Burning Chrome

In the near future, the world is dominated by megacorporations. Human capital is key, and the corporations are highly protective of their talent. Corporations use this talent to develop cutting-edge technology and engage in fierce competition. A powerful black market for corporate espionage and talent stealing has percolated out of this high-stakes, competitive corporate world.

The narrator and his partner, Fox, are involved in this criminal activity. Fox calls the intellectual capital so sought-after by corporations “the Edge” (109). According to the story’s narrator, “[t]he Edge was Fox’s grail, that essential fraction of sheer human talent, nontransferable, locked in the skulls of the world’s hottest research scientists” (109). The pair’s current mission is to steal a talented biologist from a German company to work for an African lab. En route, they meet a beautiful woman, Sandii. The narrator falls for her, and she joins them.

They manage to obtain the biologist and escort him back to the African lab. However, when their company-sponsored accounts are frozen, they realize that they have been set up by Sandii. Fox is killed after the employers blackmailing him and the narrator catch up with them. The narrator escapes and is laying low in the New Rose Hotel, which composed of tiny sleep capsules with just enough room to lie down.