Of course, I answer Joy Jenkins of Channel 9 "On time" news: “We’re ninety degrees from everything, basically.  This is an extradimensional space, a pocket reality created by a device called a Keyhome.  Ten cubes of space, each ten feet on a side, arranged in a pattern determined when I have my assembly line make it.  A thousand square feet of space if you put them all on one level, and you can squeeze in a little more if you don’t mind stairs and slightly lower ceilings. I’ve got a few I’m only using for storage, a few meeting rooms like this, one decked out as an apartment, and so on.  No windows, of course, as there’s no THERE on the other side of the walls to see.  Sadly, they’re not compatible with each other - you can’t open the door to one when you’re already inside another - otherwise I’d show you how they’re supposed to be opened, but I can do that later when we’re ready to leave this meeting room.  I cheated a bit getting in here, as I was in a slight hurry to get away from the paparazzi, so the door over there won’t work correctly; I’ll need to cheat a bit to get us out, too.”

“I’d ask how this works, but I know I wouldn’t be able to make sense of the answer… you said you have an assembly line?”

“Yeah.  I have a larger, non-portable pocket reality elsewhere where I have a bunch of creatures made by magic that make things for me, provided I provide them with materials and orders.  I also have one building an actual island out in the Pacific ocean; I’ve started my own nation, Arcana.”

“So you’ve been keeping busy, which is why you’ve been ignoring the news… why make a nation?”

“Well, laws aren’t exactly caught up with what I can do…”

“That is most certainly true. Continue…”

“... and so in order to avoid having to worry about super-old laws against witchcraft that now apply, or what kinds of rulings a judge might make, or absurd accusations that can’t be disproven, I figured diplomatic immunity would handle the problem.  For that, I need to be recognized as a nation.”

“Because nothing beats swatting flies with a howitzer.”

“... I suppose it might be overkill.  But it’s not like I’m victimizing anybody.  Take my flight business: The FAA just shut me down for building and selling unapproved and unlicensed flying machines… but there’s no machines involved: I just grant people flight.  And apparently my court date is six months out, so it seems I can’t even really appeal the cease-and-desist.  So today, I gave it away.  I’ve got enough money saved up that I can keep this up for a time,” as long as I want to, really, I have almost no expenses, massive savings, and can make gold whenever I feel like it, “but if they don’t back down soon… well, my actual infrastructure isn’t on Earth.  My commute ‘home’ to power back up is exactly the same length whether I’m based out of the US, Australia, England, Russia, France, Italy, China, or MARS, for that matter." Especially as I really don’t get tired and never need to power up unless I need to change my prepared spell loadout. "And the empty warehouse where I grant people flight is just that: An empty warehouse.  There’s nothing important there, I only use the place to manage the line.  I could set up anywhere tomorrow, but I’d like to give all those people who took a flight to come to get their own flight at least a little time to plan for the new address, wherever that ends up being.”

“Why not just set up in your own nation, Arcana?”

That’s… hmm.  Actually a good idea.  One complication, but I will have the wherewithal to deal with that… oh, it’s maybe ready already.  I’ll have to check with my decoy Minnie on how it’s going with the airports.  Huh. “Lack of an airport, people wouldn’t know how to get to me.  I can fix that, though… remember when you asked me to fix air travel?”

“How could I forget?  You’re the third most unusual interviewee I’ve ever had.”

“Third? Makes me curious who beat me on that. Well, I’m getting started on fixing the airline jssue. I'm negotiating with airports to get space, and building portals in … well, more of these …" I gesture at the area we're in, "so I can easily place them when a deal goes through, and move them elsewhere if a deal is canceled."

"So what would that actually look like?"

"Well, you'd go to the airport, go through security and check in mostly like normal - all luggage would be 'carry on' but they'd still check your ticket and such - and we'd have a door in the airport terminal. You'd walk past customs and immigration going in, get your ticket checked at the portal, and end up in my pocket realm. Find the sign for the place you want to go, walk over to it, go through another portal, go through customs, immigration, and passport control there… and be in the terminal for an airport elsewhere."

"That could take a lot more traffic, couldn't it?"

"Yes. It'd basically be a walking path, so rather than having flights depart from a gate every three or four hours, you could get an entire airplane's worth of people through in just the half hour it takes to board a more traditional flight. No weather dependencies, and it would be the same pocket reality regardless of which airport you're visiting: Folks going to Japan can use the same gate as those bound for China, Russia, or England. And at the same time, even."

"Isn't that a problem, though?"

"How so?"

"Well, when customs is processing a flight from Japan, they can be reasonably confident that 99% of the folks coming in speak English, Japanese, or both, and plan their staffing accordingly based on who speaks those.  When it's coming from China, they instead need to prepare for Chinese; from France, French; from Mexico, Spanish; and so on.  If anyone from anywhere could come through at any moment, won't language barriers be a problem?"

So I'll need to get the insides of the Keyhomes I'm using with the Hall of Speech Wondrous Architecture, and station passport control in there. Works out to two and a half stronghold spaces, no big deal for my crafting team. I mentally issue the appropriate orders across planar boundaries.

"That's not a problem when I'm around. May I demonstrate?" I smile at Joy.

"Sure…"

I cast a Fleeting Reach Tongues on her, then switch to Swahili, "Do you understand me?" and French, "What about now?" followed by Russian, "Language isn't a barrier when I'm involved."

She answers in Korean, "This is awesome!" and then Hawaiian, "Can I keep it?"

I switch back to English, "Sure, you can keep it. But we should probably stick to English for the audience from here on out."

She follows in English, "Fine. Another fun toy I can't play with yet."

"I charge the feds a million bucks an agent for that one, but it's mostly harmless, so enjoy."

"What all do you sell to the feds?"

Nobody’s actually given me a gag order… and a lot of weapons manufacturers put the specs up online, just not how to do it… "Several different things. The Air Force wants pilots that can fly without their planes, the Navy likes water breathing, the Army likes soldiers that get back up after getting shot, everybody wants shape-shifting… I’ve got a list of what I'm willing to sell to them."

"Willing?"

"... I can do a lot. I am capable of setting a person up so that they'll survive basically anything - up to and including a point-blank nuke - stay conscious the entire time, be impossible to pin down, and supply a weapon with unlimited ammunition that will carve through a tank's armor. For that matter, I can set them up to walk through the tank and hit the people inside directly. The big gotcha is that almost all of that is applied to the PERSON: It's not like a tank where you can install a satellite receiver that will force it off if the wrong guy gets behind the wheel, where you can take it back when the driver is done with his service. You can't wrestle them to the ground and snatch it from them like you might a gun.  Once they have it, they have it, until they die of old age."

"... and occasionally, a career soldier goes nuts."

"Exactly. It's not many of them. Most soldiers retire and become perfectly fine upstanding citizens who cause no trouble at all. The vast majority, even, and overall they've got a better track record than your average civilian. But even one guy losing it and going after civilians would be a constantly growing tragedy that nobody could stop." Well, OK, I could, because I've been adding strings and I bypass immunities, but I'd need to get personally involved… "It's one thing to keep a couple of nuclear missiles in a hardened bunker where you can carefully watch everyone involved, rotate people out, and set things up so that no one person can end the world. It's quite another to issue nuclear hand grenades in mass that you can't take back and hope it all turns out OK."

"But maybe a couple would be OK…"

"That runs into the 'just one more' problem. The super soldiers will eventually end up effectively permanently stationed in problematic areas, and a new problem will crop up that could use another. So they'll find a way to convince me to give them 'just one more'. And then that person will eventually end up effectively permanently stationed somewhere, and another problem will crop up that could really use another, so they'll find a way to convince me to give them 'just one more'. And on, and on. There needs to be a hard line somewhere, and the simplest hard line is '0'." OK, I am willing to risk it for my immediate family (yes, I consider Jessica and James to be family at this point), but I can track and contain a small number if any of them go crazy. I am NOT doing that for any government.

"So no super soldiers for Arcana, either?"

I might be a little bit of a hypocritical liar, "Soldiers, yes, but I'm not planning on risking anything I can't put down. I'm mostly banking on people not being crazy enough to make me want to change my plans." I suppose Minnie already qualifies as a super soldier. But I could put her down if necessary, so….

"So are you up to showing me how these Keyhomes work, maybe visit Arcana?"

"Yeah, sure. Let's head back to Earth."

I cast another Reach Plane Shift.