"The next stop is Nakami City Station. Please be careful exiting the transport car and ensure all belongings are accounted for." The disembodied AI voice echoed through the half empty passenger cars, these days Nakami is the place to get away from, not commute to. 

"Pfft, you can say that again! Check your pockets before and after boarding, ladies and gents!" A particularly rowdy passenger exclaimed jovially, in direct contrast to their downtrodden company. Most of these people were not thrilled to be passing by the global hotspot for cyberterrorism and failed government. To crack down on the worst crime rates of any city in the developed world, they had attempted to roll out the S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. program; a series of top of the line, fully autonomous crime prevention robots. Their security measures had been compromised within a week and the city was no longer bound by even the pretence of effective law enforcement. 

It was very likely that everybody on this Skyrail was simply passing by, keeping quiet as they cursed their bad luck under their breath. Praying that the train was spared the fate of becoming yet another hostage acquisition scenario, or worse, a burning wreck on the icy mountain below. Ceris was one such person, a fresh intern at a new law firm opening in the neon city of New Seattle. Had she known this train would divert to a new route due to faults in the Skyrail she would have thought twice about this journey. Before pivoting to study law, Ceris had been considering a career in cybersecurity and had heard stories of Nakami's bootleg malware that could override the security firmware in a citizen's neural link. Last she heard it was limited to Nakami IDs, but these were dangerous criminals who only seemed to be growing. Everyone knew that Nakami City's mayor and city council were proxies, it just made the nation look bad to come out and admit it. 

The city was considered by many to be a lost cause, and here they were shuttling past it like nothing had happened. Ceris tried to cool her nerves and turned off her tablet, slipping it into her bag and zipping it tight in response to the unnecessary warning. Everyone in the car was on the same page as it rapidly approached the city station, all besides that one vocal character unfortunately situated directly to Ceris' left, sitting on her hands and trying to whistle the announcement jingle. Her hair was white, peeking out from a deep grey hood emblazoned with the pattern of the Nakami police department. 

Everybody was nervous, but had hoped that she would leave at the next stop and give them no further trouble. While outspoken, the suspicious young woman had yet to single anybody out or break any personal boundaries, even if she had sat alarmingly close to Ceris despite the rest of the bench being empty on that side. It was no coincidence, all the other passengers had given the Nakami local a wide berth, but Ceris was too absorbed in her writeup as she boarded to properly read the room. Getting up now felt like it could provoke a reaction, at least that was the concern she had. 

"You getting off here too?" It took Ceris a moment to realise the question had been directed at herself, and where it had come from. The white haired passenger was looking right at her, one arm now resting over the windowsill as she leaned in some. "You are, ain'cha?" Her face was young but she was intimidating nonetheless, one eye an imposing crimson from a self administered jailbreak of stolen police neurals. Her hands were calloused, fingertips soldered to shaped pieces of metal which linked to circuits that ran beneath the skin. It was clear this person was not to be messed with and here she was, messing with Ceris unprompted. 

"I... Uh." The intern inhaled quickly and swallowed, trying to formulate the perfect response to make this stranger leave her alone for good. It seemed that none were coming to mind, even her AI assistant was at a loss... and currently unable to access the mobile network. "I'm not, sorry. I'm heading to ah..." She caught herself before telling this dangerous individual where she was going, that suddenly felt like an obviously bad idea. 

The stranger smiled, perhaps knowingly, as her fingers tapped against the plastic bench in a series of tiny clacks. "Ah? Oh I hear it's lovely this time of year, I hope you enjoy your stay." With a satisfied smirk, the suspicious individual seemed to lose interest and turn her focus to other passengers, trying to catch them glancing at her before their eyes shot back down to their feet. Ceris was relieved, her current abnormal heartrate showing in the bottom corner of her vision with a small yellow exclamation mark. She flicked her eyes to swipe away the warning and folded her hands in her lap neatly in an attempt to calm down. Nakami station was any second now, she just had to hold out until the person next to her would leave her life forever. 

Like the rest of her fellow passengers Ceris was carefully diverting her gaze away from the passenger to her left, which did mean that nobody else in the train was watching the two of them either. Not that it would have made a difference if they had been. It happened so fast that Ceris could barely follow along, in a flash she felt cool metal press against the side of her temple, five metallic fingertips. The jolt was next, like a surge of electricity shooting from those foreign fingers into her brain. The pain passed quickly but then came the error messages indicating that her top of the line chip appeared to be malfunctioning and restarting. Ceris could barely react, all of this was happening within a margin of a second and a half, her mind could quite literally not keep up with the assault staged upon it. 

Without warning the train car suddenly heated up like an oven, Ceris squirming against the bench and nearly forgetting about the fingertips pressed firm against her skull. Oh, it looks like memory access had been cracked now. That's right, she's travelling to Nakami city with her best friend... that was... that... 

Fighting the overwritten memories was a losing battle so long as her firewall had been shut down, the malware being carried directly into her defenceless mind while the other passengers in the car stared down at the floor to remain invisible. Ceris was being reprogrammed, she could feel it, but she couldn't do anything to resist it. It was happening, this was simply a fact that she need to accept. Was that really what she thought, or was that what her mind was being programmed to think?

The intern suddenly realised that if she did not fight this now, she would be walking out of this train car never to be seen again, likely with a smile on her face. Panic flooded her, but it wasn't useful, it only kept her further sedated as the car heated up like it was cooking her. Her body broke out into a sweat and she shrugged out of her jacket, every inch of skin feeling sensitive and alive. Error messages and warnings filled her blurred vision as her cybernetic eye glitched from the surge. The stranger was whispering something into her ear and she slowly nodded, but once again she failed to keep up. Ceris simply remembered that she liked what was said. It made her smile a little, as her iris flooded with a new red hue. She was not going to be able to fight this, for some reason that made her want to laugh. It made her feel owned. Being owned felt good. Feeling good made her happy. Being happy made her smile. Smiling made her grateful. Grateful to her owner. Being owned felt good... 

By the time the train had screeched to a halt and the suspended bridge met the sliding doors of the Skyrail station in Nakami city, Ceris was feeling a little out of it. She must have had a bad reaction to something she drank, because she need her friend to help her walk.