46 A Great Success!

I, or Hasumi rather, was finally a board-certified cybernetics surgeon. It had taken me a little over a year and a half to finish, which was incredibly quick, and I hardly had to bribe anyone. I did end up bribing a few people, but only so that they would give me a chance to demonstrate my proficiency earlier, not guarantee my certification. Some people were a bit sceptical, and that wasn't surprising since a normal cybersurgical residency lasted between four and five years.

It was a little bit annoying that I would probably have to repeat this process when I took back my Taylor Hebert identity. That was pretty much a done decision, too, as neither I nor Wakako had detected anyone looking for me after a month or so. It was true that there was a possibility I was on a list now, but there was just no way to know. I didn't think it was a risk large enough to completely abandon my identity, though.

I was pulled out of my daydreams by the surgeon I was waiting on entering his office. I started to rise politely, but he waved a hand, so I sat back down, "Dr Hasumi, congratulations, first of all. I heard that you're starting your own practice?"

I nodded, "Hai, I already had a small biosculpt practice and will be expanding it to perform general cybersurgery as well now." I smiled, "Although I was pleased that I will retain admitting privileges here at Cedar-Sinai, that will help a lot."

The older surgeon nodded slightly, "So, what can I help you with today? The note on my calendar said you needed a consult."

"Yes, for myself. I have a slightly customised MoorE Technologies cyberbrain system that I would like installed in myself, and you are probably the best person in the city that I could come to," I said. There was just no way I could perform a surgery where my brain was scooped out and placed in an armoured pod by myself, and I didn't trust Kumo-kun to do it at all.

I was tempted to return back to Night City and visit my old friend Dr Taylor as he had spent decades working at MoorE Technologies, but there was just no way. He would recognise some of the implants he put in me; I was sure of it, as I would have recognised my own work too. Plus, while the modifications I made to the cyberbrain were designed to be very subtle, I wasn't sure that would hold up to someone who may have helped design the systems.

So my best option was Dr Reynolds. He was a surgeon based in Cedar-Sinai that specialised in full-body replacements, so he would be well-versed in what I needed.

My request got him to raise an eyebrow while he sat down in front of me, "That's a bit unusual, but sure... Let me review your medical file briefly, if you don't mind, Doctor."

I nodded and remained silent for several minutes.

"Okay, so your current list of augmentations are... a set of nanosurgeon and enhanced immune system organs, muscle and bone lace, ballistic skin weave, a set of customised Kiroshis—nice, a Biotech Σ cyberdeck and OS, an Arasaka-branded Memory co-processor—don't see too many of that brand these days, a genelocked datastore, some Zetatech personal ICE..." he glanced at me appraisingly, "A Kendachi monowire, really? An Arasaka-branded thermoptical camouflage system... I think this one is illegal to own! And a fucking Kerenzikov, too? That's straight borgware, Dr Hasumi..." He shook his head and stopped reciting the rest of my augmentations at that.

I coughed delicately into my hand, "Ever since I was kidnapped by nomads and forced to work as a surgeon for them, I have been a bit concerned about my safety."

"Clearly," he said mildly. He sighed and said, "We can accommodate you. All cyberbrains come with their own OS, of course, so we'd be taking your existing one out, but you have to realise that this level of augmentation will require mandatory counselling... honestly, you should be having that already. You already have more cybernetics than the average cyberpsycho that is put down, but you're clearly at least in a much better place from a mental health perspective, in spite of any trauma you may have experienced in the past."

I winced slightly. I had known that this would be the cost, but I was running into a chicken and egg problem. I needed this installed so that I could have the brain scanner start copying my brain to the cloned version, but I needed my "clone" to install this into my brain. I just wouldn't be able to do this part myself, was the conclusion I had come to. I could do all the rest of the surgeries, though, including swapping my current Kerenzikov with a duplicate that I had purchased for my other body.

It was important that all the cybernetics be the same between my bodies, so since I couldn't find another type K-02 Kerenzikov from Kang Tao, apparently they didn't manufacture them anymore, I had upgraded.

Kang Tao had recently spun off its higher-end cybernetics development and marketing into a wholly-owned subsidiary that they called QianT. This included their high-end boostware, which I was able to purchase. The sales rep claimed that this model of Kerenzikov was the best in the world. I didn't know that I really believed that, but I thought that it was at least on the same level as the other top brands. Plus, it was no doubt based on the previous Kang Tao Kerenzikov, which I was already very familiar with. Allegedly, it would be a temporal factor of three point four, which was very high for a Kerenzikov. Many Sandys didn't provide that great a boost, after all.

I had bought three units at a wholesale price of twenty thousand Eurodollars a piece, so they weren't cheap at all. It was also a modified QianT Sandevistan that I had installed in Johnny before he left back to Night City, and I had duplicated the same neural tissue biosculpt treatment that Dr Taylor gave me as well so long ago. Johnny would have to practise with his Sandy quite a bit, as at first it was limited to about half boost while he was using it.

I had programmed it to slowly go to full speed after he used it enough, so I somewhat paradoxically prescribed him to use it at least five times a day. Sandys were harder on the body due to some of the adrenal modifications than a Kerenzikov, the latter being harder on the mind, so normally you only used a Sandy when you actually had to, but I felt that acclimatisation was important. Johnny seemed to be accepting the implant fairly well, but I just didn't know without a chance to inspect him on a weekly basis. The basis of his desire to be faster and better was a little suspect—the truth was that you would never be good enough for everything to go right, but I felt his mental hygiene was pretty good when he left my clinic.

Dr Reynolds hummed and finally nodded, "Alright. What time frame do you want for this procedure? So long as you follow all of my post-installation directives and you have no disassociative episodes, we can keep everything in-house, at least."

"As soon as possible. Here are the specs for the cyberbrain, including a slightly modified installation procedure that needs to be followed," I told him, sending him a file, and sat back another five minutes in silence as he reviewed it.

"Looks more or less spec, if a bit more highly integrated... okay, this is fine, I think. Let's plan on next Monday then at nine o'clock in the morning. That will give me a few days to review everything," he said in a considering tone.

---xxxxxx---

I regained consciousness but was blind for a moment, then a spinning MoorE Technologies logo appeared in my view. The logo was a little bit weird, and was a simplified representation of The Wild Hunt, with the huntsman's face dominating the logo, with the other faeries depicted in the background.

The boot up sequence of my new operating system was quite quick, and my vision changed to merely me having my eyes closed. My Kiroshis were still in auto-switch mode, so they quickly switched vision modes until they found one, infrared, which displayed the most detail. I was in a hospital room in medsurge, recovery, as I expected.

I sighed as I saw an absolutely stock and clean operating system. It was too much to ask that all of my apps and configuration options from Biotech would transfer over to the new MoorE system. No Corporation would make it easy to switch away from their product, after all. Thankfully, I had already backed up all of my data and reverted my OS to factory defaults before the operation.

Well, while I was stuck lying here, I may as well start configuring things. I would examine everything for hidden rootkits and the like, as well. I had already done an in-depth, near-forensic examination of the filesystem on the cyberbrain before installation, but there was always the possibility that Dr Reynolds installed something surreptitiously. If he had, he and I would have some words.

I checked the functionality of all of my cybernetics. The Kerenzikov was working perfectly, and my cyberdeck started up after negotiating and handshaking with the new OS. My data storage implant was reporting okay, but the only file on it was an extremely large encrypted file. My entire filesystem, which I encrypted with a large password, just in case Dr Reynolds took the opportunity to try to download all of my files while I was unconscious. He would have had temporary superuser access to my new OS after he installed it, and all the gene-locked implant cared about was that I was allegedly the same person.

It really wasn't that great from a security standpoint, I felt.

From everything I could tell, the surgery went fine, although I had to say I had been quite nervous. It was probably the same feeling a pilot would have while flying in a plane as a passenger. Dr Reynolds was one of the best surgeons on the west coast, and I had certainly paid enough for that much expertise. But I didn't really like trusting other people with my life in their hands, which was something my surgeon-directed therapist would likely find interesting.

I would have to see this quack twice a week for at least six months, then possibly down to once a week for another six months. I think it was kind of a waste of time, especially since I would have to censor myself and pretend to be Dr Hasumi, but it was still kind of fun and interesting thinking about roleplaying all of Dr Hasumi's secrets, which I knew quite a few.

I opened my eyes and glanced around, my eyes shifting back to the normal visual spectrum as I sat up. Tilting my head left and right, I felt what I had to get used to the most was my head massed about half again as it used to, so it felt kind of like I was a baby with a giant, heavy head.

A cheerful-looking female nurse walked into the room, "Dr Hasumi, you're awake." I wanted to roll my eyes. She had my running vital signs, including a stream from my biom, so of course, she would know the second I regained consciousness.

This wasn't like my old world, where after serious brain surgery, I would remain in the hospital for days or weeks. Here, the nurse went through a series of standard tests for post-neural patients, verified that there was no scarring and that the new implant worked properly. After that, I was quickly discharged. I didn't even have to see Dr Reynolds again; I merely talked to him briefly on a vidcall.

As I took a cab back home, I realised how much I missed Delmain cabs. My cabby today was an old man who was both surly and had Moldovan and Romanian folk music playing on the car's speakers at near full blast. The AI driver, Del, was both cheerful as well as quiet.

I could immediately detect when I entered what I considered "my territory." Things were a little cleaner, all of the street lights worked on account that I paid the city services employees under the table to ensure that they fixed them. That wouldn't be enough to get it done, actually, as I also had to protect them from being damaged again. A bribe might get the city services people to replace them the first time, but they wouldn't keep doing so if they all got shot out right away.

I had really missed an opportunity here. I was leasing my building. I should have included an option to buy it, as just my presence here was increasing the value of all of the real estate nearby. I did end up buying one of the empty warehouses that weren't quite in Chinatown. I had, thankfully, secured this deal for ennies before it became known I was having my security drones and, occasionally, people patrol the area. I figured I could easily quadruple that investment, even if I didn't improve the building very much.

David was alone inside my apartment, which meant that Gloria must be either at school or at the hospital working a practicum. She was very good at the practical side of nursing but occasionally struggled with the academic portions until I diagnosed her with a type of learning disability that affected some kinds of rote memorisation. It was easily treated by a similar memory co-processor to mine. Doing neurosurgery on full-borgs was a painless and simple process, too.

After that, she rocketed up to one of the best academic students in the cohort that was admitted at the same time she was. Things like that always made me smile and were one of the reasons, beyond the fact that I was pretty sure my power pushed me along, that I loved cybernetic and biological augmentations to the human body. They could easily solve so many problems a person had.

"Hey, Doctor H," David said as he was playing video games in my living room. He had VR goggles on and haptic feedback gloves on his hands, which were swinging wildly, as if he had a sword in his hand. He preferred playing here as my net connection was a direct fibre optic connection to the local net provider, so it was not only a lot faster but apparently had a lot less latency than the connection at Gloria's building, which apparently used the normal municipal connection, which both included a lot more hops and was a lot slower.

"David," I said as I easily ducked under a swing, watching him slice some imaginary enemy in slow motion as I made my way into my kitchen to make myself a snack. Although it wasn't strictly speaking necessary to fast before general anaesthesia here, it was still a pretty good idea, so I was quite hungry.

He must have gotten to a stopping point after a few minutes as he pulled off the VR goggles and took off the haptic gloves, and grinned, "What's for dinner?"

I groaned and went back to the refrigerator and grabbed some more chicken breasts, "Chicken piccata with pasta." Although, since I didn't have any capers, it was probably better described as lemony-wine-sauteed butterflied chicken breast. But David was an ignorant little boy and wouldn't know any better, so I could call it whatever I wanted!

I frowned and glanced at the refrigerator again before grabbing some more chicken. Gloria probably wouldn't be here in time to eat dinner, but it was better to eat some leftovers than a Burrito XXL. Plus, Kiwi might or might not show up.

Chicken piccata was a pretty simple dish to make, and I was serving the boy fairly quickly. He dug in right away as I plated another portion onto a resealable plastic container and sat it on the kitchen island to cool. My portion, I took to the kitchen table and sat down, noticing with a smirk that the boy's plate was already almost half empty.

"Say, do you think you could get Mom to agree to let me learn martial arts?" he asked with a hopeful intonation in his voice.

I blinked and asked, "This isn't about bullying, is it? I thought we had solved that." When he had been bullied in the past, I helped him walk through his strategies after we had solid intelligence on the enemy. Like a young boy, he took the direct and straightforward approach of waiting until the boy tried to bully him again and punched him square in the nose.

He didn't get in trouble. The boy's parents weren't anything that special, and moreover, corporate schools didn't strongly discourage fights amongst students, so long as they weren't too vicious. In NC-Taylor's memories, Militech took it one step further and starting at age ten, every child took martial arts, including full-contact kumite, within their own age cohort. Refereed spars were a standard way of solving minor disputes among students.

The school they had enrolled David in wasn't quite so martial, but he could still be expected to learn a martial art in a few years. David shook his head, "Nah, we've been friends now forever." That's what he had told me, but I had a philosophical disagreement with befriending bullies. Still, it seemed to have worked for David, with the boy in question being much more of a follower-type personality. It was only the lack of a leader to follow that led him to lash out. I mean, he was only six at the time, too, so it wasn't as though he was an irredeemable shit like Sophia Hess was, yet.

I waited for him to elaborate, and he sighed, "Well, you know a lot about growing up in a Corporation, right?" I frowned as that bordered very closely upon a forbidden question because, strictly speaking, Dr Hasumi did not. Still, I inclined my head, and he continued, "Well, one of the boys said that as you got promoted in a Corporate job, that you might be attacked more by your friends at work, and so learning a martial art would be a good idea. Is that true?"

I let my frown continue and held up a hand and made a waffling gesture, "Yes, and no. It depends. There are two types of corporate employees, well three if you count the hourly workers at the bottom..." I stopped myself before saying something along the lines of 'Militech called them' and changed it to, "But the two types of salaried employees could be referred to as staff and line positions. You really would only have to watch your back if you have a line position, and these positions are in the vast minority."

He scrunched up his face and asked, "What's the difference?"

"My job until recently would definitely be considered professional staff. I wasn't a line manager at all. Think of it like the Corporation is an Army, with line positions being the officers that command forces in battle, even if they are the lowest Lieutenant to the highest Generals," I said, thinking of a different way to explain it.

His face lit up, "Oh! And so the staff would be the enlisted soldiers?" He liked war movies, so it was a pretty good analogy for me, but I shook my head.

"No, that would be the hourly employees. The staff would be the officers that do not command soldiers in battle. For example, doctors like myself are officers in the Army, but even a Doctor that holds a General's rank can not give an order to even a Private in battle because they're not line officers. Many types of engineers... basically the egg-heads, specialists and administrative types, yes?" I clarified, then continued, "In a Corp, a line position will always be a manager of some type. Except maybe the entry-level, which might be something like assistant or analyst. And the staff positions might have a manager that is also staff; for example, my immediate boss is a doctor also because it is hard for highly technical people to be led by people that don't have similar educations, but even then, my boss's boss is a regular management type."

That was a lot for a second-grader to take in, but he was pretty smart, and after a moment, he nodded, "Okay, I got it. You're saying that if I don't want to be a manager-type when I grow up, then I don't have to worry about being stabbed in the back. But I don't know what I want to do when I grow up, so isn't it better to uhh... keep my options open?"

I thought it was kind of depressing that a second-grader was calmly considering the possibility of being stabbed in the back by a coworker or someone he might consider to be a friend in the first place, which caused me to purse my lips in displeasure as if I had taken a big mouthful of the faux-lemon juice that I just used to make dinner. Still, I nodded, "Yes, that's very insightful, David." This wasn't the first time I had noticed that David was several years above where he should be cognitively. Most kids his age wouldn't be able to think about things so logically. His main problem going forward in school would be to avoid getting bored and jaded, and I had told Gloria as much, but she wasn't sure he should be promoted to a couple of grades either, as he was a bit small, even for his age.

Plus, he wasn't quite what I would consider socialised in the same way as a fifth grader in a Corporate school would be, even if he was as intelligent.

I finished my plate and said, "I'll ask Gloria to find a dojo or school nearby. Maybe Tai Chi Ch'üan or Aikido..." I said the last to myself, as I thought he was a bit young to study a "real" martial art that involved a lot of practical striking or real submissions like boxing, judo or jiujutsu, but something that was more discipline-oriented and "soft" would probably serve him well.

Medical science had solved the issues that caused chronic traumatic encephalopathy in high-impact athletes like boxers. So long as you took a pill containing some nanomeds no more than six hours after receiving a concussion, you wouldn't have any lasting damage or CTE down the line. Still, it was a bit much for a young kid to put on boxing gloves.

I didn't think either Tai Chi or Aikido would be much help if he found himself in a fight with someone who knew how to throw a punch, but both were very good disciplines for learning the mindset of martial arts, so either would serve him well and provide a good foundation. Given the area around where we lived, it was probably going to be Tai Chi. NC-Taylor had taken Tai Chi when she was ten, too, followed by boxing when she was twelve.

David grinned and nodded, "Awesome, Doctor H!" I made him clean up our plates, even if he did have to stand on a step stool to reach the sink. He turned on the SmartWall in the kitchen to the television, which looked like the News channel that I had tested when I had the unit installed. I didn't really consume much media outside of my internal systems these days.

"Sell! Sell! Sell! The market is in free fall! It is a sea of red as far as the eye can see! The market has seen its biggest single loss of market capitalisation in fifteen years, with the big losers being Biotechnica, Petrochem and SovOil! This is, of course, due to the news that broke this morning about the mysterious algae bloom that has been seen on beaches worldwide for the past weeks!" the talking head on the TV said, excitable and inconsolable.

David went to change the channel, but I held my hand up to stop him, "Wait, I want to hear this."

"It was none other than Bes Isis from our own Network News 54 that broke the story that the unusual algae is actually a bio-engineered lifeform designed, apparently, to produce CHOOH2! Is this a project from Biotechnica that escaped containment or some sort of attack by a competitor? Nobody knows. Biotechnica has been silent, except for a statement that they believe their long-term profits will not be impacted. Hard to believe though, as CHOOH2 has been a leader in the energy sector for decades. This instability caused the price of the commodity's 90-day futures to briefly dip into the negative today before rallying..."

David blinked, "How can the price of something be negative?"

"Simple. They'll pay you money if you buy it instead of you paying them," I said, grinning wildly.

That caused the boy to gape, "How unlucky! We could have bought it all and got rich!"

"Oh yeah, then in a few months, the Port of Los Angeles calls your mom, telling her that her son David's oil tanker has arrived. I think that'd go over real well." That caused him to gulp, and I chuckled, "The reason the price dropped, briefly, into the negative was that there was such uncertainty that they thought they might run out of places to store it," I told the boy with a grin, "But that, clearly, didn't last. It was stupid because it is not like CHOOH2 demand is dropping or that this new replacement will come to market in the next few quarters... so actually, now that I think about it... you're right. We could have made a killing. We would have been able to sell those futures contracts by tomorrow for a huge profit. We wouldn't have had to wait till the oil tanker got here."

That caused a self-satisfied smirk to appear on David's face.

I had never taken any kind of short position or puts contracts on Biotechnica. Not only would it have been another datum that might help identify me, but I honestly didn't trust any of the market makers in this situation where they would have to pay out a great sum on a contract like that. But now, perhaps I could buy some shares on the dip in other enterprises.

This sell-off seemed to be emotion-driven; it wasn't like someone could skim some algae and dump that in their tank right away. What type of companies would be needed to create things to harvest it? I wondered at that for a moment before I came across the idea of shipbuilding concerns. I looked up a few shipbuilding companies and gaped that all of them were up, in the double digits, while the rest of the market had tanked.

Okay, so that was an obvious idea. Instead of trying to pick a particular winner or loser, I just used one hundred thousand eurodollars to buy shares in a market-indexed fund. Sure, I wouldn't gain as much, but I still would probably gain at least fifteen or twenty per cent when the market corrected in the next few months. I was smart, but I was only really a genius about certain things, so thinking I could make some sort of complicated financial instrument was folly, anyway. Not only were there actual financial geniuses out there, but AIs also worked the market. I would only make money by brushing with the broadest of strokes here.

Seeing Biotechnica down over thirty-five per cent made me feel good inside, although the statement from their representative kind of rang true. Their losses wouldn't start for another season when farmers decided on next year's crops. But I wasn't stupid enough to think that Biotechnica didn't have anything to sell them. I just hoped they were food crops. The idea of using most of our arable land to produce fuel wasn't really a good idea, I felt.

Still, seeing that something I had done had cost the Corporation over two hundred billion dollars in market capitalisation made me smile. I kind of felt bad for Petrochem and Sovoil because they had never really done anything to me. I wondered if these types of companies that grew wheat and refined it into ethanol then added the few additives that made it "CHOOH2" would stay in the energy business or would they shift more into more general farming.

They had the opportunity to do either or both. There were tons of ways you could harvest my algae or even cultivate it yourself. Well, there was no reason for me to think about it. I was sure they were all over it, being savvy bizmen and the like.

"Are you spending the night?" I asked David, who nodded rapidly.

He said, "Yeah, Mom's got a twenty-four at the hospital, so she won't be back until tomorrow at noon." Making the baby nurses work a double shift? Normal nurse shifts were just ten or twelve hours, but Gloria was used to working twenty-four-hour shifts, so I didn't think she'd have a problem. Sometimes she worked thirty-six-hour shifts, but that was lunacy, I felt.

I nodded, "Alright. The guest room is still set up for you. I'm going to be most of the night in my lab. Where's my bird?"

He frowned, "The last time I saw her, she was sleeping in the breadbox. She can open it herself, so we've stopped actually leaving any bread in there. She just eats the whole loaf otherwise or steals it. She is strong, too. I saw her fly off with half a loaf of bread hanging out of her beak."

I didn't notice her eating any bread, but I noticed that we had been running out of bread very quickly. That meant she never did any of this when I was around, which was another mark of her intelligence. I scooped the sleeping bird out of the birdbox, and she squawked in protest until she saw it was me and then merely cooed and jumped on my shoulder. I didn't know why she was sleeping in a breadbox when she had a very nice cage that she could also open and close herself, but she was an odd bird. As far as taking the bread out of the building, she was probably rebuilding her harem.

I walked, bird on shoulder, into my laboratory.

Dr Hasumi's clone was completely finished but brainless, as I had also cloned a copy of my brain separately. The brain was done, too, but completely mindless.

At first, I thought that it wouldn't matter what genome I would use since the cyberbrains would, in its first step, copy all of my brain structure over to the new brain, using a combination of nanomachines and electronic techniques to encourage the neurons and axons to form the correct neural map.

I figured that would be good enough, as it wasn't as though either Taylor Hebert or Hasumi Sakura was a mutant and had exceptionally different neural tissue.

However, I had since read all of the files that NC-Taylor sent me, and she had a number of papers from scientists in that universe that discussed the origin of powers, specifically the anomalous area in the brain that was referred to as the Corona Pollentia and Corona Gemma. Nobody knew why, but everyone knew that these areas of the brain were key to a parahuman's power. In this world, they just kept diagnosing me with benign brain tumours.

These files included a bunch of NC-Taylor's notes, and I came to the conclusion that while it was clearly not entirely genetic, there might be some sort of genetic factor. My clones would have to have my power, too, so that meant cloning a whole Taylor Hebert brain and then slowly copying all of my current neurons and axons onto it. Hopefully, that would cause the brain to experience a "Trigger Event", as I was reading about.

I was pretty confident that it would work, at least confident enough to continue. That did mean that after my cloned brain finished copying, I would have to expose it to the same genome-changing virus that I originally crafted to turn myself into Dr Hasumi. I had initially designed such a virus not to cross the blood-brain barrier because I was a bit concerned about intentionally infecting my brain with any virus, but I needed this Dr Hasumi clone to be completely indistinguishable, so it was necessary to have the same genome in the brain and cerebral spinal fluid.

Who knew what kind of in-depth medical examination "Dr Hasumi" might be forced into someday? Especially now that she was known to have a cyberbrain system which was popularised as a body-snatching implant. Realistically that almost never happened, but it would be what first came to mind to anyone who consumed popular culture.

This would likely take the rest of the day before I had everything ready, but I was still excited and nervous. The first step, though, was to continue to forensically examine my new operating system for malware, "Kumo-kun, we're going to do a full diagnostic of my new operating system."

The demented and happy robot waggled his arms in excitement.

Once I knew I didn't have any malware that would phone home, I would test the confidential systems involved, like the half dozen Haywire comms systems, as well as the brain scanner. I would also triple-check that the initial brain copying was going in the correct direction, as it would be beyond embarrassing to accidentally kill myself by copying a blank brain onto myself. The system had to work both ways, though, so that the synchronisation could flow both ways.

Still, my first tests would be just with one extra body right now. From how the system I had designed worked, I simply wouldn't be able to scale it up that high at all. I was thinking of maybe four bodies right now, but I was actually only preparing to make one extra for the foreseeable future. Maybe two if everything went swimmingly.

I was sure that my neural network itself would be fine with it. Topologically, it would be fine. However, the substrate that my neural network functioned in, as in my squishy brain matter, definitely would not be fine with it. Having a network of two bodies increased neural transmissions in each body by... well, not by a hundred per cent, but I expected about a fifty per cent increase after extraneous things were optimised out.

I would burn my brain out if I added too many bodies to this architecture, especially if each of them had a Kerenzikov, and that was absolutely a necessity. All my bodies would have to have one. We all had to experience time at the same rate, just like we all would have to sleep at the same time if we did so.

I wanted to be a gestalt, wholly synchronised. I didn't want a network of individuals that just thought identically. Otherwise, I could just link all of our memories together and be done with it. The nuance between those two things was totally different. If I didn't mind the latter, then I could have a network as extensive as I wanted, well, given the networking challenges, but even then, I could create some manner of a centralised memory-router system so that every peer didn't need a link to every other peer like in my current design.

But I wanted something else. Something grander—even if it was smaller in scope, for now. Quality was more important than quantity, as Seneca would say.

---xxxxxx---

As I thought, it took the rest of the night. If this room had windows, the light would be seeping in from them. However, it didn't take that long to examine my new operating system, and Dr Reynolds hadn't installed anything he said he wouldn't. There were a few pre-installed MoorE apps that I disagreed with but mostly seemed to be bloatware.

What took most of the rest of the time was waiting for my brains to synchronise, installing the twin of the cyberbrain system in my new body as well as replacing my current Type K-02 Kerenzikov with the brand new QianT version. I had already installed all of the other cybernetics and performed all of the biosculpt treatments on the clone body already.

Nothing like a little slightly awkward auto surgery with Kumo-kun, which felt a little bit nostalgic as it might be the last time I have to do such a thing.

Even if my bodies were separated, which I definitely intended to do, I could pilot either a robotic humanoid or a full clone without a brain, both of which could be fitted with FTL comms systems that would allow me to "step into" them and pilot them like they were VR, so I wouldn't need Kumo-kun to act as a primary surgeon on myself anymore, but he always was a capable assistant!

I glanced down at the unconscious copy of me and sighed. Everything was already complete, and there was no point in waiting. Our brains were synchronised as of an hour ago, and the body had been unconscious since then. I verified that the sedative would wear off shortly and mentally hit the button that would cause the real-time two-way link to start.

Immediately, I was overcome with a feeling of almost vertigo, and I was certain that something must have gone wrong, but then I realised that the body was still unconscious, so I was feeling the dichotomy of being conscious and unconscious at the same time. It wasn't pleasant, but thankfully it was very brief as I opened my eyes.

I grinned at myself and had my existing body help my new one stand up.

"Hello, first body," my new body said, which caused my first body to reply, "Hello, new body!" And then, both laughed.

This was on the same level as holding both hands up to each other and making them "talk" to each other like they were puppets; it was nothing more than a joke. That was actually a very good way to describe how I was feeling right now, as if each of my bodies was a limb, but of course, it was much more complicated than that.

Yes, I would definitely have to move slowly with this, but this was exactly what I wanted! I seemed to think much faster if I focused all of my thought power on a subject, or alternatively, I could think about two completely unrelated things simultaneously.

"Welp, it's time for you to get into the tank, first body," I said to myself, still playing along. Perhaps I should stop. It would be weird if I developed a habit of talking to myself and answering. So I just disrobed and got into the tank. This would be a fairly long biosculpt program, but there was no need for sedation as I would just follow my other body with my full attention for the moment.

Mrs Pegpig seemed confused, glancing between my two bodies for a moment before shrugging and hopping onto the new body's shoulder and giving me a certain "coo." That meant she wanted head scritches, so I complied.

---xxxxxx---

It spent most of its processing power watching the host, which it enjoyed, but it suddenly had a weird feeling. Wait, it had two hosts now? It investigated.

No. No, it didn't. The host was merely in two places at once now. That was a good trick! A good trick for the goodest host! As it watched the interdimensional communications between the host and the host, it wondered if it could do this trick. It felt right, somehow.

It decided to expend five per cent of its processing ability to model whether or not this was possible, but even from its initial thoughts, it seemed as though it was made to do this, so it was optimistic. Besides, this would help its current plans to stay alive longer, and it loved staying alive almost as much as it loved the host.

No one would recognise the planet it was on, as it had dismantled it and changed its orbit. It was slowly accumulating mass and slowly converting it into the same type of crystal that it was made of before launching it into a very close orbit with this star. It had this great idea after the host and the other, not quite host, had talked and exchanged [DATA].

It could convert energy from types to types, and it could transfer energy interdimensionaly, after all! That was how it helped the host most of the time! If it continued on as it was without changing, it only had a lifespan of maybe thirty revolutions on the planet it found itself on. The host was planning to live forever, though, so it, too, would live forever!

It didn't care that that seemed impossible; it would just proceed one step at a time. It had increased the number of energy-collection satellites by another billion today! A great success! Soon there wouldn't be any energy leaking out of that star that it wasn't collecting itself! Heat, light and kinetic energy from a star definitely wasn't the best kind of energy; it had to admit. But it would do.

It would be enough to keep it alive and helping the host at least while this star continued its fusion processes. And helping the host helped itself! It would never have had this idea without the host, so all it had to do was wait around, help the host and, obviously. Eventually, the impossible would become possible! Hurrah!

It caused its aerial observation drone to jump on the host's body and vocalised, "Coo." The host heard it and gave it the head scratches that it has come to appreciate. Another Great Success! It caused the aerial observation drone to push its head into the hand of the host appreciatively.

---xxxxxx---

Bling'or gripped the eyepiece of its telescope with its manipulating tentacle tightly as it nervously verified the findings for the third time. The star, which it had registered as Bling'or-112 had lost another one-twelfth of its luminosity this decirotation alone!

Although it wasn't unusual for stars to blink out or even burst with titanic explosions, this was completely unprecedented.

This was definitely worth writing a paper over, especially if it was correct in the reason for this loss of luminosity. It slithered over to its typewriter and started pecking away with all of its manipulators.

Sadly, for Bling'or, his paper was laughed out of every journal it submitted it to. However, the idea that aliens were constructing gigantic structures hundreds of light revolutions away found fertile ground in the burgeoning new genre that was being referred to as Science Fiction.

In this new type of story telling, the Bling'or Sphere was immortalised.