She came limping into the shop on a slow day. I'd seen that limp a hundred times.

"Howdy! What can I do for you?"

"Hi, I'm wondering if you can help me. I was running errands earlier, and my leg just went totally numb. If I hadn't had a shopping cart to grab, I might have dropped my stuff."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. You want me to take a look, see if I can find the problem for you?"

"Yes. Please do."

"Okay. Is it your whole leg? Can you still lift your knee?"

She hopped over to the service desk and grabbed the pole, and she tried to lift her leg. "I can almost lift it, but it's really sluggish."

"Well, it's definitely not a bad part, then. I've been seeing a lot of this. Pop it off and set it up here. I'll take a look." I patted the top of the desk. She reached down, grabbed her ankle, and lifted her leg until her calf rested on the desk, and then she squeezed the catch on her thigh and detached her leg.

While she found her balance and held onto the pole, I took out my tools and started examining her detached leg. "Yeah, I'm getting a core fault code. Looks like you're running the old kernel still, and it's causing problems with the rest of your leg and hips. Did you get an update email?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe? Let me check." She wrapped her arm around the pole and reached into her bag for her phone. "Hang on, hang on...yeah, here it is."

"You should have a code in there for an update voucher. If you want to show me that code, I can get your leg updated to the current version, and they'll only charge you for the parts. Do you have a hub unit installed?"

"Yeah, the v3.2, I think."

"Are you sure? Can you double-check?"

She looked at her phone again. "Where do I find that?"

"It'll be on the housing itself, next to the bar code. I can check for you, if you'll let me examine your trunk unit."

"Yeah, sure. Go right ahead." She turned and leaned against the desk, and then she grabbed hold of the pole and pulled herself up it. I stepped around to the front of the desk, where I saw her one-legged lower half braced against the desk and her upper half hanging onto the pole. Her back was curled up a little, pointing her midriff back toward me.

I grabbed her midriff and clicked it loose, and I brought it back around the desk as I examined the markings on the bottom. While I double-checked, she set her torso down on top of the desk and gave her arms a rest.

"Yep, you've still got the 3.2 here. A lot of the new features in the update tie into the hub unit now, so they're making the fancier versions standard and sunsetting these old ones. I'll need to give you one of those to make the update work, but they've dropped the price as part of the voucher deal, so it shouldn't be too bad."

"Can you give me an estimate?"

"Yeah, sure. Let's see..." I typed a few things into my service console and showed her the screen. "Here's the normal cost for the leg update and new hub unit, and here's what you're saving with the voucher. Sound good?"

"Oh, yeah, that's fine. Go ahead and let's make it happen."

"Great." I set her detached midriff and leg in a metal basket. "You want to keep the rest with you, or should I take a look at the whole package and make sure everything's still compatible?"

"Will that be extra?"

"If I find anything else that needs attention, I'll give you a call with a new estimate, but if you're not feeling any problems, it shouldn't be any additional charge."

"Then yeah, sure, go ahead."

I gathered her other leg and hips from the front of the desk, clicked them apart, and set them into the basket. "Do you have a ride to pick you up, or do you need any courtesy extremities?"