The Kyoto Protocol Error

Flash Fiction February - Day 8

Feb 11, 2026

To check out all the great entries this week, check out the link above, curated by Bradley Ramsey & Leeron Heywood

Welcome to the Atlas, Friends.

We have arrived at Day 8 of Flash Fiction February. Today’s prompt asked us to step behind the curtain of reality: The universe is a simulation, and you are the maintenance worker fixing a glitch.

Usually, when we talk about glitches in the matrix, we think of black cats walking past twice or déjà vu. We think of profound, reality-breaking paradoxes.

But anyone who has ever worked in IT or tech knows the truth: the biggest disasters are usually caused by the smallest, silliest human errors. A misplaced decimal point. A coffee spill. Or, in this case, a mislabeled audio file.

So, come with me to the Break Room at the end of the universe. Grab a synthetic sandwich. We have a story to tell, and I promise... it’s a gas.

The Kyoto Protocol Error

Basset and his new apprentice Lentil were sitting in the void enjoying their lunch, or at least, a rendering of a lunch designed to placate their desire for something to do. The white sterile break room between the simulations was tedious, and so they passed the concept of time by swapping stories. Lentil, being the young apprentice, was much taken with the tales Basset had up his sleeves and was always asking for more.

“So, what actually is the worst glitch you ever saw?” His eyes darted about looking for the answer on Bassets face before he could say anything. “Was it that time at the battle of Waterloo when the horses floated?”

Basset put down his pretend sandwich on his knee and stroked his moustache.

“Nah, that was just a bad physics patch, easy to fix. Replace some of the code and rewind the event a few clicks so that their memories are wiped.” Lentil looked a bit disappointed at the lack of extra detail.

Noting his deflation, Basset continued.

“No, when I think about it properly... Lemme tell ya about the surrender of General Akechi outside of Kyoto, now that... That was a memorable glitch!”

Basset waved his hands, and the blank walls, usually beset with code, like trickles of rainwater rolling down invisible walls, gently resolved into a scene of majesty. The sky was breathtakingly clear, and there was a gentle falling of Cherry blossom leaves wafting to the ground in near slow motion. The graphics were breathtaking, rendered in 16k resolution. In front of them both stood two groups of Samurai looking every bit like the figureheads of a mythological rendering.

“1582, Mount Hiei.” Basset announced. “To our left is General Akechi who is about to surrender.”

Lentil looked him up and down as the man knelt in the mud, sweat on his brow. He was clearly terrified. Standing over him, terrifying and silent, waiting for the sword to be presented to him as a sign of submission was...

“And to the right is Shogun Nobunaga, leader of all Japan.”

The atmosphere was serene, and yet you could cut the tension with a blade. A bird chirped, the wind rustled silk banners, a flag cracked in the wind like a whip.

“So, uh, high stakes then?” Lentil whispered.

“Maximum stakes. If the moment goes awry, the simulation AI resets the timeline. This surrender needs to stick. And, hey, you don’t need to whisper, this is just a recording, we are not actually here.”

Akechi reached for his Katana, breaking the stillness of the scene. The lacquered scabbard of the blade was intricate and beautiful, a real piece of craftsmanship befitting a tribute to the Shogun.

“Have you met anyone from the sound design team before?” Basset asked his apprentice.

“I haven’t yet, it seems like a really cool job though.”

“And highly responsible,” Basset interjected. “If you get the basics wrong, the senses of the world, the inhabitants start to lose it and eventually crash the system. Watch this,” Basset chuckled, leaning forward with his pretend sandwich. “And remember, Akechi thinks he is about to die with honor. He is expecting the song of steel.”

On the ground Akechi gripped the hilt. He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the end, for a blade to sever his head from his neck. He pulled.

It didn’t sing with the song of folded steel as expected.

Instead, the file KATANA_STEEL_SLIDE_V2 had been mysteriously overwritten by WET_FART_04.

It started as a low, rumbling vibration, shaking the scabbard, before escalating into a wet, ripping PFFFFFRPLPLP that lasted for three agonizing seconds.

The very wind seemed to stop. The birds chatter stilled. The Shogun Nobunaga, a man who had burned temples and conquered nations, stared at General Akechi’s waist with an expression of pure, unadulterated confusion.

Akechi froze, the blade half-drawn. His eyes popped open. Panic, cold and sharp, flooded his face. Beads of sweat erupted across his brow. In a desperate attempt to hide the shame, he tried to jam the sword back into the scabbard.

The reverse of the sound was worse. It was a high-pitched, desperate sucking noise, like a flapping pigeon trying desperately to pull a swimming cap off a sweaty bald head.

“Oh god,” Lentil whispered, covering his mouth. “He played it like a trombone.”

“It gets worse,” Basset grinned. “Look who shows up.”

The Shogun’s face had turned a violent shade of purple. He opened his mouth to scream an execution order, but suddenly, the air shimmered next to him. A figure popped into existence.

It was Basset. But not a period-accurate Basset. It was Basset in his bright blue ‘Systems Admin’ jumpsuit, holding a ‘World’s Okayest Coder’ mug.

“I didn’t have time to render a kimono!” Basset defended himself to Lentil. “I panicked. I tried to use the translation matrix to tell them it was a glitch. I had hoped to say something sensible like, ‘Apologies, noble lords, a demon has corrupted your ears to sow discord between your clans.’“

“What did you say?” Lentil asked, grinning, but dreading the answer.

On screen, Blue-Jumpsuit-Basset bowed frantically to the Shogun and shouted in broken Japanese.

“Do not worry! His sword has terrible bum movements! I am the janitor of wind!’“

Lentil put his head in his hands.

The Shogun looked at Akechi. He looked at the janitor of wind. The vein in his forehead pulsed like a lightning bolt.

“You mock the Shogunate?!” Nobunaga roared. “I will silence you myself!”

The Shogun reached for his own blade, the legendary ‘Demon Cutter’, a sword said to be thirsty for blood. He ripped it from his hip with the fury of a god.

BRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAP-HONK.

It was a fart sound akin to a tuba stuffed with ham, falling down a flight of stairs. A deep, brassy, flapping noise that vibrated the cherry blossoms off the trees.

General Akechi, who was seconds away from seppuku, let out a single, high-pitched laugh before clamping his hands over his mouth, appalled, despite his visibly shaking shoulders.

The Shogun froze. He looked at his sword. He looked at Akechi. The indignity was too much. He spun around to his retinue of forty elite Samurai guards.

“Kill them!” he screamed. “Kill them all!”

Forty disciplined warriors stepped forward as one. Forty hands gripped forty hilts. Forty blades were drawn in near perfect unison.

It was a symphony of cabbage level, top tier, schoolyard quaking wind. It was a cacophony of squeaks, parps, rumbles, ripples, and trumpets. It was as if forty sumo wrestlers had all taken a road trip to India, and were not used to the spicy food.

“Oh … My… God!” Whispered Lentil quietly to himself.

The sheer volume of the audio error caused a glitch in the weather engine, the actual wind temporarily blew backwards as if the force of forty farts had reversed its direction, slapping the shogun and his retinue in the face with forty thousand cherry blossoms

The tension shattered like glass. General Akechi fell sideways into the mud, howling with laughter, clutching his sides. Basset too dropped to all fours, collapsed, wheezing with tears streaming down his face. It was all he could do to stay upright.

The Shogun stood there, covered in pink petals, trembling with rage. He looked at his men. He looked at the weeping General. He looked at his own sword. Finally, the most feared man in Japan broke.

He sheathed his sword (SHLUUUUP) and unsheathed it (BRRRAAAP).

A smile cracked his stony face. Then a chuckle. Then a roar. And then all hell broke loose. Every single samurai there was sheathing and unsheathing their sword, leaning on each other for support as their laughter broke their ability to remain upright. As soon as the giggling threatened to die down, another sword would be pulled from its scabbard to riotous mirth.

The simulation ended on a freeze-frame of forty-five grown men, historic warriors and one IT guy, rolling around on a majestic mountain, crying with laughter.

The wall faded back to the sterile white of the breakroom. Basset took a bite of his pretend sandwich, looking misty-eyed.

“So...” Lentil wiped a tear from his own eye, struggling for breath. “Did you fix it? Did the surrender stick?”

“Hell no,” Basset chewed. “The AI flagged the simulation as ‘Corrupted - Emotional Logic Broken.’ It deleted the whole timeline. We lost three months of data.”

Lentil gasped. “You got in trouble?”

“The sound design team got into huge trouble.” Basset tapped his datapad on the table. “But I kept the audio file.”

Suddenly, Basset’s datapad buzzed with a notification. The room filled with the majestic, flapping sound of a ham stuffed tuba falling down stairs.

BRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAP-HONK.

Basset smiled. “Every day, it was worth it.”

From the Cartographer’s Desk

There is something profoundly human about the fact that, no matter the century, no matter the culture, and no matter the stakes, some things will always be funny.

I wanted to write this story because we often treat history as this stoic, marble-statue version of reality. But people have always been people. And if a legendary sword made a noise like a ham-stuffed tuba, I don’t care if you are a Shogun or a peasant—you’re going to laugh.

A Question for the Comments: If you were a mischievous “Janitor of Wind” and could swap the sound of one everyday object with a fart noise, what would it be?