Vixen Society - Cycle 1

Vixen Society

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  Beginning / Before / After / Last

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Cycle 1

Elliot just never could wake up on time. No matter what alarm he used, or (throughout middle and high school) what his parents did to yank him out of bed, his lazybones body just seemed to always need at least half an hour to go from 'asleep' to 'awake'. He built up a habit of rapidly getting ready to go and running out the door or driving off along the road to make it to his first class on time. And when he was late anyway, he always had some excuse: Bad traffic, a sick relative, needing to drop his little sister off first (even though he never actually did that). He wasn't so good at lying in middle school, but by the time he was a freshman in high school he'd honed his craft at it enough to fool most teachers, most of the time. He was actually late just infrequently enough to make it all believable; it was a risky practice, teetering on the edge, but somehow or other he pulled it off.

But now—now he was in college. Every day was different! He could sleep in on Mondays and Wednesdays, but he had a morning class Tuesday and Thursday. And though even his earliest of classes allowed him to get up an hour and a half later than he ever had before, his sleep schedule rapidly drifted forward, lurching him back into dangerous territory in a matter of only one or two months. His roommate tried to help him at first, but quickly gave up. They were on pretty friendly terms, but he just wasn't willing to try to drag Elliot's unconscious body down out of the bed every single morning—and Elliot couldn't blame him for that. Instead, he'd yank the covers off when the alarm rang and then leave for his own classes, not having time for much of anything else.

Setting his alarm earlier was a good idea, but it didn't work either! It was like Elliot's body knew what time he really needed to be awake, and insisted on staying asleep until then. The unfortunate thing was that his habit of successful rushing and deception had made that time rather later than what a normal, reasonable person would consider a proper time to get up relative to when he had to be ready. While his professor and fellow students didn't actually care so much if he was a few minutes to half an hour late, Elliot could see this worrying trend, and could easily tell that it was going to cripple his grades on down the line, and he certainly didn't want that!

He got through his first year this way, skating by grade-wise in the one class each semester he always overslept for because he managed to cram what he'd missed just in time for each exam. It felt like he'd deceived the system just a little bit in that way, and there was a slight bit of satisfaction at doing so, but...next year was going to be different. Starting out his sophomore year, the only way available to arrange his schedule to match up with his needs gave him a morning class every single day, one of them so early that he'd have to get up even earlier than he was supposed to during high school! There was just no way he could keep up what he'd done in so many classes all at once, while getting up even earlier—it was utterly unsustainable! He had to do something about it...

Elliot pondered this all throughout the summer vacation—all the while, his sleep schedule drifting later and later because he didn't have any particular reason to get up early, and his body just didn't want to. It was the week before classes began, and he was sitting around playing a game on his phone, when an unusual ad came on...

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"Pfft...really?" Carter was watching a playlist of of dumb ad videos, and came across the ones for some stupid-looking advice app with foxes all over its branding. "Haha, wooow! Could you say 'we're a scam' any more blatantly? Like, come ooonnn. Is this for real!?" He couldn't help it: He searched for 'vixen society' on his phone, and after what seemed like a bit longer of a load time than usual, found it.

Carter was a software designer. He'd written apps for corporations; he'd written plenty of real programs for real computers, too. "Hmm. Virus or no virus?" It was on the official app store, and had been for a few weeks with no reports. But there were some five-star reviews with...decidedly suspicious wording. "No virus." He decided to download it, so he could prod its programming and see just how sketchy it got.

At its core, it just seemed to be a chat program. It wasn't even clear whether it phoned home to real people or some kind of bot. It didn't seem particularly secure, but there was nothing malicious in the code either...The only notable thing was some random junk data taking up about as much space as the actual program. Whoever had programmed it evidently wasn't very experienced.

He put it out of his mind for a day or two after that, and then—while messing around on his phone again one afternoon—he remembered that it existed when he found it still installed. Well...he'd never actually opened it, he thought. Maybe it would at least be good for a laugh. But...it was supposed to be some kind of advice app or whatever, right? So he'd need some excuse for a problem for it to give him advice for. He thought about it for around two seconds and decided to try and troll whoever was on the other end—either test the tolerance of a real human, or try to provoke a bot into giving nonsensical responses.

Welcome! What kind of help are you looking for today? Okay, that part was just a generic prompt. It showed that to everyone before doing any kind of phoning home.

It's too hot outside, he said. I can't relax.

It took only a minute for someone to respond: You could always move somewhere cooler.

My job's here, he retorted.

Is your AC working?
Yeah, but it's still so hot outside. And knowing that, I can't relax, Carter insisted.

So you want it to be colder outside so you can relax.

Yes!

Maybe the heat isn't the problem? Have you ever tried meditation?
Another, supposedly different person sent at about the same time: Is there a pool in your town?

There's a pool in my back yard, but I don't know how to use it, Carter replied.

A minute or two passed with no response, so he pressed at the other topic: What's meditation?

It's how you can use your pool, his original respondent replied. Is it full of water already?

Yes, I have a service that cleans it and fills it every summer.

But they won't tell me how to use it

Here's what you do: Walk out into the water until it's as deep as it gets

Or deep enough to go up to your neck, the second one chimed in. Then lie back so you're floating in the water. That'll keep your body nice and cool!

Yes, and then to meditate, just lie there floating, close your eyes, and think about foxes.

Okay...these guys were having a laugh. They were in on the trolling. They'd paid actual money, to run ads, to troll people. They'd designed a logo, hired a programmer, and maybe even consulted with a lawyer. Carter could no longer scoff at them. Instead, he kind of wished he'd been in on this particular joke from the ground floor. Maybe he could've helped them with all that junk code, he thought to himself. But...he still wondered.

Foxes?

Yes! Foxes are the most calming animal ever.

Aren't they like

carnivores?

Who cares?! They're so soft and fluffy.

Honestly thinking about it...a dip in the pool. Floating back, closing his eyes, and relaxing. Carter couldn't dispute that that sounded good about now. He'd swam around to relax plenty of times before; a refreshing float for a few minutes or so couldn't hurt.

Okay, whatever. I'll try it, I guess, he said after a pause to think about it.

Awesome!

Don't forget to wear sunscreen, someone else added. Aww, they were concerned for the health of their trolling victims. Well, whatever—Carter knew to do that already.

Yeah, thanks. He couldn't even bring himself to pretend he didn't know what sunscreen was, now that he knew what they were really up to.

---

People were so stupid.

All Vincent had to do was put just a few of the wrong words in the right ear, and he could get just about anyone to do anything. They simply believed what they wanted to, or filled in the details to make a lie true in their minds. They never stopped and thought about what might objectively be true; they never even consulted with the people they should've trusted the most.

When he was in middle school, he was a hero. The two biggest bullies in the class started a year-long feud because of him, fighting each other instead of bothering everyone else. In high school, he'd broken up several relationships that were doomed to fail anyway with the simple test of suggesting to the less secure of the couple that he'd seen the other one with a particular member of the opposite sex—not doing anything, just 'with' them. He found in college, when some idiot cheated off of his math test, that it was far easier to get him to do it again in such an open, blatant way that he got caught than it would've been to make any direct accusation himself.

For all of the suffering he could effortlessly cause, Vincent didn't look particularly threatening. He was a little on the tall side, gaunt and scrawny, with pitch black hair and what looked to be permanent bags under his eyes. He wore clothes in dark tones most of the time, but never went full goth; the 'edgiest' thing he wore was a few small, plain earrings in his ears—which were usually hidden by the hair he kept a smidge longer than average. He was the first one to call out the stupid decisions of others, the blatant lies they were being told—and this earned him enough respect to have what might be called 'friends' despite his perpetually sour, cynical disposition. Even the job he wound up in, in the accounting department of a big business firm, was all about spotting monetary fraud..and just like that time in college, he didn't have to do much to nudge someone into either confessing or providing actionable evidence on themselves, making him equal parts valued and feared by nearly everyone higher up on the company ladder.

"Hey! Vincent! Heeey!" On his walk from the office building to the parking lot, he was accosted by one of his most gullible acquaintances: Luca, a graphic artist for the same firm who'd latched onto him at his first obligatory company get-together because they were 'both goths'. Vincent sighed aggravatedly, but slowed down his walk enough for him to catch up.

"What is it now?"
"You wanna hang out? Have dinner together?" Luca hopped up and down like next to him it was the only way to catch his eye. He was pretty short, not particularly broad or fit, and wearing his dark brown hair nearly shoulder-length with some of it hanging over one of his eyes didn't help the effeminate impression he gave off. If he was any kind of goth, it was only in fashion: Wearing spiked collars most of the time, even with formal wear, and some of the most garishly hot-topic black belts and chains available when he could get away with it.
"Pssh. I guess I got no plans," Vincent shrugged. "Where you wanna go?"

"Uhh, I got a coupon in the mail for a new Mexican place, buy-one-get-one-half-off?"
"You mean the place that usually charges twice as much as everyone else?"

"..Oh. Well, then we can go to the usual one instead."
"Sure, whatever," he shrugged again.

They walked together for a precious few seconds of silence before Luca produced his phone and pushed it at him. "Hey, look at this!"

He had open the store page for an app Vincent had never heard of—some kind of flaky 'life advice' thing. After an appropriately long pause to indicate his annoyance at the gesture, he took the phone and scrolled around briefly. It was less than five days old with hundreds of reviews giving it a five-star rating. The description was unhelpfully vague, and he spotted no less than three of those glowing reviews to have nearly identical wording to each other almost right away. And..it was free with no ads. "Fake."
"Awwh, really? It's free, though!"
"Did you install this garbage?" he demanded, handing the phone back. "It's probably a virus or something."

"They don't let people sell viruses on the store," Luca insisted. "Anyway, I tried it out, and my phone's fine!"

"What kinda advice did you get, then?"
"Weeelll—I said I had a grumpy friend I wanted to cheer up, and they said I should take him out for supper and pay for it."
"And then what, gave you a coupon for the new Mexican place?"

"Noo, I found that on my own! In the mail."

Vincent shrugged condescendingly. "So they gave you uselessly generic advice. I give it a week before they start telling you to wire money to the prince of Nigeria. Look—you don't have to pay, I'm the one making more money."

"Hahah, okay. Well, I'm gonna keep using it, and we'll see!"
"Fine, but don't call me to bail you out if following their advice lands you in jail."

---

First of all, you need a consistent wake-up time. Figure out the earliest time you need to wake up, on any day, and plan to wake up then every day of the week.

Right! No 'sleeping in'! A weird schedule is the enemy!

This was...surprisingly good advice. Elliot felt like he'd heard it before, probably, but it hit different now, with even such a sketchy source repeating it. But...if it was really so simple, his parents would've accomplished it that way in high school...

What if that doesn't work? he asked. The replies came flooding in:

Don't just set one alarm. Set several!

Yeah! Start with one an hour ahead of when you want to be up

An hour and a half ahead!

Right! And then, make the next one fifteen minutes later.

The one after that thirty minutes.

Fifteen again.

Then ten.

Then one last one for when you really want to be awake.

Exactly that sequence! Every morning until waking up at the time you wanted to is natural.

It'll totally work!
Trust us!

"Uh..." He stared at all the messages on his phone for a moment. The strangely specific prescription, plus those last two messages almost seeming like such a blatantly suspicious way of putting it as to become a warning not to trust the otherwise sound-seeming advice, was...bizarre. But...what harm could it do, really?

The first day of class, Elliot tried acting on the advice that Vixen Society had given him. An alarm very early in the morning rang out, his roommate yanked the covers off of him and then put on noise-canceling headphones to go back to sleep. Then another alarm, and another, and another. Elliot's unconscious hand snoozed every single one, and it was only fifteen minutes till class when he finally bolted awake, glanced at the clock and realized he was just as late as ever!

He couldn't help but complain that evening, when he got back on. It didn't work!

Really?! Wow.

I swear, it's like I'm a different person when I'm asleep.

This needs something more serious, then...

Hey, I have an idea!
What? Elliot was feeling desperate; he couldn't let his grades tank from this.

Go to bed earlier. Okay...that just sounded sarcastic.

I tried that!

I wasn't done. Go to bed earlier, and when you're lying there trying to go to sleep, count foxes.

…You mean, count sheep?
No! It has to be foxes!
That's right, counting foxes always works! another of the advisors chimed in. Sheep are lame anyway.

Imagine they're all chasing some prey through the forest, the first one continued again. By the time you fall asleep, they'll have caught it. And you'll catch what you're after, too!

Uh, ok

At this point, Elliot really felt like he was being put on. But...he was desperate. And, apart from their strange insistence about foxes, getting more sleep at least sounded like a reasonable idea for getting up earlier. So he went to bed that night and tried it: Lying down, closing his eyes...and counting foxes. One fox, two foxes, three.

Four..five....six....

....Seven.

He didn't actually remember getting to seven, because by then he was already asleep.

---

Welcome! What kind of help are you looking for today?

look, i

is there really someone there?
i just need someone to talk to

Oliver felt like such garbage. There he was, six years out of college: A massively overweight man in a dead-end job that barely paid for his basic needs. His immediate family were mostly gone, he didn't really have any friends to speak of...he just sort of hung on, one paycheck after another, thinking he'd somehow turn up something better soon. Or maybe he'd build up the confidence to go for a run..or the money to go to a gym. He wasn't even eating all that much—he couldn't even afford to—and yet he still couldn't keep the weight off. But, if he could only solve any single one of his other problems, he could deal with being overweight.

When Oliver saw the ad for this app, he knew: Most people saw that generic blob and thought of the infomercials of old, where someone attempting to do a basic task that anyone could just do themselves was portrayed failing at that task, in a world of pure monochrome with the announcer talking about how very difficult said task was. And then everything went all full-color because of whatever useless gadget was being advertised. The app was that useless gadget, the task any idiot could manage was just living a halfway decent, fulfilling life.

But, when Oliver saw the ad, that animated blob person who sucked at life? That was him. If getting advice that made him magically grow fox ears and a tail would make him healthier, happier, richer, more successful, or in any other way better, then he'd take it. It was a long, long, shot, but he felt like he had to at least try. Maybe, at the very least, it would be someone's job to listen to his pathetic self venting for a few measly minutes.

Hi!
Yeah!
We're all here. Three different 'voices', at least going by the way their anonymized names displayed.

Anything specific you want to talk about?
Something wrong? Two more of them chimed in.

Ugh

what isnt wrong?

my life is a joke

i'm in massive debt

sometimes I can't afford enough food

but i'm still so fat everyone thinks i'm a lazy slob

Oliver waited a moment for a reply, and when one didn't come he quickly backpedaled some:

uh sorry

TMI i guess

i'm sure there's lots of people who have it worse off than me

i mean

i have a home and a job and

i'm not exactly starving obviously but

They interrupted at this point:
It's okay! Sometimes you just need a sympathetic ear.

venting is just fine with us.

We need to know this stuff to give good advice anyway, after all.

So for one thing: You're not useless

You are so much more than you think.

Maybe it's been a while since someone said something like this to you, but: You have a great, a massive potential.

Enormous.

We're going to help you fulfill it.

Because we want to see what you'll do with it.

Oliver was sort of confused by the sudden gush of encouragement. Something about it felt not so generic, but rather like the five or six people he was talking with knew him somehow, or at least knew something about him—something he didn't know himself. They certainly seemed unreasonably confident that he could improve himself, when that was something he was sure was impossible.

But, confusion or not, he felt...an intense sense of relief, too. A happy, warm feeling he hadn't felt since his parents passed away. He didn't even realize it at first, not until he began to wonder why the phone screen had suddenly gone all blurry, but he was crying. They were tears of catharsis, like he was letting out the horrible emotion that had been hanging over him for at least a year or two by now.

He sniffed, wiped his eyes on a sleeve, and took a couple of deep breaths to pull himself back together. The brief bout of weeping had really left him feeling a lot better, somehow. And now he had one question, the same one he'd been asking himself for a long time:

What do i do?