There are not any ominous sounds from her spare room. Certainly not. And that swearing is just a bit of exuberance, really.

"Do I need to come in there?"

"It's all dead and I'm not sure why. I think I need to add a particular microscope to my shopping list."

"Damn. That's a crap result."

"Ugh. Hyperbole. My apologies. It's one machine not working right, and I need a microscope to see if I can determine why."

"Oh, that's much better. Can I conjure you the relevant microscope?"

She has specs and a model name. "-But any desktop SEM would work if it's cheaper, probably."

"Here you go." She conjures the SEM for her.

"Oh, excellent. You can watch me work if you'd like but it'll mostly be staring and muttering. I'm no good at explaining things while I'm in flow state."

"That's cool, I'll go back to my books."

Twenty minutes later, she pokes her head out.

"I can fix it, almost certainly. But I need to let something... Cook. Is now a good time for lunch?"

"Now can be a good time for lunch! Here you go, spicy beef bowl with egg."

"Ooh. So are you the kind of person who likes the gory details?"

"Hit me, I can't promise I'll follow all of it but I'll try to keep up."

"Well, essentially the problem was the biggest machines you conjured came with malformed nanomachines. Either the conjuration failed slightly or it's some kind of DRM. My own body is also a little piece of a lab, though, and I can... Make replacements."

"Probably the conjuration magic doesn't have enough resolution at the commercial grade. You'd need really high-quality stuff, the same kind of thing used for forking."

"Well either way," She says between bites, "-This is good. But either way, I'll form a cyst that I'll drop in there and mix in an hour, and then all I need to do is figure out a way to let you program your hair instead of me, since it normally goes through 'stacks. Some people like old-fashioned manual controls, shouldn't be hard."

"Printing for your adapter should be just about done now," says December. "Want to try it out?"

"Ooh, yes. I bet I could use it as control software actually..."

She ducks into the room with the printer and pulls out a squat, blocky adapter.

"Should work so long as you're within ten feet of it and it's turned on and charged, press the switch on the front."

She flips the switch and zones out for a minute.

"-It does appear to work... Oh, there's the search engine... Very good. I - hmm - think I can make it... You know what, what I'll do is grow a little square of fur and make a local phone or laptop a remote for that, as a proof of concept for the programmable hair. Instead of installing something I'm not sure you could control yet. I think I'll spend a couple more hours on this today but I'm starting to itch for something else." Shrug.

"Sure, whatever you feel like doing. I'm happy to host you however long."

"All at the cost of programmable hair. What else might you want? The same treatment on nails is popular. I could give someone a tail, or make someone a couple inches taller or shorter, or make them more symmetrical. Cosmetic changes are my specialty but I could likely fix some, like, congenital or regulatory issues. Substantial full-body things like juicing up an immune system or improving strength and reflexes - I'd want actual contact with my world to be safe."

Meanwhile, she mentally texts Hannah.

Got internet in my head thanks to one December Morning-Glory! :D Nerding but running out of steam. Gonna give her programmable hair. What u up to?

Work, more apartments. 'll be free in 30min tho

what do you wanna do?

ask december about her blossoms <3

"I'd like the same treatment on my nails, but I like my current height and tail-less-ness and asymmetricity. No need for any serious mods, I'm not frontline like a Thorn anyway."