Within the Apple 16D

*****

Taylor shifted uncomfortably, but tried not to show it as she chatted with Vista. It wasn’t Vista making her uncomfortable, the younger girl was chatting pleasantly and Taylor found her really interesting as she went on about her activities with the wards and, if she was reading between the lines correctly, on her own.

Does the Protectorate know about some of these stories? Taylor wondered as Vista said something about Hookwolf before stopping and quickly shifting topic to a… safer topic?

“How about you?” Vista asked, “Had any cool adventures?”

She shook her head, “No, I’m not allowed to go out on my own. Dad and Magus both put that boot down pretty hard. I just started learning how to use my powers a couple days ago too, and they’re pretty weird.”

“Yeah, powers are strange,” Vista agreed. “When I first triggered I accidentally turned my house into a parking garage. It took mom eight minutes to get from the kitchen to the bathroom across the living room.”

“Wow, ok, I just blew up my computer,” Taylor admitted. “Magus says that spatial expansion is tricky magic, so he won’t teach it to me yet.”

Vista turned and stared at her, “Wait… you can expand space too?”

“I mean, I guess?” Taylor said with a shrug. “I can’t right now, but apparently Magus can and he says he can teach me.”

“Oh that’s bullshit,” Vista grumped. “Someone needs to take the grab bag from him and beat him upside the head with it.”

Taylor looked at the younger girl bemusedly, “I… guess?”

Vista sulked a bit, but shook her head, “Ignore me, just felt like the thing to say. So you can do expanded space too?”

“Yeah, supposedly,” Taylor confirmed, “but I have to be taught how first.”

She withdrew her wand from where it rested on her belt, “Like Magus, my power is a blaster/shaker one that can be used to create other effects.”

She waved the wand casually at the couch the pair were sitting on, “Leviosa.”

“Wha… whoa!” Vista squealed as the couch floated easily up into the air, slowly spun around to take in the whole room, the settled back down. “So cool! You just pulled a Rune!”

“A what? No, rune stuff is for later,” Taylor shook her head, “He won’t teach me how to work with runes yet.”

“No, no, Rune? Parahuman with the Empire?” Vista prodded.

“Oh, yeah, right. Forgot about her,” Taylor admitted. “She levitates stuff?”

“Yeah, and controls it to ride around on,” Vista said. “She can transport Empire troops, or even send her stuff flying into things like a missile.”

“Huh, yeah that’s not the same as this,” Taylor admitted, “I can just kinda make things slowly float.”

“Oh. Well, still pretty cool,” Vista said, patting her shoulder.

“I mean, when I learn more I guess I’ll be able to teleport and use blaster powers and all the stuff Magus does,” Taylor said, “but most of his tricks seem to be from his use of rune magic.”

Vista looked at her, almost sadly, “Not you too?”

“What?”

“The Magic thing, you know it’s kinda weird, right?” Vista asked cautiously.

Taylor sighed, this was a reaction she had known was coming.

“Honestly, powers may as well be magic,” She said, “We can’t really explain any of them, you know, right? Why not use a perfectly good word that already exists to describe it?”

Vista looked skeptical, but didn’t seem to have anything to say to counter that.

“I guess,” She said after a moment. “I’m pretty sure that some things powers do have been explained scientifically, though.”

“Probably, Taylor shrugged. “Magus says that Magic and Technology often overlap in their own ways. I’m not sure that what he means by magic is what we think when we use the word, though.”

“Really? I mean, what else could he mean?”

Taylor thought about it, recalling her mother’s discussions on the meaning of language and how it could change almost without anyone really noticing. She decided to use one of her mother’s favorite techniques for when she was teaching.

“What do you think magic is defined as?” She asked Vista seriously.

“Well, duh, obviously it’s… umm….” Vista stopped and screwed up her face as she thought about it. “I mean, it’s Magic.”

Taylor chuckled, “Yes, but what is magic?”

“Well… it’s like, supernatural stuff right?”

“Powers would seem to be rather supernatural,” Taylor countered.

Vista shook her head, “That can’t be right. I just don’t know the right words, I mean why would I? I’ve never studied magic.”

“Exactly,” Taylor said, “Which means that the first thing you have to do is determine proper definitions. You can’t have a discussion when the different people involved are using different meanings for the same word. It’s the first responsibility of discussion. You’d be shocked how often people argue themselves blue in the face without ever even realizing that they’re notusing the same definition of a key word as the other person in the argument.”

“But that’s stupid!”

Taylor just looked at her, arching an eyebrow, until she slumped.

“Yeah, ok, people are idiots. I get it.”

“Yeah, they probably are, but my mom use to say that this wasn’t about people being stupid, but more that we all have a tendency to assume that our experience is obviouslythe same as everyone elses.”

“That’s even dumber.” Vista rolled her eyes.

“That’s just people being people, or that’s why mom used to say,” Taylor said, a hint of sadness in her tone as she recalled the lessons shared from before her mother’s death.

Vista seemed to catch on to her shift on tone, but opted not to say anything more, which Taylor was grateful for.

“Well,” She said instead, “What definition does Magus use then?”

*****