Later that day, six additional men came to bolster our defenses, and as promised brought gifts of ammunition and carbon. Mark also changed the loadout of the security bots to lethal weaponry.

I managed to finish the coursework of the second semester and was completely fed up with the topic, not to mention mentally exhausted. It was not really that it was hard, but I was at best marginally interested in biology.

There was no helping it though, either I learned to be my own bioengineer or find a competent bioengineer I could trust, and sadly while I could get one or the other there was a dearth lack of the combination in the potential candidates, I had so far looked into.

The problem was that essentially all competent bioengineers were either working for a government or a megacorp or remained underground to prevent being invited to work for one of the two, much like I did with my nanoengineering.

My tentative probes into the dark web had not helped in any way, and so I was forced to do it myself.

It did help that I had nothing else pressing to do.

Over the night the fabber churned out the rail guns and the bots set them up as Mark had planned it. I must say, I was seriously surprised by Mark. Favorably so. He had taken the lead in this matter and made a very convincing argument and to top that he had more or less completely cut off the arguments against me.

If I would not be careful, I might even begin to like the guy. A little at least. A strong point in his favor was that he and Mia came close to each other, and wonder over wonder, he managed somehow not to come on too strong.

I wished him luck in that endeavor.

When I woke up that morning, I was happy that my hip was without pain. I had seriously enough of the wheelchair.

After breakfast, I briefly looked at the progress the arming up had made, and we were in the process of building the last rounds. In a couple of hours, the fabber would begin with the nano fab.

Despite my earlier ideas, I decided to keep it with carbon instead of steel as we had enough of the stuff after Walker’s men brought some.

I was considering using the full seed stock from the get-go but decided against it. We had way too many people here who would tell Mr. Walker about that, to do that practically and it was not as if I desperately needed the nano fab today.

With my real-world chores done I dove into cyberspace.

My daily canvassing of the labs and universities brought nothing new, not that I honestly expected something. But I got a surprise when I entered the Abyss. No less than 26 messages awaited my attention.

25 of them were essentially the same message with slightly different wording from different hackers.

Somebody had contracted them to investigate some sound files for signs of forgery. It was specially asked about the virtuous deep fake.

In the Abyss many people knew that Spectre had once a case like this and managed to identify the fake, and if Spectre had the utility to do the investigation, then Seraphim had written it. So, they all wanted to buy the utility from me.

Message number 26 was different though. It was from one of the other brokers and was in the vein that some potential customer wanted to hire Spectre at any price despite the assurance that he was not taking any jobs at this time.

The other brokers were aware that I had the best connection to him and asked if I could convince him to make an exception.

The offered amount was naturally obscene as it was usual for one of the top ten hackers in the world, but nothing exceptional for Spectre.

Then I noticed who was wanting to hire him, and realized, that could become ugly. With a heavy heart, I made a call to the customer.

Giorgio Berardino was certainly surprised to see me on the com, but he caught himself quickly.

“You! I assume you got my com number when you broke into my network?”

“Sorry, sir, but no. I got your com number when you tried to hire Spectre. I mentioned that I had run the data through a supercomputer, I think?”

He nodded, somewhat disgruntled.

“You see, the supercomputer in question is Spectre’s. I am one of his brokers and his tech support. And that brings me to the point of this call. I can guess what you want to hire Spectre for, but I have to tell you it will be a waste of money. The analysis will be run by the same utility on the same computer as was mine. There will be no discernable difference to the results you will get.”

He became thoughtful.

“Ok, I can understand that, and I appreciate your honesty here. The point is, I have to prove that I had nothing to do with this plot.

For that, I need to get the best expert I can find for the situation. And after I asked around the only answer I got was that Spectre was the best for this problem.

That means I have to hire Spectre. My results have to be above any suspicion. So, can you get me his help?”

I sighed.

“I can ask him, sir. I can’t promise anything, but if I explain the situation to him, he might help you. But it won’t be cheap. If you provide the original data and the forged data it will cost you three million deep credits. If you expect him to get the data by himself it will increase, most likely by an order of magnitude.”

“And if you give him the data?”

“I could do that, but the results would be not basically identical but completely identical. I fear that would make things worse for you than doing nothing.”

The silence lasted for a few seconds before he answered.

“9 million bucks, if I give him the data. I understand that he can’t offer his services cheaply, but that is higher than I expected.”

“Sir, you are trying to hire the 6th best hacker in the solar system. None of the top ten even boot up their boards for less than one million dc.

Any real work and it is easily five million. The three million is very cheap for that sort of clout.

I would strongly suggest that you look into a cheaper, more accessible solution. Surely nobody can fault you for not going to the very top of the price range.”

“Of course, they can fault me! Some of them want to pin this onto me.

The only reason there is no army marching onto me is you.

And while I don’t appreciate you hacking my system, I understand your reasons and agree that it was the best you could do.

Hell, even so, Sokra Brozi has half the Brozi clan riled up. If I want to avoid a war here in Queens I have to go to the very top. And yes, I will pay what is necessary. If you can, have Spectre contact me.”

“As you wish sir. I will do my best.” And he hung up.

That was not quite what I had in mind today. I was already pretty sure that Berardino would get contacted by Spectre sometime this day. Spectre was as much, if not more, concerned about my safety.

Still, I had work to do. Creating a framework for the analysis utility was quickly done. I had just to open up the API of the utility I already had and recompile it. It took longer to inspect the source code for anything that might identify me in the long run than the rest of the work.

Then I replied to the other hackers that I would sell the utility for 50k dc. It did not take long for me to sell it to all who asked. I felt a bit bad about asking $150k for something like ten minutes of work, but I reminded myself that the actual work had been done by me nearly a year ago and that it had taken significantly longer than ten minutes.

Then grudgingly I returned to bioengineering. Slowly I build up an understanding of the subject, but I had just finished the 3rd-semester coursework when I surfaced from cyberspace.

For what it seemed the thousands time I vowed to space the lectures out to a greater degree. And knowing me, I would promptly continue doing these marathon sessions anyway.

While I munched on another tasteless sandwich Mr. Walker brought his three friends over, and I quickly checked the status of the scanner. When I found it properly set up, I moved to the entrance, where I found him alongside Vince, the Asian lady who questioned my age and a comparatively small man.

Small compared to Mr. Walker and Vince that is, as he was still a head taller than me. The Asian lady on the other hand was only at best ten cm taller than me. They were accompanied by around 20 other people, that kept a bit of a distance from the four and doc Schaeffer with a small black bag.

“Hello, Mr. Luciani. I assume you two are Ms. Uesugi and Mr. Kraykowsky?”

Walker nodded and answered for the others.

“You are correct, Kitten, and I fear we have not much time.”

I looked at them.

“You are aware that the setup is taking somewhere between 30 and 90 minutes per patient and I can only set up one person at a time? And before that, I need to have to scan them, what will take another 10-20 minutes each?”

They looked a bit startled, and then looked at each other, then there were accusing glances at Walker. He on the other hand seemed surprised.

“No, I was not aware of that.” I gave a pointed look to doc Schaeffer before I answered.

“You were pretty out of it but unfortunately that changes nothing about the time it will take.”

They had a hushed conversation among themself before Vince turned to me.

“We can’t decide who needs this therapy most urgent. What would you propose?”

“I would say we scan you and decide according to the results. I already have the nanobots for the start of the therapy for all of you. So how do you want to proceed?”

I gestured them towards the lab. I had insisted that the girls move Frankel somewhere else for this occasion. I also had the bots remove most of the torture frames Frankel had there.

On the way, there were further hushed voices, and when we reached the lab I moved toward the scanner.

I had no idea, no interest either, of how they decided who was first, but in the end, Vince laid down on the platform. I shrugged and started the scan process. I naturally let the display remain active, but I reviewed the result with my implants.

The result was not good, but not particularly bad either. He had late-stage three muscular CRS. He had the obligatory cyber heart but with the therapy, he would survive for a couple of decades.

Next was Mr. Kraykowsky. He had Stage three neural CRS and early-stage four muscular. Not a big danger now, but it was a bit more serious.

Finally, Ms. Uesugi was up. The results made me immediately order the bots to set up the auto surgeon I had in the crates. She suffered from stage four neural CRS.

When she hopped off the scanner, I motioned her to the chairs. Vince looked at me expectantly.

“The results are pretty clear. Mr. Luciani, Mr. Kraykowsky, you have a few weeks before it becomes urgent. You, Mr. Luciani, have late-stage three muscular CRS. And your heart is not affected so far. With good nanites and the therapy, you will survive several decades.

Mr. Kraykowsky, you have mid-stage three neural CRS and early-stage four muscular. Again, the therapy will extend your life by decades, but the effects of CRS are much worse for neural CRS in my opinion. But that is your decision.

Now for Ms. Uesugi, your situation is critical. You have stage four neural CRS. I would strongly suggest you remove your neural implants immediately, and plan of replacing your muscular implants with cloned tissue as soon as possible.

Even with the therapy, you will likely get to stage five in one month, two at the outset, and then there is nothing we can do any longer.

If you remove the neural implants and get the therapy you have a good chance of surviving three to four months before you enter stage 5. That is enough time to get bioware. Oh, my professional opinion is that Ms. Uesugi needs the therapy most urgent among you if that was not clear.”

Doc Schaeffer was the first to react. He moved towards the display of the scanner and scrolled around. Ms. Uesugi was clearly rattled but took the news better than I had expected. I guess she had already suspected something like that.

Then doc Schaeffer sat down beside us.

“You really think she has that long? It looks pretty bad to me.”

“The CRS almost exclusively attacks her neural implants. These will have to go. They are most likely barely working anyway at this time. The cyber muscles themself are not being attacked, and their connectors are free from CRS.

That means with the therapy we can slow down the immune reaction here. But not forever. She could be lucky and the neural connectors in the cyber muscles are not enough to trigger stage 5, but I would not bet on that, especially as the implants become useless in at best three months anyway, so there is no big loss.”

She looked at doc Schaeffer and then at me.

“That comes pretty close to what my ishi told me. Before yesterday there was no reason to even try it. Now the problem is where can I get a reliable implant surgeon to remove my skull wear? I frankly don’t trust any of them too far at the moment.”

Doc Schaeffer cleared his throat.

“We can use the auto surgeon at my clinic. I am sure that Ms. Sinclair is qualified to remove the implants. Otherwise, I have no idea.”

I interjected before she could make a decision.

“Or we could wait half an hour to have my brand new…” I was interrupted by the bots bringing in the auto surgeon and begin installing it.

“auto surgeon set up and can use that. It is your decision though. At this time, I would prefer not to leave this fortified building.”

Mr. Walker lifted his hand.

“I have to remind you that the clinic is a well-known place. It will most likely be a primary target for Kursalin. He hates me with a passion.”

Ms. Uesugi was clearly unconvinced and looked from me to Mr. Walker and back.

“Are you sure that is a good idea, Ben? I mean, look at her. She is so young.”

Mr. Walker shook his head, Vince snorted and Mr. Kraykowsky sighed while looking away.

“Ms. Uesugi, I have the feeling you still do not understand the advantage the jack brings with it. I may be young biologically and chronologically, but mentally I am older than any of you.

I told you I spend nearly 40 years developing CRS-free cyberware. Before that, I spend four years learning medicine and implant surgery. Before that, I spend eight years getting my Ph.D. in computer science and nanoengineering.

Even the diadem would give you four times the amount of time to do things that you do not need to do in the real world. For the Jack, the compression is much more complex but essentially boils down to the native intelligence, the quality of the board, and the quality of the implant.

I am considered a genius by the Pures, not to mention the Mongrels, I can say that my implants are most likely the best humanity has to offer, and my board is widely considered the best there is.

My compression is well north of 40:1. I have been a Jack for three years now. Do the math. I just started to learn bioengineering yesterday, and I have finished the course load of the first semester. Since I left the meeting yesterday. So yes, I am young. In body.

In mind, in skills, and in experience I am more than old enough.”

When I took a deep breath I slowly came back to my senses. Damn, I stepped into it now. Regardless I had to calm down.

The looks on the faces, other than Mr. Walker’s, could be summed up into one word, shocked. Mr. Walker spoke softly.

“Nagisa, you have to get over that. Either you trust her, and the worst that will happen is you die, or you don’t, and you will die for sure.

My experience is that she knows what she is talking about. I told you that I was essentially dead. I had somewhere around a week left to live. After she was done I have likely another five to six weeks. And these numbers come from Richard, not from her.

That proves that the nano therapy she brought to us works. That the nanobots she wants to use on you, Vince, and Dobro will work.

You listened to her talking with Richard just now. Did that sound like somebody who’s faking it? And Richard only questioned the degree.

If she is wrong and Richard is right, nobody can save you. If she is right, you will be weakened for a couple of years but you will be alive. Think carefully if you want to reject that offer.”

Again, she looked into the round, uncertainty written on her face. You could see the moment she made the decision, as her eyes steeled and her expression became serious.

“You are right, Ben. It goes against anything I know, but I have nothing to lose anyway. And if I am wrong by judging you by your apparent age, I am sorry.”

The last was addressed to me, and I nodded at that.

“I… it would be wrong to say I understand but I get where you are coming from. And unfortunately, you are not the first one here to question my age.

One of the few things I miss from Nowhere is that people there are used to young-looking professionals. Even moderately bright normal make their Ph.D. by the age of 20.

A Pure Ph.D. in his or her teens is fully normal.”

The bots seemed to have finished setting up the auto surgeon and were now in the process to sterilize it after they activated the sterile barrier. I quickly started the diagnosis, to get it up running.

“From what I see your neural implants are actually all in your skull, so you don’t need to undress, but I would suggest for the gentlemen not of the medical profession to leave the room, if possible.”

The operation was rather anticlimactic after that. Doctor Schaeffer assisted me with the anesthesia, not that it was necessary, and it was all done in 30 minutes.

While she was anesthetized, I set up the depot network for the therapy, and two hours after we send the others out of the room doc Schaeffer and I left her in the care of her bodyguards to wake up.

I was pretty sure that she was glad the modern surgery tools had done away with the need to shave off the hair. I had been when I installed my skull ware.

When we reached the cafeteria, we found Mr. Walker with his bodyguards but neither Luciani nor Kraykowsky. That was expected though, so I was not concerned, it was more surprising that Mr. Walker had remained.

While I prepared some lunch for myself, Walker cleared his throat.

“Kitten, there is something else I wanted to ask you.” Balancing my soup to the table was an adventure with only one arm, but I managed quite well.

“As long as I have the option to refuse, I have no problem with asking. So shoot.”

He chuckled.

“You are quite cheeky for one of my subjects, you know. But I wanted to ask you if you could host Richard and a few other key personnel here until this unpleasantness has run out.

As I said this morning, the clinic is probably a primary target for Kursalin. The rest of the personnel can be sent home for their safety, and I would hate to lose the equipment, especially the nano fab, but Richard and two other doctors, Isabel DeSoto and Chettur Gayav… Gayak… damn, I never can say his name.”

Doc Schaeffer continued: “You mean Gayakvad? And why did you not talk to me about it?”

“Richard, the situation is tense enough. You, Izzy, and Chettur, and yes, I meant him, are the ones I would trust with treating my people. And you three are known factors.

Every boss in Queens knows you, knows where you live, and knows that if one of you survives the clinic will survive or will be rebuilt.

So Kursalin will have to try to take out all three of you. This building is way better protected than your apartment building or the clinic.

And I already have a desperate need to defend it. So from my perspective, I can either have one or all of you get killed by this madman or close the clinic, maybe taking the nano fab out of it and hide you in a place that I can defend.”

Meanwhile, I was spooning my soup into my mouth, listening carefully, but saying nothing.

“Would it have been too much to talk about before we got here, Ben? What is if I don’t want to go into hiding?”

“Too bad, Rich. You are my friend. I don’t want to lose Izzy or Chettur, but I can’t afford to lose you. So far nobody knows that Kitten is in this building, and we want to keep it that way.

But even if they find out where she is, they will need an army to get into this fortress. And I mean a real army, not one of our street armies.

With the help of Vince and the others, I don’t think there is much anybody could do against it. It has water, food, and energy. Fuck, you did see the heavy weapons they set up? From what Justin told me, these things will take out a fucking tank. They are designed to go against warships.

Nothing comes into this house. So yes, if Kitten accepts you here you will remain where you are safe.”

Mr. Walker had stood up and leaned over the table, and with the last sentence, he hammered his fist onto it. I on the other hand checked the status of rooms for the people here. The bots had managed to clean up most of the rooms in the east wing, as well as the second floor of the north wing. We would have to fabricate a few mattresses, but that was a trivial thing.

Doc Schaeffer huffed for a bit before he backed down. “Alright, you have won. I will stay here. But if something happens to my clinic…”

“Then we will rebuild it. The clinic is just a building. We can replace it. We can replace the equipment. We can replace the drugs. We can’t replace you, or your people. I don’t want to go to your funeral.”

I had seen enough.

“Mr. Walker, I would strongly suggest you calm down. If you can’t do that, take a sedative. You are seriously stressing your system, and if you are not careful the good doctor will go to your funeral. And that in a few weeks.”

His mouth opened and closed a few times before he sat down.

“And how do you know that Kitten?”

I eyed my soup, but then focused on him.

“I told you yesterday that you need to avoid stress wherever possible. I know the situation is nothing you can avoid, but what you are doing just now is dangerous.

And unnecessary, I would guess.

If you calmly communicated with doctor Schaeffer beforehand you would not have been stressed by it.

And doc, I know he railroaded you, but you should know better than most others that he should avoid any agitation.

Now about quartering them here, what can you tell me about the other two? I have no problem with doc Schaeffer, but for the other two, I have no clue about how they will fit in. And sadly the accommodations are on the more primitive side.”

Doc Schaeffer was visibly not pleased with that statement.

“First, Izzy and Chettur are very nice people. You have no reason to doubt that. And second, what do you mean with primitive?”

“Please remember doc, I know only you, a couple of nurses, and Mia of your people, but I have seen how your doctors behave if they get access to something like a nano fab.

If we are talking about a couple of them, they will not come close to my nano fab, period. And in my experience, doctors tend to be vocal about being restricted in any way.

About primitive, well, you are aware that we have taken over this building not two weeks ago? It is a sad fact that the previous owners were a bit lax in the upkeep.

Just be happy that we have already two new fusactors, and we could shut down the potential fusion bombs in the basement.

We have cleared the trash out of most rooms here in the east wing, and we will be able to provide clean mattresses and bedding, but even with 60 bots working on it, it is a slow process to bring this building back to its prime.”

He looked as if he had bitten into a lemon, but did not disagree with my points.

“In that case, I would say we bring Izzy and Chettur here so that you can meet them. And no, neither of them was in the group you found playing with the nano fab. Izzy was doing surgery and Chettur was off duty. And just to make sure I understood you right, with primitive you mean that we have beds, clean bedding, a room for ourselves, but not much more?”

“That is acceptable. And with primitive I mean, entertainment is limited, there is only a limited number of clean rooms, and even there clean is a matter of interpretation. The en-suite bathrooms are as far as I can tell passable, but bots are known for not being good on detail work in something like that.

You will have to direct a bot to do it right or do it yourself if you don’t find it to your liking. Food is typical replicator stuff, and most people here are soldiers in one way or another while I am busy in cyberspace, so there will be a distinct lack of conversation.”

I ate the last spoon full of my soup and brought the bowl to the sink, to flush it out.

“So, when do you think doctors DeSoto and Gayakvad will be here?”

Walker laughed out loud.

“How did you manage to say his name so easily?”

I just shook my head.

“Perfect memory, Mr. Walker. I read, see or hear something once and I never forget it.”