...so possibly someone else should build the AI that will wield unthinkably powerful magic? Do you think so or are you just pointing out considerations -

I seem fine! I seem fine and Rete seems fine and everybody who's been looking over my shoulder thinks we seem fine! As far as I know nobody regrets the decision not to execute me that they're pretending they didn't have to make! But you should know.

I met you right after London, I could've figured it out. - didn't, but could've. Are there other people in the Protectorate working on AI -

Not that I know of but they don't collaborate as much as the brochures say.

Oh, good. I was wondering if I should've joined up after all.

The budget's legit, I can make more independent but only once I have anything to start with, and this way I can also maintain my dad's suit without complications. I could ask Armsmaster if he knows anyone?

Thanks. I'd have been miserable but I'm miserable anyway, I was only thinking what'd let me get the most done. I suppose they'd probably have tried to insist on the school thing?

Oh yeah the Youth Guard fucks things up if any Wards aren't showing up and doing well. That is honestly my least favorite part is that I can't sweet-talk my way into homeschooling, which I think I could've otherwise but it would've been less useful without the powers.

Elves would probably not want children fighting wars either, so I can't just say that that's stupid priorities on the part of the PRT. But I'm really really glad I wiggled out - it'd really annoy me to sit there being told things I could've learned ten times faster on my own by someone who believes I'm delusional while the end of the world approached.

They probably would have moved you to a school district where you weren't known and had you keep a secret identity.

You'd think Johns Hopkins would count. I go to the computer science and mechanical engineering lectures.

Might have, actually, if you'd done it through channels.

I am not great at channels. I think maybe most kids wouldn't be if you dumped them in an alternate universe where the channels keep low-key threatening to torture them but still.

Some people would probably get very law-abiding very fast.

I guess. When people threaten me I tend to resolve to make their life worse than if they hadn't threatened me, which - I mean, when it was a known fact about me in a world where everyone knew it, actually worked pretty well? But here, where the whole problem is that they don't believe they're really threatening me, it doesn't help.

Kinda does not help.

I think the analogue to what landing on Earth is for an Elf would be if a human landed somewhere where the penalty for all crimes was public whipping, but the species was much stronger and more resilient than you so even their sentence for jaywalking was lethal, and they also thought that whipping people cured mental illness and was an appropriate way of handling the situation if someone acted crazy, and they didn't believe you that you were an alien and would think you were crazy if you said so.

...I don't think jaywalkers get locked up, just maaaaaybe ticketed, but that's a pointless nitpick, that sounds terrifying.

It was. Still kinda is.

I'm sorry.

I keep reminding myself that for me this is a couple horribly miserable decades and for all of you it's all you get and once I fix it I can go home and recuperate and learn languages and never be somewhere where people can casually hurt me again, but if I just run away somewhere pretty and assume the Endbringers won't bother tearing up rural Canada once everything else is gone and wait for rescue then maybe the Valar can't resurrect you and that's just it forever. And, like, that's true, but after years and years you kind of run out of steam a little? 

Is there anything you need?

Would've said no but actually someone to complain at is kind of helping. 

So I shouldn't delegate that to Rete? It does a really good impression of me. Although by default it's set to be friendlier. I let it talk to my superiors in my voice all the time so I can browse the internet in my helmet via gaze-tracking instead of repressing sarcastic comments, and it went and got me made team captain.

That's brilliant. Uh, you can probably delegate it to Rete if you'd like, if the person is actively thinking 'I guess I should play along with the delusional Case 53' then that ruins it but I don't know if them not being a person would. ...is this Rete?