The night shift was always best for deliveries.

Whipping through city traffic under neon lights casting rays as bright as daylight, Zoe eyes the next turn. The arcology skyscrapers of the megacorporations loom in the distance, self contained cities for the titans of industry. Although the route is one she’s done every week this year, trying to keep one step ahead at 130 mph takes every ounce of her concentration. Approaching the rear of a car traveling at a more reasonable speed, she hammers down on the throttle.

Instantly the chemical energy from a rack of chop-shop sports car batteries, storing enough electricity to power an average house for a week, dumps into a military surplus attack drone motor wedged into the composite frame of her motorcycle. Even at this speed, the bike wants to lift up until the auto-stabilization kicks in; so she shifts the pack on her shoulders and slides forward to hold the front wheel down. The hopelessly outmoded computer eventually figures out the physics to keep itself and her from becoming a flaming stain on the roadway, and the ride becomes more manageable.

Zoe’s map quickly leads her to the destination, a warehouse dealing in some kind of gray market goods that her employer delivers with absolute discretion. Zoe removes her helmet and wanders up to the front door. A security panel scans her eyes and slides open a poorly disguised armored blast door, allowing her into the airlock beyond. A voice speaks up from a panel on the wall. “Hey Zoe, 15 minutes early as usual. Nicely done.”

“You know how we do it - always early to make the drop, no questions, no traces. It’ll be the usual fee tonight, our coupon code expired last week. I’ll drop the package by the door.”

“No discount? Oh well… You should see the transfer hit right now.” A notification pops up in Zoe’s field of vision for the payment, and with that she’s out the door and heading back for the next pick up.

The automated diner that serves as the base of operations for the night crew of semi-freelance couriers is nearly empty tonight. Only a couple third shifter corpos are quietly eating lunch together in the corner. The head courier, an aging and thoroughly grizzled veteran of some unnamed war between two megacorps a decade ago sits in the booth by the door. Zoe types her order into her phone and a few seconds later a tray kicks out with their best approximation of synthetic chicken strips and fries.

“Back already? That was a quick one.”

“Yeah, the package was pretty light and there was basically no traffic. I finally got to open up the throttle on the Shitbox - I think I hit 150 in the straightaway for a few seconds.” She walks over to the output slot at the counter, grabs her food and sits down at the booth.

“Nice! That new motor working out then?” He picks up his coffee mug with his natural hand, the other a hopelessly outdated military model that occasionally decides to relentlessly crush anything in his grasp.

“Yeah, definitely. I think it might be overheating the speed controller though, it got a little sketchy when I opened up the throttle too quick. Also the computer probably should be about twice as fast, but it’s still a hell of a ride. The Shitbox and I go way back, so it’s nice to be able to finally upgrade it into a killer piece.”

“I’ll see if I can find a better active cooler with my supplier, and once you make a few more runs you might be able to pay what those ghouls are asking these days. It’s pretty slim pickings for now, but I think things should open up once Satamis and KGT Limited finally stop shooting at each other and finish their merger.” He takes a sip of his coffee.

“Right on, thanks for looking out for me. Speaking of making runs, anything juicy on the tracker?”

“Yeah, I got one for Saturn Industries. Payout’s pretty good, and it’s on a good route. I was gonna save it for The Madman, he’s been having a shit time lately - but I’ll flip it to you ‘cause I’m feeling nice. Also you’re here first and time is money.”

“I like money.” Zoe says between the last few bites of lunch as he sends the route over to her, the countdown already running down for the pickup.

“Shit, I gotta run - the timer’s already rolling! Thanks! I’ll be back soon, so have another one lined up for me!” Zoe runs back out, hops on the bike and peels out of the parking lot.

The pickup is uneventful, although this particular package is enormous so speed and maneuverability take a huge hit as she makes her way onto the freeway. Off in the distance, barely visible even with her high resolution smart glasses, the traffic is bunching up a bit.

Zoe says to herself “Well shit, not going to be 15 minutes early this time” and works through the traffic jam. On the other side, strangely there is hardly anyone on the road - likely everyone’s self driving systems were extra cautious and detoured around this whole section. As she heads farther down the road, the streetlights start to drop off and the road gets much darker. Soon even the image enhancement Zoe’s glasses provide doesn’t cut through the darkness very well, and she’s having to squint to see far enough ahead to react.

Her navigation app kicks off a “rerouting” message, and she follows the ramp off into a dark side street - unusual, but not unheard of. She opens up the throttle a bit more, nervous about being in an unknown area at night.

Suddenly, her headlight glints off of something out of the corner of her eye - A wall of dark gray is approaching at an incredible speed with no lights on. She attempts to take evasive maneuvers, jumping on the throttle and trying to lean into a turn, but every warning light on her bike lights up and the motor stalls out. She has only enough time to think “Ah shit.” as her vision fills with the side of an armored transport vehicle.

Everything stops.

The first thing Zoe sees is white. Laying on her back, she opens her eyes and looks around. The sky, floor, and everywhere out to the horizon is an endless expanse of featureless flat white. After looking around for a bit, she stands up and says “Well I guess I’m dead now, huh. Turns out I was wrong about that whole afterlife thing…” to nobody in particular.

“This is a kind of afterlife -  you are 100% correct about that part, though you are decidedly not dead yet.” a voice says from behind Zoe, and she quickly spins around to see who startled her.

“What the… Are you supposed to be god or something?” She asks the person standing behind her, a man in a suit and tie looking the part of a good corporate wage drone.

“Not exactly, you are currently in the sub-instance of the Argus Cybernetics AI virtual space. I’m Argus. I run this place.”

“Argus, huh? So you’re named after the megacorp? Must have had very dedicated parents working there…”

“Actually, it’s essentially the opposite. I am a shard of the Argus AI. When I say I run this place I mean I am one of the manifestations of the corporation’s will. Please, have a seat and we can speak in depth.” Two comfortable looking chairs appear beside them, and having no other real choice Zoe sits down. Argus takes the other seat and leans in, setting his elbows on his knees.

“I will tell you what you need to know directly, as that’s what the strategic matrix predicts you prefer. When you were making that delivery you made physical contact at high speed with one of our armored patrol vehicles. It looks like you remember that part. The previous Argus shards looked through our personality profile on you and determined that you would likely make a good candidate for our new employee program. .032 seconds later we began the approvals for your integration.

Our recovery team rescued you and delivered you to Argus HQ for surgical stabilization and recruitment, so here we are. It is said that good luck is when preparation meets opportunity, and at Argus we are always prepared for all eventualities.

We have been watching you much as we watch nearly everyone in the city, so we already know that you would be a great addition to one of our operational working groups. The teams are a fantastic mix of skills and personalities, and the benefits are among the best in the whole company. If you choose to join us, you will have access to all our latest service offerings, highly competitive pay and ongoing maintenance for life.”

“Wait. You hit me with a van and now you’re offering me a job? I’m a courier, and I don’t want anything to do with corpo psychopaths!”

“It was an armored transport vehicle, but yes. It’s likely we know you better than you know yourself, and once the results of your deep brain scan are analyzed we actually will, so we think you’d be a good fit. Your body’s structure was heavily damaged in the collision, so we are both offering to grant you employment and perform necessary repairs along with improving your body’s basic functionality.”

“So the real me is in some hospital and I’m in a dream with an AI. That’s fucking wonderful. What if I said I didn’t want anything to do with you creeps and that I’m gonna call a lawyer as soon as I got out of here? What then?”

“There was a 76% chance of you saying that. Fortunately we already have some alternatives prepared. Allow me to show you your current physical state - having knowledge of your current capacity is likely to sway your opinion.”

A black rectangle opens up from the white void, and a camera feed switches on. The view is pointed at a tank of a transparent liquid with Zoe’s body suspended in the center of it. Her head is sliced open at the hairline, and a swarm of barely visible robots are busy assembling metallic plates over her exposed brain. Tubes, wires, and robotic tentacles extend from every angle. Her shattered pelvis is being held together by a heavy duty robotic framework via screws driven into the bones. A huge cut in her stomach is being opened up by a surgical arm, which begins fishing around inside with one of its sub-tentacles looking for damage. One of her legs is completely missing, and her arms are floating at strange angles.

“Oh shit, Oh shit, Oh shit..” Zoe slumps from the chair and curls up into a ball on the floor, quietly cursing and crying.

“We are sorry that you are upset about your current condition, although you are very lucky to be alive and with very little brain damage. You decelerated at a speed that isn’t generally survivable, and our mobile patrols usually are not usually as proactive to call for support."

"Well that's nice, thanks for being so helpful." Zoe says, her voice dripping with disdain.

"Currently, we see three options with which to proceed:

One. We repair the damage to your current body as best as we can, and you leave here once healed. No medical bills, but nothing else. Since you are likely at fault for the accident any legal action against us is unlikely to succeed.

Two. As the surgery team is likely to write your body off as a total loss, we perform a full extraction and brain encasement, and drop your stripped brain case off at the nearest cybernetics facility with a credit to your account sufficient to cover the cost of a basic full body prosthesis.

Three. As mentioned, you hire into our operational working group, and we provide a guaranteed job, a state-of-the-art full body conversion tailored to your particular specialty, training, and the option of early retirement. We also offer 6 weeks of annual vacation and a best-in-class benefits package.”

“That’s a pretty fucked up choice. Live as a piece of human roadkill, get my brain ripped out and put into a shitty lunchbox, or give my life to a faceless corpo nightmare to become whatever you want - probably some expendable killing machine.”

“We ran your profile against our database of employee satisfaction, and found that you will be 76% likely to recommend your new role to others after 3 years, and you are 92% likely to be able to assist your family members due to the increase in pay compared to your delivery job. One correction though, you would not be serving in our direct action teams - so no killing. Your best fit would be in our infiltration group based on your social profile and personality scoring.”

“So spy stuff, huh. Sounds greaaaat. Yeah maybe not.” Zoe composes herself a bit and gets back into the chair, her sorrow replaced with anger.

“Our infiltration team mainly performs intelligence gathering and entry actions, it’s more like an arm of our research division than of our tactical division. So lots of social events, a little sneaking around here and there.

We can give you some time to decide if you’d like. I can call up your apartment from your memories and place it here, along with internet access with some necessary restrictions. No communication with anyone outside though until you make your choice; we can’t risk any data loss.”

“If I choose to join your crew, what kind of body do I get to be dumped in? Hopefully not some weird spider or vacuum cleaner looking thing I hope.” Zoe says as she leans back in the chair and seems to relax slightly.

“As a key member of an infiltration team you would be placed into one of our 5th generation Mimic chassis. Under normal circumstances you will look nearly identical to your former appearance, in fact a perfected version of yourself. That’s the whole point. For other jobs you would change your appearance, but you will be provided the necessary resources to do so successfully as part of mission planning.”

“Ok, so I get to look the same as I do now and schmooze with corp sleazebags for a huge paycheck. That… doesn’t sound completely horrible. Also I’m all messed up now so it’s not really much of a choice.”

From behind Argus a screen pops up with marketing b-roll showing happy people working on insanely complicated machinery. “Look at it this way - without us your future doesn’t look nearly as promising. You could spend the rest of your now limited life on medical support. Or you could be dropped into the cheapest cybernetic body on the market. Or have unlimited access to our latest products and the possibility of near immortality along with a career for life. We estimate that you already believe we are the best choice, you just have to agree to the terms.”

“You know what, fuck it. I’ll try out for your team and see what happens. I can’t go back to my old job anyway - I’m pretty sure the cargo I was delivering was worth more than I am, so I probably have some corpo hit squad looking for me now. I’m still really pissed off though. So thank you for the opportunity to work for you, I guess I’ll take it. Also fuck you.”

“Great, We’ll begin the onboarding process immediately. We will need to temporarily deactivate your consciousness in order to continue the conversion, so we will see you in approximately three days on the other side. Your date of hire officially is today. Thank you and goodbye for now, your next step will be integration.”

“Wait, I still have more..”

Argus suddenly disappears.

“...questions. Nevermind.”

Then, darkness.