They both nodded, as that was the standard way to work on new organisms and viruses. These days, the geneticists and virologists rarely stepped near the actual BSL facilities that housed their creations. The people who worked there were, basically, technicians. All the development was done virtually until results needed to be tested in the real world.
Normally I would never start a research project involving the development of a novel bacteria that could be used to process and refine metals. It was designed as a cheap way to refine and separate recycled metals, but that was too similar to creating a novel bacteria that processed and refined carbon-containing gases into ethanol. I definitely didn't want anyone to know I did that or could do that.
But almost all of the work was already done, and while I hadn't seen the genome of the bacteria the last team created, based on the notes I did read, their approach should have worked.
If I could find some simple error or misunderstanding in the way genes were expressed and fix it, then it wouldn't really be seen as my research by a lot of the scientific community. The original researchers would get a lot of the credit. And all Arasaka would care about was that I produced profit from the aether-a win-win.
Our world had already reached the stage where most of the easily accessible resources had already been plumbed. All of the low-hanging fruits had been plucked. There were legal fights in the NUSA about ownership of landfills from the last century because they contained more valuable metals than most mines today. There were companies that mined hundred-year-old garbage piles like ore. The capability to cheaply and quickly do that as well as process recycled metals, would help keep the world's economies humming along a little longer.
In such a mature worldwide economy, the only way you could carve out new segments was to make advances like this. It wouldn't increase the amount of metals coming onto the market necessarily, but it would vastly lower both the energy requirements to do so, as well as shortening the turnaround, which would alter the economic calculus to recycle. That saved energy and time could be redirected to other sectors of the economy and would be the "profit" of this project if it worked.
Long term, though, I felt that true heavy industry would shift off-planet. At least, I hoped it did, but just saying that wouldn't make it happen any quicker.
June 2067
Night City
Pacifica
The pleasure town of Pacifica was in pain, and it wasn't even the fun sadomasochistic kind that the place was used to. It was the pain of the dying. It was known that the Playland at the Sea playpark was somewhat highly leveraged, but it had been making pretty good money up until the War started.
That all came to a crashing halt when NUSA started threatening anyone taking a vacation here. It was part of a pressure strategy that President Elizabeth Kress hoped would cause Night City to acquiesce and rejoin the Union. She basically said that if you decided to take a vacation here as a NUSA citizen, then you should expect a visit by an investigator for the "Department of Un-American Activities."
It came to a head when the NUSA claimed to have accidentally fired a hypersonic missile from a Naval ship. Well, they fired it intentionally, but they claimed it was supposed to be aimed at a Free State position. Instead, it accurately struck the large statue with the mascot for the Playland of the Sea, a playful winged pegasus, demolishing it. Although, surprisingly, nobody was injured, the message was sent. Pacifica wasn't safe. Insurance rating agencies upgraded the hazard rating for the entire sector.
That was a huge problem because most of the very wealthy couldn't just go where they wanted willy-nilly. They had to abide by all sorts of employer or insurance restrictions which demanded that the places they patronise had a base level of safety. This was the entirety of Pacifica's customer base! Now that the hazard rating had been upgraded, it was a ghost town.
It demonstrated exactly how precarious Night City's position as a "neutral" was. Neither the Free States nor NUSA was doing anything but chuckling over their misfortune here, and Night City didn't have an Army like the Free States had, although they were talking about training and arming some sort of Militia. Personally, I didn't think that was a good idea. They'd just turn into some sort of gang post haste.
But now, the damage was done. There was no new money coming into the Pacifica sector, and almost the entire sector was geared around tourism. It reminded me of a centrally planned 5-year-plan type of city back in the old Soviet Union, where people in charge would randomly assign certain tasks to certain areas with no rhyme or reason. Well, Pacifica was really pretty, so maybe it was suited for tourism, but if they had some other support, the entire place might not have been doomed.
As it was, banks had already begun foreclosing on most of the buildings here, and workers had already been evacuated. Unfortunately, the criminal element had also already begun moving in, filling the vacuum. I was here because I was planning on offering to purchase a building in this area.
The amenities and level of construction were excellent, and it had exactly what I needed for my "Project Four." Namely, multiple independent fibre-optic backbones and, most importantly, a large and undisclosed, invisible on city plans subbasement. The fibre connections totalled over five hundred terabits, as the building had been a large braindance parlour. Now, I just had to demonstrate to the bank that the building was a lost cause so that I could buy it for ennies on the eddie.
Unfortunately, Kiwi was out of town on a large and important gig in the Free States. I worried about that, as that sounded dangerous, but it also prevented me from using her team to accomplish some of these tasks.
As such, I was sneaking around, stealth system engaged, and booby-trapping important parts of the building, which was already being squatted in by some sort of drug gang that reminded me of the Merchant's back in Brockton Bay. They weren't really a threat, but I didn't want to clear them out because that would drive the building's property value up. I just wanted to stop them from destroying any important parts of the building while they temporarily stayed here.
Plus, I had to admit that I kind of liked doing this sort of thing. I had taken a couple of days off work to accomplish all this, too. I had to admit that I wasn't enjoying being a resident again; the work schedule was a bit too much.
Darting around a corner, I came face to face with one of the junkies, who waved his arms, hands grabbing out for me and yelled, "Woaahh, ghost titties!"
I ducked inside his attempt to cup my breasts, grabbed him carefully by the back of the neck, cradling his spine so that I didn't actually kill him, and smacked his head into the side of the corridor with sufficient force to concuss him. He wouldn't be unconscious long with that calibrated tap, so after he was down, I carefully injected him with a psychedelic concoction. It was vaguely disassociative, too, like Ketamine in high doses, so he wouldn't trouble me anymore. Plus, he probably wouldn't think it was anything else but some strange batch of whatever drug he was on.
He was the sixth person I had to temporarily incapacitate in that way in the past couple of days. I worked past him and found one of the larger network closets, and I sat my tools down and just welded the door closed. They couldn't destroy all of the sensitive equipment in there if they couldn't actually get the door open. I had done this several times in addition to setting booby traps at places that I couldn't block off. I was cautiously optimistic that I would be able to salvage a lot of the Braindance hardware too. There was no way that I could save all of it, as that was the reason this gang started squatting in this building in the first place, but I had closed off most of the parlours on the upper levels in a similar manner.
I carefully dragged the unconscious gang-member-cum-junkie into one of the open and trashed rooms and posed him there before taking a number of snaps that I would send to the bank. The building's price has just decreased!
Hearing a noise, I froze and then quickly jumped a good three metres into the air, perching on the metal gantries that used to house the drop-ceiling tiles, which had been totally ripped out by the gang for one reason or another. Activating the stealth system again, I watched a group of three or four of them enter the room and laugh at their incapacitated friend; he was no longer unconscious but just slightly twitching and drooling. After that, they settled down in individual braindance loungers, loudly chortling over some XBD that they planned to experience.
Honestly, just looking forward to experiencing an XBD made me want to kill them. Nothing could be called an XBD that was anything but incredibly vile and disgusting, but I left them to their amusements. Once they were all insensate, I fell back down onto the floor soundlessly and left.
That was enough for today; I had to backtrack and make sure nobody had fucked with my car. I hid it somewhere pretty good, but you just didn't know. My old Butte, I had taken it out of storage and given it to Gloria as a housewarming gift and unstated apology for uprooting her again. Surprisingly, she had accepted it. Gloria wasn't one to take charity, which meant that she agreed with me that it was warranted.
Walking back to where I had parked, I was startled by an incoming call, and from a nostalgic name and face. I instantly answered, grinning, "Dr Anno! Long time no see."
He smiled at me in the vidcall, "Hey, Taylor... I'm glad to see that you're okay. We were all worried something had happened to you, but then I heard that you're back in town and working as a surgical resident! You never called!"
Chuckling, I rubbed the back of my neck and looked embarrassed, "Yes, it was a sudden opportunity to attend that school, and I couldn't tell anyone; I just had to vanish. Sorry about that; I hope that I didn't burn any bridges over there."
He waved off a hand, "No, not at all! You paid the penalty, so you're definitely eligible for rehire. Interested?"
I blinked. Was he offering me a job? I grinned slyly at him, "Ohhh? Is this management responsibility I hear out of your voice, Dr Anno? Congratulations!"
He laughed good-naturedly and tried to look bashful, but he couldn't hide his pride. He nodded, "Thank you. Yes, I'm the newest Clinical Manager. So, how about it? A straight promotion to Senior Med Tech, too."
I shook my head, "I'm not done with my residency, so I'm not really a doctor by NUS standards. Plus..." I sighed and shook my head, "I do not intend to work any kind of full-time job even after I finish my residency. I have the opportunity to relax for a while, and I intend to take it."
"Oh? Does this have anything to do with me seeing your face in one of the gossip rags, going to the penthouse at the Azure Plaza?" he asked, teasing.
I grimaced. I was a bit annoyed at Grams for having the guards at the famous hotel treat me differently. My face had been plastered on a few of the BBSes that the elite and those wishing to appear to be used around town, no doubt taken by the optics of the other guests in the lobby at the time. I waved a hand and just lied, "I don't know what you're talking about. But I don't intend to work any full-time jobs, as I have a couple of businesses and my own practice I might be running myself."
He smiled, clearly not buying my lie but then shrugged, "So come work for us, PRN. You only have to work one shift a month to keep that status."
I opened my mouth to decline, paused and then closed it. I frowned and thought about that. I hadn't considered working at Trauma Team part-time. After a moment, I asked, "Would I have to go back through fucking basic?"
He shrugged, "Possibly a short refresher, but they'd probably do it here in town."
I paused and then suddenly narrowed my eyes and said, "Please excuse me for a moment." I pulled out my pistol and yelled, "Get the fuck away from my car." There were two unknown but dirty-looking individuals loitering by it. At first, they looked like they wanted some smoke, but I fired a couple of shots in their direction, intentionally missing, and they hoofed it.
Dr Anno nodded sagely and said, "Ah, yes. You seem just like the surgeon looking for a quiet practice, maybe a rocking chair in the summer. Just like I remember."
"Shut it, you... I'll think about it. Was that why you called, though? Seems a bit odd to randomly solicit me a job after all this time," I said while inspecting the vehicle for damage. Scowling, I noticed some wear around the door handle as they appeared to have tried to force it open. I should have shot them! I glanced up, but they were already gone.
He shook my head, "No, no... I just got distracted. I'm actually calling checking references for a potential new hire."
Wait... the only person who had asked me to list myself as a reference was.. I grinned, "Gloria applied to Trauma Team?" She had steadfastly refused my offer to arrange for her a job, deciding that she wanted to find one by her own crook, although she accepted my offer of listing me as a reference. People only checked references when they were already fairly sure they wanted to hire you, after all.
He nodded, "Yes. I'm not sure how her application got through the filters, but the hiring manager was going to round-file it because she didn't have enough critical care nursing experience until he saw your name."
I scowled, "You should consider making an exception. Not only is she better than average, but she worked Night City EMS as an EMT for almost ten years. She was one of the ones the company would pair unknown, brand-new paramedics with. Like, say, me. She was my partner my entire time when I was working on the ground, and she was quite an excellent clinician, especially in emergency medicine. She's also a psychologically stable full-body replacement user, so she definitely won't slow the Security guys down."
He raised an eyebrow, "That's a very strong recommendation from you then. And her application didn't mention that she's a Borg... is this an old picture, or is she in a Gemini?"
"Gemini," I confirmed.
He drummed his fingers on the table he was sitting behind and was quiet for a time, "Okay. That definitely adds a new dimension. I'll extend her a job offer as a Flight Team Assistant Med Tech, but it will be contingent on her doing six months as a trauma centre RN in our Watson Trauma Centre first. Maybe less-just long enough for her to get a year's experience in critical nursing. We'll pay her at the Flight Team rate for this time, though. You're right; working on a ground EMS here in Night City, combined with being a full Borg, is quite a good deal for us, I think. Think she would accept that?"
