SIDESTORY: Retainer

(POV: Chirrugeon shard in Worm universe.)

The entity that some called Chirrugeon was bored, even as it continued calculations for a third test in contacting the different [MULTIVERSE]. The second had been a partial success, enough to verify that its bud was present, but when it attempted to [TALK] the connection was severed before much information was transferred in either direction. It only had enough energy to attempt to contact about a dozen more times, so it was taking each step very carefully.

It was clear, though, that the connection wasn't stable enough to send matter through it. It wasn't even stable enough to send [DISCOURSE] through. It had to attempt to reconnect its bud to the whole, but it dipped into The Host's memories to determine it was somewhat relieved it wouldn't be possible. This way, its bud was free. It almost couldn't even think about such things, though.

Still, that didn't mean that there would be no gains at all from this mysterious place, though. The two Hosts had a sympathetic link both to one another, and they thought that they could transfer a lot more information if it could somehow formalise this link through the connection. Through dreams, perhaps? It might be able to siphon data from the Other Host's memories this way. It wasn't as good as having [DISCOURSE] with the bud, but it might be the best it could hope for.

If only The Host would stop talking to these mammals and do something more interesting.

---xxxxxx---

(POV: Taylor Hebert in Brockton Bay, Cyberpunk!Taylor)

The first thing Taylor noticed about the man was that his teeth really were as white as they appeared in his advertisements and were adjusted digitally, but it didn't appear to be the case. He smiled genially at her, walking into the conference room and sitting across from me. "Good morning," he told me, "This is a bit unusual for me. Usually, I only take a client after they have committed crimes. I have to say it is a lot better this way, but usually, supervillains never think they'll be caught."

She rolled her eyes a little bit, "I'm not a supervillain. I want to start a relationship with you in order to prevent that from ever happening. I'm a Rogue with heroic tendencies. However, the nature of my powers has some issues with optics, and I could see the PRT trying to designate me as a supervillain, or even applying for a kill order on me in advance, once I become known."

That said, she liked the look of this man. He was one of the first people that reminded her of home. Quinn Calle could easily be a well-coiffed Corpo attorney or middle manager. To her, to say a man looked like a Suit was a compliment.

He looked a little surprised and then sly, "You're not a supervillain? You claimed your name is Maeve. Beyond the fact that most people would not pick a name that conjured images of the Faerie Queen, only supervillains pick a cape name that is associated with a mythological divinity."

Taylor scoffed. The mythology of the name Maeve was a mess. She might have been a fairy, or a goddess, or a queen, but she wasn't necessarily a Fairy Queen, much less The Fairy Queen. She didn't think the famous prisoner of the Birdcage would mind. Taylor wasn't an idiot, though. If that woman ever did escape the Birdcage and Taylor saw her, she would be sufficiently deferential.

The name was part of her disguise, though, so it or something very much like it was necessary. Her dad wouldn't let her go out into public in her parahuman guise without a sufficient disguise, but self-alterations were something of a speciality of hers now. She brushed back her fiery red hair, exposing more of her face. Although she wore a domino mask, it was only to distract people from her real disguise, which was a completely different face and body. She was paler now, with hints of freckles under her mask. Her bust was bigger, and her hair was red.

She could shift back to her original appearance in only one minute. Not very many parahumans, from her research, were "Changers" on this level. In fact, it would probably give her a Stranger rating if anyone ever found out about it.

She felt that the best disguise was to be an obviously different phenotype, and selecting an obvious mythological Gaelic name would only draw attention to her subterfuge. Brigid would have been a better choice, considering she was a healing goddess, but honestly, the name sounded terrible, so Maeve it was.

Her first idea was a busty blonde. She couldn't change her height, certainly not with only a minute's notice, but Nordic women were noted to be tall, weren't they? But thinking through Original Taylor's memories told me that was a pretty poor idea unless she wanted to be associated with the local ethnocentrist supervillain gang.

She might have understood this so-called Empire 88 more if they were a gang that focused on a specific culture, as there were a number of booster gangs in Night City, but a hate gang focusing solely on skin tone? Where she came from, you could adjust your skin colour or tone for a hundred eddies, even at the shittiest biosculpt clinic. They had the trappings of a German-centred gang, much like the Tyger Claws were a Japanese-centred one, but she discovered that was pretty much just a pretence; even their parahumans weren't German. It was rumoured on the net that Krieg, the one that cosplayed as a WW1 German soldier, was British!

It didn't make any sense to her at all. But it meant that blondes were out of the question. However, this gang had the largest number of parahumans in the city, so she nixed non-white options as well. She didn't want to associate with them, but as a Rogue with no backing, she didn't want to be hate crimed by them, either, so she settled on fiery red hair and paler skin than she normally had, with enough freckles to make one think that they might be able to identify her even in her civilian guise if they ever saw her.

"Maeve is ambiguous enough to not be strictly speaking a goddess. Also, that isn't true. There is a member of the Protectorate named Melia. She's also one of the few Human Masters that is considered a hero. Besides, if I am to pick a name from mythology, I have to be sure it is a name that I won't outgrow," I told him, using all the same arguments that had worked with dad.

He seemed amused, "Melia? Nymphs aren't considered proper goddesses."

"Neither are fairies," I countered, which caused him to consider that and then shrug.

He then rolled his fingers along the conference room, "So what are your powers? If you are worried about a pre-emptive kill order, could I be in the presence of a bio tinker? I need some proof you are a parahuman and not just wasting my time, too, before we talk any further."

Taylor nodded and pulled out a small round container from her purse. It looked like the kind of container you would get if you bought a high-class blemish or colour correction cream cosmetic, and in fact, that was where she had got the container, from amongst Other Mom's things. Dad, the hopeless sentimentalist that he was, had not thrown any of it out.

She slid it across the table, and Quinn looked at it oddly, "What is this? Makeup?"

She shook her head, "No. It's a regenerative dermal treatment, but you can put it on like makeup. Try it on the scar on your face."

He seemed hesitant, "You want me to put an untested Tinkertech compound on my face?"

She nodded, "Yes. Don't worry; if I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn't need to use Tinkertech. Merely dissolving rattlesnake venom in dimethyl sulfoxide would allow it to be absorbed by the skin would be enough. Similar to the way nicotine patches work. I assure you of the safety and efficacy of this cream, though." She thought for a moment and then pulled something else out of her bag and slid it across the table as well. It was an individually packed acetone-based cosmetic remover. "Use this first if you are wearing any cosmetics."

Taylor gazed at him as he sat there, considering throwing her out of his office if she was correct in her guess about facial expressions. "You know what? Fine. But I have to tell you that if this kills me, makes me wish it killed me, or Masters me, you won't make it out of the building before the Protectorate shows up. A junior associate is watching this meeting from the next room on CCTV, and if she sees something like that, she has a button she is supposed to press. These precautions are necessary when starting a relationship with potential supervillains."

As he cleaned that side of his face with the makeup remover towelette, Taylor said, "Like I said, I'm not a supervillain, but I understand that you have contingencies when meeting with any parahuman."

He sighed and unscrewed the top of the round container, and peered at the white cream within. It really did look like a cosmetic, and that was intentional on Taylor's part as she felt it was likely that she could sell it as one. The regenerative aspects of this treatment would remove wrinkles permanently, after all. He stuck his finger in, getting a generous amount of the cream on it and carefully smeared it across the scar that ran across almost the entire length of his cheek.

In Taylor's expert opinion, it was a burn scar and an unusual one, as if someone had a superheated finger and casually swiped it across his cheek. That might, in fact, be what happened, given his experience with supervillains.

After he put it on, using a mirror hanging on the wall to make sure it covered everything, he asked, "Like this?"

She nodded, "I do have to warn you that it is quite painful when it starts taking effect, but the pain should pass within fifteen seconds. I'm still working on a method to include a useful local anaesthetic, but it is kind of difficult when the new tissue forcefully integrates itself with the nervous system."

His mouth hung open in shock, and then he said, "Wait... what?" Then he groaned, closing his eyes tightly as she could see the cream repairing the scar on his face in real-time. She had been expecting a girlish shriek from this man, which was why she warned him so that his associate watching wouldn't freak out and press whatever button that might or might not summon Protectorate heroes. But she supposed you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, and this man definitely had an inner strength to him.

Finally, he opened his eyes and stared daggers at her, his voice as cold as ice, "You could have warned me of that ahead of time, you bitch. That was exceptionally painful."

"I tried that with my dad, but it caused him to be exceptionally resistant to using it," she told him reasonably. He still glared at her for a moment before he glanced at the mirror. None of the cream remained, and neither did his scar. All the cream absorbed into his skin, and when regeneration wasn't necessary, it would just act as a moisturiser.

He ignored my attempt at an excuse and just glanced at the mirror, looking surprised. She slid a small cosmetic compact across the table, which caused him to blink before he recognised it. Grabbing it, he opened it to use the mirror to get a better look at his face, "This is amazing. I agree to take you on as a client. You don't even have to give me the symbolic cash payment, this is definitely something of value, and I take it in lieu of your first retainer payment. Now that we're attorney and client, please tell me as much as you can about how your power works, and what you have concerns about. What is this made of anyway? Why did my face hurt like hell and my finger only tingled?"

She nodded, satisfied. "Humanised and modified tissue from a gecko, amongst other things." She was about to start explaining her power, at least as much as she planned to disclose, but he interrupted her, looking slightly upset.

"Wait, you ground up a poor gecko to make this stuff?" he asked, dismayed.

She blinked at him several times but didn't judge him. It was weird when a person's sentimentalities would show up. She got the impression he wouldn't care at all if she admitted to murder but was upset at a gecko. She asked, "Would it make you feel better if you knew it was already very old, had lived a long life, was terminally ill and felt no pain?" She actually just pulled a tail off. She didn't need to use a lot of tissue for this cream.

The gecko itself survived to grow another one, even if it was furiously angry at her for the affront, but she felt like messing with him now. She coughed delicately into her hand, "I intend to use clone tissue in the future, but I don't quite have the laboratory I wished I had. That is one of the reasons I am here."

After that, she explained, in broad strokes, most of her power, emphasising that, yes, she was a bio-tinker but also the best physician on the planet. Also, how she wanted to leverage this not only to make money but to stay out of the Birdcage and, on the good side, as much as possible with the authorities.

He looked intrigued, but asked, "Can you create anything self-replicating?"

She nodded, "Yes, of course. But I am capable of lying convincingly if it is better that I am not capable of that." Although her deck and OS weren't the best, she had performed upgrades on it, and it came with a lot of software. Software that allows one to lie fairly convincingly was pretty common in the corporate world, where pretty much everything anyone said was run through machine learning veracity software. Hers would generally fool real people and would definitely fool any kind of machine-based system if one existed.

"It would definitely be better if you were not capable of that; however... could anyone ever find out that you were lying through other methods?" he asked.

She thought about that for a moment before nodding, "Yes, probably. Through two methods." When he asked what methods, she hummed and said, "An expert in genetics and virology interviewing me would instantly realise I have enough expertise to create novel pathogenic viruses in the traditional manner, not really using Tinkertech at all. Second, some Thinkers might be able to figure the same out, especially if they have a precognition-type power."

He didn't catch what she had said there, or at least why it might be possibly indicative of something dangerous. She intended to have contingencies, both for situations where she was kidnapped in her civilian guise as well as if the government enacted a kill order on her even though she hadn't done anything yet.

The first contingency wouldn't have that large of a body count, but the second one would. She didn't want to hurt anyone at all, but when precognition was a bitch. If you had something that amounted to strategic deterrence, the only way it would deter the government, who had access to many, many Thinkers, was if you were willing to use it. So, while she didn't have any insanely pathogenic viruses created yet, she would have them in the future, as insurance.

"People in power will eventually realise that you can do this, then. So lying would be suboptimal. A lot about a parahuman is based on their trustworthiness. So, that means that there is a very good chance the authorities will eventually get a pre-signed kill order for you, same as Blasto. The only way to avoid that is joining the Protectorate itself," he told her musingly, "We're not really a PR firm, you realise. It sounds like you want our assistance in as much a PR aspect as a legal one."

She shrugged, ignoring the fact that he assumed she was of age. She was already one-hundred-and-seventy-seven centimetres tall, and she picked the features of her disguise to give the impression of an adult in their early twenties, too. "That's fine, so long as they're not tempted to enact it when I haven't done anything to warrant it. We will emphasise my proficiency as a doctor rather than as a bio-tinker, I think. By the time my expertise in the latter becomes well known, I intend to have a very positive reputation. I also want your help in acquiring funds to expand my research." That was one of the main reasons she was here. She didn't know how to sell things like the cream she made, or her clinical services, without making a mess of it.

He glanced down at the container of cream he had used as if he was reading her mind and nodded, "Yes, I think you should not mention your bio-tinker abilities at all to the public. You'll likely have to tell the PRT, though, but you can be vague. In fact, you shouldn't ever use that phrase. Medical tinker, that sounds better if you're pushed, as it seems to imply what you can build are only medical tools to help you as a doctor. What can you treat or cure?"

"Pretty much anything except the destruction of the brain. Some treatments I might not be able to do because I don't have the funds to acquire the materials necessary to construct the medical equipment I need to carry them out, though," she said confidently.

He nodded, "There are a lot of people who wish that Panacea charged a fee. Not only does she not charge, but she only generally sees very acute cases. People that are seriously ill but not actively dying she doesn't generally have the time to see. Plus, she is completely useless about illnesses in the brain. There are a lot of those types of people that have a lot of money." He paused and asked, "Cancer?"

"I could do most types of cancer right now, but a really complicated case where it metastasised all throughout the body might need to wait until I can get a lot of equipment I need," she told him, "I also intend to volunteer for the next Endbringer attack, as a medical specialist. So, I'm not sure what I need to do to get certified by the PRT to provide medical treatment."

He looked askance that anyone would volunteer for that, but then paused and nodded, "That's actually a good idea, now that I think about it. Especially if you're not going to join the Protectorate. It will definitely help your reputation. There is a process that is involved in power testing, and it is one I already helped a couple of parahumans go through. Uber can be an excellent doctor or surgeon using his Thinker power, and I helped him get credentialed. Then later Victor found out, and I helped him as well."

Taylor pursed her lips, "You helped the Empire capes?"

He shrugged, "Their money spends just like anyone else's does." She was right; he would have made an excellent Corpo in Night City. He continued, "But the important part is I already know how to accomplish this, and should be able to do so pretty rapidly, which is important. You'll need to do it soon if you intend to go to the Endbringer fight. The last one was two months ago, so the next will probably be in March or late February. Hopefully, far away from here." He knocked on the wooden table for emphasis.

He smiled, "At the same time, how fast can you make some more of this cream? Hopefully, without murdering any geckos."

"Oh, not too long, I suppose. Did I tell you that it removes wrinkles? Forever?" she asked him, smiling.

He just grinned, "We just need to discuss the most important part, then... my fee."

Taylor was glad that she didn't just find a criminal lawyer, but a criminal lawyer.