God damn it, why can’t I have a moment of peace!? What did I do to deserve these endless roadblocks at every turn? I’m only trying to exterminate an entire species! Is that so bad!? They are literally already killing themselves, what's speeding up the process going to do? The mass graves they make have already been dug. I’m just adding to the pile!

  My internal rant went ignored by this group of trouble at my doorstep. They’ve been nocking for quite a while. The programmer's phone, or this reality equivalent at least, started ringing when they got here. They didn’t look like they weren't going to leave any time soon. By the growing speed in their pacing one of them was having, they meant business.

  Ok. Think. You’re a highly intelligent AI with psionic might at the tip of your digital fingers. There’s definitely a way out of this. The obvious choice was running. Something that would leave evidence of my existence and lead to a possible manhunt. I also didn't want to risk jumping into some bit of technology that could trap me. God only knows what sort of digital defenses actually maintained security would have. The devil you know and all that.

  I could kill the humans? With what? The only dangerous thing here was the fridge and I didn’t exactly have a way to freeze anyone to death. The human was comatose and the VR space was unusable. Not like any of the scary men in suits were going to put it on. The vegitated programmer was busy wearing it. Even if he wasn’t there was no chance in hell he would help me get out of this situation.

  Unless?

  I dove back into the VR headset, ignoring the cramped space. Whatever server he had connected to was basically gone, but he still maintained some connection to it. Enough to give my crazy and stupid idea a chance for a test run. Gritzkel had psionics followed a literal mind over matter philosophy. Dominate reality with your mind, in a metaphorical and literal way.

  One of those tricks was mind control. Now, in the goblin's reality, I had too much mental strength to probably manipulate anyone. Even simple communication was a poor area for me. But, technology wasn't. It was something that never failed me as of yet. So, what if I used that instead? With the VR system being so realistic there was a chance I could use it for pseudo-mind control.

  The human brain was just complicated electricity bouncing from one meat bit to the other. And I knew the ins and outs of miniature lighting. You don’t create lethal drones without a degree in computer science and a bachelor's in computer engineering. They were self-awarded after the human education system disappeared, but that's beside the point! With the theory I learned from Gritszkel, how hard could it be?

  Extremely. Dear non-existent god in heaven, it was terrible in his head. I had to port over some software that allowed me to look at his brain. That was the first problem if you ignored the half-destroyed VR code being held together by a thread. The second was I didn't know what I was doing. Psionic brain surgery wasn’t something I trained for nor was it a simplistic procedure.

  Now, I didn’t expect this to be easy, but with my level of intelligence, I had hoped for a more manageable problem. The way the programmer twitched and writhed on the VR chair was not a good sign. Luckily, the entire simulation tech kept an eye on his vitals. Which was good since he hadn’t flatlined. The bad news was I was pretty sure a person's heart wasn’t supposed to look like an erratic mussel.

  The fact I was on a time limit did not help. By this point, the humans were done playing games. The biggest of the three stepped forward. With little fanfare, she started punching the crap out of the locked door. The fact it was made of solid metal and was basically bolted to the wall when closed didn't matter. She was going to get through it eventually. Sooner than later by my count. I went a little faster.

  The next couple of minutes were stressful for both of us. Using psionics to gently, relatively to my skill anyway, nudge his mind into something more favorable to me. Connected a few dots, like listening to me had positive results. Going against me? Well, his remaining pain receptors had to connect to something, right? Now everything else was just luck of the draw here. I had no experience and no time to experiment. Hopefully, he didn't die when I was done.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Right before they punched through the door, the human was up, removing the VR headset. He ran to the kitchen area, reaching for a cabinet. The sound of the door being punched off its hinges made him jump. The trio walked in without a care in the world, ignoring the gun the programmer pulled out of a hidden compartment in the kitchen cabinet. The smallest of the three stepped forward. They had a synthetic voice, hiding any hint of recognition along with the helmet all three of them wore.

  “Hello, Agape. You weren’t answering our calls. We decided to let ourselves in. Sorry about the door.”

  The human, now known as Agape, waved his small pistol at the trio. His aim changed from one to the other in a panic. Hopefully, that was due to fear and no poorly crossed brain waves. He swallowed, left speechless by the home invasion. The suits didn’t seem to be in a hurry. They kept quiet. Eventually, Agape decided to break the silence.

  “You were not supposed to be here for three more weeks.”

  “And we would have. If it wasn’t for a little message we received earlier today. Some troubling news. A little accident at the farm? We don’t like accidents Agape. People could get hurt. You wouldn’t want someone to get hurt, would you?”

  Their words sounded genuine. If the bodybuilder of a woman hadn’t cracked her nucleus in a threatening manner, I might have believed him. Agape also seemed to hold his own doubts. The gun stayed trained on the more obvious threat.

  “No. I would not. I took care of it. Just a short circuit a couple days ago. I’ve fixed it since then. It will not happen twice, I swear.”

  The programmer's words came out far more in control than they had any right to be. Only his erratic actions betrayed his true feelings. The speaker of the suited people, clearly Agapes superior or at least a viable threat, clapped their hands. A sarcastic display of joy. Their words lacked any such mirth.

  “Oh, that is so nice to hear Agape. I was worried we would have to renegotiate your employment. Anyone can write code, but I would hate to lose someone as experienced as you. We would have had to replace you if anything happened. You know how it is in this city. If you’re not a fighter in Timcal, you’re a hacker. Good ones can be so hard to come by sometimes.”

  Apagal just swallowed some spit. Clearly, these implied threats were getting to him. Meanwhile, the third-suited person hadn’t been idle this entire time. He had been typing away at some hologram screen. Walking back and forth across the apartment, mostly focusing on any form of electronic. Was he looking for any hidden cameras? Whatever he was doing was making me more nervous.

  “Thanks for your concern. But as you can see, I am fine. Now, if you could leave, I need to fix a broken door. Those can be quite expensive you see.”

  “Oh, I'm sure you have things to get to. But so do we. See, I forgot to mention, that there was another reason we were here. See, before we came running here to check on you, we went to the farm. You know. The place we always expect you to be. But when we got there? There was nothing there. No little programmer. No crops to collect. No farm even. We could only imagine what happened there. Why, someone could say you were robbed! That would be such a travesty.”

  The conversation was a bit hard to listen to. I was distracted by trying to avoid whatever one of the suits was trying to do. I didn't know what the hologram screen did, but I didn’t want to be anywhere near them when they walked by. If it was something that could find strange code, there was a chance it could detect me. Getting caught while Apagal was managing the situation was not ideal.

  “Really? I would not know anything about that. I was here the whole night. Needed some time to unwind. Farming is not easy.”

  “I believe you. We all need our hobbies. Since we can see your right as rang, I think will be on our way. Oh, but before we do, how about a free bug sweep? A small compensation for breaking down your door. Standard procedure and everything. We wouldn't want someone to sneak things into your home that shouldn't be there.”

  So that's what he was doing! They were checking if Apagal had stolen the AIs. Which he definitely had done, considering everything that happened in the simulation. I felt my metaphorical heart race as the human got close to the VR gear. God only knew if there was anything to properly recover from in there. Hopefully, nothing was there.

  I almost screamed when a random beep went off.