Screens were lit all over the dark apartment, attached to various gadgets and electronics. Many of them were stripped of their casing and exposed bare wires and circuit boards. Little fans hummed and status LED blinked. Some had screens attached that showed status information, screensavers, or just a blank background. Somewhere thrown in was a soldering iron and some measurement equipment you'd expect in a university electronics lab, mixed with empty soda cans and dispatched boxes from pizza delivery.

Ghost was sitting in his wheelchair, somewhere in the midst of it, in front of three large screens and a keyboard. His scraggy, but soft furred squirrel legs ended in stumps. Somewhere in the mess of his apartment he had a pair of prosthetics, but he knew better than to wear them right now.

His eyes stared blankly through the screens in front of them, which displayed columns of numbers and debug information no one needed to read. His mind was elsewhere. Connected through a cable that led to the headset he was wearing, what his mind was seeing was determined by the virtual worlds inside his electronic machines. A world in which he was supreme ruler, lord and king.

Right now he was checking an underground forum for contracts. Various sums were offered for tasks from programming certain tools to outright espionage. But he barely cared about the money. He had everything he needed. What he was seeking as he browsed them was a challenge. 

A smile appeared on his pale physical face. A desperate contract. There was only a few hours time, physical entry would be needed, and the sum offered was certainly high enough for bragging rights. He accepted and read the details, then connected to the world wide web to play around a bit in the vicinity.

It was a busy afternoon in Kobe city. The noises of traffic mixed with the voices of the people crossing a plaza in 6 Chome near the main station. Ghost watched the scene from the sidelines. Through the eyes of CCTV cameras and webcams placed inside the store fronts, even from inside someone else's' flying drone, looking down on the crowded scene.

It was a diverse crowd. Foxes were popular this year, and bunnies. But there were also many felines. Even some plain old humans, wearing traditional Japanese outfits. Many had cybernetic augmentations, both visible and invisible. A parked police car had an EM scanner on board to track suspects, which could pick up system ID numbers and tell him manufacturer, model and serial number of the devices people were wearing or had implanted. He could have remote controlled almost any of them. But where was the fun of that?

He switched once more to another camera and finally saw a truly interesting figure. She was a cat, but heavily augmented. She was wearing a pair of old flight goggles on her head, almost steampunk style, offset by neon pink hair that consisted of wriggling, living snakes.

Although mostly hidden by her clothes, he could tell her arms and legs and tail were robotic. Yet she articulated them absolutely naturally as she walked. Only the light reflecting off her paws gave it away, but the police scanner didn't pick it up.
She wasn't a full cyborg. The infrared image taken from a CCTV confirmed that at the core, she was made from soft, warm flesh and blood. Yet still, even that was full of tech. Her facial fur itself seemed to change its hue in sync with the surface of her artificial limbs as she moved from the shadow of a building into the sun. 

She was perfect! And more importantly, she was a challenge! Her implants weren't just any run of the mill crap but custom made. Likely even hardened. A smile flickered on his lips, as he thought about it.

Emi was on her way over from Sannomiya station. She didn't take much notice of the bustling afternoon crowd, instead she looked for the things that had changed since her last visit. The old Chinese noodle stand was still there and busy as always, but the big shopping center behind it was new. It had a large display window with various gadgets as well as clothes and even a fully articulate moving cyber-doll, posing for the crowd. The virtual clothes and accessories she displayed, as well as the body and fur she had underneath, changed once every few seconds, cycling through the store's collections. She wondered if there was an actual robotic model or just a virtual projection in the display window. Or maybe even a real person? That would be an odd job, to just stand there, while your body followed a pre-programmed display pattern, once looking like a panther in an elegant dress, the next moment like a leopard in risky underwear. While really wearing nothing at all, posing virtual garments all day for the onlooking crowd.

It was nonsense of course, no one would pay for that if you could have a mindless drone for almost free, but the idea was fun and exciting to ponder.

A display screen in the same store window dragged her out of her musings. Instead of various advertisements, it suddenly flickered and blinked in an odd way and weird colours that drew her eyes to it. Then it suddenly went blindingly bright, like in a flash.

Emi blinked, confused. "What was that?" She thought. She looked back at the display window. The doll still presented her virtual garments, and the screens cycled through advertisements. A security camera looked at her from above. Everything seemed normal.

The sun shone warm on her fur, and she could hear some birds. Traffic noises sounded from far away, but she was alone on this street. The place was lazily deserted in the afternoon sun.

Somehow that struck her as odd, but just as her mind tried to think about it more, she suddenly remembered that she had to go somewhere. Emi left the display window behind and continued her way down the street.

Ghost's paws had clenched into fists, and his breathing had become excited as adrenaline pumped through his system. His eyes were no longer focused straightforward but darted left and right, while his mouth formed inaudible words. He was so focused, an onlooker could have grasped the suspense physically. But there were no onlookers. No sensors or cameras were in his room, and he knew just too well why.

He could see in his mind what Emi saw. He could almost sense her movements, hear what her ears picked up. He was "in"! In her mind, or at least inside the electronic implants she had, which was the furthest he could go.

He also had full control over her prosthetics. He could have sent her body anyway he wanted, even against her will, by overriding her limb actuators. But once again, that wouldn't have been a challenge. He wanted to be more subtle, so he only slightly altered the flow of data from her augmented memory and senses to her brain.

Emi had been in Kobe before, and she knew exactly where she was going.
Of course, had anyone asked her that moment, where she was heading she would have realized, confused, that she had no idea. Maybe she would even have remembered where she originally had wanted to go. But no one asked her that, and her mind was distracted by a squirrel, running up a cherry tree that had been planted at the side of the walkway.

The cat walked down the street as if she was alone on the planet. A moped stopped at the last second as she crossed a street, and the driver hit the honking horn, yelling something unpleasant. Most people stepped out of her way, but not everyone was paying attention themselves.

"Hey, watch it!" A wolf in tattered jeans barked at Emi, after brushing her shoulder, nearly running into her. He made a quick step back, as the cat's augmented hair hissed at him.

Emi felt a slight breeze on her side. Then her hair wiggled and hissed, as if something had upset her snakes. She turned around and looked in the direction, but there was nothing there. No one.

"Shush... Must be seeing ghosts..." she mumbled and reached for one of her hair snakes. She petted its cat heads absentmindedly, until they calmed down again.

No one paid much attention to the cat as she resumed her walk and made her way towards a large, looming office tower.

Ghost was way ahead of her. His eyes were watching through the lobby's CCTV, then he had a closer look at the security and locking system. He also found the target. As explained in the contract, located in a meeting room, on the topmost office floor.

The cat had machines in her blood. Nanobots, each not bigger than a living cell, dumb as an ant, and only able to interact with their surroundings in a limited way. They were the latest tech though. If they were programmed to act together they could do anything, from changing her fur colour to making her skin hard as rock, to giving her super strength or to heal her in record time. What he needed them to do however was both outside their current programming and outside Emi's body. While she made her way to the security doors, he was busy giving some of the tiny machines some very specific orders.

Emi walked across the deserted plaza to the entrance. The outer door opened for her, and she entered a narrow aisle with a little device to the right.

A security guard inside the lobby looked at his screens. One showed the figure entering the entrance corridor, while another showed him the scan results of her body. Nothing suspicious, only a few harmless extensions and leg prosthetics. Her hair caught his attention though and he watched her approach the iris scanner, next to the sign that said.

"Imko group, security area. Authorized personnel only beyond this point."

Emi looked at the odd machine. Next to it was a sign, but to her eyes it read: "Guests, please scan your eyes before entering." She glanced into the iris scanner, curiously, but all she could see was a quick flicker of light.

The machine tried to take both a picture of her iris pattern, and whenever someone with augmented eyes looked into it, also commenced a cryptographic key exchange to authorize the person.

Her eyes promptly responded to the code, but the pattern the machine received wasn't a key. It was a lockpick. The machine couldn't tell the difference, but the moment the data stream reached the authentication database server, a lot of things happened that were not exactly written in the system's design specifications.

Emi noticed nothing of that. There was a beep and the inner door opened for her, which led into the spacious empty lobby. On the other side was a desk with security monitors, but it was empty, so she went straight to the elevators.

"Miss?  Miss!" the security guard tried to get her attention. Her weird hair was odd, the scanner should have responded to it. But she didn't seem to hear him. He went to his monitor. The system had just let her in, so he knew he could check her identity from the log entry. After all, the security system logged every access and everyone currently in the building. He clicked at the list of the most recent entries.

"Please wait" ... the screen said.  Then it changed to "Please wait, system is being updated, please don't turn this computer off until the update is complete."

The security guard waited for a minute or two, when the message changed to "Update failed! Error extracting archive system_image_03220564. Please consult your administrator." Then the screen went blank.

With a sigh he picked up the phone to call the IT department. But the line was busy...

Ghost was riding her. That was likely the best analogy to describe the process. Like a rider giving a horse subtle hints where it was supposed to go. He couldn't force the cat's thoughts directly, he could only influence her emotions, memories - as far as they were retrieved from artificial storage, and overlay her sensory input. He could have directly overridden her movements of course, but not without her noticing that something was seriously wrong. If that happened, she might have freaked out. Or attempt counter measures. If the brain he had hacked were to start fighting him, the mission would have become tedious.
The trick was to make her do the things he wanted without thinking, luring her into a false sense of routine.

As such, Emi pressed the button to the second top most floor, as if this was the button she always used to press. Had anyone spoken to her and asked her what she was doing in the building, or what she wanted there, she'd have realized that she had no idea. But Ghost had focused her thoughts on something entirely different. The elevator music just happened to be Emi's favorite song. That had been easy, after all she had stored the mp3 in the player built into her very brain. A smile made her whiskers twitch, and she started to reach for her left nipple - absentmindedly.

That nipple had started to itch since she had entered the building, and the itch went worse.

With an audible *ping*, the elevator doors opened and Emi stepped onto a floor that housed offices and meeting rooms. She looked curiously at one of the large but empty meeting rooms. Glas windows allowed a breathtaking view over Kobe city and she envied whoever worked here every day. She reached under her coat and shirt, as the itch became almost unbearable. Not in a bad way, it didn't hurt, it was almost pleasant. Her nipple was rock hard, and hot to the touch. She squeezed it between her two fingers and the sensation sent a pleasant jolt through her. All the while, her steps had brought her across a door of a little kitchen, where snacks had been prepared for a business meeting.

Ghost had needed a few tricks to get the poodle in the waitress outfit out of the way. She had been busy stacking the snacks for the execs. Then her phone rang, but when she checked it, it suddenly claimed it had no reception. She had a missed call though, and the lady did what Ghost had hoped for. She left her work place behind and went to the other side of the tower, where promptly her reception got better. There she repeatedly tried to call the number back. It was the topmost entry in her contact list, a mobile number of a young shepherd dog in Tokyo, so Ghost assumed she'd try for a while to call back. Time enough to direct his little toy to do the most complicated of actions yet.

Emi was a bit self conscious about her playing with herself. Luckily the door was open, and she found herself in more privacy - only her and a cart full of trays with sweet treats. The top most had a slice of cake with a cherry. That she noticed even though the sensations in her chest became almost unbearable. She twisted her nipple between two fingers, and one final jolt of pleasure shot through her, strong enough to let a moan escape her. She had to brace herself against the cart, and the dishes on it chittered and kinked into each other.

Absentmindedly she glanced at her paws. Her nipple had come off with this odd pleasant sensation. Between her fingers she held the little nub, but oddly enough it was dark brown,  hard and looked almost like a coffee bean. The type which they sometimes put on sweets, not unlike the cake slice in front of her. Except they had cherries on them. A really naughty thought crossed her mind. What if someone ate it? How would her own nipple taste? She was half tempted to stick the little nub in her mouth and nibble it herself, but somehow, the idea of switching it with the cherry of that one large cake slice on the plate with the golden rim seemed even more daunting. She shivered as she glanced from the little bulb between her fingers to the inviting cherry and back. 

Ghost held his breath. There was only so much he could do to put things into place. If she ate her own nipple, which was by now more or less a solid pill of condensed nanobot material, he had failed. 'Take the cherry.....' he whispered, somewhere in that dark room, far away. She couldn't hear his words of course, but he had one more ace up his sleeve and dialed a few sliders that he hoped had the desired effect.

The idea of someone else snacking on her nipple, unknowing what it was, certainly had an exciting appeal, but what really swayed the tides was Emi's sudden craving for cherry. She took the shiny juicy fruit from the carefully prepared and decorated plate, and replaced it with that coffee bean shaped thing that had previously been her nipple. With guilty delight, she stuck the sweet forbidden fruit into her mouth, then left the scene of her misdeed, blushing and with a guilty sense of achievement. The sweet flavour in her mouth mixed with the still pleasant warmth in her breast and her arousal.

The poodle only saw her for the blink of a second as the elevator doors closed behind the cat. Knowing now that her date for the evening was still on and there was nothing to worry about, the dog morph pulled the cart over to the elevator herself and waited for it to come back and carry her to the top floor. The meeting was already ongoing and everyone was waiting for their sweets. She never noticed that the cake for the boss was now garnished by a coffee bean instead of a cherry as it had been.

Neither did Mr Yamazaki, as he ate the slice as well as the garnish. Nor did anyone notice the cloud of nanobots that spread through his blood stream, then went dormant to accept future commands at a later time. By then, Emi had already left the building, unnoticed by the security guard who was still leaning over his little monitors together with two furs from IT support. Ghost had done all he could to wipe Emi's appearance from the memory banks of CCTV equipment - along all the traces of his own stealthy, but entirely virtual intrusion.

A few minutes later, Emi was walking down the crowded street once more. She had already nearly forgotten the weird detour to the tower, if not for the exciting tingling in her left breast. Ghost wasn't interfering with her anymore after he had installed some barriers to slow her motivations to dig too deeply into her memories of the day. As such she was seeing the world as almost everyone else did, continued down the road another block, then entered a store she had intended to visit.

Ghost still had a tap on her signal, but right now he was busy cashing in his award. The contract was fulfilled and his accounts soon received a generous deposit. Not that he really needed it. Ghost was convinced that, if he really needed to, he could redirect himself more than enough funds from shady back alleys of the finance system without anyone even noticing.

But certain people, people like himself, his clients and opponents, would indeed take notice. And just imagining some of their awe inspired or fuming faces - or emoticons - was worth every second of it.

However there was one trace he still needed to erase to make sure he wouldn't get into trouble. He had no idea what the client would use the nanobots for. Maybe to force the exec to sign a contract or influence a strategic company decision. Or more subtly for high level corporate espionage. Maybe for extortion? Or the exec would have an accident. It was easy to kill someone if you controlled nanobots in someone's body. In fact it was easier to accidentally kill someone if you just messed with the nanobots than doing mostly anything else. But if there was an investigation, someone would trace these nanobots' origin, and quite possibly, that trace could lead to the cat who so kindly had donated some of hers.

A cat who had just taken the elevator up to the twelfth floor in an older apartment building and opened the door to the place where she would be staying.

The apartment was not bigger than a normal hotel room, and equipped with similar furniture. It was tidy but a bit dusty. No one had been living here for the last couple of weeks. There was a clean futon to sleep on, a small low table with a wall socket to plug electronics in, even an old fashioned cord telephone. The only thing that was unlike a hotel was the cooking corner with a small two plate electric stove and a sink - right next to the window.

Emi closed the door behind her, put her shopping bag on the table and sat down on the tatami to rest a bit. Her tail swayed back and forth, then found the wall outlet and plugged itself in. That always sent an exciting little jolt through her body as her cybernetics began to recharge.

She smiled and leaned back into the soft but slightly dusty sheets.

Ghost saw what she saw. He could tell what she was feeling, he could even follow her thoughts to a degree. Part of her brain was still biological, but he could tell exactly what parts of her artificial memory banks she accessed. And what was stored there. Right now she was thinking back about what she had done this afternoon, and finally, without him trying to derail her thoughts with distractions this time, her thoughts returned to the events at the Imko tower.

He could tell that her heartbeat sped up, and her arm returned to her left breast, as she remembered her little naughty deed with the cherry. Of course she had no clue about the role this event played on the bigger stage, but it was quite obvious she was about to figure it out.

Emi suddenly remembered a tiny but important detail she had somehow overlooked. In a hurry she peeled herself out of coat and shirt, until she was as bare chested as a cat morph could be, then had a slightly worried glance at her left nipple. Or the spot where it was supposed to be.

"The fuck?" Emi's mind suddenly grasped the implications of what had happened. A tiny bit of arousal still lingered with the memory, but as her fingers brushed over the sensitive spot where her nipple used to be, Ghost's whole carefully crafted charade fell apart. He could see it in the sequence of memory accesses, how Emi's mind came back to the events in the tower. And then back to how she got there, the eerily empty streets. Until she arrived back at the memory of glancing at that odd display window, which back then hadn't seemed odd at all. Another memory she addressed was an article about someone being brain hacked she had read recently.

There was no doubt, Emi had figured it out. Then she tried to call someone. Her brain had an integrated communication device. She was almost always on. But this time all she got, as she tried to access the net, was a "no signal" error.

Of course, there was no problem with the signal at all. Ghost was using the very same connection this very moment. But he couldn't allow her to tell anyone.

Emi started to get worried. Her eyes glanced at the telephone on the table. Not that Ghost would have had any trouble inhibiting any calls, but it was about time to reveal himself.

Emi tried to sit up. But her robotic limbs didn't follow her commands. All she got was a twitch in her stumps. Then a click, and her limbs disconnected, all five of them. That left her wriggling, helpless, on the futon. Only her head darted left and right, watching her detached limbs wriggle and shake until they fell off the tatami onto the wooden floor. Her hair snakes wriggled and hissed, but there was no one there to hiss at.

Or maybe there was. As she looked up towards the ceiling, she saw a face hovering above her. It was a smooth 3d rendering, anonymous impersonate features, glowing with an eerie blue green light. 

She knew it wasn't really there, it was a projection inside her mind. The hacker was still in her head!

"Sorry Emi, I'm afraid, I can't let you do that." Ghost spoke. 

In Emi's mind of course his voice sounded nothing like Ghost's real voice. Dark, ominous, he gave a pretty good imitation of the evil movie AI he just had quoted.

"Get out of my head!" Emi commanded. At the same time she tried to regain control of her mind. She shut down anything unnecessary, even parts of her memory extensions. When her wireless link was shut down the face in front of her disappeared.

For a moment she just laid there. Her snakes wriggled and hissed towards where the imaginary face had been. She had to reach the phone, call for help. Slowly she tried to wriggle herself to the edge of the mattress.

She tried to yell out, in the hope a neighbor could hear her. That's when she realized she couldn't hear her own voice.

She tried again, her mouth moved, but no sound. Then her vision went blank. Darkness engulfed her.

Then her body twitched and went rigid. As if every muscle in her tried to make her a stiff motionless board. She couldn't do anything about it. She couldn't hear, couldn't see, couldn't move. All she felt was her heartbeat and her breath, and even that was beyond her control.

That's when the face reappeared - glowing in the complete darkness within her mind.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but it's far too late for what you are trying to do there. I'm afraid the only way you could get rid of me right now is to rip out every single cybernetic implant and nanobot controller out of your brain and body. And, if we disregard the tiny hitch that you'd instantly die if you did that, you are also in no position to even attempt that."

"What do you want from me?" Emi shouted, more in thoughts than in words, as she couldn't even feel her mouth. But the grin on the face in front of her inner eye was proof enough that he could hear her.

"Well, technically, I already got what I wanted from you. You did an outstanding job. Now I'm faced with a dilemma. On one hand, I don't want to be ungrateful to you, without you this wouldn't have been possible. On the other hand, you know too much. There are too many traces of what I did in that brain of yours. The thing is, with my tools, I can only erase virtual evidence. Someone with a good old wet brain is bound to have seen you and remembers you going in and out of that building. It's not that that pink snake hair of yours is easy to overlook. I don't know who exactly is gonna come and track you down. Could be police, corporate security, most likely some yakuza cyborgs. But none would be any good for you. Either way you'd "disappear" and they'd cut open your cute little head and take your brain apart to find any and all traces that still might lead to me. If that happened, that would be bad news for me and any of my clients and associates."

Emi didn't like the sound of that at all. "What are you going to do to me?"

Ghost tried to give her a reassuring, benevolent smile, but with the avatar he had chosen this didn't exactly work. "I took the liberty of browsing your digital memory banks a little bit, Emikochan. I think I found a way to undo you that you secretly fantasize about. If you are willing to play along and do what I say, you might love every second of it."

Emi would have blushed if she had had any way to control her physical self. But his shameless directness also filled her with anger. "And what If I don't?"

"If you don't, then I'll make it painless and quick. I'll overload your batteries and inhibit the overheating fuses. You'd catch fire, but you wouldn't see or feel anything of it, at least while your implants still function enough to block your senses. I'd override the fire detection and suppression system in the building, by the time the firefighters would get to you there'd be nothing but unrecognizable ashes. There'd likely be collateral casualties in the building though. There's even a chance the whole structure might collapse...."

"No, Don't!   ... I'm doing it. I'll do what you say." Emi responded quickly.

A second later she could see and feel herself laying on the tatami again. She was still missing her cybernetic limbs, but she had her senses back. She could move, or at least wriggle.

"Good choice, Emi-chan. You won't regret it. In about twenty minutes a couple of guys will come knocking on your door. They don't know you or me, they have been hired to pick up a malfunctioning sex bot and deliver you to a store for repairs. Please play by that role and do not try to give them any hints or messages. It's safer for them to not know anything. If they learn too much, they'd have to be taken care of as well. Do you understand?"

"Yes." Emi spoke, this time for real. It sounded odd to hear her frightened voice echo in the small room, like a kitten mewing.

The next few minutes she was left alone. Emi tried to see if she had net access, but it was blocked, this time with a message telling her mind "better leave this alone".

She tried to get her limbs to reattach, but they had shut down and didn't respond. All she could do was crawl around on her stumps.

For a while she glanced at the telephone. It was probably useless, most likely he had the line intercepted if not interrupted. There were no physical lines anymore, everything was routed across the net...

But she had to try. She dragged herself forward until she could touch it with her mouth. All she needed to do was take the receiver of the hook.

"Ouch!!!!"

The receiver was burning hot. Except... it wasn't. It was plastic, it couldn't possibly be that hot without melting. There was no heat radiation, only the touch had burnt. Momentarily.

He was hacking her senses!

Emi had to try again. Once more she touched the searing hot plastic, this time convinced the pain wasn't real, only an illusion.

Smoke started to rise from her lips just as it became unbearable and she let go. Her lips still burnt, as if she had touched boiling hot metal. How could that be? Was that part of the illusion?

The spot on her lip tingled and felt numb.

"No, the heat is real." Ghost's voice appeared in her mind once more. "I took the liberty to reprogram your nanites to produce a bit of excess heat when you are naughty. If you manage to hold on long enough, you'd likely melt the plastic, but there's no point, you can't talk to anyone but me over that phone. And you don't need a phone for that...

A long, helpless ten minutes later, someone opened the door. It wasn't even locked anymore.

Emi blinked, still debating if she should try and tell whoever came to pick her up, but it turned out to be a mute point.

They were robots. Moving with mindless efficiency, their optical sensors located her, and their mechanic arms reached for her.

Modern robot AI came programmed to handle a wide range of objects. Some had to be grasped firmly, others were delicate. Many object classes had been pre-trained, such as transport boxes, common household objects, clothing, and a myriad of technological devices. But a gynoid sexbot without limbs, which they were supposed to pick up, wasn't in the database.

That was not a problem, modern packaging bots were also able to learn how to best lift an unknown object without damaging it. Testing for surface structure and rigidity, center of balance and optimum leverage, all that could be done with a short test procedure.

The robotic gripper reached roughly at her widest point. Rubber on metallic actuator touched her breasts, then squeezed firmer, as the machine tried to find a grip.

Emi gasped.

The AI hesitated. The lower gripper fingers against Emi's back had firm contact, but the top seemed too soft. It let go, and made a second attempt on both round orbs on top of the object.

Emi's boobs deformed in the robotic grippers, then got pulled as the AI tried to lift her up. The cat squirmed and a meow escaped her lips.

Emi moaned and quivered. Her breasts got pulled almost painfully, but then the AI apparently decided that these handles were indeed ill suited and let go.

Somewhere far away, Ghost saw the spike in arousal in the cat, and ... did nothing to interfere.

The robot AI scanned the object for symmetry, and, looking at Emi from all sides, now found an opening that it classified as a  'lifting hook attach point'. It also found a suitable matching grasp handle on the other side, both conveniently located along the object's center axis.

The grasp handle turned out to be Emi's neck. Her moan was cut short, and she arched, as the gripper closed around her throat, pulling and classifying it's grip as sufficient.

The second gripper extended one of it's fingers and pushed it into the hole in the bottom of the object. The attach point registered as well lubricated, and the sensors even detected the firmness of Emi's pubic bone as a firm structural link. It hooked firmly around it, securing the link, while the counterpart pressed from the outside into Emi's belly, just above her bladder.

Having found two sufficient attachment points, the AI stored the grasping and lifting pattern for future use, and the robot lifted her up.

Emi squirmed, but with one robotic gripper in her pussy and the other firmly squeezing her neck, she couldn't do much else. Only a suppressed, gagged moan escaped her constricted throat.

But the robots just followed their programming and picked up everything else they had been sent to.

Emi was carried down the hallway, then the elevator. For a few moments she saw the sky outside, then the robot deposited her torso in a transport box on the back of a van and closed the lid. 

Emi took a few deep gasps, seeing stars in the darkness, as she could finally breathe again. Against the ringing in her ears she heard the noise of her robotic limbs being packed into more boxes. Then the van door closed.

The van started driving so smoothly she hardly felt it. Most certainly fully automated.

It was a long drive, in complete darkness. Emi couldn't do anything, limbless, helpless, powerless. Eventually something happened in Emi's mind that even Ghost was unable to prevent.

She fell asleep.

The squirrel in the wheelchair groaned. Ghost took the headset off, his hand in his crotch, where any other squirrel boy would now have had a proud erection.
He, instead, only had sticky fingers and a small wet spot on the chair he was sitting on. If his body weren't broken, maybe he could even have become a pretty squirrel girl, with firm distracting breasts and sexy hips. But his body was broken, and he was neither fully one nor the other. His erection was merely a slippery little nub. Although throbbing, it was too large for a clit, but too small to be called a cock. He even had a womb, somewhere in there, but of course it was barren. Just like he could move his legs, but they were too weak and short to stand on. Or how he could get horny, but finding relief...

Why did she have to fall asleep now of all times, her consciousness out of grasp for his technological gadgets. Frustrated, he kept stroking himself, a still from the camera feed of the robot that had picked Emi up on his monitor, the limbless cat squirming helplessly in its grasp. He sped up until it almost hurt, watching the replay again and again.

Emi woke up, as she was pulled out of the transport box.

Of course the handling bots had shared their freshly learned handling instructions with the plant machinery, so the way this happened was once more by a firm - but oddly pleasant - grasp on her neck - and a slippery, but surprisingly less pleasant - pull on her pubic bone by means of grappling actuator in her pussy. Unpleasant at first that was, because as she was shifted into a more vertical position, the actuator happened to press in quite an interesting way into both her G-spot and bladder.

Emi moaned, and arched, her eyes now wide. There was a loading dock - fully automated. The vehicle that had brought her was already out of sight as she was quickly transported by the robot that was itself attached to a ceiling mounted conveyor rail.

The rest of the hall's contents were slightly unsettling. It was all food. Pig and ox halves hanging on down from the ceiling, waiting - trays with fish, boxes with seafood, crates with vegetables and fruit were all standing and moving around in what looked both chaotic and oddly organised. No living soul was in here other than her. It was all machines, and all of them seemed to be the narrow minded, pre-programmed part. AI driven, but only to pursue the one task they were built for, and that was to handle food.

"No! Let me go! This hurts! Help! Heeeelp! Anyone!"

Emi looked over at where the voice had come from.

It was a similar conveyor, except the girl on it was in a much worse predicament. She was hooked on a meat hook that was apparently driven into her back. She had all four limbs, but was otherwise just as helpless as Emi was.

Emi tried to create a wifi link with the mechanic equipment, but she only got an error from her implants. "Network error". Her tormentor, or his programs, were still messing with her.

"Over here!" -- at least her voice obeyed her. Hope brightened the face of the gazelle on the other conveyor. "Oh thank god. You have to... oh... they got you too. Do you have any uplink? You have to get help, they .... gahrgh!!!!"

Emi never learned what the gazelle girl wanted to say, because that moment the Gazelle girl became multiple Gazelle girls.

Her head seemed as surprised as Emi and looked in shock at the different parts, as they were picked up by different robotic manipulators before they could even fall to the floor. The cutting laser had simultaneously split her torso down the middle, severed her neck, and removed her limbs. She was obviously still conscious as she saw the machines clean the torso halves out, while the rest of her meat was already being packed neatly and very efficiently into various shipping boxes, but then her head dropped into the same funnel-like chute underneath that her guts had dropped into.

"You... fucking bastard!" Emi growled, even though the sight had been oddly arousing.

"That ... wasn't me." Came the answer from Ghost - audible only in her mind. He sounded defensive and apparently surprised. "This system in that facility is... a bit insecure. It looks like someone else has been messing with it. Don't worry, this is just a wholesale shipping hub, not your final destination. I have something much better in mind for you."

Emi was carried across the room then lowered into one of the food crates. The robotic arm retreated and the lid closed.

It was dark and cold. Ice cold. She could only feel the conveyor move, and her pussy ache from being held from there for so long. She was most likely gaping by now, and... urging for attention, but she had no arms or hands to touch herself. Not even a tail.

"Where are you bringing me?" Emi asked... hoping Ghost would at least be available for some small talk.

"A fine dining restaurant, down in the harbour district. They do some... extraordinary dishes for customers with deep pockets. I wouldn't be surprised if that gazelle ended up there, too."

He said with a bit of a grin. He even bothered to once again appear as a faint blue green holographic appearance - a rendered head with a robotic face, visible only to her mind. But at least she had company.

"What are they going to do with me?" She asked. Was she going to just get sliced apart for meat, like the Gazelle had? The thought aroused her - but frightened her, too. She didn't want her head in a dumpster with her guts...

Ghost watched her emotions and memory accesses, it was pretty close to watching her thoughts. A pleasant shudder went through him, but he didn't show it in his artificial rendering. This was such a fun one. He kinda wanted to keep her. But of course that wasn't possible. Or was it?

"That depends on the chef. If you make a good impression, maybe he makes a life roast out of you." Ghost told her.

Meanwhile the box had been loaded on a truck. Emi was shivering, and her mind was imagining what would be happening to her.

It was as scary as it was arousing.

Ghost made sure she was doing fine, then went on a little side project. What he had in mind was tricky. But he had just found the ideal test subject to test it with, while Emi was transported and there was nothing else to do.

Eventually the delivery van reached its destination. The door opened, and then the box Emi was in was thrown on a loading ramp, then carried into - what was undoubtedly a kitchen. The sounds and smells were a dead giveaway. Voices yelling, cutlery clattering, pots and pans sizzling. And a myriad of tasty odours sifting through the cracks in the box... soon she would be one of them...

Finally the box opened. The light was bright. So bright Emi couldn't properly see anything, especially not what the dark silhouetted figure looked like that reached in and picked her up effortlessly. This time by the waist for a change, so it apparently wasn't a robot.

She was placed on a kitchen table. The lights were still bright, but she managed to see a bit more now. The kitchen was full of cooks. The one who picked her up had a larger hat than the others. He was also a dragon of sorts. Dark scales, green eyes, and a thick, thorny tail behind him. He looked scary. Her hair snake kitties instinctively hissed as his hand got too close.

"Hah. That's excellent. Here we have the missing side dish." He said and waved a su-chef over. A fox. Also in white apron, but his apron was blood stained.

The dragon barked quick instructions. "Prepare her for roasting, table seven, at eight thirty, so in the oven in ten minutes. Stuffing three, but add more thyme and less salt, she's a cat. And give me those kitty-snakes in a bowl, I want to try something."

"She's still awake. Life roasting?" The fox asked.

"Of course!" The dragon laughed, then went to check the next part of the shipment. It was indeed parts of the gazelle, he gave instructions to another cook, but Emi couldn't even understand the words over all the noise. Her hair's hisses made her look at the Fox, who had donned gloves.

"I hope those don't bite, do they?" He asked.

Emi wanted to answer, but realized that Ghost had once more taken away her ability to communicate. Her mouth did not even open.

The kitty-snake protested as the fox pulled it long on the table. Two others tried to bite him, but could not penetrate the thick glove, and then *thwack!* a cleaver came down and severed the kitten-snake at the base.

Emi blinked, watching the writhing, severed creature curl up as it was thrown into a large bowl. Then the next one followed. It didn't take long and the fox had learned a routine that allowed him to grab a kitten, cut it and throw it in what was nearly one fluid motion.

Emi shivered.

The hair-snakes wouldn't live on their own, but of course they did not die right away either.

Just as the last kitten was severed, the bowl was handed to the dragon, who emptied into a large pan that already had oil sizzling in it.
For a few moments Emi watched her hair snakes writhe in the hot oil, hissing and sizzling and getting roasted - with mixed feelings of which arousal definitely was one - then her attention was drawn elsewhere.

Elsewhere to the gaping line on her belly that the fox had just drawn with his knife.

At this point she realized this should have hurt like hell, but it didn't. It felt more like a zipper being opened on her belly. She tried to lift her head to see better. To her surprise, this time, Ghost allowed her the movement. She wasn't very mobile with no arms to rest on, she could barely see past her breasts, but she could see the fox, having both his hands in her belly.

She could feel them inside her. There was no pain - It felt a little bit like earlier, when she had been grabbed by the waist and lifted out of the box - except this time the hands were inside her skin, and she was lifted ... out of herself? The sensation was weird to say the least. An odd pulling.

It became weirder, when her guts started to unravel as if she was made from so many ropes. By the time the fox deposited her entrails in a large bowl, it was just a messy pile, but still connected to her belly, where it tugged at her tail hole from the inside. 

A moan escaped her mouth, which earned her a naughty smile from the cook, who then proceeded to empty her even more.

First he reached in her, to squeeze her butt on the inside. Emi became embarrassingly aware that she had not had the chance to go to the loo, but now it was too late, and the cook didn't even care. He just squeezed her colon shut, to trap it all inside, then yanked.

The cat felt a little jolt as she ripped. Then her severely twitching butt was only a hole that led into her now mostly emptied belly cavity. The cook meanwhile discarded what he had taken out of her.

Her stomach was next. With a grin, the fox pulled it slightly out of her, so she could see it. Emi gasped, feeling quite weird. But by then he already reached into her with both hands and ripped her food pipe.

With her remaining organs he performed similarly. Kidneys, liver, everything was taken out of her. Even her womb, which - was a little bit embarrassing. Not only could she see everything, she also felt the tug inwards between her legs. He pulled more and more, until her flesh suddenly gave way and separated.

It should probably have hurt like hell, but - however Ghost had rewired her sensations - there was no pain. Quite the contrary, the sensation was quite stimulating, and a few cooks turned their heads at the gasped moan that escaped the cat - much to her further embarrassment.

Still she wished she could have touched herself. Or that he would touch her. Or ... something.

But the cook had no time to play with her. Not yet at least. This was all professional and methodical. However, she was in luck because the very next step was to clean her insides, which involved a hose and warm water and the weirdest sensation as she felt the stream rinse her insides. The fox' paws rubbed her now completely empty belly thoroughly - and on the inside.

Emi was moaning and squirming, while he was obviously enjoying what he did.

Ghost was enjoying it, too. He had tampered with her sensations of course. There was no point in having her be in agony, but that she was so into it was still unexpected - even considering the slightly unorthodox fetishes he had seen in her memories - and he could not help but enjoy it too. He did, what she couldn't, his hand between his legs, sticking his middle finger into that slippery messy hole, while he squeezed and rubbed his dick - if it could be called such - with his thumb against his bone, moaning. Of course the feed was one directional, so Emi wouldn't know she had a spectator...

Panting heavily, and squeaky clean inside her belly, Emikochan felt dizzy and lightheaded. She had actually climaxed when the cleaning had gotten to the holes between her legs and the fox had pushed his fingers through her, first from the inside out and - for good measure, from the outside in. He had been rubbing both holes until they were gaping and the water from her belly was escaping through the twitching holes between her leg stumps.

Emi had completely missed what had happened to her inner organs, but the kitchen crew had not been idle and made some of them part of the stuffing that was now delivered, pre-cooked and steaming hot. The vegetables had been mushed, so it was hard to tell what was in there, except for the thyme that she saw the fox add, both to the bowl, and then sprinkled all around her gaping empty belly. He also added rosemary and some other herbs, which were actually itching inside her a little bit.

And then the stuffing itself. Emi arched, as she felt the hot substance touch her spine and exposed back muscles from the inside. Quickly she was filled aplenty, and soon the fox had to reach into her and squeeze the mass way up into her chest and further down into her hips, into all her little crevices, in order to get all of it in. She felt so full, by the time he finally pulled her belly skin together, some of the tasty vegetable mix ended squeezed up into her mouth and she got to taste - a very pleasant taste, she had to admit - while some more was pressed out between her legs.

The fox grinned and started sewing her belly shut with quite crude stitches and a rough twine. That, too, probably should have hurt, but only felt slightly ticklish. In a way even arousing, the way the needle repeatedly went into her and through her belly skin.

Next was shaving her fur. With a sharp blade it was scraped from her neon coloured skin, removing all her colorful biofluorescent hairs. The blade scraped over her, tickling, itching at times as the water he used to wash her hair away got into tiny cuts he had made. She was moaning ... so ... exposed...

"Almost done. Just need to wait for the oven, let's give you a basting, shall we?"

Emi nodded - this time even without Ghost having to help. The prospect of having the oily grease rubbed all over her really was what her mutilated, bared body urged for. And damn did it feel good, having the sloppy slippery sauce rubbed all over her and into her. It tingled a bit, probably from the spices, like a really funky glide gel, and the way his paws cupped her butt cheeks, caressed her waist, kneaded her belly, and ... played with her needy breasts... it was wonderful. Embarrassing... but so nice...

Ghost couldn't agree more, moaning to the video and sensory feed he got, linked right into his own brain. Stuff like that would pay well on the black market for BTL chips, but... no, he wasn't going to sell this feed. Way too risky. Now saving the log for himself... that was a different matter... It would almost be a sin not to.

Eventually the oven was hot. The fox was nice enough to finish the procedure between Emi's legs, stuffing the stuffing that had escaped back into her bulging belly through the same holes it had come from, then fingering her, until she was just a trembling, quivering mess. Sadly every good thing had come to an end and before Emi could fully regain her senses and thank the cook for his efforts - a thing she wasn't sure Ghost would have even let her - she found herself on a tray, and the tray shoved into the roaring hot oven, alongside a nice assortment of vegetables and spices to roast with her. Not without of course stuffing a nice plump apple in Emi's mouth, gagging her for the roasting.

It was hot, but it wasn't unbearable. Whether that was because her senses were messed with, or if it was just a matter of time she didn't know. She could see the legs of the cooks, walking across the kitchen in organised chaos. Parts of a gazelle - she was pretty sure which one - were draped in a nice way on a tray, among tropical fruits, then shoved into another oven door above her.

Emi clenched her pussy, moaning slightly. It had been plugged with a decently sized radish, while something else was stuck in her butt and prevented her stuffing from leaking. Now the juices of said vegetables started oozing in the heat and caused an itching that wasn't bad, but wanted her to scratch - except she couldn't. The only thing  she could do was to exercise her hip muscles, causing the green bushel of leaves that was attached to jump and twitch.

Of course that in turn made the vegetable leak more juice which made the itching even worse. Soon she was squirming in the heat, teased, but not getting much relief, while she was slowly heated to roasting temperatures.

Soon Emi started sweating and getting a bit dizzy. A curious sensation tickled her tail stump, in fact all her stumps. It took a while until she realized it was the sauce she had been basted with, pooling up on the tray around her, starting to sizzle and boil. It tickled, causing her to squirm. Her skin felt dry and oddly taut, as if it was somehow shrinking on her.

None of her moans could be heard outside of the oven, but at one point the fox glanced in through the window, licking his lips obscenely - apparently happy with her progress.

Emi squirmed and tried to get his attention, but he just smiled and left her to continue roasting.

By now the sensation of being tight and crispy not only affected her remaining nipple, but also her nether lips, which was even worse than the constant teasing of the radish within her. She squirmed and writhed in the sizzling, boiling sauce, while the formerly green leaves of the veggies had by now turned dry and brown.

The stuffing inside her heated up too. And while her skin became tighter and tighter, her stuffing expanded. Squirts of it made its way past the radish, squelching out of her pussy - sadly unable to dislodge the plug. Even more made its way up her throat. It was really tasty. Hot and spicy and ... mixed with the embarrassingly delicious note of her own cooking flesh. Or was it even her own tongue that literally tasted itself? She couldn't even tell by now. But the smell inside the oven, the scent of herself roasting was of course much stronger than the delicious note that could be noticed outside, where it mixed with a myriad of other delicious smells in the kitchen.

Emi got dizzy. There still was no pain, but even with the help of nanites, there was a limit to what her brain could take. She didn't fight it, she was glad for the experience she had... if only she could cum once more... Clenching, squirming, she tried to get off, before she was roasted too far through to do even that.

The gods had mercy with her. With a final clench, suddenly the radish got pushed out, stretching her roasted pussy as it did so - followed by quite a bit of leaking filling, and she came. Hard, arching, moaning, biting into that apple, which released it's delicious juices - mixed with a bit of cinnamon...

Then she had no more strength and everything went black.

Except not completely black... just before she passed out she got an odd status message.

Scan in progress  ... upload 20%
But Emi's consciousness was too weak and too far gone to make sense of it.


When she woke up again, she didn't even remember the little fluke.

What hit her and pulled her fully awake was a draft of very cold air.

It was of course only the normal outside air from the kitchen, but it was roughly 150 degree less hot than what her body had now become used to.

She would have shivered, if she could have, but she could barely see. Her eyes were half closed and her vision blurry. Her skin felt crisp and tight and she felt pretty much how she expected a hot tasty roast would have to feel. Delicious, but not exactly mobile.

Steam came from her nose and mouth. Delicious, tasty steam. She would have licked her lips if her tongue would have followed her command. At least she could press it against the squishy deliciously roasted apple in her mouth. So tasty...

Her tray was briefly placed on a shelf. She could see the chef dragon lean over her. A large knife appeared in her field of vision and squeezed into her with a wet, squishy sensation, slicing through her belly, then becoming stuck in her delicious filling. Some of it squeezed out through the new gap, and Emi shuddered.

She would have moaned and squirmed, but her body would just barely twitch. Still, it felt wonderful to be a roast like this.

Then she was brought to a table. There were a number of people in suits. Execs apparently. One of them looked oddly familiar, but she couldn't quite point it down. If only she could move her head... but she couldn't.

And then they carved into her. Steam, delicious, scented steam, rose as soon as the knife sliced into her butt. She saw the slice dished on a plate, and then... another piece of her was removed in the same way. Then, a cut was made into her belly, from the side, almost as if slicing a cake. Her crispy skin cracked under the blade, then delicious juices oozed out of her and on the tray, revealing mouth watering brown meat and steamy stuffing, soaked in her very meat juices... And she could feel the cut, feel the sudden release of tension as her stuffing spilled and squirted from her side.

The next diner was more adventurous and apparently decided to go for a breast. Emi would have moaned, but all she could do was lay still and watch the knife slice through her proud orb - removing its top and revealing fatty tissue that had become almost like caramel. All juicy and oozing and smelling so good. Of course the one who previously taken her butt cheek now also took her other breast for compensation.

Through the delicious blur, Emi could see where the knife was aiming next. Desperately she tried to clench her pussy, tried to do anything to get one last relief while she still had her girl bits, but it was no use - and maybe knowing it was no use made it extra hot... the fork was pierced right into her clit, and then the knife started to carve around her urging, gaping, deliciously roasted crispy nethers. She felt her own meat juices drool out of her hole as the knife squeezed her flesh, and then a pulling, oozing sensation as the fork was lifted, and a deliciously roasted, brown, tender set of female genitals was lifted with it and put on a plate.

Emi would have arched and moaned and screamed out her orgasm for the world to hear, but she could do none of that. Only her stuffing squeezed out of the now gaping hole between her legs and the diners didn't even notice the slight quivering in her stumps.

The following minutes were a blur. More and more she was reduced. Meaty slices sliced, feline cuts cut, tasty bits bitten, until little more than hipbone, spine and ribs were visible from her point of view. That was when someone behind her took the knife and brought it to her neck, finally slicing through her throat and then deeper and even deeper. Slowly. She could feel it, could feel the well roasted meat of her neck part. Then her spine. There was a bit of a jolt as her spinal cord was finally severed, then her detached head rolled backwards.

But only for a short while, because what was next was sawing her skull open.

It was at this point, reduced to nothing but a head - laying on the platter - with the top of her skill removed and something that smelled like honey-sauce squirted all over her exposed - and apparently deliciously roasted brain, that Emi started questioning how come she was even still conscious.

Something in her started to doubt that it was normal to be able to see and sense and feel these kinds of things when by all measures she should probably have been dead by now. If she had had  senses together maybe she would have figured it out right then and there, but it turned out several spoons being inserted in her brain, and bits of it taken out and eaten as if it was ice-cream was actually a little bit distracting.

With her brain getting devoured, her senses shut down one by one, roughly in the order her corresponding brain parts got eaten. First, she couldn't hear anymore, then not feel anything - not that there was much to feel, they had even removed the apple from her mouth and eaten it. And finally her sense of vision faded, as if someone were eating into her field of view and taking actual bites out of her reality. Which... to be fair ... was more or less what was happening.

At this point her sense of self, her memories, her ... being her ... should have been gone, too . But it wasn't.

It didn't take long until Emi found herself in pitch blackness - if you could even call it that, as there was simply no vision at all, not even black - and at that stage she started to have a suspicion. A suspicion that was reinforced seconds later, when she got a status message from what should have been her neural implant.

"Loading ..."

And then she was once again taken out of the oven. Cold... almost painfully cold air from the restaurant rushed over her deliciously cooked body.

Once more she was taken out and placed on the shelf. Once more a knife was put into her.

The only difference this time was, she knew what was going to happen. And she had even less control over her body. Had she previously at least been able to twitch, it was now all happening on autopilot. An automatic re-play of a scene she already knew.

Soon she found herself once more on the table. The same diners started slicing into her, and... to be honest, it still felt pretty exciting. Once more Emi gave in to it. She came when her pussy was taken out, although this time she wasn't entirely sure if she actually came or if she just had a simsense replay of when she came previously.

Was there a difference?

"What did you do to me?"

She could only ask the question in her mind.

But the furson addressed did hear her.

"Me? Nothing... These are all your own memories. You got roasted in that restaurant, and then eaten. It's all genuine, I didn't tamper anything."

"Then how come I'm now talking to you?"

The simulation stopped. For a moment there was again complete blackness - or even absence of blackness, then she saw herself in a glowing, synthetic, although obviously simulated body - complete with hair snakes and limbs - floating in digital limbo, somewhere high over a rectangular grid pattern that seemed to be part of the skybox.

Opposite her was another avatar. Ghost's head once more, but this time he had a body. A squirrel boy with a robot head. Somehow oddly fitting.

"Where am I?" Emi asked.

"You're the ghost in the machine." He answered, chuckling.

"Which machine?" She wanted to know.

"If you need to know, it's a neural labs X2000, prototype series. I got it on the black market and it's currently sitting in my basement."

"And my body?" Emi kinda knew the answer, but she had to ask.

"Got eaten." he shrugged. "As you just saw and felt. But I found a way to reprogram your nanites to do a neural scan. Some people claim, one cannot copy all aspects of the personality, but I had a complete dump of your digital memory and from your implants already. You tell me if you are really you or not."

Emi looked down at herself. The digital avatar had some round orbs for breasts but was lacking proper equipment. Something she'd have to fix at some point. "You are a pretty crafty little bastard." She told him, with a grin. There wasn't much she could do. How could she tell if she was really herself? She felt herself... aside from the lack of her real body.

"I got the gazelle, too." Ghost continued. "I felt bad for her, so I practiced with her brain. Unfortunately I don't have enough compute power to simulate both of your minds at the same time. If you help me with a few hacks, maybe we can get a faster machine so I can execute your personality 24/7."

"What about a physical body?"

He grinned. "A mobile unit with that kind of compute... that's mil tec. Might get in too much trouble. But you can probably remote control a robot chassis from here. Or maybe if we hack a bio tec corp, we can clone something. It's all a question whether I can trust you. Will you work with me?"

Emi chuckled. "I don't really have a choice, do I?"

<The end>