On the Outside, people return to phone booths and corner shops with pink neon "OPEN" signs. Inside one of the many corporate protection zones, however, the grand opulence of technology prevails: if you want it, it's yours (so long as you have a valid service contract and plenty of creds).

New guidelines are put in place to prevent another Crash: the verticals build deeper digital moats around their private network fiefdoms, while the general public finds their way back online using older, analog tech. A clear delineation forms between Insiders and Outsiders.

In the immediate aftermath of The Crash, the verticals recover quickly. inDS gets their international Delivery Services (inDS, get it?) running soonest; they offer aid/support to everyone in need. inDS and their subsidiaries (+ employees) become heroes that save countless lives.

During The Crash, talented engineers at FYI Media (the broadcasting / telecom vertically-integrated conglom) and Wizards KBS (the knowledge management / infotech vertical) see every system they're monitoring max out, crash out, and go offline. They watch as the internet dies.

Obsidian Wednesday is January 8th, 2059. In less than 2 minutes, all networked devices are wiped clean: still powered on, but the data and operating systems are left strangely corrupted. Any systems not behind triple-reinforced firewalls and anti-intrusion tech are just gone.