[Author's note: Traumatised by being held hostage in the cafe siege, Chloe has chosen a new direction in her life. She gives up her steady boyfriend and stable job to seek out new thrills in risky encounters. We also cross paths with Zoe from
A World Of Our Own
.
The story contains themes of female submission, edge play and autassassinophilia. Discretion is advised: please check the story tags to see whether this a series you'll enjoy.]
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THE EVERYTHING ENGINE
Are you on Kikster? If not, how the fuck are you getting your news feeds? Legacy hardcopy media? Seriously? You'd be in the minority by now, since we've got tens of millions of profiles registered in the Engine, serving up info on everything from pancake recipes to the proper way to recite the Benediction.
One thing about working at Kikster, they do a great lunch menu. It's free and fast. I'm under no illusions that it means we stay in the building, talking amongst the people we work with, cross-pollinating ideas. I don't need to go down a rabbit hole with the Everything Engine to find all that out. You make a bubble and you keep your employees in that bubble, all happy and productive. It works really well, until it doesn't.
It's Monday morning, and I'm riding the elevator up to my floor. I'm bone weary after another night trying to get to sleep. I don't know what it is, but I'm constantly restless, tossing and turning in bed. A guy at the hospital who checked me out after the siege talked to me for an hour about consequences, what to look out for, all that shit. Honestly though, I just watched his mouth move until he stopped and I could leave. He had a nice mouth, there was something kind about it. He handed me some material on counselling services but really, who has the time for all that?
What I mean there is that there are two types of people in this world: the type who front up and get it done, and the type who just go to pieces. I'm the former camp. I don't need hand-holding. I'm a big girl so I put on the big girl pants and get on with my life. That's what had killed it with Toby, the endless checking in on me, seeing if I was really okay.
I admit, I still think about the girl sometimes, just that moment where Kaylee is running towards me as I'm sprawled on the ground, then the red bloom across her chest. I think I'm doing fucking spectacularly well if that's the only thing I'm dealing with, the occasional flashback.
I step out of the elevator and I'm wearing a skirt. I do the morning stand-up huddle with my team, and we're discussing the data breach in a competitor, the new look user interface, the storage upgrade, the usual stuff. Zoe is giving her update on the latest release, and I watch the way she stands as she talks. She's always been quiet, a little shy, but there's something different about her now, after the wedding ring went onto her finger. I put her in charge of the AI core upgrade and she's handling it like a pro, her first big step up. She's really getting her shit together these days.
Out of everything we're covering, the upgrade is the big ticket item, it'll enable us to feed the Everything Engine, the AI at the heart of Kikster, even more data. Its ability to tailor your feeds just for your own unique proclivities should go up nearly tenfold. We all accept implicitly that this is a good thing to do.
But that's the secret that we don't tell anyone: people believe they are each perfect unique snowflakes, but they're not. There are about forty buckets we put people in. That's it. You may be a Bohemian with eclectic tastes in trance electronica, but to us you're bucket thirty-five. Sorry if that bursts your bubble, but yeah, you're not that special. You're not special at all.
The last item is the user interface upgrade and the requirements that the new screens will have on the Engine. I don't care, and even before hooking up with Travis, I wasn't interested in it. Previously, I could dodge the meetings and concentrate on the stuff that matters, the AI wrangling, the bit that I'm good at. Now, however, there's a little extra complication.
Travis and his offsider join the huddle at the end, giving his update. His eyes are on me, travelling down my body, noting the skirt that he told me to wear. I'm running the meeting, all the attention is on me in our little circle in the middle of the floor, stood between the desks in the open-plan office. I'm used to eyes on me, but this is different. I'm showing leg, and when we break up and I turn away, Travis doesn't. His eyes follow the curve of my bottom and part of me regrets wearing a tight skirt like he told me to. I should have stuck to jeans.
There is another part of me now, and I feel a little tingle. Travis calls out as everyone drifts away.
"Wanna grab a pod?"
He nods to one of the conversation pods in the middle of the floor, a semi-circular seating area with a high back that curves overhead, like half an onion. I nod and we walk over and sit down in it. The sounds of the office become muted, and when he speaks it's like we're alone.
"Nice."
His eyes flick down to my bare legs and for some reason, I cover my knees with my hands.
"I had fun on Saturday," he continues in a conversational tone, "I hope I wasn't too hard on you. How're you feeling?"
"I'm fine."
"Good, anyway, just wanted to check in."
He gets up to leave, as if that's it, as if we don't need to talk about it. But it's already playing back in my head, the feeling of helplessness, with his belt wrapped around my wrists, splayed out wide on his bed while he slipped himself into me. I recall vividly how I tried to accommodate him, stretching to fit his oversized girth, until I was carried away on waves of ecstasy. I don't react in time as he reaches out to put a hand on my knee.
I look at him, frozen. His hand drifts up my thigh, approaching the hem of my skirt. I'm in the middle of the office: if anyone looked my way now they would see Travis touching me. He gives my thigh a little squeeze and then a pat.
"I'll catch you at lunch," he says as he stands up, a little grin on his face.
I watch him walk away, but I don't leave the pod. My hand rests on my skin where he touched me. Deep inside there's a little thrill. Just like that, he's turned me on.
It's something that I wrestle with for the rest of the morning. I'm in the middle of a technical review when my email pings. I glance at it, still mid-sentence, then I stop. It's a meeting request, the subject line is brief and to the point: interface at lunchtime. It's from Travis. I tap it quickly, hitting accept. When I look up at the people around the table, I realise that I have completely lost my train of thought.
Travis has booked one of the small meeting rooms on the floor above, and he's waiting for me when I arrive. I'm carrying my salad bowl as if I'm going to eat. I walk in and take a seat at the little table.
"So," I begin, "What's this about?"
Travis drags a chair over to the door and closes it, wedging the back of the chair under the handle. He turns back to me.
"Thought we could use a little privacy."
"Privacy?" I reply, "For what?"
"There you go again, in charge."
