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]

"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."

[from_scratch]

"I have noticed that. Maybe you can tell me who to go wow and I can see if that works. One thing I can do that I cannot teach humans how to do is heal amputees, which would be suitably dramatic to get me all kinds of scientific attention but requires an amputee willing to let me saw off their stump so I have a clean end to work from..."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Well, I can definitely introduce you to some biology professors. I don't know about amputees but I've seen enough to be confident enough in your abilities to let you take a finger off if you can do it more cleanly than sawing."

[from_scratch]

"I mean, slightly more cleanly than sawing and I could numb you completely but the show-off-ness would be slightly dented by the part where you don't have a documented history of missing a finger. ...Say, is the Randi Prize a thing here?"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"If it is I haven't heard of it. And no, it wouldn't be legally impressive, but if I take you to see a professor with my finger off and you make me a new one they will be somewhat more likely to vouch for you than if it's just, 'oh, Ms. Major found a new weird thing.'"

[from_scratch]

"I'm not actually sure I want to remove your extremities in front of witnesses."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"I was thinking we take it off ahead of time, go up to a professor, let them freak out a little, and then replace it."

[from_scratch]

"Doing anything along the lines of 'stopping the bleeding' will tend to make it harder for me to attach a new finger that doesn't have a layer of blood clot in the middle of it, it's really pretty inconvenient, I'd rather just talk to the NIH, I was speculating idly about how to get people to believe that I have awesome cures and treatments to share if I can't get a hearing in some more civilized way what with lacking a legal existence. By the way, after we eat I want to borrow your internet again, look for my parents, see if I can pretend to be my twelve-year-old self to people who aren't paying attention or something."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Oh, you didn't do that last night? Sure. Also, it's not like I'm not used to periodically losing blood, I'm sleeping with a vampire. My thought would be that once it's been established that you can replace bits, a professor would be better than me at getting you in contact with the NIH and/or amputees."