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]

[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.

[self_composed]

Biology ensues, both in the usual way with both of them respirating and metabolizing and the like, and also as a study topic.

[regularsized]

Apart from that first exchange, it is largely uneventful. And after Bella goes home, Bridget has a conversation.

And a day or two later, she sends Bella an email, CCed to someone with the unlikely username of "O-O-O" on a free email service.

Hi, Bella!

My friend finally caved. You can direct your nosy questions to her now. (Hi, Chris!)

[self_composed]

Ooh!

Bella replies-all.

Hi, Chris! Thanks for agreeing to talk to me. First of all, if you don't trust email for the topic in question, let me know and we can work out something else. If email's fine, let's start with the obvious:

What is it you do?

-Bella

[queensidecastle]

It takes Chris until late that evening to get back to her, and she replies only to Bella.

Short story: I protect people.

There's a progression of longer and longer stories if you want more detail, but some of them are going to take a lot of explaining. I won't trust email for all of it. If you're the kind of person who likes to have the whole story (and I'm betting you are), we should definitely find a more secure way to talk.

[self_composed]

You bet correctly. There's various forms of electronic encryption. I can also get anyplace in the South Bay pretty readily to talk in person, although it occurs to me that I have no idea where you live. Phones are generally insecure if someone's looking to spy on you, but harder to sift through with robots for general topics of interest because voice recognition is spotty. What's your preference?

[queensidecastle]

The turnaround time is much faster on this one.

For our purposes, I think a phone will do the trick. Please call me when it is daylight on the east coast.

She adds a phone number, with a New York City area code.

[self_composed]

Bella obligingly calls her at midday Pacific time the following day, after a quick lunch and before the scheduled cancellation of Operating Systems for the professor's niece's wedding.

Ring ring.

[queensidecastle]

Ring ri—

"Hi," says a slightly amused woman of indeterminate age.

[self_composed]

"Hi! Is this Chris?"

[queensidecastle]

"Depends who's asking," says Chris.