The train rattled, squeaked and juddered, metal wheels on steel rails, through the oldest part of the already ancient underground network, racing along the tunnels as if being hunted by some ravenous predator. Only two passengers were in this car, unsurprising given the lateness of the hour, and one of those was unconscious in a puddle of vomit.

​

It had been a tough week and Max was glad it was Friday. Not that the weekend meant much in this day and age: he still had a metric fuck-tonne of out of hours work to do by Monday or his boss would go batshit crazy. While Max's degrees in Data Science and Machine Learning were first class in all ways, his boss was a Taskmaster, a limited-function Artificial Intelligence program, that generated projects and work-orders. Max half-smiled, half-grimaced at the irony. He had considered hacking the Taskmaster and giving it a nicer personality but decided that would be noticed too easily by other staffers who took their orders from the machine. 

​

"Hi, Max," said the advertising plasma-screen in front of him. Something, probably his phone, had pinged the advert his location and recent CyberNet search history. "What can I do for you this evening?" the advert burbled. "Maybe a nice bottle of wine? Or I could send you a masseuse. It would be very discreet." Pictures of merlot, chianti and smiling Thai girls in skimpy white towels scrolled across the screen.

​

"Off," said Max.

​

"Well, if you're sure," replied the advertising screen in hurt tones. "Or maybe, I can arrange a test drive of this." The image of a Ferrari 900, one of the last petrol-driven supercars on the streets today, and the subject of one of Max's Virtual Reality games, roared into view.

​

"Off," Max repeated, growing testy with the smart-system behind the screen.

​

The advert blitzed static for an instant then faded to a little white dot before powering off. Its red standby LED indicated it was waiting for Max to change his mind and order something, literally anything was available for delivery, from one of the thousands of online shopping portals connected to the CyberNet. Max was left with a strange feeling that he'd upset the AI. If so, that was a new feature, one he might have to replicate in his own projects.

​

Garish neon displays - advertising girls, drink, semi-legal drugs and dubious Virtual Reality experiences - greeted Max as he left the station. He dashed through the rain and neon to the taxi rank, picked a pale blue, driverless ride, paid by thumbprint linked to his bank account, and settled in for the drive to his single-room apartment.

​

"Off," he grunted at the advertising screen set in the dashboard. The words 'Suit Yourself' flashed onto the screen then faded away.

​

***

 

"You could make a living doing that kind of thing," said Bo.

​

Max thought about it. "I suppose I could," he replied, "but it would be illegal."

​

"There's a lot of illegal stuff going on in the world right now. It's not as if you'd be making things worse." Bo paused a moment. "You might even make things a bit better."

​

Max finished the last of his beer, grimaced - it was warm and flat - then went to the fridge to retrieve a couple more bottles. He handed one to Bo and thumped down in front of his computer. Three more headlines scrolled across his newsfeed, like an old-style ticker tape:

​

 ++ A joint project between NASA Inc and ESA GmbH revealed plans to colonise Mars. ++ Amazon rainforest has been depleted by 10% area since the start of the millennium. ++ Apex Sciences report trials of three new anti-cancer and anti-viral treatments to begin in 2035. ++

​

While Max liked to stay informed, he knew that those three reports had been sanitised by the news outlets and, statistically, contained only about 33% truth.

​

Bo downed half of her beer and peered over Max's shoulder. "See," she said. "Run your algorithm over the Apex and Amazon stories."

​

Max clicked a few links and typed

​

./connect --source="Apex" --source="Amazon" --scan --collate

​

in a window made to look like an old-school green-on-black computer terminal. Max liked the old stuff. He whistled at the screen as the download time started ticking down from an estimated eight hours. "This is gonna take a while," he said. "What do you want to do for eight hours?"

​

Bo wrapped her arms around Max, popped a couple of buttons on his shirt, and let her hands wander into interesting places.

​

Max felt giddy as Bo's genetically tailored perfume, keyed to her oestrogen level, boosted his testosterone. There was nothing he could do to stop it.

​

"Hook us up, lover," Bo whispered into Max's ear.