"Then that's good. Pencil in the gastric pouch, shark teeth and extending tongue. Which gets us caught up to the mental changes."

"Anything to change there?"

"...Pencil down the Limbic Enhancer. If I'm going to do spy work, I might need it."

"You'd need to drop something at that point."

"I know, I know. For psychic organs, I think I ought to take both the chaff and the snare."

"If you want to be available for espionage work, most likely. We don't think the cyborg spies are good at psionic capabilities, but we believe they have them."

"That makes sense. Right, any recommendations for the bone and muscle sections?"

"With the disguise skin, metallic bones lose one of their primary drawbacks. You'll still be unusually heavy. You'll want to avoid the extra scapula that attaches new arms or tentacles. And most of the wings, later. I generally recommend everyone take two of the three joint improvements, or of the four if you include the experimental universal-swivel variety. And if you do take that, take the flexible bone enhancement as well."

"Ah? Let me see... Oh, yes, I could see how extreme contortionism would be very useful."

"For muscles, motile muscles for body-shape adjustment on the fly seems warranted. I'd also recommend the dexterous and lasher tentacles, together with whatever overall muscle improvements you want."

"What's experimental in these two?"

"Just the new type of joints for bone. For muscle, there's a finger modification that lets them extend and twist like foot-long tentacles or return to apparent normal. An implant for rapid and well-controlled muscle growth, customizable. And a new variety of high-power, very fast-twitch muscle we're calling 'quicoarse.'"

"Tradeoffs of the fingers versus the dexterous tentacles, assuming no yet-undiscovered drawbacks?"

"Fingers are easier to hide, still slightly better at fine motor control than the longer ones. But they only stretch about a foot and a half from your wrist, versus being about six feet from the shoulder before they start to stretch enough to begin losing dexterity."

"Put me down for the fingers and the motile muscle, and I'll consider the longer fine manipulators as well."

"Very good. Joints?"

"So we have the locking joints, impact-absorbers, and faster movement, or the experimental contortionist joints. Locking... might be helpful when climbing something implausibly large. But I don't think that's a major concern even if I go for long-range espionage. And I think I won't. So it's a matter of whether I want the experimental contortionist setup, or just stick with impact and speed. ...I'll come back to it in a minute."

"Right," he said, making notes for a future inductee.

"Metal bones seems like a good idea. I might go back and get some underwater-oriented enhancements, since swimming will be difficult, but it's worth it. Bone injury cushions, straightforwardly helpful, especially in emergencies. Dense ribcage and secondary cartilage skeleton, likewise. That points to wanting to take flexibone for its own sake. So, okay, take the multilock joints. And... go with performance over impact, my other tissues will take up impact slack already."

"Understood. Thank you for testing it."

"That brings me up to what, five experiments? Is that unusually high?"

"For researchers? No. For people expecting combat, yes; we end up being our own best testbeds."

"Heh. Alright, you recommended lasher tentacles - for general contingencies and quick reaction, when I don't expect a fight but get one?"

"Primarily, yes. There are better options for grabbing things and pulling yourself toward them, but they are passable at that, and more flexible with their ability to throw away. I have these."

"Okay, I'll take them. Skip the other experiments, though they sound useful. Itinerant muscles sound disconcerting but useful. Full-body implants and the push-force coils. And... with the bones I have, the emphasis ligamens don't sound useful, but the dynamic ones do."