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

[beheld_beauty]

[Mon cœur! Girls!] Rose calls out when she's returned to Rêverie. [Jane is back! Let's all go meet everyone. None of them have been cut off as long as we have.]

[bellfounding]

[Hey, Queenie, Ghosty, Slipstick,] says Pattern. [Jane's up and running again. Party in the Belltower.]

[cross_and_bow]

[Tony, you wanna get to the Belltower nowish? Sherlock was stuck in Alethia for six weeks and missed us like crazy,] Juliet tells Tony, and then she makes a more perfunctory announcement to James, Virginia, Giles, and Minnie that a party is ongoing.

[dark_light]

[Sweeties! Jane's back, party in the Belltower!]

[incanted]

[Jane's back,] Aurora reports to Lexi and Brilliance. [And we were lucky, ours was one of the very shortest outages, three of the Bells waited over a decade.]

[jovahs_heiress]

[My love, my treasures!] Angela tells her husband and two eldest girls. [Jane is connected again. Let's leave Ariel and Pen' with Serah and go to the Belltower to see everyone.]

[lifes_sake]

[Hey Jellybean, Tilly, the long dark confinement of Syntropy is at an end,] says Cam.

[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.]

[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!]

[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.

[mind_game]

Worlds with networked Jarvises have lost only about a minute relative to Jane, but she invites the corresponding Tonies and Sherlocks anyway, including Iron Man, and also Darcy from his world.

Stray Matilda's world has lost about a year; there is no accumulation of hysterical email messages or anything so Jane presumes that the handful of people there who knew about her weren't too upset by her absence. That Matilda gets an invite too. [Your alt from Syntropy's there,] Jane adds.

[campanas]

Two very similar seven-year-olds spot each other from across the Belltower.

They approach each other slowly, mirrored, frowning.

They get close enough to touch noses.

And then each one throws back her head and shouts:

"DAAAAAAAAARS!"

"DOMINIIIIQUE!"

[lifes_sake]

"Well," says Cam to Tilly. "I wanna meet the other you, d'you wanna meet the other you?"

[pina_colada]

Kerron's just going to loiter around here waiting for someone to ask him who he is. Or say his name. Mum won't tell, he's good at playing along like that.

[her_imperial_radiance]

Elspeth, repatriated, smothered in parental hugs, with a newly awakened wolf who missed as much time at home as she did close at her heels, and generally just a bit overwhelmed, is hanging out over there.

[self_composed]

Stella is wandering around, between conversations at the moment, keeping her ears open for something interesting.

[mind_game]

Jane waits ten minutes. Jarvises don't think as fast as her, but they still think pretty fast.

[So have you been thinking about it?] she then asks. [What have you been thinking about it?]

[manofmyword]

Upstairs, in the biggest available room, the deck of Jokers has been having fun for a while. But now they seem to have encountered a lull.

"Hey," says the Joker, lifting his head from where it's pillowed on Queenie's shoulder, "anybody wanna meet my daughter?"

[temporal_affairs]

Nathan wanders to the collection of Jokespawn, where his mate appears to be at a loose end, and scoops him up off the floor. "Hi, babe. How're the altkids?"

[mind_game]

[Hi all!] Jane says to those who have participated in Pattern's genome collection thing. (This is everyone present with an alt, plus Elspeth, except Brilliance who does not appear to have genes.) [I have now processed all the genetic data! I'm about to ramble at great length about it! Speak now if you want to opt out of this ramble.]

[lifes_sake]

[Are you ready to meet the Wellspring Matilda now?] Cam tries, after Jellybean could plausibly have gotten to the point of wanting another break from Upstairs Proceedings.