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Bella's public facing email address (eor@eor.eor; many of the Bells are following similar protocols to Stella's, for web presence, and in Origin the relevant empire is called the Empire of Rings, after Saturn's feature) gets a lot of mail. Jane used to help with it; without Jane, there is still extremely smart filtering going on, and a program no one has noticed at work yet auto-responds to almost everything with canned but tweakable responses and links to the imperial website.
This still leaves a lot of emails every day she has to deal with herself, although some of them allow her to make gentle adjustments to Jane's program to handle future inquiries of the same kind. The number goes up over time. Slipstick's still on the lookout for a suitable secretary type person to help out. Until then, Bella leans on super-speed.
She has had to address the rumors about being able to raise the dead. It's a frustrating, narrow line to walk, between lying, explaining too much, and getting everyone's hopes up. Currently the FAQ has a section that looks like this:
Can you raise the dead?
Eventually, I'd like to be able to do that for everyone's departed loved ones. I'm working on it as fast as I can, but today all I can deploy are public health measures and, on a smaller scale, immortality, for people who are currently alive.
I heard you were dead and brought yourself back to life / I heard someone else was dead and you brought them back to life!
This is an exaggeration. I'm immortal; if I suffer lethal damage, the thing I do is called 'torching', not 'dying'. The same is true of other people who I've made able to torch.
I want to be able to torch.
There's a waiting list, but this is something I can do. Just fill out the form and my staff will process your application; if everything checks out the current wait time for getting into a torching batch is about four months.
I don't want to torch, but I want to stop aging.
This is also available, but the waiting list is longer; apply here.
Are you sure you can't raise the dead?
I really, really wish I could do that for everyone who asks. I maintain a waiting list of people whose resurrection has been particularly requested so that as soon as I have this capability I'll know who to use it for first.
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bellfounding
bellfounding
She can treat pentagons like they're cheap, with three and a half Jokers in Origin, but there's no reason to use one when she can do without. Still stealthed to everyone except Ripper, she flickers to Rayne and back, quicker than blinking.
tearingup
Rayne stumbles slightly on the landing, surprised by the abrupt change of location.
Ripper stands up and calmly punches him in the jaw.
Ripper stands up and calmly punches him in the jaw.
"Ow," he says, cradling it. "What kind of reaction is that when your best mate comes back from the dead?"
"All right, all right," Rayne sighs. "It was a nasty trick, and I'm sorry. But it worked, didn't it?"
"You got your precious empress to conjure me up; don't tell me she didn't do the same for Randy," he snorts.
bellfounding
"He can't perceive me," Bella puts in. "Unless I decide to let him. We can discuss Randall separately if you'd like though."
tearingup
He tries to say something, shoots Bella a brief exasperated look, and amends to, "I'm sure you can guess who I asked for first, and funny fucking thing, he wasn't dead!"
Rayne follows the aim of that look and squints curiously at the imperceptible Bella.
"Well would you look at that," says Rayne, impressed.
bellfounding
"You went to considerable and asinine trouble to get ahold of me," Bella says to Ethan. "I have an appointment in seventeen minutes, but if there's something you'd like to say before then, you may."
He shrugs. "Could you dig up Randall while you're here?"
bellfounding
"Assuming you mean that metaphorically, no."
Privately to Ripper, she adds, [We can discuss it if there's some way to cover it up, I just don't particularly want Rayne here to have the information.]
Privately to Ripper, she adds, [We can discuss it if there's some way to cover it up, I just don't particularly want Rayne here to have the information.]
tearingup
[Honestly, of the two of them, Randall's more likely to go to press with it,] he says without lifting his head.
"Ta ta, then," says Rayne unconcernedly.
bellfounding
[Then he can sit on the waiting list a bit, but I'm hoping to have a batch resurrection planned out inside the next year,] Bella tells Ripper.
"Before I go, do either of you need to be un-addicted from any mind-altering substances?"
"Before I go, do either of you need to be un-addicted from any mind-altering substances?"
"What have you been telling her majesty?"
bellfounding
"All right. D'you want to be able to torch?" she inquires of Ripper. She does not include Ethan in this query.
bellfounding
"All right." She torchables him, and conjures and hands him the pamphlet on how it works and how to contact one of her emergency-recovery staff by brainphone if he gets into a repeated-torching sort of fix. And then out she pops.
tearingup
Leaving Rayne and Ripper to argue it out.
It doesn't go well.
Two days later, Ripper brainphones her.
[That invisible lurking gig, do you do that a lot?]
It doesn't go well.
Two days later, Ripper brainphones her.
[That invisible lurking gig, do you do that a lot?]