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

[autokinetic]

"Wow. The I.F. had some kind of screwed up ideas about that sort of thing too, I should probably commiserate with her at some point," says Aegis, wincing.

[pythbox]

Giles nods.

[autokinetic]

"I was keeping it secret that I could link with Sue, because my telepath-blocking mutation is the only reason I was allowed to have this," says Aegis, flicking the copper webbing on the back of one hand, "but then they really wanted me to be able to do it for the war we were supposed to wage, so in the middle of the night they gave me an illegal mutation suppression drug and took my exoskeleton - and I was almost paralyzed without it before magic happened. But I fessed up about having been able to let Sue in all along and they gave me an antidote and my exo back."

[pythbox]

"I'm sorry," he says, "that's awful. I apologize on behalf of self-important bureaucrats everywhere."

[autokinetic]

Aegis laughs. "They weren't a monolith. I hacked into the fleet psych files and there were some people who were shouting at some other people about fucking with us like that. But yeah, now the war's over and I'm an admiral and a mint and I've got Jane and I don't even need my exo anymore, I just haven't bothered to take it off - and some things are gonna change about my world."

[pythbox]

"That," says Giles, smiling slightly, "seems to be a theme."

[autokinetic]

"It's a good theme! We're way better than any alternatives anyone's come up with so far."

[pythbox]

"I wonder," he says, "if we will ever find a Bell who was content to let someone else rule her world."

[autokinetic]

"Sure," says Aegis. "As soon as we find a Bell whose world is being run acceptably. Otherwise I think the closest we'll get is one who's discontent about it but doesn't have the resources to do much."

[pythbox]

"And what constitutes acceptable?"

[autokinetic]

"There's not a master list. Worlds vary, their needs vary. My situation's not as urgent as, say, Shell Bell's was. I might actually decide to be patient enough to get democratically elected instead of just taking stuff over."

[pythbox]

"And if you are not elected...?"

[autokinetic]

"I'm still an admiral and a war hero and the best friend of the only person who can translate for the aliens. Whoever's elected will have to listen to me, or at least Sue. If I can't be Hegemon, I can probably at least get awarded governorship of a colony, and make covert little improvements to the rest of the world the way Angela's doing while she waits to order her god to name her Archangel."

[pythbox]

"...I'd think someone who can order a god to do things is already doing pretty well in the power department."

[autokinetic]

"Oh, it's not actually a god, just everyone on her world thinks it is and has for a few hundred years. It's actually a spaceship. She made herself captain of it and then Jane ate it and either way it does what she says."

[pythbox]

"I see."

[autokinetic]

"You'll get used to this sort of thing soon, I'm sure. I mean, Juliet must like you or she wouldn't have invited you, and that implies a certain minimum level of mental alertness and adjustability."

[pythbox]

...He shakes his head and laughs.

"How reassuring."

[autokinetic]

"You could always ask her for some brain upgrades if that'd help. I'm having tremendous fun with mine. I was used to processing power boosts from linkups with Sue, but perfect recall is good stuff."

[pythbox]

"Ah... no, I don't think I will."

[autokinetic]

"Why not?"

[pythbox]

He hesitates, then shakes his head.

[autokinetic]

"Are you this unforthcoming with Juliet, too? Geez, you must have other really sterling qualities."

[pythbox]

...He frowns.

"I am suddenly even less inclined to detail my personal traumas to you in public," he says dryly.

[autokinetic]

"Aww, but I told you mine," says Aegis. "I could also tell you about how I got beat up in the shower one time or how I got kidnapped or how I learned that I was fighting an actual war and not a sim, would that help?"

(She is, Giles may notice, the youngest Bell in attendance.)