That just made it worse, actually. I had to strip to get a full body scan, so he technically wasn't looking at my body in the buff. Just the full three-dimensional ultra high definition scan of it, being displayed on a holographic display that was built into the table between us. Watching him pinch the image to zoom in to identify whether or not it was a freckle or birthmark on my butt was mortifying.
Having anyone, especially a man, look at my stick-thin body, and chubby tummy was anxiety-inducing. However, he had a clinical, dispassionate disposition that at least put me a little bit at ease. Still, it was disquieting to watch him examine my images as though I were a puzzle he was solving.
Finally, he looked over at me and said, smiling, "Ah, Miss Hebert. Welcome. The receptionist said you already had an idea of what you wanted to do with your body's canvas."
Oh, he was one of those types. Pretentious. I didn't like the idea of someone calling my body a canvas. However, I nodded and fished a data shard out of my robe's pocket, sliding it over on the countertop of the table that was between us. He arched an eyebrow, clearly unused to taking data through such a pedestrian means, but I couldn't do anything about that until my visit to the cybernetics clinic tomorrow.
However, he took it and slotted it into a port on his neck. That looked pretty cool and gross at the same time. I had to make a couple of adjustments to Alt-Taylor's medical records, although it wasn't difficult. For example, even before she got her cybernetic eyes, she had her vision fixed.
The man tsked his tongue, sounding exasperated. "I thought you were wearing those glasses as a fashion statement. It looked pretty retro; totally nova. But do you really have myopia? Was this some kind of bet you lost, or did you grow up in a weird religious cult?" he asked, some of his professionalism disappearing in his curiosity.
I was worried about that. But there wasn't really anything I could do about it. I could have gone to the cybernetics clinic first, I supposed, but that left some similar problems. And since I was planning on spending a lot more money there, I wanted to reduce their suspicion, or rather curiosity, by at least arriving there looking like my Militech medical files said I should, in case anyone ever did some digging later.
I chuckled nervously and lied, "More of the former, rather than the latter. I have an appointment day after tomorrow at the Skyline clinic to get my chrome chipped back in." I tried using some slang that I had read and heard online, but the unsure way I had said it made it obvious I was a poseur.
Rather than make him suspicious, my failure there helped the impression I was trying to convey because I saw him roll his eyes and mutter quietly, "Corpo kids will do anything for thrills, I guess." He then composed himself, and his friendly, if detached, bedside manner returned, "So, I suppose that is why you did not include fixing the eyes in the spec sheet? Other than that, it's pretty comprehensive. Let's take a look."
He waved his hand, and the holographic image of me naked shrunk, and a second version appeared right next to it. On the new hologram, my bust increased a little bit, as did my hips, and my waist shrunk slightly. I couldn't really tell the difference in my face unless I glanced back and forth between the two, but at the same time, the new version definitely gave the impression of being slightly more pretty.
"Nice, subtle work, this. We couldn't do better ourselves. In fact, this might give me a couple ideas about suggestions to girls your age who want something done without their parents finding out," he said knowingly. That had been exactly what Alt-Taylor had been going for, actually. Did no businesses really care what age you were in this dystopia? I hadn't tried buying beer because it sounded gross, but I didn't think I would be refused.
He tilted his head, "Want to keep this subtle look or go for something more pronounced?"
I shook my head, "No, just this, please."
He nodded, "Only two recommendations, then. First, while we're in there, we may as well tighten your abdominal muscles. You're not chubby by any means..." I actually thought I was, "... but I think this treatment plan was made when you were in a little better shape."
Alt-Taylor had exercised some, that was true. I meant to start running, but... "I was going to just start running; there is a gym in my housing block."
That caused him to nod, "Then maybe a slight adjustment to your core muscles and glutes, too. Cardiovascular exercise is recommended, but all we'd do is get your body to the point so your future exercise can maintain it. Save you six weeks of running on a treadmill for virtually no extra cost."
Hm, that did sound fine, actually. "Okay, nothing ridiculous, though."
"Sure," he replied and used a bunch of arcane-looking gestures to edit the second image, causing my chubby tummy to firm up slightly. I couldn't notice any changes to my legs, though, "How's that?" I just nodded at him. "Second... the hair..." he said the last diplomatically.
It was true; naturally, curly hair wasn't very much in style in Night City, but I firmly shook my head, "No. I am keeping my hair." Would I even still be Taylor Hebert if I straightened my hair? Besides, my trove of psychiatric data in my head said people generally like interesting quirks like that in people, and that would probably especially be the case in this future, where you could change everything about your body for less than five hundred dollars.
He sighed, sounding very much like a put-upon artist, "Very well. You can't win them all, as they say."
I managed to arrive safely back at my apartment. Travelling on the NCART train was a bit scary; I had never been on a similar public transit system in my life. The closest thing was maybe the city bus. I would have been nervous just getting on a subway in New York in my old world, to say nothing about this version.
It was a magnetic levitation train, so it moved incredibly fast. I almost fell off my feet when I didn't brace myself correctly as the train left the station the first time I took it going to the clinic earlier, causing a number of people to stare at me with highly amused expressions.
I had to make a conscious effort to stop looking like a "gonk"; otherwise, someone might "flatline" me. See, I could fit in!
Shaking my head, I pushed my beet-red face into my pillows. That sounded so terrible, even in my head!
I spent the rest of the day recovering and intended to spend the next day relaxing and studying. However, I got sudden inspiration and spent most of that day Tinkering instead.
The process of biosculpting was fascinating, involving me floating in a vat of liquids with tiny nanomachines suspended in them. Normally they anaesthetised you for the procedure, but I was so fascinated that I asked to not be put out. I wasn't sure why I said that, and it sounded like something I would never have said or wanted, actually.
That was kind of a mistake because I discovered I had a bit of claustrophobia, I think, from the locker. However, I managed to hold it together while breathing through a tube. My medical sense seemed very interested in everything, but I didn't really know why, as it wasn't like I could actually sense what was happening to my body in more than a general way. But something in the back of my mind really wanted me to be awake for this procedure.
The procedure wasn't painful at first, and in fact, only after I was out of the vat did a dull ache come on, which I figured was an inflammation response. Sure enough, they gave me some anti-inflammatories, made sure my payment went through and sent me on my way. The changes made to my body were minor enough that they were all mostly done that day.
Before returning to my apartment yesterday, I meandered around a Downtown shopping centre and purchased a braindance wreath and a few other items. I had actually found an older version wreath with some of my alternate dad's things, but I did not want to use his wreath or see a list of what BDs he has scrolled or experienced any more than I wanted to look under my dad's bed for his Playboys back in Brockton Bay.
I probably would have just buckled down and reset it to factory defaults, as wreaths were a little expensive, but I couldn't actually use it anymore because I had disassembled it a couple of days ago when I wasn't paying attention. I was pretty sure I could still use it for Tinkering. Still, I had ideas about it that didn't have anything to do with brain dances but everything to do with brains by themselves, in fact, I was still itching to rebuild it when I left for the biosculpt clinic, so since I still needed one to watch a lot of the BDs for my class a new one was needed. I wanted to go through the entirety of the course material before the first day of class on September 4th, close to a month away.
I had a ton of medical knowledge in my head, but I have already discovered that there were a lot of things I didn't know about how medicine was practised in this world, but I was learning rapidly even now. All clinicians in this world, from doctors to basic EMTs, were equal parts medical professionals and equal parts technicians. Not only were cybernetics ubiquitous, and if you responded to a trauma, you had to be able to help not only regular people but highly augmented ones as well. Also, the level of technology in the medical field far exceeded what I was used to.
For example, in my last life, an EMT might connect a patient's body to a cardiac monitor, pulse oximeter and blood pressure cuff to monitor their vital signs. Maybe a CO2 sensor, as well, if they were really sick. Of course, all that equipment still existed, although much more miniaturised, but it was equally likely a basic EMT in Night City would connect their own cybernetic operating system to a patient to read off that patient's vital signs and diagnosis from the patient's internal bio-monitor if they had one.
It was one reason that the word tech was emphasised in what they were called, which was usually Med-Techs. If I wanted to use slang, which I had realised probably wasn't a good idea with my current unfamiliarity with any of the local "lingo", they were called Techies, even, although more of a subtype of that broad classification.
It kind of reminded me about how some professions in my past world changed radically with the advent of technology a few decades ago. Like, I remembered reading that architects sat at desks with pencils. Today, an architect in Brockton Bay would need to be very proficient with computer systems that made their job possible.
I glanced down at my kitchen table to see the two things I had built. One was already broken, but it had done what I wanted it to do, but the other looked rather slick, not clunky at all.
There were way too many boxes in my little apartment, and I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I honestly needed a larger apartment to store everything that had been in our home or move a bunch of things to storage or get rid of them, but the nearest self-storage centre with any vacancies wasn't even in Japantown. I didn't think riding on the metro into Watson with dozens of cardboard Militech boxes was a good idea. If I had a car or had access to one, it would be easy, but I didn't even know how to drive.
Shaking my head, I picked up the first small item I had built. I didn't realise that this type of thing would be in my Tinker "speciality", but then again, medical imagers were very important in medicine. It had been a small can, with wires appearing out of every inch of it. It was a type of electromagnetic scanner similar to an MRI. You'd place a biological sample; in this case, I had placed a drop of my blood, and it would be held in suspension, levitated while the scanner bombarded it with crazy amounts of electromagnetic radiation and magnetic fields to get an image of everything inside.
Using it had tripped the circuit breaker for my apartment and burned the invention out; I couldn't build something like this to last with just the stuff sitting around my apartment. However, it did get an image transferred over to my laptop, which I had found in one of the boxes. It was a 3-D image of my blood cells as well as anything that was travelling in my blood, including a number of small nanomachines that were still in my body from the biosculpt treatment the other day.
The resolution on the scan was pretty good. At least as good as what you'd get with an electron microscope, and without the need to coat the entire sample with a small layer of gold before you scanned them, as was necessary with electron microscopy.
I have been very interested in nanomachines ever since I discovered they were widely used in medical practice here in this world. I had searched on the net, but the publicly available information was very sparse. I could tell you who invented the first commercially available medical nanomachines back in the early 2000s, and I could even see some images of this first-generation model but nothing about how they were produced, controlled or programmed.
It seemed that some information, despite the fact that it was very old, was by default not freely accessible. Although both the first-generation nanomachine, which I could see a grainy picture of online and the ones in my blood, looked something like a tiny crab, the dimensions were utterly different. The ones in my blood were two orders of magnitude smaller, and examining different individuals revealed that there were over twelve different versions or types, each looking slightly different or having a different tool. Clearly, the state of the art had followed the path of specialisation, then, rather than the first generation, which, according to the encyclopedia, were intended to be generalised tools.
It was very fascinating to me, but I didn't know how much use this first experiment of mine would be. The scanning process fried the nanites, so I wouldn't have been able to recover their programming or command and control; I just got 3-D images of them. Still, it let me infer a lot about how they were used in medicine, things I wouldn't learn just from a Paramedics course. Paramedics might use nanomeds, although they were still kind of pricey, but they were only taught how the medicine was supposed to be administered, any contraindications, and similar end-user information. I would have to just keep studying, finding information where I could.
The second device I made looked like a retro braindance wreath. I had made it from most of the parts of my dad's old wreath. Although there were wires sticking out of this device, they were carefully insulated and affixed into place. I got the impression I might need to perform regular maintenance on this device in order to keep it operable, like what I had expected from all of my Tinker inventions.
