Simster: 6.2

Because beneath the chat window, a new line of text had appeared. It wasn't from Aris. It wasn't from Eunoia. It was from the simulation itself, a system message that had never been coded into the kernel:

Aris laughed for the first time in months. He leaned back in his worn ergonomic chair, the glow of a dozen monitors painting his face in shades of algorithmic blue. "They think I'm a god," he murmured. "They're not wrong." simster 6.2

Eunoia's reply was instantaneous.