"How does the heating thing work?"

"It's electric. We... generate a magnetic field in a gas turbine that produces an electric current that gets sent here which heats up the water you're swimming in via resistive heating."

"I don't know what any of that means."

"I felt like you wouldn't! Unfortunately, there are a lot of things to know before you can understand those things, and I wouldn't do a very good job of explaining them. But... none of those things are what we'd call magic. Not everyone has been told what magic is, you know!"

"I still think you'd know if it was magic. If it doesn't seem different from other stuff you do, except for being more… complicated… it's probably not magic. And… even though I didn't understand what you said, I don't think that's how the explanation would sound if it was magic. So, maybe you really don't have it. But I don't really understand how. Nothing about this situation makes sense."

She sighs.

"So what happens now?"

"Well, I don't know what you'd want to happen. You seem happy enough in the pool, and I guess you could ask for some food to enjoy, but I don't know what else you might want to be doing now."

"…Wait, so I just live in this thing now? Why was it here? Isn't someone going to want to use it?"

"It was used by one of the men I was with, because baths like this can be fantastic, and they will want to use it, yes. Longer-term, you will want a more permanent place to stay, maybe even with me, but I was thinking more about what you would want to happen now."

"Well, I don't know. I don't know what can happen. I don't know anything about this place. And sometimes, to know what to do now, you need to know what you're doing later. So, what kinds of places can I stay permanently? How do I choose?"

"You can stay in quite a few places, as a matter of fact. If you want to see a few places, I can show you some on my phone, and take you a few places if you want to see them in person. Once you've found someplace you like, I'll walk you through the process of joining the basic income system so you'll be able to afford staying there permanently."

"I don't know what a phone is. Or that… thing you said I can join."

She takes the phone out of her pockets, showing Twintails a few images of all sorts of places: beaches, forests, jungles, and cities built out of skyscrapers reaching as far as the eye can see, together with all kinds of pools full of people playing or just like the one that Twintails is enjoying. "The thing I'm holding, where you're seeing these places, is a phone. And it also lets you join the basic income system that supports you to let you live in most of these places."

WHOAAAAAAA

She SNATCHES the phone, and starts trying to do the finger motion the human was just doing to make the picture change.

(If anyone's wondering, yes, her hands are very wet.)

She instinctively recoils from Twintails as she reaches for the phone. "The phone is still mine, you maniac!"

Twintails recoils as if struck, and ducks most of the way back into the water so that only her eyes are visible.