"Is that safe?" she asked, aghast.
I nodded, "There are three internal safeties on it. A safety's only purpose is to prevent the firearm from going off unless the trigger is pulled by the operator. Preventing the trigger from being pulled before you are ready to fire the weapon is up to operator discipline. What is the third rule of firearm safety?" I quizzed her at the end, my responses and personality shifting to be more like Alt-Taylor's, as I had a lot of memories of her being drilled with guns by her dad, and they tended to colour my reactions.
It made me wonder if I was really Taylor Hebert from Brockton Bay at all, or perhaps I was some chimaera of the two people now. I had about a quarter of her memories, and although that didn't sound like a lot when you talked percentages, it still amounted to years and years of memories, though.
"Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire," she said with more confidence. Then she nodded, "Okay, thanks. I think I'll run and grab that shotgun, just to be on the safe side. I'll just have them leave the deliveries in the front area. I'll talk to you later, Taylor!"
She disconnected, and I thought a little bit about that philosophical question. Alt-Taylor was somewhat like me in some ways but radically different in others. I wouldn't call her a sociopath precisely, and while she hadn't killed anyone in her life, she thought it was only a matter of time until she had to.
She also would not have given those four Voodoo Boys who I had killed protecting Gloria and myself a second thought if she were me, whereas I had thought about and dreamed about them off and on for months afterwards, especially the one I had executed simply because I thought nothing good would come from there being any survivors.
It made me worry about her and Danny in Brockton Bay. I had the feeling she got the same power I did, or at least one that was similar. Although I had no basis for that guess, I was pretty confident about it. If she got a reputation as a villain with the things we were capable of doing... it didn't bear thinking on. Hopefully, she got some of my memories as well and knew well enough to lay low.
However, biotinkers had a bad reputation, and I wasn't aware of a single heroic example of one, although I hadn't really followed capes as closely as some people I knew. It was possible for me to hide here in Night City, but pretty much anything I have done thus far, especially the rapid medical expertise, would scream parahuman in Brockton Bay.
A Gold subscriber alert brought me out of my reverie. I grabbed my MCU off the rack in my bedroom and slid into it with practised grace.
AN: SIDESTORY: Retainer was to be placed in this spot on this chapter.
The area they had set aside for them at the concert area was better than they thought it would be. They landed the AV-4 in a grassy area, and the venue management had three large RVs that they could use to sit around in, the kind that famous actors might bring on set while they were filming. They split up, with the pilots taking one, the security guys the other and Dr Anno and I had the last.
That was nice. I had done posting up at similar events at the ground ambulance, and this was a lot better. We were also quite close to both the stage as well as the VIP areas, probably intentionally.
The performers even showed up and said hello. They were a group of four girls that appeared to be in their late teens, and they were specifically designed with specific focus-group tested roles, like the cute one, the rebellious one, the bookish one and the athletic one.
"You Trauma Med Techies are supposed to be the best in the world, and you hardly look older than even we are!" said the rebellious one to me, smiling. In private, they were playing the roles much less, and they were all pretty casual. "Why don't you give me a check-up, then?" she asked me, jutting out her sizable chest in my direction.
Wait, was she coming on to me, or was she just joking? I squinted and must have taken too long to answer, considering Dr Anno said, "You'll have to forgive Taylor; she is a bit dense about these things if your intention was trying to flirt with her. I think she was raised on a Mennonite farm or something."
Hey! I resent that!
That caused her to laugh, "Well, maybe a little flirting. But I am curious too. Do you have time?"
He glanced at me and shrugged. She was a VIP, so it was best to play along; finally, I said, "Sure, but this will be very abbreviated without me taking and analysinganalysing labs, you understand."
She agreed, and I quickly connected her to all of our equipment, asked her a number of questions and palpated her body, being especially careful to stay away from her prodigious chest area as much as possible, skipping even listening to her lung sounds with my digital stethoscope so I wouldn't have to touch them. The report from her internal bio-monitor was useful, as well.
If this was a net novel, she would at this time find something seriously wrong with the girl, saving her life and adding a new member to my harem. What actually happened was a lot more banal.
"Overall, you're in good shape. However, you are showing the beginning signs of atherosclerosis. That is the hardening and or narrowing of your arteries; this level of it is pretty unusual for someone of your age," I told her, considering the possible causes. I had mainly diagnosed that through the feel of her aortic artery underneath her ribs, as well as ultrasound images I had taken when I thought the artery didn't feel quite right, "Certainly, you four should have a doctor you see regularly; I'm sure he or she mentioned that?"
"Well, he did mention something, saying that I showed some beginning signs of cardiac disease and said I should avoid recreational drugs," she said in a surly voice, "I'm surprised you could tell, too. It took a bunch of tests and days for him to say that."
Well, he probably knew before that and was using tests to confirm his diagnosis, she thought, but she didn't say that. "Well, I don't think many medical professionals would recommend the use of recreational drugs, but I don't think that is the cause. Stimulant abuse damages the heart and cardiovascular system differently. While this is still what I would call a sub-clinical finding, it is a lot more pronounced than what I would expect from a woman your age."
Now she looked both interested, relieved and worried all at the same time, "If it isn't... hypothetically, the occasional use of drugs, what would the cause be, and what treatments would you recommend?"
I frowned at her, "I wouldn't recommend anything because I am not a doctor. However, and this is just a guess, I suspect a genetic factor, along with aggravating contributing factors, including stress and lack of enough sleep. Your blood pressure is actually quite good right now, so I don't think you are suffering from chronic hypertension, either." She didn't need any real fancy recommendation anyway. Any doctor could tell her that she could just replace her arteries with a synthetic replacement, which was superior in every conceivable metric to a person's natural ones.
She performed an honest-to-goodness princess stomp, glancing between Dr Anno and me, "Surely you can give me a guess?"
He glanced at her and then at me and sighed, "Synthetic bio-polymer replacement arteries would prevent your condition from developing into anything dangerous, and they're very reasonably priced, and it's a very safe procedure. It's probably the most common cybernetic implant installed in the country. It's impossible for plaque to attach to them, nor is it possible for chronic hypertension to stiffen them. I'd recommend almost everyone get them, really. Heart and cardiovascular disease is the second leading cause of death, after homicide, after all."
He was right; they were very safe. Safe enough that I had replaced a lot of my arteries with these replacements while I was awake. Doing your own heart bypass was thrilling and perhaps stupid now that I thought back about it, but on the plus side, now I had my replacement liver working in secondary heart mode as well.
She glanced at me as if questioning him, and I just chuckled and nodded, "That's true. I have mostly synthetic arteries myself." At least in her torso area, although the reason she decided to get them didn't have anything to do with cardiovascular disease. Perhaps she would have the Ripperdoc finish installing a full synthetic artery system when she got her stealth system installed.
If they looked competent and had an actual operating theatre and not weren't doing surgeries in their bedroom, she might.
Finally, the singer grinned and nodded and, before I realised what was happening, rewarded me with an embrace and kiss before departing the RV with her colleagues, all giggling. Dr Anno sighed, "Why didn't I get the kiss?"
I carefully wiped my mouth off with my hand, frowning. She had given me a little tongue, too. I glanced around and found a Lemon-flavoured carbonated drink I was drinking earlier and quickly took a large gulp to wash the flavour of her strawberry lip gloss away and then told him, seriously, "I would have preferred that you get the kiss, too."
On my next string of five days off, I called Kiwi and asked if she was interested in looming over a local Ripperdoc in exchange for some eddies. She was, so I picked her up in my car, with the box containing the stealth system in the truck bed in the back. My car was really nice, but it wasn't the greatest at hauling a lot of stuff despite the fact that the trunk had been replaced by a small truck bed. It was still only a two-seat vehicle, after all.
"Hey, Madison..." Kiwi said as she jumped into the passenger seat and looked around my car. I kept it in very clean condition, both on the inside and out, and she whistled, "Nice car!"
I smiled, appreciating the compliment as I took time to keep it looking nice, "Thanks. So I just need you to make sure he doesn't part me out and sell all my bits on the table like a Scav."
"Uhh... girl, just what kind of shady Ripper are you going to? Because I know a guy," she said, looking at me like I was crazy.
I waved a hand, "I'm going to the best guy in Japantown, actually. He has a really good reputation, as a matter of fact... but... I am a belt and suspenders type of girl, ne?"
"What... the fuck does that mean?" Kiwi asked, perplexed.
Sighing, I shouldn't have used that expression. It was dreadfully old, even back in Brockton Bay. Nobody wore suspenders or garter belts anymore since the stretchy fabric was invented in the 1960s, after all. Well, garter belts were still probably worn but only for aesthetic reasons. Shaking my head a little, I said, "It is an attitude of wanting several layers of safety procedures in place for minimising and mitigating risk. I don't expect any trouble, but the fact that you are there makes it that much less likely. This is my first time seeing this doctor, so I want to set expectations."
"Ohhh... you should have just said so. Hey, choom. Has anyone told you that you talk kind of funny? Do all Corpo girls talk like you do?" she asked me with a cheeky grin on her face.
Frowning, I answered by shifting into gear and pressing firmly onto the accelerator, shoving her back into her seat with the G-forces. I was past third gear by the time I left the parking lot, which wasn't very large. Superhuman reflexes helped driving a lot!
"Fuck, fuck... let me put my seatbelt on, you crazy bitch!" she hollered, fumbling with the seatbelt as I blew past an NCPD squad car, which started to accelerate up to me for a moment before slowing down considerably and taking a left on a side street. Kiwi saw it and was flabbergasted, asking, "I thought for sure that pig was going to light you up."
"He ran my registration and saw I worked at Trauma Team. The same thing happened when I worked on the ground ambulance, though. The coppers are a pretty light touch when it comes to Med Techies; after all, they get shot, too," I told her with a smirk. I would have to learn to drive reasonably when I quit my job to start medical school. Otherwise, I'd be arrested several times a month!
"Oh, by the way... are you interested in a gig tomorrow night?" Kiwi asked me, now that we were cruising at a reasonable speed. I wasn't Squeeler; I wasn't about to cruise down the street a hundred and sixty kilometres an hour, especially when my own mom died in a car accident herself.
I gave her the side eye as I took the onramp onto the freeway and asked her, "Is it like the last gig ?" I wasn't really interested in any more Scav den assaults.
"No, it is nothing like that! We've been hired by a small street gang, who has it on very good authority that their rivals are going to attack their territory tomorrow night. It's a defensive mission, and we could get a lot more eddies if we had a good Med Techie who could patch up not only us if we got wounded but, more likely, their own gang members. You wouldn't be involved in the fighting much at all, but the boys and I will be planning and conducting ambush missions and the like," she said excitedly.
So it wasn't assaulting a den of criminals but defending a den of criminals from assault? That just seemed like the same thing, except changing roles! However, I thought about it some more, and it definitely did seem less risky, especially after my visit to the local Ripperdoc today. If it looked like "our" gang of criminals was losing, I could just sneak away.
I asked her, "How awful are each of these gangs?"
She didn't understand what I meant for a second, but when she realised what I was asking, she just shrugged, "Neither is very good, I suppose. But nothing out of the ordinary, and neither is any better or worse than the other."
So it would be more of a morally neutral decision, then. I thought about it as I pulled off the freeway and into downtown. I got off a little early, rather than waiting for the Japantown exit because I had a few streets I wanted to toss fly eggs out to. Kiwi noticed what I was doing and asked curiously, "Why are you randomly tossing small objects out of the car?"
"Don't worry about it," I told her, which made her grin in amusement. Then I said, "Fine, I'll take the gig but for medical support only. Don't expect me to defend these scumbags to the last man; if it looks like they're losing, I am out of there."
She nodded, "Nova. We feel the same, don't worry. We'll have a signal, and if we think it's a lost cause, we'll attack them and extract you out, as we wouldn't expect them to let you just leave on your own." I didn't expect that either, and I wouldn't make my plans with that as either my primary or secondary escape strategy, as it seemed stupid. My ace in the hole could be the same as last time; I had made a few more anaesthetic grenades. I wouldn't volunteer any for the mission this time, though. I was pleased with how well they had worked when those kidnapped me. I would have gotten away clean if it wasn't for the ninja.
