Gadg8eer
K.i.D Player 10
At that moment, a VidWindow - an interface element of the Hiverse that she had seen in Gadg8eer's augmented reality on occasion the day before - opened in front of her. She'd also seen more than her fair share of VidWindows and other AugReal ads on the drive to the airport.
"I heard that you were back, mistress. I hope you don't mind my intrusion, but you have some messages." said the only character Zoe liked enough to serve as a 'Secretary', the adorable Furry and hyper-competent secretary from the "quirky town with a 'dark' secret simulator" Furry Crossing: Fig Leaf (Rated AO for Adults Only). She gave a shy smile as she communicated through the video displayed in the VidWindow, the obligatory censor bars being generated by the Censor Bar Generator which was in the base settings of Zoe's node because her younger sister was a loudmouth with an account on lolDairy and an envy-inducing following on onlySimps and then PeerTube.
Any and every time her sister had complained about something in it, it had been in some way rolled back by Zoe, and people online seemed satisfied that they could force someone to act just like them by ransoming her reputation, no matter how cruel and selfish it is to expect someone to never be true to themselves or become a pariah. Eventually Zoe tried cut her sister off entirely, blocking her sibling's Hinobi ID and refusing to acknowledge her sister in protest. After several days, their parents had enough and sat down with both of them, being that they all lived in the same house still. 'Zoe', or Alice if you were her (only) friend (Dee), was an adult by that point, crippling mental disorders notwithstanding, and wasn't obligated to talk to someone. On the other hand, her sister was also an adult and one who had proven more capable in a shorter time, but that meant that when she was clear enough about how she despised Alice for having less obstacles, it was the last straw. Zoe stayed with her parents and her sister was told to move out.
Two weeks after, Zoe and her parents were in a car at a red light in Houston, when a 2024 Quill Caramel (a recently-introduced e-car brand) in the turning lane adjacent ran a red light in self-driving mode. The "driver" (passenger) Nathan Brown had apparently been murdered by his father-in-law (the infamous former CEO of Horizen Prime - and America's closest equivalent to Noburu Arasaka - Biff Jose) so his daughter would inherit the copyright to the Hiverse's codebase. Most of the details after that point became scarce, but it quickly became clear that Horizen Prime had somehow been hacked into (or were directly responsible for and capable of covering up) the murdering of the passenger of the vehicle by inserting malicious code via an app installed into the car's dashboard computer. As for why, well, 'accidents do happen' was a favorite quote of Biff's predecessor, David Choak. They weren't as brazen about it as Arasaka or as visibly crooked as IOI, but Horizen Prime and its executives were not afraid to do things like what IOI tried to do to Zoe (or worse) and had previously had a lot of pull.
Their downfall turned out to be something else. When it was clear that their app was responsible, Horizen Prime tried to claim innocence or shrug the fallout onto their own IT, who couldn't very well break their vow to keep GAME Mechanics a secret and expect the jury to not have had their memories wiped.
Equally evil or not, Arasaka and Horizen Prime were rivals. Exposing the truth had been all too easy. The hard part was making sure enough people remembered it that they couldn't stop the signal. By the end of THAT affair, it was 2026 and Fake News had wreaked havok on the world's recollection.
That was the part Hinobi and everyone else who knew weren't telling their branch managers let alone that D kept it from Zoe and DPortEd hadn't known to tell anyone. The year, as far as they knew, was 2028. Only problem was, the mess they cleaned up was so big that they were taking it on faith based on star charts and the range of records in most hard drives not extending past 2028. Nobody died, and society didn't collapse, but the exact date and the events of the past few years were actually extremely incomplete because Arasaka and Horizen Prime caused 'The Scratch' a.k.a 'The Snap'. A length of time shrouded in mystery because two organizations were stupid enough to fight a war with neuralyzers as the only (truly effective) weapons, and nobody had even noticed the glitches in the matrix.
One murder, regardless of its' purpose or wider implications, did more. A truck swerved to avoid the tiny e-car, slamming into the front of her parent's car. Alice survived, but her parents didn't. Fortunately, at the very least, though the paramedics were too late to use System Restore (likely due to a "convenient" network outage which was occurring at the time), her parents had modified their will in response to the issues between the two siblings.
Zoe got half of everything, and her sister was reduced from executor of the estate to having only 25% of the total inheritance after she was mandated by their aunt to pay off 100% of their parent's debts, which meant she only got to keep 50% of her share while Zoe received all of hers. You'd feel sorry for the younger sister, if not for the fact that she'd hated Zoe/Alice from the moment it made her 'look bad' for Alice to be present when her own friends were present, and why? Cowards who support cancel culture would eat their own siblings if they thought it would make themselves look unobjectionable, fair turnabout or not Zoe didn't wish for and was not responsible for what happened; her parents were -ing dead, that wasn't worth the vengeance on her sister. The only reason the animosity remained - other than the sibling doubling down over and over on being a raging transphobe and TERF - was because she tried to sue Alice and their aunt and used cheap tactics... lying, trickery, forgery, fraud... and despite failing at every turn, it was clear her hatred of Alice had only intensified from the final aftermath. Now the younger sister had a restraining order against her contacting Zoe and was serving life in prison for embezzlement due to unrelated scummy practices running her hair salon business.
Which left Alice with just her aunt for face-to-face relationships. The aunt recognized Alice's talents right away, but not much could happen afterwards. Gretchin Wingon passed away from lung cancer ("chronic vape lung") on January 2, 2025 once all of the above had been dealt with, thus leaving ZoeIRL with no social contacts except her only friend, whose Hinobi ID was just "D". As they talked about their lives, D - who was certainly better off overall - was aghast at what Zoe had been through during those months without talking, and understanding that Zoe didn't just want people's pity, she offered to help Zoe find a way to get on her own two feet since Zoe was determined to show the world that she was not unable to contribute for having disabilities.
Indeed, this is the true story behind 'ZoeIRL', the first person to abandon reality for the Hiverse... 3 years before immortal avatars or any of the (usually crappy) substitutes for PLixelves were available. Of course there was certainly more, and perhaps it's not good to speak for someone else (including her sister), but something along these lines was the story of the previous few years of Zoe/Alice's life. Perhaps one day they'd reconcile, but for now that ship was out at sea.
As for the here and now, Anabelle gave a cute smile as she awaited Zoe's instructions.
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