"Yeah. Thanks for finding the world."

Golden puts them both back in Aurum and sends a message out through the network, attn: Maitimos, possible evil Bell ruling dented radioactive Earth.

So he pops over to wait patiently outside the not-exactly-a-palace from which Kib and Aydanci rule Shine.

Can Cam or Epic get me documentation on dented radioactive Earth?

Filtering for relevance, be there in a few.

And Cam goes and finds him and hands him a data stick.

"Thanks. Want to come along? I'm inviting Kib once he gets out of this meeting -"

"Might be odd if two people who look like identical twins four years apart go," Cam points out.

"Yeah, true. Edda's on the way to Aurum from here, I can drop in on you if Kib can't make it for some reason.

There are plenty of perfectly good reasons to detonate a hundred fifty nuclear bombs in Earth's atmosphere, I'm sure, but 'had a cancer cure, decided to give literally everyone cancer and then sell the cancer cure' is also consistent with the evidence - though that's stupider than I'd expect an alt of you to be -"

"It seems to have been effective."

"A united Earth is a hell of an achievement, if it wasn't achieved via a lot of mass murder - kind of even if it was -"

"It doesn't look united united, there's still countries, but it's wending that way and not even hollering too much about it -"

"And she's, what, twenty-two, assuming born the same time as the rest of you Earth Bells?"

"Yeah."

"Count me impressed and really hopeful there's a good explanation."

"Likewise. Grab me if you need me, I'll avoid picking up anything I mustn't put down." Cam pops away.

Kib emerges. "What's up?"

"There is a new Bell. She is ruling her Earth. Her radioactive Earth which is missing most of the eastern United States and the Caribbean, and which is radioactive because she detonated a couple hundred nuclear bombs, and that's all in the very-positive-about-her official records. There are aliens, including some on the Moon, and her title is Imperatrix Isabella and there's faster-than-light travel and she's 22."

"...okay. Have we actually talked to her yet?"

"Nope! That's next, wanna come?"

"I assume you're going to check if she's evil and a Bell who doesn't look like her is useful for that?"

"That is the plan."

"Yeah, sure, the Pineapple Islands guy cancelled on me anyway."

Hex Space Edda Shadow Aurum - "How do we want to go in?"

"Probably won't hurt anything to at least see how hard it is to get an appointment with her first?"

"Shouldn't, no, I meant more 'probably not by appearing at random in the middle of the city'."

"Oh, that. Well, do we know where she in fact is?"

"Joy aims for 'in the air half a mile above whoever she's looking for', so we know where she was a couple hours ago - big administrative building."