it's a dead man's party

[self_composed]

The guest list winds up being pretty huge.

To start with, there are now eight Bells. Pattern isn't bringing anyone besides herself, and Aegis no one besides herself and her Whistle, but everyone else -

Between Alice, the Joker, the rescued Queenie, Kas, Micaiah, and Sue, plus Ghosty who Amariah picked up on her way home, that's seven Whistles. (Stella thinks ahead: there is a soundproofed orgy chamber away from the main party awning. With a few nodes off of it in case more than one orgy forms; she can think of at least two other likely ones.)

There's an equally absurd number of Sherlocks and Tonies if you count them together. They have Juliet's matched set, Shell Bell's matched set, two other matched sets from Bell-less worlds (one with souled vampire, one both human), a stray Tony, and a stray Sherlock from Downside.

Amariah grabbed a random Libby on top of the random extra Whistle, but at least she's not incorporating anyone from home.

Golden's bringing much of her family and many of her friends - although Edward is staying home, that still leaves Elspeth and Jacob, Alice and Jasper with little Brandon, Rosalie and Emmett and little Henry, Nathan accompanying his mate and their child Kerron, Esme and Carlisle and their Lily, Addy, and Elena who'll get to see her brother. Golden claims that this is a conservative list and she could easily have produced another twenty enthusiastic guests. Stella doesn't doubt it. She puts up a few signs reading Please Conduct Adult Conversation Only Via Brainphone. Little Half-Vampires Have Good Ears And Perfect Memories. As a last-minute surprise, Golden has taken Elspeth's suggestion to bring Edward's deceased mother Elizabeth, too.

Juliet has, on top of her boyfriend and his - progenitor? - her tiny Libby, James, a tagalong thereto called Virginia, and a ghost called Minnie, plus Giles.

Angela's list is more modest: her, her husband, and their friends Alleluia and Caleb.

Shell Bell is responsible for half the Sherlocks-and-Tonies all by herself, a tagalong called Pepper, and also someone called Darcy and also Matilda. (Shell Bell is also the reason Angela is not inviting her brother-in-law.)

Stella herself is responsible for inviting Libby, Orfeo, Chris, Mary, Anna, Sandy, Eights, Chainsaw, Lazarus, Kolya (who is informed that it would be awfully inconvenient for a majority of Bells to all have to coordinate on pretending he doesn't exist when only one of them has even met him to be able to identify him in the first place, so he can simply stay home if he's planning to be hidey), and Bridget.

Stella sets up a name tag system. Everyone will have a tag stuck to them. Solo persons - a minority - will just have their names. People with template names and nicknames will have both stamped on automatically. ("Hi! I'm a Bell, and you can call me Stella!"; "Hi! I'm a Whistle, and you can call me Alice!" "Hi! I'm a Sherlock, and I don't have a distinguishing nickname yet but as soon as I pick one it will appear here!")

She conjures up a nice buffet of food and beverages which will stay its correct temperature until consumed, and assorted synthetics for the vampires (labeled not for human consumption), and dishes and flatware (all glass; even some of the food-eating guests might dissolve anything else) and fusses with the awning opacity until it lets in just the right amount of sun, and, what the hell, she throws in a stage in case Angela wants to sing or she decides to play the flute or someone decides to pentagon some other performative skill to entertain the crowd. She makes sure there are enough bathrooms for all the people who still need bathrooms.

She puts out a few tables here and there with little bowls of squares and triangles - a mix of her glowing red and Alice's shifty black - in them for everyone's convenience. She accumulates coins in those sizes faster than she generally uses them and has a great many, so there are plenty for anyone to dip and wish if something comes up. She double-checks to make sure the Martian ground rules prohibit any misuses available for those size coins.

Jane gets one of those high-tech holographic projectors, on wheels, which she promptly manifests in, drives around the floor, and makes faces through.

Comments

[self_composed]

"Yeah, sure. Version numbers," snorts Stella.

[luminous_regnant]

"So conferences that behave like everyone is in the room will list who's in the metaphorical room, and individual messages will have sender information to prevent misrepresentation," says Golden. "I don't think we ever have reason to impersonate each other, do we? For impersonal purposes trusting one of us tends to propagate to trusting the others and for personal purposes we'd never want to."

[bellfounding]

"Yeah, I might not be thrilled with being completely indistinct but identity theft isn't my solution of choice," sighs Pattern, "and nothing else is coming to mind."

[self_composed]

"All right, viral patch to brainphone, version 2.0, ready to roll unless someone has last minute design input," says Stella.

[neverbeatme]

"Nope, sounds good to me. Thanks," says James.

[self_composed]

[Bam!] says a message clearly labeled as from Stella.

[neverbeatme]

[Awesome,] says James, conferenced to the group.

"By the way," she adds out loud to Pattern as she turns away, "you should talk to my alt who's going by Slipstick. She's looking for a job."

[bellfounding]

"...Ooh," says Pattern. "I'm not really in a position to pay anybody yet. I don't even have a mint-helper..."

[self_composed]

"Libbies do personnel," says Stella. "It might make sense to get a Libby even before a mint if you're having a personnel issue."

[bellfounding]

"Ooh. Okay. Thanks!"

And Pattern goes off looking for Slipstick.

[prima_sequentem]

She's by the desserts!

[bellfounding]

"Hi, Slipstick," says Pattern. "James says I should talk to you about maybe working for me?"

[prima_sequentem]

"Yeah, I'm kind of at loose ends at the moment," she says. "And since you also seem to be kind of at loose ends, it occurred to me that maybe we could make each other's lives easier."

[bellfounding]

"Possibly. I'm running some afterlife-related errands for the peal, but I should be done inside a week or two - it's just running a few Upsiders from each world who can most readily pretend never to have been dead back home and inserting Jane into their worlds so that we can transport everywhere without having to wait for doors to Milliways. But then I go back home and work on my world. And alas, I do not have a mint-helper nor, as far as I know, any local magic."

[prima_sequentem]

"Well, I know where to find some candidates," she says, glancing at the orgy chamber, "if they ever come out again."

[bellfounding]

"Yeah, I caught a brief exchange with Eights and Chainsaw before they went in," says Pattern, "but didn't get anywhere. I think they're a package deal and I have the impression that Chainsaw's not as manageable as his alt is for Stella."

[prima_sequentem]

"Huh," she says. "What about the Whistles? I don't have a roster; are there any going spare?"

[bellfounding]

"Two. And the one that Golden imported turned out to be from my world, so if I wind up having to work with largesse for any extended period of time I have a better excuse for leaning on her than any of the others, though I imagine they'll all help."

[prima_sequentem]

"Do we know anything about the spare Whistles?"

[bellfounding]

"One of them's a rescue from Downside, the other is some kind of ghost but not the same kind as the one Juliet brought. First one's probably the better bet."

[prima_sequentem]

"A rescue? Is that a general term, or...? I was under the impression that Whistles and Downside would get along pretty well, ceteris paribus."

[bellfounding]

"Stella grabbed him from the same guy who got Shell Bell. I imagine he held up fine under the torture part, but not the being in a box never seeing or being touched by another human being part - from my admittedly limited understanding of Whistles."

[prima_sequentem]

"Ooh." She winces. "Ouch, yeah. I see."

[bellfounding]

"Yeah, Stella brought him straight here for soothing by her Alice."

[prima_sequentem]

"I can imagine," she says.

She can imagine what form that soothing would probably take, too, but that's less relevant.