THE MOMENT
"Wow, they didn't seem to notice us at all..," Tessa commented as she followed Victoria out of the stranger's house. Tessa was shadowing Victoria for her new position and trying to learn what she could. They exited a portal into a family home; but, the family didn't even even look up at them, or make any moves to leave their seats.
"It's something to keep an eye out for," Victoria nodded. "The big hint is Traversing into their home; if the portal put us there it's because we're supposed to notice the situation."
"What's the situation?" Tessa asked. They'd reached the sidewalk and continued down the quiet neighborhood. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and a cool breeze was blowing; but, not a single person was outside enjoying it as far as Tessa could tell.
"Well, check," Victoria stopped walking and nodded at Tessa. The teenage girl nodded and flicked her wrist upward in front of her to summon her Slate. A large pane of glass appeared, hovering in mid-air, and she navigated the menus to find the 'Server Info'. The glass was clear to her with bright red text; but, Victoria could only see a smokey-grey pane because it wasn't hers.
"People are done?" she asked as she read it. "What does it mean, 'done'?"
"Like them," Victoria pointed into the large front windows of a different house. Another family was sitting on the couch quietly staring at nothing. The angle meant Tessa could see the TV was off; but, the family didn't seem to be discussing anything either. "Everyone simply sits in their houses all day waiting to die," she said.
"That... can happen?" Tessa asked. Victoria nodded and shrugged at the same time.
"It's been happening this time around at least. New management doesn't really know how to run the universe, so it's been a glitch we've seen more and more of lately."
"Whoa...," Tessa thought back to the training she received when she joined Sharp Development. She learned a lot more about the universe over those two days than she thought was possible. A lot of it was hard to imagine, and she still would've doubted it without the sufficient proof she got. She had let it sit in the back of her mind, not knowing what to do with the information until Victoria mentioned it so casually.
"So, Ms. Sharp ran the universe better than Io?" Tessa asked just to start; but, she wanted to take the conversation in a different direction. "It's still kind of hard to imagine there was a previous multiverse," she shook her head. "I was around, and I don't remember any of it; but, Sharp Development remembers me?"
"To be fair, it's Io's first time," Victoria giggled with a nod. "Ms. Sharp had plenty of experience already in the last version. Previous multiverse, or alternate timeline... it's the same thing for Unique Souls," she gestured at Tessa and herself. "Ms. Sharp keeps excellent records, and she knows how to recover quickly after a reset. Now that you've officially joined the company, you'll be easier to find in future iterations, and you'll remember more each time. My memory's still kind of fuzzy, but I remember a lot. I've been with Ms. Sharp for a long time."
"There's going to be more resets?" Tessa asked.
"At least one more," Victoria nodded. "This multiverse was temporary from the beginning, part of a bigger arrangement," she shrugged. "But, this was a good window to bring you in full-time," she said, then started walking again. "So, you might not find any of these next time around, but it's still good practice while we're here. As a Sharp Development Scout, you'll come across all kinds of situations."
"So.. how does this happen? Do we know?" Tessa asked.
"Not exactly, but we have some idea. The nano-code for NPCs and Zeros is very similar; but, it's not completely the same. So, occasionally Zeros get stuck in 'NPC' mode; but, since they're not programmed as NPCs, they don't have anything to do."
"Oh," Tessa nodded. By now, she learned enough to make sense of the answer. "Can we fix it?"
"No," Victoria shook her head.
"So.. what do we do? Just leave?" Again, Victoria shook her head and stopped walking again. This time they reached a corner intersection, with no cars visible in any direction.
"We can't do that either. They also still count as Zeros, and they're easy to conquer like this. In this case, we call in a third party; Sharp Development can't touch it without changing the game." She nodded at a black portal that appeared, and a rotund man in a green Hawaiian shirt with dark green hair walked out of it with a smile.
"Hey, Vicky, how's business?" he asked as he approached the pair.
"Sharp as usual," Victoria replied with a smile. "Ozone, meet Tessa; Tessa, this is our outside contractor, Ozone."
"Hi," Tessa waved.
"It's a pleasure," Ozone nodded.
"Gotta wipe it," Victoria nodded at Ozone. He spun around slowly and took in the absence of people.
"They're done too, huh?" he asked. Victoria nodded.
"Okay, I'm on it," he smiled. "Usual fee," he waved, then turned his back to them to head to the center of the street.
"Let's move on," Victoria opened a portal for Tessa and encouraged her through.
"Wipe it? What's he going to do?" Tessa asked.
"Ozone is a Calavera," Victoria answered.
"Oh," Tessa nodded and dashed through the portal. She didn't want to be on that Earth when Ozone shattered it.