“Fine. I’ll go with you. Take out the chip, and make it quick. Now I have to trust him to take out the chip. Not that it’s much of a comfort, but if he wanted to kill me, he could have done it five minutes ago without too much trouble. Still don’t feel good about this, though.

He moves behind me and his fingers probe my skull for the slight protrusion characteristic of all VR5 chip implants. Eventually he finds it, and silently, he moves his fingers away from my head, and with one inhumanly fast motion, he jams his index finger in to the bump on my head.

For a fraction of a second, sharp pain shoots throughout my entire body, electricity radiating out from my head. Then it’s gone, and the maps along with it. I can’t access the Metascape at all, in fact. And now I’ve got to worry about the goddamn plague too. But really, where I’m going, none of that is gonna matter.

“Come on,” he says, “We need to get going.”