I didn't have any real body to give attention to, as I didn't drive the Dragoon all the time. In fact, I very rarely did so as a percentage of each day, so this part of my mind lived a lot like what I suspected an AI might live.
Actually, that was my ego and what I saw on entertainment talking, so it was probably so much bullshit . In actuality, it was probably closer to how a really serious netrunner lived, just traipsing about the net in full-VR mode all of the time.
"Hn," I said aloud as I observed the plumes of several explosions within the city. About half my drones in Pacifica have been delivered so far, and this finally included the main battle management computer system and high-gain phased array radar emplacement on the roof of the building. I pulled up the real-time radar data and then went backwards in time to view the recorded data and zeroed in on several anomalies.
It could have been a flock of birds or a reflection of ground clutter downtown from one of the skyscrapers, as my building in Pacifica wasn't that high, but in retrospect, it was obviously several dozen low-observable cruise missiles entering the city and then performing terminal, supersonic dive-bomb manoeuvres.
The visible targets were electrical substations, but I bet there would be more that I just couldn't see from my vantage point in the southern part of town. The encrypted police band was already being flooded with messages, and unlike my position in Los Angeles, I didn't have access to it here.
Dr Hasumi was a well-behaved Corpo entrepreneur and had a working relationship with LA's cops. Here, I specifically didn't protect police vehicles, so they were often shot at as soon as they tried to enter Pacifica, sometimes long-distance shots from gangs more to the south of me. It was almost the only target that dissatisfied people wanting some of the little ultraviolence could partake in in my little area of heaven. Anything else, and my increasing number of drones or Kiwis mercs would come down on them like Mjolnir.
I would have lost all credibility with the rest of the warlords in the area if I had let the NCPD have free reign or even reclaimed a toehold, so it was just something I couldn't do. Already, a lot of people thought I was some sort of corporate plant, agent provocateur, or catspaw.
I mean, I was a catspaw. But the cat who owned the paw was also myself, too. I was both the cat and paw simultaneously, so it also suited my interests to keep the coppers out, but I had no idea how this strategy would persist in open warfare. Generally speaking, malcontents and troublemakers-and that included everyone running a gang in Pacifica, as far as I could tell-were rounded up and "pacified" during martial law, either by the new occupiers or the former, depending on who won.
At about the same time as lights returned to my clinic, both Kiwi and Gloria called me simultaneously. The lights coming back on must mean that someone started the building's emergency generators.
I had seen the bank of a dozen large generators in the basement, but I had no idea what they were powered by. If they were fueled by natural gas, then they might stay on for a long time-however long the pressurised methane was in the pipes. However, I thought they might be CHOOH2-powered like most small internal combustion engine motors, and if so, they wouldn't last forever without being refuelled.
I continued working quickly on the surgery but slowed a little bit now that power was restored. At the same time, I answered both calls and spoke simultaneously. Kiwi's call was brief, and she just wanted some direction. I told her to follow the pre-planned contingency for a NUSA invasion: a halt to all patrols for the moment, as well as to keep grounded any obviously armed drones.
Regardless of what happened, if the NUSA invaded or if some Night City forces counter-attacked, it would come through Pacifica, and my plan was to not get in anyone's way. I had also hired Herr Shadow to investigate and see what the NUSA forces in the southernmost part of Pacifica were up to on a contingency basis in the event of an invasion. If I flew drones too near them or even too high over my own territory, they generally shot them down, and I was tired of wasting money that way.
It was dark on Gloria's side of the vidcall, and she said, with an urgency to her voice, "Taylor! Crazy shit is going on. The Norte Americanos are invading or something. Corporate had thought it would be a couple of days away, and they're recalling all employees to the Trauma Team tower. Can you look after David? I may be sequestered and working back to back for days."
I frowned, "They're not offering to intern dependents too?" That didn't sound right. If they were going to this extreme, they'd have basic accommodation for families, as well.
She frowned and said, "They said they would if things got any worse, but not right now. Plus, I'd rather see if you'd be willing to watch him, anyway."
I nodded, "That wouldn't be a problem. I always like the little gremlin. How are you going to get to Japantown? For that matter, how are you going to get to work? With any widespread loss of electricity, things are going to get more Mad Max than not out there."
She rubbed her chin, "Mad Max?" I frowned. I didn't know if that film actually existed in this world before opening my mouth. A quick net search confirmed that it did not; it didn't even exist in Earth Bet, only Earth Aleph. Still, she got what I was saying from context and said, "That's a good point."
I waved a hand and said, "I'll see if I can charter an aircar. It looks like your building management is a bit less on the ball than the Tyger Claws, but do you think you can make it to one of the AV pads?"
She nodded, "Yeah. I'm going to bring my street sweeper for the trip, though."
All of my chests swelled with pride. From someone who was borderline afraid of guns when I first met her to someone who was grievously injured by one, it wouldn't be shocking if she retreated into a phobia. Instead, she used her super-human Borg strength to practice firing fully automatic shotguns one-handed and talked about getting the Borg version of a SmartLink system integrated into her hands.
I just put her on hold while I called several different charter companies. The first three didn't have availability, or they were in a temporary stand-down, afraid of being shot out of the sky, but I found Combat Cab willing to fly one of their AV-4s for about three times the usual price. I paid a deposit quickly.
While I was spending a lot of money lately, I still had access to almost all of the wealth I generated in LA before I got recruited by Arasaka. Even after I paid fairly nice severance packages to all my employees, which amounted to a month's salary and implied permission to loot the factory to the ground, I had over seventeen million. These days, that was down to about fourteen, but I still wasn't questioning a few thousand here or there.
I had to keep enough to capitalise my business in space, too, as I was getting known well enough that spacers would be willing to do business with me. That would be the point where I could have a little bit more privacy up there and possibly smuggle some equipment and keep it secret so that I could, theoretically, clone myself replacement bodies. As it was now, if things went to utter shit on the planet Earth, I wouldn't be able to create replacements in space for quite a long time.
I wasn't really making much money, more surviving off the money I had already made, although my digital currency tumbling service was still making fairly good profits every month. Running one of those systems necessitated a rather large amount of liquid funds, though. Money was a weird thing. Once you reached a certain point of critical mass, it seemed to accumulate faster than one person could spend it.
I was surprised that people still used it, as it was pretty well understood that it was Dr Hasumi's tumbler in Los Angeles, and everybody knew I was working for new management now.
I pulled Gloria's vidcall back up in time to hear a single gunshot blast and hear her yell, "Stay the fuck back!"
Woah, she must have started moving before I actually confirmed the AV was coming. Also, she was using warning shots, which I didn't approve of. Unless, of course, her warning shot was shooting one of the nar-do-wells as an objective lesson to the surviving pack, in which case I did approve of it. I expected her to be highly dangerous if she was trailing little David with her.
Historically, she was the type to try to de-escalate things, even if doing so was taking risks upon herself. However, she would have gone wild to protect David even before she was "born again hard."
I settled back and decided not to bump her shoulder unless she asked me for help.
Gloria's Apartment, Megabuilding H4
Santo Domingo, Night City
"So, how was school today?" Gloria asked pleasantly, momentarily pausing in the kitchen while she was finishing up some stir-fry in a large wok. It was a recipe that Taylor taught her in Los Angeles. At first, she was shocked at the idea of making your own food, as she had always lived in government assistance housing where the only things resembling a kitchen were a microwave and refrigerator.
While it was more expensive than buying an XXL Burrito, it definitely tasted better and was better for you-especially recently, when actual vegetables were getting cheaper, including the red bell peppers she was cooking right now.
The news had been talking about how this was likely as a large percentage of arable farmland that had until recently been dedicated to producing CHOOH2 was now shifted to produce food. Not surprisingly, the Corps have adjusted things so that the total amount of eddies you spent every day on food didn't really change, or possibly even increase in her situation, but at least the quality was improving.
"Fine," the boy said, but then elaborated, "We're starting to learn about cells in science, animal and plant cells, and how they differ."
Gloria raised her eyebrows. She hadn't started learning about cells and their characteristics until she was almost in high school, but then again, she was a product of the public school system. Little David was only in the fifth grade, but he was in a fancy Corpo school that she couldn't afford in any way to send him to without Taylor's help.
Normally, she wouldn't accept help like that because she was wise to the ways of the world, and nobody did anything for free. However, if it was something to help David then she might have done so anyway, but she had long ago realised that Taylor just cared for them both-oh, and possibly still felt a little guilty for indirectly getting her shot and then dragging her to Los Angeles.
Really, her getting shot wasn't her fault at all, it was Gloria's, but the younger woman didn't seem to accept that no matter how many times Gloria told her.
"I did really well in all of those types of classes," Gloria said smugly, "In fact, it was what allowed me to enrol in a technical high school and graduate with a basic EMT certificate."
Little David just stared up at her, and finally, she pouted, "What I'm saying is that if you need help-"
Suddenly, the lights went out. She barely had time to blink before her low-light vision mode switched over and rendered the kitchen in grayscale.
At the same time, she lost connectivity with the net using her standard civilian-level cellular sim card, but she remained connected to the Trauma Team intranet and through that VPN, the net, through a separate company-provided card that she had installed in her head, right next to her normal one. Already, text messages were beginning to arrive from the corp.
"Uhhh... mom? What's going on?" David asked, sounding unsure and glancing around in the dark.
She sat the wok down on the cool side of the stove, walked over, and grabbed a set of large battery-powered flashlights from on top of the refrigerator. A few years ago, she wouldn't have had this type of precaution, but it was amazing how getting shot, dying and being raised from the dead would do to a girl to get her to consider contingencies.
She turned one of the lights on and handed it to David, "Stay still. I'm not sure what is going on, but it's not good." She looked up at the ceiling. There hadn't been a power outage in the building since she was a child, and she remembered that things got pretty bad when that happened.
It was pretty common knowledge that a Megabuilding would rapidly descend into ultraviolent rioting if the net connection had a malfunction lasting longer than four hours. This was so well-known that multi-homed network connectivity was considered a safety-critical utility, kind of like gaseous oxygen in a hospital.
The fact that not only the building had net access but also the electricity itself was off was not a good sign. There were supposed to be emergency generators, but they didn't seem to be turning on.
"Go get your go-bag," she ordered, and then she sat in the kitchen in the dark while reading the messages sent by the Trauma Team. The Corp had been anticipating an NUSA attack on the city in the next week or so, but they had believed it would just amount to a mechanised division or two rolling in from SoCal to invest in the city, then negotiating with the Night City leaders.
She tapped her foot rapidly after finishing reading and decided to try to call Taylor. She answered on the first ring, and Gloria said, feeling a bit anxious, "Taylor! Crazy shit is going on. The Norte Americanos are invading or something..."
After finishing her conversation with Taylor, David was back with a bag of clothes and essentials. After almost dying, she had become more worried about things. However, instead of wallowing in on the unsafety of just everything, she decided to take some reasonable precautions for her and David.
"Okay, wait here. I'm going to get my bag, and then we have to get upstairs. There will be an aircar meeting us and taking us to Aunt Taylor's building, David. Not only is the power still on there, but it will be safer for you as I have to go in to work," she explained, getting a serious nod from her little son that made her want to just pinch his cheeks.
She grabbed a bag that she had set aside for herself as well. It contained a change of clothes, a couple of MREs for David, a portable charger for her body, as well as a few other sundries. After a moment of indecision, she grabbed David's gun, too. It was a small, suppressed nine-millimetre carbine specifically designed for the size of kids his age, and David was a crack shot with it.
She pulled on her own set of body armour and helped David do the same. She was a lot more worried about David than herself. She was already bullet-resistant, but David was what she would call a "squish" at work. He had the best genetic upgrades that Taylor's money could buy, but that just made him a little stronger, a little quicker and a little smarter, as well as increased his lifespan. They didn't stop a bullet.
