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**A Second Opinion

By: VeronicaFoxx

Gift For: Dreixes**

Dr. Angelique Strauss had dealt with a lot of trauma in her time as a psychiatrist, helped a lot of people through it to the other side, and she'd seen a wide variety of reactions to it. Obsession and/or fixation was not an unexpected response, but April had fixated on a rather new and different kind of thing. Body modification was a strange way to deal with the after-effects of a rape, but she supposed that the method of modification that the squirrel was after did fit with the other predilictions that the red panda knew about. These kind of obsessions and fixations were the reason that she insisted that her clients, without fail, presented her with an absolutely accurate and current, real-time model of their body when meeting through the cybersphere rather than in person. The module she required her clients to install worked best with a full body sim-suit, but it could be made to work with as little as a simple VR visor to scan over the body, the whole body, and she was rather worried that the red squirrel might have gone ahead with things despite Shodan's assurance that April was only thinking about things so far. Fixations could become deadly very quickly when victims turned to self-harm, and this kind of modification could certainly be classed as harmful to the self.

She had the environment loaded with her own avatar invisible and completely sensory-masked while she awaited the appointment, so she was able to watch as the young woman began to "zone in" to the simulated office that she held such meetings. She slowed her own perception of time slightly and added a bit of stretch to April's, which the client would perceive as loading lag, passing a critical eye over every inch that came into being within the virtual environment. April was, fortunately, one of the more dedicated gamer types, with an extremely comprehensive rig, so Dr. Strauss had as complete a view of her physical being as if she had vivisected the squirrel open in a surgical suite. She was quite pleased to find that nothing was any different from the last time she had spoken with the patient, very relieved if she were honest with herself, and also grateful to the hyena for alerting her regarding this new direction for the squirrel's trauma recovery.

Taking her seat, the red panda allowed her avatar to rez into existence, as if she had just loaded into the program, and set the time differential back to real-time. April smiled, her avatar nude as usual, and offered her an obviously nervous wave.

"Hullo, Dr. Strauss. Shodan told me that you wanted me to have you on the line for when I speak with the Paulies, in case you thought that I was doing something dangerous or harmful or... what have you. I know I should have brought this up with you first, but you can see what I'm after, and then you can decide if it's... if I shouldn't go forward with this."

"That is the plan," Angelique answered with her most comforting smile. "Don't mind me, hun, I'm just going to observe during the call. You won't even know I'm here. Give me just a few seconds to pull up some monitors. I know that having me here will make you nervous, but you know that you can trust me not to judge you for your kinks. It wouldn't be very fair of me considering the things that I like, after all."

The squirrel giggled, recalling the very explicit recording that had been shared in confidence showing the red panda being absolutely railed by a feral canine. It had helped to build an instant trust having that shared "off the beaten path" sexual attraction, though April's was rather more normal than Angelique's own. The vital monitors showed the squirrel's nerves calming, heartbeat and respiration slowing, and she gestured for April to begin the second call while fading her own environment back to invisibility.

It was extremely interesting seeing "the Paulies" load in. There were very obvious cybernetic components that resolved almost instantly, enough that Dr. Strauss was actually worried she might have to release a client's recorded session data to the authorities due to concerns with artificial intelligence. Then the biological organs began to phase in, and she relaxed. They had cranial augments, not entire brain replacements, but there had been just a moment of actual fear. AIs were heavily policed and relegated to extremely niche positions within society, mostly to assuage the fears of people who had a lot of money and/or power and a vast terror of advancing technology, but it was the law. The hairless sphynx cats were also extremely interesting just to look at, patterned all over their bodies with intricate patterns, drawings, and words that were seemingly branded into their flesh. Then again, they were body modification specialists, so she really shouldn't have been surprised. She kicked herself for having thought that they might be AI constructs to begin with. They were rated for surgical replacements and professed a love of augmentation in their online profiles; she should have known that they would have upgraded everything that they could.

Then, before they even greeted April, they both looked directly at Angelique. In absolute unison, staring directly at where her avatar hung in the null-space environment of the secondary call. One of them pointed.

"Did you know that you have a piggybacker on your call?" the pointing one inquired of April, and Dr. Strauss instantly rezzed herself in.

Augments. Terrifyingly powerful augments, but just augments. Not AIs. She was glad that they were polite because she suspected they might be the kind of people who were able to do nasty things if they so chose, the limits of a virtual interaction notwithstanding, if they had the kind of programming available to cut through her masking, which she had paid absolutely top dollar for.

"Hi, hello, sorry for the ghost act. I'm April's therapist. I'm only here to observe. I just want to make sure that she isn't going down a route of self-harm or anything like that."

They nodded, again in unison, which was creepy. They were twins, according to the information she had dug up on them, so that must be one of those "twin things" that was all over the internet, but she got a distinct feeling that there was more to it than that. It was an instinct that made her a wonderful therapist but could also make her creep herself out on occasion. The pair turned to April, completely ignoring the psychiatrist, and Angelique felt far more invisible than when she'd actually been.

What was particularly enlightening was the way that the Paulies approached April's request, which was a way to prevent orgasm in the case of being the victim of another encounter like the one that had caused her trauma. They didn't immediately leap into what Angelique considered to be the heavy stuff, though she honestly wasn't sure what those two would consider heavy. She considered what they had done to themselves to be heavy, but she knew that such things were a matter of perspective. Instead, what they offered was something simple, effective, and relatively non-invasive. Nerve-impulse blocker chips were used in a wide variety of fields for various reasons and took only a simple injection at the base of the skull to insert them into the spinal column. They were safer than anesthetic, easily removable, and could even be ordered to self-destruct inside a patient's body so that they broke down into simple, non-harmful molecules that would be flushed out by natural biological processes. The felines then worked their way up from the bottom, and they did make sure to advise the squirrel very thoroughly about the dangers at each stage of the progression.

Angelique was impressed. To the point that she actually needed to interrupt them just long enough to ask a question. "Which one of you is the doctor?"

The... female? She really couldn't tell between them, though she thought she had seen an artificial womb when that one was resolving, smiled at her a tad condescendingly. "We both are, multiple times. Paul got the psychology degree, but I picked up enough to get by. Would you like us to send over our credentials?"

"No, no, no, sorry, I just had to know. You're very thorough. Do you... know?"

"What happened to her?" the other cut in. "No. But we know the look. We know the sound and feel. We know something happened, but it would have been rude to ask since she hasn't offered to explain."

"But if we thought she was of unsound mind and/or judgement, you can rest assured that we would not be providing these services to her. Depending upon what she chooses, we may very well decline to provide service still. We would very much like to consult with you regarding any procedures, if you are willing to share your patient records. It will help us make our decision."

April was looking back and forth between the Paulies and the psychiatrist, and Angelique realized that they had seamlessly and instantly excluded the squirrel from the conversation by the expedient of blocking her audio reception of it. Quite powerful augments indeed.

"Ah, yes, I can certainly do that. I apologize again for interrupting, Doctors. Please proceed, and I'll contact you directly afterwards to share my records, and hopefully get any impressions that you have in return?"

The last was a very hesitantly added question, but the cats just smiled and nodded agreement. They scared her, more than a little, but they were positively fascinating. She wondered if they might like to begin a professional relationship, and maybe something slightly less than professional. It was rather rare to find such highly educated minds with so very many augmentations. She could probably write a book or two, if they let her.

Dr. Strauss gave herself a mental slap and refocused her attention on the conversation, feeling strangely much more at ease. The Paulies were consummate professionals, and she had no further fear that they would assist her patient in any kind of damaging behavior.

The End