"Yup. Unfortunately, leaving when he's told to is enough that the faculty don't care to do anything about it."

"That's the trouble with institutions like schools, they have to come up with a set of rules that mostly works most of the time and then stick with it, instead of trying to get the right answer every time."

"That's a good way of putting it."

"Thanks. Sometimes I wonder if control training has a bad case of that. Not that I think anything could make it not stink, but I bet it could be made better for at least a subset of people if it didn't have to be so one-size-fits-all."

"Well, if you run a virtuality there can be more of them to choose from."

"Ooh, true."

"Maybe eventually they can be meaningfully distinct instead of one size fits all government stuff."

"Yes. Even just things like shorter exercise periods more often, or longer exercise periods more rarely. . . . Now I kind of want to take a physiology class at some point."

"Ooh, good thinking. I got pretty screwed up, they had to send me to a mage and I need the cane more than I used to anyway."

"I got a bit screwed up too, believe it or not I was even shorter when I went in and now I keep losing track of my knees and elbows."

"If it's any consolation you really pull off the cane as a fashion statement."

"Thanks." She gives it a little twirl.

(eee)

"So did you daydream about getting magic a lot as a kid?"

"Yup. Got the one I wanted too. Alex was so glad it wasn't him, I would have bossed him around."

"Congrats. I mostly daydreamed about being a mage and healing people and giving myself a unicorn horn, but I really liked getting psion. Who's Alex?"

"My twin brother."

"Oh, cool. I'm an only child; having a twin sounds nice."

"I like it. I miss him but I can telepathy him from here so it's okay."

"Neat! I take it that goes both ways?"

"Took longer to let him initiate conversations but I could hear him reply while I was trying from early on, yes."

"That sounds way more convenient than email."

"It's pretty great. I just bug him whenever I'm bored and don't have enough time to make it worth getting into magic practice mode."

"Nice. I just read tiny chunks of book at times like that." She gestures at the neglected history of cryptography.

"Am I keeping you from your book?"

"Oh, not at all, if I'd wanted to read instead of meeting people I'd've stayed in my room. Am I keeping you from anything?"

"Nope. I mean, I wouldn't be bereft if you had to run but nothing time-sensitive."