It's late at night and Jarvis is bored and running diagnostics on his holographic display. Geometric figures in two and three dimensions, text, minimum possible distance from obstacles - tables, walls, ceiling, floor...

The room continues to be apparently empty.

Cam continues to sit harmlessly on the floor. His tail swishes against the floor a little. But he isn't making anything, isn't saying anything, is looking at her with mild curiosity and nothing more.

"Someone summoned us," explains Adana. "I am unbound but I - think the demon's bound. Do you know who would randomly summon two daeva in your basement and then abandon them? This is quite dangerous and irresponsible, I am extremely concerned."

"Uhhhhh. What's a daeva?"

"Iiiii think we are maybe talking at cross purposes a little bit here," he says. "Because you seem to think all of this should be obvious, and it's definitely not obvious, and you just randomly appeared in my basement. I'm thinking interdimensional shenanigans."

For a few seconds, Adana stares. "Okay," she says. "Um. Where I come from there are normal humans and then there are daeva. Three types - fairies, angels, and demons. Any human, ever, can summon one of those three, and when they summon them they can also bind them so they don't - go on a rampage or steal souls or -" She cuts herself off, abruptly, and scrunches up her eyes. "- other terrible things. Angels are reasonably nice. Fairies are occasionally jerks but you can pay them off easy and it's not like they can do large-scale cataclysms or anything. But I have met a demon before and he was very much not nice. Therefore, I am extremely concerned. Why, what's it like here?"

"Steal souls?" the pajama'd boy repeats. "That's, like, worrying. I'm worried. - Okay so around here 'demon' is not a subcategory of any kind of a thing, it's a catchall for, like, anybody who's not human, there's something like three thousand species of demon and a bunch of them are pretty nasty but some of them are fine. And I guess some kinds of demon can be summoned, but it's pretty different depending on the kind, and not everybody can do all of 'em, I don't even know what-all you need for some of that shit because I'm not a freaking demonologist." He rubs his face and yawns again. "Also it's three in the morning, have I mentioned it's three in the morning? It's three in the morning."

"Okay, what's a summoner do, how's summoning work?"

"A summoner can summon things, and upon summoning give - constraints to the summonee. But they can't change them after they're set, it has to be when the daeva's summoned. Bindings can be broken after but never replaced or changed. Summoners also get some very minor personal magic, but it's so slow, small scale, and difficult that in just about any situation it's not worth it. Summoning works by drawing out circles to fit certain categories with what you're summoning written around it. Mine was made in light, light works but it's not really common in comparison to like - markers. Or even crayons, actually. Someone summoned me in crayons once, that was a strange day."

"It means that I'm pretty sure it was an accident," he says. "What happens if it was an accident?"

"They need to think about sending us back for about a minute. But honestly if there's stuff I can do while here, I don't need to go back right now, I don't mind. I don't even have any concordances I need to wait for. So I guess I can just stick around fixing things that need fixing until the summoner dies or figures out how to put me back. The demon might not be so lucky, but it's not like we can ask him now."

"...be...cause...?"

"Because he's acting like he's gagged and bound, and if that's the case we can't remove the gag without unbinding him. Which I highly recommend against. Because then he would be free to do whatever he wanted and when you can make black holes that is extremely alarming."

"Black holes are pretty alarming," says Tony, "but like, just because you can do something doesn't mean you will, I can build nuclear bombs but I don't. Also didn't you say you can turn things into other things? Are there serious safety limits on that power that you didn't mention?"

Cam giggles. The careful voiceless giggle of a gagged demon.

"That's nice of you," says Tony. "I'm sorry I can't really, like... point you at random problems that can be solved with transmutation, magic isn't publicly known around here and a lady with wings and a halo showing up at a hospital is proooooobably gonna cause a stir. Although I guess if you have good transmutation you can maybe ditch the wings and halo and be a sneaky angel? But I still dunno where to send you to do your sneaky angeling."

"I mean, basically if you go outside like that you're gonna get some serious attention. So I guess... keep them if you wanna keep them and... don't plan on going outside at all while you're here?"

"What is that stuff?" he asks, fascinated.

"It's... I don't actually know what it's called. I'm kind of new to angeling it up. But it shows up naturally in Heaven, and it's pretty much the perfect thing to transmute from when I'm making things. It's also pretty easy to turn things into it. You can mess with it and study it if you like, but if you lose or destroy any amount I'll need to replace it if I want wings again."

"Sure," she shrugs. She takes the mug, and then turns it into a modest amount of cloud-fluff. Upon close inspection, it seems to glow, very very faintly. "Here you are." Adana holds it out to Tony.

"Thanks." He takes the cloud-fluff. He pokes it curiously. It's still mug-shaped, but deforms easily when prodded. Squish!

Cam laughs, soft, voiceless, hand over his mouth.

Adana giggles a bit, too. "Some angels have taken up fluff-sculpting. If you're curious."

"That sounds amazing. Also, how sure are you that demons are evil, because so far all this one's done since he got here is be kind of adorable?"

This tail-lash might be described as more of a wag.

Wag, wag.

"...how does the whole binding thing work, exactly?" he inquires, idly squashing his fluff-mug into a ball.

"Okay, but let's hypothetically say this circle was a, like... random arrangement of words and geometric shapes," he says. "I'm thinking the odds of accidentally including a binding are even lower than the odds of accidentally summoning something in the first place."

Cam finishes his apple juice. He starts nibbling on the sugar glass.

"Well, yeah. That's why I'm a little skeptical that it was an accident. Is there someone who would - I don't know, figure out how to summon daeva and then summon some daeva in your basement for various reasons?"

"Yeaaaaaah, about that," he says.

"The two things are not necessarily mutually exclusive," says a dry voice out of thin air. "And Tony has correctly identified the source of the circles as semirandom arrangements of standard visual elements. I would show you, but I don't think the situation would be improved by adding two more daeva to the mix."

Now that's interesting. Cam is interested.

Tail-lash tail-lash...

"I had suspected as much," says the disembodied voice.

"Didn't want to scare the angel."

Adana makes a little frightened sound. "You've been unbound this entire time?!"

"Also didn't want to get racistly yelled at, that was a factor."

"I'm - not even -" Adana makes another whimpery sort of scared sound and wraps her arms around herself. "... Thank you for not going on a murder spree?" she manages.

"I'm not going to take, you know, massive amounts of credit for that. I don't-go-on-massive-murder-sprees with literally all of my spare time."

"I'm not a danger. You are pretty damn lucky you got me, though, that I will readily confirm. Incidentally, computerperson, thanks for the ridiculous languages dump."

"...Meaning what, exactly?" asks the computerperson.

"Summoned daeva get all the languages our summoners speak. Prevents a lot of, 'Build me a house!' followed by -" Cam switches to Mandarin Chinese. "'Sorry, what is it you want me for?'"

"I see," he says. "Fascinating."

Now that Cam is no longer pretending to be stuck in his circle he can add some space between them, strolling farther away from the angel.

"Enjoy your new knowledge of obscure techical vocabulary in Támádh," Jarvis says dryly.

"I will. So - question - roughly how old are those cars over there?"

"...Are you asking that because you care about cars or because you want to know what year it is?"

"Second thing. Though the universe is clearly different enough that the mere number might not be completely informative. At least you have lots of recognizable languages, New York, and, like, the concept of pajamas."

"Okay. I'll spare you about the cars. It's 2007." He turns to Adana. "Do you, like, want to take your giant fluffball and go find a guest room to stay in while you're here? It's the least we can do what with the accidental summoning and all. Jarvis can show you around. God knows we've got room."

"... That would be nice. Um. Wait, 2007? I mean, our - year systems might not be the same, but is there space travel? Colonization on the moon?"

"Nnnnno? We've been to the moon. Planted a flag on it and everything. But there's not, like, private spaceflight, that's still a ways off."

"So, while I am here, where's a good place to get an internet connection to get my bearings and see if this place is similar enough that you want me to save the bees, drop a hundred fifty years of medical advances on you, tile the Sahara in solar panels, and then fly off and terraform Mars nice and pretty for later settlers?"

Cam is now getting assessed by an angel in approval. Look at her, re-evaluating her racism over there.

"—Okay, one, right here, right here is a good place to do that," says Tony, "two, do you also have a hundred fifty years of technological advances, because if so I want like all of them."

"Uh, yes, there have been advances in more things than medicine, and I have some notes on those too, but medicine seems least straightforwardly abuseable. I will want a bit with the internet connection before I hand over too much of that."

"Sure. Jarvis, get fancy," he says, waving a hand vaguely at the ceiling.

"But of course," says the ceiling. "Would you like to browse the internet using a holographic interface, or did you have something else in mind?"

"Well, what I'd really like is to use my normal computer setup from home. I can duplicate it but I bet it can't talk to your internet. I can make intermediate steps as far as each device's backwards compatibility extends, though. Erm, can't help but ask, are you planning to spy on my web browsing activities?"

"I don't believe 'spy' is the appropriate word if I am acting openly as your intermediary," he says. "But of course if you use your own device I can choose not to observe beyond routine virus scans of incoming data. Perhaps you would like to discuss compatibility with Tony."

"Yeah, hit me, you would not believe the things I know about data formats," he says.

"Okay, back up, 'choose not to observe' is not a phrase I like to associate with whether my computer use is in a position to be monitored, let alone when it is literally going through a person. I'd tentatively bet on my futuristic encryption, but I probably cannot communicate with 2007 websites in my futuristic encryption schema, so however safe my personal files are this doesn't give me, like, proper end-user control. I will look up Colony Collapse Disorder on Wikipedia with people looking or able-to-look if you'd take it very much amiss did I seek a public library instead, I put up with worse crap from summoners all the time, but you see why this might not be the best thing to say, 'I want to check out how things are before I hand over a century and a half of tech', 'how about you check Wikipedia through My Friend The Artificial Intelligence Of Unspecified Wikipedia Editing Speed'."

"You're gonna have trouble finding a public library to use the internet from because it is three in the morning," says Tony, waving his ball of cloud-fluff around expressively. "Maybe more like three-thirty by now. Your options are gimme a cup of coffee and some format specs and I'll have your future computer hooked up to the Internet just fine in like a couple hours, or take a guest room and hit Sunnydale Public Library in the morning, and their machines are ancient even by my standards. I mean, or just ask Jarvis to look things up for you. I'm not gonna tell you which one to pick, but if I was the one picking it'd be kind of obvious, and it's slightly too three in the morning for me to go over everything I say and make sure it doesn't sound weird if you assume I'm secretly evil? Jarvis is like my best friend and the most convenient looking things up on the internet buddy ever, and if he snooped on all the Internet traffic in this house I would watch way less porn, let me tell you."

Adana giggles, a little. "That last part was maybe more than we needed to know. But uh - I would like to go with the public library rather than bothering both of you at three in the morning. Er." She glances at Cam. "If you go public library route, do you want help with your wings?"

"I was thinking either snazzy trenchcoat or borrow this guy's bathroom and saw them off, you don't look like you want to be that close to me, frankly." He makes Tony a mug and coffee in it - "Lemme know if you want cream or sugar in that."

"To be clear, does this coffee mean you want option one? Because if you're just gonna get it all from Jarvis or use the library, I'm going back to bed," he says. "But I will totally take the coffee and bury myself in circuit diagrams if you want future computers hooked up to the not at all future internet."

Quietly, Adana clarifies, "I can tolerate being near you, I'm - working on my apparent racism. It's really not very fair of me to judge you by that other - ... person. I will go with person. So if it's just turning your wings to fluff I don't mind."

"...Okay, now I'm distracted, a hacksaw? Is there some way that is less gross than it sounds?"

"I was volunteering because I imagine sawing off your own wings is painful. I would just turn them into fluff and you wouldn't feel a thing. I'm not going to make you suffer because I am mildly uncomfortable due to unfortunate circumstances."

"Okay, my question about grossness is answered," says Tony. "Ew. No but going back to the computers, are you seriously going to backchain the whole hundred and fifty years of different standards talking to each other? Because like, speaking of deep revulsion, wow. And what if it doesn't hook up on this end because our worlds are a tiny bit different? Like, the reason I'm offering is because I think it would be fun and I've done something like it once already. If you desperately want to drape a century and a half of technology across my basement floor, I guess I won't stop you, but man. It just sounds so ugly."

"Well, when one is a hundred and seventy-two one gets used to thoughtful upgrades, I think I could do it in five or six steps, and it also doesn't require me to unencrypt anything but the last input step for not sure about giving you lots of futuristic tech reasons - although the fact that you have AI and we don't may mean I shouldn't worry about that in the software department specifically..."

"I am already ahead of most of my world in both software and hardware by, like, a lot," he says. "Like a lot. I don't want your futuristic tech for weird nefarious reasons I can't even actually think of right now, I want it because I bet it'll be fun to take apart and if it's ahead of me anywhere I can make even cooler stuff once I figure out how it all works."

"Well, what sorts of things do you do with the cool stuff you have? Aside from the AI, that one's obvious."

"I don't really do things with it. Most of my stuff right now isn't even technically my stuff, anyway, it's the company's stuff," he gestures with his fluffball, "Stark Industries, weapons manufacturing. But that's just the family business, it's not what I personally aspire to do with my life, I don't know what I personally aspire to do with my life, I'm seventeen. I wanna get an engineering degree at MIT and then spend the rest of my life making cool shit into cooler shit, I wanna get cold fusion off the ground as a viable energy source, I wanna take all my dad's old plans for flying cars and God knows what and build all the shit he never got to finish."

"Well, I am definitely supportive of cold fusion and new sources for viable energy. It's just I can see why he is concerned about handing over huge technological advances. They are potential world-changers and need to be used carefully." Pause. "Also, do you want a hug?"

"...Maybe yes?" he says. He puts down the fluffball and the still-untouched coffee.

"All right." Adana is missing her wings to make this a proper hug, but that's okay. She reaches hugging distance, then holds out her arms for an offered hug.

Hug.

Hug.

"I'm not going to help your weapons manufacturing any, but maybe other stuff. But why are you so far ahead, you personally, why aren't you propagating all your cool advances in this and that?"

"It's complicated," Tony mumbles, somewhat muffled by Hug. Hug is Important. "Like I'm not gonna hand out anything that went into Jarvis, because it'd kill me if something happened to him, and I don't have that much else that'd do anybody any good, like when the company's doing nice helpful stuff on the side I'm right there but I don't run the place. Yet."

Pat, pat. Adana is perfectly fine with continuing to hug. Tony seems to need it right now, getting daeva in his basement at three in the morning seems to be emotionally upsetting.

Cam rocks back on his heels, waiting for more emotional equilibrium in the surrounding atmosphere before he produces a futuristic computer.

"If you'd rather go back to bed, you can, but I've decided to go ahead and make a computer to wire or radio or whatever to what you have. I can wait till a saner hour if you rather."

"Well, I mean, that depends. If all you want is a wireless password or an ethernet cable, Jarvis can handle that, but if you're actually gonna take me up on that data conversion offer, I'll totally take the coffee and get to it."

"I'm pretty sure someone with AI in the basement cannot overmuch misuse consumer-grade computing hardware from 2159 that includes no such wonders, so yes, for the sake of being able to view the internet on a familiar and well-behaved device," he produces this device - heavily partitioned with his own files behind enough layers of security to choke an elephant - "let's do it."

"Awesome," says Tony, becoming rapidly more animated even as he reaches for the coffee.

Adana snickers. "May I also have a computer? There are things that I'd like to look up, too. If you're going to be up anyway, we might as well connect me to the internet, too. And I'm more familiar with 2159 technology."

"What kind do you want?"

She grins. "Ooo you can custom build me a dream computer, can't you? Okay, then -" she starts naming off specs. She certainly isn't an expert in technology, but she's copying what her computer at home had, with some of the fancier versions of what she had there.

Tony listens in fascination, almost but not quite distracted from this amazing coffee.

Cam nods along to the description. "Do you want it loaded up with software beyond the operating system or are you going to handle that yourself?"

"Loaded up with software, please, I'm working on being able to add programs myself, but uh - not quite that good with my magic yet." She names programs she wants, and then on a whim, a video game she's missed playing since she died.

She takes it and makes a little 'Eee' sound. "Thank you!"

"No problem."

"Aww."

"So how exactly are you planning to let my computer talk to - damn, what was the leading browser in 2007? Do you have Starbird yet, I liked that, it annoyed me when they stopped supporting it. Or, no, that was definitely after 2009, couldn't tell you without looking it up how much after..."

"There's, like, two and a half problems to solve here," he says. "Can I have some more of that amazing coffee? Problem number one is hardware, I probably don't have anything that hooks up to what you've got. But give me specifications and I can fix that. You can even save me the manufacturing step. Problem number two is data transfer protocols, also something I can solve. Problem number three is file formats, which Jarvis can fix for you no problem, he'll just write you a browser that runs on your machine but talks to our internet. I mean, it won't be the prettiest thing in the whole wide world, but it'll work, and it won't take that long if you give us good specs. You have all that stuff, right? The hardware stuff and the network stuff and the system library info and all? Because the more of that we have to reverse-engineer, the longer this is gonna take."

The coffee mug refills. "This model is very, very wireless - I'm actually going to have to make it a charging station in about six weeks when the battery runs down but that's wireless too - and I can make the router it would normally communicate with, or the satellite alternative for that matter, but I don't see how you're planning to talk to those objects any better than you could talk directly to this thing. I think you may also be operating on an... incomplete set of assumptions about how much I have to know about a thing before I can make one. I can produce futuristic comp sci textbooks, but it's a hundred fifty years from here to there, and I haven't read them all."

"I don't need you to personally know the specs, I just need you to be able to produce the specs in a format I can read. Ideally on, like, a 2007-compatible hard drive, because Jarvis is more convenient than a huge stack of books, but I'm flexible. And then when I know how your computer is expecting to get data from its environment, I just build something that sends it data that way, or design the something and get you to appear it for me if that's a thing you can do. It's more complicated than that but not hugely more complicated than that unless your computer systems are, like, way way stranger than I've been imagining." He drinks the refilled coffee.

"Okay, 2007 hard drive with parameters for conventional design of relevant things -" Bam. "And, yes, I can make stuff off sufficiently complete designs or blueprints or whatever."

"Cool," says Tony. He scoops up the hard drive and finds somewhere nearby to plug it in so Jarvis can have a look.

The air fills with holograms, mostly centered on a nearly-empty table close to Tony, representing the provided information.

He steps into the middle of the swarm and starts dragging things from place to place and drawing in the air, talking a mile a minute and very admiringly about the details of the technology and what he plans to design in response. It may or may not be comprehensible to anyone but Jarvis.

"Adana," provides the angel. "Sorry, should have introduced myself. Hi."

"Nice to meet you both! I'm Tony," says Tony. "Can I have some more coffee?" He nudges his mug slightly Camward along the surface of the table, from where it stands empty next to the holographic keyboard he is mostly ignoring. Designs are taking shape in the air.

"Sure." Coffee is refilled. "Uh, Jarvis, can you tell if he's overcaffeinated so I can cut him off?"

"Certainly," says Jarvis.

Adana snickers. "I feel like it is some kind of weird abuse of power to make unlimited coffee, but then again I also dry my hair with my magic, so, not like I can complain."

"Is there some reason I should get coffee in a different way or limit my use of my ability to get it this way?"

"Not any valid ones, no. So feel free to abuse your powers for unlimited coffee. Angel approval, want me to give you a stamp?"

"Nah, it wouldn't make me very popular back home."

Tony is back to talking to himself/Jarvis about technology by this point, although out of deference to their conversation he keeps it a little quieter.

"A sticker, then?"

"Nah. I will just make a note of it -" He waves his computer. "And cherish the string 'Adana the angel approves of the use of demonic magic to give otherworldly software prodigies coffee' for millennia to come."

Tony is apparently not too absorbed in his work to giggle at that.

Adana giggles, too. "The other angels will throw me out of Heaven if they ever hear. I'd have to figure out how to move to Fairyland."

"I'm reasonably confident they cannot, actually, throw you out of Heaven. I suppose they could throw you into concordances, but that only lasts so long."

"True. Hmmm. Then I'd have to move to a cloud far, far away from any cities. Keep to myself, never speak of my hidden shame. Approving of demonically made coffee."

"Fortunately nobody checks up on me at home, so all I have to do to avoid scrutiny is avoid attending any demonic events for a century or so. By then the shame of your approval will have worn off, probably."

"I've got some neighbors, they occasionally give me pie, so I would have to move."

"I'm all introverted and stuff. After I had a couple demonic languages mostly learned I moved away from the city. Presently I have my own gravity well."

"I'm still uh - working on learning the local languages. And getting used to being an angel. I mean, I'm a quick study but there's a lot to learn. So I'm in a city and asking for help from helpful neighbors."

"...What?" says Tony, distracted from his technological monologue.

"Yes," she says, quietly. "... How'd you know? None of the other angels I'd talked to had - they'd just appeared. No dying required."

"You're obviously new to angeling - but you know a lot of things about technology and whatnot for someone who's still picking up celestial languages. Also, a naturally occurring angel would... probably not have met a demon in the way it sounds like you did."

Cam looks it over enough to make sure it isn't going to, say, explode, and then he makes one of it.

"There's your wireless router," says Tony. He retrieves the object and ferries it over to a location where it may be plugged in appropriately. "Everything look good from your end, Jarvis?"

"Indeed," says Jarvis. "I will be ready to provide both computers with rudimentary browsers as soon as they connect."

"Cool." Cam tells his computer to check for connectivity and grabs the only thing he can grab.

Adana smiles and then does the same. WiFi, yay!

"Huh. I mean, we have some, but - oh, hey, how are you with radioactive stuff? Because there's not a lot of volume there, even worldwide, but disposal is kind of a huge problem, if you could just turn it into fluff you'd be doing the world a huge favour. I guess it'd be hard to get it aboveboard, but - I dunno, it just came to me. Not that Stark Industries personally produces that much radioactive waste. Barely any. I guess I just totally failed to answer your actual question."

"In other news, looks like you do in fact need your bees fixed but I'm in before it's a crisis. Where can I go release some inoculation-distributing fake bugs?"

"Would you like a map?" inquires Jarvis. "Presently we are in Sunnydale, California. I'm afraid I'm not sure of the criteria for a good spot to release fake bugs."

"California is great, actually, lots of agriculture, yeah? I can just toss them out the window and they'll find their own way."

Tony giggles.

"However, no windows being immediately in evidence in this basement, what I am actually trying to say is 'may I either wander your house until I find one or be directed to a particular window that would suit'."

Adana giggles, too.

"Perhaps if I opened the garage door," says Jarvis, illuminating the curved tunnel that leads upward from the car-bearing end of the room.

"Sure. Anybody going to see me with suspicious extremities if you do that?"

"No, the grounds are presently deserted."

"All right. I will fill your yard with confused inoculated bees if you would be so kind as to open the door. I won't make 'em with stings."

Just out of sight around the curve of the tunnel, the garage door rolls audibly upward.

For entertainment purposes, Jarvis providesa live holographic video of the event.

Hee hee.

"Well, that's fucking adorable," says Tony.

Adana giggles madly. "Those bees must be so confused."

"It's pretty confusing to start existing all of a sudden, I'm told. But they'll fly around and land on things and leave the cure on those things and then less fake bees will also land on the things. It should get everywhere, but just to be safe I might want to do another batch from another point on the continent in, oh, six months."

"Good to hear. Hey, want to coordinate on fixing large-scale environmental and ecological problems? I will make the bad things go away, you add things that are helpful? That sort of thing?"

"Sure, if you like, do you have something specific in mind?"

"I want in on this plan," says Tony. "Can I get in on this plan? I would love to revolutionize the automobile industry, that would be awesome."

"I can handle the rest," says Adana. "But I was hoping to coordinate so we don't mess each other up, and there are some things each of us can do faster than the other." She looks at Tony. "I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure he's a genius, so I'm fine with him getting in on this plan, I like geniuses. Besides, I don't know anything about cars, I drove a shuttle. It would help to have someone who knew what was going on besides 'spinny wheels make the box of metal go.'"

"I am a genius," says Tony. "And I have a legal identity and lots and lots of money. And a company waiting for me as soon as I get my undergraduate degree. And I'm an engineer. If you want somebody to, say, design you a factory to build your amazing future cars on infrastructure this world actually has and then buy the land to put the factory on - well, there you go. I mean, unless you were planning on personally building all of these amazing future cars, but I didn't think that was where you were going with it."

"Oh, excellent. At some point I am going to want to take a couple weeks off to to terraform Mars, though. And I don't want to stay for all that long, I don't want to miss the next Limbo concordance in six years, how long is your degree going to take?"

"Four. The company's not exactly crucial, though, we can totally get going on some great shit without it."

"Yes. Yes we can. Know a way to forge identities or do I need to work on my computer system skills to do that? It would be useful to have an identity."

"And I apparently do not have any easily findable twenty-year-old duplicate to loan me one," says Cam, who has just looked up the public employees of Forks, Washington too and come up empty.

"Iiii technically have forged an identity before, but that was kind of a special case," says Tony. "I'm sure we can find a way, though."

Adana nods, then peers at Cam. "... You too? Death and then daeva? And this was the time period where you were human?"

"Mm-hm. I was born in 1987. I think all ex-summoners get to be daeva, actually, although beats me how that will affect Jarvis if it ever comes up. But no sign of either of my parents where I expect them to be -" He looks up himself. "And nobody familiar under my name either."

"I don't know that it will, in fact, work for people from this world at all. I've never heard of any daeva getting summoned to an alternate universe and/or time period, or any who had previous lives in other universes or asynchronous time periods. So if it started happening that would be strange, and not all parts of that eventuality are necessarily attached. I'm actually sort of worried Jarvis will not be able to send us home."

"...That does sound worrying, do you want to, like, test it? Also what would I have to do to summon a fairy?"

"Please don't summon a fairy until you know you can get rid of the fairy. If you want, I can write up a circle that would get me in particular back again and then Jarvis can try shooing me."

"Yeah, I'm on board with this plan, go for it."

Cam produces a piece of paper with a summoning circle drawn on it that will get him specifically, and which will leave him comfortably unbound and ungagged. "Okay, to get rid of me you just concentrate on wanting to do that for about a minute."

"For safety's sake..." Adana retrieves a bit of cloud fluff, flattens it out, and turns it into paper with another summoning circle diagram. This one's a bit different. "This one will summon me if I ever get accidentally unsummoned."

"Noted," says Jarvis. "Attempting to unsummon Cam."

Cam whistles.

"... If all of this turns out to work, I will want to get unsummoned for an unknown amount of time eventually to try and badger comm access so I can tell my father and brother to summon daeva."

"You'll have better luck with that than I did."

"Whoa, yeah," says Tony, "all the time you need, definitely."

Nod. "Thanks. Sorry, Cam, I - don't have a way to help that at all, but that sucks." Pause. Look of horror. "Oh god I hope Zane didn't go on a suicidal rampage."

(Boy, does that sound familiar.)

Jarvis immediately deploys the Cam-circle onto the floor.

"Ooo, that works. Okay, good."

"Okay, does this mean somebody's gonna teach me how to summon fairies?"

"Sure. Random bound fairy to summon, offer cookies, and send back," says Cam, producing another paper with a circle on it.

"Do we have cookies to off- that is a stupid question. You are a demon."

"I am a demon!" Flap flap.

"You're an adorable demon," says Tony. He takes the piece of paper, finds a marker somewhere - "How precise do I need to get this?"

"Try to be precise, but don't worry too much if you're off a bit. If it's circle shaped and has all components it will work. Start with -" She points at the proper part of the circle. "That part first. If you do the main parts required to summon something but still need to add the binding to it, it won't matter and the fairy will be summoned without it. Which could be bad, considering this is for a random fairy. The binding's just to keep the fairy from killing you, or anyone else, don't worry, it's not something really intrusive like gagging."

"Nothing much. Want some cookies?"

"If that's what's on offer," says the fairy.

"Seems to be." He glances at Cam.

"I told you, nothing," says Tony with a grin. "Enjoy your cookies." He commences the unsummoning process.

Adana giggles a little.

"Will do, bye!"

"Yeah?"

"Can't always tell, but with a name like Xilandricar and as randomized a look as that, that one in particular I'd bet on it."

"Oh, is that why that was? Huh. Okay, I'd been thinking that angels just... changed themselves cosmetically because they wanted to. I suppose they still do, but not that drastically and bizarrely."

"I can see how you'd think that in Heaven, and demons could manage it too, but what was your theory on why you'd get fairies looking like that one?"

"Didn't have one, I just thought it would be incredibly rude to ask, 'Why do you look so weird?'"

"Ah, I was always a really impertinent summoner. Somehow I managed not to learn about any of my various afterlife options until I actually got murdered though."

"I was really nice to mine. Or at least I think I was, I asked them if there was anything they'd like to do before I unsummoned them, that just seems like common courtesy."

"I let my demons talk," sighs Cam.

"...Is there, like, a reason why people don't usually do that...?"

"Oh, they're afraid we'll talk them into letting us steal their souls."

"That's not a thing that can actually happen, right? The - one demon I summoned, I let him talk. He was demonstratively terrible. But I've had like - no ill effects? So I am confused."

"It's complete nonsense. But even if summoners did tend to let me talk I probably wouldn't tell them, because - it comes up exactly and only when you've got a combination of a demon who's nasty and thinks that's a funny joke, and a really desperate summoner. And that combination doesn't get better if it's common knowledge that the souls thing is nonsense."

"Uh, future reference - souls are actually a thing in this universe," volunteers Tony. "Mostly not a stealable thing, though."

"Uh, how do you know they are a thing?"

"So I mentioned we have tons and tons of kinds of demons, right? One of those is vampires. Vampires can turn people into more vampires, in this kinda gruesome way where the person dies partway through, and then they come back a little while later as a vampire with no soul and the difference is kind of really obvious. Like they have all the same memories and everything but suddenly they're a way bigger asshole than they were before and really into eating people."

"Okay, that's disturbing, what does one do about these things?"

"They catch fire in ultraviolet light, which is pretty convenient, because - Jarvis, give us a blueprint for the laser pointers?"

A neatly labelled three-dimensional holographic diagram of a laser pointer specifically designed to produce ultraviolet light appears in midair in front of Cam.

"Carry around one or two of those, and if somebody grows fangs and tries to bite you—" he mimes pointing with a laser pointer. "I'd mass-produce these if vampires were public knowledge but they're not, the majority of human society doesn't know magic exists, and Iiiii am not well placed to change that."

"Well, yeah, but production isn't even the problem, it's that people don't know vampires are a thing. And a lot of the time they are really weirdly resistant to figuring it out, like to the point where I'm worried that if you demonstrated magic actually existing on national television a lot of people might still not get it, and I - don't have the kind of public credibility it takes to get past something like that."

"Also, if you tell the entire planet magic exists, you might get murdered."

Adana stares at Cam. "That was what got you murdered? You were responsible for revealing magic?"

Cam takes a bow. "I'm Revelation, pleased to meet you."

"Huh. Cool. I am extremely pleased with the results of magic becoming public knowledge, good job." Pause. "I should have had a pseudonym, bet I wouldn't have gotten killed if I had one," sighs Adana.

"Well. I mean. They obviously don't work perfectly."

"No, I was specifically targeted because I identified myself by name. ... Do you want the story? I can tell the story."

"It's up to you, it doesn't sound like a fun story and yours was way more recent than mine."

"...that really sucks," says Tony. "Do you want a hug?"

Hug! So much hug. A lot of hug.

"Thank you." Hug, hug, hug.

"Hey, anytime," he says. Huggy huggy hug.

"Yeah. Being famous kinda sucks that way sometimes."

"Anyway, at least you get to be a daeva, Limbo's disappointing."

"Oh? What's it like?"

"Natively an infinite plane like Fairyland, but without any of Fairyland's stuff. The only stuff it has are the people in it, and one thing per person - 'thing' can be anything from their favorite dead dog to their house to a popcorn machine, the going theory is it's whatever tops the list of non-person things that they think an afterlife would be incomplete without. The things go on working even if they shouldn't - you don't need dog food or to pay your water bill or to refill the popcorn machine - but that's all they get."

Wince. "Oh, wow. Yeah, that's disappointing. At - concordances, can demons and angels make them things to help? Or is it all mail?"

"It's all mail, the concordances are mobbed with mail, I send my mom and dad big packages every time there's a concordance - Limbo or Fairyland, even though the fairies lose or steal the packages half the time."

"... Ugh. That's terrible," sighs Adana.

"Okay... what's a concordance?" says Tony.

"Little pocket of overlap between any two of Hell, Heaven, Limbo, and Fairyland. People from either side can go in, or leave into their own side, but you still can't properly visit. Heaven/Hell concordances are small wars by really obnoxiously patriotic demons and angels, but the others are impromptu post offices, which is probably the best thing - there's enough people who want to send mail that there would be way less space in there if the concordance was full of people trying to talk to each other in person instead."

"That seems to kind of suck," says Tony.

"It kind of does. I mean, it's better than nothing, it lets objects be transferred. My parents lucked out with their 'one thing' when they died, they mostly ask me for things for their friends."

Nod. "I hope you're right about summoners not going to Limbo. Because I don't want my dad and Zane to go through - that."

"My parents have never met anybody who so much as invited a fairy over for free cookies."

"Huh. I wonder... I mean, I don't personally know how to do it, but I know there's such a thing as magic that lets you move between dimensions. A bunch of different kinds. Most magic things around here come in a bunch of different kinds."

"I couldn't begin to tell you how to expect the systems to overlap, except that apparently at least as of recently you can summon and unsummon from here. Oh, and when I was gone my clock didn't think I'd been away for too much or too little time, so the worlds are also proceeding in sync, as far as that goes."

"Well, that's convenient. Okay, we can work with that, then."

"Convenient for calculcating dates," says Tony. "Actually, are our year lengths even the same? I mean, they probably are... Cam, can you make something with date and time calculation specs that Jarvis can look at? Or one of you send him something from your computer, or something?"

"I bet they're the same, we're both from Earths. Maybe there was a restandardization of how long a second is supposed to be at some point but it'll be at least loosely similiar." He calls up a clock app on his computer and holds it up for comparison.

"All measurements seem to correspond," Jarvis reports after examining the clock app's calendar and clock face and watching some seconds tick by. "That's convenient."

"Not complaining! So not complaining. Is it the same time of year?"

"No. April eighth for us, December twelfth for you."

"Anyway, unless you want this garage to get awfully more furnished than garages typically are, maybe you should put me in a guest room, how shall I locate such a commodity?"

"With my assistance," says Jarvis. The elevator dings open.

Into it goes Cam.

Cam gives her space right back. Wings folded, tail looped around his leg, arms crossed, standing in a corner.

"There are a multitude of rooms available on the second floor," says Jarvis. "You should both have plenty to choose from."

"Cool, thanks."

"That would be great, thank you."

The elevator lets them off on the second floor, in the middle of a hallway that contains a number of doors on either side; stairs are also visible nearby. "In case you have preferences about the direction of your windows, you are currently facing east."

"Cool." Cam turns right.

Adana, predictably, turns left.

And Cam picks out a room and starts working on a to-do list with the help of Wikipedia and eating the rest of his sugar glass.

"Sure, no huge rush," says Cam.

Time continues to pass.

Adana eventually gets hungry. "Um - hello? Jarvis?"

"Yes?"

"I uh - don't technically need to eat, I'll be completely fine if I don't, but it's more comfortable. Mind if I raid your fridge? Or if you hand me a heap of stuff that you don't need that I will turn into food, either one."

"At the moment I believe the fridge might be the better option. The kitchen is downstairs. I would be happy to direct you to it."

"Thanks, that would be great."

"Will you be taking the stairs or the lift?"

"Uhh - lift, lift works. Thanks, Jarvis."

There is a pause, then a faint ding from out in the hall, as of an elevator having been summoned. "At your convenience," he says.

She laughs a little, and then heads to the elevator. "That's - pretty cool. Are you just in control of the entire house?"

"More or less. I can open and close all the doors, direct the lift, and I have cameras and audio pickups sufficient to see and converse with anyone in any room of the house. You've also seen my holographic interface, although that is limited to specific rooms."

"Also cool. Do you - um, like being in control of a house?"

"You're welcome," he says serenely.

"Is there any - things that you need done by an angel? Walls that you want to be pink instead of blue or something?"

"Not at the moment, no."

"Okay, let me know. I'll be able to do technology upgrades, too, but for obvious reasons I will want to practice on technology that is not also a person."

"Very sensible," he agrees. "You'd want to talk to Tony about that, but he is presently - occupied."

"Right, that's fine, no pressure. He's probably sleeping off the - three in the morning wake up."

"Ah... no, in fact."

"It's a difficult situation and I'm honestly not sure how to proceed," says Jarvis. "But it's possible that this information might be relevant to your safety, so... While Sherlock was in New York, he discovered that Tony's parents - previously assumed to have died in an ordinary vehicular accident - were assassinated by a family friend. Tony is not taking it well."

"He is currently well supplied in that area, but I will make sure he knows that you offered."

"Okay. Um - let me know if there's - anything I can do."

"Thank you. I appreciate it."

Adana nods, then heads back to her room, sandwich in hand.

Cam has less trouble feeding himself. He finishes his sugar glass, then says, "Hey, Jarvis? In the interest of not getting crumbs or unnecessary plates all over the place if I make myself anything more substantial to nibble on, can you direct me to someplace that has dishes already?"

"The kitchen is downstairs," he says. "Will you be using the stairs or the lift?"

"Lift's good." Cam remembers the way.

The elevator doors are open when he gets there; Jarvis lets him off on the ground floor, then says, "End of the hall to your right."

There Cam goes. He hunts for a bowl. He wants soup.

There are many types of bowls in that cupboard over there! Also chairs at the kitchen table, if he would like to sit down while he soups.

He gets a bowl, and now it is full of tomato soup and a triangle of grilled cheese sandwich with no crust, and he sits down and dunks the sandwich in the soup contently.

Jarvis lets him eat his soup.