The hallway which was once quiet was filled with the sounds of shouting varied from panic, to shocked, to confused anger.

“Wait a minute hold on what do you mean by us getting killed?!,” Keito asked as he let his boyfriend down gently who was still in shock about the wall appearing out of nowhere.

“What she means is that your world is in danger of being enslaved by a mad man on the loose who stole the giant mech Pantheon and is now invading other worlds in the hologlobe system,” Varian explained to the rest who recognized the name of the mech that protected the universe.

He held up his glass tablet to show the a visual map of all world hosted by Hologlobe and how the virus is starting to infect them slowly. He soon turned to Carmen who appeared to look at the floor like they being put into time out.

“And this person over here built this very sim and must fix it before Cybrim finds out and wipes it out of existence. So we came here to look for people to pilot a new upgraded model version similar to Pantheon called Pantheon 2.0 so we can defeat him in the sim and rest him while making it look like we are just playing a game instead of fixing a glitch.”

Varian said the words “Pantheon 2.0” with exaggerated amazement due to the lack of originality.

The rest turned to Carmen with raised eye brows and wide eyes at the fact the very creator of their world needed their help after fucking everything up.

“So let me get this straight. We live in a simulation. None of us actually “exist”. A glitched character became villain stole Pantheon and is now trying to rule over the world. They need to be fixed before our world gets destroyed and the very creator of the world itself needs our help?!,” Laren said baffled at the world shattering revelation they were just told.

“Yeah. I kind of – accidentally – brought about the apocalypse with my own stupidity,” Carmen admitted awkwardly.

“But you’re the creator of this world! Why would you need our help?! Can’t you just delete him from the simulation or something?!,” Keito asked Carmen not believing that their help was warranted. Carmen gulped at the suggestion for dealing with the villain and intertwined her fingers together while rocking in place a bit as she tried to come up with an answer. Soon enough she started to explain how she couldn’t really kill the enemy as easily as he said.

“You know those scientists in the movies were they come up with an amazing invention like a robot or whatever but forget to come up with a backup plan if it suddenly becomes evil?,” Carmen said which the others responded with slow nods.

“Yeah? What of it?,” Laren asked trying to understand what she was getting at.

“That Is basically what I did while I made the simulation.”

“Oh so you’re the dumb kind of genius. Now I get it,” Piers said while rubbing her chin as if he was Sherlock Holmes cracking a case wide open. Carmen looked slightly offended by the comment and tried to come up with a comback before shaking her head in mild defeat.

“I’ll let that slide this time since you are kind of right. But still! Who was I to know that an AI character I created would just glitch and turn evil one day and try to do world domination?! That only happens in the movies with professional scientists and I’m just a teenage tech enthusiast from Texas, " Carmen tried to defend herself but the rest just looked at her with skeptically with raised eyebrows.

“Science enthusiast? Really?,” Laren said not amused.

“Well I wouldn’t call myself a professional. I don’t really have a science or math degree so-,” Carmen responded before shrugging her shoulders causing Piers and matteo to face palm.

“If this guy stole Pantheon can we just send the rest of the mech pilots to stop him? Its there job to protect the universe. Not ours. I’m just saying,” Hoku suggested before Carmen coughed as she tried to prepare herself to tell them the bad news.

“Yeah about that. They’re all kind of…dead,” Carmen said the last word slowly as she watched the horror grow in her friends eyes.

“Wait-what do you mean they’re dead?! They just visited Earth two days ago!,” Laren said in disbelief at the news.

“They were killed last night in the Palace Of Gods back on planet Minos. I was there to witness it all go down. And the worst part is…Killian did it.”

The group went silent at the mention of the famous pilot that was apart of Pantheon being the said person now trying to rule the universe. The very same character that has doomed their world to probable deletion. Carmen tried to lighten the mood a bit by telling them about Leilanis rescue.

“But! I do have good news! I was able to rescue-,” before she could finish her sentence the crew heard foot steps coming near the door from the main hallway. A faculty member had heard their talking and was now knocking on the door.

“Hello? Is anyone in there?,” the person asked as the rest froze in place out of fear.

“We need to go. We can head back to the Last Lotus since it’s drone free but first we need to find a way out of here,” Carmen said to the rest.

The team looked around for a possible exit and tried to open doors but all of them seemed locked. Carmen came up to one and swipe an access card she printed to infiltrate the facility but it didn’t work. Confused why the access pass wasn’t working she swiped three more times to no avail. Frustrated with the door she tried to break out the door with a large hologram hammer she summoned from her gauntlet. The hammer just bounced off the door and didn’t even make a dent.

“What the hell?,” Carmen said frustrated as she placed the hammer back in her gauntlet. She tapped the settings in her device which started to glitch. The reality of what was happening soon kicked in.

“Oh no.”

“Oh no? What do you mean by oh no?!,” Varian asked worried.

“I think the glitch is spreading more faster than I thought and is jamming my gauntlet. We have to escape without using any of my gadgets now.”

“Oh! That must be why this bazooka wasn’t working,” Inez said as she showed the yellow colored bazooka in her hands. The team looked taken aback by the deadly weapon and were silently grateful that none of their gadgets weren’t working at the moment.

“So we have to just go about this like super spies. Just with the brains and none of the strength. That’s easy enough I guess. Is there a way to get out of here without using the doors?,” matteo asked as he scanned the hallway for any other exits. Laren pointed to a vent on the wall.

“We could leave through the vents. They look big enough for us to crawl through,” Laren suggested as he gestured to the large vent gate that was on the wall next to him.

“I would remove the screws from the vent if my gauntlet was working but it’s not. So we have to think of another way to remove the gate,” said Carmen before rubbing their chin as they thought about a solution. After a few seconds a light bulb went off in her head.

“Wait a minute! Hoku’s an engineering student! Why don’t we ask him? Hoku?”

The group slowly turned towards Hoku who was currently eating a cookie he stashed in his pocket. After a few seconds he looked up and swallowed the rest of the cookie quickly before brushing off his shirt awkwardly.

“Stress eating. Sorry,” responded Hoku, bashfully.

It took him a moment to realize they were looking to him for a screwdriver and not for his stress eating.

“Oh! You guys need a screwdriver? I got one!,” he said before taking a screw driver out one of his jacket pockets and handed it to Carmen,” Here you go.”

Carmen thanked him and proceeded to unscrew all the screws of the vent before popping it open. At that exact moment they could here more footsteps on the side of the door they entered through. Banging could be heard as the faculty staff tried to pen the door. The hologram wall Carmen used to block the door was starting to fade due to her gauntlet no longer working.

“Shit! Everybody get in! Hurry!,” Carmen exclaimed as she crawled the vent while the others followed her. Hoku was the last one to go into the vent and managed to squeeze his way thru despite his size. He placed the vent door back in his place before following the rest a moment before the faculty broke through the door. They scanned the empty storage room looking for the teens but spotted nobody. A tall man in military uniform walked his way to the front of the group of adults. A pin he wore on his chest read the title “General Murray”. He appeared to be a high level Cybrim drone but unlike the rest of the drones with duplicate plain faces his had a more life like appeal. Almost as if he was disguising as a drone.

“Fan out and look for them! They couldn’t have gone too far!,” General Murray commanded the group who started to check all the rooms connected to the hallway.

His wristwatch lit up red with an incoming call and he pressed the screen causing a square hologram panel open. The person on the other side of the video call didn’t want to be seen and instead was represented by a voice visualizer. A name on top of the hologram panel can be read as Dr. Johansson.

“Sir you called?,” spoke General Murray.

“Have you made contact with our target yet?,” asked Dr.Johansson in a serious tone.

“Unafirmative sir. The virus infecting this world has caused us trouble in locating the target. We were able to find them a couple of minutes ago but they managed to escape along with three users and a handful of UI.”

“Hmm. Interesting. This is the first time a user has managed to evade us in a while.”

“But do not worry sir! We have them cornered and will take them in like usual,” reassured the general.

“No need. They’re more useful to us free. Release the Ui patient in ground zero.”

The odd request caught the general off guard. All of their targets would normally be arrested and charged for dangerous experiments inside the Hologlobe. Dr. Johansson was usually ruthless towards users that endangered his precious creation of the virtual system.

“But sir! What purpose those letting the patient lose has to our goals?”

“Think about it Mr.Murray. This user has been the only one to come closest to fixing the UI longevity issue since Orion’s hospitalization. While the UI’s irregular behavior has been causing us profit loss across the Hologlobe the issue is manageable. But think of the potential this users could posses if we push them in the right direction.”

“And how do we do that sir? Most users are wary of drones. We won’t be able to communicate with the user up front.”

The new surveillance feature in Hologlobe was not taken well when it was first released and has only become worse in the public’s eye over the past few months. The public believes it’s a new form of government surveillance but the true purpose of the drones was far more complex than that.

It was rather simple reason really.

No one comes into corporate war without soldiers.

“Follow them but keep yourselves at a distance. If my theory is correct, once they come across the patient they would be tempted to help them. You may record their work from afar. Keep chasing them as long as you can and eventually they would have no choice but to come to you willingly.”

“Are you sure this one will break like the others? They put so much effort into running away I don’t believe it will be as easy to convince them to communicate with us.”

A small chuckle of amusement can be heard coming from the other side of the call.

On the other side a tall man stands behind his desk in a dark room with many glass cases around him. Most hold visual brain scans while others held bird taxidermy such as crows and doves. The man is shrouded in shadows except for the glint coming from his square glasses and the light coming from a small window hitting his left arm. It appeared to be synthetic due to small bolts holding the hand together but from afar the hand looked organic.

The scientist twirled a black marble pawn in his left hand as if he was inspecting every crack and line.

“Don’t worry general,” he responded with a slight playful tone.

He hovered the pawn upon a black space in the end of the chess table.

“In the end, everything will work out when I apply all the pressure.”

He set the pawn down rather harshly as the sound of marble hitting marble vibrated around the silent room and across the call line.

“Now do as I say.”

The playful tone of the scientist was soon replaced with a cold harsh tone before he ended the call.