I stood by the little worktable I'd set up in our bedroom. Our big job was tomorrow, and I was excited to get the final pieces in place. Alli had been doing little jobs with me to build my confidence and figure out my skill set, and we had a pretty good idea what I'd need in order to contribute. Right now, she was out talking to her contacts and sourcing gear, and I was at home getting ready to install it all. Not gonna lie; I was more than a little excited.

I heard the front door open, and I saw Alli walk in with a parcel under one arm and a garment bag over one shoulder. "Hey, Alli!" I said. "Did you get everything?"

"Hi, Pree," she said. "Get the door, will you?" I closed and locked the door behind her while she brought her spoils to the bedroom. When I got there, she had the garment bags laid out on the bed and the parcel on the worktable.

"Did you get the holster we were hoping for?" I said. "The, what do you call it, the Jane?"

"Yeah, I got one," said Alli, "but not the one we were hoping for." She opened the parcel to reveal a holster aug, a little concealable compartment for hiding things inside a person. Alli already had one, and she said I should have one too. "My guy didn't have one big enough for everything you wanted to carry. Just your magwrench and dampener, not your diagnostic readout thing. Like I told you, I've only ever heard of a Jane bigger than that, and I don't think they make their way to street level that often."

"No problem," I said. "How about Plan B?"

"Plan B is all good." Alli hopped up onto the workbench next to my console and pulled her personal comm from a pocket. "My guy didn't want to send me home with the file on me, so he gave me a key to a forum where I could find it on my own. Ada's holding onto it for me." She tapped her chest, with her new data storage drive installed inside. "I'm gonna need to do some fancy footwork to get the actual file for you, though." Her eyes started to sparkle, and she looked excitedly at my tools.

I looked down at the magwrench and dampener, and then I looked up at her, and then I got it. "Oh, you want to use Ada again, don't you? You like having your head off that much?"

"Well, it's the best way for me to get into secure files online," she said, "and also, I really like having my head off." She gave me a quick peck on the lips. "Come on. You want your file, don't you, Pree? Besides, you should probably practice working with Ada, too. I think that would be a good idea. It would help you do better crimes."

"Okay, okay," I said. "I get it. Let me get at Ada." I picked up my dampener. She was right, anyway; I could use the practice, especially if I was going to do this sort of thing on a job. And besides, I kind of liked having Alli's head off, too.

I slipped the dampener into a handy seam in the small of Alli's back and put her into sleep mode, and she slumped forward against my shoulder. Quickly as I could, I picked up the magwrench and disengaged the joint at her neck. I pulled one of Ada's cables from her head and the other from her chest, and I plugged both of them into her comm. Finally, I slipped the dampener back into the seam in her back and woke her back up. The whole thing took about ten, maybe fifteen seconds. I hadn't been this smooth with tools even in mechanical school. Maybe criming was just more fun.

"Ooh, nice," said Alli as she woke up, her head in my hand. She felt around blindly in her lap until she found her comm, and then she tucked it into her cleavage so the feed from her head to her body was free to move with her. "Never gets old. Okay, here we go."

Alli's eyes lots focus for a moment as her comm's screen started to light up. After only a few seconds, about as long as it took me to get Alli apart and hook Ada up, I got a ping on my console. Seems Alli and Ada had sent me an e-mail.

"There you go," said Alli. She stuck her arms out in front of her until one of her hands bumped into me, and then she took hold of her head and hopped down from the workbench. "One Plan B file, ready and waiting. I think it's got military coding, though, which is weird, given how little security there was on that forum. What kind of miltech is that easy to get hold of?"

"Well, you said it's hard to find covert options for a diagnostic tool," I said. "I know that combat docs use tactical mods that let them do diagnostics in the field without carrying a separate device, but they don't always get the top-of-the-line stuff."

"Right," said Alli, her head tucked under one arm as she stood next to me. "Corposec always has dibs on the good gear, especially when the combat zones aren't in high-priority markets."

"So I've heard from a few veteran combat docs that they sometimes have to adapt civilian gear for tactical use," I said, "and when one of them comes up with something good, they share the designs on chat rooms like this so the corps don't go after them for patent infringement." I opened up the file and took a look. It looked good, and fortunately within the limits of my gear.

Alli leaned forward over the workbench and set her head down to get a closer look at the screen. "Oh, so this is some kind of field doc hack?"

"It's basically a schematic for how to jailbreak a diagnostic tool," I said. "I'll need help installing it, though. You think you could be my nurse here, or are your hands too full?"

She turned her head around on the table to face me. "I mean, I'm no expert, but I'll do what I can."

"You won't let me put your head back on, will you?"

"Sorry. Non-negotiable." She folded her arms and smirked at me. I leaned toward her body and kissed her exposed neck joint.

"I accept your terms, then. Here, hold the light, will you?"

While Alli held a light low over my diagnostic tool, I gently removed the outer case and dismantled the inner components, following the instructions in the file. The guide was made for people working in stressful conditions, using minimal tools and probably without a reliable source of power, so doing the job in my own bedroom with my partner's help made it a piece of cake. The fact that her head was sitting right next to the work with a cable sticking out the bottom, giving me the eye and making occasional faces, wasn't nearly as distracting as it could have been. I knew that face by heart. She would never be a distraction.

Once I had the diagnostic tool dismantled, I felt a little nervous about doing the next part without it, but I was all in now. I held out my off hand for Alli to hold, and then I slipped the tip of the dampener into my wrist and turned the strength way down, just enough to lose feeling in the limb. Then I separated the elbow joint with my magwrench, and my hand came free, sitting limp in Alli's grip.

"All right, nurse," I said, tapping a spot on the bench in front of her head. "Set it down right there, palm up."

"'It?'" said Alli. "It's your hand. It's a part of you, isn't it?"

"I mean, not at the moment," I said, waving my arm stump around. "See? Nothing. Until I get it reconnected, it's a spare part. That's, like, week two of mechanical school. Come on, it'll all be over soon." I patted the bench again, and she set the hand down.

With Alli holding the hand in place, I opened a few panels on the palm and inside wrist, and I carefully set the components of the diagnostic tool in place. Alli felt like she was a little too nervous to make silly faces, but I wasn't paying attention anyway. I was entirely focused on the work, making sure all the parts were in place according to the schematic.

Once I had everything connected, I double- and triple-checked the procedure, and then I closed everything up.

"All right, Alli. Almost done."

"If you ask me to give you a hand -"

"I deliberately tried not to say it that way," I said, reaching down and tweaking her nose a little. "But seriously, I need your help reconnecting my elbow now."

"Right." She held the hand up, and she ran her hand along it until her fingers found the empty joint at the end. Once I put my upper arm in place next to it, she held the two ends together until I could reattach the joint with my magwrench. As the connection completed, I felt a small jolt from the sensor shock, and then my arm was complete.

"Back in one piece," she said.

"Says the lady with a detached head," I said.

"Hey, my head and body are completely connected," she said, fiddling with the cables attached to her comm. "Not my fault if I like to get creative. So how did it go?"

I flexed my hand back and forth, testing the mobility. It didn't feel like anything was getting in the way, either because of the mod or because I completely screwed up and forgot a part.

"Well, there's nothing obviously wrong," I said. "I must have remembered a few things from school, I guess. Let's see, what does the file say about activating the mod?"

I looked closer at the file, and then I made the finger shape they described. The seam in the middle of my palm parted slightly, and the probe from the diagnostic tool poked through. A panel on my inner wrist slid back, too, revealing the screen and keypad.

"Nice," I said. "It works great."

"What are you gonna call it?" said Alli.

"You mean a codename?" I looked it over. "Yeah, I guess the combat docs who use these don't really need crime names for them, do they? I think I'll call it Flo."

"Nice," said Alli. "Flo it is. So you still have to look at the screen and use the buttons, huh? You can't just see it in your head?"

"Well, I don't have an optical feed in my arm to tap into," I said. "I'd need extra hardware in my head to do that, and I'm not about to operate on my own head."

"Future upgrade, then."

"Yeah, maybe," I said. "Who knows? Anyway, now for Jane." I pulled the little holster closer. "Okay, your choice. Do you want me to lean against you or sit in your lap?"

"Oh, lap," said Alli. "Easy. What's the difference, though?"

"You'll see," I said. "Move your head out of the way and pull up a chair, will you?"

She didn't seem to see where I was going, but she went along with it. While she carried her head and searched for a chair, I got up onto the table myself and repositioned my tools.

Once Alli had her seat, she crossed her legs and balanced her head on one knee, drumming her fingers on top of her head. "All right, Pree. Wow me."

I pulled up the rear edge of my shirt, got my dampener, and felt around on my back for the right seam. I dialed the power back up, but not all the way, and then I depowered my whole lower half. Once I completely lost feeling in my butt, I pressed my magwrench against the same spot, and then I lifted my upper half away and leaned down on top of my detached legs. When I was sure that all of the feeds were safely disconnected, I lifted myself up and walked on my hands toward Alli.

"Coming in for a landing, Alli," I said. "Clear the pad."

Alli giggled and uncrossed her legs, taking her head back under one arm and reaching out. I hopped down off the table and landed in her lap, balancing myself on her upper legs with her steadying me by the shoulder, leaving my lower half lying on the workbench ready for the install.

With Alli holding me steady in her lap, I leaned forward and went to work on the Jane. This part was easy, at least. Alli had let me take a close look at hers already, and she showed me how it worked, so all I had to do was follow the leader. I hiked up one leg of my shorts to expose the large panel on the side of the thigh, popped it open, and connected the holster's actuator to the main feed. That was the advantage of installing proper mods over homemade jailbreaks. You didn't need to hope that anything worked. Criminals wanted their gear to do what it was supposed to do, just like everyone else.

Once everything was installed and the skin panels back in place, I tugged the leg of my shorts back down. "There, done," I said. "Let's get a feel for the action. Bring me closer, will you?"

"Okay, but you'll have to hold this," said Alli. She handed me her head and wrapped her arms around me, standing up and walking over to the end of the workbench. I extended Flo's probe and attached my new mod to the exposed waist joint, and the screen inside my wrist showed me all the sensor and actuator feeds going in and out. I twitched a few fingers, and the legs and feet responded as I tested the feeds for leaks.

"Ooh," said Alli, reaching forward and feeling one of the legs. "That's fun. You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I can guess," I said. "You know I can't feel any of that, right? I'm just using Flo to make sure everything still works. Those aren't me right now, not until I get them reconnected."

"Oh, well, a girl can dream," she said. "Future upgrade, then."

I laughed. She really would not rest until both of us were in pieces all the time. "Future upgrade." I flexed another finger, and the thigh panel slid open as Jane's clips extended from inside. "Looks like it's all good. That's my new gear taken care of."

"Well, not quite," said Alli, as she carried me away from the workbench toward the bed. Up until then, I had completely forgotten that we were in the bedroom. "You remember the other stuff I brought back?"

I had completely forgotten the garment bag, too. "Oh, yeah. What else did you pick up, anyway?"

"The rest of our gear." She laid down in the bed and set me, still holding her head, next to her. "Our mods will help us do the job once we're inside, but these will help get us there." She lifted up the garment bag and unzipped the flap, revealing a pair of fancy new outfits. There wasn't much to them, especially hers.

"Wow," I said. "Those are very nice. Where do you get this stuff, anyway? You never shop name brand."

"Oh, of course not," she said. "I know some forgers, though. If you want to get into the big money, you need to go where the big money likes to go, and that means you have to look like you spend way too much money to have a famous name on your underwear. For two ladies as fine as us, these clothes are as good as a skeleton key."

I turned her head around to face me. "You know, you're right. You are a pretty fine lady."

I brought her in for a kiss, and I felt her fingers stroking the bottom edge of my midriff. I took my time.

"Yeah, you're pretty fine, too, Pree," she said with a deep chuckle. "Say, you're not in any hurry to get yourself together, are you?"

I glanced to the side, and I saw her reaching for the tie on her top. I was still excited for the job, but that wasn't until tomorrow night.

"Nah," I said. "I've got time."