( Well, that's a surprise, isn't it? Not the genetic engineering, that's old news in her world at this point, something even an non-specialist like her can understand. But then there's everything else--aritifcal he says, a life form he says, and that followed by resonance rates and the Spine, whatever those are. She immediately imagines s talk skyscraper vaulting for the heavens: something like a world-tree from which he was created and to which he is attuned, but she quickly dismisses the image as the fantasy it is.

Taken together with the vague hint in his voice that her wording was touching upon things she might not expect, this all something for her to think about. At first her thumb rubs along the pads of her fingers. This is nervous distraction, more than it is a reaction, so she reaches over to take her notebook and pen in hand to give her restless limbs something efficient to do.

She holds her pen at a sharp angle, near ninety degree to the page its nub is pushing into. )

I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you're telling me. Were you gestated for any period? Or were you assembled in some fashioned?

( Hard to believe, that latter notion, and despite her professional demeanor she gives into the urge of one of her ticks. Her free hand comes to rest on her neck after brushing away some stray hairs near her ear. Then she drops it into her lap and her bak becomes ramrod straight as she continues to consider, the caduceus motif, unseen, following the elegant curvature this gives to the small of her back. )

When we worked together I noticed some body modifications around your neck and back--your spine, as it were. Does this have something to with 'the spine'? And, if you don't mind, I would like to have a proper look.