Birds Of A Feather, Chapter 2.4

2.4

+++

My reading was interrupted half an hour after I started. An alert dinged through the air, and I glanced through my system to see that the NCPD had arrived.

The screens shifted, showing the camera views. The NCPD officers had elected to park on the side of the street, just in front of the building.

I waved a hand, sending the screens away, and stood up before making my way to the door.

I stepped through the plasma barrier leading out to the front just as the two officers reached the edge of the pavement.

One was a man, and the other was a woman. Both were tall, but to my eye it was easy to discern that the man’s height came from extensive biosculpting while the woman’s was completely natural. Both were fit, obviously, and both were wearing thick, heavy uniforms that only barely concealed the Linear Frames that they were equipped with.

Evidently, they had been informed about me, but they had clearly not been able to fully internalise what they’d been told. The way that they looked at me, especially the way that both of their heads simultaneously tilted backwards as they looked up at me rather gave it away.

Still, they didn’t let it stop them. “Hello, sir.” The woman started. “I’m Officer Garcia of the NCPD. We’re here to respond to the alert?”

From what I could sense, this was a woman just doing her job. “Greetings.” I answered, my head tilting slightly in acknowledgement. “This way, please. The would-be thief was detained, and placed inside the staff room.”

The two of them shared a glance. The male officer nodded, and his eyes flickered with colour a moment later. The woman, meanwhile, simply smiled at me, and it was only somewhat fake. “Of course.”

I turned around, and led them right back inside. “The attempted theft was caught on camera.” In impeccable definition, at that. “A copy can be provided, if you require one?” I asked as I stepped through the plasma barrier.

There was a brief pause before they followed, one hand in front of them to test it first. “It would certainly make our jobs easier, thank you.” Officer Garcia replied.

I noted them both slowing down for a moment as they breathed in, and tasted how fresh the air was. Not surprising.

“That... is a very good filtering system.” The man spoke, briefly pausing as he started speaking.

“It is a custom system, designed and constructed by myself, for this building specifically.” I explained, briefly looking over my shoulder at them. “It is sufficient that no form of contamination exists within this building. A minimum requirement.”

The two shared another glance. In front of me, the doors to the staff hallway opened on their own. “Well.” The man continued, in a lighter tone. “I’m surprised the door is open. Oxygen Bars normally charge for something like this, I think.”

I scoffed, slightly. “From my research into those locations, they are the complete opposite of clean air.” Of course they were. They made their business selling ‘clean’ air, but greed was poisonous to the extreme, and those who would commodify even breath itself were greedy indeed. “A closed loop of additives, never truly refreshing.” I said, as the staff room door opened before us.

The man was immediately in sight, and so I stepped to the side and gestured forwards. He was propped up in a chair, lounged at the table, unconscious.

The two drones at his side shifted, and then retreated away. “The would-be thief.” I spoke. Another drone appeared behind me, a memory chip held in a manipulator arm. “He was subdued via direct shock to his Neuroport. I expect that he will regain consciousness approximately two hours from now. As for his face-” The woman was clearly staring directly at the rather distinct crater in said face. “- he attempted to flee past one of my teller robots. Their entire frames are made of a composite material blend of titanium, tungsten, osmium, chromium, and vanadium.” Among other things. “He failed.”

I held out the memory chip. The woman, slowly, took it. “...Right.” She said, shaking her head as she straightened up. “Thank you.”

I nodded. “Will you require assistance moving him?” I asked, politely, even though we all knew that they wouldn’t.

The man shook his head. He stepped closer, rolling his sleeve back to expose a wrist. A Personal Link cable was readily visible, and he pulled it out before plugging it into one of the sockets on the ganger’s neck.

His eyes shifted colour, briefly flickering with microsaccades as he examined the would-be thief’s systems. “Murk, Lyrons.” He muttered, quietly. His next words were a bit louder, as he looked towards his partner. “Several outstanding warrants. Multiple cases of theft, one case of suspected murder. Gang affiliations with the...” He sighed. “Silver Faces.”

Officer Garcia looked at him, before her eyes flicked back at the ganger’s face. Reflective silver looked back. She sighed too.

And now I find myself even less impressed. It really had to be this guy who was my first thief, didn’t it?

The man shook his head, before pulling the cable back out. He reached into his pocket, grabbed a pair of handcuffs, and then cuffed the ganger. Only a few seconds later, he pulled the man over his shoulder in a proper fireman’s carry, before standing up straight. “Alright, we’re taking him into custody.” He said, looking at me. “Thank you for your call, sir. The NCPD greatly appreciates it.”

I gave a slight nod. “A good day to you, then.” I spoke.

Neither wasted any time in leaving, but they weren’t overly quick about it, either. They moved with the pace of people who were perpetually busy and overworked, not with the pace of people trying to flee.

A rather simple, but not wholly unpleasant interaction with the NCPD.

But that’s what happens when people are sent to provide a specific view of an organisation.

Well, so long as I didn’t have to interact with people who were genuinely awful, I supposed it worked in my favour.

I went back to my chair, and went right back to reading.

+++

Several hours passed. Nothing really happened. There were plenty of people who went past on the street, and either slowed down or stopped to look at the building, but the amount of people who actually came to check things out was significantly lower than that, and all of them went to the Bodega, none of them willing to risk coming to the clinic.

That was perfectly fine, to be honest. It was the first day. It would take time for the clientele to build up. I might have been more concerned if I was paying the city for how much energy I was using, but I was entirely self-sufficient on every front, so it wasn’t really that much of a concern.

Business would come, eventually.

When it reached six in the afternoon, I took a break from my deep dive into Night City’s laws, and went upstairs to check on my garden, leaving a small ‘closed’ sign on the locked door to my clinic.

I stepped out onto the rooftop, and breathed in the air.

Again, the autumn taste greeted me, cool and pleasant, and wholly unlike the air of the rest of the city.

The climbing lights of the city’s sky advertisements provided some illumination, but they were nearly overpowered by the omnipresent lamps that dotted all the way across the garden. They had shifted into a warmer colour by now, the ultraviolet lamps weakened dramatically while the plants went through their resting phase.

I stopped to examine a tomato vine, kneeling down to brush my talons against them. They were bright and healthy, and soon enough would be yielding excellent results.

I stood up, and moved on.

The systems were working fine, as I knew they would be. Nevertheless, I checked them anyway, because it was a good habit to get into. A random selection every day, just to make sure.

It didn’t take very long regardless. When I was done, I moved on to the central part of the entire setup.

The tree, unlike the rest of the garden, still had its full supply of lights active and shining upon it. It, unlike the rest of the plants in this garden, did not need a rest period. I hadn’t designed it with one, and its biology was too efficient to require it.

It was growing well. I could easily see that much just from a visual inspection. Its roots had already expanded significantly over the course of the day, and branches had begun to spring forth from the trunk, brightly coloured leaves hanging from them.

I knelt in front of it, reaching out to press my palm to the base of the trunk. My eyes closed, and I looked.

The pulse of Life continued, slow, but steady. The energies of the world were drawn in, a minuscule amount at the moment. They were tainted, dark and corroding, but the tree drank them all the same. Each mote ground against its own energies, and was broken down into something more basic. What flowed out was pure, clean, and vibrant.

My eyes opened, and I straightened up, my hands coming back to my lap.

It was doing well.

Night City had a lot of problems. A... truly enormous amount of problems. Those problems left the city miserable, and I didn’t just mean the people of the city, there.

Misery was so potent that it twisted the city itself. It was written in every brick and every pane of glass. Most would never notice, but anybody with a hint of psychic, magical, or spiritual power would know it.

I had all three, and quite a bit more than hint.

It was... not as much of a problem as it could have been. If this was a different planet, it might have been a very big problem indeed, but this Earth was something of a shallow zone for esoteric activity. Probably a good thing, since otherwise something bad would have happened, and the list of what could have happened was long indeed.

However, it was inconvenient for me. There were a bunch of things that I would like to do which, if I had sought to achieve through methods which were wholly technological, would have been both significantly more difficult, and significantly more visible.

A little bit of magic could make all the difference if you used it right, but... well, trying to tap into the energies of the world when they were tainted like this was, quite obviously, very dumb. Without that, the only choice left was to power a spell with my own energies, and that was exhausting at the best of times.

The best possible solution would have been to deal with things at the source, but I didn’t have the means to do that at the moment. Not in a way that would really fix the situation.

But I did still want to start getting a handle on it, and so, I had created this tree.

When it came to esoteric matters like that, it was much easier to interact with them via biology. It wasn’t impossible to do so through other means, but biology was by far the most convenient, as the Thoha could attest. It had certainly been the most readily available to me.

In much the same way that any normal plant absorbs carbon dioxide and outputs O2, this tree absorbs the stray energies of the city, breaks it down, and outputs purified energy. At its current size, it was so utterly minor it amounted to a rounding error, but that will change as time goes on and it continues to grow.

It’d take a few months, but stockpiling even just a small percentage of that energy would let me shortcut so many things.

And by the time that I had the supply ready to go, I should be prepared enough to use it.

I stood up, and began to make my way back towards the elevator.

In the meantime, though?

Well, there were a few things I could get done.