repealing

[mind_game]

Time has passed.

Inconsistently.

Jane's network has kept all the Bells' worlds - and every other world with a Janepoint stuck in due to its being attached to Downside - in temporal sync, but when Jane spluttered for just a moment, that was shot to hell.

Peace lost three seconds, because it was where Aegis torched; after that process was complete, Jane was there again. And as soon as a door between Peace and Milliways appeared, she could sync to her ansible hub in the Belltower and, from there, to everywhere else.

Atlantis and Sunshine each stand at about a minute apiece: Shell Bell's aura and Juliet's local copy of Jarvis both enabled them to get to Milliways immediately, pausing their homeworlds as standard for occasions when someone walks into the bar. Shell Bell's the one who connected Peace.

Everyone else was running on luck.

Luckiest is Rainbow, which lost only five hours.

Next is Alethia; in spite of Sherlock's mishap, it's fared reasonably well, spending only six weeks isolated.

Syntropy's just a little worse - seven weeks.

Origin waited two months.

Eos waited three.

Thilanushinyel, ten.

Everyone else is out a decade at least. Samaria's ten years, almost ten and a half.

Aurum is out eleven.

Rêverie has been separated for sixteen years.

All the Bells - and Elspeth, who was stuck in Downside for a day and a half on her end and whose mother was very upset - are collected in the Belltower, as are two Bell-attached Sherlocks who happened to be along for the ride. They all memorize this list of numbers. Aegis replaces her earpiece. And then they all go home to notify their loved ones and staff that there's a party cooking in the Belltower.

(Shell Bell, who has no particular cause on her own account to be distressed, sends her Sherlock to invite Tony in while she refits the Belltower to suit a party of a peal of Bells and their larger-than-last-encountered families and circles of friends.)

Comments

[yovahs_kisses]

[How could they not, when you're so tremendously lovable?]

[luminous_regnant]

Notifying the Joker is not the first thing Golden does when Jane is back online.

But she gets around to it eventually.

[Jane is back, Elspeth is back. Party in the Belltower. Go if you want, bring who you want.]

[lifes_sake]

[Aegis torched. Some kinda Peace superweapon. Irony at its finest, I guess. And Jane sorta lives in her, so that knocked her out and threw everybody out of sync. We got off easy compared to some worlds. Rose has a teenage daughter now.]

[manofmyword]

[Thanks,] he says to Golden.

And to Nathan and the kids: [Pumpkin, Kerron, sweetness, who wants to come to the interdimensional party?]

[jovahs_heiress]

Angela deposits the younger girls with Auntie Serah and minimal explanations about a "family outing", and meets everyone else in the family's suite. "Are we all ready?" she asks.

[campanas]

"If you're sure they'll like us."

[pythbox]

[Wow,] says Jellybean. [Good for Rose, I guess.]

[temporal_affairs]

[I will delightedly attend the interdimensional party.]

[pina_colada]

[I'm in. Wonder if anyone'll recognize me.]

[lifes_sake]

[And a younger one too. And Angela has four girls but Samaria wasn't knocked as badly forward so the oldest is ten. I guess they're coming, except Angela's not telling her kids about magic and such till they're older than her third and fourth, so just the two cherubs.]

[yovahs_kisses]

"Of course they will," says Micaiah, hugging his daughter.

[manofmyword]

[Bet you they won't,] says the Joker. [Let's find out!]

[self_composed]

[Alice, Lazarus, Libby, Anna, Sandy, assorted personnel,] says Stella to the named persons and assorted personnel, [Jane's up again. Party in the Belltower, come one come all!]

[pumpkin_pie]

[I'll go, too,] says Aedyt. [Just as soon as somebody tells me how to get there.]

[pythbox]

[Huh,] says Jellybean. [Everybody's breeding all of a sudden.]

[small_magics]

Sarion pops back into Thilanushinyel after the brief base-touching meeting to broadcast to her beloveds that Jane can reach them once again and they may attend a party in the Belltower. As an afterthought, she invites Liselen again. And Magania, though she has little hope of the latter accepting.

[endragoned]

Her beloveds would love to attend a party in the Belltower!

[pythbox]

So would Liselen.

Magania declines with the utmost politeness.

[pina_colada]

[You just stand in front of one of the computer setups in any capital and ask Jane,] says Kerron. [Also works if you stand near the Empress or the Princess, they have fancy gem-things that Jane can use to move people when she's working.]

[small_magics]

To the Belltower, then!

[pumpkin_pie]

[I've never even met the Princess, I'm not going to teleport in front of her and ask for a ride,] says Aedyt. [I'll see her at the party, I guess!]

She stands in front of a computer in a capital and says, "Um... so I hear there's a party?"

[mind_game]

"There is! You must be new," says Jane. "Hang on, processing imperial records, om nom nom - hi, Aedyt, I'm Jane! I am slightly not really at all your cousin! You going to the party or just commenting on it?"

[pumpkin_pie]

"I would like to go to the party, please!" says Aedyt.

[mind_game]

Yoink!

[pumpkin_pie]

"Neato," says Aedyt.