"He looks vaguely familiar," says Tony. "Not that that means anything."

"Nah," he says. "He kinda reminds me of somebody, but I don't think I know him."

Shell Bell shoos all the illusions except, again, her Sherlock. "Maybe I'll see if I can teleport to him if you get bored of chatting before Darcy gets bored of holding the door, just in case. I like knowing about all these far-flung alts."

"Just try not to walk in on him naked," he says, amused.

"It's possible I should work out a way to boost the teleportation power so it can live with complicated algorithms like 'on the far side of the nearest door to so-and-so', but that doesn't rule out the possibility of somebody being naked in that room," Shell Bell says.

"You could add an optional constraint that fails if there are any naked people visible from the landing point," he suggests.

"That's a good idea," says Bell. "I will." She does, and nods to herself.

"You probably don't want to teleport into anybody's bathroom while they're using it, either," Tony muses.

"I haven't actually had that problem because of the way the teleporter interprets 'where so-and-so is' - I mean, you would have noticed if I'd appeared literally on top of you, and bathrooms are usually too small for me to show up in one with a person," Shell Bell says, "but it's probably worth installing anyway, in case I'm ever hunting for somebody with unconventional architecture."

"...I am suddenly really glad you didn't come looking for me two hours ago," says Tony.

Bell laughs. "Do you have," she asks, "an enormous bathroom?"

"Yes," says Tony. "Yes I do."

"Then I am also glad I did not appear two hours ago. I apologize for not having added all these tweaks to my teleportation power before. I copied it directly from Stella and I have the impression that she usually knows plenty about where she's going and doesn't need this installed on the magical level. And is only visiting people she's already put on the brainphone network so she can call ahead anyway."

"Brainphone...?"

"Telepathic phonelike thing?" says Shell Bell. "It's very handy, do you want in? I've already added Jarvis to announce myself when I first arrived, you could talk to him wherever without making a sound."

"Gimme," says Tony. "That would be very useful."

[Behold!]

[Ooooh,] says Tony.

[It also does text channel. And busy messages that pop up according to arbitrarily complicated algorithms, although since in this world I've only added you, Jarvis, and Darcy, I don't think you'll need those unless you want me to throw a dozen of your friends in too.]

He laughs. [My friends all have real phones.]

[This is more convenient. You can't lose it, it works underwater and in loud environments, and it's free. But as you like.]

"See," he says, "I'd have to explain it to my friends."

"You got the idea quick enough," she points out.

"The mechanics aren't the problem, the backstory is."