Close quarters and narrow alleys make him ponder the traffic he is part of and apart from. The phrase 'mostly human ' enters his mind. The mostly human crowd is composed of individuals that are mostly human, certain percentages of their body mass replaced with various synplants. Tourlough himself is in this category. Unlike most, more than 95 percent of him is the same rootstock species naturally selected on the endless plains of Earth.
Not so with Anthoids, the name itself alluding to a 'flowering of the human experience. ' Each body is …show more content…
Male versions range from lithe and effeminate to grotesque and monsterous. Some are ancient myths made real with modern technology: vampires, Hindu gods, and angels walking among us on their way to lunch.
Mechs assemble and reassemble into myriad form factors that fly, roll, walk, or locomote in other ways down these same corridors. Some are synthetically intelligent with legal status, others have simple virtual intelligence or are telepathically controlled like anthoids.
Walking contentedly, Tourlough is aware of the many small movements he and others in this exquisitely anachronistic passage make as humans, anthoids, and mechs push past each other toward countless …show more content…
Workers off work, relaxing and imbibing. A few throwing darts and marking their gaming progress on authentic chalk boards. Although hundreds of years ago the darts didn’t contain integral safety mechanisms that exclude the possibility of bodily injury.
It 's difficult to extend the illusion of Vicky 's repressed era to the blue-skinned, four-armed female with active tattoos, multispectral glyphs aglow and moving. There are also games people play invisibly unless you share their augmented settings. To say nothing of people sitting motionless, attending to matters of some unreal world.
His appointment arrives, a middleman of sorts, standing just outside the pub 's perimeter. His bespoke frock a sartorial statement, letting it be known that he is not beholden to the powers that be. He has Cartel patrons, but fancies himself an independent. More accurately a liaison between patrons and artisans.
Tourlough sits stoically as the Middleman performs tedious security scans. Looking for sprites and other intrusive ware. The predictable active EM scans from his upgraded eyes, and undetectable observation of wavelengths, from terahertz to microhertz, depending on his particular