Number 2 in trouble

 

The Specimen

 

Dark Harvest

 

The Institute

 

Frustration

 

rosamatrix

 

Rose

 

Bad Dreams

 Chapter 1

Angela Desoto's eyes glazed over as she tried to concentrate on the words on the screen in front of her. Another day of souless unforgiving work for her corporate overlords at Lindoff Tech She needed to proof-read this company-wide memo but her energy was drained. She hadn't been getting much sleep lately. She's been having these really vivid nightmares- 'Wake up!' Angela looked up and saw Rhonda Jordan, her co-worker from the next cubicle over peering down the divider at her. 'What is it, Rhonda?' she asked sleepily. 'Another all-nighter eh?' Rhonda said, grinning. 'No. Just the usual night-terrors.' Angela replied. Rhonda frowned. 'Ever thought of seeing a shrink?' 'Nah,' Angela said, stifiling another yawn. 'They'd just say I'm over-worked and perscribe me some medication that'll bearly work.' Rhonda shrugged. 'Well it got me off vaping,' 'Did you want to give me a message or to annoy me?' asked Angela. 'Both.' Rhonda replied, grinning. 'Vennington wants a progress report on the Wayfinder Program.' 'Shit!' Angela yelled, jumping from her seat and grabbing a bunch of files from her desk.'I forgot that was today!!'

 She sprinted down the corridor to Vennington's office. Vennington was at his desk when Angela burst in. 'Miss Desoto? I take it you have an update on the Wayfinders?' 'Yes,' Angela said and began to read from one of the pages. 'The Wayfinders abilities to adapt to interference have surpassed expectations. They have evolved at a rate thought impossible. They managed to decrypt the military-grade cyphers within less than five seconds.' Vennington leaned back in his chair. 'Are they controlable?' Angela paused. 'They seem to be.' There was a knock at the office door and Rod Malone, one of the lead programmers on the Wayfinder Project entered. 'Angela could I talk to you for a sec?' he asked. Angela looked at Vennington who nodded.Once she and Rod were outside he said 'I have to show you something.' Angela was concerned. 'What is it?' Rod shook his head. 'Not here. Follow me.'  

Angela walked with Rod to the Elevator which they rode down to the basement that had been converted into a server room, a dimly-lit hacker's cave of humming server stacks, blinking lights, laptops with code scrolling down their screens and beanbag chairs. Rose Brannon, another programmer was sat in one typing furiously on a laptop. When Rod and Angela came in she stood up. 'Have you told her?' she asked. 'Not yet.' Rod replied and turned to Angela. 'We think the Wayfinder has become self-aware.' he said slowly. 'What?' Angela exclaimed. 'We don't know for sure.' Rose said quickly. 'But we detected breaches of our firewall from inside the system.' she held up the laptop. 'The breaches are repeated indicating multiple attempts.' Angela looked up from the scrolling code on the laptop at Rod and Rose's faces. 'So...what do we tell Vennington?' she asked slowly. 'At the moment nothing.' Rose replied. 'Why?' Angela asked. The serious look on Rose's face was replaced with one of incredulity. 'Because Vennington will pull the plug! He's a corporate shill! He just wants an artificially intelligent computer virus to sell to the DOD or the NSA or the CIA or whatever goulish defense contractor pays the most! He want's a weapon to control! He knows nothing of the signifigance of creating digital life!!! But if we keep quiet, we could have time to study it...' Rod smiled and turned to Angela. 'Typical Rose. She invents Skynet and her first instinct is to keep it in a jar poke it with a stick.' 'If it its an intelligent lifeform then we have a moral duty to protect and study it.' Rose said defiantly. 'We will need to keep it in a contained server of course...' 'Isn't experimenting with a rogue AI on the company intranet kind of risky?' Angela asked nervously. 'This is for science, Angela!' Rose retorted hotly.'

Chapter 2

Angela was sat on the sofa in her pajamas, several empty energy drink cans were strewn about her. The tv was on with the volume turned up to the maximum setting but she couldn't tell you what was on. It was just noise and color to her. She was determined not to have another nightmare. In spite of her efforts she was still so tired. She took a swig from  her latest energy drink and tried to focus in the cheesy sitcom but she could feel her eyelids droop. She was looking more and more like a zombie these days. Maybe she should start taking medication. She's go to the pharmacy first thing tomorrow and-

She wasn't wearing her pajamas any more.

Angela's eyes flew open. She was naked, suspended and held aloft by massive robotic tenticles. Tubes and wires were attached to every inch of her.A large tube was attached to her navel. 'No!' she screamed into her horrificly familiar surroundings. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people, men, women even children were also dangling naked from tenticles and wires. There was no sky above or ground below, only darkness. As she always did she thrashed about to break free but she was held tightly in place. Spindly, robotic arms decended from the dark sky-or ceiling-of this place and grabbed her legs and held them in place. 'No! Not again!!!'  Two more arms decended towards her feet. There were circular brushes attached to the ends that began to spin rapidly as they approached her bare feet. As soon as they made contact Angela exploded with uncontrollable laughter. She couldn't understand how they knew where she was the most ticklish. Nobody but her younger sister Marcy who would always sneak into her room when she was sleeping and-

 Another tenticle with a rotating cylindrical brush had shot up from below her and headed between her legs. As the brush's feathery bristles caressed her labia and clitoris the sensations tearing through Angela's body forced peals of screaming, painful laughter from her. She bucked and thrashed around as more brushes came underneath her and ran their feathery bristles up and down her buttocks. She screwed up her tear-blinded eyes and screamed out everything she knew about Lindoff Tech, her boss, their contractors to no avail. As the brushes continued their work Angela continued to orgasm multiple times. Her laughter began to give way to pleading sobs as she began to ache all over she couldn't take it-

She was on her sofa again. The theme song for some terrible sitcom was blasting from the tv. She looked out her living room window. it was starting to get light.

Nora Manderley