i'm just that fascinating i guess

[self_composed]

The first day Bella spends out and about with her new who's-watching-me powers, she is rather alarmed.

Maybe she's just mistaken about how much time people spend looking at reasonably pretty eighteen-year-old girls. She kills a pentagon to try it on a nearby control - who's looking at that girl over there?

Fewer people. Fewer people are looking at that random girl, and less intently. They're looking at her familiarly - they know her - or casually - they're checking her out.

[I have a spy problem,] Bella says. She makes a faintly exaggerated show of snapping her fingers in frustration and turning around. She's going back to her room to get a mirror and bobby pins and barettes, so she can spy back on the pretense of checking her hair, without making it overwhelmingly obvious that she knows what's going on.

Comments

[edgeofyourseat]

...Well, that sure sounds ominous.

[What kind?] asks Alice.

[self_composed]

[The kind where random people who I don't know - have seen around but do not know - are looking at me way too intently. They're not checking me out, I pentagoned for a check on a control girl who's about as pretty as me. They are looking for me specifically, they are paying lots of attention, and I don't know exactly why but I don't like it.]

Bella fetches her items. She puts her hair up in a style she has previously rejected as falling apart too easily: that's the point, now. She pockets her compact mirror. She goes out again.

[edgeofyourseat]

[Okaaaaaay,] says Alice. [So, point for the stalker theory. Except why would a magic stalker make a bunch of people spy on you?]

[self_composed]

[Magic stalker doesn't have a pet masochist,] says Bella. [Or magic stalker stalks magic, doesn't have any - or has a single power like Bridget does, not wishcoins. Magic stalker compensates for these limitations with staff.]

She feels a tendril of hair escape the bobby pin. She stops, pulls out the mirror, fixes it, and looks over her shoulder at the nearest spy. She memorizes his face. She pats her hair, puts away the mirror, and continues on her way.

[edgeofyourseat]

[So how did the magic stalker get hooked on you?]

Alice thinks that if there's anybody in the world worth stalking, it's Bella. Alice also thinks that most other people probably don't share that opinion.

[self_composed]

[I don't know. Magical spying before I fizzled it. Happened to hear about the car crash and found my recovery suspicious. Thinks I'm too much of a polymath, with the flute and the soccer and the grades. Can see invisibility and spotted me flying around. Thinks Tegu is too good to be true.]

[edgeofyourseat]

That prompts Alice to wonder about an invisibility arms race, and at what point the cycle of 'invisible' vs 'able to see invisible people' vs 'invisible even to people who can see invisible things' vs 'able to see extra-invisible people' would be halted by the natural limitations of hexagons, and how they might test that, and whether Bella has thought of it already. She probably has.

[self_composed]

[I haven't messed with it, actually - there might be interactions based on who wished for it, anyway, making it easier to override your own wish than someone else's. That's just one of several hypotheses anyway. Note that we can't rule out the use of a star - just because we don't know how to use them safely doesn't mean it's a mystery to everyone.]

Pause. [No one appears to be stalking you, right? You're lairing and seeing people you already knew, not getting followed or anything?]

[edgeofyourseat]

[I don't see people around a whole lot,] he says. [Not people I don't know, anyway. Mostly it's just mom and Hilary whenever I'm at the house. Well, and sometimes I wander around Stanford and wherever,] meaning the campus, the town, the surrounding area, and once in a while a nearby city, [but I'm invisible half the time and I haven't caught anybody staring at me either way. You want me to get a stalker radar, too?]

[self_composed]

[Maybe. Probably not worth it until I know more about what's going on with my spies. Maybe the next time you openly visit, to see if anyone stares at you too.]

She makes it to class. She's going to be extra creeped out if there is a spy enrolled. Or teaching.

[edgeofyourseat]

[Okay,] says Alice.

It's not like he minds spending the hexagon, but having the sense might be a tiny bit annoying. The attention of strangers is just not a subject that interests him.

[self_composed]

[Enh, you could make it suppressible when you weren't using it.]

Bella is not extra-creeped-out. Good. Politics class time.

[edgeofyourseat]

Well, then it would hardly tell him if he was being stalked, would it?

[self_composed]

[You could still spot-check,] Bella points out.

[edgeofyourseat]

[Mm, yeah, I guess.]

[self_composed]

Bella proceeds through her day, locating spies.

Even if half of the spies are false positives, there sure are a lot of them.

She leaaaans on that acting pentagon, and her fall-apart hairdo.

By the end of her second day with the disintegrating architecture on her head, she's actually gotten good enough at it to make it stay put through sheer practice, and anyway the spies have stopped looking at her quite so intently. She's not sure what to make of that.

She keeps Alice up to date, but says nothing in particular about it to Janine, Bridget, or any other acquired friends/contacts. She does acquiesce to another study session with Bridget, though, and appears with her book and her for-show notes.

[regularsized]

Since this study session is at Bridget's apartment, she feels comfortable opening with, "So I talked to that other person with magic powers. They seem kind of on the fence about sharing personal information. Do you want me to try to convince them?"

[self_composed]

"That would be nice of you, yes. Did they specify what has them concerned?"

[regularsized]

"Not in any great detail. I think it's more general caginess than anything."

[self_composed]

"I suppose that's fair. I didn't catch them getting shot. Or whatever it is they do."

[regularsized]

"Or whatever," Bridget agrees. "Enough mysteries, on to biology?"

[self_composed]

"Mysteries are more interesting than biology," Bella says. "I don't suppose there are any assurances I could reasonably offer that would put your friend's mind at ease?"

[regularsized]

"Well, if you had magic powers of your very own, you could tell them that," says Bridget. "I bet that would help. Kind of an in-this-together thing, you know? But as far as I know, you don't, so there goes that idea."

[self_composed]

Bella shrugs in a convincing imitation of helplessness. "Biology," she sighs.

[regularsized]

Bridget laughs. "Biology," she agrees.