I once heard that hell is other people. And for the first time in my life, I began to believe that.

The party had become almost exactly what I had feared. I was constantly subjected to a deluge of inane chatter, only accentuated by the usual tasteless standard replicator food replacement.

And for some reason, I was unable to convey that no, I was not interested in what Mr. Oh-so-important paid for his genuine original art reproduction, and yes, that is an exact phrase, or what would-be-Romeo thinks of his newest crush.

I was not interested in how the woman of importance spends her time wasting her existence. Or which of the ‘young studs’ was oh so dreamy.

And if these people wanted to know how the weather was, they should just look out of the window.

As my luck had it, as soon as I managed to leave one group of clear imbeciles talking much about nothing, the next cornered me.

And to top that, soon a small minority of the people here began to consume drugs other than alcohol, as was apparently the way these kinds of parties worked.

While I did not begrudge people their vices, I was a bit put out when some of them began to smoke whatever poison they wanted. Even I was able to identify tobacco and marijuana, though whatever else they used to replace the breathable air in the room I could not discern.

Fortunately, somebody here was nice enough to shoo the smokers out of the room. It still left the air severely polluted, but the air purifier was slowly correcting that, and I managed to not cough up a storm, even though my throat was protesting to its heart's content.

I used this reduction of the mob to move to the wall as discreetly as possible, which was sadly, not very. Nevertheless, I managed to reach the vastly more secure region and allowed myself to relax for a tiny bit. I hoped against hope that I would be left alone for a moment.

Of course, said hope was in vain. Less than a minute after I leaned against the wall I was approached by another group of men. At least one of them I knew though. Normally I would have greeted Doc Schaeffer with some enthusiasm, but all I could muster was a small nod.

He was accompanied by two other men, one I quickly identified as Walker Junior, owed to the fact that it was a younger copy of Mr. Benjamin Walker. The other was a complete unknown for me.

“Hello my dear. How are you doing?”

I groaned and buried my face in my hands.

“Please, spare me any more small talk. How can people waste soo much time uttering soo many words without saying anything?”

Yes, I was quite a bit whiny at that point. I was not quite at the point that I would prefer being in the tender care of Frankel again to this party, but I was approaching that level of despair.

It had the added effect that young Walker was obviously very amused, as demonstrated by him laughing out loud.

“Oh wow, all these honorable important people, just here to meet and impress the newest star of our not quite so fair city, and you…” he couldn’t continue because he was laughing so hard. The still-unnamed man patted him on the back when he was wheezing in laughter.

Finally, after several seconds of that, he wiped away his tears, and still chuckling, stood up straight again.

“And to think that you are actually the main attraction of this party, glorious.”

I could, at least partially, follow his argumentation, but seriously…

“Important…? These…? Doesn’t New York have real important people? Sorry, but most of them are so…” I struggled for a word that could convey what I was trying to say without sounding as if I was talking about cardboard cutouts, but I simply did not manage it.

Fortunately, Michael understood me without me going into details.

“There are a few people in these groups who are important. But most of them are important in their own mind and have the money and contacts to make the rest of us pretend they are. We humor them and mostly ignore them as much as we can.”

Ok, that sounded a bit more like the Benjamin Walker I had learned to respect.

“Is that so? Then… why do they insist on babbling me into submission? I am certainly not one of the important people here in NYC.”

Doc Schaeffer interjected.

“Ah, my dear, but you are. You invented CRS-free cyberware. You are all the rage of the now completely legal side of the society here at the moment.”

“Why? Yes, for a certain minuscule subset of the underworld, CRS-free cyberware is big news, I get that, but for the majority, it should be irrelevant.”

Walker took over again.

“Ah, but you see, everybody is fascinated by the deadly cyberware. My father and his men don’t use it because it makes them better, but because having it makes them seem more dangerous. Harder.

And now this hint of danger is actually in range for them. Yes, they don’t need it. To be honest, our men don’t need it. But they want it. But they are too chickenshit to take the risk of CRS.

And that makes you suddenly very important.”

It took me a few seconds to really understand what he was talking about.

“You mean that… are they… are you really saying that they want cyberware because it is cool? Are they really that stupid?”

He looked at me with a strange expression.

“Does that mean you don’t think people should get cyberware? Why did you develop the CRS-free tech then?”

“I think people should not get cyberware because it is cool. If it serves no function other than to pretend. I understand why your father and his men need it. And I honestly think everybody should have at least a basic jack with a HUD and com function. But to look dangerous? Don’t they know that even with all our technology, that there is a, allowedly small, chance of complications for every operation? Yes, it is only around a millionth of a percent, but to just look cool?”

He looked at me for a few seconds, before he nodded.

“I think we already agreed that most of the people here are idiots. So yes, they are that stupid. And I am happy that you don’t think every cyberware is stupid.”

“No, of course not. I am a Jack after all. The only cyberware more prone to CRS than a jack is a full replacement limb. And if you need cyberware, you need it.”

We stood for a moment in silence before Doc Schaeffer changed the topic.

“Well, dear, I can say the new auto-surgeon is a dream. We can now scrap the old piece of garbage we have.”

I smiled at that.

“I am happy you like it. You should get a diadem for its control. That makes it soo much easier, believe me. But… honestly, you should not scrap the old one if you have the room. I mean, yes, I believe that it is a very good auto-surgeon and that it will be reliable. All my math and simulations say so. But so far it is only simulations and my estimation. I would hate for you to be without an auto-surgeon because I was wrong.”

He chuckled.

“I understand you, but as it looks for now, we will want to buy a second one in half a year, maybe a year. And we know where to get the help of somebody who actually knows the design if something happens.”

I just shrugged.

“Ok, it is your decision. I just can’t completely guarantee that it will work indefinitely.”

“Veronica, for that price, even the full price you said you want to get for it, people can buy six of seven for what a reasonable auto-surgeon costs. Yeah, you get two surge-boys for it, but we all know what that means.”

The third man cleared his throat at that.

“While we are talking about buying things from you, what do you think about the nano-fab?”

I tilted my head and was a bit confused while I looked at him.

“Uh, yes, the nano-fab was more expensive, but it is second only to my personal one here in the US. Why? And who am I talking to?”

He looked a bit chagrined but not particularly fazed.

“Oh, sorry, Paul Hanratty. I am the accountant of our little outfit. And you got me wrong. I am very happy with the nano-fab. We already have the costs back in.”

I was amazed.

“You made more than $11 million in a couple of months? That is… good.”

He smiled.

“Yes, it is. There is this new hype to build a 6th gen nano-fab that every third workshop here in the US builds, and we can deliver the seed stock relatively cheap. $10k for a load, and it adds up fast.”

Now I had to frown.

“Uh… I don’t think you will get these prices for much longer.”

“Why not?”

“How long do you think it will take the other newly minted owners of nano-fabs to realize that they can make the seed stock too? Sure, it will cost them $30 to $40 per batch, while you only have to invest $10, but that still leaves them a large profit margin.”

He looked thoughtful.

“That would actually explain why the sales have dropped massively in the last week. But what I actually wanted was, the boss told me that you offered him the schematics for the 12th gen seed stock we have in our nano-fab for $16 million. And looking at how the business with the 10th gen had gone, I was thinking about buying it.”

I frowned again.

“Uh, I don’t think that would be a good buy for you.”

“Hm, why not?”

“For 12th gen nanites, you need an 8th gen nano-fab. And as far as I know, there are only three possible sources for them here in the US. You could buy one from the big corps in another country and smuggle it here. But these already come with the seed stocks.

Everybody else would need to buy one on the dark web. And the likelihood that somebody looks there for one, and will not contact me is… remote. But to get the costs for the schematics back, you would need to sell at least four batches of seed stock.

The chance that there are four people on the dark web looking for 8th gen nano-fabs without me knowing about at least one of them is negligible.

And I have no requests for one. So sorry, but I guess most people are happy with the 6th gen open-source that they can for a fraction of the cost. And why not? It is better than what Ralcon and Enertech offer, and it does what they want. If for some reason they need 12th gen nanites, they will come directly to you, and if your library doesn’t offer the solutions you will come to me.

But the seed stock, it won’t be profitable.”

He nodded slowly.

“I see. I think we will have to reduce the prices for the 10th gen seed stock.”

“Or… and that is just a suggestion, we are happy with having gotten an 8th gen nano-fab essentially for free and use it as much as we want to.”

Junior was obviously not happy about the topic, but that was his problem. I had already said everything I thought they needed to know.