Zoe - your roommate

Your eyes flick between the HopScotch app and Zoe, who's still animatedly describing her neural interface research. The notification catches your attention—not a job request, but an alert from the app's bounty board: "URGENT: Zoe Chen - $1,200 - 4-hour hop - No questions asked."

Your pulse quickens. Twelve hundred dollars would cover textbooks for the whole semester, with enough left over for that premium HopScotch subscription. And the target is sitting right in front of you, completely unaware.

You subtly activate your hopping tech—a small neural implant behind your ear that most hoppers use instead of the clunkier consumer apps. The familiar tingling sensation spreads down your spine as you establish the connection.

"—and the synaptic relays could potentially eliminate that memory bleed you mentioned," Zoe is saying when you make your move, locking eyes with her and triggering the hop.

The world lurches sideways. The usual disorientation hits—a nauseating moment of double-vision as your consciousness tears free from your body and slams into Zoe's. You feel her surprise—a hot, bright spark of alarm—before her consciousness is shunted aside, compressed into the passive observer role that all hop victims experience.

Suddenly, you're looking at your own body slumping forward on the bed, eyes vacant as it enters standby mode. The sensation of Zoe's body floods your awareness—longer limbs, different center of gravity, the strange tingle of those neural modifications in her hands. You flex her fingers, watching the blue circuitry pulse beneath the skin.

"Fuck," you say with Zoe's voice, deeper and more melodic than your own. "That was easier than expected."

You feel Zoe's consciousness struggling against your control—she's stronger than most hosts, probably because of her modifications. Her panicked thoughts bleed through: What the hell? Maya? You're a natural hopper? How did you bypass my firewall?

Most hosts can't communicate this clearly. Those neural enhancements of hers must be doing something unexpected.

Let me go! Her thoughts are becoming more focused, pushing against your control.

"Sorry, roomie," you mutter, accessing her memories to understand the modifications. "Business is business."

You stand, adjusting to her height, and check your phone. The bounty payment has already been transferred to your account—whoever wanted access to Zoe's body wasn't messing around.

A message appears from the anonymous client: "Meet at Campus Clinic, basement lab. Code 7729 for elevator access. Come alone. 4 hours."

You grab Zoe's ID card and keys, checking her reflection in the mirror. Electric blue hair, sharp features, and those unnaturally dilating pupils. You run her hands down her body—slim but toned, with small breasts under the crop top and the cool metal of the circuit-board navel piercing.

They want my research, Zoe's thoughts cut through. The clinic project is classified. Please don't do this.

"Four hours," you tell her reflection. "I'll have you back in time for dinner."