"Yes. Not as much as I'd like - but enough to realize that anyone who possesses one is automatically a threat to everyone around them. And anyone who possesses more than one is a threat to the universe."

"To start... There's six, each named for what they affect or control. Time, Space, Reality, Power, Mind, and Soul."

"That's an... odd... breakdown."

"How so?" (It seems pretty straightforward to her.)

"How do Time and Space differ from Reality? What sets the Power stone apart from the others? What separates Mind from Soul, and why are they on the same level as the others?"

"Second one is simplest, because we honestly don't really know - the records are patchy at best, and the Power stone is... Inert, in a way the others aren't. All of the other five have been known to act on their own sometimes - Time, Space, and Reality generally fairly basically, but Soul exhibits at least an animal level of intelligence, and the Mind stone is generally suspected to be sapient. The Power stone though just - sits there, unless someone tries to use it, at which point they inevitably cause a massive and undirected explosion and the stone usually then vanishes from the records for a few centuries. The Power stone is also considered the hardest to identify for that reason."

"Thanos thinks it's required to use the other stones to their full potential. I'm... Doubtful that that's all it does."

"Time and Space are different from Reality because Reality covers the more fundamental - way the world works. Magic especially. Space lets you move things around at the most basic, and be in multiple locations at once if you have better control of it - it's one of the better understood stones since it's more active than most. Time is... Difficult to find, since it moves itself around in the timeline, and not much is known about it beyond that it enables time travel."

"Mind and Soul are - fundamentally different things, and they're also basic properties a thing can have. You don't need to have one to have the other - we're not entirely sure how things acquire souls, I think figuring that out would require some very unethical" but fascinating "experiments with the Soul stone, but we know roughly how minds emerge. Minds are... Very simply, anything mind magic works on, anything that reacts with intelligence to its environment and has memory. Simple computers are the most common things with minds but not souls - computers can definitely have souls, but I don't know why some do and some don't. And people who are brain dead usually have a soul, but don't have a mind."

" - Those six are also fairly fundamental divisions in magic, though there's usually some obfuscation built on top of it."

"I see. Not quite the way I'm used to thinking about things."

"They're unpredictable and extremely impactful - honestly, no one should have that power. It shouldn't exist." She does not like things she can't control, and she isn't stupid enough to think she can control the Infinity Stones. "But Thanos especially shouldn't have it, and - he's trying to seize all six."

"Seems like destroying them to keep them out of his hands isn't so much of an option."

"Then we cut off his hands."

She grins. "A good idea."

"There might be ways to neutralize them without destroying them - but I'm fully in favor of taking Thanos out."

"I'll just mark that one down as 'long term', shall I?"

"Though I'll keep my eyes open for opportunities."

"We'll have to get out of here first."

"I have a way for that lined up, fortunately."

"You mentioned. Something that needs hacking skills?"

"The group I arrived with - I overheard their escape plans, and I'm fairly certain they can pull it off. One of them is a flerken, who has useful tools stored in their extradimensional stomachs - and they and their usual partner have escaped from tougher prisons that way. Their only problem is the Nova have wised up, and put a muzzle on the flerken with an electronic lock that's beyond their partner's abilities. They could probably get it off eventually... But not before Ronan gets here, though I haven't told them about that deadline yet."

"They don't particularly like me - but we can leverage getting the muzzle off the flerken into a ride out."

"Can they be trusted?"

"...I don't know yet."

"They're at least motivated by profit, and will put aside personal enmity for money. I'm unsure about other motives."

"Common criminals, then," she says, with a hint of disdain.

Fond smile. "I can't discount them wanting that profit for specific ends, though."

"Maybe we can find out!"

"Have a bit of fun while we're plotting our escape?"

"A working mind is a healthy mind."

Sigh. "Just don't get us into trouble again, 9S."

"You get into trouble often?"