I looked up, and was surprised to find the entire exam hall empty. Had something gone wrong in the university’s educational VR?

Checking a clock, I confirmed the time which just affirmed my confusion. Normally, once an exam ended, there were exactly five minutes of idle time before all the participants were booted from the space and returned to the general campus VR. Since this had been my last exam, I wondered what the holdup was but…

Blinking at my virtual interface, I noted the “Exit” button was soft-locked out. Manual VR exit was still possible, but while this was allowed and even mandatory for exams, now that the exam was over, I should be able to leave freely and without issue.

I was just about to initiate an override exit from the VR space, assuming it had somehow glitched, when the side door to the exam hall opened and a figure stepped into the room.

They—or, more specifically, their avatar—was generic to a painful degree, but not in a low-budget way: A sharp, pristine suit was accompanied by a businesslike haircut that matched tone and style perfectly. Below the haircut and above the neckline was… the most forgettable face possible. I… blinked and shook my head.

Damn obfuscation filters.

Carefully looking anywhere but the figure’s face, I scanned the rest of their outfit and only stiffened slightly when I saw the small golden lapel pin with the Imperium’s icon on it. Now, I was really sure that attempting to bypass the filter they were using would be supremely impolite.

Instead, I coached my expression into a neutral one and primly folded my hands on my desk, acknowledging the figure with a respectful bow of my head.

It, in turn, stepped up to my desk, and with a similar—yet slightly less respectful—bow, it materialized a black envelope that was highlighted with golden trim. Then, with delicate fingers in white gloves and ritualistic precision, the envelope was placed on my desk before me. A second bow was given, and before I could so much as utter a word of question, the figure pivoted abruptly, and strode out of the lecture hall, disappearing in the black void beyond the VR space.

I gulped and stared down at the envelope on my desk. Or, more accurately, the envelope that was hovering a handspan above my desk and emitting a faint golden glow. That’s so extra, I thought, suppressing a giggle as I reached out and grasped it. Then, turning it around, I found what I’d been fervently hoping for: three thick and gold letters adorned the bottom: IEI

With trembling fingers, I opened it, marveling at the exquisite programming that this little virtual item contained. The paper felt smooth, weighty, and soft while the gold lettering and cartouche surrounding it were cool and proverbially exuded a feeling of wealth and worthiness. I felt almost dirty having to tear the wondrous thing open.

Inside, and with digital workmanship that was, if anything, of higher quality than the envelope, was a simple letter:

Issa Pyxis,

We hereby inform you that due to exemplary academic achievement, you have been deemed acceptable for a Merit Scholarship in the field of Software Engineering at the Imperial Excellence Institute.

Should you wish to accept this offer, an IEI transit shuttle will pick you up Today at 18:00 for the orientation and induction ceremony of this year’s neophytes.

Regards,

Lord Cravenworth

Dean of Admissions, IEI

I looked up, shaken, and took in the still-empty examination VR while idle questions spooled around in my head like “How did they make sure to keep this VR active?” or “How did they get my exam results so quickly? I finished it literally minutes ago…”

All these idle musings were doing was pushing away the inevitable though. This letter, this invitation, represented the culmination of what all of me had sacrificed not only time but also sanity into—this wild hope that attending IEI would bring me one step closer to being able to steal the right type of spacecraft but now that I had the letter in hand…

I blinked.

Hold on. Pick me up at 18:00 TODAY?

Mentally, the curses began to flow like a ruptured feed-line as I realized that they wanted to pick me up in—I checked the time—less than five hours?! Also, how would they find… nevermind. They’ll JUST GO THE ADDRESS I REGISTERED AT WHEN I SIGNED UP FOR VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY.

FUCK.

My internal cursing-monologue stopped flowing and became more aptly describable by words like “torrent” or “cascade”.

They’d really sprung this on me. I only had four hours and a bit to prepare myself before entering one of the highest-scrutiny areas of the Imperium and I had to be at an address two cities over and deep in the heart of gang territory that I’d once called my own. Now though… things are different. All of the “Crimson Ones” and even the neighboring gangs knew that I was a walking fortune in untraceable cryptocurrency. Simply showing my face would kick off, to put it mildly, a large clusterfuck.

Still, what choice did I really have?

Not go to IEI?

Ha, Right.

Also, the way the letter was written didn’t make me think that I had much bargaining power. Phrases like “deemed acceptable” weren’t exactly confidence-inspiring, and the whole thing had the faint scent of self-entitled noblesse oblige. I knew that IEI didn’t offer many merit scholarships, and reading in between the lines, I imagined a brutally honest letter would read something like:

Hey random nobody,

Surprisingly, despite not having access to elite learning institutions, advanced learning technology, and enough personal tutors to staff a small battlecruiser, you’ve done well academically. So well in fact, that there’s the faintest possibility you might be successful in life despite your low station.

The Imperium, of course, can’t stand for this: it can’t have smart people running about who don’t have ties to the Imperium in one way or the other. That’s why, in our infinite generosity, we’ve deigned to grant you a place at our prestigious academy.

You’re going to accept this offer and our strict timetable, because, put simply, fuck you: we have all the power in this situation. What else are you gonna do? Not attend the most prestigious academy in the Imperium? Ha!

Insincerely,

Some noble who’s annoyed they don’t get bribes from merit scholarships.

That didn’t change anything though. Even though they were using me, I was using them to, and even if I didn’t have ulterior motives for attending IEI, the theoretical connections I’d be able to build combined with the simple prestige of the “IEI Graduate” stamp on a diploma would open a ludicrous amount of doors due to the sheer nepotistic weight it carries.

I didn’t let myself get caught up in idle musings though. I had a place to be and a hard time limit.

Exiting the Campus VR and re-immerging into my home space, I slammed my hand on the big red “Emergency meeting” button that I’d installed just for cases like this.

Seconds later, a crowd of clones phased into existence around me, and since I deemed it critical that Prime know about this development, I initiated the merge with her leaving only a quick video recording of my experience for the others to consider while I briefly became insensate.

Blinking myself awake and greeted with the dull surroundings of my physical apartment, I began packing the few essentials I needed while the majority of my attention was focused back onto virtual space and the crisis meeting that was in progress.

“—alright, Gamma, you’re on transit solutions—” “Got it!”

“ –and Epsilon, you handle the digital trails.”

She gave a mock salute, and the entire virtual space devolved into frantic activity while I, equally frantically, packed my things and holstered the folded Nex-10a under my forearm. Then, I continued throwing other essentials in a bag while Alpha connected up a direct channel to me.

“Prime, this is gonna be difficult.” she stated simply.

“Yup.”

“But we’re gonna guide you through step-by-step.”

I nodded, knowing that she could see my acknowledgement through the apartment’s security system.

“That said, you really ought to get a move on, if you run…”

At this, a time-schedule that Gamma had drawn up sprung up in my mind’s eye and highlighted the fact that if I ran, I could still make it to the transit station in time to catch the next Inter-city express line.

I shouldered my bag, gave a quick visual once-over to the space I’d spent the past months ensconced in, and after giving the security systems one final manual check, shouldered my way out of the double security doors that I’d installed.

Then, I was running.

Smooth, perfectly economical movements carried me down the hall, and I noticed just how much cooler the air was outside my little space—just another sign that I’d been living in a server room.

Perspiration cooling me and pushing my muscles to 110% of their specifications, I cleared corridor after corridor.

Then, I was out.

I burst out of the entrance to my apartment block and directly onto the elevated plaza that functioned as the heart of this district. It was… actually quite nice, not that I’d spent a lot of time there. Benches, small stalls, and the occasional wandering vendor clustered the space and large advertisements that just managed to fall on the “tasteful” side of the gaudiness scale clustered the space in an aesthetically appealing manner.

They weren’t what had captured my attention though. No, my eyes were locked on the transit station stairwell at the opposing end of the plaza and the crowds of commuters in between. Mentally, I cursed, but this task, making plans quickly, was something I was good at.

I cranked on that mental dial that controls my speed of thought, and then I started to run.

Left foot.

Right foot.

Twist torso 23° and avoid chirnup vendor and vat of frying oil.

Left foot.

Right foot, but with a small hop to clear the wheeled delivery bot.

And so forth.

In a way, it was like a game, and surprisingly exhilarating—so long as I studiously ignored the surprised expressions that slowly blossomed on peoples faces as I rushed past them. Those made me uncomfortable. Still, leveraging my extraordinary capabilities to do something as banal as moving through a crowd, but optimally, was thrilling, and I focused on that.

Left foot.

Brace with the right hand on the railing, and vault.

And then I was in the transit station, and I’d made it just in time. Ahead of me, a the high-speed capsule train that was the inter-city express had just pulled in and was opening it’s doors. Meanwhile, I didn’t even slow as I took the manual stairs five steps at a time and ever-so-gently tweaking my vector with perfectly placed feet, I launched myself through the open doors of one of the capsules just before the doors began to hiss closed.

Thunk.

I breathed a sigh of relief and unclenched my hands from the grab-bars that I’d caught myself on. Then, I straightened up, and dusting off non-existent dust from my clothes looked around the capsule I’d managed to land in. It was mostly empty.

Of the 12 seats, one was filled with an older gentleman who, after giving me a mildly disapproving look, returned his focus to the old-fashioned set of AR spectacles he was wearing. Besides him, there were only two teenagers who were sitting in the last row, droopy-faced, and with hardwire connectors plugged into the capsule’s network jacks. They hadn’t even noticed me enter.

Letting my bag slide into the seat in front of the one I’d chosen, I sat down in a random seat. Then, I braced myself—the (cheap) momentum exchange fields that these capsules used always made me feel like static was flowing through my limbic system when they fired up. Mentally, I took this feeling, analyzed it, and by filtering it out, I was able to make a rather good guess at the capsules actual acceleration. This made me happy for the field. Multi-gee accelerations were easily survivable, but not comfortable.

An alert pinged in my mind: apparently, I had a travel checklist, and the item at the top of the list…

Ugh.

Someone pointing out that you smell is just awkward, and I don’t know how I felt about that someone being a digital copy of me that lacks real-world olfactory senses in the first place.

Regardless, they had a point.

I stood up and went into the small capsule’s single sanitation booth, which—for a small fee—even let me take a quick waterless shower. With trepidation, I selected the option. Then, I shut my eyes tightly, held my breath, closed my nostrils, and braced.

A couple minutes later, I emerged from the booth in a clean, odorless, and only slightly traumatized state. Public sanitation booths… never again. The way that the cleansing foam… just—ugh. I shuddered in my seat.

Still, now that that’s over with, what’s next?

Scanning the prepared and constantly-updating TODO list, I dipped into a mental workspace and started laboring away at the various problems that my rapid and unplanned exit had caused. Yes, the Issas back at… home? were handling the situation remarkably well, but there were many digital embers that needed to be contained before they developed into actual problems that an extra mind working on the issues. I leaned back, made myself comfortable, and got to work.

Three hours and thirty seven minutes, I stood up from the surprisingly comfortable seat and limbered up my slightly stiffened joints. Those three hours and thirty seven minutes had been quite productive. The other Issas and I had gotten a lot done: everything from planting a new spread of false leads to shoring up my various digital identities and reading up on IEI specifics had been done.

Now though, now came the final gauntlet: reaching the safehouse. In a couple of seconds, I’d be stepping out into a transit station that was firmly Crimson Ones territory. Of course, I had routes planned, contingencies in place, and prepared distractions, but the bottom line was that I had to—presumably—be ready to answer the door at the safehouse when the shuttle pickup came knocking.

If anyone figured out that this was my goal, then, well, I magnificently screwed. Some gangers could simply stakeout the building or—hell—even enter it since they theoretically had the codes and then I’d have to do quite a bit of explaining as to why my alleged home was liberally sprinkled with dead criminals.

Or, some traitorous part of my subconsciousness whispered, you could just be dead…

I shouldered my bag, ignored the stray thought, and stood ready at the door.

The first move I’d need to make was clear. I needed a disguise of some sort.

Nothing overt—definitely not a mask—but something simple to make my face not immediately recognizable is a must.

There’s a muted thunk as the door unlocks and a hiss as the minor pressure difference equalizes. Then, the smooth doors slide into their recessed pockets and the station is ahead of me.

This one, unlike the one I left, has a lot more… grunge. No longer the slightly manicured look of the low-mid class area I’d departed from, but the utilitarian and quick-fabbed look that seemingly all cheap neighborhoods were modeled off of. There were also the tags: digi-sprayed artwork and lettering that showed affiliations and information to those who had the wherewithal to read them.

I, of course, did, but there weren’t any surprises. Old Emerald Ones tags had been simply oversprayed and now, instead of eye-searing green, were eye-searing red. Looking away, I gave the platform a quick once-over, checked my checklist, and confidently strode out of the open door.

This part of the procedure held the single largest concentration of risk by my estimation, notably because controlling—or at least monitoring—transit stations was one of those fundamental elements of organized crime that even those who’d replaced their gray matter with high-density muscle could still grasp the importance of it. It was all but guaranteed that there’d be at least a two-person detachment watching the exits at all times.

Fortunately, I’d planned for this. I’d simply need to disguise my appearance before leaving the station. This would be accomplished by… There!

Just like every public transit station was required to have the Imperial Seal above its doors and have a mysterious and horribly anachronistic audio-PA system to announce arrivals and departures, it was basically a rule that every station had to have the semi-infamous “vending nook”: small, semi-secluded vestibule that not only contained a handful of vending machines but also often acted as a collection point for drifting trash, vomit, and the other more unsavory fluids that people preferred to release out of the public eye.

For me though, it was perfect. I made a sharp right turn, passed the ticketing machines, the door to a maintenance room, and then I found it. A small smattering of extremely gaudy vending machines who held everything from cheapo quickfab services to pre-cooked meals of dubious quality.

I stepped into the small space, zeroing in on a slightly vandalized hot-pink machine labeled with some now-unrecognizable branding. Specifically though, this is a machine that, two hours ago, I’d hacked and gently persuaded to fab me some facial prosthetics. I’d timed it so that they’d be done just seconds before my train arrived.

Zeroed in on the bright pink access hatch of the machine, and my prize beyond it, I didn’t notice that I wasn’t alone until it was too late.

From behind a dark green meal-vending machine, a young man who was just pulling up his fly stepped out, and in my surprise, we locked eyes.

Instantly, I panicked.

I recognized him vaguely, but more specifically, I recognized the bright red bandanna he had tied around his upper bicep. Looking closer, I could see his pupils just widening in recognition.

Fuck.

I didn’t know what type of mods this guy in particular had, but he was definitely linked into a comm channel and had synthvoice. Assuming no extreme reaction boosters on his part, I had maybe 600 to 1800 milliseconds before he finished recognizing me, reacting, and announcing my presence on his comm channel.

I… I don’t really have a choice, do I?

The logic of the situation was cold, hard, and uncompromising. If he got out word that I was back in town, everything would be over before it even began. Mentally, I gritted my teeth. Sometimes, I regretted always having enough time to think, mostly because when given time to consider my actions in detail, I lost the ability to easily rationalize away my concerns under the auspice of “self-defense”. This just… wasn’t that.

The logic remained unwavering though, and with straining muscles, I realigned the arm that’d been reaching for the door of the machine—and that had my wrist-holstered Nex-10a—with where I knew all the Emerald ones typically put their comm implants.

This guy’s reactions were really not bad for unenhanced though: by the time my weapon was lined up, he’d already begun to reach for where I presumed he had a gun. It wasn’t fast enough though.

Bracing myself for firing my gun without proper support and it its folded configuration, I mentally deactivated the safety and pulled the trigger once the firing cone contained my target.

Inside my gun, the chambered flechette was gripped by powerful magnetic fields and flung from the barrel. Quick to even my ludicrously accelerated perception, the miniature dart zipped out, punched a hole through my sleeve, and then using the tiny fins it had, guided itself straight into the eye of my target. There, to avoid the possibly-reinforced skull, it followed the path of the optic nerve. Finally, once it had reached grey matter, the “flight” path only adjusted slightly to intersect the comm-implant.

Then, with a pop just barely audible from outside, the tiny needle-like sliver detonated itself.

A second shot, following the path of the first one, targeted a more vital part of the brain, and then the gang member with his fly still only halfway up was dead.

I watched, absentminded as the man’s muscles completed the last orders they’d been given, and after a brief jerk, he limply collapsed to the rather disgusting floor of the transit station. I fiddled with the new hole in my sleeve.

Focus, an inner voice said, and I did.

At my feet, the man looked almost—well—not dead. No entry wounds were visible, and if it weren’t for the fact that he wasn’t breathing and the beginnings of a nosebleed, it would be easy to assume he was simply passed out. I reached down, closed his eyes, and started dragging him behind one of the machines. I mean, turning off one’s comm temporarily isn’t too unusual… right?

Now on a more strict timeline, I pushed the thoughts that were swirling around in my mind to the side and focused on the task—the mission.

The facial prosthetic was done and still warm from being fabbed. I gripped it, and after carefully making sure it was aligned, pressed it to my face where the bio-glue caused it to stick firmly. The thing wasn’t fancy. Up close, anyone would be able to clearly tell that there was something off about my face, and advanced sensors wouldn’t be fooled for even a second. Still, basic facial recognition should be adequately fooled and if spotted in a crowd, I shouldn’t immediately be recognized by anyone who knows my face.

A quick check from an external camera, and everything seemed fine, so I pulled up my hood and turned all the stealth routines I had to maximum to mask subtler tells like body language and gait. It was time to run the gauntlet.

With false confidence in my step, I exited the vestibule and made my way out of the station and into what was now, quite firmly, enemy territory.