Time to wait.

Stacy nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Thank you," she whispered, and before Eric could reconsider she had slipped the ring on.

They stared at it in silence for a moment. "...how do you feel?" Eric asked. Stacy shrugged, still staring at the ring.

"My finger's a little tingly, but other than that I feel the same. I don't think I'll really start changing much for a little while."

Eric sat back and ran a hand through his hair. "Well, now that it's started, what do I need to know?"

"Plenty," Stacy said with a smile. "I didn't think you'd be so easy to convince. For starters, I won't need to eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom anymore?"

"You can't eat or sleep?" Brad's concern was obvious. "What about... you know?"

"Oh, I can still do all that stuff! We can enjoy a lovely meal, then passionate sex, then fall asleep in each other's arms. I just won't need any of that stuff. Total self-sufficiency!"

"Are you sure it's not affecting you? You're acting really different."

Stacy put a hand on his cheek. "It's over, babe. It's finally fucking over. Soon I'll be able to close my eyes without seeing their faces and fall asleep without being sucked into an nightmares by my own goddamned mind."

"Can you still dream?"

She shrugged. "I assume so. I didn't actually look that up. Oh, another thing! The way these scripts work, I'll basically have a computer built into my head. Not like for getting on the Internet or anything, but I'll be able to do raw calculations at superhuman speeds."

Brad shuddered at that and Stacy looked surprised. "What's wrong with that?"

"I'm worried that I'm gonna lose you! Telling me you'll have a computer brain isn't reassuring me that you'll still be human. Will you even taste the food or feel the sex?"

"Of course!" she said. "I'll be able to feel everything. The script is apparently based on some very recent breakthroughs in neuroqualiology. Thanks to this, it'll feel just like the real thing from both sides."

Brad sighed. Now that her fate was sealed, he suddenly felt exhausted. He took the script from Stacy's hand and examined it.

"This thing is weird... so it's like some kind of code?" he asked. Before today, he had never had much interest in golems. A bunch of nerds dug up some some weird Carpathian Quabbalahic tech from before the Plzeň Accords and used it to build fuckdolls. Brad was too overwhelmed by the daily task of caring for his mentally ill wife to bother with whatever sci-fi gizmo was in the news.

"Kind of. It's actually a special kind of woven microfiber paper. It's designed to allow as much text as possible on as little surface area as possible. Kind of like how computers used to be the size of a building until they figured out microchips."

Brad was surprised at the length, detail, and enthusiasm of her reply. "How are feeling?"

"Fine," she said with a grin. "Maybe a little dreamy. A little floaty, and my whole arm is tingling. I think my hand is paralyzed, but that's ok. It's ok, you know."

Brad grasped her stiff, unfeeling hand. "Oh, baby, it's so good to see you smile. Oh my God, Stacy, you're smiling!"

He wrapped Stacy in a sudden, **** hug. He was weeping now, his soft beard wet.

"Stacy, I... I missed your smile so much. All of this was worth it, all this crazy shit we've been through, just to see you smile again." He sobbed again, overcome. Stacy put her hands on his back, reciprocating lightly.

"You have no idea," she whispered. "It'll be just like before. Just like I was, but even better."

Brad's sobbing stopped abruptly. He pulled her back and looked into her eyes, which were slightly unfocused. "Even better?" he asked. "Stacy, what did you do?"

She frowned. "I added a few customizations. Nothing too drastic!"

"What the fuck?" Brad cried. "What customizations? What did you do to yourself?"