The guide she worked with when she was here in 2033 moved to New Zealand, so she went over the list of professional guides with public backlashes in the city and picked out several who seemed like they might be compatible with her and scheduled quick checks with all of them before her first meeting with the clients. One of them (a friendly-but-professional woman) was a decent bit better than the others, and so Causal Web is on the way to her silo now.

She's re-reading the preliminary report she was given in that meeting when the car chimes to warn her that she's arrived. Very well. She slides the file back into her day bag, exits the car, and knocks on the appropriate door.

A few seconds later, Emily answers it. "Hello, Causal Web! Please come in. How do you do?"

She steps back to let her into the building, a half-duplex. Near the entrance is a small table for them to sit at.

Causal Web puts on her friendly face for a greeting, then Emily into the room and and joins her at the table, pulling a few sheets of paper out of her briefcase as she does. "Do you mind if we get right to business?" 

"Not at all!" 

"Alright. I'd like to start with the NDA, then, since you mentioned being ok with it via email." She has a pen for Emily to use. 

It's a contract been Emily Jackson and Pemberton Media, and obliges her to not share any information she might pick up about their private affairs while working with the contractor "Causal Web" over the course of the work. (Sharp penalty clause, but otherwise pretty standard stuff, which is what Causal Web told her to expect.)

She reads through it, line by line but not particularly slowly, and finds nothing unexpected or objectionable. She signs and dates in the appropriate locations.

(She works on something on her commscreen while she waits for Emily to finish reading and signing.)

"Thank you!" She collects the contract, scans it with her commscreen, then puts it back in her briefcase. 

"Alright. I'd like to go over guiding protocol and boundaries now, if that works for you, and then we can get started." 

(She glances at the commscreen, but without great curiosity, and doesn't comment.)

"Yes, that works for me."

(Since she hadn't signed the NDA while signing the NDA, she would have seen Causal Web scrolling through an unfamiliar newsfeed interface in the holographic UI at a pace that implies a slightly alarming skim-reading rate.)

"Broadly, I'm looking for contact guiding (with as little clothing as is acceptable to you, though I'll remain in underwear) while I use my power and that plus any amount of mouth to mouth guiding you're comfortable with doing while I'm recovering from using my power." She pauses for questions and responses. 

She nods. "I can do contact in underwear," nudity doesn't make enough difference in surface area to be worth not matching the other party, without sex, "and I am comfortable with mouth to mouth guiding."

Okay, good. "My backlash can make it hard for me to be proactive, so if you're willing to take the initiative to start more intense guiding on a signal, that'd be helpful to me. And if you want to pick up some amount of backlash to guide me more efficiently, I would appreciate it and will pay you up to 30% more; I probably won't be able to meaningfully help you with actively managing your own backlash symptoms but if there are things that passively help you or that I should be trying to avoid, let me know." 

"I can take that initiative, given a signal to look for in advance. And yes, I'm willing to pick up backlash for better efficiency. I do this by telekinetically moving small objects nearby; by default, I use a mix of folding paper into shapes and moving marbles around the room, but if either the noise or the movement would be distracting, I can skip either, or move something more subtly."

She pauses to consider. "Given the non-disclosure agreement, it will be fine regardless, but it would be easier if you can avoid actively discussing your analysis with me, such that I should consider it and respond? Separately from working on it or discussing it in front of me."

"Movement and low-signal noise won't bother me. If you want to listen to music that is lyricless and at a comfortable volume, that's also fine with me - if you're watching something with dialogue it'd be better for me if you use headphones."

And she nods at the request. "I can do that, yes. I may make phone calls while being guided but i don't need to think out loud and I am paying you for professional guiding, not for consulting help."

"Thank you. And it sounds like looking at things on my phone on silent wouldn't be an issue, if I angle the screen so it's not in view? If so, I think that's everything on my end."

She nods. "That's fine - and if it's more convenient for you to have screen in view, it won't distract me and I probably won't look at it."  Pause. "Alright. I'm ready to get started if you are. Where do you want to do this?"

"I have a room set up, over this way." She stands to lead her to it, pausing at the door to show Causal Web a device on its knob. "This door won't be electronically locked today, but the exterior door will be while I'm backlashed, and it has the same mechanism; if you need to leave unexpectedly, you can press this button—" she demonstrates (it's a mechanical button, labeled "I am not Emily."), "—and it will let you out."

Inside is a room with plain grey walls, with a bed pressed into one corner and a sofa and desk against the opposite wall. There is a partial case of water bottles next to each. The window has another lock, and its glass is covered in opaque white plastic.

"Then in here, we can use the bed if you'd like to lie down, or the sofa if you'd rather be sat at a desk?"

Followfollow inspect the door mechanism nodnod. (Right, she'd want to contain herself while backlashed. That makes sense.) 

She looks at both offered guiding locations. "Bed seems better to me, at least for now. I don't need a desk to work." 

She removes her jacket and folds it neatly, setting it on the couch. Underneath it she's wearing a sleeveless (blue, fancy and very well-fitting) summer dress.

"The bed it is! Oh, what signal should I be looking for, to initiate more active guiding?"

She goes to sit on one side of the bed and take a stack of paper and some flat marbles out of the nightstand to its top, along with her phone from her pocket, then starts removing clothes and folding them into the nightstand's cubby.

"I'll say done using my power, or something similar." And she can remove her dress and bra, put them both on the couch, and joins Emily at the bed.

She makes sure her briefcase is in easy reach, and withdraws from it a plastic bag full of smaller objects in their own plastic bags - a small notepad mostly filled with doodles, a thumb drive, two halves of a pencil, and a cell phone with a cracked screen.

"Got it!" She retrieves her phone, sends the doors the signal that she's going to pick up backlash, and climbs into bed, ready to provide contact in whichever position Causal Web prefers.

Causal Web situations herself on the bed and indicates with a combination of words and body language that she wants to be held from behind so her hands are free and can reach her odd assortment of items, three of which she's put onto the nightstand.

And she is now held in this manner! Emily adjusts her own position until she is in one that can be maintained a while without issue, with a decently good maximization of skin contact and an okay angle to use a phone's screen one-handed, then holds still.

Causal Web moves around a bit as well, making sure none of the small bruises on her right arm are under too much pressure and shifting so that she's positioned such that Emily can be touching as much of it as possible. (The guiding feels good, of course, but she's got a lot of experience in not letting that distract her from what she actually considers important.)

"I expect to take somewhere between five and twenty minutes each time I use my power. If you urgently need my attention while that's happening, you should shake me until I snap out of it. Let me know when you're ready for me to begin." 

"Understood. I'm ready."

Then she'll open up one of the plastic bags, extract both halves of the broken pencil within, and using them as an anchor, reach into the past.

(This doesn't look like anything, of course, but Emily can feel Causal Web's backlash start ticking upwards, easily outpacing the guiding she's providing.)