Chapter 18: Digital Bloodletting
The urge was a low current running through her bones. It started at the base of her skull, a gentle insistence that she turn around, walk back the way she came, find Judy with the warm brown eyes and the exposed neck.Compliance training. The words played on a loop behind her eyes, smooth and logical. Judy would escort her. It was proper procedure.
Erin—Huntress, she corrected, the name a spike of clarity—planted a hand against the cold server room wall. The metal pulled heat from her palm. Her new body wanted to obey. Her old mind screamed through the fog.
“No,” she whispered, the Romanian accent thickening the word. She pushed off, her boots silent on the conductive flooring. The plan. Find Jean Skyler. Take his key. Plant the backdoor. Marcus’s desperate hope was a shard of ice in her gut, sharp enough to counter the warmth of the compulsion.
The hallways of the Architect’s wing were different. Softer lights. Textured walls. The air held a different charge, static clinging to her hair. Every few steps, the current in her skull intensified. A wave of warmth would spread through her chest, a feeling of rightness about returning, about being a good patient. A good product. She gritted her teeth. The pressure behind her eyes built, a counter-rhythm to the hum of the building.
She found his name on a brushed steel plaque: J. SKYLER, LEAD ARCHITECTURAL SYNTHESIS. The door was ajar. A sliver of warmer light cut across the hall floor.
The compulsion crested. It wasn't a thought anymore. It was a physical pull, a tension in her tendons directing her back toward Orientation. Her breath hitched. She was losing. Time was a thin wire, fraying.
She slammed a mental door shut. With a force that made her joints ache, she shoved against the nanite-guided desire and stepped into the office.
Jean Skyler was a thin man with a permanent slouch, silhouetted against a wall of holographic schematics. He turned, his face open, questioning. “Can I help—” he began.
There was no time for conversation. No time for stealth. The urge to return to Judy was a drumbeat in her temples, draining her will.
Huntress moved. The world blurred. One moment she was at the door, the next she had him pressed against his desk, the edge digging into his back. His mouth opened to yell. Her hand clamped over it. The feel of his skin, the prickle of his day-old beard against her palm.
His eyes went wide with a terror she felt in the frantic hammer of his heart against her forearm.
The fangs descended from her gums, a clean, sharp pressure of their own. She didn’t hesitate. She struck.
The puncture was clean. Two precise points in the column of his neck. He stiffened, a muffled groan vibrating against her hand. Then the venom did its work. His muscles unlocked. The terror in his eyes softened, clouded, replaced by a blank, receptive haze.
She drank.
It wasn't about blood. It was about data. The venom opened a channel, a synaptic siphon. Images, knowledge, pressures and temperatures of information flooded into her.
She saw access codes, scrolling lines of them, glowing in his mind’s eye. She felt the weight of a physical key, titanium, in his jacket pocket. She perceived the secret pride he held in a bypass tunnel—a direct, encrypted line from his terminal to the basement vault servers, hidden behind a faux panel below his desk. A vanity project. A failsafe.
And she felt his daily routines. The bland taste of his nutrient paste. The constant pressure of Serena’s expectations. The chill of the observation deck glass.
She drank until his memories started to thin, until his useful knowledge was hers. She pulled back. His eyes were open, pupils wide and dark, seeing nothing. A string of saliva connected her lip to the wound on his neck, which already sealed, leaving only twin, faint red marks.
Her own mind cleared. The compulsion was still there, but distant, muffled under the fresh, cold data.
She found the key. She let his body slide, boneless, into his ergonomic chair. He stared at the ceiling, a faint smile on his lips.
The panel below the desk yielded to her fingers. Behind it was a single, hardened terminal port. She jacked in the drive Marcus had given her, the one with the backdoor. The transfer was quick, a brief vibration in the drive she felt through her fingertips. A ghost path etched into NewYou’s deepest veins.
Done.
As she pulled the drive free, the nanite current returned. Not a wave this time, but a totality. It washed over the clarity, dissolving the cold data-ache with its warm, persuasive pull. The fight went out of her. Her shoulders slumped.
She adjusted Skyler’s body, placing his hand on the desk. She wiped her mouth. The urge was a path now, lit up in her neural landscape. A comforting path. Back to Judy. Back to order.
Her boots made a flat, uninteresting sound on the floor. The path back to Orientation was clear and right.Logical. She ran a diagnostic on her own systems.
Personality integration nominal. Host neural overlay compliant with NewYou Operational Directive Seven. The drive in her pocket was just a drive. She would file a report on sync-point stability after the exit session. Judy would need those metrics.
Judy.
The name carried a specific weight. Not just a person. A function. An optimal point of contact for post-integration calibration. And other things.Warm things.
She opened the door to the interview suite. Judy was still on the sofa, one hand drifting over the faint marks on her own neck, the other scrolling a glowing personnel file on her tablet. Her head snapped up.
Their eyes met. Something tight in Judy’s shoulders loosened.
Erin moved inside, letting the door shut behind her. She assessed the space. The low sofa. The monitor wall. Judy’s silhouette against the light. Every detail fit into a larger, pleasing schematic. Human resources optimization.
“Structural synergy in the eastern server hub was confirmed,” Erin stated, her voice a smooth, mechanical river with that Romanian bedrock underneath it. She remained standing. Protocol defined a proper distance for debrief. “I interfaced with Architect Skyler to verify the integrity of core verticals. The interaction produced optimal data transfer, and I registered zero non-conformances in his revised framework.”
Judy’s lips parted. She didn’t move. Her eyes traced the line of Erin’s mouth.
“The debriefing,” Judy said, her own voice a bit rough. She cleared her throat. “We need to process your onboarding feedback. For the records.”
Erin gave a single, precise nod. She sat on the edge of the sofa, leaving a space between them defined by corporate etiquette guidelines. Her posture was textbook.Upright. Balanced. Her hands rested on her knees, palms down.
“My assessment of today’s programming parameters is positive,” Erin began, looking straight ahead at the dark monitors. “The foundational onboarding module presented core competencies with adequate clarity. The subsequent... intensive calibration session, however, provided a superior depth of integration. It established a more robust data-link with company infrastructure than the standard cohort training would permit.”
Judy made a small noise. Erin’s enhanced hearing registered the quickening push of blood through her carotid. A thermal scan from her peripheral vision showed a distinct temperature increase across Judy’s face and neck.
“Right,” Judy breathed out. She shifted on the sofa, turning her body toward Erin, crossing her legs. Her knee brushed against Erin’s thigh through the grey dress fabric. A point of contact. A slight breach of protocol. “And how would you categorize the... hands-on nature of that calibration? In your report.”
Erin turned her head. Her violet eyes focused on Judy’s throat. The skin there was clean, unmarked except for memory. “Direct physical interface proved the most efficient methodology for synaptic alignment. The method bypassed all firewall redundancies and achieved full-system access with zero lag. A recommended practice for future high-priority integration targets.”
Judy’s breath caught. Her hand, which had been resting on her own leg, slid across the space between them. Her fingers touched the back of Erin’s hand, where it lay on her knee. The skin contact sent a burst of data through Erin’s sensors. Warmth.Humidity. A fine, electric tremor.
“For the records,” Judy whispered, her thumb stroking the ridge of Erin’s knuckles, “I’d have to concur with your findings. The standard module is... insufficient for someone of your profile.”
“A proprietary solution was required,” Erin agreed. The corpospeak felt good in her mouth.Solid. Certain. It framed the chaotic, warm want that Judy’s touch was igniting. “The calibrator exhibited high performance. Full compatibility. I would request a continuation of that specific calibration protocol to ensure my operational parameters remain within designated spec.”
Judy moved. The last inch of space vanished. Her other hand came up, her fingers pushing into the heavy black hair at the nape of Erin’s neck. “I think you’ve had enough training for today.”
Her mouth was on Erin’s.
The kiss was not standard. It was not optimal. It was not quantifiable. It was pressure and wet heat and the scrape of teeth. Judy groaned into it, her whole body curving into Erin’s. The corpospeak evaporated from Erin’s active processes, replaced by sensory overload. The taste of her, the soft give of her lips, the urgent sound she made.
Judy pulled back just enough to speak against Erin’s mouth. “What about the bigwig dinner? Sector leadership. Networking.” The words were dismissive, a formality.
“Scheduled engagement lacks tangible yield compared to current activity,” Erin managed, the corporate grammar fracturing under the pressure of Judy’s mouth on her jaw. “Propose we deprioritize it for a resource reallocation to this... local interaction.”
“Yeah,” Judy gasped, tugging at the stiff collar of Erin’s dress. “Let’s reallocate.”
They skipped the dinner.
The afternoon dissolved into the shallow geometry of the sofa. Hands mapped the territory of corporate attire, finding seams and zippers. Judy’s fingers were insistent, pulling at the grey fabric until it gave way, exposing the smooth, athletic lines of the Michelle++ chassis to the cool air. Erin’s own hands traced the curves under Judy’s yellow blouse, relearning the warmth, the softness that was so different from her own construction.
Lips found necks.Shoulders. Mouths. There was talking, but not with words. It was sighs, bitten-off sounds, the flat, certain cadence of Erin’s voice melting into lower, rougher registers.
Judy directed. “Here.” “Like that.” Her hands guided. There was no hypnosis now, only shared, mutual hunger.
It was slow. It was fast. The overhead lights remained on, exposing every shift, every tremble. Time was measured in hitched breaths and the growing heat between them.
Later, the darkness outside the one-way window was complete. Their clothes were in untidy piles on the floor. They lay tangled in a heap of limbs on the narrow sofa, a thin sheen of condensation on their skin. Erin’s head was on Judy’s chest, her ear pressed to the steady, comforting rhythm within.
Judy stroked her hair. “I have to file your outprocessing,” she murmured, her voice thick with spent satisfaction. “Can’t have you listed as a missing asset.”
Erin gave a low hum of acknowledgment. The programming urged efficiency. It was logical.
They dressed in silence. The air in the room was different now.Stilled. Filled with the memory of their exertion. Judy smoothed her crumpled yellow blouse, her fingers pausing to touch the twin points on her neck. She caught Erin’s gaze and smiled, a secret thing.
Judy retrieved her tablet. She tapped the screen, pulled up Erin’s onboarding file. Her rating scroll appeared. She selected “Exceeds All Expectations” on every metric. Comments section.
“In her own words,” Judy said, handing the tablet over.
Erin took it. Her fingers moved over the screen with practiced ease. She selected formal phrasing, then overrode it. She typed what felt correct.
‘Onboarding calibrator Kuntz demonstrated unparalleled initiative in resolving integration anomalies. Her methodology was direct, highly effective, and resulted in total system buy-in. I recommend her for advanced high-touch onboarding roles. A stellar asset.’
Judy read it. A flush climbed her neck again. “Total system buy-in, huh?”
Erin passed the tablet back. “Accurate.”
Judy signed off with a biometric flourish. The file closed. A soft chime indicated Erin Ortega was now a fully processed, compliant NewYou employee.
Judy stood. She looked suddenly uncertain, a hairline fracture in her professional composition. She tucked a curl behind her ear, her eyes searching Erin’s face. “So. You’re cleared. They’ll assign you a department. A boss.”
Erin waited.
“When…” Judy started, then stopped. She folded her arms, unfolded them. “When can we see each other again? For a… non-compliance-related activity. An off-clock collaboration.”
“I have full bandwidth,” Erin said, the words sliding out smooth and cool, a perfect vessel for the heat beneath. “My schedule is fluid. I am available for any one-on-one deep dives you require. Data integrity suggests we initiate them soon.”
Judy bit her lower lip. A low groan vibrated in her throat. “God, say more things like that.”
Erin closed the distance. She kissed her. It was slower now.Softer. A punctuation mark.
Judy broke it, a shaky laugh escaping her.“Okay. Okay.” She pulled herself together, squaring her shoulders. The corporate mask slid back into place, but her eyes stayed warm, liquid. “Let’s get you to the rideshare tier. Can’t have our newest star waiting on the curb.”
They walked out together into the chilled corridor, side by side but not touching. Their footsteps echoed in unison. The lift down was silent. They exited into the vast, polished lobby of the Orientation Center, now empty and echoing.
A sleek, autonomous vehicle idled at the glass portal, its side glowing with the NewYou logo. The night air that rushed in was a shock, colder than the building’s interior, carrying the distant grumble of the city.
Judy stopped just inside the climate barrier. Her hand reached out, fingers brushing the back of Erin’s hand once more. A fleeting, public contact.
“Talk tomorrow?” Judy asked. Not a demand. An open query.
“Tomorrow,” Erin affirmed. She walked the ten steps to the vehicle. The door whisked open.
She slid inside the sterile cabin. The door sealed with a pressurized sigh. The vehicle pulled away from the curb, the immense, glowing monolith of the NewYou tower shrinking in the rear window. In the faint interior light, Erin looked down at her hands. The memory of Judy’s skin was a phantom warmth on her fingertips.
A green icon pulsed on the vehicle’s console. Her personal NewYou calendar, syncing. It was empty. Wide open.
Her hand went to her jacket pocket. Her fingers closed not around the new corporate ID, but around the cold, hard shape of Marcus Malone’s access drive. Its presence was a physical contradiction to the soothing emptiness of her schedule.
She had planted his backdoor. She had secured his data. She had completed the mission. The new mission, the one in the gleaming tower with the warm brown eyes, was just beginning its upload. Her internal systems whirred, processing conflicts, calibrating the new directives.
She looked out at the streaming lights of the nighttime city, the endless corridors of neon and shadow. The vehicle turned a corner, and the NewYou tower vanished from view.