[I am! What is it?]

Brilliance teleports to Aurora.

Aurora wraps up Brilliance in a hug. [Gonna make a Device body for Jane so Aegis can stop carrying her around everywhere, thought you might want to consult.]

Snuggle!

[Interesting. I don't think anyone's made a Device to incorporate an existing consciousness before. Adularia and I will be happy to help - where should we go?]

[My door came out in the rainbowsand village, can you find me here?]

Into Milliways they go, and then from the door to the Belltower. "Aegis'll be back with Sue soon."

"Hiiii," says the Belltower speakers. "Pardon me for not producing a face, I am refactoring a couple yottabytes, I am scraaaaambled. I totally have a face picked out, though, people have seen it, I'm pretty."

"You are very pretty," Brilliance agrees.

"This body thing," Jane says, "kind of weirds me out, will I have to do anything with it or can I just stash it on the top floor and let it collect dust?"

"The idea is that the Device will be very low-maintenance. I have the impression you want it human-looking, though? Since you have a face picked out?"

"I don't want to look like anyone besides my face," says Jane. "If it's more convenient to put me in a Janegem or something that's fine, I just don't want to look like a person and not like my face."

"Devices don't have, like, bodily needs," says Brilliance.

"More complex ones do tend to have humanoid forms available, but they also all have object-type ones," says Agent Honey. "If we managed to put you in a Device, it could certainly spend all its time as a Janegem if you preferred."

"Okay. I mean, maybe I will like some things that can go on with bodies, if I try them, but I'm not impatient to give them a whirl or really expecting it even if I do."

"Food is awesome," says Brilliance. "So is sex, but I think that one might actually be less universal."

"Sue sent me a lot of stuff when I first talked to him and Aegis and it was informationally interesting, but not really compelling. Not that he had perfect recall or a particularly positive sexual history then, but none of the sensory stuff grabbed me at all. Are his transmissions low-fi or something?" She is apparently unscrambled enough to be a face now; she appears on the screen.

"Beats me," shrugs Brilliance. "What's holding him up, anyway? Aegis went to get him, right?"

"Hang on, unscraaambling - oh, he's on TV, hiiiii Daaaaaad... Probably can't get away right now. This thing iiiiis scheduled to eeeend in - a minute - and - looks like him being able to teleport is common knowledge - and there's nothing else down on his schedule for a bit - so - after however long it takes him to reunite with Aegis I guess - he should be all set to come here."

"Yeah. Hey, if you guys make me a body to be in does that mean I have extra sortaparents? That'd be weird."

Brilliance shrugs. "Up to you, I think."

"I'm not even supposed to talk to you," observes Jane, as though she is remembering something from very far away, "I might scare you."

"I think we can put that on hold until this thing's sorted out."

"'Kay." The image of her spins around, like she's twirling. "My clocks are all messed up agaaaaaaain. It was a really long time in Alethia! And Pattern's been using my residual programs a lot and now I gotta eat them all back up agaaaaain..."

Brilliance laughs.

"Gems gems gems - okay those are all all right even the ones that were in the land of breaking Jane - whee - and here come the parentals, yoink!"

"Hi," says a parental.

"Hi!" says another parental, hugging the first one.

"Yoooooou got older," Brilliance observes, looking at Sue.

"It was four years there," says Aegis, nudging Sue in the ribs. "We're gonna have to work out how to have me publicly alive again and whether to make me look nineteen or not."

"Wow, okay," says Brilliance. He grins at Sue. "Looking good."

"Yes I am," says Sue, "but we're not here so you can hit on me, what's the plan? Is there a plan?"

"Brilliance and maybe Agent Honey are the ones who know how to make Devices, I have not actually gotten to any books about it or anything. You guys are pretty much here so we can get at Jane to put her into one. I'm - spectating basically."

"Sounds good to me," shrugs Sue. He snuggles Aegis some more.

"What exactly is our goal here?" says Agent Honey.

"I need to be not in Aegis - and Sue if I am at all in Sue, we don't know - and in something else," says Jane, "so the something else can stay here and not go to horrible Janebreaking worlds."

"So that's not solely a matter of Device engineering," says Agent Honey.

"Nah, we'll have to wish it," says Brilliance. "But we should probably do the engineering first. Jane, any preferences about what your dormant form's gonna look like?"

"Like a Janegem. Except it doesn't need to be in a piece of jewelry, I guess."

"Sure, okay," says Brilliance. "We can probably even install ansible links in it."

Adularia shimmers.

"So - Device body that is Jane, humanoid form with that face, Janegem dormant form, compatible with ansible installations? What am I missing?"

"Should I have any add-ons like you do? Like your coinsorter? Am I going to be able to do Rainbow magic?"

"You're going to be - oh," says Brilliance. "Yeah, shit - complex Devices kind of need wielders, you probably don't want that. The whole point of this is that you should be tucked up safe in the Belltower, not running around doing magic with somebody."

"Why don't I want that? They don't have to run around with me doing magic, do they? Whoever it was, probably Aegis or maybe Glass since she was planning to turn into a mage anyway?"

"Okay, but - you don't want to need a wielder, right?" he says. "Like, that is not a thing you would include on purpose, if you were designing this?"

"I don't want to need anything," says Jane. "But needing a wielder sounds easier to handle than needing food and sleep and climate control, so being a complex Device might still be a better deal than being a biological."

"I'm gonna try to wish it so you don't need a wielder," says Brilliance. "Because I don't know how that kind of need would work with you being the way you are, and I don't want it to fuck things up. Okay?"

"Okay. Why, is it that bad?"

"It's not bad," he says. "Not always. But I mean - that's me. I have my Aurora and we work the way we work. I think if you needed a wielder, having somebell link up to you and then never do magic with you might not cut it, and then it could get pretty bad, and I don't want that."

"Okay. I'll defer to your Devicive expertise."

Matilda shakes her head.

"Awesome!" says Brilliance.

"Yeah, you sure did move," says Sue.

"Hi, parentals," Jane says, waving.

"Hi!" says Sue. "Can I hug you?"

"Okay," says Jane.

Hug.

Hug.

Aegis takes a turn next. "I have given birth," she giggles.

Sue cracks up and hugs them both.

"Torchabled. Warded."

Float float float. She disappears up the stairs. "Thanks guys!"

+No problem!+ says Brilliance.