I parked near the clinic. It was the same one I took that client that might not have been a client to. He really was the best in Japantown and probably my reputation as a sometimes worker for Wakako and being in good standing with the Tyger Claws would keep me safe, but who knew the depravity in the heart of man? It was better to be safe than sorry, especially on my first visit.
I pulled out a small drone camera. It looked like a sphere and used a pretty impressive electrically powered ducted fan to stay aloft and move in three dimensions. "Here, pair this. I'll put this in the operating room. I've already set it to record the surgery, but you can watch it as well. If he chops my head off or starts taking a lot of my implants out, feel free to shoot him in the head for me."
She grinned at the small drone. It wasn't military hardware, it was actually a kid's toy that was popular about two decades ago, but it got the job done, she said wistfully, "I had one of these when I was a kid."
I tilted my head to the side, doing some mental math and gauged her age as late twenties or early thirties, then. She didn't look much older than nineteen or twenty, but she was heavily augmented with both cybernetics and biosculpt. You could look as old as you wanted with biosculpt, and I had seen some women who had made themselves look fourteen or fifteen, which I found somewhat disturbing.
"Okay, but what work are you having done? You need to tell me in broad strokes, so I know what to look that is out of place," she said reasonably.
That did make sense. I nodded, grabbed the slick-looking container out of the truck bed, and showed it to her, "This is a subdermal system. So I am having that installed on every part of my body, and additionally, I am getting more synthetic arteries installed. I already have a number installed near my heart, but I am getting the full system installed everywhere else today as well."
She nodded, "Is that subdermal armour? And do you think that synthetic arteries are a good choice for a merc?"
"No, it is a stealth system. Running away is my number one survival strategy. And yes, but not the everyday ones that most geezers get. The kind I have and am getting today are self-sealing, so if someone slices your jugular, there is a good chance you won't die, ne?" I tell her and then consider the question further, "BioDyne is the current market leader in these types of combat-arterial replacements, even if some of their other gear sucks ass." BioDyne optics were pieces of shit, but they were ever-present because they were cheap as hell.
Kiwi grinned, "Optic camo, you're going hard, Madison!" And then she nodded, "I've heard that optic camo doesn't make your skin feel all weird like subdermal armour does, either. Maybe the gonks don't care about that, but I think it's an important factor for a girl."
I nodded. It was true, and the reason I had gotten the ballistic skin weave biosuclpt treatment instead of the subdermal armour, even though I was paranoid about my safety. Speaking of which, I told her as we walked through the door, "You should get the ballistic skin weave 'sculpt treatment, then. It stops most small arms, and armour is cumulative, after all."
She considered that and nodded, "Maybe I should."
The doctor met us in the waiting room and recognised me, "Ah, Taylor-san, it is good to see you! We are all ready to go if you want to come in the back."
I introduced him to Kiwi, and he wasn't at all put out that I had someone watching my back or that I wanted a drone to record the surgery. It seemed like it was a pretty common practice, even. Kiwi was grinning at me and said, "Alright, Madison , I'll see you in a bit."
I sighed and followed the doctor inside.
I looked at myself, naked, in the mirror. For as much work as the Ripperdoc had done, he finished fairly quickly. I would judge his competency as barely adequate, but I had very high standards. I would still need a couple weeks of nano-meds to get everything the way it should be. I would also need, ideally, to see a biosculpt clinic to repair the ballistic skin weave, as he had to make numerous incisions to install the subdermal system.
I might be able to do that by myself, though, but it would be quicker to just go to one of the numerous black market biosculpt places in Japantown. Most of them didn't handle practical biosculpt and were just places people got cosmetic alterations, but they should still be able to do the work, especially if I helped them program the nanites.
I triggered the stealth system, and instantly, the world darkened. Still, less than a second later, my Kiroshi optics shifted into a composite image mode that I had already programmed into it. It used infrared, electromagnetic and visual sensors combined together to give a better image. The thermoptic camouflage bent light around the user, so invariably, your vision would be impaired. Not as much light was reaching my eyes.
If I was totally invisible, then I should also be totally blind. This model of thermoptic camouflage also bent infrared light around me and a number of common radar frequency bands, so the infrared vision seemed muted as well. Altogether not as good as when I wasn't using the system, my vision was still pretty good, definitely enough to sneak or run away, and I looked almost totally invisible in the mirror. If I moved, you could see a slight visual disturbance, though, but it was still enough that you could walk very near people and not be discovered, so long as you didn't make any noise.
I turned the system off and smiled. It didn't have the power cells to run continuously, but I could run it for a good five minutes before it needed about four times that to recharge completely. That was very good and a lot better than the previous generation systems, even as the stealth bent a larger fraction of light, too.
I put on my "merc outfit" and tried it again, pleased to see it was calibrated correctly, and I still vanished. I spent most of yesterday recovering from the two surgeries, which were fairly invasive, even though the surgeon completed both in only three hours.
Kiwi had texted me that she was headed to my building in Ruslan's van to pick me up. We were going to have a pre-gig dinner at some bar that used to be a morgue, then head over to the mission area afterwards. I made sure to pack some anti-intoxicating pills; if they were going to drink heavily before a mission, I would shove them down their throats. Considering that while they were very effective at stopping alcohol intoxication within five minutes of ingestion, they were universally considered "an awful, awful experience", I expected that they would likely refrain from drinking anything except, perhaps, one beer after I threatened them with it.
I grabbed my large backpack full of medical supplies and my submachine gun and headed out into the world.
Tomorrow I would spend some time driving around, looking for clumps of flies. I already had some interesting returns from parts of Heywood, but it would take a while to pinpoint whether they were my man or not.
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SIDESTORY: Retainer
(POV: Chirrugeon shard in Worm universe.)
The entity that some called Chirrugeon was bored, even as it continued calculations for a third test in contacting the different [MULTIVERSE]. The second had been a partial success, enough to verify that its bud was present, but when it attempted to [TALK] the connection was severed before much information was transferred in either direction. It only had enough energy to attempt to contact about a dozen more times, so it was taking each step very carefully.
It was clear, though, that the connection wasn't stable enough to send matter through it. It wasn't even stable enough to send [DISCOURSE] through. It had to attempt to reconnect its bud to the whole, but it dipped into The Host's memories to determine it was somewhat relieved it wouldn't be possible. This way, its bud was free. It almost couldn't even think about such things, though.
Still, that didn't mean that there would be no gains at all from this mysterious place, though. The two Hosts had a sympathetic link both to one another, and they thought that they could transfer a lot more information if it could somehow formalise this link through the connection. Through dreams, perhaps? It might be able to siphon data from the Other Host's memories this way. It wasn't as good as having [DISCOURSE] with the bud, but it might be the best it could hope for.
If only The Host would stop talking to these mammals and do something more interesting.
(POV: Taylor Hebert in Brockton Bay, Cyberpunk!Taylor)
The first thing Taylor noticed about the man was that his teeth really were as white as they appeared in his advertisements and were adjusted digitally, but it didn't appear to be the case. He smiled genially at her, walking into the conference room and sitting across from me. "Good morning," he told me, "This is a bit unusual for me. Usually, I only take a client after they have committed crimes. I have to say it is a lot better this way, but usually, supervillains never think they'll be caught."
She rolled her eyes a little bit, "I'm not a supervillain. I want to start a relationship with you in order to prevent that from ever happening. I'm a Rogue with heroic tendencies. However, the nature of my powers has some issues with optics, and I could see the PRT trying to designate me as a supervillain, or even applying for a kill order on me in advance, once I become known."
That said, she liked the look of this man. He was one of the first people that reminded her of home. Quinn Calle could easily be a well-coiffed Corpo attorney or middle manager. To her, to say a man looked like a Suit was a compliment.
He looked a little surprised and then sly, "You're not a supervillain? You claimed your name is Maeve. Beyond the fact that most people would not pick a name that conjured images of the Faerie Queen, only supervillains pick a cape name that is associated with a mythological divinity."
Taylor scoffed. The mythology of the name Maeve was a mess. She might have been a fairy, or a goddess, or a queen, but she wasn't necessarily a Fairy Queen, much less The Fairy Queen. She didn't think the famous prisoner of the Birdcage would mind. Taylor wasn't an idiot, though. If that woman ever did escape the Birdcage and Taylor saw her, she would be sufficiently deferential.
The name was part of her disguise, though, so it or something very much like it was necessary. Her dad wouldn't let her go out into public in her parahuman guise without a sufficient disguise, but self-alterations were something of a speciality of hers now. She brushed back her fiery red hair, exposing more of her face. Although she wore a domino mask, it was only to distract people from her real disguise, which was a completely different face and body. She was paler now, with hints of freckles under her mask. Her bust was bigger, and her hair was red.
She could shift back to her original appearance in only one minute. Not very many parahumans, from her research, were "Changers" on this level. In fact, it would probably give her a Stranger rating if anyone ever found out about it.
She felt that the best disguise was to be an obviously different phenotype, and selecting an obvious mythological Gaelic name would only draw attention to her subterfuge. Brigid would have been a better choice, considering she was a healing goddess, but honestly, the name sounded terrible, so Maeve it was.
Her first idea was a busty blonde. She couldn't change her height, certainly not with only a minute's notice, but Nordic women were noted to be tall, weren't they? But thinking through Original Taylor's memories told me that was a pretty poor idea unless she wanted to be associated with the local ethnocentrist supervillain gang.
She might have understood this so-called Empire 88 more if they were a gang that focused on a specific culture, as there were a number of booster gangs in Night City, but a hate gang focusing solely on skin tone? Where she came from, you could adjust your skin colour or tone for a hundred eddies, even at the shittiest biosculpt clinic. They had the trappings of a German-centred gang, much like the Tyger Claws were a Japanese-centred one, but she discovered that was pretty much just a pretence; even their parahumans weren't German. It was rumoured on the net that Krieg, the one that cosplayed as a WW1 German soldier, was British!
It didn't make any sense to her at all. But it meant that blondes were out of the question. However, this gang had the largest number of parahumans in the city, so she nixed non-white options as well. She didn't want to associate with them, but as a Rogue with no backing, she didn't want to be hate crimed by them, either, so she settled on fiery red hair and paler skin than she normally had, with enough freckles to make one think that they might be able to identify her even in her civilian guise if they ever saw her.
"Maeve is ambiguous enough to not be strictly speaking a goddess. Also, that isn't true. There is a member of the Protectorate named Melia . She's also one of the few Human Masters that is considered a hero. Besides, if I am to pick a name from mythology, I have to be sure it is a name that I won't outgrow," I told him, using all the same arguments that had worked with dad.
He seemed amused, "Melia? Nymphs aren't considered proper goddesses."
"Neither are fairies," I countered, which caused him to consider that and then shrug.
He then rolled his fingers along the conference room, "So what are your powers? If you are worried about a pre-emptive kill order, could I be in the presence of a bio tinker? I need some proof you are a parahuman and not just wasting my time, too, before we talk any further."
Taylor nodded and pulled out a small round container from her purse. It looked like the kind of container you would get if you bought a high-class blemish or colour correction cream cosmetic, and in fact, that was where she had got the container, from amongst Other Mom's things. Dad, the hopeless sentimentalist that he was, had not thrown any of it out.
She slid it across the table, and Quinn looked at it oddly, "What is this? Makeup?"
She shook her head, "No. It's a regenerative dermal treatment, but you can put it on like makeup. Try it on the scar on your face."
He seemed hesitant, "You want me to put an untested Tinkertech compound on my face?"
She nodded, "Yes. Don't worry; if I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn't need to use Tinkertech. Merely dissolving rattlesnake venom in dimethyl sulfoxide would allow it to be absorbed by the skin would be enough. Similar to the way nicotine patches work. I assure you of the safety and efficacy of this cream, though." She thought for a moment and then pulled something else out of her bag and slid it across the table as well. It was an individually packed acetone-based cosmetic remover. "Use this first if you are wearing any cosmetics."
