here goes

[self_composed]

Bella schedules an appointment at Stanford. She breezes through sixteen hours of motorcycle class, mostly by demonstrating that the instructor is redundant and wouldn't he rather teach her exotic motorcycle tricks and then just mark her as passing the course? She plays in a soccer game against a Port Angeles high school and wins. She starts driving her bike to school, and she names it Tegu after a lizard of similar coloring, because it needed a name.

On Friday evening she's due to fly out, crash in a Stanford grad student's house overnight, interview on Saturday, and fly home that evening. She bikes for the airport, black leather gold-studded saddlebags over Tegu's back wheel carrying her luggage.

Comments

[self_composed]

[That seems awfully narrow. Why not just a general tracking power?]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Okay, a person-compass,] Alice amends. [But I don't wanna always know where everyone is. That would get old fast. So a person-compass that tells me where somebody is if I ask it.]

He burns the hex, focuses on Bella, and follows his shiny new directional sense to the car in question.

[self_composed]

The grad student, whose name is Myra, pulls out onto the road. Bella makes small talk, about what she's studying (programming), and shows off a little in case anyone is going to ask this girl what the prospective student she hosted was like. Or in case she'll go on to be useful in her own right.

[What are you going to do overnight?] Bella asks Alice.

[edgeofyourseat]

[Fucked if I know,] he says serenely.

[self_composed]

[Okay. It isn't going to involve breaking into Myra's apartment, because that would be creepy,] Bella informs him.

[edgeofyourseat]

[Wait, what exactly would be creepy?]

[self_composed]

[Breaking into Myra's apartment invisibly and crashing there overnight where I'm going to be, would be creepy.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Oh.]

Alice actually thinks it would be perfectly reasonable to sleep invisibly on the floor next to wherever Bella is sleeping, as long as Bella didn't mind. But she does, so that's out.

How about the roof? Is the roof creepy?

[self_composed]

[Not enough that I'd make a fuss about it.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[...That implies some, though,] he says. [How is the roof creepy?]

[self_composed]

[Well,] Bella says. [Would Myra and her roommates want you on the roof? If you did it visibly, would they tell you to come down, and call the cops if you wouldn't? You're thinking it's an apartment in an apartment building, but we don't know that; what if she has a shared house thing? If it's an apartment building it's probably against some rule but not creepy, I suppose.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[I don't think it's creepy. Unless somebody in that house is really attached to their roof, anyway.]

[self_composed]

[They could have skylights,] Bella says. [Including into bedrooms or bathrooms.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Having a skylight into your bathroom is creepy,] says Alice. [Me sleeping near one isn't unless I look in it. Maybe I'll just break into a hotel, that won't creep anybody out.]

[self_composed]

[Most people are never on roofs to make skylights problematic,] Bella says. [Breaking into a hotel is... well, no, not creepy, but they can book those rooms at any time of night.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Huh, I guess I could just get a room,] he says. It's not the first way that occurred to him, but he doesn't actually object.

[self_composed]

[That'd work. You do have several million dollars.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Yep! I keep forgetting.]

Not in the literal sense of not being able to call the information to mind, because he has a perfect memory and also it's kind of memorable, but he never thinks of the three million dollars first when considering solutions to problems.

[self_composed]

[Maybe you'll get used to it.] She's half-ignoring Myra now, who is droning on about her thesis.

[edgeofyourseat]

[Meh.]

[self_composed]

Myra finally pulls up to her place - which is indeed more houselike than apartment building like.

[edgeofyourseat]

Damn. Guess he's not sleeping on the roof after all.

[self_composed]

Bella lets Myra show her the couch she'll be sleeping on. It's getting kind of late, and her interview is early. [I'm going to crash as soon as Myra's roomies over there finish their video game and get off my couch,] Bella says.

[edgeofyourseat]

[Okay,] says Alice, and thinks wistfully of sleeping on the floor beside said couch, and starts hunting for a nearby hotel and somewhere convenient to de-invisible.

[self_composed]

[Someone would trip over you anyway,] Bella says.