"Oh, I'm hoping to not have to explain it to you any further, but bacteria and viruses can be a problem, and we take extreme care to keep babies as clean and pathogen-free as possible. So you'll have to wait for the special protective gear to show up before being allowed to walk into the room with all the babies in it. But you're free to sit down in the hospital lobby instead."

"A lobby is?"

"A place near the entrance that's perfect for people waiting for things happen."

Eventually, the city shows up. Even in the outskirts, there are skyscrapers dozens of stories high, rising out from the immaculate grass and beautiful ponds stretching out at the city limits. It takes maybe 15 minutes of fast driving before appearing outside of a huge building, the size of several city blocks put together. There are walls of beautiful greenery and plants, stretching all along the sides of the skyscrapers around it, and the roof of the building stretches into the sky. The car stops a few blocks away, in near-empty streets narrow enough for 2 cars to barely fit side by side. The white and grey exteriors of the buildings, combined with the featureless walls, creates a sensation of being in a maze.

"The lobby entrance is the green door on the huge building that you'll see if you walk straight ahead. I'll call the necessary people so you can get to sleep inside the nursery room near the top of the building; the woman working behind the counter will tell you when everything's ready and you can start making your way up."

"Okay. Is there food? I can also sleep in the lobby." But protective gear might help against a gaseous mal.

"... yes, there is food. Also, there might not be enough people at the lobby, and we don't want people sleeping where there are people walking around, like in the lobby. We'd honestly prefer you sleeping in the room with all the babies."

"Okay."

"Well, I'll be making a few calls to get sleeping bags and blankets and protective equipment. You won't have to wait long, trust me."

The driver opens the sliding door.

"You'll probably not want to wait in the car; it wasn't designed to be a pleasant place to wait."

"It's a very nice car." But he'll get out and head for the building, it's probably a social cue.

Eventually, there's a green-painted door, that slides away as Ibrahim approaches, revealing a welcoming and pleasant room. There are children playing and having fun, and there are many round patches on the floor, rugs of artificial grass or something that feels like hot sand, designed to feel nice for your feet. There are mothers and fathers waiting with kids on their laps, and one man with a broken arm breathing slowly and deliberately through what looks like a very compact flute, connected to a very thin hose. The benches and chairs that people sit on consist of a thin layer of mesh fabric over a metal frame, and people sit fairly spaced out from each other.

This does not seem like how a hospital lobby is supposed to work, but he's a kid in what's probably a hostile dreamscape, what does he know. He doesn't want to interact with the thing that seems like hot sand.

He'll take a seat and wait.

Eventually, after a few other people have started walking over to their appointment from the lobby, a nurse walks over and talks to Ibrahim, perhaps 30 minutes later. "I was told that you asked to sleep in the hospital nursery for your safety, and that you'd need to wear protective equipment before showing up to the babies' room? I'll help you with that; please follow me to get properly dressed, and then you can start to set up a place to sleep for the night, with a proper sleeping bag and some blankets."

He'll … he won't nod, he's in a very foreign place where nobody knows what America is. "Yes." And he'll get up and follow her.

Eventually, Ibrahim gets led to a door with a drawing of a shower head on it. The nurse quietly opens the door, revealing a nice and spacious bathroom, with a shower and a counter filled with many different brands of soap, in thin, individually packaged slices. There's some sort of grey, plasticky bodysuit on the counter, that even has a hood to cover the back of Ibrahim's head, next to a pair of plastic gloves,  together with a mask connected with a hose to a small plastic box. It fits fine, but the gloves are a bit too small. The mask somehow blows a gentle stream of air in front of Ibrahim's face.

Aaaaaand he doesn't have a shower buddy. Great. At least amphisbaena shouldn't have had reason to infest the pipes.

"Should I?" And he'll gesture at the shower.

"We think the bodysuit is sufficient, although you're free to have a shower if you wish."

Smelling bad is bad for diplomacy and he probably smells bad compared to a bunch of mundies who can shower every day with storebought soap if they feel like it. …but he doesn't have soap and mundies like having privacy when they shower so it'll probably be a whole thing. He will put on the bodysuit. And probably ask for instructions during. Is it supposed to go over his clothes or replace them?

"Ahh, right. We probably need to explain things better; we thomassians often face problems with forgetting that other people haven't thought of what we have! You're supposed to wear it with just your not-to-be-seen underwear. You unzip it, and then you step in with the legs first, and then you pull it up. Then you have to put on the blowing mask, and if you can feel the breeze, that means it's working properly."

Are we really doing this … yes, we are, we need to be safety-conscious, these are the Thomassian's kids. "I do not know if my underwear is the kind of underwear the suit wants."

"... Oh. It's just a stupid fashion and formal-etiquette-nobody-really-pays-attention-to thing, you can actually wear any kind of underwear you want with the suit and it'll still work fine!"

"Okay."

And he'll change clothes. If there's some modesty divider or curtain he'll step behind it but if not he'll just start getting undressed.

The nurse, realizing that Ibrahim wants privacy, walks out of the bathroom without saying anything.

Want is a strong word. He mostly wants to behave in a socially appropriate manner and assumes the nurse doesn't want to see him. He'll put the suit on and put his clothes in the backpack. …he probably shouldn't wear the pauldron over this, ward anchor or no. He'll keep his knife at hand but he's probably going to have to let go of it soon. And he'll reflexively refill his water bottle while there's a sink, and exit wearing the outfit and his backpack and holding a sheathed knife, if he can't get it into a pocket or clip the sheath to a loop or such.

The outfit doesn't have any pockets or loops whatsoever.

"Is the knife, ah, holy for you? You can keep it, we just think it looks like it's kind of cumbersome and uncomfortable. I'd be quite uncomfortable holding a knife and walking around with it, even if it's sheathed. If nothing else."

"What is 'holy'? I want to hold the knife."

"It's really hard to explain what makes something holy to someone who hasn't heard of the idea before! Ahh, innately valuable for supernatural reasons? And yep, you can keep it if that's what you want. I'm not going to insult your intelligence by telling you to be careful with it around all the babies. Anyway, follow me."

She walks through a corridor, waiting as an oversized elevator opens up. She walks in, and it rapidly starts heading up many, many floors, before leading into a truly massive room. It has a wide window, with one person waiting behind the window while looking at a screen, and a few people dressed like Ibrahim patrolling the dozens and dozens of huge, widely-spaced cribs, changing, feeding and comforting babies. They're followed by small cargo robots driving around on wheels, carrying any baby supplies they need.