Excerpt from JURIS EX MACHINA

“ATTENTION, SHOPPERS,” flashed the message. Beneath was a business name and a time. Nothing more. The designated location was relatively close to where Rainville sat, but still on the other end of the Financial District. He’d have to scarf down the rest of his Skyburger if he was going to make it there in time, and regretted ordering Triple Extra Spicy.

The message source could not be traced. It had sailed through a sea of anonymization servers in various jurisdictions before being transmitted to the consoles of a group of subscribers including himself. The recipients were not trusted friends, but rather, friends-once-removed. Semi-Anonymity, that was Rule #1: it’s hard to rat someone out when you don’t even know their name. Still, when robbing a store, it helped to know the others could be trusted. To a degree, anyway; full trust in anyone was a dubious proposition.