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No, I'm not planning to re-write Anzu, but if I did...

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...here's some changes I would make.

The Cell
In the story, the cell is a smartphone, only more so, and it isn't a little box you carry around. It's either some very unobtrusive jewelry or stickers or something like that. For visuals you put on a pair of sunglasses. Well, there's a better way.
IIRWA (If I Re-Wrote Anzu) the cell would consist of "homers," similar to what she wore at the rave, only there would also be one on each knee, elbow, and seven little "jwels" on the throat and two inside each ear. The body's position, pose, and subvocalizations would be picked up. For visuals there would be contact lenses, and these lenses would also contain the camera. Subvocalizing is a skill most children master before the age of ten.

Naked Everywhere?
In most NiS stories compulsory nudity is confined to school grounds and school functions, but poor Anzu has to be nude everywhere. What gives? Well, the NiS story I'd read just before starting my own story did things that way, so I just picked up on it. But IIRWA I'd stipulate that Program kids don't have to be naked outside of school and school functions (though they are allowed to be), unless they volunteer for "Program Plus," which counts as college credit, or bumps the grade in any one subject up one letter, or some such. Once you volunteer, you can't back out. Failure of Program Plus is failure in the Program. You have to do it over, though you can decline Plus this time around if you want. Anzu will volunteer for Program Plus. Maybe she's doing worse in Pre-Calc than I thought.

Drugs
Electronic cigarettes for Botilda's cannabis; may or may not have vapor in different colors.
No PLeaSD. It turns out that plain old-fashioned real-world LSD is one of the safest things you can put in your body, so that's what Rashida will take. X3 will be retained. MDMA is wonderful stuff, but it could be improved so that it has fewer side effects and can safely be used more frequently without "loss of magic."

No Pets In Space?
Just didn't occur to me. No puppy dogs or kitty cats and certainly no gerbils or parakeets. But I don't think that pets will be banned from space-borne city-states. Botilda would have a cat, Steve would mention his faithful dog.

GBI
Don't know how much detail I'd go into, but Mendocino Island, most city states, and most Earthly nations have a Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI), equivalent to US$42,000 a year in 2020 money. Minors like Anzu or Steve get a quarter of that (or rather their parents do), a quarter goes to public schools and other services for children and teens, and the remaining half goes into a trust the kid gets at the age of twenty. Since it accumulates from the time the child is born, it's a nice little bit of start-up change.

Sabbatical
It's common, though not universal, that high school graduates take off a year and travel before starting college. For Mendocino Island young adults, this typically means a tour of Earth.

Finally, Anzu is a lovely girl, but she could stand to go on a textual diet and lose thirty thousand words or so.

 

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