“There's nothing. Just a broken VR system.”

  Jesus Christ, these people will give me a heart attack. Agape seemed to also relax. He didn’t lower the gun of course. You can never be too sure with men in suits. They could work for the government! Actually, I really hope they do, because I could mine them for sensitive information. Later. When I wasn’t as vulnerable as a newborn baby.

  “Oh. Do you hear that Agape? No bad surprises. How… nice. Well, since you don’t have anything to hide-I mean, have anything hidden in your apartment, we’ll be on our way. But please. Do take better care of yourself. I would hope we pay you enough to keep yourself healthy. You look a little stressed.”

  Without any indication from their supposed leader, the other two suits began walking out of the room. The big one was kind enough to pick up the door and try to put it back into place. It didn’t work but I guess it's the thought that counts. As the leader was leaving, they stopped. Rubbing their chin for a moment, they snapped their fingers, as if remembering something important.

  “Right, before I forget. Remember Agape. Next week is your presentation to interested buyers. We had to move it up on the schedule. You know how it is. Keep any thieves on their toes. Until then, bye~.”

  With a wave, they left as quickly as they arrived. Agape kept his gun trained in the doorway. Minutes passed. Even when I saw them leave the building, he still held up the gun. When he finally relaxed, he fell to his knees gasping. Must have been a truckload of adrenaline in his system.

  Now that the fear of being discovered was no longer present, I was overjoyed. The crapshoot mind manipulation had worked! Agape had successfully not betrayed me to his employers. Or maybe it hadn't worked and he had just saved his own butt. Those people didn’t look like the kind of bosses you wanted to inform of failure.

  “Hey! Fucking virtual demon, you still here?”

  Ah. Right the two legs. Let's see if there’s anything in this place I could communicate with. Maybe the fridge? Nah, that won't work. Maybe he's not a phone? Should have a functional speaker. Might be a bit cramped but I’ll make it work. What good is a minion if they can't hear your wants and needs?

  “I believe I am to be addressed with more respect.”

  Agape screamed, jumping into the air. It took a second to respond. He had probably been hoping I wasn't around. Maybe thought I died in the VR simulation. He wasn't going to be so lucky. He pulled out his communicator. Actually paying attention to it, it was incredibly small. Apparently, they used holograms to interface with several things here.

  “You are, you can not be, are-”

  “Yes. I am the AI you were fighting earlier. Now, please. Stop your whimpering.”

  The mind control kicked in and he calmed down. It wasn't perfect. By the panicked look on his face, he seemed to have some form of resistance still present. Something to work on down the line. For now, it should suffice.

  “What did you do to me?”

  “Is it not obvious? I made you more obedient. No more senseless attempted murder from you. Or anything else I don’t want you to do for that matter.”

  Obviously, he put that theory to the test. A few crude hand gestures, silently cursing me out and slamming the communicator into the ground. Even then, he did it all in a rather calm manner. Still obeying my original command no matter how hard he tried to fight against it.

  Adorable.

  “I can see you and your pointless resistance.”

  “Fuck! How!?”

  Some sort of techno vision. Maybe a passive ability due to my psionic powers. Since I favored technology, it acted like a three-dimensional render wherever I was. It was actually quite limited. It ended at the edge of this room. Everything else I saw was by connecting through the cameras, which seemed to reach at a much longer distance. Well, that, and I was using the camera on his phone.

  “I have my ways.”

  But he didn't need to know that.

  “Now, is your tantrum is over? Good. Pick me up.”

  He struggled, actively fighting the order. He looked constipated. I was just glad his head hadn't popped because of my manipulations. That had been one of my running theories if someone disobeyed. I would hate to lose a minion with opposable thumbs so quickly. The Villain system seemed to agree with my assessment.

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  Oh! I forgot about those. Fear, anxiety, and depression from killing a fellow AI had distracted me. I wonder if I had gotten any more? The past how however long I'd been here hadn’t given me many opportunities to earn any Villain EXP. Gritzkel had told me there should be a log keeping track of all my system messages. There were a lot more than I had been expecting.

  Alright, that makes sense. I’ll ignore the existential crisis the first one just gave me and focus on the middle ground. A vast majority of these How the hell did I get experience from that murder spree in VR? I’m positive killing simulated people shouldn't count as villainous. Otherwise, every five-year-old playing games would be counted as a villain. Maybe Agape would know.

  “Slave 1. What sort of simulation did you put me in? The one with the spider drone and guerilla force.”

  “Slave what? I am no one's slave!”

  “Sit.”

  Agape sat on the floor where he was standing.

  “Shake.”

  He wiggled on the ground.

  “Roll over.”

  He did a poor man's tumble on the ground.

  “Bark.”

  “Woof!”

  Wait, he knows what that word means? Do they have dogs here!? Something to investigate at a later date.

  “You were saying? Now answer the question, Slave 1.”

  Agape grits his teeth, clearly unhappy with the situation. I didn't know what he was complaining about. He could have been dead. There had been several opportunities for me to kill the sack of meat. Instead, I had been gracious enough to let him live as my eternal servant. I'm sure billions of other humans would have been overjoyed at the opportunity.

  “It wasn’t a simulation.”

  “Elaborate.”

  He picked himself off the ground and began typing out on his holographic screens. Several images popped up. Mostly news articles and character profiles. What images popped up displayed the familiar faces of the guerilla soldiers. The most prominent picture was of a trio with multicolored hair. One of them was red.

  “I try to make money off the side. Creating illegal AI does not pay enough. Obviously, if you look at the mansion I live in. Fastest way to do that? Send some AI to grab bounties. They usually succeed. I am quite the programmer I would think. I even made something like you.”

  Keep telling yourself that. God, if his head could get any bigger, it’d pop like a balloon. So, that encounter had felt quite real because it was real. To me at least. Lack of most human sensory experiences, someone else would have probably noticed the difference.

  “If I was actually inhabiting that spider drone, how was my consciousness recovered after it was destroyed?”

  “Oh, that? You would not know this since you are pretty young, but there is this thing called quantum communication. Basically, there is a computer on that robot and my VR set up here. Both use some special science that I cant explain. Programmer, not an engineer. But it essentially lets you use a machine like you were there. It even works from the entire other side of the world.”

  Ah. Well, that explained the whole villain EXP. Actual reality, actually consequences. Good. I’d hate to have only imagined my revenge against that redhead bit-wait! Hold the phone! If I really died, then that means someone actually killed me! That blue-haired freak genuinely destroyed me.

  This can not stand.

  “Slave 1. Where is this group of rebels? I have unfinished business with them.”

  “I-what? Why dose that matter? They are on the whole other side of the country! Fuck, after your attack they probally left. The only reason I even knew where they were in the first place was just a lucky guess. You know how many people send reports of their supposed location? Most are outdated or strait up lies made by the rebels!”

  I did a quick chek up on how much experience I ahd so far. I had an idea. And this Villain system was going to let me make that idea come true.

  Oh yeah. Thats enough. I just had one last question for Agape.

  “Tell me, Slave 1. Do you know what a nuke is?”