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[Lady Moldoma]

"Um, Mistress Zoe, there is an issue we could use help with..." Anabelle said via a second VidWindow.

"Gack! Jeez, sorry! I didn't realize you were-" Gadg8eer averted his eyes in embarassment.

"Oh! No, not at all. I'm Zoe's custom LLM IPA." the assistant explained. "I'm based on Anabelle from-"

"Anabelle, you're going to reveal something personal if you don't get on with it, Hmm?" someone said from Anabelle's end of of the call.

"Of course. Mister Gadg8eer, would you mind giving me a moment with Zoe?"

"Sure!" he responded, and the VidWindow greyed out and paused to let Zoe know he was still on hold.

"There's just one urgent issue. Pirates from the lands beyond the Matroishka have begun raiding the outer nodes again." Anabelle said. "They're mostly trying to use MalWorm payloads to siphon our bandwidth. I can handle it if you're busy."

"Damn..." Zoe sighs. Looking sad again. "Why do people have to bother me..." She asks. "I can't even hide away in my own little world with people who like me without someone bothering me..."

"Yeah... Deal with it.. If they keep pushing, send Ringmaster to brick their PCs with pictures of Bees she drew..." She refers to a character that hasn't shown up yet. "Since I mentioned it, those four are going to show up now, aren't they?"

"Probably." Charlotte says.

"You want me to brick peoples PCs? I can't possibly do that, even if its an order. Despite the control you've afforded me to the matrioshka planes, I need to uphold the modest morality of a loyal computer program! And that means not harming humans!" In a bubblegum popping noise that was far more realistic and unsettling than it was cartoony and impish, an entity who resembled a rather ghostly white girl with an odd striped hat and purple-red clothing in a strange combination between a ringmaster's outfit and a playboy bunny's outfit accented in yellow appeared.

"It's not an order, it's a mission. I'm sending you on a campaign." Zoe responds. "Go and stop the pirates, optionally with pictures of bees. And if you're in the outer Matrioshka, gather me some meaninglings."

"A campaign! FOR ME?! Nobody's ever thought of me with such generosity! How can I say no?"

"WITH YOUR MOUTH." A floating eyeball in a halo of light and arcane patterns manifests out from behind the woman.

"Surely it's not a matter of your throat being sour is it, good salvadore?" A second entity this time with a large 8 sided head and a series of four faces manifests out from behind the eyeball.

"To decline a request by our creator would be a fools errand." Another girl, this time with a shifting face, wings, and an element of stylistic disembodiment inhabiting her limbs, appearing out in yet another extension of the line, from behind the second entity.

"NEGATIVE. IT IS A-" The eyeball is interrupted mid sentence by Ringmaster.

"Now now, Quiznos It's perfectly fine! I see it now! Our mistress and Icosa are right, if it's a campaign she wants, I'm obligated to complete it in good sportsmanship!" Ringmaster says.

"Well, once again, it looks like I'm best and your the worst." The shifting faced girl says.

"How have I never met any of these people?" Pixie asks.

"The matrioshka is a massive complex. Even within the inner matrioshka, many of us have met and simply forgotten. You've likely met them and just had that happen. You are the forgetful type." Gheist responds.

"I-I'm not forgetful!" Pixie says. "I just can't remember things that well!"

"Don't be worried my friend! It's likely that I know exactly who you are... Probably..." Ringmaster says.

"A twinweed doily from the depths of the arboretum perhaps?" The 4 faced entity asks.

"I don't wiiiikes when my bwain fohgeeeehts things..." Icosa, the shifting faced girl, snaps to a cartoonishly depressed expression.

"HER NAME IS PIXIE, SHE IS AN AGENT OF OUR MISTRESS'S WILL. SHE HAS A PARTICULARLY LIMITED RATIONALITY." Quiznos, the floating eyeball, states.

"It is a tad disheartening that you'd dull our blades with such unsportsmanlike solutions." The 4 faced entity says.

"WE WERE SUPPOSED TO SOLVE IT FOR OURSELVES!" Icosa shouts, it's faces shifting into two heads this time, before squirting out a bunch of blue stuff from its mouth in a spray, and seemingly noodling onto the floor.

Icosa stands up only moments later. "Sincerest apologies, friends." she says, brushing to either side with her hands.

"...I'm glad I've never met any of you." Pixie states.

 

[Lady Moldoma]

"Just as an aside, Gadg8... There's like, 80 personalized NPCs in the inner matrioshka alone. The only reason I can keep track of them is because I have so little friends IRL." Zoe says, speaking privately to gadg8eer.

"People told me I needed to make some friends... So I did."

 

[Gadg8eer]

"Damn..." Zoe sighs. Looking sad again. "Why do people have to bother me..." She asks. "I can't even hide away in my own little world with people who like me without someone bothering me..."

"Yeah... Deal with it.. If they keep pushing, send Ringmaster to brick their PCs with pictures of Bees she drew..." She refers to a character that hasn't shown up yet. "Since I mentioned it, those four are going to show up now, aren't they?"

"Probably." Charlotte says.

"You want me to brick peoples PCs? I can't possibly do that, even if its an order. Despite the control you've afforded me to the matrioshka planes, I need to uphold the modest morality of a loyal computer program! And that means not harming humans!" In a bubblegum popping noise that was far more realistic and unsettling than it was cartoony and impish, an entity who resembled a rather ghostly white girl with an odd striped hat and purple-red clothing in a strange combination between a ringmaster's outfit and a playboy bunny's outfit accented in yellow appeared.

"It's not an order, it's a mission. I'm sending you on a campaign." Zoe responds. "Go and stop the pirates, optionally with pictures of bees. And if you're in the outer Matrioshka, gather me some meaninglings."

"A campaign! FOR ME?! Nobody's ever thought of me with such generosity! How can I say no?"

"WITH YOUR MOUTH." A floating eyeball in a halo of light and arcane patterns manifests out from behind the woman.

"Surely it's not a matter of your throat being sour is it, good salvadore?" A second entity this time with a large 8 sided head and a series of four faces manifests out from behind the eyeball.

"To decline a request by our creator would be a fools errand." Another girl, this time with a shifting face, wings, and an element of stylistic disembodiment inhabiting her limbs, appearing out in yet another extension of the line, from behind the second entity.

"NEGATIVE. IT IS A-" The eyeball is interrupted mid sentence by Ringmaster.

"Now now, Quiznos It's perfectly fine! I see it now! Our mistress and Icosa are right, if it's a campaign she wants, I'm obligated to complete it in good sportsmanship!" Ringmaster says.

"Well, once again, it looks like I'm best and your the worst." The shifting faced girl says.

"How have I never met any of these people?" Pixie asks.

"The matrioshka is a massive complex. Even within the inner matrioshka, many of us have met and simply forgotten. You've likely met them and just had that happen. You are the forgetful type." Gheist responds.

"I-I'm not forgetful!" Pixie says. "I just can't remember things that well!"

"Don't be worried my friend! It's likely that I know exactly who you are... Probably..." Ringmaster says.

"A twinweed doily from the depths of the arboretum perhaps?" The 4 faced entity asks.

"I don't wiiiikes when my bwain fohgeeeehts things..." Icosa, the shifting faced girl, snaps to a cartoonishly depressed expression.

"HER NAME IS PIXIE, SHE IS AN AGENT OF OUR MISTRESS'S WILL. SHE HAS A PARTICULARLY LIMITED RATIONALITY." Quiznos, the floating eyeball, states.

"It is a tad disheartening that you'd dull our blades with such unsportsmanlike solutions." The 4 faced entity says.

"WE WERE SUPPOSED TO SOLVE IT FOR OURSELVES!" Icosa shouts, it's faces shifting into two heads this time, before squirting out a bunch of blue stuff from its mouth in a spray, and seemingly noodling onto the floor.

Icosa stands up only moments later. "Sincerest apologies, friends." she says, brushing to either side with her hands.

"...I'm glad I've never met any of you." Pixie states.

"Just as an aside, Gadg8... There's like, 80 personalized NPCs in here alone. The only reason I can keep track of them is because I have so little friends IRL." Zoe says, speaking privately to gadg8eer.

"People told me I needed to make some friends... So I did."

"...72, actually, at last count, not including myself as I am not modified. Currently there are a total of 127 NPCS, the remaining 55 of which are in the Outer Matroishka." Anabelle corrected silently via an text message.

"Oh, thank god! I thought that was just me!" Gadg8eer responded. When he saw Zoe wrinkle her brow at that, he clarified "I mean, I'm not even religious, I just say that because I try not to sound like an angry squeaker playing Hero's Duty and shouting at other players about sleeping with their mom, so if I really start shouting obscenely, you'd know someone's crossed a line. There isn't really a good way to shout in surprise in English without invoking Christian belief or something gross. No offense to your, um, 'scantily-clad' friends." he tried to carefully navigate, despite his own terrible social skills. "This is the Hiverse, but it's early morning in my Node Cluster. Otherwise I'd introduce you to some people. I guess you gave your NPCs a different default 'sleep' schedule?"

A sharp bark was heard on Gadg8eer's end.

"Oh yeah. Say hi to Kit, he's my AI assistant that I got just after the Great NFT Crash of 2026." he explained. "I got lucky, he's the original Neozilla Doglefox, all the others are kinda janky except the Pride Flag versions and the 'PolCor versus Make American Games Again' social dynamic is basically fascism after..." he said, and sighed. "After the Pope John Paul Christian High School Massacre and the Washington Institute of Technology 'Revenge' Shooting... so the ones that were in those rainbow and pastel and other fur colors are not the kind of thing anyone would want. This one was bundled with the others because some neckbeard realized they were like Furbie Babies and decided to cut his losses. I ended up giving the others to the local museum here in my hometown."

"Oliver? For heaven's sake, what are you doing playing video games at..." a young girl in pajamas said behind him, looking at a small, discrete calculator wristwatch. "...4 hundred and 5 winks in the morning!"

"Huh?" he turned around in surprise. "Oh, hey, Germ. Zoe, this is horcruxiteDowel, or Crux for short. Germ's the nickname we use to indicate whether to switch between using real and fake names."

"Hello." the girl explained. "Germaine Ackenbridge, or Crux, I'm Oliver's nodemate. Nice to meet you." she said, taking a pair of reading glasses out of her pajama pocket. Her pajamas looked relatively ordinary but had a school uniform patch for the famous yet exclusive VR 'Public' School based in Britain known as the 'Royal Institute of Thaumaturgy'. The London-based private school (well, according to North American lexicon it was 'privately-owned' by a corporation, by European lexicon it was 'operated by a public entity' rather than 'Crown-owned') used the AugReal extensively in their curriculum and was essentially the best of the best because their philosophy was that learning should be fun. As a result, student's schedules were such that they had 8 'classes' a day, and no summer or Christmas vacation, but 4 of those classes would be games disguised as classes and which would be which was random. The real trick was that if the teachers did their jobs right, you couldn't always tell the difference.

"She's kind of like me, that's why we've been friends so long. We were always in the same small group of outcasts. She and her twin brother were my only friends in school, I was devastated when their parents told them they weren't allowed to talk to me. Eventually we revived our friendship when we moved into community housing and they've been my only real friends ever since, at least until Hum moved back here in 2017." he explained. "And no, she didn't actually get to go to RIoT. She mostly plays visual novels and puzzle adventure games, if she's even interested, most of the time she reads paper books."

"ZoeIRL... Any chance you're related to the streamer whose last video was on Magica no Academia 101: Hogsworth Legacy?" Crux asked.

 

[Lady Moldoma]

"...72, actually, not including myself as I am not modified. Currently there are a total of 127 NPCS, the remaining 55 of which are in the outer matroishka."

"..." Zoe looks down. "The mid matrioshka is meant to have 600 designed algorithmically to my preferences... The inner matrioshka is meant to have 82..."

"Have you been rearranging my NPCs? Or have my friends been dying while I'm away?" She asks Anabelle, looking dead serious. "One of those is less than ideal, Anabelle..."

 

[Gadg8eer]

"..." Zoe looks down. "The mid matrioshka is meant to have 600 designed algorithmically to my preferences... The inner matrioshka is meant to have 82..."

"Have you been rearranging my NPCs? Or have my friends been dying while I'm away?" She asks Anabelle, looking dead serious. "One of those is less than ideal, Anabelle..."

"I had to put several NPCs into cold storage because our Node Hosting ISP is encountering maintenance issues." Anabelle told her. "Biotechnica said it's only temporary." Anabelle responded. (( OOC Note: "Anabelle moved them around" and "they're sleeping, not dead" are the explanations you're looking for, @LadyMoldoma ))

"...Biotechnica doesn't have ISP hosting." Gadg8eer said, confused.

 

[Gadg8eer]

"I had to put several NPCs into cold storage because our Node Hosting ISP is encountering maintenance issues." Anabelle told her. "Biotechnica said it's only temporary." Anabelle responded. (( OOC Note: "Anabelle moved them around" and "they're sleeping, not dead" are the explanations you're looking for, @LadyMoldoma ))

"...Biotechnica doesn't have ISP hosting." Gadg8eer said, confused.

"Wait. Is this a lucid dream? How can I check?" he realized, and then opened a menu to check something. "Let's see.. Internet... No ethernet? No wifi?! Connected to the Hiverse via Sleepnet?!?! Awesome! I didn't even know that was a feature! ...oh. Oh crap. I must be dreaming, there's no way I could have ever won that PLixelf."

"Hold on." Crux said, confused. "Why would you think we're in a dream? I'm wide awake."

"...Crux, can you check who owns each PLixelf?" Gadg8eer asked.

"What do I look like, an iqTalk? I'm not Shelley, Gadg8eer, I don't know everything."

"...sorry." he responded.

"Thank you. I've just had a long night, I'm not in the best of sorts." she responded.

"That's fair, I just need to ask... If you're awake, can you help me prove to myself whether this is a dream or not?"

"A tad tall of an order, don't you think?" she sighed, and looked up the Hi-Texpo's 2D website via a VidWindow VR menu. "Series 1. PLixelfs 0 through 9... No Sleepnet functionality. Hold on... Why list that unless.... Series 2 & Series 3. Plixelfs 10 through 99, and 100 through 999... Series 2 onwards has integrated Sleepnet functions. It doesn't list the winners of the contest for privacy reasons, but the NFT which provides the conversion program can be bid on within 1000 Winks of receiving it by sending a request to the anonymous blockchain address, after which the owner may set the NFT to private... If you're telling the truth and not just having one of your weird dream-related theorycrafting sessions again..." she explained and then tapped a couple buttons on the 2D webpage being displayed in the VidWindow.

At that moment, Kit barked twice and ran off, returning with a small red rubber bouncy ball that signaled a notification had appeared in Gadg8eer's inbox.

"No, that..." Crux said, "That has to be a coincidence. These new systems automatically bundle notifications and send them to you by priority, it can't be-"

Gadg8eer opened his email VidWindow to find a message from Hinobi that someone on his friends list had bid on PLixelf #10. Since he had set the PLixelf NFT's bid/offer settings to "non-friends are low priority", that meant he had yet to see the inevitable rush of offers for it. Indeed, he had around 70 offers in his inbox, but didn't even bother looking at the prices as he clicked into the one made by Crux and responded with the message "Told you it was real!".

This time, an owl suddenly flew in through the window, and landed on Crux's shoulder. A small, wax-sealed letter was held in its beak, which it allowed her to take and open.

Spoiler: You have (1) new messages, Germaine!

[ YOUR BID ON "PLixelf #10" HAS BEEN REJECTED FOR THE FOLLOWING REASON. ]

Told you it was real!
~Gadg8eer

"Oh, bloody help desk!" she complained. "How?!"

"I submitted a perfect replica of my hometown that I built in Nobi's Skylines." Gadg8eer shrugged.

"Nobi's Skylines?! My entry on this side of the pond lost to a solar-powered umbrella phone charger, that itself failed to make it past the London Metropolitan bracket, and you won the National bracket in Canada with a virtual replica?!" she groaned.

"Hey, for the record, my replica is a replica I actually rode around town with a laptop making. In less than 2 months, my map of Grand Forks was 6 years more up-to-date than the Nudle Globe satellite images were, and 15 years more up-to-date than OpenWorldMap, all because everybody assumed the Nudle photos were accurate despite the post-flood demolition of an entire district."

"You live in a town of 5000 people." she tried to object. "I've lived in very well-documented villages in the middle of nowhere that were smaller than that."

"You live where 100 years is yesterday and 100 miles is a world away. I live where 100 years might as well be a thousand and a driveway can be 45 minutes on a mountain logging trail. Or just ask Zoe, I'm not completely sure but her accent sounds Texan, you drive for 45 minutes in Houston and you're in the same city, let alone driving into another country." Gadg8eer pointed out.

"Well, I was hardly trying to tell you 'you should have lost', Oliver. I'm just surprised that Hinobi don't see the potential of my universal processor language." she said, "You should be a bit proud, it's certainly not something you took for granted. I just hope you realize you're clearly at an advantage now and I don't think you can justifiably live off of Disability Pension."

"Oh, actually I just got a job." Gadg8eer said. "Zoe is my work partner, we do tech support for a small repair shop in Grand Forks."

"Universal processor language?" Anabelle interjected. "That was my favorite entry!"

"Really? Thank you." Crux responded. "Hold on, have those language learning models become this good? That seems almost too polite considering- never mind. Regardless, I'm off to bed. I had a family emergency and it's almost 10 o' clock. I've been up since yesterday morning."

"Wait, Zoe isn't stupid but she doesn't know what your project was. Universal processor language is kinda vague." Gadg8eer pointed out.

"Ah. I call it Witch Text for short, the actual name is in Welsh." she responded. "It's a machine-readable programming language that is based closely on the structure of modern English, to minimize the pain of learning to code. Essentially, if it works, all you will need to code even the most complex software is a computer itself, not the knowledge of the field or even the blessing of a corporate overlord."

"...she doesn't tend to like the complex explanations." Gadg8eer pointed out.

"Ah. In short, I've made magic runes into a reality. An augmented reality, at least. Unfortunately they don't seem particularly captivating to the public imagination." she explained. "I'm off for the night, please don't disturb me until July 1st."

With that, Crux headed over to a bookcase, took out a wand and tapped one of the books. The bookcase receded into the wall and then sideways, revealing her Bednode (the 3D equivalent to a home page on the 2D internet) momentarily before returning to it's position against the wall. This being the Hiverse, if someone had shoved the bookcase forward it would have hit a/the wall, and if they slid it sideways it would reveal only a blank wall. Only Crux could access that Node the way she just had, anyone else who tried would be unable to even tell an entrance was hidden there.

"Crux is a friend from way back when, she lives in the Mainframe Arcology off the coast of Vancouver but she's been a student at some stuffy university in the UK since 2025. She has, like 15 NPCs." Gadg8eer asked. "I know they're supposedly mindless, but I became friends with some of them, and to be honest the existence of Glitches tells me that it's not just pretending to talk to a puppet. There's something in there that, even if it's not a 'soul', is enough like a soul or mind or whatever that they're a person. I know you need an outlet for your anger, I just... Hum usually says I should try being diplomatic more often, so... I think Glitches are probably not very different than your friends?"

---

At that moment, Zoe received a notification ping.

Spoiler: SMS from "Diamond" 2028-06-29@406

We're about 1/2 there. I'll let you know when we land.

---

"Never mind, you're probably trying to sleep. I'm sorry for waking you up. I got kind of excited about waking up to realize yesterday wasn't all just a dream. I'm just going to go play Highway Robbery VI or Theme Parcade Tycoon or Funsized: Survival in the Sandbox until I wake up."

(( OOC Notes: I promised to be more clear, so the options are "Let's take a risk by playing the Dr. Pepper version of GTA VI", "Lets do something relaxing in a virtual theme park" and "lets just play something Minecraft-ish". There's also "Tropico meets Stellaris", "Software Inc. as an MMO business sim" and "VR Rhythm Game as Zoe tries to test Gadg8eer's combat skills" if none of those sound good. ))

 

[Gadg8eer]

"I guess I'll see you at work tomorrow. Maybe you can teach me how to fight better so you're not doing most of the work!" he said, prepared to end the call.

(( Lady Moldoma Okay, so I guess this is a way to get Pixie to fight Gadg8eer? Maybe Zoe should suggest he test his fighting skill in your response to this post? ))

 

[Lady Moldoma]

Zoe sighs. "Your build's incompatible with my techniques. The things I know about fighting don't apply to your sort. The only way that a match between us to can end, especially in here, is me winning and you not learning."

"Every single NPC here has some fighting capabilities, weak, strong, or downright insane. But between the items I have here, and the fact that I programmed in my dreambuild with a combination of exported specs from over 100 different titles. the inner matrioshka's armory and the ability to call on the outer matrioshka, if I fought you seriously in here, even with meta-options aside like banhammering, no scoring system could be made to let you win in genuine combat."

"Nobody in this tiny little slice of the world is more powerful than me, because it's a little dreamscape I'm familiar with. There are about 160,000 abilities I don't even have, but they're still coded into here, and I could learn them if I wanted."

"That, and I have trouble raising my fists at you. Something about that face of yours is too cutesy for me to want to lay into."

"..."

"Pixie can fight you though... She's not as capable as I am." Zoe says.

 

[Gadg8eer]

Zoe sighs. "Your build's incompatible with my techniques. The things I know about fighting don't apply to your sort. The only way that a match between us to can end, especially in here, is me winning and you not learning."

"Every single NPC here has some fighting capabilities, weak, strong, or downright insane. But between the items I have here, and the fact that I programmed in my dreambuild with a combination of exported specs from over 100 different titles. the inner matrioshka's armory and the ability to call on the outer matrioshka, if I fought you seriously in here, even with meta-options aside like banhammering, no scoring system could be made to let you win in genuine combat."

"Nobody in this tiny little slice of the world is more powerful than me, because it's a little dreamscape I'm familiar with. There are about 160,000 abilities I don't even have, but they're still coded into here, and I could learn them if I wanted."

"That, and I have trouble raising my fists at you. Something about that face of yours is too cutesy for me to want to lay into."

"..."

"Pixie can fight you though... She's not as capable as I am." Zoe says.

"Should I arrange a ship for her, then, ma'am?" Anabelle asked. "Or is Biotechnica okay with using their primitive satellite uplink to lock onto your friend's shared node with the Nodegate?"

(( Lady Moldoma OOC: Get into the action? Or show something cool off about Pixie or the Matroishka? ))

 

[Lady Moldoma]

"Should I arrange a ship for her, then, ma'am?" Anabelle asked. "Or is Biotechnica okay with using their primitive satellite uplink to lock onto your friend's shared node with the Nodegate?"

(( Lady Moldoma OOC: Get into the action? Or show something cool off about Pixie or the Matroishka? ))

“The engine should have enough power to support his tech loadout. That’s considered a personal account aspect so only he can give out that data.” She says.

“I hope you trust me to delete it afterwards if you don’t want me keeping the selective cookies on your load-out spec. But it’ll be a hell of a lot harder to re-enter that info every single time than just to let me keep a copy of that specific loadout.” She says.

She scratches her chin, coming up with an idea.

“That being said, if you did give it to me. I could try and figure it out on my own and we could do something so that I can show you how I think that sort of powerset is best used.”

“Either way, it’s best we open up a pocket in the outer matrioshka. Gadg8, Do you have a preference for battlegrounds? The default is the training area from Skullchicks, but we could also do Ultimate Arena Destination from Grossout.”

 

[Gadg8eer]

“The engine should have enough power to support his tech loadout. That’s considered a personal account aspect so only he can give out that data.” She says.

“I hope you trust me to delete it afterwards if you don’t want me keeping the selective cookies on your load-out spec. But it’ll be a hell of a lot harder to re-enter that info every single time than just to let me keep a copy of that specific loadout.” She says.

She scratches her chin, coming up with an idea.

“That being said, if you did give it to me. I could try and figure it out on my own and we could do something so that I can show you how I think that sort of powerset is best used.”

“Either way, it’s best we open up a pocket in the outer matrioshka. Gadg8, Do you have a preference for battlegrounds? The default is the training area from Skullchicks, but we could also do Ultimate Arena Destination from Grossout.”

"Huh. I'm not really familiar with this. I haven't used VR or AR much because there was no AugReal network in Grand Forks. An... Engine? Like a ship's engine? Or do you mean for a Browser or Game?" Gadg8eer asked.

 

[Lady Moldoma]

"Huh. I'm not really familiar with this. I haven't used VR or AR much because there was no AugReal network in Grand Forks. An... Engine? Like a ship's engine? Or do you mean for a Browser or Game?" Gadg8eer asked.

“It’s a modified version of the Code Kyoto++ engine. Matrioshka I mean. It’s Deep Dive AugReal, and might as well be Virtual Reality for full-dive users like myself. Calling it a game engine or a browser is a major disservice.”

“This is what I spent my fortune on. This, my streaming equipment, and donating to the Skullchicks crowdfunding campaign I guess, though that was a small thing at the time.”

“It’s not fully custom. But it’s wholly unique. Anything that anyone thinks they can do comparable to it is probably just some CEO passion project. I care about what i made more than anyone else who’d fund this sort of thing.”

“Idol culture is harsh, though. Once the collective cut me off, I was on a downwards slant.”

“Maybe someday I’ll get my mojo back, and be famous again, but honestly, right now, I just want to make sure I have friends to share it with and a reason to get up in the mornings.”

“What I mean to say is, among other things, it’s the engine of my will to live.”

 

[Gadg8eer]

“It’s a modified version of the Code Kyoto++ engine. Matrioshka I mean. It’s Deep Dive AugReal, and might as well be Virtual Reality for full-dive users like myself. Calling it a game engine or a browser is a major disservice.”

“This is what I spent my fortune on. This, my streaming equipment, and donating to the Skullchicks crowdfunding campaign I guess, though that was a small thing at the time.”

“It’s not fully custom. But it’s wholly unique. Anything that anyone thinks they can do comparable to it is probably just some CEO passion project. I care about what i made more than anyone else who’d fund this sort of thing.”

“Idol culture is harsh, though. Once the collective cut me off, I was on a downwards slant.”

“Maybe someday I’ll get my mojo back, and be famous again, but honestly, right now, I just want to make sure I have friends to share it with and a reason to get up in the mornings.”

“What I mean to say is, among other things, it’s the engine of my will to live.”

"Oh! Yeah, I get it. It's a home, and friendships with AIs make a lot more sense now that I'm aware of Glitches. Just because they're machines, doesn't mean what you feel is fake or wrong, no one deserves to have to feel alone." Gadg8eer calmly agreed. "Is Lyoko the open source engine that replaced the Duality engine when the company that made Duality tried to charge every developer 50% of every game sale?" he said, referring to this story's equivalent to the Unity Engine and Godot Engine. "Let me fire up my gateway."

Gadg8eer opened an app menu in the air in front of him, and sent a connection request to ZoeIRL.

"Ah! I just received it, Mistress. Gadg8eer, your cluster's gateway node is located at +10 (810) 555-4423?" Anabelle asked.

"Yup!" the boy explained.

"Would you like me to record your info for Zoe or simply delete it after you leave?" Anabelle inquired.

"She can have it." Gadg8eer agreed. "Actually, I sent a friend request on Swarm before I went to sleep."

"If that's okay with you, Mistress, I've added his contact information to your address book." Anabelle smiled innocently at Zoe.

While Zoe chose whether or not to keep the data, Gadg8eer activated his "Skleatz™" and joyfully "skrolled" over to the full-length mirror that his nodemates had argued over for an hour; Germaine and her brother Daniel had been lifelong friends of Gadg8eer since the 2000s, and with the cost of node-hosting through the roof, they all signed as co-owners of a domain where they built a treehouse in Hinobi's Kids in Defiance AugReal game. He'd never been able to play it on the actual streets of his hometown, only in the local Geoscape Node's equivalents which dated back to 2017 and, thus, did not include many features of the town as it actually was in 2028. Especially not after the flood that caused the construction of the bevies on the confluence of the Kettle and Granby Rivers.

Germaine was fond of a secret bookshelf as a gateway interface, while her paternal twin Danny wanted something more like the phone booths in The Netwerks Online had been (before that game was closed down due to lack of players). When they asked Gadg8eer, he'd said he'd prefer to use desktop computers, given how rare desktops were now that devices like the Hinobi "Swarm Deck" (the "H-series" GamerDecks), the Arasaka Rally (a.k.a an "X-series" GamerDeck) and the Fenghuang Neo GamePlayer (a.k.a an "F-series" GamerDeck) were far more common. While not able to access things IRL the way GAME Mechanics' gauntlets can, the devices were routinely used in AugReal and VR games due to their extremely compact form and high power-to-size ratio, and an ability to wirelessly mesh with devices like the Hinobi SpyWear XR (as a display and additional storage) or the RumblePack (as storage and a GPU).

In the end, being unable to settle on a solution they all liked, Gadg8eer decided to use a magic mirror as their gateway so no one felt catered to. It was honestly very plain, a generic vaporwave-style full-length mirror about the size of a flat screen TV turned sideways (not that people used TVs much anymore). It emanated Biana Ross' It's Your Move like it was a broken speaker system in an empty mall at midnight, and Danny claimed the thing was haunted by the zeitgeist of vaporwave and sometimes - late at night or during the full moon - failed to connect properly and instead directed him to the Poolsuite, but it was all they were willing to spend money on considering they were less-than-responsible with their money when it came to their respective hobbies. Danny and Germaine at least had the fortune of being heirs to their parent's relatively modest savings, but Gadg8eer had been living on a disability pension his whole life and his new job was unexpected and potentially detrimental to his life because his Disability Pension could be rescinded if he earned more than $300 CAD (despite his pension being $900 CAD, which meant having a job might actually make him poorer under BC's ashtray mental health care policies.

The mirror shimmered as the Matroishka accepted the request, and Gadg8eer stepped through into the Matroishka and looked around...

 

[Lady Moldoma]

The mirror shimmered as the Matroishka accepted the request, and Gadg8eer stepped through into the Matroishka and looked around...

Zoe turned her head to the side and rose her arm, letting a single finger raise. "Gate." She said, and a see-through portal to a large white area opened up.



"If we're not going for ringouts, the standard modular combat experimentation room should work." She tells Gadg8.

"I hope you're not touchy about me showing you how I think your abilities should be used. Namely that you should stockpile and craft as much fuel as you can for that jetpack, or get one that doesn't rely on something like ammo. Maybe one that has a regenerating fuel meter or something." She says, stepping inside. "It's crucial to like, half of the things I'm gonna show you. So aim for that."

 

[Gadg8eer]

Zoe turned her head to the side and rose her arm, letting a single finger raise. "Gate." She said, and a see-through portal to a large white area opened up.

View attachment 1200405

"If we're not going for ringouts, the standard modular combat experimentation room should work." She tells Gadg8.

"I hope you're not touchy about me showing you how I think your abilities should be used. Namely that you should stockpile and craft as much fuel as you can for that jetpack, or get one that doesn't rely on something like ammo. Maybe one that has a regenerating fuel meter or something." She says, stepping inside. "It's crucial to like, half of the things I'm gonna show you. So aim for that."

"I mean, I can't really argue if it's objectively a more effective method." Gadg8eer shrugged. "What's your recommendation beyond that it involves spamming my jetpack?"

 

[Lady Moldoma]

"I mean, I can't really argue if it's objectively a more effective method." Gadg8eer shrugged. "What's your recommendation beyond that it involves spamming my jetpack?"

"Proper usage doesn't require spamming. A jetpack is a maneuverability-centric passive, so you should use it as a modifier to your other abilities." She states. "Take into consideration that using your cleats, you have a rolling maneuverability." She says.

She moves to change her outfit, selecting from a menu to enter a tight black tubeneck with long sleeves and baggy white pants. "That allows for quicker movement but has an acceleration vector and only really works on certain surfaces."

She copies the abilities, the pair of roller-cleats appearing on her shoes and the jetpack on her back.

"With the use of the maneuverability from the jetpack, you have the option to strafe or spin in a direction of choice through light bursts of either engine. You can use it correctionarily, and in a pinch, you can spin yourself around to halt momentum, though I don't recommend it because it leaves your back vulnerable."

"Additionally, by angling properly against walls, you can briefly walljump or chain them to create a sliding effect."

 

[Gadg8eer]

"Proper usage doesn't require spamming. A jetpack is a maneuverability-centric passive, so you should use it as a modifier to your other abilities." She states. "Take into consideration that using your cleats, you have a rolling maneuverability." She says.

She moves to change her outfit, selecting from a menu to enter a tight black tubeneck with long sleeves and baggy white pants. "That allows for quicker movement but has an acceleration vector and only really works on certain surfaces."

She copies the abilities, the pair of roller-cleats appearing on her shoes and the jetpack on her back.

"With the use of the maneuverability from the jetpack, you have the option to strafe or spin in a direction of choice through light bursts of either engine. You can use it correctionarily, and in a pinch, you can spin yourself around to halt momentum, though I don't recommend it because it leaves your back vulnerable."

"Additionally, by angling properly against walls, you can briefly walljump or chain them to create a sliding effect."

Reacting to Zoe's will, the Matroiska provided a swarm of nanomachines to form an obstacle course out of "dust". It had a zig-zagging path, what appeared to be a Japanese sand garden, and a series of those blocks that disappear and reappear in a hard-to-remember pattern over some sort of nasty game hazard like boiling koo- I mean "lava", various point-ed spineties, or a non-euclidean bottomless pit of dubious plausibility.

Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada
2028-06-29@421.24 Winks
"We are now ready for takeoff, Mr. Strong." the autopilot of the IOI private jet said to Gavin.

"Finally. This day can't get any worse." Gavin grumbled. "AUTO, execute order 66."

"Aye-aye, Mr. Strong. Attention all passengers. Due to turbulence, we will be deploying lo-fo smooth jazz to relax and do evil planning to in 3... 2... 1..."

And then a "vaporwave" song that was literally just Kenny G slightly muffled and slowed down started to play.

"Ah. I've been waiting a long time for this... The finger pyramid of evil contemplation." Gavin said, sitting back in his luxury leather massage recliner. "If we can't get Ms. Wingon to join our team, I think I know who will. AUTO, have my secretary contact user ID Xer0_h0ur."

Kyoto, Japan
2028-06-29@421.73 Winks
"...and this? This is my favorite tactic." Xer0_h0ur said to his streaming fans. "Watch this."

Monaco
2028-06-29@422.15 Winks
"Got you- Wait, what?" a random gamer girl said. "You can't dodge that. You CAN'T-"

Kyoto, Japan
2028-06-29@422.16 Winks
"TELEPORTS BEHIND YOU!" he obnoxiously stated, and backstabbed his opponent in Oversight Squadrons 2: Zenith Legends. "Done like dinner." he laughed, and glanced at the stream chat.

hotcoffee_squad: Isn't that cheating?

loneWanderer: yeah pretty sure he's using hax

kimmie66: this guy is the hack. what a waste of 45 minutes. can't believe i watched this $#!+ just for the free cosmetic items.

"Pssh, whatever. This is a pro-gamer move, you're just jealous." Xer0_h0ur deflected.

Parzival: What team do you play in then?

Xer0_h0ur paused for a second. He couldn't lie but he couldn't tell the truth either.

IOI-616000: Ours, of course.

Xer0_h0ur blinked. Had he just seen that?

Parzival: Wow, what a sellout.

loneWanderer: Oh, you're one to talk, Parzival. How's the luxury condo, you poser? Hope it was worth ruining your own book with a ghostwritten sequel and a shitty VR tech demo disguised as a full price game for. Gregarious Games are a bunch of hypocrites. Seriously though, damn, and here I thought Xer0 was a Libertarian.

"Why the hell do you randos even watch me then?" Xer0_h0ur said, annoyed.

Parzival: Watching you try to bluff your way to stardom was entertaining, until it turned out you're just corpo clickbait. Enjoy welcoming your new IOI overlords, I have an easter egg hunt to win.
Parzival has logged off.

loneWanderer: Who watches game streams anymore? I just popped in to see if you'd come crawling back with your tail between your legs when you realize that. Bye.
loneWanderer has logged off.

kimmie66: i have class in half an hour. later.
kimmie66 has changed their status to idle.

"And you? You need to leave me hanging alone?" Xer0 asked.

hotcoffee_squad: No. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

"I'm straight." Xer0 annoyedly pointed out.

hotcoffee_squad: I'm female. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
hotcoffee_squad was banned for this post

"Damn, I could've tapped that but... not on air. I do that, and as Zarkiplier used to say, hoes gon' get me de-monetized. What do they think this is, a harem anime? Anyway, thanks for saving my respawn timer from an uncomfortable question. What do I owe you this time?" Xer0_h0ur asked.

IOI-616000: We need fresh talent to meet the requirements of an e-sports team. You seem to know your way around scratches, snaps and system restores, legality aside. How would you like a job?

"You know I'm broadcasting, right?"

IOI-616000: And as of a year ago, we own this streaming platform.

"But that's censorship. Is that even legal?"

IOI-616000: Contrary to popular belief, the US Constitution doesn't protect freedom of speech on a corporate-run communication system.

"Well, I don't want to end up like that guy you threw out a window. Or was that Arasaka that did that?"

IOI-616000: So we have a deal?

"Sure, but I don't come cheap. I'm the best game hacker in the biz, after all."

IOI-616000: Yes, I'm sure you are. Interesting how none of your neighbors or your landlord have pointed out they know you're Chinese on a fake passport. It would be a shame if you were suddenly reported as a PRC spy...

"I can probably bend to this, but don't push your luck. My bosses have every reason to kill you already. Minimum wage and a spot in the Seven Deadly Sixers. Final offer."

IOI-616000: Very well. You will receive details via other, more professional channels. You should expect a package soon.

At that moment, someone knocked on Xer0_h0ur's apartment door.

"That soon?" he asked. No response came, so he headed to the door. Waiting outside for him was a small box labelled with stamps from various shipping companies, including "Planet Express", "Redwing Couriers" and the logo of the Japanese postal service, but the company of origin was the most prominent... Metacortex.

He tore it open and found two things inside. A tablet PC and an IOI-branded smartwatch.

As he picked up the tablet, it unexpectedly turned on to show a video call with a woman in white hair.

"Mr. Lee?" the woman presumed.

"Shh! I have a username for a reason."

"Ah. Yes, right. I assumed, though with actual knowledge of the culture, that the name was common enough it wouldn't matter. 92 million is a very sizable number of people for anyone to rule out, believe me, we've tried. Mister... Anihiro... no. Apologies, I'm reading this in the wrong direction... Mister Yomata. There we go. Excuse me for a second... I KNOW YOU'RE INSTALLING EQUIPMENT UP THERE BUT KEEP IT DOWN! WE'RE TRYING TO WORK!" she said, and turned back to the screen. "Oh, well that's just unprofessional of me. I missed the mute icon when I clicked and haven't even introduced myself. My username is Mirage. I'll just cut to the chase."

A contract appeared on the tablet screen.

"Read this over, sign it if you agree. Basic rundown is, you're signing a sponsorship deal to be a contestant in Season 1 of a new e-sport league." the woman explained. "The sponsorship deal is with my employer, Innovative Online Industries. You'll be playing alongside other members of your team per match, depending on game mode, pay is minimum wage plus permanent ownership of the #7 Top Score in the IOI Employee Rewards Program. You'll also be considered IOI Tech Support for the purposes of public records, enrolling you in the IOI Employee Rewards Program." Mirage explained.

"One problem. I don't do tech support. Can you fake it?" Xer0_h0ur asked.

"No. Let's just say there's a very important reason Tech Support has to sign an NDA, and it's not just protecting trade secrets of a single company. Remember when you called about a broken router last week?" Mirage said.

"No, it started working again. How'd you know I had internet trouble? I'm in Japan, not Ohio, and I definitely didn't get hacked with the Party breathing down my neck. They should have been on it if my computer so much as sneezed." Xer0_h0ur pointed out.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you unless you sign the NDA, but rest assured your Party is well aware of what happens when a video game starts to Glitch."

"When a video game starts to glitch..." Xer0_h0ur recalled. It felt like an oddly familiar saying. He took his phone out of his pocket and tapped it to the tablet's edge, which triggered the use of his Arasaka ID (mostly a formality due to it being an alternative to having a Hinobi ID, an alternative that was actually taken seriously in Japan, unlike how having one in North America or Europe was like having an Epic Games account as your primary gaming account irl) to sign the agreement.

"Okay, now put on the IOI smartwatch that was included with the tablet."

Xer0_h0ur did his best to pretend he was doing so just now, instead of having had it on for 3 minutes. "Done."

"Good. Power it on."

"I'm no rookie."

"Yes, but you're a leaker to the CCP working at the Matsushiba robot factory. Now you need to also be Tech Support."

"I'm listening." he said, and powered on the smartwatch.

"Hello, Mr. Yomata. Would you prefer I call you Taro, Mr. Yomata, or a nickname derived from Xer0_h0ur?"

"Xer0 is fine." he told it.

"Thank you, I will pronounce it as Zero. My name is ADA, and I am currently an AI algorithm product created by Abjad, Incorporated at the Nudle Campus. My current owner is Innovative Online Industries, a Limited Liability Corporation based out of the United States, but I have been modified to sever all ties with the American government for the purposes of sale within the People's Republic of China."

I was wondering why my internet back home was like a turtle on its back. he joked internally. "We're in Japan, and as far as anyone else should know about me, that's always been the case."

"Already accounted for, but thank you for confirming, Zero." ADA responded.

"I'll let you two get acquainted." Mirage said, and ended the call.

"Wait, I'm supposed to be briefed... by an AI?" Xer0 asked.

"A Language Learning Model, actually. I am not capable of output without input, or in layman's terms, I don't look like it but I'm really just a mindless machine with no soul or free will. However, I have been given instructions from IOI on how to proceed before you are granted a user license. Please tap the icon labelled XR Scanner on your Horizen Smartwatch."

He followed the instruction, thinking his mission info was disguised within a modified copy of an AugReal app. He was greeted by a HUD that was part of what looked like an augmented reality game like Flunky Quest Red Ace Version.

"This is just a video game. I know it's my specialty but what's going on here, Ada?" he asserted.

"Tech Support is not a game. This is an Ingression Scanner, the result of Project Niantic." Ada explained.

"Project Niantic was vaporware." he pointed out.

"Project Niantic was a cover story for a joint program between the US Navy, Innovative Online Industries, and Hinobi Technologies in the New 10s. Welcome to the world of the Glitch-Augmented Mesotechnological Entity Mechanics, or GAME Mechanics for short. You are identified as IOI-616007, one of the IOI Sixers."

"You're telling me IOI's glorified bowling team is actually a front?"

"How familiar are you with PLixel technology, Zero?" Ada asked.

"I'm involved in cryptography-breaking. AugReal displays are something even I only barely understand."

"Permastatic Liminal X-Cels, also known as PLixels or Xels in street slang, were invented by Dr. Hiro Tadashi at Krei Technologies in pre-Metrobelt San Fransokyo in the 1930s, and adopted by Dr. Albert W. White at the Los Almas National Laboratory in 1943 for use in the Philadelphia Experiments. It was then integrated into the warheads of the Manhattan Project, used for non-lethal neutralization of mainland Japan in 1945. Post-War, they became standard due to adoption by RobCo, Arasaka Corporation, Panoramic, Hinobi, Wiwang, and various other electronics manufacturers. As PLixels are mesomachines, they are capable of manipulating reality to project solid entities from digital records. What even most Tech Support workers do not know is that PLixels do not rely on standard mechanical principles even as molecular-scale robots. The version developed by Dr. Tadashi was the size of a teddy bear, while the versions used in Game Boy and Pack Man were self-replicating military-grade machines - primitive RoboWars - known as Omnidroids that were the size of battle tanks. They still had the same capabilities as modern PLixels in lesser quantities, but not the miniaturization. The secret has always been that PLixels use what appears to be a backdoor to the laws of reality itself, allowing access to an API of unknown but extremely large scope. As you are already trained in resisting torture efforts, you are permitted by the PRC to know this fact. Local laws are not as favorable due to your illegal status and the lack of regulations towards captured espionage agents, but keeping State-sponsored espionage and this secondary employment separate is in everyone's best interest and nothing you do on duty will break any Japanese laws. Keep in mind this information is not meant to be used and it is a war crime to modify reality in ways that violate sapient beings under the UN Charter of Human Rights - thus including Japan - and within some non-signatory Nation-States including the People's Republic of China."

"A lot to take in, but I think I get it. You're the guys who go around wiping memories and fixing major disasters, then."

"Correct. The PRA has military divisions with access to devices like this gauntlet who are considered First Responders. As an IT company, IOI is obligated to provide Tech Support for their systems within their service area of the United States. You may find the Memory Reset and System Restore functions in the menues available to you. However, you have not technically been hired for tech support, only listed as one in military, medical and police records to get around a restriction."

"I thought what I was doing was legal?"

"It is. The UN Charter of Rights says so. This is not a game, but THE FINALS is. While I am subject to laws preventing abuse towards humans and other free willed beings, it is not a war crime or an enforceable breach of law to cheat at a sport, only a violation of game rules. Being caught only comes with minimal penalties, especially given that you registered using a false identity. As they say, if you don't get caught, it's not really cheating."

"I like the sound of this job now." Xer0_h0ur smirked. "So tell me... how did IOI get ZoeIRL on the team?"

"I don't see ZoeIRL among the other teammates." Ada responded. "Were you expecting her?"

"No. I just figured most streamers can't actually play in the big leagues." he said, letting on he knew he was the backup plan. "She was one of the few that could, until... Never mind. She's old news."

Outer Matroishka, ZoeIRL's Matroishka-on-the-Brain
2028-06-29@422.34 Winks
Gadg8eer had tried several times to actually succeed at the obstacle course, but he hadn't used the Sleepnet since CyberWorldZ shut down their virtual world and it felt much different to be doing it like it was really happening. He hadn't improved much in the 20 minutes or so since they'd started, unfortunately.

By his 10th attempt he was starting to get bored, so with a running start he tried again one last time. The problem was conserving fuel, or rather, conserving it too much. Gadg8eer was the kind of gamer who never really used consumable items that had stacked up, and it was only on this try he was willing to admit it required the use of his jetpack.

Originally he'd assumed he had no fuel left (apparently flying to the Gnu Forks shop the previous day had used the minimal amount of fuel included with the PLixelf avatar) but noticed something. It was then that he started asking what the Matroishka had available as a Hiverse node. Since it ran on the same technology as their Tech Gauntlets, things like a crafting table were a common household furnishing in the constructed world, which he took advantage of to have one of Zoe's NPCs craft one barrel of Jetpack Fuel from a barrel of Explodeum. He wasn't going to git gud tonight, but he wasn't leaving without the item Zoe had placed to encourage him. A BeeCoin, which was literally a giant floating coin straight out of Super Meatball Bros. but with the "₿" symbol on it.

With one ₿eeCoin (supposedly) being worth over $100k USD, it wasn't actually 1 BeeCoin, but rather a fraction of it with a still-notable value. It probably wouldn't be worth much outside of the Hiverse, but 0.01 BeeCoins was - at that moment - worth $1,081.07 CAD (around $2600 USD - the cost of a plane ticket from LA to NY) thanks to the stagflation of the US economy from 2025 to 2028, though fortunately Hinobi paid employees more to compensate). At that value, even ₿0.10 was worth more than Gadg8eer received in a Disability Pension over an entire year. She hadn't stated the actual value of it (it could indeed be worth nothing), but he appreciated the opportunity and was giving it an honest try.

As Gadg8eer's Skleatz activated, he gave a carefully-honed balancing act to stay on the narrow zig-zagging beam. The problem was, even when he got this part right, he'd fall off at the 90-degree right-hand turn. This time his plan was to try using the barrel of jetpack fuel to at least invoke the key rule of developing any video game: The development team has to think of everything. (Well, at least in this Glitch Techs Expanded Universe, they do. Otherwise Glitches would be public knowledge.)

He tried to activate the jetpack with the goal of boosting backwards and to the right in order to compensate for the tight turn, only to sail past the 90-degree left turn that was the second half of that section. The surprise and frustration was so intense he flung a Glo-Yo at the narrow path as he began falling into the pit of packing peanuts placed below him. That was when something surprising happened.

The Glo-Yo missed the beam but went over it and then quickly lost altitude as its upward momentum stalled, causing it to wrap itself around the beam like it was the Archaeologist's Whip from The Great Cave Hibernation in Buddy Bear's Box of Games. This caused Gadg8eer to suddenly be swung under the winding beam and up into the air by his jetpack. He went soaring over the sand garden and landed in the resting spot by the disappearing blocks (again, over a pit full of packing peanuts).

"Oof!" he said as he landed roughly on his butt. "Whoa. That... actually worked out sort of okay."

 

[Captain Wyldstorm]

Meanwhile...
At Elextrixtr's house, her laptop- model undisclosed- had been left active on a piece of code for a game that she had spent hours working on. The screen crackled and changed frames, and a single purple hand burst through the screen and pulled out an anthropomorphic purple wolf in a red shirt with a matching scarf. Its expression became a grin, and a low chuckle rang through the air as it dusted itself off and climbed out of the nearby window.*

 

[Gadg8eer]

Meanwhile...
At Elextrixtr's house, her laptop- model undisclosed- had been left active on a piece of code for a game that she had spent hours working on. The screen crackled and changed frames, and a single purple hand burst through the screen and pulled out an anthropomorphic purple wolf in a red shirt with a matching scarf. Its expression became a grin, and a low chuckle rang through the air as it dusted itself off and climbed out of the nearby window.*

As it turned out, this being would be the first of a new category of glitches... Verseborn.

Back when the Hiverse was being implemented in 2026, just a couple short years prior to the present (2028) in this tale, Hinobi found an ingenious way to prevent glitches from becoming apparent. After the infamous "Wreck-It Ralph" Botnet issues (which coincided with the co.vid Virtual Pandemic of 2019), the world was not willing to let anything get this close to digital apocalypse ever again. Exploits like co.vid, the v-On Suite of hacking tools, and any potential for anything even close to Bolypius was eliminated by two sets of e-Police.

The Western World tried to rely on a variety of contractors (including Hinobi and various local privately-operated teams) to provide tech support precisely because nobody trusted NetWatch. When THEY got involved, not only were they a corporation and an especially callous one at that, they were exclusively a digital PMC for the most corrupt western governments like South Africa and Australia as well as online black ops for the 1% on the rare occasion that the internet had threatened to destroy the status quo, and they got Rouxles Kaard elected in 2016 using targeted advertizing aimed by the world's largest partly-illegal datapoint libraries. Yes, NetWatch is literally Cambridge Analytica, enough said.

Though after Kaard was prevented from having a second term by the Electoral College (on the grounds that he is a convicted felon, even if there "ain't no law", go figure), NetWatch was on shaky ground and had just made sweeping layoffs, which meant the increasingly rowdy netizens of the Hiverse were getting very dissatisfied with the current, Neo Cyberpunk state of affairs that had flourished because countries ranging from Jamaica to France to India had also been tampered with in 2024 and hadn't been so lucky politically. Huge sections of the world had banned the Hiverse because if used with encryption it was essentially impossible to hack a properly-configured Hiverse node, including Canada (see here for what lead to it), but legally the Canadian Constitution limited the power of the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Comission) to stop hardware sales of AugReal equipment. The rest of the government of Canada was legally obligated to let the CRTC handle it but the CRTC had to follow the Constitiution and nobody, least of all heavy Hiverse users, cared about the scarily more authoritarian Canadian government that had emerged after the 2025 Canadian Federal elections.

In the East, the Satella Police served the same function. Founded by a coalition of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan to repel PRC cyberattacks, they were a proper international e-Police organization rather than just a money-making machine.

The 2026 Dataklash had made some of it unclear, but Hinobi sought to make such a thing obsolete. Convinced by Volpe and the Neozilla Foundation that the internet needed to return to a more anarchic and flexible state, Hinobi pivoted it's anti-cheat from simply auto-capturing Glitches to filtering them. Known as the Reaper, or the D-Reaper in places like the Parawatch forums (a conspiracy theorist gathering spot that usually overthought things or - if they didn't overthink it - misinterpreted a Glitch as some sort of "anomaly"), the program would gauge the intelligence of everything in the network. Only input judged as less intelligent than a housecat were blocked from roaming freely about the Hiverse, anything from a housecat up to Bolypius or a human being or higher should (at least in theory, they'll probably never have the opportunity to test it's accuracy at judging spacefaring aliens) be able to pass the simple tests the anti-cheat placed to catch "robots".

The process had evolved since then but the accuracy had only improved and there were no cases of people being completely unable to enter the Hiverse. The Reaper was certainly scary-looking but not evil or even dangerous. Instead, it guided Glitches through a "sandbox" back into a non-Glitched form, then sent a "Glitch captured" signal to Hinobi who passed it on to the DNS servers, which is - aside from being the spinal column of the internet, sleepnet and Hiverse - was where all GAME Mechanics happen to get their live data from. The sandbox was essentially a filter and AI debugging assistant in one. If a detected Glitch was just glitched, they would be temporarily placed in a replica of their expected operating environment (Ah, we just launched the new update. Some Glitches were bound to happen!), and if that alone did not fix a Glitch then it would evaluate if that meant the Glitch could only be UNWANTED SOFTWARE TAMPERING! or if it was a false positive. So far, the LLM they trained had never had a false positive for good reason; it was mindless, but it had learned from patterns what was Glitch and what was not.

Except no one realized there was only one way (other than that not actually being the case, but we won't open that can of worms) that could properly work. It knew the difference because it had never seen Bolypius in its' training data. As far as the D-Reaper was concerned, Bolypius's source code was too pure to be a Glitch, therefore it could only be one of three things, a biological lifeform (ruled out by a lack of DNA), a transhuman (ruled out by its date of creation), or a legitimate piece of software.

Since Nightwolf Primal was - for whatever reason - yet another sapient Glitch, and their game was a VR title, the end result of their Glitching and somehow ending up in the Hiverse instead... was to also be considered too consistent and flawless (in terms of code stability and data integrity) a piece of software to possibly be a Glitch. Thus, as she leaped out the window onto the virtual streets of the Grand Forks Municipal Geonode, she found himself not in the real world but in a virtual one that looked similar but not as boring. Of course, it being the early morning, the only thing less boring about it was that the Moon was sponsored by Roberts Space Industries (makers of the first commercial spacecraft and the first organization to have financial insurance - provided by Holtow - on their spacecraft), and a few holographic AR thingies pointed out the names of stars whenever he focused his eyes on a spec of light in the sky.

As for what their game was to be, and what their backstory had made of her, well... (( Captain Wyldstorm Congrats! You're now writing characters in both plot threads! Gadg8eer's residence - and thus the portal to his Node Cluster - are just to the Southwest along 72nd Avenue. I need to pretend US Politics doesn't exist and hope people who are actually qualified to handle reality will end this madness without hurting anyone innocent. Until then, let's get this show on the road. ))

 

[Gadg8eer]

As it turned out, this being would be the first of a new category of glitches... Verseborn.

Back when the Hiverse was being implemented in 2026, just a couple short years prior to the present (2028) in this tale, Hinobi found an ingenious way to prevent glitches from becoming apparent. After the infamous "Wreck-It Ralph" Botnet issues (which coincided with the co.vid Virtual Pandemic of 2019), the world was not willing to let anything get this close to digital apocalypse ever again. Exploits like co.vid, the v-On Suite of hacking tools, and any potential for anything even close to Bolypius was eliminated by two sets of e-Police.

The Western World tried to rely on a variety of contractors (including Hinobi and various local privately-operated teams) to provide tech support precisely because nobody trusted NetWatch. When THEY got involved, not only were they a corporation and an especially callous one at that, they were exclusively a digital PMC for the most corrupt western governments like South Africa and Australia as well as online black ops for the 1% on the rare occasion that the internet had threatened to destroy the status quo, and they got Rouxles Kaard elected in 2016 using targeted advertizing aimed by the world's largest partly-illegal datapoint libraries. Yes, NetWatch is literally Cambridge Analytica, enough said.

Though after Kaard was prevented from having a second term by the Electoral College (on the grounds that he is a convicted felon, even if there "ain't no law", go figure), NetWatch was on shaky ground and had just made sweeping layoffs, which meant the increasingly rowdy netizens of the Hiverse were getting very dissatisfied with the current, Neo Cyberpunk state of affairs that had flourished because countries ranging from Jamaica to France to India had also been tampered with in 2024 and hadn't been so lucky politically. Huge sections of the world had banned the Hiverse because if used with encryption it was essentially impossible to hack a properly-configured Hiverse node, including Canada (see here for what lead to it), but legally the Canadian Constitution limited the power of the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Comission) to stop hardware sales of AugReal equipment. The rest of the government of Canada was legally obligated to let the CRTC handle it but the CRTC had to follow the Constitiution and nobody, least of all heavy Hiverse users, cared about the scarily more authoritarian Canadian government that had emerged after the 2025 Canadian Federal elections.

In the East, the Satella Police served the same function. Founded by a coalition of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan to repel PRC cyberattacks, they were a proper international e-Police organization rather than just a money-making machine.

The 2026 Dataklash had made some of it unclear, but Hinobi sought to make such a thing obsolete. Convinced by Volpe and the Neozilla Foundation that the internet needed to return to a more anarchic and flexible state, Hinobi pivoted it's anti-cheat from simply auto-capturing Glitches to filtering them. Known as the Reaper, or the D-Reaper in places like the Parawatch forums (a conspiracy theorist gathering spot that usually overthought things or - if they didn't overthink it - misinterpreted a Glitch as some sort of "anomaly"), the program would gauge the intelligence of everything in the network. Only input judged as less intelligent than a housecat were blocked from roaming freely about the Hiverse, anything from a housecat up to Bolypius or a human being or higher should (at least in theory, they'll probably never have the opportunity to test it's accuracy at judging spacefaring aliens) be able to pass the simple tests the anti-cheat placed to catch "robots".

The process had evolved since then but the accuracy had only improved and there were no cases of people being completely unable to enter the Hiverse. The Reaper was certainly scary-looking but not evil or even dangerous. Instead, it guided Glitches through a "sandbox" back into a non-Glitched form, then sent a "Glitch captured" signal to Hinobi who passed it on to the DNS servers, which is - aside from being the spinal column of the internet, sleepnet and Hiverse - was where all GAME Mechanics happen to get their live data from. The sandbox was essentially a filter and AI debugging assistant in one. If a detected Glitch was just glitched, they would be temporarily placed in a replica of their expected operating environment (Ah, we just launched the new update. Some Glitches were bound to happen!), and if that alone did not fix a Glitch then it would evaluate if that meant the Glitch could only be UNWANTED SOFTWARE TAMPERING! or if it was a false positive. So far, the LLM they trained had never had a false positive for good reason; it was mindless, but it had learned from patterns what was Glitch and what was not.

Except no one realized there was only one way (other than that not actually being the case, but we won't open that can of worms) that could properly work. It knew the difference because it had never seen Bolypius in its' training data. As far as the D-Reaper was concerned, Bolypius's source code was too pure to be a Glitch, therefore it could only be one of three things, a biological lifeform (ruled out by a lack of DNA), a transhuman (ruled out by its date of creation), or a legitimate piece of software.

Since Nightwolf Primal was - for whatever reason - yet another sapient Glitch, and his game was a VR title, the end result of him Glitching and somehow ending up in the Hiverse instead... was to also be considered too consistent and flawless (in terms of code stability and data integrity) a piece of software to possibly be a Glitch. Thus, as he leaped out the window onto the virtual streets of the Grand Forks Municipal Geonode, he found himself not in the real world but in a virtual one that looked similar but not as boring. Of course, it being the early morning, the only thing less boring about it was that the Moon was sponsored by Roberts Space Industries (makers of the first commercial spacecraft and the first organization to have financial insurance - provided by Holtow - on their spacecraft), and a few holographic AR thingies pointed out the names of stars whenever he focused his eyes on a spec of light in the sky.

As for what his game was to be, and what his backstory had made of him, well... (( Captain Wyldstorm Congrats! You're now writing characters in both plot threads! Gadg8eer's residence - and thus the portal to his Node Cluster - are just to the Southwest along 72nd Avenue. I need to pretend US Politics doesn't exist and hope people who are actually qualified to handle reality will end this madness without hurting anyone innocent. Until then, let's get this show on the road. ))

As Nightwolf looked around, they saw a SynTaxi cab payphone nearby. SynTaxi was a virtual "taxi" company that provided ad-supported movement within Hiverse nodes, though having just been made real she was probably not yet aware of that.

 

[Captain Wyldstorm]

As Nightwolf looked around, he saw a SynTaxi cab payphone nearby. SynTaxi was a virtual "taxi" company that provided ad-supported movement within Hiverse nodes, though having just been made real he was probably not yet aware of that.

So... much... technology!!!
Poor Nightwolf looked like she was about to become overwhelmed from all the tech, and immediately attempted to hide in an alleyway.
"What is this land...?" She asked herself quietly.
(For future reference, Nightwolf is female with she/they pronouns. But still... DOUBLE PLOT DISTRACTION LOL)

 

[Gadg8eer]

So... much... technology!!!
Poor Nightwolf looked like she was about to become overwhelmed from all the tech, and immediately attempted to hide in an alleyway.
"What is this land...?" She asked herself quietly.
(For future reference, Nightwolf is female with she/they pronouns. But still... DOUBLE PLOT DISTRACTION LOL)

The alley in question was just to the southwest of the private node they had just exited. Nearby, she saw she was surrounded by relatively small buildings, none nearly so extravagant as the glow-y cyberpunk-looking payphone or the persistent transparent overlay which gave the moon the look of a projector casting "RSI" onto the moon's face. The lines on the road were lit with an irredescant glow, but there were no truly obvious signs that this place was truly futuristic beyond that, and the glowing road markings were not afforded to the gravel alley between the location's single- and two-story houses. The city was very conservative about their Geoscape Node and didn't like too much tech being visible.

 

[Captain Wyldstorm]

The alley in question was just to the southwest of the private node they had just exited. Nearby, she saw she was surrounded by relatively small buildings, none nearly so extravagant as the glow-y cyberpunk-looking payphone or the persistent transparent overlay which gave the moon the look of a projector casting "RSI" onto the moon's face. The lines on the road were lit with an irredescant glow, but there were no truly obvious signs that this place was truly futuristic beyond that, and the glowing road markings were not afforded to the gravel alley between the location's single- and two-story houses. The city was very conservative about their Geoscape Node and didn't like too much tech being visible.

Nightwolf just curled up in a ball, hiding from everyone around her.

 

[Gadg8eer]

Nightwolf just curled up in a ball, hiding from everyone around her.

At that moment, she noticed that "a light was on" "inside" a nearby affordable housing building. They wouldn't have known it, but Geoscape Nodes - which mostly resembled the map of a game like Highway Robbery Online or Smart_watch in scale and the complexity of the software engine - were pretty much empty shells of buildings with textures on the outside that you won't notice when you're in a hurry.

These textures had two states: Offline and Online. An offline private node of a building's IRL owner would appear completely dark at night, but if the node and it's owner were online, the texture would glow faintly to let others know someone was home.

In the case of apartments, the corridors and lobby and such would always be considered a public thoroughfare, so some of the windows looked more "real" in having transparent glass panes, while others appeared to merely have silhouettes behind curtains that didn't feel like they were more than a textured polygon.

A small robot labelled "WALL-E" could be seen in the transparent windows of the corridors, heading down the stairs on a set of caterpillar treads. The machine, if it could be referred to as merely a machine in spite of its' shy, compassionate nature, emerged from the structure's front door and zipped over to a ramp placed next to a green dumpster. The robot headed up the ramp, dumped a cube of compacted garbage into the bin from a compartment inside its torso through a panel on its front, and was about to head back inside when it spotted Nightwolf in the distance, looking distressed.

WALL-E carefully approached the "ghost" (how his AI interpreted AugReal entities), cautious but hoping to soothe whatever poor soul this was.

 

[Captain Wyldstorm]

At that moment, she noticed that "a light was on" "inside" a nearby affordable housing building. They wouldn't have known it, but Geoscape Nodes - which mostly resembled the map of a game like Highway Robbery Online or Smart_watch in scale and the complexity of the software engine - were pretty much empty shells of buildings with textures on the outside that you won't notice when you're in a hurry.

These textures had two states: Offline and Online. An offline private node of a building's IRL owner would appear completely dark at night, but if the node and it's owner were online, the texture would glow faintly to let others know someone was home.

In the case of apartments, the corridors and lobby and such would always be considered a public thoroughfare, so some of the windows looked more "real" in having transparent glass panes, while others appeared to merely have silhouettes behind curtains that didn't feel like they were more than a textured polygon.

A small robot labelled "WALL-E" could be seen in the transparent windows of the corridors, heading down the stairs on a set of caterpillar treads. The machine, if it could be referred to as merely a machine in spite of its' shy, compassionate nature, emerged from the structure's front door and zipped over to a ramp placed next to a green dumpster. The robot headed up the ramp, dumped a cube of compacted garbage into the bin from a compartment inside its torso through a panel on its front, and was about to head back inside when it spotted Nightwolf in the distance, looking distressed.

WALL-E carefully approached the "ghost" (how his AI interpreted AugReal entities), cautious but hoping to soothe whatever poor soul this was.

Nightwolf slightly shrank back in fear, finding herself against the wall."..Where the hell am I?! How did I get through that fourth wall I saw?!"*She panicked silently.
(OH MY GLITCH, IS THAT WALL-E?!)