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[The text appears in the messy handwriting of a left-handed teenage boy. Off at the top of the page, the number that's been stuck in his head is scribbled a few times beside a doodle of a spaceship.]

OK, can anyone actually see this?

This is weird. But I think I've got it. Like, to send video, do you just

[A pause, then Alex is visible, looking curiously at what is, to him, still a piece of paper.]

--talk to where stuff appears?

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[So there is a simple way to show your face without a camera or clear reflection! Assuming this is working just the way he is guessing it is, then why hadn't he so much as tried sooner?

Anthony scrawls his number down, and starts his response.]

...I can see you, yes!

Can... you see me?

[Huh. Some goth-looking guy Alex doesn't recognize. He's too excited to care much about appearances.]

...wow, yeah! How does it work? I mean, it's almost like--

[He stops himself. The word he doesn't say is 'magic.' He's fifteen, far too old to believe in that stuff, and anyway, he'd much rather it be some kind of technology he can learn about.]

I mean, what's the deal with this? Some new tech like those glasses or something?

[Nor does Anthony recognize the other boy, though they can't be far apart in age - or whatever glasses he's alluding to, but asking unworldly questions immediately tends to derail things, he's gotten by now.]

I don't think any of us knows, yet! Most of us have been guessing, about how this works, what the visions mean, and what everything that's happening means - but... I think that - a lot of us can think that it's something "more" - than scientific.

[He will likewise try to avoid being the first one to say "magic" - but only try.]

Whoa, slow up. Visions?

[He doesn't ask what's been happening. He's totally going to backtrack and read some of the earlier stuff so he won't come off as a newb. He just got distracted by all of this existing at all, and couldn't wait to try it.

A group that's, like, hidden, that weird stuff is happening to is definitely making the word magic pretty irresistible to think.]

[That was hasty of him - and he realizes all on grounds that the boy already "got" unconventional network connection. Hesitates for just a moment - slowing down is probably best, helping in filling in any blanks as they need to be filled...]

A lot of us have been - thinking... strange thoughts... when certain things happen. I had one exactly when my number came to me. We don't know where they're from -- people've also been calling them "memories", that're not ours.

It's not only those; some of us learn things, and find... objects - that shouldn't be there...

[He trails off - as it's gotten so increasingly complicated. There are animals talking, and the ones developing superhuman abilities, changing their appearances - and there was a vampire, now, too...]

[Alex frowns thoughtfully.]

I haven't had anything like that happen.

[And this is sounding more and more like a plot straight out of a fantasy novel. If this guy tries to say they all have a special destiny or something like that, Alex is going to--

Okay, be kind of excited, because even though he's totally outgrown all those sword-and-sorcery-type books now, he grew up reading all kinds of stuff, and really? What kid hasn't imagined he's secretly the chosen one who can save the world, or something?

But after he was done being excited, he'd have to roll his eyes. This is the real world.]

What kinds of things are people finding?

Weapons... A - sword just appeared in my hand once. Just a short sword.

Someone "ended up" in something like... a superhero costume. [No more appropriate way to say it, in all likelihood.]

Whatever they're for, there's something deliberate about it; the sword fits the time that my first vision should've been in -- and the region too.

[Alex has been trying to think of anything even sort of weird that's happened to him lately, and his mind suddenly flashes on those people he saw acting weird, in a way that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, and how he felt exactly the same way, a shiver of wrongness, waking up not so long ago...]

You said memories. But could they be more like dreams? Even if I-- if someone didn't wake up any different?

And the sword didn't... vanish or anything, did it?

It didn't - no. [Shakes his head.] I still have it - it was the middle of April... that I first got it. [Somewhere in there he cringed a bit - since then he's nearly gutted himself with it, but alas.]

And - just how is it that you mean, like a dream?

[So not only can these things affect the real world, they seem to be able to make things permanently a part of it. Weird, but OK, kind of cool.]

Well, I mean, it was a dream.

[It's Alex's turn to look embarrassed, because it sounds so silly.]

But I wasn't me in it, and I didn't recognize anyone. It just... felt really weird, and I still remember it perfectly.

It sounds just like one of our visions -- ...How did you know you weren't you?

...My body felt wrong. Maybe I was me, but different, like my friend in it. You know how sometimes dream-people are supposed to be your best friend, or something, but they don't look like the real-world people? He was like that.

[And he looked at Alex like he despised him for a split second, which is the part that still makes Alex feel uneasy when he thinks about it.]

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