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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.
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autokinetic
autokinetic
"I wonder if there's a way to do this in multiplayer," says Bella.
"That'd be fun," he says immediately. "Maybe I could borrow your controls and screw around a little. Your bird people will think their new goddess has a personality disorder."
autokinetic
"I don't wanna share my avatar," she says. "Especially not if it confuses my birds. I like my birds." (Her avatar hugs the nearest bird, which tolerates this with good grace.)
"Awwww," he says delightedly. "Okay, I won't. But multiplayer's a good idea."
"You do!"
autokinetic
Bella has many projects running concurrently in her bird village, since things go roughly in real time. She checks next on the birds who are learning to make paper. They have managed pulpy ragged-edged beige stuff, which Bella nods at approvingly; she doesn't know how to teach them to make anything smoother and it'll do. She's just about to start showing them how to paint when free play over comes up on her screen.
"Aww," says Suicide Watch. "See ya!"
autokinetic
"Night!" she says, and she logs out and waves and travels back to her barracks in a rather balletic manner.
Bella does her classwork; after a few weeks the teachers have more finely distinguished ability from past training and sorted everyone into their semipermanent class levels and the difficulty ramps up. She flies around in the battle room, leveraging her cheater's exoskeleton to dance in the air like she can on a floor, to shoot straight and dodge beams with artful twists of herself. She notebooks about herself, at least half an hour a day even if nothing special happens. And she plays with her birds, and she works out that the antelopes were just threatened by the shovels and will allow river diversion after seeing mock-work done by nonthreatening trowels, and she builds a bridge between the villages.
Bella does her classwork; after a few weeks the teachers have more finely distinguished ability from past training and sorted everyone into their semipermanent class levels and the difficulty ramps up. She flies around in the battle room, leveraging her cheater's exoskeleton to dance in the air like she can on a floor, to shoot straight and dodge beams with artful twists of herself. She notebooks about herself, at least half an hour a day even if nothing special happens. And she plays with her birds, and she works out that the antelopes were just threatened by the shovels and will allow river diversion after seeing mock-work done by nonthreatening trowels, and she builds a bridge between the villages.
One day, while she's playing the game during a free period, a familiar fish comes swimming up the river.
autokinetic
She laughs; her avatar laughs too, as an afterthought, and she waves. She's not sure if it's him or just the game playing with her, but the reaction's appropriate for either.
Suicide Fish waves a fin right back, and leaps over her bridge with a flick of his tail, splashing everyone in range.
autokinetic
Bella's birds and antelopes shake themselves off and look at her for cues. Her avatar points at the fish and then hugs a nearby antelope: that's my friend.
(She's got other friends, people who'll dance the battleroom with her, even one boy two years older who'll give her a run for her money in the tunnel table game, but none of them have made it into the fantasy game with her. Suicide Fish can be her fantasy game friend.)
(She's got other friends, people who'll dance the battleroom with her, even one boy two years older who'll give her a run for her money in the tunnel table game, but none of them have made it into the fantasy game with her. Suicide Fish can be her fantasy game friend.)
The fish leaps back over the bridge, higher now. There's much less splash and only a few NPCs get sprinkled.
At the apex of the third leap, his fins unfurl into wings, scales sprouting into feathers: he's a bird again. He circles the bridge once, and then dips his candleflame wings in salute.
At the apex of the third leap, his fins unfurl into wings, scales sprouting into feathers: he's a bird again. He circles the bridge once, and then dips his candleflame wings in salute.
autokinetic
Birds who are not bird-people are not equipped to hug. So Bella just waves again and goes back to what she was doing, which is figuring out how to make crawfish traps.
After a minute or so, Suicide Bird lands nearby. He doesn't do much, just watches what she's up to.
autokinetic
Her avatar can't talk, but she's been working on fine ingame motor control for a while; it's possible to draw in the dirt if you're fast enough. She's fast enough. After she gets a trap set up that she's confident will work, and nods at the birds (they're the ones who'll eat the crayfish; with this food source they'll be able to share some purple grain with the antelopes, who only eat plants) she writes HI SUICIDE in all caps.
He caws a very giggly kind of caw and starts scratching at the dirt next to her message.
After a minute or so of trying and failing to replicate her readable letters, he hops onto SUICIDE, scratches it out with a sweep of his talon, steps neatly to the end of the word, and draws a crude pictogram of a shield. Then he points his beak at the revised message, points his beak at her, and stands next to it, preening.
After a minute or so of trying and failing to replicate her readable letters, he hops onto SUICIDE, scratches it out with a sweep of his talon, steps neatly to the end of the word, and draws a crude pictogram of a shield. Then he points his beak at the revised message, points his beak at her, and stands next to it, preening.
autokinetic
There's a laugh-emote. So this is definitely Suicide Watch, not the computer playing tricks on her. Her avatar laughs and nods, and then scratches out all the drawing and crosses the bridge to see how the purple grain mill in the antelope village is coming along.
Suicide Bird follows her over, taking to the air again but flying low enough to be visible on her display.
autokinetic
The mill is doing fine. It's time to take some antelopes up into the mountains to look for a good pass through the range and see what's on the other side. Suicide Bird can come too.
He flies ahead of the expedition, and comes back laugh-emoting.
autokinetic
Eventually Bella works out a twisty path that the surefooted antelopes can take without the benefit of arm-wings like the birds. She's already been over the mountains herself, and there weren't any villages within easy flying distance, so she's going to colonize here. (The birds have recently laid a clutch of eggs and almost half the antelopes are pregnant; it's spring.)
Suicide Bird circles the party, then flies ahead again.
Except that in midair, he levels out abruptly and drifts to a slow stop, wings flapping with purely automatic rhythm to keep him hovering above the ground.
Except that in midair, he levels out abruptly and drifts to a slow stop, wings flapping with purely automatic rhythm to keep him hovering above the ground.