She's waiting for her train, which is late (as usual).
Uh, that's weird, the wagon looked darker on the pictures online. Oh well, they must have repainted it recently.
She hops on the train, and goes to find her place before any adult can see her and ask questions she doesn't really want to answer.
There should be a way to lock the compartment from the inside for the night. The train ticket inspector can unlock it if he needs to anyway. Or she! Uh, working for railways must be interesting, you get to see al kind of places...
Ah! There it is. She doesn't understand the instruction, but then again she only knows two or three German words and the mechanism is quite obvious.
Time to sleep!
Bonnie wakes up at a station shaded by incredibly tall buildings, between two plazas positively teeming with people, with footpaths full of people above the train station connecting the tall buildings together. There's a gentle breeze, and the wonderful smell of fresh bread in the air. And there are charming, brightly-colored robots flying across the ground, deftly running around people.
That's... weird. When she hopped off the train she couldn't see the "Wein HBF" sign she expected to find, but everyone was getting off, the time was as expected (great job, ÖBB!) and it did look like a terminal station.
But now... the more she looks around the more confused she feels. She can't read the signs and... well, she doesn't speak German, but she expected to be able to recognize at least some of the words. Or to find some English, in the hopdamned capital. Germans Austrians.
The robots are incredibly cute, and she'll get distracted by a good ten minutes trying to find patterns in their movement.
She tries to find someone who looks like a local to ask for directions.
"Excuse me. Where to go for Schönbrunn Castle?"
The local is a woman wearing a short skirt above a pair of leggings, both bright blue, together with a long black athletic shirt slightly overlapping the skirt; it makes her look very sporty. But she's confused at hearing Bonnie's words. She looks her up and down, trying to get an idea about where she might have come from as she tries to come up with some idea of what language she's speaking and how to communicate with her.
...crud. The woman tries speaking to Bonnie, saying "hi" in as many languages as she can. She hopes one of them works...
Nooope. None of those. She shakes her head.
She tries to mime. "Where" looking all around, confused "can I go" point at self, then walking "for information and questions?" talking and a question mark.
Aah. What's the symbol at the end she just used? The looking around and walking things made sense. Well... she points directly to the nearest police station, behind one of the buildings, waving her body right and left. Helping people is their job, and they'd probably be best-equipped to handle someone not speaking the language?
"Thank you! Grazie! Danke!" she puts her hands on her heart and bows slightly, then waves goodbye and starts running walking briskly because she shouldn't run in public places.
Right of that building, then left, then. Uh. Is there anything looking like an infopoint?
Not quite; there's a black and white striped line visible on the walls of one of the skyscrapers, and looking behind the windows taking up most of the wall between the stripes, she can see that there's a lobby with a few people dressed in proper outfits looking very attentive and vigilant and bored.
Hmmmm. That's not what she was expecting, but... they can probably help her go further! The trick with taking directions is going in approximately the correct direction, then improve from there anyway.
Does it look like there's an obvious door?
Yes, there's a wide door to one side, right next to the stripes on the right side.
The people waiting inside look at her in confusion. Then, one of them calls someone on the phone. Someone who knows a lot of languages. And holds it out in front of Bonnie.
Something's not adding up but. Sure, she'll speak into the probably-a-phone.
"Hello! I'm so confused right now, is this not Wien?"
"Well, you're not confused about that, this place is called Coincrown!"
Well. At least someone speaks English. So there's that.
On the other hand she has never heard of Coincrown, and this place looks big, but she got there during the night so it must still be in Europe, at least.
"Uh. Which... country?"
"Not sure what you mean? It's on Heaven's Steps Island, Continent of the Lyre?"
"I don't recognize any of those names and that doesn't make sense. I'm bad at geography, but not recognizing the continent makes no sense."
"Am I on some kind of prank tv show? If so, please cut it out, I'm getting worried."
Ok, time for the Emergency Plan. Step 1: turn on her phone and text mum.
She grabs her phone from the top pocket of her backpack and turns it on. The name of the phone operator it will connect to is probably going to be helpful.
...the phone doesn't connect to any operator.
"Well, people get amnesia, and forget what happened and how they got places? It's rare, of course. But it happens."
"Yes, but I shouldn't forget continents? I'm from Udine, Friuli, Italy, Europe, and I got there with a single night train, so I shouldn't be on a different continent."
Not even emergency service? That's... concerning. Any open wifi networks?
There isn't emergency service or any form of wifi!
"People have forgotten... very big parts of their lives. Your situation is, as I said, unusual but not unheard of."
No wifi networks. In the middle of a city. What is happening.
"I am lost and now I'm scared and I need help and I want to get back home and I have a ticket but it's a ticket from Vienna so it probably won't be valid and I have some money but probably not enough for a ticket and."
She'll stop talking and just sit down on the closest thing which she can sit on. Or the floor. The floor works too.
She's not going to cry. But it will be a close fight.
There are several chairs in the room. They are almost bizarrely nice!
"Just... you have a ticket, right? Let us take a look at it, help you find out more. See if it brings up any memories so you don't get disoriented like this."
The man looks at it, absolutely stunned. He carefully feels it between his hands and speaks a quick phrase into his phone.
"We don't make tickets like that. We don't know how it was made, we don't think it was made using anything we have access to. This could only have come from... somewhere else."
How about she looks into the void for a while.
On the plus side, these chairs are really comfortable.
Water. Food. Shelter.
She grabs her water bottle, takes a couple sips.
"Do you mind if I eat a snack?"
"Well, I'm not sure what kind of snack that'd be?" says the person on the phone. Before repeating the words to the man who held Bonnie's ticket.
"A... Uh..." She grabs one croissant from her bag and shows it to them, still in its transparent plastic package.
The man instinctively gives a thumbs up, before explaining to whoever is on the other side of the phone that the mysterious person from a foreign civilization wants a... high area-to-volume pastry.
Ok, so. Water. Food. Shelter.
All good for now.
"I don't know how I got here. I don't know how to get home. I want to talk to my mum, if possible, but my phone doesn't work. She will be so angry, but it's better to call her now so she knows I'm safe. Am in the correct place to get help? Should I go to a police place? Will they speak English?"
"We don't know any of those two things, either, and we can't think of a way to let you talk to your... mother? This is a police station... and I don't know what English is. But I'll find someone to help you who knows this strange conlang we're talking in, just... wait in here a bit."
How can he not know what English is. They are speaking English! Unless it's some kind of language magic but this is real life, not a story. Magic doesn't exist in real life.
Good thing she's already at a police station. It should be the safest place to be.
"Thank you. I'm sorry. Can I look at a map?"
It doesn't take long before a map of the entire planet shows up on the phone. The continents are much smaller, and none of them look like any continent on Earth!
That is... not a map of Earth.
Is she sure she's not sleeping? She tries to pinch herself.
Ouch.
Yeah, no, she's no sleeping. Probably.
"That map looks unfamiliar. It should not look unfamiliar. I..."
She's still not crying. Barely.
"I will just wait for the person you were talking about."
She turns off the phone. It's not connecting to any network, might as well save battery.
"Yes, yes, someone, I'll get someone who can manage to talk to you" the person on the other side of the phone mumbles awkwardly.
"Thank you."
She fidgets for a minute, then grabs her books and gets back to reading. If your brain is in a different universe, it stops worrying about the one your body is in.
Eventually, a woman shows up, waving at Bonnie and seeming friendly. "Everything here must be totally new to you!" She is wearing... a very unobtrusive mask made of a transparent material, from outside the building. And speaking in an unfamiliar accent, too.
It takes a while for Bonnie to notice the waving, but as soon as she turns the page her eyes inform her that Someone Is Trying To Get Her Attention.
She dog-ears the page and looks up.
"Hello! It really is! I expected an Adventure but... this is a bit much. I wanted to visit a different country, not a different world!"
"Welcome anyway! If it's adventure you want, there are few places better built to give it to you! But first, you want a place to come back to when you've adventured enough for the day, or so I would think?"
"Yes. Yes I would like that."
Water. Food. Shelter.
And then she can look into how to and what to and why.
"But I don't have any local money. You don't accept Euros, do you?"
"I don't, but the value of paper bills coming from another world would have to be astounding!"
She decides to enter the police station.
"You have a lot of money in your pockets, young woman."
"Ooooh. I can see that! Then you're probably also interested in my book! Although I wouldn't want to be parted with it, but I guess you could photocopy it but I don't know how copyright would work across worlds but also piracy is not theft and I don't know your laws so. I guess I could lend it to you, if you promise to treat it well. It was my dad's..."
"I do! I don't have a payment card yet and anyway I heard people in Germany sometimes don't take cards and this is not Germany, it's not even Austria but that was the logic. But also, it's not really a lot of money? It's enough to buy a train ticket in case of emergency, which is a lot of money but not a lot a lot?"
"If you trust me with it I could take incredibly good care of your book, but I'd feel best if I was given a virtual copy of it instead. I'd have to call the library and tell them I have an incredibly valuable book for them to scan, and have them set everything up instead."
"Well, it's not a lot of money because it can't weigh much more than a few pieces of paper, but then even a thick, dense stack of bills wouldn't be that much either."
"Makes sense. I guess when we get back in contact with my word we can arrange some payment or something? That would be fair, I think."
"Makes sense, yeah. I have... some coins and a couple banknotes." Plus her for-real-emergencies-only ones in the hidden pocket, but she's not going to talk about them.
"I have a question though... how do you speak this language?"
"I practiced it? It's a common pastime, on our end, to make and learn new languages, and I thought this one let a lot of things be said in a nice way, so I learned it."
What are the chances that they would create a new language and land on English of all things.
Oh well. It's not as if the day can be explained purely rationally, can it?
"What kind of accommodation would you get me? How much does it cost?"
"My plan was actually to ask you to live in our family apartment floor, register yourself, and join the basic income program. The cost is around 70% of your basic, and that includes my pay for being your parent and the schools and courses you're entitled to join."
"Wait, I would pay you for being my parent? What? And you pay for school here? Weeeird. On the other hand, you give income to kids, so. Different system I guess. So I would use the 30% left for... food, transport, a phone plan, and fun stuff. Is that... enough?"
"Oh, and I guess taxes? I know it's a thing that adults do but I have no clue how they work."
"We try to have a thing about paying for everything here, that way everyone can pay attention to the numbers and better know what's happening everywhere. The last 30% is plenty for the things you ask about, I'd say, and, well, you have 30% left because you're sort-of paying taxes for school and so parents don't have to pay me to babysit their kids."
"I... see."
"Wait, do you also pay for library cards? That would be terrible. Libraries should be free!"
"Library cards for the newest and nicest libraries aren't free, but all the other ones are, and even the ones you have to pay for are pretty cheap most of the time."
Mmmmmhh. They do have free libraries, so it's fine.
"If I move in... with you? next to you? how does that work?"
"Well, you get your room in the boarding section, with all the other kids, and it's right next to the classroom, athletics room, play room, baths and everything else? Everything's really standard... our standard, I of course mean."
That's... good.
"How do I say 'thank you' to the... uh, policemen? In the local language?"
She says "thank you" to them for Bonnie. "Then, are you ready to come with me?"
"I think so."
She double checks she has all her things with her. It's not hard, she has everything in her backpack except for the book.
"Let's go."
She takes Bonnie a few blocks before finding a subway entrance and leading her into it. It takes barely a minute before a train shows up, with a few dozen people walking in and out; the trains is significantly wider than would be normal on Earth, and Bonnie can also see that the floors of the carriages have different areas split into different colors.
Subways! She will look at everything!
Can she recognize anything that looks like a map? Do they have a realistic map or a schematic one like the London tube? Does their language use ideograms? Letters? Something else? Do they color the different lines?
"What do the colors on the floor mean?"
There is a map, it's schematic and they use different types of line in addition to unusual colors different from what she's used to seeing; there's enough space on the wall to also have a timetable, but it's fairly hard to read because there are so many departures that it just turns into a wall of numbers. There are screens showing times, but only for the lines that arrive less frequently at this station; there's one coming in 3 turns and another in 7 turns.
The language uses letters, but they're vaguely reminiscent of morse code: lines, dots, dashes, and crosses. The lines use both colors and geometric symbols; there's a Triangle Line, Square Line and Pentagon Line, among others, until you starting heading into new kinds of shapes like stars and circles and rings.
"A lot of families take trains, so colors are supposed to make it easier for them to not be mixed up with a different family because everyone gets to sit together instead of being spread out across the train. There are special trains with mini-cars that almost let families have their own compartments, but that's only in special cities."
Ooooh, shapes for lines! Weird letters! She wants to learn all the things!
"Sounds handy!"
"You said the school is on the same floor as your family apartment? How does that work? Is it a very small school? Are you just very close to it? On my planet schools are usually big buildings that are just... schools, with no people living there." - pause - "I think. I have looked at the floor plans and it didn't seem to have bedrooms, but I could be wrong."
"Well, it's more right to say it's a classroom! And you also have the gym and baths and library and all the other things in a school in the rest of the building. But mostly you'll have the classroom, and that's always on the same floor as the dorms. Wheelchairs, you know. Wheelchairs end up saying how everything has to work, and then the robots can also get where they need to go."
"The robots? What kind of robots do you have? Do they follow the three laws? Wait, no, you wouldn't know about them. They were written by this american author, or maybe he was russian, I don't remember, Asimov. I really love his books. So basically he invented the three laws to describe how he thought the robots would be made to behave to be safe for humans. Do you have anything like that?"
"...they have Emergency Auto Braking systems that work really, really, really well and have a bunch of soft plastic with no sharp edges? The robots are just boxes rolling on the ground with robot arms attached really, so they can look a bit boring. The can have drawings in front so they look a little like a butler, maybe? But they make life 100 times easier, believe me."
"Ooooh, so they're not thinking ones. Well. It's fine. That's less worrying." But also boring. No robot conspiracy, no paradoxes to stop rogue AIs. Well, life is not a story, is it?
"Also, I got distracted by robots, but I'm happy you're considering wheelchairs first. It's good when people are not left behind. How many books can I loan from the library at the same time? Wait, no, nevermind, if it's connected to the room then I can just get there and swap when I'm done, so I just need to borrow one. Or two, if I finish it during the night."
"Should I get a mobile phone that connects to your network? Actually, do you have a global network? On my planet we have this global network of computers that mobile phones also connect to and you can find all sort of things on it, we even have an encyclopedia that is created by everyone, and it's the coolest thing ever."
"I don't think there's a limit on how many books you can loan at once? I'm not sure on the policy, books are ultra-cheap so we can just buy tons of them so there's basically always one ready. And we do have a global network, yes! And when it come to encyclopedias, the tough part is knowing which one to start with. And a phone should probably be the first thing you buy, so you can get clothes that fit."
"Wait, what does a phone have to do with clothes? I guess some people use it for payments? I don't have a credit card yet, so I just use cash."
"You need to have a pocket that the phone sits well in and that depends on what phone you have. It's awkward to have a wrong-size pocket."
"Oh. Yeah. Makes sense. I was overthinking it."
"Uh... how will money work in general though? You were talking about registering for income?"
"Yes, that's right... Oh, of course. You have to do that at a police station! But it's a very simple and quick process and I'll just take care of things until then, it's no big deal at all."
"Oh. We could have done it at the police station we were at."
"Oh well. I guess knowing I have a place to stay is going to be... helpful."
Then the train shows up, and the woman steps on while motioning for Bonnie to follow her. "I'm Lina, by the way!"
Did she... not give the police people her name at all? Guess she didn't. To be fair, they didn't have a shared language, so there's that.
"I'm Bonnie! It's short for 'Benedetta', but nobody calls me that."
Does the train have information screens? Maps with lights?
They have information maps, but not screens. There's a dot showing which station they're on on maps placed above the seats, but it's hard to see how it works; it's clearly not an LED.
Nice! She looks around, then remembers that the nice person is still next to her - was her name Lily? Hopdammit, she got distracted and forgot already.
"How many other people are going to be at the dorm?"
"25 with you, and that's the standard basically; handling classes and everything else gets a real handful, but I like always having something to do!"
25 is a bit more than what she's used to but she's heard Germans tend to respect rules more...
Well. Except she's not in Austria, is she?
She... she can just take it slowly. There are no emergencies, so she can think about the fact that she probably won't see her mum ever again later.
"I... think I'd like to read a bit, if that's fine. How long do we have until we get off?"
"Just 2 more stops, now, so pay attention! And you can read all the bits you want!"
Oh, not worth grabbing the book then.
She'll wait. Patiently. She can be patient if she really tries. Mostly.
Bonnie doesn't need to be particularly patient because the 2 stops come quick! Lina takes big, deliberate steps towards the doors on the opposite side of where they came in, ready as the doors out open.
She gets behind Li... Li... Lina! Ok, remember, Lina - like "linea", but without the "e".
Ready to hop off!
Making their way past a few blocks of skyscrapers, they come to a nondescript building reaching into the sky. Lina walks in, revealing a small library and charming cafe on the first floor, before quickly finding a larger than normal elevator that makes its way down lightning quick.
Oooooh, library and café? Nice!
Large elevators: a thing she didn't know she wanted more of. Why are they so cramped on Earth?
"We're up!" she says, stepping in and waiting for Bonnie to follow her into the elevator. There are 3 rows of buttons, reaching up almost 40 floors. It turns out Lina plans to take the elevator close to the top.
"I don't think I've ever been in such a tall building! Can't wait to see the view from up there!"
"Well, I mean, I've been to the top of the cupola in San Pietro but that's different, it's a church, people don't live in there."
"Do you have religion on this planet? Churches?"
This... is going to prove interesting no matter what the answer is.
"Not these days? I've never wrapped my head around how... people think about spirits and omnipotent world-makers being real things you have to keep in mind." The elevator is quick, too. Bonnie can't say much more until the elevator finally reaches its destinaion. It's a hallway, and looking both left and right Bonnie can see lots of doors, in bright and inviting colors like she saw on the subway map.
So no space Jesus? She's a bit disappointed but not surprised.
"Fair enough, it's controversial on my planet too. Oh, by the way, do you have a name for your planet?"
She hops out of the elevator.
"Oooooh, really like the colors! Will make it easy to get oriented, not that I need that but - you know - I like the idea."
"This planet's called homeworld! Something feels really honest about calling it that."
"And the colors are considered more to have decoration benefit than for navigation."
Near the end of the hallway, with doors on both sides, Lina opens a door to reveal a room. It's fairly narrow, but it manages to fit a wider than average bed and 2 desk, placed against opposite walls. The wall on the other side of the door looks like it's made of glass, but the view only shows another skyscraper that looks like it's covered in a black film material.
"So yes, this is the dorm."
"Ooooh, its spacey! Is there some kind of motorized blind? I think I'd like to take a nap, if there aren't urgent things to do..."
"It's a fixed polarization thing? Basically you can see through the window, but not another window. So you can see out, but not in to the apartment opposite yours. Make sense?"
"I... the filter works so light goes through 1 filter but is blocked by 2. I'm not good at science, but this place is built to let you learn so there are many books that talk about everything!"
"Nice!"
So, on the one hand, she is kinda exhausted by the whole... thing.
On the other hand! Science! Books! New technology!
It's a hard choice, but in the end a big yawn decides it for her.
"Of course! Sleeping when you want is important. It's good for your brainpower!"
So, on the one hand these are travel clothes and thus Dirty and she'd rather not sleep in them.
On the other hand she'd really love to nap Right About Now.
Yeah, no, she'll change out of them for the nap.
"I'd set up an alarm, but until I can find a way to charge my phone I should probably keep it off so it still has battery if for some reason I'd need it. Could you wake me up in... 40 minutes I guess?"
"I'll knock once that time has gone, OK?" She takes out her phone and taps a few buttons. "40 minutes starting now?" she asks.
"Yes, thank you!"
She says her farewells to Lina and, as soon as she's left, Bonnie locks the door, gets into her pajama as quickly as possible, and then flomps on the bed and quickly falls asleep.
There is a loud static, then a somewhat garbled voice says, very loudly:
"Wien. Nächster Halt: Wien."
Bluhrgh?
She jerks awake, and finds herself on the sleeper train, in her pajama, as it slowly rolls into Wien central station.
"Ausstieg in Fahrtrichtung rechts. Bitte beachten Sie den Spalt zwischen Zug und Bahnsteig. Sehr geehrte Fahrgäste, dieser Zug endet hier. Wir bitten Sie auszusteigen und verabschieden uns von Ihnen."
Was it all a dream? Well, no matter, she needs to get ready and get out of the train!
She changes into her day clothes, which are neatly folded haphazardly strewn on the seat next to her, then folds balls up her pajama, chucks it at the top of her bag and hurries out of the train.
This is - in fact - Wien!
She can tell, because it looks just like the pictures she saw online!
... the big blue sign with "Wien Hauptbahnhof" on it is also a decent clue.
She feels well rested, like... well, like she slept for the whole travel and just wake up.
Definitely not like she just fell asleep for a nap.
So it probably was a dream. Oh well, it was an interesting one! She hopes it's one of those dreams that recur, so she will be able to talk to those people again. They seemed kind!
Ok, priorities.
If there is a thing she learned from the dream is that... she missed her mum. She should probably text her, let her know that she's fine... and that she's sorry for not saying anything but just getting out of the house and leaving with just a note.
In her defense, if she had explained her plan her mum would have probably said no. Which. Uh. Maaaaaaybe she would have had a point?
She grabs her phone from the front pocket where she put it last night and -
She's sure she had put it in the front pocket, but it's not there. In the dream she had tossed it at the bottom of her clothes, because she didn't expect she'd need it, but that was a dream, right?
She checks there anyway, and... that's where she finds it.
"Ma!"
This makes no sense. If that was a dream, why is her phone underneath her clothes. The compartment was locked and nothing is missing anyway and who would even do that.
If it wasn't a dream, why is she here now? What was that?
She fell asleep in Italy, and woke up (or dreamed of waking up) somewhere else. She fell asleep (or dreamed of falling asleep) somewhere else and woke up in Austria.
She should probably... try to take a nap now and see what happens? But it's not safe to sleep in such a public place, with all her belongings there.
She could take the first train home, but then she would use up all her remaining savings, and not even get the chance to properly visit!
She should call her mum first.
As the train leaves the station she looks outside the window, the last light of day is about to lose its struggle with the night, and the lit up windows make her want to know each story, each life.
It's been a long day, and it doesn't take long until she dozes off...
Bonnie is interrupted by someone knocking. "It's been the 40 minutes?" a familiar voice says.
Well. This sure isn't the train.
She feels well rested, even though with all the world hopping (world! hopping! she has magical powers!!!) her circadian should be completely out of wack. It seems that her body internal clock runs... separately for either?
"Thank you! I will dress up and then maybe we can look into the next steps?"
"What do you want them to be?" Lina sounds both excited and inviting.
"Probably a phone! Do you have something like Wikipedia?"
Wait, the word would make no sense to them, would it?
"Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that anyone can read and modify for free, and it's built by people across the globe. There is one for each language. Oh. Uh. Would there be one for English? The language we're currently speaking, I mean."
"Yes, there is! And when it comes to phones, that's right. You get a phone, so you know how big it is and how big the pockets in your clothes should be. Do you think we should just... get started now?"
"Yes, please!"
She unlocks the door and steps out of the room, dressed in a fresh change of clothes.
Lina claps her hands. "Follow me to the elevator, and I'll take you all the way to the phone store!" She begins taking Bonnie back down, and to another subway with a train showing up right then that quickly zips her over to a store with a glass wall with a wide selection of phones, sorted by size, in front. Most of them are in an inoffensive white or gray color, but there are purples and reds with fascinating patterns too. "Which kind of phone do you think you'd like?"
"A fast one, ideally... my current one is" - whatever she could afford with what was left of the tutoring money - "a bit old."
"Size... not too big because I don't have big hands, but big enough to be able to read things on it? Oh, and ideally I prefer a big battery over a slim phone."
"You should go inside and look at them more closely!" Lina opens the door for Bonnie, before stepping in. She smiles at and greets the clerk.
She will look at the various phones, and instinctively look for the specifications if they have anything written next to them.
... which she can't read. Hopdammit.
"Can I... try using one? I don't know how to tell if they would be good for me? I guess I should probably go with a very cheap one and then get a better one when I know what to look for?"
"And, uh, I guess you wouldn't have one in English, would you?"
Their Wikipedia would also not be in English!!! That's tragic, she needs to learn the language as soon as she can, it is utterly unacceptable to have access to a whole new world's Wikipedia and to not be able to read it.
Wait, actually. If when she slips back (or sleeps back) to Earth she can bring objects with her then she should totally get two and give one to a scientist on Earth!
How does one... get things to a scientist, is unclear, but she's sure she'll figure it out!
They're super not going to believe her at the beginning. She would have sent an e-mail to Piero Angela, but... may he rest in peace. The CICAP probably still exists, right?
"...it might be a setting on the phones? It's one of the first things done after inventing a new language so it should have been done by now..." she quickly flips through one of the display models, rifles through menus (the phones have no animations which makes everything really sudden!) and finds out that English is an option!
"Oh, a less expensive kind of phone makes a lot of sense! After all, you have less saved up than most". She point to the big number under the small spec sheet placed under the phones. "And the cheap ones are still great of course!" Touching them, the phones have different, incredibly pleasant textures, like nice fabrics or soft fur.
Oh! They do have them in English! That's great. She won't even ask about Italian, that's even more improbable, and it's good practice anyway. As long as it doesn't show the dates wrong. Or the temperature in a weird scale.
The fur texture on a phone is weeeeeeird. Definitely not the fur one. A cloth texture seems better than the usual plastic on Earth, but she wonders: "Do the ones that feel like fabric get stains? On earth we usually use plastic, or metal, or glass, which are easy to clean."
"Oh, and how do you measure temperature?"
"No, they all clean out well, and they're even designed to make it easy to swap their cases if they get damaged or unfixably stained."
"Temperature works on an absolute, high-resolution scale. So it's zero when it's as cold as it's possible for things to be, and you get a fever when you're one whole degree too high. Which I really like, it feels correct and not arbitrary.."
So Kelvins, but with a human degree... Well, could be worse. At least it has the zero in a sensible place.
"Uh, interesting! We have zero at the temperature where water freezes, and one hundred where it boils. Less human, I guess, but still easy to remember. Other countries use a different system that's just weird, something to do with body temperature but then it's wrong so it's a different number or something. There are also Kelvins, which are still 100 degrees between freezing and boiling, but have the zero at the same point as your scale."
"Yeah, I think it's fine to get the cheaper phone, would that mean that I can afford two of them? It seems I might be able to move small objects between worlds, and if that's true it should be easy to get more money by selling things from one world into the other."
"Yes, you'd be able to buy two phones, but if you're planning to get money moving things from worlds, you're in no rush I'd think. So it's safer to start with just one like you need."
Hmmmm, she'd really like to get two now. But also, she's currently a guest, in a world and place she doesn't know, and doesn't feel like pushing too much against advice from someone who is local and in a position of somewhat authority.
She puts on a smile, which is even mostly genuine - she's curious about getting a phone. When she thinks about getting access to this world's Wikipedia, the smile widens.
"Makes sense, I guess. I can go with the cheapest model, probably, and then see what I actually need when I have a better idea." And then she'd have two. Ha! Her plan is flawless.
There are many small-screen models available, with a physical keyboard, reminiscent of "dumbphones" as they're commonly called. They look quite similar, and the cheapest one of those costs next to nothing even for Bonnie's meager savings.
Well ok, maybe not that cheap. How about the cheapest full-screen model? Can she reasonably afford that?
The cheapest full-screen model is about 50% more, but still easily within Bonnie's budget. And it still manages to be snappy and fast in use.
"I think I'll get that one. It's still cheap enough that I won't regret buying it if I want to change it later, but the big screen will be useful for reading. I expect I'll do a lot of reading!"
"Do you also sell connections to the network?"
"Well actually, it's not worth the hassle of selling them and doing all the paperwork, so you get connection for free. And it's built into the phone, we used to have to plug in special cards to join the network, but that isn't necessary today."
"Right, I'm so used to using it to pay for everything. Ahh." Lina walks up to the clerk. She pays for Bonnie's phone. "I think the next stop is getting to the police station, so you can get into the basic income program and start to be able to spend your own money."
"Yes, and then I'd like to sell some Euros, so I have some extra money for less important things."
Selling Euros, that's a funny idea.
"So we need to find an auction house, working with coins and bills, and it's going to take time before you get the money, and I don't know where they are... I'll find out how selling things work?"
Unfortunate, her plan to buy all the books will have to wait.
"Makes sense I guess. Thank you for helping..."
She follows as they make for the police station.
This time, another one is within OK walking distance. With the iris and fingerprint scanner to get into the money system easily available.
"I've seen you pay with the phone. Can I also set it up for that? Is it secure?"
"Yes, that's right. At the police station, they just take fingerprints and an iris scan. And it is extremely secure."
"What do they do with the fingerprints and iris scan? Are they stored somewhere?"
"Yes that's right, so we know that someone's fingerprints only get used once."
"I'm not sure what else you even worry that they might be used for? The whole money system is protected by the most honest and trustworthy people here!"
"I guess I'll need to trust you." She follows Lina's directions on how to set up the phone to accept her fingerprints.
She quickly explains the situation to the police officer, who brings out 2 electronic devices with 10 white buttons, and a webcam that looks into Bonnie's eyes. She just has to put her fingers on the buttons and look into the webcam. "When you're a baby, one of the adults gives you an account instead of you having to get scanned like this!"
"Well, it's good that you have a system for non-babies who want an account then!"
She'll try to look at any screens that she can while not being too obvious about it, she's super curious to see how their software works!
...there's a list with large tickmarks, showing that she has had her identity positively checked, but she hasn't had her fingerprints taken, eyes scanned, or Access Card handed over yet.
Simple, effective. Nice!
She's more a fan of denser interfaces, but can't deny the value of something that Does One Thing and Does It Well!
She tries to put all her fingers on the buttons at once. Just to see what happens.
Uh! Good job on making that work!
It shouldn't be a high bar, and yet...
She tries to take a close look at the webcam, in a way which is plausibly meant to make her iris scan possible.
And then the next check box about the iris scan gets marked and turns green, and the one under gets a circle around it to bring extra attention to it, causing whoever is running the computer to walk into a back room and give Bonnie a card before clicking on the last box at the bottom. The card has a holograph effect, where it shows a long mix of numbers and letters and a shorter combination of the two, but they're only visible if you look at them straight on.
Oooooooooooh, shinyyyyy!
She will totally get distracted looking at the holographic effect.
"Ok, so now how do I set up my phone to talk to the card?"
She tries tapping the card to the back of the phone.
Tapping the card does nothing. "You have to, ahh." She finds the app on her phone. "Input the account number on the card, which is longer. And the password, which is shorter. And you can start using your own money!"
Tap tap tap tap tap tap.
"I think the first thing I should do is give you back the money you paid for me so far, how do I do that?"
"Paying someone else money is in another menu in the app." She points at the right button. "I'll send you a request for all that you owe me, OK? You should see it in that pay someone else menu. And then you just click OK."
She waits for the request, then - after double checking that the number seems to have the right amount of zeroes - accepts the transfer.
This is good, she really doesn't like having debts. Even if in some ethical sense she probably owes something to the government, but that's not a person, it's fine.
And if her world hopping is consistent, she's sure she'll be able to pay it many times over.
"I want you to meet some of the other kids! I hope you'll think they're cool."
"I'd love that!"
She's feeling the urge to disappear into a local-wikipedia rabbit hole more and more, but getting to meet new people, see new things is managing to keep it at bay.
For now.
She has a lot of neighbors, in her part of the skyscraper. And they're all super-friendly to her! One of them, a girl, gives her a hug and tells her that she wants to be good at hugs, to help people in hospitals feel nicer. Another one asks her what food she likes, because she likes making food for other people. A boy shows off his foam sword to her, swinging it around, and there's another one showing her some bright, shiny, smooth metal parts for some kind of machine.
Huuuuuuuuuuuuug!!!
"You give good hugs! I'm sure you'll do great!"
"Oooh, I love to try new things, and I like almost anything except... very slimy things? Uncooked egg whites and the like. I can eat it if I need to now that I'm grown up, but it's very unpleasant. Beside that, surprise me!"
Foam sword is cute, makes her think of Zorro!
Ooooh, she should totally bring DVDs next time she sleepswaps over. And a portable DVD player. And a power source? Electricity is electricity, but who knows what voltage they use. A solar panel? But she would need Earth money for all that, and to get that she needs to probably move something to Earth to sell? This feels like a pile of fetch quests from a poorly padded game, but she will eventually get very rich from this. And then she will buy her mum a nice house, and she will be able to afford a month-long Interrail, and hostels and food around Europe.
"What does the machine do?"
The girl asking about food asks Bonnie if she has any allergies and finds chickpeas OK to eat. And the boy with the metal part explain that it's used in a robot arm, and they have a lot of robot arms. He wants to learn the way to make them, but now he's learning how to look at parts and see that they're made right, like the one he's holding. That one is totally right!
"Oh, I love chickpeas!"
She has no clue how to check for metal parts, but robots are cool! "Oh, I totally need to bring some Asimov over... probably the whole of it."
The girl smiles at Bonnie, before walking off to make the food, as the boy starts to explain the metal parts. "You swipe it in front of a laser scanner, and that sees that the size is right, and then you do a surface test by rubbing it against a special sensor. And then you look at it and see that it isn't cracked or damaged or dirty. Those kinds of things."
"Seems like important work! I think I'm more interested in how robots are programmed than how they're built, do you know anything about that?"
"Yes I do, I work with that too, but right now I'm more needed for checking the things they make. So I can find the app for robot programming and simulation if you want, and show you some things."
"If you have your phone?" The boy gets ready to explain how to move the end of the robot arm and moving the joints separately and how to use the simulation program to see how the arm would move and to make it stay away from anything that could be dangerous.
He quickly downloads the right app, not really explaining anything, before getting to a screen showing a robot arm in a white room. "See this?" He double-taps the end of the arm and drags it from point A to point B. Then he pushes a button to have the robot start moving forwards and backwards. "We try to have an extreme amount of simulation done first, before actually having a robot arm doing anything."
"Ooooh!"
Bonnie will try to understand how the app works, how the robot works, how everything works!
She's very enthusiastic, and it will be a while before she notices that other things exist outside of Learning New Things.
The menus are... dense and a bit cryptic, so it takes a bit for Bonnie to figure out how things work. Eventually she's interrupted by the girl coming back with fried chickpeas in a tomato sauce. They come in a squarish steel box with some cutlery. "I didn't make these any spicy to be sure they wouldn't end up too hot for you. Hope you enjoy them!"
Who dares disturb her Sciencing. Oh, it's the food girl! Whose name is... uh.
"Thank you, they smell amazing! I... didn't catch your name earlier?"
"We don't think much about people's names! We mostly just like being there and doing things for each other, and names often don't come up. My name is Lusamine. I'm currently doing a lot of work with cooking. I want everyone to be able to get tasty and healthy food even if they feel tired or don't have much energy."
Uh! That's probably one of the things about different cultures. Her mom would be disappointed at Bonnie not asking the girl's name, but maybe that's just how it works here.
"That's lovely! We often have frozen pizza when we're too tired, and don't get me wrong - pizza is pizza, but it's never as nice as the one in the restaurant."
"Oh dear, the freezing expands the water and destroys all the fine cells! I know there are people in certain situations that can only eat food that's been frozen, but I don't think people should have to do that when they have other people around that could do that for them."
"Well, we... didn't. Mum usually cooks, and sometimes I do, but if we're both tired there isn't someone who will do that for us. I mean, we do go to the restaurant from time to time, but you can't do that too often."
"Cook how? With what? And can't you just go to the restaurant on your way back from work or school or something? If you're in one of those places that doesn't have good robot delivery like here."
"Cook... normally? With pots and pans on the gas stove? I know some people have electric ones, but they're more expensive..."
"We don't have any robot delivery at all, and yes we could go to the restaurant, but it's expensive, you can't go every day unless you're rich!"
"You have a kitchen just in your house? Why would you have one unless you really, really wanted to cook all the time? Kitchens aren't cheap you know, all that extra construction and stuff gets shockingly expensive!"
"Y'all don't? Everyone in Italy has a kitchen in their house, how would they eat otherwise? And we usually cook two times per day, lunch and dinner, unless we're going somewhere. I can believe kitchens are not cheap, but restaurants are very expensive too! So in the long run, it just makes sense to cook at home!"
"Everyone getting an entire kitchen just for themselves is a lot of money on something that doesn't get that much use, if the only people they're making food for are themselves. And the time spent cooking food for just a few people... you'd have to really like cooking, I think."
"I mean, it gets used every day? Eeeeh, it's fine. I don't love cooking, but I can do a lot of different recipes, and sometimes we experiment! The results are mostly good - except for the first time we tried doing lemon pasta." She shudders at the memory. "Second time was nice though!"
"It gets used every day, but how many times? The kitchen at my job makes thousands of meals every day, and it's just a few of us working there. And the food is better when it's made by an expert!"
"I mean, two or three? Depending if you go for warm milk or tea in the morning... but I guess you'd only need a microwave or kettle for those."
"See, the thing is, I can see your point. And yet a house without a kitchen feels... weird? Like it's missing something. And what do you do if you want to eat but it's too late and the restaurants are closed?"
"The restaurants aren't closed, there's always somewhere that's open. Do you eat a lot of proper dinners in the middle of the night, or can you make do with something simpler?"
"Well, usually something simpler, but you never know... wait, did you say that the restaurants aren't closed? But surely they will close at some point during the night?"
"Is there really that much point? Lots of people work when it's late, so you'd want to be open for them, and a lot of things take a long time to make so you need to have the restaurant running to make those."
"I guess... I think it's just a culture very different from mine. I'm always fascinated by different ways of doing things but I had never met one so different in person before, and I confess I'm still weirded out by the idea of not having a kitchen. I see why it makes sense for you! It's just that I've lived all my life in a culture where home cooking is very important, and food and eating together is considered almost sacred. My family has a rule that no one can get up from the table until everyone is done with their meal."
"Do you have regional dishes? If so, what's your favorite from here and from elsewhere?"
"There's this great fried fish with soy sauce I like a lot, actually? That many other people don't like."
"Oh, I'm not super into fish unfortunately. When I was younger I thought I couldn't eat it, so I never really got into it. But soy sauce sounds interesting, I don't think I've ever tried it actually?"
"It's a box with trained insects that can smell an illness. When they do, they turn on an indicator light so you can know which illness you have. You could leave them at the entrance to a hospital, to give one example, and it'd work to test anyone on their way in."
"That's really neat! We have some tests, but they use some... chemicals I believe? I actually don't know, but I'm pretty sure it's not insects. And yes, I should probably use one of those boxes."
"I'll call one over super-fast, so we can see what it is." She uses her phone, and it takes 20 minutes for it to arrive. It's a small box with 2 rows of lights. "Just kind of keep it close to you, and something should light up based on which illness you have." She hands it over to Bonnie, but none of the lights turn on. "They can smell soap too, so we can test that the machine is working." She walks around awkwardly before finding a small bar of soap. One of the lights do turn on. "Oh dear... it looks like you have something we don't see a lot."
"I... don't feel horribly, I can probably just wait it out? But if you don't see it often I don't want to infect everyone..."
"Oh. Oh I probably did infect everyone I got in contact with, didn't I?"
"Most illnesses aren't that infectious! We can stop it and fix it fast, don't worry! We uh. Like the challenge of stopping illnesses!"
"Well that's good. Should we... call a doctor?"
"Would I need medical insurance like in America?"
"I think it'll be safe if you stay here for now, there are lots of great guides so a doctor wouldn't be needed. Also you don't need insurance, people with basic income get health and disability insurance that they'd have to choose to sell!"
"I'll trust you. Can I have some broth? Ooooh, I really hope the disease doesn't move between worlds with me! That would be bad..."
"Certainly. Actually..." she shows Bonnie on her phone that finding an app and typing in what she wants lets her see a huge selection of food available for delivery, including chicken soups meant to help with her being sick.
Soup! Soup is good! Can she have croutons with it? Not the best with being sick, but on the other hand - croutons.
There are crouton options, though fewer of them. The soups all have weird new names that she doesn't know the meaning of... as well as tomato soup, mushroom soup and onion soup.
Onion soup??? That's wild!!!
She goes for the onion soup. New things are always a good choice.
The soup also gets to her incredibly quick, in a tin can even! It tastes... very salt and sharp and a bit sweet too. It's different and hard to say if it's good.
Oh, that's a bit too salty. But it's different, and different is good! She'll eat the soup as fast as possible and almost but not quite succeed in not burning her tongue.
"I think I should sleep early... I know I've already took a nap but it's been an intense day and I'm also sick... I really hope I haven't infected everyone!"
"Rest up, Bonnie! I'll call up the people to take you somewhere where everyone can be safer with you quarantined."
Bonnie is still a bit bleary from waking up at six something in the morning, but! Not sick!
This is really good, she was so scared she'd keep brining pathogens back and forth between worlds! That would be tragic and drastically reduce her ability to make a difference!
It's still early morning, she has the full day ahead of her. She should take it slowly but probably try and cram as much interplanetarily relevant stuff in her backpack as feasible now that she doesn't need it for travelling reasons. And - counter-intuitively - not take a nap if possible.
But first: home! The 6:24 is very unlikely - unless it's late - but there should be another 4 at 6:39.
So.
Ideally she'd want to bring as much stuff as possible, but that requires money she currently doesn't have because she spent almost all of it on her travel. She's also probably going to be grounded for several decades at least a day.
She can definitely charge her phone and load The Whole Of Wikipedia on it, then - does she still have her otherworld phone? No, it was on her nightstand. Very silly of her, it would have been some kind of proof that she can communicate with the other world - she totally needs a better name for it.
Bonnie can definitely put some of the books she's less attached to in her bag, fully charge her power bank and try to remember also grabbing it, what else?
Probably some stable food? They seemed to have different cooking traditions, so it's probably worth it to exchange.
Oh, her English book from middle school! It's structured for learning, so it will be super useful to teach it to other people. Actually, a book about Italian for foreigners would be more helpful but she doesn't have that.
By the time she's falling asleep her backpack is packed full. She has told the full story to her mum who still grounded her for one week. And didn't really believe her, Bonnie thinks, but still allowed her to "borrow" several kilos of canned food, with the promise she'd return it to the pantry when done "playing" with it.
She wakes up and she's feeling...
...similar to how she did yesterday. There are 2 small boxes in her room, one of them with a light glowing red. "So we used that to take some tests of you, and it says you have an illness we don't have here. We think it'd... be better if you were taken somewhere where there aren't a bunch of children around, to be sure it doesn't spread. And to have this mask on!" Lusamine is wearing a transparent face mask, and she hands over a paper mask to Bonnie. "There'll be a car coming over fast. You might want to ask me some questions about how things work, because I know how new this place is to you." She seems... strangely giddy.
