# Chapter 5: Glitches in the System

"Alright," Max said, pushing aside his doubts. "Let's hack reality."

With those words, Max felt the weight of his decision settle onto his shoulders like a cloak made of quantum uncertainty. The bizarre DIY contraption on Dr. Weiss's workbench—a Frankenstein's monster of technology spanning multiple centuries—somehow embodied his entire journey from skeptic to conspiracy theorist to... whatever he was now. Reality hacker? Digital escapologist? Future inmate of a padded cell?

On the monitor, the Admin's hand remained pressed against the wall, unnaturally still, as if the being on the other side was running a very thorough scanning algorithm.

"How much time do we have?" Max asked, examining the Decoder's exposed circuitry.

"Difficult to estimate," Dr. Weiss replied, handing him a soldering iron. "The room's shielding disrupts their sensing capabilities, but they have other methods. Conventional ones."

As if on cue, a distant metallic thud echoed through the wall—the sound of breaching tools making first contact.

"That answers that question," Aisha muttered, glancing nervously at the door. "Max, I know you've got that 'I'm about to do something brilliant or catastrophic' look, so... maybe lean toward brilliant?"

Max managed a thin smile as he studied the device's architecture. It was both elegant and absurd—vacuum tubes alongside quantum processors, analog dials next to holographic displays. The central processor resembled a small geodesic sphere made of interlocking circuit boards.

"This is incredible engineering," he said, genuinely impressed. "But I see the problem. Your feedback loop is trying to process the anomaly patterns sequentially, but reality glitches don't follow linear causality."

Dr. Weiss nodded vigorously. "Precisely. I've tried various non-linear processing architectures, but—"

"You need something that thinks like the system itself," Max interrupted, the solution crystallizing in his mind. "Not an algorithm that chases the patterns, but one that anticipates them by mimicking their origin structure."

Another thud against the wall, louder this time. On the monitor, three Admins now stood in formation, their movements synchronized with mechanical precision as they systematically probed the hidden doorway.

"Whatever you're doing, do it faster," Aisha urged, grabbing a heavy wrench from the workbench and positioning herself near the door. Max wasn't sure what she planned to do with it against entities that might not even be fully human, but he appreciated the gesture.

"The core algorithm needs to be self-modifying, yes," Dr. Weiss said, "but also self-referential. It needs to observe its own processes as it observes external patterns."

Max's fingers flew across a small keyboard connected to the Decoder's central processing unit. "Like a quantum observer effect loop," he murmured. "The algorithm watches reality watching itself watching the algorithm..."

"A recursive consciousness model," Dr. Weiss breathed, her eyes widening. "Of course!"

Another impact shook the door, this time accompanied by the sound of metal groaning under stress. The locks wouldn't hold much longer.

Max typed frantically, coding by instinct more than careful planning. "I'm creating a recursive pattern recognition system that modifies its own parameters based on how reality responds to its probing. Instead of looking for existing glitches, we'll generate controlled micro-anomalies and analyze how the system attempts to correct them."

"Like deliberately introducing errors to study the error-correction mechanisms," Dr. Weiss said, nodding as she connected additional components to the sphere. "Brilliant."

The banging against the door became rhythmic, methodical—the sound of beings who knew they would eventually get through and saw no need to rush. Somehow, their patience was more terrifying than urgency would have been.

"Almost there," Max said, fingers still dancing across the keyboard. "The core algorithm is structured. Now we need to define the initial probe parameters."

Dr. Weiss pointed to a section of the device where a crystalline structure sat nestled among copper coils. "This will generate the initial quantum fluctuation. The parameters should target the natural frequency of the seam anomalies—approximately 87.3 gigahertz with a phase variance of—"

"I've got it," Max said, entering the values. "Initializing the bootstrap sequence... now."

The Decoder hummed to life, its various components lighting up in sequence. The geodesic sphere at its center began to rotate slowly, individual segments shifting position like a puzzle solving itself.

A final, devastating impact hit the door, leaving a visible dent in the metal.

"One more ought to do it," Aisha said grimly, tightening her grip on the wrench.

"Final calibration," Dr. Weiss announced, adjusting several dials with practiced precision. "Mr. Davidson, I need the seed value for the recursive algorithm."

Max hesitated for a fraction of a second. In programming, seed values determined the initial state of randomized processes—like planting a specific tree that would grow into a unique forest. What seed would best probe the fabric of reality?

His mind flashed to an old programming joke about the universe: "It's just a matter of finding the right input to get the desired output."

Max smiled and typed: 42

The final input—a nerdy tribute to Douglas Adams' "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything"—completed the sequence. The Decoder's hum deepened, resonating at a frequency that made Max's teeth vibrate and his vision blur slightly at the edges.

"Activation in three," Dr. Weiss counted down, her finger hovering over a final switch. "Two. One."

She flipped the switch just as the door to the secure room burst inward with a screech of tortured metal.

Three Admins stood in the doorway, their features so perfectly symmetrical and unblemished that they crossed into uncanny valley territory. They wore identical dark suits and expressionless faces, moving with a synchronicity that no group of humans could achieve naturally.

"Step away from the device," the central Admin said, his voice devoid of accent or emotion.

But no one was listening. No one could listen, because at that exact moment, reality decided to crash.

Max felt it first as a sensation like the world was buffering—everything seemed to stutter, freeze for an infinitesimal moment, then resume at slightly the wrong angle. Colors intensified, then inverted, then returned to normal in the span of a heartbeat.

"Oh my god," Aisha whispered, staring at her hands, which appeared to be simultaneously in multiple slightly different positions, like a multiple exposure photograph.

The Admins moved forward—or tried to. Their motions became erratic, as if they were fighting against invisible currents. The lead Admin's face glitched, briefly revealing a wireframe structure beneath the human façade before snapping back to normal.

"Fascinating," Dr. Weiss breathed, observing the effects with scientific detachment despite the chaos. "The Decoder is creating a localized reality distortion field. The system can't properly render physics within its radius."

That was putting it mildly. The laws of physics were having what appeared to be a spectacular nervous breakdown within the confines of the secure room. Objects began to lose their apparent mass—a pen floated up from the workbench, followed by a stack of papers that dispersed like confetti in zero gravity. The wrench slipped from Aisha's grip and hung suspended in mid-air, rotating slowly.

"What did we do?" Max gasped, watching as ripples of distortion spread across the room like waves in a pond.

"We created a bubble where the simulation can't maintain consistent rules," Dr. Weiss explained, her voice excited despite the danger. "The Decoder is forcing the system to recalculate physics locally at a rate it can't sustain."

The Admins were clearly experiencing the worst effects. Their movements became increasingly disjointed, like puppets with half their strings cut. One of them opened his mouth to speak, but instead of words, a burst of static emerged. Another's arm passed through a solid metal cabinet as if one or both were insubstantial.

Max watched in fascinated horror as the lead Admin's face began to... pixelate. There was no other word for it. His features broke down into increasingly large blocks of color, his eyes becoming perfect rectangles of empty darkness.

"They're glitching out," Aisha said, backing away from the deteriorating figures. "Like NPCs when a game engine crashes."

The room itself seemed less solid now. The walls rippled like fabric in a breeze, and Max could swear he occasionally saw through them to streams of green alphanumeric code, just like in "The Matrix"—which felt both profound and somehow disappointingly cliché.

"We need to document everything," Dr. Weiss said, fumbling for a camera that was now floating six inches above the workbench. "This is unprecedented evidence of—"

She never finished the sentence, because at that moment, Max felt a sensation like being yanked sideways through his own skull. His vision tunneled, went black, and then...

He was seeing through Aisha's eyes, experiencing her thoughts.

*—can't believe this is happening the Admins are glitching out Max looks terrified I'm terrified but also this proves everything if we can just—*

Then he was Dr. Weiss, feeling her analytical mind cataloging every phenomenon with clinical precision despite the adrenaline surging through her older body.

*—frequency modulation causing cascading failure in local physics engine consistent with theoretical models of partition rendering in simulated environments must secure the calibration data—*

And then, most disturbingly, he was briefly an Admin, experiencing a consciousness so alien it was nearly incomprehensible—less a continuous stream of thought than a series of processed objectives and responses.

*ALERT: REALITY INTEGRITY COMPROMISE DETECTED. EXECUTION FAILURE. ATTEMPTING SYSTEM RECALIBRATION. ERROR CODE 5490-X. REQUESTING BASELINE INTERVENTION.*

Max snapped back into his own body with a gasp, nearly falling as gravity seemed to fluctuate around him. "Did you feel that? I was in your heads!"

"Consciousness bleed-through," Dr. Weiss confirmed, her eyes wide with excitement despite the chaos. "The barriers between individual experiences are weakening in the distortion field."

The Admins were now barely maintaining humanoid form. Their outlines flickered and distorted, occasionally revealing glimpses of something underneath that didn't translate well to human vision—structures that seemed to exist in more dimensions than the eye could process.

"We need to get out of here," Max said, suddenly certain that whatever was happening wasn't stable. The Decoder was humming at an increasingly higher pitch, and small arcs of electricity had begun to dance across its surface. "This thing is going to overload."

Dr. Weiss looked pained at the suggestion of abandoning her life's work but nodded reluctantly. "You're right. The system will eventually deploy countermeasures. We need to secure what we've learned and retreat."

"How exactly do we retreat?" Aisha demanded, gesturing to the doorway where the glitching Admins still blocked their exit, despite their deteriorating condition. "Through them?"

As if in answer, a floor panel near the back of the room suddenly popped up and flipped over, revealing a dark space beneath. None of them had touched it.

"What the hell?" Max stared at the opening.

"The reality distortion," Dr. Weiss explained, already moving to examine the unexpected exit. "It's revealing hidden elements of the environment. Perhaps... yes! This is a maintenance access tunnel. I knew this building had old utility passages, but I never found the entrances."

"Convenient timing," Aisha remarked dryly.

"Or pattern recognition by the algorithm," Dr. Weiss countered. "It might be identifying potential escape routes based on our need."

Max didn't care which explanation was correct—he was just grateful for the option. "What do we take with us?"

Dr. Weiss was already moving, gathering components from the Decoder. "The core processing unit and the anomaly detection module. And my notebooks—they contain all my research."

The Decoder's pitch continued to rise, now accompanied by an ominous crackling sound. Parts of the device had begun to glow with an unnatural blue light.

Max quickly disconnected the geodesic sphere that formed the heart of the machine, careful not to disturb the still-running algorithm within. He grabbed Dr. Weiss's notebooks from a shelf while Aisha collected some of the smaller, portable instruments.

The Admins had begun to move again, though their motions resembled corrupted video playback—jerky, with occasional freezes and jumps. Their forms continued to glitch between human appearance and something far less comprehensible.

"They're adapting," Dr. Weiss warned. "The system is attempting to stabilize their rendering."

One of the Admins managed to lurch forward a step, his hand reaching toward them. Where his fingers passed, reality seemed to partially normalize—the floating objects in that area dropped suddenly to the ground.

"They're fixing the glitches," Max realized. "Like human-shaped anti-virus programs."

"Into the tunnel, now!" Dr. Weiss ordered, already lowering herself into the opening. The passage below was dark but appeared to extend beyond the room. "Quickly!"

Aisha went next, clutching the instruments they'd salvaged. Max followed, the geodesic sphere tucked carefully under one arm and the notebooks under the other.

As he descended, he took one last look at the secure room. The reality distortion had intensified—objects now phased in and out of existence, the walls displayed brief windows into other locations, and one corner of the room appeared to be experiencing time in reverse, with broken glass reassembling itself in mid-air.

The Admins had managed to advance halfway across the room, but their progress was erratic. One of them locked eyes with Max just before he dropped into the tunnel. Its face glitched one final time, revealing not code or wireframe but something that looked disturbingly like a human face screaming in pain.

Then Max was in the tunnel, pulling the floor panel closed above him. The passage was tight—little more than a crawlspace with rough concrete walls—but it was blessedly free of reality distortions. Normal darkness, normal dust, normal cobwebs—Max had never been so grateful for mundane discomfort.

"This way," Dr. Weiss whispered, already crawling forward. "These tunnels were used for maintenance in the building's previous incarnation as a government research facility. They should lead us outside the perimeter."

They moved as quickly as possible through the cramped space, the sounds of chaos from the secure room growing fainter behind them. After what felt like an eternity of scraped knees and elbows, they reached a junction where the tunnel widened enough to sit up.

"Stop here a moment," Dr. Weiss said, breathing heavily. The crawl had clearly taxed her more than the younger members of the group. "We need to assess what just happened."

"What just happened is that we broke reality," Aisha said, her voice a mixture of awe and horror. "We actually broke it."

"Not broke," Dr. Weiss corrected, her eyes gleaming with scientific excitement despite their predicament. "Manipulated. The Decoder didn't reveal the code of the simulation directly, but it proved we can affect it—force it to reveal its nature through controlled disruption."

Max carefully set down the geodesic sphere, which continued to hum softly, its internal components still active. "Those effects were insane. Objects ignoring gravity, time flowing backwards, experiencing each other's consciousness..."

"All consistent with a rendering system under extreme computational stress," Dr. Weiss confirmed. "When forced to recalculate physics at an unsustainable rate, the simulation defaulted to simplified approximations or failed entirely in certain domains."

"And the Admins?" Aisha asked. "They were falling apart more than anything else in the room."

Dr. Weiss nodded thoughtfully. "They appear to be more deeply integrated with the system architecture—perhaps specialized constructs rather than simulated humans. When the local reality parameters destabilized, they couldn't maintain coherence."

Max thought of that final glimpse—the human face beneath the Admin's glitching exterior. "I saw something when we were leaving. One of them... changed. It looked human for a second, but in pain."

"Interesting," Dr. Weiss mused. "Perhaps they're not entirely artificial. They might be modified human consciousnesses, repurposed to serve system functions."

"That's horrifying," Aisha said.

"Indeed." Dr. Weiss's expression darkened. "It raises significant ethical questions about the nature of our simulators and their methods."

A distant metallic clang echoed through the tunnels, reminding them they weren't safe yet.

"We should keep moving," Max suggested, carefully retrieving the sphere. "Where does this tunnel lead?"

"If my understanding of the building's structure is correct, it should connect to the storm drainage system, which would take us well away from the warehouse," Dr. Weiss replied, already turning to continue down the passage. "But before we proceed further, you both need to understand something important."

Her expression was more serious than Max had yet seen it. "What we just witnessed proves the simulation can be manipulated—but at a cost we don't yet understand. Those reality distortions weren't just visual glitches; they were fundamental breakdowns in the structure of our experienced universe. We've proven the bars of our cage exist, but we still don't know what lies beyond them, or what might happen if we break too many at once."

"You think we could damage the simulation permanently?" Max asked.

"Or trigger a system-wide response far more severe than a few Admins," Dr. Weiss confirmed gravely. "We've thrown a stone and seen the ripples. Next time, we might create a tsunami."

Another clang, closer this time.

"Philosophical debate later, escape now," Aisha urged, pointing down the tunnel.

As they resumed their crawl through the darkness, Max clutched the humming sphere to his chest, his mind racing with the implications of what they'd done. They'd proven reality could be hacked—but like any hack, there would be consequences. Security patches. System administrators. Lockdowns.

And perhaps most terrifying of all, the possibility that some hacks went too far—forcing not just a system reboot, but a complete shutdown.