[Interesting notion. Tell me more.]

[Well, there's two others already on the network, the one from Juliet's world and another I just added in. There's these devices called ansibles that can do instantaneous communication even between worlds. I give you a half-one, and our new friend Jane picks up the other and puts it with one of the other Jarvises, and then you both get hooked up and you can talk. Also, Jane would like to eat your internet, and promises not to eat you on top of that.]

[It's so comforting when people promise not to eat me,] Jarvis remarks.

[You'll like me once you get to know me,] puts in Jane. [Used to be I'd automatically swallow up anything I looked at but now I don't. Code that looks like me eating something is thus:] And she sends along rapid-fire text-brainphone dumps of the variants.

[Let's hear what the other Jarvises have to say about it,] he decides. [I'll hook up with them first. Unless this is an all-or-nothing proposition...?]

[I can hook you up and not install a Janepoint,] confirms Shell Bell. [I do need to be in the house near someplace to plug the ansible in, though; may I? I just watched a Tony install one of these and I can probably do it without embarrassing myself unless you've got very different hardware. Or I could wait for him to wake up.]

[You may come along and wait in the living room. He should be up in another few minutes,] says Jarvis. [And I'm sure he'd rather supervise if anyone is going to touch my hardware.]

[Sure, I can wait a few minutes.] She teleports into the living room, and sits.

"Hi, Tony, it's a very long story, but the short version is I can conjure up a device that'll let him talk to Jarvises on other worlds. Two so far, at least one more to come."

He makes beckoning motions with both hands. "Show me."

"The ansible? It can look like all kinds of things. My ring here's a half-ansible." She squares up a pair, twists them apart. "This is a more standard less bejeweled model, though. I don't know if the connection is the same kind you need, but this is like the one I just saw installed."

"Okay then." The other half disappears from her hand as Jane puts it in Sunshine. "All hooked up on the far end. And if Jarvis finds the other two Jarvises sufficiently reassuring about Jane she would also like to eat the local Internet. It'll be fine, it'll work normally, she'll just - constitute it."

"Yeah, lemme get this hooked up," says Tony, wandering off with the other half.

Shell Bell waits. She tries Darcy again. [You up yet?]

Darcy is not up.

"Ah," says Jarvis, after a few minutes. "There we are. Ooh, that's fascinating. Yes, all right, you can eat our internet, bon appetit."

"Where should I put Jane's insertion point?" prompts Shell Bell.

Jarvis directs her to an appropriate connection.

In goes hardware. In goes Jane.

Jane cackles over the brainphone gleefully.

"As long as I'm here, Tony," says Shell Bell, "all us Bells are going to have a big party in Eos, on Mars, in a few hours after some errands like this are out of the way. Do you want to come? Jane can send you there and back."

"Sure," he decides. "Why not."

"I'll let you know when I'm hauling everybody in," says Jane brightly.