"UNKNOWN CONTACT: HEY. YOU'VE BEEN MADE." The chat message flashed popped in the bottom left of J0hnny's virtual vision. He near-instantly dismissed the distraction, before summoning the message back. He wasn't on a directory anywhere, he'd made damn sure of that, and everyone but a couple close netrunners should have been blocked. "J0HNNY: WHAT THE SHIT DO YOU MEAN?" He fired off the reply before returning to the datastream. He was three hours into a run on the SynthCorp datamatrix, and up until now everything had been nova. Their ICE was a goddamn glacier, but the few alarms that had been tripped he managed to squash before they went anywhere. Whoever this prick was, they had to be messing with him. "UNKNOWN CONTACT: VTOL FULL OF HEAVIES JUST LEFT THEIR HQ. FLIGHT PLAN SAYS DESTINATION IS RESIDENTIAL MEGABLOCK 7. THREW SOME AIR TRAFFIC IN THEIR WAY, BUT I GIVE THEM 8 MINUTES. HOPE YOU'VE GOT AN EXIT PLAN. ;)" J0hnny fired off a slew of daemons, shifting his target from the R&D server in California to the corporate OPs server in Chicago. No alarms, no hostile netrunners making a show of prowling for intruders, everything perfectly normal. Which was itself, not normal. SynthCorp made lifelike, synthetic beings of unmatched quality. Competing units were clunky things that couldn't path a crowd and flubbed small talk in ways that people loved to laugh at on HoloTube, while a SynthCorp Gen4 was practically human. Most of them were anthropomorphic animals finished with a shiny polymer skin, which was both popular among people who remembered when nature was still a thing and seemed to make people forget the questionable territory SynthCorp was in. And rumor on the 'net was that the Gen5 architecture had just passed engineering validation. That place should be lit up like a damn Christmas tree as every dumbass on the net tried to get schematics, test data, pricing, marketing copy... anything non-public on them was worth fat creds. An inbound data stream flashed for a moment, before disappearing into the suspiciously calm fortress. Flight update from "VTOL_023". The encryption disappeared in a puff of smoke under his toolkit, and his heart dropped. They had him zeroed. "J0HNNY: FUCK. PULLING THE CORD. IF YOU'RE STILL IN THE SYSTEM, ADD MY MOBILE AND KEEP ME POSTED." His eyes crossed and his vision blurred as the day-glow world of the 'net disappeared, the unfurnished apartment returning in a swirl of gray and off-white. Fuck. The emergency exit never got any more pleasant. He raised a stiff arm and grabbed the plug on the back of his neck, wincing in pain as he pulled it free without running the disconnect routine. No time. His implant pinged. "NEW CONTACT: M1SS_ILLU5ORY" Fuck. Corporate goons were ready to liquidate his ass, and knowing that, she was gonna stick around? What the hell was her game? "M1SS_ILLU5ORY: ELEVATORS LOCKED UP. FIX IS GONNA DELAY THEM A FEW MORE MINUTES. WHAT'S YOUR EXIT?" "J0HNNY: GOT A RAPPEL ROPE IN THE BUSTED CARGO ELEVATOR, CAR ON SUBLEVEL P2." He pulled the datachip with what he was able to extract out of the portable deck, then pulled an automag out of his jacket and dumped four rounds into the palm rest. A proper data-wipe took time, which he didn't have. Half inch holes achieved a similar result much quicker, as long as you knew where to put them. "M1SS_ILLU5ORY: A BROWN DIPLOMAT 2-DOOR? NATIONWIDE APB JUST WENT OUT ON THE POLICE NET. LETHAL FORCE AUTHORIZED. GOT ANOTHER EXIT? [FILE ATTACHED: APB_02142082-42.MP6]" "Fuck!" He screamed into the empty apartment in frustration, before turning and punching a hole in the drywall. Was this chick trying to keep him alive, or just torment him? "J0HNNY: SHOOT MY WAY OUT? IF YOU'VE GOT A PLAN, PRINCESS, NOW WOULD BE THE TIME TO SHARE." "M1SS_ILLU5ORY: FIRST; ONCE YOU’RE OUT, I WANT EVERYTHING YOU MANAGED TO PULL FROM SYNTHCORP." "J0HNNY: DEAL. JUST GET ME OUT OF HERE.” She could have named her damn price, and all she wanted was his SynthCorp files? Like hell there wasn’t more, but he didn’t have much of a choice. "M1SS_ILLU5ORY: YOU’VE GOT A NANITE IMPLANT, RIGHT?" Duh. If being shot at was part of your job, you sprang for some medi-bots. "J0HNNY: YEAH. WHAT’S THE PLAN?" "M1SS_ILLU5ORY: I’M GONNA WALK YOU RIGHT OUT THR FRONT DOOR, RUN THIS, GIVE THE VALVE A HALF TURN COUNTER CLOCKWISE. I’LL BE THERE TO PICK YOU UP IN FIVE. [FILE ATTACHED: SYNTHCORP_NANITE_FW_MODDED.BIN]" J0hnny raised his hand to his head and pressed on his temples. Fuck had this thing gone sideways! Some crazy mystery chick wanted him to run some unsigned mystery firmware on his implant? And then they were gonna walk out the front? Either this was some wild military-grade soft... or she was gonna grey-goo him and just lift the chip from his puddle. ...Not like he had any better options. A quick scan of the cameras showed the corporate muscle was already in the lobby. Local PD in the parking deck. He loaded up the file, overriding all the warnings. As soon as he did, it felt a coldness down my his stomach. The nanites deploying. He could feel this coldness running through his veins, collecting in his head. He sat down as a fog rolled through his brain. Fuck! It felt like the inside of his head was melting! He threw his head back with a grunt, feeling this liquid inside slosh to the back. His head actually was melting! He made to stand as a dizziness came over him, forcing him to fall back into the chair. She had played him, tricked him into running one of the nastiest- As he writhed and thrashed his head about, he felt the goo that wasn’t already detaining down his neck slosh forward far further than it should have before meeting the inside of his hollowed-out jaw. He froze with a jolt, feeling a tingle as something atop his head resisted the change in motion. He- he wasn’t sure what she was doing to him any more. His head felt so light, so empty... but mentally, everything was still there? He pushed himself up from the reclined chair, his arms wobbling unsteadily where the nanites had already started to work. He unzipped his jacket as he felt the goo melt down into his torso, ripping off his shirt in a panic as he felt it filling his lungs. He tried to breathe, only to fail to pull any air through the thin shell that was left of his head. Panic set in, then faded just as quick. He felt... fine? He looked down at his torso, seeing a silvery-black band of nanites working it’s way down his chest... and a brown, shiny surface above? He raised a hand feeling his opposite shoulder. It was smooth, synthetic, and given the way it squished under his touch... hollow? He took a few steps toward the bathroom, doubling over as the nanites reached his gut. He wrapped his changing arms and hands around his stomach as he felt the worst indigestion he’d ever experienced hit him. The nanites were attempting to eat his stomach, and he could feel his stomach acid attempting to melt them in return. His new optics displayed stars as the pain overrode other inputs, before as soon at it hit the nanites won and the feeling passed. J0hnny stumbled into the bathroom, bracing himself on the counter with one clumsy, goo-covered hand as the other remained wraped around his gut. He let out a synthesized grunt, raising his head to stare his changing body in the mirror. The reflection that greeted him was shocking, but at the same time he half-expected it at this point. From the waist up a glossy, synthetic skinned deer greeted him. What was unexpected was that he was semi-translucent, and apparently hollow? He raised his arm from the counter to touch the light, bouncy 10-point rack he now wore, but paused halfway there to examine his now hooflike fingers. He wiggled the three digits; now just two fingers and a thumb. Just nova. That was gonna do wonders for his typing speed. The feeling of something cold and gooey on the rubber forearm still on bis belly caused him to look back down at his abdomen. He could feel the main bulk of the goo down in his legs now, but some of the goo had leaked through his navel, forming something hard where his bellybutton should- He gave the shape a poke with one of his plasticy hoof-fingers, confirming what he was seeing. If there was any question whether he was still human, the damn air valve sure put that one to bed. The now-mostly-synth took a wobbly step away from the mirror, teetering uneasily from the unexpected feeling of having most of his remaining mass located in his calves. He placed a hand on the bathroom doorframe to steady himself, realizing for the first time he was leaving behind a silver-black smear as he did. He looked over at the chair, following the puddle that used to be his meat just minutes ago spread all over the floor, the distorted handprints smeared all over. For being turned into such a perfectly neat synthetic being, the process sure made a mess. He let out a squeak and fell forward as his feet melted underneath him, leaving one last horrifying handprint smear as he did. He rolled over, out of the puddle of discarded nanobots as pulled himself back up on his dense rubber hooves. That was nice. At least he wouldn't blow away. "M1SS_ILLU5ORY: GONNA BE TIGHT. SYNTHCORP HEAVIES ARE JUST BEHIND. BE READY TO BOUNCE." Her instructions! He grabbed the valve with one of his new hands, cranking it to the left. "CHECK VALVE: ON -> BYPASS" "AUTOINFLATE: ON -> OFF" The words flashed in his peripheral vision as he felt the jet of air shoot between his fingers, his stomach sinking underneath him. He slumped forward, feeling his core start to lose rigidity. She- She said counterclockwise, right? He scrolled back the chat in the peripheral of his augmented vision as he felt his legs wobble, confirming her instruction. This- this was how she was going to walk him out the front door. They were looking for a human, and AIs showed up different on the 'net. And an inflatable one with a head lined with polymer-printed circuits and a built-in wireless array... next time, they wouldn't know what hit them. The synth-buck was pulled out of plotting as he fell very literally flat on his back, his eyes going wide as he felt the air pressed out of the new tail that was apparently underneath him by his own minimal weight. He stared upwards at the door as the last of the air left his strange new body. She better be close. The door chirped and slid open seconds later, a synthetic reindeer doe in an equally shiny blue gown standing behind it. She unplugged the thin metallic wire she was holding from the door control and gave it a tug, causing it to auto-rewind into her purse. "Good. You're ready." She knelt down and flipped him on his front, his world and mind spinning as his body folded in ways it previously shouldn't have as she deftly folded him into a vinyl square with a practiced precision. As the spinning stopped he heard her purse open, and in a blur his world went black. "Oh my. Looks like a horror flick in here. Nice." From inside he felt the doe stand up, then turn for the door. It was on her now. ************ Sargent Jackson raised his fist, the team behind him stopping on a dime. Someone was around the corner, banging on the vacant apartment that their hacker was running his damn heist out of. He nodded to the squad, and quietly stepped around the corner, his rifle raised. "Yoo-hoo! Hourly rate starts when I arrive, sweetie!" He groaned. It was a reindeer synth, apparently an escort. What was it with these hacker types and their damn sexbots? "Hey, bot, step away from the door!" The doe froze, her eyes going wide in shock. "I said-" He grabbed the dumb piece of rubber, slamming her up against the wall and crushing her throat with his forearm, which squished easily with a soft squeak, the doe seemingly more annoyed than actually injured. Leave it to the lab boys to take all the run out of roughing up a suspect. "Squad! Breach and clear!" Jackson yelled, turning back to the deer. "What are you doing here? Who called you?!" he barked questions at her, pointing his rifle at her stomach. There wasn't really anything essential in there, but even a dumb synth had enough self-preservation programmed in to not want to get shot. This one was no different. "T- The agency just got an address and a deposit! I just showed up and he wouldn't answer, and I didn't wanna get a bad review for not waiting and pocketing the deposit, and my backups are old don't shoot me!" He released the doe, who wobbled as she regained her footing. "The purse. Open it." She swung it off her shoulder and snapped the top open, holding it out for inspection. He blinked for a moment, stunned by the speed. He could get used to all his suspects being this compliant. He rooted around inside for a moment, looking over the contents with disappointment. An ID card and her semi-autonomy permit. Keychip and parking stub for a Moonbeam station wagon. Some polishing compound. ...An inflatable buck? He suddenly regretted asking to look. At least she had a small handful of credits. "I'm afraid this is your inspection fee. Now get lost." A hand tapped him on the shoulder as the reindeer-synth bolted around the corner before he changed his mind, the clopping of her rubber hooves quickly fading away. "Sarge? You gotta see this..." He turned and followed the corporal into the apartment. A trail of shimmering gray goo went from a makeshift battlestation in the vacant unit's kitchen to the bathroom, then came towards the door, an oily handprint streaking down towards a puddle on the floor. "Holy fuck... I thought our 'runner was just tracing him?" The other soldier shrugged. "Maybe he got too close to something and he changed his mind? Or maybe one of his buddies saw us coming, didn't want to leave a loose end? Fried his damn rig before his implant fried him though, so gonna be hell putting anything together." "Damn... If I ever consider a nanobot implant, remind me of this." ************ As the elevator doors closed the doe looked up at the camera, froze the feed with a flick of her ear, and opened her purse. "Sorry for the unconventional extraction there. One of those encrypted files you managed to peel off happens to have some internal test data about us gen-4s becoming sentient that's gonna change everything, and I had to disappear you before they did. Once I get you to a safehouse we can get you into a more familiar chassis." A message from the deflated deer pinged into her peripheral. "J0HN_D03: ACTUALLY... I'M KINDA LIKING IT."