"Well, yes. There's the temperature, and the angle and position of the bidet, and the sensor sensitivity. You'd ideally want everything custom-aimed for you, right?

Re-enactors would be beyond fascinated to see a person from the types of time they were re-enacting, they would be utterly amazed at seeing you!

If you're not good with children, then innkeeper and library assistant are jobs you can easily start doing without too much difficulty. If you like a job where you have to know lots of things or ensure that things are organized and people have their needs met, I think that your best chance would be doing support work for local governments. They have tons of logistics needs and you learn new things all the time."

"...custom-aimed?" she replies, with some trepidation.

She looks much more interested in the list of careers. "I think I would love to do support work for local governments, if I can scrape together enough context to actually be useful."

"Well, yes. We're a bit obsessed with cleanliness, ahem, in that hard-to-reach area. So a bidet that's targeted doesn't splash unnecessary water, whilst being even more hygienic. Especially women make that a priority, due to the nicer kinds of underwear they use more often.

I don't have much context myself! But if you spend enough time reading reports and keeping up with affairs, you'll end up in a really fantastic position to do all kinds of support work."

"I'm assuming Mr H can direct me to appropriate sources of reports and news?

Uh, is there some kind of, instructional pamphlet that this thing comes with?"

"Pamphlets are on your phone!" He taps away, finding a guide on how to aim the retracting and recoiling "snake" that emerges from a hole inside the toilet's tank (it folds away and self-cleans! To make sure it never gets anything on it.) It's a bit over-elaborate; there's a simple remote that comes with the toilet, although it's more convenient to use a phone app. The correct position is fairly close (don't forget, it hides away when not in use), and the flow of water is to be "straight on."

"Great. I'll, uh, experiment with that when you're gone and my phone shows up in the - drone post - then?

Will my - phone - automatically come with your, uh, address loaded so I can send you - letters? Or will Mr H let me know when I've got it and ask? I don't want to take up loads of your time, but, uh, how does ordering food and so on work while I'm still waiting to be able to get to a bank, if I'm not doing it through your system?"

"The phone won't come with my address by default. Mr H, would you mind keeping my address on file so that this young lady will be able to know who to text when she needs a question answered?" An incredibly reassuring chime sounds for a moment. "I'll have to be your middleman? You can send the people you're buying food from a text with this address, tell them that the money comes from me, and I'll send them the money, and then they send you the food. Is that an acceptable system? I can tell Mr H to send the money on my behalf whenever I'm unavailable, if that makes you feel safer."

"If that's, like, a standard option, sure, that sounds like it should work."

Judith is beginning to stretch out just a little; her shoulder are less tightly held.

"If there's nothing else urgent you can think of, I think I'd like to sit and chat to Mr H for a bit, and see what information he can point me to?"

"Sure? If there's nothing urgent on your end, I slightly want to get back home. I feel like it's appropriate for you to be able to walk around without that mask on, even if you find it curious. Oh, and there's something else important. I'll send you more batteries to keep the fans blowing air over your mouth so you can breathe easily. Mr H will run you through changing them. They comfortably last a full day, so you're going to need a few. They're not necessary for you to breathe, but you know what it's like without them on."

"Oh! Yes, thank you for reminding me."

Judith heads back out into the main room and sees Ron off into the elevator, then sits back down at the main room table.

"Mr H? Let's start with an easy one, let's look at some food options so I can decide what to eat tonight?"

"Food options means too many things, miss! Do you want meat of one kind or another? Or do you want something vegetarian? Would a soup be of interest? The ocean of options is simply too big for me to show you more than an arbitrary and infinitesimal fraction!"

"Okay, I just didn't want to say too much at once, I don't know how much you can follow all at once...

Uh, I have quite a list of dietary requirements? I can't eat onions, peppers, tomatoes, or anything that's vaguely like those, like shallots or capers, although black pepper's okay in moderation. I can't eat things that are especially acidic, like citrus fruit - most fruit that isn't really sugary is out actually, bananas and melon are okay - or vinegar based things, or pickled things. If I'm having meat I'd rather have poultry, I can sometimes find it hard to digest more solid meats, but I also like tofu. Uh, I hate olives, it's not that I can't eat them I just don't like them, I'm not that keen on olive oil either unless you really can't taste it. I probably want to take a look at an ingredients list of anything I'm recommended so I can spot anything I forgot. Oh, garlic isn't good in large quantities either, a tiny bit is okay.

Does that help at all, or do I still need to list some things I'd actively like?"

"Your options are narrow enough that they eliminate quite a few of our foods. We can offer you a wide range of chicken dishes, some spicier than others, and a huge range of soups free of all those ingredients."

Even with all the restrictions, Mr H still manages to offer Judith a huge selection of dishes ready to be shipped directly to her door. A white wall fills with a slowly scrolling list of dozens upon dozens of options fitting Judith's requirements.

"Spicy is usually bad but I do like, like, turmeric and cumin and cardamom? Just nothing that could be described as a 'hot' spice."

Gradually Mr H and Judith come to settle on a nice dinner option.

"Uh, does everything come in huge portion sizes? I know Ron said that breakfast foods were meant for reheating... but I don't see, like, a fireplace, and he also said that nobody liked fire hazards? ...am I making enough sense, or should I try to speak more clearly and on one topic at a time?"

"You make absolutely perfect sense, miss. And yes, you are correct that everything comes in huge portion sizes. Economies of scale both look and feel fantastic, that's just how we like it. You don't need a fireplace, the microwave does the reheating in a completely flame-free and safe way. If you've made up your mind, I can do the work of contacting them so they can get paid and start sending you the food. Is that what you wish for me to do?"

"Uh, yes! And, uh, what does the microwave look like and where is it? Possibly you should identify anything in my apartment that isn't the bathroom, I've had a tour of that, or the table and chairs and bed and storage units, because I might have just assumed it was part of the decor."

"It's a square white box, placed on a counter above the fridge, a significantly larger white box. It has a pair of knobs and a few different buttons to let you control its settings and operation. It is used both for boiling water for tea and coffee, as well as for reheating food. This apartment, like most others, lacks the necessary equipment for proper cooking. This microwave doesn't even come with cooking accessories!"

"...what goes in the fridge. Oh, is it like the pantry for keeping the food cool so it doesn't go off? Should I put leftovers in there, will they last for ages like a fancy icebox?

I'm sorry, my questions must sound really weird. I'm probably going to have to ask you for an embarrassingly simple explanation of how to use the microwave. Does the fridge have any options."

"Yes, it's a pantry that keeps the food cool to make it last longer. Longer, yes. But far from lasting ages. I don't mind your questioning in the slightest, and I'm happy to advice you on using the microwave when the time comes. The fridge has an option for setting the temperature. Not anything beyond that, in terms of features, and there is essentially no reason to manipulate the one feature it does have."

"Okay, good.

I know Ron put out some kind of - flyer? advert? - inviting people to ask to interview me, or ask me questions, in return for some money - is there any way I can see what offers have come in, or do I need to dictate a letter to him about it?"

"You'd have to ask Ron about that too, at present. Until you get a phone of your own."

"Okay, let's leave that for now. Any idea how soon the phone will be here? I guess the next thing on my list is, general orientation. Do you have some kind of, basic summary or primer, on how local government works?"

"The phone can be here within an hour of you placing your order, so the first step is you making the decision of which phone to acquire. In terms of local government, every resident here receives a given amount of income merely for being alive, named basic income. Some of this income gets diverted to the mayor's office, who provides services that require no separate payment on the part of the residents.

The mayor can propose a new service, and introduces them if people's combined willingness to pay is sufficient, determined through a referendum proposing that more of the basic income goes through the mayor's office to provide them with the new service without a separate charge."

"Oh, I thought Ron was going to send me one by cargo drone? You've got a way to contact his Mr H, right, can you just check on that before I accidentally buy a second one?

Okay, so the Mayor's office proposes motions to change how much tax everyone has to pay and details of what they're going to spend the tax on - or presumably stop paying the tax on - and everyone votes on, like, their phone or through you on the motions?

How does someone end up with proposal powers, is the Mayor also elected?"

Judith realises suddenly that while she knows quite a lot about her previous world's political system, she doesn't actually know where the money came from. Like, it came from the Imperial Mint, physically - but all the money that the Senate could apportion was taxation from people just circulating the same money that already existed - the Mint just replaced worn out coins - right?

Or was the League so rich all along because they were actually printing money and distributing it amongst themselves?

Probably she'll never know now, but maybe she can work it out in this new place, now she's thought of it.

"It sounds like the kind of thing Ron would do; I'll briefly contact him to guarantee that he still intends to have a phone sent your way.

Yes, people vote through their phones, or agents like me. Everyone who has paid the taxes at least once gets proposal powers, however, it's the mayor's full time job to make such proposals, and outside proposals are hence rare. Mayors are heads of Revolutionary Research Funds; they don't get elected, per se, rather they spend some time making proposals and if people are happy enough, they receive funding from donations, letting them do the work of making proposals and the other responsibilities of being a mayor full-time. Amateur mayors also exist, who do this on a volunteer basis, and don't receive funding for their work of being mayors, but these are limited to small towns, or even neighborhoods in larger cities."