"Do you have any idea what year this simulation is in?"

"Spacetime is corrupted, but it's supposed to be around the end of 2070. I am already seeing assets from other time periods and simulations... it seems the Martian computer is quite corrupted already. This simulation should end up being part of Derry Hill soon too... but they have already been bleeding into each other."

Atop a red rock formation outside of Las Vegas, its downtown strip dominated by soaring skyscrapers that were draped in hologram ads hovering by...

General Hendrix, Camilo, a smog golem, and Farouq from the future stood together in a row observing the city of sin.

"It seems my Dem1urge form got trapped in a session," Camilo said.

"I got out just in time," General Hendrix said.

image [https://img.wattpad.com/1c9bacf67002c328e2bf4506a26819600be46693/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f47684973334c4b716463733245773d3d2d313430373639393338382e313761333633303866656237386431363538333234373935383532342e706e67?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]

"That's Mirca!" Gabe yelled.

Across the dark hallway from Gabe and Joaquim, Mirca the tech corgi howled briefly to summon three glowing canine silhouettes.

The lights dimmed down to reveal... ninja Shiba with katanas in between their fangs.

"Shiba, huskies, and corgis..." Joaquim murmured.

"... all the dogs that are more like cats than dogs," Gabe added while shaking his head.

The reason she summoned them, was because... Mirca wanted to go back on the computer. As the undead were pouring in from the PC bang and the labyrinth, Mirca sauntered back to the computer panel that covered a whole side of the room she was in.

"She's either confident in her summons or lazy," Joaquim said.

"Why not both?"

"Wait Gabe, what do you know about why we are here? I was told about some machine on Mars..."

"... all of this shit is happening on a computer in Mars, back when it had a livable atmosphere... and Mirca has access to it," Gabe said. "We were on another computer, but it fell to malware. The computer was hidden away using holograms from the earthplexus inside the jungle... but the enemy decided to just crash the simulation instead of trying to find it. So backups are running on the Mars computer."

"Gabe, do you have any memory of the clown malware? I was there with you in the jungle simulation."

"Nope, don't remember a jungle at all."

It seems... this version of Gabe Joaquim was with was from the very early sessions. Before they took the 2 platoon test.

"So we're actually in some kind of matrix then..." Joaquim said. "So what I saw with Ember and Ameen... was it an illusion or a simulation?"

"They are both basically the same thing... we might also be inside a human mind. It's hard to tell the difference without ascending or looping around."

Before Joaquim could ask what he meant, Joaquim was observing the undead swine that trudged in and picked out the one that seemed to be the slowest or the glitchiest. The one on the right of the hallway that was straddling the wall went backwards slightly as if its model rewound, and Joaquim influx punched the zombie. The pig flew like a ragdoll towards the back, delaying the human and feline zombies it struck towards the other end of the hallway.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"I am guessing we delay these guys for the corgi?"

The corgi barked back in what sounded like a response, however Joaquim had no idea if it was a yes or a no.

"Move back a bit Joaquim."

While Joaquim hopped back, Gabe incinerated the front row of pigs with fireflies that were waiting on the ceiling for them.

"Sorry, I at least wanted you to try a punch," Gabe said. "I was getting worried that passive influx was only going to your lower body."

"Thanks for worrying I guess."

Gabe took a while to respond, getting Joaquim to regret what he said slightly.

His brother then sighed. "I guess I deserve that."

"... I could have phrased that better."

Gabe took a moment to summon more fireflies by putting both hands on his jar and he motioned them forwards.

"I should have been worrying about the right things sooner. And not worry about... things you can't change about yourself."

While the fires manifested into a firewall then faded after the fireflies on the ceiling ran out of Gabe's provided influx, Joaquim glanced back to see the ninja Shiba running past him and a faint smile from Gabe. "I made a lot of mistakes."

"We were all under Ameen's wing... I haven't had the most peaceful thoughts either," Joaquim said. "After we did the test, we talked on the Harlynx platform. I did not tell you about the envy I was also dealing with from what I saw in the flying city."

"Well... now I'll know about it when I talk to you again in the future..."

"Which is a version of me that's in the past..." Joaquim said while scratching his head.

"This shit's confusing," Gabe said with a chuckle. "Let me tell you though... it does get easier to understand."

Joaquim glanced forward to find the three Shiba slicing and dicing the undead mob. It almost as if they were breakdancing and parkouring with how fast they were dashing around.

"Wait, the pale king is hiding again."

"All these fuckers fight like cowards," Gabe yelled, also turning around to glance into the computer panel room.

The undead king, with his cape made of pale skin, was already behind Mirca.

image [https://img.wattpad.com/1c9bacf67002c328e2bf4506a26819600be46693/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f47684973334c4b716463733245773d3d2d313430373639393338382e313761333633303866656237386431363538333234373935383532342e706e67?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]

"I have a plan now," Operator Greendown said while sitting cross-legged and upside down on the bridge protruding on the space elevator of Menouthis. "However, I need info on our influx gate situation."

"Influx gate?" Liesar asked.

"It's the key to stabilizing the fractal shape we exist in," Sun Yaw replied. "It will also have the ongoing effect of stabilizing all the data that ever was and ever will be by having the shape stretch for infinity. The stories and simulations that have multiverses will be locked into ten simulations as well, which in turn will stabilize language."

"Stabilize language?"

"It's only a working hypothesis, but I believe this all started within a human mind," Operator Greendown said. "Then years after he was trying to run a story through his head... his home simulation is in a time period that experienced a big jump in machine learning capabilities."

"I am more into magical astrophysics," Liesar said. "I still have no clue what you are talking about."

"A big jump in machine learning will cause people to call it AI anyway," Sun Yaw said. "Many tech companies will claim to have achieved singularity... dishonestly and out of sheer ignorance. It will be like many religions and cults being born again... like pagan times, except many people and businesses will just claim to have achieved singularity rather than claim to know the right God or gods. Fantasy and science fiction will blur together when tech companies try to train AI and holograms on esotericism in the hopes to control people through scaring them, brain hacking them, or indoctrinating them. Maybe mixing all three together."

"And in that kind of era... something happened in both arak and human civilizations. You could call it a pattern," Operator Greendown said.

"... and that pattern was?" Liesar asked.

Sun Yaw cleaned his teeth before speaking.

"There were not just biological pandemics due to climate change for both civilizations... but language epidemics too," Sun Yaw said. "It will be easier to mislead people into thinking a word has a different definition and manipulating them that way rather than just indoctrinating them into an ideology. When enough words have been changed in a population... you could theoretically control that population the same way an ideology would have."

"Many intelligent beings will fall to multiple language epidemics and start babbling... hence the Tower of Babel," Sun Yaw said. "It's a metaphor too. A pattern. Back in the past there were times where people would just babble, change definitions of words when convenient, and look at images for hours on end too. Whether it's a cellphone or a piece of papyrus or a wall... it's all very similar in the grand scheme of things."

"And one way for a being to be able to analyze chatbot babble to reverse engineer the prompt and bot without forgetting what words actually mean..." Operator Greendown said, turning his astral head to his left to glance at Liesar.

Liesar took a moment to scratch in between his horns then he pointed to the sky when he had an epiphany.

"He... he wrote a story. A simulation."