Morty opens and closes his mouth a couple of times.

"P... parlez-vous francais?" he attempts after a moment.

"Gah!"

Morty jumps backwards and hits his head on the corner of his bunk bed. He falls over, then jumps back to his feet, hits his head on the bedframe this time, falls over again, and elects to remain seated until he is quite sure the scenery will stop attacking him.

You- you're a telepath? he manages. I wasn't trying to, um, anything. Can you hear my thoughts?

I'm not going to intrude on your privacy, but if we don't have any language in common I don't have a better plan. I can hear what you mean to send me in particular without getting much of anything else. I repeat: what did you do.

"I was-" Whoops.

I was trying to get unlimited clean energy from dimensional bleed. It... didn't do that. The devise has nothing to do with transportation, so I don't know what the heck went wrong enough to teleport somebody in. Where are you from, even?

Magisterius University. Prax, Imperium. ...Prime Material. Where am I?

Morty blinks slowly.

Not any of those places. Whateley Academy, Massachusetts, USA, Earth, Milky Way. Laniakea Supercluster?

I've never heard of any of that.

The back of Morty's head comes to rest on the wall behind him with a thunk.

Well, I've got bad news and I've got good news. The bad news is that you're in an alternate universe and Hartford is going to have me thrown off a cliff by wild horses. The good news is that people who aren't me occasionally know what the fuck they're doing. So they might be able to put you back. After having me thrown off a cliff by wild horses.

You're some kind of extraplanar studies student? From, I assume, another plane.

Yeah, probably. Sure. I do not have enough energy right now to argue about your choice of bad sci-fi words.

Planes aren't sci-fi. You just literally summoned me from one.

He waves a hand. Yeah, but they still sound like it. American culture's pretty new to magic and mutants and shit, all that's still sci-fi as all hell. He looks thoughtful. You'd think a hundred years would be enough to get used to that kind of thing, but that's humans for you, I guess.

Oh, yeah, alternate universe. Nobody really knows what happened, but about a hundred years back folks started cropping up with Powers That Science Could Not Explain*. So now you get psychics, blasters, wizards, Devisors... But when you haven't had that kind of stuff for the rest of your history it still seems kinda fake. Like, my roommate is literally full of dog ghosts. And he's growing extra nipples. The fuck is up with that, right?

*The communication of unnecessary capitalization through telepathy may or may not be one of these.

Morty's brow furrows. You could say that, I guess. Is yours just kinda normal? Apart from the, uh, telepathy.

The telepathy is normal! I'm a subtle artist!

Morty holds up his hands, laughing. Don't get me wrong, it's cool! We've got psychics too! It's just they all popped up after the Weirdness Threshold went down, so I put them in with the rest of the Weird. Normal is, like, accountants, not wizards and telepaths.

Wizards are normal too! What's this about 'science could not explain'? Why were you expecting science to explain wizards?

Um. Well, science is using the fact that most things work in basically the same way to figure out how our world is set up, right? And we'd been using it for a really long time, so we had most of the rules figured out. But then there's all these wizards, and they're turning teacups into frogs and shit, and it doesn't work in the same way as anything else. (Or at least it didn't seem to at the time, the really advanced physicists and theoretical gadgeteers are making some headway on making mutant powers make some damn sense in the context of the rest of everything. More power to them, I guess.)* But we hadn't really run into anything science Could Not Explain before then. So it was kind of fucked-up.

*Mortimer Halliwell is not aware of his ability to think in parentheses, or for that matter footnotes. It probably wouldn't surprise him, though.

I'm in some kind of crazy science fantasy universe that finally got fed up with you. Great.

Morty looks slightly affronted!

Science still works, you know. We thought lightning was God throwing spears at us for thousands of years, and now we make it in our houses and use it instead of candles. Just because there's some hocus-pocus we can't account for yet doesn't mean it can't be accounted for.

So yours is more patient than mine and likes killing you less, sure, but it definitely sounds like it got tired of you having such an easy time of it with the starting rules and decided to jazz it up to keep you on your toes.

I-

He thinks for a moment.

I can't actually dispute that. But it's being pretty nice about it, if so. There's mutations that are literally "be good at science," so I don't think it's trying to discourage us too hard. If mutants are the world fucking with us, I don't mind its style too much.

What a friendly universe you have.

It's pretty nice, honestly. He pats the floor. Thanks, universe. You just keep doing what you're doing.

...It can't hear me, Morty feels the need to clarify. I'm being facetious.

I figured. So, what gets done with me?

Morty sobers somewhat. Yes, that. Um, I don't know exactly, but I think you get put back as soon as they can manage, and... I think you get a gift basket of advanced medical technology? Or comparable magical or technological goodies. Except if you'd rather stay they'll let you immigrate and give you a bunch of apology money to start living with. They like to stress the "we're very sorry you got kidnapped, here's free stuff" angle.

I can't bring medical technology home!

...How d'you mean?

My universe isn't as friendly as yours. It doesn't hold with understanding things through the power of science or any of that sci-fantasy wishful thinking. If I bring home science fantasy technology of any kind I will be lucky if the only thing that happens is it all spontaneously melts.

Morty is speechless. Or, in this case, thoughtless. Although that's nothing new.

He's really mad, though. At what is unclear.

Fucking- no science? That is fucked. I wanna punch your universe in the face.

He hops to his feet belligerently and starts pacing, muttering under his breath. Passing his desk, he acquires and begins fiddling with a piece of cardboard angrily.

I mean, we have a sort of okay standard of living, it's all just magic instead...

I mean, that works, but it's the- science is like social mobility for an entire species, you know? With enough work you can make everything better, for good, you can win. Like, hey, anybody get polio lately? No? Fuckin' great! That's because we killed polio! With science! And anyone can do science.

He pauses. If they're smart and got a good education and they don't need a real job, I mean. But it's the principle of the thing.

I'm sure your friendly science fantasy world is very nice.

It's shitty that you can accurately describe your world as unfriendly, that's what it is. Like, your world actually, literally dislikes you.

A thought occurs. Hey, but you've got options! You could move here! You could live the friendly science fantasy! That'd rock!

...Well, maybe. I have parents back home... and I was studying subtle arts, which apparently aren't a thing here... but it's very tempting.

We've got psychics. The principles might carry over? Plus, summoning your family: totally an option, pretty much exactly as easy as getting you home.

I don't know if they'd want to leave, though, their whole lives are there. And... somehow I think science psychics might not work like subtle artists.

I mean, you can check, there's like three psis on this floor. Parents not wanting to leave... Maybe somebody could set up a two-way communicator or something? Hell, I could set up a two-way communicator, I'm a mad hypergenius! If I could just figure out the coordinate error, and...

He fiddles somewhat manically with the bit of cardboard, which folds in implausible ways. "Need more cardboard," he mutters.

She doesn't know nearly enough science to complain that cardboard is not a reasonable material for that. So what's your name? I'm Bella.

He looks up, burgeoning obsession fading from his eyes. "Morty. I-"

Whoops. Morty. Morty Halliwell. Codename Smokescreen, because my shit blows up all the time. Sixteen. Hi.

Telepathy is not strictly necessary to tell me your name. Why do you have a code name?

Everybody with powers has a codename, pretty much. If you're going to go around superheroing or supervillaining you don't want to mix it up with your personal life, and if you aren't, you can still use it for the strength of your brand, or whatever. He scratches his head. Plus, y'know, tradition.

So most people have to get by without any magic or subtle artistry or anything?

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, they've got technology, plus whatever publicly available gadgets they can afford, but they can't do it themselves.

...And the rest of you give yourselves names like early morning cartoon characters and fight crime or rob banks or whatever.

...Sort of? The villains do things because they're jerks and they want more power so they can be bigger jerks, the heroes try to stop them from doing that. I think without the villains there'd be a lot less heroes. But there's still a big contingent of the mutant community that just, like, does things. Like strength guys working construction, teleporters doing courier work, gadgeteers selling inventions... Not superheroes or supervillains, just superfolks. My dad knew a real estate agent with the lower body of a snake. They just do stuff.

...Is it just humans here? I have met people with the lower bodies of snakes but it is not usually a conversation starter.

Um. Pretty much. Some mutants don't really look human, but they're closer to it than anything else. And the magic guys say there's fairies and stuff but they mostly just stay in the spirit world or wherever they live. I mean, demons and ghosts and all that sometimes pop up to murder people, but mostly everything that isn't human keeps to itself.

...Okay. I suppose that must make things simpler.

It's actually much more complicated, Morty thinks drily. We have to make do with hating people because they have the wrong pigments, instead of because their ears are pointy; it's so primitive.

Oh, but we have that too, you see.

He claps politely. Victory is yours. Anyway, yeah, humans are the order of the day. Mutants are almost-not-quite a different species, though. For what that's worth.

Almost-not-quite? What, like part-elves...? I suppose you wouldn't know what part-elves are like.

More like, uh, if elves sometimes had babies that came out looking like dwarfs. Or could breathe fire. But were still elves, in... many ways? Genetics is fucked.

He scrunches his face in confusion. Wait, why am I assuming you guys have orcs? Stop generalizing Tolkien to Fantasy Hellworld, Morty.

We have orcs. And dwarves. And the occasional firebreather.

Yeah, me trying to explain genetics was pretty hopeless. I'm an engineer. To whatever extent I'm actually an engineer instead of some bizarro technowizard. But mutants are, like... Sort of a neighbor species. It's not apples to oranges, but it's not apples to apples either.

Like goblins and hobgoblins, maybe.

Sounds about right. We can still interbreed, but there's definite differences in the genetic code.

You sound like a cartoon character. It's weird.

The science thing? I have to say, it is kind of fun being more exotic than the wizards for once.

Wizards are totally normal to me. Well, wizard students, I don't take a lot of arcane magic classes so I'm less accustomed to wizard teachers, and you can't always tell who's a wizard out walking around unless they wear archmage getups.

Same here, really. People are just more familiar with devisors just sort of... doing stuff? I guess? Everybody takes gadgeteer vitamin supplements or lives in a hypersteel apartment complex or something, so it's sort of become an everyday thing, but wizards don't do as much in the public eye.

Why not?

He shrugs. Less mass-production capability? If Algernon invents a new computerized ocular implant or something, he can make a factory to make more. Even if it's a true Devise, the kind that can only be built by hand by the one guy who came up with it, he can just do that as many times as he wants and sell it to as many people as he wants. Wizards are working from a finite source of energy. I think. That's what they say, at least. So they're not going to be flooding the market with enchanted backscratchers, they're going to save up for their own shadowy ends or whatever it is wizards do.

Huh. I don't actually know that much about industry in my world, but we have plenty of mass produced stuff, including magic stuff.

Again the shrug. Also possible they just don't want to sully their dignified hands with menial labor. Wizards around here can get kind of prissy.

This is certainly going to be an interesting adjustment. Should you be telling some kind of authority figure I exist?

Morty winces. May have been trying to put that off. In retrospect Hartford probably isn't going to have me thrown off a cliff by wild horses, but she is probably going to rip me a shiny new asshole. If that's an idiom you have.

I mean, of things that could happen to me this is much better than being eaten by a ghoul or something, so I'm not really mad at you, if that helps.

It might! Somewhat! But there's still, like, the punishment element. The fact that accidentally plucking unsuspecting victims from their home universes into a world they never made is a bad thing. He waves a hand self-deprecatingly. That old saw.

Yes, I imagine most people you could have grabbed would be more upset about it.

I get the feeling that's how they'll put it. And I'm very contrite! I recognize the potential consequences of my actions! ...Now that I'm no longer making them.

He gets up and makes his way phonewards.

Bella looks curiously at the phone but figures this isn't the time to ask.

With palpable dread, he picks up the phone.

"Ms. Hartford! Um. How- yes, okay. Could I- yes. Could I speak to Mrs. Carson? I- yes, but- Code 8236? ...no, that's- dimensional summons. Accidental. Yes. Thank you."

He puts the handset down as gently as he can, much as one might a venomous snake. Well, she's in fine form. An administrator will be here in a minute or so, apparently.

Okay. Um, any tips on how I should act? I don't know if your administrators are like mine.

Try not to seem like an extradimensional threat? You're probably good, the procedure for humanoids is "innocent unless obviously intending to murder someone".

...So if I were not a humanoid...?

He shrugs. Minimally intrusive brain scan? They might want to do that anyway, but I don't think they'll stress the point, you don't seem very cagey. We're not, like, lizardperson racist, it's just easier to read people when they look more like us, and the folks in charge want to be sure when they're dealing with potential interdimensional shit. And if you had tentacles or something you might have your movements restricted a bit so the normies didn't see you and freak out, but that's just a practical concern.

I see. Well, I'm just a human. A subtle artist human who objects to brain scans. My shields are good enough for everyday at home, are they liable to be tested here...?

Uh, psychics aren't supposed to read people or poke their brains without consent, but around campus it's... not as well enforced as you might want? If you're worried I'd go to Fubar and have him shoot some probes at you. He's, I think the most powerful psychic in the world? And he can probably do something like testing you against a Psi-1 and a Psi-2 and so on up the scale. He can't keep himself from getting a low-power impression of everyone around him, but pretty much any amount of shielding can keep that out, so I wouldn't worry.

Okay, sounds like a plan. Ugh, I didn't like having my shields rated the first time, but better under friendly circumstances.

He's very nice. Probably you'll barely feel it, unless you've got some kind of psychic sensitivity, in which case I guess you might. But I get counseling from him sometimes, and I forget he's even reading me until he answers a question I didn't ask.

Sounds like he's good, then. If receptively uncontrolled.

Yeah. Fringe benefits of turning into a horrible fish-monster, I guess. ...no, wait, actually he was psychic before he turned into a horrible fish-monster. Scratch that.

There is a knock at the window. Morty sighs and opens the blinds, revealing Mrs. Carson hovering in the air bearing a glowing platinum scepter.

Bella blinks at the hovering glowing-scepter lady, then bows politely as a hedge and attempts to figure out the window mechanism.

Morty helps! The window opens sufficiently for Carson to swoop through.

"She doesn't speak English, but she's a telepath, so you can-"

"Thank you, Mr. Halliwell, that will be all," she says sharply. He wisely shuts up.

Hello. My name is Elizabeth Carson; I apologize for all of this, and promise that I will do everything in my power to set it right. Do you have any pressing needs?

Isabella Swan, ma'am. If it's at all convenient I'd like my parents not to be too alarmed about my disappearance; they'll probably think I did something really stupid and got eaten either literally or metaphorically, otherwise. I don't know how long I'll be staying but I haven't seen anything that makes it look like I have locally unusual needs, since I'm a human. Morty suggested that I get my shields tested against local psi, which sounds like a good idea.

Carson sighs. It would not be strictly impossible, but the effort involved in getting a message across the dimensional border would be almost as much as getting you across, so we would probably prefer to just get you home. Unless you'd like to stay here for longer than a few weeks, in which case arrangements can be made. If you're identical to local humans, that does simplify accommodating you somewhat. We can test your shields at your convenience, though there are some more urgent matters, such as vaccinating you against various local illnesses and making sure you aren't carrying anything serious yourself.

Carson blinks.

I may need that sentence unpacked a bit.

Thanks, Morty "whispers".

It sounds to me from what Morty's told me that you have a very friendly universe which lets you get away with a lot of science and doesn't kill you, just occasionally drops novel sorts of magic on you to give you a new challenge. Where I'm from, vaccinations are a science fiction thing and anybody trying a stunt like that in real life is lucky if all that happens is they get the disease they were trying to ward off and find it mysteriously resistant to ordinary magical healing.

I don't know, we haven't met socially, I just live there, but it's not the sort of thing you want to guess on if you can avoid it because the last time somebody decided to exploit the tendency of mockdragon handlers not to get pleurisy half the population of the Glorious Mountains died.

Well, we definitely don't want the Glorious Mountains getting hyperplague. Different tack, then - what about magical protection from disease? I can ward you against infection more or less airtightly, and if necessary dispel the ward before you return.

I don't know, is it normal magic or science magic of some kind? I mean, frankly I'm not sure my universe won't decide I've been hanging around bad company and squish me the moment I go back no matter what I do. I'm very tempted not to return and just live here in Science Fantasy Plane.

Liz snorts. I certainly wouldn't blame you. I don't think our magic is particularly sciency, it seems very appropriately mystical to me, but then again I'm not a malevolently insane universe-monster.

How quickly does all this need to be decided?

Not very, but if you want more than a few hours to decide, then I am going to want to put you in quarantine while you do it so that you don't either die or infect someone with space flu. We've got some very nice quarantine facilities, though. Considering.

I don't know that I need hours per se but I do need to know what my options are with respect to contacting my parents, maybe getting some subtle arts textbooks, and generally continuing to exist here if I'm going to do that.

We can arrange that. Long-term parental contact is proportionally less of a problem than short-term; the textbooks we can probably manage using you as a dimensional anchor, or if we're very lucky we might find them in the Great Library; and generally continuing to exist is quite feasible and would be generously subsidized by the Academy by way of apology for putting you in this position in the first place.

That's very kind of the Academy. As long as my parents can be convinced that I have not been vivisected by demons or run afoul of fey or savaged by ogres or something I don't feel the need to contact them on a particularly frequent basis.

That much can certainly be arranged.

What's the Great Library?

...Difficult to explain. A few decades back an unusually unhinged Devisor created a building which... structurally resembles a library, is apparently infinite in volume, and contains, to all appearances, all of the books that have ever been written in any universe. The only problem is that every book is placed completely at random, scrying is very difficult in the stacks, and going too deep can lead through pockets of badly distorted time. There are people with the talent or skill to reliably check books out of the Library, but their services are expensive and always in high demand. Our main hope is that the books you need would crop up in the front thousand shelves or so, which occasionally rearrange their contents and can be scried.

That seems like a fairly thin hope. Maybe my parents could get together a decent curriculum's worth for me and you can just bring that in?

Also an option. Probably a better one, but it costs very little to keep track of the Library entrance, so we may as well see.

Okay. Depending on how dramatic my vanishment looked on the other end I might not be missed for a day or two, and then the school will probably put a token effort into finding me again before bothering my parents, so there's no need to have a message to them ready to go particularly soon.

Carson suppresses a snort at "token effort". This universe sounds like more fun than a barrel of lemures. Well, you're welcome to write such a message whenever you think best. Have you decided whether you want to stay and be vaccinated, was that a decision?

It's probably not worth the risk to go back and pursue a career path I was mostly picking as a default anyway, given this nice science fantasy universe to live in and a way to write my parents a letter. I am going to ask them to empty their savings accounts to get me books if your library doesn't have them, though, since it sounds like you will want them all in one batch.

I'd say that we could help them out by sending them appropriate payment, but I suspect your belligerent universe would object. It being belligerent, and all.

I mean... yeah, pretty much. If there is any stuff you haven't gotten your science all over and which the universe doesn't consider inherently valuable and therefore inappropriate to conjure, I'm all ears, but they'll probably just have to take it out of not having to pay what of my tuition wasn't covered by scholarship, anymore.

Gemstones, semiprecious stones, oysters containing pearls? Gold, silver, platinum, copper? Some of our universe's slightly more accurate science fiction?

Inherently valuable and therefore not the sort of thing you want suddenly appearing in your house... the fiction might actually work.

I was mostly being facetious, but we can actually send over a cartload of out-of-copyright sci-fi, so if that works then it works.

It was not made with nonfictional science in any way?

Does the printing press count? If so, we can get someone to write it out by hand. Other than that... The science is sometimes based on real principles, and it builds off of existing technology, although it's not exactly a how-to.

Just... be really thorough. The story is almost certainly safe, but no science paper, no science ink, etcetera. And don't send too many. The universe doesn't have a known opposition to plagiarism per se but it doesn't like too much cheating. They can probably get away with like... one author apiece.

We'll be sure to use thoroughly nonscientific paper, ink, and methods of reproduction. Would it be best to choose two very prolific authors, or does that defeat the point?

Prolific is fine, I'm erring on the side of caution.

Good to know. We'll go with Verne and... mm, Asimov, he's mostly out of copyright and robots are nothing if not innovative. And the man wrote like someone'd set him on fire.

I'll take your recommendation there.

They're quite good. Does that settle everything? Does anything remain unsettled, beyond the process of putting plans into action?

I think that's basically everything except implementation details.

Carson claps her hands together. Excellent. Then I can put a translation spell on you, find someone to show you to the infirmary, and get started on the absolutely disastrous paperwork that Mr. Halliwell has brought upon us yet again.

Okay. Should I just expect to be escorted pretty much everywhere for now so I don't need to memorize where it is and isn't safe to go immediately?

...One of the nice features of our world is, I think, fewer places that aren't safe to go. Whateley is unusual in actually containing a few, namely the sewers and certain clearly marked parts of the forest. Outside those areas you are vanishingly unlikely to be eaten.

Oh, that's nice then. Am I also less likely to be attacked by students and faculty? Make it a hat trick?

I'm finding myself more and more thankful for it, yes, Carson thinks drily. Faculty will under no circumstances attack you, unless possessed or something to that effect. Students may, infrequently, but almost always nonlethally, and it is technically illegal for them to do so. So you can report them to faculty, who will punish them accordingly, or retaliate in kind, which is frowned upon but a legitimate response for those more comfortable with it.

That's good then. Does 'in kind' mean that if someone comes at me with a knife (Bella is, in fact, wearing a knife) then it has to be a knife fight, or can I just knock them out...?

Morty looks very slightly horrified. Mrs. Carson seems to be finding a sort of black comedy in this whole affair despite herself.

Just knocking them out is not only appropriate but highly encouraged. Knives are generally frowned upon, since they're easier to accidentally kill someone with; however, if someone with mental shielding assaults you, your best effort at nonlethal self-defense will be fine. Though I might recommend pepper spray or a shock wand, instead, as a matter of personal preference.

I was mid-semester on Arcane Defense but I know a couple things. Subtle arts knockout would just be my go-to. The knife is only there because I needed one for the Magisterius weapons policy, I'm hopeless with it. Something else as backup sounds fine to me.

Liz rubs one temple gently with her finger. Naturally. You may be pleased to hear that we don't have one of those.

Good, I kept forgetting my knife and having to go back to my dorm for it so I wouldn't get stopped. Although that would have gone away as soon as I passed AD.

"Four five six."

"Excellent," Carson sighs. "That was- well, it wasn't going to give me a headache, I'm not delicate, but it does get a bit irritating after a time."

"Do you want me to be the one to take you to the infirmary?" Morty blurts out. "It's just- um. I know the way?"

"I don't see why not."

Mrs. Carson raises an eyebrow. "Speaking of which: Mortimer, before I forget, you'll be retaking Interdimensional Threat as a tutored course, detention in Hawthorne for a month, and I want you back with your therapist until you can work out some way to stop yourself from doing idiotic things when you're having an episode. If that means getting Mr. Conway to physically pin you to the ground every time you get near an Allen wrench unless you can explain what you're doing with it, then you do that. Are we clear?"

Morty grimaces. "Yes, ma'am."

"Well, don't let me detain you," she says, and steps out the window to sail back towards her office. (The window shuts itself with a wash of blue light.) Once she's safely out of sight, Morty resumes breathing.

"Are therapists usually - psychics - here?"

"Huh? Yeah, some of the really good ones. Not all of them, though. I sometimes work with Louis, but usually I'm with Doctor Bellows, and he's just a baseline with a psychology degree."

"Huh, at home you basically can't go into the field unless you have a little arts. I was studying to be a therapist."

He nods. "We don't really have all that many psychics. You can train for it even if you don't have the talent, but a trained baseline can't even approach the kind of power you get as a mutant, so most of them don't bother trying. Plus, we were doing psychology before psychics were even a thing. Force of habit, I guess."

"Yeah, I suppose that would change things. So what are vaccinations like in real life?"

"They come at you with a little needle full of a clear liquid, it stings like a bastard when they jab you, and it feels like somebody slugged you in the arm for a couple hours afterwards. And then you don't get hyperplague. I've never had a bulk vaccination, though, so that might be different." He declines to contribute the mental image of about fifteen hypodermic needles sticking out of Bella's arm, suspecting that it would be unhelpful.

"Joy."

"Little bit, yeah. But having been vaccinated is nice. Polio was not a fun experience by anyone's account. Anyway, shall we?"

"Yeah, lead the way."

He does so.

Down through the halls of Emerson they go. Boys stare, wondering dimly about the presence of a female of the species.

Morty grits his teeth. "Sorry, I probably should have mentioned it's, um, single-sex housing. So. This looks a little bit weird, possibly."

"Is it a suspicious time of day or just an unprecedented social event?"

"Not unprecedented, just... weird. I don't think anybody's going to assume this is a walk of shame thing, though. That would imply me having physical contact with a pretty girl, which is, uh..." A nervous, self-deprecating chuckle. "Implausible."

"...If you say so. I don't have the local stereotypes but I'll take your word for it."

"Mm. The assumption is that if I tried to flirt I'd have a fit of Diedrick's and end up screaming at you about how I'm a superior life form and probably vaporize you with a cardboard ray gun."

He considers. "Though, I mean, they're not necessarily wrong."

"Diedrick's?"

Morty makes a sour face. "The mental disorder of choice among mutants, especially Devisors. Characterized by fits of egomania, along with regular mania, plus a tendency towards obsessive and antisocial behaviors. Most of the time I'm pretty much alright; when I'm in a fit, I'm Doctor Insano. I was having a fit when I built the machine that summoned you, for reference. I'm pretty sure I actually said the words 'I'll show them, I'll show them all!'" He shakes his head in disgust. "What a fucking tool."

"Oh. I haven't had nearly enough actual therapy training to begin to comment on that and I'm sure the locals are better equipped anyway."

He shrugs. "The therapy thing isn't really for treatment, anyway; that's all about how the wires in my brain line up, nothing much they can do about it. It's mostly just to keep me from feeling too shitty or not shitty enough about the stuff I do when I'm riding the crazy train."

"Gotcha. How often does this happen?"

"Depends on my stress levels, really. It averages out to about once a week, with a really bad attack every month or so. I'll get little flickers of it if I get too worked up about something I'm making, but that can be headed off pretty easily by distracting me with something shiny. Fred- my roommate, he's gotten really good at that."

"The guy with the dog ghosts? ...I hope you don't wind up summoning people every time this happens to you, most of them wouldn't be so gung ho about it."

He laughs uncomfortably. "No, this is a one-strike kind of deal. If it became a habit, I would be in a lot more trouble than I am. Usually what I end up doing is accidentally blowing something up, but that's what blast shields are for. And yeah, Fred's the one with the dog ghosts. Real good guy. We're in the same basic combat class."

"So you do have combat classes but you don't have a weapons policy. Not sure what to extrapolate from that."

"Um, probably that we don't stab each other? Mandatory combat classes are all unarmed. And you can take weapon training if you want to for some reason, like you have the power to manifest a sword or you're training to be a big-league super or something. But otherwise it's just aikido and tae kwon do and stuff, unarmed nonlethal combat. Half of it's just so we get some exercise."

"Huh. ...Is this a college or a high school?"

Morty shrugs. "Honestly, it's kind of both. It's for high school age kids, but half the students are geniuses one way or another, so if you want more advanced course material you can go all the way up to grad school classes if you want. It's weird."

"So I'm probably older than everyone here, being nineteen?"

"There are older students! Most people manifest in their teens, but it's been known to happen in the twenties, and if you come to Whateley to learn to use your powers, you enroll as a freshman regardless. It's a special arrangement, but there's usually a few of them in every year."

"I pretty much already know how to use my powers and I don't think anybody here is particularly likely to know the kind of magic I was learning. Maybe I'll wind up somewhere else."

He sighs. "Fair enough, I guess. It's a great place to learn science too, though. And you could learn our kind of magic?"

"That could be fun. Both of them."

He perks up a bit. "Yeah! Especially since you're sort of starting from zero, there really is probably nowhere better than Whateley to get yourself up to speed on science stuff. And the local magic- well, I never really got anywhere with it, but you could see if your experience with your kind makes it any easier to understand? Or something?"

"That seems unlikely, but arcane magic and subtle arts are completely different and I like them both, so might as well add more."

"I can get behind that. I'm a specialist, but it's kind of hard to resist the urge to specialize when your specialty lets you pierce the heavens and fly in the face of God using only cardboard and duct tape."

"...So, you can also get away with thumbing your nose at deities, here?"

"Yes."

Morty once again looks like he wants to throttle an alternate universe.

"Are they real and just uniformly really laid-back about blasphemy, or... not real?"

"Some of them do exist? Or at least it seems that way, like, there's an Avatar of Ganesha and it seems like that'd imply there is a Ganesha to be an Avatar of. But they don't smite anyone on their own. Supposedly they used to smite people thousands of years ago, but these days I feel like they're worried someone might smite them right back."

"...That's weird. I mean, people sometimes get into fights with gods at home, if they're epic enough - I think attempted deicide is a formal crime in the Imperium, even - huh. I don't know what to think about that. But talking about them any which way is definitely safe?"

"I mean, I'm sure that killing Zoroaster or someone would be frowned upon. They might be subject to murder laws, even. All I'm saying is that a particularly thunderbolt-happy deity might end up being classified as a supervillain and Thwarted. And yeah, god-bothering's 100% safe. I mean, don't do it to their faces, but that's rude anyway."

"...Okay. I like this place more all the time."

He grins. "Hubris: a delicious part of this complete breakfast."

"My parents were always worried my hubris would get away from me."

Morty makes a face. "I know I sound like a broken record, but seriously, that is the worst sentence. Hubris is great."

"I'm accustomed to getting it out of my system with lucid dreaming."

"That is pretty neat," he allows.

"It's not as good as being able to really do stuff, though."

"Yeah."

Oh look, the infirmary! Inside: A receptionist. She is poised and alert, though mostly to the state of her crossword.

"Hi, um, I'm supposed to be vaccinated?"

She glances up reluctantly. "Caduceus' office is third door on the right. She'll get you done." Before the last word leaves her lips, she's returned to the crossword.

So Bella goes to the third door on the right. Knock knock. Is knocking even a local custom?

Well, the woman who opens the door doesn't seem shocked by it, or anything. Her hair undulates idly. "You must be Bella. And- Morty? Oh, helping her around? That's good of you."

"Yeah. Here for shots."

"Well, yes," she titters. "Come in, come in."

In comes Bella. "I've never had this done before," she comments, in case there are about to be procedures that would seem startling to the uninitiated.

"I'm familiar with the concept from science fiction, and it sure seems like I'm in science fiction now, so yes. Although if you need me to completely relax and you're comfortable with subtle arts - or psi, I guess - I could do an intention check."

"Well, you don't need to relax completely, just trust that I'm not poking you for no reason. But I am comfortable being read, as long as you can stay within a small area - not that I'm worried about your control, you understand, but some of my memories are hazardous to psychics, so I'd want you to be safe."

"I won't pick up anything I'm not looking for, I've been specifically trained in that."

"Feel free, then." Her hair busies itself stacking paperwork slightly more evenly.

Peer.

She's on the level. This is in fact how vaccination works. Needles are involved. Her bizarre prehensile hair is very sanitary.

"Okay, go ahead."

"I guess so."

Bella is not used to being prodded in any of these respects but she puts up with it gamely. And accepts her lollipop (grape).

Doctor Tennant's hair returns the lollipops' coffee can to its shelf. "And if you need anything else, whether for health reasons or just to talk, I know this is going to be a very strange experience, then feel free to drop by. My door is always open! Within office hours, of course."

"When are those?"

"Thanks. ...Now what."

"Morty's waiting just out the door. He can take you to the dining hall, campus store, registration office, or wherever else you need to go. You should probably register first, unless you're hungry, in which case you should probably eat first!"

He startles slightly, having been engrossed in what looks like a cardboard tesseract. "Hi!"

"Hi. I'm all done in there - she said I should register next?"

"Yeah, probably. Right this way." He leads Bella out of the infirmary towards the building attached to the giant geodesic dome in the middle of campus.

Bella trots along after him. "It's a good thing my boots still work here," she comments.

"Boots?"

"I'm very clumsy, so I have magic boots for it."

"Neat! That is definitely not something you can do with technology, score one magic. Actually score probably a lot magic, there's kind of a lot of stuff like that, magic is really versatile. But tech's still cool!"

"I believe you completely," she assures him. "But my boots are useful so I don't trip while walking on perfectly level surfaces. I can even break into a run, it's great."

"That's good! It's possible I could use something like that, I trip more than any human should. On the other hand, I have the fine motor control necessary to make an origami swan out of cardboard, so maybe it's just bad luck."

"I don't know how to make more, but I am going to ask my parents for magic textbooks, so maybe in this nice friendly science world I could eventually figure it out."

"Ooh, alternate universe magic textbooks. Betcha the Mystic Arts staff will want copies, they're crazy about new stuff."

"I'm asking for a lot of books so they'll have to be copied locally lest my parents not be able to make rent, but sure, I don't mind."

"We can do that, we've got plenty of sciencey ways to copy books."

They arrive at Schuster Hall. Morty ushers Bella inside, then gestures her towards a secretary. The secretary looks up and says "Ah, are you Bella?"

"That's me!"

The lady rummages around in a drawer, then hands Bella a small stack of papers attached to a clipboard. "Just fill these out and we can get you all set up."

Some of the questions on the forms are relatively normal (name, age, blood type, sexuality, a broad selection of genders), while some are less normal (date of manifestation, list of powers [tentative], alterations to body by mutation). "Some of these won't apply to you," the woman says, "being that you're not a mutant. Just fill out what you can."

Bella is named Isabella Mariel Swan and she's 19 and straight and female and doesn't know her blood type or what a blood type is. She provides the date she was diagnosed with subtle artistry in the Pax calendar but assumes this will not be very helpful and lists her powers as "7/10 subtle arts, 101 level arcana" and her alterations to body as "none".

The secretary takes the form back and nods. "We can get your blood type from the medical exam, no trouble. I've got no idea what the powers mean, but I'm not a powers testing type, am I."

She fiddles with a machine on her desk, which spits out an ID card for Isabella Mariel Swan complete with a photograph that was never taken of her. She hands this to Bella, along with a laptop, another card with some silvery heraldry on the front - "that's a debit card for monetary needs, you've got a generous stipend since we accidentally summoned you" - and a thick Student Handbook. "There we have it, you're good to go. Mortimer, are you providing the tour?"

"Yes ma'am."

"I'll open the Homer Gallery for you, then."

The wall of a small nook opens, revealing a set of stairs leading downwards.

"Ooh, secret tunnel. How does the debit card work? I assume it debits something into which money has been put, but how do I use it?"

"There'll be a card reader at most establishments, you just let them scan it and that's that."

Morty shows her down the stairs into the Homer Gallery, which contains a large painting of a patrician man standing next to a weird-looking bust, a large pile of gold bullion, several strange devices behind glass, and a few wax figures wearing brightly colored costumes. "Welcome to the Homer Gallery! You have absolutely none of the cultural context required to find any of this impressive except maybe the gold, but we are contractually required to show it to you anyway! Especially the painting of Lord Paramount, who made himself ruler of a small country in Eastern Europe by singlehanded mutant strength and thinks you should find this very impressive."

"It does sound very impressive but not necessarily positively!"

"Yeah, same. But he was one of the founding members of the Academy, and he's part of why they're able to take in the children of supervillains, which is I think a good thing, and also he's donated a ton of cash. Still though. Any questions about anything else?"

"What are the things behind the glass?"

"Uh, let's see. This one is Professor Ripper's Quasar Gun, it shoots highly destructive bolts of plasma at incredible rates. This one is the Tartarus Projector, which traps its target in a bubble outside conventional time and space forever, or probably actually until they die of thirst, which takes like three days. And these are the dowsing rods used by Ideomotor to diagnose mutant powers back when the Academy was first founded. The weapons are trophies various superheroes took in battle from defeated enemies, which is, uh, kind of barbaric? But also kind of cool."

"Is that just... normal glass?"

"No. It's really strong. Some really high-tier mutants could break it, but also this place is really well fortified and locks from the outside really comprehensively. Also it's right under Mrs. Carson's office, and she can kick the ass of basically anybody in the world. It would be a phenomenally bad idea to try to take any of this stuff."

"Okay, good!"

"And now for the rest of the tour!"

Morty leads Bella around the campus, pointing out the various cottage-dorms and classroom buildings, as well as the arena, library, and campus store.

"Where am I staying?"

"You'll probably be in either Dickinson or Melville, check your ID card?"

Check.

Melville!

"Nice. Melville's the newest and fanciest of the dorms, a lot of kids whose parents are donors to the school mysteriously end up housed there. So they can be kind of snotty, but some of them are cool."

"How mysterious. Why am I there?"

"I summoned you from your home world without permission or warning and you could reasonably sue the school for negligence, so they're being as nice as possible to avoid that. We live in a very litigious society."

"I'm not going to sue you. But I appreciate the niceness."

"They like to make sure."

Morty shows her into the Campus Store, where she can purchase toiletries, bedding, clothes, several different sizes of porcelain water pitcher shaped like cows, throwing knives, or a wide variety of other Earthly material goods.

"Oh wow. Oh wow," she says at the array of Earthly material goods. "Okay, what's the currency here and how many of it do I have in the account this is hooked up to again?" She waves her card.

"Currency here is dollars, a hot meal is ten to thirty dollars, you have I think it's ten thousand of them right now, that's a lot because you have to start a new life here et cetera and, again, being very nice. You can reasonably purchase pretty much anything in this store without having to worry about it. Prices should be listed."

"Do I need to pay for food? Does the account get replenished or do I need a job by the time I need more?"

"Food is included in your free tuition unless you go into town, but the food in the cafeteria's actually really good. The account gets a thousand dollars a week."

"Gosh, okay. Is there more tour, I don't want to make you follow me around while I'm shopping if you have other things to do -"

"There's not really more tour but I don't have anything else to do right now, it's afternoon and I'm kind of a boring person. Besides, I'm a helpful resource if you get confused about anything."

"Great, I appreciate that!"

She begins browsing, filling a basket with a sheet set and toiletries, holding up clothes to herself to see if they'll fit, totting up prices in her head.

Morty follows dutifully! He doesn't hate shopping, and Bella's cool.

"It's weird that this plane also has jeans and t-shirts," she says. "Is there a fitting room?"

"It's pretty weird, yeah, ours are totally made with science. Fitting room should be right over there."

Bella tries on jeans and t-shirts. "Am I like to run into any situations when I need something more formal?" she asks, finding everything eerily well-sized and getting duplicates of a couple things.

"Maybe? There's like, dances and stuff, plus you might just want to be fancy at some point. - oh, and you'll need a karate gi unless you're taking Survival instead of Basic Martial Arts, that's a thing."

"...can I wear my boots during whatever karate is?"

"Huh, I actually don't know. Normally you're not allowed to wear shoes, but they're kind of an assistive device for you... You'd have to check with Sensei Tolman, I think. I can do that and get back to you tomorrow?"

"Thanks. I'll hold off on the martial arts clothes till I know if I can do martial arts." She rummages through nicer clothes and picks a nice dress.

"That looks nice!" Morty agrees.

"Thanks." She tries it on. "Why does everything I try on fit?" she asks, coming out in her original extraplanar jeans and t-shirt and tossing the dress in the basket. "I assume if I tried on the stuff that obviously isn't my size it won't, but anything that looks about right if I hold it up is perfect!"

"The Campus Store is weird, I think there's enchantments on it. It also has weirdly precognitive stocking, whenever you're looking for something really obscure they usually just got it in. That kind of stuff is above my paygrade."

"Gosh. Well, it's really convenient. Okay, what do you have in the way of crystal balls, or science crystal balls...?"

"Might need to know what a crystal ball is. I mean, they've got literal orbs, some made of crystal, but they don't do anything for you if you're not a wizard."

"I'm not a wizard, I just know a handful of spells. Crystal balls browse the ethernet and let you 'scape presentations and documents and art and ethernet sites?"

"Oh! You have magic computers, that's... strangely charming. Also very convenient. We call those 'computers,' the secretary gave you one, it's the rectangular plastic box? We have an internet instead of an ethernet, ethernet's just a way of connecting to the internet, it's confusing, but otherwise it sounds pretty much the same. The Whateley-issued laptop is all-around decent and pretty much indestructible but not top-of-the-line in any other way, plus it's firewalled so you can't get to, uh, certain sites, so if you want a better computer they are over here." He shows her to the computer section.

"Oh, okay. Why is it a rectangular box? And I don't know what the specs are in comparison to crystal balls so I don't know if I'll be disappointed - what's the science version of ether gazing to do stuff on it -?"

"Rectangular box is convenient because - uh, electronics 001, the way we do things without magic is usually that we bind electricity to complicated pieces of metal? And the complicated pieces of metal are flat, so, rectangular box full of complicated pieces of metal, plus a screen you see things on. We have, um, video games? Ether gazing sounds like maybe it's video games. Whateley laptop can't handle most of them, and you're technically not allowed to download games onto it anyway."

"Ether gazing is - the interface for the ball; you gaze at it, and kinda concentrate on what you want to do. I'm not hugely into video games and figure even having jeans doesn't mean you'll have Island Nations Four."

"Oh. Instead of ether gazing we have keyboard and mouse - not a literal mouse it's just called that - and you do things with your hands to tell the computer what to do. You're probably going to be put into the Computer Literacy class, they'll explain it way better than I can. We don't have Island Nations Four but we probably have something similar, I think most of video game space has been explored at this point."

"Okay. I don't think I'll get a fancy computer till I know how to operate a computer at all. Island Nations Four is a game where you control a bunch of settlers on an empty island and then you sometimes have to manage conflicts with neighboring islands but mostly you customize your society and expand to more islands."

"Yeah, we've got plenty of civilization building games. They're fun. Anything else you need?"

She grabs a pack of socks. "What do most people get? How much furniture and stuff does the dorm room come with, do I need a pillow?"

"Room comes with two desks, two lofted beds, two closets, and a sink. You will need a pillow. Also pillowcases, but I think that's in the sheet set. Um, dorm checklist... You'll want an alarm clock and a wastebasket and a laundry basket, and I think that's all you're missing. Unless you want, like, snacks, or posters. They've got some nice posters."

"Oh, I'll have a roommate? I had a single at Magisterius but okay." She takes a pillow, fails to identify alarm clocks on her own but picks one once Morty points them out, and takes a laundry basket. She inspects the poster selection.

"Yeah, only seniors get singles. I mean, seniors and Hawthorne kids, but with the Hawthorne kids it's because they might accidentally kill them."

Posters are available in many varieties! Some denote affection for a band or singer. Some are reproductions of presumably famous works of art. Some are just nature scenes or pretty patterns. One is of a cat hanging on to a branch with the caption HANG IN THERE!

Bella takes a nature scene; they're not that expensive. "They might kill their roommates?"

"Hawthorne's the dorm for kids with uncontrolled or otherwise dangerous powers. There's a boy who can't be looked at directly because he drives people insane with his beauty, a little kid who's the involuntary host of an ancient demon, a girl who projects her own emotions so strongly that she gives people aneurysms... It's nasty all around."

"Oh dear. Is not sharing rooms enough of a precaution?"

"No, they've got specially built containment measures too. But for obvious reasons, Hawthorne rooms are singles."

"Understood." What's the snack situation?

Expansive, if not healthful. There's chips, there's candy, there's soda. Also an incredible variety of chewing gum.

She will take some candy after reading all the ingredients and some single serve bags of cheese popcorn, for snack emergencies. "Is gum really popular here?"

"I think having way more gum than seems reasonable is just a natural feature of convenience stores."

"If you say so." She doesn't buy any gum. She swings through the aisles to see if anything else catches her eye. "What's that?" she asks of a rack of cell phones.

"Oh, I knew I was forgetting something - those are cellphones. They're like tiny computers that also allow you to talk to anyone who also has a cellphone. They're very useful and you should probably have one."

"Okay. Science pocket mirrors."

"Sounds about right."

"Are there also wall mirrors? Big stationary ones on walls so you can get a better view of each other?"

"You can video chat on a laptop? That's the closest thing I can think of. Oh, and phone calls are audio-only - there's ways to send text and pictures but that's a separate thing. You can technically video chat on a phone but I find it kind of annoying to deal with."

"Huh, okay. I think mirrors used to be visual only."

"Parallel technologies are always fun."

"You'd know better than I would! Which of these is easiest to learn to use from a cold start?"

Morty looks through the phones, then picks a model. "None of them are going to be super easy, but this one takes voice commands, so I think it'll make more sense."

"Cool." She baskets it. "I guess I'll have to come back for textbooks later so it's okay if I've forgotten something."

"Makes sense."

She makes her purchases!

And Morty shows her to Melville so she can drop off her purchases in her dorm room!

"I'm gonna have to leave you here - the Melville housemother or fixer's gonna take over now that you're in their territory. It was nice meeting you! Even given the, uh, circumstances."

"Thanks for inadvertently rescuing me from my sucky plane!"

"You're welcome and I will hopefully never do it again because that was absurdly lucky!"

He makes his way back to Twain.

And she lugs her laundry basket full of stuff to her room. If her ID card has her room number.

It doesn't, but a woman approaches her as soon as she steps in the door. "Welcome! You must be Bella, am I right?"

"That's me! Hi!"

The woman smiles broadly. "Hello! I'm Lillian Dennon, Melville's housemother. Would you like me to carry that? I can lift fifteen tons, and it doesn't look like you can."

"I cannot! You are welcome to carry my basket." She hands it over. "Do you know where my room is?"

"Hmm, yes - you'll be in 114, with Alice Carver. Lovely girl, you shouldn't have any trouble with her." The woman takes the basket with no effort and floats a few inches off the ground, heading towards the stairs.

Bella trots up after her.

She heads up the stairs and knocks on door 114.

A tall black girl wearing a partial suit of power armor opens the door. "Hello, Ms. Dennon!"

"Hi, Alice. You're getting a new roommate - this is Bella."

The girl turns to Bella and extends her hand. "Hello, Bella!"

"Hi, Alice!" Bella shakes her hand. "I'm from another plane and was accidentally summoned here and am staying because my plane is bad!"

Alice nods. "Glad you're here, then!"

Ms. Dennon ducks in to put the laundry basket on Bella's desk, then ducks back out. "Well, I'll be off unless you have any questions! And do feel free to talk to me about anything, my office is on the ground floor."

"Thanks! Oh - one thing - do you know who I talk to about whether I can wear my magic boots during the martial arts class?"

She thinks about it. "I think you'd have to talk to Ms. Tolman directly. She makes the rules in her dojo."

"Okay. Where do I find her?"

"Her office is in Laird Hall, though I don't know if she'd be in there. You can also send her an email, and she'd get back to you as soon as she gets it, she's very on top of that."

E-mail is - oh, a-mail, okay. "My plane doesn't have computers."

Ms. Dennon takes a second to process that. "Oh! Well, I guess you'd want to drop by her office, then. And you should take Computer Literacy as soon as possible, they're very important in this modern world of ours."

"That's my plan. I'm hoping it's a straightforward translation from crystal balls. And how do I pick and sign up for classes?"

"...on the computer. Ah, I can take care of that for you, I've got administrative access. Just come down when you're ready and I'll get you set up."

"Thanks! I'll find out if I can take martial arts and then come do that."

"Alright then!"

She unpacks some of her things so if she's tired come bedtime she doesn't have to make the bed right then, and then goes to the relevant office.

The door is answered by an extremely tall woman with her hair in pompoms. She looks at Bella assessingly. "Hello."

"Hello! Are you Ms. Tolman?"

"Yes."

"Hi! I'm Bella and I was accidentally summoned here from another plane, which is terrible anyway so I'm not going back. I'm told you're the person to ask about wearing my magic boots in martial arts class. Without them I routinely trip while walking at a sedate pace on level surfaces."

"Hmm."

She takes another look at Bella.

”Do you wear these boots every day, under all circumstances and conditions?”

"I don't wear them to bed or in the shower."