Simkha was fascinated by how quickly Tali was learning English. If Simkha had performed even half this well in her language learning module, then she would… well, hmm, then Simkha would know a little more Greek and Lusitanian. But her grade wouldn’t be any better because that module only tested theory.

  Simkha was still impressed by Tali’s learning speed.

  Tali focused almost all of her efforts on expanding her vocabulary. She had found a chart that claimed to list the seven hundred most common modern English words in First Oxford’s public corpus. Tali spent several hours on Sunday night drawing definitions and explanations out of Simkha—nearly three-hundred words in total.

  Then just before bed, Simkha had found a meetup listing for an English Language Immersion Club. She explained the idea to Tali as best she could. Tali said that she wanted to try it out.

  So on Monday morning Simkha dropped off Tali at the Club d'Immersion en Anglais du Vieil Oxforde meetup before she went to her Archaeobotany lecture.

  That evening, Simkha seasoned and fried some mushrooms, onions, and peppers for dinner.

  Tali sat at the little dining table and watched Simkha buzz around the kitchen. Tali happily chattered about all the new friends she had made at the meetup. She described the very exciting reference library that some of them had shown her. And she explained all the wonderful new words she had learned.

  Simkha felt an unexpected warmth from listening to Tali talk about her day. She smiled as she cut up an avocado and spinach and assembled all the ingredients inside maize chashcallis. She prepared two plates and brought them to the table.

  “Is food now?” asked Tali. “Is nose, is good, is happy!”

  “Uh, yeah. It’s all done now,” Simkha said. “In English, we call these things ‘chashochalis.’ You eat them with your hands, and here’s that hot sauce you liked before, If you want it..”

  Tali hummed pleasantly as she inspected the wraps.

  “Cha-sho… cha-li? Is chasho-chali word, is not English?”

  “No it’s not. It’s probably, uh… I suppose it’s Lusitanian? And they must have gotten it from one of the Nahuan languages?”

  Tali cocked her head at Simkha and smiled. Her expression grew a little warmer. Then she poured a inland sea’s worth of hot sauce into a chashochali. She started to happily gobble it down.

  “So, uh,” said Simkha. “What do you call these in your language? No wait, uh, that question doesn’t make any sense. I should ask if you have anything like these where you come from?”

  Simkha focused her gaze on her food and tried not to feel embarassed. Tali’s expression widened into a smirk.

  “Mmm,” said Tali “Have we food, food like this food. Call we, call our food viehlst.”

  “Haha, yeah,” said Simkha. She shifted anxiously left and then right. “Uh, so, do you want to hear what I learned about seed morphology today?”

  Around 9.30 that evening, Jennifer came over to “talk about isekai stuff.” Jennifer began her excited explanation before she’d even removed her shoes.

  “Okay, I was thinking about how Tali doesn’t have an income. And we’re gonna have to pay for her necessities somehow. And a bunch of isekai writers have ideas about how to make a living in another universe. So the biggest idea is, uh… Tali, do you, like, cook? Do you know any recipes for, like, special snacks, or food, or sauces, or whatever?”

  “Sorry me,” said Tali “Cook good not, cook me. School not me food. School, euh, school me number? School, euh, fall-make? School shape?”

  “That’s fine,” said Jennifer. “We don’t have to do food.”

  “Tali, what do you mean when you say ‘school?’” asked Simkha. “Do you mean learning—uh, when you learn? Like with notes, and with lectures. Notes like, uh, like these?”

  “Euh, hmmm. Yes! Is school, is this.”

  “Then you’re, like, studying maths?” asked Simkha. “With numbers and shapes?”

  “Maths? Is like, euh, thmaiss? Fact-number?”

  “What about, like, simple products?” asked Jennifer. “We could help you produce something useful? If you know how to make it. Something like paper? But not actually paper. I mean, like something you haven’t seen here?”

  “Euh,” Tali shrugged at Jennifer. “Know not I. Un-der-stand not I.”

  “Oh but she did say ‘fall-make,’” mumbled Simkha. “Maybe that was, like, gravity? In which case, maybe she actually studied physics?”

  “Oh!” Jennifer faced Simkha. “Maybe that’s it. Tali could, like, do something with that phasing magic and physics? Let’s think about how to monetize that.”

  “Huh?” said Simkha.

  “Like, your girl can, like, phase through solid objects. Right? And when you did the same, thing, you talked about seeing a lock or something in another dimension. And then we were talking about Tali speaking alternate-dimension, like, French or whatever. And then Tali says she studies physics. So, like, I’m thinking that maybe Tali’s physics are actually alternate-dimension physics.”

  “Uh,” said Simkha. She frowned and thought about it. “I guess that makes sense.”

  “Then we want to make Tali some money,” said Jennifer. “My first thought is to use phasing magic to steal from rich people. But I’m thinking we catch a bigger haul for less risk if we can apply her magic to the mass market. Like by licensing a production technique or something.”

  “Annfann,” protested Tali. “Too words, too soon. What is, euh, what is ‘steal’ word?”

  “Wait wait wait,” said Simkha. “Stealing is dangerous. Tali, you can’t steal. Please don’t steal?”

  “It’ll be fine,” said Jennifer. “She doesn’t seem like the type to go all Robin Hood on us.”

  “That doesn’t feel right to me” said Simkha. “When we were kids, I definitely saw her just take stuff because she wanted it. At the time I thought she must have had permission, but I’m not so sure now.”

  “Oh,” said Jennifer.

  Jennifer and Simkha turned to look at Simkha.

  “Let’s focus a way to make her some quick cash. The licensing stuff can wait. Maybe some physics nerds would pay to let them study her?”

  “But, uh, then aren’t the nerds paying to figure out her phasing magic? Phasing physics? If they do that, then won’t they discover the knowledge you want to license later on?”

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  “Hmmm,” said Jennifer, “How about this? Tali’s already studying physics, right? And she probably knows her extradimensional alien physics pretty well. So to our physics people, won’t she look like a self-taught genius specialist?”

  Simkha slowly nodded at Jennifer.

  “So,” said Jennifer. “Maybe they’d give her a scholarship to study with them? She doesn’t have to give them a bunch of new information right away.”

  “Okay,” said Simkha, “that makes sense. But who decides whether or not to give her a scholarship? Maybe we should just take her to a physics professor?”

  Jennifer looked at the ceiling, cocked an eyebrow, squinted, and squinched her mouth to one side.

  “Do me is what?” asked Tali.

  “Let’s ask Corey?” said Jennifer.

  “Let’s ask Corey,” agreed Simkha.

  “Pffft, annfann!” grumbled Tali. “Too words, too soon.”

  Corey Paleopolis knocked on the door to Simkha’s flat at approximately 10.07 pm. She accepted the traditional offering of biscuits and night tea. She listened to Jennifer and Simkha give their best explanation of Tali’s situation. Corey glanced at Tali, who was busy trying to use a hollow biscuit as a straw for her tea.

  “First of all,” said Corey. “You both sound fucking bonkers. Which is fine. Not a dealbreaker. Don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t wanna sound bonkers. But sounding bonkers doesn’t actually make you wrong either.”

  “For what it’s worth,” said Simkha, “I might be bonkers, with the whole psychosis thing. I thought Tali was a hallucination when she first turned up.”

  “Yeah but you’re not crazy,” said Jennifer. “At least, not about this. At least five of us saw her do, like, genuine fucking magic.”

  “Is that right?” asked Corey. “I wanna see this so-called magic.”

  Simkha shrugged.

  “Yeah, I guess. Tali, is it okay if Corey sees the, uh, the magic thing?”

  “Euh,” said Tali, “magic? Is yes?”

  “For what it’s worth,” said Corey, “I promise not to, like, do bad stuff with whatever you show me.”

  “Bad stuff?” asked Jennifer.

  “I dunno, selling Tali’s information to someone who would wanna dissect her?”

  “Uh,” said Simkha. “Good, then. Watch this.”

  Simkha leaned over the table, stuck out a finger, and poked it next to Corey’s mug, offset in the fourth dimension so it looked like she was phasing through it. She wiggled it around.

  “Huh,” said Corey. “First: weird. Second: cool. Third: gross.”

  “Gross?” asked Simkha.

  “I don’t wanna drink tea after you put your finger in it.”

  “Ew!” said Jennifer.

  “Wait, no, it’s, uh,” said Simkha. “I didn’t actually touch your tea, I promise. I just, like, put my finger next to your mug, but along another dimension. My finger couldn’t have touched your tea. Look, I’ll show you what happens when I actually touch the mug.”

  Simkha poked the mug, pushing it away along the fourth dimension and a little to the right.

  “See?” said Simkha. “No direct contact between me and the tea. Or else your tea would have splashed around. It just looked like my finger was in there.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Corey poked a finger at the tea. Her hand phased right through the mug.

  “Whoa,” said Corey.

  “Oops,” said Simkha. “My bad. It was like that, though. Just let me just line your tea back up where you can touch it.”

  “You said that all this phasing magic was about an extra dimension,” said Corey. “But if… if you pushed the tea out of my plane along an extra dimension… then shouldn’t the tea have just disappeared?”

  “Why would it have disappeared?” asked Jennifer.

  “It’s like,” tried Corey. “Uh. Did you ever hear about that old novel, ‘Flatland?’ It’s about what a 2-D world would be like. Like, if you were 2-D and you saw a sphere moving through your 2-D world, it would look like a circle suddenly appeared, got bigger, got smaller, and finally disappeared. So if Simkha moved my tea in a fourth dimension, then shouldn’t it have disappeared, or at least gotten smaller?”

  “Uh, right,” said Jennifer.

  “So,” said Corey. “Why could I still see the tea? Why didn’t Simkha disappear?”

  “Huh,” said Simkha. “That’s weird.”

  “Is that a real question?” asked Jennifer. “Or are you, like, just setting up an explanation for us?”

  “Yeah, no,” said Corey. “I have no idea. I’m not actually smart. I just like knowing things. I’m not even in a graduate program yet.”

  “Oh,” said Simkha.

  “If you want,” said Corey, “I could help you talk to a professor who might be interested.”

  “We didn’t really want to do that yet,” said Jennifer. “We’re just trying to see if we could get Tali a scholarship for knowing weird phasing physics.”

  “I imagine so?” said Corey. “I have no clue how that all works. My, uh, my mom did basically all my scholarship stuff for me.”

  “Hmmm,” said Simkha.

  “Huh,” said Jennifer.

  Tali crammed another biscuit into her mouth.

  “But,” said Corey, “I think I know which we should ask about this. Have you heard of professor B-T? Eh, professor Banach-Tarski, for long. He teaches topology and extra dimensions and stuff. And I think he’s on the scholarship committee. Could you three come with me to his office hours tomorrow?”

  “I’m in lecture for most of the afternoon,” said Simkha. “But I’m sure Tali can take care of herself, if you’re willing to help translate.”

  “Euh, what?” said Tali.

  “Tomorrow,” said Simkha. “You and Corey go. Talk to a professor. You will do maths. Then ask for money. Okay?”

  “Okay!” agreed Tali.

  “I can go, too,” said Jennifer. “If that’s, like, okay.”

  “Cool,” said Corey. “Let’s do it, then.”

  Simkha spent the next morning studying and training her HUD. Tali showed her a bit more of its workings, rejiggering her settings, and demonstrating how to calibrate it by repeatedly reporting her subjective experiences.

  Simkha felt good about her HUD progress, even if it felt a little slow. She put off eating lunch so she could make herself especially hungry and record more data points for her hunger status bar.

  Simkha was startled when she glanced at the time. 1.47 pm. She threw her phone down, hopped up, and began throwing her notes into her rucksack. She found Tali finishing off the leftovers from last Saturday’s brunch.

  “Go get ready,” said a sheepish Simkha. “I made us late!”

  Simkha dropped Tali off with Jennifer and Corey outside the Klein building. Then she ran the rest of the way to the lecture hall. She snuck in only six minutes after the start of her quant lecture.

  About two hours later, Simkha met up with Corey and Tali at the Jericho. Jennifer had to go to a study group, having texted to say she hoped Simkha’s lecture was good.

  Simkha got herself a Chelm-Three style bagel, fully loaded with her perfect proportions of hummus, falafel, and roast red peppers. She sat with Corey and Tali, who sat behind mostly-empty plates and gobbled down fries.

  “So, uh, how’d it go?” asked Simkha.

  “Good,” said Corey.

  “Good!” chirped Tali.

  “But also bad,” said Corey.

  “But good!” said Tali

  “Uh,” said Simkha. “What?”

  “Well it started all right,” said Corey. “Professor B-T didn’t have any other students there, so we were able to ask him about Tali’s stuff, even though it wasn’t about classwork.”

  “Oh, uh, is that how office hours work?” asked Simkha.

  “I assume?” said Corey. “I’ve never been before.”

  “Talks we to him,” said Tali. “Talks Corey, talks to face-side.”

  “What?” asked Simkha.

  “I think she means I was, like, indirect?” said Corey. “Because I was trying not to say that Tali can do 4-D magic.”

  “Yeah?” said Simkha.

  “Until Tali was like, ‘look at me do physics,’ and did the same phasing trick you did to my tea.”

  “Oh,” said Simkha.

  “Sees me, sees him, sees at me,” Tali smugly declared.

  “Yeah,” said Corey. “Then Tali and him tried to talk about it. It was a few modules over my head, they were talking about, like, manifolds and other stuff I’ve only kinda heard of. But it was also kinda jumbled, and Tali didn’t know most of the math words.”

  “Yeah?” Simkha eyed Tali.

  “Gets me to scholarship!” declared Tali.

  “She didn’t get a scholarship,” said Corey. Not yet anyway. Professor B-T said he couldn’t understand Tali well enough.”

  “But then what does… Tali, you gets to scholarship?”

  “Makes easy,” said Tali. “Learns me, learns to English, learns to maths English, learns to physics English. Learns to scholarship.”

  “So yeah,” said Corey. ”If she’s gonna get a scholarship, she needs to learn English, learn to talk about math and physics in English, and do that all well enough to explain talk with the professor all about manifolds and extra dimensions. And if she does it well enough, then professor B-T says he can probably get her on scholarship by next term.”

  “Oh,” said Simkha. She looked at Tali and smiled. “So Tali's got this on lock, then.”