The Coverture Incident

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It was another warm and humid Marguy afternoon. Joe Swamp, the planet’s Bureau of Alien Affairs Station Chief, was whiling away the time in climate controlled comfort.

He was slouched back in his chair, sneakers parked on his desk and a cyberloupe worn like a headband, deep in a game of Bug Hunt. In the air before him a considerably more muscular and athletic version of himself glided soundlessly through an alien forest, the beaded leather strap of a quiver crossing his brown chest and a nanomic compound bow in his hands, an arrow already nocked. A faint rustling sound came from somewhere to his avatar’s right. He whirled smoothly toward it, his long braided black ponytail whipping through the air. That detail was one of the few where Joe and his simulacrum were exactly identical; some were idealized, others were quite the opposite. Joe would never be caught dead wearing a breechclout in real life.

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