The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

I-Toys

By William Lee

VII—

“Definitely a BlissTech product,” Gurney said as I sipped at a real Jamaican coffee, my fingers wrapped around a genuine ceramic mug, curled up on Gurney’s couch under a handmade, blue and green and yellow fuzzy afghan.

Gurney didn’t have a clue about the shadow, so I’d minimized how much trouble I thought that really meant I—and now he—were in.

“See this, here,” he pointed at the schematic, up in its innards, “this is really similar in overall architecture to this,” he called up an overlay, “piece made by BlissTech through a subsidiary.”

I was suddenly wondering why Gennaro hadn’t figured that out—but maybe she had.

“Which subsidiary?” I asked.

“They don’t have a name,” Gurney said, “but I do know where they front their operation—in low orbit.”

“Okay,” I replied, “anything else?”

“Not much else. It’s like looking at a processor—you can see what it looks like but the protocols are totally unknown unless you can tap it.” He said, shrugging his shoulders.

“What if I brought you Meat that had the I-toy? Could you tell more then?” I asked.

“That’s not a good idea,” Gurney said, “because this sucker replicates and it has a very, very long range for Sub comm.”

“What the fuck do you mean?” I replied, incredulous.

“The I-toy is just a node in a larger system. That’s what this,” he pointed at a winding wire that ran beside the spine, coiled up, “is for. It’s a high-powered antenna, laced into the skin. I’ll bet it uses the skin’s electrodynamics to transmit and receive packets.”

“What packets?” I asked.

“Protocol packets. This is a node, Cyn. That means that it is only one redundant piece of a bigger system.” He pulled up a schematic of an iWork. “See this?” He said. “Multiple nodes—each node transmitting and receiving and routing protocols to other predefined nodes. That’s what a full iSystem is. Well, the I-toy isn’t just a Meatmaker. It’s more properly a nodemaker that’s self-replicating.”

“I don’t believe you. Gennaro didn’t say anything about any of this,” I said.

“Really. She wouldn’t have caught that because she wasn’t looking and it isn’t her specialty.” He said, scratching his balls.

“Alright.” I paused, thinking, wondering for just a moment, pulling the Afghan suddenly up to my chin and almost spilling my wonderful, real coffee.

“What did you mean when you said self-replicating?” I asked.

“Well, the I-toy has a manufacturing component—which is really unique. It’s designed to accept raw materials, common stuff anybody would have, and process it. That’s what this,” he pointed to several items he’d highlighted with grey overlays, “and this are for. You ‘feed’ it with synthetic items, like plastics that contain embedded circuitry, and it remanufactures it. It would probably require the user to do a bit of the work, but with the CAT reprotocoling the user probably knows exactly what they need and the exact ‘feeding’ sequence.”

“Jesus,” I said, thinking carefully about the implications. Any I-toy user would become a source of new I-toys. Gennaro had really missed the mark on the seriousness of this new hardware. Really missed.

There was silence in the room for a long while, the schematics brightly floating on their stage, motionless.

“For a Meatmaker, it’s way beyond anything I’d ever seen. And you know what I’ve seen.” Gurney said.

“Gurney,” I said, “why build something like this? I mean, why?”

“Don’t know,” he replied, suddenly pacing, “but it’s very efficient and it’s permanent. Somebody wants to up their Meat count, heavy.”

More silence filled Gurney’s place, seeping out of every corner of the octagonal arrangement.

“Gurney,” I said quickly, thinking like an IUer, “Have you had any special contracts to develop protocols recently? One-shot deals. From a month ago to four months ago?”

“I get lots of those,” he said, “why?”

“It’s very important that you tell me. Single, unnamed bidder. Large payment from the same source. All underground. A piece of work—a single piece of a subsystem and not a complete Stim.” I said.

“Well, there’s only one job recently that fits that bill. And it paid like a motherfucker.” He replied.

“Let me guess—you provided your most powerful Stim protocols,” I almost whispered.

“Yeah,” he paused, “you don’t think. . . .”

“Yes,” I said, “you may have developed the Stim protocols for this little monster.”

Gurney’s work had helped blanket Susan’s helpless mind with limitless vistas of pleasure while the biomechanics wired her up like a synthflesh doll.

“Shit.” He said.

“Do you still have the RFPs? The requests for bids and specs?” I asked, hopeful.

“Sure. I have them right here,” he said as he pointed at his desk.

With a glimmer in my eye, I stared at Gurney and said: “We can trace them back to their source. I’ll bet they go back to BlissTech’s subsidiary.”

As Gurney watched, I laid back on the couch, spread my legs, turned my head to one side—pulling back my hair so he could see my CAT’s service hump—and said, “But first, let’s take an hour, only an hour, and try your new Stim. . . . Master.”

It was a good deed—and some fuckingly righteous Stim.