System Programmer

Catherine's request couldn't have been more clear.

"Leave it to me!" Joshua replied.

He proceeded to materialize an old-school detonator like those you would see in old Looney Toons cartoons. Smiling he pressed it down. A loud bang resonated in the room. Naturally, he was the one to explode.

Catherine's eyes went wide open as smoke filled the room. Before she could start to worry, she heard Joshua's familiar crazy laughter. The smoke dispelled after a moment, revealing Joshua's body full of soot.

"Hmm, what are you doing?" she asked.

"Getting back in character, I haven't been myself lately so I had to make sure my triumphant return started with a bang. I have to say, this is such a 'mind-blowing' experience."

Catherine sighed and shook her head.

"Look, I'll gladly listen to all your dumb jokes after we get out of here."

"I suppose you're right. Let's tear down those walls, Miss Gorbachev!" he replied and pressed the detonator again. This time, the area around them burst into pieces. The scene they had stayed in for far too long vanished and Catherine found herself back in the room with all the clockwork, although Joshua had come along this time. The cog that Catherine had used to enter the last scene had moved back to its original position. Looking around, she saw that the machine was still incomplete and there was no way it would work. Behind them was the staircase she had used to climb up here, ending on this floor.

Joshua looked confused.

"Hmm, where are…" he began but he suddenly let out a burp. He quickly put his hand in front of his mouth.

"Sorry, not sure what's … burp… happening…"

Catherine's expression twitched. "Are you OK?"

In response, Joshua's cheeks inflated as he was about to vomit. He turned around and began to spit out something. A few seconds later, he was holding an object in his hand. It was another cog.

"What the hell is… burp…?"

Under Catherine incredulous glare, a dozen of cogs rapidly came out of Joshua's mouth, one after the other, forming a stack on the ground. After about two minutes, it finally seemed to calm down.

Joshua let out a big sigh.

"Is that all?" he asked out loud.

Naturally, as if some god of crappy comedy was mocking him, as as soon as he said that he started burping again and spat a final cog out. He angrily grabbed that one as it came out of his mouth.

"Joshua… is it over this time?" Catherine asked him.

"I think we're good," Joshua finally said, "You know, Catherine, I think most people would agree that I have a few loose screws, but entire cogs? Even I'm surprised!"

"Tell me about it, I was hoping you were mature enough, I wouldn't have to watch out what you were eating. Looks like I was mistaken so run your food by me from now on," she replied chuckling while gently punching Joshua's shoulder.

"Yes, Madam! Anyway, do you know where we are?"

"We're still inside the nightmare she created. I was stuck here before, but I think we should be able to progress by completing the machine via the cogs you just… produced."

Joshua nodded and put his hand on one of the cogs on the wall. Instantly, he saw the memory inside of it and as he suspected, it wasn't a pleasant one. He retracted his hand and proceeded to touch a few other cogs. As expected, they represented all his bad memories. He then turned his eyes towards the pile of junk he had just spat out. He randomly picked a cog from the pile and looked inside it. He saw himself in his house, working on Luna with a confident expression in his eyes. Another one showed a scene of him with a glass of champagne, congratulating his team on the completion of the beta chip. Every time he finished watching a memory, the cog jumped out of his hand and placed itself on the big machine. Apart from the one wrapped around in chains, all the pieces were soon placed were they belonged.

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He looked around and saw that the machine was now complete and functioning normally.

'No wonder this machine was running like shit, it was missing all the best parts.' he thought.

He heard a loud mechanical noise coming from behind him. Turning around, he saw that the staircase was expanding with new steps going up appearing.

"Excellent," said Catherine, "this should hopefully lead us out of here."

"I certainly hope so," Joshua replied, "but, what about this one?"

He was still holding the cog wrapped around in chains. He tried to look into it, but unsurprisingly, it failed.

"Weird," he told Catherine, "I can't see what's inside this one."

"Hmm, could it be something you've forgotten?"

"Maybe. . . Well, I'll see to that later. Let's get out of here first."

"Agreed."

Without any more delay, they began their ascent of the spiraling staircase. Several minutes passed with no end in sight. Joshua began to wonder if it was actually leading somewhere, but Catherine reassured him that she had to climb a lot to reach the room with the machine too. Eventually, they arrived at a new floor. Unlike the previous one, there was no strange machinery here, only an archway going up and a big metal double door with 'EXIT' painted in a giant font on it.

". . . Did they ran out of budget when they made this room?" Joshua asked out loud.

"Well, I'm not going to complain, let's just go through it," Catherine replied, smiling.

"Wait a moment! This seems way too easy! I bet it's a trap!"

"Hmm, now that you mention it. . . It does look a bit weird. But I don't think there is another option for us."

"It's okay, just give me a 10-foot pole."

"A what?"

"Please, make me a 10-foot pole out of ice. I'll use it to open the door. 10-foot poles are one of the most basic trap inspection items used by adventurers like us!"

'If you say so..." Catherine was a bit unsure, but she produced a pole and handed it to Joshua.

"Thanks, stand back, I'll handle this."

Joshua climbed the archway and began to carefully poke the door a bit with the pole. Nothing happened. A bit reassured, he slowly pushed the handle down. The door slowly opened. He was about to be relieved when he heard a 'click' sound.

'Phew, luckily I opened it from far away, it should be f...'

Suddenly the door slammed open and a giant boulder rolled out of it, causing his eyes to go wide.

"Damn it! Run!" he yelled at Catherine as he turned around and ran towards her.

Catherine who was a few meters behind Joshua had remained on alert. As soon as the boulder appeared, her eyes went wide but she quickly had an idea and concentrated her energy. When Joshua passed by her, she rapidly made a wall of ice appear. The boulder slammed into it making it crack. She had managed to slow the boulder down, but it wouldn't last longer than a few seconds.

"This isn't gonna hold," she told Joshua as she turned around and ran after him.

"Grab on to me!" she ordered when they reached the stairs.

Joshua did as asked. As soon as he was holding her tight, she held her hands forward and made some ice appear on the ground in front of them. She jumped on it and as the began to glide down she kept making ice, forming a slide. Behind them, they heard the boulder rolling after them.

Still, as they were gliding down at high speed, Joshua couldn't help but feel happy.

"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"he shouted.

Catherine heard him and rolled her eyes, yet couldn't help but smile. Soon, they saw the floor with the machine appear in their field of vision. With her superior agility, Catherine had no trouble jumping out of the staircase on the time and they both crashed into the room. As for the boulder, it continued to tumble down the stairs.

"Ouch… Nice one, Catherine, I wouldn't want our story to end on a flat note." Joshua said as he stood up.

"I wouldn't have succeeded without you opening the door from afar, although maybe you'll need a longer pole next time," she replied grinning.

"Nonsense, 10-foot poles are all that adventurers need!"

"If you say so…, well time to go climb back up."

The second climb went without a hitch. Soon they were in front of the door again. It was still open, white light coming out of it.

"OK, I think this is it. Although, we should tie ourselves with a rope in case some force tries to separate us when we go through!" Joshua suggested.

"How about you just grab my hand? Wouldn't that be easier?"

"Yeah… I suppose that's actually more practical."

Thus, he held Catherine's hand very tightly and they walked through the door. As they did, the light surrounded them and soon they couldn't see anything else.

###

Catherine opened her eyes. She was on the ground, back in the laboratory.

'Good, I managed to wake up,' she thought and asked: "Joshua, are you all right?"

There was no response. She quickly ran over to Joshua's body who was still unconscious on the ground and slapped him, hoping to wake him up. However, there was no reaction.

'I'm sure we escaped that nightmare, I sense his presence, but I can't reach him. There is only one place he can be...'

Without delay, she entered her soul world. Everything looked normal at first glance but she soon heard a loud bang noise, at a regular interval. She quickly located the origin of the sound, the door between her and Joshua's world.

Bracing herself, she reached out to open the door.