Emily nodded slowly, "The Siren's Call building recently paid a large chunk of change to double their net pipe, and it already was incredibly large. This is with a different carrier, so they are not looking so much for increased speeds but increased reliability. They've switched to a multi-homed data architecture, looking more like a medium-sized data centre than a braindance parlour in a borderline combat zone."
Kurt shook his head, "It always comes back to the net here. Garcia reports that whatever's got the suits in a tizzy at the old Militech facility is heavily net-based, too. With dozens of active fibre optic trunks going... God knows where. And it's older than either of us, predating the DataKrash. They built that facility in the 2010s."
After a moment of silence, he asked, "Lastly, do you have any suspects about a hidden political officer?"
She nodded, "I suspect Staff Sergeant Milford. He's old for his rank, quietly competent, his job always keeps him with the HQ company, and his jacket is interesting. None of us have served with him in the past, so it reads like a carefully constructed legend. I think it's bogus."
"Right. Give me a list of his former COs, and I'll quietly verify that," Hansen ordered. When you got into the field-grade ranks in the NUS military, you developed discreet methods of contacting your peers. Half the Army ran on this network, and nobody was going to compromise it, so he would be able to get the actual truth about Milford without drawing attention to his attempt to do so.
He didn't want to have an unexpected meeting with a commissar's pistol some dark night. A prerequisite for field rank in the NUSA military had always been a normal family arrangement. Many decades ago, this requirement was to filter out people with alternate lifestyles that were seen as undesirable.
These days, it was to give the government easy hostages. However, little did they know that his wife had been cheating on him, so he didn't really care what happened if he had to implement this "option BOHICA."
Garcia had a better family situation, so they were already working on plans to exfil his wife and children, and he actually thought they would work. Things were becoming chaotic, and the normal intel weenies and political officers who monitored the movement of the families of senior officers were busy with other things.
He said firmly as he stood up, "If he doesn't check out, Milford will need to have an accident in the event we need to move with option BOHICA."
The Major did the same, nodding at him, "Hopefully, things don't come to that, but you know what they say. If you can't take a joke..." She trailed off.
"... then you shouldn't have joined the Army," he finished for her.
January 2068
Night City
Gloria's Apartment, Santo Domingo
I don't get surprised too much anymore, but this definitely surprised me.
Gloria kissed me.
I didn't stop her immediately because Gloria was probably one of the few people that I would be interested in sexually, so it was nice to experience.
It wasn't that I wanted to be alone forever; it was just that it was difficult to feel sexually compatible with someone that I wasn't already best friends with. Perhaps best friends were a bad way to put it, but I needed to already love someone in order to want to make love to them.
When you added that, on top of the fact that I didn't feel comfortable disclosing the true nature of my existence... well, I had sort of settled on the fact that I might end up alone. That, or I would have to start dating a literal AI, and they were still a bit too inscrutable to me. Also, how would that work? I'd likely have to clone my digital lover a body in order to actually... do it.
My relative lack of sexual interest generally was one of my biggest secrets because, way beyond my somewhat dated and occasionally anachronistic way of speaking, it outed me as incredibly foreign to the cultural zeitgeist. Casual sex was considered normal these days, almost universally. My stack of secret braindances of holding hands and walking down the beach was considered seriously "weird shit."
Gloria was one of the only people in the world where I was genuinely open to a sexual relationship. Her, Kiwi, and Ruslan, at least before I had to kill him. He hadn't quite reached that point, of course, but I had hoped he would. I could even see myself developing feelings for Yuki if I could somehow deprogram him from his overriding loyalty to Arasaka. He had such a submissive personality that he would be Stockholmed quickly in that case. But that was unlikely to ever happen, either.
I wanted to spend a little more time thinking this might be possible, but having so much knowledge of human psychology stuck in my head was really disheartening. Gloria was kissing me because she was worried she was going to lose me, not out of lust or romance. I could see it all in her face, and I couldn't ignore it.
This wasn't one of my mushy braindances. I couldn't play pretend forever. Finally, I said, "That was out of the blue."
Her face looked vulnerable, almost like she was fighting back tears. This was very unusual, as Gloria was one of the strongest people I knew.
Also, it wasn't what a girl who had just been kissed would like to see out of the person who kissed her.
She realised things weren't going as she had hoped and said, "Tay, I love you."
"I love you too, Gloria," I said honestly, "But I am not sure you mean that you are in love with me."
Gloria flinched a bit as I said that, and I sighed.
Certainly, I had never noticed hints that Gloria preferred the company of the ladies. While we were partners on the ground ambulance, she worked so many extra hours that she didn't have time to do anything else. Her salary and overtime barely kept her and her son afloat in the city of dreams.
That changed when I borderline kidnapped her to a new identity in Los Angeles, but even then, it was mainly only the occasional man that I noticed her look at. Not women at all.
I dusted off my psychology hat and asked, "What's going on, Gloria?"
"I met someone at work. I really like him," she admitted but then firmed her expression, "But he's not worth it if it means losing you!"
I smiled genuinely. "Why do you think dating someone else would result in any change between us?"
She frowned. Although I couldn't say that I had a healthy family, not since Mom died, at least I had the memories of what a healthy family should be. Gloria didn't even have that. She just had the intuition that there was only one way it was supposed to work, and if she dated someone, then there would be no room for me as well.
Honestly, she probably realised that this was silly, but the possibility of change was causing her to panic. Change was scary.
She was quiet for a long while and then made a sound that was halfway a laugh and a sob, shaking her head, "You wouldn't mind if I started seeing someone?"
Instead of immediately agreeing, I introspected for a moment. Finally, I shook my head. While I might feel a little envy, I certainly didn't feel jealousy. The nuance was totally different, after all.
"There is no reason we have to fall into a neat stereotype. You're my family in all the ways that matter. I don't have much of that sort of thing left," I told her. At least, not that I really cared about. I would have been happy with Alt-Dad because he was basically just a different version of Dad, but he was gone here, too.
I didn't have any real attachments to the ultra-rich side of Alt-Taylor's family, just like I didn't really think too much of Grams back in Brockton Bay, either.
She let out a long sigh and then chuckled, "That... that makes me feel a lot better. Especially since you were like fifteen when I met you for the first time, so this felt a bit gross."
I sniffed, offended. I was sixteen by then, thank you very much. I had my sixteenth birthday a little bit before I graduated with my paramedic license and before I ever met Gloria. I considered myself much older than my objective age, too.
For every year that passed objectively, I'd consider myself over a decade older when you considered how many brains I had and the level of subjective time dilation I ran under continuously. Perhaps it wasn't a straight comparison, but I was still an adult now, even if you only went by objective time, anyway.
That said, I could see her point. I don't think I could ever think romantically about little Hiro-chan, even if he asked me out twenty years from now when he was in his mid-thirties.
Wait... did that mean she didn't count me as an adult when we first met?! But I was precocious as hell back then. I was working a full-time job and everything. I thought I exuded a responsible, adult vibe, but I guessed not.
After that, we just sat there next to each other on the couch, watching TV. I didn't care that it was more of a slide show for me, either.
We weren't quite cuddling, but it wasn't far off either. I didn't consider romance or lust to be a prerequisite for physical affection.
I thought this world would be a lot better if platonic cuddling was more normalised, actually.
While I focused on just being there with her, another part of me couldn't help but think that while I had achieved some of my goals, I had lost something along the way.
January 2068
Night City Health Science Centre
I had an appointment at the University proper rather than the hospital, so I had to drive a couple of miles. The hospital affiliated with it, where I worked seemingly every day, was not physically co-located at the University, which made the request for a meeting with Professor Hidalgo all the more unusual.
I had a pretty good relationship with the man, even if I considered him more of a politician than a scientist. Fundamentally, there was no reason to be impolite, even if I didn't really respect him that much.
He triple-verified the request for the meeting and time, which was surprising, and even got my bosses to give me half the day off, which would necessitate me rescheduling three surgeries I had planned for the afternoon. As such, I was expecting something either time-sensitive or the possibility that there was another person in this meeting, and Professor Hidalgo was mainly acting as a facilitator.
I felt the latter was more likely because we were meeting in a conference room and not his office. And sure enough, when I stepped into the room precisely thirty seconds early, there was more than just the Professor there.
My memory for faces had never been that great, but that changed when I became a networked-intelligence type entity. Now, I quickly identified him. It was Lucius Rhyne, a local politician currently serving on the Night City Council. He was also the one Professor Hildago worked with when I had written that study about the counter-productivity of extermination as a means to counter avian flu.
Councilman Rhynes was one of the bigshots in the "Devolutionist Party." They weren't any less corrupt than any of the other political parties in Night City, but they focused on attempts to sever the relationship between Night City and the NUSA. They were secessionists, in other words.
"Dr Hebert, welcome, come in, come in," Professor Hildago stood and ushered me in. I smiled at the politeness. While it was customary for everyone to call me Dr Hebert at work, even if I was just a resident, this courtesy didn't necessarily extend universally outside of the hospital until I received an unrestricted license to practice medicine. For example, if you failed residency, you couldn't generally continue to call yourself a Doctor, although you could still call yourself an MD. It was kind of complicated, socially.
I was kind of curious why Lucius Rhyne wanted to meet with me, but I figured that I only needed to be patient, and everything would be revealed. I allowed myself to be ushered into a seat opposite the Great Man, who had an assistant and two security officers with him.
If that was supposed to impress me, it didn't. I didn't leave the house as Hasumi with less than five security goons, plus an advanced team of the same, which would precede me wherever I went. Personally, I vastly preferred the freedom I experienced here in Night City and even in space compared to that, but it was occasionally amusing when I went somewhere unexpected and people looked at me like I was a big shot. That type of narcissism wore off quickly, though.
Rather than asking the obvious question, I just raised my eyebrow at the Professor after he introduced everyone to each other.
"Ahah... I'm sure you're wondering why you've been called here," Mr Rhynes said. I inclined my head. Ever since Emma betrayed me, I have never trusted social predator types, and Lucius Rhyne was clearly this sort, which wasn't surprising. I thought all politicians were social predator types.
"Where do you think Night City will be when this war between the states is over?" asked Lucius Rhyne.
I frowned, wondering if I should be honest. Finally, I shrugged and said, "Part of the NUSA again."
His assistant frowned at me, looking like he was about to say something, but Lucius Rhyne chuckled and raised a hand to stop him, "What makes you say that?"
"Night City is pretending to be an independent city-state but has not invested in sufficient military forces to dissuade an invasion, which has already occurred. Furthermore, the citizens themselves are not really invested in the idea enough to fight and die as a militia. They don't see much difference between Night City and the NUSA and don't really care who runs the place," I said evenly, shrugging.
Rhyne's assistant looked like I kicked his puppy, getting red in the face, but the big man himself just looked amused. He said, "It sounds like we'd need a large player in our corner to guarantee our independence."
"Sure... if you can find someone that had a credible enough threat that the NUSA would have to honour it," I said, thinking only Arasaka or perhaps the European Community itself could do that, and I didn't think the latter ever would. I frowned at him and said, "You can tell me why you asked me to meet you now." My initial plans to just be patient and let them reveal it were dashed!
He chuckled and said, "I've got a number of contacts with Arasaka, and I've already reached out to them for assistance in this matter. But more is always better..."
"I don't have anything to do with the Arasaka Corporation. I could maybe get you a five per cent discount on cyberware," I said evenly. I didn't even have much of a customer relationship with them as I had as Hasumi, as shipping to Night City had gotten kind of difficult.
He shrugged, "You may not, but your grandmother certainly does. She retains a seat on the Arasaka board of directors."
