+Please don't be conspicuous at school, by the way, I might tell Charlie about you at some point but probably not all my classmates.+

+I can do stealth!+ he says. +I've been doing stealth for a while.+

+...When you say you've been doing it for a while I start wondering if this is another thing you have issues about or if you're just neutrally asserting your capability.+

+Meh,+ he says. +It's not my favourite, but I'd way rather hang out on a planet where nobody knows what a device is and have to act like a deck of cards in public than hang out on a planet where everybody knows what a device is, you know?+

+I cannot claim to know. I have never been to the latter sort of planet. Are they terrible?+

+They're probably not terrible if you're not a device. They might even be okay if you're a device who's, you know - not me.+

+What do you think the people there would do? Is there some protocol for handling self-aware devices you don't like?+

+I just don't like the idea of everybody knowing what I am. Because, you know, maybe they'll be nice like you, but... maybe they won't.+

+Are you going to object if I want to tell Charlie? Because that's probably going to be necessary if I keep haring off to other planets to fly around and explode things and terraform places.+

+I can live with you telling Charlie, I guess.+

+Thanks.+

+Not sure I get why you have to, but whatever, your call.+

+He has, you know, reasonable parent-of-some-seventeen-year-olds expectations that he will be made aware of my whereabouts. I'd feel bad sneaking around under his nose, and besides, it'd be inconvenient if he noticed I was gone a lot and wasn't telling him and decided to start implementing explicit rules I'd then have to break. I don't want to have an antagonistic relationship with him.+

+Huh,+ says Brilliance. +Okay.+

+Is that weird or something?+

+I just don't really know how parents work,+ he admits.

+Some of 'em don't work very well. Mine and Lexi's work fine. Except for the getting divorced part, I guess.+

+Gotcha.+

+If I fess up to both parents I might go visit Renée a lot. We moved up here so she could travel with her new husband, but she won't be doing that literally all the time.+

+And I can teleport you places now!+

+Yup! I'm not sure how you'll get along with Charlie but I think you might like Renée.+

+We'll see, I guess!+

And here is school. +Welcome to high school!+ says Bella with some irony.

He giggles.

Turns out Bella really likes having someone she can silently converse with during school. She usually talks to Brilliance - she's sure Lexi would react visibly if she said something, and that could wind up being some kind of problem. She makes snarky remarks about the teachers, the subject matter, her new friends - mostly the selection Lexi's monopolizing; she kinda likes Angela and Eric - and, during walks between buildings, the weather. +Hey, weather spells: doable, not doable? Good idea, bad idea?+