Part Four
Monday morning
Phil woke up suddenly, his entire body had been mildly zapped, he heard the canned voice that started every video game session, the throne light up sequence and musical fanfare reflected off the tent walls.
“Someone was playing the video game?” Phil thought in a panic, but he saw no one in the tent. Wait, the screen on the game kiosk was activated. The start to the game was running. Phil’s viewpoint shifted into the game like it always did during game play.
“Was it in demo mode? On a timer of some kind?” He thought frantically. Phil didn’t know, all he knew was the game was playing and the onscreen actions triggered the normal zapping and vibrating of Phil’s body parts. Phil looked closer at the game graphics, things didn’t look quite the same. For some reason the cyborg man was shooting from the hip? Wait, not from his hip from his penis? He was shooting the “monsters” with his penis?
Also the monsters looked different, they were obviously female now. They looked more like bare breasted flying harpies than insect robot hybrids. When the cyborg man character shot them, the visual effect looked more like he was splattering their breasts with cum. Was there an adult version of the game?
Phil had spent all day Sunday watching people play through multiple levels of the game and he knew what he should be seeing and what effect it previously had on his body. But now when the character fired his penis pistol on screen, Phil was rewarded with a mild shock up his shaft as if he was shooting the sperm at the enemies. Whoever the player was, they were shooting pretty much constantly at everything and anything that moved. Consequently Phil was being constantly stimulated from his balls right to the tip of his cock. Apparently the reload rate on screen was tied to how long it took for the TENS units to run from stem to tip on Phil’s manhood. It was certainly different and stimulating at the current level of zapping.
This first level was easily completed by the player and Phil was treated to another slightly modified level. This time Fembots were shooting back at the cyborg character who was still using his penis as his primary weapon. When one of them hit Phil’s character he received a full body jolt and some vibrations around his nipples. While Phil was being zapped and vibrated near his nipples, the onscreen Fembot would grasp their own breasts and moan until it was over. As if the game was doing to them what it was doing to Phil?
The player easily got past the moaning Fembots and Phil was getting very turned on. Phil tried to recall what the third level map and monsters were in the original game and imagine what they might be in the new “adult’ version. Whatever they had been Phil seriously doubted they were originally spider women, half topless women and the bottom half a giant spider. Now when the player discharged his weapon it left behind “strands” to entangle the spider women. Of course the spider women were doing the same thing, shooting out sticky strands of webbing to capture the character. It seemed to be a matter of who could spray more sticky stuff first. The player again proved their skills and left behind 3 spider women cocooned in discharges.
Now it was time for the boss battle for level one, Phil assumed it was going to be different. He just had no idea how different.
It was a giant anime babe of some kind. Her skimpy costume was being blasted off of her body by the cyborg's “discharges”. The cock milker was activated and still the wave of mild TENS shocks started at his balls and moved up his shaft with each shot the player took. Phil was very stimulated and after a night of rest fully recharged. As the giant female anime character's costume was being dissolved off her body she was attacking Phil with lightning discharges from her fingertips. Somehow they always managed to hit Phil in the nipples. It was set to a shock level that Phil’s body responded to as stimulating versus painful.
While Phil’s mind floated in the game space, his body was on autopilot back in the cyborg shell. Whoever was controlling that game space apparently had the goal of triggering the biggest possible orgasm Phil could achieve. But you can’t rush a big one, you need to stoke the fires first. The Brain in the Box kept Phil hanging on the edge of exploding, while the game play stimulated his body.
Phil’s mind was fully immersed in the onscreen play, but something was nagging at him. Yes the game was different, but there was also something different about the music? No, not the music, something under or in the music. Phil thought he heard a voice, but he couldn’t quite make it out. This was distracting him, which of course took his focus off his body and the stimulation it was experiencing.
The Brain in the Box noted Phil’s mind wandering into different areas, curiosity, puzzle solving, but not pleasure. It increased the fire rate of the “penis” pulsing effect and added some anime babe moaning into the mix as she was “shot” on screen. She was fully naked now and the cyborg was increasing in size as the anime babe was shrinking with every hit. Eventually they reached the same or comparable sizes. This distracted Phil from thinking about the voice he might or might not have been hearing.
Unexpectedly they rushed together and started having animated sex on Phil’s monitor. Phil’s cock milker seemed to be synched with the action on screen. Yes, they were simply animated characters, but Phil had been slowly conditioned all day Sunday to react to on screen prompts affecting his physical body. His mind floating somewhere between body awareness and “living” in the on screen cyborg character. With the feedback of the devices attached to his physical body and the in-game antics of his avatar, Phil easily projected himself into the situation and felt as though he was having sex with the anime character.
But unexpectedly, the anime babe screamed out, thrashed around on screen and turned into rays of light that flew off screen. Leaving Phil’s avatar graphically erect on screen and a message saying “Better luck next time hero.”
“What the actual Fuck?!” Phil thought to himself. “Who programmed this game mode?”
Phil’s frustration and anger triggered several settings in the Brain in the Box. The next level started and again Phil was shocked by the new opponents and their blatantly sexual animations. This was definitely not the game the ComiCon visitors were playing yesterday.
Meanwhile at Fantastic Plastics
Paula had woken up at her normal time, checked Phil’s status board on her laptop and noted he was still asleep. She made a cup of coffee and some toast, got showered and dressed and headed to work. Her big boss had told her there would be some reorganizations happening at the factory as new divisions were spun up based in part on new product lines Paula had either developed or were inspired by her.
As she pulled into the parking lot and entered the main lobby the security guard told her she was to report to the President directly. Wondering what it could all mean Paula headed directly to the executive row of offices. She checked in with the administrative assistant at her desk and was directed to the executive conference room.
“Last door on the right side before the President's office.” She smiled at Paula and added, “Just go in, they are expecting you.”
Nervously Paula headed to the indicated door and slowly opened the door, not sure what to expect.
The company President greeted her warmly, going so far as to walk her around the conference table and seat her at his right hand in an empty chair that he had apparently saved for her.
“Now that Paula is here I can fill you all in on some of the projects she has been working on for the company.” He began the meeting as he stood at the head of the long table.
He continued, “So far we’ve created a new division to print out famous art works for people at a variety of scales, plus as Paula cleverly designed we can ship them as flat packs and save a fortune in shipping, pass that savings onto the customer if they will assemble the pieces themselves on site.”
“She is also currently exploring scan and print-on-demand services for costumers, cosplayers and other people who need to print things to fit people's bodies.” He continued to heap praise upon Paula, “The scanning technology alone will be a whole new division and we can offer Computer Aided Design and printing as a service.”
“I don’t have to explain to this board how this will revolutionize our work with military veterans and others needing prosthetic limbs and other devices.” He paused to look around the table at a sea of nodding heads. “While our profit margins are low on that service per our government contract with veterans affairs currently, it is a service and we are proud to provide it. Anything we can do to improve our capabilities in this area is good for us. Plus by improving the fit and process, we might actually be able to turn a small profit.”
“In addition to all of the above, Paula is currently working on a special project under my direct supervision which could net incredible profits, and ongoing income for subscription services rendered.” The president said, summing up his litany of praise for all of Paula’s hard work.
“So, to formalize Paula’s status in the company, I am creating a new organizational unit and promoting Paula to head up this new division. Her title will be Senior Researcher of Special Plastic Projects.” The President was smiling broadly as he announced this new division and her promotion to head up the new unit.
He turned to Paula and addressed her directly. “Of course there will be a substantial raise in your salary, full access to any and all current projects by other teams. Your own team, and of course any and all materials or resources needed to make your visions a reality.” With that final announcement the President resumed his seat at the head of the table.
The executives around the table were momentarily stunned by this announcement, but eventually someone started clapping and they all joined in.
Paula sat there blushing for a moment, but realized she should say a few words. She stood up and the clapping stopped. “I’d like to thank Mr Barclay for all his support. I couldn’t have achieved all I have without the help of many people and of course access to the cutting edge technology developed by this company. I hope to continue to inspire and create new and exciting markets for this technology and profits for the Fantastic Plastics company.”
Apparently pledging to increase profits was the right note to take and this was greeted by another round of applause by the board in general and Mr Barclay particularly.
Mr Barclay stood up as Paula sat down. “Well those announcements were the only items on today's agenda,” he announced jovially. “That and I wanted the board to meet you Paula, and of course you to meet the board.”
“Okay everybody let’s get back out there and make that money!” Mr Barclay sat down and waved Paula to sit down as the others shuffled out of the room.
“I hope you don’t mind that I announced your promotion to the board in this way. I wanted them to meet you and know that when you come to them with a request, that request has my backing,” Mr Barclay told her with a serious look.
“Now that the serious stuff is taken care of, let’s do the fun parts.” His face lit up with a big smile.
“Talk to my assistant Susan at the front desk. She has your new title, salary and contract to sign. She’ll also tell you where your private office will be,” Mr Barclay explained to Paula. “Don’t worry it’s very close to your plastics lab, I wouldn’t want you not to have access to the tools you need to create new things.”
“Oh, of course.” Paula stood up and walked out of the room saying, “Thank you again Sir! I won’t let you down.”
Mr Barclay smiled at Paula and followed her out of the meeting room. “I have an investor waiting in my office.”
He turned right to enter his own office but paused for a moment to tell Paula, “Susan will take care of your paperwork, if you need anything else let me know.”
Paula walked down the executive wing hallway, floating on air.
Susan was smiling broadly at Paula as she approached. “Of course I heard the good news even before you were told, I had to draw up the paperwork and prepare a few things for your promotion.”
Pala sat down in the guest chair at Susan’s desk. “Thanks. It’s all so sudden.”
“I’ve been hearing him sing your praises ever since that charity event at the museum,” Susan confided in Paula. “Apparently Mrs Carter, who bought the sarcophagus, was very impressed with the quality and has been regularly visiting Mr Barclay.” Paula smiled and wondered at this behind the scenes news.
“Mr Barclay said there was some paperwork?” Paula prompted Susan.
“Yes, I have it all right here.” Susan told her, placing a large stack of papers next to Paula on the desk. “It’s the same employment contract you signed when you started working here, but this new position is technically salaried instead of hourly, so you’ll need to sign everything all over again, ” Susan explained.
“What is my new salary?” Paula asked.
Susan smiled and flipped a few pages into the stack and pointed to a line in the contract. “This is your new annual salary.”
Paula could feel her face freeze into a surprised look, doing some quick math in her head this amounted to twice her previous wages. Of course it was salary so no more overtime, but Paula rarely ever put in for overtime anyway.
Susan skimmed down the page. “Plus more vacation time, better health benefits and profit sharing.”
“Oh and before I forget, Mr Barclay didn’t forget that promised bonus.” Susan handed Paula a sealed envelope with a smile.
Paula’s smile seemed to be permanent by now. The raise, the promotion, the new division, a cash bonus. It was simply overwhelming to her.
Susan must have seen the look on her face because she said, “Here’s the keys to your new office space. It’s literally the door across the hall from your printing lab. There’s a desk and some chairs in there and of course a computer workstation. Why don’t I put these papers in a folder, you take them to your new office, settle in and get them back to me signed later today. Okay?”
Paula just nodded her head, Susan bundled up all the papers, made sure the “sign heres” were all properly indicated and handed the folder and the keys to Paula.
Susan said as Paula stood to leave, “Also I paperclipped my card with my direct number to the front of the folder, if you need to contact Mr Barclay or have any questions, call me.”
Paula felt drunk, it was all too much, too fast. She needed time to process, so she headed down the halls on autopilot until she reached her lab. Instead of opening up her new office across the hall, she just unlocked the lab and flopped down on her old brown sofa.
She needed to tell someone this news, she dialed Maggie on her cell phone.
Maggie answered after a few rings. “Paula, is everything okay?”
“I have some news…” Paula explained the meeting and everything that had happened that morning.
Maggie happily replied, “Well that’s great news!”
“I just had to tell someone,” Paula told her.
“I don’t blame you,” Maggie snorted, “I’ve got to tell you though you gave me a fright.”
“Oh? How so?” Paula asked.
“I thought you were calling with a Phil issue,” Maggie told her.
“I checked on him first thing, but I should check again to see if he’s awake yet,” Paula replied.
“Call me back if you need me, and congratulations!” Maggie told Paula and hung up.
Paula pulled her Phil monitoring laptop out of her travel bag and popped it open. It ran through its startup and Paula waited patiently. The screen came up and Paula saw that Phil was awake, not only awake but being stimulated in many ways. Quickly she pulled up the feed from what Phil was seeing. She was surprised to see what appeared to be an X-rated video game being played and fed directly to his view screens. There were some familiar elements, the cyborg robot warrior looked the same, except for his penis weapon shooting the bare breasted alien monsters.
Quickly Paula used her Admin credentials to access the Brain in the Box, she looked for user accounts and found one she had not seen in there before “GM”. Who the Fuck was GM and what were they doing in her project?! As the Super Admin she used her power to reset all other users passwords and then booted them out of the system. But not before she took a screenshot of the logged in user's IP address. She was furious, she looked closer at the IP and realized it was a Fantastic Plastics IP. Logging onto the local network she pinged the IP address and got a PC name. Remoting the C drive she checked the windows user accounts to see whose PC it was. There it was “GMallory”, Paula screenshotted everything and zipped it into a file and sent it directly to Mr Barclay.
Fucking jealous George was messing with Phil! She jumped up and used the company phone to call Susan.
Susan picked up the line and said, “Fantastic Plastics executive offices, how can I help you?”
“Susan, it’s Paula, I need three minutes of the big guy's time,” she blurted into the phone.
“He’s in a meeting with Mrs Carter at the moment, is it an emergency?” Susan asked, suspecting it was based on the way Paula sounded.
Paula thought for a split second. “Yes, it’s an emergency, tell him it involves the Special Project and Subject P. He’ll know what that means.”
“I’ll tell him immediately,” Susan said and put Paula on hold.
Susan jotted a quick note on a piece of paper “Paula needs you right now, Special Project, Subject-P” folded the note in half and walked quickly to Mr Barclay’s office. She rapped once on the door and entered the office walking quickly to his desk and placed the note in front of him. She took a step back and stood one step behind him. Only then did she say, “Sorry to interrupt.”
Mr Barclay picked up the note and read it rapidly. “Dammit! This can’t be good,” he exclaimed.
He turned to Susan and said, “Tell her I’ll be right there.”
Susan left the office quickly. Mr Barclay’s guest was Mrs Carter of the Egyptian wing of the museum and purchaser of the Golden Sarcophagus at the charity event. She calmly asked, “Trouble?”
“I can only assume there’s something seriously wrong, Paula has always been quiet and calm. Most engineers are relatively unflappable.” Mr Barclay was already standing up and moving around his desk.
“Should I wait here?” Mrs Carter asked.
“No, you’d better come along, this has a direct bearing on your request,” Mr Barclay said and paused for her to rise and follow him.
As they passed Susan’s desk at a fast walk, she called out, “She’s in her lab!”
The two of them headed directly to Paula’s plastic printing lab.
Paula meanwhile was pacing the floor and obsessively checking the feed to Phil to make sure no one had bypassed her lockout. She had effectively severed the connection between him and the X-rated video game and reverted him to viewing the empty tent. All the settings were set back to standby and there was currently no stimulation. Until she could confirm the code was safe to use, she was afraid to activate anything else.
“How? How in the hell did George of all people gain access to this?!” Paula kept asking herself, plus he must have planned this for quite awhile to have an x-rated version of the game programmed and ready to go. “Oh gods damn them all, his Bro Crew!” Several of the bro crew were in the IT department and who knows if somehow they had found out about the video game and reprogrammed it for their buddy George!
The only question she had was should she tell Maggie now or just wait till Mr Barclay fired the whole group and she had time to go through the code herself? In either case Phil would be safe for now, if slightly bored.
An idea occurred to her, she could stream a movie to Phil’s heads up display safely enough. What would Phil enjoy and what did Paula have on her server? Ahh just the thing! She copied the files from the cloud to her work laptop and started streaming “Exit to Eden” to Phil’s screen. A playful movie with BDSM themes that should keep Phil occupied for almost 2 hours.
Soon after Paula confirmed that the movie and only the movie was streaming to Phil, Mr Barclay arrived with Mrs Carter in tow.
Mr Barclay introduced Paula to Mrs Carter and then asked, “What’s the emergency?”
“It involves Subject P and the Special Project he is currently involved in,” Paula hedged in front of Mrs Carter.
Mrs Carter smiled at Paula’s vague statement. Mr Barclay smiled and turned to her and said, “See, I told you she was discreet.”
“Paula, Mrs Carter is a major investor in the Special Project and her funding is one of the reasons you have this new division.” Mr Barclay explained to her, then continued, “She is fully read in on the objectives and prior experiments, including your Subject P.”
“Well then, as you know our Subject P is currently experiencing the latest design in our ongoing efforts to achieve the ultimate bondage experience. But someone has hacked into the experiment and potentially destroyed all our progress,” Paula blurted out, almost all in one breath.
“What?” Mr Barclay blurted out in surprise. “Who? Why?”
“Excellent questions Robert, why don’t we let Paula tell us?” Mrs Carter interjected, trying to calm the waters.
Paula, looking grim, called up the screenshots on her laptop. Mr Barclay followed the chain from the X-rated video game all the way through to the User account on the PC.
“George Mallory, but why?” he asked out loud.
“Was that the young man I pointed out to you, who I’ve caught more than once watching me secretly?” Mrs Carter asked.
“Well yes, that is the same person,” Mr Barclay admitted, frowning.
Paula interjected, “Judging by the level of sophistication shown by this hack, I don’t think George was acting alone.”
Grimly Mr Barclay nodded his agreement. “That group of young men that hang around him all the time.”
“The Bro Crew,” Paula labeled them.
“A sadly apt description,” Mr Barclay agreed.
“I’ve locked George out and Subject-P is on standby so to speak.” Paula told him.
“I’ll handle it, right now.” Mr Barclay picked up the lab's phone and dialed a number. “Steve? I’ve got a high priority for you. I need George Mallory isolated and his company equipment confiscated. Hold him incommunicado in the security offices conference room until we can go through his stuff.”
Mr Barclay listened to the voice on the other end for a moment, nodded, then spoke again, “Yes, immediately. Do it in person and have someone you trust stand guard. I’ll meet you at his workspace. ”
He then turned to Paula and Mrs. Carter. “We’ll have some results in just a few minutes.”
“Until then,” Mr Barclay continued, “Paula, you and Mrs Carter have a lot in common. When she got the Golden Sarcophagus home and opened it up, she was very impressed with its construction and potential for certain activities, shall we say?”
Paula wasn’t sure, but she thought Mr. Barclay might actually be blushing. Mrs Carter on the other hand was smiling broadly at Paula and nodding along with Mr Barclays statement.
Mrs Carter took up the narrative. “I approached Mr Barclay with making some potential alterations to the sarcophagus, for an additional fee of course. To my surprise he revealed to me that several of them were things you’d already designed and installed in previous sarcophagus models. ”
Mr Barclay chuckled. “Not the easiest conversation I’ve ever had with a customer.”
“Once you stopped beating around the bush and actually explained Paula’s special project and its objectives,” Mrs Carter smiled and continued, “I knew Paula was a kindred soul and I wanted to invest in these new technologies.”
“For now you’ll be a new division under Fantastic Plastics, but if this takes off we’ll probably spin you off as a new stand alone company with myself and Mrs Carter as the primary investors and you in charge of operations and development,” Mr Barclay told Paula.
Just then Mr Barclay’s cell phone rang, he answered it and said, “Yes Steve?”
George’s Story
George was an artist by training, he had been hired by Fantastic Plastics to do concept drawings, sketch designs, and turn someone’s words into a drawing. Those drawings were then digitized, and translated into 3-D files that the printers could then print out.
George was not Hollywood handsome, but he wasn’t unpleasant to look at. He had cut a swath through the girls at College. His go to move was to sketch a flattering portrait of a girl and then accidentally let them catch him sketching them in his notebook. It was a great ice breaker and he had plenty of dates and girlfriends until he graduated.
Once out in the real world though, George found his go to move a lot less effective. Terms like “creepy” and “stalker” were applied to him. He was as likely to be slapped as to get a date. He found he had to have more than his skill at sketching to get dates, and he had never really developed his social skills.
George had inherited some very old fashioned ideas about women from his father growing up. Women had two purposes in George’s world view, sex or marriage. This obviously did not fit in with most modern women’s viewpoints of their roles in life and the kind of relationships they were interested in. So while George did get his fair share and more of first or even second dates, he rarely stayed with any women longer than a few weeks.
A year after college, George started working at Fantastic Plastics at almost the same time Paula did. The company was in an expansion phase and they had hired engineers, artists, CAD experts and others.
George and Paula often had lunch at the same time in the cafeteria at work. He had actually been sketching Paula during his lunches with the objective of asking her out once it was done. But Paula had noticed him staring at her during lunch, and instead of asking why, she just avoided him like the plague from that day onward.
For whatever reason George decided this was personal, how dare that nobody-girl snub him?
But that was just the start of George’s issues with Paula.
One night George had worked up his courage and had hung out in the lobby waiting for Paula to leave. With the intent to ask her out. But he was not the only person in the lobby; a slightly older woman in her late 20s, maybe early 30s was also waiting for someone. George pretended to read a magazine but was not so subtly spying on her while he waited. Paula finally appeared in the lobby saying goodnight to the security guard at the main desk. Paula glanced around the lobby skipping right past the pasted on smile George was wearing until her eyes alighted on the woman also waiting.
“Maggie!” Paula gladly cried out and ran up to her.
The person named Maggie stood up quickly and greeted Paula with a big hug. “I was worried you had forgotten our dinner date tonight,” she said to Paula.
“Never,” Paula responded smiling, “Let's go!”
George sat there stunned for several minutes until the security guard asked him to leave so he could lock up for the night.
While George had an art history degree, Paula’s degree was in Engineering, with a minor in Computer sciences. George tried to expand his knowledge base and learn more about the 3-D printers and the computer aided designs that were used at Fantastic Plastics. But when a promotion came up to work with the newest 3-D prototyper, it was Paula who got the position. George didn't know it, but he was never being seriously considered for the position, HR had accepted his application as a courtesy for an existing employee.
But all George saw was Paula getting the job he wanted. A woman being promoted over him!
She was getting all the breaks, of course she was able to impress the bosses with the new equipment. The way Mr Barclay spoke about her, she was probably sleeping with the old goat!
But then one of George’s friends in the IT division got ahold of a new secret project file. It was some kind of kinky project Paula was running, printing out extreme bondage devices, with longer and longer periods of control, and with biofeedback and all kinds of sensors providing data. Some of the details of the bondage devices were missing, but the data was being analyzed by an outside contractor and they were gearing up to try and program “Subject -P” next time they had them locked inside by using a video game interface. George eagerly read the intended parameters of the programming and his IT buddy managed to get a copy of the game. Also there were several MP3s that were to be used during programming, they were all a woman's voice and George thought he recognized it, that Maggie person Paula had gone out with!
If the voice was Maggie’s then that meant Subject-P was probably Paula. Paula was using the company equipment to satisfy her kinky desires with her girlfriend Maggie!
George had his IT buddy scour the file servers but all they could get was the game code and the summary report sent from the consultants that George had already read. They knew the game would trigger the bondage device, even if they didn’t know the specific devices involved.
George would show Paula the error of her ways. He’d get his IT buddy to reprogram some of the game design, the cyborg character would be “George” and all the enemies would be females. He’d “shoot his load” all over Paula’s on screen surrogates and teach her to ignore him. He’d replace all the MP3 files with his own subliminal programming and she’d obey his commands by the time her little experiment was done.
That had been a couple of weeks ago and his buddy in IT had come through with new game artwork and slightly modified game play. Then he slipped it into the game controlling computer, substituted George’s MP3 files and created an account so George could remotely trigger the game play.
George chuckled to himself as he played the game on his work computer, knowing it would replicate to Paula locked inside her own 3-D printed device. He took great delight in watching the cyborg shooting load after load of sticky cum all over the female characters on the screen. Knowing that his IT friend had set the parameters to keep Paula edged and denied until George’s voice would command her to eventually cum. Once he had her programmed to cum on his command and only his command, she’d be begging him to have sex with her.
Karma’s a Bitch
George was happily playing probably the world's most sexist video game when his door opened suddenly.
“Hey!” George exclaimed. “Don’t you know how to knock!”
Steve McKinnon looked down at George and simply said, “Come with me, now.”
George quickly locked his workstation and stood up, everyone at Fantastic Plastics knew Steve was the head of security and not to be argued with.
Of course George started questioning Steve immediately. “What’s this all about? Is something wrong?”
Steve ignored the questions and just led George to the security offices and showed him into a small conference room the security personnel used for meetings.
“Company phone, please.” Steve held out his hand and waited for George to put the device in it.
Steve pocketed the phone and looked at George until he sat down on the far side of the table. “The security offices are isolated from cell signals, so don’t try to make any calls.”
Steve opened the door as a uniformed security guard arrived and had his hand raised to knock on the door.
“Perfect timing Hector,” Steve said. “He is not to leave this room or talk to anyone until I return to relieve you.”
“Do I have to be in the room Sir?” Hector asked.
“No, you can stand guard outside. Keep the door locked.” Steve shut the door behind himself and locked it, Hector seated himself immediately outside. They nodded at each other as Steve returned to George's small office. On the way there Steve called Mr Barclay and told him George was secured.
Mr Barclay, Mrs Carter and Paula.
“That was my head of security,” Mr Barclay explained to the two women. “George is isolated, so let’s see what he’s been doing to your project Paula.”
“May I tag along?” Mrs Carter asked. “I’d like to see what that person was doing to our Subject-P also.”
“Of course.” Mr Barclay led both of them to George’s office. They found Steve sitting behind the desk looking at something on George’s computer screen.
Steve stood up to give Mr Barclay access to the desk. “The pervert was playing this game when I hauled him away.”
Mr Barclay sat down and Paula leaned in to look at the screen. Since George had locked his screen it had paused the game. Both of them looked at the paused screen full of half naked “female” monsters, and an obviously male character shooting them with cum from his penis.
Paula exclaimed, “That’s my cyborg character, what did he do to it?!”
Mr Barclay stood up and grimly commanded, “Steve, you and I are going to go interview Mr Mallory.”
“Paula?” he asked, “Can you look into this and see what he changed, how he changed it and when?”
Paula, equally grim-faced took his place at the workstation. “I’ll find out everything that creep has done to my project!”
Mr Barclay turned to Mrs Carter and managed a smile for her. “I’m sorry you had to see this, but now you can see Paula in action.”
“I certainly don’t blame you for that young man’s behavior Robert,” Mrs Carter managed her own smile in return. “I’m just glad you are taking care of it.”
Paula was already clicking away at the computer and Mrs Carter added, “I’ll keep Paula company until you return with some answers.”
Discoveries are made
Paula sat down at the unlocked workstation and started diving into the logs and files. There were emails between George and his buddy David in IT discussing the game modifications, substituting the MP3 files from Maggie’s voiceover to George’s voiceover.
Paula had found one particularly interesting email and pointed it out to Mrs Carter.
“Look at this,” Paula exclaimed. “That little shit thought it would be me in the device, he thought I was Subject-P!”
Mrs Carter meanwhile had been snooping around George’s office and had turned up an artist’s sketchbook. She had thumbed through it and found George’s designs for the monsters in the game.
“Judging by these illustrations, he designed the visual elements of the game also.” Mrs Carter pointed out several pages that matched what they had seen on the computer screen earlier.
Paula thumbed through some more pages and found that several of the illustrations had her face on the boss level characters and showed them in compromising sexual positions.
“Obviously a sick individual,” Mrs Carter remarked. “I shudder to think what he was trying to accomplish with this reprogramming of the computer.”
“Well the good news is I have the original files in my cloud account from when I was reviewing them,” Paula told Mrs Carter. “I’ll just upload all George and Friends crap to the company server in a separate folder, then re-install the correct files to the computer that controls the throne and all its functions.”
Paula typed away for several minutes, with pauses to allow the large files to transfer up and down.
“Okay, that should have restored the original game files and the programming that the consultants created for Subject-P to experience,” Paula announced about 15 minutes later. “Now I’m going to set an alert to let me know if anyone else tries to log in or changes anything.”
Mrs Carter carefully asked, “You really care about Subject-P, don’t you?”
“Yes, and not just because he’s a good friend,” Paula responded. “When he entered my device and effectively agreed to experience the things I designed, he became my responsibility and I take that very seriously.”
Mrs Carter rested a hand on Paula’s shoulder and told her, “You are indeed a good friend and a responsible person. No one could have anticipated this George person and his hijacking of the programming. You took immediate action to negate his violation of Subject-P’s trust.”
Paula let down her guard a little, letting her concern break through the mask of anger she’d been using to take care of business. “I just hope Ph…Subject-P is understanding and still trusts me when this is all over.”
Mrs Carter took over Paula’s anger on her behalf. “Well all I can say is Robert had best fire that human toadstool George immediately!”
Paula looked thoughtful for a moment. “Speaking of Mr Barclay, he said you had a special interest in this project and Subject-P?”
Mrs Carter smiled, gladly changing the subject away from George and the damage he might have done.
“Yes, very much so.” Mrs Carter began to explain, “You see my late husband and I had always had an endearing love of all things Egyptian and…” Mrs Carter paused for a brief moment “…bondage.”
Paula nodded, not interrupting Mrs Carter’s explanation.
“Many a time we re-enacted ancient burial rites, with myself as high priestess wrapping my husband in miles of bandages in our private pyramid.” Mrs Carter smiled at a memory only she could see. “We also had several friends who participated in those rites and things had a tendency to get frisky afterwards. Of course we haven’t engaged in any of that since he passed away last year.”
“But the one thing we could never quite replicate was sealing him into a sarcophagus for any significant length of time. It was an experience he always wanted to have and some of the ancient rituals do specify a certain length of time inside to complete the ceremony. But as you know there are plumbing issues, food, water, waste disposal, and of course boredom.” Mrs Carter continued, “But when I approached Mr Barclay with some of my ideas and thoughts about plumbing fixtures for the Golden Sarcophagus I won at auction, he informed me of your Special Project and how you had a subject who was incredibly well suited for long term storage and remote entertainment.”
Paula’s face must have shown some sort of reaction because Mrs Carter hastened to add, “Of course I would not presume that your Subject-P would volunteer for my little project without first talking to him.”
Paula, still worried about Phil’s current mental state and how George’s meddling might have affected him, simply answered, “I would not hazard a guess on what Subject-P might agree to, but we can certainly ask him.”
“Of course,” Mrs Carter was quick to agree with Paula. “All we can do is ask after all.”
Just then there was a light knocking on the door and it opened to reveal Mr Barclay returning.
Confessions
Mr Barclay took a seat in front of what had been George’s desk and looked at Paula and Mrs Carter before saying in a tired voice, “Well that was very unpleasant.”
Mrs Carter spoke up, “If you think that was unpleasant you should see what we found in here.” She handed Mr Barclay George’s sketchbook.
Mr Barclay thumbed through it, pausing here and there, his face growing grimmer by the moment. “I suspect George has some very deep seated anger issues towards women in general, and at Paula in particular.”
Paula sat up straighter and asked, “Did he confess?”
“In a very ‘It’s not my fault’ kind of way.” Mr Barclay nodded, “At first he denied any involvement, but when he was presented with the evidence of him playing the game here on his work computer he quickly threw his IT accomplice under the bus, claiming it was just a game a friend was working on.”
Mr Barclay shook his head sadly. “Steve of course had his security staff pulling up his company emails where they were discussing the stolen files, hacking the game code and specifically how they were designing the game to “punish” Paula.”