I wake up. Feel like a rockstar. Maybe a bit nervous. I remind myself that life is pointless, nothing matters, and that’s a good thing. Nice practice for later.

My name is Xan, and I’m the world’s most dangerous criminal mastermind. I’m also in hiding and completely broke. That’s fine. I’m between master plans. It’s normal to be at rock bottom between master plans.

The secret apartment fills with soothing murmurations as Volt’s magnetron kicks on. My decision-bot quickly turns from a large puddle of magnetic slime into a bodacious chrome woman. “Good morning, Xan. What would you like to do today?”

“Spearhead a vast criminal conspiracy that leaves the city at our mercy.”

“Okay. I would like us to not die.”

“We’re in cahoots then. A safety conscious cabal of criminal masterminds. Let’s start with small-time arms dealing. And breakfast. I’m thinking pizza.”

“Small crimes and breakfast.” Volt nods. “I’ll order the pizza. Should be here in ten minutes.”

I pop out of bed and quickly get presentable. Teeth, shower, and goth casual. I’m a rare slim fella. Most men tune their metabolism to be hulking slabs of muscle. But why look like most men? The ladies crave variety. Lord knows I do. My appearance of choice is lean and mean. Abs and villainous facial hair.

“Breakfast is here.” says Volt. “But the pizza guy can’t find the secret door.”

That makes sense. The secret door is the most secret part of the secret apartment. I jealously guard its location, only revealing it to hotties, pizza guys, and hot pizza guys.

I peer out a peephole into the windowless alley. The pizza guy has bangs and a short skirt. I pop open the “no entry” sign that hides the door.

“Come in, come in. Don’t stand in the alley. Drunk people pee in them. Come in.”

She laughs and comes in. I can smell the pizza. Pineapple and hot peppers. A hot sweetie with a hot sweetie. Glorious.

“Oh crap. Just remembered I’m out of crypto.” I lie. “Can we do some kind of trade? Is there anything in the apartment you like?”

After a brief, performative negotiation, we agree to make love. She’s sexually permissive. So am I. So is Volt. It’s pretty great.

Afterwards, I roll a joint. She stretches languidly in my bed. “Thanks for the sex.”

“Thanks for the pizza.”

“This is a really nice place.”

“Thanks. I found it while peeing in an alley.”

The secret apartment is two hidden rooms tucked in the back of a mall. One is a huge luxury bathroom. The other a beautiful atrium that’s been repurposed to hold a big bed and a makeshift kitchen. Any entrance to the mall has been walled over and forgotten. I have no idea who made this place, or where they went, but I often think of them fondly.

“I usually crash in a dream machine.” she says.

“Oh yeah? How’s that?”

A dream machine is a low rent sleep-pod where you can lose weight and pay debt by playing fun games in your dreams. It’s the economic path of least resistance, but doesn’t sound too bad. I like games. And sleep.

“I quite like it. I often dream of flying. Or of strange conversations. Also, the debt repayments are nice. I don’t make a lot of money delivering pizza.”

I spark the joint. “Fair enough.”

We kill an hour, smoking, giggling, and listening to the crime report. We both travel the city for work, so we’re naturally curious about high crime areas. Probably for different reasons.

.. the reward for Harkon The Hunter has been raised to 1 million crypto …

…The Mobile Beat Down Market is suspected to be operating down by the docks…

….The South Side Rebellion was crushed by Big Cheddar…

Pizza Lady’s impressed by the last report. “Big Cheddar crushed the Southside Rebellion? Already? Truly he’s the world’s most dangerous criminal mastermind.”

I frown. “The guy who invented cheezy coffee? I don’t think that makes him a mastermind.”

“His sky drones have never lost a battle.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t invent them. He just bought them with cheezy coffee money.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

Dang. I don’t like that logic, but it’s hard to refute.

Eventually we’re high and informed enough to leave the apartment. She beetles off on a collapsible scooter. Going to spread joy. Volt and I head to the docks. We hunger for mayhem. Actually, I’m hungry in general. Did I forget to eat the pizza?

I stop at a sidewalk cafe and order a gouda cappuccino to fill my belly. The decision-bot barista is humanlike, but also gaunt, metallic, and grim. He frowns as he hands my drink over. “Your debt to Big Cheddar is overlimit. You should report to a dream machine to pay it down as soon as possible.”

“I’m on my way to do that now. Just grabbing a coffee to get sleepy.” I don’t see any sky drones above me, but then you never do. It doesn’t matter because the robotic barista blankly accepts my standard excuse.

Volt frowns as I slurp-chew my goudacinno. “If you keep ordering those, we’re gonna get shot.”

“It’s cool. We’ll get some crypto today.”

“Yes, please explain how that’s happening.” asks Volt. “What arms are we dealing? Do we have guns I don’t know about?”

“Not yet. We’re selling part of your brain.”

“Hmm, that’s troubling.”

Volt’s brain is a host of trillion parameter estimation algorithms. Each one trained to make a decision when it senses a trigger pattern. Individually, each algorithm is pretty stupid. But if you layer a couple million of them, and have them vote when they’re triggered, they make human-like decisions with machine-like speed 99% of the time.

That said, a 99% success rate is not that great. Life’s complicated, and decisions pop up often. D-bots fuck up a couple times an hour. They’re still quite handy, when properly supervised. Just don’t fall asleep while they’re driving.

“Don’t worry, we’re just copying a thin slice of your brain.”

“That’s what I’m worried about. I think we’ve been overtraining. I’m at risk of catastrophic forgetting. You should delete me and retrain a new d-bot from scratch.”

“Bah, you’re good for a while yet.” I wave away her concerns. “Anyway, that’s why we’ve been watching so much violence - so you’d learn how to fight. Now we’re gonna sell that fighty part of your brain for bags of crypto.”

“Okay.” Volt thinks. “Do I actually know how to fight? Or are we selling lies?”

“Don’t know.” I shrug. “Let’s find out.”

Volt directs us to the dockside warehouse that the crime report flagged as a hotspot of seditious commerce. Ostensibly, it’s a minor league d-bot fight club. Actually, it’s a mobile market for autonomous weaponry. You can also bet on the fights. There’s a lot of crypto here. May get some myself.

I place a brain scanning sticker behind my ear. It lets Volt speak directly through my cochlear nerve. Secret and secure. It also lets her hear through my olivocochlear nerve and scan my general mood. Kinda useless, but helpful sometimes.

I also remind myself that life is pointless, nothing matters, and that’s a good thing. Mirroring is the human superpower. Copying the behavior of others is the biological algorithm that let stupid monkeys conquer the Earth. It’s also our greatest weakness. I don’t wanna copy losers down by the docks. Whatever emotions they send my way, I will respond with cheerful nihilism and mild skepticism. Tactical non-complementary behavior.

We get to the entrance. The bouncer and his d-bot give Volt a cynical once over. “She gonna fight?”

“Nah, she’s a lover, not a fighter.”

He nods. “Gross. I’m gonna let you in so you stop talking to me.”

I nod, and we enter the venue.

That was awkward.

“Yeah, it could have gone better, but we’re in.”

Why did he think we shouldn’t be lovers?

“Because he’s excessively judgemental.” It’s not like I built Volt for sex. She just got on the internet one day and found a trove of training data.

There was rust on his d-bot.

“I know, right? Calling us gross.”

The warehouse has a large open space with a fight ring, spectators, bettors, and a socialization space for fighters and their fans. In reality, the whole place is an ad-hoc bazaar, with the fights as demonstrations and the fighters for sale. The betting is real, and gives it a veneer of discretion. Criminal sales are still done in the open, but there’s a few back rooms for private demos and more serious crimes.

We wander through the bazaar. A couple single-use tanks wail on each other in the ring. Their gatling guns are stowed for the safety of the spectators, so they slam and gore each other with rams and claws. Bettors groan and cheer. Volt blabbers happily about all the drones for sale.

Lots of eyes, nice. Traps, turrets, and spiders, okay. Couple tanks, bandits, hunters, hunters, and more hunters. Lots of hunters. Oh! Revengers! We should get one. Make those fuckers think twice.

“We’re here to sell. Can you set up some buyers?”

Already done. Backroom C in 5 minutes.

There’s three d-bot pilots waiting in Backroom C. It’s the Wills Brothers - Billy, Liam, and Willard.

They’re all big, strong men with a country music outlaw vibe. I like Billy, we party sometimes. Liam’s rumored to be smart, and to start rumors. Willard kinda scares me. Not “run away” scared. More like “don’t annoy him” type scared. He looks annoyed.

A few younger pilots come in after me. Are any more coming? Willard’s eyes bore into me. Let’s start the presentation.

“So yeah, I’m here to sell a decision algorithm.” I gently shake a bag of flash drives. “It’s triggered when someone decides to attack you.”

Silence.

“You can have it do whatever you want when it’s triggered.”

Silence.

“That’s my whole thing.”

There’s another sticky, stretchy, silence. Finally, Billy speaks. “Are you talking about a threat detector?”

“Sure. I guess.”

“That’s impossible. You can’t build a threat detector.”

“I dunno about that. What’s impossible?”

Willard’s eyes narrow. His arm shoots forward. There’s a whiplash crack.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” says Volt. “Did I break your thingy?”

We all stare at the severed hunter drone lying between Willard and me.

“Right. How much?”

“1000 crypto. Each.”

Billy and the younger trainers howl and scoff. Liam and Willard stare at me with murderous intensity. Huh. I may have overplayed my hand. Can I get to an exit?

My incipient mugging is delayed by the sound of a large explosion. We give the door to the fight ring a leery look. That was bigger than the usual explosions.

“Hmm…” says Volt. “That’s not good.”

A booming voice rings out. “You were left behind! Run, die, or take the oath!”

“Aw shit, it’s Harkon.” says Willard. “He's gonna kill us and take our crypto. Unless…”

He turns on me and thrusts a buzzing harddrive full of crypto at me. “You just made a sale, son. Gimme the goddamn algorithm.”

The other pilots quickly follow suit, practically chucking crypto harddrives at me and snatching my bag of decision flash drives. I am now rich. Sweet.

There’s more explosions and screaming from the fight ring. The pilots scatter in all directions. It may be time to go.

“That went well.” says Volt, as we hustle deeper into the bowels of the warehouse.

“Yeah, those were motivated buyers. We should have Harkon invade all of our sales pitches.”

“Should we stick around and ask him?”

The screaming and explosions get closer.

“That meeting would go better as an email.”

“Right.” Volt nods. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

We flee through cramped halls, crowded storerooms, and more cramped halls. They start grungy, and gradually become filthy. Dank caverns piled high with moldy goods connected by slimy tunnels. The sounds of panicked battle follow, gaining on us. How fucking big is this warehouse? Are we underground?

“Maybe you should ditch the crypto so we can run faster?”

“Never.”

“Fine, give it to me. It snaps together.”

Volt assembles the harddrives into one solid brick of riches. Sticks it to her back. “Right, let’s scamper.”

DIE!!

I flinch back. That sounded right in front of me. But there’s nothing there.

“Are we going?” asks Volt.

“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

DIE!!

“That. Someone ahead is screaming ‘die’.”

“Yeesh, I’m not getting that at all. Am I malfunctioning? Maybe you should delete me.”

“Darling, I’d love to murder you, but we’re in the middle of a massacre. Give it a moment, and Harkon will kill us both.”

“Hmm, okay.” Volt ponders. “Okay, let me try a few things.”

DIE!! DIE!! DIE!!

“Yeesh, I heard that. That’s not good.” Volt peers around the dank storeroom. “Is that a dream machine?”

There’s a big grungy sleep tube in the corner of the moldy room. “I guess so.” It's a weird place for a dream machine.

“Great. Perfect place to hide.” Volt pops it open. There’s a huge, heavily muscled man inside. He’s out cold. Twitching and moaning.

Volt cocks her head towards the man tube. “Get in.”

“I’d rather not. I don’t want to be squished into a big sweaty dude.”

“What? That’s ridiculous. You love being smeared against sweaty people. Do it all the time.”

“He’s asleep. This doesn’t feel consensual.”

“It’s life or death I’m afraid. He’ll understand. Just keep your hands above the belt.”

“I dunno. Maybe I should just die.”

“Nope. Pretend you’re sexually aroused by sweatily intimate desperate life saving claustrophobia. You’ll be fine. But don’t act on those feelings. That won’t end well. Just get the fuck in the tube. We’ll get you therapy and a lawyer later.”

There’s an explosion in the next room. A disembodied voice howls for my demise.

I sigh. Get in the tube.

“Hey there, big fella. Let’s have a platonic adventure where neither of us die. Wow, you do not smell fresh. Alright, what now?”

Volt slams the pod shut.

“Sweet dreams.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wake up. Cough. Feel awful. Groan as I struggle to sit up. I’m in a single bed in a bachelor apartment. Which is weird, but not as weird as my body. I’m small, weak, and dumpy. Long gray hair and a nighty. Are these man boobs? Wait. No penis. I’m an old lady.

An old lady in a dingy apartment. What kind of a fucking game is this?

There’s a thunderous banging on the door. It cracks and shakes.

"DIE!! DIE!! DIE!!”

Oh, it’s a survival horror game. Cool.