Once I was Taylor again, I had already broken the habit of assuming I would look horrible in anything I wore. That allowed me to easily identify the source of my original hesitancy to branch out to any outfit that showed off any of my body at all. The colourings, though, were still dark and subdued. I just didn't like vibrant and bright colours.
"Well, we'd love to have you, but you kind of missed the start of residency. It would be a bit disruptive to slide you in, but you could definitely start January," the residency program director told me, spreading his hands wide, "We haven't had a graduate from Oxford start their residency here, well, ever. Usually, they handle medical internships themselves."
At first, there was some question as to whether my degree was real, just because of how unusual my job application was, but after they verified it, I was quickly scheduled a meeting with one of the administrators who handles the residency program. And it was true; I had missed the best time to start a residency. Late July and early August was "baby doctor season" in most teaching hospitals because that was about the time med school would end if you started it at the normal time of the year.
However, there were a lot of exceptions, and residents in off-semester starts weren't entirely unusual, but I would have to wait until January to begin just so as not to disrupt their current resident/Attending dynamic. I was sure that it was because they thought I was of the same level of skill as a normal resident. It generally took months of careful supervision in order for them to get to the point where they were useful at all, and nobody would want to duplicate that with me.
It was fine. I wasn't in a hurry. I smiled and said, "Oh, that's not a problem at all. Let's talk about which residency program I'd like to pursue."
November 2066
Los Angeles
Dr Hasumi's Clinic Conference Room
I did what could only be characterised as a princess stomp, stomping my right foot down in displeasure as I asked, aghast, "They were just going to throw me into a sack, as though I was some turnips?!" It had been almost two weeks since the attack, and the investigation by Militech with Kiwi providing assistance was complete and was, as far as I could tell, thorough.
I was in a conference room getting an overview briefing both from Kiwi and a Militech intelligence analyst. They had already delivered the full report, but Militech was used to giving a bullet-point executive summary since they assumed most people like me probably wouldn't have read all three hundred pages. They were right, but in my case, I probably would read it when I had some downtime.
Kiwi's mouth was twitching. I had already talked to her about how I thought they might have planned to escape Trauma Team, even going as far as suggesting highly complicated and highly technical scenarios involving drone decoys and the like. But it turned out that they just had a really large sack with a fine copper-mesh lining.
I think that my overlooking such an obvious and simple solution was bothering me more than the idea of being thrown into a Santa sack, actually. I waved a hand and sat down, letting both of them continue the briefing.
After it was over, I thanked the Militech guy and watched him leave before sighing and saying, "That was a lot of words for saying we don't know shit."
"That's what I said!" Kiwi said, smacking her fist into her open palm, "But that guy said what bosses really want was a lot of words to say the same thing."
I snorted. That was probably right, most of the time, in most Corps. About half of the attackers were killed in the fight, but they were nobodies. The ones that managed to escape turned up dead a couple of days later, apparently having been zeroed not long after they escaped, so the entire attack was from a disposable cut-out, despite the standardised, if common, equipment.
Militech went as far as to investigate each dead mercenary individually to see if they could find a thread that could be pulled to unravel the obfuscation and identify the ultimate party responsible, but there was, seemingly, nothing. They all had military experience, but it was at least a decade ago, even for the most recent and since then, they were regular criminals, not even having the figleaf of calling themselves mercenaries, really.
They weren't connected through a shared gang or even a shared geographic area, either. While they all had served time, they didn't all serve time together or in the same lock-ups. The only common denominators were they were all from various parts of Southern California, and they were all convicted criminals with a history of being grunts once upon a time.
Now, that the entire team was composed of disposable cut-outs that were ruthlessly then cut out didn't necessarily mean that a Corp was responsible, but it did tend to suggest it. It wasn't like that random gangs weren't ruthless enough to do so, but they lacked the competence and capital to build such a team.
I shook my head, "Review our take from that asshole again; see if he's speaking in any kind of generalities or code with anyone."
Kiwi made a disgusted face, "I really, really doubt that he is passing any kind of information to any of his joytoys. Besides, he's gagged most of-"
As she began complaining, I rolled my eyes, but she made a good point, so I waved her off, interrupting her before she reminded me of some things I couldn't quite forget. "Just read the transcriptions." She seemed more disgusted than I did, and it was probably because I had a huge database of paraphilias in my head next to my general psychology data, so it was challenging to shock me with anything still legal.
I didn't even find the man's preferences surprising, as it wasn't that unusual, psychologically speaking, for people with very demanding leadership positions and the personality to seek those positions to have more... passive interests in bed.
It didn't bother me at all, but I certainly didn't want to think about it, either. I sighed and said, "I'm likely not going to go out too much. You should be cautious, too. For the time being, I want to stop seeing everyone for dinner, and if we have to talk, let's keep it virtual, under proxies." If I was really the target of a coordinated kidnapping attempt, it would be standard procedure to grab my "family", too. I didn't think I was close enough to Gloria or David for them to actually be coded as my family in any dossiers of me, but they would definitely be listed as friends or associates, along with Kiwi.
Kiwi was sort of playing the head of my security, along with one of her team members, which was a bit of a precarious position, as I didn't want her to risk her. I was putting myself out, like dangling ham in front of Mrs Pegpig. I knew something would happen, eventually.
There was a fair chance that any acquisition attempts would begin with a sort of decapitation attack on the management of my "Corporation." Although I had over a hundred employees now, I only had a few that were really critical. Despite not working for me, full-time Kiwi could be considered on that list.
Kiwi frowned at me. I hadn't exactly told her my plans, but she wasn't stupid. She didn't precisely understand the connection between Dr Hasumi and Taylor Hebert, and I believed she thought I was a clone with all of Taylor's memories, although we had never talked about it. That would make her find it odd that I was putting myself out on a limb, as it were, which she didn't feel that Taylor would do.
Still, she nodded, "Right, boss. We'll start taking a few more gigs from the elf-girl. She almost has people trusting that she is something like a fixer now."
Sarah, the elf-girl with the vulpine grin, always rubbed me just slightly off, like petting a cat in the wrong direction. I didn't dislike her; there was just something disquieting about her. Still, we had a fairly good relationship now, with me performing surgery on her entire small mercenary band. Kiwi had agreed to provide some training to them as well, so they were at least superior to the average booster gang in terms of threat level now.
I nodded. I didn't control who Kiwi did gigs for, but she was telling me that she wouldn't be as available if we were going to distance ourselves for the moment publicly. I said, "That sounds good."
As I watched Kiwi leave, I opened a file for contingency planning in the event the worst happened.
January 2067
Los Angeles
Dr Hasumi's Office
My engineer Phillippé had asked me for a meeting first thing this morning, which I didn't think was a good sign. We rarely needed official face-to-face time. Our offices were across from each other, and we left both of our doors open. If he wanted something, all he had to do was holler.
In the past months, our products had gone close to mainstream, and I had half a dozen acquisition offers similar to the Dynacorp one. I had been expecting him to be poached for weeks now, despite the fact that he didn't actually understand the underpinnings of the sleep-inducer technology.
I smirked a little as he walked in. He was wearing a suit and tie today, too. We mostly dressed business casual. I sighed, and asked, "Are you quitting?"
He grinned and said, "Possibly. I've received a compelling offer, but I'm willing to allow you to match it." He said a number that caused both of my eyebrows to rise.
I slowly shook my head, "I'm afraid I can't match that salary." I could, but he had already reached his goals for deliverables, so it wasn't like his leaving would leave me in a lurch. It would make it almost a certainty that anyone I hired to replace him would be some kind of plant, though. But I expected him to be a plant now, too, for the right amount of baksheesh.
He chuckled and sat down and grinned, "That's kind of what I expected. It includes a title raise from Senior Engineer to Technical Project Lead, too. So I might not have accepted your counteroffer in the first place, but I wanted to see if you'd go for it, anyway."
He hadn't told me who hired him, and I hadn't expected him to. But I was curious. I tilted my head to the side and asked, "Are you staying the full month?" His contract specified he had to give me at least thirty days' notice of acquiring a position elsewhere. Otherwise, he would have to reimburse me four times his salary for the whole month. That was a pretty standard clause, and it was designed to allow me to hire a short-term troubleshooter consultant on contract if he did leave me in the lurch, and their fees were at least four times a regular engineer's.
He shook his head, "No. Today will be my last day. Can you take an irrevocable business Visa for the penalty fee?" Visa was a large financial services company, but they didn't have the same payment processor business as I remembered in Brockton Bay. It was kind of hard to make a business as a payment middleman with a digital currency that you could send back and forth for free. Still, they did a brisk business in a similar vein, providing credit and payment obfuscation services mostly for corporations.
An "irrevocable business Visa" was shorthand for a type of credit transaction that was impossible for Visa's client to reverse. Payments on this basis usually involve very high security, sometimes using DNA verification systems due to their high risk for hacking. If a hacker got your unlocked business Visa, they could charge a lot, and you'd never get the money back and or be obligated to pay if it was a credit arrangement.
In films and BDs, you'd see the hyper-rich buy a yacht or a private suborbital spaceplane with one all the time. It was the equivalent of the "black card" that I remembered vaguely from my last life. There was no way that Phillippé had one, which made me all the more curious. I nodded and said, "I'm willing to waive the penalty if you tell me whose offer you accepted."
It was mostly curiosity, but not entirely. I wanted to know if it was any of the guys that I was dealing with. This caused him to grin, "Don't waive it, but give it to me as a bonus in cash, along with two small favours, and it's a deal."
"Favours? Those I am not so sure about," I waffled. In my experience, it was almost always cheaper to pay for things in cash, not favours.
He waved a hand, "Small ones. First, I want some surgeries today. I'm going to be handing you back all the money and more, anyway. Second, can you drag your feet on processing the term? If I have an active Corp employment on file, it will make travel a lot easier. " That said something in itself and narrowed down the possibilities of his new employer significantly. Not someone domestic, then. Los Angeles had been under Martial Law for some time, and it really was difficult to leave the city unless you were travelling for business.
Also, I found it amusing that it was clearly his new employer that was paying the penalty fee. He was, probably correctly, concerned if I waived the fee, they would not give him the money. That was probably correct. I chuckled and nodded, "Sure. You don't have much PTO accrued, but I'll say you're on personal leave if anyone asks and process your term in a month. I'll cut you vague travel orders for this duration, too, with the company chop. I'm sure there is some conference or something... somewhere. You figure it out."
He looked relieved, which told me that whatever foreign Corp gave him an offer didn't include exfiltration. He glanced around and said quietly, "Arasaka."
Well, that wasn't too surprising . They were the only one of the half dozen that actually seemed open to licensing my technology and paying the minimum amount that wouldn't trigger the Veritas contract execution. There had been a full five-page article about our sleep inducers in the January issue of Solo of Fortune magazine. It was very favourable, and the author realised the tactical advantage that it would bring to larger military forces, too. Apparently, one of the mercenary captain's men was, in addition to being a mercenary, a journalist of sorts. That had caused us to sell out and a lot of people to beat down my door recently. I was a little nervous, actually. I would have preferred the article never to be written, but I did end up giving a few quotes when I realised that was a lost cause.
I was actually a little surprised that Arasaka gave him an offer, actually. It explained why he was a bit cagey and needed his employment to travel somewhere where they could pick him up, too. Strictly speaking, accepting a job offer from them might break a number of laws, but that wouldn't stop any Corpo worth their salt. I asked, amused, "Are they aware that you don't actually know how the tech works?"
He shrugged, "I think so, but I didn't really advertise that. They know what work I did for you anyway, in general terms. I didn't violate the NDA." I didn't believe him but also didn't really care, either. NDAs weren't worth the paper they were printed on, which was why I made sure his actual access was limited.
