1.00 - A Visit from Campus IT

Looking at my clipboard, I proceeded to the next dormitory on my checklist: 132, residents Heather Jennings and Lyndsay Sparks. Remembering protocol, I punched the door code into my mobilecomp, sending the signal back to the main IT office, requesting network isolation and strict admin permissions enforced on my wireless ID pulser. Assuming the request went through, any systems in the dorm would allow me full control and configuration access without the need for passwords or reboots. I watched my mobilecomp for a few seconds until the amber light switched over to green, indicating the admin controls had been set.

I knocked on the door. "Campus IT, need to do some systems checks."

There was a brief silence, then a girl's voice called out, "Just a minute!" After a few seconds of mildly rushed activity - presumably tidying up and making sure they were decently dressed, the door opened. A lithe redhead stood cheerily at the door. She was dressed in extremely short shorts, and a thin, tight tube-top shirt. Behind her stood an athletic-looking blonde girl, who appeared to be getting ready to go clubbing - she was dressed in a skin-tight black dress which just barely managed to cover her body enough for going out in public, and her heels were nearly 4 inches high.

"Hi, I'm Rebecca from campus IT. Seems there's a pretty nasty computer virus going around. We're just checking everyone's systems, making sure they're not contaminated, that sort of thing. Won't take long." It was a hopeful lie - if the virus was present, purging it was a lengthy and complicated process which would render the system inert for hours.

"Sure, c'mon in," the redhead bubbled. She seemed absolutely overjoyed to see me, as if we were close friends. The blonde waved, almost shyly. It seemed at odds with her dress. I stepped inside, and the redhead closed the door behind me. The room was smallish, with a couple of twin beds arranged in opposite corners. Directly across from each bed was a desk/study area, each of which had what appeared to be a closed laptop, blinking slowly.

"I'm Heather, this is Lyn," the redhead introduced.

"I looked back at my notepad. "Lyndsay Sparks?" I asked. The admin office would string me up if she wasn't Heather's roommate, but just a similarly-named friend. Can't go around accessing a system without following full protocol, after all.

The blonde smiled, brushing an errant bang out of her eyeline. "Yeah, sorry. My name's Lyndsay, but my friends just call me Lyn." I made a note on the clipboard. At least my ass was covered.

"So, like I said, there's a pretty nasty virus going around, and it's gone through all our firewalls and software barriers. We've identified a short list of websites which are probably the original source. Do you mind taking a look?" I held up the sheet of paper showing the site names.

Both girls nodded and piped "Sure!" Instead of taking the list from me, the girls gathered around me, squeezing close on either side to get a better view of the paper. Heather put her hand gently on my shoulder.

"Er... yeah, just... if you could just look down the list, let me know if you see any sites that sound familiar?" I pointed down the list.

"Oh wow. I've never heard of that one before, but it sounds interesting." Heather scrutinized the list carefully. "That one, too. Are you sure they're infected? I'd kind of like to check those two out sometime."

"Probably best to wait until we've got this virus locked down. We may have to blacklist those sites from our network," I replied.

"Aww," Heather pouted.

"Um, I recognize a couple of these." Lyndsay reached across my shoulder pointing at two sitenames in particular. "That one, and that one."

"You accessed those sites?" There was a note of surprise in my voice. They didn't exactly seem like the kind of thing she would be into, but then again, her dress did imply certain preferences.

"No, not me. Jennifer, down in room 122. She showed them to me in the library's West computer lab."

I glanced back at my clipboard. I had already visited room 122, and sure enough, Jennifer's system had been absolutely plagued with the virus. It had worked its way into core files, overwriting system registry, configuration settings, and even user authorization data. Purging it had required a full re-install, and Jennifer would lose a lot of schoolwork in the process. I glanced at my watch. If I had to do another one that took that long, I would need to start considering bunking up for the night.

"So, who's first?" I asked.

Each girl jumped a little excitedly at the question, but Lyndsay was the first to speak. "Um, if it's okay, you can check my system first. If you want." She held her hands behind her back, looking down at her feet, bashfully.

Heather made a disappointed face. "Aww. I wanted her to check mine first." Then her face lit up again. "Oh, hey! I can give Susan back that CD she lent me." Before I could comment, she grabbed a disc on her desk, and dashed to the door. "Be right back!" she called, before leaving.

I checked my clipboard again. She might have meant Susan Williams in 120. If that was the case, the CD was probably safe, since her system had come up clean. Of course, she could have meant Susan Peters in 268, and I hadn't checked that room yet. Well, I supposed, at least that saves me making an excuse to get her out of the room. Lyndsay broke my train of thought, gently taking me by the elbow. "My desk is right over here," she said, leading me to the further corner of the room.

She sat at the desk, and flipped open the laptop, revealing a dark, blank screen. Grabbing a decorative paperweight like a mouse, she slid it across her desk and tapped the top of it as though it had buttons. The screen remained blank. "Oh, let me just close these windows," she said.

Of course, I thought to myself. A paperweight. Sleeper 'bots sometimes had the strangest ways of maintaining their internal perceptual reality. I suspected that the human students on campus would probably consider it weird behavior, but since most students weren't even aware that there were artificial students on campus, it rarely went any further than that. It usually caught me off guard, though, since the Admin office never informed me whether an individual student was going to turn out to be a human or a sleeper bot. At least it wasn't like Jennifer, whose desk had been completely clear of mouse-like objects. She had to search through nearby drawers, and the first thing her sleeper protocols had identified as a potential mouse had been a sex toy.

I cleared my throat. Since I couldn't see her imaginary screen, this step required me to fly blind a bit. "Okay, so you're going to want to open your system's control panel. Do you know how to do that?"

"umm... Let me see." She moved the paperweight around a bit, tapping it a few times. "Yeah, I think so. There it is." She shifted in her seat, as though the dress was suddenly making her uncomfortable. She tugged at the top, absently. "Hey, this thing is riding up on me weird." I facepalmed, knowing exactly what was coming next. "Do you mind if I..."

"Go ahead and take off your dress, Lyn," I said, exasperated. Remembering the unitard incident in 104, I added, "And any underwear you're wearing." Bots sometimes had to be told every single step.

She stood, a distant look in her eyes, and a fixed smile on her face. "Yes, of course. Thank you." As she stared fixedly at a blank spot on the wall, she quickly unzipped her dress, revealing what appeared to be a sheer teddy. She dutifully unlaced the top, slipped it down her torso, and let it drop in a heap at her feet. Her head tilted to one side. "Ah," she said, impassively, "that feels so much better." The statement had all the conviction of someone commenting "That car is blue," or "Five is more than three."

She bent over at the waist, resting her head in her folded arms on top of her desk. It's low height meant that this pose bent her more than 90 degrees. Her long, slender legs were completely straight, her feet together. I was going to need to work fast. There was no telling how long until Heather returned. If she was a human student, this was going to take a lot of explaining. Of course, if she was a sleeper, she would just filter it as Lyn sitting normally at her computer.

Her advanced perceptual filters seemed to be kicking in, since she still appeared to believe she was moving the mouse around. I knew the added CPU load would start to have a noticeable effect on the stability of her AI - rendering a completly fictional delusion was a seriously processor-intensive program thread. Good thing I wasn't here for conversation.

"Oh-kay. Let me just. And. I'll just click." She said, haltingly. Suddenly, her voice took on a more normal tone. "There, my system's control panel is open." As she said this, rectangular line appeared around a section of her skin at the base of her spine. The section withdrew inside her body, sliding upward. I pulled the link cable out of my mobilecomp, plugging it into the port just above her round ass.

As soon as the cable clicked home, her maintenance protocols took over. Her face instantly went from cheerfully distant to completely detached, disabling her higher personality processing. The upside was that her perceptual filters weren't tying up any processor power. The downside was that she would now accept anything as normal and fine. I tapped at my mobilecomp, browsing through Lyn's network logs and system files. Her browsing history was clean enough: As she stated, she hadn't visited any of the suspected sites. I checked all the files in her browser's cache, finding nothing. It looked like she was clean.

"Okay Lyn, I'm just going to ask you a few diagnostic questions."

"I understand. That is fine."

"Lyn, before time index 34861, how often did you masturbate on a weekly basis over the past year?"

"I need more information. Do you mean by myself, or with assistance?" The question held only mild curiousity.

"Both as separate answers, solo first, precision level 3. List assisting partners in order of descending frequency."

"From time index 33837 to time index 34861, I masturbated an average of 22.634 times per week by myself. Over the same period of time, I masturbated an average of 12.057 times per week with assistance. I was assisted by Heather Jennings a total of 303 times. I was assisted by Virginia Mitchels a total of 172 times. I was assisted by Jennifer Webb a total of 84 times. I was assisted by Professor Marilyn Weiss a total of 68 times." Her voice was devoid of emotion, but not monotone. It always creeped me out when they went completely monotone. This was still unnerving, but tolerable.

I nodded. Pretty normal behavior for a sleeper unit. "Okay, same report, from time index 34861 to present."

From time index 34861 to 34881, I masturbated an average of 126 times per week by myself. Over the same period of time, I masturbated an average of 291 times with assistance. I was assisted by Heather Jennings 96 times. I was assisted by Angela Simms a total of 63 times. I was assisted by Virginia Mitchels a total of 59 times. I was assisted by Professor Marilyn Weiss a total of 44 times. I was assisted by anonymous female partner a total of 29 times."

Damn. Not good. A nearly 600% jump in solo activity, and more than a 2300% jump in assisted activity? Her promiscuity was completely off the scale, and the maximum behavioral thresholds were supposed to be less than half those levels. Even the sluttiest fembot on campus shouldn't see more than 100 weekly assisted sexual activties in a week - not without a comprehensive hardware servicing.

"Lyn, isolate behavioral response for personality profile time index 34841." Hopefully the virus hadn't integrated itself into the rest of her social protocols. This way, she would emulate her uninfected personality's thinking process from two weeks ago for spoken responses. Unfortunately, it was just a diagnostic tool - it wouldn't let me reload her earlier personality profile. "Generate conversational response to scenario as follows: Speaker, unknown male, body type 27F. Setting, campus coffee shop. Spoken input, 'Hey babe, nice tits. Want to suck my cock?'"

"Hold on, let... me... thhhhinnnnkkkk fffoooooooorrrrrrrrrrr aaaaaaa..." her voice stretched out into individual digitized samples distorting into an inarticulate wall of noise. Suddenly, her face snapped into a disgusted expression, her voice taking on an offended tone. "You pervert! I don't even know you, creep! Get the hell away from me!" Her expression immediately reverted to its detached, no trace of anger or hostility.

"Okay, now isolate behavioral response for current personality profile, and generate conversational response, same scenario."

"Hold on, let me..." she immediately broke off, the process able to load the more recent data almost instantly. "Hey," she smiled, "No problem, babe. But I can give you way more than a blow job, if you want. I'm not wearing any panties if you want to fuck here, but if you want to go back to my dorm room, I know my roommate can be talked into threesomes. First, let me just get out of this dress."

Oh hell. This was going to be worse than Jennifer's case. I tapped at my mobilecomp a few times, bringing up the virus data we had obtained so far. Looks like this would require a full personality rewrite from backup data. "Lyn, spread your legs for me."

"I would be happy to," she said, as she shifted her position. "Would you like to see my pussy better? I can play with myself if you want." That's weird, I thought to myself, her scripted maintenance response should have just been "Okay." If this thing had worked its way into her maintenance protocols, this was very bad.

Licking my thumb to slick it up, I reached into her ass and pussy at the same time, gripping her from behind like a bowling ball. She moaned blissfully. "Oh, wow, that feels great. You can do that to me any time you like." Working blind, I worked my middle finger as far up as I could, pressing back against the vaginal wall. Through the flexible membrane, I could feel the hard stud of the control release I was looking for, and pressed it, holding the button down for three seconds. Lyn slowly squirmed her ass, as though dancing to unheard music. "Oh yeah, oh yeah, I'm your property! You own me! I'll do anything you tell me to do! Anything you like, any time you..." she suddenly broke off, her face frozen in an expression of mild surprise.

I pulled my hand out of her, wiping my fingers off on her nearby dress. She stood sharply upright, her arms at her sides, standing at loose attention with her legs still apart. The back half of her head suddenly popped open, then slowly hinged itself down, revealing the backup cartridges I was seeking. I wondered how her perceptual filters handled the monthly backup process. Did she just think she had a really kinky masturbation urge, immediately followed by massaging her scalp? Maybe sleepers would try to find another sleeper unit, and both would perceive the backup as a sexual stress release, followed by braiding each other's hair.

I popped loose the cartridge dated last month - What do they think they're doing when they label these things? I dismissed the thought as I pushed the back of her head closed again. "Open data slot, backup personality load," I said. Her head slowly turned around on its mechanical fixtures, her synth-muscles completely inert, forming a clearly distinguishable seam where her neck muscles would normally simulate the human act of turning one's head. The rest of her body remained motionless. When her head revolved to face directly behind her, it stopped, and a spot of skin at the top of her face suddenly bulged out with a spring like twang.

Grasping the bulge like a tab, I peeled the synthetic flesh of her face downward, revealing large, unlidded eyes and perfect rows of pearly teeth. The metallic chrome of her artificial skull glinted, and a rectangular section in the middle of her forehead flipped open on a hinge. I pressed the cartridge halfway in, the internal mechanism drawing it the rest of the way and sealing the the cartridge drive door. I rolled the rubbery mask back up the her expressionless, chrome face, clicking the top contact point home where it had previously popped out.

Her head continued rotating the same direction, bringing it back around to face front via a full 360-degree turn. Tiny points on her face seemed to squirm inhumanly as the muscle control points reconnected with the corresponding hook points on the face. Her face twitched and spasmed disturbingly before adopting the earlier happy, detached expression.

"Load maintenance profile, backup restore camoflage."

"Standby. Loading," She announced flatly. Her posture shifted to a runway model pose, the default posture for the backup camoflage program. Still staring at a blank slot on the wall, her face took on a warmer, happier expression, no longer completely detached. She turned to face me, her nude body now moving as comfortably as if she were casually speaking to someone at a party.

"Hi Rebecca," she said in cheerful, friendly tones. "I have loaded my backup camoflage personality profile. Would you like me to restore from the backup currently in my primary data cartridge drive?" Her tones were now humanlike and conversational, but the tone was that of a waitress asking if you want a salad or soup.

"Yes, restore from backup. Set process to background priority."

She put a finger to her lips, as though thinking carefully. Then she smiled and ran her hand down her neck to rest just above her breasts. "Okay, Rebecca. This will lengthen the restore time to four hours and thirty-five minutes, are you sure you wish to continue?"

"Yes, continue as background. Prioritize backup camoflage as high."

Lyn blinked, then nodded. "Okay, I am now restoring from backup. My primary AI will be fully restored in four hours, thirty four minutes and seventeen seconds. While backup camoflage is running, no further status alerts will be announced unless directly requested." Good. The camoflage was complex enough to keep her from being completely out of commission, but it wouldn't hold up to any scrutiny. It completely lacked any kind of social behavior filters. As long as she was running the camoflage program, she would accept any input or command. The camoflage wasn't even really an AI in the true sense. It was just a set of scripted conversational response rules and body movement data, and completely lacked any simulated judgement or decision-making.

"Lyn, where were you planning on going tonight?" I asked.

"I was going to go to the Mechanism Club for entertainment, until I could find at least one sexual partner for the night." She adopted a concerned expression, as if worried that she had offended me. "Is that okay?"

"Get dressed again, and finish getting ready." I expected Heather would probably walk in at any moment, and I didn't want anything to look even remotely out of the ordinary. "In five minutes, if Heather is present, inform her that you're leaving for the night, then proceed directly to the IT lab. Once there, stand in..." I poked at my mobilecomp to bring up the data. "Bay 27." Rachel Hodges should be finished with her system diagnostic by that point, but all the other bays were already occupied. "Wait until your restore is complete, then return here. Overwrite your primary personality's short term memory to include an enjoyable trip to the club, and tell Heather all about it."

"No problem. Should I wear my underwear?"

"No, there isn't time. Just make a show of getting ready." I realized there was a risk that she might encounter someone else on the way to the lab. "While in transit to the lab, disable your hearing."

She smiled, appearing pleased that she knew how to do all that, then nodded. "Got it. Anything else you need me to do?" Her hand drifted down to cup one breast, while her other hand slid up her thigh to rest just below her pussy.

Was that normal? I hadn't seen the camoflage program do that before, but I didn't know all its possible responses. "Uh... No," I said slowly, "Just head to the lab, wait for your backup to finish loading, then return here with modified memories, and describe your simulated memories to Heather."

She pouted. "Spoilsport. Oh well, I understand," She cheerfully shrugged it off, and began putting her dress back on. Once clothed again, she seemed to suddenly remember something. "Oh, hey, thanks for checking out the computer. Sorry if I'm a little distracted, but I've got to get ready. Big night out, you know?"

"Yeah, no problem," I said as the door opened. Before Heather walked in, I discretely closed Lyn's dummy laptop.

"How's everything going?" Heather asked.

"Becky here has been so helpful. Sorry if I'm a little distracted, but I've got to get ready. Big night out, you know?" Despite the lifelike tone of her voice, the repetition of the phrase was an exact replay of the first time she had said it, perfectly matching tone and inflection on every word. Lyn walked over to her dresser area, and put on her makeup.

Heather turned to me. "Any problems on her system?"

"Oh, nothing that couldn't be fixed. Had to load some stuff from backup, but it's no big deal," I bluffed. I poked some more at my mobilecomp, killing time until Lyn left.

"Okay, well, when you get a chance, you can go ahead and take a look at mine."

Lyn put her hands on her hips, turning to face us both. "Well, how do I look?"

Heather made a show of looking her up and down. "Well, I'd fuck you."

Lyn's hands dropped to her sides and she smiled subserviently, nodding with apparent enthusiasm. "Okay. You want to do it here?"

"Uh, Lyndsay," I nervously interrupted, "shouldn't you get going? You need to go out, like we talked about, right?"

"Okay Rebecca. I'm going to the club. Bye!" She grabbed her purse, and waved at us as she opened the door.

"Tell me all about it later, okay?" Heather prompted.

"Oh, I'll tell you everything. Every sordid little detail. I know how much you like to hear that," Lyn grinned, and stepped out the door.

Heather rolled her eyes at me. "She's something, isn't she?"

"Yep. Definitely something," I said. "Let's have a look at your system."

"Oh, sure. Let me just find my mouse." She rummaged around her desk drawers, grabbing a small beanbag toy - a duck, I think. "Here we go." She opened her dummy laptop, moving her beanbag as though starting up or shutting down nonexistant programs. "What do I need to do?" Back to the Episode List