Terms And conditions Apply : Invoicing The Apocalypse

Debugging Destiny

Hey, wake up! Don't you dare die on my server floor, filing the death report would be a total nightmare!"

Freza choked, his lungs feeling as if they had just been forcibly pumped with air that smelled like burnt cables. He opened his eyes to find the face of the man in the 'I HATE MONDAYS' t-shirt right in front of his nose. The room was no longer Jakarta, but a cramped space filled with ancient CRT monitors, stacks of stale pizza boxes, and cables dangling like mechanical intestines.

"Cough! You... Who were you again? The Dev? What is this place? Why is it so suffocating?!"

"Welcome to the Back-end, the place where all your digital sins are processed before becoming reality. And I suggest you don't touch that red cable unless you want your entire childhood memory formatted into cat videos."

Freza tried to sit up, his head throbbing violently. "I heard you talking about my father earlier. Don't cut it off, keep going! Who is my father, really? If you say he's some galactic ruler in disguise, I'm suing you for excessive clichés."

"Your father is much more annoying than that, Freza. Where do you think this system got such insane legal loopholes? Where did those thousands of pages of T&Cs come from, the ones so convoluted even the Gods are too lazy to read them?"

"What do you mean?"

"Your father wasn't just an auditor. He was the Lead Architect of this System. He wrote all the rules, but he also planted 'backdoors' so humans would have a chance to sue back if the Investors got greedy. He was the first whistleblower in the history of the universe's creation."

Freza was stunned, his mouth slightly agape. "So... all my lawsuits all this time... the path was already prepared by him?"

"Exactly. He knew the Andromeda Consortium would come to exploit Earth. That’s why he made the T&Cs so incredibly complicated. He wanted you as his son, who is just as rigid about rules to be able to find those loopholes. But the problem is, your presence now is making this server overheat. You are a glitch with legal standing, Freza. That is the most terrifying combination for the developers."

"Then why did you bring me here? Why didn't you just let me die when reality shattered earlier?"

"Because if you die, all the system debts you're collecting will be 'hanging.' It would cause my database to crash completely because of an unresolved variable. I need you to sign a peaceful 'Dispute Resolution' agreement so I can reboot the world without any legal errors."

Freza smirked thinly, standing up while straightening his mangled shirt. "Peaceful? You're talking to an auditor, bro. There’s no such thing as peace without proper compensation. Where are my friends? Where are Qoriski and Citra?"

"They're in the quarantine room. Their status is currently 'Pending' due to illegal involvement in asset manipulation."

Narrative: The man called The Dev pressed a large button on the dusty keyboard in front of him. Instantly, two glass tubes rose from the floor, containing Qoriski, who was sleeping with his mouth open, and Citra, who was still holding her electric sword in a frozen stance.

"Qoriski! Citra! Hey, wake up, you two! You're actually enjoying a nap inside those tubes!" Freza shouted while banging on the glass of Qoriski's tube.

Qoriski startled, his head hitting the glass. "Ouch! Mr. Freza?! Where are we now? Why am I locked inside a giant syrup bottle?!"

"It's not a syrup bottle, idiot! This is the system's quarantine room!" Freza shot back.

"Citra, are you okay?" Freza asked as he saw the Chief Security officer begin to regain consciousness and deactivate her sword.

"I feel like I was just thrown into a giant washing machine. Freza, who is this man? Why can't I read his source code?!" Citra stared at The Dev warily.

"He's the one making our lives complicated, Cit. He is The Developer."

"Whoa, for real?! Hey man, can I get some coins? My salary as CS keeps getting cut!" Qoriski immediately pressed his face against the glass, his eyes sparkling.

"Shut up, Qoriski! Your salary is a matter for later!" The Dev interrupted with a sigh. "Listen, I don't have much time. The Quality Assurance (QA) team is actually looking for us. They are a cleanup unit that won't ask about your legal clauses. Once they find a glitch, they delete it without a trace."

"QA? You mean the quality assurance team? Why do they want to erase us?" Freza asked.

"Because your existence violates Standard Operating Procedures. You are an anomaly. And to them, an anomaly is trash that must be thrown into the dimensional bin."

Suddenly, a very loud alarm blared in the room. The monitor screens that previously displayed green code turned bright red with large text: [THREAT DETECTED: UNIDENTIFIED OBJECTS IN BACK-END].

"There it is! They're here! Get out of those tubes, fast!" The Dev pressed an emergency button that shattered the glass of Qoriski and Citra's tubes.

Narrative: The door to the room exploded, shattering into black pixel particles. Three figures in white robes with masks shaped like 'Checkmark' symbols entered with very stiff and synchronized movements. In their hands were erasing tools shaped like giant squeegees but emitting white laser beams.

"TARGET FOUND. STATUS: CORRUPT DATA. ACTION: PERMANENT DELETION." Their voices sounded like a fusion of thousands of monotonous robotic voices.

"Oh no! That eraser is huge! One wipe and I might forget how to breathe!" Qoriski screamed while hiding behind Citra's back.

"Citra! Hold them off! I need time to audit their status!" Freza commanded.

"Understood! But my sword feels incredibly heavy here! It's like something is draining its power!" Citra tried to swing her sword, but its electrical glow was dim.

"Of course it is, this is the Back-end! Your power is being drawn directly by the central server! Here, let me help!" The Dev typed something rapidly. "I'm giving you an 'Administrator Guest Access' buff for five minutes!"

Narrative: Citra's sword suddenly exploded with a very bright blue light. She lunged at the three QA units, parrying their laser attacks that attempted to erase her existence. The clash of energy created electromagnetic waves that caused the monitors in the room to shatter.

"Freza! Find the loophole, quick! I can't hold them for long!" Citra shouted amidst the struggle.

"Be patient! I'm looking at their status balance! Balance Audit: Root Mode!" Freza focused his gaze. In his eyes, the three white-robed figures now appeared as very long lines of code.

"Found it! They don't have an 'Execution Warrant' signed by the Server Owner! They're only moving using an 'Auto-Script'!" Freza grinned widely. "Hey, Dev! Give me access to the main console! I'm going to shut down their script!"

"Are you crazy?! If you access the main console, the entire system could crash!"

"Better than us turning into dust! Give me the access, now!"

The Dev hesitated for a moment, but finally threw a fiber optic cable with a needle-shaped tip toward Freza. "Plug that into your temple! But I'm warning you, your brain is going to feel like it's being fried!"

"Mr. Freza! Don't! If you go crazy, who's going to support me?!" Qoriski shrieked.

"Shut up, Qor! This is for our future!"

Narrative: Freza stabbed the fiber optic needle into his temple. His eyes suddenly rolled back, and his body convulsed for a moment before he finally stood rigid with eyes emitting neon blue light. Inside his mind, he now saw the entire structure of the universe as one giant, endless Excel sheet.

"SUBJECT: QA UNITS 01 THROUGH 03. STATUS: OPERATION WITHOUT DOCUMENTED AUTHORIZATION." Freza's voice turned cold and heavy. "BASED ON THE USER DATA PROTECTION ACT, ANY DELETION ACTION WITHOUT THREE NOTIFICATIONS IS ILLEGAL. ACTION: CANCEL TASK!"

Freza's fingers moved through the air, deleting the lines of code floating in front of him. Instantly, the three QA units froze. Their bodies began to crack, white pixels falling like melting snow.

"ERROR... UNAUTHORIZED COMMAND... SYSTEM REBOOTING..." The three figures vanished, evaporating into thin air.

"Hah... hah... Did it work?" Freza pulled the cable from his temple and immediately collapsed to the floor, his nose bleeding fresh blood.

"Mr. Freza! You're okay, right?!" Qoriski immediately rushed to his boss, wiping the blood from Freza's nose with his dirty sleeve.

"I... I'm fine. Just feels like I just finished tax reports for a thousand companies in a single second," Freza muttered weakly.

"You're reckless, Freza. You just performed a god-level override. The central QA team will definitely send a larger fleet after this," The Dev said while staring at his monitor screen, which began to display thousands of new red dots.

"Let them. I already got what I needed when I was plugged in," Freza stood up with Citra's help. "I saw the location. I saw where the 'Emotion Warehouse' is hidden."

"Where, Freza?" Citra asked seriously.

"Not in Jakarta. Not on Earth. But in 'Sector 9 Backup Server' the place they call Hell. Turns out Hell is just a storage warehouse for unused or seized assets."

"So we have to go to Hell? Sir, are you serious?! I've always been afraid of going there because I often miss my prayers, and now you want us to go there ourselves for work?!" Qoriski protested loudly while hugging his hammer.

"There's no other choice, Qor. If we don't return human emotions, they'll all remain robots, and we won't be able to collect any taxes from them. We'll go bankrupt before we even start the business!"

"But how do we get there? We're trapped here in the Back-end," Citra asked.

The Dev took a long breath, opened a secret drawer in his desk, and pulled out a pitch-black access card with a flame symbol in the center. "I can send you there using the 'Fast-Travel' route for admin staff. But once you arrive, I can't help you anymore. My status here will become that of a fugitive for helping you."

"Why are you helping us, Dev? You could have just reported us and gotten a bonus?" Freza asked suspiciously.

The man smiled bitterly. "Because I'm also tired of working for this heartless company. I want to see your father's system actually function as it should a place where justice can be redeemed, not just bought."

"Okay. Send us now," Freza said firmly.

"Qoriski, Citra, get ready. We're about to go on the most extreme business trip in the history of the Doomsday Collection Office."

"Ready, Boss! Anyway, once I'm in Hell, I'm going to find the manager who likes to cut my salary and smash his head!" Qoriski exclaimed enthusiastically.

Narrative: The Dev pressed the final button on his console. The floor beneath their feet opened, revealing a roaring pit of fire with the distorted screams of millions of souls. Freza, Qoriski, and Citra plunged into the hole, letting dimensional gravity pull them toward the burning darkness.

As they plummeted, Freza caught a glimpse of one last notification appearing in the corner of his eye, a notification that made his blood run cold.

[WARNING: YOU ARE ENTERING A NON-LEGAL ZONE]

[ALL TERMS AND CONDITIONS ARE VOID]

[SURVIVAL RATE: 0.0001%]

"No rules? Good... That means I'm free to make new rules there," Freza muttered before his vision was obscured by black flames.

Narrative: They landed on a barren plain where the sky was filled with giant hanging chains. In the distance stood a high iron gate with an inscription glowing blood-red: 'DEPARTMENT OF SOUL SEIZURE & TORTURE LOGISTICS'.

However, what made Freza stop wasn't the gate, but the figure standing in front of it. A figure wearing an auditor's uniform exactly like Freza's, but with a face that...

This chapter page looked like paper forced out of a shredder, leaving a jagged tear at the bottom that revealed a signature very similar to Freza's father's...