[RED]

She wanted to jump back into the simulation with Leon and warn him. However, Coro had made her wary to approach her computer. First she thought about using another terminal, but Leon was in the live simulation now. It was safe to assume that a new terminal wouldn’t do anything but give Coro another way to hurt her. 

Maybe I could make another AI to combat Coro? 

She didn’t want to say anything aloud because. Coro was always there watching her. 

But how… Even if I used a system off the grid, Coro would just intercept it when I try to upload it… 

Red had spent hours thinking of countless solutions deal with it. She refused to call Coro a ‘He’. 

“Wayt r u goin do?” 

Coro’s childish version made veins pop out in her forehead every time it spoke. 

“Yous knooow u cnt stop me.” 

“Shut the fuck up!” 

Rage finally taking its hold, She slammed a fist into the tablet. Glass shards fell to the floor. A cleaning bot scurried over from a little garage door in the wall and quickly sucked up the mess. 

She pressed a button on the tablets handle and a service arm swung near her holding another glass pane. She slipped the handle into the glass slab and continued to look busy. 

“Heya dats purtty neeeeat!” 

Coro jeered at her as she aggressively tapped away at the new screen. 

She glared back up at Coro and found it pressing it’s face against to other side of the display. She stared at It for several moments without saying a word and slowly turned back to the tablet in her lap.

“Yous no funs.” 

Coro blew a raspberry at Red trying to get her attention. 

“Dontcha wanna knows wyat Leon is doin?”

Red looked up from her tablet again, curiosity painted over her face. 

“What do you mean? He is still in a repair pod in the medical bay.”

“Looks lyke he jus woke up!” 

Coro moved to the side and Leon was visible with Ash sitting beside him. Blood covered the ground around the repair pod. 

“What the hell happened… Why is there so much blood?”

Red placed her tablet onto the bed and walked over to the monitor to get a closer look. She kept a bit of distance, still cautious of Coro on the edge of the display.

“Ohhh you dydn’t sees! ASH SMASHED TWELVE CORES INTO THAT ARM OF HIS! HAHAHA!” 

Coro’s voice shifted again to his other persona.

She jumped back at the voice change. 

“Wait twelve?!” 

Those cores are used to destroy code in the simulations. I think this world uses them as a means to self destruct… 

“Where the hell did she find that many?”

“OHH THAT’S EASY! THERE WAS A CASE OF THEM IN THE ARMORY! HAHAHA! THEY WERE… LETS JUST SAY THAT THEY WERE OF A HIGHER QUALITY! HAHAHA!” 

“Perfect Cores?! Why would all twelve be in one place?!” 

Red stumbled back and tripped to the floor in surprise. 

“DING! DING! DING! GET THE LADY A PRIZE! HAHAHA!” 

Coro ducked behind one of the windows and came back up with a party popper. It pulled the tab causing confetti to fall on the other side of the screen.

Perfect cores are bundles of Stuxnet style virus’s bound to an AI core. The Stuxnet virus was designed to destroy machinery in the real world rather than in the virtual. The AI bound to the virus deconstructed all of the code it came into contact with into sting of zeros. This caused irreparable damage to the data and machinery running any attached program. 

This deadly combination of code was dubbed the “Perfect Core” by a programmer named Robert Jenkins. He rebelled against the ‘World Select’ simulation back at its inception. He wanted to to bring people back to reality but was not well received.He got kicked off the planet for even suggesting to destroy the most lucrative device to ever exist in human history. 

Everyone who had been placed into the simulation had all their property liquidated and were immediately placed into a stasis state. With their bodies at minimum requirements to keep alive, it cost pennies to keep them in the simulation. The remaining husks were sent to the Pods.

Before Robert was exiled he uploaded fifteen copies of his “Perfect Core” into the live simulation, but didn’t have the chance to activate it. Years later, Red had found thirteen of the Perfect Cores scattered around the many Earth’s.

In an attempt to destroy the cores, She tried to delete one causing it to detonate. The corruption consumed a full string of worlds leaving nothing but thirteen of the cores in its place. All of the humans jacked into the affected worlds had their brains melted and backups erased. Red had single handily ended over three billion lives with a couple mouse clicks.

Not knowing what to do she kept one of the cores and spread the remaining twelve cores out to random worlds around the simulation, praying to whatever God that would listen, that no one to ever find them. This was nearly two hundred years ago. 

She pulled out the thirteenth core a few decades ago and tried to extract the AI from it. Finally after many tireless nights and closed simulations, she had created a new type of learning AI from the core. As for the remaining twelve, it would seem that someone had brought the twelve Perfect Cores to one location ‘EARTH F-675’.

She sat there on the carpet for a long while, listening to the demonic laughter of Coro on the other side of the monitor before she spoke. 

“So… if Leon has twelve in him now… does that make you?…”

Coro cut her off before she could finish her question. 

“I AM THE CUMULATION OF ALL THE AI’S IN THOSE CORES! WHERE DID I GET ALL THIS POWER? THAT’S ALL THANKS TO YOU ‘RED’ HAHAHA!”

“Me? what did I do?! I… I…”

She got quiet when she remembered about how she had given Leon root access to the simulation. Besides herself, Leon was the only other entity that had access to the hidden stats settings for the simulation. 

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Coro saw the realization fall over her face and switched back to his childish self.

“Awwwe yous gyunna cryy? Dynt worry… I’LL TAKE GOOD CARE OF LEON! HAHAHA! LOOK! HE IS LEARNING HOW TO USE MY POWERS WITHOUT MY HELP!”

Red looked back up to the screen to see Leon standing in the bottom of a massive crater with his hand thrust into a wall of magma. She glanced over to Coro’s face to find enveloped in pure bliss. 

Coro’s persona changed again to something a bit more calm than its previous incarnations. 

“I can’t wait… Only a few more minutes now…” 

“What… what d you mean? What’s going to happen in a few minutes?” 

She tried to talk to Coro but it couldn’t be bothered to give her the attention. It was consumed by the scene of Leon on the screen. 

“Look… He is manipulating her emotions now. So we can even change things like that in the code…” 

Coro was enraptured by the actions of the couple on the screen.

“Wait we?! What do you mean by we?!” 

Red was beginning to get frantic. She jumped to her feet and ran over to the monitor. She started to shake the monitor to get Coro’s attention.

Coro slowly turned to face Red. 

“What? You are interrupting a moment here. Can’t whatever you have to say wait.”

“When you say we, you mean you and Leon are…”

“Yes.”

Red went silent as Coro turned back to the watch Leon. She slumped into her seat defeated and stared down at her feet. 

If they are one in the same now… I guess they are basically the same program… Does this mean I wont be able to communicate with Leon anymore? Or will it just be Coro?…

“Hey Coro.”

Red’s voice was hushed and nearly inaudible.

“Hmm?” 

Coro seemed completely uninterested in Red. Leon had just flicked a hole into the ceiling of the hanger.

“Are you going to consume… is… is Leon still going to exist… with you…”

Red’s voice was cut off by a knot in her throat. She slowly looked up toward the screen to find yet another version of Coro.

“Yeah. Don’t worry he will still be there. Just with a lot of me in there too.” 

Coro closed its eyes and smiled back at Red. “

We’ll be like one big family.” 

Coro shook it’s head and opened its eyes to reveal glowing red eyes.

“LIKE ONE BIG FUCKED UP FAMILY IN HIS HEAD! HAHAHA!”

Red shuttered seeing Coro change persona so rapidly and drastically. 

“O… Okay… if I don’t try to delete you, will I be able to come back into the simulation with you?”

“Yeah sure that sounds fine.”

Coro smiled. 

“WATCH IT BITCH! I DON”T WANT YOU TO FUCK THIS UP FOR ME!”

Coro’s eyes shifted. 

“Comm on guaiis don’t be such meannies!” 

Coro frowned. 

“Whatever.” 

Coro looked away. 

Red blinked several times and stared at Coro. 

“Um… okay… I promise I won’t try anything… so long as you wont cast aside Leon.”

“Hmph. Do as you please. That’s what I plan to do. Look. It’s almost time. My other persona are talking to Leon now. You missed him breaking apart the planets crust. We will be going into his body after they are done.”

This Coro seemed to be more carefree compared to the other versions Red had seen so far. Pressing her luck. she tried to question it.

“What happens… when you go into his body?” 

Coro glanced back to Red. 

“I’ll tell you this much. When we are in control, Leon will not be there. Well… not in a visible way. He will be in a limbo like state, but he will be able to see and hear everything we do with the body. That’s all I can say right now. See you soon Red.”

Coro vanished from the screen and Red was stuck watching Leon shove his hand through a screen and turn back time. 

“How the fuck… That shouldn’t be possible… even for me…”

Then Leon… Coro brushed a hand through Leon’s… It’s hair and it shifted from a long curly brown to a flat icy white.

Red’s jaw dropped. To be able to change appearance settings like that without a prompt was impossible. 

Should I go in now?… no… better stay here and watch to see what happens first… I don’t trust putting myself in there with Coro yet. If it’s the embodiment of the Perfect Cores then It could easily kill me in the real world if It wanted.

Red pulled up the avatar folder and found something she didn’t expect. There were three files now. [Ash], [Leon], and [C̷͍̎ö̷̱́r̵̪̬̎o̸̡̖̓͊]. The last file was greyed out, not the She would try to mess with it anyway. 

She promptly clicked on Leon’s file. There were no stats or sliders. There was however a text window. Red clicked on it and began to type.  

“Hopefully Leon can see this…”

[LEON]

I leaned back into the recliner and the bottom popped up to catch my legs. It really was a comfortable chair. I looked back up to the monitor showing myself… I guess Coro now… 

He had reversed time by turning his palm counterclockwise on a blank screen. 

“Hmm… Thats’s interesting…” 

Then he pulled his hand through his hair changing his appearance. 

“Wow thats kinda cool. Guess I could do something like that too… Don’t want to accidentally blow my face off though…”

I looked down and rubbed my gut.

“Maybe I could even get rid of this. Would be nice to loose weight with that little effort.” 

Wonder what I can do here… Maybe I can talk to Red… 

I started to look around and the black emptiness. I turned back to the monitor to see another screen pop up in front of me. 

HEY CAN YOU SEE THIS?

“Red? Yeah I can see it just fine. So any Idea what all this is? I guess I did something bad because time stopped like when the bombs fell… This thing… Coro talked to me like a child… then a demon? Anyway he said he could reverse time if I gave him control.”

UGH… DON’T CALL IT A HIM PLEASE…

“Why not? He is me with a different personality right?… by the by… He said he became part of me when the cores got pushed into me… what does that make me…”

…WHAT… WHAT DO YOU MEAN?…

“Coro kinda inferred that He and I are both AI… I just thought you might know…

*SIGH* YES YOU ARE AN AI… BUT YOU ARE DIFFERENT! YOU ARE A LEARNING AI… THOUGH CORO MIGHT ALSO BE A LEARNING AI… WITH A MULTI-PERSONALITY DISORDER… 

“Okay… Why didn’t you tell me before?

…YOU SEEM VERY ACCEPTING OF THIS…

“Well I jumped from a building to be stopped before I hit the ground… I woke up on Hawaii… I got some kind of power and knocked my self out using it… Then I woke up with a glowing arm? Or something… It’s been a crazy ass day.”

…I GUESS YOU HAVE A POINT… ANY WAY… I WAS GOING TO MAKE SURE YOU ARE ALRIGHT… CORO IS… OR MIGHT BE DANGEROUS… I HAVEN’T DECIDED YET…

“Who are you Red?” 

I stared at the screen for a few moments before any text appeared.

…DO YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW…

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know. I’m in a pretty accepting mood right now… You already said you weren’t God so…”

HAHA YEAH I’M NOT GOD… I’M SURE YOU REMEMBER ASHLEY…

“Wait… you’re Ashley?!”

ACCEPTING HUH?… YEAH I’M ASHLEY… I’M ALSO ASH… NOT REALLY CREATIVE WITH NAMES…

“But Ash seemed to change personalities… were you the Ash that I met on the island?”

YES THAT WAS ME. SHE CHANGED WHEN I OVERSLEPT. AND TURNED INTO AN NPC…

“NPC? Like from a video game?”

YEAH… SHE IS DIFFERENT FROM ME NOW… LISTEN REMEMBER WHEN YOU SELECTED A WORLD?

“Yeah what about it?”

WELL… YOU ARE IN A SIMULATION I MADE… ALL THOSE WORLDS ARE PLACED I HAVE MADE. MOST OF HUMANITY IS IN THE SIMULATION SO… IT’S NOT LIKE YOU ARE MISSING ANYTHING IN THE REAL WORLD…

“Oh… Thanks for telling me all this…” 

I shrugged but gave a weak smile. 

“This is the only reality I’ve ever know so doesn’t really make a difference to me.”

SO… YOU AREN’T UPSET WITH ME?…

“Why would I be? I exist… And life is more interesting now than it was in the office… so no I’m not mad at you or anything.”

OKAY I’M GOING TO TRY SOMETHING… DON’T BE SURPRISED IF SOMETH…

The screen suddenly disappeared and a cloud of pixels started to form in its place. A short girl, only about a foot taller than the recliner appeared in front of me. She had nappy hair going all the way down to her calves and bright green eyes. She looked away from me as soon as she became whole and blushed furiously. 

“Hey… Leon… I’m Red…”

She started to squirm as I stared at her. 

“So… now you can see the real me…”

I smiled and stood up from the recliner. I took her in my arms with a tight embrace. She got stiff as a board.

“Wha… What are you doing?!” 

She was fighting to get away from me.

I let go of her and she nearly fell on the floor. 

“Sorry… I was just happy to see you… You’re like a shorter version of Ashley. Guess I’m trying to say I’m just happy you are alive…”

She glared at me for a few seconds before replying with a heavy sigh. 

“ *Sigh* It’s ok. I’m glad you are alive too. I thought you might had been inaccessible when Coro showed up.”

“So Coro… how many personalities of him have you seen?”

Red shuttered. 

“Hmph him… I have been calling Coro an it… guess if Coro is part of you I can start calling it a him… I have seen him as a child, demon, nice guy, and a somewhat uninterested but normal guy… I’m assuming there will be at least twelve versions of him.”

“Wow that’s a lot! What makes you think there are twelve of him?”

“Because that’s the number of Perfect Cores that Ash put into you. You would be the thirteenth… Or the first. depending on how you look at it.”

“Ohh… so I am one of those cores…” 

I looked down at my feet with a half smile.

“No! No… You are something completely different. You base AI is from one of those core but I removed all the bad parts.”

“You removed the bad parts? So… You made me? I guess you are kinda like my God then…”

“Please don’t call me a God… I’m just the the one that made this simulation…” 

Ash looked sad and turned away from me.

“Then what are you to me? Just calling you a friend seems wrong considering everything…”

“All you need to know is that I am on your side… Coro is debatable at this point… But if I delete him or try to mess with him then it could be the end of everything…”

“Okay… I guess I can accept that… But Coro is part of me… so if you are on my side you are on his side too…”

“I… I guess you’re right… I just don’t trust him…” 

Red looked back up into my eyes. 

“If you truly think he is a part of you then… I’ll try to accept that.” 

Red looked over at the monitor with Coro and Ash in the control center. 

“I need to go. If you need me use this.” 

Red handed me a small AI core.

“What do I do with it?” 

I took it in my hand. It wasn’t being absorbed to I rolled it around in my palm for a better look.

“It will absorb into your head. It’s a communicator. It will let you be able to talk to me without the screen when I’m not here in person. Imagine it like a phone call. Just the phone is in your head.” 

Ash’s body faded away like dust in the wind.

“Guess I have nothing to loose at this point…” 

I lifted the core up to my head and it launched from my hand unto my temple. I could feel it burrowing into my mind, but it wasn’t painful.

As soon as it stopped  moving I heard Red’s voice pop up in my head. 

“Hey is it working? I hope it didn’t hurt.”

“Yeah I hear you just fine. Felt a bit weird… but no no, it didn’t hurt.”

I rubbed my temple to make sure there wasn’t a hole in my head. 

“Good. If you need anything just tap your temple twice and call for me… Ill do my best to answer.” 

Red’s voice was as clear as it was a few minutes ago when she was standing in front of me. 

“Got it. Guess I’ll just sit here and watch Coro… not sure what else to do…” 

I walked back over to the recliner and kicked my feet up. 

Red didn’t reply… 

Guess she is already busy with something… Ohh well… At least I can communicate with her now. 

I turned over my palm and closed my eyes. 

Coro did say this is like a sleeping… so a dream?… Wonder what if I can make things… Imagine popcorn… Imagine popcorn… 

I opened my eyes and a massive red and white bucket filled with steaming popcorn was in my hand.

“Holy shit! really didn’t think that would work… Either way this should make watching him more interesting.”

*Click*

“Leon. We need to talk…”

A voice with a deep raspy baritone came from everywhere, consuming me. All I could see was a burning light. The sound of birds tickled my ears, and a gentle breeze broke against my face.