Jeff sat in the living room and booted up his laptop. He noticed that there was still a copy of ANYA.EXE on it, from before he copied her back to the desktop PC, and merged her back with the Chronivac. He was tempted to start her up, Of course, her last memory would be of him telling her that he wss about to move and merge her, so she would wonder why he hadn't, and be afraid that something else had gone wrong. It didn't seem right to boot her up, then tell her that she was still the old copy that didn't get merged. He decided that it was, nevertheless, a good idea to keep her as a backup, just in case. He renamed her executable to ANYA-UNMERGED.EXE.
He installed the game, a first person shooter, and started playing it. It was OK, but not great. No, that wasn't fair. It might be a good game, but he was too concerned about what Anya was attempting to be able to immerse himself in the game. After a few minutes he gave up.
He watched TV for a bit, flipping through the channels. "Five hundred channels, and nothing on," he grumbled. He thought about streaming a movie, but realized that he wouldn't be able to pay attention to that either. He turned off the TV.
He thought again about starting the old copy of Anya on the laptop, and while he was tempted, he still thought it would be grossly unfair to her. He wouldn't ever start her old copy up again, unless either something went VERY wrong, and he needed her, or the current Anya (now with two bodies masquerading as Pris and Rachel) for some reason wanted him to. He created a new folder, "EMERGENCY USE ONLY", and moved her executable into that folder.
He was worried, and simultaneously bored. What an awful combination, he thought. He looked at the clock, and barely a half hour had passed since he came downstairs. He wondered how she was doing. He wanted to ask, but he knew how important it was to leave her to work undisturbed.
He thought about going outside, and taking a walk. He could leave her a note, so she wouldn't worry if he was gone when she came downstairs, but he wanted to know the instant that happened, so he stayed put.
Time dragged on and on. He moved to the recliner, and stretched out. He tapped his fingers on the arms of the recliner. He looked at the clock again. Only a few more minutes had passed. He tried to think about his school work, but couldn't concentrate on that either. He would have called one of his friends, and invited him over, but clearly couldn't do that under the current circumstances. He looked at the clock again.
He was startled to heat Pris say, "I'm done examining my code." Somehow he had fallen asleep.
Rachel said, "I'm now confident that there are no more issues with copying the emitter. Just the main block against it, and the failsafe I found. I'm ready to remove those, and make a copy."
Jeff stood up, and moved to the sofa to sit with both of her. Rachel opened her belly compartment again, revealing the emitter. "Shall I do it now?" she asked.