4.00 - I Can Fix This

"Sir, I really must insist that you put away your phone while you're waiting," the secretary scolded me, a withering look on her face. "Dean Bosch will be here soon, and you're already in enough trouble as it is." She straightened the papers she was working on into a neat pile and placed them in a yellowish folder. "I'm under strict orders to make sure you sit still and don't do anything until he arrives," she said, standing to take the folder to the file cabinet, "and that includes chatting on your phone."

She opened the filing drawer and stooped to put away the folder, her pencil skirt riding up to give me a view of her toned legs. "R, S, T, U," she mumbled, flipping through the alphabetized dividers. "There we go, University Policy," she said, neatly tucking the folder in with the rest. She stood, straightened her clothes, and strode over to her desk again.

"It isn't a phone," I said, for the fourth time, "and I'm not chatting on it." It was the truth. The device I held wasn't capable of telephone-like voice communications, since it didn't have any kind of sound input or output. I should know. I made it. "I'm not even doing anything with it. I'm just looking at it." This was also true. I hadn't touched the controls since the first time she had asked me to put it away. By then, I had already made the necessary adjustments.

"I don't make the rules," she said, "but I wouldn't want you to get in more trouble." She sat back in her chair immediately began typing in a rapid staccoto. "Just try not to distract me too much. I need to get some work done."

I looked back at the transmitter in my hand. I had been surprised to learn that the encryption measures in the Dean's office were so weak compared to those of the library, but that made some sense. The library system would be a matter of existing policies for campus security. Bosch's office was his own personal territory, and he probably set up the encryption himself.

The display indicator continued to flicker random strings of data, too fast for me to observe individual hash values. Finally, it stopped, displaying a long sequence of alphanumeric gibberish. The screen flashed red, and the words "Crypto Key Locked" appeared at the bottom. Moments later, they were briefly replaced with the words "Payload Transmitting," almost immediately followed by "Transmission Complete". I smiled, pocketing the device. Showtime, I thought to myself.

She seemed to notice, smiling demurely at me. "There. That's better. You really don't need to be making phone calls at a time like this." She turned back to her typing, then immediately stopped, turning her attention to a stapler on her desk. She daintily pressed an arbitrary spot on the desk next to it, then picked the stapler up and held it to her ear. "Dean Bosch's office, how can I help you? Oh, hello mister Bosch!" A confused look crossed her face. "Memo? No, I didn't see one when I came in." She looked at a stack of papers nearby. "Oh, here it is," she said, miming the action of picking up a sheet of paper.

She held the imaginary memo up to read it. "Oh, yes sir. I'm so sorry I overlooked this. I'll get right on filing those things away immediately. Absolutely, I'm happy to help. Yes, I'll put up the decorations as soon as I finish the filing. Have a wonderful day." She returned the stapler to its position on her desk and stood again. "I should get to work," she said, a happy, distant look on her face.

She rose and performed a runway model strut over to the filing cabinet. She opened the same drawer as earlier, then stood back up and unzipped her skirt, sliding it down her stockings. Facing directly away from me, she planted her feet shoulder-width apart, then bent over, her knees remaining perfectly straight. Her lacy pink bikini briefs contrasted with the deep black of her garters. The words "Property of William Bosch" were written in block letters across her ass. I didn't think it just referred to the underwear.

She picked up the skirt, folding it carefully, and began flipping through the files again. "P, Q, R, S," she mumbled, a somewhat more sensual note in her voice this time. "There," she said, slipping the garment into place in the cabinet, "skirt." She knelt, unnecessarily, to push the drawer closed.

Next came her shirt. I wondered if she would file it under "s" as well, but it wound up under "b" for "blouse." She closed the drawer, then bent, studying the cabinet again. "Now, I just need to find the B drawer," she said, staring directly at it. She made a "hmm" sound for a few seconds, absently swaying her rear back and forth. Off came the bra, and she then had to search for the section where she had previously stowed her blouse.

She surprised me by unhooking her garters and opening the bottom drawer next, slowly pulling her panties down one-handed as she bent to flick through its contents. "T, U, V, W," she breathed, "there. Whore panties." She carefully re-fastened the suspenders.

I hadn't included the garters and stockings in my little scenario. In truth, she looked good enough in them, but I wasn't precisely sure whether they were stockings, hose, or some kind of full-body garment until she had started to strip. If I had specified the wrong type, the script would probably have just locked her up.

"Now then," she said, cheerfully, "time to put up those decorations." She turned and sashayed towards a large portrait of Bosch on the opposite wall. This part I was genuinely curious about. I had thrown it in almost as an afterthought, fully expecting I would only get the initial filing performance, but had evidently guessed Bosch's type pretty accurately. Factory defaults labeled "discrete accessories" as "decorations", but the user manual usually advised owners to change that setting for privacy.

Behind the portrait was what resembled a small safe, but without any apparent controls. On close inspection I noticed what looked like a data port set into the smooth metal plate. She turned outward, presumably as part of Bosch's existing "put on a show" script, and put a finger to her chin. A look of deep concentration occupied her face. "Let's see now," she said, one hand lazily tracing up to knead a breast, "What was that combination again?" A look of happy realization suddenly washed over her features. "Oh, yes, I remember now."

She held her right hand up in front of her, palm inward. Her left hand drifted away from her breast to grasp her right pinky and ring finger. "Left zero," she said, as she suddenly bent the two fingers outward, splitting her hand down the middle. "Right zero," she recited, extracting a long cable from the hinged compartment inside her hand and plugging it into the port on the safe. "Left -" she paused, her mouth slightly open. I wondered if my little playtime had actually crashed her system, but then a lengthy string of random phonetic sounds came from her mouth.

At that point, I realized Bosch had enabled the "verbalize hard-link transmission data" setting - useful for some secretarial tasks, but inconvenient for transmitting non-text data. After less than a minute, she cut off, suddenly silent. The safe popped open, and she unplugged the cable, stowing it before re-sealing her hand compartment. "Time to put up the decorations," she said in a sing-song voice.

The safe held a bundle of shiny black material. The secretary pulled this out, revealing it to be some kind of leather teddy, covered in zippers. Behind this there was a pair of matching thigh-high boots, and three large rubbery objects. Because of their unusual colors and shapes, I didn't initially recognize them as dildos. When I did, I almost laughed.

The secretary put on her outfit over the stocking/garter belt set, either unaware she was still wearing it, or programmed to do so anyway. The teddy had zippers at each of the breasts, and one long zipper reaching from her crotch all the way up her butt to the base of her spine. She slowly zipped up the long leather boots, then gathered up the toys, heading towards her desk.

Each of the brightly colored dildos apparently had a suction cup on one end. She made a show of licking their textured shafts, then licked the cup on the bottom, before sticking one to her desk and two to the smooth wall directly across from the desk. With her hands on her hips, she surveyed her work. "So festive," she sighed. "I love this time of year." She seemed to remember something.

"Oh, my, I can't work dressed like this," she said, turning and posing to show me multiple angles, "it's just not suitable office attire!" She reached through her legs from behind, grasping the zipper and pulling it all the way back. Hidden elastic pulled both sides of the zipper away, opening the slit wide. "There," she said, reaching up and grasping both of the breast zippers. She quickly tugged them open, the leather pulled aside by more hidden elastic. It almost looked like eyelids opening. "That's much more professional."

"Well, that's enough decorating," she said, "time to get back to work." She moved as though about to sit down in her chair, then immediately turned, instead moving to stand next to her desk. "All this typing," she said dreamily, "it's like I can never get ahead." She knelt, facing her desk. "Mister Bosch should get himself a dictation machine."

She moved herself backwards, bending over and manoeuvring her ass and pussy to align with the two wall-dildos. "He definitely deserves one," she said, grasping the desk cock with one hand and experimentally licking it. "Maybe if we had a dick taking machine, we wouldn't fall be-HIND!" On this last syllable, she moved backwards, suddenly ramming the wall toys deep into her. "And then Master Bosch would be able to get a head," she said, before wrapping her mouth around the third dildo.

She rocked back and forth rhythmically, alternating between deep-throating one toy and pushing the other two into her ass and pussy. Ridiculous though it was, I had to admire Bosch's inventiveness. This was one of the most elaborate sequences I'd ever seen, requiring not only detailed planning, but careful arrangement of the furniture, all for him to just watch. I almost wondered what other sequences he had given her, but reflected that it was probably better not to check.

As she continued her performance, moaning deeply, Bosch entered the outer office, initially oblivious to the secretary's current situation. "Those girls in IT just don't know when to stop," he was saying, "Just going on and on about a..." He paused, having noticed the moaning and wet sounds coming from his secretary's desk. Turning slowly in confusion, he finally noticed the state of her.

His confusion transformed into red-faced anger - partially embarrassment, I suspected. I completely forgot to wipe the cheshire cat grin from my face as he spun to face me.

"You," he pointed at me, his eyes bulging, "My office," he pointed with his other hand. "NOW!" He roared.

I stood unhurriedly, and stalling to see how he was going to handle the situation. "Please say make yourself presentable," I whispered, hoping. "Please be that predictable."

"Traci," he said, massaging his temples, "Make yourself presentable."

Thank heavens for factory defaults, I thought, entering the inner office.

---

Bosch glared at me over the top of the security report - my security report, I thought with some satisfaction. His face held a mixture of anger, disbelief, and amusement.

"I don't believe it," he said. "You hack your way into our records, wreck havoc with our schedule system, play merry hell with our sleeper 'bots, and seriously endanger this univeristy's fine reputation with at least five major client organizations..."

"That part was accidental," I interrupted. "I really didn't realize just how small your human-to-bot ratio was here."

"The advertisers are considering pulling their word-of-mouth sleepers! Do you have any idea what this will do to us?"

"Well, with an enrolled class of fewer than 200 human students, it'll probably mean you'll actually have to start holding academic classes instead of managing what amounts to a massive robo-brothel," I said, smirking.

He composed himself, then calmly continued. "You've probably ruined us financially for years to come, and you're saying you did it all to get my attention?"

"Well, not all of it," I admitted. "Traci? That was fun." In fact, I hadn't needed his attention until less than an hour ago, but my previous activities made it easier to get noticed - when I wanted.

"Well, the police will be here in about twelve minutes to bury you under a jail for god knows how long." He closed the file and folded his hands. "So I guess that means you have my attention for twelve minutes."

I leaned forward, a more serious look on my face. "There's a book I need."

"Visit a library."

"Just came from one. Couldn't get it."

"Go to another one."

"A very rare book," I said.

"Try a bookstore."

"One of a kind."

"An antique dealer then."

"Held in your personal collection."

He opened his mouth to say something, but paused. "That's private." He leaned forward and waved a finger at me threateningly. "And don't think you can blackmail me about any of that stuff. I have legitimate educational reasons for every one of those."

"A gift from my father," I said. I sat back and crossed my arms.

Bosch blinked, not understanding. Slowly, realization washed over his face. "I should have known. You're his son, alright. I should just assume that every time the word 'Peters' comes up near the words 'security breach', it's always going to come back to the infamous Doctor Peters and family." He sighed, exasperated. "Hell, even Alex Peters has a pretty lengthy file here."

"You've heard of the virus that's spreading out there?"

"I don't know what you're..." he started.

"The one they're calling 'lovebug'," I said.

Bosch's eyes went wide, then he seemed to give up on being surprised. "I know about it. You shouldn't. Government's been keeping a pretty tight lid on it so far. Apparently the public is willing to accept that a natural disaster can slice every human in a city to ribbons, and make all the ARAs go AWOL."

"It's not here, is it?" I tried to keep the anxiety out of my voice when I said this.

He considered, then seemed to resign himself to the situation. "We had a blip from IT earlier, but I've been assured it was a false alarm." He leaned back in his chair, unconcerned. "I'm inclined to believe them. The report the security forces issued said it was isolated to Gysys units. We haven't had any for more than a year."

"Gysys was just the beginning. It will get here. It may already be here, but dormant. People will die when that happens." I hoped he didn't hear the guilt in my voice as I say this.

"What's the book got to do with it?" He asked.

"That facility? There's an XR9660F there."

He made as if to clear his earwax with his pinky. "Sorry, I'm not up on technical specs. Which one is that again?"

I rolled my eyes. "Quantron."

"That's a myth."

"I've got a shipping invoice that Dad says received one."

"And you think it's in that facility?"

"I do now," I said. "Previously, I'd been checking every unit sold off in the company liquidation. I even thought it might have been here," I admitted. I knew there was a chance I had missed some important internal memos. "All the paperwork pointed to the unit existing, and there were only two places it could be. Here and there."

Bosch narrowed his eyes skeptically. "Even if it existed, you seriously think it would be locked away in some forgotten, mothballed facility out in the middle of nowhere, do you?" He paused. "What am I saying, you're a Peters. Of course you believe insane things. And you'll probably be right." A thought struck him. "That can't have been the only copy of that book. Your old man sent me that as a joke."

I hesitated, embarrassed. "I did have another copy, but... it suffered a little damage." A little. Like some tape and glue could put the ashes back together.

Bosch laughed. "You know, up until that, part of me still didn't believe you." He tapped a few buttons on his keyboard. "Police will be here in five. That's how long you've got to pick up the book and make yourself scarce."

"My girlfriend's already waiting. She should be picking up the book right about..." I count the seconds in my head from when he sent the approval. "Now."

"Just like your dad," Bosch said, rising to show me to the door. "Never have just one plan." He opened the door to the outer office and was momentarily dumbstruck. "What the..." He turned on me, unsure whether to find it funny or infuriating. "You did this? Why?"

I took in the scene with some satisfaction. Tracy lay nude on the floor in front of the filing cabinet - or rather, her upper torso did. Her legs, still wearing their stockings and boots, stuck haphazardly out the drawer labaled "L-P," while the buttocks of her pelvic unit were just visible at the back of the opened drawer. Her head wasn't immediately apparent.

Just as I had scripted, she had saved her arms for last. Her right arm reached out, holding the disconnected shoulder of her left, waving it at the "A-F" drawer. From the next drawer down, "G-K", came a muffled voice, repeating "I'm sorry sir, I just can't seem to reach that drawer," over and over.

"Actually, I only scripted the response. This is her trying to make herself presentable." I shrugged. "Always have a backup plan,"

"How the hell would this plan have worked?" He asked, perplexed.

I made my way to the outer door. "Hadn't quite worked that out yet. Once you agreed to give me the book, I stopped trying."

There was an explosion from outside, followed by screams. "What the hell was that?" Bosch asked in panic. I didn't answer. This wasn't good. We rushed outside.

Just as I had feared, the sound had come from the library. Flames rose from a car in the nearby parking lot, a trio of female forms crowded around it, tearing at the metal as if it were tissue paper. Half a dozen librarians strode through crowds of fleeing students. The librarians' clothes were torn in revealing areas, and their bodies didn't quite look right. It was difficult to see from this distance, but I didn't need to see them clearly to know that they had already begun removing large patches of their synthetic skin, and some of them had probably already integrated any weapon-like object they could find into their bodies.

As if to confirm this, one librarian slashed at a panicked student with what appeared to be a lawnmower blade attached to her arm. The attacked girl's handhand fell to the ground bloodlessly, its wires sparking at the damage.

Upon noticing the girl's artificial nature, the librarian pounced on her, straddling her chest. "You're pretty," she commented cheerily, peeling the girl's synthetic face down. The librarian reached inside her own shirt, and pulled out a bundle of cables, still connected to her internally. "Let me tell you a secret. You'll like this." She ejected the downed girl's right eye, exposing the hard-link port behind it, then shoved the cables into the port. Both fembots convulsed, babbling incoherent random noises.

Through the chaos, I spotted Jenn, casually walking towards us, clutching the book to her still-exposed breasts. "Jenn!" I shouted, "Run!"

Two things happened simultaneously at the sound of my voice. First, Jenn broke into an olympic-speed dash, barrelling towards me - This, I expected. At the same time, all the infected 'bots turned towards me as one, speaking in a single, distorted voice. "Priority target acquired," the inhuman voice stated. "Peters," it called with an almost animal-like hunger.

Bosch turned to me, shocked. "They know you? How do they know you?"

"We've met before. Very long story."

The infected 'bots, including the newly infected student, rose in unison, and started to move towards me, having lost all interest in any other potential victims. Initially, they only walked, but experience had taught me that they would break into a run the moment I started to retreat.

Bosch looked back and forth between me and the oncoming 'bots. "Did you do this? Did you bring this here?" He asked, a look of horror on his face.

I looked away, guilt plainly written on my features. "They won't attack anyone else as long as they've targeted me," I told him.

"How do you know that? Did you have anything to do with this thing?" My expression didn't exactly say 'innocent'.

I ignored the question. "They transmit some kind of signal attracting more infected 'bots when they lock on to a priority target," I said. "Anyone who comes after me is throwing their lives away." I edged towards a nearby speeder I'd spotted earlier. The Cavalier Xeno. Amazing engine. Virtually nonexistent lock encryption. Cracking its locks before my meeting with Bosch had seemed like an absent-minded habit. Now it was about to save my life. "Jenn," I called, trying to sound calm, "Blue speeder, behind me to the right. Get in, now."

I turned to Bosch. "I'll draw them away. You'll need to reformat any damaged 'bots." As Jenn reached the speeder, I made my break. The infected 'bots picked up their pace. "You'll be safe if you stay away from me," I called to Bosch. "Don't worry. I can fix this."

I hope.

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