The year is 2040. You are looking for a job but not having much luck. If only you could get one of the latest brain implants. Your cousin has one, paid for by health insurance for his ALS. But he has a valid medical reason, unlike the other hundreds of people injected with chips to make themselves smarter, faster. Those are the people you’re competing against. Those are the cyborgs who get the jobs.

Out of curiosity, you look up the prices for the most popular neural implants, the ones with the digital library of books available for download, the ones with speed and skill programmed into the software. The most basic ones start at $5k, and that’s not including the lost wages from missed work during the activation period, or the rare possibility of neural rejection.

And then there are the cybersecurity packages. Military grade cyber is recommended, but for civilians it costs another $4k per year. Without a top cybersecurity package, you’re at the mercy of the bare-bones software upgrades, barely enough compute to prevent amateur hackers, let alone sophisticated cybergangs.

Dejected, you go back to your job search and narrow your choices. Non-augmented. One hundred percent human.

One hundred percent out of luck.