[junetide] [safari] Taking a Safari
Dec. 9th, 2012 09:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
1stmateWritten for anthimeria's 2012 ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
junetide gift.
It's always weird at first, no matter how many times you've vacationed before. First you sit down in what has to be the most comfortable chair you've ever been in, then you take a deep breath and relax into it. Recline the back, put your feet up, close your eyes. If you're good at vacationing - and some people are naturals with no practice - you just feel yourself slide right out of your body without the help of the people working around you. Or so I'm told - vacationing isn't one of my natural skills.
I take several deep breaths and have to consciously relax my closed eyelids. Still, I'm aware of everyone around me. There's Todd, whose only job is to schlep for everyone else. He always stands around looking awkward when there's nothing to do, so I've taken to bringing him a handful of cookies to munch on while he waits for orders. Of course, I prefer that he gets to stand around enjoying Nan's double-chocolate-chips, because if he has to schlep more than a glass of water, that means something's gone wrong. Call me a perfectionist, but I just don't like it when things go wrong when I'm trying to vacation.
I don't know anybody else's name. They're all too busy to ask; I just get snapped at when I try to make conversation. So I tell Todd not to share Nan's home cooking, and he grins at me while the technicians are caught up in their wires and lights. But eventually, they notice that my eyes are open again, that I'm not looking for the path.
"De Salmer, you've got to shut the eyes, shut the eyes," one of them encourages me. It's entertaining, listening to them ride the line between customer service representatives and grumpy, bossy engineers. Only the little Asian girl is any good at the niceties, and she's too low-ranked to speak to me often. But I shut my eyes anyway.
"De Salmer, God, haven't you done this often enough by now?" another one grouses, and I snort into my self-imposed darkness.
"Is there such thing as often enough?" I ask, and all three of them shush me at once.
The Asian girl combs gently through my hair. "Arin, it's just like going to sleep. Relax like you're going to sleep." She holds the strands out of the way as she applies the adhesive, connecting what I know to be blue wires to my head. "Sleep now, Arin." Her voice reminds me of my older sister, when I was younger and suffered from nightmares, and it relaxes me more surely than anything else in the room.
There's a burst like light, light that you feel instead of see, and I stretch inside myself to find its source. This is what's so easy for the naturals. I saw a man once, one wire just touched his head, and he slid out of his body and into a waiting Safari. One of the techs wanted to show me how easy it is for some, but it didn't make a damn bit of difference in my own vacationing. Still hard for me to slip down the line.
But I finally grab ahold of that light, and where it whisks other people straight down to the farm, it struggles slowly with me. Lugs me like a two-ton sack of potatoes to the doors of the farm, looks around, and drops me with a shrug. But I'm told that part is to be expected from someone like me. See, the farms aren't populated with what they call in-betweeners. I have to search for an either-or body that doesn't reject me outright.
Jonah, who lives next door to my house and works across the hall from my office, told me once that he was shrugged at a farm the way I always am. All their male Safaris were out already, so he had to take what I understand to be a big risk if he wanted to vacation there that day. Sante Fe, I think it was. Some sort of festival was going on that he really wanted to attend, so he took that risk and climbed his way into female after female until one of them sluggishly responded to him instead of ejecting him forcefully back to the farm floor. Sluggish for his whole vacation, he said, and glad to see him go, but he was just happy he got to see that festival.
"It was weird, mind you," he said with a laugh that quickly turned awkward. "Not that I need to tell you that, I guess. It must always be weird for your kind. I don't think I'd ever vacation if I had to search like that for a Safari every time."
I just made a noncommittal noise and asked him about the churros, but now I wonder about it. Trying on all the different bodies at the farm is a good part of the fun of a vacation, for me. I can't imagine vacationing regularly if I just slid pretty-as-you-please into the closest body. Makes me glad they don't stock any in-betweeners, though I wonder if it's really to do with the biology of it. If Jonah could ride a female Safari, that has to mean something. Some in-betweeners can only ride male, I've heard, or only ride female. Less trying on, I've heard. But my girlfriend does a fair bit of her own trying on, even if she doesn't try the males. So it can't be just an in-betweener quality.
A spark travels down the line behind me, and the familiar terror hits me as I realize my body's been disconnected. But I know it's okay. Todd's done with the schlepping part of his job now; he'll be moving my body to a holding room and taking care of it until I get back. Another reason why I ply him with cookies. Todd will take care of my body, and if I don't want to spend my entire vacation hanging out in no-space, I need to get to trying on these Safaris. All of Köln awaits me.
But it's never easy. A quick poke around says 5 males and 3 females feel promising, but trying them on is another matter. I feel like a male is going to be a better fit, but the incoming queue of vacationers feels mostly female, so I slip into the first female on the off-chance that it's the one for me. I sit suspended for a long moment, neither controlling the body nor being rejected, before I roll my eyes and slide out again. Not that one. The second Safari hesitates only briefly before throwing me out violently. No, not that one either, clearly. The last female fits like a hand-me-down sweater, but there's no familiar comfort of knowing the sweater used to be my brother's, so I ease back out carefully. I'll come back to her if none of the males are any better.
"Arin Salmer," I say to the attendant, and her bored look evaporates as she consults the list in front of her.
"Oh! Oh, um, welcome to Cologne, Mr ... Mrs..."
"De," I correct gently. Not enough in-betweeners left in Germany to expect them to know proper address, and even if there were, it's not worth fighting about. It's pretty rare for us to be able to afford to vacation, especially as regularly as I do.
"De Salmer," she says. "Welcome to Cologne, De Salmer. My name is Ellen; I'll be your contact if anything goes wrong while you're vacationing through our facility. I'm afraid our changing rooms are only male and female, but I'm sure we can work something out?"
I smile at her. "Ellen, since I'm riding a male this week, I'll be glad to use the male rooms."
She smiles back with obvious relief. "That certainly sounds acceptable, Mr-- sorry, De Salmer. The clothing warehouse is directly off of the changing rooms. Males to your left. Your Safari is outfitted with a standard translation chip that can handle English, German, French, and Mandarin."
"Mandarin?"
Ellen shrugs. "Once a client special orders an extra language, we never take it back out."
"Huh. Mandarin." I reach up to the chip controls, in front of the right ear just as they are on my natural body. "Position 4, I assume?"
"Yep." Ellen turns suddenly as her intercom flashes. "Let me know if you have any questions, M-- De Salmer."
"Thank you, Ellen."
The changing rooms are nothing special, but the range of outfits in the warehouse is as astounding as any sight in the city could possibly ever be. Even Paris isn't this well equipped, and their Facility prides itself on being the most extravagant the world has to offer. Köln appears to have a selection of all the tradition garbs from everywhere I've ever vacationed, and then more I don't recognize. A sign to the right catches my eye, and I follow it to the "North America -- USA -- SE USA" row. The weather makes most of my usual clothing impractical, but I snort at the section of overalls before selecting an attractive suit.
The nurse up at Health doesn't even look me up in the registry. "Safari M27 is allergic to most spiders. Don't lose your Epi-Pen. Do you hear me? You will die, and our body will die. Do not lose the Epi-Pen. Wear sunglasses, and for God's sake, don't skimp on the sunblock if you spend all day outdoors. I won't stand for another one of you vacationers giving our bodies cancer, do you hear me? Do not skimp on the sunblock. M27's vision is better than average, so take some time to adjust before driving anything." She stops to glare at me. "You'd better have a license valid in this country before you try to drive anything with one of our bodies. Do you hear me?"
I grin and promise to follow all her rules even as I'm backing out of the office. The clerk in Vehicles wordlessly hands me a half-sheet of paper that repeats Do not drive without a valid license for this country! Do not drive before adjusting to the host body! I make note of the times that office is open tomorrow and leave the complex on foot. With only six days to explore the Rhineland, I'm not wasting the smallest moment to get started.
anthimeria's 2012 junetide gift.It's always weird at first, no matter how many times you've vacationed before. First you sit down in what has to be the most comfortable chair you've ever been in, then you take a deep breath and relax into it. Recline the back, put your feet up, close your eyes. If you're good at vacationing - and some people are naturals with no practice - you just feel yourself slide right out of your body without the help of the people working around you. Or so I'm told - vacationing isn't one of my natural skills.
I take several deep breaths and have to consciously relax my closed eyelids. Still, I'm aware of everyone around me. There's Todd, whose only job is to schlep for everyone else. He always stands around looking awkward when there's nothing to do, so I've taken to bringing him a handful of cookies to munch on while he waits for orders. Of course, I prefer that he gets to stand around enjoying Nan's double-chocolate-chips, because if he has to schlep more than a glass of water, that means something's gone wrong. Call me a perfectionist, but I just don't like it when things go wrong when I'm trying to vacation.
I don't know anybody else's name. They're all too busy to ask; I just get snapped at when I try to make conversation. So I tell Todd not to share Nan's home cooking, and he grins at me while the technicians are caught up in their wires and lights. But eventually, they notice that my eyes are open again, that I'm not looking for the path.
"De Salmer, you've got to shut the eyes, shut the eyes," one of them encourages me. It's entertaining, listening to them ride the line between customer service representatives and grumpy, bossy engineers. Only the little Asian girl is any good at the niceties, and she's too low-ranked to speak to me often. But I shut my eyes anyway.
"De Salmer, God, haven't you done this often enough by now?" another one grouses, and I snort into my self-imposed darkness.
"Is there such thing as often enough?" I ask, and all three of them shush me at once.
The Asian girl combs gently through my hair. "Arin, it's just like going to sleep. Relax like you're going to sleep." She holds the strands out of the way as she applies the adhesive, connecting what I know to be blue wires to my head. "Sleep now, Arin." Her voice reminds me of my older sister, when I was younger and suffered from nightmares, and it relaxes me more surely than anything else in the room.
There's a burst like light, light that you feel instead of see, and I stretch inside myself to find its source. This is what's so easy for the naturals. I saw a man once, one wire just touched his head, and he slid out of his body and into a waiting Safari. One of the techs wanted to show me how easy it is for some, but it didn't make a damn bit of difference in my own vacationing. Still hard for me to slip down the line.
But I finally grab ahold of that light, and where it whisks other people straight down to the farm, it struggles slowly with me. Lugs me like a two-ton sack of potatoes to the doors of the farm, looks around, and drops me with a shrug. But I'm told that part is to be expected from someone like me. See, the farms aren't populated with what they call in-betweeners. I have to search for an either-or body that doesn't reject me outright.
Jonah, who lives next door to my house and works across the hall from my office, told me once that he was shrugged at a farm the way I always am. All their male Safaris were out already, so he had to take what I understand to be a big risk if he wanted to vacation there that day. Sante Fe, I think it was. Some sort of festival was going on that he really wanted to attend, so he took that risk and climbed his way into female after female until one of them sluggishly responded to him instead of ejecting him forcefully back to the farm floor. Sluggish for his whole vacation, he said, and glad to see him go, but he was just happy he got to see that festival.
"It was weird, mind you," he said with a laugh that quickly turned awkward. "Not that I need to tell you that, I guess. It must always be weird for your kind. I don't think I'd ever vacation if I had to search like that for a Safari every time."
I just made a noncommittal noise and asked him about the churros, but now I wonder about it. Trying on all the different bodies at the farm is a good part of the fun of a vacation, for me. I can't imagine vacationing regularly if I just slid pretty-as-you-please into the closest body. Makes me glad they don't stock any in-betweeners, though I wonder if it's really to do with the biology of it. If Jonah could ride a female Safari, that has to mean something. Some in-betweeners can only ride male, I've heard, or only ride female. Less trying on, I've heard. But my girlfriend does a fair bit of her own trying on, even if she doesn't try the males. So it can't be just an in-betweener quality.
A spark travels down the line behind me, and the familiar terror hits me as I realize my body's been disconnected. But I know it's okay. Todd's done with the schlepping part of his job now; he'll be moving my body to a holding room and taking care of it until I get back. Another reason why I ply him with cookies. Todd will take care of my body, and if I don't want to spend my entire vacation hanging out in no-space, I need to get to trying on these Safaris. All of Köln awaits me.
But it's never easy. A quick poke around says 5 males and 3 females feel promising, but trying them on is another matter. I feel like a male is going to be a better fit, but the incoming queue of vacationers feels mostly female, so I slip into the first female on the off-chance that it's the one for me. I sit suspended for a long moment, neither controlling the body nor being rejected, before I roll my eyes and slide out again. Not that one. The second Safari hesitates only briefly before throwing me out violently. No, not that one either, clearly. The last female fits like a hand-me-down sweater, but there's no familiar comfort of knowing the sweater used to be my brother's, so I ease back out carefully. I'll come back to her if none of the males are any better.
"Arin Salmer," I say to the attendant, and her bored look evaporates as she consults the list in front of her.
"Oh! Oh, um, welcome to Cologne, Mr ... Mrs..."
"De," I correct gently. Not enough in-betweeners left in Germany to expect them to know proper address, and even if there were, it's not worth fighting about. It's pretty rare for us to be able to afford to vacation, especially as regularly as I do.
"De Salmer," she says. "Welcome to Cologne, De Salmer. My name is Ellen; I'll be your contact if anything goes wrong while you're vacationing through our facility. I'm afraid our changing rooms are only male and female, but I'm sure we can work something out?"
I smile at her. "Ellen, since I'm riding a male this week, I'll be glad to use the male rooms."
She smiles back with obvious relief. "That certainly sounds acceptable, Mr-- sorry, De Salmer. The clothing warehouse is directly off of the changing rooms. Males to your left. Your Safari is outfitted with a standard translation chip that can handle English, German, French, and Mandarin."
"Mandarin?"
Ellen shrugs. "Once a client special orders an extra language, we never take it back out."
"Huh. Mandarin." I reach up to the chip controls, in front of the right ear just as they are on my natural body. "Position 4, I assume?"
"Yep." Ellen turns suddenly as her intercom flashes. "Let me know if you have any questions, M-- De Salmer."
"Thank you, Ellen."
The changing rooms are nothing special, but the range of outfits in the warehouse is as astounding as any sight in the city could possibly ever be. Even Paris isn't this well equipped, and their Facility prides itself on being the most extravagant the world has to offer. Köln appears to have a selection of all the tradition garbs from everywhere I've ever vacationed, and then more I don't recognize. A sign to the right catches my eye, and I follow it to the "North America -- USA -- SE USA" row. The weather makes most of my usual clothing impractical, but I snort at the section of overalls before selecting an attractive suit.
The nurse up at Health doesn't even look me up in the registry. "Safari M27 is allergic to most spiders. Don't lose your Epi-Pen. Do you hear me? You will die, and our body will die. Do not lose the Epi-Pen. Wear sunglasses, and for God's sake, don't skimp on the sunblock if you spend all day outdoors. I won't stand for another one of you vacationers giving our bodies cancer, do you hear me? Do not skimp on the sunblock. M27's vision is better than average, so take some time to adjust before driving anything." She stops to glare at me. "You'd better have a license valid in this country before you try to drive anything with one of our bodies. Do you hear me?"
I grin and promise to follow all her rules even as I'm backing out of the office. The clerk in Vehicles wordlessly hands me a half-sheet of paper that repeats Do not drive without a valid license for this country! Do not drive before adjusting to the host body! I make note of the times that office is open tomorrow and leave the complex on foot. With only six days to explore the Rhineland, I'm not wasting the smallest moment to get started.
