trade my soul for a wish

[from_scratch]

This is a successor to "call me maybe", which is getting crowded.

Cam is dipping a grilled cheese sandwich into a bowl of tomato soup when he feels the summons. He goes ahead and grabs it. Doesn't even drop the sandwich.


with Mark (kappa)

with Adanya (Aestrix)

with Sable (kappa)

with Ari (andaisq)

with Metella (kappa)

with Miles (kappa)

with Isabella (Eva)

with Steel (Rockeye)

with Daphne (Maggie)

with Edie (Maggie)

Comments

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"I live in in Lucy Hall. This way."

[from_scratch]

Follow, follow.

[maggie_of_the_owls]

Her room is divided roughly in half, with the two beds against opposite walls. One side of the room is decorated with a faux-Victorian aesthetic, and the other has posters and assorted bric-a-brac. Daphne tosses her bag on the bed on the bric-a-brac side and unplugs the Ethernet cable from the desktop computer on the desk.

[from_scratch]

And he takes the end of it and plugs it into a computer much less advanced than the one currently clipped to his belt loop. It is already booted up. He starts a browser Daphne has never heard of and looks for old familiar websites. Google exists! It hasn't done so for very long, but it is there. Wikipedia isn't. Damn. Muttering about that, he looks up the current scope of malarial mosquitoes.

[maggie_of_the_owls]

Malarial mosquitos: exist

[from_scratch]

That they do. And in a multitude of places.

"All right. Any reason I shouldn't nip off right now? Also, I can make a very stealthy shuttle but it won't be literally invisible, am I looking at anything other than alarmed militaries if I'm spotted? Angry mole people, violated treaties with the cloud giants, what have we got?"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"As far as I know, we don't have any mole people or cloud giants, and if we did have cloud giants I sincerely doubt we have treaties with them. Go for it."

[from_scratch]

"All right. I'll be back in the morning, probably loitering outside your building rather than alarm your dorm-mates by conjuring a key. Sleep well!"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Thanks. Have a good malaria extinction."

[from_scratch]

"I will!"

And he goes outside and makes himself a silent little shuttle and zooms away into the night.

Morning finds him having a picnic breakfast on the lawn outside the dorm.

[maggie_of_the_owls]

Some of the students give him odd looks, but no more than that. When Daphne comes out, spots him, and waves, even the odd looks die down.

[from_scratch]

"Good morning!"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Good morning! Have a productive night?"

[from_scratch]

"I did! Flew all over Africa depositing stupid but hopefully very sexually attractive mosquitoes which can't bite and shoot blanks. If I've made enough, the mosquito population will drop to almost nil, and another pass next year will finish the job if it's incomplete."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"I hope that doesn't screw with the environment too much."

[from_scratch]

"Shouldn't. Just a few mosquito species of many. My mortal world got rid of them without much of a hiccup. If this world proves different I could go put them back after the malarial parasite has had time to run out of homes."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Okay, that's good then. Nice picnic."

[from_scratch]

"Want some?"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"What is it?"

[from_scratch]

"It's whatever you like, but I'm having apple fritters and Canadian bacon and fancy coffee." Sip.

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Those things all sound fantastic."

[from_scratch]

He hands her a plate.

[maggie_of_the_owls]

Om nom nom, fritters and Canadian bacon. And fancy coffee.
"So what's next on the demon philanthropist to-do list?"

[from_scratch]

"Unfortunately, most things can't be cured quite that straightforwardly. You aren't having bee problems yet, those I could also fix via the 'create huge numbers of insects' method. I have interesting drugs and gadgets but they would need to be distributed by doctors or at least someone with a legal identity, and I'm only one person. You don't happen to have contacts at the NIH or anything similarly acronymical and medical, do you?"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Not me personally, but you may note that this is the campus of a reasonably-sized university."