“I think my model of how planes was being corrupted by not being able to conceive of a pilot.”

"I don't think it'd be a good physics assumption on a real plane, I think they can get into asymmetrical situations pretty fast because of being in three dimensions."

“Yeah. I think having such a bad model of the world—impacted my judgment even in places where you can imagine building a person-less model that holds together. Because she wasn’t—I wasn’t—I was using my old models, with holes in them. Like, my expectation is, if I fucked with something relatively minor, on an actual airplane, the pilot could fix it.”

"Ohhhh yeah that makes sense. And the expectation that it'd be recoverable stayed, even when the pilot didn't."

“Right, exactly.”

Presently they pull into Haru's garage.

Lucy ducks into the house and makes sure nothing unfortunate happened involving the cockroaches.

They are all still in their tank.

She was pretty sure that would be the case but it’s the kind of thing you have to check.

When Haru catches up, she says, “I think I’m unbacklashed enough to have that conversation, if you’d rather now, but later is also fine.”

"I have no reason to second-guess you, though possibly we should put it off if it might be a weird conversation to have while snuggling."

“…I don’t know about weird, per se, but I’m more nervous about it than I was with higher backlash and it might be better to not try to combine the two, yeah.”

"Snuggles first then, guide off the rest of it and then we can sit at a minimally contraindicated distance?"

“Sounds good.” Haru is GREAT.

Snuggle snuggle. "You likely to finish school?"

“Oh, definitely. I’m probably going to switch to part-time, and I’m thinking of changing majors to take advantage of my powers, but—well. There’s so much cool stuff to learn, and I’ll never have to take out a student loan again.”

"That's true. Speaking of, you should give Paula your account information, she can stand in for you till you have your own agent."

“Oh, right.” She gets her phone out to do that. “I might go farther than just a bachelor’s. Imagine giving a thesis presentation on What It’s Like To Be A Bat.”

"Doctor Sonder."

Ee that DOES sound cool. “Even if I don’t, though, I’m definitely paying for as much schooling as my brother wants to do. Which is going to be a lot.”

"Your mom mentioned him like once and then he never came up again, what's his deal?"

“Oh! His name’s Wilbur and he’s my twin. Didn’t get the albinism—I mean he has to be a carrier, obviously, but he’s heterozygous for it and doesn’t present. I don’t know if he’s actually smarter than me or if it’s just that he likes school more, because he does. And is a total introvert. In high school I was in the GSA and debate team and anime club and he was in Mathletes. He’s funny once he opens up to you, though. I love him to bits and I’d trust him with the key to my soul.”

"Do you have one of those? Don't tell me, if you have one its existence is a dire secret. Anyway he sounds neat, I'm also an introvert much though I may sometimes appear otherwise."

“Yeah. Do you have a weighted blanket? Wilbur does and he says it helps when he’s hiding in his room with the lights off after dealing with people too much.”

"I don't have a weighted blanket, is that an introvert thing? I thought they were for like, autism."

“Mm. There may be some correlation, there.”