"Whenever you're ready, Ms. Lupo."

"Just get it over with already, Larry," Jo ground out through gritted teeth, "I have a lot of work waiting for me today."

"All right," he agreed, and she could hear the smarmy, sycophantic grin on his face, even with her back to him. "You'll just feel a slight prick..."

A series of needle-sharp points pierced the back of her neck, and she stifled a gasp of pain. She could hear servos whirring softly as the device settled itself against her skin, and then – the pain was gone. It didn't ease up or taper off, the way pain usually did when the cause of the pain was removed; rather, the sensation simply vanished. Her hand started to creep up to investigate the device, but she aborted the gesture.

"Don't worry, Ms. Lupo, the CHARMS interface is quite durable, now that it's in place. You should be able to go through your usual range of physical activity without risk of dislodging it."

"I don't have to worry about pulling my spine out if the thing gets knocked loose, do I?" That would probably have been a better question to ask before having the thing clamped to her neck, she realized, but she'd had other things on her mind that morning. Things I'd rather not think about right now, she reminded herself, and stepping away from the installation chair, she turned to face the annoying young scientist.

"No, not at all," Larry assured her in a tone that managed to sound both brown-nosing and condescending at the same time. "The CHARMS module isn't physically attached to your spinal cord at all; the interface is entirely electromagnetic. Focused electrical signals are conducted through the surrounding tissue to stimulate the relevant neurons in your spine, which sends those signals to the various peripheral systems throughout your body to generate the relevant sensory–"

She fixed him with a glare. "Cut to the chase, Larry."

"Right, sorry. Anyway, the upshot is, any anomaly that GD's internal security sensors detect will be echoed in your own physical senses. For example, you'll feel changes to the ventilation system in your lungs, shorts in the electrical systems in your peripheral nerves, and – well, let's just hope the building doesn't have come down with sewage problems, right?" He thought he was being funny. Jo hated when Larry thought he was being funny. The look on her face must have told him that she was not amused, because he cleared his throat and continued. "Any of GD's systems that don't have an obvious corollary in human physiology, you'll sense with a sort of phantom-limb feeling. You should be able to recognize and identify the cause of the sensation immediately, even though it won't correspond with any particular part of your body."

Jo nodded. "Excellent. Anything else I need to know?"

There was that irritating smile again. "There shouldn't be any problems with the CHARMS interface, but if anything unforeseen does occur, bring it back here for maintenance. Don't try to remove it manually."

"Because it could damage the device?" Jo guessed.

He glanced down at the floor. "Because it could cause significant neural damage to your spine," he admitted. As Jo started toward him, he brought his hands up in a defensive gesture. "But there shouldn't be any problems that would necessitate removal! It's been extensively tested. The Secret Service has already ordered half a dozen units. There shouldn't be any problems at all."

She stopped halfway across the room from him, and rubbed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. "All right. Fine. I'll be back here if there are any problems." She turned and stalked across the brightly-lit lab toward the door, her heels clicking on the clean linoleum floor. Larry was as much of an annoyance as ever, but Jo found that today, she didn't really mind being annoyed. Annoyance kept her mind busy, and the last thing she wanted was enough mental space for her thoughts to drift to...

Zane. He'd been waiting for her beside the door to Larry's lab, and as soon as he crossed the threshold, he pushed himself off from the wall he'd been leaning against and approached her. "Jo, we need to talk."

Her stomach clenched in a way that she knew had nothing to do with the interface hiding under her ponytail, and she sped up her pace. "What's there to talk about? I told you last night why I withdrew my name from the Astraeus mission."

He caught her arm and pulled her up short. "You gave me a reason, but I'm not sure it's the reason. I think there's more going on here, and it has to do with us."

Damn it, damn it, damn it! When had he gotten so good at reading her? He was reminding her more and more of Zane from the other time-line. Her stomach twisted. "Not everything has to be about you, Zane." She tried to ignore the hurt that flashed across his eyes following that remark.

"What's going on with you, Jo-Jo? The moment I start thinking I know where I stand with you, you pull back on me."

She snorted. "You're one to talk about mixed signals. One moment you're talking about leaving Eureka, and the next you're getting pouty that I'm not going to spend six months on another planet with you. Maybe you still find this whole 'us' business to be hilarious, but I –" She cut herself off, pressing a hand to her chest. Something felt strange when she took a breath. "There's a problem in the ventilation systems." Her gaze wandered, and her voice took on a distracted tone as she focused on the sensation in her lungs. "Section Two. I've got to go check it out."

She took off down the corridor in the direction of the elevators, silently thanking Larry for his Comprehensive Holistic Awareness whatever-it-was device; dealing with GD's problems gave her something to plunge all of her attention into. Maybe once she was finished dealing with the ventilation issue, Zane would have dropped the serious-and-sensitive act and gone back to his usual rebellious horndog self, and she could go back to pretending she didn't desperately wish for things to be different between them.

Zane stood staring after her for a few moments, as scientists and assistants wandered past him on their way to file reports or perform experiments. "Hilarious?" he asked himself aloud, prompting a puzzled look from a passing chemical engineer. Is that what she thinks? That this is all some big joke to me? Is that why she keeps pulling away whenever it starts to look like we're finally getting somewhere? Shit... He turned and stormed down the corridor in the opposite direction that Jo had taken, scattering a trio of plant geneticists in his wake. The accusation made him more than a little uncomfortable, because there was a seed of truth to it. Sure, at first. When I noticed her acting differently toward me, and started picking up on the sexual tension, yeah, I liked the idea that I could get under her skin that way. Watching her get all flustered and worked up around me was kind of a laugh. He shook his head. But seeing her with that ring was kind of a bucket of cold water in the face. I never thought I'd give anybody that ring – never thought I'd want to. His hands clenched into tense fists at his sides. I can see in her eyes how different she thinks I am from the "other Zane," but he was still me. Same life, same experiences before he came to Eureka, everything. And if someone could be that important to him, to make him think about getting married... He remembered the expression of pure delight on Jo's face when he first mentioned the idea of helping her study for the Astraeus exams. Like she'd never realized how much she wanted it until someone told her it was possible. He felt his chest constrict with the frustrated, desperate need to make her understand. There's got to be a way...