The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Universe 8

Chapter 1 — Serendipity, Right?

“Are you sure, Doctor Sandstrom?” Asked the mechanical voice.

“When did I ever answer “no” to that question, Amaranth?”

The tall, Swedish-born blonde frowned. The mechanical companion Amaranth 18 was a godsend to her department’s research, but its personality could get a bit grating in its cautiousness.

“Upgrading an authorized neural augment is illegal, Doctor Sandstrom.”

“I heard. And the WHO’s role is to safeguard public health, not take the world’s future hostage for the sake of a few living fossils.”

“The University doesn’t approve eith...”

“When a place of knowledge starts thinking that progress is dangerous, it’s in everyone’s best interest to go rogue.” She sighed. “¨Please do it, Amaranth, I never enjoy having to override your constraints.”

“...Very well, Doctor.”

With mechanical precision, he began to administer the sedative. Her long, tanned, muscular legs relaxed in the chair’s restraints, and her blue eyes fluttered closed.

* * *

Tonia Sandstrom, twenty-nine years old, a dual Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Biophysics, had been waiting for that procedure for a while. Human augmentation had been a reality for a long time, but while body augmentation was largely accepted by now, neural augmentation wasn’t. The World Health Organization authorized one kind of implant and vehemently prohibited any tinkering. Well, Tonia said screw this shit.

The WHO had no problem with augmentation as long as it could prove it could save lives. Implants for disabled people to let them operate machinery with their mind had risen along with prosthetic arms and artificial hearts. In fact, this interface became available for the general public. But it was limited to just that: operate things connected to special peripherals. An incredibly advanced implant, a bona fide mind-machine interface, limited to a glorified remote. True neural augmentation, like cognitive boosts or memory enhancers, were there. They were funded by industry giants. The whole hi-tech community wanted to break through the blocus. But they couldn’t. Too many people were commited to keeping manking in the past.

As Tonia liked to say, the fossils had caught up. Conservatives, pundits, sensational press...A lot of people had tried their best to put a stop to human augmentation, but could never quite smother the demand. But they had succeeded, somehow, at making public opinion, and most relevant authorities, draw the line at neural augs. They would authorize rudimentary mind-machine interfaces, or MMI, and nothing else.

It had been six years since the race for human perfection had ground to a halt. Four years since she had become one of the pioneers in advanced MMIs. Two years since had installed a frigging universal remote at the base of her skull, unable to get her research out of conservative limbo. She was sick of it. Sick to the point where she just decided to just fuck it and be her own test subject.

Oh, she harbored no fear about it. Amaranth was on par with the best neurosurgeons, the procedure merely was upgrading an already installed augment, and she was absolutely convinced that the future was worth every risk.

And at first, it did seem to be.

* * *

The operation had gone perfectly, and all the new components worked as intended. First of all, she no longer needed a peripheral to connect with any device. Her new system enabled her to interface with any and all devices with wireless access. Secondly, whereas the authorized device only worked with clear mental commands such as “turn on” or “dial 911”, her rig was software-assisted. She could go to town on a WPA2 encryption merely by chucking her homemade program at it. And thirdly, she had added a 100 gigabyte flash drive connected to her augmented reality eye implants.

In other words, she had a computer in her head. A simple one, to be sure, but she was now years, perhaps decades ahead of the standard augs. Barring any trailblazing people like her, she was now the most advanced human on the planet. The university fellows dismissing her as a hot, physical blonde could choke on the nearest oblong object.

As soon as she recovered from the operation, she set off to test her new abilities. Her first field test was her local gym. While on the elliptical, she had hacked into three smartphones.

The first lesson was, connecting with her mind sure felt strange...like a part of her was yanked into a world of pure data. The authorized implant could only send instructions—Tonia was straight up projecting herself. It did not look like a green cyberspace or any kind of fruity shit like that. More like interacting with a mass of data, and relying on her custom software to sort it out. But once downloaded on her inner flash drive, the data could simply be read with her AR-capable eyes.

The second lesson was, thus, that her fellow customers took, nay, committed an ungodly amount of selfies. From all the stupid fads, this one just had to stick, didn’t it?

In conclusion, it was awesome. She had easy, quick remote access to customer devices and could easily retrieve data, stealthily, to boot, thanks to her advanced hacking software. But as she stretched, bending over backwards and doing the full splits, she had only one word in her head. “More”.

Not that she especially felt megalomaniac. She knew she was perfectly capable of hacking a car and sending it into a tree, but why use technological progress to be a better asshole? She just wanted to explore her custom augment’s technical boundaries. Retrieving private data was all well and good, but it was disappointingly...dry. She couldn’t see anything until after the hack was done. Tonia just couldn’t shake the feeling that being a superior human had to look cool in some capacity.

That’s when the idea hit her.

* * *

“The fuck? Since when do you care about video games?”

Her colleague at the university, Joris Nissenbaum, was a damn fine computer scientist, and, most relevant to her interests right now, a total geek. Not quite the insulting stereotype of a basement-dwelling no-lifer, being a 40-something PhD and all, but he definitely had some leanings toward it. He was pudgy, unkempt, and had the very latest augmented eyes.

“What, an attractive Swedish blonde isn’t allowed in the club?”

“Oh, come on, it’s the developers who are afraid of women, not gamers. I was just convinced you were impervious to the very concept of hobbies, that’s all.”

“What, do you think I work too much?”

“Are you kidding me, Doctor Sandstrom? You’d make a Japanese manager faint.”

“Yeah, I guess I do work too much...” She said, feigning a weary sigh. It wasn’t her fault if days were too short. “But, well, the shock of having the Dean shoot down my latest neural aug project is beginning to set in. I took a vacation, and, well, I need something to do.”

Joris gave her a simple shrug, still looking at his screen. Now, in any normal setting, a sexy woman like Tonia inviting a nerd to initiate her into video games would have said nerd grinning beyond the ears, but she knew Joris wouldn’t. Not that she found it comforting. She was actually a little weirded out by the man’s total indifference. He never mentioned anything about a girl or boyfriend, either. As far as she could tell, Joris was completely asexual.

“Alright, well...I don’t really know what you might be into, but most of the industry’s been pandering for beginners since the Wii grabbed all the money in the world, so you can pretty much pick whatever looks the best to you on a shelf.”

“But surely an expert like you has suggestions, right?”

“Oh, do I ever, esteemed colleague.”

The IT specialist finally looked away from his computer and swiveled his chair toward her.

“If you listen to advertising, Call of Duty is still the undethroned king of video games, but while it isn’t bad per se, there’s so much better out there that it might as well be. If you’re into cinematic shooters, Spec Ops has gotten really good since The Line.”

“Yyyyyeah, I’ll pass militaristic pandering, thanks.”

“Modern Spec Ops is pretty much a deconstruction of that, but okay. At the other end of the spectrum, Nintendo is still the gold standard for solid gameplay, as well as the historic first time for most gamers.”

“I see...But I’m looking for something...like a virtual world, you know?”

For indeed, exploring another reality in the first person was what Tonia was after. She didn’t know exactly how it would play out with her one-of-a-kind system, but a software that was entirely designed to stream gorgeous images at you seemed like a good candidate.

“Oooooh ho ho ho ho,” laughed the geek. “You should have told me that first, Doctor. You’re looking for Elder Scrolls VII: Valenwood.”

“Am I? What is this about?”

“Well, the story’s forgettable but it’s mostly about exploring an entire country covered in mystical forests. It’s graphically gorgeous, it’s massive, and it’s got friggin’ cities on walking trees! Ever since Morrowind I was hoping they’d make a Valenwood game. It’s even got a mod that makes it cyber-eyes compatible, though obviously you’ll have to get it on PC for that.”

Compatible with eye implants, hmm? It definitely sounded like the kind of thing she wanted to test her augmentations with, but...

“Is it online compatible?”

“Oh no, single player only. Trust me, games are better off this way.”

“What’s wrong with online?” Asked Tonia, dead set on testing her system’s networking ability.

“Well, it’s fine in theory, but crafting games aside, online play always ends up reducing gameplay quality and storytelling. Believe me, you...”

“I’ll check your Valenwood, Jo.” Interrupted the blonde. “But I’d like to test online games too.”

“Your loss...Well, Guild Wars 4 has just about the most gorgeous online universe ever, and with good design to boot. I still expect old WoW fans to find excuses to hate Guild Wars, but...”

“Noted. What else?”

“Well, World of Warcraft’s still kicking. Otherwise...I don’t know, Wildstar 2, Witcher Online, maybe that weird Universe 8 thing...”

Tonia’s eyebrow twitched.

“Universe 8? They made eight games called Universe and never thought of a clever title?”

“No, that’s just the thing! I checked when it came out, it’s not a sequel.”

“Why call it Universe Eight then?”

“I’ve got no friggin’ idea. It kinda came out of nowhere, too. Weird in an age where every game begs for preorders. I didn’t play it, but apparently its selling point is that every non-player character has its own AI. A shitty gimmick if you ask me.”

“Hmmm...Thanks, Joris. I’ll let you go back to work.”

“Alright. Have fun, Tonia.”

* * *

And so she did. Valenwood’s code wasn’t quite friendly to her system, but after a few hours of tweaking, she was exploring a country-wide elfic garden and thrusting spears at ugly spriggans with nothing but her mind. Pure, perfectly responsive mind-machine interface.

But while enjoying the next level of escapism was definitely awesome, she couldn’t spend her week off playing around. This was still very much work, and after testing the interface, it was time to go online. She contemplated her desktop. Several online game clients had been set to download over the course of her offline experimentation. Only thing left to do was choose.

Well...not so much choose as stop dallying. She knew she had to check on Universe 8...she just didn’t want to admit being drawn to it because of a hunch. Hunches was what led the fossils to forbid neural augs. Still, the icon of a planet with a beveled 8 was the one she ultimately selected.

The client popped up, and showed the traditional logging screen and news timeline. She quickly got the registering, then the character creation over with. Those were normal interactions with a remote server, nothing too different from offline interaction.

“Now for the real thing...Hacking players.”

Cinematic introduction...Loading screen...Tonia, thoroughly uninterested by the story aspect, skipped whatever could be skipped and ignored the rest. Until, finally, she saw her character—modeled after herself, more for simplicity than vanity—appear in the middle of a modelized city. She saw a few players around, and began to strip down the game without delay.

She could, for starters, easily see every publicly available info without going through the intended interface. Name, race, skills, stats...everything was displayed in a long sheet of data. She didn’t see their IP address or login info...yet. She was confident she could, but it was probably wise to first familiarize herself with the software environment.

It suddenly occured to her that she didn’t even pay the slightest sliver of attention to the game’s actual environment. It paled compared to the exploration-centric Valenwood, but it was nice enough. It was a town that could almost look like a real-world one if it wasn’t for decidedly archaic elements. A convenience store to her left had a ornate sign forged in solid, gold plated metal. Wood and brick were far more common than concrete, even on an office building with windows so large you could see the workers toiling away at their computers. The number of traveling merchants easily neared twenty in the central plaza alone. All in all, it looked like a medieval-y tourist trap built for actual modern life. Kind of unsettlingly so—seriously, an office building inside a game? Who would want to see that?

“Hmm. Here I thought something called Universe 8 would be sci-fi.”

That’s when she remembered what Joris had told her. Universe 8 was supposed to have those super-advanced NPCs. Being familiar with artificial intelligence, Tonia knew that wasn’t entirely implausible—genuine AIs were very much a thing now, just not a massively available one. She thus very much doubted that game could impress her. Nonetheless, she made her avatar jog towards the closest NPC. It was a lanky twenty-something sporting some sort of reinforced casual clothes. It wasn’t quite armor, more like campy designer clothing with shoulder, elbow and shin pads. It seemed both medieval and modern, much like the town itself.

As she approached, she tried to scan him, but found nothing readily available. She was about to try some hacking when...

“Hello yourself, lady.”

Her eyes fluttered.

“Ahem. Hello.” She spoke, her speech automatically transcribed into text in the game’s chatroom.

“New to the game, huh.” The man continued, weary, perhaps even jaded. “That here’s your selected starting area, Needle Peak. What that means is that we NPCs can break roleplay to explain everything there is to know about the game. Hot tip number one: Don’t look at us like we’re carnival freaks, thank you very much.”

“...Alright. Excuse me.” Answered Tonia, too busy scrutinizing him to actually be sorry.

“It’s cool. I suppose. Can’t wait before my next assignment. Tutorial zone beeeeping sucks. Ugh, see?” He groaned, throwing his right arm in the air. “Auto censorship.“

Tonia was, huh, surprised. If that guy had been scripted, what the hell was wrong with this game’s writers? It was about as out of place as Lemmy Kilmister in a Mormon convention. Vegas money was on him being a true AI at this point, but Tonia couldn’t quite bring herself to believe it. So with a calm, deliberate voice, she stated...

“This sentence is false.”

“Ha. Wow, I sure didn’t hear that one before.” Replied the NPC, visibly annoyed. “Chuckle. L-O-L and all that. I am NOT scripted, and I am not coded out of burlap, OKAY? Now ask your questions or beeep off!“

The scientist felt weirded out. Not because of his anger, which was understandable at this point, but...something was odd.

“Okay, sorry, I’ll get out of your hair.”

As she walked the other way, she carefully looked back with her other sense, scanning his most visible processes. And...while he wasn’t quite on Amaranth’s level, he definitely had all the hallmarks of a bona fide, autonomous AI. Everything was created dynamically—his facial expression, his emotions, his choice of words, even the tone of his voice. It was, without a doubt, genuinely advanced.

...Too advanced. Something had bugged Tonia during the whole interaction, and she had just realized what.

In this game, all interactions were made through text.

Tonia shut down her augment, severing the direct link between the game and her senses. Seen from her natural senses, Universe 8 was a typical game, and the touted AIs only worked by writing in the NPCs’ dialogue box. There were no voiceovers. Not even any facial animation.

So how. In the name. Of fuck. Could she perceive those things with her augments? She couldn’t have. A software works like it is programmed to work. A game doesn’t magically gain new features just because you run it on a more powerful system. What she had experienced was aggressively impossible. And yet...she had observed it, clear as day.

“I need some sleep.”

* * *

She didn’t get any, though, occupied as she was with research. She first Googled whether Universe 8 had any voice actors. It did, but mostly for player characters and major NPCs in scripted story missions. So she had confirmed that hearing the NPC was not, in fact, supposed to happen. What next?

Looking into the developers was next. Sadly, information about those “Supernatural Studios” guys was scarce at best. There was their worrisome name, their logo, a short list of games, the year they were created, and nothing else. In other words, exactly what you’d expect from the devs of an impossible software. Tonia’s rational mind simply couldn’t decide what to make of this stuff, but she couldn’t run away from it. Whether it was chasing a delusion, a malfunction in her rig, or a genuine hyper-advanced game, she would see it through.

So the weary scientist got out of bed, remotely launching the game on her workstation as she did. she sat with her warmed- over coffee and played the game on screen as intended for a bit, so she could get a sense of what was and wasn’t normal. As her avatar paced through the streets, she saw a decently designed but undoubtedly typical third-person game. The only real difference was the NPCs, really. They never looked like clones of each other and strolled through town like real people would. Chatting with each other, sitting down to eat...They merely had to convey their intelligence via actions and text rather than voices and facial expressions.

One thing still bugged Tonia, though. Hadn’t the NPC called the town “Needle Peak”? What a strange name for a decidedly flat city. She was about to ask somebody when she saw the edge of the town. There were barriers...and then nothing. She thought it was a graphics glitch at first, but as she closed in, she realized it was, in fact, a sheer cliff drop. She brought up the map, and the town’s name suddenly made sense. It was built on top of a titanic rock pinnacle.

“Hm. More creative than I thought.”

She imagined the peculiar landscape couldn’t possibly be good for the town’s logistics, but it made for one hell of a view. Hundreds of meters below, she could see a forest with other, smaller spires popping here and there. Even this distant scenery was well modelized, so she adjusted the camera for a good screenshot. But that avatar of hers refused to move out of the way, and there was seemingly no first person camera option. So she created one.

With hardly more hassle than opening her e-mail, she reprogrammed her client live to let her switch to first person, projected the scene directly into her eyes while she was at it. When the game’s code yielded to her hack, she put her hands on the handrails and took the screensh...

“Holy fucking shit.”

She could see her hands on the wooden beam. With her avatar’s starting armor. She looked down, and saw her body, similarly clothed, and without any of the clipping issues one would expect from looking at a 3D model from the inside. But seeing her own virtual body, perfectly, as if its eyes were her own was one thing. The truly mind-boggling part was...she could move it. Freely. Down to the fingers. And feel the railing.

“I...I just switched the POV to first person.” She protested.

And yet, somehow, she was now experiencing five-sense virtual reality. She turned around. Once again, all the NPCs had gone from intelligent but pre-animated and silent to being capable of speech and fluid movement. But, in stark contrast, the player characters had all remained the same.

“This thing is fucked.“

“Tell me about it.”

Startled, Tonia looked to her right. A woman leaned on the precipitous handrail. She was a long-haired brunette with a slender build and unusual freckled skin, and looked at Thonia with a sharp, aware expression.

“So, inspector from the home office, heh? Better late than never I guess...”

“Huuh...what do you mean, inspector?” Cautiously replied the scientist.

“Oh, come on. Switching through the layers? Nobody on this planet can, it’s under obscurantist idiot lockdown. And don’t get me wrong, I’m super glad you’re here, Ma’am. I was beginning to think central would never send us help.”

Tonia frowned. She hated misunderstandings, and didn’t particularly want to mingle with artificial beings. Not to mention that hearing the word “planet” didn’t exactly come as a relief. Still...could Tonia deny them help, artificial as they may be?

“Well, huh...I’m actually here for a random inspection. But, well, I’m here so...what’s the problem?”

“Are you telling me they didn’t receive our calls at all? Give me a break...” Sighed the AI. “Well, as you’ll have no doubt noticed, inspector, that planet is kind of backwoods. I mean, being low tech is one thing, but most of the tossers treat Universe 8 like a beep competitive sport. Hundreds of landscapes, actual sentient beings to guide them through it, and all they care about is beating the beep out of each other, I mean come on.“

Silence.

“Huh, sorry ma’am,” Apologized the AI. “Pent-up frustration, all that. Anyway...something is going on. Fellow NPCs keep disappearing.”

“Disappearing? Like, turned off?”

“No, they even vanish from the database. No reassignment, no termination...nothing. Just...poof. At first we thought it was a glitch, but...all the missing AIs are female.”

“Hm. That’s...kind of creepy.” Admitted Tonia.

“Right? There’s even worse. One of my friends reappeared two days ago, but...different.”

The swedish blonde leaned forward, her brow furrowed. The AI’s expression shifted from confident and somewhat cocky to shaken and afraid.

“Different how?”

“Like...a sex worker. Almost naked, bigger...you know. She’s a priestess, ma’am. A holy woman. And now she...she’s acting like a beeping whore.“

“Wow. Okay, that’s either a very unfortunate glitch or...”

“Someone is abducting and reprogramming my friends.”

* * *

And there Tonia stood, her senses fully immersed in an otherwordly video game, looking into the processes of a human made of bits and digits. She might have been a construct, but her distress was very real. She thought about her transformed friend, about the fate of the other abductees...but most of all, she thought about how utterly powerless she was. Some hacker was taking her sisters away and...using them, changing them like they were toys. And nobody was there to save them.

thoughtBack with her own thoughts, Tonia had only one response echoing in her head. “None of my business”. She was just here to conduct research and make sense out of this mess, not play superhero for a bunch of AIs. It was none of her business...Yet she knew she couldn’t just abide someone using knowledge and technology for creepy -and perverted- purposes.

“I’m Tonia. What’s your name?”

“Orianna.”

“Okay, look. This isn’t exactly my kind of case, but I’ve never been one for AI abuse either. And that looks like straight AI slavery. So...I’ll help if I can. Have any leads?”

The freckled brunette looked relieved. She let out a huge sigh and puts both hands on the handrail, looking at the forest below.

“Well, I guess you administrators aren’t as disconnected as they say you are...Yes, as a matter of fact I think I got something. I tailed Caitlin, you know, the priestess. She went down the elevator, to some kind of dungeon in the forest. But it’s a hostile area, and I’m just a dye trader...”

“So you need muscle. Alright, looks like I’ve got to train in ass-kicking for a bit. Just give me a...quest pointer or whatever, I’ll go tonight.”

“Alright...thanks.”

* * *

Around 10 pm, Tonia went to the designated place, and pinched her nose. Sure, a underground cave with a rotten wooden door and a pungent smell might be great escapism for sterile labs, but she wasn’t actually in any hurry to escape anywhere.

“I don’t suppose there could be another, cleaner dungeon in the area?”

“I’m afraid not, ma’am...”

Tonia turned around, and saw...

“Orianna? Why did you come here? Didn’t you say...”

“I can’t really fight, yes, but...I don’t know, I thought about it all day and...I can’t just sit in my shop and do nothing while my friends suffer.”

“Mh. Okay, I can understand that. So, you’re saying you saw your friend enter that danky hole?”

“Yes, ma’am...And we’re not programmed to fight...She had no possible reason to go there, or to look this happy going there for that matter.”

“She looked...happy?”

“...Ecstatic.”

“This just keeps getting better. Stay close.”

The two women stepped forth into the old mine. It was humid, old, creepy and, judging from the roars in the distance, full of beasty monsters. Tonia wished her senses wouldn’t be quite so immersed, but she needed to operate her augs at full capacity. And she still had no idea how the game delivered smell and taste and touch over consumer-grade bandwidth.

“So...” Inquired Orianna, nervous. “Have the slavers set up camp in the boss room or something?”

“Unlikely. We’re close to Needle Peak, so there’s a good player population. There’s even a party down there as we speak. No, if I were able to reprogram an AI, I’d at least create a hidden level. I just hope my rig is powerful enough to detect it...”

“What do you mean, you’re an administrator, right?”

“Yeah, well, you know, friggin’ budget cuts.”

Tonia scanned the environment for any anomalies, and for a while, only got combat logs from the players downstairs. Chat logs, too...with too many bro dialogues. Ugh. But a good twenty seconds into her search, she found something.

“Yeah, that’s out of place.”

“What is?”

“Just to our right, actually. Guess they don’t like that place any more than we do.”

She went to touch the rocky wall, and suddenly, reality unraveled. The stone folded like paper, time skipped forward, and in front of Tonia stood a dark emptiness.

“It’s disguised as a glitch, but it’s a portal. Come on.”

* * *

A few seconds and graphical bugs later, Tonia and Orianna found themselves in broad daylight. In a garden. Right in front of a great, pristine temple of great beauty, but an utterly unfamiliar design. And from behind a tall cypress, a woman in a limsy, almost see-through wrap came out, all smiles. She was flawless ; petite but curvy, with ideal features and perfectly done hair. Tonia could remind herself as much as she wanted that it was just a simulation, she couldn’t help but feel an instinctive twinge of jealousy.

“Welcome, initiates!”

“Oh...Oh Gods no.” Gasped Orianna. “Wilhelmina...what have they done to you?”

“I’m not sure...it’s hard to think about the past. You’ll have to ask my Lord! Aaah, my Lord...”

With that, the woman’s expression turned dreamy and vacant. She cooed and slipped her hand under her sheer wrapwhile her other, perfectly manicured hand caressed her bountiful chest. She moaned, no longer aware of the two women in front of her.

“She...she used to be a mousey librarian...” Whined Orianna, her face buried in her hands.”

“Goddamit.” Swore Tonia. “How long has she been missing?”

“Huh...three days ago, maybe four?”

“What the...I’ve scanned her. She’s been...I mean...It would have taken Joris months to do that kind of stuff.”

“What have they done to her?!”

“Complete redesign. Every process, from memory to network to security, has been reprogrammed to make her feel positive emotions. She’s...euphoric. Permanently.”

Orianna gulped, her eyes fixated on her colleague’s elated and increasingly sexual expression.

“You’ve got to get out of here, Ori.”

“No questions there. I’m rebooting right out of h...”

Frozen mid-sentence. Tonia turned her head around, and saw a tall, blond man.

“Tsk. Central these days.”

Thousands of images flashed inside her. A surge of panic struck her, but she couldn’t form a single thought. There was a piercing, drilling sound...and then, oblivion.

* * *

Tonia resurfaced. Panicked, confused, she tried to form a thought, any thought, but her brain was still buzzing.

“My apologies, Miss Sandstrom. I understand you’re not quite used to being logic bombed. Then again, you’re not used to much of anything, are you?”

“Wh...Wh...ggkt...”

“I’ll give you a moment to recover. We’re not in any hurry. Congratulations on the innovation by the way. I really thought you were from Central for a moment there. But instead of the bureaucrats, I get some kind of unique sea slug. Serendipity, right? Were I some kind of award jury, I’d probably give you a ‘Building a small marvel with horse manure’ medal, but, well, I’m not a pussy, as you say on your quaint little sphere.”

The groggy blonde eventually focused through the buzz and opened her eyes. She wasn’t in the garden anymore, but in a room with intricately engraved marble walls. She was tied up, upright, inside some kind of cavity. And in front of her...a rather unnerving sight.

The man she had caught a glimpse of was sitting on a throne. A tall guy with long, golden hair, boyish good looks...his naked torso wasn’t anything to spit at either. As easy on the eyes as he was, though, he was being attended by a small dozen of women in sheer gowns with the same idiotic, vapid grin as Wilhelmina. They giggled and chirped and blushed as they all vied for the right to feed him grapes, caress his chest or even lick his fingers.

And in front of him, Orianna was kneeling, her head cocked to the side like a lifeless doll. Tonia looked into her code, and saw a stream of instructions rewriting all of Orianna’s subroutines into doe-eyed worship. She resisted, tried to shut herself down, desperate to find a buit-in security measure that would work against the onslaught, but Orianna was locked inside her own mind as was programmed into that of an airheaded hussy.

“S...Stop that. She’s...a sentient being...”

“She did what she was supposed to do. I sent her best friend out to ensure she would freak out and call the cops. Who still didn’t show up. Bit disappointing but heh, free slaves.”

When she saw a smile being born on the AI’s lips, Tonia knew Orianna was beyond repair. She couldn’t bear to see her, or any of the other poor AIs, being exploited like that, but what could she do? This was way beyond her abilities. And so, with grim resignation, she logged out of the game.

* * *

“Nope, you’re not leaving here, sweetheart.”

Tonia opened her eyes. She was still in front of the depraved display of misoginy. As her breath quickened, she attempted to run a self-diagnostic on her system, but found herself locked out of practically every function. She was essentially trapped in read only mode.

“As I said,” the man continued, “You’ve got quite the impressive homemade system for your tech level, but I can eat what you call a supercomputer for breakfast.”

The scientist wasn’t calm. Not by a damn sight. She was trapped inside an impossibility by an even bigger impossibility, and she didn’t have the flimsiest idea on how to get out of it. Still, she wanted answers.

“What are you? Why are you doing this to those poor AIs?”

“Well, the answer to your first question is five straight hours of you feeling insignificant, but you can just call me Coxswain Hardy. As for why I’m fixing those girls, well...I’m kinda just fucking around, really.”

“I don’t suppose I can just ask you to release me and let me drink this whole episode out of my memory?”

Coxswain Hardy squinted, looked at the ceiling, a pensive expression on his face as Wilhelmina sucked his index finger with passion in her eyes.

“Hmmm...Actually, yeah!”

“...Wait, really?” Let out Tonia.

“Well, I wanted to fuck with someone from a civilized part of the universe, but, to make an analogy you can understand, I figure that with a few tweaks, a pretty and resourceful girl from the impossibly remote Amazonian tribe could make an okay Sherlock to my Moriarty.”

Tonia raised an eyebrow. What, did he expect her to fight him? The Swedish blonde knew one thing—as soon as she was out, she was out for good.

“I learned that you’re stubborn, dedicated and quite brilliant. That’s what I look for in a foe, so I’m going to give you both the means and the motive of fighting me in this virtual world.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

“That’s the interesting part! Hold on a second...”

The blond asshole waved his sex slaves away and leaned forward, touching Orianna’s head with his finger.

“Huuh...?” Moaned the poor AI. “What are...you...no...noooo...AAAAAAH!”

Tonia thought Orianna had been on the business end of a digital tsunami a few minutes before, but this was an atomic blast. Everything that was left in the dye trader burned away in seconds, replaced by clean, simple, fluffy feelings. She was no longer really an artificial intelligence. Just a lifelike love doll.

“Ooooh...Can you do that again, Master?” She cooed.

“You’re already perfect, Ori-babe. Be a dear and go pull the lever to the statue’s left, okay?”

“The one with ma’am Tonia in it?”

“You got it.”

“Right away, Master!”

Orianna skipped toward her objective and dragged the massive lever downward. As the newly made bimbo hurried back, Light shone from the walls of the cavity. She strained against her bonds, but to no avail.

“Don’t worry, this is just going to install an advanced AI on your shitty little augment. It will really know how to put it to use, though. You won’t find her artificial at all. She’ll kinda be you, actually. A brand new facet of yourself.”

“Bullshit.” Snarled Tonia. “You can’t make the aug affect my brain. It’s too shitty, as you put it, to be a two-way street.”

“Sweetie, where I’m from, you need years of study to tell the difference between organic and artificial brains. And that new persona of yours will know quite a bit about that. She’ll make herself as real to your senses as possible, but good news! She’ll also be an information goldmine. You thought you were an advanced human yesterday? Honey, tomorrow you’ll be a tech Goddess.”

Tonia gulped. That kind of speech was like a cheat code to her heart. If the Devil had come to her with that kind of proposition, she would have signed so fast the paper would have caught fire. But as excited as she felt, she knew that perverted asshole wasn’t done. And right on cue...

“Thing is, you’ll be a very specific Goddess. Freya, to be exact. And man, is your inner deity going to love my roguish good looks.”

“Oh, for fuck’s...I don’t want to be part of your insanity! I’m just here to test equipment, DAMMIT!”

“I don’t care.” Grinned Coxswain. “Your greatest weapon, the Goddess of your ancestors, will desire nothing more than to be a good girl for her beloved creator and Master. And, well, sometimes she will take the helm.”

“You...” Fulminated Tonia, feeling a tingle growing in her skull. “You are such a shithead.”

“Right?” He chuckled. “So either you play my little game and use Freya to defeat me, or you’ll be my sex slave for a good chunk of your life. Maybe all of it, if Freya succeeds at completely assimilating you. Which, I won’t lie to you, is likely. Anyway, beginning download in three...two...one...”

In an instant, Tonia was submerged.

* * *

Freya opened her eyes, and was born to an ocean of knowledge. She knew everything there was to know about computers, artificial intelligence...but also feelings. She wasn’t a cold databank. She knew how to control, but what she wanted most was to feel. And a mere flicker after her birth, she already knew that her most treasured knowledge was how much she loved her Lord.

She dissolved the bindings away, then her clothes, as she walked to him. Then, without a trace of doubt or negativity, she knelt.

“My, my. Aren’t you a respectful girl, Freya.” Declared her Master in his wonderful voice.

“I am your creation, and I am Love. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Your host is probably going to whine about how...well, misogynist this is.”

“Her world’s values are nothing to me, Master.” She answered with dreamy eyes. “Only your Law matters.”

“Good. Show me how that backwoods planet’s future Goddess wants to take care of me.”

“At once, my Lord.”

The advanced AI in Tonia’s mind snapped her finger, and all the hacked AIs around began to undress. They all knew she was superior to them, but no less of a servant. They gathered around her to be instructed on how best to serve the Master.

Former Priestess Caitlin and the newly perfected Orianna sensually locked their lips together. Wilhelmina sat down and spread her legs for her juicy pussy to be serviced by another slut-slave. They all kissed and licked and scissored in front of the Master. Through Tonia’s lips, Freya pledged her eternal devotion to him as she sat on his lap. He answered by pulling her pretty face to his, whispering his true name in her ear, and sealing their alliance with a kiss.

“Begin, slave.”

“Yes, Master.”

Slowly, excitedly, the virtual Goddess began to fuck herself on her creator. She smiled, threw her hands into her hair as ecstasy began to consume her. She made sure to record every sensation in blindingly clear detail. That, unlike anything else, wasn’t for her Master. It was for herself. Her human self. Primitive but proud little Tonia. Freya knew she would hate feeling this...But she had to. She had to serve the Master by opposing him. She had to experience Freya’s love. She had to feel, resent, fight...

But of course, she would come to accept. To meld with Freya, become one with her. Become the one riding up and down Master’s shaft, become the one to love, and to be love itself. For now, Tonia would just have to be a good girl and absorb.

“Aaah...Master...Ungh...I’m...I’m...”

Away from the virtual reality, Tonia’s body exploded in pleasure, in perfect unison with her true, divine self.

“NnnghAAAAAaaaAAAAAH!”

* * *

Tonia woke up panting. She was back in her apartment, drenched in sweat.

“...Did I just fucking cum?”

She could still feel Coxswain’s member within her. Freya’s lewd and submissive voice still echoed. The trembling blonde massaged her temples.

“Oookay. So, to recap...I was testing my aug, and in so doing, I found a game that evolves depending on your system’s power. Then I was caught up in a AI sex slave ring that turned out to be the fault of one incredibly powerful hacker, who then proceeded to put a slutty, submissive version of the Norse Goddess of love in my skull. And I...I...had fucking sex with him. I...”

She let out the mother of all sighs.

“I need a shower.”

The hot water trickled along her pale skin, washing away the shameful sweat. Tonia enjoyed the relief, but her thoughts quickly drifted to the AI squatting in her augment. The otherwordly hacker was right, she could feel her presence as if it was merely a hidden, naughty part of herself. Freya’s desire to put the shower head in unmentionable places and think of her Lord suddenly surged through her and she began massaging her tits. She was the Goddess of love, after all, she could cum as many times as she...

Tonia banged her head against the ceramic tiles and forced herself to think about professional matters. About how despite all this crap, her augment was a resounding success. About how she could upgrade it. About how, in fact, she could turn her brain into a quantum supercomputer by seamlessly integrating spintronics to her synapses, blurring the frontier between human and...

“Holy fucking shit.”

It wasn’t a lie. Tonia had access to next-century knowledge. She had dabbled into spintronics for a while. Fascinating field—it revolved around how to replace transistors with atoms, using the direction of their spinning as zeroes and ones. But, even decades after the field’s inception, it was still largely theoretical, and she went back to traditional tech. But now, she knew, in great detail, how to make it real. How to turn her brain into something that could brute force its way into any server in seconds.

Granted, it was a revelation from a higher being, and, well, straight-up cheating. But she knew. She couldn’t very well unknow it.

But she had to. It wasn’t ethical...and more importantly, it would be playing Coxswain Hardy’s “game”, which was most likely rigged. The right thing to do was to go to the lab, call Amaranth, and rip the aug right out of her skull. Put Universe 8, Freya, Coxswain, everything – even poor Ori’s fate—behind her. Then she would be safe.

On the other hand...she knew she could beat the raping bastard.

* * *

What will Tonia do with her newfound knowledge? How will Freya try to corrupt her? Find out at http://statu-quo.fr/MC/main.php!