A skyscraper jungle, the hum of the neon signs, a glowing billboard for a bar, crowded streets, people stumbling in a drunken stupor, the stench of piss and vomit, Alex kept his head down as he navigated the busy slums of 2075 San Francisco. Even the people seemed to glow as subdural microchips implanted at the base of their necks flashed green. Then, those chips flashed red and everyone froze. Alex stood in place, unable to move any part of his body as his microchip locked all of his motor functions. A female voice boomed over the city’s loud speakers, “Robbery reported, city wide scan initiated.” Shocks tingled Alex’s spine as his memories were accessed by the police. The events over the last few hours were forcibly recalled: they played in his mind like a mental movie fast forwarding at ten times speed. Grace, a coworker at Volpere, was waiting for him at the bar. Her curly brown hair and warm smile lit up the dark hole in the wall they often met at after work. Blue eyes sparkled as Alex took the seat across from her. They talked for hours. Alex could only recall one thing Grace said, “I’m a quality tech, but all I do is check for fifty millivolts across the motor control and memory access pins! When did things get so boring?” “Culprit found,” the female voice announced. Disoriented, Alex looked around as his body control returned. The flashing neon lights and bustling streets of his walk home had returned along with the usual flashing green at the base of everyone’s neck. “All other personnel are released.” Two blocks down Main Street, a strip club, grocery store, boxing ring and apartment were all housed in one building. Alex started down the stairs to the basement he called home when the front doors were thrown open. Two men in police uniforms dragged a large immobilized man out. The man’s microchip was glowing red, and he clutched a hand-railgun. “Serves him right,” Mr. Dawson, Alex’s land lord, sneered. “Trying to take from my hard earned profits because he isn’t willing to work.” “Sir,” a third officer said to him. “I’m going to need to take your statement on what happened: we take statements from anyone involved without a chip.” “I work hard and provide a service so people can live safe, happy lives; in return I don’t have to be a part of that. Stop bothering me and pull what you need from that degenerates memory.” “Our initial scan told us that he lives in your apartments. Why didn’t you just take control? As a registered unchipped business owner you have admin rights over all your employees and tenants.” “Peter doesn’t live here anymore. Someone else offered more for his room last night, so I threw him out. This is a business not a charity. If he wanted to stay he should have offered up more rent.” “That’s all I needed to know, sir...” the police officer grumbled as he turned to walk away. Alex put his hand on the scanner of the rusty door to the basement with a sigh. It flashed green and creaked open. Two doors in on the left he did the same to get into his rundown studio apartment. “He wants us to live safe, happy lives?” Alex thought with a chuckle. “What a piece of work...” The tired blue collar worker cleared a few circuit boards and spare parts that he was tinkering with the day before off his bed and flopped down face first. Peter had lived next door, and he didn’t leave quietly the night before when Mr. Dawson kicked him out at the ass crack of dawn. Fortunately, it was quiet enough this night to drift to sleep early. At work the next day, Alex frowned at a small stack microchips. Volpere made the chips that everyone was forced to rent and wear, and Alex was the technician who repaired the broken ones. “How many came in today, Nate?” Alex asked his boss. “Only three,” Nate replied. “Oh, and yours is due for maintenance. I’ll deactivate your chip for an hour. Do that one first.” “An hour? I need at least two.” “Fine, but remember to scan it into the quality system before you plug it back in, or you’ll be flagged as a fugitive like last time.” “That was a mistake; when are you going to let it go?” “No clue.” Nate laughed and strode out of the room. “Unchipped bastard,” Alex mumbled as he turned to his work. His chip had stopped glowing and was ready to be removed, so he cut the chip out of his neck to lay it next to the others in need of repair. His conversation with Grace the day before raced through his mind as he performed the routine maintenance on the chip that would soon enable the government to pry into this thoughts, control his movements, and resume total control over him. After a glance at the clock, he decided to make a few more modifications. Removing connections in a circuit board was nearly impossible, but he had done it before. The quality checks required all of the pins to be connected and read the proper voltages, so Alex connected the motor control and memory access in reversed positions. He swapped a few other pins and connections to make the circuits read correctly, and closed it up just before his two hours was over. “Please work,” he muttered as he placed it in the automated scanner. A series of clicks, beeps, and sparks signaled that the scan was in progress. After an excruciating wait, the scanner flashed green and released his chip. With baited anticipation, Alex placed it back in his head. It stung as it connected but felt normal after. A minute or two later, it started flashing green as it activated. “Holy shit,” Alex said to himself. “Did that actually work?”