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

[self_composed]

[If there's nobody there in - call it an hour - I can start looking for people-heading-for-that-address and stuff, but I don't know if they can detect that so I'd rather hold off till you've been there way too long.]

[nonbird]

[Logical, yet disheartening,] says Lazarus.

[regularsized]

And Bella gets a reply to an old email.

I have, actually.

[self_composed]

Huh. Bridget must have stepped out or something before getting Bella's email, Bella supposes.

What's she like?

[Bridget just emailed me,] she says, because Lazarus will probably be bored in the abandoned warehouse if she doesn't talk to him.

[regularsized]

Very good at math.

[nonbird]

[Huh,] says Lazarus. [What about?]

[self_composed]

[She says she has met Chris's niece. Apparently her distinguishing characteristic is being very good at math, which I already knew.]

Yeah, I heard she's a PhD, like you. Do you know her well at all?

Bella is not sure how to get from here to more substantive questions.

[regularsized]

I'm not sure anyone does.

[nonbird]

[Really? I mean, Bridget's really met her?]

[self_composed]

[She says so anyway. This surprises you?]

Presumably her aunt does?

[nonbird]

[I don't know her that well. I assumed she was Chris's friend, and Chris doesn't introduce her friends to her niece, that I've ever seen. But I guess she could just as easily know Chris through the niece.]

[regularsized]

Maybe so.

Do you have time to get together and talk?

[self_composed]

[Niece and Bridget both STEM PhDs,] Bella points out.

Bella blinks at the email. Bridget has not historically been unwilling to discuss things via same.

How interesting.

Yeah, you at your place?

[regularsized]

Yes.

[self_composed]

I'll be over presently.

Leathers, on. Motorcycle, on. Vroom. Doorbell.

[regularsized]

Bridget answers the door looking mildly antsy.

[self_composed]

"Are you okay?" Bella asks.

[regularsized]

"Debatably."

She steps back to let Bella in.

[self_composed]

"Debatably?" Bella says, stepping through the door and taking a chair.

[regularsized]

"I have something to tell you that I don't think you're going to like," she says, "so I'm kind of nervous."

[self_composed]

"Why won't I like it?" Bella asks.

She has half-formed ghosts of suspicions. But that's all.

[regularsized]

Well.



"Before we met, I knew your name, what you look like, where you're from, and that you're very likely to have magical powers of the wish-coining variety."

[self_composed]

There are several reasons why this could be.

Bella might as well start with a benign one.

"Did you double-dip in the magic bin?" she asks quietly.

[regularsized]

"Nope," she says. "But I know some people. You remember I told you I've been whisked off to a lab once? Well, Chris's niece was responsible for getting me out. She has her hands on a lot of strings. And once in a while she has a use for a physicist, or someone who can't get hurt, or someone who has a semi-legitimate reason to take an undergraduate biology class at Stanford." Bridget shrugs. "I was supposed to get to know you well enough to have a good guess whether or not you'd like to join up, and then if it seemed like a yes, ask. Except that there's been some kind of unspecified disaster and now I'm just supposed to come clean."

[self_composed]

Bella regards Bridget, feeling unexpectedly calm for the circumstances.

[Bridget's in the sinister organization,] she reports detachedly, to Alice and Lazarus both.

"I knew it was weird that you were in that class. I knew it."

She swallows; if she freaks out she'll stay freaked out for an inconveniently long time. She can not-freak-out if she wants; she has that power. She can be collected and figure out how to move forward. If she runs at 3x and doesn't let any of her tripled mind vote to scream at her "friend".

"Join up with what?"