The girl at the front desk tilted her head. "Do I know you?"
Lisa shook her head. "...Nevermind, sorry. I just--"
"Wait!" Zoey gasped, "You're Lisa, aren't you? I've seen your pictures before! Gimme a sec!"
Lisa watched the young girl scamper off to who-knows-where. She turned her attention back to Samantha and the two others before her.
"Selene." Samantha spat the name. "What. Did you do?"
"Hired an unsuspecting contractor to do some cable-work. You? Been a while since we've talked, Sam."
"You know why you were fired. Don't forget that. I can have you be arrested for sabotaging the company's network."
"Oh yeah?" Selene lounged in her seat. "You weren't even there. Argall's the one that must've told ya. All I wanted was to talk to my mother one last time after she passed. Was that too much to ask?"
"I--"
"No. But that didn't stop your colleagues from telling me that what I wanted was 'impossible', or that we 'didn't have the resources'. What happened after I was fired, hmm? That man named Argall brings in Lisa there behind you, and suddenly it's like the whole workplace bends to her every whim! And before you knew it, she pulled off the exact thing I wished to construct. A child did that, but they wouldn't even consider the idea when it came from one of their own?"
Lisa slowly backed away. There was clearly some intense drama playing out that she'd rather not be a part of.
"Listen. Selene, I'll acknowledge that you were wrongly fired back then. But that still doesn't mean that you had the right to cut access to the simulation network from hundreds of people across several days. I know you accessed our servers as well with Rosanne's old credentials as well."
"Well excuse me for just trying to lend myself some happiness in the final months of my life. Do you think I can afford one of those fancy personal simulation frameworks that you offer? No!"
Lisa wandered past the now-empty front desk. A man stood just around the corner. Probably security. She gave a passing glance at him as she stepped around him, catching a glimpse of an approving nod.
The interior halls of the building were plain, to put it simply. Brightly-lit corridors of grey, accented only by a strip of prismatic lines running parallel to the floor. She could hear footsteps somewhere deeper in the maze. Probably Zoey's.
She peeked into a room. There was a coffee machine. She helped herself to a cup. She was technically still a part of this organization, right? Still, it tasted surprisingly familiar.
Like the sort that kept her awake during the cold winter nights she'd spent in Equestria.
She took another sip. It was awfully quiet in a building that was apparently the headquarters of a business. Maybe most people were having a day off.
"Found ya!" Zoey chirped, sticking her head through the doorway. She retreated for a moment. "Dad, she's in here!"
A man roughly Argall's age stepped in. "Pleasure to meet you at last, Lisa."
He offered a hand. Lisa shook it.
"I've heard many great things about you," the man took a seat at one of the breakroom tables. "My name's Roger Ascher. You've already met my little Zoey there."
Roger.
"Wait, you--" Lisa set her coffee aside. "You're the one that wants to sell the company!"
"No no, not me personally," Roger sighed, waving his hands in front of him. "For that, you'd have to blame the board of directors. They believe that we're understaffed and too short on resources to keep customer information safe. I proposed that we hire more people onto our security teams, but they repeated the part about company resources."
"Riiiight. And you're sure there's no other option? What are these 'company resources' that you speak of?"
"Cash flow, mostly." Roger seemed almost ashamed to mention it. "HybridEye's deep in debt. We haven't been able to break even yet even after a decade in operation. There just isn't much interest in living in a virtual world. What we've--you've made is a very niche experience at best."
"So, the company's a sinking ship."
Roger gave a nod.
"And the board wants to sell it off to a larger business that plans to more heavily monetize the experience. We haven't gotten past discussion, however, so the proposed sale hasn't been made public."
Another nod.
"Quick question--" Lisa sucked in a breath. She couldn't believe she was about to say this. "--what if you just... shut down the simulations, permanently?"
"That's a surprise to hear from you."
Lisa's eyes were glued to the floor. "I'm aware of that. My line of thought was just... if the buyer does go forth with a heavier monetization process, what would happen to the virtual world and the people that inhabit it? The entire point of the main simulation, Equestria, was to serve as an escape from reality. Ponies wouldn't be interested in the sales of human products, let alone their advertisement. At best they'd be ignored entirely and whatever revenue they'd have tried to earn would never come, and at worst they'd face a massive backlash. I've personally faced my fair share of grifters in Equestria, and I can say that once ponies catch on to a grift, they won't be happy."
"I see your point, yes."
"Do you... know how many users there are in total?"
"Only a few thousand. Most of the revenue we do receive comes from machinery rentals, though we have in the past experimented with tying the world performed in-simulation to real-life operations. It... heh, only proved that pony-shaped robots aren't nearly as precise at what they do as the ones they're mirroring the actions of.
Lisa tapped a finger against the countertop she stood beside. She lifted her head again. "Can you give me a breakdown of the types of uses that the simulations receive? Things like therapeutics, recreation, etc."
"Majority recreation. Only a handful of people lived in the simulations for medical reasons, most of which involved some form of full-body paralysis or other loss of nearly all motor function."
"And what simulation types do these people in for medical reasons use? I only really know about Equestria, but I'm aware that there are others as well."
"They don't use simulated worlds at all. Every one of them corresponds to a remotely controlled robot that can perform simpler service tasks such as serving food. It's not necessarily because they need to earn a living, though from what I've heard the money does help. It's more about finding a purpose for themselves."
"That's... oddly beautiful. A second chance at life in an almost literal sense."
"That's one way to think of it."
"Keep that running." Lisa finished the rest of her cup. "Everything else can be shut down. Or better yet, release the source code for the simulations. I should still own the original copyright, so I'll do my part in giving permission for that core codebase. Though I'm sure people will miss the experience--myself included--its function is far from essential. It's just escapism; I say that from experience. And if it's not escapism, then it's just people screwing around and having fun. But if it's dragging the company down, then it's inevitable that it has to come to an end in some way or another. Releasing the code and related resources--"
Lisa paused. What was she even saying? Where did all these words come from? These... these were there the entire time, weren't they?
"Continue?" Roger took her mind away from the tangent.
"--Right. Uhm... where was I... ah, yeah. Releasing the source code and related resources would let people build on the framework themselves to create their own experiences. I think that'd be a far better model than to only offer a handful of premade options. Regarding revenue, cutting off all the supporting hardware required for running the simulations I'd imagine would save millions of dollars a year, if not billions as it is considering how everyone including myself were connected to full-on life-support systems. We could do a phased shutdown to ease people back into reality, and once it's all done, sell off the equipment to recoup costs. Once that's all done, the company should be far slimmer and better able to focus on servicing the people that genuinely rely on its services."
"I... will discuss that with the board. Thank you for your input." Roger gave a smile. "And I mean it, seriously. Can I ask you real quick about how we'd stay afloat on only the assistive technology side of things?"
"Income tax, in a sense. Assuming that the core service is subsidized somehow, which I certainly hope that it is, there could be perhaps an 'operation tax' that's collected. It doesn't have to be anything big. In fact, it could potentially be added as something that their employers would pay them as part of their earnings, since, though I hate to say this given the context of who is operating the robots, having robotic employees might be seen as a novelty. An attraction piece that brings more customers. Bleh. That's enough creepy for me, but hopefully you get the idea. The businesses that hire these people operating the robots likely aren't doing so out of the goodness of their hearts. They'd see it more like renting a piece of novelty hardware, so a small so-called 'price increase' shouldn't bother them too much."
"Well," Roger chuckled. "I think you're probably more fit to run this place than I am! I'll be sure to mention your idea on monetization as well. I cannot stress this enough, thank you for lending so many ideas only minutes after setting foot in the building. You're a generous one. Your parents would've been proud to have raised such a bright young woman."
"Wait, you've met my parents?"
Roger stood up from his seat, fixing his suit. "Well, yes. They were my colleagues, after all. We all had a role here. When you were younger, you even babysat for Zoey while I was busy! Don't need to now, obviously, she's plenty happy treating the front desk like her little personal office to do homework in. Still, feel free to rejoin us at any time. Our ranks are still as slim as they were from the start."
Lisa watched the man leave the room.
"So you're telling me that you decided to help Selene hack into our systems because you were bored? Not even for monetary gain?"
The sound of approaching footsteps on the hard tile floor momentarily silenced the bickering trio.
"Roger." Selene narrowed her eyes.
"Let me guess," Samantha rolled her eyes. "Another member of the board is now in favor of selling. Is it Daalmans?"
"No, and--" Roger placed a flash drive in Selene's open hand. "--Lisa would want you to have this. I apologize for the way you were treated all those years ago. We have some spare headsets in the back if you wish to use them."
"Whuh--huh?" Samantha watched Roger look to Rosanne, then back to her. "Lisa? What? Wwhy--"
"I'll just say that she made some very convincing arguments that I now plan to take to the board. Equestria's days are numbered whether we sell or not. We either go bankrupt or the essence of what we've made is corrupted by people who only see moneybags in our users. It's time we tear off the band-aid. I'll be publishing the source code once permission is granted by the board."
"Wait wait wait, so we're shutting down? That's what she said?"
"Mm, sort of. More of a reorganization. She proposed that we focus only on those who absolutely rely on our technology from now on. Where's Argall? I'd like to hear his thoughts as well."
"He's in the minivan outside, waiting. I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm giving Lis a tour of this place. But seriously? Lisa said that? Ho-ly crap. Those are some bold words coming from the girl who was unsure of if she wanted to live as a magical horse or a human only a few days ago. I can't say I fully agree with her idea of shutting down the very thing that she started here, but I suppose if people want to live the experience for longer, publishing the source would go a long way toward mending any hard feelings surrounding a permanent shutdown."
"Indeed. And you, Rosanne--I won't pursue any charges against you this time given the current state of things, but please think of how your actions affect others. If it weren't for the quick responses of people such as Daalmans and the fallbacks we'd built into the systems, you could've killed hundreds with that stunt you pulled."
Rosanne looked away, giving a slow nod.
"As for you, Selene, please, come with me. You too, Sam."
The two glanced at each other.