"My mind is suddenly blank," he says mournfully.

"Well, I have a question - did it look like anything special when I made you that triangle?"

"I think so," he says. "It was hard to tell, with all the—" he waves a hand vaguely in her direction "—noise."

"Perhaps you'll get used to it and be able to pick out more detail," Bella says encouragingly. "What do you think you saw?"

He shakes his head. "I couldn't begin to say. Maybe if I saw it a few more times?"

Bella digs her thumbnail into her opposite arm in a neat little pattern from elbow to wristbone. "I did say you could have a bagful." She pours a dozen triangles into his hands.

"That's a little bit disconcerting," he observes. "But yes, something definitely happens when you make them. I can sort it out from the noise now, but I'm not any closer to describing it coherently."

"Perhaps you could describe it incoherently," Bella says. Aikido's useful; she finds a nerve in her wrist and digs a knuckle into it. Square. She flicks it at him.

"...That was... different," he says, freeing a hand from the pile of triangles to catch the incoming square. "And even more disconcerting."

"I'll save the more-disconcerting-still demos for the boyfriend," Bella says. "I am not him. I could be relevantly similar," she pokes a pentagon, "but frankly it does not interest me to become so."

"Understandable," says Lazarus.

"You did that on purpose," he accuses, making a woeful face.

"I did," Bella admits, unrepentant.

But he is so woeful!

"Would you prefer if I did not make further gratuitous references to unsanitary ways in which my boyfriend might generate coins of assorted sizes for your investigatory purposes?" sighs Bella.

"Yes," he says firmly. "Yes, I would prefer that."

"All right then. He'll probably find that really disappointing though." She crosses her ankles. [I don't think Lazarus wants to play with you,] she reports to Alice.

"Well, he can just be disappointed, then."

[Aww,] says Alice, disappointedly. [Why not?]

"Empirically, meaning...?"

[Brainphone, remember?] she says to Lazarus, smirking.

[...That is going to take some getting used to,] says Lazarus.

[I found it pretty easy. It's tremendously useful. Saves on my cell bill too.]