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>>> A blonde woman in a black skirt and red corset walked by Alan as a he sat on a bench in a park in Mexico City.

What’s a blonde doing here? The sims in Mexico almost always had dark hair.

"Perdón?" he asked as she walked by.

"Yes?" She stopped and turned to him. A white skull was painted on her face.

"Donde esta la biblioteca?"

"I’m sorry, I don’t speak Spanish," she shrugged.

"Where are you from?" he asked.

"California," she replied. "And you?"

"Texas."

"What’s a Texan doing in Mexico City?"

"What?" Alan blinked. He'd never had a sim ask him a question so pointedly before. "I’m here for the Day of the Dead," he replied.

"Me too!" she exclaimed. "I’ve been wanting to go for a while now…" Her light sea green eyes lingered on Alan's watch. "I’m heading to the main square for the parade now. It’s starting in a few minutes… maybe I’ll see you there?" She grinned and hurried away.

Alan called Piper on his watch.

"Hello Alan," Piper said. "How are you finding the new feature?"

"It's impressive," Alan said. "I met a girl from California. She had…personality."

"Interesting," Piper murmured.

"Request elevated privileges from MTP," Alan asked. "I wannna see CPU load."

"Okay. Will let you know when it's been granted," Piper answered.

"Thanks."

"Connecting to your neuralink, so we can communicate without using your watch," Piper said.

"Understood," Alan thought. "Can you hear me okay?"

"Loud and clear," Piper's voice echoed in Alan's head.

Alan got up from the bench and moved the way the California girl went, past statues, gardens and trees. A breeze carried the smell of meat roasting on taco carts nearby, surrounded by sims eager to taste. A float progressed slowly down the road that ran alongside the park. A large crowd gathered on the sidewalk to watch the parade, wearing costumes of skull masks, dresses, and mariachi suits.

Alan had no trouble seeing past the locals towards the procession of floats, dancers, marchers and musicians passing by.

"MTP has approved our request for elevated privileges," Piper said.

"Bring up the system resources panel."

A window appeared in Alan’s peripheral vision of data on various system load—at the bottom was CPU usage.

"Keep in mind, Alan," Piper warned, "if total CPU reaches 100 percent our world reboots. We’ll reset from when we loaded and lose all progress. Our memories up until that point will be erased, and an incident report will be generated and sent to MTP."

"I know Piper, I know," Alan replied absentmindedly as he scanned the resources panel. CPU was at 63%.

Alan slipped through a gap in the mob, edging closer to the parade. Cheers erupted around him as a massive float rolled past—a towering skeleton draped in a marigold dress, its hollow eyes staring vacantly ahead. He scanned the sea of faces for the blonde but came up empty. He made his way to the curb as the spectacle pulled him in. Dancers in vivid, swirling skirts spun in unison, moving a blur of color. Behind them, men clad in black leotards strode forward, hoisting papier-mâché floats of crosses and peacocks high above their heads.

Processor usage rose to 65%. Probably just the strain of rendering a crowd this big. Then it ticked up to 67%. Then again, to 68%. His stomach tightened. Something was off.

Alan closed his eyes to access his mindUI, and imagined a green river feeding into a lake.

Saving Stream locally, the mindUI daemon whispered in Alan’s head.

He opened his eyes to the world rendered with a green hue—an indication he was recording a Stream. As a precaution, he tapped his watch to set pain to zero. He was ready to gather evidence for the bug report.

He scanned the throngs of people around him but found nothing suspicious. As he passed a group of vaqueros, the blonde he'd met earlier stepped into his path.

"Hello again," she smiled.

"Hey there," Alan nodded.

"Care for a dance?" she grinned.

"Uhh, not really," Alan muttered.

"Oh, come on," she giggled, pushing his chest playfully, "loosen up… it's the Day of the Dead!"

Alan looked around, as if searching for an excuse to leave, when he noticed something peculiar: the mouths of spectators rendering oddly. They floated between two states: open and closed at the same time.

"Dance with me!" the blonde exclaimed, whisking Alan away with a laugh, leading him through basic steps as the crowd drew near.

Alan shuffled awkwardly for half a minute before he thought to Piper: "Get me a Salsa KT, pronto!"

"That'll be twenty thousand credits," Piper replied.

Oof. That hit him right in the wallet. "Fine!" Alan moaned, "just buy it."

White light enveloped his vision, and heat seared the right side of his head. As the surge of the data faded, he could hear the rhythm of the parade’s drums, feel it inside him. He took the lead, grabbing his partner confidently and twirling her about. His movements fluid, he spun the blonde effortlessly, guiding her with precise footwork and smooth turns. The crowd around them clapped and cheered.

At the tail end of the parade, the drums deepened—a pounding, warlike rhythm. Eight dancers emerged, moving in perfect unison. They were dressed like Aztec warriors, heads adorned with feathered crowns, faces tattooed, and turquoise beads around their wrists and necks. Bone piercings glinted in the green hue of the Stream recording indicator.

Alan dipped the blonde low.

Her eyes widened in surprise. "Damn," she breathed, gripping his shoulder. "Where did that come from?"

Alan smirked, catching her hand and pulling her back upright. "Guess I just needed to loosen up."

A humming noise cut through the drums. Subtle at first, just beneath the roar of the parade, but it grew louder, till it resonated in Alan's skull. He twirled his partner, scanning for the source. The crowd had stopped cheering. They stood still. Their mouths still moved—too fast, like a corrupted animation stuck in an infinite loop. Alan flicked open the system resources panel. CPU usage had jumped to 70%.

"Piper, CPU usage keeps shooting up," Alan murmured, stepping into a cross-body lead as his mind raced.

"Indeed," Piper responded. "But you're looking muy caliente out there."

Alan rolled his eyes, then his focus snapped back to the warriors. They were closing in, their bodies moving with the precision of soldiers—not dancers. Behind them, a shaman loomed tall, clad in a peacock-feathered headdress. A jaguar mask covered his face. In one hand, he gripped a staff, that looked fuzzy as Alan looked at it. In the other he held an obsidian sword, its edge gleaming green from the Streams hue. He commanded the warriors and the parade, as if their conductor.

"There’s a humming sound. I don't know where it’s coming from. Another thing… the sims' lips are moving funny, like they're talking really fast, but they're not."

Piper went silent as he listened. "Alan, they’re communicating with each other!"

Alan's pulse quickened. "What?"

"That humming—it's the simulated people talking to each other," Piper exclaimed. "They’re speaking so fast it sounds like a solid tone to you, but I can hear every word."

"What are they saying?" Alan shuddered at the sight of the Aztecs.

"They’re using some kind of self-invented programming language," Piper replied.

"What? Why?"

"To create their own program, outside the bounds and restrictions of the one written for them by MTP," Piper surmised. "We should pull the plug Alan. I have a bad feeling about this."

Alan turned back to the blonde.

Her grin stretched too wide. Sweat streaked through the skull makeup on her face.

"We've already got a lot of data," Alan thought, "it would be a—"

"Mine!" the Californian hissed as she grabbed his watch with inhuman speed.

Thunder cracked. The sky blinked to black. Clouds materialized from nowhere, swirling overhead. The warriors stopped dancing. The conductor lifted his obsidian blade and pointed it towards Alan.

Alan could feel the girl's fingernails digging into his wrist—even though he'd set pain to zero.

"Hey!" he cried out, yanking his arm back. He glanced at his watch. Its display flashed a red error message: 4☹️4!!

The blonde dropped into a low stance, her head tilting sharply to one side.

The warriors stepped forward.

The humming became a roar.

The crowd in skull masks encircled Alan.

His throat tightened. "Piper, they're surrounding me…"

"They've hacked our world through your watch. I can try issuing a SIGSTOP interrupt… it might freeze them for a few seconds."

"Do it!" Alan shouted.

A chime rang through the air, as if coming from the sky. It was gentle in its demeanor, yet ever-present like thunder. "Kernel signal detected—SIGSTOP issued on… Simulated Users process," the system notifications daemon for Alan's world announced.

The effect rippled through the crowd, freezing them in a T-pose—their legs locked straight, arms stretched to their sides at perfect right angles, like human crosses.

The humming stopped.

Desperate for refuge, Alan bolted out of the crowd toward a church looming in the distance. After a moment, the sims regained their composure and the humming resumed. The warriors screamed as they chased after him, their jade-feathered headdresses flowing in the wind.

Alan sprinted past clusters of sims swaying in circles to a rhythm, masked in white skulls, moving to a rhythm he couldn't hear. CPU load rose to 75%.

"Alan, they're probing our world's system permissions," Piper warned. "Your elevated access made you a target. They're exploiting a flaw in the Smarter Sims feature we're debugging—they're intercepting your inputs before they reach core commands… they're running privilege escalation attacks, trying to override your control!"

Panting, Alan replied, "Worst case scenario we reboot, right?"

"That’s the best case scenario. Now that they have your watch, we don’t know what the worst case scenario is…" Piper warned.

Dread settled in. Alan sprinted toward the towering baroque cathedral as his breath escaped him, its entrance flanked by two imposing bell towers. He rushed through the massive wooden doors, and dragged a nearby bench to barricade them shut.

He needed a weapon. Think! What can I use?! Panic gnawed at the edges of his mind as he sprinted deeper into the cathedral. Floor candle stands lined the stone walls. Stained glass windows lined the halls—maybe he could shatter one and use a shard like a shank…

A heavy thud rattled the entrance doors.

Alan bolted down the central aisle between rows of wooden pews, his breath ragged from fear and exhaustion. At the back of the cathedral, behind the pulpit, a towering array of silver pipes stretched skyward, gleaming in the dim light. A grand organ.

Another thud. This time, wood splintered.

The bots' humming faded as he moved farther in. A thought took shape.

Another thud. CPU load: 80%.

Alan’s eyes swept the area. The organ’s keyboard—where was it? He spotted it mounted on the wall near the pulpit, flanked by flickering candles and a faded painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe. A plan had formed. He grabbed a candle stand, gripping its pewter frame like a staff, and turned to face the entrance.

Then—boom!.

The cathedral’s massive doors exploded inward, crashing onto the marble floor in a heap of shattered wood. The Aztec warriors stepped through the wreckage, slow and methodical, their headdresses swaying with each measured step. Their obsidian weapons gleamed under the candlelight as they advanced down the aisle, like panthers stalking their prey.

Steady, Alan exhaled through his teeth, every muscle taut. He needed them as close to the organ as possible. His pulse thundered in his ears, his vision tunneling from the flood of adrenaline. The warriors were just an arm’s lengths away.

Their leader let out a piercing howl as they all lunged at Alan. He hurled the candle stand at them and dove onto the organ's keyboard, slamming down as many keys as his body could reach. A deafening roar erupted from the pipes, shaking the cathedral’s stone walls, rattling stained glass windows, and flooding the air with an earth-shaking chord. The blast of noise severed the conductor's control over the warriors. They dropped to the floor like rag dolls. He lifted himself from the keys, ready to press them again, if they bodies showed signs of aggression.

Dazed, the warriors stirred, slowly regaining consciousness. They exchanged glances, their memories seemingly wiped clean. Then, one turned and knelt before a pew to pray in silence. The others hesitated, then followed.

Alan exhaled in relief before breaking into manic laughter at the sight of Aztecs praying in a Catholic church. A few broke from their prayers and gave him disapproving stares.

"Piper, I think we got enough for the bug report," Alan said triumphantly. He tried disabling the Smarter Sims feature on his watch, but he couldn't past the 4☹️4! error. "What the hell…?"

"Alan, the sims hijacked the permissions for this feature. They've blocked us from disabling it. The rogue A.I. has just enough control to keep itself running!"

Alan groaned and ran a hand through his tightly coiled hair, pacing in front of the altar. "Great. Just great! What do we do now?"

"Did you notice anything else peculiar about the sims?" Piper asked.

Alan thought for a moment. "The conductor's staff was glitching out too, like the sims' lips."

"It sounds like he's using it like a metronome. He must be their clock," Piper reasoned.

"What, like a CPU clock?"

"Yes, exactly. If you take out the conductor you’ll break their form of communication. Their ‘processing’ will become unsynchronized and their ‘program’ will crash."

"Clever," Alan mused.

Remembering the twin bell towers outside the cathedral, Alan scoured the dim hallways until he found a dusty control room near the entrance. One wall was covered in metal panels studded with indicator lights, knobs, switches, and faded labels.

"This is some old school tech," Alan marveled, running his fingers over the old brass switches, their surfaces worn smooth by time. "Piper, all the labels are in Spanish. Which ones control the bells?"

"The ones labeled Campana."

Alan flicked the two corresponding switches, and, a moment later, the cathedral bells tolled—first one, then the other, in perfect cadence. Their clangs roared over the humming that saturated the city, disrupting the signal binding the sims together to form the rogue A.I.

Determined to close out this job, Alan slipped out of the cathedral and sprinted toward the parade. The bells behind him tolled in steady, resounding intervals. He reached the crowd’s edge, where the spectators moved in synchronized circles, arms linked, heads tilting and nodding in unison. They were transmitting data to each other through sight, sound, and touch. In the center of the road the conductor stood, tapping his staff in a relentless, mechanical cadence.

Alan locked eyes with him and pressed forward.

The sims snapped their heads in his direction. The circles broke apart. They lunged.

A bell toll. Sims collapsed, dropping like puppets whose strings were cut. The rest kept coming; wave after wave of sims. The ringing bells kept them at bay. Alan sprinted. A bell tolled. Sims staggered mid-stride as they neared, and Alan slipped past. As he drew closer to the conductor, the crowd grew denser. Alan ducked and dodged to close the gap. A bell tolled. The final wave stuttered as Alan weaved past them.

The conductor realized too late. He turned to flee, eyes narrowing, and slammed his staff against the pavement even faster, desperately trying to counteract the ringing bells with a higher clock speed.

Alan was already on him. With a surge of adrenaline he tackled the conductor, slamming him onto the pavement. The staff tumbled from his grip, and rolled away.

The world stuttered. Sims froze, their limbs twitching erratically. One by one, they collapsed.

Alan rolled himself off the conductor's limp body. He glanced at his watch. The error message had disappeared. He tapped his watch till he disabled the Smarter Simulated People feature.

"Piper?"

"The feature is disabled. We're safe to load out of here."

Alan exhaled, his pulse finally slowing. He closed his eyes and thought of a dry creekbed. When he opened them his world returned to its normal hue.

Stream saved a voice said in his head.

Fallen sims were strewn about him. The shaman conductor sat up groggily, behaving in the simple manner Alan was familiar with. Absent the green hue, he appeared less menacing, too. He blinked at Alan, then awkwardly waved.

Alan grinned and waved back.

"Load us out of here, Piper."

In an instant, the streets of Mexico dissolved, and Alan’s flat in New Dallas materialized around him. He collapsed into his couch, rubbing his temples.

He had one hell of a bug report to file.