The year is 2094. The month is Compuary, which is a new cyber-month they added just for doing hacker stuff. The bio-scum of Circuit City festers under the iron fist of Consolidated Omnibotics and its army of synthoid enforcers. At the city’s peak, under the crystal dome, incredibly wealthy and genetically immortal CEOs call shots and pull strings. And they do sex stuff up there as well. Down here in the Dirt District, the rest of us scrape by swapping garbage and doing crazy future drugs called stuff like NitroNerv and Tums 2.

My name is Darpa Killblade, and I run with the baddest crew of low-life neurojackers around. There’s Fishy Ramirez, fastest hacker on the net. There’s Baltimore Airport, lab-grown to be a swimsuit model but programmed to kill. There’s Crusty Silverware, biological warfare expert and black-market wizard. And then there’s me: the owner of Circuit City’s coolest jacket.

We’ve just been handed the biggest contract of our lives: Infiltrate the dome and take out Harvard Pubence, the president of cops. Our reward? One thousand bytes, which are our money now because we use computers so much. That’s enough to skip this shithole and start somewhere new.

Tonight, Pubence is guest of honor at the 9th Annual Rich Perverts’ Ball. My team is jacked up on Tums 2 and ready to roll the dice. So I’ve just got one question for you, scum… …are you in?