‘Okay so I may have floated myself a little to close to the sun,’ thought Carmen anxiously. She scanned the mess of papers before her. Loose pieces of paper were scattered across her work bench.

Each one had designs for characters, creatures, buildings, and whole worlds that are now inhabiting her sim at the moment. But the issue wasn’t the mess that was currently all over her desk but rather one of her creations that she has recently set out into her sim. She finally found the design sheet for her creation among the sea of paper and pencils. Her hands lightly grazed the image of her creation, a giant mechanical humanoid robot, which she had named Pantheon after the fact that in the sim she created it was viewed as a god.

It was made out of nine separate robots called Archons, each one having a designated color and element. This lead to her creating characters specifically made to pilot these robots. She had gotten inspired from the mecha of the show, The Last Planet, that she decided to give a try into inventing her own giant space robot. It was designed as a universal defender on her behalf and was helpful in keeping her sim in order during the early days of its creation.

Until shit hit the fan.

Apparently one of the pilots she had created to defend the universe thought it was a good idea to go ahead and try to use the mecha to enslave entire planets for resources for the empire he inhabited in the sim. This reminded her of the villains story line she saw in the show, The Last Planet, which explained that the enemy was a former pilot turned mad from power he received from draining the essence of living things and tried to use the mecha for himself. The weird thing about all of this was that she did not program the character to be power hungry at all and didn’t create a villain for her sim yet due to how unfinished it still was in some places.

‘What the hell was I thinking when I made this?,’ she thought frustrated with her poor decision to release the robot into her sim. Sure it was a great idea to create a sort of guardian for her world so she wouldn’t have such a big issue control her creations when she was busy fixing the everything but now all it gave her was a massive headache. Deep down she knew that one aspect she implemented into her creations was a driving cause for all of this.

The Free Will Protocol.

She wanted her creations to have control over themselves as much as possible since it seemed morally wrong to be completely in control of everyone’s fates. Every time she made a new character it was development protocol for her to implement the free will feature before deploying them into the VR world. It was like a product protocol in those large bread factories except she was making friends and not food.

So she programmed all living beings to be able to make choices based on their memories, experiences, personalities, and goals which could be changed over time by personal growth from experiencing events in the sim. Every time she made a new character it was development protocol for her to implement the free will feature before deploying them into the vr world. This could explain why the pilot she created grew power hungry even tho he didn’t start out that way. He might have experienced happiness from gaining power and went on to change the directory of his goals to get more of it.

“I must be out of my mind. I may have created a machine that could protect the universe but that also means it could easily destroy it. Now one of the very heroes I made is trying to do just that!,” says Carmen. She was in complete dread over the chaos that was going to happen.

‘I have to do something. I can’t just restart my world from the very beginning. That would be cruel to the rest of my creations. But I can’t just reprogram the entire thing to get rid of the mecha or character either. They’re too connected to the universe that getting rid of them would cause drastic changes. What can I possibly do to fix this?,” she asked herself as she scanned around her papers for any solution. As she rummaging through the stack of papers on her desk one fell to the ground beside her catching her attention in the process.

She picked it up and noticed it was her design for the space school she built on her version of Earth in the sim. It was called the Advanced Training for Lead Astronauts School or ATLAS Academy for short. She had inserted it in a desert in the state of Texas in the sim as a nod towards a setting in The Last Planet. She also saw the various drawings she made for the student and staff uniform and slowly an idea popped into her head.

‘If I can’t beat him out here than I could just beat him in game. I could go in there and make my own team of pilots by recruiting ATLAS students. They could even pilot another newer and even better mech, Pantheon 2.0,’ she though with excitement as her new plan was bound to work since she knew the world like the back of her hand.

“But I can’t do this alone. I need backup!,” she said before grabbing her phone she placed in front of a photo of her and her three siblings. Her twin Enola and her younger sibling, Inez, and the oldest of them all, Varian.

She quickly typed on her phone and sent a message to their group chat.

(I have a surprise for all of you. Come by whenever you guys have the time.)

She pressed sent.

1 Hour Later

Her siblings where all gathered together in the living room with look of anticipation on all their faces. They knew only a sliver of information about my project since I wanted to keep it a secret until it was ready to be played with. Now they had no choice but to let them use it early.

“So you all know of the game I’ve been working on for the pass month. Well I thought it was time to let you guys play it!,” she exclaimed causing her siblings to scream out in pure joy.

“Does this mean I can walk on the moon?!,” asked Enola since she was dying to get on the moon in the sim ever since Carmen revealed the possibility of them being able to visit it in her world.

“Yup and loads of other stuff too! Like fishing, motorcycle riding, mountain climbing-,” Carmen explained the infinite possibilities in her world until Varian interrupted her.

“Can we ride dragons?,” asked Varian, enthusiastic. He had always dreamed of riding a dragon after watching a movie when they were little called A Doomsday Guide To Dragons which of course you guessed it- had dragons.

Carmen nodded in response and Varian high fived Enola due to her also being excited to ride a dragon.

“I can’t wait to ride a motorcycle without a license! And the best part is that if we crash we can just get up and get another one!,” says Inez joyfully as she had been waiting for an opportunity to ride a motorcycle like in the action movies she often watches.

“Really love the enthusiasm everyone! But there is just one tiny…issue,” says Carmen nervously which caught the attention of the rest.

“You guys remember that universal defender robot I built for the sim right?”

“Uh yeah it was based off the mech, Quasar, from the show The Last Planet right? What of it?,” asked Varian curiously due to how nervous Carmen seemed to be at the mention one of the creations she was most proudest of.

“Wait! Did you erase it by accident or something?! Please don’t tell me you erased it! I had been waiting to pilot one of the mechs robots for weeks!,” pleaded Enola with her twin. She had been patiently waiting for the day she could go into one of the archons of the mech and pilot it into space. She even attempted to paint the robot and gave it to her twin as a gift which is hung next to her poster of the moon.

“No its not gone! Don’t worry about that. I would never be that stupid to erase something so precise to me,” says Carmen confidently. The mere idea of her deleting a creation that took a week to finish was completely irrational to her.

“Then what happened to it? Does it have a glitch or something?,” asked Inez. She was concerned due to the fact that she knew how important the mech was to her sister.

“Well you know I made characters specially to pilot the archons of the mech right?

The siblings all nodded in unison.

“One of them might have…gone rouge and stole the entire mech for themselves to enslave entire planets for resources to grow his home empire,” Carmen said the last part quickly before stopping to see her siblings reactions. You could here a pin drop due to how silent the room was for the next minute.

Slowly, one by one, her siblings faces turned from ones filled with confusion to total shock.

A couple of farm birds that the family housed in their backyard were pecking away at their food when suddenly the sound of screaming erupted from the house.

Inside the house Carmen’s siblings were screaming in pure shock at the classic sci-fi horror movie event that just happened in real life. As the three continued to panic Carmen stood still with a fake smile plastered on their face. She was actually the opposite of happy in the moment as her mind was riddled with pure anxiety.

‘This is fine,’ Carmen thought to herself.

That thought was soon erased when Enola grabbed a lighter from the kitchen and threatened to burn Carmen’s laptop connected to the VR world. Inez held her back causing Enola to accidentally light a nearby couch pillow on fire. Inez immiediately grabbed it and ran outside as Enola put the lighter away and rushed out the door with a fire extinguisher in hand. Varian just held his head in his hands as he sat on the sofa mumbling words such as “apocalypse” and “end of the world”.

“Okay this is no longer fine,” Carmen whispered to herself in complete defeat.

After taking half an hour for the siblings to put out the small fire and to get themselves together they continued to discuss the situation in the living room.

“So what you’re saying is that one of the pilots turned evil and is now conquering your universe in the sim,” says Enola as she tried to process what her twin just told her.

Carmen nodded to her slowly.

“Well why don’t you just take the pilot or mech out of the sim? Can’t be that hard since you’re smart enough to make an entire universe,” suggested Inez. She was confident in her siblings ability to fix this problem due to their vast intellect. Their self assurance soon vanished when she saw Carmen shake her head to the suggestion.

“It’s not that easy. The mech and the pilots are a core part of the universe. They are engraved into the lore and customs of the universe that if I were to take them out it would have drastic consequences,” Carmen explained her reasoning for why the plan wouldn’t work.

“Than just control the character to stop doing evil stuff. You made him so you can control him. Can’t you?,” asked Enola, curious.

Carmen stiffened a bit a that. Unfortunately her twin noticed this.

“Can’t you?”

Carmen shook her head.

“It’s an aspect of all living things that I made for the sim. They have something called Free Will Protocol. I didn’t want to control the fate of ever living being so I decided to let them have as much control over themselves as possible. All their choices are effected by their experiences, personalities, and goals. I think the pilot experienced a moment of happiness from gaining power that his personality drastically changed due to it. The problem is if I were to take control of him I would have to do it constantly and it would leave me with more problems. Since the sim is a constant running world that goes one when I’m not here. So no that’s not an option,” answered Carmen.

“So what can you do?,” asked Varian with mild curiosity. The options they had to fix the issue were very limited.

Carmen smirked.

“I was just about to get to that,” respond Carmen before taking out a folded design sheet of the ATLAS Academy and showed it to her siblings, “We’re going to space school!”