Cam glances around. This is more crowded than most demon-summonings. Also, this is a terrible circle. That's what, three different languages in the circle? She's letting him talk but he doesn't even know which one to start with. Maybe she'll talk first.

"This does not appear to be an illusion at all," Professor Reed says from behind Emma. "And if it were it would certainly be beyond the scope of Introduction to Magical Engineering. I have, in fact, no idea what this. Ms. Miller, what exactly did you do?"

"Introduction to magical what?" says Cam. "What did I land in? This is the worst summoning circle I've ever seen." He shifts his wings a little when someone comments on them.

"Introduction to Magical Engineering", Jenny says helpfully, then looks down at the circle. "I thought it was pretty," she says wistfully. "You didn't have to be mean about it."

Emma looks at Jenny incredulously- the aesthetic qualities of the curlicues are the concern here?- and then turns back to the circle. She takes a nervous step back, but as long as she doesn't know what's going on, she decides she might as well answer the question. "Um. It's just class. College. We're freshmen?" She gestures around her to the crowd. A few wave.

"It's very pretty, if linguistically bizarre, it just isn't very good. I mean, obviously it worked but it's missing all your standard precautions and you're lucky you didn't get somebody mean. What kind of place is having freshmen summon demons in unverified circles, what did I miss?"

"It's 2007," Emma supplies. "Isn't it for you...?" She is still eyeing him, but now with more trepidation. "Pretty boy" and "demon" do not appear to be coexisting well.

Emma lets out a quiet laugh at 'parlor tricks'. "You sound like my parents. 'Parlor tricks', heh." She looks at Professor Reed, who has stiffened up in outrage. "Bet you get the whole speech now."

"I made the wings," sighs Cam. "And the tail. They're very fashionable. And where I'm from, it's 2159, so you've managed to pull me either back in time or to an alternate universe with your incompetent circle, and given that little spiel about magic I'm guessing alternate universe."

"Were you the person who made the last mark in the circle?" Cam asks. "It felt like a normal summon from my end, so I doubt every rule of the magic I'm accustomed to is suspended, which means you can probably send me home the usual way."

"Usually, you summon a daeva of any of three kinds of which demons are one, and we're stuck in the circle till you get rid of us or we agree on a task and a payment. The lewd remark was presumably facetious but it's not unheard of, but relax, it's not my speed. But you didn't make this circle very well, so I can do whatever I want whether I do you a task or not. If I tell you how to get rid of me when are you planning on doing it, may I ask?"

"Uh." Emma shrugs helplessly. "It's not like I planned to summon you! You're mythical!" Pause. "Kind of. So, um, whenever you want I guess...? Do you need to be somewhere?"

"My name's Cam. I can stick around a while, nothing pressing to do at home, but I would object to staying for more than eight years because that's when we get a concordance with Limbo and I want to interact with the postal system. ...I'm assuming here based on the fact that you speak recognizable English that your years are like Earth years back home. What demons do depends on the demon; what makes us demons is the ability to use demon magic, which is - making things." He conjures an ice cream cone. "Including things like food, so you don't need to worry about that." He licks his ice cream cone.

"Jenny," Emma says, torn between laughter and exasperation, "how is your concern here chocolate ice cream?"

"Because it's delicious. Duh." Jenny grins at her. "How is your concern here not chocolate?"

Cam laughs and hands her a chocolate ice cream cone.

"Napkins," says Cam, producing a stack of them and placing them on the nearest surface. "Nice to meet you. If I wind up sticking around for any prolonged period of time I will want to keep track of you so you can send me back after."

"I can give you my email address?" Emma offers. "Or my phone number, I guess? I don't know what's easier."

"I don't have email or a phone here - I can make stuff, but that doesn't mean it'll connect to an existing network that charges for access," Cam points out to Emma. And to the professor: "Do you want my last name? I have one of those too but I haven't used it in a hundred fifty years so it'd be sort of strange. I could use a place to be, although if you didn't offer me one I'd just find someplace nobody was using and make myself a house. I can create arbitrary non-magical matter given a reasonable amount of information about what I'm aiming to make."

"If you prefer Cam I will of course use Cam," Professor Reed assures him. "It's just... non-intuitive for me, to simply presume." She thinks for a second. "Why don't I just go ahead and call Dean Scott? I assume it would be easiest for you to have this all worked out." Under her breath, she adds, "if I can even explain this."

"I think," Emma says with a grin, "you could probably get the university to throw in a SIM card." She looks at her ice cream cone. "Hey, for enough ice cream cones I'd get you one."

"You're giving a boooooy your phoooooone number" Jenny sings under her breath, smirking in Emma's direction. "A cuuuuuute boy!"

"Sure, go ahead," Cam tells her. And to Jenny: "A cuuuuute boy who can hear you, who just casually mentioned being over a hundred and fifty years old, and who doesn't appreciate being used as ammunition."

Jenny just shrugs. Emma is used to her; Cam is not. "She knows I'm kidding, you already said you need her phone number for actual reasons? I'm sorry if it upset you, though. Totally not the goal." She looks him up and down. "A hundred and fifty? Really? I thought you were exaggerating. Is that a demon thing?"

"Hundred seventy-two, to be precise. I need to be able to get ahold of her for reasons, I don't need to be able to call her in particular."

"Wow," Jenny says. "Color me impressed. You are very well preserved."

"I'm immortal, I kind of have to be," Cam tells Jenny, and then he turns to Emma. "You don't need to do anything else but send me home when it's time. This is a terrible circle so I am not attached or bound to you in any way; usually I'd be loaded up with safety precautions that I am too nice to need. I am planning to figure out what the world is like, and then come up with something useful to do."

"Can you make vaccines?" is Emma's first thought. "Or blood types, can you do specific blood types? Or plasma? Or- I'm sorry," she stops, scrunching back up as she sees people staring at her. A couple are grinning, and she squirms. "I'm premed, it's just... what comes to mind. I'm sure there's other things."

"You," Jenny declares, "are my favorite premed nerd. Never change." She considers a hug, but opts for blowing a kiss instead. (And fetching a napkin: her chocolate ice cream cone ran slightly rogue.)

"...I can make those things. I can also make medical technology from the year 2159."

Emma had started to say something in excitement, but pauses at the reminder of how Cam will be trading for his apartment. "I- I mean, it would be so, so wonderful, if you could come to the hospital with me, I have work tomorrow, and anything you could make, but they just... I don't know how much they can pay you?"

"I'd actually rather make myself a house, if there's someplace to put it," Cam mentions. "I don't think student housing is known for being luxurious. Somebody else can have the house when I'm done with it. As for coming with you to the hospital, yes, sure. If you have any amputees I can be extra useful for them." He stretches a wing illustratively. "Tech alone can't even do that in 2159 but demons can."

"That is so cool," Jenny says excitedly, looking at his wings. "There's a VA hospital nearby, isn't there Ems? I bet they'd have people!"

"Name's still Emma," Emma says automatically. She looks over Cam's wings consideringly. "I think- it might be a better place to start than the hospital?" she suggests hesitantly. "Unless you have ideas how to get the hospital to take your stuff? I mean, drug safety laws exist, they don't cease to apply just because you can break the laws of physics."

"Oh, medical regulations that don't have exceptions written in for demons, I haven't missed those and have no idea how to deal with them because my summoners have in the past always been managing that for me when they applied at all. Grand. I'll start with the apartment, anyway, I don't expect to get less able to make houses over time. I am fine with meeting Dean Fisher, but the 'on behalf of the university' part has me wondering if the university is going to get awkwardly proprietary over me. I am not a circus exhibit and am also not lab equipment. The thing with amputees is - I can only add, not subtract, because I'm a demon, not an angel. So to replace a healed-over stump, enough of it has to be removed that I have something to attach a new limb to. So anybody who wanted a new leg or whatever would have to trust me to follow through with a leg. I can do really good anaesthetics for the removing part though."

"Dude," Jenny says indignantly, "you make chocolate and heal amputees. You are like the perfect man. If anyone calls you lab equipment I will deck them." Pause. "Badly, because I don't know how, but I will do it anyway!"

"The CYA approach to medicine is financially compelling," Professor Reed says, not sounding pleased. "And while you have been nothing but friendly and helpful and I will happily vouch for you, previously unknown substances conjured in flagrant disregard of physics by someone calling himself a demon is not the sort of thing that makes hospital officials calm. For the promise of 2159 medical technology though..." she smiles cynically, "I'm sure they'll find some way to verify you. But be warned: there may be lawyers."

"They don't let you talk?" Emma says, horrified. She is picturing him with a gag of some kind; she has not connected Cam's summoning or discussion of 'parlor tricks' to the idea of magical bindings.

"No problem," Jenny agrees brightly. She had chocolate ice cream. Cam is currently her favorite person and will be hard pressed to dislodge himself from said role.

"Lawyers. Save me," sighs Cam. "Yeah, usually I show up and I can't say anything except to agree to or refuse a proposed deal."

Cam has a strongly negative emotional reaction to the apparent ability of this person!

"Is this world infested with telepaths of some kind?" asks Cam tightly. "Who wander around reading people without - consent forms, red tape, informative pamphlets, warning signs? I can't make you futuristic drugs without the FDA breathing down my neck but that is apparently unregulated?"

"I want to know their range and what exactly they can do and how many of them there are."

"Can I get a make and model on a blocker to try? Probably won't work, but maybe."

"Yes please."

"At home the kinds of magic that exist are limited absolutely to trivial parlor tricks, personal indestructibility, moving stuff, changing stuff, and making stuff, with the last three one to a customer and only for daeva. Not a thing with mental effects."

"What constitutes 'trivial parlor tricks' anyway? My dad calls our magic that regularly, which it's not, but... maybe in comparison to personal indestructibility."

"Oh, and summoning daeva, that's also magic, but not a parlor trick. Parlor tricks are tiny laborious telekinesis, slowly and unevenly changing the color of a thing, stuff like that. The only common use is for disabled people."

Emma laughs. A pen floats out of her backpack and settles lightly on Cam's head. "Telekinesis here is not very laborious," she tells him very seriously.

"Cool, good for you, you're like wingless fairies."

Jenny pulls a similar trick to retrieve the pen off Cam's head and hands it to Emma. "I love you to biiits but I have class now. Don't conjure more ice cream without me, 'kay?" She waves to Cam. "Bye! Thank you again for the chocolate!"

"Bye," Emma says affectionately. "Try not to sugar rush your classmates to death." Jenny waves at her dismissively in response.

"Who's a wingless fairy?" Professor Reed asks as she walks up. "Goodbye, Ms. Marino, I'll see you in class tomorrow. And, Cam, try an Okawa A3. If that doesn't work she thinks the C5 has an electrical input option, but they don't work as well."

"All of you, apparently, fairies are the telekinesis types where I'm from." He sets about making an 'Okawa A3'.

He puts it on.

The display shows no inclination to live.

"Nope," sighs Cam, taking it off. "It's expensive? Anybody want it?"

"I'm okay, but thank you."

"I'm fine without one, thank you, but we can donate it to the school," Professor Reed suggests.

"Sure. I nominate you to represent the school." He hands it to her. "Other kind might still work?"

"Other kind takes batteries. They're not well rated against physical contact but they should be fine for wandering around."

"Okay." He makes the other kind.

"...Okay, so if I wanted to conventionally recharge this battery, would I use a cord of some kind that would connect on the other end to a two- or three-prong outlet in a wall, provided I was in the United States at the time?"

"Those look like they use a standard recharger... that's, uh, box with battery slots, put batteries into slots, plug directly into an outlet? Um, three prong is best for the US, or most electronics stores will have plug converters you could copy."

"I'm asking so I know how to line up power conversion for replacing the battery with a smaller batter, because this thing is clunky." He hands over the second object - "another donation for you" - and makes a new thing, which is considerably smaller. "There. Okay. Shall we?"

"Hi," says Cam, waving. "I'm apparently mythical, here."

"You are absolutely mythical here," Dean Fisher agrees, getting up from his desk and offering Cam a hand to shake. "Pleasure to meet you. Dean Fisher, call me Scott." Cam is, after all, well his senior. "So. How can I help?"

Handshake! "Well, while my home in Hell is comfortable, I have no pressing obligations there, and also tend to find the fact that I can't go about meaningfully improving anybody's lives since they can all make whatever they want whenever they like kind of stifling, that being why I answer summons like the one that brought me here. So I was thinking I'd stay here for a while looking for useful things to do. I could use a place to be - a place to put a house would be best but I might start with some kind of university housing if it's available and there's some kind of hassle with building permits involved. Apparently I am also reasonably likely to need lawyers and to interact with the FDA and so on. Also, back home, it is illegal to sell demon-made objects, so you might want to dispose of those shielding things I made or make sure the university can use them before legislators here catch on and do the same thing."

"Short term it is, I am not a couple and have gotten accustomed to not even sharing a gravity well, let alone a wall. I can make research papers, and the med school can read them, and I would like them to be efficiently distributed - if that means publication, so be it. I will not have written any of these papers. So I guess I can be credited as 'editor' or something." Cam accepts the paper.

"Just speed of distribution you can post it on the internet- but getting it to doctors and scientists, those types, publishing will help. Pompous lot, we are, all of us." He flops back down in his seat. "Short term housing it is. Tamara?"

"I have a class in twenty minutes," Professor Reed says apologetically. "Ms. Miller, do you have the block free?"

"Uh. Yeah, I don't have class till tomorrow." She looks at Cam. "Apartment now or later?"

"Well, what else would I be doing if I said 'later'?" Cam inquires.

"Um, posting papers online? Submitting them for publication? I don't know."

"Campus have wireless Internet?" Cam inquires. "For that matter, can somebody name me popular brands of computer, I remember some stuff from my world but don't know how it'll match."

"It... exists. That's kinda the best that can be said for it? But yeah, it's there. Computers depend what you want to do; Macbooks have better UI, if you want something intuitive for simple things, Thinkpads are a little less user friendly but a lot more customizable."

"Okay, those sound familiar so I'm probably good if I come up with anything from the right era, let's see how much advanced software I can load onto something souped-up that'll still behave right with the internet..." Cam thinks for a minute, then produces a tablet computer with no visible branding, and starts looking for internet.

It exists! It has very few bars and even fewer megabytes, but it's there. Two whole networks, even; he will likely want to be using 'Selevy Guest' instead of 'Selevy', as it requires no password.

He is! There will be mild differences if he looks- demon summoning is tagged as 'ancient myths about magic' and there's no shortage of information of magipathy- but it is otherwise reasonably identical.

"Wikipedia, score. Okay. Which way to my temporary crashspace?"

"See you tomorrow, Ms. Miller."

"Goodbye! Have fun upending the medical profession as we know it! I'll let the housing office know you're coming."

"I don't mind stopping to obtain a key to placate the bureaucrats. I'm still working out the minimum chain of backwards compatibility that will let me connect something modern to this thing." He waves his tablet. "I think I can do it in four steps but it'll be awkward to carry them all around so I'll probably have to do my computing in my base of operations, which for the time being is the apartment in question."

"I can oblige you on the shirt," says Cam, and now he is wearing a gray t-shirt with room for the wings. "On the subject of the wings and tail, you can have one of two things: you can have me take them off, or you can not have blood all over your floor, what's your preference?"

"But my appendages are apparently against dress code, Emma. Do you take me for some kind of rebel?" inquires Cam archly.

"But blood on the floor is also against the rules, you see," she says solemnly. "You're just destined for rebel-hood. There is no escape."

"Oh no. What a terrible destiny. Cruel fates that toy with me so, what have I done to deserve your ire?"

Emma gives up and laughs. "The first thing that comes to mind is 'you gave Jenny chocolate ice cream', actually. You've met her; she is currently processing sugar and chocolate. I am going to come home to so much bouncy."

"The concept of the 'sugar high' has very little scientific grounding."

"Really?" Emma asks with interest. "Cool. Wonder when premed covers that?" Never mind, he is a demon from another universe. Selevy academics are hardly his specialty. "...sadly, that in no way changes my expectations of bounciness. Now it is just inexplicable bounciness."

"Perhaps she is just happy. Anyway. Do I get a key? To a place?"

"What negative outcome besides me getting to mess with a key-distribution person are you anticipating if I continue to be flagrantly winged?" asks Cam, pocketing the keys.

"Okay, but if it weren't fine, are we talking someone unwisely tries to attack me or I am in some kind of sudden legal mess?"

"I'm not invulnerable, I'm indestructible, and there's seriously uncomfortable leeway between the two. I am unaffected by any form of religious iconography."

"Maybe I'll just wear a coat over them." He folds up his wings and now he is wearing a coat.

Emma blinks in surprise, then looks rueful. "I keep forgetting you can do that," she admits. "And it's way more effective then a bad illusion."

"Well, the coat's a little lumpy, but I imagine no one here is on the lookout for wings."

"Yeah, I mean... you're on a college campus. Anyone who sees your back and jumps to 'demon' instead of 'weird backpack' is deeply strange."

"My world also has college campuses," Cam points out. "The fact that this is a college campus is not the reason I will not be suspected."

"Mmm, what has today's Internet got for state of the art maps of things?"

"I used to use Mapquest, but Google Maps just added a whole mess of new features and it's kinda fun to play with? Either's probably fine."

"Okay then -" He taps things on his tablet. "I should be fine, but if you feel like visiting or quizzing me about Hell or whatever I see no reason not to oblige you."

"Hell is comfortable, yet tacky," says Cam, unlocking his door and scanning the furniture critically. "Since we can all make anything and have no magical way to get rid of it. The discovery of black holes improved things, but there are still a few traditional lakes of fire around, and by then most of the cities had already been built on an enormous plane of solid gold that somebody had to think was a good idea for several sustained weeks, or convince several friends of same, to complete."

Emma considers this mental image, then breaks into giggles. "A plane of solid gold? Oh my goodness that's absurd. Please tell me someone named a city El Dorado."

"Nope, sorry. The cities aren't made of gold, anyway, just the underlying surface." Cam puts sheets on the bed, adds a pillow and a duvet, sets down his tablet on the desk, and attempts to open the window."

"There are lots of demons, not as many as there are humans in my time though, something like three billion of us, slowly increasing as new ones pop in. Plane of gold has sixteen good-size cities on it and a bunch of little ones and plenty of demons living by themselves or with a few friends. There are some farther-away planets and personal black holes; I live above, not on, the plane. There are dozens of demon languages and dialects of same, too, I have only learned six, and I would replace the furniture but I'm not sure how long to expect to be here and don't know of a good way to dispose of it after."

"New demons... pop in?" she asks, confused. "The idea of a personal black hole is kinda adorable. And anything that even kinda works in a dorm room will be super easy. Free furniture, college students. I could email some of the dorm lists but I mean, as long as you could get it to an elevator I've definitely seen people just leave things outside with notes saying 'free'."

"Okay then. Furniture replacement is go if there's a place to stash what's here already, then. And yes, new demons pop in, daeva of any kind can't reproduce."

That was not what Emma was thinking at all and she will now be slightly flustered. "Um, I meant like, where do they pop from? Can you pop back? Is it like... in a particular place, or random? Could there secretly be a hundred million more demons just really really far away from the-" snerk "-plane of gold?"

"Oh, we appear near other demons, more or less. We think, anyway, but there could be another cluster an octillion miles away that nobody knows about. Most demons don't seem to pop from anywhere. They just start existing."

"If most just exist, what about the rest?" She inspects the room. None of the furniture is terribly heavy, or too large, but it's a little awkwardly bulky. The two of them could move things by hand, but it might be time consuming. "Do you want to conjure... I dunno, a cart or something? Or I can ask a couple of my friends to help." She rolls her eyes fondly. "They can be bribed with pizza."

"What happens to the cart if I make a cart?" asks Cam patiently.

"If you can make a little folding one, I'd keep it. My mom has one at home and she's moved some crazy stuff with it. Seven foot bookshelves once, I think."

"Okay, little folding cart for you it is." Cam makes a little folding cart and starts stacking mediocre dorm furniture on it.

Emma is not particularly strong and Cam has a few inches on her, but she is used to dorm furniture by now. Helping ensues. It will take a couple trips to the basement, but the elevator is close and they have a folding cart and it's not much of a hassle. The basement's small, but not close to full; short term residents don't have much in storage. There is no shortage of places to put mediocre dorm furniture.

"...sure," Emma says slowly. "If you're okay telling me, I mean?" From his attitude, she's guessing this may not be common knowledge.

"Well, humans back home don't know, unless someone spilled the beans and I didn't hear about it, but it might be relevant to you, and this is a different world. But kindly don't go telling everybody until I've thought about it some more. Some of us daeva are dead summoners. If this world now works on afterlife rules like my world does, you will now be some kind of daeva after you die."

"Well, if your world now works on those rules, it's much better than the alternative - and off the top of my head I'd peg you for a fairy, not a demon."

"Well, no, Fairyland's different from Hell in addition to fairy magic being different from demon magic. Fairyland's more interesting all by itself. I think but cannot be sure that it's about what kind of magic suits you best."

"Interesting in a good way? Have you seen it?" Pause. "Do they have an El Dorado?" She is not particularly serious, but really. Someone should make up for demonic naming deficiencies.

"I've never been to Fairyland. I have seen pictures of the landscapes, it's very pretty in a lushly sylvan kind of way, but have never heard rumor of an El Dorado."

"I like forests," she says wistfully, then sobers. "Thanks for telling me. It would have been kinda a shock." She looks at her pocket, which still holds the floating pencil for earlier. "Uh, mostly. The telekinesis thing I guess would be similar." She considers. "Are your 'parlor tricks' similar enough that people have practice, do you think? You said there's some telekinesis." Faint smile. "Maybe I'd just be weird and super competent."

"There is extremely tiny parlor trick telekinesis. It is slow, requires a lot of concentration, allows next to no precision, and unless you're preposterously good at it won't work over distances greater than an inch. Fairies can move pretty much anything however they want. I don't think practice makes much difference."

"Did you need to practice- I don't even know what to call it," Emma says ruefully. "Creating things? You seem to need at least some detail to create things, can you just... tell, somehow, how much you need to know?"

"I don't know that much about how naturally occuring demons do it because I haven't met any new ones," says Cam. "In my case I was recently dead and had twenty-two years of knowledge of stuff-that-existed to use. I think it may be that naturally occurring demons can make themselves air and water and some basic food instinctively."

"Makes sense, just, not quiiite what I was thinking. I meant more-" she stops to think. "You asked for the make and model of your empathy blocker, earlier. Did you already know before you-" won't say died, it seems too weird when he is standing there "-became a demon that you needed that much detail? Or did you try to make things with less detail and fail? Or do you just... know somehow... that that's how much detail you need to know before it works?"

"Mmm... well, I knew a few things about how demon magic worked before, I'd met demons and asked them questions," says Cam. "And then I experimented some when I had the magic myself."

"Why am I not surprised that you did experiments?" Emma grins.

"Because you have known me for more than five minutes?"

"Several hours, even!" Then, contemplatively, "I guess I do know at least one fabulous secret already, huh."

"Mm-hm."

"I don't really know what to do about it," she admits. "I mean- what if whatever we have is better? No one knows. I wouldn't mind being a fairy, I guess? I just... don't know. Can't, really."

"No one knows on my world except the people who are already dead, and maybe some handful of summoners whose summons told them who have not shared the news. I probably would have told someone before but no one lets me talk when they summon me."

"What's up with that, anyway? Wouldn't you be more helpful if you could talk? I mean, you've been super helpful here."

"Well, they're kind of afraid I will talk them into trading me their souls."

"Um. Seriously? Not one person has been cocky enough to assume they'll- I dunno, be able to send you back instead of giving you their soul, you said sending back is a thing- and had a whole 'okay five minutes later he is friendly and prone to handing out sweets' experience and decided you were safe? That sucks."

"I mean, I am an unusually nice demon and you are very lucky you got me."

Nope, nope, nope, not thinking about alternatives, she would panic. "Well, thanks for showing up then," she says with a smile. "You have absolutely been nice."

"You're quite welcome."