Over the next few weeks, nothing extraordinary happened. I was slowly working through my issues, coming to the conclusion that I mostly was upset about what could be described as my loss of innocence. I was still grieving about my needing to kill people, but I could live with it now.

It was surprising how hard it was to get real food in NYC. The explanation I got was that the perishable nature, the high price, and the limited demand for real food made it not something anybody brought in on spec, but instead by carefully planned schedule. And this late in the year, I would not get anything. I was on the list for the next year though. Still better than nothing I guess.

Tai Chi proved to be exceptionally soothing for me, and I spent at least an hour each day going through the forms.

In other news, the new auto-surgeon was finished, and it was a marvel.

Way too expensive really, and several orders of magnitude more capable than it needed to be, but still a marvel.

I had designed a downgraded version before this one was fully built, but it was a testament to what I could do.

I realized early on that the processor was absolute overkill, and I was proven right.

Even at full load and using the piezo nano positors and active full resolution scans it ran at most at 20 % load but as a commercially available CPU would not be enough to even drive the downgraded version and any processor downsized for the load would be barely any cheaper or faster to make I left the Chimaera in.

I had the new nano fab ready for Doc Schaeffer, and from the get-go, I designed the access for it as exclusive, so that no repeat of the dissolver debacle was possible. I gave the doc the admin rights and left it up to him who could use it, hoping that he would be more careful this time.

I made my first steps in the new bioreactor design, but sadly a large part of the work had to be done in the real world. I looked into the cloning process for inspiration but found it was not compatible as it used growth accelerators that destroyed the careful balance I had set up to keep out the immune system while allowing the nutrients into the tissue.

The solution had to be a different growth accelerator, but that would take considerable experimentation.

I had the good fortune that I could set the cluster onto preliminary simulations, but I had to find out what in the accelerator damaged the sheathing while looking into what makes biological tissue grow faster.

I was certain that it was just a matter of time, but the research protocols I had access to seemed to make the discovery of the drug mostly a matter of luck more than a matter of science.

Not that I had access to all that many research protocols. Most growth accelerators were from one biotech company or another, and my reach in the Matrix may have been long, but not that long. Unlike Universities, corporations guarded their information jealously.

Yes, I would, in time manage to get into the databases, even the secure ones, but it would take an inordinate amount of time and effort. I decided it would be quicker, safer, and most likely cheaper to simply buy a batch of every commercially available accelerator and reverse engineer the common factors. It would be especially easy if I used a variant of the NADA for it.

The high-powered c³-system provided by the integrated Q-link in combination with the much more powerful CPU would make observations on the molecular scale in real-time a possibility. I would, for the first time in human history, be able to watch the biochemical processes to that degree.

The new bio-observation unit was quickly designed. Unlike the NADA it could do with a much coarser resolution for positioning, and I would not need the material conveyor.

Instead, I upgraded the control unit to the Chimaera processor, giving it orders of magnitude more computing power.

Fortunately, the redesigned NADA was able to produce 16 of these at once in less than 12 hours. That enabled me to build the BOU in a couple of days, and it was now happily watching the different growth accelerators work.

I immediately built four more of them, to observe even more accelerators, but the tests would still take at least a month in real-time, and until I got the results the bioreactor project was on ice.

So I switched to a different project.

My Precious was getting on in her years, and I needed to take advantage of the new possibilities the NADA and the Q-link offered me. In the same vein, I needed to redesign my skull tech but that had more time.

The basis was a new processor.

Unlike the Chimaera, I switched over to a new architecture for this new brain. I spent a week in real-time or more than half a year in subjective time on the design, even with all the preliminary work I had already done in theory.

This new processor, which I called Hyperion would run rings around the Chimaera in essentially every category.

I spent another four days creating the accompanying GPU and the memory in the 414 picometer process.

Another week was used to recreate every possible module in the new technology, integrating the Q-link into every data connection and bringing every IC down to 414 pm.

The result would be glorious.

I did run the simulations several times as I did not believe the results, but it would be an increase in power over Precious by nearly 12000%.

At first, it seemed as if it was a wasted effort as the persistent storage proved to be the bottleneck for the first time since the introduction of the holographic crystal technology.

But with a bit of twisting and turning I resurrected the old technology of the RAM disk, mirroring the whole of the crystal into a special memory block.

Now it was time to wait for it to be finished before I could adapt the software for the new board.

The NADA would take almost a week to spit out the parts, while I used the industrial fabber to make the more standard components.

I would also for the first time not have two, but three versions in a generation, as nobody without a working NADA would be able to build the parts.

So I designed the Mk V, my personal example, the Mk VI, which I would build and sell for usage with standard modules, and the Mk VII, where I would only supply the CPU and GPU together with the plans.

All in all, it was going well, and naturally, that was the moment Murphy raised his ugly head.

On December 16th, a bit less than a week before the new cyberheart was ready for implantation, I got an urgent message during my afternoon Tai Chi session.

One of Mr. Walker’s guards had noticed his nano-controller showing red.

From what I had read between the lines, Walker himself tried to downplay it, but the guard had none of it and called first Schaeffer and then me.

I would have preferred to shower before running out but there was no helping it. Ryan was on guard duty, and he quickly followed me, while I walked rapidly towards the garage.

“What’s wrong? Where are we going?”

I ignored his question for the time being, as other things were more pressing.

“Can you fly the skimmer?”

“What? Yes, I can, why?”

“Good, your boss has likely gone critical and I need to be there an hour ago. We will see what is happening when we are there.”

The garage was not far from the gym, and by the time we arrived there, I already had booted the skimmer and started the POST. He immediately sat behind the controls while I jumped into the passenger seat.

After the 5 minutes of flight, we arrived at the HQ, and Ryan shamelessly landed directly in front of it, and I was out of the vehicle before it even fully settled down on its landing struts.

A gaggle of guards greeted me and essentially shoved me through the lobby, past the surprised staff there, poor Patric looked panic-stricken at this moment, and up to the 3rd floor towards Mr. Walker’s office.

Doctor Schaeffer was already in attendance and was looking at the controller on a weak-looking Mr. Walker’s wrist.

With a terse “Good afternoon.” I moved beside him and took Mr. Walker’s hand, quickly activating the Bluetooth connection. It took me only a few seconds to ascertain the situation, and I suppressed a few curses.

“Mr. Walker, I thought I told you that yellow means that you need something. Congratulations, you ignored a yellow screen for nearly five hours, and now you are dying.”

Schaeffer was visibly shaken.

“What do you mean he is dying?”

“I mean that his cyberheart will fail in at most three hours because the nanobots needed some copper and molybdenum to keep it working. If somebody could call Mr. Cox, please? It is decision time. We either put him on life support for the next week or he is dead. Simple as that.”

During my last words, Dylan entered the room.

“What do you mean he is dead?”

“He ignored Doctor Schaeffers and my instructions and now has to pay the price. Unless we put him on life support in the next hour, maybe two if he is extremely lucky he will die.

There is nothing else we can do now. So decision time, can you take over for a week? If no, find somebody who can, because your boss won’t be here either way.”

He coiled back, but one look at Walker convinced him that I was serious. Walker was barely lucid by now and was sweating profusely.

“I can step in for him. Will he survive? Can you guarantee it?”

With a deep sigh, I turned to him, before answering.

“No, I can’t guarantee it. His chances are bad. We will have to place him on a CPB pump, and the faster we can do that the better. Then we will have to put him into a medical coma to keep the stress as low as possible. If everything goes right, he has a roughly 50-50 chance of survival. If something goes wrong… .”

I saw his face darken before he began screaming.

“What the fuck do you mean? You told us that you could save him. So now he only has a 50-50 chance? Why the fuck has it dropped down to that? I want goddamn fucking answers, so fucking tell me why he is dying!”

Another sigh from me.

“Mr. Cox, I know that for some reason you don’t trust me, regardless of what I have or have not done. While that is your prerogative, it makes explaining things to you a bit hard. Now, I told Mr. Walker, and your people here, that if he took the therapy and followed my instructions he would have around a 60 % chance to survive until the replacement of his heart, which will be ready next Thursday.“

It took me much strength to keep myself from talking as if to a child as I was pretty sure that that would have negative consequences.

“Unfortunately, he did not follow the instructions.

One of them was that he had to take it slow. The records of the nano-controller show that he had surpassed acceptable stress levels at least every other day. It seems as if he took the stairs at least once a day.

If he had not done that, his chances would now be around 80%, and he would be awake and somewhat functional the rest of the week. It would have been around 95% if we had to put him into a coma.”

My hands moved in a swinging motion indicating to all people around.

“More importantly, he and his guards and everybody around him ignored the yellow display. If he had not done that and instead taken the needed materials the nanobots would have patched up his failing heart, and his chances would still be around 60% to be awake till Thursday, and around 90% for his survival if put into a medical coma.”

I irritatedly gestured towards the red display.

“As none of that happened we are now in the situation where we have to hope that everything goes right, and the sooner we can begin, the higher his chances are. So do you want to argue, or can it wait until we have him on the pump? Decide fast, because every minute lowers his chances.”

Cox was still enraged but looked from me to doc Schaeffer and back to me several times. Finally, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment.

“Richard, is what she said true?”

Doc Schaeffer had meanwhile scrolled through the display on the controller.

“Yes, the instructions are what she had told him, what I told him as well. And we all know that he does not know the meaning of the word slow. You know better than me how often you and the men had to stop him from taking the stairs. So yes, he was too active, too stressed.”

He then laid down the hand of Mr. Walker.

“And the controller shows the alert. It started at 11 AM today. We now have 3:30 PM. If it had not been programmed to send a message to all of us when the status became critical he would probably already be dead.

I have given him a sedative and some drugs to make it easier on his heart. But the damn thing is done for. We have to put him on an external purely mechanical pump to keep him alive.

And as Kitten told you, we have to do it fast if we want to have a chance at all. And that chance is definitely lower than 50%.”

Some of the guards had meanwhile brought a stretcher and now lifted Walker onto it.

“Can you go the stairs down? It is faster.”

I followed the procession with Doc Schaeffer beside me, and he began talking about the situation.

“Do you want to have him brought directly to your building? Or should we treat him in the clinic until you can implant the new heart?”

I shook my head.

“Sorry, but I am not set up for even short-term care. I have only myself as medically trained personnel, and I can’t be ready 24/7.

You have staff that can observe him. And honestly, until the new heart is ready there is not much I can do for him anymore.

You can use nutrient transporting nanites to keep him alive, and that is the only reason why I give him a 50-50 chance. They are more robust and are not as easily damaged as the blood cells.”

He stopped for a moment.

“What nutrient transporting nanites? I don’t have those.” I had to hiss.

“You did not read the manual I gave you for the bot library, did you?”

“I skimmed it, but I had not the time to look into it deeper.”

“You should do that. These are nanites specifically designed for a situation like this. They work as a substitute for blood cells and transport oxygen and nutrients to the cells, and transport waste products away.

And yes, you have them, they are part of the library I sold you. If you were still using the nanites I first installed they have that functionality as well, and we only had to activate that, but in this case, we have to make the new nanites, which will take around 5 minutes, and add a new program to the nanite controller.

I will show you the program and the recipe later. It will save many lives I think.”

We had now reached the intensive care station of the clinic, and Dr. DeSoto was already in the process of preparing the pump. I was somewhat surprised that they had not prepared an auto-surgeon but now was not the time.

“Where is the nano fab?”

Schaeffer seemed to wake up out of a trance.

“Yes, of course. The nano fab. It is… but you don’t have access.”

“Doctor, I made that thing, I programmed its OS. Of course I have access.”

He turned a bit red but nodded.

“Yes, should have thought about that.” Then he raised his voice.

“Tompson, bring Kitten to the nano fab. And fast.”

Thompson was a nurse around 30 years old, with dark brown hair, and in scrubs, that had previously brought in some disinfectant and some surgical instruments.

She came to me, grasped my shoulder, and shoved me out of the room without saying a word.

In the corridor, she grabbed my hand and dragged me through the hallway, towards another room. It was not the room where the 2nd gen fab had been located, and the security was much higher. Thompson waved her id card in front of a reader and nodded to the guard sitting in a chair left of the door, still without a single word.

Inside was a male med tech that looked a bit bored.

“Hey, Jean, what can I do for you, and who is that?”

“That is Kitten and the boss told me to bring her here. Now, I have to go back, Mr. Walker is in a bad way and we have to operate on him.”

She said that, turned around, and left me and Ryan together with the med tech, who promptly looked at me, before he drawled:

“Alright, so what can I do for you then?” still in an obviously bored way.

“You can let me use the nano fab to fabricate nanites that might save Mr. Walker, so could you please move to the side?”

“Hey missy, I don’t know who you think you are, but a nano fab is no toy for little girls. I can’t let anybody use it.”

I balled my fists, cursed internally, and turned my eyes upward toward the ceiling.

“One, I know how to use a nano fab, I built that thing, after all, two, I am older than I look, three we have no time to argue, so would you please let me rescue Mr. Walker? Or do I have to ask Ryan here to move you aside?”

He puffed up crossed his arms in front of his chest and tried to look mean.

“Listen, girl, it is irrelevant what you think, I can’t let you have a go at the nano fab, my orders, and these are clear.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

“I am sorry that it has to be this way. Ryan, could you move him to the side please?”

It seemed as if Ryan had just waited for such an order, and the med tech was soon pressed to the wall, while I logged into the nano fab.

“Just to make it clear, in most circumstances, you would be right, and I will talk with Dr. Schaeffer about it. You deserve a recommendation. But we simply don’t have the time right now to get somebody who knows me and knows that I know how to use the nano fab to vouch for me, so I am deeply sorry.”

In a bit less than 5 minutes I had enough for the initial dose of nanites ready in a bottle and we left to get back to the operation theatre.

There Dr. DeSoto had already connected the pump and the life support was running.

Schaeffer quickly took the bottle and prepared a drip, but I held him back.

“That is only the initial load. It needs to be injected directly. We can prepare the drip when we have him stabilized.”

Looking at the bottle he nodded and instead prepared a syringe before he injected the nanobots into Walker.

“I hope that works. It would be a disaster if Ben would die.” I sighed before I answered.

“We can only hope now. There is nothing else we can do.”

At Schaeffer’s wordless signal, a couple of orderlies pushed Walker out of the room.

“And these nanobots can really save him? I will have to read the manual in depth I think.” He gestured for me to come with him, and we walked slowly towards his office.

“That would help. You will need to prepare the drip for him, but this load should last for around six hours. Oh, and we should talk to the med tech you had guarding the nano fab. Ryan had to be a bit rough with him, but he did exactly the right thing.”

He stopped dead and furrowed his brow.

“Why did Ryan have to be rough with Dennis? I send Thompson with you to help you. She has the access to the fab.”

I shrugged at that.

“I have no clue what she thought, but she opened the door, told Dennis that you told her to bring me there, and left. Unfortunately, we did not have the time to wait for somebody to vouch for me, so I asked Ryan to move Dennis aside while I made the nanites.”

Schaeffer hmmed for a bit before he turned around and moved towards the room with the nano fab.

“We should take care of it immediately. Situations like that should not be left to fester.”

The door to the room stood open, and several bulky men were in there listening to Dennis.

“… no, I don’t know what she… hey, there she is!” All the bulky men turned towards me and looked as if they wanted to have a serious and uncomfortable talk with me, but when they saw Schaeffer at my side, a general expression of confusion was shown by most of them.

Schaeffer on the other hand lifted his right hand and made a stop motion.

“Keep calm. I know this situation was not ideal, but it seems as if there was a communication error. I sent Veronica here to make some nanobots for us. Nanobots we needed yesterday to keep Ben alive. The nurse I sent with her left her here without explaining anything, and she needed to use the nano fab.

For that, I am sorry, Dennis, I should have given better instructions. And from what I heard you acted completely right, so no worries about that.

In case something like that happens again, she is fully qualified to use the fab.

In fact, she is more qualified than any of us and we have no reason to not trust her, so if she comes up to the fab again, let her use it. I will give her an access card, but that is for the future.”

I nodded at Dennis and the men.

“Again, I am sorry, too. It was an emergency though. As I told you, I am impressed with your stance, and if I had had more time, I would have tried to get somebody to tell you that I am qualified.

But keep up the good work. Doc, shall I show you the recipe now that we are here? I am sure Mr. Walker is not the only one they can help.”

Just that moment, the door at the end of the corridor banged open and Dylan stormed through.

A few meters away from us, he stopped and then snarled.

“You! I should have known that it was you responsible for this alert. What did you do now?”

I reared back as if he had hit me, with his accusations.

“What… I am sorry, but I only did what was needed to keep Mr. Walker alive. And we simply had not the time to go through the channels.”

That did nothing to abate his anger.

“You have your fingers in everything. Always an excuse ready. What do you get out of it?”

Again, and again this diatribe. This guy had something against me.

“Mr. Cox, I have made no secret about what I want. I want a reasonably safe place to live and operate a business from.

Circumstances have brought me into possession of a building that is ideally suited for my needs located in the territory of your organization.

So I try my best to make your organization willing to tolerate my business. Additionally, I find the prospect of a street war unsettling and do what I can to prevent it. The rest is simply operating the business I want to operate.”

“If you want to ingratiate yourself to us, why the fuck did you take so much money for the nano fab? 11 million dollars?”

I needed to process that first. Did he seriously think that it was that much money? Did he have any clue how expensive these things were?

“Mr. Cox, I have no idea what you would consider an appropriate price for such a nano fab, but if you got to the Commonwealth and bought another fab with the same capabilities and the same library you would have to pay between 100 and 150 million dollars for it.”

His impersonation of a fish out of water may have been amusing, but I was not quite in the mood for a good comedy. Especially as this comedy would most likely cause problems down the road. It took him several seconds to get his stuff back together.

“You are insane. I was there when you told the others about the costs. It was what, six million? Seven? Whatever, it was not more than 11. So how did you rip us off?”

Half knowledge, the bane of intelligent people, oh how I missed you. I slowly raised my hands to massage my temples.

“Mr. Cox, that is not a topic we should discuss here. I assume it is not something you want to be known wide and far, and I know that I don’t want that. If you need to talk about it now, can we please go somewhere where fewer ears are listening?”

Cox did look as if he was disinclined to acquiesce, as the old nerdism goes, but Schaeffer moved between us and harumphed loudly.

“Dylan, I know you are pissed off, but we all had a harrowing time just now. How about you come with Veronica and me to my office and we have a drink, while you talk this over with her?”

“All right. Here is the wrong place to talk about it, I give you that.”

Schaeffer then again led the procession towards his office.