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Mars has more people on it now. Bella has conjured herself a crown of seamless moissanite and star sapphire, and wears it around most of the time. She does something nice for Earth every Cygnus and makes routine public appearances, with the PR guy Libby found for her on the brainphone steering her away from missteps. (Most missteps. Occasionally she just disagrees with him.) Life is good.
It happens one day that she attempts to read Alice, thinking it about time to top off her supply of coins - and besides, even if it weren't, she does like to spend time with her boyfriend - and - he's not there.
Her first reaction is panic. She has known from the beginning that a contest between them would come down to reaction time. Did she screw up by introducing him to Ghosty - did something else happen - does some switch trip in the relevant template at a certain age, is hers decent only because he's young - has he blocked her off with his considerable power and begun to wreak havoc?
But of course there's a much more reasonable explanation. He's in Milliways, that's all, he found a door and wandered off without thinking to notify her.
Because visits to Milliways take only moments worldside. This has been true even when they've been into other's worlds: the door is at a very narrow slice of time except when held open.
But she checks again a minute later.
And he's still not there.
Is he dead? Did he think of - stumble across - cook up some way to die that would be so fascinating that he had to try it right then, without consulting her, without thinking of her and how it would hurt her at all, without knowing if stars can revive the dead -
Or did he, somehow, in spite of what is now magically bolstered love for her -
Decide not to come back at all?
She's getting ahead of herself. She can find out if he went to Milliways or not. She -
Stops before completing her wish.
If he's gone - if he's not coming back soon, or at all - then she has to work at least for a while with the coins she already has.
She will not spend a pentagon to see this one snippet of the past. She will spend a hex to gain past-viewing as a stable power she can use whenever she wants. If she chooses the right powers to make with her current supply of hexes, she may be able to coast for many years with almost no individual wishes larger than a square. Now that she has the template of Olympus to draw on she's sure she could find a way to compress wishes for more cities - maybe even planetsful of cities - into single stars, and she has a lot of stars from the days Alice spent turning.
And there have got to be other masochists in the world. Some might be comparable, or people like Shell Bell's Sherlock who'll willingly be made so.
Her empire will go on just fine.
Bella's just not sure - when she's finished designing and installing the power, when she's finished watching Alice casually walk through the kitchen door in his lair to Milliways instead and not come out - whether she will.
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self_composed
"Well, wait," she says. "Would it be bad if I started giving my friends stuff? Not coins, I mean, stuff. I don't know, a magic haircut or a hot skirt or an out-of-print book or whatever."
self_composed
"I give my friends stuff all the time. The stuff itself isn't a big deal. The information - and the possible badgering - could be, depending on who gets it. You're still dating a guy you don't get along with; are you still friends with someone pushy who'll take the appearance of an out of print book as a cue to tell you to curse their enemies or wish them exceptions to Mars's ground rules just this once, or...?" She waves a hand.
"Yes, but why would I do those things," says Anna. "Like, that's the difference, is that dating me is something Davey does and I let him, not something I do."
self_composed
Bella peers at her quizzically. "Dating Davey is not a thing you do?"
"Not anymore," she snorts.
self_composed
Bella blinks at her. "...Do you need help? Like, even if I don't hire you, do you need help?"
"—Um?" says Anna.
self_composed
"If you lived on Mars you could 'block' him. Mars works like some websites in that way," says Bella. "I haven't installed that on Earth yet - I try to confine my work there to things that no one can object to without sounding evil, like eradicating malaria - but if you don't want to hear from him again and he's making that difficult, that can be arranged."
"...Block him like how?"
self_composed
"Well, how it works on Mars is that if Andy decides to block Betty, they don't exist for each other. They can walk right through each other, certainly can see through each other and don't hear any sounds the other produces. They can't enter each other's apartments. There's some weirdness if they're in the same place at the same time and one of them is visibly interacting with an object, but I couldn't come up with a good way to get around that. If I were handling your case individually it could be more customized."
"That... honestly sounds kind of creepy and weird," Anna admits. "But also kind of tempting? But in a creepy, weird way." She sighs. "Maybe I should just move to Mars."
self_composed
"Mars is very nice," says Bella pleasantly. "But there's no particular reason you can't work from Montreal, whether you want to make your coins alone or not, since I can teleport."
"Mars is very nice and it's too far for Davey to drive up for a weekend," she says.
self_composed
"That too," agrees Bella. "Palo Alto is nowhere nearby Ottawa."
"Yep. So." Anna shrugs. "Much as I love Montreal, if I get magic I can just teleport there myself, right?"
self_composed
"Takes a hex," agrees Bella. "If you got the note in the first place that's probably not a problem for you."
"So yeah," she says, "I mean, if you decide I can have the job, I think I'll move here."
self_composed
"Anything else you want to ask or think I should know, before we call it a day?" Bella asks.
"...Nah," she says, "I don't think so."
"I will totally wander around Mars," she says with a bright smile.
self_composed
"Okay." [Poof, you're on the telepathy network, just say when you want a lift home.]
...She laughs. [Cool!]
self_composed
[Isn't it though? Elevator out of the tower is that way,] Bella says, pointing. [Enjoy!]
She teleports to Alice's lair again, and lets her smile fall.
Bad enough to lose her boyfriend. Worse to have to interview potential replacements.
But he might never come back. And she has other things to do.
(She is glad she didn't turn herself into a vampire. Golden Bella was in no shape to run the world during the years she spent without Edward.)
She teleports to Alice's lair again, and lets her smile fall.
Bad enough to lose her boyfriend. Worse to have to interview potential replacements.
But he might never come back. And she has other things to do.
(She is glad she didn't turn herself into a vampire. Golden Bella was in no shape to run the world during the years she spent without Edward.)
