What were they planning on rebuilding after destroying all of these buildings? Some sort of central harvesting hub for my algae was the only thing I could think of. I had been, curiously, looking at what was published about designs for this new and innovative sector, and they mostly appeared to be falling back on things that I would have recognised as oil rigs which housed many dozens of drone harvesters, which skimmed algae off the surface. I recognised them even if there weren't very many of those left due to Leviathan.
But I supposed there had to be a central place on the mainland to ship all of the fuel. I didn't know enough about the logistics of moving a lot of liquid around to say whether this was a good idea or not, but cursory net searches told me that there were a lot of currently dormant pipelines that terminated in the LA area.
I put my car back into gear, driving manually at high speed, using my reflexes to keep myself safe. No cop would pull me over, after all.
A week and a half later, I had finally made it back to Night City, being smuggled into the city rather than going through the customs entry, which seemed more militarised than before.
My old apartment was, unfortunately, already rented out. At first, I had considered moving out of Japantown, perhaps to Kabuki or Watson itself, which were still rapidly expanding. But, in the end, I arranged with Wakako to rent one of the other storefronts on the same floor Clouds was on. Not only was it nostalgic for me, but the security provided by a properly running Megabuilding was pretty high.
The NCART transit system ran through most of the Megabuildings, it was one of the defining features of the large hive-like building systems and with that came the "commerce levels" of each building. Even the buildings that were more anarchic, like Gloria's old building, still had well-running, highly secure levels on the tenth through twelfth floors, as well as the highest penthouse luxury levels.
On the highest levels, there were even aerodyne landing pads so that people who lived up there didn't even have to go down the elevators and mix with the proletariat to enter or leave the building.
Despite the fact that I could afford it now, I still wasn't renting in any of those levels. The storefront I was leasing was about three times as large as my old place, and I was paying more this time but still a bit under what I suspected the market rate was. Instead of two doors down from Clouds, this was almost directly across the corridor. It was a clothing store when I lived there last, but I had to admit that I never bought anything from it. The prices were high, but the quality of the clothes didn't meet that expectation, so I wasn't surprised to find it out of business finally.
I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to be doing, as I had at least eighteen to twenty-four months before I could acquire a degree in medicine, just from the timeline alone. Then after that, I would be right back where I started when I got to Los Angeles, having to work as a resident surgeon. It was kind of hilarious that I would likely spend four years as a resident, after all, just separated into two segments under two different identities.
I didn't mind working as an illicit "Ripperdoc" for the moment. So long as I didn't advertise who ran the clinic and used an assumed name, it shouldn't affect me at all. I had been a lot more wary about that in the past, but I was wiser about how the world worked now. I had brought two vats suitable for biosculpting that I had built from scratch, but I had purchased brand-new cybersurgery equipment.
I didn't even have most of the old equipment that I brought with me to Los Angeles, aside from Kumo-kun, as while it was serviceable, it wasn't that great, and I had long ago sold it off. I had gotten most of it from a crazy perverted ex-doctor, after all. I had brand new equipment for my operating theatre here and a small amount of commonly sold cybernetics that I could sell.
Most of my things were still in boxes, but I did unpack and assemble one of the biosculpt vats so I could give myself my own face back last night. I wanted to go see how Evelyn and Himeko were doing, so I walked out of my front door, glancing at the relatively busy building, even in the morning.
I was surprised to see the Samurai Gunman himself moseying around the corridor, as usually, they had him guard the back entrance due to how much... uhh... character he had. He saw me, recognised me and grinned, walking over. He was still favouring the white Stetson, leather gun belt and short swords n the opposite hip. He was grinning at me, "Hey! Doc Taylor! They said you would be back. How have you been?"
I smiled slightly at him and simultaneously used all of my senses to examine him as he came near. He didn't have any positive physical signs of mental instability that I could see. "Oh, pretty good, I suppose. How about things here?"
We walked over to a less populated corner next to Clouds, and he shrugged, "Things have gotten a lot better, ma'am. Except... all of those crazy girls and boys of industry have started their own gang. They mainly stick around a bar in Kabuki. They're too busy beating up violent Johns to do anything to any of the established players anyway, so everyone, even us, has just left them alone." He gave a practised Galic shrug, which amused me.
I nodded, "How about you personally? Hows the Sandy? Any issues?"
"Not at all! I still use it a few times a day when I practice my iaido..." he said, and I hummed and casually moved his head with my hands, examining him, peering into his eyes, feeling the lymphatic nodes in his neck before finally shrugging.
I sighed and nodded, "It looks like you are well suited to it. Still, set some time aside, and we'll run a full diagnostic to make everything is working out. I don't often sell boostware as high-end as I put in you."
He grinned and nodded, "I'm as fast as Demon Wind Kato, but the asshole has started calling me Ass Wind Johnny . The low-down dirty..."
I interrupted him with a chuckle, and I couldn't keep it in. In fact, both my bodies chuckled, which I had to quickly hide with a hand as I was talking to a few employees. Low-brow humour was always good for a chuckle.
Johnny up and pouted at me, giving his shoulder a gentle pat before saying, "I'm going to go see how Evelyn and Himeko are. They both still work here, right?"
"Oh, yeah... they do," he said, nodding quickly, "Mr Jin is still in charge, too, although he has someone to run the everyday business now. Got one about a year ago."
I raised an eyebrow, "I hope the new guy is better than the old guy." That got Johnny to grin, and I asked him, "Can you walk me in? I don't want to bother Jin-sama..." I said that in an affected, soto voice, then continued in my normal tone, "... and the new guy might not know me."
He nodded and walked me over. I didn't recognise the hostesses at the front desk, but they all were highly sculpted for beauty and looked more or less the same as the last ones that I remembered. Apparently, being a hostess at Clouds was a desirable position, especially for the upper to middle class. I didn't really know why that was, but they only usually lasted about two to three years at the most before moving on. One nice surprise was I was still on the list of people allowed to carry weapons inside, which was nice.
I left the Samurai Gunman there at the front desk and hurried over to Evelyn's room. It wasn't as obvious as a green or red light, as that would be garish, but there was a subdued and subtle icon next to the room number if one of the dolls was with a client. In this case, it wasn't present, so I pressed the doorbell and waited.
The door unlocked and opened right away, and I suddenly had my arms full of a scantily-clad doll who had leapt through the door into my arms. She was wearing a nightgown and nothing else. Well, it wasn't sudden. I saw her sailing towards me with enough time to move out of the way if I wanted to, but I just caught her and froze. This was like how a lot of those scenes that I mostly fast-forwarded through on my BDs started. "Taaaaylor! I thought you were dead or something! Nobody would tell us anything!"
I coughed and sat her down. She wasn't heavy at all, maybe fifty kilos. I could pick her up one-handed, easily. "I'm sorry I couldn't say goodbye to everyone. But I had to leave right away, just in case. Gloria and David are both okay, but I can't discuss where they are right now or what they're doing... but they're both doing well!" I couldn't, right now, anyway. Gloria had plans to return to Night City, as despite how she denigrated her mother and parts of her family, she still missed them.
She was almost done with her degree, but she only planned to return after she had worked at least a year in a trauma centre there in LA, as she could start off at a higher quality position with one of the local UCLA-backed trauma centres and then transition laterally after she had some experience.
"Wow! From what little David said and what I heard from Johnny, that is surprising! You're a miracle worker, Tay!" she grinned at me, and that flew me for a loop for a second. I wasn't really used to any diminutives of my name, although that boy Hiro sometimes called me "Doc T" and, of course, little David used to call me "Tayr." That I missed, as I thought he had been cute as a button.
Still, I smiled and perhaps shaded the truth a lot about my accomplishment, "She was very, very lucky. I can't take much credit." The look Evelyn gave me seemed like she didn't believe me. She drew me into her boudoir, and we sat and talked. Himeko was with a client and couldn't join us, but Evelyn said she was doing well. Mr Hunk was gone, though! He had quit about a year ago, and Evelyn whispered that he had made some sort of arrangement with his family.
Perhaps the arrangement only extended in not renting his body to spinsters by the hour because he was still putting out BDs every few months. I would have been rather upset if he had stopped in the middle of the story arc of his latest series, as he was a dashing, swashbuckling pirate in this one. I had the sudden intrusive thought that I had missed my chance to rent him myself but shook my head, as I would never really do that.
It wasn't that I wasn't attracted to anyone. I often was, and even when I wasn't, I could appreciate the attractive parts of people I saw every day from an aesthetic perspective. And it would have been a lie to say holding a mostly naked Evelyn hadn't been a little stimulating. However, unless I imagined I was in a fairly long-term romantic relationship, I couldn't get super-excited about the prospect of physical intimacy. I could appreciate a beautiful man or woman, but I wouldn't really want to "partake" unless I felt a more serious emotional bond with them. It was weird, especially in this world where sex on the first date was often the norm.
I honestly didn't know what I was going to do about it because I was committed to my plan on expanding my network, and I had already noticed a little bit about how I had changed already with just two nodes. Would it get to the point where I couldn't relate to regular people anymore? Or rather, not enough for me to form a suitable emotional bond, anyway? Relationships were supposed to be a thing between equals, I was told and always believed, so I could see that happening if I didn't see anyone as being my equal.
Again, I shook my head to clear it and decided to table those thoughts. They weren't useful to me, and there was always the chance that I was overestimating how much my personality might change with each expansion of my cognitive capabilities. It was a tricky problem and one I didn't have a solution to. I didn't feel any different about having my friends, for example.
"So, are you going to be running a clinic again? There's been a dearth of good healthcare, especially cybernetics related, around Japantown," Evelyn complained.
I nodded, "Yes, although I'm going to keep my real name out of it. Not sure what I will call it, but I'm directly across the corridor from Clouds. That pretentious clothing store. What happened to DrSuzuki's practice?" He had been the one who installed my stealth system after all, and I wouldn't fuck around with quacks near my body.
She made a face, "His clinic was firebombed during The Troubles... I think he moved out to Watson. One nice thing about the Moxes is that they restrain the more militant boys and girls."
The Troubles?! Were they republicans, in the Irish sense?! I snorted and couldn't help myself, saying while grinning, " Come out, ye black and tans, come out and fight me like a man." Evelyn looked at me oddly, and I could see green text scrolling across her eyes as she was obviously doing a net search. Shit, I couldn't help it, but I wasn't doing anything for my reputation of being a normal teenage girl. However, this had been one of Danny's favourite songs back in Brockton Bay, especially after drinking a few beers when I was little. Although, he hadn't sung it once since Mom died. Still, I knew every line and could sing it from memory.
Instead of commenting on the anachronism, though, I saw her tapping her finger, obviously listening to the song, so I waited until she finished. She grinned, "I might re-write the lyrics to this song. It's got a good tune, and the Moxes might quite like it if it was more... applicable to current events."
I was startled, saying, "Uhhh... you know where you sleep every night? Should you be getting political? " I glanced around, looking for recording devices, which was stupid since they could be practically microscopic.
She snorted, "They don't actually record anything here. If they even had the ability and that came out, it would destroy the business. Most of our clients are so shy that most of the doll personalities are at least half therapists but with happy endings." She chuckled, "Besides, I wouldn't be attributing it to myself, just in case it did get popular."
Still, I frowned, "If you want to uncover hundred-year-old music for them, I still think you should pick something a little less confrontational and a little more optimistic."
She raised an eyebrow at me and said, "Okay, Miss Expert On Hundred-Year-Old Music, what would you suggest?"
I sighed and stood up, thinking fast and doing a number of quick net searches before I found what I was looking for. Doing a quick handshake with the SmartWall in the room and began clapping along with the karaoke version of the song that I found on the net.
I wasn't a great singer, but I tried, and what did you know? It came out better than it usually did, " Sun is shinin' in the sky, there ain't a cloud in sight. It's stopped rainin' everybody's in the play. And don't you know, it's a beautiful new day, hey hey..."
