"Not... technically. Classification is a government matter. We are covered by an entirely contractual non-disclosure agreement, though we will enforce it quite strenuously. People's lives are on the line, if it's disclosed in the wrong way."

"I'm not much of a rule-follower."

"It's worth it. And... moving to a private research site with others from the project is an option. There, as long as you don't break some common-sense rules, privacy is not particularly required. It might make vacations awkward, if you're out of practice."

Lesya considered, especially given that his favorite vacations to date all took place entirely within his own mind.

"I might be willing to consider it. For enough of a draw."

"Both the money and the scientific interest are extremely large draws. I'm not enough of an expert to participate in the research, but I understand enough to assure you no one on Earth is working on anything whose experimental biology is nearly as advanced or fascinating. There are also some fairly substantial perks, and drawbacks, but you'd need to sign this initial NDA to hear that."

Lesya looked at the NDA; it looked inoffensive, and was enforceable purely as - large, to be fair - fines and court orders. He was interested; he signed.

"We're working on modified organs. Implants, inheritable. Over a hundred viable modifications created so far, all adding very noticeable capabilities to those implanted. Arrested aging and vastly improved recall are among the tamest. There are some very common side effects, but they're cosmetic."

"...No one, but no one, understands the human body well enough to do that. Just having had anti-agathics long enough to see the effects would require you be... fifty years ahead of the state of the art, at least."

"Not all of these are entirely our own work. Anti-aging was based about eighty percent on a data dump we received at the start of the project. Which also came with designs for tools to work on the project in detail, which are, indeed, about fifty years ahead of the state of the art. Maybe a hundred, if it advances slower than we expect. You will not get any offer anywhere else that advances the real state of the art."

Unless he prefers electromechanical implants and their rivals find him. But he's not going to say that.

"And you want me."

"Your early completion of your doctorate drew our attention, and the... chemical self-experimentation... as well. We need more work on the psychological effects of some of the nervous system and brain modifications."

"LSD, particularly, has the potential to be... what was it that I heard it called? 'The microscope of psychiatry,' I think. It's a good metaphor, letting us look at the mind in a more detailed view. Salary?"

"Twenty-five thousand a year. Better than Harvard."

He raised his eyebrows slightly. Yes, that was about a fifth higher than Harvard's tenured salary.

"I will admit, however, that a great many of our researchers donate much of their salary back to the project. Especially those who live on the private sites. It's... extremely important work, very much justifying treating it as highly classified."

"Dangerous."

"For the world. Not for our research staff. We also hire from other walks of life."

"Military? Intelligence?"

"Some of each."

"...Okay. I'm in, enough to sign the scarier NDA and hear more."

"I have a copy. The contents are covered by the weaker NDA and should not be unsealed anywhere you are not very sure of your privacy."

"How should I contact you?"

"There's a phone number and address on the papers. Everything's in-house, even the lawyers, they'll get you to me or my cousin."

"Family business?"

"Mostly. Inheritable, remember?"

"Ah. I'll be back within a week."

"Thank you, Doctor."

The first third was a description of the research and what his role would be. The middle third was a (partial) list of what implants he could get, and expected operation time - five years of frequent hospital visits, about three years of it in de facto isolation, years of medication for management for several stages. Extending it to ten years for about fifty percent more implants possible.

The last third was a dossier on the dangers, the reason they were doing an extremely expensive crash project that would last a century or more.

It is something like a jump scare in text form.

Followed by diagrams and photos, some of them biological, some of them astronomical. He is informed there is likely a smaller rival project interested in recruiting him to work on electromechanical biochemical implants, and precisely why he should refuse, and if at all possible, inform this project. And if he cannot do either, why death is preferable.

Lesya Shulgin is a coward.

He volunteers for a war anyway.

"I think I want to move to the private site before starting the 'perk' process," he tells Ulric Grammer, "I don't know whether it will interfere with me carrying out work, but I'm willing to start immediately."

"Eager?"

"Scared. But the sooner I start working, the more likely we have an army that can keep them off me."

"A reasonably healthy way to think about it. We have in-house psychic psychiatrists if it stops looking so healthy."

"I am absolutely fascinated to get the sensory psychic implants, though I don't think I have a psychiatric temperament at all."

"Having read your file, I am not at all surprised. Have you given thought to the extension?"

"Seven years, I think. Focusing on the cerebral modifications with the extra. Extra time to be sure the body can handle more changes?"

Ulric nods. "Precisely. Space in the body isn't the main constraint, but stress on other systems is limiting."

Lesya nodded.

"So, we can talk details. The main site is an island in the North Sea, like Iceland but smaller. We're working on establishing one in the Florida Keys, technically extraterritorial, but it's certainly not ready for implantation processing yet."

"The mini-Iceland will be fine for seven years. I can check in again afterward if I'm very tired of the cold."

"Alright. We'll take the dossier back, but you can get a more complete one on-site. Let's discuss the logistics of travel and moving, which are kept secure..."

"Dr. Shulgin. You've looked at the initial wave of cell line treatments?"

"Indeed. Regen cells and Lazarus cells seem like obvious choices. And I'll take the two backups distributing the circulatory organs as well. Motile nerves. Hmm, nothing here for sudden wound sealing or radiation?"

"We're working on them. Radiation isn't difficult but we didn't start on it until the Missile Crisis. There's a few approaches to wound recovery in development; there's one ready for very experimental trials we can include later in the process, we'll have a first version in two to three years."

"What's that one?"

"Calling it progenitor cells, they form a reasonably tough scab over the wound and speed up stem cell scaffolding to fix the damage in hours or days."

"Yeah, I'll take that one. Also the super-mitochondria and proteus healing. The anti-impact adipose tissue. And the bacteria destroyers. That's... ten, eleven with the experimental one?"

"I count nine or ten."

"...Right, let's say the chameleon package, color and muscle shape. Another one of my extra twenty-six."

"Seems like fun?"

"I enjoy my pranks," Lesya admitted, "And sneaking around places I'm not strictly supposed to be. Maybe I'll help test security a little."

Doctor Grammer smiled, "As long as you're here, you won't give anyone too big of a headache trying."

"Good, it's important to have a sense of humor. Okay, hearts? Or should we jump around?"

"It's reasonable to plan your highest priorities first, and I can tell you about incompatibilities or necessary boosts."

"Alright, brain, nerves, and psychic capacities. Speed lobe, backup brains, memberance lobe, synaptic multibraid, cognitive enhancer, precognitive encephalon, pinocchio brain, ordinator brain, cloud brain, and activemem upgrade, all for sure. That's... ten out of the usual six, and I'm not even done. Are we going to be pushing the limits, if I take fifteen of these?"

"Hmm... yes, pushing, but not breaking. It will need to spread out across at least a whole year and I expect the adjustment period will be highly unpleasant from side effects of the implants and compatibility drugs required to keep them from interfering, but I think you could get as high as sixteen without overwhelming your nervous system. Absolutely do not take anything experimental from the nervous, psychic, or sensory clusters, if you go past twelve."

"What's there which is experimental?"

"A secondary brain which is nearly a full copy, at the spine's base. A mind-reading shield which is comprehensive enough to hide things from yourself under torture. Psychic abilities... a false mind, and while the teleport lobes and emergency overlap-triggered redirector are well-established, the sensory improvement and shield against hyperspace entity interference are still experimental. and it's not terribly safe without them."

"Attractive, but one or two of those isn't worth losing four brain enhancements. Sensory experiments?"

"A radio antenna integrated as a new sense, an additional rear-facing eye that tracks movements, and a dizziness-proof balance organ for high-speed precision. Oh, and combining improved visual clarity, infrared/ultraviolet, and telescoping vision together in one eye is experimental, but each pair is well-established."

"...That combination does sound tempting. And the radio. But I think I'll go to fourteen and see if I need to cut back later."

"Alright. What were your other picks for neural modification?"

"The biomonitor, the sensorium comprehension, and... I want the pre-firing and velocity nerves and the sensory postproclets. And the sleep organ. Damn. Alright, skip the nerves, unless those're safe to add on to the cluster without increasing strain."

"...I'll have to talk with the cognitive surgery specialist. Possible."

"Pencil them in, then. And... keep the post-processing and sleep reduction. Fourteen, maybe sixteen."

"Psychic abilities, then? Or sensory?"

"Extra-sensory, first. Generator, obviously. I'm not too tempted by the direct weapons like telekinesis. The psychokinetic energy shield, the ESP lobes... is the neural snare the best defense against hostile telepathy we have?"

"That or the chaff generator. Though two of the experimental implants are improvements in many ways, especially if you want to go unnoticed."

"Ah, well. There's a note that telepathy requires extensive outpatient care to manage? Still taking it, to be clear."

"Yes, in addition to a couple years of medication, psychotherapy and training for about five years are very, very strongly recommended."

"I'll deal with it. Precognitive lobe, and... standard is six? Would it help with safety to stick to five?"

"Not significantly, I think, though we could fit in another organ's strain somewhere else."

"Chaff generator, then. But... pencil that, in case it would help with the nerves to skip it."

"I'll note it. It's possible, I just don't think it's likely. Next: there are quite a lot of sensory implants available. Most of them would require additional eyes or ears, though the disguise sphincters are extraordinarily good."

"Okay. The navigator's ear and high-frequency ear combination sounds good. No pun intended. Enhanced chemoreceptors. The... attention tracker, the air pressure vision, the good nose, magnetic field tracking, I think I want the doubled eyes with expanded spectrum and telescopic vision, And... can I get a set of the wide field of vision eyes on the back edge of my neck?"

"Yes, we've placed sets there before."

"Then that. And pencil in the van-gogh's membrane and the ocular membrane together. That's... nine, or eleven. Stressing the system with that?"

"With the sensorium implant, you'll be fine. Shall we go in order from the beginning for the rest?"

"...I think I want to look at the skin layer. It occurs to me that there are things outside the lab I might be willing to help with personally; spy things, rather than soldier ones."

"There are certainly several options you could take for the dermis that might work with that. You read them?"

"Skimmed it. Anything experimental here?"

"A weave just under the skin which dissipates heat in such a way as to make you show up as a blank spot or ordinary human to infrared sensors."

"That could be useful. I'll come back to it. Alright, the Pinocchio weave makes sense with the other half in the brain. Chameleon skin, a little redundant with my cell line picks but worthwhile. Hmm, weaveskin seems useful but possibly redundant with the section of armors."

"Slightly, but not enormously; it acts as bulletproof silk, rather than something more rigid."

"I suppose that makes sense. That, then. Biosculptor tissues seem like I'd experiment with them and hormonal balance enormously just for fun, and also useful. Are the custom follicles redundant, other than speed?"

"Yes, if you don't need to do quick-change artistry, you won't need the follicles. Either of them solves the characteristic white hair and high growth rate, which are mostly cosmetic issues but could be a problem in the future if our enemies catch wind of us."

"My father and uncles looked fine in white, but I'd be happy to be able to change it up. Heavenscent glands, sure, and yes to the experimental infrared baffle. And the ocular membrane pair, if I'm going with this."

"I'll note it down. Anything else?"

"Let's put down the internal pocket and the climbing grip, and come back to these later after armor, to decide if I want any more of the protections."

"There's a different version of the climbing grip made with small spines, sorted with the weapons; it's more capable, though also more stressful on the body to use."

"Can you be a full Spider-Man?"

"You are the third person so far to ask that. Yes, yes you can."

"Well, I'll take a look later. Pencil the grip flesh for now, and let's go back to the start. Hearts?"

"There's a reasonable selection; nothing experimental here at the moment."

"Improved hearts. In addition to the small backups. Let's see, what do I want to be resistant to... Injury contingency. Stopped heart. Disease. Loss of circulation. Improper clotting. I think I want the stimulantis gland just to see what I can do with it. And let's add the hibernation and sports endurance modifications. Will there be any issues with those?"

"No, we've done eight of those repeatedly, and these all work together pretty smoothly. Several were in the initial data dump we got from the benefactors, though we developed all the not-strictly-cardiac variants ourselves in order to provide more options. The capsules, centrifuge, and thrombocyte maker, in your case."

"Those all seem good. I can look back at the flight heart if I get very enamored of wings, I guess. Right, what's next... sensory again. Actually, how well does the microscopic vision, the tapetum lucidum mirrors, work if I try to integrate it with the complex eyes I already asked for? Or if I have one eye with telescoping capacity and expanded spectrum, and the other microscopic?"

"Not well, and it's been tried. If you weren't bearing such a heavy load of cognitive changes I'd suggest you pilot the spectrum-microscope combination. The best I've seen so far is to implant the microscopic eyes on one or both palms. That would bring you up to thirteen, so I'd advise strongly against adding more than one more."

"...Drop the side eyes to 'penciled in', I think. And we can move on to lungs."

"Noted. For disguise purposes, you want to consider the vox celestial; mimic just about any sound, but with dizziness likely to result for much of the range. It's one of the reasons we've worked hard on the balance enhancement, Grayson's organ, that seems to negate the side effects."

"Five to eighty thousand Hertz range. Mostly causing dizziness at the ends below and above human hearing?"

"Or very high volume within it."

"I'll take it, and practice to deal with the drawbacks. I think there will be plenty of opportunities, though my coworkers might not thank you for letting me try."

"As long as they're not a serious impediment to work."

"I'll tone it down if it becomes a problem. If I want multiple lung types, I'll need the circulators?"

"Yes. We're working on three at a time, but that version of the circulator isn't ready for testing yet."

"Only four kinds, is there much demand?"

"Well, we also have two experimental new types. One which could handle Venusian atmosphere other than the temperature, and one which stores oxygen and captures CO2 as a cyanide compound you can cough up as fluid and release as gas."

"...I think I'll pass on the cyanide, even if I'd be immune. Let's take the circulator and the heat and athlete lungs. Emergency backup, the atmospheric filter, and the detoxifier annex. And pencil throat sealer as well, I think I have quite a few extra spaces left in my extra couple years of treatments."

"Don't see any problems there. Digestion?"

"Sure. Not much that jumped out at me, here. The super-digestion intestine. It seems like it would be easier to put that alongside the normal digestive tract rather than replace it."

"We haven't tried it. There's an experimental secondary tract, but it's for extracting and digesting inorganics."

"Oh, that's interesting... I probably won't be a good test case, though, unless I swear off interesting psychoactives, which I very much prefer not to do."

"Are many of those inorganic-based? I think it would be fine."

"Alright, sure, add the secondary gut. And the fangs, that's a solid enough holdout weapon I think I want that."

"The other experiment currently running is a biological furnace which burns indigestible organics and converts it to electricity and then fat and protein."

"No issues with body temperature?"

"Minimal. It does vent smoke from your ears if you run it too long."

"...Pass. Too Looney Tunes. I think change the jaw to go with the fangs - they'll be up to the pressure?"

"Most likely. If you take a normal amount of skeletal enhancements, absolutely."

"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."

"You will have bones particularly hard to break. But absorbing forces is always helpful. Sound choice."

"Alright, round it out with the lactic dissipator and reoxygenator. That seems like a reasonable amount of extras."

"I think you're at thirty-one, now, so you're looking at eight years instead of seven. But if there's only one or two more extras, only about seven and a half."

"I'll try to restrain myself. Or drop some of the penciled ones, there's... six?"

"Seven, and there's two under the usual count for the gut. I think you'll end up close to seven years, depending on what we hear back about the nerves."

"Right. Now, the creepiest section of all - autonomous detachable symbiotes. Where did you get this stuff?"

"Oh, pretty much all of these were in the care package. We just had to adapt them better to human physiology."

"Right. I think I go with the cocoon weaver and the infiltrator, and then some of the living ammunition. Grapple, armor-piercing. Weaponized hallucinations? That seems useful to make any reports of me unreliable. What would you suggest?"

"Spies not primarily intended for wetwork make use of the adhesive cocoon and the glow-tracker. And the explosive may be very useful in emergencies."

"Wetwork... that's when you're intending to go for combat?"

"Correct. Anything where you expect blood to be dripping at some point in the process."

"Isn't that a lovely euphemism. I doubt I should drop the piercer to make room; should I drop the grapple?"

"I think if you're still inclined toward being Spider-Man, yes. None of these have decent range, but I think unless you intend to snipe from rooftops - which you will likely be capable of - that is not a problem."

"...Good point. You are correct, I do not want to do that. I so, so, do not want to do that. I mean, better than shooting people close up, but also much easier to be sure I'm avoiding it. That's enough symbiotes. Next... reproductive modifications. What're our experimental options here?"

"Two reproductive bio-drones, primarily. A womb that can implant itself through a wound and carry to term in any mammal or most reptiles, and incidentally leaves the host healthier and long-living. A mobile zygote collector that can return a fertilized egg with material from up to a dozen sources."

"...Are those both the same researcher's work?"

"How would you possibly guess?  There's also the genetic sampler - extend a 'tongue' to sample someone's genetics. It's a fairly simple implant, built with pieces we understand, so minimal potential downsides, but you'd be the first trial run."

"That one seems useful, let's go with it. Most of these seem much more useful for someone intending to bear pregnancies. Though I don't really think I'd be much of a parent..."

"We do firmly encourage you to have children; it's much more efficient at expanding the project membership than implantation, even when we select very talented adult members to induct. We do, eventually, need to be an army."

"I suppose that's a good reason."

"Also, given some of your existing choices, you'll be capable of bearing children. The hormonal balance and gross anatomy of a female form is enough to make it work, if awkwardly, and your disguise and biomonitor implants give you that."

"Fascinating point. Alright, add the myriadic organ, which I assume removes a lot of the awkwardness. Pario ovum, because I've seen enough pregnancies from the outside, thank you, no need to see one from the inside. The 'plagiarist' that lets the kid start out at toddler. I don't think I want to add extras to bear a pregnancy well, so... Is it worthwhile to take the fast-blank for one month pregnancies in the external womb?"

"It would only be moderately convenient, if you're not expecting to have a lot of them."

"And I'm not. Alright, I'll take the fun one... Actually, no, the recycler. It's not my preferred way to be a godless sybarite anyway."

"I'll pencil the other one in," he said dryly.

Lesya snorted.

"Getting to the end of our list. Wings, most of them very visible; also most of them combinable. They're very significant changes, so if you pass on them that would reduce the load enough for extras of anything that's well-distributed in the body, like the cell lines, muscoskeletal systems, or ancillary systems."

"Let's look at ancillaries, that's stage 13, right?"

"Correct. Only five, one experimental, and you can choose two. Adding extras is particularly high-load and not going to be reliable unless you drop short on musculoskeletal systems or wings. Making yourself poisonous to eat is the new variant."

"These are... extremely tempting. Genetic seeds and Immortis gland. Pencil in the other two, antibodies and antifreeze. And let's look at wings."

"Six varieties of highly visible external wings, one of them experimental. There's no way to conceal these short of heavy coats. But any three can be combined well, other than the experimental angel feathers."

"Have you considered making variants that can be painlessly cut off and then force-regrown over the course of weeks or months?"

"Hmm. Not that I can remember. That's a good idea. There are also three varieties which can be concealed - insectile distance wings, hunchback full wings, an experimental set of fast-deploying inflated wings that have limited use-time and substantial recharge."

"The angel wings are just cosmetic, relative to the batlike variants?"

"Correct. The initial deployments found their flight capabilities limited, but we believe we've fixed that for the second iteration and they should be unspecialized but adequate as generalist wings."

"I think I'd rather not be visible, so I'll pass on all of those. Given the heavy weight, I'll take the jet and the swim fins. Can the stealthy hunchback wings be concealed with the body-shape changes I'm taking on? Masking gait etc.?"

"Imperfectly. But it helps significantly."

"Then I think I'll stick to the insectile ones that fold up. Half an hour to deploy, so I won't be using them for escapes, but I don't think I can entirely resist. The acrobatic maneuvering set look fairly small and collapsible, have you considered getting those to the point where they can be concealed?"

"It's in development, but not ready for live trials yet."

"Fair enough. Nothing else here, so... I guess I add the two ancillaries?"

"That shouldn't pose any problems."

"Okay, armor. The flexible fiber and subdermal plates. Brain armor, heart, and windpipe. And... the enemy use advanced electronics, right? Better take the anti-laser plating. What's experimental?"

"Two variants on the grounding organ - one for microwaves and other radiation, one for extreme heat. And face and neck armor that hasn't been noticeable externally on either of the two test subjects so far."

"None of those is tempting, really. Pencil in the widespread cushioning and the lung armor, and let's move on. Skin we already covered."

"Do you want to consider the swimming enhancement to the skin?"

"Ah, pencil it in, I guess. I can come back for a broad pass."

"Weapons, then. Quite a number of options. Currently experimental are the weaponized immune system, the heel spike, and a number of bioelectricity variants we couldn't get to work quite right with the care package. You'll want to take the firearm, to launch bio-drone rounds. Possibly two."

"Weaponized immune system?" He took a sheet of paper with details.

"Ah. It occurs to me you could do this with broader chemical synthesis. If this works, and the hormone control works... Especially combined with some of the synthesis going on in the bio-drones."

"That's an intriguing idea, we'll consider it. Possibly even on your team."

"In any case, yes, I'll take the weaponized thymus. Knuckle busters and punching tendons. Projectile launcher in the right arm and the steel-slicing pincers in the left. And, yes, I want the spider-climbing package. And the ink jet. I think that's everything."

"Ah, I didn't mention, but these are relatively low-impact; highly optimized for obvious reasons. You can get eight rather than six."

"Ah, okay. Let's say... the poison stinger, and another projectile launcher like you said. Right, let's look at where we stand with this list."

"Twenty-four extra organs ignoring the penciled, thirty-four if you include those. But I think you will want to go somewhere in between. Here, I have the running list."

"Right. Okay, it's looking like I might drop two of the potential digestive changes, I'm still not excited about the spare teeth and long tongue - especially after looking at the tentacles and bioweapons. What would that get us in terms of reduced stress on the system for applying other varieties?"

"Some reduced load, not an enormous amount. Certainly it buys us less time spent modifying your digestive tract, but unless it's something closely related from another slate, probably we could only squeeze in one other per two forgone."

"Does the chemoreceptor enhancement count as sufficiently related?"

"Ah, that probably would. I'll double-check at the same time as checking the nerve enhancements and the overload with the brain."

"If that works, then I have... two spares, one for the chemoreceptors and one from going short on wings. Well, four, but two I use for the ancillaries, since you said that was about the only way to get more of those without excess stress."

"Those would work, yes. If you weren't dropping half the quota for wings, I'd say the stress drop was enough to handle an extra organ somewhere else, but diminishing returns is setting in at this point."

"Not increasing, since most extra wings would be combining past a point?"

"Maybe if we had a default process that assumed missing wings. But our initial templates were mostly winged, so no." John shrugs, in a way that makes his own wings under his jacket more visible.

"Fair enough. Okay, skipping through these other penciled choices... drop grip flesh. Drop side eyes. That leaves me at 31 beyond the standard five-year quota, and the schedule you gave plus the flex from the missing ones accommodates 28 for seven years, I think? Or 27 if the chemoreceptors don't work out."

"Yes, your count is good. Think you can bear to cut three? If the nerves are too much, that's two. Though I think you were restrained sufficiently that you'll get the fast nerves."

"If nothing jumps out at me, that comes back unfavorable, and the digestive replacement favorable, I'll just drop the gridlock immanis and not be too troubled. Probably I should make a copy of my list, take this set of diagrams and explanations back to my new apartment, and look it all over. I assume everyone takes a week or three to think before finalizing."

"Yes, a whole month if you like. We do want at least a preliminary set of selections in a week, so the doctors can take your samples and compare to reactions, start planning the details of your treatments. But it doesn't have to be complete, this will do well enough."

"Then I think give the planners this, including everything penciled, and aiming for seven years. And I'll get back to you in a few days with edits."

"We'll talk then. And until then, I suspect will see you in the reading room."

"Until then."

Lesya took the full detailed files on everything he'd selected or penciled down, and secluded himself in his - still spartan but otherwise quite nice - apartment. Thirteen things penciled down, and if he took more than four he'd need to add more time beyond the seventh year. Not necessarily prohibitive, but given how much time he was going to spend blind or deaf, and then the time with his brain misfiring in considerably less entertaining ways than his usual, he'd rather keep it down.

Several were fairly easy choices; the side eyes could be dropped and the microscopic eyes would be covered in his palms. The dexterous tentacles and grip flesh didn't seem needed, and the gridlock immanis, while surely entertaining, was never a priority. The ancillaries he'd already mentally filed as locked-in. Harder were the digestive changes; even dropping all three would only get him one other implant, unless the chemorecept amplificat counted as similar enough. He dropped the extending tongue and the secondary teeth, and considered keeping the food storage pouch.

But with those gone, he still had the throat sealer, gastric pouch, organ cushioning, breaths plate - and wasn't that a terrible pun - and the three nervous system improvements. From the third forgone wing tissue and some of the forgone digestive changes, he'd be able to fit in one more in the usual schedule, probably two. That would give him time for as much as a hundred thirty implants of one size or another, and as long as he wasn't over the high-margin safe tolerances for the brain, that was still his main limiting factor.

He currently, with the pouch, sealer, nerves, limbic enhancer, and armor, stood at one hundred thirty-three. If the nerves were just too much, he'd drop those. He was nervous enough about getting weighed down by metal bones that he wasn't going  to cut the throat sealer. So that left pouch, limbic enhancer, and armor.

...The pouch he could spare. And if he could keep the nerves, he would drop the armor; he had gotten the really critical organs covered already.

Well, he'd ask how much extra time it would be to add the armor and pouch anyway. He was guessing three months, even though it was less than a quarter of what he'd get with a third extra year; the amount of information they gave him about the process suggested it was not well-optimized at smaller time scales.

And if he couldn't safely get the nerves, he'd get the armor, and possibly an extra month for the gastric pouch.