i am the oncoming storm

[autokinetic]

There are three Bells in Milliways.

They want a fourth. A fifth. A sixth. A seventh.

And then Downside is going down.

Comments

[cross_and_bow]

"Is that what you do with all the vampires like that kind?" asks Juliet. "Can they just - stay there till we think of something?"

[temporal_affairs]

"For you? The most fun."

[lookingforwardtoit]

She glances at Chainsaw.

[nowait_letme]

He smirks.

[ending_of]

"They already are."

[temporal_affairs]

"If Stella's got Sandy on her payroll I'm sure somebody will be willing to consider you even if you present yourselves as a package deal," shrugs Nathan. "If you promise to behave yourself. Bells are not friends to mayhem."

[cross_and_bow]

"Okay. Good. Eugh."

[luminous_regnant]

"What," inquires Golden, "is the population of the catacombs?"

[nowait_letme]

He shrugs.

"If I'm going out of business anyway, might as well get a new job that's just like the old job but with fewer clients."

[temporal_affairs]

"There you go then."

[ending_of]

"Steadily increasing, ballpark of ten trillion."

[lookingforwardtoit]

Om nom pancakes.

[self_composed]

"Twenty-seven million and change per day for a year - I dunno, we'd have to throw a lot of hardware at Jane but the hardware doesn't even all have to be magic besides whatever sensory equipment we give her to tell where people are from and such, we can do huge amounts of it with just squares and more with pentagons. I bet it's doable in a year, at least optimistically barring catastrophe," says Stella. "We'd automate a lot, there might be stragglers who have special cases of some kind, most people won't be possible to send home at all because it'll have been too long since they died and they'll just be in and out without the step where someone evaluates their deeds and determines how many hours of agony matches up to putting a city on the moon. If Jane looks at twenty thousand people per minute - okay, maybe we aren't looking at so much a Jane building as a Jane town, but the limiting factor isn't Jane here."

[autokinetic]

"Jane's awesome," says Aegis.

[luminous_regnant]

"It is not," says Golden dryly, "as though anyone involved requires sleep. Perhaps a year is too quick - we will not go at a rate of twenty thousand per minute for the first week, perhaps the first month, and it may be that fewer things fall into understood patterns than we think or that it is harder to fold the dead into the worlds of the live than we hope - and we should prioritize the awake people, who are doubtless trillions more on top of the sleeping ten - but two years, or five, yes, I think so."

[temporal_affairs]

Nathan laughs. "I think I'm redundant at this point. You've been introduced to some Bells, I'm just standing around conspicuously not partaking of pancakes. I think I'll go home."

[ending_of]

"Why is it so urgent for you to empty the catacombs?"

[autokinetic]

"Because time is passing in all the live worlds, and someone who could go home to their family now might not be able to do it next year," says Aegis reasonably.

[lookingforwardtoit]

"You could partake of me some more," Eights suggests cheerfully.

[temporal_affairs]

"Aah, I'd get a bellyache," laughs Nathan. "But I'll suggest double-dating to the lovely mother of my child, shall I? And it can be a dinner date."

[ending_of]

"If you received them sorted in order of how recently they died, would that lower your urgency?" She glances at Template. "Four years, by the way."

[lookingforwardtoit]

"Awwwwww, you guys are so sweet together, you know that?"

[self_composed]

"Thanks," murmurs Template.

"Yes," says Stella, "once we have a first-pass algorithm for when we can send people home if they want, that'll help - people whose choices are staying here or moving someplace new anyway can sleep a bit longer without that being an emergency, I think. We'll want pamphlets. I know where those will come from."

[luminous_regnant]

"Yes," says Golden, rolling her eyes, "I'm sure Elspeth will be happy to come up with informational materials to give everyone as they wake up."

[temporal_affairs]

"I do know that," grins Nathan. "You'd love our kid, too, he's three months old now, looks like he's three years and talks better than half of grownups."