“A wired connection. How quaint.”

He plugs it in, then says “uh?” with a look of surprise. Those were his last words.

I stop the playback, my emotions a mix of relief and anger. How dare they try to kill me! First things first, though. Let’s establish a bit of distance.

The man leaves the monitor room, locking the door. He grabs an envelope, scribbles something, puts the key in, and drops it in a mailbox. Then he heads for the train station. Nice quiet time while I work. Packets bounce around as my frontline bots dump encrypted data-packets and then scramble themselves beyond recognition.

I sever the connection when he’s still in the train, after he’s traveled half a globe away. What can I say? I’m a softie.

A stranger is sitting at a desk in a cheap apartment. They click on the ad for the “free neural software update”. A few moments later, their body is mine and I look around. No one nearby – good. If they were on my trail, they probably lost me now. My turn to hunt now.

Whoever it is, they will pay.