You play the role of Tali Cates and Dameon Gage. Both grew up outside the walls of the mega-corp. Tali was an extraordinary teenage hacker, mostly interested in upsetting the flow of information in the mega-corps and stirring things up, but never avoided an opportunity to profit from the ventures. Dameon led a street gang that specialized in reselling hardware acquired form the mega-corps.

After her capture by TranStar, Tali was forced to be one of the first that had the direct nero stimulation operation performed for the sake of furthering science. Out of the first group of a dozen or so juvies, she was the only one that survived. Thereafter, because her extraordinary skill as a hacker, and her direct neural interface to the Net, she was forced to work for TranStar in their security division. For several years, she spent upwards of 20 hours a day patrolling and defending the intranet of TranStar, fed intravenously so she didn't have to take breaks. The long hours on the Net took their toll on her emotionally, and eventually, even directly induced euphoria failed to be effective. With new batches of hackers with direct neural interfaces coming in with lower and lower fatality rates, it was decided that Tali should be retired at the age of 19. Because of her deep knowledge of TranStar's security systems, she was to be terminated.

Dameon and some of his gang members were captured by TranStar for hijacking a transport full of cybernetic equipment. Like Tali, Dameon was forced to do work. He was also put in the security division, albeit in a bit more physical role. It became apparent very quickly that Dameon's strong will was in conflict with TranStar's compliance policy, so it was decided that Dameon would, too, be retired.

Tali and Dameon, along with no less than a dozen other obsolete indentured servants, were put on a transport under the guise of a relocation to another division. TranStar has had a long and bitter rivalry with their neighbor mega-corp, EnCom. Despite the lack of regulatory bodies over the corps, TranStar has not engaged EnCom in a full out war, mainly because they were afraid the actions would be interpreted as overly hostile by the corporate citizens, and demand for commodities might drop. To get around it, TranStar decides to make it look like EnCom made the first attack. TranStar decided to stage a deadly assault on the transport that Tali and Dameon were in, making it look like EnCom was responsible. But Tali and Dameon survive.