Zoe continued going over her daemons after Claire left. Since she had the subdermal weave and didn’t feel like doubling down on its benefits, Zoe had opted not to load up on a lot of defensive ICE but still selected a few. She had considered Nanny, which is a popular overwatch utility daemon, but dismissed it as not doing enough. Likewise, Guardian Angel, another overwatch daemon, didn’t do enough either. Though, it did watch out for its user’s surroundings instead of just the user, like Nanny.

Avenging Angel was the first defensive daemon Zoe chose. This ICE program was a variant of the Guardian Angel daemon, which not only watched over its user and their surroundings, but it also returned attacks to the sender. Zoe felt there was more potential here and hoped to be able to modify the daemon even more.

Cloak was a simple cloaking daemon. It used user provided data to mask their identity.

Grave Robber was another cloaking daemon. This program used records of people that were deceased instead of user created data though.

Illusion was the final cloaking or cloaking daemon Zoe selected. This program allowed the user to select any nearby public profile and use it to mask their identity.

Zoe’s mentors had advised that one could never be too careful when it came to hiding your steps, so that was why she selected the three cloaking daemons. She had also chosen a firewall ICE program and would add one she had designed herself as well.

Bulwark was the firewall she had chosen. It was a highly regarded ICE program that built a wall around a system blocking unauthorized access. She was going to add her Bastion ICE firewall, which included a VPN, onto the Bulwark to further layer her protection. Zoe thought that would be protection enough or at least hoped it would be.

“Hi Zoe,” a man’s voice said causing Zoe to jump. She had been so into checking her programs she hadn’t paid attention to what was going on around her. “Did I scare you?”

“Hi Bill. Yeah, you did.”

“Playing around with your frame that much? If you play with your frame too much, you’ll go blind.”

“Ha-ha. Isn’t that supposed to be boys and their…joysticks? Besides, I better not go blind with these Kaisers,” Zoe said pointing at her eyes.

“Touché,” Bill replied, giving Zoe a golf clap. “So, what were you so wrapped up in?”

“Just going over my ICE. I keep thinking I have enough, yet I feel I might be forgetting something. I’ll check the web while you do your checkup and tell me what’s for dinner.”

“Alright. Just make sure you have an ad…” Bill fell silent as Zoe screamed.

“Bloody hell!”

“You forgot your adblocker,” Bill bluntly stated.

“No kidding! I never knew there were so many ads on the net.”

“That is a rookie mistake. I recommend Fly Swatter. It’s a good adblocker. If you’re feeling vindictive, I’d go with Bug Zapper instead.”

“What’s the difference?” Zoe asked. She hadn’t heard of either program before. “And are they frame exclusives?”

“Yeah, they are frame exclusives. Bug Zapper doesn’t just block ads, it will let you fry their codebase.”

“Which makes the ad crash,” Zoe concluded. Bill nodded. “Which do you use?”

“Which do you think? I’m the vindictive sort,” Bill laughed.

“I’ve learned something new,” Zoe mused.

“Uh huh. Don’t mess with the ones in charge of your medical care,” Bill replied and laughed again. “If you don’t want to risk the net again, I’ll send you a copy of Bug Zapper.”

“Thanks,” Zoe said and accepted the file he sent her.

“You’re welcome,” Bill replied. Her Angel scanned the file before it let the new program through. “Oh nice. You went with Avenging Angel instead of Guardian Angel. I see I’m not the only vindictive one here.”

“You can see my ICE and daemons?” Zoe asked in alarm.

“Uh huh. I’m on Doc Brown’s staff. All of us have access to your medical records, which includes whatever gets installed on the frame we install in you,” Bill replied. Seeing her expression, he continued, “Don’t worry. Doc uses Fortress to keep your records safe and all of us are protected by doctor patient privileges.”

“What’s Fortress?”

“It’s a customized version of Castle, which is the most powerful server level ICE there is.”

“Neat! Could I get that too?”

“Nah,” Bill laughed. “Server level is too large for our frames. Personally, I think that is just so the corporations have something better than everyone else.”

“That’s probably true,” Zoe agreed. “How did Doc Brown get a customized version?”

“She’s been in the biz a long time and has a lot of connections despite slumming it these days,” Bill shrugged. He laughed once more. “She’s probably some government agent hiding out or infiltrating the mob.”

“I hope not,” Zoe laughed. “I like her.”

“Me too,” Bill admitted. “Maybe one day her and Zane will agree to that threesome.”

“Bill!”

“What? You want a four way instead? You’re a little young for my tastes, but I’m willing to give you a chance.”

“No!”

Bill winked. “I’ll have to keep trying to talk Sonya into it then.”

“And you’re shameless,” Zoe replied laughing.

“I can be, yeah.”

“What’s for dinner?”

“For you Mistress Zoe,” Bill began, “we have grilled chicken breasts with a roasted yellow tomato sauce, a slice of garlic bread, and a salad. For dessert, you get a scoop of vanilla ice cream.”

“Um, can I pass on the chicken and just get a big bowl of ice cream?”

“No.”

“I’ll bribe you for it.”

“You turned me down and you’re in debt already. How are you going to pay a bribe?” Bill asked playfully.

“Good point,” Zoe muttered. “Guess I’ll have to suffer the chicken.” She looked at the tray he gave her. “Hey! Where’s the ice cream?”

“I’ll be bringing it by in about half an hour.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Too bad,” Bill replied walking out the door.