[b]Black![/b]

"I only have one rule for you tonight," whispered Black in 3V's ear as she leaves the bar, an arm around each of her girls. "No matter what happens to you, what gets done to you, you look only at me. Your eyes are mine. If you can't keep them on me you keep them closed. Disobedience," her hand is where it shouldn't be, where it belongs, "will be punished. No - don't speak. I'll know soon enough if you understand or not."

Then she turns the other way to whisper some secret instructions to Amie in turn. Then the two of them turn to look at you in unison, eyes gleaming. What was the phrase? Something about two wolves inside you?

~

[b]Blue![/b]

"There is nothing I agree with more," said Blue, sitting down and picking up a red bean bun with chopsticks, "than the idea of illegal surveillance being creepy. It is terrifying. Imagine the threat posed by criminal individuals, shielded by their status, wielding an army of loyal spies. Imagine a business that operated like the yakuza but due to their position and power they were outside the reach of the justice system. Resistant to prosecution. Even from criticism. Imagine the ability to break the legal system through calculated pressure applied to certain individuals..."

She lets it sink in for a bit. Her eyes glitter. It has all finally come back around.

"I might..." she said delicately, "... [i]happen[/i]... to have access to certain documents relating to similar situations. [i]Highly [/i]sensitive," she runs a finger along her wine glass. "And due to the nature of how they apply to the justice system specifically, they leave me with no clear path towards releasing them. If the wrong person connects them back to me I could be shot. [i]Again[/i]." Her tone makes it clear that she is not joking here. "Naturally I don't want to put anyone else in danger," she glances at Starlight. "So I have left a contact card under each of your plates. I would appreciate it if you only used it if you consider yourself incorruptible and able to take on risk, and if not, only passed it on to people who you consider to have both of those qualities."

[b]White![/b]

White gravitates towards the shower instinctively. Washing up was not, in her mind, a solo activity. 

"This is the sort of thing I need to know about," she said, warm hands moving through soap and fur and mane. She wasn't asking questions like should I, can I - nothing existential. At the moment she just wanted data. "How do you decide things like fur length, texture, growth rate? How sensitive should the fur be? How do you test the feeling before committing to it?"

It's at about this point that Pink walks in through the front door of the apartment. "Morning, everyone!" she called brightly. "I bought sandwiches[1]~!"

[1]: Deep fried pineapple fritters.

Without skipping a beat she's tossing her clothes onto the floor walking right into the shower alongside White and Crystal. White had previously discussed her nature as a hivemind, but Pink doesn't exactly ease Crystal into the dynamic. "Hey, White," she said, stepping right on in. "Oh, wow. She's [i]hot[/i]. You chose this without me? I'm impressed!"
"We're discussing aesthetics, I need your help," said White.
"I'm on it!" said Pink, taking White by the hair and pushing her down to her knees firmly. "Tell me everything, or I'll make her stop~."


[b]Brown![/b]

There is the internet (smiling, nodding) and [i]the internet[/i] (frowning, shaking head). A hack like this involves going into[i] the internet[/i].

The Megaverse was originally pitched as the long awaited union between hell, work and the mall, and was bought into being through the concerted efforts of humanity's worst billionaires. All the lesser 2D chat programs and phone maps and useful aspects of the internet drift across its surface like icebergs above the acid shark volcano. The Megaverse is the full, deep, immersive VR deep internet environment. Its infrastructure underpins everything else. It is a cathedral of virtual space, the sprawl and the grid, the parallel cosmos and spiritual realm that serves as the mirror to the physical.

And like all good cathedrals, it is crumbling and ruined.

The Megaverse was dead on arrival but it lurched on for a couple of decades regardless, sustained by a vast inferno of venture capital money. It briefly flared up to incorporate all of human life and activity, all social interaction dragged onto the platform. People designed their virtual avatars and lead virtual lives, working, marrying and getting paid on the blockchain. But the whole thing frankly [i]sucked[/i], and as the money dried up the executives started looking for ways to monetize the thing. This was at the same time as hackers and governments had turned virtual space into a battleground. The Megaverse quickly developed a toxic reputation leading to the reinvention of the 2D internet. VR headsets became the province of remote workers, video gamers, advertising agencies, criminals and hackers. The Megaverse was a combination of hell, work, and the mall. Like hell, it was buried underground. Like work, the employees unionized or quit. Like the mall, it crumbled to ruins, a cathedral to the excesses of capitalism.

But burying hell didn't make it less relevant, and there are always urban explorers or property developers with an eye towards abandoned malls. Occultists, digital workers, and advertising agencies all have a vested interest in the Megaverse still. You can reach the 'regular' internet from there, manipulate algorithms and hack computers from below. You can follow traces, destroy firewalls and analyze software, you can see connections that would otherwise be the work of vast spreadsheets. You just need to dodge wolfpacks of marketing bots, spearphishers seeking to steal your identity and poorly maintained features causing entire network segments to crumble under your feet.

Into these depths Brown has descended, wearing cool black mirrored wraparound shades, slashed shoulder stripes, and carrying a neon blue [i]zweihander[/i]. It's an outfit that says: You better watch out, I have done a reasonable amount of grinding for free content and I am slightly above average in either free time or ability! 

Descending with her is the full digital manifestation of the computer components she has been asked to install. Their MegaIncarnations alone will tell a lot about them. Off the shelf Begone, Brand level smiles? The poorly concealed bulletproof vest of a cop program trying not to look like a cop program? Who, exactly, is lazy enough to outsource their covert op to a maid agency?