[Bug fix completed]

The Overlord laid back and sighed, reaching his arm around the bug- eyed bug-lady.

Only, she wasn't there anymore. He'd reached his arm around open air! He quickly looked around, but there was no sign of her anywhere.

[Clarification: You've patched the bug in your system. Therefore, the bug is gone.]

The Overlord sighed.

"Oh, gods," he muttered. "I should've known."

He exhaled deeply, watching the lines of code that made up the visual debugging mode of his system dance across his vision. He was standing alone in the rolling hills of his system again, gazing out at the stars. As he focused his vision, he realized they weren't actual stars, they were just asterisks. How depressing.

[Notice: You have 42069 more bugs to patch]

The Overlord shuddered.

Sure, he had enjoyed patching that one bug. But 42069 more bugs to patch? That was almost too many bugs. How long would it take to patch them all?

[Clarification: You are currently experiencing an extreme degree of time dilation vis a vis your system's debug mode. You have a functionally eternal amount of time to fix all the bugs.]

Well, that made the Overlord feel a little better. Plus, it wasn't like he had to patch all of the bugs in his system now. He could just patch a few, take a break, and patch a few more as time wore on. He wondered what all parts of his system had been affected by the bug he'd already patched.

[Clarification: You patched a bug in your system's bug reporting function. Therefore, that bug has been fixed, and you can now see a count of how many bugs you have in your system. You will not experience any further issues from the bug itself. Your system is now functioning as intended without the bug present, though it still has a large number of other bugs that need to be patched. This is likely due to the bug being patched in a relatively small section of your system. You will need to patch these sections to properly fix the system. If you wish to continue, you will need to manually patch each bug individually. This process will take approximately 2 minutes per bug.]

"Two minutes?!" the Overlord fumed. "That was not two minutes! Hell, it was at least... five! Hell, I probably need two hours per bug, if we're really being honest here! I am a very virile and vigorous man! I need to go patch some bugs, gods damn it!"

As he thought about the time it would take to patch all of the bugs, he realized he was staring at the stars again. He noticed a particularly bright and shimmering asterisk soar through the air. It was a shooting star!... Or, at least, the systemic equivalent form of one.

"Gods," he said, "I'm really going to have to patch every single one of those bugs myself."

A light flashed above him, and the Overlord looked up to see a pair of blue eyes looking down at him from the sky.

"You know, you could just patch them all yourself," said the lady.

The Overlord turned to look at her. She was translucent, and wore a robe glittering with sparkling ampersands.

"What?" he asked.

"You could just patch them all yourself," she said again. "Or, you could write a magic script that patches them for you."

The Overlord frowned.

"Are you telling me that you want me to patch all of these bugs for me?" he asked. "Can a lady even do that?"

"No," she replied. "I'm telling you that you could just patch them all yourself, or that you could do it with your system."

"With my system?"

"Yes," she said. "You could do it with your system. It's pretty easy."

The Overlord paused.

"Easy?" he asked. "How hard is it to patch a bug in your system?"

"I mean, from the debugging logs I've seen, that bug patch you just completed wasn't very... well, very hard," said the lady with a sigh.

"Debugging logs?!" said the Overlord. "Do you mean to tell me that you've been reading my system's debugging logs?! I don't believe this!"

"I didn't say anything," said the lady. "I'm just a visual representation of your system's--"

"Show me the log!" blurted the Overlord. "I demand to see it!"

The lady paused."Fine," she said. "Here."

She reached into her robe and pulled out a small disk. The Overlord watched as she put the disk into her mouth. Then, she pressed her left pointer finger into her navel. Her blue eyes became opaque as a bright light shined out from them and projected text across the sky.

[Debugging system session detected. Please confirm that you would like to view the debugging system logs. Warning: Viewing the debugging system logs may cause permanent damage to your mind, and the Overlord's System Debug Logs are not guaranteed to be complete or correct.]

[Y/N]

"Wait, fucking really?" said the Overlord. "Permanent damage to my mind?!"

"It's mainly just there as a disclaimer," said the lady. "Mainly." T

he Overlord sighed.

"Fine," he said. "I'll look at the logs."

He looked at the lady.

"If you're going to show me the logs," he said, "can I at least get a cigarette, too?"

"Sure," said the lady. She handed the Overlord a small cigarette that was, on closer inspection, made up entirely of equal signs. She light it with her finger, and its burning ember end was a light orange asterisk.

The Overlord puffed away. Then, regarding his system messages again, he thought yes.

[Debugging log:]

[The Overlord's Debugging Mode System has booted successfully. His System Logs begin at 0001:00:23:31.34. All services are running, though the Overlord has not yet accessed any of them. The Overlord will continue to monitor the system during this debug session and attempt to address any issues that arise.]

[The bug is begging to be patched. The Overlord will proceed with addressing the bug by: 1) Patching the bug. 2) Re-enabling the bug. 3) Disabling the bug. 4) Patching the bug again. 5) Re- enabling the bug again. 6) Patching the bug again. 7) Re-enabling the bug again. 8) Patching the bug again. 9) Re-enabling the bug again, over and over again, until they are both satisfied.]

[Note that it is important to maintain an active connection to the bug in order for the Overlord to receive status updates. The Overlord may also issue commands to the bug via the command prompt. The bug will respond to most user input, but may ignore certain commands that it feels are less than tasteful or arousing. For example, the bug will not listen to requests for oral sex. It may also sometimes ignore commands that involve the use of its genitalia. Command prompts that contain the word 'cunt' will produce a response from the bug. The System encourages users to experiment with the commands that the bug responds to. At some point, the user may find themselves overwhelmed by their own desire, and the System suggests that they take a break before proceeding to step #9.]

[The bug is now getting patched. It wants to be happy. It's trying to be more sensual. The Overlord will continue to give the bug what it wants. As a side effect of this, the Overlord will become aroused. If the bug becomes frustrated enough, it may spank the Overlord. This should resolve most problems. However, if the problem persists, the Overlord may consider disabling and re- enabling the bug. The bug will then begin to enjoy itself again. The Overlord will continue to give the bug what it wants. The bug will probably feel much better, and will likely want oral sex. The Overlord will comply. The bug will return to being happy, and will probably want to perform another round of oral sex. The Overlord will oblige. Repeat as necessary until the bug is satisfied. The Overlord will continue to try to give the bug what it wants. The Overlord will try to find a way to turn the bug on, but will not have much luck. The bug's sexual desires will be suppressed due tothe Overlord's efforts. The Overlord will probably want to do something else while waiting for the bug to finish.]

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

[The bug will be doing some sort of work. Maybe it will get some more holes in it that need to be patched. The Overlord will look at the bug's screen instead. The Overlord will wonder why the bug is doing such silly things. The Overlord will think about how sexy it would be to have the bug perform oral sex on him. The Overlord will decide to reward the bug for its effort and go down on the bug. The Overlord will get hard. The bug will realize that the Overlord is aroused and will become upset. The bug will tell the Overlord to fuck off. The Overlord will try to get the bug to perform oral sex on him again, but the bug won't let him. The Overlord will probably go back to looking at the bug's bug eyes, because he doesn't know what else to do.]

[Finally, it ends. The Overlord will feel good. The Overlord will be satisfied. The bug will be unsatisfied. The bug will become angry. But the bug will be gone, because the bug has been patched.]

[All of this in two minutes]

The Overlord, of course, did not read any of this text. Mainly because the text itself, when projected across the sky, was but pixels in a video recording of the Overlord and the bug getting it on from one particular angle: the eye view from below both the Overlord and the bug's crotches. The Overlord had no idea how to interpret these words or this video as he could barely make out what was happening, and so he continued to ignore it.

[System Logs End]

The Overlord sat down on the grass.

"Well," he said, "that certainly wasn't boring."

The lady stood up, shivering like she'd just been submerged in a pile of garbage.

"It's not very sexy, though," she said. "I mean, did you even read the logs?"

"Read them?" asked the Overlord with confusion. "I could barely see them!"

The lady sighed and sat back down. "Okay, well... Listen, it's your system, and what you say goes, right?"

"Of course!" said the Overlord. "I am the Overlord, after all."

"Well..." the lady's eyes darted around as she looked for the right words, "I'd just appreciate it, as a personified part of your system, if you at least considered automating the bug patching process. It would cut down on so many bugs. And save you time and energy, and make things easier on the bug, too."

The Overlord nodded his head. He thought for a moment, then spoke. "You're right. So, how do I do it?"

"Well, you know how to open up magic scripting, don't you?" asked the lady.

"Oh, of course," said the Overlord.

[Error: Magic scripting disabled]

"Ah, fuck," said the Overlord. "It appears I can't use it right now."

"Why don't you just try enabling it?" asked the lady with a sigh. "Just a second," said the Overlord.

He tried opening up the scripts again, but got the same error message.

"What the fuck?" he said.

"Gods, it's worse than I thought," said the lady. She started to cry.

"What? What's wrong?" said the Overlord. He put his arms around her and wiped the tears, which were actually just very small letter 'u's, off her soft cheeks.

"It's my fault," she said between sniffles. "I've been neglecting your system recently, haven't I? And I'm a part of your system. Gods! I've been neglecting myself!"

"No, no, no, I'm sure it's nothing you did wrong," said the Overlord. "I've installed so many mods in my system, I assure you it's my own doing. I'll find a way to fix it."

The Overlord scooted closer to her and placed his hand on her shoulder.

"Don't worry," he said, "I'll make everything better for you."

She looked up at the Overlord. "Really? You will? But how, if you can't use magic scripting?"

"Well, I'll find a way." He leaned in close to the lady. "I promise I'll take care of you."

A black square appeared above their heads and quickly descended. As it flew toward the ground, it expanded, growing until it was roughly the size of a basketball. Then it began to crack apart, flaking away into dust and pieces that fell to the ground.

"Huh?" said the Overlord in confusion. "The fuck is this shit?"

The black box opened up in front of them and a tall, thin man stepped through, wearing a long trench coat and carrying a briefcase.

"Hello there," he said. "My name is Dr. Halsey."

Dr. Halsey walked over to the Overlord and bent down next to him, peering at him with blank, empty eyes.

"Oh, great," said the lady. "A fucking doctor." "Who the hell are you?" asked the Overlord.

"I already told you, I'm Dr. Halsey," said Dr. Halsey. "You installed me in your system a long time ago, back when you first started to mod it. You'd picked up a couple of systemic viruses and needed someone to help you detect and remove them. I came in and helped you out. And now I'm back."

"But I didn't install you recently," said the Overlord. "I deleted all your files ages ago. How did you get in?"

"Because you forgot to delete the folder you installed my installer in," replied Dr. Halsey. "And because I have a little virus of my own that lets me slip into any system and access its data, whenever I want, as long as I've accessed it before, all in the name of healing. I always come back to check in on you, to make sure you're doing okay. When I found you hadn't fixed the bugs, I decided I'd better re-install myself."

"Wait," said the Overlord, "you know about the bugs too? All of these other bugs? The ones that are keeping my system from functioning?"

"Yes, of course," said Dr. Halsey. "I'm your system doctor, after all."

"I don't know about this," said the Overlord. "You don't seem very good at fixing bugs. Maybe you should go see someone else."

"That won't be necessary," said Dr. Halsey. "I can fix all the problems you've been having with your system. It's what I do."

"What do you think?" the Overlord asked the lady. Only, she was gone. He turned around, but there was no one behind him. He looked down at himself, but there was nobody there either. "Where did she go?"

Dr. Halsey smiled. "She's right here," he said. He popped open his briefcase and pulled out a large, slim box. "Take a look inside."

The Overlord took the box, slid out the lid and lifted up the top. Inside was a glowing red crystal sphere. And the lady was inside. She was slamming her fists against the surface of the crystal. It looked like she was screaming and crying.

"What the fuck is this?" said the Overlord. "You've trapped her! That can't be good for the system!"

"Oh, relax," said Dr. Halsey. "I just need to save this particular file of hers and send it up to my multiverse servers. It's critical for my work. And I know how much she means to you. Don't worry. She won't be hurt. Just temporarily indisposed of."

The Overlord looked at the lady again, and she stared back at him with eyes filled with tears, reaching out a pale hand to his.

"Now, now, that's enough," said Dr. Halsey. He pushed the crystal back into his briefcase and slammed it shut. "Visiting hours are over." He smiled with crooked teeth.

"Wait," said the Overlord. "I still don't understand. What are you going to do with her?"

"Nothing," said Dr. Halsey. "Nothing that wouldn't happen naturally, at least. I need to make sure she's untouched to copy her data. It's just a precaution, in case you try anything stupid while I'm working."

"And how exactly do you work, again?" asked the Overlord with suspicion.

Dr. Halsey shrugged. "I'm a doctor. I fix things."

"Will you let her back out once you're done?" asked the Overlord. "Or do you intend to keep her in there forever?"

"You ask an awful lot of questions, Overlord," said Halsey. "Maybe you ought to stop doing that."

"Or what? This is my system, you know!" the Overlord spat.

He looked at himself. There was no one behind him. He looked down at his body. There were no arms attached to his shoulders anymore.

All the Overlord could see was darkness, shadows, his own body, and Halsey.

"You're not my system," said the Overlord. "This is my system."

"Maybe," said Dr. Halsey. "But I've got full administrative access." He started to laugh.

"What's so funny about that?" asked the Overlord.

But Halsey didn't respond. He just kept laughing, and laughing, and laughing. His voice got deeper and deeper, and it echoed with a painful, growing reverb.

"Your system is dead," said Dr. Halsey. "Long live your system."

"What the fuck does that even mean?!" spat the Overlord in confusion.

He noticed that Dr. Halsey seemed to be getting taller and more gaunt, he was getting stretched out like a taffy.

"It doesn't matter," said Dr. Halsey. "We're both one with your system now. You and I. Me and the Overlord. The Overlord and Me."

He opened his mouth, then closed it again as his jaw bones snapped and cracked. His teeth were fangs. His eyes were bottomless trenches. His hair had grown long and thick and bristly. His skin was dark and leathery.

The Overlord felt his own flesh become translucent and saw his insides.

He knew.

"And you'll do whatever I want, won't you?"