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Bella's public facing email address (eor@eor.eor; many of the Bells are following similar protocols to Stella's, for web presence, and in Origin the relevant empire is called the Empire of Rings, after Saturn's feature) gets a lot of mail. Jane used to help with it; without Jane, there is still extremely smart filtering going on, and a program no one has noticed at work yet auto-responds to almost everything with canned but tweakable responses and links to the imperial website.
This still leaves a lot of emails every day she has to deal with herself, although some of them allow her to make gentle adjustments to Jane's program to handle future inquiries of the same kind. The number goes up over time. Slipstick's still on the lookout for a suitable secretary type person to help out. Until then, Bella leans on super-speed.
She has had to address the rumors about being able to raise the dead. It's a frustrating, narrow line to walk, between lying, explaining too much, and getting everyone's hopes up. Currently the FAQ has a section that looks like this:
Can you raise the dead?
Eventually, I'd like to be able to do that for everyone's departed loved ones. I'm working on it as fast as I can, but today all I can deploy are public health measures and, on a smaller scale, immortality, for people who are currently alive.
I heard you were dead and brought yourself back to life / I heard someone else was dead and you brought them back to life!
This is an exaggeration. I'm immortal; if I suffer lethal damage, the thing I do is called 'torching', not 'dying'. The same is true of other people who I've made able to torch.
I want to be able to torch.
There's a waiting list, but this is something I can do. Just fill out the form and my staff will process your application; if everything checks out the current wait time for getting into a torching batch is about four months.
I don't want to torch, but I want to stop aging.
This is also available, but the waiting list is longer; apply here.
Are you sure you can't raise the dead?
I really, really wish I could do that for everyone who asks. I maintain a waiting list of people whose resurrection has been particularly requested so that as soon as I have this capability I'll know who to use it for first.
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bellfounding
bellfounding
[Yeah, and Tonies come with Sherlocks most of the time, and the personnel officer is a Libby, etcetera.]
bellfounding
[Probably not. I was busy being dead while the local, eponymous Joker was active, so I'm not completely up on how his activities were covered in the news, but he's a one of them. There are lots more, though.]
tearingup
[And there are three and a half of them in the world right now, not making the news?]
bellfounding
[Queenie and Ghosty describe themselves as 'retired'. Aianon and Ansharil hang out on Saturn, filling in gaps in the ecosystem and wishing they were back with Elf Bell back in their world and thinking at her a lot via telepathic bond thing. Jokers are really useful if you know what to do with them; the problem was the Bat had one and a worse than useless idea of what to do with him.]
tearingup
[What are they useful for?] he asks, with a slightly desperate edge. [I mean, that man is fucking terrifying. I had nightmares about him. Sexy nightmares.] Half-laughing, [Fuck, did I say that out loud? I'm sorry, TMI.]
bellfounding
[I'll survive,] says Bella, amused. [I could introduce you to one or more of the available three and a half, if you want, although fair warning, Aianon and Ansharil are not humans. Jokers're useful for magic generation.]
tearingup
[And what do you mean you could introduce me? Is it safe? Would they flirt with me? Do people generally survive their flirting?]
bellfounding
[I mean I could introduce you to them and they'd probably hit on you. They're not going around doing nefarious things! They're retired, they don't want Batlady's attention anymore - Aianon and Ansharil don't even come from a world that has one of her - and they wouldn't hurt you unless you're into that.]
tearingup
[...Leaving aside the question of whether or not I'm into that, how did you ever manage to collect three and a half nice Jokers?]
bellfounding
[They're not unusually nice for Jokers. The Joker, from here, is living peacefully in a world called Aurum with his vampire boyfriend and their adorable hybrid children. Jokers aren't so much 'nice' or 'not nice'. It's a matter of what abilities and opportunities they're presented with. I hired Queenie, Ghosty followed her here, Aianon and Ansharil are stranded here because they were still around when Jane broke and they were doing Saturn's ecology.]
tearingup
[I'm not sure I buy it,] he says. [And, you know, sexy nightmares are still nightmares.]
bellfounding
[Okay, I won't introduce you if you don't want,] says Bella.
bellfounding
She laughs into the brainphone. [They're as immortal as me and you, so no rush.]
tearingup
[Oh, good. —Am I likely to run into one if I move to Saturn? How settled is Saturn?]
bellfounding
[They don't really hang out in inhabited parts of Saturn. Aianon and Ansharil are out in the non-habitats making critters sometimes, but they don't like the ground rules, they like more chaotic settings than Bell-operated colonies ever shake out to be.]
tearingup
[Ground rules like the ones that mean if Rayne follows me to Saturn I can't punch him again? Yes, I'm not a fan either,] he laughs.