"Oh god, don't I know it," Bacon says with a sigh. "My dad used to say that the cyberpunk future came true in basically everything but the aesthetics. Honestly, from everything I've read in the genre, he's probably right. Though I don't know if I'd say everyone's trying to serve themselves. It's more that just enough people are that the altruism of other people gets kind of drowned out by the greed of the selfish ones."

They add after a moment, "Huh. We don't have aliens like that where I come from."