SANDRA TOMEK WAS HOLDING A GUN when the SWAT team busted through her front door. She didn’t think much of the noise. Not at first. It was all in her head, after all, coming through the thickly padded noise-cancelling headphones attached to her surround-vision visor.

The sound was pounding it, too, bass-thumping techno-beat and all. She had just stepped into a disco chasing down some nasty characters. They were trying to conceal themselves among the throbbing, dancing crowd. The human shield play. It didn’t work very well, since they weren’t waif-thin or scantily dressed, like the rest of the patrons.

Sandra had them in her sights. They wouldn’t give her the slip this time. She only needed a clear shot.

She heard the shouting, too, all around her, from behind her. That didn’t faze her either. Come on. She’d just walked into a disco, aiming a honking handgun the size of a fifty cal. eagle. Of course they were going to shout at her.

The flashbang got her, though. At this point in the simulation, she shouldn’t experience any explosions. That came much later. She knew that for a fact. She’d designed this scenario—every nuance of it, every last detail, all of its complications. It and the rest of her sim-world was about to go from Beta to a big release. A very big deal. Like nothing else out there. She was putting it through its paces one last time before green-lighting it for good.

But this flashbang… An artifact bug? She’d have to address it for sure. That might set things back a bit.

Good thing she wasn’t pointing the gun at the wrong guys. The real guys. The ones aiming lasers at her through the explosion’s residue cloud.

She saw them well enough, finally, because one of the black uniformed figures had flipped off her gaming system.

Their voices came muffled, but she heard, “Put the gun down.”

The sudden switch from game to real world sent her reeling. She almost lost her footing.

“Really?” she heard herself shout above the sound of the disco music. These guys truly thought this plastic thing with the orange tip posed them a threat? Oh, sure, it looked like the real thing, and for authenticity of experience, weighed like it, too, but…

They yelled at her.

She dropped the gun and raised her hands.

One of them said something, but in a lower voice, no doubt trying to de-escalate the situation. Unfortunately that also meant she couldn’t hear him. She reached for her headphones.

They rushed her in a blur of shadows. In another second, with her face shoved into the leather couch, she was finding it hard to breathe. They yanked her arms back, and she felt something sharp, thin and tight go around her wrists. With her headphones now half removed, she heard the high whining ratcheting of it. In another second, she got it: zip ties.

She’d used them often to collect bundles of wire and keep her setups neat. Now they were serving another purpose—to hog-tie her.

At the moment when she thought her lungs would explode, they hoisted her up onto a carrier of some sort, like a stretcher. Craning her neck up, she saw two non-commando officers now, both of them wearing long plastic jackets with FBI inscribed on their chests.

“What the hell is this?” she gasped.

“I’m sure you will tell us all about it,” the tall, crew cut on the left said. “But before that, Ms. Sandra Tomek, we need to let you know that you are under arrest, and that you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you…”

I hope you enjoyed reading the beginning of Virtual Identity. As we speak, I am readying to release this story next month, February 18. To stay up to date about this and future news, join my Reader’s Club. Oh, and let me know what you think of this story!