Touch Some Grass

What am I doing?

The creator raced back. 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? Damn, Azan. Made it seem like he was actually going crazy for a second.

He pushed the glass panel in. “Bread, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” He looked around. “Bread?” It was empty. “Bread!”

Scattered pieces of hardened clay dotted the floor. The chair was splintered in half—he overturned the table. He vigorously scoured every corner. Nothing. Not even a single piece of fabric.

Nobody was there.

…

“Where’s Bread?” He burst through the doors of Azan’s real world office. It wasn’t often he visited this place.

“Who?” Azan twirled around on his chair, casually spinning a pen with his fingers.

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? Plus, 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?”

“User privacy, ‘member?”

“Just give me the files.”

“It’s not for personal use.”

“Azan.” He swiped at the air. The holographic documents fizzled out of sight. “Give it to me.”

“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 had a gut feeling.

“Oh, how very unexpected of our creator.” Azan brought out the documents from before. “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 look that he usually never made.

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

“Nope, not allowed. Only the CEO retains full control over the security system. Those are the rules, remember?”

“That’s only because we don’t have a CSO—since when did you care about rules?”

“Since now.”

“Why are you making this so difficult?”

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

“Azan…” He was getting to his wit’s end. “Don’t make me fire you.”

“Do it then. You don’t even know what’s best for you or our company. Now if you cared about the meeting in 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, look. She 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, impressive.”

“Bread too?” He checked the logs again. “Wha—how? He’s not even…” But if they had both logged out at the same time, they were surely connected. “Azan, what did you do?”

He shrugged. “Maybe the boy finally learned to control the system. Now, he’s getting ready to take over the world.” He chuckled at his own joke.

“Give me the woman’s address.” If he didn’t at least give him this information…

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

“Forget it.” The creator held himself back from throwing a punch. “I’ll deal with you later.” He walked out of the room and smashed the button to the elevator. The door started to close.

Azan watched him from across the room. He was still beaming that smug expression of his.

…

The creator usually never went outside. Especially not during summer. Besides the humidity, there were just too many people out in 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… 

At the very least, it was midnight. Downtown was lit up like an extravagant Christmas decoration, but 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 Bread,” he called out.

“Failed,” his internal system responded.

“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.

His first thought was to find a base of operations. Perhaps a hotel. He wasn’t intent on going back to the office. Not after what had just happened.

But then, everything was suddenly devoured in darkness. All the street lamps in the vicinity popped. There was a bunch of yelling in the distance.

Blackout? Really? It looked to be city-wide. The entire grid was dark.

This wasn’t normal. 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…

Is this somehow related to Bread?

It was a risky thought, but he had no other leads. He was going to take whatever information he could get his grubby hands on.

“Is anybody there?” A muffled voice came from his right.

He ignored it. 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 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!” It wasn’t just the muffled voice. Everyone else was also shuffling around like headless chickens. Could they not even afford antiquated flashlights? He stormed over to the voice to see what all the fuss was about.

A feeble, old lady had her leg lodged underneath a metal pole. She couldn’t even move her head.

A tinge of guilt promptly floated through his mind. The pole must’ve collapsed somehow during the darkness. From a car? A hit and run? No, it was more likely just panic.

As if registering his presence, the old lady spoke out, “Oh, I’m so sorry to bother you. Could you please help this old lady up, dear?”

“Right…” He couldn’t just leave her, could he? 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 finally go—

“Oh no…” She fell to her knees and frantically patted around the vicinity. “Oh, no. No, no, no. 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 suddenly grabbed 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. She held onto his pants with just two fingers. Even if she had used both hands, her feeble grip wasn’t going to be able to keep him there. If he’d wanted, all he needed to do was pull away. Then he’d be free, merrily on his way to find Bread. That was all he had to do—

Pull.

He sighed. This was going to take longer than he had initially planned.