Chipping in feels like the body goes into static; the chip’s data overrides the senses, and the inbuilt safety procedures limit the body’s movements. Rachel could feel and see the outside world if she wanted, but she needs an escape from this situation, from her life that used to be but a chore and has turned into a disaster. That has always been Rachel’s wish: to live a life of love and beauty and leisurely action with a guaranteed happy ever after. She wills the menu open, putting the memory on autoplay with full immersion.

  Simulations are better than unedited records of experiencing a simulation. In a simulation, Rachel would interact with it, feel, see, and hear it, and have a full bodily stimulation from interactions playing safely inside her brain. She even has a rig for safe physical simulation of movement, a harness hanging from the living room roof, an expensive addition to her IUS subscription, but worth every cent, for the movement adds so much more to the immersion.

  A recording of an experience pales to the simulation in comparison, but many of Rachel’s fans have said the recordings from her cyberware are better than what their cheap external simulation sets can ever produce. Rachel has never given out details, never mentioned her body hides similar wires and processors that are used in recording simulation erotica.

  What she lacks is the processing power, editing software, and the will to publish anything like that. She wants to enjoy the simulations, not to create them. She is old enough to know that competition is fierce in the creative arts, and she is more skilled as a critic and guide than a content creator.

  The surviving chip holds two recordings, where Whyte explains the basics of crossing a river with makeshift equipment and later offers a sensual foot massage. Rachel forgets the bathroom; she stands on a riverbank, smelling the water and hearing the birds. She has a rope in her hands, sun-warmed nylon pressed against the palm, and a graphic in her field of vision guiding her attempt to throw the weighted rope to a branch on the other side.

  Rachel remembers how she praised the feature’s seamless integration. Now, the moment on the virtual riverbank is a beautiful memory, but without Whyte. The man is behind her in the recording, but not touching or talking, and it is frustrating. If only the recorded memory would start a little earlier, Rachel would feel his hands as they guide her fingers to the rope and hear his voice as he explains what to do.

  The scene stops abruptly, no soft fading here, only a mind-numbing blackness until the next recording starts. Rachel sits on a blanket, her bare feet in Whyte’s hands. The man gently kneads the sore muscles, giving his full attention to Rachel: the signature intense gaze from under the long lashes, simulation sunlight playing in the dark honey of his eyes.

  The strong hands move sensuously on her naked skin. Each touch sends a wave of pleasure as Whyte continues the massage. His hand lies on her shin, but he will move upwards, the fingers playing on the sensitive skin in her inner thigh…but it’s not in the recording. Rachel is thrown back to the limbo, before the rope-throwing exercise starts again.

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  This is what she was looking for, the sense of belonging, the bliss of a perfect moment. The recordings are painfully short, only glimpses, but Rachel remembers how the scenes evolved. The memory switches back to the river, then to Whyte, and back again. Rachel embraces both scenarios: she needs these drops of happiness before she can survive her destroyed apartment.

  The inbuilt alarm disrupts the memories, stopping the playback, but Rachel keeps her eyes tightly shut. She doesn’t want to deal with the eviction or anything before she has gotten the quality time she deserves. She summons Whyte, willing herself not to feel the sticky floor or the toilet seat where she sits.

  The alarm occurs again. It’s there for stimuli exceeding the inbuilt limits that Rachel has not yet been able to bypass. Noise level, outside pain, some other nonsense that would just interfere with her experiences with the simulation. The corporate safety people designing the features are soaring so high in their perfect worlds that they think people want to stop their immersion for mundane items like fire alarms.

  The third alarm shuts down the playback and forces the chip to temporarily lock. Rachel mentally hits the play command, but in vain. She is sure the house is not on fire, and she hates the feeling when reality returns. The messy ---room, the dirty floor, and the AR announcements about the services closed fill the surrounding air. It is too soon: Rachel has hardly had time to relax and gather herself. She feels the familiar anxiety crushing her stomach into a hard ball, and breathing is hard.

  “No,” Rachel whispers for no one in particular, and no one answers.

  Despite her reluctance to interact with reality, sounds infiltrate Rachel’s ears. Someone is in the apartment. She can hear the heavy steps when the intruder stumbles on something. The sounds are not from the trendy sneakers the people working for the apartment complex use. The steps are from something heavier, like boots - probably the corporate police are back, and Rachel is not going to go to greet them.

  The police might take her last recording: maybe they are here to check her once more. Rachel panics and pulls her sleeve down, hiding the fake skin covering her cyberware interface. It is not enough if they search her or do a scan, and Rachel thinks that she should swallow the chip, but it would just destroy the circuits.

  The idea of losing the last chip and being thrown out of the apartment is too much to bear. Rachel decides she will walk out by herself, that much she can still do, a last defiance. She gets up, straightens her shirt, and remembers she left the jacket and her purse somewhere among the messed furniture.

  She can still hear the steps.

  “I know u’re ere, luv. I can smell the money on you.” It is a male voice, rasped and uneven, like the speaker is compensating the volume for something Rachel can’t hear. She doesn’t like the voice; the corporate police may be mindless goons, but they need to pretend to have habits, for corporate AIs monitor their performance, or so the rumor says. Rachel doesn’t know if it is true, but she knows corporate police have a surface coating of politeness that this voice lacks.

  For a stunned moment, she can’t understand, but then the reality strikes her. Her apartment security is down; the home defense systems, complementary to her corporate employment package, were cancelled the moment she got stamped as a criminal. Any drunk, rapist or robber could have walked in when she was in the simulation, and now that guy is looking for her. Just when she thought this day couldn’t get any worse.