Dr Elune wandered down the hallway, the mansion having an off day. Alex and Jolana had disappeared at some point, which made the doctor giggle quietly to themself. Hope was holed up in her room, chatting over a secure line with the station. Greg was still at the spire, catching up with some friends in one of the countless bars. Possibly several of them...

Which left the doctor to pester Ren. Poking their head inside Ren's open doorway, Dr Elune coughed, "May I come in?"

Ren looked up from his tinkering, waving the doctor over, "Sure. Sorry about the mess, but Laura finalised the socket designs for the modular AHORs... So, I'm getting a head start."

Sitting down on one of the few clear patches of bed, the doctor peeked over curiously, "Still hard at work on the improved nervous systems?"

"Yup. Tactile nerves are fine, even in Alex's current models... Other senses, too. The spinal collumn barely holds up, though... And I think I can almost get the brain efficient enough..."

The doctor nodded, nabbing a nearby display, "One sec, that reminds me of an idea... By the time Laura gets back, you should have a pretty good system set up... But how about this little caveat?"

Ren turned his heas idly, blinking at the screen as Dr Elune held up a schematic. "Hmmm... Interesting. That would actually work really well..."

"The modular part also means we can slot back in the transiever, instead. Hide the importans seems just inside the hairline, for swapping purposes."

"... I like this spin on it, yeah." Rubbing hs chin thoughtfully, Ren nodded, "Alex will benifit greatly from a setup like this, moving forward. My own designs... I don't plan on swapping often."

"Oh? Ah well, at least you have options now." Turning to look at the lifeless unit Ren was working on, the doctor chuckled, "Besides... You won't get the system safely small enough for a while. This proposal of mine gives you a catalyst, until then."

"... Stop making sense. It's disturbing, coming from you." Smirking as he fumbled blindly for a pair of pliers, Ren continued nudging and modifying, "But yes, once we set up a mobile nerve manufactury, we can start work on a new and improved version of the hub for both of us. Mine being smaller, of course."

"Of course. Alex needs room to sim, after all." Resting their head on their palms, the doctor simply watched Ren work as they chated away, there not being enough room for two people, "Say... I doubt I can modify the current AHORs to accomodate the Mod system. What are we going to do about the Diplomat models?"

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Seriously? Have you seen the latest diagnostics?" Putting down the pliers, Ren reached for some thin wire next, "The main downside of those early prototypes is no self-repair... Slight wear can be resealed using the solutions we have on hand, but it still takes a toll." Chuckling quietly, Ren looked at the doctor, "And hey... Guess when the signs of wear and tear started to accelerate?"

The doctor paued for a moment. "... When we had our 'outage'." Ren nodded, turning back to his work. The doctor simply groaned, smiling all the same, "I should have thought about that. Guess those models are doomed for the scrap heap soon enough, anyway."

"Prototypes. Gotta love em." Ren grunted as he leaned back, taking a swig of water from a bottle, "The self-maintained solutions Judith and Laura have worked on together back at your station are nearly ready... Once they had that Artificial Plasma, everything else was much easier."

"Yeah, no doubt. We should ask Greg and Tom for contacts to sell the plans, we would make a small fortune off the medical field with that alone. Add in some cheaply cloned Platelets, and you have yourselves an abundance of blood donations."

"you should discuss it with Tom next time he is over." Ren paused, frowning, "... But Max will be here, now. We can't really talk about AHOR then, it would be asking for trouble..."

Dr Elune nodded, "Not until he knows about Alex. That ia a worry for another day, though. I included some variations to the brain design in my schematic, to allow for flexibility. You should give them a look."

"Will do." Sighign as he looked at his handiwork, Ren turned to the doctor, ".... I'm not sure of you would approve as to my reasons for doing this... But, thank you for helping me."

the doctor raised an eyebrow, "Come on... We are trying to rewrite humanities most recent trauma. I cant really judge. It's pretty clear what you are trying to do, though..." Rubbing the back of their head, the doctor shrugged, "... I dunno. I'm just going to wait and see."

Ren smiled, "... You are probably close in that guess. And thank you." Packing away some of his tools, Ren groaned as he got up, "I should go to your shuttle, check up on Alex's preccessor. You comin'?"

"Sure. Got nothing better to do today." Smiling as they helped Ren pack up, the two of them gently moved the unit Ren had been working on back to a better spot, before heading on out for a routine inspection to make sure Alex was running fine.

... The doctor was slghtly amused to find a surge of brain activity that day, as expected.