What am I doing?

The Creator paced outside Bread’s room. He didn’t know why he did that. Bread didn’t do anything wrong. Why couldn’t he just say it to his face?

He was the one in the wrong. All he had to do was dissociate. It wasn’t Bread’s fault. What was he doing unloading all his emotional baggage on the boy? That damn Azan. Made it seem like he was actually going crazy for a second.

“I apologize for my… No. No, that’s not it. That doesn’t sound sincere.” He cleared his throat. “I made a mistake, Bread. I—No!” He sighed. What was he doing practicing a simple social interaction?

He pushed the glass panel in. Mistakes or not, he’d just wing it.

“Bread, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” He looked around. “Bread?” It was empty—completely devoid of life. “Bread!”

The chair was splintered in half—a leg was thrown across the room. There were lines of dried blood smeared over parts of the window, and it was also slightly dented outward, almost as if someone had pushed into it with their hands.

What is all this?

He overturned the table. He vigorously scoured every corner. Perhaps Bread was hiding? Behind the walls? Camouflaged? No, what was he thinking? That was impossible! There was no way. Nothing. Not even a single piece of fabric from the boy’s coverings.

Bread was nowhere to be found.

…

“Where’s Bread?” The Creator burst through the doors of Simular’s real world office. It wasn’t often he visited this place. The real world was always so disappointing for him to see.

“Who?” Azan twirled around on his chair, casually spinning his dislodged finger in tandem.

The Creator was flabbergasted by his extreme nonchalance. “The boy! Where is he? I know it was you. Did you delete him?”

“You really think I have time for that? You’d know if I deleted it. Just look at your precious logs.”

“Then who? Nobody else has access!”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out, my dear friend. You’re a genius.”

“Azan, don’t fuck with me.”

“Now that’s some harsh language for your partner, yeah?” He pulled out a few holographic documents and flipped through. “Well, there was one visitor yesterday. Maybe he was stolen?”

“Who?” Azan continued to flip through his papers. “Who, Azan?!” he yelled. “Who was it?”

“See, I really don’t understand.”

“What?”

“Why do you care so much about this boy?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

“No, really.” Azan glanced over, finger still swiping through some files. “Why would the great Creator care about some boy?”

“Just give me the files.” That boy was his experiment. His personal property! He needed Bread for Mother, and Azan definitely didn’t need to know that.

“Not for personal use. User privacy, ‘member?”

“Azan.” He waved away the holograms. The documents fizzled out of sight. “Give it to me now.”

“Well, if that’s all you need…” He sent over a few basic details about the visitor.

Valerie Briarwood—Roscoerama Champion. She was also a former boxer… Boxer? “I’m going out.” He just had a gut feeling.

“Oh, how very unexpected of our Creator.” Azan brought out more documents from his personal files. “Have fun.”

“Send some security drones out. I need to find this woman.”

“Sorry, my dear, old pal. I’m busy.”

“Busy? With what?”

“With your mistakes.” He gave a more stern, almost empty look that he usually never made.

“Alright.” Was Azan still bitter about what had happened with the meetings? “Then at least give me access.”

“Nope, not allowed. Only the CEO retains full control over the security system. Those were the rules, ‘member?”

“That’s only because we didn’t have a CSO—since when did you care about rules? It doesn’t matter. I’m the majority—”

“It does matter.”

“Why are you making this so difficult?” The Creator had never truly gotten into a lengthy argument with Azan. This was the first time his friend had ever fought back so hard.

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“He’s not my problem, yeah? He’s yours.” Azan signed off on a few more documents. Not a care of interest seemed to be on him. “And it’s probably for the best. Maybe you can use this chance to forget about the AI and focus on what really matters, yeah?”

“Azan.” He was getting to his wit’s end. Extreme measures weren’t his thing, but… “I can get you out of that position the same way I got you in.”

“Do it then. Blame it on some innocent man—”

“Innocent?”

Azan ignored the comment. “You don’t even know what’s best for you or your company. Now, if you cared about the meeting the same way you cared about that boy, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.”

“Azan, you—” He let out a frustrated scream. “Fine! I’ll do this myself.” He could track the whereabouts of everyone inside Simular. He just had to search the database, log in, find the woman, and ask a few questions. Simple as that—

“Oh, would you look at that? She’s logged out.”

“She what?” He opened his holographic UI and searched through his own logs. It was true. She had logged out.

“And the boy too. Wow.” He whistled. “Quite impressive.”

“What?” He checked the logs again. “He’s not even supposed to be registered as a player character…” But if they had both logged out at the same time, they were surely connected. “Azan, what did you do?”

He shrugged. “Maybe the AI’s finally learned to manipulate the system. Now, it’s getting ready to take over the world.” The man chuckled at his own joke.

“Give me the woman’s address.”

“No.” He beamed a mischievous smile. “User privacy.”

“Forget it.” The Creator walked out of the room, holding back as much emotion as possible, but when he’d entered the elevator, he couldn’t help it. He smashed the button that was supposed to have represented the first floor. The panel caved in, revealing the circuitry and all its electrical components.

After a bit of struggle, the door finally started to close.

“Bye!” Azan waved back with exaggerated glee. The Creator could tell it was all an act. “Come back when you’ve cooled down some, yeah? Forget about the AI or… don’t come back.”

…

The Creator usually never went outside. Especially not during summer. Besides the humidity, there were just far too many humans out on the streets.

To him, Simular was more preferable. Simular was smoother, movements were lighter, and the moon was never this bright. If he could just lower the luminosity of that celestial body in the sky, things might’ve been much more tolerable.

No, perhaps not.

The glare from all the ads and street signs brought him back to reality. Nothing would be enough to make the real world more tolerable. Not when it was the source of all his pain and sufferings. This was the world that had taken away his mother, his pride, his joy. This was the world that had compelled him to create Simular, after all.

It was midnight. Downtown was lit up like an early Christmas decoration, but at the very least, there were less chances of him being seen than in the morning. The place was always like this—brighter than the stars, irritating to the eyes.

“System: locate NPC Bread,” he called out. What form the boy would be in, even he didn’t know. If Bread had been downloaded to a small computing device or a phone, it’d be nearly impossible to locate.

“Failed,” his internal system responded.

“Surprising.” That was to be expected, but how about—“System: locate player Valerie Briarwood.”

“Failed.”

“Damn it!” Of course it didn’t work. His tech was only optimized for use in Simular. It wasn’t adapted for the real world.

First, he needed a base of operations. Perhaps a hotel. He wasn’t intent on going back to the office after what had just happened and going back into Simular wasn’t viable either. It wouldn’t have been efficient anyway if his leads were out here. He started looking around when—

The streetlights sputtered.

And everything went dark. Devoured in darkness, the roads became pandemonium. Yelling replaced conversations; cars swerved as traffic lights shut down. It looked to be city-wide—the entire grid had been hit by some sort of electrical outage.

A blackout of this caliber… It was highly unlikely. There were sophisticated and intelligent circuit breakers installed all throughout the city. An ordinary electrical overload wouldn’t be able to circumvent the safeties set in place. Unless…

Bread?

It was a risky thought, but the timing was too perfect for it to have been a complete coincidence. Bread supposedly had logged out just a few minutes ago, and he knew that the only way to leave for an anomaly such as Bread was a findolancer. That always came with a certain price.

There were no shortcuts in life. Everything had a give and a take. Everything had a cost. If Bread was to be taken out of Simular in the speediest way possible, he predicted that it wouldn’t have necessarily been the prettiest sight. The boy was a new form of intelligence heavily intertwined with the simulation. There was no information on extracting or transferring such data. That was also the reason why he’d decided against using that splicer in the first place, but that damn Azan. His friend must’ve done something.

Either way, nothing was more important than the revival of Mother. If Azan continued to stand in his way, he’d simply rid himself of the pest that he’d once called, friend. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that. He wanted to believe that his relationship with Azan meant more than that—it wasn’t supposed to be this superficial.

“Is anyone there?” A muffled voice from the right. “Please, anybody?”

He ignored it. Just a bunch of nobodies. He turned on his night vision and got to navigating. He had to find a base of operations for him to start planning out his search—

“Please, anyone there?”

There was a nearby five-star hotel he could visit. He had to make sure they served complimentary breakfast. Making food for himself was such a hassle. It would waste so much time for the search—

“Someone! My leg—”

“My god, shut up!” he yelled. “All of you!” All these idiots shuffling around like animals! Could they not help each other out? Could they not even afford flashlights? He stormed over to the voice to see what all the fuss was about.

A feeble, old lady. frail, wrinkled arms… An important somebody flashed through his mind—hospital gown, back turned, looking out yonder into the bright void of metropolitan lights.

He quickly shook the thought away.

The old lady had her leg lodged under a metal pole—most likely collapsed somehow during the ensuing blackout. Perhaps from a car? A hit and run? He couldn’t quite tell, but it looked as if she did, in fact, need some help.

As if registering his presence, the old lady spoke, “Oh, I’m so sorry to bother you. Could you please help this old lady up, dear? I can’t even turn my head.”

“Right…” It was just a pole. It wouldn’t take much effort to move. He took a deep breath and positioned himself directly above the fallen pole. Then he grabbed it and pulled. And as his muscles flexed and pulsed, his body started to glow.

His preinstalled cyber-ups started to kick in. His skin turned red hot; heat radiated from the surface. Steam gushed out from his vent caps like locomotive smoke. With one arm, he pushed the pole up above his shoulders, and with the other, he pulled the lady out from beneath the rubble. Then he dropped the entire load to the side. It crashed to the ground, spraying dust and debris across the worn-down, asphalt streets of the city.

“Oh, thank you, dear. I’m not sure how I could repay you for this kindness.”

“No need.” Now he could go—

“Oh no.” She fell to her knees and frantically patted around the vicinity. “Oh dear heavens! M-my bracelet. I can’t find it!”

The Creator started walking. It was getting late; he had to find a hotel soon. Whatever she had lost, she could probably find it with time.

“Wait.” She tugged at his leg. “I-I can’t find my bracelet! Please, dear. Just once more. Could you help this old lady out?”

What a pitiful sight. Even if she had used both hands, her feeble grip wasn’t going to keep him there. If he’d wished, all he needed to do was pull away. He had more important things…

He sighed.

Emotions. If only he could rid himself of these blasted emotions.