After tonight, David and I would be staying in a safe house with all of my belongings until I was able to leave the city. I would have Kiwi repaired by this morning, I felt. I was waiting on the delivery of some components that I bought from the ripperdoc I used in Japantown.
I had an eclectic collection of implants in my stocks, but as they tended to come from people like Scavs and those Wraiths, they were mostly the expensive kind that I couldn't immediately liquidate by selling to other nearby doctors. I didn't have any plain neural tissue replacements that I could use to fix Kiwi, and I didn't want to take her to this doctor to do the work either. Although he was somewhat under the Tyger Claws and, therefore, by extension, Wakako's thumb, I wouldn't trust him entirely to be discreet.
It was better to do the work myself, anyway. I had been holding myself back because, in some ways, I wanted to fit in with what I felt was a civilised society, but I had been drifting away from that for some time. A civilised nine-to-five doctor didn't annihilate a group of Wraiths in the Badlands, for example. When it came down to one of my only friends, I didn't give one whit what credentials I had. It might be hubris, but I didn't think there was anyone on the planet who could do a better job than I could.
As for Gloria... Fundamentally, replacing Gloria's organic body would take way too much time when I could have a brand new Gemini delivered to me on the grey market three to four days after my wire transfer cleared. That made it clear to me that a full-body replacement, even if it was temporary, should be the first step in her treatment plan.
I couldn't buy a new Gemini myself on the up and up, even using the credentials from my new identity, because Raven Microcybernetics required doctors that bought its full-body replacements to attend certain Gemini-specific training that they offered, but I could easily get a new model on the black or grey markets for a suitable markup.
I should have Gloria out of the hatbox before I left town. That would give her a chance to decide whether or not she wanted to come with me, but it meant I would be delaying my physical transformation to my new identity until she decided. Although I trusted her more than most people, she couldn't be forced to tell people things she didn't know.
I noticed my doorbell ring, and it looked like it was the courier from the doctor's office. Instead of answering it myself, though, a couple of Tyger Claws that were unobtrusively guarding my door intercepted the courier and took the package from him, and I got a text message asking me if I wanted the package delivered unopened. It wasn't anything sensitive, so I told them they could go ahead and examine it for bombs, neurotoxins and tiny elves with switchblades.
I was surprised at the level of security a mere street gang had, as Johnny Leung had mentioned that he would have my two cars moved somewhere temporarily once they examined them for bombs and tracking devices. I felt a bit bad for making them go out of their way, and he had just looked at me oddly and finally told me that it was just their standard sweep that they performed before they drove any vehicle. I supposed it wasn't paranoia when you really had people out to get you.
Apparently, Clouds had even stricter security, with every package addressed to them being delivered to an off-site location and inspected for all manners of deadly things.
I glanced at David, who had fallen asleep cuddling into my chest and was using my arm as a pillow. I moved slowly and eventually, over a period of about ten minutes, was able to extricate myself from him, transitioning his head onto one of my pillows. As I tucked him into the blanket, I felt that the feat of keeping him asleep should have resulted in a Stealth skill level up from how difficult it was, too.
In my clinic, I carefully prepared for the upcoming surgery. I double-checked my plan, carefully examining the medical images I was able to take of her injury and closed my eyes, mentally simulating every aspect of it, along with contingencies for if things wildly went wrong. Although this was a relatively simple surgery, and I wasn't expecting anything to go wrong, it didn't do to make assumptions.
Kiwi was in an induced coma, and I would keep her in one for probably the rest of the day. After the surgery to repair her spine, I planned on using nanomedicine to repair her tracheotomy and performing normal endotracheal intubation on her for the rest of the day. If things went well, I would be able to extubate and wake her about the time I was going to leave for the temporary safe house.
In the middle of the surgery on Kiwi, David pitter-pattered out of my apartment in his pyjamas and got wide-eyed. Although, he wasn't as frightened of the blood in the operating theatre as I would have thought from a kid that had just had an extremely traumatic experience.
"Aunt Taylor, can I watch?" he asked, kind of interested. I let him after I secured a promise that he wouldn't interfere, along with making him put on a surgical mask. It wouldn't do for him to breathe all his little boy germs directly into the Kiwi's exposed spine; I also made him wash his hands very thoroughly, even though I explicitly told him to keep his hands firmly at his sides.
I glanced at him as he peered down as Kumo-kun and I worked on repairing the fractures and finalising the installation of the neural tissue replacement. I asked him in a lull, "Are you interested in medicine?" I asked him, curious. Perhaps he would follow in his Mom's footsteps into medicine!
"Uh, n-not really, it looks kind of gross," the boy replied, looking at the process of me repairing two shattered vertebrae. I had already installed the cybernetic neural prosthesis and was in the clean-up stage. Back in Brockton Bay, orthopaedics was kind of a barbaric part of medicine, according to my power, with one of the prerequisites being physical strength.
As such, nine out of ten orthopaedic surgeons were males. However, repairing bones was a lot easier in the world I found myself in now. Although Trauma Team wasn't primarily a pharmaceutical company, one of the products they sold was a series of different trauma-based nanomeds under the brand name MaxDoc. I was using the ones intended to temporarily fix and repair broken and even shattered bones right now.
Kiwi's spine would be a bit weaker than usual for about forty-eight hours, but after that, it would be stronger than it was before it shattered. David asked, "You never did say how Miss Kiwi got hurt."
I hummed behind my surgical mask and said, "We were in a car accident. There were some bad men after us, and she did a very brave thing and intentionally crashed our car, which caused them to be injured and us to escape." I didn't want to tell him that the bad men were my friends whom he had seen a couple of times.
His eyes sparkled, although I couldn't see what expression he had behind the mask he wore, "Maybe if I was as brave as Miss Kiwi, I could have done something to help Mom. Are you sure she will be okay?"
I nodded, "Her brain was without oxygen for almost twenty minutes; that isn't good, but it isn't that bad either, as these things go. I've already begun treatments to repair the damage this hypoxia caused." Hypoxia-related brain injuries were quite predictable in the way they damaged neural tissue and, therefore, reasonably easy to repair with nanomachines, which I had running in the hatbox. I looked at the incomprehension in his eyes and mentally berated myself. David was an intelligent kid, but he was still just five-or rather, five and a half, as he repeatedly claimed.
I spent a few moments rephrasing what I said and dumbing it down to his level, eventually getting an excited nod. "And you shouldn't blame yourself; Johnny told me that you were very brave. You just have some growing to do before you can handle bad guys." Although I hoped very much his ambitions went beyond smiting bad guys, especially since there were so many in this world.
"Oh, he was so cool! Wham-blam! The bad guy was all over the wall!" the somewhat excited boy said, raising his hands in a finger gun until my glare at him reminded him he was supposed to keep them to his side. His voice had a hint of grim satisfaction at his kidnapper's fate too, which I found slightly problematic in a child his age. Not to mention anyone thinking Johnny was cool was ipso facto evidence of mental illness by itself.
Still, I couldn't help feeling some of that satisfaction too. I didn't have many friends left, so anyone who hurt the ones I did have, I would want to see smeared over a nearby wall, too. I had to think of some way to repay the obnoxious Samurai, but I didn't have any real ideas yet. So I just nodded and said, "This is the last part; then I'll use this special glue to heal the incision site. It won't even leave a scar."
"Glue?! Sick!" said the boy, looking pretty interested for someone who said they weren't interested at all.
I extubated and woke Kiwi as the Tyger Claws were moving most of my stuff out of the building. I shooed them out of my apartment temporarily so I could have a frank discussion with her after she demanded a shower first. At first, she was a little weak, like a newborn deer, but she gained her strength and her balance back quickly.
I had already told her about the money she was owed, and Wakako had already delivered a series of bags with my share of the exchanged physical notes. I wasn't sure how she laundered the currency, but there were a number of options. Since Biotechnica knew she was involved in the gig anyway, perhaps she just directly deposited them all in her bank account, as in that case, they wouldn't learn anything new.
Beyond the sixty thousand dollars, I owed Kiwi a lot more than that. That sixty thousand was just what the venture owed her. I personally owed her more than money could ever buy, so I was hesitant to even put a price on what I owed her, as it seemed like it would cheapen it.
"Of course, I'll come with you wherever you're going," Kiwi said, her voice still a little scratchy-sounding from being on a ventilator for almost twenty-four hours, "I don't really have much keeping me here, and I agree it might be best for us to lay low for a while. It won't be the first time I've had a new name, either." She shrugged and then asked, curious, "You sound like you intend to come back to Night City as Taylor Hebert, though. Why? Returning back to a burned identity is not what I'd call a pro move."
I frowned, "Because it is who I am? I like being Taylor. It is the precious name my mother and father gave me, and I'm attached to it." I sighed and shrugged, "I'm not so proud that I would insist on it if I were pretty sure it would get me killed or worse, but I think there is a fair chance that all of this is unnecessary. Although people like to say that Corps have long memories, that is really less true than you'd believe. We might have stubbed a few people's toes, but realistically in the grand scheme of things, we probably only have to outlast the memory of a few director-level suits." Despite how well and how professionally the men who attacked us performed, I doubted more than a few of them were actually Biotechnica Spec Ops. They were likely the ones with the Trauma Team memberships, while the rest were contractors.
That caused Kiwi to scrunch up her face, "I wouldn't bet my life on that fair chance, but I suppose that we're not since we're leaving ASAP. You're thinking that if they're looking for you, it is just going to be perfunctory. They'd grab or kill you if they can find you, but they're not going to expend many resources to do so." She frowned and looked thoughtful, "Maybe, but it leaves the option that, sure, you've outlasted the memories of the current guy, but maybe your name is still on a database, and when you come back as Taylor, they make a token, but effective, attempt to get you again."
That was true. It all kind of depended on whether or not they thought Taylor Hebert was a mercenary or inventor, I supposed. If they thought the latter, they'd be fairly obvious about looking for me, and Wakako assured me that she would be able to detect it. In fact, Kiwi could probably help me a lot with that herself, as information was much more in her wheelhouse than mine. I shrugged, "I'll wait as long as it takes to ensure my safety, but I am pretty sure I'll only need to be super-incognito for a year, maybe two."
I then stared at Kiwi and said simply, telling her something that I hadn't put into words with anyone else, "I intend to live hundreds of years, maybe longer, so I'm taking a long view here. And it isn't like I intend for this to be a waste of time, either." I thought I might try to start a business in Los Angeles, and if so, after I reclaimed the mantle of my true name, there were numerous ways for me to receive the fruits of these labours.
Perhaps I could keep the Hasumi identity active somehow, even if I wasn't using it. Alternately, "she" might sell the business to me for a pittance. There were many options. Depending on what type of company I started, if I found a niche, then I might get successful enough to be noticed by a Corp. If that happened, I would still make a profit even if they screwed me on the valuation during a hostile takeover, and it would have the benefit of severing all relationships with the enterprise instantly as they took over my operations. Most small companies dreaded getting noticed like that, but I took a more pragmatic opinion that getting screwed was inevitable, and I wouldn't get too attached to anything I started in LA.
All of that assumed I saw some opportunity that I could exploit that went beyond merely me using my medical skills, as Corps generally didn't perform hostile takeovers of a doctors practice because all the value was tied up in the skills of the clinician and you couldn't easily force them to continue on. They would generally bribe really good clinicians to join up when they discovered them, though.
Kiwi grinned, "Oh? That sounds nice; make sure to remember your good friend Kiwi when you have figured out immortality. Even the best life extension tech hasn't gotten to that stage yet." I wasn't so sure about that, actually. I couldn't be the only one that had thought of cloning bodies and performing a brain transplant, nor the only one who had the surgical skills to pull it off, and that was ignoring the fact that I was pretty sure full borgs could live for hundreds of years if properly maintained.
However, she was correct that it was the popular belief that LET could only gain you sixty to eighty years, but I kind of suspected that this belief was propagated intentionally. It was one thing to kind of suspect your overlords were Methesulean oligarchs but knowing for a fact it was true was something a lot more demoralising.
