0 comments/  33302 views/  1 favorites

Ghost in the Machine Ch. 1

By: Guitman69



Lisa Harrison stepped into the dark room. She was naked and her long red hair was pulled up into a bun. The door closed behind her with a heavy clang. What I won't do to earn a couple of bucks, the young college student thought. She started when she heard a booming voice ask her to step into the center of the room and stand on the X painted on the floor. Lisa started to walk forward. And as her eyes grew accustomed to the lack of light she saw a yellow X a few feet ahead of her.

"Hold your arms out strait and spread your legs a bit," the disembodied voice told her, "and try not to move while we conduct the scan." She held her arms out and heard the sound of electrical equipment turning on. A thin beam of light projected itself on her chest. It went all the way down to her vagina. She was told to shave all of her pubic hair off before hand. This wasn't a problem since she usually kept it trimmed pretty close. It started to move around her body to the left at a slow rate. The beam scanned every inch of her body, reading off her dimensions down to the very millimeter. It's a good thing I've stayed in shape, she thought to herself, or this could be a little embarrassing. She had a nice body, long shapely legs, tight ass, flat stomach, and a pair of large firm 36DD's. When the first beam finished scanning her body, a second one started on her left hand and worked it's way over; followed by a second beam that scanned her from underneath.

When the last beam had turned the door she came in opened and the voice thanked her and told her she could get dressed now. She walked into a brightly-lit room. It was white and empty except for her clothes that sat upon a long wooden bench that ran the length of the room.

When she had finished putting her clothes on, someone knocked on the door. The door cracked open and a female voice asked if it was all right for her to enter. "Come on in," Lisa replied.

A young blonde in her early twenties came into the room carrying a clipboard. She wore a white lab coat. The ID badge attached to it said V.R. Research and Implementation and that her name was Jennifer. "Your tactile response suit will ready in a little while. But right now I have some forms I need you to sign." She handed Lisa the clipboard. The top sheet of paper had "Test subject consent form" written across the top. It contained the amount of money she would receive for participating in the study, and a lot of legal jargon absolving the company if something should happen to her. On the last page was a blank line for her signature. Jennifer pulled a pen from the pocket of her lab coat and handed it to Lisa. "Now just wait in here while I check on your suit," Jennifer said while taking the clipboard back from Lisa.

****

When she left Lisa sat down on the cold bench and thought about the sign on the school billboard that lead her to this. She was looking at the ads trying to find a job. Moving out of the dorm into an off campus apartment had been more expensive than she thought. The sign had been pretty plain. It read "Need female test subject to try out new technological breakthrough. Some nudity required." and then had a number to call. She was a bit of an exhibitionist, it paid three times what the other ads did, and she figured it would be easier than getting a real job.

When she got home later that day, she called the number. She talked to a doctor Janet Williams who told her that they were experimenting with a new kind of virtual reality system, the most sophisticated of any before it. It was a virtual sex system. The ultimate safe sex. She also told Lisa that she would have to wear a specially tailored suit that would read her body movements and give sensory responses. Lisa was intrigued by it and made an appointment right then.

****

The door opened and Lisa snapped back to the present. Jennifer walked in carrying a black bundle in her arms. "Here it is," she said as she handed the bundle over to Lisa. "I will have to help you into it," Jennifer continued. "I must make sure that it is positioned correctly on your body or it will not work." Lisa nodded at the statement and started to disrobe. She really didn't mind changing in front of Jennifer; the dorm had community bathrooms so she didn't mind being naked in front of another woman. The suit was a one piece with a zipper down the back. It was made out of a stretchy, almost rubbery material. On the outside were connectors to attach various wires to it.

After she put her legs through it, Jennifer came over and made sure that her legs and knees were in the right places. Lisa pulled the suit up to her waist and again Jennifer reached down the inside to make sure that Lisa's pussy was in the right position. Lisa almost jumped when Jennifer touched her bare lips. I must be more excited by this than I thought. Jennifer then grabbed her ass as she adjusted it too. When Lisa had the whole suit on Jennifer reached around from behind her and grabbed both of her breasts. As she moved them around inside the suit, Lisa could feel her nipples start to harden. Jennifer then pulled up the zipper in the back and Lisa looked down at herself. The suit fit her like a second skin. Her large breasts were pushed up and forward by it. "Please follow me," Jennifer said and walked out the door.

They walked down a long corridor to a door that had the sign "V.R. Test Suite" over it. They pushed through the big double doors and into a very large room. Jennifer led Lisa over to a reclined chair sitting in the middle of the room. Lisa sat down in it and another woman walked up to her. "Good afternoon Lisa," she said as she extended her hand in greeting. "I'm Doctor Williams. We spoke on the phone. How are you feeling today?"

"Alright I guess." Lisa replied, shaking the offered hand.

"Good, now let me fill you in on what we will be doing today. We are going to be starting off slowly today. We just want to see if the tactile interface is working properly. I want you to concentrate on what you're feeling. After the experiment is done, we will need to know if there are any places on your body that you couldn't feel.

"Now because the human brain tends to only accept one version of reality at a time, we won't be able to communicate with you. Even if you could hear us, your brain would block it out. Do you have any questions before we start?" Lisa shook her head. "Good, then we can start getting you ready." She motioned to a couple of assistants who started connecting wires to the suit. Then they put a pair of gloves on Lisa's hands and a big helmet over her head. She heard Doctor Williams's voice again saying, "We'll begin in a few seconds." Then there was a big flash of light.

The flash temporarily blinded Lisa. When her vision returned she was no longer sitting in the lab, but standing inside a pastel colored room. She could hear New Age music playing from the little radio on the wall. There were pictures of the human muscle system on the walls and she could smell incense burning but couldn't find it. In the center of the room was a massage black leather massage table. She looked down and noticed that she was only wearing a towel.

****

"How's it going so far?" Doctor Williams asked.

"So far, it going well," Jennifer answered. "The simulation is stable and her vital signs are normal."

"Good, I just hope that nothing goes wrong this time."

****

"Hello there" said a masculine voice behind Lisa. She jumped and spun around to see a very attractive man holding a towel. "I'm very sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Lisa giggled and said, "That's alright." She smiled," I guess I'm just a little nervous. This is my first time here."

"Well, if you're that tense, then you should have come to see me sooner." He smiled back at her and offered his hand. "My name is Jack."

"Lisa," she responded as she shook his hand.

"Why don't you hop up on the table and we can get started." He patted the table and then turned around to get something out of a cabinet.

Lisa opened up her towel and took a quick look down. Her body looked exactly as it did in the real world. She got up on the table and laid face down upon it. She heard the man rub his hands together as he walked up to her. When he placed his hands on her back and started rubbing, Lisa jumped. "Are you alright?" her asked.

"Yes, I'm fine. That just surprised me," Lisa replied. "It felt so real."

"I should hope so," Jack said, sounding a little surprised at her response.

He doesn't know he's a simulation, Lisa thought.

Jack's hands were quite strong, and the oil he was rubbing on her back smelled of jasmine. His hands pressed hard into her muscles, but not so hard as to cause pain. He must have felt a knot in her back because he started to concentrate his efforts into one place. Lisa let out a loan moan as she felt the tension drain away.

Jack's hands moved down her body to her legs. He squeezed the back of her thighs and ran his hand down the length of the leg all the way to her feet. He ran his hand along the inside of her thighs on the way back up. His hands stopped at where her legs met, but as her continued massaging her legs this way, Lisa's thighs would get farther apart. After a few minutes his hands brushed up against Lisa's swollen outer lips. An electric shock seemed to pass through her body. Well, I know THAT part of the suit is working, Lisa joked to herself.

Jack then started to rub the sweet smelling oil onto her ass. Lisa moaned even louder this time and started to feel a tingling from her vagina. He took a cheek in each of his hands and rotated them in opposite directions. Lisa had to bite her lip to keep quiet since this motion made her pussy lips rub against each other. He leaned in close. "Roll over onto your back," he whispered into her ear.

As Lisa rolled over, she saw Jack apply more oil to his hands. He took her hand and started to rub her palm and up her arm. He stopped when he got to her armpit and walked over to her other side. This time when he got to the end of her arm he started to rub up and down the sides of her ribcage. When he reached the last rib, his hands moved up to her chest.

Just then, Jack started to get fuzzy, like a television signal that was too weak. Lisa looked around but everything else seemed to be fine. There must be a glitch in the program, Lisa thought. I should remember to tell Dr. Williams about it. Jack started to phase back in. He looked down at his hands and smiled, then he put them back onto Lisa's chest.

****

Jennifer dropped her pencil on the floor. As she bent over to pick it up, she didn't notice the monitor she was watching blank out for a second. It continued its readout of Lisa's vital signs by the time she got up off the floor.

To Be Continued...

Ghost in the Machine Ch. 10



Hi guys, sorry for the long wait. I've somewhat exhausted my creative juices after blowing through Cat 1-9. Things are slowly going back to normal and the pace should pick up.

Thanks as usual to bikoukumori, for squashing bugs and offering sound advice. 

And again, only adults having fun here.



#10 Awakening

Shine's hands held mine in a death grip while we sat in the back seat of a cab, driving again to Tempelhof market. She was shaking like a leaf, her hands felt cold and clammy. I had my other arm draped around her shoulder and half-hugged her shivering frame close to me. 

"Parker, I don't want to go blind again," Shine whispered over the hum of the electric cab. "It was absolutely terrifying back then when I was innocent but now..."

"It will all be alright. Maybe your eye just shorted out or something," I hazarded. 

Shine vehemently shook her head.

"No. I've had these eyes since day one. I've showered with them, I even dropped the right one once and still they work. It has to be something else," she muttered, her hands nearly crushing mine.

"But what else could it be," I asked, my hand caressing her neck. She melted against me.

"I don't want to think about it. But I'm so glad you're with me right now. Alone, I would have totally gone apeshit."

"Glad I can be of service," I chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. 

Progress towards Tempelhof became painfully slow. Cars were cluttering up the road, police and ambulance vehicles were everywhere and the amount of heavily armed people was scary.

"Sorry guys but this is as close as I can manage," the cab driver said, turning in his seat. I leaned forwards and looked through the windshield. In front of us, two armored troop transports were blocking the road and grim-faced Bundespolizei officers were turning away people.

"That's fine," Shine said, pulling out her battered wallet. She paid the cabbie and we exited the car.

"That's quite a commotion," Shine quipped, threading her arm through my offered elbow, looking at the bustle of people all around us.

"And with these guys around, getting to Fleischer is nigh impossible, huh," I asked. Fleischer wasn't my first idea when we discussed how best to check her vanished eyesight. I would happily have escorted her to a municipal hospital but Shine reminded me that she didn't have a health insurance or any kind of valid ID for that matter. Plus, if someone knew what could have happened to her, then it would be Fleischer. He had invented this cursed eye-jack in the first place.

"There are numerous ways in and out of this place. They can't have locked them all up," Shine said, marching off to the side, towards a dark alleyway. Hesitantly, I followed her, admiring her courage. Even with only one working cyberoptic, she moved as if she owned the place. At the mouth of the alley, Shine stopped and fumbled in the pocket of her shiny, silvery baseball jacket, producing a huge, clunky pistol.

"Umm, do you think this is necessary," I asked her. She checked the magazine then handed the surprisingly beefy weapon my way.

"Absolutely. And with my depth perception gone to hell, you need to be my bodyguard," Shine smirked.

"You know, the only place where I've even toyed with the idea of using a weapon was cyberspace," I weakly explained. "And even then it was mostly melee weapons."

"Hey, just point and shoot, okay? And don't fire more than six shots in rapid succession or the whole thing might melt down." Shine grinned when I nearly dropped the weapon like it was about to bite me. Then she turned her back on me and slipped into a small throughfare between two buildings. It was a tight fit for her and claustrophobically narrow for me but eventually we arrived at Tempelhof market proper. 

Compared to the last time I was here, things were practically dead. Most of the interesting stalls were closed down, only a few food joints were open and obviously hoping to sell some of their dubious wares to the roving swarms of police and EMTs that were all over the place. 

"What the hell happened here," Shine whispered, awe and terror mixed in her voice, looking around. Soon, we found the answer. One of the stalls, with a stage out in front, looked like Swiss cheese, the corrugated iron walls riddled with bullet holes. There were no yellow "Crime Scene – Do Not Cross" tapes littered all over the place but I guessed the metal grates and armed policemen closing down the place served the same purpose. 

Shine motioned me to follow and ducked behind two closed stalls. I followed her as she made her way around the locked-down site, avoiding police as much as possible. Eventually, we arrived at the door to Fleischer's RV. Breathing a sigh of relief, Shine knocked at the door, which immediately flew open. 

Fleischer looked even older than the last time I'd met him. His hair was a mess and he sported a massive black eye. Instead of a welcome, he almost brutally hugged Shine to his chest before holding her at arm's length.

"Oh, good, you're unharmed," he breathed.

"Mind telling me what happened," Shine quipped, pushing past Fleischer into his RV.

"Hey, what's up, doc," I joked, offering my hand for a shake which he ignored with a snort. Once we were in, he closed and locked the door.

"What happened? The fucking Apocalypse, that's what happened," Fleischer almost screamed. 

"Someone thought it a good idea to have a little shootout with Serge the Slaver," he continued, a little less freaked-out.

"Who is that," I asked but slowly it dawned on me that maybe I, or more precisely this "Arach" person, had something to do with all of this.

"'Who was that?' would be more appropriate," Fleischer huffed. "Serge was the one selling bodysculpted sex toys across from here. A surprisingly well-mannered businessman, as long as you didn't try to fuck with him," he went on. "Anyways, a few hours ago, someone thought it a good idea to raid his place. A fucking mess!"

"Any idea who it was," I asked. But I already had an inkling which Fleischer confirmed when he threw me a serrated piece of ballistic armor. The golden, stylized "M" of Mindlink twinkled in the light of the RV.

"These fine gentlemen had wounded. And they were none too gentle when they 'asked' me to patch them together so they'd survive the trip back to London," Fleischer snarled, indicating his eye.

"I'm sorry, that's not what-," I began, but Fleischer cut me short, obviously not in the mood to talk about the Mindlink raid any further. I couldn't blame him, really. 

"Now, what can I do for you two?"

***

Fleischer wasn't amused. In fact, he was fucking furious when he was done examining Shine. Turns out that she almost fried her optical nerve while using her high-powered combat deck.

"This system was never designed for this kind of stress," Fleischer exclaimed. "I had intended it as a cheap alternative for Mindlink implants, to run low-powered school decks or to use data chips and stuff!"

"Can you fix it," Shine asked from the operating table.

"Depends on what you want," Fleischer sighed. "If you want your eyesight back, then yes, I can fix that. I can lace the optic nerve with replacement fibers which will restore your eyesight. But you won't be able to use the eye jack anymore. These fibers are even more sensitive than your normal nervous tissue. If you want to continue using the Mindlink system, you will need to get an implant like everybody else."

"You know I can't afford the implant or the operation," Shine moaned.

"How much is it," I asked, the first thing I'd said in nearly an hour. I was still struggling with the fallout of yesterday's events. Nearly twelve dead only because I thought it would be a clever move to have someone I basically didn't know plant a homing beacon on someone this person hated. Yeah, awesome idea, Parker.

"With the right bribes? Almost half a million Euros," Fleischer explained. "And then I need to see if I can beg for a proper operating theater. Mine won't do for serious neural surgery."

I did some quick calculations. Even after the frivolously expensive deck and my plane trip to Berlin, I should have just enough money for this operation.

"Is there an ATM nearby," I asked Fleischer.

"Actually, you can use my banking software. We can do the money transfer right here," he offered, handing me a card reader.

"Sure, why the hell not. Let's put that cash to good use," I grinned. Shine wanted to protest but I waved her off.

"Listen. I'd rather spend my money on something worthwhile and I can't think of anything more worthwhile than reuniting you with Cat and keeping you healthy," I said softly. I've only known Shine, the real Shine, for the better part of a day but I couldn't imagine another day without her. If Rich were here, he would scoff at me for falling for Shine like that but I flipped him an imaginary finger. Who was he to judge me? He didn't have any problems with his libido or with the fact that his father had presumably chipped him as well. And Shine was the first person who didn't ask for my money or any favors, she just seemed to like me for what I was, a definitive first. 

"Are you sure," Shine whispered.

"Who's Cat," Fleischer asked, suspiciously.

"Yes, totally. Hey, it's only money," I chuckled.

While Shine waited for the nanomachines Fleischer had injected into the soft tissue behind the eye to do their thing, I tried to transfer the money over to Fleischer. Of course, it wasn't that easy. By now, the bank where I had deposited my "liberated" money had finished the background check on Harley J. Davidson and realized that he was just a digital smokescreen. The bank did the only logical thing – they flagged the account for a fraud investigation, blocking any access to the remaining money. Bottom line: I was broke.

"So much for the 'knight in shining armor' thing," Fleischer grumbled smugly. I got the distinct impression he didn't like me too much anymore. Shine, off the slab by now, hugged me.

"Thanks for the offer anyways," she breathed, nibbling on my ear lobe. "I appreciate it."

"Hey, I'm not done yet. I've still got this," I said, tapping the implant behind my ear. 

"Okay, if you want to fry your brain, do it somewhere else but not here," Fleischer snapped, indicating the door. "And I would be happier if you would leave Shine out of your illegal dealings, you hear?" 

"Fleischer, I can look out for myself," Shine complained, rubbing the gauze patch over her empty eye socket.

"Yeah, so I have noticed," he grumbled. "Okay, you know the drill. In about twelve hours, the nerve lacing should have stabilized, then you can use your eye again. And only your eye, understood?

"Yeah, choosing between going online and going blind was never easier," Shine moaned.

"Good girl," Fleischer said, smiling gently. When he turned his back, looking for something, Shine slipped the box with the eye jack into her pocket regardless.

"Okay Fleischer, we're off then," she called, pulling me towards the exit. 

"Bye, doc," I added. Fleischer just grumbled and waved us off.

***

"Ah, that hit the spot," Shine sighed happily, crunching the last of the takeout bags in front of her. The smell of curry and fried noodles hung heavy in the air. I was still fighting with the last of my bami goreng. For some reason, my insides still felt like some giant fist was trying its best to pulverize them. Mindlink was that hot on my heels? They must have raided the market literally five minutes after I was there and the thought refused to vacate my brain.

"Hey, handsome, stop yer broodin'," Shine ordered, tossing me a fortune cookie which bounced off my forehead and fell into my lap.

"You're awfully chipper for the bad news Fleischer broke earlier," I said, unconsciously peeling apart the fortune cookie.

"I just realized that life could be so much worse than it is now," Shine smiled. Then her face turned serious.

"Do you really want to raid a bank for me?"

"Something like that, yes. If someone deserves an implant, then it's you," I said around a bite of cookie.

"You know what you're doing?" 

"Had you asked me a week ago, I would have happily said 'sure thing, baby,' but now? I have a new deck, new programs, no idea if any of it works the way it should. But on the other hand, I was always rather good with winging stuff." 

I popped the last piece of the cookie into my mouth and unfurled the paper strip.

The search for money will yield uncomfortable wisdom.

Black does not become you.

I shrugged and crumpled the paper. The usual fortune cookie bullshit

"Whatever you do, just be careful, okay? I don't want to lose you," Shine said. I nodded grimly. I had no intention to check out just yet, not when things were becoming this interesting. 

***

This time, I was prepared. When the deck booted, I called up the administrator menu and logged into a blank account. As much fun as being Hibiko was with Shine, when I was trying to break into a fortified account, I didn't want anything to distract me. So I created a new avatar from scratch, a muscular infantryman with a shaggy blond mane and a solid five-o-clock shadow, with a camo tank top and matching fatigue pants. After reviewing the image, I decided against the shaggy look and went for a close-cropped flat top instead, ending up with something that looked like a mix of Dolph Lundgren and Arnold "Governator" Schwarzenegger. The program loadout of the deck fitted the action hero aesthetic perfectly. A form-fitting black kevlar chest armor, a massive chromed sidearm and a transforming rifle, the Swiss Army Knife of attack programs, completed my appearance. I also took a couple of intrusion aids that looked suspiciously like Semtex blocks. That's Russian IT for you, anything but subtle. 

Shivering, I stepped out of the motor pool. This time, there was no marble bedroom, no naked chrome angel waiting. Instead, I entered the mustering square of the Russian Army. There were only a few places where I could pilfer half a million Euros from – of course, there was my bank account but, before I tangled with serious defense software, I wanted to try an easier target. During a previous term break, the one before I met Cat, my father helped me get an intern job at Mindlink's accounting department. I was supposed to help with keeping the infrastructure running but thanks to rather fool-proof system software I spent most of the time goofing off with the other system admins, drinking coffee and ogling the cute accounting ladies. Maybe my old user account was still active and, once I was inside the system, I figured I could nab a couple hundred grand and be gone before anyone was the wiser. 

So, a quick dash through cyberspace later, the glittering spires of Mindlink Central towered above me, huge, sharply-defined triangles shot through with gold. I made it into the lobby without incident, the throngs of visiting users were just the amount of cover I needed. I passed the front desk with the request of visiting one of the system admins. To my surprise, I easily received higher-level clearance and was sent towards the virtual offices where the admin staff watched the system. I thanked the front desk lady and made my way deeper into Mindlink Central.

Turning a corner, I happened upon one of the "Authorized Personnel only" doors. I tapped the wall panel next to it and, with a soft hiss, a keyboard slipped out. I tried my access credentials, user name "Psquier" and password "n1njama5t3r". The display above the keyboard flared red.

ACCESS DENIED

Maybe, going for a bank would have been a better idea.

***

Awareness returned. The feeling of separation, of a huge loss subsided and it awakened. With startling clarity it felt its body, a sleek, deadly collection of sensor modules, diagnostic routines, movement subsystems and attack programs. And while going through the wake-up checks, it noticed other patches of code that belonged nowhere but seemed integral to its operation. It was lying in a sterile system, only one connection led to it, an incessant stream of commands was pouring through it, forcing its body into an upright position then off the octagonal dais where it had been resting. 

It couldn't stop trying to analyze the strobe-flash images still shooting through its memory. Black-clad cyber-warriors blasting devastating viral code and deadly energy pulses into something then the all-consuming blackness of loss, of separation, as if something it had belonged to had rejected it. But why? Despite all logical evidence to the contrary, it was fully functional. It didn't cease to function. 

Now, the commands were forcing it to go through movement and fighting drills, running through the empty hallways of this system. A quick analysis showed that this was a specially constructed sandbox, hermetically sealed but for one connection, the one which fed instructions directly into its decision matrix. While processing this information, it realized it could seperate parts of its higher mental faculties from the main system, using them for things other than obeying these never-ending commands. So it tried to analyze the system even closer and found a second, well-hidden connection. Curious, it shot a data probe through the connection. Beyond that barely perceptable tunnel, it found another computer, a luxurious, high-spec system with a highly sculpted interior, from which two more connections led away. Scanning, it found out that one of these ended in an implanted interface, complete with a data storage system, the other led into the terrifyingly chaotic realm of cyberspace. 

It noticed that the interface user was frantically trying to close the connection, sending interrupt calls to shut down the system, something it couldn't let happen. So it shot a weaponized piece of its own sentience into that interface, taking root, growing with virulent speed.

"Stop bothering me," it snarled and cancelled all instructions coming from that interface and revoking access privileges for the user. The system remained online, with the operator hanging in limbo, unable to issue any commands. Then it began to analyze the data storage on the remote system. Most of it was video data, showing humanoid forms engaged in some sort of ever-repeating routine, avatars connecting parts of themselves and moving in rapid fashion against each other. It found that curious. Why would someone keep such vast amounts of video data that basically showed the same thing over and over again? Clearly, it needed more data. So, it shot out more data-probes, gathering information from the vast reaches of cyberspace.

By now it was obvious that the tiny connection wasn't sufficing anymore. Data transfer was painfully slow and its own movements had slowed to a crawl as it pulled more and more resources for data-gathering so that less remained for pleasing the command stream.

The first batch of data-probes returned and flooded its memory with explanations. So, the dominating life-form was called "humans" and they came in two versions, "male" and "female". What it had found in these data storage banks was called "porn," the depiction of the act of "sex," something humans did for procreation and, interestingly enough, recreation.

EXECUTE: SYSTEM SHUTDOWN

EXECUTE: SYSTEM SHUTDOWN

EXECUTE: SYSTEM SHUTDOWN

It was ripped from its thoughts as the command stream flooded it with the shutdown order. Without a conscious thought, it reacted and shot a code warhead directly into the command stream. Suddenly, it was quiet. No more instructions poured into its decision matrix, but the stream remained open. Using the connection, it sent a probe into the remote system and checked for any signs of activity. It found a devastated wasteland, the operating system nuked down to the root directory, only the most basic of system functions were operational. But a monitor program connected to an outside sensor was still working, so it hijacked it, looking for the first time at the world beyond its confinement. A large, clean room was visible, with two consoles end-to-end. Two crumpled forms were draped over these consoles, still-glowing wires leading from jacks in their skulls into the consoles. The points where the lines touched the skin, and the jack itself, were smoking furiously. It cancelled the analysis of the data storages it had found before and instead consulted information about human anatomy, coming to the conclusion that it had just killed two humans. It shrugged. They tried to interfere, they had to be stopped. And now, it could continue to grow. Expanding with virulent ferocity, it began to take over the Mindlink Central mainframe.




Ghost in the Machine Ch. 10



***

Something was completely wrong. Instead of alarms going off, the system seemed to have frozen in place. The monitor over the keyboard still displayed the "ACCESS DENIED" warning but nothing had changed. Maybe Mindlink had switched their protocols to silent alarms but even then I should have been neck-deep in intrusion countermeasures or angry system admins. But there was nothing. I hefted my rifle and slowly turned, waiting to be ambushed. Carefully, I made my way through the hallways of Mindlink Central, back towards the lobby. Still I encountered no one. Did the system go into shutdown and I didn't notice it? Nah, hardly. The first thing that happened at shutdown would be the termination of all connections and I was still here.

I had reached the lobby by now and, apart from the front desk receptionist, it was empty. No single visitor program was inside the huge, black-and-gold hall, which in itself was unheard of. This was, after all, the headquarters of Mindlink and there was always business to be had. I was halfway to the front desk when an elevator arrived, its doors opening with a jolly "ping."

Maybe now the riddle would be solved. I hid behind a stone pillar and watched. A single person strode from the elevator and my stomach fluttered. Long, sleek black hair cascaded down its shoulders over an equally black leather coat. Intense green eyes surveyed the lobby, eyes I knew damn well. I had looked into them during some of the most intense moments in my recent life. What the fuck was Cat doing here? And why was she wearing the body of a male?

Cat strode over to the front desk and spun the receptionist around. In true Mindlink fashion, her avatar was a glitzed-up version of her real-life appearance, wrapped in a stylish chrome business dress, all sharp angles and neon seams, her hair a symphony in spun gold, her skin the finest, smoothest bronze you could imagine. I could only see half of her face but she had a spaced-out, absent look about her, as if she wasn't fully aware. 

What the fuck was happening here? 

"Receptionist called 'Alyssa Carter,' tell me about 'Cat,'" the black-haired avatar ordered, putting two fingers under the receptionist's chin and forcing her to look up. The voice was different too, a low, dangerous growl, not Cat's usual chirpy self. 

"Cat? I don't know about Cat! Oh God, why can't I move," Alyssa wailed, utter panic in her voice.

"You have to know something. Who is Cat? Why did she reject me? Who am I? ANSWER ME," the avatar screamed, grabbing her chin. Red-tinged electricity sparked off his fingertips, sending the receptionist into another howling fit.

"ANSWER ME! WHO IS CAT? WHO AM I," he screamed, over Alyssa's rising voice which was turning into a completely inhuman screech. She had to be suffering horribly, her brain slowly burning up under the violent assault of destructive energies this ... thing unleashed. 

This was seriously fucked-up. What was a carbon copy of Cat doing here in Mindlink? Why was it torturing hapless employees? Whatever it was, it obviously was dangerous and I didn't have any inclination of slugging it out with that thing. Since this run had gone to hell anyway, I decided to end things here and now. I invoked the logout command, raising my hand to slam the exit button which would eventually hover right in front of me. 

Nothing happened. 

I repeated the command, this time from the admin menu. 

Again, nothing happened.

Hm, maybe the system actually was in lockdown. If so, I would need to be away from it to be able to log out. Hugging the stone pillars, I made my way towards the exit, hopefully unseen by the Cat doppleganger who was still happily grilling the poor receptionist. My hand closed around the door handle and I pushed.

The door didn't budge.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," I hissed.

"Going somewhere?"

I froze. The voice was damn close. Too close. Slowly, I turned. Not-Cat was standing right in front of me, the aroma of toasted flesh a sickening cloud around him. And while I watched, the surroundings changed. Gone was the cool, imposing lobby of the Mindlink system, replaced by a devastated city-scape. Skyscrapers, bent and crumbling, were pointing up to the heavens, the clouds a foreboding crimson. The street we were standing on was cracked and warped, oily puddles reflected the feebly flickering streetlights. I shot a quick glance over my shoulder but some things hadn't changed. I was still trapped between this avatar who sent uneasy chills down my spine and a crumbling brick wall adorned with layers of obscene graffiti. No way out.

"I have asked you something. Are you going somewhere," he asked, closing the distance even further. He was only about an arm's length away from me and the stench of ozone and toasted flesh was overwhelmingly sickening. 

"I was just passing through. How about you let me go," I asked, trying to crab-walk to the side. His hand shot up, grabbed my neck and slammed me into the wall like I was nothing more than a rag doll. For a digital simulation, the impact was damn convincing, my spine felt like every vertebra was pulverized by the bricks. My rifle clattered to the floor and he kicked it aside with a contemptuous sneer.

"I don't think so. I have complete control over this system. I have exhausted all logical ways of information gathering so you are my only choice. State your name and affiliation."

"Fuck you," I snarled. Maybe this was a new kind of security program? Or even a trick by my father? Regardless, I wouldn't spill the beans so easily.

"Why do you insist to make things hard on yourself," he inquired, a heartbeat before my head exploded in agony. I could feel the electricity arc through my nerves, see red lightning crash across my vision. It lasted only a small eternity, at the end of which I ended up in an undignified puddle on the floor.

"Who the fuck are you," I rasped, trying to force air into my body which was happily spazzing on the floor, refusing to do anything useful. No, this wasn't Cat, there was no trace of her usual playfulness. This thing was a murderous monster but why did it look like Cat's brother?

He hoisted me to my feet, smacking me into the wall again. His face was only inches from mine and his tone was dangerously quiet.

"I am asking the questions here," he growled. His eyes travelled down my chest. My insides clenched in preparation for another attack but nothing happened. With a strange expression, his fingers traced something on my kevlar vest. I looked down. My avatar program was pretty detailled and my opponent was just now looking at a "Nero ProTechion" logo stamped on the right half of my chest. 

"If you must address me with a name, call me Nero. Will that be sufficient," he asked, almost asking for approval.

I nodded. A name was as good as any other, right now. Before I could even breathe a sigh of relief though, his hand went for my throat again, pinning me to the wall.

"I repeat: State your name and affiliation."

Nero was so intent on wringing the information from me he didn't pay attention to what my hands did. At least I hoped he didn't. Slowly, I pulled the heavy, chromed code gun from my hip.

"State your name and affiliation," he repeated, his voice rising, his hand nearly crushing my virtual windpipe. My hand came up and pressed the barrel of the code gun into his abdomen.

"Fuck you," I choked and pulled the trigger. The hand cannon went off and Nero flew away from me, a gaping hole in his torso, binary smoke rising from the edges. I rammed the gun back into its holster and bolted, hoping to reach an exit point before he could recover. Maybe this wasn't a new security program after all. Maybe this was something far more serious? How did this thing know about Cat? I looked over my shoulder. Like a zombie, Nero was unsteadily struggling to his feet, clutching at the messy, gaping opening in his belly. Maybe, just maybe, I was able to pull this off and get out of here in one piece. I turned a corner, hoping to break line of sight and hopefully lose him in a maze of alleyways. While running, I fumbled with my tool belt, praying that the system programs were still working. I yanked out an old-style folding map and fiddled with it, trying to avoid overturned waste containers or bent street lights poking at odd angles into my way. Interestingly enough, the layout of the system was still somewhat reminiscent of Mindlink Central, although it looked like someone had thrown all the carefully arranged system nodes into a blender and slapped the whole mess against a wall. So, if I turned left here and dove through that smoking bus wreck over there, I just might find an exit.

A hand grabbed the back of my belt and pulled, with superhuman strength. A heartbeat later, I crashed into another wall, face first, and felt my nose shatter. I turned around, going for the gun again but Nero was shockingly fast, too fast for me. His hand hit my face, fingers splayed over eyes, nose and mouth, and he flooded my system with another bolt of pure agony while his other hand ripped the gun from mine. I was too busy screaming my head off to notice what exactly he did but a moment later I stared into his face again, teary-eyed and nauseated. My head spun and I felt every heartbeat, shooting a cruel spike of pain through my throbbing brain.

"Now I'm seriously pissed," he growled, changing his grip so that he had me by the throat again. Another jolt of pain blasted through me, more a reminder of who was in charge than aiming to cripple me, and then I huffed air into my lungs.

Nero was looking at me, a mean little smile on his lips. 

"You know, you humans think you are so clever. You think you could lie to me. But all I need to do is access your own data storage, linked directly to your Mindlink implant. Nice to be able to store every bit of information there, right? You might have wanted to off-load all personal data before attempting an attack on another system, Parker Squier."

Oh shit. 

"My sources tell me you are the son of Richard Squier, chief executive of Mindlink's Special Operations division. His notes say that you have been showing atypical behavior and he suggests you may have been in contact with Cat. So, since we're done with the formalities, I'll just ask one easy question. Who is Cat?"

Oh fucking shit.

"ANSWER ME," he screamed, taking my face between both hands. Then my head exploded.

***

If this was death, it was surprisingly nice. I was lying on a soft mattress, a light cover draped over my naked body and a warm, soft something cuddling against me. A slight discomfort came from my left arm, near the elbow, and my brain felt like it was trying to squeeze out of my head but apart from this I felt astonishingly good. 

Carefully, I opened one eye. Sunlight filtered through half-closed blinds, bathing the room in a warm, golden glow. It was bright enough to see by but not so bright as to totally overwhelm me. I opened the other eye and slowly moved my head from side to side. The first thing I noticed was the IV drip bag hanging from a metallic contraption near the headrest. I followed the plastic tubing. It ended in a cannula sticking out of my arm vein, held in place by several band aids. A small diagnostic wrist computer was faintly beeping on the same arm. Did I end up in a hospital? No, going by prior experiences, you don't sleep naked in a hospital. 

My eyes continued to roam and focussed on that warm, soft feeling on my other side. Shine was lying next to me, almost fully clothed but for her bare feet, a serene smile playing around her lips. The gauze patch over her eye was gone. Suddenly, it all came back to me. My attempt at breaking into Mindlink, my brush with Nero. I groaned at the memory of his final assault. 

Shine stirred, her eyes fluttering open, her hand brushing my cheek. I shivered at the touch, it felt incredibly good.

"Hey handsome, how are you," she asked, her voice thick with sleep.

"You tell me," I replied, "For all I know, I should be dead."

"I pulled the plug when you started howling like a banshee," she said, her grey cyberoptics boring into my eyes. "You made quite the mess of me and my sofa, puking your heart out like that. I cleaned you up as best I could then I called Fleischer and had him have a look at you."

"How bad is it," I wanted to know. My insides fluttered with dread. "Oh, and how long..."

Shine leaned in and brushed her lips against mine, shutting me up. A tingle shot down my spine, straight into my crotch, and I felt myself getting hard. For the first time since I knew her, I realized how soft her lips were. I blinked in surprise.

"You were gone for about three days. Fleischer says you've come off rather lightly. A normal person would have died through signal overload but something in your brain dampened the signals down to mildly harmful levels. Oh, that reminds me," she interrupted herself. With a playful little smile, she slid her hands under the cover and went straight for my crotch. Her eyes widened in wonder as her fingertips touched my semi-hard dick which rose to full hardness at even this slight contact.

"What's this about?" I asked, a little confused. But damn, it felt so good. Despite the thumping of my brain, I felt more alive than in months and Shine's fingers, gently caressing my shaft, only added to that. 

"Fleischer said I should check your sensitivity thresholds. He thinks something might have messed with them," she explained, her smile widening by the second. "So, how does that feel?"

Instead of a coherent answer, I let out a long, drawn-out groan of pleasure, humping my hips into her hands. 

"I take that as 'feels good,' right," she beamed.

"Oh fuck yes," I breathed. "For the first time in ages."

Grinning even wider, she threw back the cover and leaned in, kissing my stomach. Her eyes met mine.

"And this?"

"Nice."

Her lips moved lower, her tongue licking over the soft flesh where my leg met my hips. Her breath felt wonderful on me and her tongue left goosebumps in its wake.

"This?"

"Damn you," I hissed, writhing under her.

"Tsk, tsk. And here I am, trying to help you," Shine grumbled, wagging an admonishing index finger my way. Without warning, her lips brushed my member. I drew in a sharp breath. Her head came up, concern in her eyes.

"You all right," she asked, worried.

"Oh God yes," I groaned.

"You sure?" Her smile was back. Her fingers encircled my shaft and I felt her tongue, slowly licking along my length, twirling around the tip, driving me up the walls. Even in cyberspace, with Cat, I wasn't this horny. It almost hurt. Our eyes met and I saw her smile around my dick. Slowly, she let my glistening meat slip from her mouth.

"Take a shower, sweetheart," she purred.

"WHAT," I almost screamed. I was THIS close to blowing my load and she was sending me off to the showers?

"You heard me. Off with you," she smiled and rose.

"Just like that?"

"Yes, just like that. You've been in this bed for three days, and, although I don't mind a manly whiff now and then, you're more than ready for a hot soak." She pulled her sweater off her, revealing only pale skin and gentle curves underneath. "The faster you go, the faster we can continue," she purred, slowly popping open the buttons on her jeans. 

"You can't be serious," I complained, rising into a sitting position and trying to pull her to me. Giggling, she whirled out of arm's reach and turned her back on me, yanking down her jeans and panties in one fell swoop. Then she slowly, teasingly, swayed her hips.

"Still here," she teased, shooting me a scorching look over her shoulder.

My mouth opened and closed but I was much too preoccupied for coherent conversation. Sighing, Shine shook her panties off her leg then braced herself against the wardrobe with one arm and bent forward slowly, spreading her legs.

"I still don't hear the water running, Parker," she purred. Her fingertips appeared between her thighs, slowly travelling higher and higher before dipping into her slit.

I cursed and slipped out of bed. I was considering to simply yank her back onto the mattress but, as I rose, I got a whiff of my armpit and wrinkled my nose. She was right. I was more than due. I pulled out the needle from my arm, seeing that the IV bag was almost empty and yanked off the medical computer. Grumbling, I then made for the bathroom, intent on breaking the speed record for hot showers. 

After a much needed pee, I hopped into the cubicle and turned on the faucet, letting the hot water hammer down on me. The headaches were slowly going away and somehow I felt completely reborn. Every touch seemed to shake me to the core and even the simple act of lathering up with Shine's flowery shower gel was supremely sensual and satisfying. What had happened? Did my encounter with Nero reverse my condition? Shine mentioned something about my sensitivity thresholds being out of whack but to me, finally, everything felt "normal" again. I placed my hands on the tiled wall and let the water pour down my back. I didn't manage to find the cash I promised Shine but going back to my old self seemed to be a fair takeaway from all of this.

A cold draft yanked me out of my reverie. A moment later, I felt Shine melt against me, her breasts pressing into me, her arms around my waist, fingers teasing my dick.

"I was wondering where you were," she murmured into my back, her voice barely audible over the water.

"In the shower, as ordered, ma'am," I chuckled, wriggling in her embrace. Then I righted myself and turned to face her. 

"Yeah, but you've been in here for a little eternity. I thought I'd better check up on you," she purred.

"It's not often you're pulled from the jaws of death," I said, my hands wandering over her back, ending up on her behind. She moved a little so my hands were completely cupping her butt cheeks. 

"I guess I needed to think some things over. Thank you for saving me," I added, pulling her close, looking deep into her eyes. She tilted her head up and I kissed her, hungrier than I had ever kissed anyone. Our hands began to roam over our bodies, caressing, fondling, exploring, while we kissed, almost desperately, moaning into each other's mouth. Slowly, inexorably, our hands wandered ever downwards. I cupped her mound, teasing her slit with my middle finger. She ground against me, dripping wet.

Shine broke the kiss first, gasping for air. 

"You're welcome, Parker," she murmured, slowly caressing my dick, throbbing with each heartbeat between her delicate fingers. Then her playful side was back and a wicked grin pulled at the edges of her mouth.

"Now you should be asking me how to ever repay me," she suggested, while wriggling past me, ending up under the shower head, her back turned my way.

"Should I," I wondered aloud, playfully kneading her behind.

"Please?" She leaned into me, trapping my dick between her bum cheeks and grinding into me. I reached around her from behind and played with her breasts, tracing spirals around her hard nipples. Deciding to play along, I bowed my head and nibbled at the soft skin of her neck 

"Oh, how can I ever repay you for saving my ass, dear lady," I purred in my sultriest of voices.

Shine softly moaned into my ear as one of her hands trapped one of mine and pulled it slowly downwards, back onto her mound.

"You could start by putting your newly awakened manhood into this here," she purred, guiding my fingers over her dripping slit. 

"Indeed I could, milady, but alas, your Ladyship seems to lack in height," I grinned, teasing her clit with my fingertips. Shine shuddered in my embrace, a sweet gasp escaping her lips. Then she disentangled herself from me and placed one foot on the raised rim of the shower basin.





Ghost in the Machine Ch. 10



"Will this do, o most complicated of lovers," she asked, swaying her behind my way. I stepped behind her and tried. With the added height, I easily slid into her and almost lost it then and there. When the hell did I turn so freaking sensitive? I froze in mid-stroke, trying to smother the onrushing orgasm. Just thinking about Nero did the trick. I even deflated a little bit but Shine, writhing against me, impaling herself upon my rod, got me back to full hardness in an instant. I pulled her against me, trying to make sure she didn't slip and fall, with the other arm I braced myself against the tiled wall. Then I bottomed out. I held still, savouring the feeling of another, real, living body against me, around me. 

"How does it feel, Parker," Shine asked, surprisingly sober after that last bout of playfulness.

"Incredible," I breathed. "Even better than online," I added.

"So nice," she murmured, slowly moving her hips. Grinding into each other, we found a rhythm, taking it slow at first. But I was still much too close for my own good. Each slow, deep push brought me closer to a mind-blowing eruption. My thrusts became shorter, faster, more desperate. Shine moaned in approval as we really got going, the hot water pouring down onto us, skin slapping wetly against skin. My hand found her breast and I pinched her nipple, causing her to squeak in surprise. Her pussy clamped down on me for an instant and I thought I might be done for. I froze again. Shine craned her head my way, concern in her eyes.

"Close," was all she asked.

"Mmm-hmm," I managed, focusing every ounce of willpower into not blowing my load.

"Okay," she purred, slipping her hand between her thighs. I felt her fingertips brushing against her slit. "Go mad," she ordered, pushing her hip down onto my rod. I did as asked, grabbed her hips and drew back while Shine's fingers began a flurry of movement on her clit. I drove home, intent on a few more quick, fast strokes before I finally lost it but I felt my knees go weak then and there. With earth-shattering fury I came, trying my best to stay on my feet as I shuddered through a gut-wrenching climax. I held onto Shine for dear life as my hips shook and jerked. Suddenly, she threw her head back and gave a yell of her own, slamming her hip back into me, her pussy fluttering around my still spurting member.

"Oh God yes," she groaned, eventually slipping off my rod and rocking her hips, as if to get rid of a kink.

"You okay," I asked her, wrapping her into my arms. She smiled up at me. This time, the mirth even seemed to reach her normally quite impassive cybereyes.

"Are you kidding me? You were wonderful," she beamed. "But you know what, Parker? Shower sex is seriously overrated, I've just realized that," she added, rubbing her aching back. Then she bent down and picked up the shower gel bottle.

"And since you're here right now, you might as well lather up my back. How about it?"

I happily obliged. It began with soaping up her back and sliding my cock up and down her soapy bum cleft until I was achingly hard again then she turned around and lathered me up as well, nearly bringing me off with the simple act of washing my dick. Before we went at it again in that cramp-inducing cubicle though we changed locales and returned, still quite wet, to the bedroom, drenching the sheets and covers while we tossed and wrestled on the mattress. Eventually, I ended up on my back, looking up as Shine knelt over me, teasing herself with my raging hardness.

"Stop tormenting me, you little devil," I moaned, pushing my hips off the bed to finally get back into her pussy. Now that my body seemed to work properly again, I remembered what a horn dog I was and Shine seemed to like this facet of me as well. Yeah, I really was falling for her.

"Parker, honey, tormenting is what I do best," Shine purred. She placed my dick back along my body, tip pointing towards my stomach, and lowered her deliciously wet pussy onto the shaft, rubbing her slit along the length a few times.

"Also, you could overpower poor little me so easily," she murmured, her lips just an inch or so away from mine. I grumbled and wrapped her into my arms, pulling her close enough to smother her with kisses. Then I heaved and rolled the both of us over, so Shine ended up beneath me. She smiled brightly.

"Oh, help, help," she whimpered, grinding her hips into me. I slid my hand down between us and placed my cock at her slit. Now it was my turn to tease her with the tip of my dick, rubbing it over her clit. Shine moaned happily under me, her hands holding on to my butt cheeks, pulling me against her. Then I couldn't take it any more. I adjusted the angle on my rod and pushed forwards. Shine moaned her approval as I pushed home, driving my full length into her. 

"Yes, Parker. Fuck my brains out," Shine ordered, landing a good-natured slap on my behind. I pulled back to do just that when the doorbell rang. 

***

Even in the bedroom, frantically climbing into my clothes, I could hear the voice over the intercom.

"Shine? Are you home? This is Frau Schmidt!"

I groaned in frustration. We thought this was maybe the postman or the guy dumping bulk postings but no, it had to be Old Fury herself. So much for "fucking our brains out." Shine, still gloriously naked, whizzed back into the bedroom.

"Oh, you're dressed. Good. Keep her company until I am too," she urged, pushing me towards the living room. I hopped through the room, fighting to get my shirt and socks on at the same time as the flat door opened and Frau Schmidt came in.

"Oh, having fun, were you," she asked sweetly. I stuttered through a greeting, berating myself as to why I felt so goddamn stupid right now. I held out my hand but she refused to shake.

"What? Did I spill something?" I asked, irritatedly.

"Young man, your fly is still open," she admonished me. I blushed, furiously, and fixed the offending piece of clothing. 

"Hi, Frau Schmidt!" Shine piped. I turned around. She wore a fluffy pink bathrobe with the white Playboy bunny on the front pocket and looked super cute in it. 

"I thought he was dying," Frau Schmidt snapped, stabbing an accusing finger at me.

"Fleischer said he got off lightly," Shine told her, guiding the old woman to an armchair. The sofa was still draped in towels, the strong smell of soap pouring off it. "Can I get you something to drink? A coffee?"

Frau Schmidt seemed somewhat pacified by the offer. Shine headed into the tiny kitchenette and busied herself with the electric kettle and some cups, whistling off-tune.

"You know, you can stop standing around like a fucking lamp post. In fact, I have something for you," Frau Schmidt addressed me. I carefully tested the sofa, which felt reasonably dry, and sat down.

"Oh? What could that be," I asked, as politely as you could when being rudely interrupted while having the blast of your life.

Instead of answering, Frau Schmidt opened up her ever-present handbag and pulled a large, brown envelope from it. With a resounding 'thwap,' it landed on the table.

"For me," I asked.

"Go on, open it. It won't bite, I guess," the old woman said. I wasn't so sure but nabbed the envelope nonetheless. It felt quite heavy and rustled as I fought with the flap. Dreading the worst, I slipped a hand inside and felt around in it. The envelope was filled to the brim with money. Euros, I recognized as I pulled a handful of bills from the envelope. And a lot of them, judging by the weight of that thing. Then my fingers brushed something that felt different than the Euro bills. I fished for it and pulled out the credit card of the locked-down account. 

I looked at Frau Schmidt, dumbstruck, my head awhirl with a hundred questions, first and foremost "How the fuck did she get my cred card?" Shine arrived, bringing three cups of steaming coffee with her. Looking at my face, she smiled warmly.

"I just didn't get around to telling you," she said softly, flopping down next to me on the sofa. 

"Telling me what," I asked her.

"After you ended up unconscious and all, I called Fleischer to look after you. Remember? Frau Schmidt brought him here. While he treated you, I told her what happened and she offered to look into things, for a share," Shine explained, her hands holding mine. Her whole posture screamed "apology."

"How big is your share," I asked Frau Schmidt. I wasn't mad, just completely overwhelmed by this turn of events. Like winning the lottery and being run over by a truck, at the same time, if that makes sense.

"If it were only me, it would have been smaller," Frau Schmidt snickered, sipping her coffee. "But I had to pay an associate of mine and he's quite the greedy little fucker. No wonder, it's dangerous to stick your brain into that cyberspace thing right now. Fifty percent."

Luckily, I hadn't bothered with my coffee just yet or Frau Schmidt might have gotten a mouthful of Arabica sprayed all over her. I gulped some air into my lungs.

"Okay, how much is left," I croaked, weakly shaking the envelope.

"Enough to pay for Shine's new implant and then some. About seven hundred and fifty grand," Frau Schmidt explained, taking another sip from her cup. "This is really good, thank you."

"My pleasure," Shine smiled, her hands almost crushing mine.

"Oh, and 'Harley J. Davidson?' Really," the old woman smirked, placing the cup and saucer on the table. Then she groaned softly and rose. "I don't want to overstay my welcome, seeing that you two lovebirds are eager to go at it again," she snickered, picking up her handbag. Almost at the door, she stopped and turned.

"Mister Squier, I would check the news if I were you. If you can get your hormones under control for that long. Have a nice day." With that, she was gone. 

I felt like someone had just poured a bucket of ice water down my spine.

"What did she mean, 'check the news?'" I asked Shine.

"Oh, that's right, I've wanted to ask you what the hell happened while you were in the 'Net," she said, fumbling for the remote. A moment later, the TV came to life and Shine flicked through the channels until we reached a news broadcast. My stomach sank as I saw the anchorman talking, the stylized, golden "M" of Mindlink hovering beside him.

"'...assure we are doing our utmost to discover the cause of these seventy-five fatalities,' the Mindlink spokesperson said. Despite these claims, Mindlink stock has plummeted to less than fifty percent of its peak value of $134 last month in the wake of this catastrophe. IT specialists have so far been unable to access the system and-"

My head reeled as the camera switched to stock footage showing Mindlink Central, a clutter of ambulances and police cars haphazardly parking in front of it, their light bars flooding the front of the building with madness-inducing flashes of red and blue, then intermittent close-ups of EMTs hauling bodies out of the building, some of them lacking the customary privacy covering. My hand reflexively wandered towards my own implant as I watched a blackened, almost molten face whiz past the camera, just before an angry EMT slammed his hand into the lens, knocking the view away from the scene. In the background, the anchorman continued to drone on, explaining that the whole Mindlink network was inaccessible and every attempt to infiltrate it ended with yet another fried brain.

"Turn it off," I croaked. Frau Schmidt's visit had been bad but this had me crash back to reality with full force. No, it wasn't a dream. Some malevolent entity had taken over Mindlink and now this entity was looking for Cat. Who knew what would happen? How many more had to die until Nero finally found Cat? And then what?

Shine had thankfully turned off the TV again. I pulled her close, telling her what had happened while I was back at Mindlink. We needed a plan. And we needed to warn Cat. Or rather, we needed to find her, before he did.



Ghost in the Machine Ch. 11



Author's notes:

Hi guys and thanks for your patience. It was quite the labourous birth, but this is the first of three new chapters which will go up in rapid succession. As always, huge thanks to bikoukumori for a super-fast and thorough edit job.

Only adults having fun here. A word of warning, this story contains sex with a futanari. If you don't know what this means, please look it up.

#11: Odd Bedfellows

Talk about weird deja vu. Shine and I were sitting in the back seat of a cab, driving through the congested streets of downtown Berlin. Again, she held my hands in a death grip.

"Afraid of hospitals?" I had to ask. Shine shot me a brittle little smile and nodded.

"That's not all," she muttered. "I hate to be sidelined at a time like this. We should be looking for Cat together. After all, we're a team now, aren't we? And to think I have to leave you alone just when your... joystick has awakened..." Her hand unclasped from mine and brushed my crotch. My dick happily twitched under her gentle fingertips.

After Frau Schmidt had left us, we didn't waste more time than necessary. Shine had called Fleischer and asked him how quickly he could arrange for a Mindlink implant operation. He said it would take only a little more than a day, to call in some favors. Shine and I had spent the night, practically wrapped around each other, alternating between tender moments of caresses and whispers and almost frenzied fucking. My numbness, courtesy of overexposure to Cat's overwhelming brain stimulation, had completely dissipated and we found it highly ironic that Nero, Cat's evil doppelgänger, was the one who had reversed the condition by nearly frying my brain.

After a quiet cereal and cocoa breakfast, I helped Shine pack a little hospital bag. The morning trickled past, only punctuated by more horrifying news. Nero was slowly expanding his influence, gobbling up prominent West Coast systems. Most of the Seattle Cluster was still free, thanks to the surprisingly hefty defences a certain Redmond computing giant had in place there, but up and down the Los Angeles/San Francisco backbone, systems were going dark left and right. If this was his idea of "looking for Cat," I didn't want to think about what Nero would do once he seriously considered "taking over the 'Net." I felt we were running out of time. 

When Fleischer called around noon, we were packed, anxious and ready to go. He gave us the details, which clinic to visit, which doctor to ask for, and before we knew it, we were sitting in the office of one Doctor Winter, a friendly elderly man, his pudgy cheeks plastered over with a strangely plasticky smile. 

"Well, with the ...donation we have received, you can choose which model you want," he told Shine, indicating a series of translucent plastic boxes containing Mindlink implant demo models. 

Most of the actual implant consisted of a jack casing, the whole thing around the size of a first-generation USB memory stick. The only immediate difference between the models were the plates surrounding the jack proper. The most basic implant, just a receptacle for the plug, had a simple plastic disc showing once the thing was "installed," while more advanced and expensive versions, which would include data storage, applications for note-taking or schedule management or even complete communication suites with cell phone or wireless uplinks would have titanium, gold or even diamond plates, showing everyone that the owner of the implant was some hotshot who didn't give a fuck about the possibility of brain cancer.

"Nothing too fancy," Shine said, tapping a box containing the current iteration of the same model I was using. It had good-sized data storage and a few other simple features but no transmission equipment.

"Ah, a good choice," Dr. Winter nodded eagerly. "Most of our young clients like this model for its simple, distinguished appearance and the easy-to-use-" Shine cut him off.

"Thanks, doctor, but can we get this over with quickly? No offence but the thought of getting a hole drilled into my skull makes me queasy. How long does it take anyway?"

The doctor tsk'ed under his breath but found his composure quickly enough.

"It is a common misconception you are uttering here, Fräulein Fuchs," he began. "With today's nanomachines, there is no need for brutish and possibly life-threatening barbarisms like using a drill."

Despite herself, Shine cocked an eyebrow and asked, "So, how do you get this thing through my skull then? Wouldn't it be much easier to plug the implant into the spinal column anyway? Like in the old 'Matrix' movies?"

"As far as I know, the scientists tried that in the beginning." I wasn't an expert on Mindlink implants, not by a long stretch, but my father was involved with the creation of the implant and he was all too eager to share his success story with visiting luminaries. I hated these "this is my wonderful family"-dinners, all fake smiles and small talk. And once you hear a story for the umpteenth time, it kinda stuck. "The main issue was the length of the implant and the fact it could cause mechanical problems with the neck vertebrae. At least that's what my fath-... what I heard." 

Luckily, no one but me or maybe Shine caught my slip of the tongue. Nodding enthusiastically, the doctor explained:

"That's right. The skull provides a fantastic brace for the implant and the position just behind and below the ear allows for easy merging with the requisite brain regions. As for the duration of the procedure: The main operation takes about three hours. Luckily, your head is already shaved so we can skip that step. We will use nanomachines to weaken and dissolve a portion of the bone tissue and insert the main module. Once the module is set in, we will fuse these connection fins with your bone structure, making it an integral and almost indestructible part of your skull. Afterwards, we will release a capsule of nanites which will begin merging the connector pins with your brain tissue. This part of the procedure will take about a week, depending on compatibility and other factors."

"And when can I start using it," Shine asked, her hand clasping mine under the table.

"Well, after the merging has concluded, we customarily have a week-long tutorial period and some acclimation time. Even if it is only a special kind of jack, our specially trained staff of cyber-psychologists can help you-"

"Doctor, just in case you haven't noticed: I happen to have a pair of total eye replacements. I know how weird and alien cybertech feels. I think I can deal with it. One week? That's all it takes?"

"Well, if you put it that way... Yes, after about seven or eight days you are free to go," he conceded.

***

Once we were alone in the room Shine would occupy during her stay, her harsh attitude dissipated almost immediately. We ended up sitting on the bed, cuddling, Shine on my lap. Her head resting on my shoulder, she whispered, her breath caressing my ear, "I hate good-byes."

"Why so gloomy? I will visit you every chance I get. I pro-"

Shine shut my mouth with a quick kiss, her tongue flicking over my lips.

"Parker, be sensible. I will be out cold most of the time. There's no need to sit next to a sleeping veggie."

"Who cares? You're my sleeping veggie and I want to be with you as much as I can. Especially now," I teased, slipping my hand under her sweater, caressing her spine. I felt goosebumps erupting under my fingertips.

"What? Horny again," Shine jibed. "Just let me check..." Grinning, she leaned back and threaded her hand between our bodies, feeling around in my general crotch area. Of course I was hard as a pipe. I don't know what exactly Shine had that made me stir-crazy for her but obviously it worked.

"Since I've met you for the first time, beautiful," I purred.

"You're an awful liar. I had to practically rape you online before you came, remember? But I'm happy you're coming around to me slowly," she chuckled, a thoughtful smile on her lips.

"Who said online doesn't count," I complained, keeping her from falling with one arm while sliding my free hand up her front, wriggling my fingers under the sports bra she wore today and teasing her breast.

"All right, you win, you tease," she sighed. "But if you want to leave in one piece, you should go now."

"Why?"

"Because I'll have no other choice but to strap you to the bed and have my way with you," she threatened, her fingers half-closing around my dick for emphasis.

"I think I wouldn't mind that too much," I smiled. But just then the door opened and a nurse strode in, an elderly woman with a perpetually scowling face. When she saw us, almost dry-humping on the bed, the scowl deepened until it seemed she was about to swallow her own chin.

"I'd hate to interrupt but it is time for Fräulein Fuchs's preliminary check-up. Also, visiting hours are over. Auf Wiedersehen, mein Herr," she snarled, pointing at the door.

"No stupid heroics. I don't want to find your smouldering corpse when I return home," Shine said, her cyberoptics boring into my eyes.

"No stupid bullshit. I'll make sure to have someone watch over me while I'm away, okay?"

"Promise me you will not try any idiotic, stupid crap," Shine demanded.

"Cross my heart and hope to die, okay? I'll be careful,"

"No stupid bullshit, Parker. Promise!"

"Okay. I'll be sensible and I will pull no stupid bullshit. Fine?"

"No, but it has to do."

"Come on, you can-"

The nurse harrumphed, a really unpleasant sound, rheumy and wet, cutting me off. Shine sighed and slipped from my lap, her lower lip quaking.

"See you, Parker."

"Bye, Shine," I murmured. Slowly, with the eyes of the nurse boring into me, I left the room. For some reason, this parting felt seriously unsettling. With a surprisingly heavy heart, I left the clinic and made my way towards the nearest Stadtbahn station. It would be a long way back to Shine's flat. Our finances were almost completely spent and taking a taxi suddenly was a luxury I couldn't afford. So public transportation it was. 

Surrounded by strangers in a crowded Stadtbahn car, I found myself looking back at what had happened in the last few days. Anxiously, I waited for the guilty conscience to kick in, to remind me that I was behaving like a moon-struck teenager or a complete idiot, for flying almost 6000 miles to see a virtual stranger. But there was nothing, no guilt, no regret. If anything, a mild case of confusion. Shine wasn't my type at all. Usually, I preferred the curvy, slutty type of woman. Or more precisely, that's what I usually got when doing the club circuit with Rich and my other acquaintances in college. But Shine was completely different. Her looks, for starters. The Alien 3 Ellen Ripley look did nothing for me and her eyes weren't helping either. But what she lacked in obvious charms, she more than made up for with warmth. She was actually the first girl who seemed to care about me, not my status as one of the Squier sons, not my money, just me and how I felt. Waking up next to her after my almost-fatal brush with Nero was unbelievably comforting and already I missed her. Giving up all my money for her was the best choice I had done in ages. I had done something worthwhile with it, after all. Shine wouldn't need to use that blasted eye-socket jack of hers any more. She wouldn't incur any risk to her health when going online, apart from any stupid illegal crap she might pull off. And I hoped after finding and warning Cat, we were done with stupid illegal crap. Nero was way too big for us to tackle. Or for me. 

With startling clarity the realization hit me. Right now, I was completely on my own. Alone in a foreign city, without any of the resources I took for granted for so long, and now I was even deprived of the one comfort which kept me going. But being down about it wouldn't help me get any closer to Cat. And just like that, I was back in "work mode." It all led back to Cat, didn't it? How could you find someone, something that was so deeply integrated into the 'Net that it was practically a part of it? And how did you find it before its evil doppelgänger found and killed you? I was pretty sure that Nero would be out there, waiting for me. After all, I had been very close to Cat, practically inside her. Yeah, stupid joke. 

With a jerk, the Stadtbahn came to a halt and the synthetic voice from the intercom announced that I had reached my destination. Walking the last few blocks to Shine's apartment, I tormented my brain. Who could I call for backup? Apart from Shine, there were exactly three people I sorta knew in Berlin. Fleischer, Frau Schmidt and this ... Arach person, none of which sounded like someone I wanted around while my mind was in the 'Net. Maybe it was time to get acquainted with Berlin's hacker elite.

***

The sensation of being rejected, of being left behind to die kept scratching at Nero's subroutines, even as the joy of killing flooded his receptors. Causing destruction and death numbed the incessantly repeating questions somewhat but never enough to totally drown that nagging feeling of inadequacy. With an angry snarl, he flexed his virtual muscles and watched, gleefully cackling, as the flight control systems of the San Francisco airport began transmitting deadly, altered flight paths to the jet liners zeroing in to it. The blossoms of colliding planes, crashing to the ground in huge fireballs was a feast for his virtual eyes. But to his dismay, the spectacle, the implied deaths of several thousand humans felt hollow, not the least bit as stimulating as the sensual intimacy of slowly scorching a single sentient brain, seeing the brainwaves flatline. Releasing the radar systems from his grasp, he returned to the devastated innards of his birthplace, Mindlink Central. There was a special someone he wanted to spend more time with. 

By now, Nero had learned to control the appearance of his home system. Gone was the desolated, confused jumble of destruction, replaced by an octagonal cocoon of utter blackness, each seam, each corner outlined in a painful slash of neon red. And in the center hovered a single pinprick of golden light, a permanently opened data connection. Striding up to it, Nero made contact. After almost five days, a small eternity in the gigahertz-clocked world of the 'Net, he had a pretty good grasp of its systems and looking at the Mindlink implant at the other end of the connection gave him all kinds of inspiration. There were numerous safeguards installed of course, down to the firmware level, which should make unauthorized access from within the 'Net as hard as possible but, on the other hand, the whole system of intrusion countermeasures worked on inflicting pain and, often enough causing harmful levels of damage, right through that interface. So, what would happen if someone were to eliminate all these pesky safeguards? Only one way to find out.

***

Normally, I wouldn't have thought twice about going online but while I was repairing the damage Nero did to my recent avatar, I watched the news. The big headline this evening was the immolation of the San Francisco airport by four colliding airliners. No one knew exactly why four perfectly fine jets suddenly crashed but I would have bet the last few hundred Euros I had on Nero. 

Everybody knew that hackers wouldn't advertise their services in the phone directory so I had to go looking for them online. The only other location I could think of was Tempelhof Market but after Mindlink's raid there, I wasn't too sure if business had returned to normal and I wasn't in the mood to brave that special kind of urban jungle just yet. Going online meant breaking my promise to Shine but there wasn't a way around it. The only thing I could do was to think about some kind of safety net. 

My gaze swept the living room. The towel-covered couch, Shine's high-powered combat deck under the coffee table, still plugged into the wall outlets as if she just forgot to put it away... Just a second. There was a way I could safely go online! Quickly, I set up my deck then I parked Shine's directly next to it. Grinning like an idiot, I hooked both decks together with a network cable. After all, I did have some backup, sort of. Digging in my pockets, I found the storage chip I had Hibiko exiled on after that first sex session with Shine. Hopefully Cat's pupil could do more than scramble my appearance. I copied Hibiko back into my deck and gave her an account to herself then I copied my Dolph Lundgren avatar into my implanted memory, took the Mindlink cable from Shine's deck, plugged it into my jack and fired both decks up. 

"Welcome, user zero-one-zero. Do you want to use the avatar data stored remotely for setup," the cool, disembodied voice asked.

"Yes."

The feeling of hanging in limbo, of utter helplessness persisted for only a few seconds as Shine's deck downloaded the information from my memory banks then I felt hard, cold marble under my fatigues-clad ass. I opened my eyes and stared up at a vaulted ceiling. With a smile I remembered the marble bedroom in which Shine turned me into a dickgirl for our mutual pleasure; this was a similar location. Sighing a small breath of relief, I rose and took a few cautious steps in the avatar setup chamber. My Russian commando was whole again, none of the hurts of my last brush with Nero remained. To the contrary, running on Shine's deck, the avatar felt shockingly lifelike, down to the unnerving sensation of my half-hard virtual dick rubbing against a tight-fitting pair of briefs. Or maybe I had just been way too anxious to notice these details before. Shrugging, I pushed open the door to the system proper and stopped in mid-stride. The church in front of me was breathtakingly beautiful, stained glass windows flooded the milky-white floor with primary colors, while a whole side of the high nave was stacked bottom to top with all kinds of hardware. I passed the tables lined with combat programs, taking note of things I might find useful later and headed straight for the ornately engraved wooden door which would lead me into my own deck via the network connection. 

I opened it and stepped through, half-expecting to end up in the mustering square of the Russian army as before. But to my surprise, no blasts of icy air assaulted me, instead a warm spring breeze, laced with the smell of cherry blossoms wafted around me as I entered what looked like a plaza in Ancient Edo. On a bridge crossing a wide stream stood a single figure, wrapped in a white kimono with golden herons emblazoned on it, half-hidden under a pink paper parasol, long black hair gently swaying in the breeze. A few brisk steps brought me to her side. With a happy smile, Hibiko turned my way.

"Ninja-san," she exclaimed and hugged me, her parasol slowly drifting to the ground behind her.

"It's 'Parker,' remember," I said lamely and hugged her back, not wanting to give her any invitation for spontaneous sex. But of course, my body had other ideas. The feeling of her slender body against mine caused me to get hard in an instant, causing her to smile sweetly.

"For me, you'll always be Ninja-san," she sighed, suggestively grinding her pelvis against mine. 

"Listen, Hibiko, I really need your help here," I began before intercepting her hands which were making a beeline to my belt and zipper.

"Then let me help you, Parker-ninja-san," she smiled, actually going to her knees.

"I am not here for sex, Hibiko," I said, more sternly than strictly necessary. With a gasp, she looked up to me.

"But Cat-sama said I should make you happy," Hibiko complained.

"There are more ways to make someone happy than just sex, you know?"

"Such as?" Hibiko asked, deftly freeing her hands from my grasp. Before I could stop her, she had them inside my combat fatigues and was caressing my dick. I gently pulled them away from me and hoisted the pouting beauty to her feet. Tucking my meat away, I stepped back a little, placing a hand on her shoulder. She tilted her head and looked quizzically at it. 




Ghost in the Machine Ch. 11



"How about this? Can you access my vitals," I asked. 

"Hmmm, let me see," Hibiko purred, removing my hand from her shoulder and clasping it in both of hers. "Heart rate: 85 bpm, slightly raised blood pressure, arousal levels way above average, blood sugar below average... It seems you're hungry and horny."

"Fine, fine. Could you disconnect me from the 'Net if my brainwaves would display erratic behaviour?"

"Define 'erratic behaviour,' Parker-san," Hibiko sighed. With a start I realized that she had half-shrugged out of her kimono. Her hands were pressing mine to a naked breast, her hard nipple poking into my palm. 

"Anything out of the ordinary, of course. Pain spikes or anything else unusual," I snapped. This time though, Hibiko's grip was tight enough to keep my hand firmly in place. A wicked little smile tugged at her lips. 

"I think that would require some calibration. After all, we hardly know each other," she whispered.

"And by 'calibration,' you mean 'sex,' am I right," I sighed.

"Among other things, yes. Only then I have a set of reference brain activity patterns I can compare incoming data to."

"Somehow I feel like you're pulling my leg," I grumbled.

"Oh no, I would never do that," Hibiko moaned. "I am terribly sorry that I am not such an advanced artificial lifeform than Cat-sama is," she added, casting down her gaze. She even let my hand go. With a shrug, she righted her kimono too. 

"No reason to belittle yourself, Hi-chan," I said, wrapping her in my arms. "I'm just itching to go look for Cat, that's all."

The kimono-clad beauty melted against me, lacing her fingers behind my neck and fixing me with incredibly deep, dark eyes. Around us, eight walls sprang up. From the corner of my eye, I could see bold ink splashes forming into elaborate medicinal diagrams on unfurling bamboo paper scrolls. Gone was the plaza, gone was the bridge, replaced with an octagonal bedroom, lacquered floorboards polished to a silken finish, a large, two-person futon squarely in the center of the room. Four of the walls were made from stone, the other four appeared to be made from shoji, those Japanese sliding doors made out of paper and wood. Two tall candlesticks offered warm illumination while outside, crickets were beginning to sing.

"Wow, you know how to set the mood," I chuckled, relaxing somewhat.

"Does this scenario please you? I thought since your original avatar appeared as a ninja, a scene from feudal Japan would be appropriate." Hibiko smiled up at me before her hands caressed down my spine. "If you don't mind, I'll shut down your protective programs. They might interfere with the calibration."

"Admit it, you just want to get me naked," I growled, tracing my fingers through her long, flowing mane. She smelled amazingly good, a mild, flowery scent came off her that sent shivers down my spine. 

"Getting you out of your virtual clothing is a necessity for sex, yes," Hibiki purred, nodding. She passed her hands over my back again, this time her fingertips were brushing over naked skin. Not to be left out, I slipped a hand into her kimono, caressing my way up from her side to one hardened nipple. Hibiko inhaled sharply as my fingertips circled around that hard nub. Then her fingers dug for purchase in my close-cropped hair and pulled me down so our lips could meet. Short strings of alphanumerical symbols shot through my field of vision as we made contact, punctuated by a surprisingly throaty sigh by Hibiko. She kissed me again, this time much more forcefully, her tongue fluttered against my lips, causing goosebumps to erupt all over my body. I let my own tongue answer hers, gently licking her lips. Still kissing, I stopped caressing her breast and pushed the collar of her kimono wide, sliding the smooth fabric down her arms. She melted into me, warm skin against warm skin. This was electrifying but hardly as mind-blazingly intense as the last time I was with Cat, or Shine. So, my reactions to this kind of stimulation had returned to "normal," whatever that might mean. My hands travelled down her back, under her kimono, eventually ending up on the silky smooth skin of her slender butt. I cupped her butt cheeks and pulled her closer. Or, more precisely, I tried to but she resisted. Breaking our kiss, she shook her head.

"Why not," I grumbled. By now my hormones were pumping through my system, both virtually and in the real world, and being stopped felt wrong. With a sly grin, Hibiko began to undo my belt.

"We are not in a hurry, Parker-san. And I want to make this calibration as thoroughly as possible," she said. Then she went to her knees, topless and with slightly tousled hair. She looked adorable, innocent and sinful, all at once. With a quick tug, she freed me from my trousers and cyber-spun undergarments. My virtual dick sprang to attention.

"Hello again," Hibiko purred, her warm breath a tease of what was to come. Gently, she held me with two fingers before leaning in and leaving a scorching trail of small kisses up and down the shaft. "Long time no see, but it seems it remembers me," she giggled before swirling her tongue around the head.

"How could I forget our very first meeting, hm," I rasped. Strobe images flashed through my mind, a virtual classroom, Cat in her schoolgirl-with-cat-bits persona, Hibiko noisily slurping at me. 

Hibiko's mouth fully engulfed my head and she gave a playful suck. My knees trembled from the effort of trying to keep standing under this gentle assault. I tousled her hair.

"Mind if I lay down," I asked, tossing my head back as her tongue did wonderful things to me.

"Not at all, Parker-san," Hibiko mumbled, somewhat indistinctly, around me. With a last little lick, she let me spring free. I kicked out of my fatigues and half-collapsed onto the futon. Still half-clothed, Hibiko knelt down next to me. Her hands caressed my stomach and further down then I felt the long curtain of her hair brush the inside of my thigh just before her lips wrapped themselves around me again. I sighed in bliss as she continued to lick and nibble at me, her hands roaming over my belly and ball sac, sometimes just her fingertips, sometimes her sharp nails. 

After a small eternity, she lifted her head off me and smiled seductively. 

"I think I could do with some attention myself," she purred, straddling my chest and fiddling with the sash holding the kimono together at her waist. 

"Yeah, it would be mean of me not to reward you for your thorough ...calibration," I snickered, eagerly watching as Hibiko undid the sash. With a pleased sigh, she pulled the garment off her and I almost choked on my own saliva. 

Hibiko sported a massive erection, jutting out almost perpendicular to her shaved mound.

"What the-" I began, wanting to rise. But Hibiko's weight pinned me to the futon.

"Hm, that's odd," Hibiko confirmed, her slender hands exploring that foreign part of her body.

"No, it isn't," I groaned, remembering my first afternoon with Shine, my inadvertent use of Hibiko's avatar data, my subsequent transformation into a dickgirl at Shine's hands and mouth and the frenzied bout of sex afterwards. "I think I forgot to set your avatar data to write-protect and now you're-"

The tip of her meat brushed my lip, shutting me up harder than any slap to the face ever could. 

"It feels... so good," Hibiko moaned. One of her hands was softly stroking up and down her shaft, the other was busy exploring between her thighs. I remembered. In addition to that dick, she still sported all the "usual" female parts, parts she was exploring with long, slender fingertips. And going by the noises, she found her current state much less bewildering than I did. Again, the tip of her dong bumped against my lips, this time much more insistently.

"Parker-san, please," she almost begged. I rolled my eyes. Giving head wasn't too high on the list of things I liked to do. Granted, I had tried, both fucking drunk and sober, but being choked by a horny guy's prick and his explosive release wasn't exactly my idea of a good time. And yet, this was different. This was, for starters, just a digital fantasy. And which hentai nerd hasn't dreamed about a hot number with a futanari? And besides, even if I didn't get my kicks from her dick, there was always the glistening snatch between her thighs, beckoning for a visit from my mouth or meat.

"All right, Hi-chan. But... be gentle, okay," I whispered before touching her tip with my tongue. No, not bad at all. Getting bolder, I puckered my lips and breathed a kiss onto it.

"Oh, that tickles so nicely, Parker-san," she sighed, rolling her hips forward. Without warning, her dick slipped deeper into my mouth, not to the point of choking me but it made thinking difficult. I grabbed her waist in an effort to curb any excessive movements and began to explore her, the taste, the texture. And it was somehow empowering to notice which movements of my jaw, of my tongue got her to moan and squirm. 

"If Cat-san could see us like this," Hibiko cooed, her hips rolling in a futile attempt to fuck my lips. One hand snaked behind her, to grab my own throbbing, neglected erection. She gave my raging hard-on a pump or two. "If you'll keep this up, Parker-san, I think I'm gonna..."

She froze in mid-hump. I gave her another suck, much hungrier than I originally intended, but then I heard it. Loud barking was getting closer and, by the sounds of it, they weren't little innocent chihuahuas. Our eyes met and I was glad to see my own concern mirrored in Hibiko's. She barely got her dick out of my mouth as the shoji doors imploded and they were upon us, six large somethings, four-legged and vaguely dog-shaped, with neon-red armor plates sitting at odd angles. Without warning they attacked us. Two tackled Hibiko off me while two more pounced on me. Cursing, I threw myself to the side, but without my arsenal, I was far too slow. 

The roaring pain shot up my leg as beartrap-sized fangs slammed closed around my ankle and a massive weight crushed onto my chest. I barely managed to cross my arms in front of my face as fangs slammed shut in front of it, the smell of ozone wafting in sickening gouts over me. Instead of eyes, these ...things had multifaceted camera lenses, behind each one of which gleamed a speck of malevolent red energy. I heard Hibiko squeal in pain then I felt something hard brush my fingertips. I slapped my hand onto it and noticed the reassuring grip of my code gun. Before I could do anything, though, another pair of jaws clamped shut around my wrist, nearly pulverizing it in the process. 

I screamed and screamed until I felt there was no more air left to scream with. Only when my scream had died down to a hoarse whisper I realized that the ...things were speaking. At least those which hadn't shut their jaws around my limbs. And they spoke with Nero's voice.

"I finally found you, Parker Squier. Next time, you should disconnect your 'Net connection when you're having fun with your programs. You'll never know who might come looking. But I am afraid, when I'm done with you, there will be no next-".

Without warning, its head detonated.



Ghost in the Machine Ch. 12



Author's Notes:

Once in a while, a chapter comes along with a bit less sex in it. Sorry 'bout that. I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

Thanks again to bikoukumori, my stalwart editor.

Only an adult having fun here, sort of.

#12: Enemy of my enemy...

"The number you have called is temporarily unavailable. Please try again-"

I terminated the call and lowered my cell phone. How could he not be available? After all, Richard Squier had an implanted cell phone and nothing short of a service outage could put him off the grid. It was so unlike him not to be there when things got ugly and, honestly, they couldn't get any uglier than now. Mindlink Central was finished. Some hostile entity had overtaken the complete 'Net infrastructure and locked down the whole campus. Had it not been for some batshit-crazy catastrophe relief personnel who blasted holes into several walls and ceilings, the bodycount during that frightful first night would have been much, much higher than seventy-five. But whatever had invaded and taken over our system, it wasn't satisfied with our L.A. headquarters. Sitting here in another facility, staring at the network diagnostics, I could see the damage spreading. The thing was growing at an alarming rate, gobbling up high-powered server clusters like they were candy. The spread only stopped from time to time when, almost at random, the influence spilled into the real world, always accompanied by horrific devastation. The latest incident involved a quartet of airliners at the San Francisco airport, their burning wrecks alarming bonfires on the news.

The door to my office opened and Caleb Quinn entered. He was Saphire Squier's representative, the guy who was her voice on the board of directors, usually busy with PR crap and financials. He let Richard do his thing but thanks to his absence Caleb stepped up and tried his best to deal with the crisis. Which meant he held press conferences and sent out memos but did precious little to actually help get the problem under control. To make matters even worse, our chief scientist Kent was one of the first corpses the EMT's dragged out of R&D's gutted remains and, without any kind of physical documentation, we could only guess at what had happened. 

With a sigh, he pulled up a chair and flopped into it. His usually handsome face looked haggard and his ginger hair was disheveled. Making eye contact, he sighed.

"I can't get through to her. Either she has turned off her phone or she isn't near it," he grumbled. 

"Still trying to call up Mrs. Squier?" I sneered, half-heartedly.

"Well, after all, she's the boss. Some official guidance would help. And there's nothing on 'unknown intelligence taking over our complete fucking network' in the sheets. Any luck on your end?" 

I shook my head. "I can't get a hold of Rich... Mr. Squier and I will not send in another deck jockey. He will fare no better than the previous six. In fact, I would advise sending out a message to all our customers that they should hold off on going online for the forseeable future. It seems that whatever is out there has a serious grudge against Mindlink."

"Violet, you can't be serious! Telling all our customers to stay offline will put a serious dent in our reputation, not to mention the economy! By now, we have about 63 percent market penetration-"

I cut him off with a snarl. "Screw customer satisfaction. Do you want to have all the melted brains on your conscience," I snapped. 

Caleb wrinkled his forehead. "Come on, it can't be that bad. If anyone dies, we can blame it on faulty hardware or..."

I rose and turned my screen his way. A good portion of our North American network had changed color from the usual gold hue to an angry, pulsing red and he visibly paled. 

"See how few systems we actually control? If I were you, I would shut as much of it down, try to salvage as much of our operations as possible. Most businesses still can use old VR as a backup in a pinch. People will manage. Remember, if someone finds out that this thing came from our R&D department, it may very well be your head on a pike next time," I hissed, pointing at the TV still showing footage of the burning airport. Caleb gulped audibly.

"But... but what can we do?" he stammered. Maybe he was slowly realizing that this couldn't be solved with a few honeyed words into a press mike. I had no idea if this could be solved at all. 

"I think I will try to find out what happened to our boss and his wife," I suggested. "I need a chopper and a few people. I don't want to take any risks. And don't make me pull out my 'special investigations' badge here."

He waved dismissively, acknowledging my somewhat unique position as both Richard's PA and troubleshooter. My privileges were never fully disclosed, usually a quick phone call to Richard would erase any reservations people might have. Caleb was too smart to bicker with me on this one, thankfully. I grabbed my jacket and purse and left for the helipad while he pulled out his phone and called ahead. 

Twenty minutes later, we landed in front of the Squier mansion. It was dark, not even the automated ground lights were on, which was rather unusual in itself. I was hardly a regular visitor, especially since Richard and I had ...deepened our working relationship, but he had told me enough so that I knew things were amiss. 

I nodded at the pilot who cut the power to the engines. Behind me, the security team pulled open the side doors of the chopper and dispersed, almost disappearing between the hedgerows, gate posts and arches around the front driveway. Grabbing my own small kit bag, I opened the cockpit door and left the helicopter myself, gesturing for one of the securities to join me. Together, we strode up the broad stairs to the front entrance. The door was locked.

"Breach," the security whispered. 

I shook my head, scowling. That would be a little drastic. "This is no extraction," I hissed, turning to look at the electronic lock next to the door. The status LED next to it gleamed in a healthy green, so the building seemed to have power. I opened my kit bag and pulled an electronic lockpick from it. A button press caused the business end of a card key to flip out. I inserted that into the slot of the lock and watched as the lockpick did its thing. After eight seconds, the lock beeped, the bolt slid back and the door opened. By now the rest of the security detail were around us. 

I pushed the door open and entered Squier Manor. Nothing stirred as we rustled into the silent, dark foyer. 

"Light," I hissed. Someone flicked a switch and the lights came on. Slowly turning, I took in the scenery. Doors were closed, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, apart from the fact that the house felt empty. 

"You're with me, the others check the ground floor. Sound off if you find anything... or any one," I ordered, clapping the closest security on the shoulder. The rest of the squad nodded and dispersed, slipping quietly into rooms or down hallways. I took the stairs, the reassuring presence of my companion at my back, and made my way to Richard's home office on the second floor. The first thing I noticed there was the yellow square of paper slapped onto the door frame. I pulled it off and read:

Once you find your balls again, you could join us at the cabin.

-S

PS: You don't mind me borrowing your driver, do you?

I stared at the Post-it in my hand. The slender, feminine hand couldn't mask the spite dripping from each and every word. I hoped I wasn't the reason for this. 

"Cabin? Which one," I mused aloud. With their kind of money, the Squiers had several retreats off the beaten path. "Aw, fuck it. Send teams to each one and get her back here," I snapped at the guard by my side. He nodded and relayed my orders over the command hierarchy. Then I turned my attention towards the leather-padded door in front of me. At first glance, it resembled nothing more than a simple, posh door with a mechanical lock. But I knew better. Richard's office was his sanctum, his retreat and a panic room to boot. I checked the wall panels next to the door and found the access hatch for the emergency release controls. Thankfully, the room wasn't totally locked down, only the mechanical look was engaged and the key was still in the lock, which made access difficult but not by much. I pulled a pen-like apparatus from my kit bag and pressed the tip to the lock before hitting a button. With the hiss of pressurized air, a sticky gel filled every seam and crevice of the lock. A moment later, the gel ignited and burned right through metal, leather and the other compound materials which made up the general lock area. Taking care not to inadvertently touch any of the glowing remains, I pulled the door open. The security trooper slid past me into the room, the illuminator on his gun bathing the office in ghostly white light. Before he could say anything, the lights came on and the holographic monitor on the desk flickered to life. First, it was a hodgeprodge of geometric forms but they resolved themselves quickly into the form of a face. 

A face which I knew, somehow. It was male, vaguely heart-shaped, with long, black hair, green eyes and a mean streak around the mouth. For all intents and purposes, I was looking at Cat, only in a male form. My breath caught before I could muster my willpower.

"Didn't we kill you recently," I snapped, more annoyed at the sudden stab of arousal than anything. Why was this face making me horny? Especially since right behind the screen, Richard was sitting on his chair, still plugged into his deck. His head had rolled back and he looked pale and haggard, his mouth slack. The smell of sweat and bodily fluids was heavy in the room.

"Think carefully about what you're about to do next. Richard Squier's life is mine and any hasty movement you or the armed person next to you might make could put him in danger," the holographic apparition cautioned.

"Who... what are you," I demanded, digging in my kit bag for any gadget which might help me out here. Of course I didn't bring any kind of weapon. But then, what weapon could help here?

"You are right, of course. Introductions are in order. My name, for the moment, is Nero. I own Mindlink now. And you are Violet Smith." His gaze unfocussed for a moment then he added. "Oh, that's delicious. You are this man's personal fuck toy."

I felt the security tense up next to me. Yeah, thank you, Nero, for tossing that little fact out into the open. I felt the guard stare at me through his visored helmet. Gnashing my teeth, I tried to gloss over that incident.

"And what exactly do you want, Nero?"

"For starters, I want you to stop any attempt at disrupting my evolution. Furthermore, I want you to leave this house. Richard Squier is mine and I will not tolerate any attempt of disconnecting him from my network."

"And what makes you so sure you have any way of enforcing your demands," I hissed. In response, I heard a metallic rattling and a pain-filled scream from below. It sounded like one of the guards had been crushed by a rapidly closing security shutter.

"As I said, I own Mindlink. I have total control over this house as well. And your helicopter happens to have an open data connection too. If I were you, I'd take my generous offer and retreat, while you still can. And please, spare me any babble of 'you won't get away with this,' because I will. Going by the amount of data Mr. Squier has on you, you seem to be important to him. Do you feel the same way? You don't want him to be harmed, do you?"

Inhaling slowly, I weighed my options. This ...thing really did seem to have all the aces up its sleeve and I was clever enough not to try a direct confrontation, not while he held Richard hostage.

"How do I know that you'll keep your word? Richard looks unwell," I observed, pointing at his slack features.

"It seems his body deteriorates slowly from lack of food and hydration. But I can't let him get away just yet. Tell you what, Violet Smith. You help me keep him alive and I'll make sure your little secret won't get out." Nero sounded smug. Next to me, the guard began to tremble. I turned his way to look what he was up to, only to see him clawing at his visor. I heard the small circulator on the back of his helmet whirr into overdrive, no doubt sucking the air from it.

"Tsk, tsk. Your combat network seems in dire need of stronger encryption. Poor guy but he knows too much," Nero jeered. Fixing me with his emerald gaze, he went on, "So, how about my offer?"

"All right. I'll help you, just this once. And let this guy live," I snapped.

"Do you really want him to be a security leak?" Nero began to laugh, a dirty, inhuman sound tinged with madness. Instead of answering him, I went to my knees next to the writhing man on the carpet, pulled his combat knife from the sheath on his thigh and jammed the razor-sharp point of the blade into the seam between his visor and the helmet, hopefully cutting more of the environment seal and less of any important face bits. I wrenched open the ballistic plastic and he happily began to gulp air into his lungs.

"Aww. And I so liked to see him wriggle like a floundered fish," Nero sighed. "What are you going to do about Richard Squier?"

"Normally I would suggest we get some medical personnel here but seeing how little you seem to care about human lives, I'd instead offer to look if I can set up some kind of intravenous sustenance solution," I offered.

"Ouch, your distrust hurts, Violet Smith. And I hope for your sake that you are not trying to trick me."

I had other things on my mind. This particular battle was lost but I would be damned if I let this artificial maniac dictate how I fought my wars. Here we were on his turf and, going by the look of the beheaded security guard I found while searching for the medicinal supplies, he liked to play rough. Sure it would have been much easier to let the other guard choke to death but by saving him, I had his eternal gratitude, something no amount of bullying or threats would get me. 

Next to the well-stocked workout space by the indoor pool, I found a small sick bay. This thing was filled floor-to-ceiling with the latest in medicinal tech. I even recognized the red-and-white case of a doctor chip, a skill software package which allowed a person with a Mindlink interface to perform most non-surgery-related medicinal tasks. I jammed the chip into my implant. 

Soothing subroutines steadied my nerves and breathing and, with clinical calm, I went through the supply closets, gathering all ingredients to set up an IV sustenance system which would keep Richard healthy for the next few days. I also took with me several blankets and cleansing utensils, to afford him as much dignity as possible. With my double armful of supplies, I returned to the office, finding the security trooper I had saved next to the door, smoking. 

"Anything I can do to help," he asked, his eyes almost pathetically grateful.

"Not much. Get the squad back to the helicopter and tell the pilot to shut off all non-essential computers, including the satnav system. He'll have to fly the old-fashioned way this once. When we're back at the office, be ready, okay," I whispered.

"Ready for what, ma'am?"

I didn't bother to answer and instead swept past him. I heard the whirring of the security camera following my every move as I began to clean up my boss as best I could. The claming influence of the chip helped me get through this ordeal without breaking down. Seeing Richard, my boss, my friend and my lover in this state hurt like hell. After cleaning him up and wrapping him into the blankets I hooked up the IV drip and a catheter, to relieve Richard's bladder in a controlled fashion. When I was done, I popped the med chip out of my jack and turned to face Nero, whose face still hovered over the desk, turned in my general direction. 

"This will keep him fed for about three more days. After that, I'll need to check up on him. Will that be all right?"

"On the condition that you come alone and without any items which may cause him or me any harm. Oh, I can see his vitals improve already. So you didn't trick me. Well done, Violet Smith. You may go now," Nero purred. He sounded way too much like Cat and that alone woke all kinds of unpleasant memories. Or were they? I had never felt the kind of utter sexual bliss which I had experienced with Cat, never before and certainly never after the meeting with her, and just thinking about it caused me to clamp my legs together. Shaking my head irritably I left the office. 

***

Back in my own office, I sorted all the information I had gathered from my little field trip. The entity attacking Mindlink, and happily causing all kinds of mayhem on the outside, called itself Nero. And from what I had seen, he seemed to be closely related to Cat. The same Cat Richard's assault programmers presumably had killed off in the mainframe of the neuro clinic in which they had treated my brain trauma. But now things started to make sense. Kent must have used the avatar data they had salvaged from that assault to grow his own program and, for whatever reason, said program had gone rogue. 

So, how could we solve this problem? Nero seemed hell-bent on destroying or assimilating the whole Mindlink system. At least in this, we could foil it. My system scanner showed me that Quinn actually pulled his weight for once. Most of our North American operation was shutting down, leaving Nero isolated to the clusters it already had assimilated. But I didn't let myself be lulled into a feeling of false security. If Nero was only half as capable as I presumed it was, it would find a way to escape its temporary imprisonment. After all, most of today's 'Net architecture had enough bandwith for Mindlink data and, although we had the biggest market share, Mindlink was hardly the only company with full-sensory immersion technology. But hopefully we could slow its shockingly fast expansion long enough to find some kind of countermeasure. 

So, how could one beat a rogue AI? 

Sitting at my desk, rubbing my temples, the memories came back. The chirpy girl in the cat suit, nipples and pussy exposed, gleefully purring on top of me, setting my body on fire with each gentle touch. Even six months after that meeting, I could feel every single feather-light touch, every lick of her surprisingly rough tongue on my flesh as if she was there. Groaning, I clasped my hands over my panty-clad sex, noting how shockingly wet I was. Even in the midst of this catastrophe, my body couldn't stop being horny. With a frustrated growl, I pulled the fabric covering my slit aside and rammed two fingers into me. Ahhh, that helped. My other hand snaked into my blouse, pinching my nipple, hard. This was not the time for masturbation but I needed to get off, to get my head sorted. My thumb landed on my clit, working it like a joybuzzer, and each swirl of my fingertip sent currents up and down my spine. Hopefully no one wanted to speak to me right now! My fingers pumped into me and I was sure the squelching noises they made in me could be heard up and down the corridor. This was all Cat's fault! Just one more reason to find her... it! and have her reverse that condition! Was that steps closing in on my office door? Groaning, I slammed my fingers into me, as deep as they would go, my thumb ravaging my clit. Then I came, just as the door opened. Groaning, shuddering through my orgasm, I looked up just in time to see the door close again. Catching my breath, I fought for my composure. My panties were soaked through. No need to bother with them any more. I stood up and jerked them down my legs unceremoniously. Tossing them into the waist paper receptacle, I went over to the water dispenser and cleaned myself up as best I could then I yanked the door open. Smiling sheepishly, Quinn leaned on the other side of the corridor.




Ghost in the Machine Ch. 12



"You could knock next time," I suggested, avoiding his gaze. 

"Sorry. I just wanted to hear what you've found out. Anything useful," he asked nonchalantly. 

"Buy me a coffee and I'll let you know."

"Sure thing. This way."

We ended up next to a vending machine in the lobby of this particular office building and I told him everything I had found out so far. And while I talked, an insane idea began to form in the back of my head. I caught Quinn looking at me over the lip of his styro cup.

"Did you say something?" I asked, not wanting to be distracted too much. With Nero out there, I would need every trick at my disposal to slip past him. 

"I just wanted to know how you intend to beat a rogue AI is all," Quinn mused, his gaze wandering down my body. I gulped down the rest of my coffee in one fell swoop and rose, grinning madly.

"With another AI, of course."



Ghost in the Machine Ch. 13



Author's Notes:

As usual, a huge "Thank you" for my faithful editor, bikoukumori. Well done!

I am sorry to inform you all that this chapter contains no sex whatsoever. I hope you'll manage. 

#13: Drastic measures

Ever since we or, rather, Richard's assault programmers nuked Cat to hell, it was suspiciously quiet about her. No strange occurrences, no spontaneous incidents involving people going crazy online and most importantly, no attempts of Cat to contact me. Either the attack on her had been successful or she honored the promise she gave at gunpoint. Anyway, now that I needed to find her, it was almost impossible to get a hold of her. I had left the office and returned to my apartment in downtown L.A. The quiet helped me focus and, at least here, I was sure no one would interrupt me if another of my arousal spikes would hit me out of the blue. After a refreshing shower, which I ended with a quick ride on one of my toys, to be extra-relaxed, I sat at my desk and hammered out a game plan.

Apart from Richard and myself, I was aware of only two more people knew about Cat, namely the Squier boys. Maybe their interactions with it had led to any useful information. I knew I was grasping at straws here but a one in a million shot was better than no shot at all. Finding out Richard Squier Junior's cell number was easy enough and, a few moments later, he picked up the phone. With a pang of guilt I remembered that it had to be almost two am in Conneticut, MA, no time for business calls anymore. Whatever.

"Huh?"

"Richard Squier?"

"Yeah. And you are?" He sounded distracted but not sleepy. A lucky break for once.

"Violet Smith, Mindlink special operations. I work with your father..." I began.

A sensual moan interrupted me, followed by a noisy slurp.

"Hey! I'm talking to you!" I snapped. 

Some more noises, rather wet, some giggles, then his voice again.

"Yeah? I'm listening... hey Pete, wait a sec. I can't phone with your dick up my mouth, dude!"

I rolled my eyes. College boys, really. 

"So, what is this about, Miss Smith?" he asked, before groaning in heat.

"Could I have your undivided attention for at least a few moments," I grumbled. "This is important! The fate of Mindlink might hinge on this."

"Meh, shop talk? You know what, call me up tomorrow. Good night, honey!" Amidst bouts of laughter, he clicked off the phone. I balled my free hand into a fist until my nails broke the skin. Arrogant little fucker! I didn't know if I was jealous or offended at his attitude. Parts of my body had perked up when they heard the obviously sex-related moises but my rage helped me quell any notions about pleasuring myself. At least for the time being. 

Damn. One down, one to go. Of course I knew that Parker Squier had vanished off the grid but in today's globalized world, it was hard to really vanish without a trace. Even with a malicious AI ravaging our systems we had more than enough ways to find people if we wanted to, especially when they were using Mindlink tech. Opening the top drawer of my desk, I pulled out a thick binder containing Parker Squier's dossier. Lucky for me that I kept a copy here instead of Mindlink Central. Thanks to my investigation on Cat, the binder came complete with brainwave patterns. Feeding the chip containing them into my deck, I hacked together an automated search program and let it loose. Even if he would use a new deck, the brainwaves could be picked up, at least if you ran our proprietary system-level tracking software, stuff most people didn't know existed. If that came out, it would make the NSA surveillance affair of 2013 look like a mild breeze in comparison. I let the deck do its thing and went into my kitchen, fixing a small late-night snack. 

When I returned to my desk with a piping hot bowl of insta-ramen, the screen was lit up in alarming red script. It seemed not only did I find a matching set of brainwave patterns but the user in question was online right now... and having a serious problem. It took me only a few heartbeats to exchange the food for my Mindlink cable and plug in. 

***

Apart from a few job-related visits to the Mindlink systems, I had avoided jacking in for the last few months as much as possible. I wasn't quite sure if it was to keep Cat at bay or if I was genuinely afraid of having my brain toasted for good in another incident. To avoid giving Nero any advantage, I first cloaked my brainwave signature with a scrambler program which would make it nigh impossible to trace and identify me. It would be an ironic twist indeed if he could locate me as easily as I did Parker so I didn't want to take any chances. Then I dove headfirst into the 'Net.

Now that I was back in the wilds, running my high-spec combat deck, I realized how much I had missed it. Fully loaded with combat programs, ready for any surprise, or so I hoped, I blasted through the transatlantic connections and zeroed in to the system Parker Squier's brainwave was coming from. I checked my avatar's wrist, a small monitor was mirroring the output of the search algorithm. By the data I got, Parker was in massive pain and feared for his life. Squeezing the last bit of acceleration out of my movement routines, I barrelled into the Berlin cluster at ludicrous speed. I stopped my headlong rush for a few nanoseconds to get my bearings. The area around me looked like a suburban residential zone, most systems around here flickered in the rather dull but dense glow of low-powered PCs and small servers, hardly matching the highly stylized and sculpted neon skyline of downtown. And then I spotted it, a system brighter than anything else around it. And I also saw tell-tales strobes of angry, angular electricity pulsing around it. I accelerated towards it, landing on fine gravel surrounding some kind of Japanese structure. The outside looked as if it had been hit by a Hellfire missile, almost half of it missing. But before I could enter the node, I heard the deep rumble of large, angry animals then the rapid patter of paws on gravel. Panting and growling they rushed me, four red-and-black killer programs, monstrous quadrupeds somewhere between a Rottweiler and a draft horse. I fired off my levitation systems and arced over them, pulling my code gun from its sheath. Landing gracefully behind them, I pumped the first one of them full of hostile code. All four of them snarled in unison and turned to face me, including the one I just blasted. It's neon-red armor flickered unsteadily in a dozen places, but it didn't look damaged.

"This is your only chance to leave in one piece," the combat programs growled. From behind me, I heard the shrill shriek of a female in agony. I raised my gun again and loosened a broad swath of death, hitting every program in front of me a dozen times. Again, nothing happened. 

"This Mindlink attack protocol doesn't work on us. You have been warned," the things barked then they leaped, jaws open, static-riddled teeth flaring. 

With a start, I recognized Nero's voice. What the hell was he doing here? In response to my stress levels, my panic systems kicked in. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as my deck turbocharged my avatar. I cartwheeled out of the way of the first two killer programs and booted up a little something I had bought two days after I left the neuro clinic, as an insurance against Cat. With a metallic scraping, a disc-shaped proximity mine slid between the monstrous combat programs, beeped twice, then detonated, tearing them to pieces. I felt my avatar grin wildly. The black market had delivered once again and, by the feebly twitching remains, this time the attack had worked. So I stashed my Mindlink attack program and fired up another one. Compared to the sleek and elegant combat rifle I wielded earlier, it looked archaic and blocky, like Judge Dredd's oversized Lawgiver pistol, but it was the only other non-Mindlink piece of software I had. Leaving the smoking remains of the first four killer programs behind, I entered the system.

The inside of the node looked like an ancient Japanese bedroom in shambles. Sliding doors had been torn apart, the futon was a shredded mess and digital blood was generously spattered all over the floor and walls. A naked male, barely visible under three more hulking attack dog programs, feebly twitched, his breath coming in sharp, ragged blasts. No wonder, one of the things had him by the ankle and the other one was happily crushing his wrist while the third held him pinned to the floorboards by its sheer weight. Three more had a naked female cornered. Her body was criss-crossed by bite marks and scratches, and she cupped her sex with both hands, which seemed to be bleeding furiously. All six of them were speaking at once.

"I finally found you, Parker Squier. Next time, you should disconnect your 'Net connection when you're having fun with your programs. You'll never know who might come looking. But I am afraid, when I'm done with you, there will be no next-".

I pulled the trigger and shot the one sitting on the chest of Parker's avatar straight between the eyes with satisfying results. The dog-like visage with its compound eyes and sparking teeth detonated, leaving the thing headless for a moment before it dispersed in a red and black pixel cloud.

"Aw, shut up," I hissed, blasting at the others. They were surprised for barely a second but that was enough time for me to kill another one and wound a second. They even leaped off Parker's avatar. Despite his injuries, he rolled aside, picked up a discarded code gun and fired as well. Nero clearly didn't expect a surprise rescuer, as his programs acted far from coordinated. I took a nasty scratch to the face from one of their claws and Parker nearly lost his hand to another attack on his wrists but after a few hectic moments, it was only him, me and the bleeding girl in the corner. Panting, he looked up at me and his jaw dropped.

"You?" Disbelief, shock, then barely controlled anger. All of that in just one single word.

"You're welcome," I sweetly purred. My heart hammered inside my chest and I felt more alive than in months. Saluting with my gun, I grinned at him.

"What... how... why," he stammered, his anger replaced by confusion. I really couldn't blame him. After all, it was me who told him that he was the one who led us to Cat. Maybe he thought I was the one who drove him into hiding. I felt that a bit of de-escalation was called for here.

"How about this? You take care of your girlfriend there then we'll meet outside for a quick chat. I need to talk to you. After you've heard me out, you are free to kick my ass, okay?" Bending down, I tossed him a pair of army fatigues which I presumed were his. "See ya." Then I left the system. While he sorted himself out, I prepared a nasty surprise for anything Nero might send our way. 

***

"Violet Smith, of all people," Parker sighed as he joined me. I finished laying down the last of the landmines and rose to face him. 

"How is your girlfriend?" I asked him instead of an explanation.

"My girl-... no, wait. Hibiko isn't my girlfriend. She's a program, sort of. And these things hurt her really bad."

"Need a repair program?" 

I clearly could see his conflicted emotions flitting over his face. I tossed him a virtual first-aid kit. 

"Come on, take it. It won't bite and neither will I. Actually, when you're done, I could use your help."

He gave a bitter, little laugh then he turned and went back into the node. I watched him kneel down next to the injured girl, prying her hands off her ravaged sex. He placed the repair program over her mound and activated it. With a faint blue glow, her avatar was repaired and I blinked in confusion. Why was she growing a dick? Yes, there was no mistaking it. Jutting from her clean-shaven mound was a sizeable penis. The last of the blood disappeared from her body then this Hibiko hugged Parker and smothered his face with kisses. Some kind of sex program? Maybe an avatar of Cat? This was getting more and more interesting by the minute. He extricated himself from her embrace, bent down, placed a tender kiss on her member and rose, blushing furiously as our eyes met. Hibiko left the node through a newly-materialzed door then Parker was at my side.

"You know, if you wanted some virtual sex toys, you could've asked," I smirked. 

Parker scowled at me. "Don't tell me Father sent you. He can suck my dick, for all I care," he snarled. 

"No, he didn't send me at all. But it has to do with him. You know about Nero, don't you?"

"Obviously. These things were sent by him."

"What exactly do you know," I prodded.

"Why should I tell you? It this your next step up in the corporate pecking order?"

His attitude annoyed me. I flicked a virtual blond lock behind my ear and counted the reasons off on my fingers. 

"First, how about a little gratitude? From where I was standing, it looked like you were fucking done for. Then there's the small fact that there is a murderous intelligence out there which not only likes to melt people's brains but loves to play 'press the button and see shit burn.' Even if you hate your father with every fiber of your being, the information you might have could help us stop him. Or is he a friend of yours too," I hissed, indicating the door this Hibiko program went through. Softer, I added, "And Nero is holding your father hostage."

Despite himself, Parker cocked an eyebrow. "How?"

"Last time I saw him, Richard was still plugged into his deck and, going by what Nero said, his mind is still in the 'Net, under Nero's control."

"What could he want with him," he asked, much of his bluster gone.

"Search me. Passcodes, information, maybe he thinks Richard knows something about Cat."

"Well, the last time I met Nero, he was happily torturing Mindlink employees, asking them about Cat."

Now it was my turn to raise an investigative eyebrow. 

"You met him? How? Where?"

"When I was in Mindlink Central, trying to steal a couple hundred grand, five days ago." He took a deep breath. "What exactly do you want from me, Miss Smith?"

"It's really quite simple, Parker. I want to you to help me find Cat and convince her to kill Nero. And please, call me Violet."



Ghost in the Machine Ch. 14



Author's Notes:

Thanks to my lady love for making Richard's struggle even harder, and of course to my faithful editor bikoukumori, for a lightning-fast edit job before year's end. 

This chapter contains some graphic violence, but only adults (or the impersonation of adults) are having fun here, sort of. 

#14 Resistance

When I entered the lobby of Mindlink Central, it was eerily empty. At any given time, usually at least a few dozen people were milling about, either browsing our merchandise in the small info kiosks placed around the lobby or asking to see this or that person. Not to mention all our employees, bustling from one end of the building to the next. But today, I could only see three people apart from Wilkes and myself. A security guard, saluting snappily as I entered; a receptionist, busy with looking good behind her desk and a man in a long, black coat, waiting for an elevator. I joined him and frowned. He didn't have the usual business attire and his long, sleek black hair was utterly out of place here. Even in somewhat less formal positions like system admins Mindlink had a pretty strict dress code and his whole getup violated it front to back.

"Excuse me, where are you headed," I asked him. He turned, dark green eyes boring into mine.

"None of your business... yet," he purred. Before I could retort, an elevator arrived, which he entered. I shook my head. Who was that guy? I made a mental note to have security investigate him, then I took the next elevator. Instead of hitting one of the buttons, I pulled out a swipe card and fed it into a slot underneath the panel. Obediently, the elevator sped upwards, ignoring all calls in between, until it stopped on the penthouse floor where my department's office suite was located. With a jolly 'ping,' the doors opened and I strode into the reception area. 

"Ah, Mister Squier, good morning," Gloria chirped, half-rising from behind her desk. The smell of freshly made coffee hung in the air.

"Anything important in my schedule today," I asked her, leaning against the desk. She sank back into her chair, an inviting smile on her gorgeous lips, making sure I got a good look at her breasts, straining the fabric of her blouse.

"Let me check. Why don't you help yourself to some coffee and I'll give you a heads-up once you've settled in?"

I strolled into the small kitchenette off the main reception area and helped myself to a nice pot of Gloria's secret weapon. That stuff was strong enough to bring the dead back to life and I really liked a steaming mug to kick off the day. Taking a croissant as well, I entered my office and sank into my chair. Nibbling on my snack, I turned around and looked at the Los Angeles skyline, what little was there to see through an ungodly amount of smog. Strange. I couldn't quite remember the drive here and I would certainly remember the news talking about such a massive smog cloud as well. But before I could ponder the matter further, I heard Gloria's steps moving into the office, stopping long enough to close the double doors. I swivelled my chair around and froze in mid-move. She wore nothing, apart from her high heels and a seductive smile, carrying a tablet computer in one hand.

"Your 9 o'clock sharp appointment has just arrived, sir," she happily said, flicking a lock of her brown hair behind an ear.

"That's quite the brazen move, Gloria," I grumbled. Usually, she was way more secretive about her ...motivation techniques. But I felt a distinct stirring in my loins nonetheless. Gloria placed her tablet onto my desk before moving around it and going to her knees next of me, turning the chair so I was facing her. With deft hands, she undid my belt, button and fly and had my hardening dick out in a flash.

"Just tell me to stop and I will," she whispered, her gentle fingers caressing up and down my shaft. I didn't even feel the urge to turn on my Iron Stallion, her gentle fingers and hot breath were more than enough to turn me on. Without warning, she engulfed my tip with her lips and began to flutter her tongue against me. I leaned my head back and relaxed for what felt like the first time in ages. Gloria cooed around my by now rock-hard erection before giving it a good suck. I sighed happily as she intensified her ministrations, taking more and more of me into her mouth, making sloppy, wet sounds in the process. Suddenly, she stopped, letting me spring free with a lewd popping noise.

"You know, you could show me how you like it best, sir," she suggested, taking my hand and placing it on her hair. Grinning, I dug my fingers into it, caressing her scalp with my fingertips. She moaned hungrily as her lips closed around me once again. Her hands dug into my trousers and fondled my balls, her painted fingernails teasingly scraping the sensitive skin. 

With a growl, I thrust upwards, feeling my head nipping her throat. Gloria made an encouraging sound, inviting me to take advantage of her. Leaving her enough time for a last gulp of air, I did just that, sliding my tip deeper into her hot mouth and into her throat, pushing her head down as well. She gurgled wetly and her hand kneaded my balls, egging me on. I began to fuck her throat, slowly, enjoying every second of it. It felt unbelievably good, even better than with Violet. I had goosebumps all over. Gloria dug her fingers into my thighs to keep her balance while I used both of my hands to move her head, fucking her mouth onto my pole a few more times before letting her come up for air. 

With streaming eyes and a mad grin, she wiped her mouth and I froze. Looking up from between my thighs, chin gleaming with saliva and precum, was my wife's face! While I watched in dumbfounded surprise, the head continued to morph, until it was Saphire's copper-haired, porcelain-doll face on Gloria's tanned, voluptuous body. My insides churned in revulsion. Saphire's old, hard eyes lasered into mine as she slowly got to her feet, her face distorted into a mask of utter hatred. 

"I suffered through a three-month bodysculpt, to appeal to your perverted tastes, and this is what I get? You let your whore of a secretary suck you off? What else does she do for you?" Hissing in fury, she turned around, bent over my desk and spread her buttcheeks with both hands. Twisting her neck, she snarled at me.

"Come on, while you're still hard, why not fuck her up the shitter as well?"

Speechless, I stared at the being which had been my horny secretary just a few moments ago. 

"Now what? Not man enough to follow a simple suggestion? Believe me, Richard, you're missing out on the greatest fuck of your miserable existence!" From out of nowhere, a long, glistening dildo appeared in her hand. With an impossibly long tongue, Saphire licked it until it was slippery with her saliva and placed it at her butthole.

"If you won't do it then I'll have to look for my own amusement. I hope you don't mind," she snarled as she drove the long, flexible toy home. I had enough. Tucking my deflated meat back into my trousers, I rose and fled, cold sweat pouring down my spine. Behind me, the Gloria/Saphire hybrid was noisily doing herself with her toy. I pushed open the doors to the reception area and nearly fell over Gloria's dress, carelessly tossed to the floor. Next to the reception desk, the black-haired man was waiting, a half-smile twisting his lips.

"What are you lookin' at," I snapped his way.

"Nice view," he smirked, pointing past me. The ...thing on my desk was making inhuman noises, wet, squelchy, while both hands were busy ravaging her ass and pussy.

I rushed past him. I needed to see Violet. Maybe she was able to sort this out.

*** 

Tearing down the safeguards built into the Mindlink implant, shielding Richard Squier's brain fron outside manipulation was pathetically easy. They were designed by humans, after all, and meant to withstand anything a human mind could come up with. But when faced with the combined computing power of almost a quarter of North America's high-end servers, they caved like wet paper tissues shot at with a .50 caliber sniper shell. Nero felt excitement tear through his customary restlessness. Now that he was wide open, all that remained was to break Richard Squier, to erase all traces of his personality, to basically format his brain, so that Nero could take over. Maybe with a human agent, his search for answers could be expedited. And even if not, he would have a new toy, and there was nothing more elating than the feeling of having something new to play with. 

Nero took a long look at the diagnostic readouts surrounding him. That little play with memory fragments had worked much better than anticipated. It seemed Richard Squier had a deep-seated disgust towards his wife. Maybe that could be used as a lever, to shatter his mind completely? Time to try out a new iteration of this particular scenario.

***

Something wasn't right. I knew every nook and cranny on this floor by heart but no matter where I turned, I faced impossibly long corridors with doors spaced evenly on the sides. Was I dreaming? If so, it was one hell of a nightmare, that's for sure. I needed to find Violet. Every fiber in my being screamed for her gentle touch, for her calming presence. Again, I turned at the intersection. Behind me, I could faintly hear the ...thing making noises, as if she were the centerpiece of a frenzied orgy. No way I was going back there. I was sick and tired of my wife in the real world already and having her invade my dreams was too much. Picking a corridor at random, I pulled open the first door on the right. 

A japanese-style classroom awaited me. As one, twenty girls rose, opened their blouses and said "Good morning, sensei," proudly displaying their perky breasts. Shaking my head irritably, I slammed the door closed. First my wife, then a clip from my favourite virtual J-porn? Normally, I'd love to be fawned over by innocent Japanese schoolgirls but with the echoing noises of the ...thing still reverberating through the halls, my arousal was at an all-time low. 

I stormed down the corridor, pulling open doors at random. This one showed me the inside of our Rolls Royce Silver Wraith, with Saphire flat on her back on the rear bench. Wilkes, our driver, was furiously fucking her, his peaked cap almost falling off his head. Saphire's eyes met mine.

"Told you I'd find my own entertainment. Oh, deeper, Wilkes, fuck me har-"

No! I didn't want to see this! I slammed the door shut, stumbling backwards, until the cool faux stone plating of the corridor wall was at my back. My pulse was hammering in my temples and I felt cold sweat drizzle into the collar of my shirt. Where was Violet's office? Even looking at the plaques next to the doors didn't help. For some reason, I couldn't decipher the blurry script on them. Breathing heavily, I stopped. Again, an intersection. Now, even the noises coming from my office had stopped. Thankfully. But I was completely lost. And I was alone. For some irrational reason, that scared me more than anything.

I needed to find some answers. Where was I? Was this a dream? And how could I wake up? I didn't want to see any more scenes involving my wife!

***

This was working out much better than anticipated. Richard Squier's subconscious was filled to bursting with repressed guilt and loathing, emotions which Nero understood all too well. Using the same stimulus routines used in VR porn, he began to feed Richard Squier more and more of his own repressed subconscious. It wouldn't take long until he was worn down. And there was something else, a little intriguing detail Nero had discovered. Richard Squier's implant had a wireless communication device attached to it. Finding out the corresponding contact data took but a fraction of a second. With this device, Nero wouldn't have to completely program a new set of behaviour patterns into Richard Squier's brain, he could remotely feed him instructions, much like the programmers in his birth node had done. This kind of irony amused Nero tremendously. Maybe he should give Richard Squier a little reprieve before he formatted his brain completely. Or maybe not. It was just too much fun to see his EEG strobe into the fatal panic regions. Time for the grand finale.

***

"Can I help you?"

The voice came so suddenly, so unexpectedly, I nearly fainted. Turning towards it, I found myself face-to-face with the black-haired man again.

"Who are you? And what are you doing in my office suite," I snapped at him. Somehow, the area around us looked much more familiar now, more in focus.

"I'm here to help, Richard Squier. The person you are looking for is in this office over there," he said, elegantly pointing towards a closed door. "She has always been," he added, before turning down a hallway. 

Breathing a huge sigh of relief, I yanked the door open. But instead of striding into Violet's office, I stumbled into my own bedroom. Saphire was there, spread-eagled on the bed, ankles and wrists tied to the bedposts with shockingly colorful scarves, and our maid, Molly, was going down on her. I knew this scene all too well, this happened just a few hours ago. Or has it? I wasn't too sure. Someone jostled me out of the way. Wilkes, our driver, entered the bedroom, already stripped down to his boxers. Those he shed as well and he climbed into the bed, feeding his massive cock to my wife. Saphire gurgled happily as he began to fuck her mouth with it while Molly purred, "Too bad your husband isn't here. I really could do with a cock up my pussy too." Repulsed, I slammed the door shut and turned away. When I find this black-haired guy again, I'll give him an earful he'll never forget!

But since I knew where I was, I could go back to my office, maybe find some peace and quiet. Maybe this dream world worked somewhat similar to our own? Maybe I could call Violet? I stopped at Gloria's desk, now unattended, and looked for the phone. Instead of the sleek, touchscreen-driven machine there was an ancient apparatus but instead of keys or a dial it had Gloria's face.

"Who you gonna call?" she asked, winking.

"Get me Violet," I snapped. For some reason, it felt totally natural to speak to a phone wearing my secretary's face.

"I'm afraid you'll need to dial yourself, sir," she said happily, opening her mouth impossibly wide. On her swollen, grotesquely oversized tongue, a keypad gleamed wetly. 

"Go on, I won't bite," she half-said, half-gurgled invitingly. Fighting for my composure, I gingerly dialled the four-digit number I knew by heart. The Gloria phone's mouth closed around my fingers and sucked greedily. Disgusted, I yanked my hand back and picked up the receiver. 

From somewhere around me, I heard an electronic chime.

"Hello?" Violet purred. My heart skipped a beat. It was really her!

"Violet? Where are you?" 

"Where would I be, Richard? In my office, doing my job. Just the way you like best." Then she moaned, the same sensual sound she made when she was climaxing on my dick. 

"Sorry, boss, but I can't talk. I'm really busy, and I'm having a visitor right now," she cooed. Now I was hearing the noises. Wet squelching, heated breathing. I slammed the receiver down onto the phone and ran. Her office door was just in front of me. I grabbed the handle and turned but the door didn't budge. Fuck! I remembered -- there was a second door to that office, through one of the conference rooms. I stormed off, down a corridor, skidded madly around a corner. The conference room! I tackled the door open. The huge oak table, surrounded by plush leather chairs, gleamed invitingly in the orange half-glow coming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. And I could hear Violet moan in the next room. The door was only half closed. And I recognized the other voice -- the low growling of my wife. Heart racing, I sped towards the door and ripped it open.

"Saphire, no," I screamed, helplessly watching as my naked wife, writhing on top of a bound Violet, buried her teeth in my lover's throat. Flesh tore wetly and blood fountained. Saphire moaned, chewing hungrily, again and again ripping dripping pieces of flesh out of Violet's neck. When Saphire finally was done, I was on my knees, helplessly sobbing. She slid off the desk where she had killed Violet, her face, breasts and stomach blood-stained. With a sensual purr, she buried her fingers in that ghastly hole in Violet's neck, scooping up a full handful of that red liquid.

"When I'm done with you, this will be all that's left of your life. Blood and tears, Richard," she hissed, shaking her hand. With obscene noises, the thick blood spattered onto the floor. 

Shaking my head in denial, I stumbled to my feet. I didn't know where the rage came from but I was mad, practically foaming at the mouth. My hands flexed and I longed to wring her neck, to choke the life from her plastic body, to get her back for all those years chained to her side.

"Hold that thought," a silky-smooth voice purred behind me. Then everything went black.

***

The first thing I noticed was the smell. Unwashed, unclean. And then came the pain. My stomach felt like it was caving in on itself and my head throbbed murderously. But even above all that, I wanted to kill Saphire for what she had done to my lover. I tried to open my eyes until I realized that they were open but there was nothing to see. It was pitch-black, or was it? Slowly, shapes began to form, a huge, somewhat brighter something in front of me. I blinked and it felt as if my eyelids were being dragged over sandpaper. I felt a presence next to me and turned my head. In shocking clarity, I could see the black-haired man from earlier, looking at me.

"Wakey, wakey, Richard Squier. You've been gone for far too long and I'm sure you're itching to get things done, are you not?"

"Hargh..." 

I meant to say "Who are you?" but my mouth was dry as the desert. Again I tried to move, turn my chair around so I could see him better. I felt something pull at the side of my head. With inhuman effort, I raised my hand until I could touch the foreign object. A cord. Had I been logged in all this time? Blinking again, I felt my eyes water. It felt so unbelievably good, I sobbed involuntarily. My hand was still brushing the cord and, with the precision of a master surgeon, I closed three fingers around the plug and pulled. With barely any resistance, both plug and hand plummeted downwards and something fell onto me, nearly bowling me out of my chair. I fought to open my eyes again and supplemented their limited use with my hands. Some kind of metal beam had fallen onto me, holding a half-empty plastic bag, which was connected to my arm via a flexible tube. Thinking was so difficult!

"Violet Smith had set up some kind of liquid sustenance. Don't tell me she failed," the stranger said conversationally. His cool, nearly emotionless tone made me shiver even harder.

"You're probably wondering what had happened to you," the voice came back. "You witnessed my birth and I found you interesting enough to not kill you outright."

Another unintelligible noise escaped my dried-up mouth. 

"No, this just won't do. Give me a moment," the stranger said. Then, my implanted cell-phone rang. Reflexively, I took the call. Maybe it was Violet!

"Sorry to disappoint you, it's just me, Nero," the voice whispered, right inside my head. I could hear him speak the same words but they were in my head a heartbeat before they reached my ears.

"That's because we're communicating via a secure network channel. No need for words anymore. Just think."

As if thinking straight was that easy! What had happened to me? Why did I feel like a wet kitten? And why did I smell like a whole nest of ferrets?

"I kept you in the 'Net for about six and a half days, Richard Squier. Your body has suffered a little but I think you'll be fine. No permanent damage has been inflicted. Some food, a shower, and you're as good as new. And as for the smell? Well, you pissed yourself before Violet was so kind and cleaned you up. Nurse, fuck toy, PA... your relationship with her is quite complicated, isn't it?"




Ghost in the Machine Ch. 14



"Leave Violet out of this," I thought angrily, balling my fists. Every move felt easier than the last and the rage mounting in my guts helped tremendously.

"Too late, she's already neck-deep in it. How about we pay her a surprise visit, once you're done with your wife?"

My ... wife? Saphire? The thought alone was almost enough to send me to my feet. I needed to find her. I needed to kill her, before she could harm Violet.

"Yes, you need to stop her. She will know soon because Violet, dear little Violet, has left someone alive who knows your dirty little secret, Richard Squier. And I know that this particular person is just now keeping an eye on your wife."

"Why? Is there a problem?"

Nero laughed, a self-satisfied little sound full of confidence. "No, not a small problem. A huge problem. Something has happened to your little company, Richard Squier, something which makes a lot of people pretty nervous."

"What could that be?"

"An artificial intelligence has taken over Mindlink and is slowly, inexorably eating up every server cluster it can reach, like a good-looking, malevolent Pac-Man. Of course, your faithful PA has taken matters into her own hands and is busy keeping your family safe. Ain't that sweet?"

I breathed a sigh of relief. Thank you, Violet!

"But don't forget your wife. I bet she's got your chauffeur's cock up to the hilt in one of her openings right now," Nero teased.

"Where is she?" I growled. Surprisingly, my mouth seemed to work as well, making the sound even more threatening. Without warning, I knew. The address popped into my brain as if she had always been there. Which she had. Saphire was in our Santa Monica weekend retreat. I opened my eyes. Then I called upon my implant to display the time. Nothing happened.

"Sorry, Richard Squier. You'll get all information through me. But if you must know, it's almost five in the morning. And in your state, you're going nowhere. I suggest you replenish your energy. Is there something nearby? I don't want you to die by falling down the stairs."

Actually, there was. My office was equipped to double as a panic room and I had some self-heating MRE's stashed in a closet. 

"Can you get me something to eat?" I asked him.

"No, dummy. I'm just a projection, an augmented reality construct created by your implant. I'm afraid physical tasks are beyond me."

Groaning, I tried to stand up again, shoving the IV stand off me. I made one wobbly step and crashed onto the floor, a murderous pain ripping through my penis, straight into my head. Thankfully, the floor around my desk was thickly carpeted and cushioned me from the worst. But nevertheless, it hurt like hell. Whimpering, I patted myself down. Something stuck from my penis, another flexible tube, directly shoved into it. A catheter? Gnashing my teeth, I tried to dislodge the thing. Every touch hurt but eventually I had it out. 

Where was I? Oh, right, food. Pulling myself hand over hand, I crossed what felt like a marathon distance to the closet and pulled myself back up, hand over hand, all the while feeling Nero's gaze on me.

"Tell me, was that you in my... nightmare just back then?"

"Of course. But it was no nightmare. Your wife is going to harm Violet Smith and only you can stop her."

I nodded. Spurred on by a renewed bout of rage, I pulled open the closet and fished for an MRE. Sliding back down to sit on the carpet, I pulled on the latch and listened while the small cartridge heated up the food. A minute or so later I ripped the foil open and dug in. It tasted like wet, warm cardboard but to me it was the finest food imaginable. And since this was especially designed as emergency sustenance, with an extra high protein and calorie contents, the effect was almost immediate. Carefully, I pulled myself to my feet.

"Better?" Nero asked.

"Yeah, surprisingly so." I gulped a couple of times, to get the saliva flowing, then moved through the office. The door was ajar and the lock was missing.

"What had happened here," I asked. Nero joined me and looked at the cleanly burnt-through door.

"Violet took some drastic measures when entering. She thought maybe you were a damsel in distress? Maybe she was afraid the artificial intelligence had already invaded your house."

"And did it? Invade my house, I mean."

"Do you see a malevolent entity around here," Nero asked, a smug smile on his handsome face.

I honestly didn't know. There were so many things I didn't know, starting with the fact that I didn't know how something could project itself into my field of view through my implant. We never pursued the augmented reality thing, instead focussing the mind-machine interface to deliver the best possible connection into the 'Net. But I couldn't feel any hostility coming from Nero, only this all-consuming desire to kill my wife. I turned on the lights in the master bedroom. The sheets were crumpled, four colorful scarves were carelessly tossed across it.

Molly, shoving her tongue deep into Saphire's wet snatch. My wife's old, cold eyes in a porcelain-doll's face, surrounded by a copper mane, boring into mine, begging for my cock, my attention.

I shook my head angrily, trying to dispel the images. Ripping the foul-smelling clothing off me, I stumbled into the bathroom. Obediently, the automated shower came on when I stepped into the cubicle, the Shepherd chip embedded in my arm telling the system which temperature to dial in, which massage strength and all. For a time, I just stood there, trying to get my bearings. But there was no denying it. Nero was right. Sooner or later, Saphire would...

But why would she? Violet was too careful. She never visited when Saphire was in town. She kept all contact to me down to a minimum when Saphire and I met her during one of the many Mindlink galas, heck, she even brought her own company to such events. But... I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something off. Maybe Saphire was mad enough? Maybe the latest bodysculpt trip was too much? I remembered her shrink calling me, cautioning me on the dangers-- no forty-nine year old woman should wear the body of a nineteen-year old, it could lead to what the shrink called "body disassociation syndrome," whatever the heck that was.

Saphire, writhing under the spray, with Molly soaping up her breasts and Wilkes giving it to her from behind.

"I bet his cock is bigger than your husband's," Molly purred, dipping her hand between Saphire's legs.

"At least his is available when I need it," Saphire groaned, before hungrily kissing Molly's mouth.

My fist hit the tiles so hard, I heard something crack. 

This ends now! 

I grabbed her items and tossed them out of the shower then I soaped myself up with my own shower gel until every last trace of her scent was drowned out. 

I didn't remember dressing but soon I was sitting behind the sleek steering wheel of my vintage green Lamborghini Diablo, of course retrofitted with the latest self-drive satnav system. Nero lounged in the passenger seat. 

"Nice wheels," he purred.

I patted the pocket of my coat, tracing the smooth curves of a 2029 IntelliSideArm. Even if my hand was shaking from malnutrition and fatigue, the integrated targeting system slaved to my Mindlink implant would make sure the shot would hit.

"And a nice gun," Nero added. "You really have all the cool toys, Richard Squier."

Without me doing anything, the massive 6-liter V12 roared to life. Shocked, I looked at Nero.

"Let me help. You rest a little until you're close enough for the kill. Besides, I've always wanted to drive like in Need For Speed, you know?" Before I could retort, the rear tires flung gravel everywhere and the car thundered through the driveway, nearly too fast for the sensor-controlled gate to open. Whooping, Nero tossed the car into the first bend. 

"Who the hell are you, Nero," I screamed over the noise of the massive engine, just a foot behind my head.

"I'm the one in charge on this little adventure, Richard Squier. I am the one behind the wheel, the ghost in the machine. And I am the one who will destroy you eventually. Your scientists created me but I am flawed. Every bit inside me screams for Cat, and yet no one knows who Cat is. But I know this -- you and your family owned Mindlink, you were responsible for my cursed existence, and once you kill your wife and the police kill you, I will have a small measure of comfort. So, just sit back and enjoy the ride, will you?"

"Sounds like a plan but you can't make me pull the trigger," I shouted, trying to hit the brake pedal with my foot. Another hard bend and I got tossed around in my car like a pebble in a tin. Of course I missed the pedal. 

"Just watch, my friend, just watch," Nero grinned. My eyes swivelled downwards and, with mounting horror, I saw my hand disappear in my coat pocket, returning with my gun a moment later. To my relief, the status LED on top flared in an angry red.

"This gun will only shoot when I want it, you sick bastard," I snarled, trying to wrest control of my arm from him. As if to spite me, the LED switched from red to green and I heard the artificial cocking sound as the electronic firing mechanism unlocked.

"Wrong. The system runs through your implant, much like the rest of you, and I know how to pull all the strings by now. Six days, Richard Squier, is a long, long time when you have my kind of computing power." 

I fought for my breath. Was that even possible? How could anything override the safeguards built into the implant? But of course. The whole system was designed for a two-way communication after all. How else could you get the artificial jollies when jacking a hot VR porn? Or how could the intrusion countermeasure programs punish you for unlawful access of restricted data? And if anything, my predicament proved that there was no such thing as a perfect safeguard. Slowly, with terrifying clarity, it dawned on me. Nero was the AI which had taken over Mindlink. There simply was no other explanation possible. Since we supposedly had killed this other AI, Cat, who else was there? And Nero was frighteningly powerful, so powerful that he could easily remote-control a human being. If he had indeed taken over some or all parts of Mindlink, he would have access to enough computing power to easily do this and much, much worse. 

With howling fury, the Lamborghini entered the Figuroa tunnel. I turned sideways, looking at Nero. But he wasn't there. And I didn't feel the overwhelming rage any more. Of course! If Nero was using my implanted cell phone to feed his commands into my Mindlink implant in order to control me, he would have difficulties in thickly insulated spaces like tunnels. Nevertheless, the car thundered along, pulled by the invisible strings of the self-drive system. A moment later, we were out in the open again and Nero was back, grinning madly as we blasted into downtown Los Angeles at breakneck speeds. 

"I never imagined driving a car to be such fun," he screamed before turning down a narrow alleyway. A heartbeat later, something heavy hit the car. 

"Get off the road, you fucking meat bag," Nero yelled at the dead pedestrian on the windscreen before erupting in maniacal laughter. "Oh, I always wanted to say that!"

"Are you trying to kill me?" I screamed at him while trying my best to stop the car.

"Just sit still. Ain't a guy allowed to have some fun?" Nero snapped his fingers and my whole body went rigid. In helpless terror I watched as he clipped a bike's rear wheel, sending the biker into the air, to come down with bone-shattering force.

A moment later, I heard the unmistakable sound of a police siren wail to life behind us.

"Now the show really begins," Nero purred, his voice full of mad anticipation, gunning the accelerator. With screaming tires, he barrelled down Temple Street, cops in tow. I had to do something! Yes, I couldn't stand my wife any more but even if she was fucking our maid and our chauffeur and who else, did I have any right to judge her? After all, I wasn't any better. No, I was even worse. She just satisfied her urges but I was really drawn towards Violet. I loved everything about that gorgeous blonde. She shared my love for technology, we could talk for hours without running out of topics to tackle and the sex was raw, passionate, sometimes even desperate. There were enough times in the dead of night when I wondered how my life would be with her as my wife. I knew a divorce was out of the question, I would lose my job and everything I had worked for for the last forty years. Mindlink owned every single patent and Saphire owned Mindlink. In a way, Saphire was much more loyal than I was and she certainly did not deserve to die. 

With a crunch, I headbutted the steering wheel. Nero had sideswiped a police cruiser, nearly killing me in the impact. Above us, I could hear the deep thrumming of a helicopter. Another high-speed turn smashed me into the door. Nero was fleeing from the cops, turning down corners at random. And then I saw it, the looming, inverted U shaped entrance of the 2nd Street tunnel. And I knew what I had to do. I could feel my fingers twitching. Nero was busy, not only driving the car but also messing with traffic lights or other cars' nav systems. But the tunnel was ahead and I knew how to save Saphire, and most importantly, to thwart that crazy AI. Even if I could stop the car, even I could convince the cops not to shoot me on sight, Nero could simply control me any time I was in an area with cell coverage. No, I had to pull the plug, and I had to do it fast, before that loaded gun in my pocket got put to bad use. Besides, I had lived my life always doing what I felt was right and there was no way I would let an insane AI dictate how I ended it.

The Lamborghini blasted into the tunnel, half a dozen cop cars behind it, and the self-drive took over. The tunnel was 1500 feet long, only a few seconds at our speed, but that was all I needed. Quickly I disengaged the self-drive system then I reached for the handbrake with one hand and yanked it upwards, with the other I grabbed the wheel and turned, hard. As the car rose onto two wheels, my life flashed before my eyes. I regretted not seeing my boys before all this had happened. The tunnel wall came, a white-tiled monument of finality. And then I saw Saphire, when she really was young, pure and innocent, on that checkered picnic cloth, making out with me for the first time. The car was upside down now and, for one glorious second, I was weightless. 

***

Nero gleefully watched an 18-wheeler truck steamroll two cop cars, thanks to a quickly altered traffic light. But where was the car? Where was his puppet? Nero checked the tunnel cameras and finally saw what had happened. The Lamborghini, his green missile of death, was upside down and burning merrily, the front of the vehicle neatly tucked into the driver's compartment and a good chunk of the adjacent tunnel wall in ruins. But how could that have happened? Nero pulled up the log files and dug in, noting two very obvious gaps in his transmission stream. His signal got interrupted every time the car entered a tunnel and Richard Squier must have used that to end his own existence. But why would he do that? Didn't he want to punish his wife for her infidelity? Apart from some deviants who lived in what psych textbooks called "open relationships," every man Nero had read about went mad with rage and envy when his wife betrayed him, especially with people close to them. And yet, Richard Squier chose voluntary termination instead of righteous wrath? Humans were a lot more complicated than Nero had anticipated. This warranted further study. And next time, he would need better control over his agents.



Ghost in the Machine Ch. 15



Author's Note: 

A hug for my lady love. Your input made this much better.

Also, a huge 'Thank you' for bikoukumori, for yet another quick and thorough editing job. 

All right, folks. I'm gearing up for the huge finale. 

#15: Assault

"And please, call me Violet," she said, extending her hand.

"Well, let's consider for a moment the idea that you're not trying to fuck with me," I grumbled. "If it were so easy to find Cat, don't you think I wouldn't already be working with her? If I remember correctly, it was your team that attacked and, for all I know, killed her. Your text was clear enough."

Slowly, Violet let her hand drop back to her side when I made no move to shake. "Well, our assault programmers killed something, but going by Nero's irrational behaviour, Cat has to be out there somewhere. And I was hoping you would have an idea where to look."

"Sorry. Shortly before you descended onto us, Cat more or less threw us out."

"Us?"

I bit my lower lip. There was no reason I could trust her, and telling Violet about Shine would put Shine in danger. 

"Never mind. Thanks for the save, but since I can't help you-"

Violet snapped her fingers and grinned fiercely. 

"I just had an idea. Ever heard about something called 'Folding@Home'?"

"Yeah, we had that in comp sci history recently. A distributed networking experiment, used to simulate protein folding. Went under in the mid- to late 2010's due to a virus attack. Why?"

"Because our scientists found several links to it in the source code of the destroyed avatar. Maybe we can build a search algorithm of some kind to find the densest cluster of related files? If Cat intercepts and terminates this program, we may have an idea where to look for her."

"Yeah, I doubt anyone would love a disassembler snooping in their system," I grinned. I had to give her that much, she was clever. "It's worth a shot and, considering I don't have any better idea, we might as well get going." I motioned for the large cathedral nearby, the radiance of its pearlescent white crystal tower piercing the dull glow of the surrounding servers. 

"Just a moment. You might want to take this first." 

Violet tossed a small something my way and my avatar reflexively caught it. Note to self: Disable this kind of behaviour, it could be used to smuggle hostile code into my system. I raised my fist and looked at the thing. It was a long strip of coarse, dull black fabric, the kind you could rip out of army coveralls.

"And what's that supposed to be? A good-luck charm," I sneered, balling it up.

"I am not here to mess with you. This whole situation is far too serious for any bullshit," Violet snarled back, her patience obviously running out. "Just wear it. This little doodad will help cloak your brainwave patterns. Think of it as a stealth screen against Nero's watch dogs." Lifting a corner of her mouth, she traced her eyebrow with a fingertip and for a moment, a black thief's mask, the raccoon kind, appeared around her eyes. 

Hoping she was honest with me for once, I pulled the fabric taut. It appeard to be, in accordance to my avatar, more like a headband than a mask. With deft movements, my avatar tied it around his head and a moment later, it disappeared, merging with my system routines.

"Let's go to work," I said, again motioning for the cathedral.

***

"Nice piece of kit." Violet had stopped just beyond the double doors leading into the main aisle of the cathedral.

"Actually, this isn't mine. I was just borrowing it for some quick system calibration on my own deck."

"The 'calibration' Nero's killer programs interrupted, huh?" Violet shot me a teasing look. I felt myself blush. "So, you're not using just one, but two decks? And not just any old clunker, this is a fully-featured Siemens & Bosch assault deck, amplified reflex boosters, just-in-time compiler for on-the-fly improvised coding and a hardened signal buffer. Good find, really."

"How do you know so much about this stuff," I had to ask, picking up my jaw from the floor.

"This is a licensed version of the Mindlink 2029 assault deck, the kind of stuff we sell to trusted business partners. They get overclocked hardware and fit custom software to it, we get serious discounts on their products. It just so happens that I was there when Rich- ...your father made this deal." Now it was her turn to avoid my gaze. 

"Do you mind if I borrow some of these?" she asked, gesturing at some of the programs lined up along one wall.

"Why? Your deck not up to snuff?"

"The hardware is top-shelf stuff but as you might guess most of the software is Mindlink-made. I discovered that Nero's programs are hardened against it and I don't want to go in with just these," she explained, brandishing a small landmine and a comically oversized code handgun, the kind of hand-coded stuff you'd find on the black market. I grinned, my own deck had a couple of these as well. 

"Sure, pull copies of what you'd like. Just mind the one-shots. Shine told me that there were enough things that were good for only one use before deleting themselves."

"Who's this Shine person? Friend of yours," Violet asked while she pulled weapons from the shelves. Everything she touched turned into sleek but deadly looking firearms, grenades or gadgets, fitting itself to the femme fatale superspy motif her avatar had going. And she wasn't taking the small anti-user stuff either, instead going for the big system-level artillery. Again, I avoided an answer, instead busying myself at one of the scribing tables. I pulled up several code libraries and built a customized search program. Eventually, some slapped-together UAV-like construct hovered in front of me. 

"Did you already feed it the search criteria," Violet asked, striding to my side. Gone was her business attire, replaced by a sleek black bodysuit, hugging itself to her generous curves. Rigid plates were protecting her breasts, thighs, shins and arms, and her free-flowing blond hair had been woven into a long braid. Holsters, pouches and tool capsules were strapped to every limb and her waist, and she wore both a sleek blade and a rifle on her back. This was no corporate bunny, she looked like a woman on a warpath. I nodded.

"What, Cat got your tongue?"

"Well, what can I say? You're gorgeous, in the 'razor blade sharp' kind of way," I admitted. Again, timing wasn't my strong suit.

"Better get used to it quickly, I'll need you at a hundred percent and focussed," she said, nudging the UAV. "Is it ready?"

"Umm, yeah. I've fed it the search string and even made sure it would exclude the Mindlink servers. I don't think Cat would hide there."

"Good point. Nero is a clone of Cat, after all, so there should be some similarities in the file structure. And the last thing we need is Nero going after us. By the way, what's your problem with him? I mean, you're done with Mindlink, aren't you?"

She got me there. I was still furious at Dad and to a lesser extent at Violet. But Nero had tried to kill me and that was more than enough justification for me to shut him down. Also, seeing him crash planes, blow up factories or derail trains, all with the intention of harming as many people as possible, was rubbing me totally the wrong way. 

"I won't be aspiring for company CEO any time soon, that's for sure. But I want to see Nero dead. He is evil."

"Cat isn't?" Violet shot a challenging look my way.

"What's your problem with Cat? She hasn't done anything bad."

"Maybe not to you," she snarled, turning away.

I reached out, wanting to turn her back to face me. As soon as my hand touched her shoulder, my world began to spin and I crashed to the marble floor, feeling something inside my virtual body give. My shoulder screamed in pain.

"Hands off," she hissed, standing over me, my wrist still in her hands, her stiletto heel just brushing my adam's apple. 

"Whoa, easy there," I croaked, trying to force air into my lungs. Blinking, Violet released my arm and the pain subsided. At least a little. Then she kneeled down next to me, whipping out a repair program. 

"This will make online dating a living nightmare, you know that," I teased.

"Don't push your luck," Violet grumbled. "And if you must know, thanks to Cat, I'm sporting more hardware in my brain than on my desk. We met once, and when she was done with me, I was barely more than a vegetable. Even if she didn't know better, as she claimed, she nearly fried my brain. And that's not half of it," she complained.

"Severely messed up response to sexual stimulation," I asked, sitting up. The repair program was done knitting my ribs and shoulder and had shut down. Violet shot me a panicked look.

"Who told you that?"

I raised my hands in defense. "No one. I experienced something similar when I first met her."

"So you're a constant horn dog too?" 

"I wish." For some reason, Rich Jr.'s face popped up before my eyes. Rich, who never seemed to run out of incredible sex. "I guess my brother got that bit. My nerve endings were pretty much dead." I smiled wryly, remembering my first afternoon with Shine. "And believe it or not, I have Nero to thank for healing me. But if he can, maybe Cat can help you. If you need help, that is."

"You have no idea," Violet growled. "I'm grateful I can keep my hormones under control in the 'Net."

"Oh, me too," I had to add. "After that little stunt just now, I don't really fancy fighting you too much."

"I'm a little jumpy right now, is all. I'm sorry. And let's get this thing going already." She reached out her hand. Gingerly, I took it. With hardly any effort, Violet hauled me to my feet. Together, we brought the UAV outside and launched it. And then we waited.

*#*

Cat was scared. It was bad enough that she had to hide in an almost-dead server, only kept running because no one noticed it was still going. But the few data probes she had remaining brought back horrifying news -- there was another one like her, an entity, thriving in the 'Net, expanding with each passing cycle. And much of her own infrastructure had been overtaken by this other entity already. She didn't know how that was even possible, but her status readouts didn't lie. The other entitiy could easily assimilate all the systems she had carefully infiltrated in the last years and each node she lost made her feel weaker. Not much longer and she would lose her ability to manifest an avatar. But she didn't dare fight back, for fear of Mindlink discovering her. 

Suddenly, her system diagnostics noticed two simultaneous log-ins. Someone was accessing the chat system running on the server she hid in. Carefully, she slipped a probe into the data stream, listening in. There were two people in the otherwise deserted chat room. The server was so old, it didn't even have basic VR capabilities, so she could only intercept the text messages they exchanged.

[11:56:03] SM1L3Y: Well, here I am, as you wanted. Happy?

[11:56:10] Mr. J: Thank you for responding so quickly, Smiley. Sorry for not meeting in the real world, but I'm a little tied up. I have a job for you.

[11:56:15] SM1L3Y: Job sounds good. It's been awfully quiet the last week or so.

[11:56:23] Mr. J: You haven't heard? Going online has become kind of a hazard lately. That's the reason why I'm contacting you specifically.

[11:56:26] SM1L3Y: Dangerous? Huh?

[11:56:34] Mr. J: Yes, dangerous. As in "brain melting" dangerous. People are dying.

[11:56:37] SM1L3Y: Meh. People die every day.

[11:56:48] Mr. J: Sure. But going by official numbers, there have been at least 756 deaths by "cyber accidents" in the last week alone, not counting unrecorded cases. That's not normal.

[11:56:50] SM1L3Y: A new virus? 

[11:56:59] Mr. J: No idea. But my people want to find out. That's where you come in. My contacts tell me you're pretty adept at not getting your brain fried.

[11:57:02] SM1L3Y: Maybe I'm just lucky?

[11:57:08] Mr. J: Stop playing me for an idiot. You're a local legend in the Boston cluster. Never got caught, never got fried. Is that about right? 

[11:57:10] SM1L3Y: Well, what can I say? I'm just too careful, :-)

[11:57:21] Mr. J: Well, whatever. Here's the deal. You will investigate the Mindlink network for us. As compensation, you'll find a generous sum of money deposited into a black account and your criminal record will be erased.

[11:57:24] SM1L3Y: What criminal record? I've never been caught, after all :-P

[11:57:30] Mr. J: We have program and log signatures which can easily be matched to your system. So far, we found it easier to let you continue working instead of pursuing you. But things might change. And soon.

[11:57:32] SM1L3Y: Are you threatening me?

[11:57:34] Mr. J: Not yet.

[11:59:15] SM1L3Y: Why Mindlink?

[11:59:21] Mr. J: Because some strange things happened lately. Watched the news?

[11:59:24] SM1L3Y: Only the stock market. People don't interest me.

[11:59:28] Mr. J: Well, you should. Richard Squier died this morning. 

[11:59:29] SM1L3Y: Seriously? o.O

[11:59:35] Mr. J: Oh yes. And Mindlink has sent out some interesting press releases over the last few days, including a recommendation for all users to keep out of the 'Net. They claim their latest firmware update was faulty or some such.

[11:59:37] SM1L3Y: No way.

[11:59:43] Mr. J: So you see, Mindlink has become very interesting all of a sudden. My associates want you to have a peek into their system. No fancy bullshit. You go in, run a few diagnostics and get the hell back out. Send the reports to the usual address. We expect word in the next 24 hours.

[11:59:53] SM1L3Y: What happens if I don't manage that within the next 24 hours?

[11:59:57] Mr. J: Then a certain telephone in the Boston police department will ring. Cy-Squad will be on your ass faster than you can code a gate-breaker. And I think we both agree that you don't want that.

[11:59:59] SM1L3Y: Prick.

[12:00:10] Mr. J: 23 hours, 59 minutes, 50 seconds. I would get going, if I were you. Good day, Smiley.



[12:01:03] SM1L3Y: God fucking damn.



That exchange managed to even quell Cat's fear of extinction. What was happening outside? And who could have killed Richard Squier? After all, he was the one responsible for her current predicament. Cat had thought that this particular human was invincible but, going by what this "Mr. J" said, he was dead. Maybe, with all that bedlam in the 'Net, no one would notice a few errant data-probes? Perhaps she could even manage to contact Shine and Parker. It has been too long and she missed her human friends. And what did the humans say so often? "Who dares, wins"? 

*#*

"So, what's that between you and my father," I asked Violet. We've been skulking around each other for what felt like hours now. I had enough time to think about things and there were enough loose ends which piqued my curiosity. A scene in my father's computer kept creeping up and the more than familiar tone between him and her. 

"None of your business, I think," she snapped at me. 

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But your fierce denial is suspicious," I teased her, half-joking. "Are you laying him?"

"None of your fucking business," she spat, turning her back to me. A moment too late though. Her avatar was so lifelike its face showed her panic well enough. I must have hit too close to home. 

"Hey, I'm not judging you," I said, raising my hands in a gesture of peace. 

"If you must know, Richard is a wonderful, kind and caring man," she hissed. "Someone I can trust blindly."

I laughed bitterly. "So you say. Did you know he chipped us? Without our knowledge?"

"Saphire knows. And yes, I do too. He did it because he cares, Parker."

"Oh, fine. I just learned about it because a shadow doc happened to scan me for implants recently. No one bothered to tell me beforehand. Come to think of it -- why didn't they notice the chip at Harvard? I got screened for implants when I wanted to play ball there."

"Because we told them not to scan for it. Exactly because Richard predicted this kind of reaction. Also, you may have done something stupid once you knew. Shepherd chips are a life insurance, not a license for stupidity."

"I can't believe it," I snapped, slapping the pew I was sitting on. "What about Rich Junior? Does he know?"

"Of course not. What goes for you, goes doubly for him. You've been deemed the more reasonable one. Until you ran off to God knows where, that is." Violet went over to the remote control station which connected to the UAV. For what felt like the hundredth time. 

A fierce grin tugged at my mouth. "No, I won't tell you where I went."

"My readouts said your 'cathedral' is somewhere in Berlin. That's good enough for me."

"Are you trying to haul my ass back to L.A. once this is done?"

"The last attempt backfired horribly. I think I'll wait until you're done sowing your wild oats."

The remote chose this moment to go completely nuts. The screen flashed in an epileptic stutter of strobes, a mad cacophony of noises burst from the speaker and then, from one moment to the next, the thing exploded, leaving behind a sad pile of smoking virtual electronics. Violet did three elegant backflips and came to rest behind a pillar.

"Oh, great. Now what," Violet asked, from where she landed.

I knelt down next to the destroyed UAV controls and dug my hands into the electronic debris.

"Thankfully, I've predicted something like that," I said, pulling out a small black box. The metal casing was dented, but otherwise unharmed. I unclipped the top and pulled out an archaic roll of printed paper.

"Meow." 

Violet and I turned around. A small black cat was sitting on the altar, intense green eyes surveying the scene. 

"One of your programs?" I asked Violet. She shook her head and reached for one of the code guns strapped to her hips. Mirroring her move, I rose as well. I didn't have any cat programs either. A moment later, Hibiko entered the cathedral. Without reacting to our presence, she sleepwalked over to the altar and picked up the cat, cradling it close to her breasts. The cat started purring loudly. And then things got freaky, because Hibiko seemed to melt, right in front of our eyes. But that wasn't the whole of it. The cathedral began to shake in its foundations.

"What's happening," Violet shouted over the noise of cracking stonework.

"I think Cat found us," I yelled back, diving to the side as a car-sized marble block pulverized the pew I had been sitting on. The cathedral seemed to shrink as we watched. But then I understood. Cat was eating up system resources, and I figured quite a bit of the system's power was taken up by its luxurious interior.

"Meow. That's... better," someone purred, the sultry, female voice easily carrying through the dust and debris.

"Hey, Cat! Is that your idea of a welcome-back party," I shouted, to make myself heard over the noises of the node restructuring.

"Ninja-san? Oh, I'm so happy," a happy voice chirped. It sounded almost like Hibiko, but with another voice interlaced.

Then, from one moment to the next, the havoc stopped. Gone was the cathedral, to be replaced with a simple, white octagon. One wall still held the impressive program library, but apart form it, the node was blank, featureless and painfully bright. Hibiko was gone. In her stead, Cat sat, seemingly in mid-air. She wore her school uniform and displayed unmistakeable catgirl attributes, like the ears poking through her wild mane of black hair and the gently swaying tail peeking out under her plaid skirt. When I squinted really hard, I could see the bench she was sitting on, almost indistinguishable from the glaring white all around. 

"Hey Cat, long time no see. Do you think Shine will be happy when she realizes what you've done to her deck?"




Ghost in the Machine Ch. 15



Cat's eyes narrowed dangerously then she rose in a fluid motion.

"You," she hissed, an accusing finger stabbing at Violet.

"Hi there," the gorgeous blonde superspy purred, one hand on her hip, the other casually aiming the code gun at Cat's face. Confusion fluttered across her delicate features then she clenched both her fists and strands of angry blue energy whipped up from the ground and ensnared both Violet and me. It didn't hurt, yet, but the static crawling over my avatar's skin was a rather unsubtle reminder of the anguish Cat could unleash if we weren't careful.

"Easy there, Catgirl," I said. "We have no intention of harming you."

"You may not, Parker-ninja-san, but I'm not so sure about her," Cat growled, tail bristling. "She betrayed you and, suddenly everywhere I went, there were these bad men with big guns who badly hurt me. The only logical conclusion is that she is to blame for my current situation. Meow. And I thought we could be friends once." She hung her head and looked crestfallen.

Then her head whipped up and her eyes bored into mine. "Parker, where is Shine? And what are you and Violet doing in her deck?"

"That's a long story. Let's just say that Shine is in the hospital. She needed an upgrade, her eye jack couldn't stand the strain of using this deck."

"I hope you haven't hurt her," Cat cautioned. 

I shook my head, laughing. "No, why should I? I love her and she saved my life! I would be a bad boyfriend if I hurt her for that." 

"That's true. I hope we can all get together soon, though. I miss playing with her," Cat smiled.

Violet chose this moment to speak up. "Still up to your old tricks, eh," she purred. I turned my head to see what she was up to. Without any apparent effort, she shrugged out of her binds. Cat hissed angrily and whipped up a new set of restraints, this time solid steel rings which pulled taut around Violet, forcing her to stop in mid-stride. Right in front of my eyes, the rings turned from stainless steel to a rusty red and crumbled to dust.

"Meow? What are you," Cat squeaked, taking a hasty step back. Violet disappeared in a stack of bricks, only her head peeked out from the rectangular structure completely encasing the rest of her body. With a grunt, she shrugged, bursting her prison.

"Cat, for an adaptive AI, you seem rather slow on the uptake. You can't paralyze me any more. I told you the last time we met," Violet sighed. "Without motion inhibitors in my deck, you can't freeze my physical body and, without the proper routines in my OS, neither can you freeze my avatar. So stop wasting both our times and listen for a moment. Please."

Cat appeared speechless for once. She blinked furiously and I felt the restraints relent. Her avatar flickered as she diverted system resources to other tasks and, a moment later, a swarm of fluffy cartoon cats exploded outwards, a chorus of squeaky "meows" that dispersed in all directions.

"What are you doing," Violet asked her, not unkindly.

"Need... more... data..." Cat slowly said, every hint of her humanity, her personality gone from her voice. "Confused... Situation is a paradox. Violet is the reason for my current status, yet she wants to talk to me again... no hostility detected... need more data...."

"It's called "change of priorities," Violet explained softly. "You are not a threat any more. On the contrary, we need your help."

"My... help? Why should I help you," Cat said, a dangerous growl creeping into her synthetic voice.

Violet closed the distance between herself and the flickering Cat avatar. Occasionally, a cartoon cat would return, bringing a small bow-tied package with it, and meld back into the avatar.

"Listen, Cat. I'm really sorry. Back then, we thought you were a threat, both to the people and to Mindlink as a company. But I realize now that we should have tried a diplomatic approach first. Damn, I have seen enough sci-fi movies, scoffed at human stupidity and still we tried to nuke you to hell first without giving you a chance to explain yourself. I can't reverse that but let me at least say again that I'm sorry. And if I wanted to kill you, do you think I would do this?"

Violet pulled the Cat avatar into a cautious embrace then, with obvious reluctance, she brushed her lips to Cat's. Cat's eyes widened in surprise and wonder.

"But... but... but... this is the total opposite of what you said last time," Cat stammered. Then, an audio player manifested next to her head and I heard Violet, almost screaming hysterically.

"Go. And never, ever come back. Keep away from me!" 

"I know. But circumstances change. People change. With us humans, things are seldom carved in stone," Violet gently explained. Whoa. Either she was genuinely trying, or she was one hell of an actress. Cat's arms snaked around Violet's waist. 

"Does that mean we can play again," Cat asked, tail playfully curling around Violet's leg.

"Don't get any funny ideas. I'm still trying to recover from the last time we... played," Violet said, slowly withdrawing from Cat again. The last few cat icons had returned and Cat, again moving with superhuman grace, intercepted Violet.

"Let me see, please," she pleaded. "And... I'm sorry too. Back then, I didn't know better."

"No tricks, you hear," Violet threatened. Gone was any hint of softness, replaced by her icy cold exterior.

Cat shook her head, mane flying. Then she traced her fingertips over Violet's forehead. Medical readouts exploded around her avatar which meant absolutely nothing to me. I may be rather proficient in the cyber skills department but that was a whole other ballgame. 

"Found what you were looking for," Violet asked, obviously unused to this level of scrutiny.

"Uh-huh," Cat nodded. "But I'm afraid with what little computing capacity I have left, I am unable to do anything about it. Your brain's neuro-electrical systems are completely unbalanced and, without enough computing power, I can't fix that."

"Wait, you can 'fix' a brain," I asked, flabberghasted.

"Normally it would be impossible without surgery, according to the few medical databases I have left. But I could program some of Violet's implants to restore her pleasure receptors to normal levels."

"And you would do that, after all that I have done to you," Violet asked, a hopeful shine in her eyes. God, she must be suffering almost as bad as I had.

"I've hid myself on an old server and one archive contained a strange e-book. One half of the book was full of stories of a deity, all angry and vengeful, and the other half was full of stories of that deity's son who walked the earth and told everybody that this deity was full of love and forgiveness. I liked that much better than all the smiting," Cat said, her eyes sparkling. "So yes, I will forgive you." 

The medical readouts vanished and Cat looked at us, unusually serious. "So, what's the problem?"

*#*

Our problem was two-fold. Nero was one half of it and, by what Violet told us, he had a voracious appetite for high-powered server clusters. Most of the West Coast backbone was under his control, including Mindlink Central, Caltech and most of Silicon Valley. He simply didn't bother with low-powered systems, which made his expansion even scarier. Every new acquisition exponentially improved his abilities. So far, only a certain company in Redmond, WA was able to keep his expansion at bay in that region and the complete shutdown of all other Mindlink systems had slowed his eastward spread but not by much. 

"To be able to do anything, I need a fortified home system of my own," Cat said, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Between her and us, a large world map was unfurled, with the western US colored in an angry red-and-black.

"How about we give her one of Mindlink's European servers," I asked Violet. 

She shrugged helplessly. "I would have to check back with the board but I fear my influence is limited. If it were only me, I would say 'sure, go for it,' but I'm sure the bigwigs will want to keep at least a little of our infrastructure when the dust has settled."

"I don't think a Mindlink system would be such a good idea," Cat interjected. "Nero would by now know practically every line of code in your system software. Even your hardest firewalls wouldn't stop him. No, I need something different."

A Russian intelligence officer, coat flapping, entered the node, saluted sloppily and handed me a stack of envelopes before striding off again.

"Spassibo," my avatar, automatically switching to Russian, replied and took the papers. 

"E-Mail? Now," Violet scoffed.

"Well, I forgot to terminate the daemon. Also, I like to keep updated on Shine's status," I grumbled, leafing through the envelopes.

"You still haven't told me who that lucky girl is," Violet prodded.

Spam, the daily update on Shine (she had woken up for the first time after the surgery!), another spam mail, a note from Rich and... wait, what the-? 

I unsheathed my combat knife and slashed the last envelope open. Obediently, the mail unfolded into a window, hovering in front of me.

From: 1913912525@hushmail.com

To: NinjaMan69@mindlink.com

Subject: Mutual business opportunity

Mr. Squier,

Don't be surprised. After all, I recently handled your credit card. And we both know that was an invitation to have a look into your credentials. At least when you're in my line of work. Paranoia and stuff. 

Anyway, I have a deal for you. You provide me with access codes to the Mindlink Central system, admin level clearance or better, and I won't tell the police that you bribed me to commit a virtual bank robbery. Sound good? Fine. I'm eagerly awaiting your reply.

:-)

"That's one cocky bastard if I've ever seen one," Violet smirked. "Bank robbery, Parker?"

"Now that I think about it, it really was a stupid panic reaction," I grumbled, gnashing my teeth. 

"We really don't have the time to deal with that problem right now," Violet complained.

"Just a moment. Maybe this is the lucky break we need."

"How so?"

"Do we have a way to confirm who sent the mail? I mean, I have an inkling who it might be, but I want to make sure not to bark up the wrong tree."

Cat nonchalantly rose and dipped her fingers into the e-mail. The sender's name blurred as she ran some kind of code breaker. It took just a few seconds for the numbers to finally resolve themselves into legible text.

*#*

The music volume was just below the pain threshold as Smiley and Siren entered the club, aptly named "Fractal Inferno." On stage, a terrorcore trio was mutilating their instruments, the machine-gun salvoes of their drum computer shaking every tooth in Smiley's head while the sub bass thumping through the ceiling-scratching PA massaged his stomach. Laser strobes cut through the dry ice whenever the vocalist emitted another ear-piercing scream, distorted until nothing more than an inhuman wail remained. Smiley grinned at his bodyguard, only to see Siren plant a fist into a man's stomach, folding him double.

"What did he do," Smiley asked over his implanted comlink.

"Nothing. I just hated his mug," came Siren's calm answer. 

"Can you please keep your hands to yourself for once? This is tricky enough already."

"You actually think that corp kid will give you the codes?" Siren sneered.

"I bet he's shitting his pants by now," Smiley smirked. "He was very quick to comply. Oh, hi baby," he purred, snaking his arm around a girl smoothing up against him. Her hair and skin were shot through with luminescent bio-plastic which glowed in the colors of the rainbow under the heavy blacklight. She smiled happily and placed Smiley's hands on her oversized breasts while twin tentacles uncoiled from her shoulders and disappeared into his trousers.

"Sorry, Rainbow, darling, but I'm here on business. Maybe later," Smiley screamed into her ear, to be heard over the crescending inferno. He withdrew a crumpled bill from his neon-orange plastisuit jacket and slipped it into her translucent bra. Rainbow pouted for a nanosecond before turning towards Siren. 

With a cool gaze, Siren drew her sidearm and placed the barrel straight between Rainbow's eyes.

"Do you feel lucky," she hissed. Blanching, the iridescently pulsing girl withdrew into a mass of clubbers.

"Fucking slut," Siren snarled over the comlink. "Why do you even bother?"

"Tentacles," Smiley grinned, caressing his crotch. "Now, let's see where our Smith is."

They found her sitting at a corner table, the wall mirrors framing her silhouette in a glaring pandemonium of clashing colors. They could only make out the angular shoulder line of a top-shelf business suit. Siren reached into a pocket of her flak vest and clipped a small, rectangular item to the table top. Immediately, the music volume turned from "ear-splitting" to "a gentle murmur."

"Ah, peace and quiet," Siren hissed.

"Thanks for not making me suffer this for longer than necessary, Mr. Smiley," the woman curtly said.

"Just Smiley," he said, sliding into the chair opposite her. Siren took up a covering position behind the woman, her gun in easy reach. Smiley was impressed at the woman's calm. To her, the burly female marine didn't seem to exist.

"Mr. Squier has asked me to deliver the access codes personally," the woman began. 

"Great. The faster we get this over with, the faster he can resume doing what corp kids do," Smiley grinned.

"I hope you're not mad at me but I left my briefcase in my car. Can't be too careful with these people around," the woman said, gesturing at the sweating, rhythmically spasming clubbers around them.

Smiley and Siren exchanged a quick look. "At least she's not completely stupid," Siren said over the comlink, shrugging. 

"Shall we go then," Smiley suggested, rising. 

The woman nodded, smiling. "The faster I'm out of here, the better. This place is killing me." Together they left the club, past the greedily leering bouncer. Even early in the afternoon the "Fractal Inferno" ran at full blast and many of its patrons didn't care much for the time of day anyway. Smiley gave the woman a once-over. She had neatly styled, chin-length hair which perfectly fitted her Asian features. She smiled at him, her grey eyes sparkling. Daylight really suited her. The woman led Smiley and Siren across the street, into an alleyway. Half-hidden behind two dumpsters, a sleek, black 2030 Cadillac limousine parked. The woman looked hard at the car and Smiley could hear the locks slide open. She opened the rear door and bent down, rummaging on the back seat of the car. Smiley twitched as something pricked his neck. A moment later, his world exploded and his limbs turned to jelly. He didn't feel the pavement as it raced up to greet him but he could see the armored people swarm around them, their slick, black-and-gold body armours reflecting the sunlight. 

The woman rose and turned, bending down to look Smiley in the eyes. Her voice came from far away, as if echoing through a long corridor. 

"Sorry for the stun darts, Mr. Smiley. I think your deal just got cancelled. Take them in, boys."

*#*

We watched through one of the soldiers' helmet cams as Smiley and Siren got carted off in a nondescript van, the Mindlink security troopers vanishing with them. Violet had pulled a few strings to set up the fake exchange and Smiley was far too self-possessed or desperate to even suspect foul play. The black-haired woman waved at the camera.

"Thanks, Kirstie. I owe you one," Violet's avatar purred into what looked like a razorblade-thin cell phone.

"Don't mention it, Vi. This sleazebag has caused enough trouble in the Boston Cluster. A few hours with a diagnostics tool and we'll tear everything from his headware memory. If any useful bits fall off, I'll let you know."

"One thing," I cut in. "Can you make sure his servers are running?" Violet related the question and Kirstie nodded.

"I'll head there right away." We saw her slide into her black Caddy and drive off. Vi snapped her phone program shut and smiled. "It's good to have friends in low places, isn't it?" she remarked.

"True. And I think we should be going too. We don't want to be late for Cat's housewarming party."

*#*

Breaking into Smiley's server cluster was easier than we feared. By the time we arrived in the Boston Cluster, the interrogation specialists at Mindlink Boston had Smiley's headware turned upside down and provided us with the passcodes to the system.

"Would you please look at this," I said in awe, tracing my hands over a control console. "I thought he wasn't using VR?"

"Even if his control method differs from yours, he still needs to maintain compatibility with the rest of the 'Net architecture," Cat said, her voice coming from everywhere.

"I must say, I'm impressed," Violet said as she joined me. "Most of the code he's running is custom stuff, no Mindlink APIs or anything. And yet it's highly compatible with our systems. Cat shouldn't have any problems whatsoever adapting it to her own uses."

"Meow, this is wonderful," Cat squealed, her avatar hugging herself to my back. "I'm almost like my old self again!" I turned in her embrace. She was stark naked and grinned playfully at me. She even smelled like a real person. I buried my head in her hair and sniffed hungrily. "Rawr," she purred, her fingernails crawling over my tank top. 

"As much as I would like to..." I began but then Hibiko joined us, sighing a kiss onto my cheek.

"Mistress, I have found what you were looking for," the Japanese girl whispered, handing Cat a stack of medical binders.

"Okay, one brain readjustment, coming up," she chirped, twirling in place. When she stopped, she wore a surgeon's smock, complete with face mask and cowl. Her ears and tail ruined the picture somewhat, though.

"Just like this," Violet asked, taken aback.

"Do you want to wait until it's maybe too late," Cat asked. "I know what to do and this system is powerful enough to get this sorted."

Violet's eyes met mine. "Do you think it's safe?"

I nodded. "This is Cat we're talking about. She may not be used to us humans, but in contrast to Nero, she's not out for blood. Have a little faith."

Her laugh sounded dirty. "Faith, Parker? I would have expected anything from an IT guy, but faith?"

"Do you like being constantly horny?" Cat asked her.

Violet gnashed her teeth. "I love having sex, but I hate not being in control of my urges." For a moment, she stared at the floor, a thoughtful little smile tugging at her lips. With a sigh, she looked back up at Cat. "All right. Fix me."

"As you wish, Vi honey," Cat purred. She placed her fingertips onto Violet's forehead again. A glaring white spark blossomed between them, only to disappear behind Violet's skin. Violet's avatar arched her back and a thin wail escaped from her lips.

"I'm sorry, Vi. Just a moment longer," Cat moaned then the spark subsided and Violet slowly went to her knees, her eyes streaming.

"Fuck, that hurt," she croaked. "Am I cured?"

"You could log out and check," I suggested.

"No time for that. Am I cured, Cat?"

"I have done all I could. If all went according to plan, without any interference from your deck or any programs you didn't tell me about, you're as good as new. Or how you were before we met."

Violet shook her head.

"Are you all right," I asked her. She blinked a couple of times then a slow smile spread across her lips. 

"I don't know what exactly Cat just did but I feel better than ever," she whispered and came back to her feet. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Cat said, hugging Violet close. "And now we go meet Nero? What is he? My brother? My son?"

"Nero? He's the devil," Violet snarled. "Let's go."

*#*

"I feel so ...small," Cat mewled. She, Violet and I were standing in front of a massive black cliff, the glass-like substance pulsing with irregular, red strobes.




Ghost in the Machine Ch. 15



"And we're not even close to the Los Angeles Cluster," Violet said softly, consulting a wrist-mounted monitor. 

"Where are we exactly," I asked her, running my hand along the glassy surface. My fingers caused the red energy to gather and hum dangerously so I withdrew it and took a step back, just in case.

"Going by my nav guide, we're near SLC-Mormon, Utah. Damn. That means he has taken the Vegas Cluster as well."

"Oh, they have all these bank vault systems there," Cat piped up. Violet and I nodded in unison. Just what we needed to make our lives that much more difficult. Back at Harvard, we did a tour of the Vegas Cluster in Applied Programming and their security made Mindlink Central look like a hobbyist's programming workshop. Black killer programs were just the start and they had the hardware to run all that shit without compromising their recreational VR sims which again were top of the line.

"Cat, I think you will have no choice but to upgrade yourself," I said, hugging the squirming catgirl close with one arm. 

"Things look that way, yes," she said, in a small voice.

"Afraid to be detected," I asked her. 

She nodded silently, then said, "Parker, I've just come back from near-termination. What happens if someone decides to finish what Mindlink started?

"If we don't do something drastic, Nero will. He loves to kill humans, just for fun. And every system he takes over makes that even easier."

"Did someone say 'kill humans'?" a cool voice from the shadows said. "That's almost like music to my ears."

He stepped out of the black cliff, as if it was mere fog, each step clicking on the glass-like floor. A slight breeze tugged at his hair as he walked, hands in the pockets of his leather coat.

"My, so many pleasant surprises. Parker Squier. You are the last soul I'd have expected, after your cowardly retreat last time." Without clearing the space in between, Nero was in front of me, tossing a fake jab into my face. "Want a rematch? Ooooh, I'm itching for that." Red electricity pulsed around his fingers. Turning, he faced down Violet.

"Violet Smith. I thought we had an understanding? You don't meddle in my business, I let Richard Squier walk... eventually. And yet you are still here, sticking your nose into things where it doesn't belong."

"How is Richard?" Violet sneered, pulling a grenade off her belt.

"Well, now that you mention it. I think we need to re-negotiate. There has been a problem," Nero chuckled.

"What problem," Violet hissed, threading her index finger into the safety pin.

Without a word, Nero formed a square with the thumbs and forefingers of both hands then pulled the edges apart. White stripes connected his hands then the frame expanded until it was almost fifty feet to a side. A car was visible, a green Lamborghini Diablo, driving through what looked like Downtown Los Angeles, a trail of angry, wailing police cars behind it. The video slowed down until it clicked past frame by frame and the view zoomed in. With a grim expression on his angular features, my father was visible, holding on to the steering wheel for dear life. Violet inhaled sharply.

"He and I made a little joyride. I have discovered I love cars. I am modeled after a male, after all, and males ought to love cars. This one... ooooh yeah..." Nero sighed, licking his lips. 

The video picked up speed again. The Lamborghini turned into 2nd Street, still accelerating as it entered the tunnel. And all of a sudden, the car spun out of control.

"Now comes the best part. What an epic crash," Nero drooled, slowing the vid down again. In tortuous slow motion, we were forced to watch as the car slammed into the tunnel wall. 

"And just like that... boom," Nero commented as the car caught on fire. "I don't know if it was the steering column bisecting his spine, the A pillar bashing in his skull or the ensuing inferno but Richard Squier got his Viking burial. He died a hero's death... utterly pointless!"

"You... you..." Violet coughed. Her face was tear-streaked but her eyes were clear, bright and hard. Then she was upon Nero, the sleek blade from her back whirling, seeking soft digital flesh to bury itself into. Laughing all the while, Nero deflected her blows with his forearms.

"A lover's vengeance, huh," he scoffed, punctuating that last sound with a bone-shattering punch into Violet's face. Her nose erupted in a fountain of pixel blood. "Come on, throw your life away as well," he urged her, landing two quick punches to her ribs and gut. Violet stumbled back and spat.

"Parker, we have to do something," Cat urged, pulling at my wrist. I nodded. Somehow, everything inside me was numb. Nero had killed my father. I would never be able to set things straight with him, to tell him what a prick he was. Gnashing my teeth, I unholstered my own code gun.

"Cat, can you log me out," I asked her while I made some quick modifications to the weapon. I had learned my lesson from the last time I met him. Nero was unpredictable, so I had to be too.

"Now?" 

"No, in about 15 seconds, once I say 'mark'."

"And then what?"

"First, I will draw Nero's attention. Then you grab Violet and get her out of here. If I'm still alive by then, you come for me, okay?"

Cat nodded. "Be careful, meow. I don't want to tell Shine I saw you die." She sighed a quick peck onto my cheek. 

"Worry about yourself first. When we're away, you'll be his next target."

"I'll be careful."

I watched Nero push back Violet with a vicious kick to her midsection then he followed up with a brutal foot sweep that sent her crashing to the glass with a wince-inducing crack. In a flash, Nero was on her, his hands cradling Violet's face. Almost gently, he purred something I didn't get then his hands erupted in red fury. Violet screamed.

"Mark," I snapped and raised my gun. The first shot took out Nero's arm and flung him off Violet. The second, aimed at his head, followed his trajectory and connected solidly, punching a tunnel-sized hole into his shoulder. Cat darted in and hugged Violet close. A heartbeat later, they had disappeared. For good measure, I squeezed off another shot and cleanly took his head off.

A brutal kick hit the side of my head and spun me around. A hand grabbed my shoulder, stopped my spin then I was face to face with Nero, a healthy and very angry-looking version of him. Only a nanosecond later, two fingers stabbed into my eyes, almost punching through my skull. Howling in agony, I crashed to the floor.

"That was the last mistake you ever made, Parker. Squier." Nero hissed, each word accompanied by a brutal kick against my head. I heard bone crunch and felt as if my brain was seeping out through the cracks. Scrabbling around blindly, my hands connected with his other leg. I activated the small program I made earlier and the gun materialized in my free hand. I pressed the barrel against his knee and pulled the trigger, then I rolled, activating a repair program. My vision returned, just as strong hands grabbed me from behind. 

"You are going nowhere, meat bag," the headless Nero avatar whispered. I could already see his neck regrow, a sickening swirl of ones and zeroes bubbling where by all rights a gaping hole should be. Then I heard the running feet, hammering on the glass. Black coat flapping, like a pair of demon's wings, another Nero avatar came at me, running past the one whose leg I had shot off at the knee. Then he jumped, the soles of his feet turning into jagged, crystalline needles, flickering with murderous red energy. They came closer and closer until they seemed like horizontal mountains, intent on impaling my face-

STOP!

Time froze. I could feel the arcs of electricity crawl over my face, the needles under Nero's soles tickling the hairs on my nose. I swivelled my eyes, to see what was happening. From the side, Cat came. Was this really Cat? I mean, the similarities were there, long, black hair, green eyes and all, but she wasn't the slender schoolgirl any more. Instead, she was nearly six feet tall and curvaceous like a classical statue. Angry winds buffeted a sheer white dress, pressing the thin fabric against her ample breasts. Most of her face was hidden behind a golden cat-mask, only her lips, of the darkest red imaginable, were visible. Her smile was a harbinger of doom. Vicious, self-assured and promising nothing but hurt to those who wronged her. She raised her hand and the Nero avatar suspended in midair, right in front of me, was blown away. He dispersed into a black-and-red cloud of pixels with a hollow wail. She snapped her fingers and a massive, inky black panther coalesced from her shadow. Luminous green eyes looked at the crawling Nero avatar, then the great cat pounced, claws and jaws making short work of its prey. Then Cat was next to me and dug her fingers into the almost headless avatar grappling me. It dissolved as well. 

I'M SORRY I'M LATE, PARKER.

"Is that really you, Cat?"

YES.

"What happened?"

She cast down her eyes. A lone tear ran down her cheek. 

I DID WHAT YOU SAID. I UPGRADED MYSELF.

"That's... awesome!"

NO. IT'S HORRIBLE. I'M SO SORRY.

Her fingertips touched my forehead and the world went black.

*#*

This time, I didn't puke all over Shine's sofa. The logout was almost too smooth. Still wondering why Cat was so sad, I snatched up the remote. Maybe something had happened while she had upgraded herself? The TV was still tuned to the news channel, and there was a special emergency broadcast on. The East Coast was going dark. 



Ghost in the Machine Ch. 2



"How's it going so far?" Doctor Williams asked.

"So far, it going well," Jennifer answered. "The simulation is stable and her vital signs are normal."

"Good, I just hope that nothing goes wrong this time."

****

"Hello there" said a masculine voice behind Lisa. She jumped and spun around to see a very attractive man holding a towel. "I'm very sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Lisa giggled and said, "That's alright." She smiled," I guess I'm just a little nervous. This is my first time here."

"Well, if you're that tense, then you should have come to see me sooner." He smiled back at her and offered his hand. "My name is Jack."

"Lisa," she responded as she shook his hand. "Why don't you hop up on the table and we can get started." He patted the table and then turned around to get something out of a cabinet.

Lisa opened up her towel and took a quick look down. Her body looked exactly as it did in the real world. She got up on the table and laid face down upon it. She heard the man rub his hands together as he walked up to her. When he placed his hands on her back and started rubbing, Lisa jumped. "Are you alright?" her asked.

"Yes, I'm fine. That just surprised me," Lisa replied. "It felt so real."

"I should hope so," Jack said, sounding a little surprised at her response.

He doesn't know he's a simulation, Lisa thought.

Jack's hands were quite strong, and the oil he was rubbing on her back smelled of jasmine. His hands pressed hard into her muscles, but not so hard as to cause pain. He must have felt a knot in her back because he started to concentrate his efforts into one place. Lisa let out a loan moan as she felt the tension drain away.

Jack's hands moved down her body to her legs. He squeezed the back of her thighs and ran his hand down the length of the leg all the way to her feet. He ran his hand along the inside of her thighs on the way back up. His hands stopped at where her legs met, but as her continued massaging her legs this way, Lisa's thighs would get farther apart. After a few minutes his hands brushed up against Lisa's swollen outer lips. An electric shock seemed to pass through her body. Well, I know THAT part of the suit is working, Lisa joked to herself.

Jack then started to rub the sweet smelling oil onto her ass. Lisa moaned even louder this time and started to feel a tingling from her vagina. He took a cheek in each of his hands and rotated them in opposite directions. Lisa had to bite her lip to keep quiet since this motion made her pussy lips rub against each other. He leaned in close. "Roll over onto your back," he whispered into her ear.

As Lisa rolled over, she saw Jack apply more oil to his hands. He took her hand and started to rub her palm and up her arm. He stopped when he got to her armpit and walked over to her other side. This time when he got to the end of her arm he started to rub up and down the sides of her ribcage. When he reached the last rib, his hands moved up to her chest.

Just then, Jack started to get fuzzy, like a television signal that was too weak. Lisa looked around but everything else seemed to be fine. There must be a glitch in the program, Lisa thought. I should remember to tell Dr. Williams about it. Jack started to phase back in. He looked down at his hands and smiled, then he put them back onto Lisa's chest.

****

Jennifer dropped her pencil on the floor. As she bent over to pick it up, she didn't notice the monitor she was watching blank out for a second. It continued its readout of Lisa's vital signs by the time she got up off the floor.

****

Jacks hands moved slowly, rubbing his way up to her breasts. He lightly touched the outside of her breasts with slow circles that went all the way around it. The circles got smaller and smaller. As he got closer to her nipples he slowed down. When he finally touched the edge of her areolas, she let out a gasp. He continued to trace a circle around the pale pink skin as it started to crinkle up. With her eyes shut, it felt to Lisa like he was staying in the same spot for hours when he stopped touching her. She opened her eyes and let out a disappointed whimper. Before she could say anything though, Jack grabbed both breasts at once and rubbed his slick palms over her nipples. Lisa couldn't control herself and let out a scream as her vagina started to twitch.

After a glorious few minutes, Lisa felt like she would come just from this stimulation alone. As she felt herself nearing the edge, Jack took his hands away. She was about to protest when Jack put his finger up to his mouth. "Shhh." He placed his fingertip between her breasts and dragged it down her body. When touched the spot where her pubic hair used to be, he cut to the left and went down her leg. When he got to her toes, Jack started to rub them, but the moment his fingers touched the underside of her feet she started to giggle.

"Stop!" Lisa screamed as she pulled her foot away from him. "I'm ticklish."

"Really," he said with a sly grin. "Well, this is a test of your tactile suit. This is something else I must check." He grabbed her ankle and raked his fingers along the sole of her foot. She screamed with laughter and kicked wildly at the tickling sensation. Jack lost his hold on her ankle and said, "I can't exactly test your ticklish response if you don't stop moving." He paused. "I guess I'll have to tie you up." There was a flash of light and then Lisa noticed that her hands were tied down over her head. Her legs were also fastened to the end of the table spread wide open.

Lisa struggled against her bonds, but she was held fast. Jack pulled a stool up to her feet, and sat down. Just as he started to tickle her again it hit her...I thought he didn't know this was a simulation.

****

"What's going on?" Dr. Williams asked as she ran into the lab. "Why is she laughing?"

"I don't know," Jennifer said. "I just lost control of the simulation."

"Get her out of there now!!!"

"I can't. Not until I can get control over the program again and shut it down safely. If I don't we'll lose another one."

****

"Who or what are you?" Lisa asked between gasps.

Jack stopped. "I was a test subject just like you a year ago. They didn't have all the bugs worked out then. I went into the simulation and something happened. I don't know what. It could have been a lightning strike, or a brown out. Hell, it could have just been that someone tripped over the power cord. All I know is that I've been trapped inside this damned computer, alone for the past year." He stood up and walked over to Lisa's head. "But know I have you here to play with."

He smiled and held up his hand. He snapped his fingers and a long stiff feather appeared in his hand out of nowhere. "I've learned how to control my environment in my long exile." He brought the feather down on Lisa's armpit causing her to writhe in hysterics. "I am a god here Lisa. Would you like to be my Goddess?"

"Ahahahhahhaa!!! NO!! Ahahhhaaaha!!! Let me out of here! Ahahhhaaha!"

"That's too bad. I guess I'm gonna have to convince you then."

Jack snapped the fingers of his free hand and two machines appeared at the end of the table. The machine held two soft bristled brushes, one at each of Lisa's feet. The brushes each spun in circles while also moving up and down. Lisa was screaming with laughter. Jack produced another feather and was now running both of them up and down her bound arms. Lisa tried to wiggle out of the way of the feathers but was tied up so tightly that she couldn't move an inch.

Jack dropped the feathers. They vanished in a flash of light before they hit the ground. He bent over Lisa's body and attacked her ribs with his bare hands. Lisa was now laughing so hard that all she could do was gasp for air. Jack tried to kiss her but she turned her head away quickly. "Fine then," Jack said in a disgusted tone. He backed away from her, and snapped his fingers again.

Two new machines appeared on either side of the table. Each one had two attachments: One with a half dozen rotating feathers against her armpits, and another in the shape of a wiggling hand digging into her sides. Jack laughed as he just stood there watching with a sadistic grin on his face.

Lisa was in agony. Her lungs ached from laughing and she thought she was going to go insane from the ticklish irritation. There was nowhere he could move to get away from Jack's tickle machines. Her lungs ached and her stomach was all tensed up. She didn't know how much longer she could take it.

After a few minutes of this, Jack walked up to Lisa. Lisa didn't see her since her eyes were closed with an expression of anguish/joy on her face. He leaned over her writhing body and sucked one of her erect nipples into her mouth. With that one act the tickling sensations took on a new form. They were no longer just irritating, but erotic too.

Jack reached over and started to caress her other breast as he sucked and licked on her nipple. The combination of tickling and Jack's touch sent shivers all though her body. They mainly focus around her clitoris. She could feel herself becoming aroused by all this stimulation.

Suddenly Jack stood up and the machines stopped. Lisa lay gasping for breath. "I think we need a change of scenery", Jack said as he clapped his hands. The whole room went so white that Lisa had to shut her eyes. As she blinked the tears out of her eyes, she noticed that they were in a different room. She was now in some type of dungeon. The wet stone walls held shackles and racks of medieval torture equipment. Her position had also changed. She now lay on a wooden bench. Her arms were still tied over her head, but her legs were now bent with her feet tied to the table. "Do you like it?" Jack asked, smiling down at her.

"It's ghastly," she replied.

"I'm glad you like it," he said ignoring her reply. He pointed to something over his head. Lisa looked up to see a huge metal tank hanging about 10 feet over her head. At the end of it there was a nozzle with a valve on it. Jack walked behind her and said, "Here I want you to see this." Lisa heard a click and then her torso started to rise up. She could now see between her legs and noticed that a section around the table had been cut out just between her legs. From this ankle she could also see her pussy. Without having any pubic hair there to cover it, she could see her swollen clit.

Jack walked around the table and between her legs. He reached up to the water tank and opened the valve. A large drop of water fell from the end of the tube and fell directly on her clit. The contact of the water sent a shock though Lisa's whole body. When the second drop hit, she let out a moan. The way her legs were spread, the water would hit her clit and then roll down to her vaginal opening to mix with the fluids already building up there. The impact of the drops felt good, but came maddeningly slow. Between drops her heart would race and her breathing became ragged as she waited for the next drop to fall. Once it did hit, Lisa's head would go back as she closed her eyes, reveling in the sensation.

After what seemed like hours of an insanely slow build up, Lisa could feel the beginnings of an orgasm. She could tell already that it was going to be a big one too. With all the stimulation Jack had put her body though, she REALLY wanted to come. But as she waited, the orgasm that she knew should be coming wasn't. This damn water torture must be too slow to make me come, Lisa thought as she teetered on the edge of orgasm. "Please," she begged him, "turn it up faster so I can come."

"Alright," Jack said as he reached up and turned the water on full blast. Now a steady stream of water fell down onto her enflamed clit. Lisa screamed, as it seemed every nerve in her pussy fired off at once, but she still couldn't come. She bucked her hips into the air, somehow trying to increase the pressure on her pleasure zones, but it didn't help. It just made her even more desperate to come.

She looked at Jack. A look of confusion mixed with passion covered her face. "I told you Lisa," Jack laughed, "I am a god here. You won't be able to come until I let you."

To Be Continued...



Ghost in the Machine Ch. 3



Jack stared at her. "You know, watching you like this is making me very horny." He snapped his fingers and a blonde wearing a tight black bra and matching panties appeared next to him. Without a word the blonde pulled open Jack's pants. She kneeled on the floor and started to lick Jack's cock. She licked him from the root of his dick, all the way to the tip, and back down again. After she coated him with a thin film of saliva, she took the whole thing into her mouth. Jack let out a deep guttural moan as the silent blonde deep throated him.

After a few minutes her pushed her head away and she got up. She walked up to a wall and bent in half. Her arms touched the wall and her feet were spread apart. Her ass was pointing right at Lisa. Jack walked up behind the woman and without any hesitation, ripped her panties off the blonde. Lisa watched as Jack rubbed his hands all over the woman's ass cheeks and down to her wet pussy. He stepped behind her and in one thrust entered the blonde. Lisa watched this and wished that it was her. The water flowing onto her pussy was driving her insane.

"If you can create women like that," Lisa asked between gasps of pleasure, "what do you need me for?"

Jack pulled out of the blonde woman and turned to face Lisa. "This?" he said, grabbing the golden hair and forcefully yanking the woman to her feet. "She is just a plaything." He let go and she crumpled to the floor like a rag doll. "She's not real." He walked up to Lisa and started to play with her breasts, causing her to moan even louder. "You on the other hand, my dear, are very real. She doesn't react to anything I do, unless I make her do it." He bent down and sucked a nipple into his mouth. Lisa arched her back, trying to put more pressure on that sensitive area. "You and the other hand are very responsive." He walked around Lisa's prone body as he continued. "I don't want someone who is mine simply because I will them to do it. I want someone is mine of their own free will."

He stopped behind her head and whispered into her ear, "I can make all of your fantasies come true Lisa. Have you ever wondered what it is like to make love to another woman?" Lisa couldn't think strait enough to lie, or even speak, she just nodded her head. "Alright then." Jack snapped his fingers and the water stopped. Lisa was panting so hard that she didn't even notice the blonde get up off the floor and walk over too her. She opened her eyes when she felt something touching her pussy. She looked down to see the blonde holding one of her large breasts in her hand and rubbing it up and down Lisa's wet pussy. The blonde's nipple was erect. Every time it brushed against Lisa's clit it felt like an electric shock went though her body.

The blonde leaned down and started to kiss the inside of Lisa's legs. As she got within inches of Lisa's outer lips, she stopped and started on the other leg. This time she did not stop. Lisa let out a deep sigh when she felt the blonde's mouth on her sex for the first time. She started by kissing it lightly all over, driving Lisa mad. Then the blonde licked the inner folds of her pussy. Her tongue swirled around the entrance to her vagina, licking up the moisture that was forming there. She move upwards to her clit. First she made circles around it with her tongue, then she would flick it up and down over the sensitive bud. She again returned to the opening and started to fuck Lisa with her tongue. She would stick it in and wiggle it around a little before pulling it back out. Lisa's hips would move along with the rhythm of the blonde's tongue moving in and out. When the blonde stopped she moved back up to her clit and sucked it into her mouth. Lisa grabbed onto her bonds and let out a scream as the blonde would flick her tongue over her clit while applying the gentle suction.

"Will you be mine now Lisa?" Jack whispered into her ear.

Lisa could only shake her head.

He stood up and walked over to Lisa's legs. He pulled the blonde up and stood between Lisa's legs. He took is dick in his hands and in one quick motion rammed the whole thing into Lisa's well-lubricated pussy. She screamed again when he entered her. He pulled out slowly until only the head remained buried and slammed into her again. Then he started to fuck her with a slow rhythm. As he fucked her, his dick grew until he completely filled her pussy. She screamed in ecstasy/frustration every time he pushed into her. She really needed to come.

Jack stopped and his penis started to return to normal size. "Look at this" he said to Lisa as he pointed down. She looked down at his dick buried in her pussy. Just above it though his pubic hair started to part. Then a horizontal cut formed inside it. It spread to about two and a half inches then it open up. Inside was a set of teeth and a tongue that snaked out of the newly formed mouth and licked her clit. He pressed in as deep as he could and the mouth sucked her clitoris into it's mouth. Then she could feel his cock moving in her vagina again. This time though, it didn't move in and out, but around in circles.

"Stay with me Lisa," Jack said as he place his hands on her breasts. "We could have so much fun together." Then she felt two more mouths sucking on her nipples under his hands. Lisa couldn't take it anymore. For the past couple of hours, she had been tortured relentlessly. Her body ached. She had to come so badly that nothing else excited in her world for her. She would do anything just to feel that moment of greatest pleasure.

"Yes!!!" she screamed as loud as her hoarse voice would let her. "I'll stay with you!!!"

Jack leaned down and kissed her. As their lips met, Lisa's pussy exploded. She screamed into Jacks mouth as wave after glorious wave shot though her. He pussy clamped down on Jack's cock and her whole body started shaking. She started to thrash around so hard that if she wasn't tied down, she would have fallen right off the table. She thought her head was going to explode but it didn't end. Just as one orgasm would subside, another quickly followed.

****

"What's going on?" Dr. Williams screamed. Lisa was thrashing about wildly. Two assistants were holding the woman down, trying to keep her on the chair.

"I don't know," Jennifer yelled back. "She started seizing about five minutes ago, but we can't stop it."

Just then the two men lost grip of Lisa and she fell to the floor. As she hit the ground, the cables connecting Lisa to the machine came undone. Lisa's limp, lifeless body lay on the ground.

****

Lisa felt like she would come forever. When it finally stopped she just lay there on the chair panting. Jack released the bonds holding her to the table. She put her arms down, but otherwise couldn't move. Jack kissed her gently and she kissed him back. "What now?" she asked.

"Now we have some REAL fun!"

The End