Autonomous vehicle controller Rachel Greene relaxes as the truck-bot hauls the container fleet to the highway. The system will alarm if her attention is needed, but she expects an uneventful day: the cargo of cheap electronics has five hundred kilometers from Gdansk until leaving E75 to Katovice.

  Rachel has never seen E75 or the other Eastern European roads in person, but she knows them from the countless hours spent monitoring the bots. The cameras have shown her biker nomads roaming the roads; the smoke rising from the factories, and the steel skeletons of the looted tanks left to rot on the roadside, but her mind has been elsewhere.

  She is in a control room in New Amsterdam, on the southern shore of the English Channel, with six other people. They supervise Xport’s autonomous transports all over Europe. The European legislation has kept the tradition of having a human mind supervising the autonomous transport operations, a squishy brain dozing in a remote office waiting for an unlikely malfunction.

  Rachel adjusts the visor covering her face and closes her eyes, lying back in her chair. The visor is her workstation, providing the visuals and controls she uses to access the bots, but now it provides privacy as Rachel logs in to a personal simulation.

  Using simulations during work hours breaks the company policy, but Rachel can’t see the difference between that and filling the empty hours by browsing the net. Tony, who supervises the trains running to Wien, plays online poker, his visor on the table. Eli has all the long-haul buses in northern France, and she uses the working hours to watch online drama.

  Rachel has expensive cyberware installed under her skin for using the simulations while pretending to work. Most people shy away from having their central nervous system hard-wired and prefer streaming their entertainment from external units, but those people get fired when the management spots them wearing the electronics needed to enjoy their daily dose of escape from reality.

  The cyberware costs more than an average apartment, but with it, Rachel can enjoy the simulations at any time, without anyone knowing about it. The Polish transport routes don’t need her active supervision, but the simulation fanbase needs her participation.

  She checks if the next period of Sergeant Whyte’s story has been published. Only the teaser is online, but the man is his usual rugged perfection, and Rachel can’t wait to spend the evening with him. Whyte is her current virtual boyfriend, the only one she needs. Rachel considers letting the simulation run on visual overlay during the afternoon so she can feast her eyes on Whyte and chat with him, unseen by anyone else. It is a full sensory experience added to her personal reality by the implants in her nervous system.

  Kaňovice’s truck checkpoint is hours away, and the tropical sunset contours Sergeant Whyte’s bare abs perfectly. Rachel can smell him under Galghary 9 EdP, a new addition, but a nice touch for the effect team to leave Whyte’s own scent lingering under the embedded advertisement. This eye for detail is what Rachel loves in IUS’ simulations: they respect the fans even when they include commercial cooperation.

  Sounds of the sea and birds fill Rachel’s ears as she feasts her eyes on Whyte’s toned form, leisurely checking her in-game messages. Everything is perfect as usual until a sudden pain interrupts Rachel’s thoughts, and the emergency system throws her out, the simulation fading into static.

  A gloved hand with cold plastic covering the fingertips rips Rachel’s company-provided visor off, and her head hurts, a dull pain bringing her back to her senses. Rachel is on her back on the office floor, the black barrel of an assault rifle pointing between her eyes.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  She lets out a whimper as she recognizes the black and camo of the corporate police. It took them eleven years to hunt her down. Eleven years of hiding with a new face and identity, and it was all in vain. Rachel feels crushing regret for not having the time to complete Sergeant Whyte’s storyline.

  “Greene, Rachel Elisabet. ID 25102024-2105A. You are deemed guilty under European law,” a male officer says from the left.

  Rachel sighs in relief, all the tension melting from her shoulders. She wants to giggle: this is a normal police raid, and oh yeah, they found her skipping her duties. This is a botch for Rachel’s career, but it means nothing; the corporates haven’t cracked Rachel’s fake identity like she has feared for all these years.

  They don’t know that Rachel was born Irene Lechner. They don’t know she sold all the dirt about Schuwalden Inc’s black operations in Northern Africa a decade ago to make the world a little better, a little fairer place.

  “What do you accuse me of, officer?” Rachel asks. A silly smile is creeping to her lips. These buff guys with their high-tech weapons and enchanted reflexes have no clue about Rachel’s betrayals and the ransom still riding on her head. Irene Lechler may rest in peace, and Rachel can survive the consequences of using a simulation when she was supposed to give her attention to the automated vehicles under her control.

  The officer projects a screen above Rachel, and she sees a tall man in multicolored dreadlocks breaking a shop window and running away with what seems to be a plastic bag full of cheese.

  “You are deemed guilty of eight robberies and an armed assault. Your continual misbehavior has led the citizens to vote for you to participate in the Program for crime rate control,” the officer states.

  Rachel laughs aloud. “I proclaim innocence. I am not the guy with cheese. This is absurd.”

  “The identification matches, Rachel Green.”

  “But…” Rachel tries to turn her head to smile at her colleagues in the autonomous vehicle control, but a corporate police officer slams a hand on Rachel’s eyes and locks her head between his plastic knee guards, while another man sits on her, holding her body and arms.

  Her ear is brutally pressed against the floor, the earring biting her cheek, and the corporate-issued protective knee plate crushing her nose.

  Something cool and rubbery touches Rachel’s ear. She thinks about an artificial vagina, why she is thinking about a vagina? A sharp pain penetrates the inside of her ear, sending sparks of light dancing to her eyes and making her taste ozone, the electric feeling reminding her of the installation of her cyberwar.

  “You have joined PCRC. The related documentation has been attached to your program interface,” the officer says, his voice cold and uncaring.

  Another man slips a slippery piece of plastic around Rachel’s neck and tightens it like a zip tie.

  “Any attempt to open or harm the open prison collar will activate the explosive implanted in your ear. It will also activate if you leave the city area. It was a pleasure to do business with you, ma’am, and we wish you a pleasant day. Remember to rate this encounter at #NewAmsterdamCorporatePolice.”

  The pressure around Rachel’s skull disappears as the officer rises to leave the room with his comrades.

  “This is a mistake! I have done nothing like that!” Rachel screams, scrambling on the floor, trying to get up, but half of her face feels like to be on fire. They hit a nerve with their tinkering, and they surely didn’t use disinfectant.

  “You have fourteen days to fill in a complaint,” an officer says, slamming the door shut.

  Rachel gets up, takes two steps towards the door, and falls on her knees to throw up on the floor. They really hit a nerve with… Rachel’s hand shoots up to her ear and comes back with the fingertip carrying a tiny dot of blood. They injected her with an explosive!

  Eli comes to her. “Are you okay?” she asks, like she had seen nothing.

  “No, she is not okay, don’t you see…” Tony picks up Rachel’s visor from the floor and fingers it nervously.

  “That was a mistake!” Rachel says, “I don’t even eat cheese.”