Zane had been playing this game for a long time. At this point, the number of games was just that. A number. If anyone asked how many hours he had in it, he would just shrug. In reality, he knew exactly how much time it had been. Currently, though it was rising as he played, it was around 27,135 hours.
Zane's remarkable ability to track time, however, was little to nothing for him to brag about, because others could get implants that would do the very same thing, or something even better, like constantly letting them know what the exact time was.
Zane wasn't allowed to get implants. His sister forbade him because their parents had disliked the technology and where it would put them, and he didn't care enough to contradict her. At least, that was the air he put on. In reality, he hated the things even more than they had. He still had this dinosaur of a computer, with only 2.53 terahertz of speed, which was much slower than the newest VR gaming implants.
Sure, implants might be useful now, but their design was far too rushed and unstable for actual implementation to have occurred already. He had seen some of the designs that had entered the public domain, and he had quickly realized that. They were stable as of now, of course, but that wouldn't last as long as they would.
Zane wasn't an idiot. In fact, he was very intelligent. More than most people. Then again, most people were idiots. Just look around. Chaos and bloodshed were everywhere.
Companies collapsed as their CEOs were killed, businesses ran out of stock from theft, and the government had reinstated the death penalty, not because they had gotten over their moral qualms, but because they quite literally were forced to. And not by someone with money or power, but by the sheer volume of criminals, enough to overflow every prison in this broken country ten times over. Police were now obliged to shoot anything that moved at the worst crime sites, and only the bad things at the lesser ones.
Crimes were still ranging out of control. Zane was only able to remain unaffected because of his impressive build. Although he didn't spend a ton of time exercising, his genes were enough to make him tall and broad, and his streaming money along with the five other residents' incomes filled out that frame well enough.
That is to say, he had a very intimidating figure. But despite her shorter stature, his sister was much, much worse. And she absolutely refused to allow anyone other than herself to hurt him.
She did spend a ton of time working out. And it was obvious. She had a good feminine figure. Or rather, she had had one. Until their parents had died. Then she had thrown herself into the darker side of life, at least most of it. Fighting, whether with fists, knives, or guns, she excelled at. Drinking, she also excelled at, though not quite as much as Zane. Technically he was only eighteen, and the legal drinking age was twenty, but the government didn't care about something that small anymore, and neither did Zane or his sister, Amanda. And in terms of intimidation, she was a whole lot better. Her glare could make even Zane feel something, but not much. And that meant other people were terrified.
She was strong enough to shove her car, with him in it, halfway back to their "apartment" housing, which he knew from experience. When at all possible, she refused to let him walk, and had even dragged him and carried him home when her car was broken. Which it rarely was, because she was also a mechanic. It was dirty but paid well, so she had a larger share of the rent than the others, which she didn't protest, assumedly because she knew that Gabe, the other guy who lived here and the one who delivered rent and therefore basically ran the place, would kick her and Zane out if she did, and they would have to find another place. Amanda was very fixed on Zane's comfort, even though all he needed was his computer.
That was why it was so strange that she hadn't been there to pick him up. She almost always came and forced him to go with her.
Zane frowned as he played nearly thoughtlessly. The only part of that life that she hadn't gotten into was the sex part. Although Zane had expected that. She wasn't the kind of girl to open herself up like that.
She was more of a deadly assassin type than a common street thug. But she still loved her brother, a lot.
So where was she?