I never figured myself as one of the girls in my school to take off her clothes for a man more than two times her age; I just thought that was more something Emma might do, considering she was both a model and a psychopath. Although, to be honest, I was wearing a robe and completely covered, presently, when the clinic's tech arrived for my consultation. I didn't think he was considered a doctor, per se, but he seemed a lot more knowledgeable about biology than anyone called a clinic technician in Brockton Bay would have been.
That just made it worse, actually. I had to strip to get a full body scan, so he technically wasn't looking at my body in the buff. Just the full three-dimensional ultra high definition scan of it, being displayed on a holographic display that was built into the table between us. Watching him pinch the image to zoom in to identify whether or not it was a freckle or birthmark on my butt was mortifying.
Having anyone, especially a man, look at my stick-thin body, and chubby tummy was anxiety-inducing. However, he had a clinical, dispassionate disposition that at least put me a little bit at ease. Still, it was disquieting to watch him examine my images as though I were a puzzle he was solving.
Finally, he looked over at me and said, smiling, "Ah, Miss Hebert. Welcome. The receptionist said you already had an idea of what you wanted to do with your body's canvas."
Oh, he was one of those types. Pretentious. I didn't like the idea of someone calling my body a canvas. However, I nodded and fished a data shard out of my robe's pocket, sliding it over on the countertop of the table that was between us. He arched an eyebrow, clearly unused to taking data through such a pedestrian means, but I couldn't do anything about that until my visit to the cybernetics clinic tomorrow.
However, he took it and slotted it into a port on his neck. That looked pretty cool and gross at the same time. I had to make a couple of adjustments to Alt-Taylor's medical records, although it wasn't difficult. For example, even before she got her cybernetic eyes, she had her vision fixed.
The man tsked his tongue, sounding exasperated. "I thought you were wearing those glasses as a fashion statement. It looked pretty retro; totally nova. But do you really have myopia? Was this some kind of bet you lost, or did you grow up in a weird religious cult?" he asked, some of his professionalism disappearing in his curiosity.
I was worried about that. But there wasn't really anything I could do about it. I could have gone to the cybernetics clinic first, I supposed, but that left some similar problems. And since I was planning on spending a lot more money there, I wanted to reduce their suspicion, or rather curiosity, by at least arriving there looking like my Militech medical files said I should, in case anyone ever did some digging later.
I chuckled nervously and lied, "More of the former, rather than the latter. I have an appointment day after tomorrow at the Skyline clinic to get my chrome chipped back in." I tried using some slang that I had read and heard online, but the unsure way I had said it made it obvious I was a poseur.
Rather than make him suspicious, my failure there helped the impression I was trying to convey because I saw him roll his eyes and mutter quietly, "Corpo kids will do anything for thrills, I guess." He then composed himself, and his friendly, if detached, bedside manner returned, "So, I suppose that is why you did not include fixing the eyes in the spec sheet? Other than that, it's pretty comprehensive. Let's take a look."
He waved his hand, and the holographic image of me naked shrunk, and a second version appeared right next to it. On the new hologram, my bust increased a little bit, as did my hips, and my waist shrunk slightly. I couldn't really tell the difference in my face unless I glanced back and forth between the two, but at the same time, the new version definitely gave the impression of being slightly more pretty.
"Nice, subtle work, this. We couldn't do better ourselves. In fact, this might give me a couple ideas about suggestions to girls your age who want something done without their parents finding out," he said knowingly. That had been exactly what Alt-Taylor had been going for, actually. Did no businesses really care what age you were in this dystopia? I hadn't tried buying beer because it sounded gross, but I didn't think I would be refused.
He tilted his head, "Want to keep this subtle look or go for something more pronounced?"
I shook my head, "No, just this, please."
He nodded, "Only two recommendations, then. First, while we're in there, we may as well tighten your abdominal muscles. You're not chubby by any means..." I actually thought I was, "...but I think this treatment plan was made when you were in a little better shape."
Alt-Taylor had exercised some, that was true. I meant to start running, but... "I was going to just start running; there is a gym in my housing block."
That caused him to nod, "Then maybe a slight adjustment to your core muscles and glutes, too. Cardiovascular exercise is recommended, but all we'd do is get your body to the point so your future exercise can maintain it. Save you six weeks of running on a treadmill for virtually no extra cost."
Hm, that did sound fine, actually. "Okay, nothing ridiculous, though."
"Sure," he replied and used a bunch of arcane-looking gestures to edit the second image, causing my chubby tummy to firm up slightly. I couldn't notice any changes to my legs, though, "How's that?" I just nodded at him. "Second... the hair..." he said the last diplomatically.
It was true; naturally, curly hair wasn't very much in style in Night City, but I firmly shook my head, "No. I am keeping my hair." Would I even still be Taylor Hebert if I straightened my hair? Besides, my trove of psychiatric data in my head said people generally like interesting quirks like that in people, and that would probably especially be the case in this future, where you could change everything about your body for less than five hundred dollars.
He sighed, sounding very much like a put-upon artist, "Very well. You can't win them all, as they say."
---xxxxxx---
I managed to arrive safely back at my apartment. Travelling on the NCART train was a bit scary; I had never been on a similar public transit system in my life. The closest thing was maybe the city bus. I would have been nervous just getting on a subway in New York in my old world, to say nothing about this version.
It was a magnetic levitation train, so it moved incredibly fast. I almost fell off my feet when I didn't brace myself correctly as the train left the station the first time I took it going to the clinic earlier, causing a number of people to stare at me with highly amused expressions.
I had to make a conscious effort to stop looking like a "gonk"; otherwise, someone might "flatline" me. See, I could fit in!
Shaking my head, I pushed my beet-red face into my pillows. That sounded so terrible, even in my head!
---xxxxxx---
I spent the rest of the day recovering and intended to spend the next day relaxing and studying. However, I got sudden inspiration and spent most of that day Tinkering instead.
The process of biosculpting was fascinating, involving me floating in a vat of liquids with tiny nanomachines suspended in them. Normally they anaesthetised you for the procedure, but I was so fascinated that I asked to not be put out. I wasn't sure why I said that, and it sounded like something I would never have said or wanted, actually.
That was kind of a mistake because I discovered I had a bit of claustrophobia, I think, from the locker. However, I managed to hold it together while breathing through a tube. My medical sense seemed very interested in everything, but I didn't really know why, as it wasn't like I could actually sense what was happening to my body in more than a general way. But something in the back of my mind really wanted me to be awake for this procedure.
The procedure wasn't painful at first, and in fact, only after I was out of the vat did a dull ache come on, which I figured was an inflammation response. Sure enough, they gave me some anti-inflammatories, made sure my payment went through and sent me on my way. The changes made to my body were minor enough that they were all mostly done that day.
Before returning to my apartment yesterday, I meandered around a Downtown shopping centre and purchased a braindance wreath and a few other items. I had actually found an older version wreath with some of my alternate dad's things, but I did not want to use his wreath or see a list of what BDs he has scrolled or experienced any more than I wanted to look under my dad's bed for his Playboys back in Brockton Bay.
I probably would have just buckled down and reset it to factory defaults, as wreaths were a little expensive, but I couldn't actually use it anymore because I had disassembled it a couple of days ago when I wasn't paying attention. I was pretty sure I could still use it for Tinkering. Still, I had ideas about it that didn't have anything to do with brain dances but everything to do with brains by themselves, in fact, I was still itching to rebuild it when I left for the biosculpt clinic, so since I still needed one to watch a lot of the BDs for my class a new one was needed. I wanted to go through the entirety of the course material before the first day of class on September 4th, close to a month away.
I had a ton of medical knowledge in my head, but I have already discovered that there were a lot of things I didn't know about how medicine was practised in this world, but I was learning rapidly even now. All clinicians in this world, from doctors to basic EMTs, were equal parts medical professionals and equal parts technicians. Not only were cybernetics ubiquitous, and if you responded to a trauma, you had to be able to help not only regular people but highly augmented ones as well. Also, the level of technology in the medical field far exceeded what I was used to.
For example, in my last life, an EMT might connect a patient's body to a cardiac monitor, pulse oximeter and blood pressure cuff to monitor their vital signs. Maybe a CO2 sensor, as well, if they were really sick. Of course, all that equipment still existed, although much more miniaturised, but it was equally likely a basic EMT in Night City would connect their own cybernetic operating system to a patient to read off that patient's vital signs and diagnosis from the patient's internal bio-monitor if they had one.
It was one reason that the word tech was emphasised in what they were called, which was usually Med-Techs. If I wanted to use slang, which I had realised probably wasn't a good idea with my current unfamiliarity with any of the local "lingo", they were called Techies, even, although more of a subtype of that broad classification.
It kind of reminded me about how some professions in my past world changed radically with the advent of technology a few decades ago. Like, I remembered reading that architects sat at desks with pencils. Today, an architect in Brockton Bay would need to be very proficient with computer systems that made their job possible.
I glanced down at my kitchen table to see the two things I had built. One was already broken, but it had done what I wanted it to do, but the other looked rather slick, not clunky at all.
There were way too many boxes in my little apartment, and I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I honestly needed a larger apartment to store everything that had been in our home or move a bunch of things to storage, or get rid of them, but the nearest self-storage centre with any vacancies wasn't even in Japantown. I didn't think riding on the metro into Watson with dozens of cardboard Militech boxes was a good idea. If I had a car or had access to one, it would be easy, but I didn't even know how to drive.
Shaking my head, I picked up the first small item I had built. I didn't realise that this type of thing would be in my Tinker "speciality", but then again, medical imagers were very important in medicine. It had been a small can, with wires appearing out of every inch of it. It was a type of electromagnetic scanner similar to an MRI. You'd place a biological sample; in this case, I had placed a drop of my blood, and it would be held in suspension, levitated while the scanner bombarded it with crazy amounts of electromagnetic radiation and magnetic fields to get an image of everything inside.
Using it had tripped the circuit breaker for my apartment and burned the invention out; I couldn't build something like this to last with just the stuff sitting around my apartment. However, it did get an image transferred over to my laptop, which I had found in one of the boxes. It was a 3-D image of my blood cells as well as anything that was travelling in my blood, including a number of small nanomachines that were still in my body from the biosculpt treatment the other day.
The resolution on the scan was pretty good. At least as good as what you'd get with an electron microscope, and without the need to coat the entire sample with a small layer of gold before you scanned them, as was necessary with electron microscopy.
I have been very interested in nanomachines ever since I discovered they were widely used in medical practice here in this world. I had searched on the net, but the publicly available information was very sparse. I could tell you who invented the first commercially available medical nanomachines back in the early 2000s, and I could even see some images of this first-generation model but nothing about how they were produced, controlled or programmed.
It seemed that some information, despite the fact that it was very old, was by default not freely accessible. Although both the first-generation nanomachine, which I could see a grainy picture of online and the ones in my blood, looked something like a tiny crab, the dimensions were utterly different. The ones in my blood were two orders of magnitude smaller, and examining different individuals revealed that there were over twelve different versions or types, each looking slightly different or having a different tool. Clearly, the state of the art had followed the path of specialisation, then, rather than the first generation, which, according to the encyclopedia, were intended to be generalised tools.
It was very fascinating to me, but I didn't know how much use this first experiment of mine would be. The scanning process fried the nanites, so I wouldn't have been able to recover their programming or command and control; I just got 3-D images of them. Still, it let me infer a lot about how they were used in medicine, things I wouldn't learn just from a Paramedics course. Paramedics might use nanomeds, although they were still kind of pricey, but they were only taught how the medicine was supposed to be administered, any contraindications, and similar end-user information. I would have to just keep studying, finding information where I could.
The second device I made looked like a retro braindance wreath. I had made it from most of the parts of my dad's old wreath. Although there were wires sticking out of this device, they were carefully insulated and affixed into place. I got the impression I might need to perform regular maintenance on this device in order to keep it operable, like what I had expected from all of my Tinker inventions.
I was calling it a sleep inducer, but it did more than that. You wore it, and then when triggered, it would rapidly induce you into the most restful sleep state possible. By default, this lasted three hours and would provide all the rest that your body and mind needed a day. You could use a dial to select shorter rest periods in thirty-minute increments, with the minimum being thirty minutes. That would give you a "nap" that was equivalent to a few hours of sleep. That was amazing in and of itself. However, the main benefit was that this sleep would be especially beneficial for your learning process.
Using this device to get sleep would have a beneficial effect on your brain's neuroplasticity, and you would tend to retain the information you learned in the previous day much better.
I had a lot to learn. Not only were there actually a lot of details that I needed to become familiar with, mainly technology and how it was used, to pass my Paramedics course, but I wanted to learn a lot more than just that!
Any way that I could minimise the amount of sleep I took every night in a healthy way was something I needed to do. I think my power agreed with me, which was why one of the first things I created was a stimulant drug. That wasn't a long-term solution for me, though. This, though, might be.
I had to admit that I was still kind of nervous and scared to be here in this world, and any time I was sleeping, I was also potentially vulnerable. Well, more vulnerable. Theoretically, the device shouldn't induce a very deep sleep that was impossible to be woken from; at least, I didn't think that was how it should work, so it should be safe to use all of the time.
Before testing it, I gathered up all of my dad's tools that I had scavenged for in the cardboard boxes, made sure the soldering iron was cool and put them all back away where I wouldn't lose them.
Then I gathered the sleep inducer, and sat in what was my alt-dad's recliner, put it on my head and triggered it for a three-hour sleep. I had stayed awake a bit too long building the sensor can, and I would be hurting tomorrow if this thing didn't work.
---xxxxxx---
It worked beautifully! Instead of the usual fog of memories of my previous day, I could recollect most things I did pretty well. The device both helped to transfer data from short to long-term memory but also should optimise the storage of neural information in a person's long-term memory. It wasn't a big boost, but you'd be less likely to lose things or misplace them.
Humming happily, I took a shower and picked my most expensive-looking clothes for my trip to the Skyline cybernetics clinic today. Every corpo kid whose parents were at least middle managers had, no matter their age, at least one outfit that wouldn't be out of place in a corporate board room. According to some of my memories, it started, at first, as kind of costumes -- people might remark, 'Oh, how cute!' However, as one got older, it became more serious, as children were often invited to company parties, and the way you were perceived, combined with your grades at school, could open or close many doors for your future.
It was a bit of a shame that Alt-Taylor's taste in clothing was in some ways different from my own. We both liked dark colours, but Alt-Taylor showed a lot more skin than I was ever comfortable with. Her version of "Sunday school" clothes was a dark grey skirt-suit, with the skirt reaching barely past my mid-thigh.
Pantyhose wasn't really in style at the moment, from what I could tell online, but I didn't care. There were lines I wasn't presently willing to cross, and showing everyone my bare thighs was one of them. So, I wore a dark pair with the skirt; besides, I thought they complemented the shiny black dress shoes.
Glancing at myself in the mirror, I nodded. These would be the clothes Alt-Taylor would have worn if she ever went on a job interview or similar social situation. I was planning on spending a lot of money today, so I wanted to give an initial social impression that would be congruent with that.
The hardest part about this morning would be avoiding getting pickpocketed on the metro.
---xxxxxx---
There was nowhere to really conceal a pistol on this outfit, so I had to carry it in my small black purse, along with my phone, so I absolutely made sure it never left my sight the entire trip on the train. Of course, a lot of people looked at me with disdain, but I noticed all of the better-dressed corporate workers who took the train to work gave me small nods of respect.
I think that in their eyes, I was dressed a cut above their everyday fair, so I was either going to a job interview or a similar event, in which case they were wishing me luck, or I was of a higher station than them, so they were paying respects.
I got off deep into the downtown station where security and police presence were high. They were starting to call this area Corpo plaza, even if it did include the burned-out crater that used to be the Arasaka building. Decades ago, it was totally destroyed using a small nuclear bomb, of all things.
For a long time, people blamed Arasaka themselves for the destruction, but in the 2040s, a now-famous journalist named Trace Santiago published an explosive expose revealing Militech's involvement in the disaster. I had read all about that, a bit shocked. Needless to say, that didn't do a lot of good for Militech's PR in Night City, and although Arasaka was still technically banned from operating in the country, a lot of their subsidiaries did business in town, and it seemed like Night City was slowly shifting towards Arasaka's orbit.
Well, it didn't really matter to me too much. Militech was one of the last options that I would agree to work for. They had too much data about Alt-Taylor. Too much data about her preferences and her study habits and interests, none of which was medicine. The potential for too many questions that I didn't have any good way to answer.
It probably would have been fine, I mean, children often discover an intense interest and aptitude in their teenage years, but it was just something I didn't see a need to risk. I'd rather not work for an Arms Manufacturer in the first place, although that might have been kind of naive as most Megacorps were extremely diversified and many of them manufactured arms. None of them, as far as I could tell, were what I would call "good guys." This world seemed to have an extreme dearth of "good guys."
A group of two Night City police officers paused in their beating up of a homeless-looking man with batons to give me a slight nod, which caused my heart to hurt a little. But what was I going to do? Even my alt-dad didn't have the power to stop things like that. It made me feel like shit to just walk on by while that happened in front of my face, though. I wanted to be a good person, but first, I needed to get the skills, abilities and power to make a difference. Would that ever happen? Or was that just a pretty little lie I was telling myself?
I suppose that man could have been a criminal, but it didn't look like anything but the cops giving him the bum rush out of the good part of town.
Sighing, I decided to put it aside for the moment but promised myself that even if I couldn't stop things like that, I would at least try to avoid perpetuating them. The cyberclinic had a street-level office, so I found it easily enough, the large crystal doors sliding inwards for me as I approached them.
I was greeted immediately by a woman in a nice outfit, and once it was determined I had an appointment and wasn't a walk-up customer, I was ushered into a small conference room to meet with a "customer sales specialist."
Another woman arrived, and she was, if anything, a walking billboard for their products here as she had cybernetic arms and obvious neural cyberware at the base of her neck. I started to rise politely, but she waved me off.
The woman said in a friendly manner, "Miss Hebert, stay seated, stay seated. The notes on your appointment were a bit vague, so perhaps I should just ask you how we can help you today?"
I plastered a fake smile on my face and said, "Of course. I need a full operating system; I'd like to get a cyberdeck as well, also a pair of optics. Lastly, I was considering something that could perhaps help my memory or retention of information; I will be starting at Night City Health Science centre next month."
I didn't lie, but I intentionally gave the impression that I was attending a more prestigious course than I was. The HSC was mainly a traditional medical school, although they had two-year courses for nurses as well.
That caused the woman to smile at first, but then look at me in confusion, "Wait... you don't have... anything?"
I thought a lot about how to handle this question and decided to go with a somewhat brusque answer. I was trying to perhaps imply that I had been a victim of an attack by Scavengers that have a tendency to kidnap people and rip out their cybernetics. Normally people don't survive that, but it has been known to happen. The survivors would generally spend a fair while being put back together by the Trauma Team medical centre, using medical nanotechnology. So I said, with a bit of an affected shiver, "Yes. It's complicated. I'd really rather not discuss it."
I'm not sure if I succeeded in my attempt, but she became much more polite, "Of course, of course. Let's look through your options. Then, once payment clears, we'll have a quick physical examination and can schedule surgery before lunch!"
Originally I had planned on buying exactly what Alt-Taylor had, which was a 2062 version of the Militech Paraline cyberdeck, but the sales lady said politely, three different ways, that it was a piece of shit, just not in those words.
That made sense; it wasn't that expensive. But my problem was I was beyond a novice. I didn't need nor want an extremely complicated cyberdeck. It would take me a long time just to learn how to use it properly.
For not too much more money, I was looking at two options. One was from an American company called Biotech Sigma. They had been in operation for about six years, and every year they would produce an updated version of about ten different models of cyberdecks.
The 2062 model of their "mark one" entry-level cyberdeck was about twice the cost of the Paraline, but it was much, much better. It would cost about six thousand eurodollars, about the same as what I was paying for my cybernetic eyes.
The other option cost about the same, and it was from a brand-new corporation in Korea. They had rave reviews as being especially easy to use, but it was the first year and first model that they had released. I was a little worried, so I decided to go with the Biotech Sigma product. They were close to equivalent in specifications, in any case.
As for my optics, Kiroshi was a market leader. They also refined their product every year, with this year's model featuring, in addition to several zoom levels, a fully integrated datalink and facial recognition software. Included by default was a free subscription to the NCPD database, so I could see more or less the rap sheet of anyone I saw. That was both very interesting and absolutely dystopian.
The last thing I wanted was relatively cheap, only a few thousand eurodollars. It was a memory co-processor that would integrate seamlessly into my frontal cortex, and the marketing material for it claimed that it would grant "close to a photographic memory."
I thought that there probably was a lot of work being done by "close to" in that sentence, especially considering I saw a very small asterisk, but the sales rep reassured me that the memory boost was very large and noticeable and that they had no complaints about anyone who bought it.
Lastly, she tried to upsell me an internal medical biomonitor, and I was very tempted, but with each of the cybernetics I was purchasing, with clinician fees, I was going to be out close to twenty thousand eurodollars today. That was a third of what my alt-dad had in his bank account. It was true that I would be receiving a settlement of about the same amount from Militech, but it hadn't arrived yet, and I didn't feel comfortable spending half of all the money I had in the world right now. Even if that was exactly the sort of thing that I would like very much to have. It would have to wait. I needed to be more sure of my position in the world. Perhaps I could splurge in six months if I could get gainfully employed with my new Paramedic's credentials.
She didn't seem upset; I was sure she was already going to receive a healthy commission on the sales I was making today. One interesting thing was they didn't even ask me for my medical records. It turned out that if you were a new patient or hadn't been there in a while, they would do a complete full physical on you as a matter of course, not trusting the word of other doctors.
I wasn't stupid enough to ask to forgo the anaesthesia this time, even if I was incredibly interested in the process.
