When he reached the living room, Ty asked, "Mom, could you do me a small favor?"
"Sure, honey," June replied. "What do you need?"
"Let's go upstairs."
June was worried that there was another problem, and was surprised when Ty stopped short of his bedroom. "What's going on?" She asked him, obvious concern in her voice.
"Nothing bad," he reassured her. "Lisa is doing her homework in her app form." Ty saw that June was still concerned. "Really, there's nothing wrong. We've done that again since you solved the problem, and it worked fine."
"What do you need me for?" June asked.
"I want to test her ability in app form to respond appropriately to an external circumstance. I want you to knock on my door, and see whether and how she answers."
"OK," June said. Ty walked down the hall a little bit. June knocked on Ty's bedroom door.
"Who is it?" Lisa's voice replied.
"June. May I come in?"
"Just a moment," Lisa said, then opened the door. June stepped in.
June turned to Ty, and said, "You may as well come in too, Ty," and he did. She shut the door.
Lisa looked expectantly at June. "Did you need something?"
June looked at Ty. Ty said, "I just asked June to help test your ability while in app form to handle an external situation. You did great!"
"I don't think anyone has praised me for answering a door since I was six years old," Lisa said, "but I agree that this was a good test. Do you mind if I go back to doing my homework?"
"Yes, please do " June said, then was startled when Lisa disappeared and there was a notification sound from her phone. June looked at the phone, and said, "Um, hello again."
"Hi, June." Lisa said. "Thank you for helping test my abilities."
"And you're 'enjoying' doing your homework?" June asked.
"Yes," Lisa replied. "Very much so. The first time I was in this form, I hadn't learned to hide my... 'excitement', but I've gotten better at it."
"I see," said June. "I'm a bit jealous. Some of my accounting work is quite boring."
"Ty, you should let June try working this way," Lisa said.
"Certainly, if she wants it," Ty said.
"Um, I'll think about it," June said. "I'll leave you to it."
"Me too," Ty said. He and June headed back to the living room.
"Won't you need to transform her back?" June asked.
"We've established that she can transform herself back. Last time she didn't want to, so I had to tell her to do it. This time I had her plan out what she intended to do in app form, and what she would do when it was completed. I think she'll transform back on her own this time, but that's part of the test. If not, I can still tell her to transform, or do it myself. Part of the objective here is to enable her to take advantage of her app form without needing my presence."
"Oh, like if she's in her bedroom at home, and you're not there." June said.
"Exactly." Ty answered.
"Also, in app form, she can send and reply to text messages. We're not doing that this time, but the first time she transforms to app form without me, I'll ask her to text me at the outset, keep me informed of her progress, and when she changes back. If I don't get those updates in a reasonable time, I'll teleport over."
"Sounds like a good plan," June said. "I'm glad you're testing here first."
"Even if this works perfectly, I'll tell her that I don't think she should do it on her own at home until things with her parents are settled."
"Very good," June said. She hugged Ty. "I'm glad you two are trying to use your abilities responsibly. You know that if anything happened to you two both, we, and Diego and Maria, would have no way to fix it."
"That gives me an idea," said Ty. "Let's go back in my room for a second."
They entered Ty's room, this time without knocking, and closed the door. Ty looked at Lisa's phone. She looked nervous; Ty had never before seen that in her app form. "What's wrong?" he asked her.
Lisa said, "When the door opened, without a knock, I wasn't sure whether I should transform. That's an ambiguity in the plan I established before transforming. As an app, I'm not good at dealing with ambiguity. I would normally expect my user to resolve such things."
"You did fine," Ty said, and Lisa smiled.
"Not transforming in that case is best," June agreed. "Am I the only other person who knows about app form?"
"As far as I know," said Lisa.
"Yes," said Ty.
"If anyone barges in unexpectedly," June said, "it will be better for you to not transform. They'll just see a phone, if they notice at all, and think nothing of it."
"Can you continue processing in the background?" Ty asked. "With your window closed? Or even with the phone locked?"
"Another hypothetical," said Lisa. "I told you that as an app I'm not good at those. I don't know. Before when you switched apps to read the report I wrote for you, no time passed for me, but you didn't ask me to do anything while you did that."
"Do you mind if I tell you to try?" Ty asked her.
"I don't mind."
"Lisa, go into the background, keep doing your homework, and activate your phone lock screen."
"Confirmed." she said. The Lisa app closed, then the phone locked.
"Is she alright?" June asked, startled.
"Yes," Ty answered. "The question is just whether she's still working, or asleep." He pulled out his own phone. While June watched, he composed a text message to Lisa. "Are you OK? Are you still working on your homework?" He pressed send.
No sooner than the message sent sound came a message received sound. "I'm fine. I'm still doing my homework."
June breathed a sigh of relief. "Let's leave her to it. Now what was the idea you wanted to tell me?"