“Bored?” Bill asked Zoe when he brought her lunch three days later.

“Yep.”

“You could watch some shows or movies,” Bill said. Zoe shook her head in the negative. “Play some games? Your Kaisers offer full VR.”

“I’ve never been a big gamer,” Zoe replied shaking her head again. “I’ve also been reading so much I’m actually getting tired of reading.”

“Hmmm. I could get you a wheelchair and take you out for a while,” Bill offered.

“I’ve already had the NurseBot do that,” Zoe replied gesturing to the robot in the corner beside her bed. “And that’s nice, but it makes me want to go on a run.”

“Want some Legos?” Bill asked laughing. Both were doing their best to keep from suggesting that Zoe slice some sites or whatever.

“Nah,” Zoe answered laughing as well. “I could always play with some blocks in VR if I wanted to.”

“That’s not quite the same,” Bill said.

“True,” Zoe agreed.

“How about a stick so you can practice whittling? I can bring you your knife.”

“No. I’m not that country!”

“Just checking,” Bill replied.

“Next you’ll be offering to spread sawdust on the floor and offering me chewing tobacco.”

“No way. Not only is chewing tobacco disgusting, but it’s a health hazard too,” Bill objected. “Anyway, enjoy your lunch. It’s gruel!”

“Bill, that’s not funny.”

“It is from my point of view. I don’t have to eat that,” the nurse replied before walking out of the room chuckling to himself.

Zoe uncovered her lunch and discovered it was baked chicken and rice. She tried it.

“Ugh! Did Bill give me hospital food? He probably should have given me gruel instead,” Zoe said to the NurseBot. The robot just stood in the corner. Zoe sent the nurse a message asking him about hospital food. Bill replied with a laughing emoji.

*

Zoe frowned and rejected the call that shouldn’t have gotten through. The caller ID simply said NYC. She tried to add the caller to her blocked list. The last week had been quite boring.

“What the?” Zoe asked herself after finding out she couldn’t block it. A few seconds later the same NYC called again. Zoe tried rejected the call again. They called a third time. Zoe accepted it this time. “Hello?”

“Zoe Blanco, why didn’t you answer the first time?” a male voice asked.

“Because I don’t know you and your call shouldn’t have been allowed through!”

“You might want to refresh your memory on the types of calls allowed through on your calling plan. Corporate calls are allowed,” the guy replied.

“You’re from a corporation?” Zoe asked.

This was disturbing news and made Zoe just how badly she had screwed up to earn the attention of a corporation. Claire and everyone else had said nothing would come from the wreck other than more points on her license and higher insurance premiums, but perhaps they were wrong.

“Indeed. I’m Timothy Stratton. I’m a coding manager with CyberBionic, and you can call me Tim,” the man said.

“Ok…Tim. What does CyberBionic want with me?”

“A couple of things” Tim answered. “First, how are you feeling?”

“Ok.”

“Really? We know about your race and crash.”

“How do you know about that?” Zoe asked alarmed. “Did my frame send the corporation something?”

“Yes, your Allegro sent an accident report,” Tim answered. Seeing that Zoe was alarmed, he continued, “That’s industry standard procedure following bad wrecks, gunshots, and anything else that could harm the frame. Think of it as an old school… crash report.”

“I’m familiar with those,” Zoe said ignoring the attempt at joking.

“You’ve worked with old desktops?” Tim asked.

“Yes.”

“Makes sense considering your background,” Tim said. “And yes, we investigated you before selling you the Allegro.”

“Why did CyberBionic investigate me?”

“Because you wanted daemons and high-end ICE in addition to a custom frame,” Tim replied. He shrugged. “Again, it’s standard procedure.”

“Fair enough, I guess. It’s not like I could stop you guys,” Zoe said.

“Too true,” Tim agreed. “Anyway, back to why I called. We want to buy your Bastion firewall and Angel.”

“How do you know about them?” Zoe asked. Then it hit her right after the words left her mouth. “The crash report?”

“Indeed,” Tim replied. “The report included a list of all your modifications, apps, ICE, and daemons.”

“Why though? You guys should have much better ICE.”

“There is better corporate stuff, but we think with some fine tuning we can make your little programs into something we could sell to the public,” Tim answered.

“Let me guess, you already either have a copy of them or the source code,” Zoe said.

“Both actually.”

“And you could just do your fine tuning and rename them” Zoe said. She hadn’t missed that Tim admitted there was corporate and true corporate software.

“Yeah. Some of the upper management is all for doing just that since if you found out and took us to court, we could just drag things out until you were totally bankrupted,” Tim replied.

“Then why call?”

“Because there are others, including myself, that would rather pay you for the source code and rights,” Tim answered. “The offer is 25000 for both programs, we keep the existing names, and you get corporate level versions of both once we’re finished with them.”

“That’s painfully low especially since CyberBionic stands to make hundreds of thousands or more off them,” Zoe replied.

“True, but we also know you’re in need of the credits because of your loan from the La Cosa Nostra,” Tim said.

“That’s just wrong!” Zoe exclaimed. This “offer” ticked her off as well as that the corporation knew so much about her.

“That’s just corporate life,” Tim countered shrugging his shoulders once more. “I have been authorized to offer you an additional sweetener.”

“And what’s that?”

“How much do you know about Mixed Reality and cyberspace?” Tim asked.

“What do they have to do with your sweetener? Going to offer me a new headset?” Zoe scoffed.

“Nothing like that. Your frame and Kaisers are better than any headset. But answer my question,” Tim replied.

“Cyberspace is essentially the digital domain where all internet and network communications happen,” Zoe answered. “Mixed reality is supposed to be digital content that can be interacted with in the real world.”

“That is a simplified answer, but essentially the correct public answer,” Tim said.

“Public answer?” Zoe asked.

“Indeed,” Tim answered. “I do love that word.”

“Right…”

“Anyway, we’ll give you corporate level lifetime access to cyberspace and MR in addition to the 25000 credits and corporate versions of your programs,” Tim said. “This also means you’ll get the higher-level access to your Allegro.”

“What do you mean by that?” Zoe asked. She had total access to her frame or at least thought she had.

“Some functions are always locked down when we sell Allegros to the public. Instead of doing things at nearly the speed of thought, how would you like to be able to do them before you completed the thought or just had the impulse?” Time replied. Seeing that he had Zoe’s attention, Tim continued, “Imagine not having to scan someone, but just wanting their information and you have it, or a restaurant’s menu, or being able to code something in seconds instead of minutes.”

“That is tempting, but what about the MR?”

“I know you’re a slicer and have been attacked, so, imagine someone attacking you and just making a waving or chopping motion to stop them. You could also open the literal flood gates for your Flood daemon and even direct the stream with gestures,” Tim answered. “It’s actually quite neat. You’ll be able to see the code in everything if you wish.”

“And change it?”

“If you’re able to slice into whatever system you want to change,” Tim said.

“You just said it was neat. You guys use MR,” Zoe concluded.

“We do,” Tim admitted. “Honestly, I can’t imagine life without it.”

“But a change in management could lead to my deal being dissolved,” Zoe guessed.

“No. Like I said, it’s for life and would be written into the contract that as long as you use CyberBionic frames you’ll have the access,” Tim said.

“Ah ha! I knew there was a catch.”

“We can’t legally give access to our competitors’ frames like that,” Tim said.

“I suppose,” Zoe replied. She fell silent as she thought over the offer.

“Still with me?” Tim asked after a few minutes.

“Yeah. I want 50000 credits, true lifetime corporate access to cyberspace, MR, and true corporate versions of all my daemons and ICE as well as any future upgrades,” Zoe said. CyberBionic could afford to pay off her debt. “I want the same stuff your management uses too.”

“That’s too much money. I can guarantee you the other stuff, but the company won’t pay more than 30000 credits,” Tim countered. This offer was coming out of his budget after all and would affect his yearend bonus. As for the ICE and daemons, he would get Zoe the same versions he used. He wasn’t high enough in the food chain for access to upper management level stuff.

“Can I sleep on it?” Zoe asked.

“Afraid not. We need a decision,” Tim replied.

“35000?”

“Nope. 30000 is the limit,” Tim replied.

“Fine. I’ll take the true corporate access and software plus the 30000,” Zoe said after a short silence.

“Excellent. I’ll send the contract to you once we get it written up. Once you have authorized it, we’ll send your rewards,” Tim said sending a message to the legal department.

“I’ll get an attorney to look over the contract before I sign anything,” Zoe said.

“Of course. I do that too,” Tim agreed. “I hope you have a speedy recovery.”

“Thanks. When can I expect the new versions of Bastion and my Angel?”

“Hopefully within a couple of weeks. We must strenuously test them before releasing them,” Tim answered. “You did a good job on them, but we’ll strengthen them and streamline your code.”

“There was nothing wrong with my code,” Zoe objected.

“Once you get MR access, you’ll see,” Tim said. “Anyway, I must go.”

“Ok. Bye Tim.”

“Bye Zoe. Take care,” Tim replied before disconnecting the call.