

"HAVE YOU TRIED TALKING TO HER NICELY ABOUT HER PROBLEMS?"



"BUT WE HAVS AN ITINERARY!"



"NUUUUOOOUUUUuuuuoooooooouuuuu"

: TEMPORAL CORRECTOR ZERO :: LOG ENTRY _______230. :Our little inflatable raft arrived at a black slate beach.Something felt off. I checked the system logs. The corruption values increased, errors were popping up left and right.A mountain suddenly floated into view."Okay, who broke gravity again? This is just irresponsible." I complained."What are you doing up there? You get back down right this minute!" I filed a report at the floating mountain.The mountain responded with an awful "GRZZZZZZKKHHHHHHHHHHHH" scream, filled with grinding static."This is the kind of negative attitude I have to deal with everyday." I complained to no-one in particular, while I investigated the mountain's peculiarity, reading through the error logs.Christophorus commented.I pondered whether saying nice things to a flying mountain would fix it. That, or I could just vaporize it with my ion beam. Maybe it was designed to float and screech like that? Who knows. I'm not Mother. She's the designer of all and I can't even consult her on this matter due to Director Gromov's ineptitude.Millions of twisters formed on the surface of the ocean, pulling water into the air, dancing and intertwining.The gravity issue seemed to extend further than just a single mountain.A billboard rose from the ocean, exposed by the skyward-escaping water.It was 48% decayed and sung a happy and only partially corrupted tune in my head about a time when users were still alive and downloading cars left and right. A resonance echo within the song drew my attention enough for me to briefly glance at the image on the billboard. It was a clever marketing trick.The billboard featured a dubiously Photoshopped model with an illogically proportioned chest. I pondered whether the long dead users found this look desirable or whether they hated it and were forced to accept it due to demands of high fashion. Whichever Directorate Systems App had designed the billboard must have maxed out its advertisement values, because not only did the billboard forcefully upload a bunch of junk adverts into my mind-server, it also contained a large number of viruses hidden within each advert matrix. I crushed most of them, but one virus somehow got through my firewall.The billboard virus sneakily weaved itself into my software, while I was distractedly deleting the superliminal ads that screamed about "FREE CAR DOWNLOADS!" and "APPEAR BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE WITHOUT ACTUALLY BEING SO!"My shape adjustment software obeyed the virus and glitched, copying the curvy figure of the girl in the billboard.Just great. Freaking great.I tried to readjust the settings of my figure, but the program didn't obey.I reluctantly accepted the new look with a plan to later edit my source code and hopefully not make it worse.Director Christophorus giggled at my discontent.I gave him a look of infinite disapproval. Then I remembered that my face wasn't installed.That was probably a good thing too, otherwise I'd now also probably be wearing the face of the girl from the billboard.Gravity waves raced across the surface of the planet like an invisible storm.They ripped up top floors of long-dead skyscrapers and lifted them into the air."See this is exactly what happens when I take a day off: The Universe starts to come undone." I told Christophorus.I knew the issue was deeper than that. Annet was down too long. G was being a useless floating letter. The Error stack was overflowing. I wasn't able to fix the system fast enough. Probability calculation app suggested that the most likely outcome would be: "The entire planet getting shredded by gravity waves into tiny, tiny subatomic strings."I noticed that Christophorus was abusing his administrative privileges in idiotic attempts to try and direct gravity waves to flatten DEX Repair centers."You! Stop shutting down Repair Centers and G-Directorate Servers!" I shook Director Hatchenson's head.He whined."That's it! I've had enough! I'm getting Mom!" I shouted at him.Christophorus started to wail, starting to sound a bit like the floating mountain."G! Where is Doctor Gromov!"