In the office, Schaeffer offered both of us a bit of some amber-colored alcohol, which I naturally declined, asking for a coke, as we sat around his small coffee table.

Cox waited just long enough for Schaeffer to sit down before he lit into me again.

“We are alone now, so fucking tell me why this nano fab did cost so much, while the ones you told about in the meeting would have cost at most seven million.”

“In one word, quality. The one I proposed at the meeting is the absolute bare minimum that can be called 8th gen nano fab.”

The door opened and one of the guards brought me my coke.

“That, and the library. The fab I proposed at the meeting was just the frame and the seed stock, nothing else. Sure, the seed stock was the schemata, so the owner could make more of them, but they were the cheapest seed stock schemata that exist.

There would be no other nanobot designs, so the fab would be pretty useless. Getting the appropriate designs for the clinic would take another ten to 15 million. And that is where the costs come in. The nanobot designs are incredibly expensive.”

After the cool tap had cooled my coke down I took my first sip of this nectar of the gods.

“That is by the way what is the most expensive part of the fab I talked about. Without the seed stock schematics, it would cost around one million dollars.

Now the fab I sold you is orders of magnitude more powerful. If you would try to buy something like that in the Commonwealth, the frame alone, without any schematics, or the seed stock would cost you depending on exchange rates between 20 and 40 million dollars. That is, only the big, physical housing with the control panel, the computer, and the operating system.

The seed stock I sold you is top of the line. That is the type I use for my nano fabs. As far as I know, there are no better ones. It would cost you between 30 and 60 million. Not the schematics, but the batch of nanobots.

Finally the big part. The library I gave you with the fab… I don’t think you have any notion of what I gave you with that. At the very least this library would have cost you 50 million dollars. 100 million is not beyond reason for this library.

For example, the same seed stock nanobots I proposed at the meeting, where the schematics will cost five million dollars, are part of the library. I would suggest you get a list of the designs in the library and research for yourself how much you would have to pay.

None of them were included in the estimate I gave to Mr. Luciani. That was the bare nano fab with the seed stock schematics.”

I took another sip and leaned back into the seat. Cox on the other hand seemed to think hard about what I had told him, I had to give him that. But I had to make the situation as clear as possible.

“Also, consider what you would pay for the nanites alone if you bought them here. Not the schemata, I mean, the bots. To get the same amount of therapy with nanobots bought from Ralcon as I brought the first day for Mr. Walker, would have cost you around two million dollars.

I don’t know how much doctor Schaeffer has used for the rest of you, but my estimate of the cost would be in the region of 100 million. Just to keep you and your people alive for a single month.

You will have to take the therapy for at least a year in all likelihood. It could be shorter if I manage to solve the issue of upscaling the new cyberware process. It could also take longer. Without this nano fab, it would cost your organization north of a billion dollars to keep your people alive.”

He put down his glass and massaged his brow before he answered.

“Yes, it would be expensive, but you had the plans laying around, so there was no reason for it being so expensive.”

It was obvious that he still had no idea what he was dealing with here.

“We are talking about 12th generation nanobot designs and an 8th generation nano fab. Do you have any idea how many places you can get these? After the meeting, I looked into it. There are exactly six persons or corporations that sell 12th gen schemata.

There are Dalgon Tech, Burgmeister, and Xian Ping as corporations while the persons are one man in France, one person of unknown gender in the CSA, and me.

Oh, sure, there are probably around a dozen additional organizations that have them but they don’t sell.

It is a similar situation with the nano fab. I took around 10% of the regular price for something that is essentially cutting-edge technology. Even for friends that is a good price.”

He still wasn’t convinced, I could see that by myself.

“Tell me, what reason could I have to rip you off? I can not see any upside for that myself, so what do I gain by betraying your organization?”

He shook his head but kept his eyes on me.

“I don’t know, and that is what’s driving me mad. So you tell me what you gain?”

I snorted.

“As I just told you, I see nothing I would gain. There is as far as I can see no way I could come ahead by fooling you. Maybe if you tell me why you don’t trust me we can work out the problem.”

“You are simply too perfect. The very moment we need somebody like you, you land in our midst for no apparent reason. The perfect person for the crisis at hand. That is way too much of a coincidence. So what are you planning? Do you even plan to keep Ben alive?”

Wow, that was… well it was not completely wrong. It was perfect timing for me. Well, near-perfect at least. And that was the weak point of his theory.

“Ok, I can understand where you are coming from. But you are wrong on some important points.

First, I had a very good reason to be here. Not here exactly, but somewhere else than Seattle, and I needed to be away from there in a hurry because of the riots.

I would have preferred the CSA or the EU, but the best I could get was NYC. It is a bit more complicated than that, but that is not important. Without the riots, I would not be here.

Second, my timing is not perfect. If I had planned this, I would have kicked it off in a couple of months, so that I would be ready when the CRS hits your people and ride in as the savior.

Right now, I have an idea of how to rescue you but that idea is by far not yet reality. It could be a failure. It could be that it takes me ten years to develop it. At the moment the best I can do is give you the nano therapy, which I already have, and the ability to produce the nanobots necessary, which I have done as well.

Third, this whole stratagem had to be launched six to seven months ago. The nano therapy was released three months ago. I was happily planning to build up my business in Seattle at that time.

So to recapitulate, I had a reason to be here, I had far from perfect timing, and at the start of your problems the solution that would let me play hero was not there yet.”

His eyes narrowed before he looked at Schaeffer.

“Richard, is that true?”

Schaffer shrugged before he answered.

“Most of that, I can’t tell. I don’t know why she is here, or how far she is in developing the working CRS free cyberware. But I know that she is right about the nano therapy being released only three months ago. Well, a couple of weeks longer than that, but yes, it was not known when Denzel started this all.”

Cox mulled that over before he returned his attention back to me.

“Ok, the riots are a compelling reason for you to be here, or at least no longer in Seattle, and I don’t think that anybody had enough pull to start them on purpose. That still makes the rest suspicious but not suspicious enough to attack you over it. Just know that I will watch you.

Now, what did you mean when you said that it could take a year or even longer? I don’t like that.”

I finished my coke and placed the bottle on the table.

“I meant that I am trying to upscale the process for the biosheathing for it to be more than a proof of concept. And my early experiments, the easy solution, did not pan out. Now I have to find a different way.”

Doctor Schaeffer leaned forward and played with his glass a bit.

“I know I am not the most knowledgeable about these things, but did you try to use standard cloning techniques?”

I had to chuckle.

“Yes, that was the obvious and supposedly easy solution that did not work. Unfortunately all growth accelerators I tried destroy the balance that makes the biosheathing work. I have yet to test some of the more exotic commercial GA’s, but it does not look good.

At the moment I am using nanobots to observe how the GAs work, and why they shift the balance, but the results of that will not be available before mid-January at the earliest.

That is the big problem with that kind of research. I can’t do it in VR, and it has to happen in real-time.”

Dylan shook his head at that.

“And why do you need to upscale the process? I mean, it works now, right? So why change it?”

I looked at him and sighed.

“The problem is, that this process burns up more than 600 dollars in nanites every day, just to convert Mr. Walker’s new heart. That is nearly 26 thousand dollars on top of the cyberware itself.

And that are my costs, not what I would sell the bots for, so no way to make it cheaper.

To give you an image of how many nanobots it uses up, one of my nano fabs is working a bit over 20 hours a day to make them. The nano fab you complained was too expensive would work for more than 30 hours a day for the same. Obviously, that would not work. The nano fab I proposed to Luciani would have to work two and a half days to make one day's worth of nanobots.

For anything more complicated than the Pulse III I am converting that number goes up as well. The muscles for one arm would need 450 work-days of nanobots to convert. Or nearly 300k in nanites. That is simply unsustainable. It is an option for small, high-priority implants like the heart, but for everything else sadly not.”

Both men looked shocked when I told them the numbers and Dylan just shook his head.

“Wow, ok, I can accept that that is not an option. I thought 50k for the set of arms was much. Talk about expensive.”

Schaeffer on the other hand was frowning.

“Why… I mean I am not the authority on nanobots, but these amounts of them, do you literally burn them up?”

“Not really. Any way to supply the nanobots with energy shifts the balance and destroys the sheathing. And the bots are too limited in their mobility to get to an energy source outside of the critical area. They can get the cells into place, but can’t get back.

The problem really is the extremely fragile balance. Once it is finished and a protective coating applied, it can potentially work for centuries, but until then, a stray sneeze can destroy it.”

What followed was a few moments of silence, while the two men mulled over what I had told them.

Finally, doctor Schaeffer replied.

“If I understand you correctly, it will be a long time before you can supply others with the technology?”

“Yes and no. Yes, it will take some time to bring it into general use. No, for emergencies I can use the version I have now like I am doing with Mr. Walker’s heart. It won’t be cheap, or fast, but it works.”

Dylan sighed and shook his head, and then changed the topic.

“Well, I think we all understand that now. And I can actually understand the issue, at least in some limited fashion. What I can’t wrap my head around though is, why now? We had cyberware for what? 200 years? Why did it take so long to get the solution? I mean, nothing against you, Kitten, but there were many very bright people looking into the problem, and I doubt you are among the smartest persons we ever had.”

Schaeffer groaned and facepalmed, while I took a deep breath again, forcing my temper back down. It was obvious that he really did not know better. Part of that was because I had told nobody better, but part was simply prejudice.

For one, my people had done their very best over the last 200 years to breed stereotypes, and the negative ones stuck way harder than the positives. Then I was, to say it kindly, petite, female, and seemingly very young looking.

At the same time, what I already had demonstrated should have told him that I was more than what I looked like. Nothing I could do would change that though. At least in the short term. Long term it would change, I guessed, but for now, I would have to live with it.

That was the reason I did not light into him but did my best to answer calmly and controlled despite slowly getting angry.

“The short and simple answer is, that the technology that allowed this only existed for the last two years. Without at least 10th gen nanites, and their valence bonder it would be impossible to intercept and modify the phagocytes so that they don’t identify neuronect as a target for the immune system.

Of course for myosynth, your cyber muscles, you don’t need that, and it would theoretically have been possible for the last 20 or 30 years to make them immune to CRS. But without the protection of neuronect that is a useless step, as you can’t control cyber muscles without a neuronal control component, also known as neuronect.

Another point you seem to have missed is that it is in reality a very niche problem. Less than two percent of humanity has cyberware. You are influenced by your personal environment where cyberware is much more prevalent, but for humanity as a whole, it is unimportant. There are virtually no resources put into developing a cure for CRS, and as such, there are maybe a dozen groups researching the problem at all.”

“And nothing to say about your intelligence? So, what is your IQ anyway?”

I just shrugged.

“You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

He scoffed again.

“I would not believe you? About your IQ? Try me.”

I shook my head and just remained silent.

“So, you don’t want to tell me? No good story prepared, huh? As I thought.”

That was it, I had enough of his snarkiness and insinuations.

“You have an overinflated opinion of yourself, do you? I don’t tell you my IQ because it is none of your business. That is information that I would not even give my friends, and you clearly are not among them, so you have to live without knowing that. So, anything else?”

“You little…”

I interrupted his rant as I was frankly fed up with his condescending tone and his endless accusations.

“Anything constructive?”

That shut him up for a few moments, but unfortunately not long enough.

“Until the boss is back on his feet, I am the one calling the shots here, so you should keep your cockiness in check. If I decide you will try to kill Walker, you are dead. Keep that in mind.”

“Point one, if that happens, Mr. Walker is dead. Pure and simple. Even if you get the finished heart reassembled, it won’t work. Well, at least not for long. Until I finish the conversion directly before I implant it that is.

Point two, in that case, not only would I and Mr. Walker die, but so will you in all likelihood. Or did you forget how many bosses are looking at me for survival?

Point three, as far as I understand your people, they know that I am the last chance for survival of your boss, and he ordered me protected. Unless he dies, I doubt you have the power to order me attacked.

Now don’t think I am unreasonable. If you just leave me alone, I will happily do the same for you. I understand that you are suspicious, and I even understand to some extent why you are. If that were all, I would just convince you by doing my job as well as I can.

What I won’t accept though is the open disdain, the condescending tone, and the open hostility you’ve shown me.

On more than one occasion you were informed that the knowledge I provided doctor Schaeffer, as well as the technology I first gave him and later sold your organization the means to build for yourself, your boss would have been dead for three to four weeks by now.

And that a significant percentage of your organization would look forwards to the same fate I understand, you included.

That alone should make you at least be courteous. And courtesy is all that I demand.”

I stood up.

“Now I will leave before we irreparably ruin any chance of us working together in the future.”

While I turned towards the door, I heard Schaeffer call out: “Wait a moment, please.” Which made me turn back towards the two men.

The doctor continued.

“Dylan, I have to talk with Veronica for a bit, so would you please go back to your own office?”

Even though Schaeffer was soft-spoken as I had come to know him, Dylan was visibly not amused with being sent out.

“You… you side with this… this…”

“Dylan!” That was actually the first harsh word I heard from Schaeffer. “You are going too far. We have to plan the treatment for Ben, urgently as you may guess. And momentarily you are making it hard to do. That means that you have to leave the medical professionals to do their job. Do you understand?”

“You really think that this little kid is a medical professional? Look at her, she can’t be much older than 15 or 16. And we are letting her play doctor with the life of Ben? Have you all gone mad?”

Dylan had sprung up and was gesticulating wildly, while he basically screamed at Schaeffer.

The doctor, in turn, stood up himself now.

“Damn it Dylan you are just so ornery that you can’t look beyond your prejudices. Veronica is small, yes, but not that young. Tell me, is the time compression in cyberspace real or not?”

That question took the wind out of Dylan’s sails.

“Yes… yes, it is real, why?”

“She clearly has an implanted jack. She has experienced much more time than her years would suggest, which is more than you seem to think.

She is a Pure, you stubborn old goat. Pures age slower. That alone makes up a year, maybe two.

She is tiny, which makes her look younger still.

She has a jack, and probably had decades learning different things. I would bet that she has more time experienced than I. Or you by the way.

Yes, I know you can’t stand Pures but keep your prejudices at bay. Veronica was nothing but helpful to us. She has saved most of your men simply by teaching me the nano therapy. She has given us a freaking nanofab just because.

Yes, she sold us the better one, but it is a nanofab that would cost us billions to get here on the open market. More than your whole organization is worth.

So yes, I side with her in this case. She is not the one being irrational, you are. So would you please go and let me do my job?”

Schaeffer softly maneuvered Dylan towards the door while he berated him irritatedly. With the last words, he closed the door into Dylan’s shocked face.

“Now, Veronica, I understand that he gets onto your nerves, but you should try to ignore him. You just made your life a bit harder by pissing him off. I and I hope Ben, will calm him down, but that will take a while.”

I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths before I answered him.

“Yes, I understand that. I just could not take it any longer. It seems that regardless of what I do, he will find umbrage in it. Better to distance myself from him than to start a shootout. We would all lose in that event.”

He sat back down and gestured towards my previous seat.

“Well, if you have to do that, you have to do that. But just out of curiosity, why did you not tell him your IQ?”

After I had taken a seat opposite him, I looked him directly in the eyes.

“Multiple reasons. For one, it is considered a piece of very private information for Pures, and it is simply rude to ask for it.

Another is, that he would not believe me if I told him.

Lastly, my IQ, or more what it means is one of the main reasons why I had to leave Seattle. I did not flee from one trap just to walk into the next one.”

His eyebrows lifted up, and his eyes opened wide.

“Wow, is your IQ really that high?”

I forced a thin smile.

“Yes, it is that high. I can say with some certainty that I am the smartest person in Queens right now. It is not absolutely impossible that somebody smarter is here, but the probability is essentially negligible.”

He just shrugged his shoulders and leaned back.

“Ok. Now, what we have to talk about, is how will we do the switch of the heart? Will you bring it here?”

I thought about that for a moment.

“That depends. Is something wrong with your auto surgeon? I don’t see any other reason why you connected the pump manually.”

His hand waved around a bit.

“Oh that. Yeah, it is on the fritz again. Nothing too bad, other than the timing. It will be up and running tomorrow again, or the day after tomorrow at the latest.”

“Hm, does that happen often?”

“Not really, Two, three times a year. It is just a bit old, that is all. I had some hope that with the recovery of the funds that Hector stole we could buy a new one, but I have to agree that the nano fab is the better investment. Well, next year, or maybe 2250. But yes, it should work next week.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to use my brand new auto surgeon? I mean, I want to christen it anyway, so why not use it?”

The look of confusion on his face made me look at him confused. Did I forget something? But he spoke before I could ask him.

“Why do you want to christen it? I mean, didn’t you do that when you removed the Nagisa’s neural cyberware ?”

It took me a few seconds to understand where he was coming from.

“Oh, oh no, that is the old one. I only used that because the one I have built for myself was not finished. And I bought it because it was possible I would not be done with the new one in time. But now I have what I think is the best auto surgeon that exists. And I did it without violating any patents.

Sure, I’ve gone a bit overboard with the design and it is… well it is better than any auto surgeon needs to be really, but I have already adjusted the design to remove the nanopositors.

The first one is already built with them though.”

His jaw fell down, literally, and he blinked a few times before he answered.

“You… you have built an auto surgeon with… with nano positors? Are you… do you have any common sense? Any at all? Why did you do something like that?"

“Because I could? I had the idea that it would help with neuronal surgery. You know that it is a matter of micrometers there.

In retrospect, it is a bit too complicated, and I had to beef up the control system considerably. The new version with micromotors instead of nano positors uses vastly simplified control systems. That is the only reason why I downgraded it.”

Something made him upset, but I could not understand what.

“You… you used a several billion dollars worth piece of technology for an auto surgeon? Are you really so unconcerned about costs?”

“Several… billion? Where do you get that from? Nano positors are, well they are not cheap as dirt, but not so different from any other part of the auto surgeon. A couple of thousand, at most. It is a bit tedious to calibrate them but with 12th gen nanites that was easy as well.”

He shook his head obviously in confusion.

“A couple of thousand? Everybody knows these things are essentially unaffordable. That is why nobody uses them.”

It was my turn to shake my head.

“No, of course not. The first generation, sure. That was nearly 100 years ago. It was a chore to create the precise piezo crystals and then calibrate them.

Modern fabbers have the tolerances to make them good enough and with nanobots, we can calibrate them exactly.

Yes, we have to fit every single one individually, but again, the fabber does all the work.”

I massaged the bridge of my nose again.

“No, the reason they are not used much is that there are very few uses for them. For the uses they have, they are usually extremely slow. For example the creation of custom processors for deep space probes, where they need more power in a smaller package than what normal technologies can provide.

The nano positors take at least 5 years to make a single CPU. And they can only work on one at a time. For things like the auto surgeon, they are plainly overkill, as they increase performance only marginally, but require so much more control capability that nobody uses them.

They increase the cost of producing the auto surgeon by not quite 3%. As I use an industrial fabber, instead of a tailored assembly line, the additional cost is vanishing low compared to the cost of building it myself as a one-off.

So I could do it, and I did. Of course, without my personal nano fab, it would be unbelievably expensive to use commercially available nanobots here in the US.”

He nodded slowly.

“So it is a case of things here in the US being unreasonable expensive again? As usual.”

He sounded defeated and tired, but then he perked up a bit.

“Alright, so you have the better auto surgeon, how do we transport Ben? The pump can run on battery for half an hour, but that does not leave much time.”

I nodded, while I answered.

“For one, there are battery extensions for virtually every pump available. If you give me the model I can look into getting, or making some of them.

Another help is that we can reduce the pump power for up to two hours, with the nanite-blood substitution. They can move a bit under their own power with the support network we already have installed.

And lastly, I have bought a bio-bed for my skimmer. It won’t turn it into a PEES ambulance, but it will be enough to transport him to the fortress safely and it will support the pump.

All in all, we should have somewhere around four hours from the moment we have unplugged the power here until we have to plug it in at my place. That should be more than enough time.

I would appreciate one of your nurses accompanying him. But if he survives until Thursday he will most likely make it.”

“Let’s hope he will.”

I had to smile sardonically.

“I for one will do anything in my power to make him survive. Anything is better than dealing with Mr. Cox.”

“Yes, I can see that.” He went to the bar and poured himself another glass of whatever he had before and then returned to his seat.

“To recapitulate, you will try to procure an extended battery for the pump and provide your skimmer to transport Ben to your fortress. I think I will accompany him, together with a couple of nurses. You will implant the new heart and hopefully, we will have our Benjamin back in two weeks. Is that so far correct?”

I nodded but remained silent.

“Well, I would offer a toast towards pulling it off, but… “

“That is not a problem. And yes, I hope it will work out. We should have placed him into a coma weeks ago. I mean, I could see that he is too stubborn to follow instructions.”

“He would never have gone for it, I fear. But you still gave him an even chance for survival. That is better than what I could have done for him. We just have to believe it is enough.”

He took a long sip from his drink and placed it back on the table.

“Another thing, that is purely for my interest, but if I understood you correctly, the problems you have scaling up your process is just for the myosynth, right?”

I frowned at that question.

“Yes, that is right. Why?”

“Just to make it clear, the process to protect neuronect is essentially fully developed?”

“Yes, that was the part I needed, and to be honest, it was surprisingly easy once I was done with the myosynth. To be frank, if I had thought of it beforehand, I would never have developed the biosheathing at all. Why are you asking?”

He had a lopsided smile.

“Well, I thought that it is actually ready to be upscaled now. You could offer CRS free neural cyberware almost immediately.”

I sat there and opened my mouth, only to close it again several times. I had completely missed that little fact. How could I miss it? I had that part ready for several months now.

After what seemed an eternity of my thoughts racing in every possible direction I managed something similar to an answer.

“Yes… yes, you are right. I… I would not even need the bioreactor for that. Just a nanobot applicator. Why did I not think about that?”

His smile became broader.

“You may be more experienced than your years, my dear, but you are clearly doing science for the science’s sake. You are so focused on figuring things out that you miss what you already achieved. I mean, you built your own auto surgeon from scratch and fitted it with nano positors. Because you could.

You build your own nano fabs, again from scratch. From what I heard, your personal nanobot library is insanely huge, and most of the designs are very specific. On the other hand, you have a nanobot design that can do virtually everything.

No, you may have had a specific reason to develop CRS-free neuronal cyberware, but it was your own nature to make you solve the muscular CRS problem. You don’t need to be an implant surgeon to make money, you can make insane amounts just by being a nano-engineer. So yes, it is in your nature to miss such small issues like that you already could build CRS free neural cyberware.”

He took another sip.

“But why I am really asking is, you could build the new skull tec for Nagisa, and design a jack for Hunter so that he hopefully won’t kill himself. Maybe sell a few jacks to the doctors here in the clinic or AR implants for Ben’s men. You are not limited to waiting for the myosynth solution.”