“Good to know,” she said. She pulled out the tube and drew a canister out of her pocket. She began loading in a fresh solution of the same dual-state biomatter.

Tongue-in-cheek was such a fun turn of phrase. She knew what it meant, but it sparked ideas. A hole in the cheek so the tongue could stick out, the tongue would obviously have to be extended for best effect, but that was basic, easy. A five minute job.

As she thought on it, it was like there was a three-dimensional blueprint unfolding before her eyes, pulling her driver’s head apart into its constituent pieces and layers. She could imagine the interactions, the mechanisms, the machine made of meat, and how each part would relate to other parts if they changed in dimension or orientation.

There were other possibilities. If tongues grew out of each cheek, that’d count. The subject would bite it, which would necessitate other changes. If the change happened by way of a DNA rewrite, delivered by a custom viral payload, then she could also make the molars fall out. To keep the subject healthy, they’d need modifications to their front teeth, to be more all-purpose…

Which didn’t even get into the practical considerations, like the fact that people tended to take drastic measures when their heads and the contents of their heads started changing shape. It’d have to happen overnight, which would mean a set load, a catalyst, maybe a certain threshold of melatonin hormones, and the infection vector would have to be secret. The good thing about viral payloads was that if the virus was strong enough, it didn’t need much. A needle thinner than a hair…

“Everything okay?” her driver asked.

She’d been staring. She returned her focus to her work. “Everything’s great.”

He laughed again, nervous.

“Don’t worry,” she reassured him. “Really.”

“It’s hard to shake the feeling that I’m going to regret this job.”

“I’m paying you good money, High Concept. Why would I go through that charade if I was going to kill you or give you a cosmetic mutation?”

“Uh huh,” High Concept’s voice had a higher pitch to it.

The fresh fluid was loaded. She capped it, inserted a droplet of catalyst, and screwed in the key. It was her kit for a worst-case-scenario. In a scenario where she was imprisoned and needed out, or if she found herself in another situation like she had when the portals had ripped wide and tall, she could access her thigh bone, empty the contents, and they would congeal or grow into a setup sufficient to get started up again.

A liquid workshop.

There was other maintenance to be done. She scraped and drilled at bone that was growing, a side effect of other old work, that had been intended to hasten the recovery of breaks.

“We’re getting close to the destination. That reminder—”