Lost in the Crowd, One of Many

One of the nameless faces in the endless sea of nobodies caught my eye.

Must be nice, I subvocalised. Neural implants in my speech centre picked up the message and squeezed it through a short-range encrypted radio burst.

What, being one of them? came the reply. Doubt it.

Just think about it. No expectations, no cost-benefit analyses, no security considerations.

No control over your life, either.

You think we have any more control than they do?

We're a damn sight harder to kill, that's for sure.

Is that what our lives boil down to?

Oh, don't start. I was actually looking forward to lunch today.

We had to get a visit to the private canteen approved - what kind of life is that?

This is what we signed up for. It's not as bad as you make it out to be.

Just look at them, would you? These people can go anywhere, meet anyone, do anything.

Well... I've always been happy with wh- what I have.