“The code’s gibberish…” The Creator impatiently tapped at the glass pane overlooking what was supposed to be the great city of Novus Lokris. Instead, all he saw were clouds. He stood rigid in a small corner of Simular’s real world office corridor. It was rare that he was outside for once. Everything looked so flawed out here—the clouds were too numerous, the sun, far too bright. But sometimes, a change of pace was what he needed to get his work done. “Hello? Is this thing working? System: start recording.”

“Recording commenced.” A voice rang inside his ears. Then a sequence of holographic symbols appeared in front of his eyes, dancing with every nod of his head. 

“Finally. The code’s gibberish,” he repeated, “as if it were scrambled by an absurdly complex encryption key.” He paused to collect his thoughts. “This is a good thing. It means this is something new, unexplored. But the subject’s intertwined with the system. I don’t know which part is which. His visible manifestation might not even be his entire framework. 

“If I could just isolate him somehow, test his humanity… A cerlogger would work, but that could take more than a year. The quicker option would be a findolancer, but that… that carries too much risk. It would seem the only other option is to simply proceed—”

“You’re working hard for a change. What’s the occasion?”

“System: end recording.” It was Azan. The Creator couldn’t help but let out an exasperated sigh. “Why are you here again?”

“You weren’t in Simular.”

“And why would that be the reason?”

“But I missed you.” Azan smiled that smug grin of his. “Isn’t that reason enough?”

The Creator sighed. “What do you want?”

“What’s with you lately? Don’t wanna see the real me?” He spread his arms wide, motioning towards his face. It almost looked as if he were waiting for praise. “Just got another one installed. From Nano-Fibro.” The coffee in his hand spilled all over the transparent, composite floor. He could see the disproportionately excessive clouds even from here.

He bought yet another veil. The Creator sighed once more. That man had an obsession with changing faces. It was like he abhorred the one he was born with, and yet, within Simular, he always used his original form. “What do you want? Really.”

“Nothing. I was just bored.”

“Don’t you have things to do? Family to visit?”

“Ah,” Azan said. He waved it all off. “A few months won’t kill them. I’m sure they’ll understand.” He took a swig from his mug. “So! What’s this all about?”

“What’s what about?”

“You were recording something.”

“You don’t need to know.”

“Well, okay then. Keep your secrets.” He shrugged. “Didn’t seem all too important to me though. At least not as important as our dream, yeah?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

An odd silence followed. Then Azan popped off one of his fingers. “Okay, look.” The mood around him shifted. The Creator could tell by the way he twirled his dislodged finger, fidgeting with it almost erratically. “Why the rush?” he remarked. “What’s the hurry?”

The Creator remained silent.

“It’s like you’re a completely different person as of late.” Azan eyed him as if he were trying to piece together the puzzles to his thoughts, but then his mischievous grin returned. “Why not relax?” He wrapped his arm around the Creator’s shoulders. “Enjoy the ride. We made Simular to—”

“I made Simular.” He nudged the arm off his shoulders.

“You made Simular, I made Simular. Who cares about all that small stuff?” Azan pompously waved his hands in the air. “People love this place. It brings them a breath of freshness to their lives. Freedom! A new start! A chance to choose their future for themselves. So what do we do to make it better? We give them what they want. Gambling? It’s already in there. New ‘netics? Add it in. New Virtual RPG shooter? Make an opening for that—oh, but get the rights for it first. We don’t want some bullshit lawsuit in our hands. But seriously, loosen up a bit!

“Give the people the life they always dreamed about. Give ‘em superpowers for all I care. It’s a simulation! There are no consequences. Why waste time on anything else when we can just feast upon this technological marvel we made. And maybe, we’ll get a raise… Think about it. We can make it rain!”

“Is money all you think about?”

“Money, huh?” Azan downed the rest of his drink. “I don’t know what you’re up to. Seriously. But you’ve been up to something. I can tell.” He paused. “Just… take it easy, yeah? You’ve always got druggies to fall back on if your experiments fail.”

Azan wasn’t seeing it. Druggies wouldn’t cut it. He needed an anchor to his research—a potential solution that he could reverse engineer.

Currently, people couldn’t live in Simular. It was a second fresh start to life, but it wasn’t permanent. They had to leave the simulation every once in a while to sustain their physical bodies so they wouldn’t starve to death or deteriorate like living corpses. The simulation hadn’t yet managed to completely replicate the human brain, but with just the right tools…

“Just find a few from the ‘madic zone. It’s not like anyone will notice—”

“Stop. I can’t do that.” He wouldn’t kill. Not anymore. Not after… He thought back to the funeral. Not after that… 

“Can’t do it? You’ve been doing it this entire time! It’s your creation. You can do whatever the hell you want with it. Nobody’ll ever know.”

“They’re real, Azan.”

“Real?” Azan scoffed. “What does that even mean? When did that ever stop you? What happened to you, seriously?”

“Nothing happened to me.”

“Is it because of her death? Did—” 

“It’s not.”

Azan paused. He stared out the window into the expanse of white. “It’s all fine and dandy that you’ve changed… But we made a promise. I hope you haven’t forgotten.”

“I haven’t.”

Another long silence. 

Azan drew a sharp breath as if readying to say something, but he stopped himself. Then he let out a quiet huff that almost sounded like he was a bit disappointed. “I can never see you smiling anymore.” He smirked. “Sometimes, I wonder if I’m the only one still dreaming.”

Emotions… “I don’t have time for that.”

A chuckle escaped Azan’s lips. “You sure as hell haven’t changed in that regard. But seriously, smile more. It’s like I’m the one talking to an AI.”

How did he… It didn’t matter. Azan always figured things out in the end. He grunted in response. “I can smile all I want once I’m dead.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure you can.” Azan’s watch alarm suddenly went off. “Oh, must be time for my meeting. Wish me luck.” He gave a quick wave before strolling out, leaving nothing but a trace of shoe prints on the floor. 

“Luck…” The Creator let out an exasperated sigh. “Luck never gets you what you want. Only hard work.” Then he finally smiled—a shallow, dejected imitation of the real thing. “Isn’t that right, Mother?”