Thank you so much, everyone who reviewed. You don't know how much that means to me. I was feeling pretty self-conscious about this story and was seriously considering discontinuing it. But i didn't, and now I know that there is at least two people who were excited to see this story be published. Thank you.

BTW, I noticed there was some tense errors in the last chapter. It was originally in first person, but I changed it to third to math the two previous prologues. Just ignore any errors.


Chapter 1: Breaking Code

Alex

I wiped the sweat off my brow and dunked the concrete powder into the water. It instantly became concrete, and I mined it up. I sighed as I checked my inventory. Only two more stacks to go.

Steve and I had basically moved into this server. All of the players (minus Catlover and her goons) treated us as friends, and we were fitting in more and more each day. It has been about six months since CleanCode came for Nightmare and Herobrine, but it feels like it's been a lifetime. Notch has only checked up on us about once or twice, just because he doesn't like being around actual players.

Slowly, we were rebuilding Rashain and Panther's underground base. Steve was currently filling in the gigantic hole where the base used to be, and I was in charge of gathering materials for the reconstruction. That basically translates to: "Alex, go wait an eternity for saplings to grow and spend that eternity mining concrete." I sighed at the thought. The players weren't even online.

I flopped back on the grass and glanced at the sun. it was almost night. The mobs wouldn't bother me, of course, but staying up all night is not enjoyable even without the fear of being attacked by phantoms. I stood up and brushed the dirt off of my pants before walking toward Panda's base.

Alex: hey Steve, night is falling

Over the past couple of months, I've been learning what exactly I could do. Now that I wasn't hiding anything from Steve and Notch wasn't watching over my shoulder, I could actually experiment with my abilities. So far, I've learned that I can say things in chat, teleport items to my hands, and perform basic commands like time changes and getting coordinates of structures. It was pretty cool, and Steve liked it because he felt like he was now being included in a whole part of my life that he never knew existed.

An ender pearl flew out of the hole, and when it hit the ground, Steve appeared. I grinned when I saw him. "Hey, Steve!"

"Hey, Alex." He didn't add anything else, probably because of how exhausted he was. He had been working all day too, but his part was considerably harder than mine.

We made out way into Panda's ridiculously large mansion. Because of how gigantic it was, Steve and I had separate rooms. Mine was decorated with paintings and a flowerpot containing a cornflower. Steve's room was not decorated in the slightest because he has no interior decorating skills. He went into his room and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Unlike him and the players, I didn't fall asleep instantly. So, I just laid in bed and stared at the ceiling, thinking.

To be honest, I kind of missed Herobrine. Sure, he tried to kill me and he set our house on fire, but I had forgiven him for that a long time ago. I rolled on my side and looked out the window at the mob-infested plains. Was he okay? Was he even alive? CleanCode had taken him away to some Glitch prison, and he broke his leg freeing Memory.

Say, where was that blue-skinned Glitch? I haven't seen hide nor hair of her since CleanCode came. What was she up to? Was SHE even alive? I hope so. She and I seemed to have been friends.

I don't know when I nodded off, but I woke up sometime later to a weird noise. I glanced around, but quickly decided that it must have been an Enderman or my imagination and closed my eyes.

That was when Nightmare teleported into my room. His face was splattered with fresh blood, and all of his weight was on one leg. He panted heavily, like he had been running from something.

"Nightmare?! What are you doing here!? What happened to you!?" I exclaimed.

"Alex…" he wheezed. "You need to run. Entity… if you don't get out now… he's gonna kill you both."


Entity 303

An hour or two ago…

It's been forever since I was last in Mojang's headquarters.

I walked quickly through the halls with a stride that meant I had somewhere important to be. Although I looked completely human, most of the people in here probably still remember me and if they saw me, it wouldn't be long before Notch got involved. I wore a simple black hoodie with the hood pulled over my face and jeans, and I carried a stack of assorted papers to cement the illusion that I was hard at work. I tugged on the hood and focused on my walk-with-a-purpose, and not the faces of my ex-coworkers.

It has been five years since I was fired, yet the office hasn't changed much. There were a few other faces and the coffee pot in the corner was updated, but those were the only obvious changes. Same beige walls, same bland carpet, and everyone was clicking away on their computers in the same manner as before. As I looked closer, I did notice that some of the computers were more modern editions, but that wasn't surprising.

"Take these to the copy room, I need a hundred copies by Tuesday," someone said, adding a small stack of documents to the pile in my arms. They didn't even give me a second glance, and this surprised me out of my memories.

"Uh, yes sir," I said. I knew where the copy machine was, but that was not my destination.

I continued hustling until I found a darker hallway branching off of a major hall. Half-hidden behind a large potted plant was a door that looked no different from the other doors in that hall. If I didn't know better, I would have assumed that it was a supply closet or a storage space. I glanced around to make sure no one was around (which there wasn't), and I slipped through the door.

Once the door was closed behind me, I sighed and dropped the papers. The hard part was done: infiltration.

I walked down a dark set of stairs using nothing but my sense of touch to navigate, until I reached a door at the foot of the stairs. It was locked, and a keypad off to the side was the only way to unlock it. I put my codebreaker on it, and the tiny red screen that read "locked" glitched for a second before turning green and displaying the words "access granted". I opened the door and stepped into Mojang's server room.

It was like stepping into a whole new world. There were endless rows of black metal boxes covered in blinking lights and wires. I smirked and surveyed the room. No one would ever see this coming. I pulled out an ordinary-looking cell phone and put it on the floor, and in a flash Nightmare appeared. He glanced around at his surroundings, confused.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"Mojang's server room," I responded. "If we're going to shut down the game, this is where we need to be."

Ever since he escaped, Nightmare has been working for me. I had easily convinced him that my side was the winning side and the only way he could keep his daughter safe. Nothing I said was a lie, anyway. If he still owed his allegiance to Herobrine, he'd be dead or still behind bars by now.

We walked through the room, passing endless rows of servers. "Let's see… source code… source code… where is it?" I thought aloud. I had never been down here before, even when I worked here. All of the equipment around me meant nothing. "Come on, how come nothing is labeled?" I hissed to myself.

Nightmare ran his claws across the cool black metal. "Why don't we destroy these one by one and see what happens?"

"Because that would end up destroying the game itself, and I don't want to do that," I explained. It took a lot of effort not to roll my eyes at the stupid question. I don't really want to anger Nightmare, though. He's seven feet tall and has massive claws, and is the only Glitch in history to have ever broken out of CleanCode's prison.

I shoved my hand into my pocket and fished out my codebreaker. This could go a lot faster if I used this. I closed my eyes and let the power of the small stone wash over me. As it did, my skin turned black.

"What are you doing?" Nightmare asked, but I ignored him.

I put my hand on one of the servers, and instantly I could feel the information flowing in and out of it. Hmm. Player coordinates. Not particularly useful to me right now. I walked down the aisles briskly, brushing my fingertips across black metal and feeling what was stored in these boxes. Let's see… terrain generation… mob code… sound files…

I paused at that one. It would be absolutely hilarious if I replaced disk 13 with something that would REALLY terrify the players, but I decided not to. I wasn't down here for small pranks. Besides, in a few minutes there wouldn't be any players in the game to be terrified. I continued walking.

"Here." I stopped in front of one of the servers. It looked no different from the other black boxes in this room, but it wasn't so ordinary on the inside. Small blue lights blinked, meaning who-knows-what, and blue wires connected it to the panels on either side of it.

"What exactly is this?" Nightmare asked.

His questions were annoying, but I answered it anyway. "This, my friend, is the source code. It's the core of the game, and how we're going to take over the game. I'm going to disconnect all players and AIs from it. Mobs won't spawn anymore, players will be unable to enter the game, and Steve won't respawn. Killing him and Alex will be cake when there is no one to protect them."

Nightmare didn't seem happy about this, to my surprise. "Why do we need to kill Alex? She's a Glitch, not an AI."

I gave him a look. "She would never let me kill Steve. If we kill him and let her live, she will make us her enemies and would do everything in her power to destroy us. I'm not a sap, like Herobrine, and I'm not afraid to take precautions when I need to."

"I'm here to stop the murder of Glitches, not kill more," Nightmare hissed. "I won't let you do this." He stepped in between me and the server.

I scowled at him. "Nightmare, if I were you I'd rethink my actions. Alex is no better than Steve. The only difference between the two is Notch can't control her and use her to kill us."

"If you want to do this, you'll have to go through me," he snarled. He readied his claws for a fight.

Why was he defending some Glitch he barely knew? I don't know, but I didn't like it. I pulled out my scythe. "Nightmare, I killed Dreadlord. What makes you think I won't kill you?"

He went stiff. "You killed Dreadlord?"

"Yes. Now, step aside or I'm going to do to you what I did to him."

Nightmare looked between me and the server. I thought for a half second that he was going to surrender, but instead he kicked me in the chest. I was sent flying backwards and slammed into the wall behind me. Jeez, I felt like I had been kicked by a horse. I struggled to catch my breath as I stood up. "Big mistake, tough guy." I swung at him with my scythe, and if he hadn't rolled out of the way I would have cut him in half. His claws raked my face and chest, and my blood splattered on him. I smacked him away with the handle of my scythe. He skidded back a few feet and his claws left gouges on the floor. Before he could stand up, I stepped on his ankle. A loud SNAP echoed through the room, and Nightmare cried out in pain. he struggled to get to his feet.

"You know what the funny thing is?" I asked him as I admired the blade of my scythe. "Herobrine is never going to know that you're dead." I chuckled at my own joke.

"Not today, halfling," Nightmare hissed. Only then did I realize that he had the cell phone in his claws. He vanished into internet transit before I could react. It was so sudden I was left speechless for a full minute. I ground my teeth as I figured out what to do next. Oh well. What's one freaky-looking red Glitch gonna do against me? I shook my head and turned toward the server.

Just in case, though, I should probably take precautions. I pulled out my codebreaker and touched it to the black metal.

Connect "entity303" to the source code?

(yes) no