It took not much longer than 30 minutes before Wallace was driving me back to the fortress.

Dressing had eaten most of that and was a literal and figurative pain, followed by the release rituals of the clinic. At least I was thankful for the wheelchair, as walking was something of an inconvenience.

While I was being wheeled to the exit, one of Walker's men gave me an OPB stick and told me it contained the contact data I needed. At least something going right.

During the drive I was mentally going over my To-Do-List, unable to prioritize. I needed to begin the setup of the NADA, I needed to reinstall my board and I needed to set up my bioreactor. Somewhere, I had to squeeze in the training of this Mia, and if my guess was right I was in for a rather lengthy discussion with the others. Oh, and of course, I could not forget to use the contacts to get equipment. I originally planned to build my own toys.

Not just because I could disregard such pesky things as copyrights and patents, something commercial makers were strangely unwilling to do in my experience, but because with the NADA and my backdoors I could make instruments of a peerless quality and functionally. Sadly this option was not available at this moment. Knowing me, I would build them anyway but for the time being, I had to lower my expectations to commercial grade.

Hmm, maybe I could build the auto-surgeon myself. I would not need it for six weeks at the earliest. If I could get a good supply of raw materials… I would have to get the alias equipment before that. I hated that. Industrial fabbers were expensive. Not that money was really a concern for me, but I simply hated to waste it on something that would effectively stand in the corner and gather dust. With the chip fabber, the carbon extruder, and the winding machine I could get away with buying more or less hobby-grade equipment, so it should not be too expensive.

I had to force myself back onto the topics at hand. Priority.

I decided to shorten the discussion with the others considerably by playing the injury card. It should not be too hard. The bruises on my throat and the cast would be mostly self-explanatory and my voice was still pretty raspy.

Then I start with the NADA setup. Fortunately, most of that could be done by bots and for the few things I had to do myself, I could use a remote-controlled Android. I wistfully wished that Androids had the manual dexterity for implant work but they still lacked the processor capability for such fine control, and subsequently the builders left out the expensive as hell, muscle control systems for it, making remote control at this level also impossible. At the same time, I could reinstall my board, considering that I would be mostly sitting around and watching the bots work. I had just to make it clear to Mr. Wallace that I needed to be alone in that room, as I did not want notice of the NADA spread.

During the phases when neither the setup of the NADA nor the installation of my board demanded my interaction I could make a dent in the contact list. When the board was installed I would then dive into cyberspace and look around the clinic's net a bit closer and in much more detail.

Oh heck, somewhere in there I would have to talk to Mia. And of course, I would have to eat.

So much to do, so little time, but somehow I would muddle through. It was surprising to see the garage doors open for us, and after Wallace stopped the car I looked at him imploringly.

He gave a lopsided grin and shrugged his shoulders.

“Walker has arranged for Justin and me to be lodged here, and the Mute brought us a remote code for the garage.”

I was of two minds about that. On one hand, it was nice that they took care of the problem. On the other hand, they were quite trusting with the security of my property. I would have to talk to them, but no harm done. I could easily bind the code to the car, as that was only a small adaption of the security program.

I learned that getting out of the passenger seat of a car with a busted right hip and a broken right arm was much more interesting than getting in, not to mention quite a bit more painful, but in the end, I managed it. Wallace was fast at hand to offer help, but I got this stubborn idea that I wanted to do it on my own. In hindsight, it was a… suboptimal decision. I equally scorned the wheelchair that somehow had materialized, including an android to push it, although only for a couple of dozen steps. Then my leg gave out and I had to be kept upright by Wallace. The pain when I sat down made me hiss, and right there I decided that the wheelchair was not such a bad idea as I had thought.

A short time later we met the assembled group in the mess room. I managed to keep the discussion brief, claiming onerous time pressure, and promising to go into the details when I had more time available. I answered the salient points, that, yes I was sorry that I did not make it back to the talk on Monday, and I was equally sorry that I worried them by being attacked out of the blue, and no, I had no idea how to deal with Yokata Sayomi as I had scarcely the time to think about her. I explained that I bought the additional bots to clear all the junk out of the unused rooms combined with some major renovations. All that while eating another mostly tasteless sandwich accompanied by a soda.

I was half finished with my meal when the doorbell rang, and Natalie jumped up and ran towards the entrance, only to come back a few minutes later accompanying a young woman of Mediterranean ancestry that I guessed at early to mid-twenties. Apparently, Mia had made good time to come here, and if I read her expression right she was anything but happy about it.

She let herself fall into one of the chairs with a huff and glowered at all of us for a moment, before beginning to talk.

“Ok, I am here. So now can somebody please tell me why Doctor Schaeffer more or less ordered me to come here?”

If I didn’t know it better I would have guessed that the reaction was choreographed in the silent way everybody including Wallace turned their gaze to me.

I sighed and placed the remains of my sandwich on the plate.

“I don’t know what Doc Schaeffer told you, but essentially you are here to serve as the substitute for my right arm for a couple of weeks,” I said as I held up my right arm to show the cast.

“I have a task that requires two hands, and obviously I have a slight problem for the time being. Seeing that the task is basically saving Mr. Walker, it is time-critical and something an implant surgeon has an exigent need to know, Doc Schaeffer offered your services.”

Her expression moved from annoyance to bewildered and finally scorn while I talked.

Then a derisive sneer marred her face.

“Oh please. As if a kid like you could know anything about cyberware. Now, how about you let us grownups talk?”

On one hand, I had expected something like this, but on the other hand, what the frick? That was Doc Schaeffer’s hand-picked implant surgeon? Somebody really dropped the ball here. I slowly looked at the others present and stopped at Wallace.

“I assume that this exemplifies the typical reaction I can expect here in New York, right?”

At his silent nod, I pinched the bridge of my nose and then turned my attention back to Mia.

“You are aware that you are quite discourteous in collusion with ignorant, right? I can understand that you are a bit peeved that you have been ordered here, but as none of the people in this room are responsible it is not appropriate behavior to vent your aggravation on us. Your mother should have taught you better than that. Also, you make assumptions at face value, which of course hints at lazy thinking and more or less proves your ignorance. Do you wish to leave and tell Doc Schaeffer that you decline the work or do you want to start over?”

Again her face moved through emotions. Anger followed by indignation, then mortification, obstinacy, and in the end a bit of fear.

“I… I can’t go. Doctor Schaeffer has done so much for my family and me. I can’t disappoint him.”

I continued to silently look at her for a few moments longer, and she visibly gulped.

“All right, I don’t actually want to harm you, but please keep it polite. What you are here for is to disassemble a Dworak Pulse III cyber heart so that I can process the parts. I will give you the step-by-step for the disassembling, but it will need an exceedingly steady hand and a keen eye to do it without damaging the heart. In exchange, I will give you the virtual lectures from the University of Washington: Seattle for implant surgery and I will help you with learning it.”

For a handful of seconds, she looked at me doubtfully, before she answered.

“All I have to do is take this Pulse III apart, and nothing else?”

“Nope, nothing else, but if that is all you do you will hardly learn anything. I would advise you to at least watch the lectures and read the accompanying literature, even if it is hard to digest.”

So she could smile, I had my doubts about that.

“Yes, I think I can understand that requirement to learn something. So when do I begin?”

It was my turn to smile.

“As soon as we get the heart, or rather hearts as I want to make sure there is no problem later on.”

Meanwhile, I had finished my meal, and I began asking some important questions.

“Now, that could be important, but are you jacked?”

Her expression answered my question before she even opened her mouth.

“What do you mean by ‘jacked’?”

“That is the common jargon for having one or more data ports implanted. And obviously, you aren’t. You should invest some time to learn street lingo by the way, it will help you immensely when you are a cybutcher yourself.”

Again I was met by an apparent lack of comprehension, and I raised an eyebrow before answering the unasked question.

“Cybutcher is said street lingo for a cyber surgeon. I assume it was a try at being funny, merging the words cyber and butcher, but while it is common parlance, I have a distinct dislike for this expression.”

Understanding bloomed in her face, and she stammered a nonsensical answer.

“Well, the jack is out, so do you have at least a diadem? If not, we should get you one pronto.”

She shook her head obviously bewildered.

“No… I never needed a diadem, not to mention a cyber port. Why do you think I need it?”

I moved my attention to Marc.

“And you wonder why the Commonwealth is so much further ahead technically?”

I focused back on Mia.

“Cyberspace is accelerated virtual reality. A diadem makes it possible to get compression of up to 4:1. That means for every hour of real-time you spend in full compression cyberspace your mind spends four hours doing whatever you are doing. Watching lectures for example, or doing the homework, or reading.”

Mia nodded, but Marc threw in a question.

“What the hell is a diadem?”

“A neuronal connector net. Most of it vanishes in the hair most people have, only the brow part is visible normally, and that looks just like a nice little princess diadem.”

“And you got one? That would fit you perfectly, little princess.”

I was seriously questioning letting him stay at this moment, but I gritted my teeth in frustration and answered as calmly as I could.

“Every student in the commonwealth gets a diadem in third grade. The curriculum of pure schools is AFAIK much more comprehensive than what you get here, so we spend the equivalent of roughly 12 school years until the end of seventh grade. Then college, and on average, we compress eight to ten years of an advanced degree into two years. I was a little bit faster, and that is why I made my Ph.D. in computer science at 15.”

Marc wanted to say something but Darren hit him in the shoulder. I would have to do something nice for Darren later. Mia on the other hand was very thoughtful.

“So, if a diadem can do that, why would I need a… jack?” The last word was pretty tentative.

“The diadem has pretty low bandwidth, abysmal resolution, and limited mod options. A jack on the other hand is much more… versatile. With the much higher bandwidth, roughly three orders of magnitude higher, the right mods, and of course the right console or board you get a higher compression depending also on your intelligence. The official record is a bit below 50:1, or a bit over two days per hour. Don’t expect that though, as it was a tuned highly experimental board, a super genius with an IQ above 300, and a highly adapted software suit. 20:1 is much more realistic if you get a good implant and a reasonable board. The material I will give you will contain nearly 3000 hours of material. If you use a tablet or anything else externally you will have to spend all 3000 hours, if you use a diadem, you have to spend nearly 750 hours in real-time, and with the jack and board, I talked about, 150 hours real-time. And there is way less fatigue in cyberspace so you can actually work through it. I would be surprised if you could get eight hours of work a day in real-time in, but let’s assume that. You can either spend one and a half years learning the material via smart goggles or tablet or whatever, four and a half months with a diadem, or three and a half weeks via a jack. Also with the diadem or the jack, you will be able to work the eight hours real-time.”

I had many shocked faces to look into, most of all probably Mia.

“That… that is brilliant. Why the hell don’t they do that here?”

I could only shrug.

“How the heck should I know? From what I know it could be that you still have this dreadful teachers union that has managed to destroy education for centuries now. If the students only have to have seven years of schooling instead of 12-13 then you obviously need fewer teachers. And considering that the computer does almost all of the work in the Commonwealth you need way less. Wouldn’t do for the union to allow their almighty importance to wane, would it? Now the important question, do want me to order a diadem for you or not? Or do you want to run to the next cyber surgeon to get jacks?”

“Uhm, jacks are pretty risky aren’t they? I mean I don’t want to have CRS.”

I nodded at that.

“Yeah, CRS with neural implants is… let’s say bad and keep it at that. That was the primary reason for me to develop the biosheathing. If that is your only reason to not get one then we will implant one into you as soon as we can make you one.”

Oh wow, she was pretty fast to anger.

“Did you not listen, I said I don’t want to have fucking CRS!”

I was very thankful that I managed to reboot my audio implants; otherwise, I would have been the victim of severe pain in my ears right now. From the way the others grimaced and massaged their ears I was not the only one impressed with Mia’s volume right now. But I had to smile anyway, only to hold up my hand when she drew a new batch of air.

“Please, give me some credit. Why do you think the modification of a cybernetic heart for Mr. Walker is so time-pressing that it can’t wait for my arm to be healed? I have developed a method to prevent CRS, and from all my tests and the, admittedly few customers, it is more or less absolute, as so far nobody had the implant attacked by CRS.

Mr. Walker is dying of CRS right now, as it attacks his heart at this moment.

We have, with only a little luck, the six weeks it takes me to convert the most simple cyber heart out there, the Pulse III so we can use it as a replacement. If we had to wait for my arm to heal it would take a miracle.

But as soon as we have done that we can begin making a data port implant for you. A single jack with only the necessary periphery to make it usable won’t cost more than a couple of hundred bucks, even with the adaption.

The jack will be very useful for you anyway, as you can control the autodocs with it in much more precise fine detail. Seriously, the best you can be as a cyber surgeon without a jack is mediocre.”

That took the wind out of her sails, and she slumped back down into her chair.

“You… you have beaten CRS?”

To make it short, for the fourth time in two days I explained my biosheathing. For the fourth time, I had a captive audience. I was contemplating a second sandwich but decided against it, instead, I let the android push me to my room, to change my clothes. I learned fast that undressing was even harder with an arm in a cast than dressing, so I ended with having the android help me. Despite it being a machine it felt creepy to have a male figure help me, but I did not think that ordering a gynoid would be so much better. At least the work clothes were mostly pretty loose. Unfortunately ‘mostly’ excluded my chest in this instance, as the shirt that was very comfortable and at best created a hint of my former A+ sized breasts was now practically painted onto my newly improved C+ verging on D-sized bust.

It took me a few minutes to suppress the urge to play with Frankel right this minute but decided that as he liked big breasts that much I would find a way to give him his own set to play with as soon as I could find the time for it.