…Huh, so it's not everyone doing the costume thing. Are the others recogniseable animals? Are they all animals, or are there other types of costumes, by the way. …More people gathering, or had they missed everyone being there already? Are the people doing that for anything, that they can tell?

(They're not going to have the guess that it's the time of day that might matter. …Won't notice the gender of the kids, either. What's a 'gender' and can you eat it? Does confirm people here look human, though. — or, no, they must also have seen some earlier, through the school windows, just forgot. A moment of annoyance — no, their priorities were fine, they do not in fact have infinite attentional capacity yet —)

"…no, wait, I'm still confused. Terrifying capability of your registering-people organisations aside, how can you be sure it's-" Wait, maybe they are not sure, or sure wrongly. "-anyway, what does lead you to think I'm not just from an isolated community someplace? One you maybe wouldn't even know about, maybe a horrible one that doesn't let people out or to talk to external people at all? Or if someone raised a child in secret and didn't register them, I'd expect people to try that at some point."

"Well, if you were how could you have gotten here? You'd need money and an account to buy a ticket with, and if you were from a secret cult they'd not let you get that? You can live an entire life in secret, and never let any person with an account or know about you or your baby or spend money on anything and never give your baby the chance to do that and give up all the money you're given on the baby's behalf so you're not in the system because you want that for some reason or another."

"Is that the case with you?"

"No! No," they trail off, stare into the distance for a second again, "fair enough. …Well, not as far as I know, anyway. I've read books written on other continents, and I've seen maps, even aerial photos, and I've never had anyone try to stop me from changing cities… That'd be a bizarre amount of effort put into it, when it works plenty just to say that everyone else's lying to you. If you say it to someone sleep-deprived enough." They'd read a series of testimonials about that, at some point.

…Euh, I feel like- wait, I could just say it— "…I feel like we're going in circles about something, here. Can we skip that? I'm going to stop asking this endless question, and we'll just- accept our intuitions differ and talk about something else." How much weight should they put on their own intuition versus their interlocutor's surety — maybe later, once they know more specifics, instead of tweaking a vague guess. "I'm sure you want something out of the interaction." So do they? But, yes, also uncomfortable not to know what. And they break off whatever eye contact they'd reestablished to emphasize that last sentence, and look around enjoying the view.

A train not much wider than a car rolls past, stopping silently. A slight smell of a running diesel engine can barely be felt in the air as it gets going again.

"Something else like that! Ahahaa-" They almost jump at noticing, certainly they stand up. Do a clumsy dancey twirl, which makes them pay attention to what the ground's like, dirt if it's dirt pavement if there's pavement- and, oh look at that, that's so narrow! Somehow they'd gotten it into their head that longer-haul trains are enormous, towering things. Maybe it's because they'd last seen one as a child… but it is a very different place, pretty much no matter what the explanation for how… (Does it have windows where they can see, or is it mostly freight wagons? If it does, if it's passenger, does anyone come out during the stop?)

The person in the fursuit looks at the stranger in confusion over overexcitedly jumping around. The ground is mostly dirt, with a path of stone between the houses. The train has windows, and each train car has two benches facing each other, with a few people sitting across from each other, all of them driving past rather than stopping.

They keep staring in the direction where the train went, but slow down. "Uh, I just-" Do you want to be apologetic? No, it's just, what else- ah, one meta-level up, I have that worked out, self-awareness is neat and hot! "Ah, I'm doing the excitement on purpose! I've found it starts faster there, and not with specific questions I'd like to show interest in… I can tone it down if you'd like." By which I mean, ask you to do the talking, depending on how much down… :) "But, for example, how do your trains do tickets? Where I've lived there's usually a ticket booth by every station, and you either buy a paper ticket right before the trip, or a pass for some number of days. Some places that's contiguous days, but Isohedral and its environs decided to do a more flexible thing, not sure how that's working out for them…"

"…uh. I assume you'd tell me if you burningly want something else from me or to know. Do tell, I'm starting to notice a quietly different conversational etiquette, so I'm not sure you would." Aliens are! Psychologically alien! Though maybe this person's just like that, that's also possible, or the place's culture happens to be, but that's an odd-feeling lack of catching conversational hooks they'd thrown and excitedly elaborating on them, for someone on their day off… Well, maybe they're inexplicably bad at that today, that happens.

(…At some point they ought start figuring out life logistics, what this person's offer of housing them for some time means, what other options they have, jobs— or whether they could qualify for the basic income, and so on. I see how that feels awkward to bring up without first succeeding at an interesting side-conversation, but it is important, even if you have still not in an hour? Yes, yes, okay, that makes sense, just, they are relying on their goodwill here, for a pretty large favour… (reflexively) An average person is like you, would you renege on it in their place — no, wait, this is not known true here. That they offered is evidence that they wanted to offer, but go on, your social intuition is sometimes right and this is cheap for now.)

"...you're not being efficient or restrained, like I'm used to and like. Also on trains here, we trust you to not take a train you can't ride on and the driver can quickly run down the train and see that everyone has a right-color ticket, or there's a camera in the train and you show it you have a ticket when you step on. If we feel the need to check. And sometimes there's someone selling you a ticket on the train itself, but I think maybe the driver checks your ticket at the front of the train if there are very few people getting on board. So that's how they'd do it here. Or trust people, if they're in a rush and don't want to waste the driver's time."

Huh, okay. 'Efficient or restrained'… restrained from what, I say! "Restrained from what? But, okay, makes sense." Still, can do. :) (A trace of that grin shows on their face somewhat.) Oh, that's fascinating, though, they're rarely in a situation where that's something people prefer unambiguously, and not just easier for themselves to work with… "That is neat, that you can also trust people sometimes. And, hey, you colour-code them, I've never seen that!- Sorry, sorry," set that aside, hold out a mental hand, could you —

— do I want to be here? — yes — right. Gather up the context of the last several minutes, did their actions make sense, what does it mean for my intentions now?
…nod at it, move on… the notebooks exist……
…hold on, I think I contradicted myself. (aaahh- a brief glance at it, and set it aside.) Do I expect your trying to be interesting to make this person more willing to help them, or not? Well, not anymore now that I know they expect 'efficient', but. Hold the two vague memories up against each other — worrying while trying your best would of course not, but specific choices might? (Not quite all and only 'choices', but I know what I mean.) …I do think I was either wrong, or not yet aware of how different to expect the place to be, to think that a person who stops helping because they get bored is very rare, or wrong more recently that it was plausible. — anyway, what if they character-model the person in front of them (exactly, the person in front of them, like I'd mentioned!), seems truer than going with either guess.

What do they look like they want. (…for the concerning stranger to be all right, seems obvious and likely now, otherwise would bother them.) What do I want — well, the above, figuring out life logistics, and learning about this place — planet? To learn partly to be more sure around that — seems aligned on 'ask what they most need to know to set up here, in the amount of detail they need it', so far? …they have been sitting here quietly for several seconds now, social intuition dislikes that — no, I think this is fine, the intuition was wrong in a similar way just recently —

— has the other person said anything? And start composing their question anyway. (They had looked abruptly lost in thought, for the several seconds, but they've stopped averting their eyes and their posture changed, a bit like it was earlier. They're not waiting long, just enough to come up with a phrasing.)

People are allowed to be quiet and think for a few seconds. Whoever is in that suit is happy to let the silence continue.

In a few seconds: "Could you go for me over the steps I would need to take to eventually stably live — somewhere in this society?" UM SOCIAL …no? This is — at least, close to my best guess about how this person would prefer the conversation goes? …there is a thing that fits the social-intuition that I would also genuinely like to know, though. "…And what they would take on your part, if anything." (So that, to the degree they do prefer not to bother this person, they would prioritize by something closer to the person's actual constraints. — and preferences? — yes, they will probably hear something about those.)

"You need money, that means basic income, go to a police station and they take all your biometrics so you can't register twice to scam them... you'll have to drive there I think. I know someone who can drive, they'd be delighted to take you. Then with that you buy a share in a place to live. And then use your money to eat and pay for necessities? I do actually think that'd be everything, what more could you need to stably live?"

Very — systematic, again — or, not quite, but the certainty that this would definitely all work? (Hold this, the certainty may be wrong.) They… had heard of any organizations which onboard newcomers to cities, and which are probably more used to people without any social contacts or accessible history showing up, but I expect people still slip through the cracks. Most people they know (knew?) who could, got jobs, or formed a pair or triad to be their interesting-person within — which always felt somewhat horrifying to me, even though they would still have a third or so of their time or effort with which to pursue their own aims…

(— a mental note, another person they could later talk to, though chosen by this one —)

"Mhm, thank you." Speaking of, "Would it be a problem that I appeared out of thin air this morning, if I did?"

"No, not at all! We respect people's privacy beyond what's needed to give them their basic income, other government services, and what they need to be full parts of society, so to speak."

Okay, at least they have the concept here, though with different connotations, and convincingly enough that a presumably random person believes in it. (If they do, and if they are relevantly random.) — wait, this is surprising to think, I had not noticed myself caring about being-known for its own sake, though you do any — what is their actual threat model?

That — they might want to do something a local infrastructure organisation dislikes, in a year, or some group with the capacity for violence against them if those exist, and I would like not to make its job of finding them easier.

Right, then, what can I ask that would tell me anything relevant? 'What do people need to be full parts of society, according to this system?' — no, the answer would probably not be very new, this is basically the same as 'buy a share in a place to live, (…) eat and pay for necessities'. Though, what is considered necessities — ask that later? 'How detailed are the biometrics' — this is not quite what interests me? I would like to know who could identify them against their will, and how known their movements would be to whom. All right, then, found it: "Who can access which parts of the databases? Is registering reversible?" (With an actually hostile other party, if the data is out there, then it is, but sometimes one can trust a system to actually delete something when requested. And I am not certain cryptography can in no way help ensure this, though probably not.*) !! — "And what is stored about people, exactly?"

(This time the pause is noticeable again, about a minute or two.)

* Certified deletion is an idea that exists, but only possible in quantum cryptography; they haven't read enough about either of classical or quantum to have solid intuitions here.

"People can know that someone has money and has gone through certain background checks, but they can't know much about who that was. The database is visible to the world. Your account number, and the money moving around can be seen, but there's no way to prove that the account number belongs to someone unless they use it for something right in front of your face, or you more or less already know how much money they make and spend. This only counts for people with accounts given at birth; if you make a new one with biometrics, the police know that the account is linked to a certain person by their specific biometrics."

(It catches up with their character-modelling that their interlocutor would probably be horrified at their taking the possibility seriously, if they are not misreading them. Which — would mean something about the shape of this society, or this person's position within it — in the Village of Tranquillity it would instead look suspicious, from what they heard… …So, the thing is, probably no one cares, right? And probably they're not enforcing anything sinister at all, not just with too little manpower and other resources spent for it to make sense to notice them. Except they don't know, they don't know how much manpower! Fifteen billion people, what- no, wait, should be proportionate, that's also who'd be monitored- Anyway, it pays to be prepared, doesn't it? You do not have to justify yourself to them? If you mention this out loud and this person has an argument why this is too unlikely, I will listen.)

"Are there other ways to — anchor — a new account in adulthood?" (That part is quick, they've already been thinking it for a while.) "What happens when a person moves to a faraway part of the world, are the databases connected- Actually, is there anything like an internet here where I could look this up? That would be both more reliable," less dependent on this person's incidental knowledge, if they succeed at finding the data-collecting organization's official page on this, which — this feels like the kind of society where there would be one, "and probably less tedious for you." (— does that last part square with considering the person in front of them, or did they slide back into their default politeness script — yes, it does, 'wants the concerning stranger to be all right' and 'finds them an interesting surprise' does not imply willlingness to answer every question personally, in the detail I would prefer to know the answer.)