I Want Peking Duck!

It was a rainy night in the big city, the rain falling down in sheets onto my form-fitting hydrophobic bodysleeve. Over a secure net connection, I told my partner in crime, "Don't worry, the security here is a joke. Only motion detectors and maybe a laser grid. I'll be in and out."

Her face popped up on the corner of the vision, the attractive female netrunner smiling sultrily, "Well, get to it then, toots. We have to have the data tap in place before the target comes home in the morning." The target was the leader of an international terrorist organisation called the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and we were being paid to secure proof that this terrorist group was colluding with a local corporation.

Eyes rolling, I triggered my stealth systems and vanished from sight, running gracefully through the open area right before the tall glass of the Corporate tower. Leaping off the ground and spinning through the air, I hit the side of the building, using suction cups attached to my hands and feet to quickly scale several floors. Once I got to the correct floor, I hung precariously from the glass as I took a small object from my belt and attached it to one of the suction cups. The device featured a telescoping attachment which I pulled out to its full length, the whole construction looking like the spoke from a bicycle, absent the wheel.

Pressing a button on the device caused a visible bright red laser to strike the glass face with a hiss as I rotated the device in a full three hundred and sixty degrees around the suction cup, slicing out a large circle of glass. After the glass section was free, I deactivated the device and replaced it on my belt, then lifted the entire section of glass out of the hole before leaping through it, carefully bringing the section of glass inside the building with me and setting it aside. I had to align the circle of glass carefully while I was in mid-air so that it would fit through the hole, but it was not at all difficult.

"I'm in," I tell her across our tacnet theatrically.

Her face nods in the corner of my screen, "Okay, take the third left, right, left, left; then the next right will be the fibre optic junction."

I dart down through the corridors as directed until I arrive at a nondescript door. I say, obviously, "It doesn't look like much."

"Maybe not, but all data traffic in and out of their data fortress goes through this junction. The code should be 8-2-4-5-8-9-9-9," my netrunner said, which caused me to nod and quickly enter the code on the pin pad before opening the door.

The next room was large and filled with humming computers and the noise of heavy-duty HVAC cooling systems. The entryway was guarded by several dozen lasers that appeared to move up and down and left to right, changing angles and position seemingly randomly. Deactivating my stealth system as I felt I would need to see my body for this, I then took a few moments to limber up. I used the grace of a ballerina to bend in and out of the lasers, a leap here, bending entirely backwards there and missing each laser beam by centimetres. I almost made it through, but my prodigiously sized breasts managed to occlude the last beam, and instantly an audible klaxon started blaring.

"Shit! You've done it now," my partner said.

I sighed, shaking my head and pulling out my pistol in one hand and monowire in the other, "Oh boy, here I go killin' again…." I was going to need a cool, refreshing Nicola Classic after this—

I suddenly found myself back in the AV-4's cabin listening to an altogether different-sounding klaxon. "PLATINUM. SCRAMBLE. SCRAMBLE. SCRAMBLE."

I sighed and verified that the braindance had stopped so that I could resume where I had left off. This was episode six, and I had been consuming this series religiously since I discovered it a few months ago. They came out with one episode a month, and although it was cheesy in the extreme in some respects, and I usually had to fast forward through at least one sex scene, usually of the lesbian persuasion, per episode, it was still very entertaining.

I didn't know why I liked it. Half the time, the protagonist got caught in the act and had to use her feminine wiles or sheer luck to get out of the situations she got herself in. The rest of the time, she used implausible combat abilities, which I found very amusing. In the last episode, she diced an aircar into pieces with her monowire while she was inside it several hundred metres in the air. It would be really nice if that were possible, and it was cinematic as hell to have her barely manage to save herself in the free-fall afterwards, but it was implausible. But it was that very implausibility that made it so hilarious.

Rather than the usual of throwing us off our perch, the aircraft went to maximum power and started a high-speed high-rate climb out to the south. That was a sign the patient wasn't in the city.

I pulled up the data on the patient. Not surprisingly, it was a trauma. Surprisingly, it was on the edge of the Badlands, as I was guessing. We didn't often pick up Platinum clients out there -- they were rich enough not to need to leave our normal service volume. In this case, though, the client was a mid-level Biotechnica executive. He was high enough up the ladder that he had a Platinum membership but low enough that he still had to go to dangerous places; in this case, he was near the Biotechnica Flats but technically outside the border of the city. They were probably looking at areas of expansion or making examples of poorly performing employees or some other nonsense.

I glanced at the Senior I was working with today, and he was already frowning. The beacon was still transmitting, but the bio-monitor was not providing any updates after the initial ping for widespread penetrating or kinetic trauma, which wasn't a good sign. I wasn't working with Dr Anno today and probably wouldn't for a few months. Although I did work his normal schedule, he was working alongside a new hire as he did with me in the past.

Mercy came on our net, "We're expecting heavy combat on this run, so we're probably going to stay back and spray everything that moves with the Gatlings before setting down. Pilots think it is Nomads, but we can already see some burning vehicles and heavy machine-gun fire from here; twenty-five klicks out on the infrared, and that is bullshit."

Mr Mercy, as the Senior Security Specialist, was in command theoretically until we made patient contact; although the pilot was in command of the aircraft, he basically did and went where Mr Mercy told him to go, which was why the Senior Security Specialist was often tied with the Senior Med Techie as the highest paid employee on the AV, and the only way you could be qualified for that job was if you had significant leadership experience in actual military forces, with a focus on small unit tactics. For example, Mr Mercy was a former Captain in the NUSA Special Forces, as Alt-Danny himself had been.

I switched to the stream of the long-range zoom FLIR pod and frowned as I, sure enough, saw heavy machine guns and light cannon fire back and forth between vehicles, some of which were fleeing while others were pursuing. Triggering the pilot's net, I could hear their discussion.

"Doesn't look like Nomads to me, Bill," said the co-pilot and gunner wryly.

The pilot sighed, "Yeah, yeah, don't bust my balls. Alright, fence in, gadget on."

The co-pilot shifted to an all-business tone, "Targetting radar online, we have confirmed Biotechnica IFF. New picture, range one niner, two groups azimuth two-zero-fife, track south southeast, south group azimuth two one niner, track southwest. Gadget is calling the first group three ATOMs, not BMPs, as I thought, and the second group a mix of SUVs and technicals, radiating Biotechnica IFF. Groups will merge soon."

"Label first group hostile, second group friendly, set gates, max power," the pilot said a lot more calmly than I was feeling. Then he said formally, "You are cleared hot on the IFVs."

One would think that as a passenger in the back of the AV, I would have felt it when they launched actual missiles, but the missiles we used were pretty small. I felt it much more when the pilot went full throttle and started diving, with the airframe shaking and all of the turbines screaming loudly.

The AGM Kite was not technically an anti-tank missile, although it could get mission kills sometimes from what I read online, but it was designed to wreck SPAGs and other small, lightly armoured targets, as well as headquarters elements. The reason Trauma Team used it, other than the fact that it was relatively cheap, was that it had excellent guidance and minimal collateral damage. You could stand just a few metres away from one if it hit a vehicle, and the Kite's explosion wouldn't injure you -- although secondary explosions might.

At the same time, I saw three rockets separate from our aircraft on the infrared feed. I heard the co-pilot say dispassionately, "Rifle, ATOM times three. Spinning up the Gancz now, we can skip the high-speed pass with the gun, we probably can't defeat the armour with it, but let's swing around in front in case they have any infantry, we can hose them down, or they can cook; their choice. Range now zero niner, Kite terminal guidance starts in one zero seconds."

The pilot-in-command said, "Agreed," and just a short time later, I saw the three little specks that had been the missiles we fired radically climb into the air and then fall down almost vertically, each one striking the top of one of the armoured vehicles. The explosion was fairly subdued, but almost immediately, fires started on all of the vehicles, billowing out of the hole the missile had made. The missiles didn't strike them soon enough to save one of the SUVs, which was demolished by the thin cannon each of the armoured vehicles had just before the missile impacted, but six survivors kept fleeing to the south.

The engines were pulled back to almost idle, and we were pushed into our seats by positive G-forces as well as centrifugal force as I saw us circle the downed infantry fighting vehicles at high speed. Sure enough, one of the large doors opened, and I was aghast as the pilots just sprayed the miniguns into the crew compartment of the vehicle. I mean, that was certainly... effective, if a bit ghastly. I didn't think those guys were really a threat anymore, but I supposed the guys up front didn't want to be surprised while we were working on the patients after we caught up with the fleeing Biotechnica vehicles. We were the first AV on the scene, but I assumed there were multiple subscribers on the ground, even if only one of them was a Platinum member.

One other vehicle got the same treatment, but when we dipped to the south and the engines spooled up to their max power again, I stopped monitoring their feed and started getting ready to get out. Mr Mercy had us double-check our weapons, and then we sat down, in front of a group of about six SUVs, with Biotechnica security forces spilling out with guns pointed in every direction except ours.

Mr Mercy guided the Senior and me over to the vehicle that had our subscriber in it, and we stopped just short of it. I tilted my armoured helmet to the side, and Mr Mercy said over the intercom, "Well, that's your problem right there..."

Our client was missing his head and most of his upper torso. He must have gotten shot by one of those autocannons on those wheeled armoured vehicles. I assumed while he had disembarked from his convoy, and I couldn't help but be impressed by the marksmanship with the autocannon by the crews of those armoured vehicles we had just killed.

I was surprised that they had brought his body with them, but then I realised they probably knew we were responding, and if they had left it on the ground where he got hit, we would have just gone there. By taking it with them, they, in a way, forced us to defend them in their escape. Smart.

Still, I tried hard not to snicker at Mr Mercy's quip and instead stared disapprovingly at the giant of a man, who shrugged and said, "Alright. The client is DoA, and if the clinicians pronounce him, we will shift to secondary clients. We have two gold and three silvers. Other AVs are five mikes out."

I glanced at the Senior, as it was technically his job to pronounce death in a client; he sighed and said, "Time of death was... a lot sooner than now, but let's say 2315 Zulu."

Our systems were monitored for phrases like that, and the beacon we were tracking automatically shifted to the gold subscriber with the most acute injuries, and I turned to look at a man in a nice suit that was missing his left arm from the elbow down. You'd think that he or someone else would have applied a tourniquet or something and not just stood there bleeding to death. Well, that was why we were here, I supposed. This was going to be a milk run from here on out, at least. Small mercies.

---xxxxxx---

Anytime a client died on a run, especially when it was a Platinum subscriber, there was automatically a peer review by other Med Techies chaired by one of our local medical directors. It was clear that this time was pro forma, as the medical director asked on the conference call wryly, "So there's nothing you could have done?"

The Senior I was working with, who was a doctor in his own right, just flipped the woman off, which got everyone chuckling. She said, "We'll record that down as a no, then. Well, as long as we're here, let's pull up the gentleman you did transport. Now, Clincian Hebert, if you could, why don't you walk us through your thoughts when you made initial patient contact..."

Internally, I groaned but went along with it. I hated, absolutely despised, being the focus on peer reviews because some of what I occasionally did to save a patient's life was outside the official Trauma Team Patient Care Guidelines, which got me dinged in the peer review -- however, nobody could really argue with my results. I hadn't had one patient die that wasn't, basically, dead already.

It made me spend hours and hours every week devouring medical journal articles, using my Trauma Team credentials to get free access to most of them, just so that I could have ammunition to explain why I occasionally went outside the PCGs. I even got a couple of the PCGs changed as a result of what I have done since what I had done had such superior outcomes for the patients in those particular situations. It wasn't that I was learning new things, although occasionally I did, which always caused me to feel a flush of pleasure; the primary reason I was doing it was to understand what was considered acceptable medical practice in this world.

My medical encyclopaedia was, I thought, far broader than state of the art in Brockton Bay, as I found a bunch of things that were considered state of the art here to be considered by my medical sense as the equivalent of using leeches, however randomly I would find something new that delighted it. So I constantly had to hold back, utilising less effective medicine for conditions simply because it wasn't discovered yet. If I just went with what was natural to me, I would have been discovered a year ago or more; I had to constrain my patient care to at least what was known to science here if it couldn't be obfuscated somehow.

As such, despite my distaste for the peer review process everything went smoothly.

—-xxxxxx—-

On my next day off, I had a contract that was going to take most of the first part of the day, so I invited Gloria to work in my clinic for the whole day, and since our days off, for once, aligned, she happily agreed. Plus, I got to see David, who was shooting up like a weed.

"How is kindergarten, David?" I asked the boy, who scowled.

He shook his head, "It be stupid, Auntie Taylor. The games are kind of fun, but the other kids don't even know their letters yet." He had the voice of a child who had a very hard life, according to him. I kind of liked that he called me Auntie, and he had been managing to say my full name for a while now, although I kind of missed the days he called me "Tayr." That had been adorable while it lasted.

"It is stupid. The present subjunctive is not the correct tense for that verb," I corrected him automatically, as I generally did whenever he said something that used incorrect grammar.

The little shit rolled his eyes, I saw him do it right in front of me, then he ran off to watch television or play video games in my private area, and I let him go.

Thinking about what he said, I wasn't entirely sure they would teach them their letters at all.

The current state of pedagogy seemed to indicate that reading was an arcane skill with universal optical character recognition, plus with most optics providing universal speech-to-text providing subtitles caused motivated people to teach themselves to read basically by the time they were fifteen. So, only ten years past when they normally should have learned that skill. As a child of an English Professor who was reading, even if they were simple, books before I ever went to Kindergarten, this was unacceptable.

Language was the kernel of sapience, I thought. It was only by developing language that children developed consciousness. Both my own opinion and my medical sense agreed with this assesment. Language was what separated a human from, say, a clever orangutan or dolphin. Literacy wasn't as huge a developmental milestone as verbal language skills in children were, but still, postponing literacy in children would only stunt their cognitive development, I felt.

It wasn't a good idea unless your goal was to have the average person end up maybe five per cent dumber than rich children who got an actual education. Five per cent didn't sound like a lot, but on the tail ends of a standard distribution, it would tend to make most real world-changing geniuses be from a certain and similar social stratum. Perhaps I was a conspiracy theorist, but I thought that this might be intentional. It wasn't like people didn't know the same things I did. The science of cognitive development in children was pretty well studied in this world.

Gloria was humming as she set up the clinic to her personal preferences. She had bought all of my old equipment, but for some reason, she couldn't find an affordable commercial property in her Megabuilding, but she was still making a fair bit of money as a Med Techie that would make house calls. She, like me, didn't really discriminate and would treat most sane gang members so long as she had an agreement with that particular gang that she wouldn't be stiffed or turned into a stiff for her trouble. Mostly it was 6th Street and the Valetino's that were near enough distance that she occasionally got called by them.

A call-out med techie was a pretty interesting niche, I thought. Still, she tended to make more money when she worked here in Japantown. Her idea had the potential to make much, much more than even I did, but it would only be possible if she got additional training and the rich people started hiring her.

"So, you're sure you're not interested in buying my car?" I asked her. I had offered it to her when she took me out into the wastes to pick it up in her dinky little Galena. Honestly, I would have felt a little nervous about driving very far in the desert in that thing, and I carefully followed her back to the town instead of going on ahead, just in case.

She sighed, "I'd like to, but I'm saving up to pay for my Paramedic license. NC Med will pay half the costs if I give them a two-year work-commitment, but that is still about twenty-five grand I have to put up myself. My little car is already paid off. I'm halfway there now. Plus, I want to get David into a better school. I'll have to drive my pile of junks till the wheels fall off."

I nodded. That made sense. I was actually a little surprised that my old workplace was willing to pay twenty-five grand for only a two-year commitment. I think they probably had trouble finding actual National Registry licensed paramedics at the salary that they paid. Still, Gloria had been looking a lot better recently, like she wasn't on edge any more. I suspected that she had been living close to pay-check to pay-check before. Even when we were partners, just giving her one of my sleep inducers had helped wonders, although I had to provide a little bit of maintenance every six months.

I had a new version now after researching a bunch into the way BDs affected the brain, and I thought the new version I was going to build might only require maintenance from me annually or perhaps even less often.

Gloria hadn't changed her mind about wanting to get David into corporate schools, despite me explaining bluntly the challenges he might face as a first-generation corporate employee after graduation. I would try to prepare him, but educating him on what he could expect would essentially end his childhood. I didn't want to teach him too early to expect betrayal by those who claimed to be his friends and peers just yet. I didn't even trust my teammates at Trauma Team, and they had one of the best reputations there was.

The part of me that encompassed Alt-Taylor's memories suggested I wait until he got a schoolyard enemy, especially if such an enemy got the better of him first. It would also teach him that there was a huge difference between intelligence and cunning and that he shouldn't underestimate anyone, even those he was sure he was more intelligent than. He would need both traits to survive what his mom seemed to want from him, but perhaps he would follow her footsteps into the medical field -- things were a little less cut-throat in that sector, mostly because doctors, despite their expertise, were simply highly-paid servants to those who were really in power. It was only really if you wanted to rise on the ladder beyond a simple highly-paid servant that the knives would come for you.

For example, I knew for a fact that Dr Anno wanted to become our next Medical Director. Right now, he didn't see me as a threat, but if I was a medical doctor with similar ambitions, well, it might get messy. He was a nice enough man, but by my Corporate background, he would see me as a threat if we were really peers.

I didn't think Gloria was making a wrong choice, particularly because I didn't know any better options that he could have. It was similar to a boy wanting to be a soldier or police officer, you didn't want to shatter the delusions about what exactly such a life would consist of when they were just five years old, but it still had to be done eventually.

"I've had a number of requests that your pharmacy stock certain chemicals that are mostly recreational in nature," Gloria mentioned absently as I gathered my own supplies.

I shook my head, "No, definitely not. I appreciate that our clients would trust us to ensure the purity of such a product, but I am not doing anything to step on the toes of the Tyger Claws. Recreational drugs are one of their largest profit-centres."

Still, I hummed, tilting my head to the side, "I know a few of the Tyger Claw dealers that sell exactly what they say on the tin; I'll leave you a couple of names that you could forward anyone who is insistent, but definitely try to discourage people from recreational drug use, and absolutely refuse to continue discussing it if they mention they want something like Lace or Glitter. There is no way to use those substances in anything that even resembles a healthy way."

Before I came to this world, I would never, not in my wildest dreams, ever think the words, "Have you considered something more healthy, like methamphetamine?" would come out of my mouth, but average everyday stimulants like most types of synthetic cocaine and amphetamines were nothing compared to some of the purpose designed recreational drugs in this world. Selling things like Glitter or Black Lace to the downtrodden occasionally had me fantasising about setting fire to the Tyger Claws and all gangs like them.

That said, Tyger Claws sold drugs across all demographics, and they had a lot of dealers that were more or less honest in what they sold, as they targeted a higher demographic. Still, they'd sell to anyone; it was just they were the type you had to have a referral to. You wouldn't come across them attempting to ply their wares on the street.

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.

"Thank you. This will help a lot. If you'll excuse me, I have to go beat our sys admin about the head and neck. He should have already been on top of this and had this recommendation for me after the last uhh.. incident," he told me in a friendly manner, but the way he popped his knuckles audibly and rotated his neck, limbering up, made me think he was actually being literal here.

I stood up as he did and said, "Of course. I'll send you the invoice. I run on a net30 billing schedule, of course." He waved that off, and we both exited his office, and I quickly departed Clouds before I had to hear some poor system administrator squeal as Mr Jin set upon him.

—-xxxxxx—-

Mrs Okada has rented out one of the private rooms at The Golden Duck for the meeting she asked me to attend, and I took that as a good sign. I quite liked this restaurant, after all.

The pretty Chinese girl acting as a hostess ushered me into a back room, and I was surprised to see Wakako already in attendance, along with a few of her gorillas. Given how valuable her time was, I was expecting to have to wait a significant time for her and had already planned on what to order.

"Taylor, Taylor come here and have a seat," she said with a grin. I did as she asked, although I wasn't too comfortable in the room she had picked. Although The Golden Duck was a Chinese restaurant, this was clearly a Japanese-themed room which wasn't that surprising given that we were deep in Japantown. I had to sit seiza-style on the floor on a cushion in front of the table, which made me feel both slightly uncomfortable as well as underdressed. It was a room for tea ceremony more than eating, but I didn't care and planned to eat the most of a whole Peking duck here, no matter how uncouth it seemed. I was hungry.

Still, I smiled, "I take it by how pleased you sound that your own investigations bore fruit?"

"Yes! Not that I doubted you for a second," she lied smoothly, for politeness' sake.

I chuckled and nodded, "What did you do to confirm that the drug worked? Did you get some MRSA cases from local hospitals, as I suggested?"

She shook her head, "No. That was a nice but naive idea. The miraculous cure of a number of hard cases would have been noticed. Instead, I decided on the opposite approach." She slid over a few actual Manila folders on the table and then, as I leafed through them, started to make tea.

Opposite approach? Wouldn't that be infecting known-healthy people and then trying to cure them? I nodded; sure enough, that was what she had done, and she had used a number of bacterial infections to do it, from staph to VD to...

I gaped like a fish, "A fucking bioweapon, Wakako?!" First of all, how did she get weaponised anthrax? Did I want to know? No, I probably did not.

She shrugged, looking not at all upset, "You said it could cure any bacterial infection. Sure, the MRSA was pretty impressive, but I needed something to knock the socks off my Biotechnica contact."

I supposed that definitely would. And although weaponised Anthrax here was a lot more dangerous than even the weaponised Anthrax of my previous world, it was still fairly difficult to spread bioweapon. It wasn't like a virus that could spread out of control even under careful bio-safety security controls; bacteria just didn't work that way.

I sighed, "Were there any problems with the microfauna replacement therapy?" There didn't seem to be based on their file, but not much was mentioned except a private doctor administered the therapy and monitored the patients during recovery.

"Not at all; that went as normal. And yes, I definitely paid all of these volunteers well, or rather we did since we're partners in this venture," she said smugly.

That was true; the profit split was after expenses. I'd no doubt see exactly how much she paid them when I looked at the books.

I sipped my tea and then said after a while, "I want a Peking duck; I'm hungry."