Wounded slept for twelve hours. When she finally woke, she felt better than she had in her entire life. She was a little sore, but the soreness felt authentic to her. She felt energized and perceptive and confident.

She spun in front of a long cracked mirror. Her shoulder-length hair bounced at the end of her twirl, greasy from her seaweed bath still. Her complexion was still the color of hematoma. The baggy and dirty dress she wore with costume beads was quite possibly the ugliest dress she had ever seen. The Pink Mohawks booed in disapproval.

“Damn, I look good! The dress is terrible. It’s five sizes too large, feels like a burlap sack, and looks like a sack that got spray painted with vomit, but I make it look good. What else do you got?”

An uplifted rat brought her a dark suit. “These came out off a Corpse we found on a rooftop nearby. We think she got pushed out of an aircraft. The suit’s a self-repairing fabric though. It repaired its own tears before it ran out of power. It couldn’t do much about the blood stains though.”

Wounded peeled off the ugly dress, feeling no sense of same about being naked in front of a crowd. She held the jacket up in front of her torso. “Oh no, this is way too small for me. It’s too bad because I love it.”

Hogwild advised, “You can always to the corporate neighborhood, find a Corpse in an outfit you like, and kill her. It’s more efficient than waiting for em to kill each other and drop their cadavers here.”

The rat, who was called Queso, brought another bundle. “Maybe we should start with what’s most likely to fit and work from there.”

The cat sat a cluttered table and worked with small tools. Without looking up, she said, “Your accessories are almost ready.”

Hogwild said, “You better mean a breath mask. That’s top priority.”

The cat, Anna, answered, “That’s a part of it.”

Buzzard appeared in the door and said, “Here is the other part. I found a pair old AR contacts, still in their original plastic. Most Trumans use artificial eyes these days, but these will do for now.”

“Thank you so so much, Buzzard,” She tore open the packaging. Watching herself in the mirror, she placed a contact lens on her eye. The lens oriented itself into the correct position and began glowing. She quickly followed with the other eye. “I can see.”

“Yes,” Buzzard responded, “You’ll be able to perceive all of the augmented reality data around it. It’s a big part of Truman culture. However, the software is rather archaic, so you’ll need to upgrade the pop-up blockers at least.”

“No, I mean I can see-see. They fixed my near sightedness. I can see ever hair in Hogwash’s mohawk way in the back. I bet I could see the stars with this. These are awesome.”

She snatched a heavy jacket away from Queso. Sliding it on, she asked, “Why is the collar so humungeous?”

Queso answered, “That was the fashion back in 2077. People believed it was supposed to help prevent hacking of their cyberwear. It fell off the back of truck, a truck shaped like a vintage clothing shop.”

Hogwash chided, “Ain’t pink enough.”

Wounded admired her image. A faded grey teeshirt complimented her complexion. The black jacket was bulky but comfortable, well broken-in. “I like the vibe. I look like the Count from the puppet show. Mwa-ha-ha, I love to count my money.”

Hogwash declared, ”Hrumph, so she can see a virtual button which is labeled press here, but she cain’t press it. Most Trumans get a cyber-brainstem for input. She cain’t buy from a vending machine or pay bus fare. It’s like being a cripple among the Trumen.”

Wounded tried on a pair of combat pants from a corpo-army surplus shop. She said, “We thought about input. Anna’s on top of it, right Anna?”

“Si,” said Anna, “This snake has a lot of functionality. It’s much like the those late 20th Century Winmodems, the hardware was much better than the software inside it. I’ve installed a better BIOS which unlocks more capabilities. It can do all of your interfacing for you at your verbal command. We can even configure it for non-verbal command, slaved to those eye lenses you like so much.”

“Replace the software,” Wounded said with a concerned look. I didn’t know you were going that far. I need that ringworm to remember what it did to me.”

Anna looked up for the first time and met Wounded’s gaze. The cat said, “The experiences data is preserved in a different memory chip. It’s that way for ease of security review. It will remember whatever happened between the two of you, but understand. This is not a full A.I. with a range of deep emotion simulation. You cannot make it suffer.” She handed the snake to Wounded. “It’s done.”

Wounded said, “It understands subservience. That will do for now.” The snake crawled up Wounded’s arm. Wounded commanded, “Choker, make yourself straight, like when you pierced my leg.” The robot responded by becoming straight as a railroad spike. Wounded stabbed the air with it once. “Choker, wrap around my wrist and pretend you are bracelet.” Choker wound itself around her forearm and wrist, biting its own tail to hold itself into position. The robot’s carbon fiber black scales gleamed in the firelight. “Now, I’m accessorized. Let’s find me some shoes.”