The Flower of Shazui

From my booth at the door of the Chinese medicine shop, I sell a combination of body films and cracked versions of augmented-reality software. Body films are applied to the skin, where they display words or pictures in response to the body’s electrical signals. In America, they use the technology as a diagnostic tool, monitoring patients’ physiological signs. But here, it has become part of the street culture of status display. Laborers, gangsters, and prostitutes all like to apply the films to prominent or hidden parts of the body so that, in response to changing muscle tension or skin temperature, the films can show various pictures to signal the wearer’s personality, daring, and sex appeal.

Suddenly, I understand. The mask is nothing more than a fucking well-made disguise for a pair of augmented reality glasses. [...] Guessing conservatively, her information privilege level must be set to at least level IIA or above, giving her the power to access an individual's private file based on facial recognition. [...] But even so, without professional-grade analysis filter software, how can she glean any useful information out of that torrent within such a short time? It would be like finding a needle lost in the sea.