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Emily screamed. At least, she thought she did. These sorts of things become complicated when your head is separated from your body.

She should have listened to her parents -- she knew that now. Always harping on her to keep her head securely fastened at all times. But like all girls her age, Emily thought she knew better. This time, she had just gotten lazy.

Whoops.

It's not like this happened often. In the five years since Emily had gotten modded, she had never had a problem. Complacency had set in. And now this.

What was worse was that Emily's body was not exactly sure where it was. Even with a firmly attached head, she would have been at least a little lost, but without one at all there was no way her body could find its way anywhere. The backup system attached to her body would keep it alive, of course, but only for a couple days. Less if it kept running around in circles freaking out like it was currently doing.

The backup system acted similar to her real brain in its absence, keeping her body alive, navigating, giving it commands, doing all the thinking. In fact, for all the rest of her body was concerned, her head was still attached. The backup and her real brain were kept in sync at all times, until they came apart. At that point, they were independent brains, progressing in different directions without communication. When they were once again united, if they were united again, they would sync back up. Both copies would become part of her long term memory.

The first few times Emily had experienced the rush of "new" memories that were the result of a re-sync, it had been disorienting, to say the least. After a while it at least became tolerable. For Emily the benefits far outweighed any of those downsides though.

The practicalities are nice, of course. Not having to bring her head in when she goes to the bathroom is certainly a plus. It's amazing how much more time you have to get stuff done when you are not preoccupied with the little things your body has to do all the time. Sure, there are limits on what you can do without arms -- or legs, but those are not the important things. Emily very much enjoyed the extra socializing she got done now that her head could sit out on the pool deck with her friends' while their bodies, and the entirety of the unlucky few who had not gotten modded yet, swam their workout.

But those were the normal things you could do. Those were the boring things you could do. Emily and her closest friends were always looking for something new and edgy to try. Like two weeks ago during their English final. Instead of each studying the four books that would be on the exam, Emily, Stacy, Amanda, and Tori studied a book each. And then, when Ms. Stevenson had turned her back or looked down at her grading computer, the girls would not trade notes -- they would trade heads. With each of them focused on a specific title, they collectively passed the final easily. And Ms. Stevenson's finals were known to be overwhelmingly difficult.

Since that final, the girls all graduated, and had decided to travel down together to where they would all be going to college next year, as the incoming class of 2034. There was one goal this weekend: to celebrate, wildly. School was out for summer, high school was out forever. It was on to the big leagues in four months, but in the meantime they were stuck in that weird limbo between high school and college where you do not really belong at either place. You are certainly not in high school anymore. But you have not started college either. In an attempt to feel part of somewhere, they decided to party with the college kids.

At first it seemed like a great idea. The girls scammed their way into a house party on Friday night. Drinks were consumed. Some hooking up occurred. They slept in Stacy's van. A beat up old clunker: a 2022 Toyota. It was still hybrid powered, for crying out loud.

Saturday night was different though. The four friends had disagreed strongly about what to do that night. Stacy and Amanda wanted to go find a party again, of course. Tori, ever the party pooper, wanted to go home. Emily had something totally different in mind: Tom. Emily had met Tom at the house party the previous night, where she had convinced him that she was a freshman. She knew that if she had told him the truth, he would not have paid attention to her. After all, Tom was a junior.

Tom had gotten Emily and her friends drinks not long after they walked in the door Friday night. Some kind of cheap ass beer, from a foamy keg. Some things never change. But at least it was beer. It did not take long for Tom's friends to swoop in on the rest of the girls, who quickly lost interest in their suitors. Not Emily. Not Tom. There was something different about the way he pursued her, alternating between aggression and coyness. He was about six feet tall, blonde, and a little meaty - like most college students. But he was funny. Emily could not stop laughing at his jokes, becoming increasingly clingy as the night went on. The more beer she had, the funnier his jokes became. Maybe it was the beer, maybe it was something else, but whatever it was, Emily knew that none of the immature high school boys she had dated before had made her laugh like that. So it did not take too long before they retreated to a quieter, darker corner of the house to have a little privacy.

But things did not go much farther than that, much to Emily's disappointment. It seems that Tom had at least a tiny bit of gentlemanliness in him. By 2:00 am, the party was winding down, and Stacy, Amanda, and Tori all wanted to leave. Tom promised they would hook up the next day, and gave her his mobile number. The girls returned to the van to sleep.

It did not take too long to convince Tori to stay one more night, and find another party to go to. Emily would not be swayed though. She had called Tom several times during the day, and finally reached him around 6:00. He said that he and his roommates were planning on staying in, having some drinks, maybe smoking some pot. The good kind, from the state drug store, not the kind you got at Wal-mart. He said she and her friends were welcome to come. But Emily's friends were looking for something with a little more... action. So they agreed to disagree, and they would instead meet up at the van for brunch the next morning/afternoon/whatever.

Emily walked across campus to Tom's house later that night, with maybe, just maybe, a little skip in her step. She composed herself before knocking on the door though - she did not want her age to show. This was too important for that. Tom did not seem to notice any over eagerness as he answered the door, let her in, and gave her a plastic cup full of more cheap beer. They sat on the couch for a while watching some reality show, Emily could not remember what it was called. It was the one from Iraq, where they kidnapped people and then hunted them down for sport. She did not care for it much, but she was not really watching anyway. She was watching Tom.

They did not talk much, except when Tom would ask if she wanted something more to drink. Or if she wanted a toke. To which she always said yes. She wondered where Tom's sense of humor from the previous night had disappeared to. But she was happy just to be with him, even if he did not appear to be. People came and went, they drank more, they smoked more, the television moved on to Simpsons re-runs. By 9:30, Tom had come back to life, telling jokes, making her laugh, showing more interest. The drinking, smoking, and laughing continued. By 10:30, Emily had passed out.

She awoke six hours later with a missing head.