Fit Right In

I got to campus on time and not looking like I had stepped through an abattoir. I already had my schedule, and the first class was an orientation in the same building as the library, which was a little bit weird judging from my other classes. The campus was shaped like a circle with an outer area that had some buildings like the library, student union, recreational building and administrative building, along with a few others. By contrast, the inner circle area had the buildings classes were taught in.

Both areas had a security perimeter, but the information in my student packet told me I wouldn't be permitted into the inner area except on days when I was actually scheduled for classes. I had to admit I was curious about what was inside.

Well, I supposed I would find out today. I was already very familiar with the library building, and I had even peeked in the few classroom-style buildings that I was headed to for orientation, thinking they were large conference rooms.

The library was an interesting building. While there were some physical books, mostly there were areas set up for private reviewing of books and media electronically, as well as more communal study nooks if you had friends. You could use your implants to check out anything, or if you either didn't have one or did not want to, they offered tablets to rent.

I spent most of my days sitting in one of the cushy chairs they had in a study nook, browsing the list of titles of books I could borrow for free. I didn't have complete access to their library, which I wasn't surprised about, but I did have access to more things than I probably would ever read in my life, even if I dedicated my entire life to only reading books.

I had decided to dress up a little bit today, but not as much as I had to get my cybernetics put in. At the same time, what I was wearing was very conservative, dark black and grey colours. In Brockton Bay, I suppose they would call it "power dressing," although updated somewhat in style. It's a domineering aesthetic, and although I had two outfits in this style, this was the only outfit that I owned that was an actual dress. It was a black dress, but not a little black dress. The skirt reached almost my ankles, and the neckline was high-cut if anything. My Alt-Dad had bought it for me and said it made me look like some of the most terrifying people in the world, an auditor.

I wasn't sure what to expect at this school, so I wanted to set a good impression, at least on the first day.

Finding the classroom with a good ten minutes to spare, I walked in to see that at least half of the class was already there before me, including the instructor, who was standing by the door inside, greeting everyone who walked in. He smiled at me and said, "There should be a little tent with your name on it; take a seat there."

Assigned seating, huh? I nodded at him and looked around. Rather than individual desks, there were even rows that faced the podium where the instructor would stand, going nearly the length of the room. Sure enough, in front of each chair was a small piece of paper folded into a triangle with people's names printed in bold font on the front and back. I finally found my tag in the middle of the lower right quadrant of seats, which I felt was pretty good. Not too close, not the very last row, either.

I sat down next to a man in his mid to late twenties who was wearing a suit in a similar colour to my dress, except that he skipped the tie to give him a casual flair. He smiled at me in a friendly manner after I got settled and introduced himself, "I guess we're desk buddies. Hi, I'm Antonio Thurston."

I gave him a closer inspection as I smiled and reciprocated, "I guess so. I'm Taylor Hebert; nice to meet you." Now that I was looking at him closer, he featured a lot of cybernetics, much of it was combat-related. His left arm had been completely replaced, and I was pretty sure it could deploy into a mantis blade, and the coat he was wearing was tight enough to reveal the outline of boosterware on his back, probably a Sandevistan, as most of the others didn't really protrude too much out of the spine. My Alt-Dad had very similar cybernetics, except he had both arms replaced.

Well, they did say this was a common course for people that had been in the Army, I supposed. He nodded, "Likewise. Militech, too, huh?"

I blinked at him, "Eh?"

He chuckled, "I've been told they generally place people who have the same sponsor close together in clusters in this orientation class," he hooked a thumb and indicated the lower right of the room. Sure enough, most of the others were similar to him, clearly all hard men.

I gave him an astonished look, "I don't exactly fit in with your intrepid group. I think you could bench-press me one-handed."

"True! But you look exactly like the suits that hired me," he gestured to my dress, "I mean, I haven't seen anyone in that dress... but the colour, the cut... does Militech have a swag shop where you can just buy clothes in that style? Because I only got hired last month. Had to have help finding this suit, actually."

Ohhh. Yes. Actually, while the style of my outfit wasn't officially a "Militech style", it was definitely one in all but name. Well, shit. I didn't intend to give that impression, but that was most of the nice clothes I had. Plus, it generally went with my own preferences for dark colours and not showing a lot of skin.

"Ah, yes. I suppose you are right. I don't work for the Corp like you do, though. I'm a dependent; they're paying my way through school," I said with a smile.

His eyebrows rose up, "They do that for children of employees? Like, if me and my wife, hypothetically, had a kid on the way?"

I bit my tongue, not wanting to lie to the man. "Yes, but not in all circumstances. My father was a Major in the Militech military division, which I assume you got hired into too. I admit that officers and their kids do get treated a little bit better, but your child will be schooled by the Corp, so long as you're not a short-timer. For me, they are paying for me to attend because my dad recently was killed in action, and it is part of my survivorship package."

That caused him to wince and say quieter, "I'm sorry to hear about your loss. What do you mean by short-timer?"

"Thank you. And by short-timer, I mean you right now. You're on your first contract. I believe that dependent education benefits only kick in after two or three years of service, but I'm not entirely sure," I said quietly. I made a mental note if we spoke much more to try to remind him to read his employment and compensation agreement carefully. If it was one thing that was exactly the same between my old world and this one, it was those in authority generally screwed over those that weren't.

More conversation is halted by the instructor closing the door and walking over to the podium. "Welcome to the Night City University Health Science Centre, fall semester 2062. I am Dr Steven Grayling, a professor in anatomy, and I'll be conducting your new student orientation today. This is a combined class, with both new and transferee students, as well as our new cohort in our Paramedic certification course starting today."

Oh, that is why it is an actual Doctor. A lot of these people were actual med school students. Interesting.

Only a few people have physical note-taking equipment, like a pen and paper, with them. Antonio and a number of the Militech grunts being most of them, and I saw a couple of the better dressed, no doubt med students, start taking notes as well. I suspected they were doing it for retro-pretentious reasons.

As for myself, I had a note-taking app recording and converting to text everything that was said, and I was scrolling a BD that I could review later, and I intended to do the same for all of my classes. Not every cyberdeck included tech for making your own braindances, but it wasn't that uncommon, either.

The instructor spent thirty minutes talking about the campus, and then he paused, "One thing that we have, historically, needed to make clear is that there are no firearms permitted inside the inner radius, where classes are taught."

I raised my eyebrows because I didn't actually remember that in the information I received. Although, it was almost all about the outer area, which presumably had no such restrictions on account of how I had a pistol strapped to my leg right now and the security at the front didn't give me a hard time about it.

"There is a check service at the security checkpoint, however since we are all about to take a tour, it has been best we have found for our students that are armed to temporarily surrender their arms now, a staffer will provide you with a receipt that you can use to reclaim the weapon at the end of our class at lunch," he said, smiling.

I noticed every one of the Militech new hires grumbling a little and reaching into their coats or pants to produce a pistol. Antonio plops his on the table and then looks at me with expectant eyes. I sigh and stand up. On the side of my dress is what looks like a pocket, but it is actually just a slit, as a pocket would ruin the lines of the dress, apparently. I reach inside it and pull out the exact same pistol he had and plop mine onto the table as well, then sit back down. In fact, it was the exact same pistol all of the Militech people had.

I apparently was deeply amusing to the Militech contingent, who chuckled. I guess I did fit in with them a little bit. I glanced at our pistols. They all were M-10C Lexingtons. It was the compact version of the iconic and famous Militech pistol, whose design was thirty years old and still popular. It was basically the same pistol with a slightly shorter barrel, and instead of twenty-one rounds, the magazine only had fifteen, and instead of a full-auto firing mode, it fired in a three-round burst to conserve what little ammo you had.

One of the preppy-looking med students looked at eight people, all with identical pistols, and asked, astonished, "Do they give those things out at the company Christmas party as stocking stuffers or something?"

I waited a moment to see if anyone would comment, and thankfully Antonio, next to me, chuckled ruefully, "Actually, they hand them out to all new hires along with their company ID on the first day of basic indoc."

I nodded and added a nugget from some of Alt-Taylor's memories, "I got mine from the Corp when I turned thirteen as a birthday present." That wasn't the first firearm Alt-Taylor had; her dad had been having her shoot almost since she could hold a weapon in her hands. But this pistol had been gifted to Alt-Taylor by her dad's boss on her thirteenth birthday. Although it wasn't like her dad just let her carry it whenever she wanted, she was still supervised with it.

That caused both the Militech contingent and another heavily armed contingent I couldn't identify to guffaw briefly. One of the staffers took my weapon and handed me a small red card, kind of sized as a hotel or credit card. I put it carefully in my purse.

The tour of the campus was fascinating; the amount of high-tech medical simulation technology they had was boggling. We ended up in the student union for lunch. I was part of the gun-toting clique, apparently, as we all sat together. There were three Corps sending people to this course, Militech, Trauma Team and Kang Tao. All of the independents, who came to the course on their own dime, were also part of the gun-toting clique, as they were Night City natives and weren't stupid. In fact, most of the people in our Paramedic course were in this clique, and those that didn't come armed claimed it was because they already knew guns weren't allowed.

Only a fraction of the Corp-sponsored students were staying in Night City after they graduated; it turned out that this was just a very convenient and reasonably priced course, and many of them were headed to various cities in North America or the Free States. The only two of the Militech hires that were staying were my desk buddy Antonio and a red-headed and freckled woman in her mid-twenties named Fiona Doyle, who took a liking to me for some reason.

I had to stop myself from distrusting any of this out of hand. My instincts were telling me that Emma had gotten someone else to try to pretend to be my friend again just in order to do something terrible to me when I trusted them, but Emma wasn't there. If anything, I should distrust this because this is Night City, and I shouldn't really trust anyone, but they weren't asking me to do anything more than be friendly with them and perhaps study after class.

Most students had the choice of which class they wanted to take, but the Paramedic course was scheduled for us, with all forty of us in every class, which I actually liked as it would have made creating study groups very simple. I didn't think I really needed to study too much, but I would try to be sociable, even if my first instinct at being in a school again was to hide in the bathroom.

About half of the class agreed to stay after the last class briefly in one of the large library student areas, where they could ask questions about things they didn't understand to the group, and others could do the same. I stayed for thirty minutes, answered some questions and asked two just to be polite, and excused myself afterwards.

---xxxxxx---

Back at my apartment, I was taking a break from studying to watch television. Most of the shows I didn't really appreciate, but I liked hearing the news, even knowing it was all or mostly propaganda.

The TV droned on, "...in other news, the flooding of the Laguna Bend resevoir has commenced today, with police having to drag out and arrest one stubborn protestor that refused to leave his former home, which had been condemned after NC Dam Limited purchased the entirety of the town of Laguna Bend..."

So they just flooded their entire town? What assholes.

My doorbell rang, which startled me. I pulled up the door cam to see a man in what appeared to be a man in a similar outfit that I would expect from UPS with a clipboard in hand, an obvious deliveryman or an obvious trap. I recognised the uniform, and I didn't think anyone would be stupid enough to do that in this building, especially after seeing my tiger girl sticker on the door, but...

I grabbed Alt-Dad's shotgun, an old Militech Crusher that had been passed down to him by his dad circa 2020, and made sure there was a shell in the chamber. I trigger the intercom, "Yes?"

"Delivery for one Taylor Hebert, I am with Revere Courier Service," said the man, in a chipper tone.

While I wasn't expecting a delivery, that was a legitimate courier service and one that people would be wise not to impersonate. I had used them in the past to deliver a custom-printed plastic housing for my modified BD wreath, so it didn't look so ghetto. They would ship anything, anywhere. From a super-tanker of CHOO3 across the world to a bag of chips to your friend's house, and they treated each package as sacred, so they said anyway. I asked him through the door, "Identification?"

He holds up a company badge to the camera. Hmm. I decide to send Mr Jin a text message, just telling him that I am answering the door for an RCS courier on an unexpected delivery and to avenge me if he finds me murdered later. He replies with a thumbs-up emoji.

I trigger the door opening from several feet away so I am not in immediate grabbing distance. I don't point the gun at him but hold it ready so that I can raise it before he can rush me. Probably.

The courier doesn't seem upset about it, "Are you Taylor Hebert?" I nod. "Alright, chica, you either have to sign for this or send a digital signature." He held out a digital clipboard, which immediately offered to let me view and sign a file. I raised an eyebrow. In the previous delivery, the guy just tossed it in the door. No signature was required. Nobody was stupid enough to leave a package at a housing block door and still expect it to still be there in five minutes, so virtually all deliveries to a Megabuilding address were in person.

Well, of those choices, I knew which one I would not do. So I opened the digitally proferred file and raised my eyebrows again, which I had just lowered again a second ago! The sender was Daniel Hebert. I signed the thing electronically, and he held out a small package, the kind that could hold some sheets of paper without folding it and not much else. I said, "You can toss it into the apartment."

He shrugged and did so, to which I replied, "Thank you," and sent him a twenty eurodollar tip digitally.

"Niiice, chica. Thanks," he grinned and tipped a non-existent hat at me before I closed the door in his face. I watched him turn around and amble off. I send a text message to Mr Jin:

[Taylor: I guess he wasn't a ninja assassin after all.]

[🤠 : Mr Jin]

What was that? A cowboy emoji? I didn't even know what cultural references I was supposed to know where a cowboy hat emoji would make any sense. And why did that man talk only in emojis in texts when you almost couldn't get him to shut up in person?

I sat the shotgun down and walked to the kitchen, and got some nitrile gloves. It was still possible its contents were laced with contact poison, or as soon as I opened it, a cloud of nerve toxin would puff into my face. That sounded implausible, but at least wearing gloves seemed a simple enough precaution.

Humming, I opened the envelope with one of Alt-Dad's combat knives and dumped its contents out on the coffee table. A sheet of paper and a data shard. I definitely didn't reach over and immediately plug that data shard into my neck like a gonk. Instead, I read the paper. It was in my dad's handwriting, and I mean that literally. Alt-Dad had the exact same handwriting as my dad back in Brockton Bay; it was surreal.

Little Owl,

If you're reading this, I'm afraid I couldn't make it back to you as I promised. We all knew this was a possibility, and I hope everything is going as well for you as possible.

I had a contract with a third party to deliver this to you, wherever you happened to be in North America, thirty days after confirmation of my death.

I know I never really talked about the specifics of the work I did, and I won't start now. It would be unprofessional, and also it would endanger you. But, in my line of work, it was sometimes possible to pick up things on missions as souvenirs. The Corp didn't really mind this behaviour so long as it wasn't extravagant. It was kind of expected in our field, even.

I have stored most of my souvenirs in a storage unit in Watson. Rent was pre-paid until 1 FEB 2068. Enclosed is a digital key to the storage unit, as well as its address and unit number.

Although the majority of the items are of only sentimental value, some of them have significant monetary value or are not available for purchase at all. I will not include a manifest of items with this letter, but there is one next to the light switch in the storage unit, along with a list of names and contact information for people I trust would not take advantage of you if you wanted to sell some of the things.

This is the last thing that I can do for you, and I am not even sure it will be of any help.

Your mother and I will always love you.

Be strong,

Dad

P.S. Burn this letter.

That made me tear up, and he wasn't even my father, really. It was always my mom that called me Little Owl, and I wondered if Alt-Dad started calling Alt-Taylor that after her mom died or if he always had. My memories were inconclusive on the matter. Alt-Taylor was a lot luckier that her dad was emotionally a lot more able to handle the loss of mom, even if he was... some kind of... secret agent? Spy? Black ops commando?

What other kind of job allowed you to acquire valuable souvenirs as you travelled the world on missions? And add postscripts to burn letters you arrange to be sent a month after your death? It seemed like something out of a noir detective or spy novel. But, maybe I was thinking too much about it.

I pulled out my laptop and used every way I could to scan the data shard for any malicious code, but there either wasn't, or it was way past my ability to detect. I finally shrugged; it was in my dad's handwriting, and it could have been a nerve agent instead of a data shard. It was probably safe.

I slotted it into the socket behind my ear. A lot of people chose ports on their necks that were really obvious, but I selected a design for my OS to put one port behind each ear. My tiny interface plug was at the base of my skull, hidden by my hair. I wasn't comfortable enough in this world to use cybernetics augmentation as a style.

Sure enough, it was a digital key and text file giving the address and unit number. I copy the files to my internal system, delete the data on the shard, eject it and, for good measure, break it into a few dozen pieces on the floor with Alt-Dad's ball peen hammer.

I'm interested in what was in this storage unit, sure. But I didn't expect to rush over there any time soon. Beyond the fact that the part of Watson the storage facility was in was scary, I wondered why my dad included a thirty-day delay before having this delivered. Why hadn't he just left it with all of our things at home?

I sat down and considered why that might be. Perhaps Militech didn't care about this, but if it was a well-known practice for people with the same job as my dad did to collect souvenirs, some of which may be valuable, perhaps a single actor acting without knowledge of the Corp might search the household things of a deceased employee? Or maybe even surveil the only surviving daughter of such a person, just in case I immediately went to empty out some sort of storage unit after his death?

What would such an actor do if he or she did see that activity? Murdering the girl and stealing all of her dad's stuff seemed the obvious answer.

That seemed like spy movie stuff, too. But I couldn't say it wasn't impossible, so I didn't see any need to go see what was in it now beyond my raging curiosity. But if it was a panty collection from all the bond girls he banged before meeting mom, I was going to flush his ashes down the toilet.

Realistically, thirty days would probably have been enough; nobody would privately surveil someone that long on a hunch. That said, it wasn't like I needed anything right now. If I was destitute, I would have different opinions, but money, as it always did, gave me options.

It was a shame I neither had a car or license nor knew how to drive. I searched around the kitchen for a lighter.

---xxxxxx---

I had an appointment at the Skyline clinic after class on Friday, so I skipped the study group for the first time. The first week was going faster than I thought. I noticed a lot of the students were caught off-guard by the rapid pace of it, but if you were going to squeeze two years of material into six months, you couldn't waste even a day. I had gotten the reputation as one of the smartest in the class, and all of the Militech people joined our unofficial study group, along with the Trauma Team people and a few of the Night City natives.

Ever since I almost got shot on Monday, I realised I needed more protection than what I had. Not only was I going to buy that internal biomonitor that I had wanted, but I was also getting two types of bioware. The Skyline clinic wasn't only a cybernetics shop, but they also did biosculpt and most types of bioware as well. I didn't want to go there to get my appearance changed, though, since I was a bit paranoid back then.

The first bioware I was going to get was a ballistic skin weave, which was the bioware equivalent of subdermal armour. It would provide protection equivalent to kevlar body armour, so it would stop most pistols and some submachine guns, at least. It wasn't as effective as subdermal armour, but it also wasn't obvious you had it. Your skin still felt like skin when people touched you, and it was very hard to detect that you had it absent some manner of sensors or sophisticated optics.

Not that I had any plans for anyone to touch me, but I felt better about keeping the looks I had. In addition to that, I was getting muscle and bone lace. This was a nano-process that threaded microscopic artificial fibres through muscle and bone tissue, increasing your strength and, more importantly, significantly reducing the damage done to your bones and vastly reducing the chances of a fracture.

In many cases, a bone fracture was immediately disabling, making further fight or flight impossible. Not only were these expensive procedures, but they took a very long time to propagate. I would walk out of the clinic today with the implant, but I would have to come to the clinic every day for an hour and receive treatment for over two weeks.

The trip on the train wasn't crowded. Going downtown in the evening was always easier than leaving it.

I was met by the same customer sales specialist as last time, who smiled widely and offered me refreshments. I guess the commission she got on my sales made her think well of me. I accepted some water and told her what had happened on Monday.

"That's terrible! But at least you're okay. What can we help you with to put your mind more at ease?" she asked, oozing professional politeness and an eagerness to serve.

I nodded and said firmly, "I would like that bio-monitor you tried to sell me the other day, as well as two bioware treatments. I would like the skin weave and muscle and bone lace."

She raised her eyebrows, "You're not thinking about a career as a mercenary, are you?"

I snorted, "If I was, I would have asked for the subdermal armour and projectile launch system, and maybe those arm blades." I wave my arms around wildly to demonstrate.

She laughed a soft and pleasant windchime sound. That laugh had to be something she practised a lot, that or it was a cybernetic augmentation in itself, "Well, the subdermal armour would be fine, but mantis blades and the PLS are incompatible, not to mention restricted from purchase."

"Really? They aren't illegal items," I said curiously. Although I actually thought the Projectile Launch System had to be illegal. Or at least, it ought to be. It was basically a missile launcher on your arm.

She nodded, "That's true, but we receive significant pressure not to sell such items to citizens that don't have a valid job interest as a security professional. That said... if you were to bring in such an item yourself, well, in that case, it wouldn't be us selling it to you, would it? But it would still have to pass our inspections. We don't install non-functional or barely functional cybernetics at Skyline."

I wondered who provided that pressure, and I noted she didn't say. Still, she was quite pleased with my purchases, and I was almost thirty thousand eurodollars poorer.

Dr Travis was just as chatty as last time, which I quite enjoyed. The affable old man had a good bedside manner.

Since it was already past dark by the time I was done, I spent an extra forty eurodollars calling a cab to take me back to my building; it was the first time I actually entered it from the ground floor.

It was an interesting cab, completely AI-operated. Apparently, the company, Delamain, recently began replacing all of their human drivers with this system. The AI tried to make small talk, but it had a bit of a way to go before it seemed alive and interested if that was the company's goal.