“Arms would get in the way! — uh I assume you mean like a removable prosthetic where one's arms are fitting into the wings. Not having the short-term option to return to having usable arms would be another thing and not my thing.”

"I mean, getting them off and then on again wouldn't be any more of a big deal than getting your buffs. You could in fact just swap between having arms and wings sometimes. But if you did it a lot you might be out some money. Most things don't cost any more, you can avoid ever interacting with money again if you want, but occasionally it comes up."

Bakery full of luscious-looking cakes. Playground with children and little roller coasters and a tiger and a floating blimp children are climbing onto via rope ladder. Section of road where the flagstones play music. Person with a lizard tail and horns and scales. People of ambiguous genders making out on a bench in front of a theater advertising Amphritite.

"Incidentally, this is a relatively low-weirdness city because it's right near where sleepers wake up and some of those are easily spooked. Most Martian cities are stranger, and so are some Earth cities."

“What sort of things did people get spooked by, or is that more a precaution than a cautionary tale?”

"I've never had anybody get spooked! I'm just told that's why the waking facility is here."

Nod.

(And thinking about the people they have passed in the street and what he more or less remembers saying to colorless_green_ideation.)

“Uh. State of gender and gender role and sexuality things?”

"I mean it depends a little where you live, Amish gotta Amish, but people who think that's anybody else's deal go form enclaves. If you wanna swap out some parts or mix it up no big deal unless you wanna change 'em over and over all the time, then you might dip into your fund. If you get a spirit guide AI it can tell you people's public information before you try to kiss 'em, it's polite."

“So — anyone can mix anything up, parts, clothes, relationships, and nobody's going to be bothered about it?”

"Yeah, pretty much. Uh, rape's still frowned on, you should look up neighborhood rules before having sex in public or wearing anything sharp enough you'd puncture somebody if they bumped into you..."

“I can't say that I was particularly looking forward to any of those things, no.”

"Then yeah you can pretty much go nuts. Fancy stuff where you want a designer there's a space station where the people who are into that hang out but if you just want something simple there's a cosmetics place here."

“Okaynewtopic. What do you have instead of phones. The internet access kind of thing.”

"Augmented reality stuff is most popular but you can get a phone kinda thing, you want one?"

“I don't know, how does the augmented reality work and how much poking at things in midair other people can't see is involved?”

"You haven't seen me poke anything, have you? It tracks attention, some subvocalizations, you can get handheld controls if that creeps you out."

“That sounds better than a phone.”

"You want me to get you a full on spirit guide or just the basic interface?"

“—just the basic interface for now.”

"Cool. It'll boot in a sec."

And then there's a little message, white text on black that he can read if he glances down. AR Basic installed. Squint for settings. Purse lips to dismiss; resume by saying or subvocalizing "AR Basic please".

…squint.

The text box gets taller, although he can still see where he's going, and offers settings about how many things he wants to see and hear and how he'd like to control it.

He would like to enable some controls that are more spatial and faster than subvocalization, like maybe twitching some (non-finger) muscles somewhere? And also know how to use it to actually do things.

It provides more information on anything he stares at long enough and can accept all his ideas for control mechanisms.

Okay but what about information on things that are not around to be stared at.

There is also a search box. He can speak to fill it in or wait till he's got text input controls to his liking.

Something to maybe practice with later. So if he looks at, oh, Tarinda?