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

[dark_light]

"Okay, me too, then."

Path hops up to sit on her shoulder.

[luminous_regnant]

"And," says Golden, "it would probably be more convenient if we could bestow that, too, so we don't have to get Jane to jump people we like or need past the queue should misfortune befall them."

[ending_of]

She considers this. (The prototype-light reports that it has been implemented, and disappears.)

[dark_light]

"Especially since I can't, apparently, just do that," Amariah says. "If something happens to my parents, my boyfriend, my teacher, my favorite cousin, I'm shit out of luck until we figure out what Alethia has instead of this, right? And we're going to do that but in the meantime I don't want to lose anybody I'm close to."

[cross_and_bow]

"How does this interact with the judgesight stuff?" Juliet asks. "Because that shit is creepy."

[mind_game]

I haven't judgesighted any of you!

[ending_of]

"I've looked at all of you," says the administrator without a discernible trace of apology. "You," this to Golden, "blocked me when I tried, but would not block me now if I tried again."

[luminous_regnant]

"...Is there any realistic chance of you politely refraining from trying again?" asks Golden with a bit of a hiss.

[cross_and_bow]

Juliet shudders. "What about Shell Bell?" she thinks to ask. "I guess a judge already looked at her when she died, but what about what happened since?"

[ending_of]

"Shell Bell would also be visible if Jane or I looked at her with judgesight. I have no reason for or intention of looking at you again," she says to Golden.

[luminous_regnant]

"Are there going to be judges other than Jane walking around I should worry about, or will they be deprived of this power when she informs them that she's automating them out of a job?"

[ending_of]

"I have already dismissed and disempowered the judges."

[luminous_regnant]

"All right. I will take it very much amiss if you peer into my head, although I suppose that doesn't have to mean anything to you."

[self_composed]

"I'm pretty damn creeped out myself."

[ending_of]

"And yet," she points out, "you have asked me to give this power to your ally to be used indiscriminately on ten trillion people."

[self_composed]

"There are," Stella points out, "ten trillion of them."

[autokinetic]

"Was there a flicker of anything," Aegis asks, "resisting it from me or Juliet or Stella so we could special-process anybody who's as attached to their mental privacy as us? Is there a partial version of the power, maybe. Because that is a point."

[jovahs_heiress]

"If we were willing that it take a little longer, the standard lie-detection could augment a modestly prolonged interview process."

[ending_of]

"Anyone who dies to here will be transparent to judgesight. Anyone who is given the ability to torch will be transparent to my judgesight but not necessarily to anyone else's. If you prefer, I can replace Jane's judgesight with one that requires the target's consent to proceed, and you can redesign your process around that."

[self_composed]

"That's not the same thing as a partial version of the power. A partial version would be one that allowed - different levels of detail, maybe, or that only showed certain things. But maybe that's the sort of thing that our magic is better at than yours?"

[ending_of]

"Yes," she says. "And requiring the target's consent would be a better solution to your privacy concerns."

Meanwhile, she displays a prototype-light for an ability to distribute the ability to torch.

Two things of note: it is customizable for what parts of someone's state can be included as permanent that might not be by default, and therefore allows the user to inspect those during application; and if it is used on anyone whose universe of origin is not linked to this afterlife, but could be, the linking will occur. As such, she has also included the ability to determine whether someone's world of origin is linked here already or could be.

[autokinetic]

"A combination would be a better solution to our privacy concerns. More people would be willing to consent to being looked at blurrily, and all Jane has to be able to see for us to release people back among the living is the general contour, the highlights, not every thought ever. And frankly, if one of us wound up here and were offered a choice between being effectively alive again with somebody having read our minds versus not being effectively alive again, that wouldn't feel like much of a choice, and we're the most mental-privacy-concerned folks around. So, can you make the power adjustable, or can we, or what?"

[self_composed]

"You have," says Stella, studying the prototype, "what I'm going to call a bewilderingly good sense of design."

[jovahs_heiress]

"We could allow some people to route around an unwillingness to be read," Angela proposes, "if they had requests in from living loved ones who themselves passed muster."

[cross_and_bow]

"And Jane can eat all the Internets that there are and know a lot about everybody even without any mindreading."