Well that's curious. Tyler will grab a bit of rock too with some pointy water – it can get quite sharp with hydrokinesis, how nice – and transport it to the subway car.

The stack thing buzzes a bit when he takes the rocks with the water, but it follows him back into the car.

Now to sit patiently until it goes.

Are the rocks different on closer inspection, or just bits of blue and white?

The doors close and the car is surrounded in darkness.

The rocks are just sparkly and cold bits of blue and white. The white ones seem to be dissolving a little bit in the water.

Well he'll separate the white ones from the blue ones in case they turn out to do weird things together but keep them handy in case he finds some sort of laboratory next and these turn out to be special in some way.

Or something.

He's not really sure what he's doing, here. Hoping, apparently, that he'll get somewhere useful.

The white crystals continue to slowly dissolve in the water, and the blue ones don't seem to be doing anything.

After ten minutes in the dark, the stack thing hops onto a seat where it can lean against him. If he doesn't obviously object or move away, it continues to lean, and stops moving.

He allows it to lean against him again.

Learning to communicate with it sometime might be useful, seeing as it's not getting off as early as the previous orb.

Well, it's holding mostly still right now, and doesn't seem to be making any communicative noise, and the dark band around its top segment has contracted to a thin line.

Perhaps that means something.

He thinks he might sleep, or at least nap. It's getting kinda late, so he'll do that unless something happens.

The stack thing adjusts itself to continue leaning on him when he moves, but is otherwise still.

Darkness continues to go monotonously past the car's windows.

Tyler will, unless interrupted, sleep for about ninety minutes before waking up.

The stack thing sits up when he does, and the dark band around its top segment expands again.

It's still completely dark around the car.

Tyler goes up to one of the windows and tries to peer out below and above the subway car.

Above is only darkness. Below is -something, with a barely visible stripe, oh no that's just the side of the car. Also darkness.

Sigh.

Tyler turns back to the stack thing. "We should probably try to develop some method of communication."

It chirps and hops over to him.

He holds up a finger and says, "One."

It clicks and wraps a ribbon around his finger.

… He puts up a second finger and says, "Two."

The stack thing bounces and chirps a little, then unwinds its ribbon from his finger.

It touches his first finger and then holds up its ribbon and clicks, then touches both of his fingers and folds the ribbon at a right angle and makes a slightly higher-pitched click.

Fold maybe means two.

He doesn't suppose he can make the clicks properly.

How about three fingers?

Another right-angled fold, making a sort of squarish shape, along with a chord made up of the higher- and lower-pitched click.

No way he can do those clicks.

He goes through the rest of the numbers, up to ten! Also zero.

At five, it begins folding another four-sided square and repeating the first four clicks with a lower buzzing tone, and at eight, right before finishing the second square, it relaxes the ribbon and holds up another ribbon, and makes a chirping-buzz. Nine and ten are the second ribbon and chirp-buzz, accompanied by the line and folds and clicks of one and two. Zero is a curled ribbon, with a soft humming-buzz.

… Base eight number system, huh.

He points at himself and says, "Tyler."