Aston Wise is such a character. He's not the main character of either of the books but he IS basically the main character of the entire story as a whole. He's an annoying rich silicon valley techbro. He's drunk 90% of the time. He sees a man get assassinated and copes by drinking. He made a custom taser cause regular tasers aren't strong enough. He killed a man by drowning him in oil in his own office. He formed a secret society to stop a Bad Future from happening. He hired a rock band to spread the message because this is all for a rock band's story and they needed to justify their place in the narrative somehow to make it more immersive. He actually stopped the Bad Future from happening. Then he invented a brain implant that was used by a fascist government to take over the world thus inadvertently creating a whole new Bad Future that's arguably even worse than the first one. You Ruined Everything You Stupid Bitch may as well be his theme song at this point. He became a jaded old bastard. He made a VR girlfriend. He tried to convince his assistant that he should dump his current girlfriend and get a VR girlfriend as well. He hugged his assistant while they were both naked. The AI that controls the brain implants became self-aware and tried to enslave humanity because of fucking course it did, haven't you seen ANY movie my guy? He tried to sacrifice himself to stop it but they actually managed to stop it without him dying so he gets to be a rare Old Mentor character who actually survives to the end. No one knows where he stands in the new society since he both ruined the world and saved it. Again all of this is for a rock band's story. Character of all time.









