Well, they did say this was a common course for people that had been in the Army, I supposed. He nodded, "Likewise. Militech, too, huh?"
I blinked at him, "Eh?"
He chuckled, "I've been told they generally place people who have the same sponsor close together in clusters in this orientation class," he hooked a thumb and indicated the lower right of the room. Sure enough, most of the others were similar to him, clearly all hard men.
I gave him an astonished look, "I don't exactly fit in with your intrepid group. I think you could bench-press me one-handed."
"True! But you look exactly like the suits that hired me," he gestured to my dress, "I mean, I haven't seen anyone in that dress... but the colour, the cut... does Militech have a swag shop where you can just buy clothes in that style? Because I only got hired last month. Had to have help finding this suit, actually."
Ohhh. Yes. Actually, while the style of my outfit wasn't officially a "Militech style", it was definitely one in all but name. Well, shit. I didn't intend to give that impression, but that was most of the nice clothes I had. Plus, it generally went with my own preferences for dark colours and not showing a lot of skin.
"Ah, yes. I suppose you are right. I don't work for the Corp like you do, though. I'm a dependent; they're paying my way through school," I said with a smile.
His eyebrows rose up, "They do that for children of employees? Like, if me and my wife, hypothetically, had a kid on the way?"
I bit my tongue, not wanting to lie to the man. "Yes, but not in all circumstances. My father was a Major in the Militech military division, which I assume you got hired into too. I admit that officers and their kids do get treated a little bit better, but your child will be schooled by the Corp, so long as you're not a short-timer. For me, they are paying for me to attend because my dad recently was killed in action, and it is part of my survivorship package."
That caused him to wince and say quieter, "I'm sorry to hear about your loss. What do you mean by short-timer?"
"Thank you. And by short-timer, I mean you right now. You're on your first contract. I believe that dependent education benefits only kick in after two or three years of service, but I'm not entirely sure," I said quietly. I made a mental note if we spoke much more to try to remind him to read his employment and compensation agreement carefully. If it was one thing that was exactly the same between my old world and this one, it was those in authority generally screwed over those that weren't.
More conversation is halted by the instructor closing the door and walking over to the podium. "Welcome to the Night City University Health Science Centre, fall semester 2062. I am Dr Steven Grayling, a professor in anatomy, and I'll be conducting your new student orientation today. This is a combined class, with both new and transferee students, as well as our new cohort in our Paramedic certification course starting today."
Oh, that is why it is an actual Doctor. A lot of these people were actual med school students. Interesting.
Only a few people have physical note-taking equipment, like a pen and paper, with them. Antonio and a number of the Militech grunts being most of them, and I saw a couple of the better dressed, no doubt med students, start taking notes as well. I suspected they were doing it for retro-pretentious reasons.
As for myself, I had a note-taking app recording and converting to text everything that was said, and I was scrolling a BD that I could review later, and I intended to do the same for all of my classes. Not every cyberdeck included tech for making your own braindances, but it wasn't that uncommon, either.
The instructor spent thirty minutes talking about the campus, and then he paused, "One thing that we have, historically, needed to make clear is that there are no firearms permitted inside the inner radius, where classes are taught."
I raised my eyebrows because I didn't actually remember that in the information I received. Although, it was almost all about the outer area, which presumably had no such restrictions on account of how I had a pistol strapped to my leg right now and the security at the front didn't give me a hard time about it.
"There is a check service at the security checkpoint, however since we are all about to take a tour, it has been best we have found for our students that are armed to temporarily surrender their arms now, a staffer will provide you with a receipt that you can use to reclaim the weapon at the end of our class at lunch," he said, smiling.
I noticed every one of the Militech new hires grumbling a little and reaching into their coats or pants to produce a pistol. Antonio plops his on the table and then looks at me with expectant eyes. I sigh and stand up. On the side of my dress is what looks like a pocket, but it is actually just a slit, as a pocket would ruin the lines of the dress, apparently. I reach inside it and pull out the exact same pistol he had and plop mine onto the table as well, then sit back down. In fact, it was the exact same pistol all of the Militech people had.
I apparently was deeply amusing to the Militech contingent, who chuckled. I guess I did fit in with them a little bit. I glanced at our pistols. They all were M-10C Lexingtons. It was the compact version of the iconic and famous Militech pistol, whose design was thirty years old and still popular. It was basically the same pistol with a slightly shorter barrel, and instead of twenty-one rounds, the magazine only had fifteen, and instead of a full-auto firing mode, it fired in a three-round burst to conserve what little ammo you had.
One of the preppy-looking med students looked at eight people, all with identical pistols, and asked, astonished, "Do they give those things out at the company Christmas party as stocking stuffers or something?"
I waited a moment to see if anyone would comment, and thankfully Antonio, next to me, chuckled ruefully, "Actually, they hand them out to all new hires along with their company ID on the first day of basic indoc."
I nodded and added a nugget from some of Alt-Taylor's memories, "I got mine from the Corp when I turned thirteen as a birthday present." That wasn't the first firearm Alt-Taylor had; her dad had been having her shoot almost since she could hold a weapon in her hands. But this pistol had been gifted to Alt-Taylor by her dad's boss on her thirteenth birthday. Although it wasn't like her dad just let her carry it whenever she wanted, she was still supervised with it.
That caused both the Militech contingent and another heavily armed contingent I couldn't identify to guffaw briefly. One of the staffers took my weapon and handed me a small red card, kind of sized as a hotel or credit card. I put it carefully in my purse.
The tour of the campus was fascinating; the amount of high-tech medical simulation technology they had was boggling. We ended up in the student union for lunch. I was part of the gun-toting clique, apparently, as we all sat together. There were three Corps sending people to this course, Militech, Trauma Team and Kang Tao. All of the independents, who came to the course on their own dime, were also part of the gun-toting clique, as they were Night City natives and weren't stupid. In fact, most of the people in our Paramedic course were in this clique, and those that didn't come armed claimed it was because they already knew guns weren't allowed.
Only a fraction of the Corp-sponsored students were staying in Night City after they graduated; it turned out that this was just a very convenient and reasonably priced course, and many of them were headed to various cities in North America or the Free States. The only two of the Militech hires that were staying were my desk buddy Antonio and a red-headed and freckled woman in her mid-twenties named Fiona Doyle, who took a liking to me for some reason.
I had to stop myself from distrusting any of this out of hand. My instincts were telling me that Emma had gotten someone else to try to pretend to be my friend again just in order to do something terrible to me when I trusted them, but Emma wasn't there. If anything, I should distrust this because this is Night City, and I shouldn't really trust anyone, but they weren't asking me to do anything more than be friendly with them and perhaps study after class.
Most students had the choice of which class they wanted to take, but the Paramedic course was scheduled for us, with all forty of us in every class, which I actually liked as it would have made creating study groups very simple. I didn't think I really needed to study too much, but I would try to be sociable, even if my first instinct at being in a school again was to hide in the bathroom.
About half of the class agreed to stay after the last class briefly in one of the large library student areas, where they could ask questions about things they didn't understand to the group, and others could do the same. I stayed for thirty minutes, answered some questions and asked two just to be polite, and excused myself afterwards.
Back at my apartment, I was taking a break from studying to watch television. Most of the shows I didn't really appreciate, but I liked hearing the news, even knowing it was all or mostly propaganda.
The TV droned on, "... in other news, the flooding of the Laguna Bend resevoir has commenced today, with police having to drag out and arrest one stubborn protestor that refused to leave his former home, which had been condemned after NC Dam Limited purchased the entirety of the town of Laguna Bend..."
So they just flooded their entire town? What assholes.
My doorbell rang, which startled me. I pulled up the door cam to see a man in a similar outfit that I would expect from UPS with a clipboard in hand, an obvious deliveryman or an obvious trap. I recognised the uniform, and I didn't think anyone would be stupid enough to do that in this building, especially after seeing my tiger girl sticker on the door, but...
I grabbed Alt-Dad's shotgun, an old Militech Crusher that had been passed down to him by his dad circa 2020, and made sure there was a shell in the chamber. I trigger the intercom, "Yes?"
"Delivery for one Taylor Hebert, I am with Revere Courier Service," said the man, in a chipper tone.
While I wasn't expecting a delivery, that was a legitimate courier service and one that people would be wise not to impersonate. I had used them in the past to deliver a custom-printed plastic housing for my modified BD wreath, so it didn't look so ghetto. They would ship anything, anywhere. From a super-tanker of CHOO3 across the world to a bag of chips to your friend's house, and they treated each package as sacred, so they said anyway. I asked him through the door, "Identification?"
He holds up a company badge to the camera. Hmm. I decide to send Mr Jin a text message, just telling him that I am answering the door for an RCS courier on an unexpected delivery and to avenge me if he finds me murdered later. He replies with a thumbs-up emoji.
I trigger the door opening from several feet away so I am not in immediate grabbing distance. I don't point the gun at him but hold it ready so that I can raise it before he can rush me. Probably.
The courier doesn't seem upset about it, "Are you Taylor Hebert?" I nod. "Alright, chica, you either have to sign for this or send a digital signature." He held out a digital clipboard, which immediately offered to let me view and sign a file. I raised an eyebrow. In the previous delivery, the guy just tossed it in the door. No signature was required. Nobody was stupid enough to leave a package at a housing block door and still expect it to still be there in five minutes, so virtually all deliveries to a Megabuilding address were in person.
Well, of those choices, I knew which one I would not do . So I opened the digitally proferred file and raised my eyebrows again, which I had just lowered again a second ago! The sender was Daniel Hebert. I signed the thing electronically, and he held out a small package, the kind that could hold some sheets of paper without folding it and not much else. I said, "You can toss it into the apartment."
He shrugged and did so, to which I replied, "Thank you," and sent him a twenty eurodollar tip digitally.
"Niiice, chica. Thanks," he grinned and tipped a non-existent hat at me before I closed the door in his face. I watched him turn around and amble off. I send a text message to Mr Jin:
[Taylor: I guess he wasn't a ninja assassin after all.]
[ : Mr Jin]
What was that? A cowboy emoji? I didn't even know what cultural references I was supposed to know where a cowboy hat emoji would make any sense. And why did that man talk only in emojis in texts when you almost couldn't get him to shut up in person?
I sat the shotgun down and walked to the kitchen, and got some nitrile gloves. It was still possible its contents were laced with contact poison, or as soon as I opened it, a cloud of nerve toxin would puff into my face. That sounded implausible, but at least wearing gloves seemed a simple enough precaution.
Humming, I opened the envelope with one of Alt-Dad's combat knives and dumped its contents out on the coffee table. A sheet of paper and a data shard. I definitely didn't reach over and immediately plug that data shard into my neck like a gonk. Instead, I read the paper. It was in my dad's handwriting, and I mean that literally. Alt-Dad had the exact same handwriting as my dad back in Brockton Bay; it was surreal.
Little Owl,
If you're reading this, I'm afraid I couldn't make it back to you as I promised. We all knew this was a possibility, and I hope everything is going as well for you as possible.
I had a contract with a third party to deliver this to you, wherever you happened to be in North America, thirty days after confirmation of my death.
I know I never really talked about the specifics of the work I did, and I won't start now. It would be unprofessional, and also it would endanger you. But, in my line of work, it was sometimes possible to pick up things on missions as souvenirs. The Corp didn't really mind this behaviour so long as it wasn't extravagant. It was kind of expected in our field, even.
I have stored most of my souvenirs in a storage unit in Watson. Rent was pre-paid until 1 FEB 2068. Enclosed is a digital key to the storage unit, as well as its address and unit number.
Although the majority of the items are of only sentimental value, some of them have significant monetary value or are not available for purchase at all. I will not include a manifest of items with this letter, but there is one next to the light switch in the storage unit, along with a list of names and contact information for people I trust would not take advantage of you if you wanted to sell some of the things.
