | "All our mutual acquaintances are your friends," Bridget points out, "and I haven't told any of them." |
Author: self_composed | "Didn't think so. Okay."
Bella looks at the ceiling. "Anyone else you may get around to telling eventually?" |
Author: regularsized | "That you know? Probably not." |
Author: self_composed | "Okay."
Bella takes out her phone and glances at the time. "And with that, I think I'm out of questions if I think of one more on the way out or not - I should head home. I'll see you in class." |
Author: regularsized | "See you," Bridget says agreeably. |
Author: self_composed | Bella lets herself out, hops on Tegu, and drives back to the dorm the way she came.
[So apparently I'm not the only person with a random power. I suppose this was more likely than me happening to have something that only happens to one in billions of people. The fact that I met one suggests that they're either pretty common - or there's a selection effect.]
Pause.
[Second possibility: slightly worrying.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [...What's a selection effect?] |
Author: self_composed | [Imagine you say that your club is open to everybody, and then you only advertise that it exists in yacht clubs. You are going to get people who have yachts. Anything that filters who you're looking at like that. I'm not sure I like the idea that someone or something is filtering who I look at so I get magic people. But it's only one - you weren't magic till after understood causes unrolled - so perhaps I'm only paranoid.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Maybe you have a magic stalker,] he says whimsically. |
Author: self_composed | [Gah. That'd be bad.]
Bella thinks about it. [I don't think Bridget planned to get shot. I invited her on my own initiative to walk with me as far as my dorm - although it's possible she'd have invited herself along if I hadn't. I could have biked to and from - though it's possible that she just knows how I get around campus normally. We could have gone a different route - but I wouldn't necessarily notice if she were doing something subtle with her body language to steer me, and I didn't notice the guy until he was right behind us anyway so who knows how long he was tailing us. Hm.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Maybe you've both got a magic stalker,] Alice hypothesizes. He doesn't know why he finds the vague notion of a mysterious individual arranging to have magical people meet each other so hilarious. |
Author: self_composed | [The stalker would still need a way to find out that we have magic. You and me and Charlie are the only ones who know about me. Unless they have some other way to find out than being told and used it before or around the protective wishes, or have been spying on me in great detail without already knowing about the magic and picked up on a suspicious discrepancy that way.]
Bella chews on her lip as she ascends the stairs to her room. She waves to Janine, if she's awake, and starts changing for bed; it's late.
[I suppose I'm not immune to non-mental spying. One moment while I design something to fix that.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [How do you make yourself immune to spying?] he wonders. |
Author: self_composed | [I am working on that. I think it'd cause more problems than it solves for people to mysteriously go blind if they look at me when I can't tell they're there - but mechanical bugs and magical divination, I think I can do. In the case of the bugs, I just happen to always be indistinct if that's plausible - image goes grainy, my voice is an indiscernible mumble - and the device outright malfunctions and quits bugging if that wouldn't make sense. Magical spying says I'm a null result, if they're looking for something specific I'm not that - if they're looking for me, I don't exist. This does have the drawback that someone who is already looking for me can tell that something unusual is going on. But we know that there exist natural superpowers - mine and Bridget's - and a reasonably competent magic stalker knows that too. Hmm.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [And I want my Bella-compass to still work,] Alice puts in. [I like my Bella-compass.] |
Author: self_composed | [I can add an exception for you and your Bella-compass,] she agrees, pondering. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Awesome.]
Alice ponders, too.
It occurs to him that anyone who doesn't know magic exists will find it incredibly suspicious that this one person just happens to be completely unrecordable. But maybe Bella doesn't care about that. |
Author: self_composed | [I don't think I'm being spied on a lot by random people. Nobody cares about security camera footage unless a crime is going on. But it can be suppressible like everything else. Maybe I should add a bug-sensing component so I can be more judicious about what I do and don't block.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [People spy on each other all the time, though, and if you just happen to get in the way enough times...] |
Author: self_composed | [Like PIs and stuff? Hm. Okay, I'm going to be immune to magic spying and add general-bug-sensing so I'll notice if I do have a stalker and they change tactics. Magically, I am not the droids they're looking for; nonmagically I will notice if someone is taking my picture - actually, since it's just going to be a sense, I may as well throw in how many people are looking at me, with their eyes. Now I have to decide what that should feel like.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Maybe now is the time for that being-watched feeling she tried on him! |
Author: self_composed | [Except that people watch me benignly all the time; I don't want to feel weirdly scrutinized if Janine looks in my direction or a teacher calls on me. I guess I could just add another visual channel...] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Or maybe it should work more like his Bella-compass, and just show her where all the people are who are looking at her at any given moment. |
Author: self_composed | [Hmm. Turn the compass on and I'll peel open the feeling and see if I like it.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He turns on the compass.
It's a gentle, unobtrusive feeling of that way that way, along with a rough sense of distance. |
Author: self_composed | [Hm. I want to add a type indication too though - how at-me they're looking, and whether it's a person or a device. Not sure if this is expansible quite like that unless I just encode it all in symbols.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | It's gonna get awfully busy in her field of vision, isn't it. |
Author: self_composed | [If I don't think of an alternative, yes it is. I'd magically expand my field of vision but I think it'd make me twitchy, reacting to things I shouldn't be able to see...] Think, think. [I'll take your directional feeling and make it buzz, I think. Faster for the more intently someone's looking at me - someone scanning a crowd I'm in or a stationary security camera in the grocery store will barely register, someone actually spying on me will vibrate like a bell. And I'll fuss with the distance indicator to add a dimension so I know what it is that's looking at me. And I'll run at one-point-five by default while I get used to it.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Bella is so awesome. |
Author: self_composed | Bella kicks up to one-point-five, installs the sense, and returns to ruminating on her magical spying immunity. She wants to get all the angles. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice goes back to his sewing. |
Author: self_composed | [Is that Bridget's dress?]
Bella does not want magic (except Alice's) to be able to tell where she is, or anything about her characteristics; she wants it to fail subtly when it can, fail unsubtly when it can't, and - well. Someone might already be magically spying on her. Maybe she can come up with a way to unobtrusively fade out...? Not likely. Not if they're paying attention. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | It is, actually! He is having fun with it. Contrary to Bella's warning, even though Bridget did not explicitly specify any minima, it's turning out quite modest. |
Author: self_composed | [I like,] she says.
There doesn't seem to be a plausible way to fade inconspicuously from well-attended magic spying without mental tampering that might not even work. But perhaps Bella can make it register the way it would if she died, or lost the characteristics on which she's being monitored, instead of as though she jammed the detector. If the hypothetical stalker comes and checks on her in person she will have a chance to identify them: they will be looking at her. Hard.
A hex goes. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Good!]
Alice likes it when Bella likes things!
[How's the spy thing going?] |
Author: self_composed | [It's going. No SWAT team has busted down my door yet and there don't seem to be any cameras or microphones in my dorm room, which is nice.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Sounds like it worked!] |
Author: self_composed | [If a SWAT team had burst in, that would be stronger evidence that it had worked,] Bella points out. [Since they'd come running if they had been poised to attack at any sign of suspicious activity.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Yeah but you don't want a SWAT team,] he says. [Unless you do. Do you want a SWAT team?] |
Author: self_composed | [I do not want a SWAT team,] Bella confirms. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [So that much worked, anyway.] |
Author: self_composed | [Yes.] |