Oh good some actual challenge.

She does end up joining the “Magical Girl Fan Club”; they may be mostly silly but they are an information-gathering-and-distributing organization and she can nudge them into being more useful from the inside, and they can have a spiffier sparklier web site.

On an otherwise ordinary Monday, she overhears something about Spirit Bearers having been seen on campus. Anyone know what that was about?

The Fan Club finds the original blog post with pictures - yep, that sure is two Spirit Bearers, on campus, with a few police officers. Maybe there was a monster attack or something? But there's nothing like that on local news.

Huh. That's something to keep an eye on.

A few days later there is a press release that goes out on a lot of local news and gets posted in the dorm halls.

A genie has taken up residence in the Undergraduate Library. The genie is not a danger, but please do not interact with the genie without clearance. Pestering genies that want to be left alone is a crime.

She has no intention of pestering the genie, but she does need to use the library sometimes.

The library is still usable. The little sunken outdoor courtyard that nobody really used anyway has been sectioned off and most of the doors locked. The genie is a vague silhouette of dust out there, blowing from book to book and using the wind to turn pages.

She glances at it discreetly as she walks past the windows (always gather what information you can).

She finds the book she was looking for, and also checks out one of the low-end laptops the library has available — she may have her own but she is working on a three-node interaction in her software that is hard to realistically test on a single machine, and the open computer lab schedules are inconveniently short blocks.

She leaves with her acquisitions, past the courtyard again.

The wind speaks in her ear. "That is not a book. Can you get things that are not books from a library?"

—eep.

“Yes. This is a computer. The library offers things that are not books but are for learning.”

"Books are not always satisfactory. Would this thing be better than books?"

“It depends on how books are not satisfactory. Books have specific information written in them. Computers start out with not very much useful information but can be used to obtain, store, or process information, but they require more knowledge and specific steps to use.”

In a remarkable display of planning ability (for a genie), instead of asking about its current obsession it says, "I would appreciate if you showed me how to use the computer to find information."

"Um. Okay."

She sits at a small table by the windows and opens the laptop, arranging it to be as visible through the windows as still lets her type. While it boots:

"Computers are delicate and complex machines so they need to be treated carefully — don't get them wet or dusty or shake them up too much. And they need electricity. This one has a battery but I will have to plug it in some of the time," doing so, " for it to keep working."

It has gotten to the desktop. "This part is the screen, or monitor, which displays information. Some of it is always about the computer itself, like page numbers on a book. On this half are the keyboard and trackpad which are used to control the computer and to put in information, such as what you are searching for."

She roughly explains the idea of a graphical user interface while finding the icon for the web browser and opening it. Of course, the start page is set to the university's site.

"Is there some information you'd like me to try to find, so you can see how it works with something you are interested in?"

The genie can't follow her, but it seems to be aware of the general area anyway. Little breezes play around, kicking up dust on the desks nearby.

"I will remember to treat computers gently. How would I search for information about corn history?"

"We can have this computer ask other computers for information. Those computers all together are called the internet, or the web."

She types "history of corn" into the search field and gets some results.

"This list is all different things that another computer called a search engine guessed are good for those words. It's sort of like a library catalog but it is made only by computers looking at information stored on other computers so it is not as well organized. One of the skills of using the internet is judging whether something is likely to be a good reliable source. For example, this is Wikipedia — it is modeled after the kind of book called an encyclopedia, but it can be edited by anyone so anything in particular might be wrong because no one else fixed it yet. It's often useful for getting a general overview of lots of subjects."

She has lots more to say on how to do research on the internet, and will continue as long as the genie seems interested or she actually has to be somewhere else.

The genie listens for about five minutes then says, "This is useful. I will remember this process. I will remember you. I will go back to researching now."

She collects the laptop (she half expected to have to let the genie have it) and leaves.

—.pauses when out of sight of the genie; whew.

Getting a thank you from a genie is extremely unlikely anyway. It might have granted a small wish if she'd asked - but then again, maybe not.

Hey, (1) “I will remember you” and (2) lack of anything actually going wrong is pretty good!

The next day the library has a new sign by the front desk.

The Spirit Association would like to speak to the person who demonstrated the use of computers to the genie currently residing in the Undergraduate Library Courtyard if possible. Please call (555) 555-5555 if you are this person. Please do not call if you have information about this person - instead, ask them to call us directly.

Speaking to or making deals with a genie is not illegal - You are not obligated to report any deals agreed to with a genie - Requesting criminal actions of a genie is a class III felony punishable by up to three years of prison or a $25,000 fine.

—they could try a little harder to be friendly and inviting about it, really.

But she will call that number.

"This is the Urbana-Champagne Spirit Association office, how may I help you?"

“I am ‘the person who demonstrated the use of computers to the genie currently residing in the Undergraduate Library Courtyard’.”

"Ah... Yes, that. You are not obliged to tell me anything about this. It is perfectly legal to speak to a genie under most circumstances, including yours. To verify that you are who you say, what did the genie get you to look up on the internet? Can I ask why you ignored the cautionary notices and talked to it?"

“It asked about the history of corn. I spoke to it because it spoke to me first.”