Gloria whispered to herself, "... what the hell is a tin?"
I ignored her, grabbed my own medical bag, which was really more of a stuffed backpack at this stage, and left. I didn't have too far to go; in fact, only a couple of doors down. Mr Jin had paid my day rate to give medical exams to all of the dolls, which I agreed to as long as he understood I wouldn't divulge more of their medical data than necessary. It was a promise that only had meaning to my own sense of professional ethics, as considering the examinations were conducted inside Clouds, it was undoubtedly all under surveillance.
Of that, there wasn't much I could do besides telling each of my patients about it before I examined them and asking if they wanted to continue. Considering I imagined continued employment probably depended on an agreement to subject themselves to this exam, that was also more of an illusory choice, but the illusion of choice was often baked into the bedrock of this world.
Instead of walking through the front door, I went through a side one after calling Mr Jin. A familiar Tyger Claw in a nice suit that was ruined by the cowboy hat and old-fashioned leather holster at his waist greeted me at the door. I stared at him and asked, "Where's your sword? What was Jin thinking, letting you around a classy establishment like this?"
He grinned and nodded to the chair he was sitting at next to the door, there was a katana in a scabbard leaning up against the wall. He spoke in an exaggerated announcer tone, which actually impressed me, "When a man learns that not everything can be sliced by a sword, he takes up his gun! Johnny, the Samurai Gunman! A man with the heart of a Samurai but the soul of a gunman."
I sighed, "You're Chinese."
"A Chinese Samurai Gunman," he corrected, and mentally I corrected his correction, ' A Chinese weeb.' Suddenly, I realised why they had him guarding this out-of-the-way entrance that only employees used. So none of their clients would see or, especially, speak with him. I glanced down at his holster, it was new and was slung low on his waist like this was a Western, except it was still the same large-calibre Constitution Arms pistol that I had sold him.
I nodded and asked him finally, "Yes, yes. Is someone coming to meet me to escort me to my work area?"
He opened his mouth to answer in the affirmative but was stopped by someone opening the door; in this case, it was a much more traditionally dressed security man who smiled at me and asked, "If you'll follow me, Miss Hebert."
I nodded and walked with him back into the depths of the Clouds, we passed a break area, and he led me into what was a small clinic. I was a little surprised they had one. It wasn't anything even like what I had, but they still had a number of consumable supplies that I could use and a few pieces of equipment. I tilted my head to the side, "If your establishment has a clinic, why isn't your own Med Techie handling this?"
He smiled, "We don't presently have one. Are you interested in a job?" I shook my head firmly, which he took in good grace and smiled.
After that, I saw a succession of some of the most beautiful people I've ever seen in my life. They were clearly of many different types; for example, my friend Evelyn and Himeko were of a "biologically pure" type, with minimal external cybernetics. But a few of the dolls were very significantly augmented. It took all kinds, I supposed.
I preceded each exam by stating what I would tell their employer, namely if there was anything that would preclude them from performing the normal duties of a doll, how long it would take to remediate, and what would need to be done if they were not. I then told them that since we were in the Clouds, chances were good that everything was being recorded, though, but I wouldn't be the one to break their confidence.
I thought they appreciated my honesty. They were, for the most part, in excellent health. It wasn't that long ago that Clouds spent a considerable amount of money on each doll to ensure that. A few of them had cybernetics that needed to be adjusted, and in this case, I didn't dispense prescriptions but actual medications that I had brought with me in some quantity, even the pricy stuff. I was keeping track of what I distributed and would just bill Clouds for the total.
I blushed a bit at seeing the red handprint on Evelyn's posterior, partly covered by her underwear, which she noticed and grinned, "Clouds charges a lot more if a client wants to get even slightly rough like this because it makes it so I can't take other clients until this handprint is gone. Our best clients have months or years-long relationships with us, and not one of them wants to see another gonk's handprint on our asses, for example."
I chuckled, rubbing the back of my neck and said, as I reviewed the readings I was getting when plugged into her interface socket, "I can see how that might be an issue. I see you did get the internal biomonitor, tech hair, as well as the Midnight Lady accessory. Have you been having any issues with any of your cybernetics? No headaches after a session like before?"
"Nope. Nothing like that. A couple of the new girls have mentioned that they occasionally get headaches after a session, though," she said cheerily. I nodded, having already found one new doll that needed a significant recalibration of her doll hardware.
I dug through my supplies to pull out a small pneumatic injector, "Okay, panties down and stick your butt out for a moment."
She grinned, "I didn't think you were going to play doctor like thaaat." Still, she complied quickly, wiggling her panties down to her ankles, and I told her that I would give her something to cause the bruise to heal soon, unless she particularly wanted some more time off. She shook her head and gave me a thumbs up, so I gave the centre of the handprint a quick shot of nanomeds that would heal the bruise in only a couple of hours.
"Alright, you're good to go," I told her and allowed her to put all of her clothes back on, "Do you have any questions?"
She hummed, "What were the biosculpt treatments you recommended the last time?"
"Either nanosurgeons, or an enhanced immune system. Or both. It depends on whether you are more concerned about disease or trauma. If money were no object, I would recommend everyone get both of these treatments. There are almost no downsides, unlike many augmentations," I told her frankly, "The cost if you went back to Skyline would be about eight thousand each, but there is a fairly good clinic here in Japantown that I have been going to that could drop the cost by about fifteen hundred eddies each."
I supposed the nanosurgeons could possibly have a psychological impact; if you thought you could heal from most wounds, it might tend to make you more reckless, but it was probably much less than even a moderate cybernetic limb, as psychologically, people just wouldn't believe it. Fear of injury was bone-deep, buried in our genome itself, and it was difficult to overcome with mere intellectual knowledge unless you've been injured and healed by your nanosurgeons many times.
Plus, even if you knew you could be healed, it didn't stop the pain. Even though I knew my nanosurgeons could heal my hand if I placed it on the hot burner of my stovetop within eight hours didn't make me more likely to do it, as that would have been incredibly painful.
She grinned at that, "Awesome! I had saved up enough for both of them. Do you think you could take me no introduce me to that Ripper later? I'll buy you dinner!"
"Of course," I told her, although I was pretty sure it was the same one that Clouds recommended these days. Still, Evelyn and Himeko and the others in her peer group probably wouldn't trust their recommendations for some time, so it wasn't surprising for the girl to ask for my recommendations.
She nodded, "Great. Now, what do you know about longevity treatments?"
A lot more than anybody else on this planet is what I wanted to say. Instead, I was a bit more ambiguous, "A lot. What are you more interested in, actually living longer or just looking younger for longer?"
She blinked for a moment, "Both, of course."
I nodded, as that was the correct answer, in my opinion, "It's much cheaper to start these treatments when you are still relatively young as you are now. It's also more effective. The really wealthy begin longevity treatments as soon as they start puberty. I'm guessing you would have to budget at least five thousand Eurodollars a year for an acceptable treatment plan. I can give you recommendations for clinics that I would trust if you want."
If she were a decade older, the price would have been five times as much or more.
When I became an actual doctor, I could become an official supplier of these treatments too, although I intended to probably utilise my own formulas for the most part and claim to my patients that they were standard treatments. Without paying the wholesale prices for the medicine and genetic treatments, it would be incredibly lucrative for me; I'd just have to pay the various corporations enough so that they didn't become suspicious. If I became known for providing excellent rejuvenation treatments but barely bought anything from them wholesale, they would investigate for sure.
She didn't have any questions after that, and the male god, Anders, was my next patient, and I steeled myself to be completely professional as I pulled up the medical record provided by Clouds and was surprised, "Your actual name is Anders? I thought that was just your nom de plume." I didn't know the polite word for "Stripper name", so I used the quickest approximation I could, namely the name an author used if they wanted to write a book pseudonymously. In his case, the name on his file was Theodore Anders.
He chuckled, "It's my family name. I kind of don't get along with my father. He has a long-standing problem with the people I choose to date, and it amuses me to use my actual last name as my doll name. Unfortunately, I don't think he actually cares."
Fuck! Were all the good ones gay?! "What a dick, a lot of people are gay...." I tried to comfort him, and he looked at me like I was speaking Greek, then he chuckled and then transitioned into a full laugh.
"Gay? No. I mean... what year do you think it is? Nobody, not even MY dad, would really care about that. He wanted to set up what amounted to an arranged marriage," he said in between laughs.
That caused me to blush in embarrassment, but internally I was curious, as arranged marriages were a lot older than even disapproval of homosexual marriages, and that implied he was from a rather important family. That followed as he had impeccable body mods and top-of-the-line everything as far as cybernetics was concerned, including a security suite that, while wasn't as good as mine, was still pretty expensive.
The youthful rebellion of a rich boy by playing as a doll and BD star? Well, I would still buy his releases; they were some of the best in the genre.
My blush had gone away by the time I finished my exam, "You are in perfect health," I told him, which caused him to grin and give a thumbs up.
After finishing with the last doll, I packed up all my belongings and catalogued all the medicine I handed out for the invoice I was making for Clouds. Then I had a brief meeting with Mr Jin in his office.
"Taylor! Thanks for this; we're making it a standard thing every six months if you're interested in a continuing arrangement," the man stood as I entered the room and didn't take his seat again until I sat in front of him. I doubted he was an actual gentleman in his line of work, but he could pretend to be one pretty well.
I nodded, "Sure. Overall the health of your employees was very good. There were a few issues, and I have a list of a few dolls I'd like to see on a follow-up basis. I did notice a few of them had some malware, but it seemed to be of a relatively ordinary type that people often get; I didn't find anything suspicious about it at all. I cleaned all of the infected systems."
He looked happy at first, but when I mentioned some of them had malware, he looked quite upset, "That's a pretty sensitive subject lately, as I am sure you're aware. Did you take copies of them like last time?"
I shrugged and nodded, sliding a data shard across his desk, "I did, but as I said, these were pretty tame pieces of software. Why don't you have your doll server running a security suite, anyway?"
"What are you talking about?" he asked.
I sighed and shook my head. Non-technical managers were the worst sometimes. Still, that's why they paid specialists like myself, "I ran every doll through a quick doll-chip diagnostic, so I know exactly what make and model of server you're using. That company offers an optional security suite; it's part hardware and part software. I'm sure you're aware that when a doll is running a session that the doll server has incredible access to the doll's system, yes?"
He nodded, so I continued, "Well, the security suite uses this temporary access to scan each doll's system during a session and, if necessary, clean and quarantine any malware found on their system. It's obviously not perfect, and some zero-day custom rootkits might get by it, but for the most part, it is pretty thorough, and it is a lot cheaper than, say, buying each doll ICE, for example."
He groaned the groan of a man who had just realised he was an idiot and put his face in his hands briefly before asking me, "Do you know how much this system costs?"
I hummed, "I think about twenty-five grand for the system module itself, then there's a per-doll annual license of one or two hundred Eurodollars a year."
He groaned even louder. "Taylor, can you do your good friend Mr Jin a favour?"
"I don't grant blanket favours like that anymore," I told him cautiously.
He chuckled and sat back up, "That's wise of you. Can you pretend that I have had that system all along? I'm going to buy it today, that is very cheap. It is also something I should have known about after the last incident, so I don't want you to mention that we didn't already have it to anybody."
"If Mr Inoue straight-up asks me, I'm not going to lie to him, but sure, I won't volunteer it or mention it again. Besides, you can say honestly that I said that your doll's cybersecurity was remarkably improved from last time in total honesty," I told him, trying not to smirk too much.
He chuckled and nodded, "Thank you, that I will mention. Can you send me the net address for where I can purchase this?" I nodded and sent him both the net address for the product page as well as the net address for the sales manager of that corporation, as I had called and asked for price information between exams.
