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Bella plays the fantasy game again now - it is less fun than flying, all raw physicality and poise, in the battle room, but it now compares favorably with a decent fraction of books. She plays it in front of her launch and the boys want to know where in the hell this setting came from.
"Go to the Giant's Drink and I'll show you," she says.
She bypasses the Drink for six boys. They drift through the clouds, but they don't find villages, or pretty landscapes - they just find parts of the game they've already been to.
"Don't look at me, that's the same way I got here," says Bella. She's teaching her bird-people the scientific method now, painstakingly, almost comically, by mime and enthusiastic gestures. They're getting it, a little; a pink-and-gray one has put a cup of water in the sun and a similar cup of water in the shade and is staring at them intently.
By the time Bella has been at Battle School for six weeks she has tried all the games in the game room, and most of them (apart from the newly fascinating fantasy game) are now only interesting if someone will play against her. Most people won't. She's got too much of an advantage over the controls, and even at Battle School, among what really is a better crop of brains than kindergarten, it's apparently too much to ask that anyone think faster.
autokinetic
Someone walks up behind her while she's playing with her village in a public game room.
"How's the kingdom coming?"
"How's the kingdom coming?"
autokinetic
"We're having some trouble negotiating with the antelope-people who live across the river," says Bella, glancing over her shoulder and smiling at Suicide Watch. "Hi again. How's your 'scape doing?"
"I can't die," he says, "it's the weirdest thing. I hugged a giant squid the other day."
autokinetic
"Maybe it got sick of killing you?" suggests Bella. "I haven't tried dying. Not my speed. I just want to work out something with the antelope-people where we can divert a little river to irrigate all this purple grain the bird-people need without them shooting at my birds every time they show up with shovels."
He laughs.
"So what's the antelope-people's problem?"
"So what's the antelope-people's problem?"
autokinetic
"I'm trying to figure that out. So far my guesses are that they think the shovels are weapons or they need the river at its current strength downstream. So I'm sending an expedition downstream, see?" She has drawn a crude map for some attentive birds and is directing them to go thataway. "And I'm getting the blacksmith to make little trowels so they can show the antelopes what they're doing without looking threatening in case that works."
"Awesome," says Suicide Watch. He comes closer so he can see her game display.
autokinetic
Her expedition appears to get the idea. They set off. She goes and checks on the blacksmith, picks up a new trowel, and nods at him enthusiastically. He nods back and starts making more, and then she goes and checks on the foundation being dug for a bird-person school up the hill. "This is the best game, now," she says happily.
"What're they digging up over there?" he wonders.
autokinetic
"Well, they don't know it yet, but I'm going to have them put up a building and then herd them into it for classes, because they all scatter if they get rained on when I try to teach them stuff," says Bella.
"Got it all worked out, haven't you," he says admiringly.
autokinetic
"Yup. These are my bird people and they are going to be educated," says Bella with immense satisfaction.
He giggles.
autokinetic
"Eventually I'll work things out with the antelope people and then they will be mine too."
"Is anybody not gonna be yours?"
He just laughs.
autokinetic
"Well, I might run into a village that I can't get on board, but I don't think the antelopes are those people," says Bella.
"What'll you do then?"
autokinetic
"Depends on what they're like. If they just don't want me in their village I can go around them and leave them alone. If they're mean and they attack my birds - or my antelopes or my whatever - then I get to try classwork in the game, I guess."
"Fun," he says decisively.
autokinetic
"Yeah. I mean, they dress it up like a school, but we're glorified child soldiers. I won't be surprised if it lets me absorb like three villages and then throws one at me that is inimical to their survival. Bug-people," she says.
"Too obvious," he says thoughtfully. "This is paradise. If it tries to trip you up, it'll be with something really vicious."
autokinetic
"Maybe. It knows I don't mind ragequitting, though," she snorts. "Or it should. It's just a game, if it's not fun I'll stop."
Suicide Watch nods acknowledgment of this deep wisdom and signs on to the game at an adjacent desk.
His bird-fish is deep underwater, encountering fantastical creatures in the murky depths. He swims lazily toward the surface.
His bird-fish is deep underwater, encountering fantastical creatures in the murky depths. He swims lazily toward the surface.