As they kiss, Tom reflects on how strange and wonderful it is to be holding the entirety of Lilly between his hands, her reduced form so small and light. He feels the slight humming of the support machinery running in her casing, her artificial heart’s pulseless churning whirring deep inside her. After a few moments of enjoying each other, excitement increasing as their lips and tongues intertwine, Tom notices the time.

He breaks the kiss for a moment. “Hey, I’d love to keep going but we’re gonna be late for our dinner if we don’t leave soon. I better change so we can take off.

“Yeah, I guess…” She makes an exaggerated pouty face, then smiles. “I guess there’s no time for a makeup tutorial then, although I guarantee Naya won’t be wearing any.”

“I see. Care to join me and help me pick out clothes?”

“Absolutely. I used to spend way too much time picking out what I would wear to work - it’s a whole lot simpler for me now.”

Tom carries Lilly into his room, and blushes as he realizes that he just volunteered her to watch him undress. She doesn’t seem to mind though, and he figures since she already saw him in the shower with his bathing suit, there’s not much difference.

“I didn’t know this room came with a view, nice!” He looks over to her, with a slightly confused face, and she winks while taking on the sassiest smirk as he notices her noticing him in only his underwear.

Tom does a goofy little dance over to the closet, putting on a terrible performance of an otherwise sultry set of moves. He pulls out a few shirts from the closet, and holds them out. “Well, what do you think?”

She looks at them for a moment, then looks at him with a strange expression. “Sorry, I just tried to point to the one on the left. Anyway, the one on the left.” She looks off into the distance for a moment, and he realizes she’s beginning to get upset.

He takes a knee in front of her, bringing himself to her height. “Lilly, I’ll be your hands whenever you need anything, you just have to ask.”

“Thanks. This whole situation catches me off guard sometimes, and I do sometimes miss my independence. I’m glad you’re so good to me, I don’t know what I’d do if you were a huge jerk or something. Probably spend most of my time in the hibernation pod or something.”

Her eyes open wide as she remembers something. “Oh, I almost forgot! The company is gonna do an inspection of how we’re getting along sometime this week - they said before they shipped me out that after a few days they’d check in on us. I know we’ll totally ace it though, just wanted to let you know.”

“Oh cool, I’ll make sure to keep stuff a little more clean around here in case they decide to surprise us. Anyway, I probably should get my pants on.”

She glances down at Tom then blushes, a barely perceptible tinge of red in her cheeks.

Although the walk from the parking structure to the restaurant is only a couple of blocks, it isn’t completely without incident. Carrying Lilly’s canister in his arms elicits confused double-takes from passers-by as they walk down the sidewalk; the number of pedestrians increasing as people shuffle back into downtown for dinner arrangements and night time entertainment.

Although enhanced and modified people aren’t unknown to this part of the world, and more and more people are making changes to themselves voluntarily, few have ever been as heavily altered as Lilly.

“I’m gonna have to figure out some kind of carrier or cart thing for you - it’s a little tough to carry you for a long distance. You’re kinda slippy.”

“Ooh, one of those folding walker things with wheels would be really cool, like what old ladies shop with! All we would need to do is take out the basket and put one of my locking connectors on the bottom, and I’d be good to go!”

“Good idea, I’ll have someone at work print up a connector and we’ll order one of those cart things tonight.”

They round the corner, and the entrance of the restaurant appears a few doors down. Lilly notices it first. “Sweet! I think that’s the place.”

“So Naya recommended this one? Any idea why?”

“Yeah, I heard that her and Paul have been here on dates a few times, and the staff are super chill. I think they get a booth in the back for themselves, so none of the other diners get weird.

As they enter the building, Lilly shivers a little in Tom’s arms - the night air’s slight chill contrasting with the very warm air inside. “Are you cold?”

“A little, I was trying to be tough out there but my casing is basically a giant heat sink. I get cold really fast, but I’ll warm up pretty quickly.”

“I’ll have to figure out some kind of jacket for you - even though winters aren’t super cold here I still don’t want you to be miserable when we go out.”

Lilly smiles at the mention of going out more, then notices a wave from a doorway in the back. A man peeks out from behind a massive and mostly closed off booth set against the back wall, and they close the distance.

In the back of the restaurant, Naya and Paul slide over to make room at the booth, Paul lifting Naya’s case slightly and shifting her further down the tabletop. Paul seems like the average office worker who takes good care of himself, handsome enough for sales but working on the technical side.

Naya seems like his polar opposite. Her dark olive skin matches well to her short jet black hair with dark purple highlights. Her short and asymmetric haircut reveals the remnants of gauged ears that have almost shrunk back down, but not quite. Her bold looking, neon purple eyeglasses complete her put-together but still punk look.

Paul greets them, “Hey! Nice to see you in person! Naya told me about Lilly, and she really wanted to meet the both of you. Please, take a seat!”

Naya is absolutely beaming, smiling from her perch on top of the table as Paul sets Lilly down on the table across from her. “Lilly! How long’s it been? I missed you!”

“I think it’s been a few weeks. Seems like a lot longer though, after you got sent out it got pretty boring back at the office.”

“Has it really? For us though, I suppose time really has no meaning.” Lilly looks a little confused, and Naya continues, “You know, between working and being in the box the days seem to fly by.”

“Wait, you use the hibernation box at home? That thing still freaks me out a little.”

Curious, Tom asks Naya and Paul, “So are we doing something wrong? We just do our normal day-to-day stuff together. We just started sharing meals, and I’m figuring out a better bed situation for us. What do you two do?”

Paul answers, “Um, we pretty much stick to the manual - she insists. She’s really easy to take care of too, the food jugs they send take care of her needs so I barely need to cook, and after shift and a little hang-out time she gets back in the hibernation pod until the next day. We spend time together on the weekends and after work if she isn’t too tired - our setup seems to work really well for us, and corporate seems cool with it.”

Tom turns to Naya and asks, “I hate to pry, but I’m fascinated by that dynamic. Why would you want to get knocked out every night and basically just work and sleep?

She cocks her head to the side, taking a moment to gather her thoughts. “I took this job because I was done with trying to be someone that the world expected me to be. I fought myself constantly - if I gained weight I was too fat, If I starved myself I was too skinny. I never was able to keep up with the trends, the next big thing, keeping ahead on social media. I worked my ass off just to lose it all on bills, while hoping I didn’t ever get sick. My parents just wanted me to marry some rich bastard and pay their bills for them. So I found a way around all that.”

Tom leans in slightly, and puts a hand on the side of Lilly’s case. “Oh, that makes a lot of sense. It’s a lot to give up though. Lilly didn’t really have a choice to do so, but I can see the appeal - basically opting out of the rat race entirely.”

“Absolutely, now I live the best life. Every morning I wake up from a dreamless sleep, totally knocked out in my box and more well-rested than I ever was from sleeping naturally. Paul hauls me out and into the shower after hooking me up to my food and waste stations. By the time my brain’s back to fully awake, I’m cleaned up and fed and ready to go to work. Then I crunch numbers while having my brain totally fucked out for a few hours.”

She grins and looks over to Paul. “By the end of shift, He’s pretty pent up watching me get absolutely blasted while he answers emails and does his work, so I help him out. Sometimes during our lunch hour as well, depending on how… energetic he’s feeling.”

Lilly blushes beet red at the thought, although it seems the gears are turning. “Are you also.. extra sensitive now too? I mean, it seems like when they put me back together they rewired my mouth to feel really good. Maybe it’s one of those compensation things - I lost a bunch of sensation with my body gone, so maybe the nerves left over are more active?”

“Oh yeah, definitely. I think when they went into our brains and hooked us up to the uplink connector they might have tweaked a few things. And I know Paul appreciates my abilities. I’ve made myself a useful tool for him in a lot of ways, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Now Tom and Lilly both are blushing, and Paul looks like he just won a prize as he changes the subject. “So, should we order some food? Here’s the menus, although I always recommend we just get the feast for 4. It’s got everything. Oh and Tom, here’s the drinks menu.”

“Thanks!” Tom slides behind Lilly, looking over her shoulder if she still had one, and opens the menu for both to see.

“I probably should be careful with the drinks - I bet a thimble’s worth will put me over a barrel, not a lot of ballast in me to soak up the booze now.”

“How about we share something? You pick, and I’ll take care of whatever’s left.”

“Oh cool! You like whiskey?”

Tom seems a little surprised. “I do, you too? That’s friggin’ cool. How about an Old Fashioned? It’s always a good choice, and it looks like they have a couple really nice whiskeys to choose from.”

“Perfect! We just use that one restaurant app to order, right?” Lilly looks over to Paul and Naya.

“Yep, pretty simple.” Paul thinks to himself for a fraction of a second, then pulls his phone out with a grin. You know what, I’m really happy to see that the two of you are hitting it off so well, and I’m feeling especially motivated. I’ll cover our meal tonight. I might even be able to write it off as a business meeting. After all, we’re sort of talking about business - our daily lives with our companions are the result of our jobs anyway.”

Naya adds, “Of course, it’s way more than just business, our lives are linked together in a fundamental way. A fun way, too, of course.”

“Yeah, Tom thawing me out that first day was one hell of an icebreaker. Pun fully intended.”

“It certainly gave us something to talk about right away, you mostly talking me down from fleeing my house and trying to explain that you weren’t some oddly anthropomorphic robot or something.”

“Yeah, I kinda wish they would have let you know beforehand, maybe set up a phone call between us or something.”

Naya perks up at the mention of phones. “Oh! I almost forgot! The group of CATgirls is working on a Bluetooth interface! Our little data connector’s turning out to be pretty useful. Check it out!”

Paul pulls out another phone from his pocket, and leans it so the four of them can see. Naya squints slightly, and the screen lights up. She lets out a tiny grunt, her face twitching slightly as she concentrates, and the screen unlocks and the contacts menu opens up.

Paul’s phone vibrates as he moves it next to Naya’s, and he hits the answer button. “Her group’s been working on this for a while, and we’ve been practicing since the alpha release.”

Naya releases her concentration as Paul hangs up the phone. “We had to do some serious trial and error to figure out which nerve signals to tap into and how to translate it into commands, but it’s getting there. The navigation is set to me trying to move my left wrist, and the button click is my thumb. It’s a little weird trying to move parts that aren’t there, and so far it’s just the buttons, but we’re making great progress together.”

“That’s awesome! When it’s ready I’m going to have to ask you for one of those interfaces.”

“No need to ask, I already have one in the mail. I'm hoping to eventually get audio piped into it, so you can just think at the thing - but I’m not sure that’s even possible. I know they threaded a ton of neural probes up into our brains when we got converted, but I’m pretty sure if they hijacked the speech centers I wouldn’t be able to tell Paul to fuck me while I’m number crunching.” She winks at Lilly, who tries to act coy but a hint of a smirk gives her away.

The waiter arrives, food and drinks arriving at the same time - being a shawarma restaurant, most of the food is very quick to prepare. “Oh, two of you now! That’s so cool!

“Thanks! There are a handful of us now at our workplace, we’re part of a big project.”

“That’s really cool, I was thinking about making a big change, maybe becoming an Adapt or something. This part time job thing is kind of a drag - might be nice to basically opt out of working entirely.”

Naya replies. “It’s a really big decision, and one that can’t really be taken back. I pretty much did what you’re talking about, I chose this so I could truly be myself. Lilly though, got converted to save her life. Make sure you think very deeply about it, and if you can find a companion before you get adapted, even better. Oh, and we still work - can’t really get around that in our case, especially for repair parts. Any idea how much an artificial heart costs?” She smiles. “Me neither.”

“Oh, that’s good to know. My partner and I have discussed it a bit, and we’re still considering our options. Next time you’re here, would you mind if I ask some more questions if I think of some?”

“Any time, I‘d be glad to answer any of your questions. When I originally was looking around, I was thinking about becoming a petgirl-type, but this seemed like a way to help out with research and push the boundaries a little. Well, a lot.” Naya smiles as she looks down at herself.

The waiter thanks Naya, and heads back into the kitchen area to continue working. The meal goes well, Naya and Lilly only taking a few bites each from the massive platters of food on the table. The same with the drinks; Lilly’s face is a little more rosy, and her behavior a lot more at ease and significantly raunchier after only a few sips.

After more conversation and a couple more sips of drink, along with splitting the leftovers into two bags for each couple to share later, they part ways. The walk back to the car is even colder now, and Tom attempts to pick up the pace while being careful not to jostle Lilly.

They head back to the car, and Tom buckles her into the seat as best as he can. “Well that was fun, it was really nice to meet Paul and Naya!”

“Yeah, they’re great, and it’s so cool that they’re working on a bunch of assistive tech for your group - I’m excited to see how far they can go.” Tom places a hand on Lilly’s case. “Thanks for all this. I know this has been kind of a weird arranged-roommate-coworker sort of situation, but I really like you a lot.”

“I like you too. A lot. I think we should make our whole situation more official, so if you’re willing to go along with me, would you consider us a couple now? Like, in a relationship?”

“I’d like that very much. This time since you arrived has been amazing, and I’m looking forward to us continuing together. Anyway, it’s cold in this car so let’s head back to our place before we freeze to death.”

“Driver, take me home!” Lilly smiles as she thinks to herself about “our place”.

The ride home is largely uneventful, Tom driving with one hand while holding Lilly’s casing with the other to help stabilize her. Halfway through the drive, Lilly tilts her head slightly, nuzzling the side of her head against Tom’s arm.

He moves his hand inward, gently stroking Lilly’s neck and running his fingers along her hairline. When his hand moves into the right place, she turns and quickly kisses it. Tom moves his hand into a better spot, and she continues kissing her way along the side and back, working her way up to gently sucking on a fingertip.

They arrive at home, and quickly head inside, Tom taking Lilly to the couch. Lilly’s face looks a little flush, and she tosses her head back a little to arrange her slightly messy hair. As the two of them sit on the couch, Tom places her in his lap facing him - her body so small that she still has to look up slightly to meet his gaze.

She smiles at him and says, “So, I was thinking about Naya and Paul on the way back, and how they made their setup work for the both of them. Physically. I really enjoyed our little make-out session before we went to dinner… Want to pick up where we left off?”

Tom leans down and kisses Lilly, lifting her slightly as he moves in.