Yellow Zone News

On a television, Yellow Zone News is playing in the background. San Francisco had been exposed to a reality warping singularity event and the Yellow Zone Non-Proliferation forces had contained it before it had spread further. Video of a pink glowing dome over the skyline of the city before the camera turned back to a talking head.

They seem to have been on the inside, because as the pink light shimmered across them, they started changing from your stereotypic glitzy drag queen towards a sharp dressed man.

"And so we seem to have weathered this local event," the talking head said In a decreasingly flamboyant voice as he gave himself a quick look-over and coughed as his voice went down a few octaves. "The Yellow Zone Authorities, after getting the formal request from the mayor to do a reset, started the customary 12 hour countdown. As much as your everyday citizen might have wanted to have this event undone as quickly as possible, any transient Yellow Zone Citizens have a right to a minimum amount of time to get back to their Yellow Zone to avoid being involuntarily reset."

"And as we are obliged to inform our viewers," the female talking head back in the studio said with a hint of annoyance in her voice. "Any ordinary citizen is also allowed to take refuge at a Yellow Zone in such events if they wish to 'opt out' of being reset."

"That is right, the number of altered humans are unfortunately slowly rising across the nation," the sharp dressed man said as he was gently wiping some glitter off his forehead with a handkerchief for a short second. He seemed more and more relieved by the second of being back to his former self. "More so around large Yellow Zones located across the world, which trigger the requirement of new green zone districts to be... regulated. so the rights of Altered citizens of having a green zone within 12 hours driving distance of their home are being upheld."

"Some people say the rules amendment against public indecency made becoming Altered more attractive," the female said as she jumped onto the zonophobic rhetoric. "As it gave them more powerful magical enhancements to help them avoid breaking the rules."

"Indeed," the male journalist said with a sigh. "The preservationist movement's demands for public indecency not being aided through unnatural glamor but personal responsibility, fell on flat ears with the globalist YZ authorities. Certain states have arranged for Altered bathrooms, but since there's no way to easily disclose your altered or natural state, you never know if the person in the stall next to you are looking at you with x-ray vision or influencing you with pheromones, or other unnatural things."

"True, true," the female back in the studio said before letting his words sink in with the audience back home. "Still, thank you very much for your coverage of this traumatizing event for all the natural citizens of San Francisco, Boris Carlson. You stayed very true to yourself before the reset."

"Thank you very much. All in a day's work for humanity," he said with a shrewd smile as the broadcast went back to the female in the studio.

"We'll get back to San Francisco as more news unfold. As we know, these resets cause great trauma and economic damage to our citizens. Tune in as our next guest will talk about reparations: Are they worth anything when they have no cost for the perpetrator? Don't miss the discussion, right after these messages."

You sigh as you turn down the sound on the television. Living in a world ruled by humans turned gods was pretty... eventful. So those who had the will for it kept an eye on breaking YZ news, whatever the news source.

The YZ Authorities, as they liked to be called, had been around for a few years. They'd been communicating with most of the governments around the world, telling them that they had the final say now in big questions. Wars were suspended, every single nuclear weapon vanished without a trace, magical electrical plants were placed around the world, replacing the most polluting energy sources in a few days.

They don't directly involve themselves in minor, everyday injustices. Which was probably a part of the partially unofficial deal they made with the UN in the name of 'stability and freedom.' Considering the YZ probably could turn every human on earth into frogs with a snap of their fingers, most rational ruling entities begrudgingly accepted the offer.

On the other hand, even if ordinary people were protected against involuntary becoming YZ slaves, there was always the opportunity to get caught up in some local shenanigans with altered civilians and reality-bending artifacts. Outside of Yellow Zones, such shenanigans were not meant to happen in public and authorities did their best to locate and confiscate reality warping artifacts that their users does not have the licenses for.

Of course, such artifacts were very popular for unaltered people. People interested in making life a little easier, taking **** on someone, or just plain old getting rich quick schemes were eager at getting their hands on any sort of reality-bending artifact.

The YZ authorities seems to consider such explorations in their best interests. If people are unhappy about something they've been exposed to, they are free to go to a yellow zone and request a personal reset. Or, as the deal the YZ made make clear, they could register as an altered citizen and have their current form archived, bringing some advantages to life that unaltered humans does not enjoy.

Some people begrudgingly made trips to the YZ to make sure nobody had altered them without their awareness of it. There were tons of stories. Stories like someone being handed Bimbo Gum and turned into ditzy bombshells, enslaved to the gum giver without them or their friends and family realizing something had changed. Or someone visiting a Yellow Zone and getting a little too curious or arrogant. Then finding out that their authorities had no power to save them in there, leaving them with experiences they'd never forget and changes that were not free to undo.

Naturally, the zonophobes were arguing that reality alterations should always be made without manipulating third party awareness. Arguing that it was manipulation of people's memories and could be used to trick and exterminate zonophobes. The YZ authorities gave only one statement on the subject: For the safety of altered people, minor memory adjustments to their friends and acquaintances were considered an acceptable loss. But any awareness alteration would be modifiable when someone came in for a reset, with certain caveats such as right to privacy of third parties and the likes.

You shake your head and decide it's no point wasting time worrying too much about the idiots on television. You had other things to worry about right now.