Perhaps that would be a good way to repay her. There were very few people who didn't want to live longer, after all. Plus, I wouldn't want to watch my friends grow old. David interrupted my commiserating by running up to us both and saying to Kiwi, "I saw your cervix!"
Kiwi glanced at me with a shocked expression, her eyes asking, 'What the hell did you do to me when I was asleep?' Snorting, I quickly corrected David quickly, "You saw her cervical spine. " My correction caused Kiwi to snicker, hiding her mouth behind her hand.
"Cervix spinal!" he declared and then ran off to talk to Johnny in the clinic. The Tyger Claw then proceeded to show David his wakizashi, including several rather dangerous-looking slashes through the air, causing me to narrow my eyes at the display. I didn't want David to get used to playing with sharp objects, but it gave me an idea. Perhaps I could get Mr Johnny a customised Sandevistan or something. It'd be nice if he didn't get himself killed before I managed to pay him back for saving Gloria and David.
Glancing at David and Johnny talking, I sighed. Well, it was good that David wasn't lost to despair, at least. I suppose he trusted me to make things better, which was a heavy thing to consider and try to live up to.
I could bare that weight, though.
The safe house was more like a warehouse, and it was boring. Wakako had settled with me for all the money I was owed, and in between my fat stacks of dosh and my digital wallet, I had just under three million Eurodollars. It was kind of crazy how much money I had. As soon as I got the digital money, I gave two hundred and eighty-five thousand back to Wakako. She had a contact that could get a brand new female Gemini of the right approximate size and body, and fairly quickly too.
It was close to the same height, but it was two centimetres shorter than Gloria was, but she would just have to get used to it for now. I would be able to use the included OEM equipment to customise the face and rough body shape. The Gemini had larger breasts but smaller hips, and the skin tone didn't precisely match either, but all of that could be altered by the tools that came with a new Gemini.
I hummed, considering. Perhaps Gloria would like an upgrade in the bust department? I'd leave them as they were and then ask her once she was conscious. It was a simple matter to make adjustments if she wanted them smaller, like her natural size.
I'd have something that was almost indistinguishable from Gloria, absent the height discrepancy, fairly rapidly. It was partly like configuring a new implant and partly like painting a portrait. Half technical and half artistry. I didn't have a good skill for art and never have, but since getting my power, I've discovered I was preternaturally skilled at drawings, so long as they were of living creatures and especially if they were drawings about anatomy, so I felt I could easily accomplish these tasks despite not actually being trained in how to initially setup a Gemini.
Not only that, but Geminis were one of the few full-body replacements that my power deigned to sink its teeth into as I was reading about them online. I think it was because the Gemini was partly organic, and it tried its best to mimic the human form so well. I was very confident I could work with it when it arrived. Perhaps I could make some upgrades? She was already going to be superhumanly strong, which would take some getting used to, but perhaps I could build a Taser or concealed hypodermic injectors into her fingers.
Something she could use to give her non-lethal options so she wouldn't feel the need to try to grab a gun and shoot someone, which is what David said happened after the bad man had threatened him to get her to come quietly. Was I responsible for that since I had gotten her proficient and comfortable in using firearms? I thought about it and decided I wasn't. She would have grabbed something else. She wasn't entirely rational when it came to David's safety and well-being were concerned.
My plan for her appearance was one that let David instantly recognise her as his Mom while still being different enough to thwart facial recognition. Neither of their fake identities needed to be as ironclad as mine. I didn't honestly think anyone was looking for them, even if they considered them a possible acquaintance of mine. Also, nobody really cared if you made a fake identity and then used that to get a real credential. I figured they, especially David, would have the same first name if they came with me to make it easier to adapt.
It was easy to even merge two identities if your appearance, particulars and name were similar, but it was very difficult to fake a credential like a degree and add it to your real identity. For example, if Gloria got admitted to a nursing program at UCLA, she could, with a few bribes, get the names changed to her real identity if and when she came back to Night City. It would just be a matter of changing the name on her degree and the school records from Ramirez or whatever her last name ended up being back to Martinez.
Her peers, teachers and administration would still remember Gloria going to classes, so it wasn't anywhere near like getting Taylor Hebert a degree in medicine without her actually going to any classes. That was much more difficult and much more expensive. But it was theoretically possible, according to what I've asked Wakako about, but it would still take time, especially considering my age. It would be impossible if I wanted a degree today because nobody would believe I entered medical school at the tender age of thirteen or fourteen.
I didn't particularly mind waiting, though. The world wasn't circling the drain like it was in Brockton Bay. I wouldn't be surprised if the world was pretty much exactly as it is now in fifty years. Rather than an apocalypse like back home, the world's biggest threat was stagnation. Everyone in power liked the status quo. Sure, there were some minor quibbles, including some possibly genocidal AI in the Old Net if you believed the conspiracy theories, but coming from me, a girl that wondered if the Hopekiller would show up and brainwash me or if Leviathan would flood the entire city that was much less scary to me for some reason.
In the best case, I would feel safe to return back to Night City in a year or so. If that happened, I could use Dr Hasumi's medical degree as a puppet, work in "her clinic", and the like. There would be options.
I frowned at that idea suddenly because it seemed as though if I did that, I would have to pay taxes twice . How horrible.
Glancing over at David, who was playing a VR game in the large open area of the warehouse floor. I had decided on a strict isolation policy. None of us was leaving the safe house until the time came to leave the city. Most of my stuff, except some of the medical equipment, was packed, and we were waiting on some contacts to smuggle all of us both out of Night City and as well as into Los Angeles. I had discussed transportation options with Wakako, and we had both decided it was best if I just appeared in LA without any real history of how I got there, so that meant I was dealing with one of the Nomad clans. That meant that there would be a period of waiting before they got into the neighbourhood, but there was no better choice if you wanted something or someone transported through the wasteland.
David was getting bored, though, and starting to ask questions about when his Mom would be back, but I felt that he would likely be fine for a few more days. I had already gotten confirmation that the order comprising Gloria's new body was going to be shipped imminently, although given the value, it was being commingled amongst other high-value shipments and transferred over ground in a highly militarised convoy, so I wasn't precisely sure when it would arrive.
Only a few of the Tyger Claws knew who was in this warehouse, and one of them was Johnny, who was acting as a sort of temporary concierge. We were getting full service; if we wanted something, he'd either get it or have it delivered. Now, I heard the distinct beeping of a truck backing up, and I got an excited look on my face. It was too soon for the Gemini, but this was a heavy delivery, so that left only one other thing. The stolen biosculpt equipment.
After the trucks were unloaded, there were several large wooden crates in the warehouse, and I went to perform an inventory, getting followed by both Kiwi and David, who had set aside his game in order to see what the fuss was about.
"Uhh... Doc Taylor, if you could look over everything here? I'm told that you'd know who to send the money to if everything is in order," Johnny said, looking around for a while before he returned with a crowbar.
"Oh, this is last year's model. Kiwi, I'll need your help to re-flash and hack the firmware; we won't want it to be bricked after they report it was stolen," I said amiably. Plus, I didn't like my medical equipment to have phone home capability in it anyway. I didn't want or need that, especially when I knew how untrustworthy everyone was.
Kiwi looked at the large machine and shrugged, "It shouldn't be that much of a problem." I believed her, as she had done the same on a lot of my more modern medical equipment that I had acquired over the past year.
Opening the next box, I hissed, "Wow, they-" I was about to say stole, but I glanced sideways at David before saying, "sent me a lot."
"What is all this, Aunt Taylor?" asked David excitedly. I quite liked being Auntie Taylor, so I grinned. "Replacement nanomachines-uhh, I guess you'd call it the food for the big machine." They had brought at least two hundred thousand dollars worth if you went by MSRP, likely stealing all of the unopened containers from whatever clinic this came from. That would keep me in nanomachines for a long time. The rest was a series of somewhat specialised laboratory equipment that would let me modify a cold virus to alter my genome.
I included an extra ten thousand eddies as a bonus to whatever team Wakako hired and forwarded her the money, along with a brief note.
It took some work getting the machine out of the crates, even using the old electric forklift that had been gathering dust in the main room. I nervously asked Kiwi as she sat the biosculpt vat on a carefully cleaned area of the warehouse, "Are you forklift certified?!"
"Uhh... yes," she said after the briefest pause. I wasn't sure I believed her given that pause, but she managed to use the equipment and not damage anything.
I thought it would take longer to hack the firmware than to set it up, but Kiwi had the former done before I had everything connected and the machine going through its long self-test and warm-up cycles.
"Nice, it has all of the pre-programmed routines this clinic had been selling, including some higher-end bio mods. Have you decided if you'd like me to make any adjustments to your appearance, Kiwi? I definitely want you to get a similar muscle and bone lace treatment that I have. That would have stopped your spine from fracturing in twelve places," I told her primly.
"Uhh... what kind of changes can you do?" she asked, a little curious and nervous. Did she not trust me?
I spread my hands, "Pretty much anything you'd expect a biosculpt clinic to be able to do. Let's sit down and have a consult."
She agreed with the muscle and bone lace, even asking for both the additional ballistic skin weave and the same nanosurgeons I had. I frowned at that, "Although nanosurgeons are styled as a biosculpt treatment, we just refer to them as that because they use entirely organic biotechnology. It's a specialised organ installed in your body, and the installation process is more similar to traditional cybernetics. Although I can perform the surgery with no problem, I don't have those organs right now, but I should be able to get some in a few months once we get settled. That's a good idea, and you should also go for the similar enhanced immune system as well, but we'll have to table it for the moment."
As for any cosmetic modifications, I sat there with a tablet in graphics mode, sketching out any changes. She liked being blonde and pale, but after a few stops and starts, I sketched out minor changes that would allow her to look fairly similar while seeming to be more Slavic than Western European, and she also had me remove all of her existing scars and tattoos and a seemingly mostly cosmetic Midnight Lady accessory on her chest. I'd have to do that with a traditional cybernetics surgery, then put her in the tank afterwards.
She made me promise to keep it for her, though, because it was apparently a special limited edition. But honestly, who wanted nipples that doubled as a cybernetic spinneret? Even I thought that was a bit out there. Was it a sex thing? Was I just a prude? I didn't think the silk was strong enough to be practically useful for any real purpose, so it had to be some kind of sex thing, but I didn't really want to know.
The same day the Gemini arrived, Kiwi and I had gotten word that the Nomads I was paying to take us all to Los Angeles would be arriving in about a week, which didn't give me a lot of time to get all of my ducks in a row.
David was upset I wouldn't let him see the Gemini, but it was shipped naked, and it was going to be his Mom, so it would be weird, I thought. I had begun explaining to him a little more about how serious his Mom's injuries were, and at first, he was terrified, but surprisingly, he was okay with it once he realised Gloria was going to be receiving what I called a "mostly full body replacement." Cybernetics was indelibly imprinted on the entire world's zeitgeist, such that a five-year-old kid suddenly understood what I was saying and even thought it was "supernova, totally bright." How could a kid that could barely talk be more hip to the slang than I was? I was in the prime of my life.
I didn't start on my own cosmetic changes at all until I knew David and Gloria were or were not coming with me, but I'd be able to make most of them pretty quickly. The height change, however, would take some time, as would fashioning the virus to adjust my genome.
Kiwi walked around the tarps I had set up as a dividing line into where I was working on the Gemini and frowned, "Wow, it is starting to look like Gloria already." I glanced at her and nodded. The Gemini was still in its OEM adjustment cradle, which allowed me to upload an appearance file which it was very slowly morphing into.
The cradle used company-specific and proprietary consumables, so you could only set the appearance of a new model "one and a half times." That meant, once for real, and then if you had some minor changes or mistakes, you could make some adjustments, but I was getting it right the first time so that I could disassemble and examine the unused consumables. I expected they were nanomachines, just like my biosculpt vat, but what type of composition? I didn't know, but I hoped to learn enough to make changes like this in the future without needing to return the unit back to the factory, as that would help a lot if Gloria decided not to keep it.
