Lorica, with the arm not occupied by her overnight objects, gives Flicker a hug. "Enjoy your ashbot. If you decide to hang around despite not being so obliged, see you in the morning. Nice to meet you, Verge."

"Thank you for the ashbot and I might very well camp out and see you in the morning."

"What time is it for you? I won't be going to bed for hours yet."

"It's like noon, maybe one, now? It was pretty early when I found the place, even holding the door as long as we did didn't get us within spitting distance of our parents coming home."

Lorica trots up the stairs.

"Yeah, the only way we're all going to be awake at the same time 'tomorrow' is if Milliways time-warpery shoehorns it."

"But it might!"

"It might well! Particularly given that as far as anyone can tell the time bullshit and the door bullshit are operated by the same entity."

"What an irksome entity that is."

"No kidding. The only option I can think of that doesn't have really unfortunate implications about their ethics is if the interface got mistaken for a video game or something and whoever's doing it doesn't realize they're messing with real people."

"I can't even think of a good video game goal that involves trapping Lorica in here without her computer."

"Neither can I, but that doesn't mean no one could," she shrugs. "And some people are just trolls. Which doesn't actually say terrible things about their ethics if they don't know people they're trolling are real."

"Yeah, I guess. I tend to be nice to my game people if I'm playing Civilization or whatever, but Alli drowns Sims and laughs."

"If you weren't supposed to be able to drown them then it wouldn't work like that."

"I don't tend to play video games since the lack of minds behind the characters puts me off, so I can't comment on my own habits."

"What about puzzle games?"

"Those can be fun, but they don't have any opportunities to be a troll or not, so I wasn't counting them for relevant habits."

"What about, like, multiplayer stuff?"

"It's alright, but then you're judging how much of a jerk you want to be to your friends, not fictional characters."

"It could be total strangers on the internet."

"If it's total strangers on the internet, I can't feel their minds, and then we're back to square one."

"What is your range? And parameters for finding people within it?"

"My range is...pretty wide. Several miles at least. I'm one of the three most powerful known telepaths back home. If I know what someone's mind feels like, and I check to see if they're there, I can find them if they're within my range. It's also possible to check for other things--if I were alright with reading peoples' minds I could look for 'the person who knows this thing' or 'dudes named Gilbert' or something like that, and one thing I have searched for in the past is 'intention to cause harm.'"

"What kind of information will a search like that turn up for you about people who aren't named Gilbert or don't know the thing or don't intend to cause harm?"