"Good lord, really? Remind me not to roughhouse with you anytime soon. Anyway, yes, I suppose those are a bit weird. Fixers aren't quite official but they aren't quite not, it's just a formalization of what already happens when you get enough people together in one place. Namely, one of them will try to meddle in everyone else's business. Dorjee's good people, though, we let him meddle because he's good at it. He keeps the petty little bullshit that teens naturally generate from building up into blood feud as it ordinarily will."

"Okay, I will try to take him less dubiously. And I just need to practice with my power more so as not to do that particular thing again, or do it right. It's been less than two days."

Isaac abruptly shakes his head. "What is that noise? Is there a-" He notices the motor. "What on God's green fuck is that?"

"It is a" — he makes a show of reading the nameplate — "one-horsepower electric motor. Which gives me the strength of a horse, because apparently I absorb energy from moving objects."

Isaac blinks. "Cool. Very cool. I'll try and get used to that noise, then. A roommate does not complain about his roommate's special powerup item, that's definitely somewhere in the Bro Code."

"Seriously, if it does bother you I can find other things to do. This is just what we found worked in testing. And I don't need it all the time and it could live in some closet somewhere. I'm still figuring things out."

"Okay, maybe turn it off at night. But I am actually able to ignore things."

"And yet it is better not to have to!"

“So I registered for classes and I got my power tested and now what should I definitely be doing besides scrambling to catch up? With the note that I am only sometimes a people person.”

Isaac considers this. "You won't have to scramble too badly, classes have only been running for a couple of days. Stuff to do... I dunno, I mostly just play GEO and smoke when there's not some kind of event happening. Despite my charming accent, I'm secretly kind of boring."

"We'll probably get along fine then. GEO?"

Isaac raises an eyebrow. "You are from a parallel universe. Good and Evil Online - GEO - is the single best video game ever invented. The sheer depth of the system... It's what you get when Devisors make video games instead of death rays. It's like every overblown teaser trailer for a fantasy action-RPG, except it's real, and it's exactly as good if not better than what they say. Plus, despite being an MMO, you don't need friends to play. Which is nice."

“What's a video game?”

He does not manage to keep a straight face while saying this.

Isaac smirks. "Very funny."

He pulls his bag down from the bed and takes out his laptop. "Think I'd better get started on homework. This lit class I'm taking has us reading Brave New World, and I find this Huxley fellow's ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to his newsletter."

“And I need to find out what homework even looks like for me, namely by — uh, you do have textbooks here, right, it isn't all computerized or magically injected into your brain?”

"There are textbooks, yes. Not for every class, some of them are all computerized, but there are textbooks. Typically they're handed out in class, though."

"Oh. D'you think that they'll have them for late registrations?"

"Yeah, there's always extras."

“Well, that's just great! I have nothing to do! Again!"

He punctuates this with much arm-waving.

Isaac shrugs. "There's always running naked through the woods. Invigorates the spirit."

"…you're serious."

He grins toothily. "Admittedly, it helps to be able to turn into a wolf. And you're either unusually perceptive or unusually literal-minded; that usually hits people as a joke."

“Most of those people aren't your roommates, I imagine?”

He grabs his copy of the STUDENT HANDBOOK.

"Ah. Fair enough, I am a bit... casual."

“Don't, uh, feel like you need to change your habits on my behalf.”

He attempts to hide in reading the handbook.

Isaac raises one eyebrow with glacial slowness.

Doesn't comment, though. He's letting that one sit right where it fell.