Bio-Tech: Bodysculpt Clinics

Bodysculpt Clinics

These are clinics that specialize in legal bodysculpting jobs, although at TL10+ they also carry cheaper proteus viruses, such as metabolic reset and cosmetic virus. Some are large, upscale establishments catering to the middle and upper classes, often with psychological counselors as well as surgeons to ensure smooth integration.

Others are walk-in places that specialize in generic face jobs based on knock-offs of the latest vid star or virtual soap opera character. Those that offer the most radical mods may be descendants of tattoo and body-piercing parlors, catering to subcultures that want to physically distinguish themselves (counterculture, sailors, yakuza, etc.). Of course, in some cultures, an "original human" body may be radical, in which case places might specialize in modifying people back to "normal."

Most clinics will only perform or procedures.

Black Clinics

In the future, designer drugs aren't the only things being made in secret labs – so are designer bodies, animal or human, as well as customized life forms. A black clinic is a laboratory, clinic, or hospital that performs illegal or ethically dubious biomod and gengineering procedures. If cyberwear exists, some may specialize in cybernetics, others in biological procedures, and many in both. Some black clinics are also "body banks," involved in illegal organ theft (see Organlegger).

Black clinics may range from basement or mobile labs to full-fledged hospitals. The latter are usually disguised as legal body parlors, clinics, or biotech companies, but offer extra services to special clients. A black clinic may be able to dispense with secrecy entirely if it can find a location beyond the reach of the law. For example, a black clinic may be based in an orbital habitat, or in a jurisdiction not signatory to international regulations on bioengineering ethics. Security and intelligence agencies may maintain secret black clinics to provide assistance to their agents – often, these also do freelance work on the side.

The biggest danger of going to a black clinic is the risk of shoddy work, followed by being asked to consent to some experimental process that hasn't been debugged. Finding a disguised black clinic requires appropriate Contacts or Streetwise skill; a critical failure might lead to a police sting operation or, worse, a clinic that looks good but is incompetent, enjoys experimenting on its clients, or uses them for spare parts.