It is indeed ironical, if you think about the configuration most people would rather use for their operating systems. Say, if a man called Nebek would enter your apartment and destroy your PC, for the most part you would be perfectly happy due to the fact that your PC had awful settings embedded into it from the moment you bought and built it.

  This was exactly the issue that a person by the simple name of Joanna Liebert had experienced once she woke up on September 17th January 34. For the uninitiated, January 34 is a magical year between January 2025 and January 2027 when all one's wishes come true. And September 17th means that the wishes will come true exactly at 17 o'clock.

  So, in the language of less advanced species, the phrase "September 17th January 34" could be translated to some extent into something like, "If a potato wishes that a tomato dislikes something, that that potato will be happy."

  Joanna, though, did know know about these matters. Unlike some people, she slept at 9 pm and woke up at 6 am. She was a very health conscious person who never skipped a second of pizza time. Her best friend was a pizza delivery guy who liked gifting her free pizzas for life even though she had no space in her little apartment. One day, Joanna entered her apartment and found it unlocked. Due to the potential of dangerous circumstances occurring, Joanna immediately ran away downstairs. However, she was not able to escape. She looked at her kidnappers and it was a surprise for her indeed to find the kidnapper, who was now dragging her in his car, was actually Peter Porter, her pizza delivery friend.

  "I am really going to enjoy this," Peter Porter said in her ear. Due to strange circumstances, Joanna lost her conscious mind for some time, or, to be exact, two hours and thirty seconds.

  Anyway, let's consider another woman, whose name is Joanna Porter. Joanna Porter is Peter's sister, who never left the basement where she was imprisoned. Peter was really a serial kidnapper who kidnapped any person who had the name of his dear stepsister. Joanna once got stuck in the washing machine and ever since that day, Peter kept her in the basement, fearing for Joanna's safety. Joanna hated Peter, though, but she was just being unreasonable, I can guarantee that. This is the Word of God, that is why I can guarantee that. I guarantee to the readers that Joanna Porter loved her brother dearly, although she had little knowledge of that herself.

  "Another one," Joanna number 77 asked.

  "Oh yes. Joanna number 78, welcome to Peter's basement," Joanna Porter, also known as number 1 in these basement lands, said.

  "What is going on here, girls?!"

  Joanna Number Seventy Eight ran in circles in shock.

  Two random Joannas who shall be unnumbered threw the newest member into a washing mashine.

  "I am stuck!"

  Joanna struggled, but was, unsurprisingly, unable to escape the clutches of Washing Machine-kun.

  Graham entered the basement aa well. Graham is not the grown up toddler we saw in the first chapter, though. This Graham is really nothing. To be more precise, he is a clone, God-created, to mock the original Graham.

  "Food!", Seventy Seven Joanna's cried in furor. The newest Joanna simply sat by a corner. She waa hoping to starve herself to death to escape all this horror.

  "I see you are all quite set", Graham commented with a smirk on his beautiful, handsome and irresistible face which shone with gold and platinum (because Graham was very rich and could drive many airplanes and fly on many Bugattis).

  "Graham, daddy, please, take me away from Peter!", a random Joanna called.

  "Peter is my friend. You know that, Sixty Nine."

  "Oh," Joanna Sixty Nine said and fainted.

  "Oh my," said Graham with a humorous sigh and a shaking of his head, "I know I am awesome, but I didn't expect Sixty Nine's reaction to be so weak. She should have explode with happiness at me addressing her. Wouldn't you agree, girls?", he asked the others who crowded him.

  But, something he didn't expect happened.

  But before the reader, that is, you, can find out exactly what, I would like to go on a somewhat more distant tangent by describing how exactly most of the Joannas in this basement looked like. Or, in other words, I would like to ask you, the reader: what do you assume would happen if all seventy eight Joannas were to leave the basement, escape it together and appear, in broad daylight, in the middle of the filthy New York street that Peter Porter so loved?

  One can only guess. I know your intelligence, reader, is vastly inferior to those Joannas who may never appear in any Guinea World Record books, but nonetheless you probably deserve to know the following: all the Joannas appear different, because the share merely their first names to the biggest extent, and a few of them share surnamed and last names, although this is rare in this group of seventy eight.

  So, when the seventy eight Joannas suddenly decided to attack Graham and ran up the basement staircase, Graham could do nothing more than stay still at the bottom of the basement, shocked. In his defense, he was too startled, because he believed with his whole being that these losers would never save up their minuscule courages to attack him like this. If this life shock did not just happen in his mind, I assure you, Graham, being a male, would have easily overpowered seventy eight women, basically, as we all know, women are about seventy eight million times weaker than a single man. Thus, I believe this is perhaps the most suspicious choice of a plot point that I have ever presented to the reader. I apologize. In another universe, far more reasonable than this, the events took a more realistic turn: Graham, being the superior being, easily overpowered seventy eight weak women. But this reality, the current one we are all in unfortunate necessity of observing, is one of the dark ones, the darkest one, perhaps.

  And so, Graham could do nothing at the bottom of the staircase while all the unique Joannas roamed the New York streets freely.

  However, not all was fortunate for the seventy eight women. Joanna number one was ran over by a taxi cab. Joanna number six was stolen and murdered by a supervillain nicknamed by the New Yorkers as only "Purple Orc". Joanna number seventy was kidnapped by Lanos, a powerful alien from another planet. Joanna Number Forty Four was allowed to ascend to be the ruling empress of an oil-rich sultanate in Alaska. For those who are bad in geography, Alaska is one of the biggest continents on the planet and is home to various nations, the most known being United Securities of Amsterdam, the Vodka Federation, the Politeness Coalition and the native dwellers known as polar bears of pizza time.

  I felt obliged to provide the ignorant reader with the most comprehensive overview of the powerful Alaska continent because, I must admit, before I considered writing high-quality fiction, I actually majored in fields such as History and Oil-Extraction. Thus, you shall be content to feel your knowledge of the planet blossom with most amazing insights.

  In exchange for these insights, however, you must lose seven more Joannas. Each of them were unfortunately killed by strange circumstances we do not have space to go into here. We will mention only that the shocking appearance of each of the seven Joannas is hardly suitable for infants.

  Thus, only a small portion of Joannas survived the wild streets of the Pizza Yorkshire city. Those who did, however, found their biggest test yet: An angry Peter Porter chasing them using silver chains.

  But this is a story for another time.

  Now we shall allude to some extent to the possibility that nothing in Graham's or Peter's pasts indicated that they would turn out as evil and amazing as they did.

  One time, seventeen years ago, the two teenagers and strangers meet at a rock concert.

  "Hey, you look cool," the young Peter Porter said to Graham. "Do you like My Physical Romantics or Quantum Collars more?"

  If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  Graham was imprudent enough to consider Peter's question for longer than 10 seconds. Peter could not wait the 11th and he lunged at Graham, offended by his calm and patience at arriving at an answer to a question asked by another.

  "How dare a lousy basterd like you arrive at the conclusion that you can take your sweet time to think things through!", Peter screamed, though no one heard him since the music in this concert hall was very ear-destroying, "You must answer to me immediately from this point on!" Peter punched Graham again for good measure and leaned close to him. "I am gonna ask you again," he whispered, "Who is better, MPR or QC?"

  Graham, in his turn, was much too surprised to answer. Even with Peter threatening his physical body, Graham was too shocked to answer. So, Peter continued beating him up.

  After three minutes of one man beating up another, a security woman came and kicked Peter off Graham. She gave Graham one thousand bucks as compensation and then kicked Peter off the concert.

  Peter was sad and unhappy. If he knew that the security guards give money away like this, he would certainly do something smarter. He would provoke Graham, cause him to beat Peter up and collect a thousand, or more, dollars. Peter was sure he could act more convincingly that he was sad from being beat up than Graham ever could, so the security woman would probably give him 10 thousand dollars.

  "I have a wonderful idea." Graham walked into a nearby shopping mall and beat up a young girl. She seemed to be about three years of age. This, unsurprisingly, caused immediate anger. For example, Peter was immediately beaten up by the girl's sugar daddy and suggar mommy. Another dude came up and shot Peter in the ankle with a shotgun. Another woman came along and kicked Peter in the head, causing irreparable brain damage. Peter knew this because his brain suddenly felt smarter the moment he was thus kicked. So, the lesson is: always do your best to get kicked in the head so you can increase your IQ. However, you should remember also that doing that (allowing your head to be kicked) would also reduce twice as much IQ from your pretty heads as it would add, causing more damage than it causes good. The reason why Peter got smarter after brain damage was because he was special. Favored by the god of reincarnation, Truck-kun.

  With that said, Peter reaped what he came here for when the following happened.

  The desired security man came running. He immediately kicked all Peter's attackers away. He gave Peter one billion dollars and kicked everyone who attacked Peter out of the mall.

  The reason why the security person did not punish Peter himself was because he knew Peter was the chosen one of Truck-kun.

  So, now a billionaire, Peter happily walked through the mall, ate some candy a shady guy gave to him (reaping one hundred additional IQ points due to powerful brain enchancing drugs contained in the trustworthy shady man's candy) and went to sleep in his studio apartment.

  But, upon leaving the mall, Peter recognised who his taxi driver was.

  "Let me out," Peter screamed, but the doors did not open. "Someone," he shouted for help outside, "Please, this guy is a criminal!"

  Outside passerby, heeding Peter's call, broke the windows of the taxi and took Peter out. Angrily, Graham, the taxi driver, drove off, frustrated at his kidnapping plan foiled.

  The New Pizza Yorker government's officials rewarded each and every one of the passersby who helped Peter with one dollar fifty cents. This low amount was because later on Peter convinced everyone that he was in almost no danger whatsoever, being a tough guy. He was so convincing, in fact, that even those who rescued him believed him and accepted the minuscule reward with gusto and feelings of fairness and reciprocity.

  Graham, after this, had tried catching Peter many times. One time he used a dirty nuclear bomb for this, framing a five-chan user for its creation and making the poor lurker deal with the Federated Bears of Internet. Another time, Graham sent a bomb to Peter's mail, physically, but Peter ate it thinking it was pizza and thus was not harmed, even though Graham's plan was to blow up Peter's whole apartment complex, like, all the flats around, nearby buildings and the like.

  Graham, as one might suspect, was pissed after weeks of unsuccessful attempts at revenge.

  Finally, one day, he thought of a very good idea. At least, so it appeared to his mind. So, he was very eager to implement it immediately. He learned some programming (mainly he learned XMTP and Cascading Pizza Tops, the most popular Turing Complete languages) and used his knowledge to create a nice Full Dive Virtual Reality game about becoming animals and fruits who spoke with each other and fought for human mouths. The plot Graham came up with was indeed genius. But at any rate, he only wanted one thing: Trap Peter and use his administrative privileges to kill him inside Graham's own game! This idea was wonderful and Graham invested a lot of time into a marketing campaign to attract all minds of people to play, but mainly to attract Peter to play. He tried all sorts of tricks: "Peter Porter exclusive game", "Anyone named Peter Porter gets +9999 crit and defense bonuses", "Peter Porter gets to be an admin for free", and the like. Strangely, Peter never saw these ads, but if he had, he would never have bought Graham's game. So, in this sense Graham's marketing failure in its design to attract Peter was actually a success in thin disguise.

  So, how did Peter end up playing this game, if at all?

  Well, first of all, Graham's game was called Bees and Snails. As above mentioned, it is about all kinds of fruits qnd vegetables attempting to rescue human moths.

  Thus, Peter one day saw a boy by the name of Exlester reading a book about game design. One of the examples was provided in the book's chapter 69: When you want to think of the most amazing game (the book's author wrote), you should only look at Graham's newest work, Honey Bees and Grenda Snails. The first Full Dive Virtual Reality game made by a non-Japanese developer is now available! To inspect the game's engine, we hired the most sophisticated DTML pros whose main job was to parse the difficult and arcane header and bobber clauses. And so on and so forth. To avoid getting over the fair use laws, I will refrain from posting more of the copyrighted text of this game dev book, but for those interested, they may find it online or in their local library, and it is called "Making Games in 100 chapter by Lorenza De Piero, 2077".

  So, Peter indeed saw the boy reading this book and he was interested in Bees and Snails immediately. He asked the boy about the game and the boy, whose name was Potato-kun, said this: "I never know what I am going to do with rude people such as yourself, who interrupt my peaceful reading sessions. But I think", Potato-kun said with a scowl, "That I will invest my hard-earned money in buying you a FD headset as well as a copy of this nasty game. Are you thus prepared to leave me alone with my books?", he pressed Peter.

  But Peter was already nodding, eager to play a game, especially if he wasn't the one paying. But, he got a wonderful idea, "Double my money and the deal is a deal!"

  Potato-kun evidently did not think much of Peter's financial situation, but he then had to give Peter a billion dollars, bankrupting himself in the process. People who go bankrupt are killed in our wonderful country, so his shameful burial consisted of a sign "Here likes a potaro who died like a tomato, with much shame"

  "I like the idea of playing this game," said Peter and entered the world of the web.

  Immediately, he was imprisoned by Graham, who have not slept for about two years, constantly improving Bees and Snails to lure Peter in.

  "Finally, you are mine!"

  "Oh no, Graham. Is this really you? You are so powerful."

  These words were enough to make Graham fall in love with Peter and thus Graham took back his plan of killing Peter. Instead, the two became best friends (who just happened to live, have kids and have a ceremony that vaguely resembled marriage together) as the history books would later teach.

  Thus, the story of how Peter and Graham found each other ended.

  But the real story is only beginning. It only takes a single mention of the most curious fact: in the fave of adversity, each Joanna hated Peter more than anything because the man repserented a thief to Graham's IPherness. Every respectable person wants an Iphern but no one wants a filthy Therobot. Thus, Joannas that survived, even if before they almost killed Graham, now wanted to kill Peter even more because they could overpower Graham, but Peter was unlikeable to them.

  So, they devised a killing plan.

  "We will lure Peter in at 11 pm tonight. We will offer him two Joannas' blood. If he refuses, we will offer him free cow's milk."

  "Hey," Joanna Thirteen protested. "Didn't I tell you to stop calling me cow?" She turned away in dismay and said, "And my milk is too tasty to be shared with others! Only I can drink it, and I am fully self-sufficient like that, thank you very much."

  Having said this tiradeous speech, Thirteen left the planning room.

  "How are we going to lure Peter in without Thirteen's assets?"

  "Easy. We can just hse a substitute. Human milk and goat blood are most similar. I am sure Peter will flock to either like a singular moth to a thousand flames", said Sixteen.

  Thus it was decided.

  At 11 pm, Peter came inside the abandoned warehouse where the meeting was to take place.

  "Are you happy about your measly life, Peter Porter?", Sixteen asked him severely.

  Peter scoffed in major derision of every single thing Sixteen stood for or would ever stand for.

  "I will not tolerate this behaviour!", a time traveling version of Sixteen said as she came out of a portal and shot Peter in the head with a gun which was so powerful, it never seemed like it could be as powerful as it was.

  "Hm," Sixteen said, "Are you my future self?"

  The Future-Sixteen agreed. "Ask me some questions if you like. I have some free time before I have to kill more arrogant people."

  Sixteen pondered, while the rest of Joannas listened with intense curiousity.

  "Well, first of all, what is my purpose in this boring life?", Joanna finally asked her future self.

  Future-Sixteen answered honestly, "Good women must cook and stay at home. They must help get their husbands pregnant and take care of them until the husbands give birth."

  "Amazing! I always thought I must kick my husband whenever he is pregnant!", a random Joanna exclaimed.

  "Exactly," another confirmed, "I was taught that kicking in the stomach right where the baby is healthy for both the father and the child or the children!"

  Every Joanna except the Future-Sixteen laughed in joy.

  "No," said Sixteen from the Future, "I must say only that this is no joking matter and that I must go now. I found another target who must be eliminated."

  "Who", Sixteen from the Present asked.

  "It is... you."