"Hmm, maybe. Doesn't some of your sense of down come from the fluid in your ears and where your organs are in your abdomen and stuff?"

"Hm. Maybe. We should try it."

"We should! I bet we could do it in one of the swimming pools with the right weights and math."

After a reasonable amount of time spent looking at octopuses, Leia gets out her phone. "Bruce, you might want to take a look at the news."

"O-kaay." What's on the news? Probably something sexy and existentially questionable!

A number of prominent creationist religious leaders have simultaneously announced that God's voice spoke in their hearts and told them evolution was true! God is also apparently reconsidering His historical teachings on homosexuality and gender roles. 

The president has announced new trans rights legislation, including both nondiscrimination legislation and legislation which opens the way to all trans-related surgeries and treatments being available on an informed consent basis! The president also intends to promote comprehensive sex-positive sex education in schools.

In response to criticism of scientific inaccuracy in movies, Hollywood movie producers have decided to create a Board of Science with similar powers to the MPAA rating board! Expert observers expect the shame of the F rating to make science fiction more accurate.

Okay so apparently it is possible to feel helpless in the face of forces beyond his comprehension and also really excessively powerful at the same time. Fortunately this aquarium has benches he can sit down on.

Probably he should not have made people hallucinate God . . . except is it really a hallucination if it says true things and comes from an actual ultrapowerful nonhuman entity? At least the healthcare and the movie labels are good. The whole thing feels a bit like that bit in Forbidden Planet where the human realizes the monster is his own worst impulses given tangible form by alien technology.

Leia gives him a hug. "You have good wishes for the world."

"I always hate it when movie characters turn down opportunities to do something important by saying 'no one person should have this much power' but now that it's actually happening I kind of feel like I shouldn't have this much power. Doesn't help that I don't have any conscious control over any of it and the only way I could try to steer it is by changing what kind of person I am."

"I mean, it's working out okay so far."

"Yeah, I can't actually complain about any of it. It's all exactly the sort of thing I like, and if the Erogame is more willing to do things I like than I would be that probably says more about me than the game. It's . . . I don't actually want off this bus; I just wish it had visible doors. Or more of a route map. I'll get used to it."

"I bet you can influence the route with perks. --How long until you get your first perk?"

"Well, theoretically I could take two perks now, but I get an extra perk if I don't take any until level 10, and between that and wanting to get a better model of what's going on I've been putting it off. I should probably decide which ones I want in what order, though."

"Well. It can wait."

Kisses?

Definitely. Kisses are good and this preference is stable under reflection.

Even with the world how it is now there's a limit to how much kissing is optimal to do on a plastic bench. Eventually it's time to explore the aquarium some more, and in particular to check if they have any job openings that will let him interact with the octopodes. If they haven't specifically banned uplifting them to sapience it's because it didn't occur to them to ban it, but the farther into the project he can get before becoming sketchy the better.

The receptionist says that, by coincidence, they are hiring a biologist who wants to study the octopodes and also a psychologist with a particular research focus on animal sapience. 

Nice! Bruce immediately applies for the biologist job and gives Leia an "Eh? Eh? Come on!" sort of grin.

(He also takes a moment to feel quietly embarrassed about the inevitable lack of meritocracy in this job search, but he does actually have an advantage in doing awesome stuff with the job for the same reason he has an advantage in getting it.)

"I'm a biochemist."

"But you're good at psychology whether it's on your paperwork or not."

"Yeah, but they hire people based on their paperwork!"

"Go for it anyway? I, uh, kind of suspect they're not going to get a lot of applicants, and if you get an interview you can make it obvious you're all polymathy."

"This seems kind of implausible."

"Oh, yeah, it's extremely implausible, that's how I know it'll work." 

"..right but you're probably going to have to have sex about it."