Chapter 17 – First Day on the Job
“Welcome aboard, Miss Dodgers,” Harvey Daniels, the man in charge of the Sentinel City FBI bureau said with a pleased smile, offering his hand to Becky. He was an older man, more gray than black in his short, well kept hair, with lines around his eyes that spoke of a long, stressful career. “Your father has quite the reputation; not planning on following in his footsteps, are you?”
Becky smiled and laughed, shaking the assistant director’s hand. She’d been brought up to his office after a brief orientation meeting and getting assigned her clearances for the building. “No, no, of course not! I’m good with numbers, but I’d go stir crazy if I dealt with them as much as dad did. As much as he likes to travel, I don’t know how he’s managed to keep sane over the years, being stuck in one office or another looking at all those accounting records.” Her father had been an accountant for the US government, going from one office to another over the years, dealing with the really big accounts as part of the Special Accounting Service.
Harvey laughed, but only after a second’s hesitation, and a bit of a quizzical look in his eyes. “Oh, yeah, I can imagine,” he said, releasing Becky’s hand. He motioned for her to have a seat in front of his desk as he walked around it. “Well, I can assure you, we won’t be getting into anything quite as dangerous as your father’s department around here.”
“Well, maybe if you call a paper cut dangerous,” Becky replied, still grinning. Even if she were a bit of a masochist, she still didn’t like getting those. Besides, print was dead anyway. Harvey cocked his head for a moment. “Well, unless you mean the travel part. I’m fine with staying in Sentinel City for the most part; it’s a pretty neat place.”
“Right, right,” Harvey said after a moment, his grin returning with a look of understanding crossing his face, finally taking his seat once Becky had taken hers. “Getting more interesting by the day, it seems. I’m sure we’ll be getting you in the thick of it before you know it. Agent McBride should be along shortly to get you settled in; during your probationary period you’ll mostly be working here in the data center, cracking encryption and looking for digital trails, that kind of thing.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Becky replied easily. And she was. The Cybercrimes Unit was a perfect place for her to be, really. Even if she was acting in a more limited capacity than she could outside the office in her alternate persona, plenty of new options were going to be opening up soon that would allow her to legitimize certain aspects of her crime fighting behind the scenes.
Harvey continued to smile across the desk at her. “I’ll admit, it’s good to see kids like you joining up; used to we’d never have accepted someone straight out of college, but it’s not like the old days. I’m lucky if I can even get my emails pulled up most of the time, so someone with your resume should be a great asset for us.”
“If it’s one thing dad made sure I appreciated, it was where I came from,” Becky replied. She’d never met a man more patriotic than her father, and she’d relished in enjoying all those freedoms she’d been born into. She might not have been quite as zealous in defending the United States as he was, even if he only did it by balancing accounts and finding ways to trim a few dollars from one budget or another, but she was more than ready to do her part.
“How is your dad these days? I met him a couple of times several years back, but haven’t heard much since he retired. It’s pretty rare a man in his line of work gets to retire like that.”
Becky shrugged, assuming the director meant that most government accountants probably suffered a breakdown or died of a heart attack or something while pouring over the numbers. “He’s keeping busy around the ranch back home, fiddling with one of his cars or another when he’s not keeping the workers on task. He loves his cars, you know, like, a lot. He’d better not catch you trying to grab a snack in one of them either, let me tell ya’.” Becky grinned a bit sheepishly, her cheeks heating as her drawl asserted itself more than she’d hoped. She couldn’t hide it completely, but she did try to keep it under control when she wasn’t around friends. Some people just didn’t appreciate a southern gal anymore.
“So I’ve heard; pretty sure he mentioned a sweet ‘57 Chevy back when I met him, cherry red, all original, restored chrome…”
“Lucielle,” Becky said with a nod and a grin. “She’s his favorite, for sure. You should hear her when he opens her up. She’ll even outrun a suped up street racer.”
“Will she now?” Harvey asked, chuckling. “I might have to catch up with him one of these days.” He was about to say something else when a knock came to the door. “Come in!”
The door opened, and a woman entered, closing it behind her. She was quite shapely, Becky noted, her suit, while plain, highlighted her curves, and seemed perhaps a bit more expensive than what she’d have assumed for someone working with the FBI. She wore her black hair loose and shoulder length, framing her full face and smooth dark skin. Her brown eyes turned down to Becky, lingering for a moment, before they returned to Harvey. “Director.”
“Ah, Agent McBride, thanks for being so punctual, right on time,” Harvey said pleasantly, motioning to Becky. “This is Agent Rebecca Dodgers.”
“Pleased to meet you!” Becky said as she stood, offering her hand. “Call me Becky.”
McBride took Becky’s hand, her face remaining neutral, her grip firm, not too hard, but turned her attention back to Harvey almost immediately. “Shall I start her right off then?” she asked, and Becky picked up a distinct undertone of displeasure in her voice.
“Of course,” Harvey replied. “I’ve got a meeting in about five minutes, otherwise I would’ve shown her around myself. Give her the tour, get her up to speed on the current projects. I’m sure she’ll fit right in.”
“Of course, sir,” McBride said cooly, turning her eyes back to Becky. “Alright, agent, follow me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Becky replied, looking back to Harvey with a nod. “Director Daniels.”
Harvey nodded. “You’re in good hands, Agent Dodgers. Gloria will get you settled in and set straight.”
Becky followed Gloria, Agent McBride out of the director’s office, but they were standing in the elevator outside the administration offices before the senior agent even spoke to her, whirling around after she had hit the button to send the elevator to the basement.
Becky had a feeling that McBride didn’t like her.
“Agent Dodgers,” McBride said as her previously cool gaze turned suddenly heated, eyes narrowed with disapproval. “Do you actually know anything about computers, or did your dad get you this job?”
Becky opened her mouth, then closed it, momentarily stunned at just how blunt McBride had been. “Wha…Of course I know about computers!” she managed, feeling her cheeks heat as her own anger flared. “I’ve got every certification there is, not to mention in college-”
“That doesn’t mean anything to me,” McBride said sharply. “Pieces of paper on the wall can be bought, and as I understand it, your father has more than enough clout to get it done.”
“My daddy is an accountant,” Becky snarled, her drawl reasserting itself. “He’s good with money and saved up plenty while he was workin’. He worked hard for me n’ momma, made sure we had the best he could, an’ I sure as hell weren’t gonna let all his sacrificin’ go to waste! Now you listen here-”
“No, you listen,” McBride said, poking her finger at Becky. “I’m senior agent here, and that means I’m in charge of your evaluation. Sentinel City’s cybercrimes unit is the best in the country, and some new blood like you doesn’t just start out here. You get transferred here when you’ve proven yourself, when you have real experience. It’s your name, your dad’s reputation, that got you here, I don’t care what your stack of papers say.”
“So daddy saved the government a lot of money, found some extra funds here and there,” Becky replied, biting back a curse before she did something she’d wind up regretting. “He worked hard for this country, but I’m my own person. I’m gonna work just as hard, and I can guaran-damn-tee that I ain’t here just to pull in a paycheck. I know what I’m a doin’, and I can keep up with the best of y’all.”
McBride’s eyebrow lifted curiously for a moment, something about the way Becky had spoken about her father’s accounting work, but the eyebrow quickly angled downward angrily. “We’ll see about that. You’ve got a long way to go before I’ll believe you actually belong here. Some of us had to work hard to get here, weren’t just handed the position on a silver platter.”
The elevator dinged and the doors slid open, and McBride moved out immediately, not leaving Becky a chance to respond. Feeling her teeth grinding, Becky pushed her anger aside and followed. They were in a short corridor, leading to a security door, the heavy glass opaque, barely revealing anything beyond as McBride swiped her ID card and keyed in her security code. Becky noted the security camera set in a heavy-duty housing above the door.
Though she tried not to focus on her special abilities, they had become second nature to her now. She instinctively traced the camera’s data feed, knew where the storage system was, knew where the monitors were. Even in the room beyond, she could sense all of the computers, felt all the data flowing between ethernet and wireless connections, could sense each and every cell phone, heard the faint buzz of multiple conversations through them and the regular phones. She even knew McBride’s access code without really meaning to, though she made it a point to file it away in the recesses of her mind; she might be a walking privacy violation and security risk, but everything she picked up she locked away immediately, refusing to violate basic trust. She even applied a few layers of her own type of mental encryption, though she wasn’t exactly sure if it would matter. She’d yet to suffer a hack attempt on her mind.
With all of that having taken less than a second, Becky followed McBride through the door before it slid shut. They were in the data center now, the central location where all the FBI and government networks coalesced locally, where all the data analysis and digital spying happened. Dozens of people roamed about the central monitoring center, with more corridors and offices branching off the central hub. McBride had cooled her fire, at least enough to seem professional when she showed Becky around and introduced her to several of the people in the office, all of whom were lacking the chip on their shoulders/sticks up their asses when they shook Becky’s hand, even seeming pleased for her to be there.
After over an hour of being shown around and dozens of introductions, McBride had told everyone that Becky had to get started, so she’d been led to her office. When McBride had opened the door and flipped the lights on, Becky had stopped in the doorway, mouth falling open as her eyes landed on stacks of computers, phones, and other pieces of equipment piled around an equally cluttered desk in the corner. Two piles were literally stacked to the ceiling, and it was a wonder there was even room for the door to open.
“Your first duty, Agent Dodgers, is to inventory and test this equipment,” McBride said, her voice taking on a smugness that rankled Becky. “See what can be repaired, what can be salvaged, and what needs to be junked. There’s a phone on your desk…well, one that works, that I’ll instruct our agents to call if they need assistance. You’ve got every certification, right? So I’m sure that means you’re well versed in troubleshooting various devices.”
As McBride spoke, Becky had eyed a computer case that looked like it had been doused in some kind of soda, and might have had something growing in it. She looked back to McBride, who had crossed her arms and now wore a smug grin to match her tone. “So…I’m…tech support?” Becky asked slowly.
“That’s a great way to think about it!” McBride said, her grin widening. “I’ll leave you to it, then, Agent Dodgers. I expect to hear good things from you. I’ll check back in a couple hours to see if you’ve made any progress.”
As McBride made to pass Becky, Becky shrugged. “Well, I guess if that’s what I need to do, I’d best roll up muh sleeves and get started, huh?” She had already managed to analyze a few of the electronics in the room, and picked up a laptop from the top of a nearby stack, the lid bent and deformed, screen cracked, the keyboard broken and missing some keys, like someone had sat down on it.
The computer itself still had charge in the battery, fifty-two percent to be exact. Becky gave it a quick rap with her knuckle in the center of the keyboard, subtly using her powers to realign some components on the motherboard that had been dislodged and re-solder them in place, repair a crack in the cooling fan housing, and reattach the power switch’s connector. She pressed the power button, and the laptop whirred, the cracked display flickering through its wake-up cycle. “Hey, looks like I’m off to a good start already!” she said, turning the screen to show McBride the results of her work.
McBride’s grin slipped, turned downright sour, and the other woman stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
Becky turned the laptop back toward her, snorting as she choked back a laugh. The login screen showed ‘G.McBride’.
* * *
Emi chewed at her lower lip, reviewing her notes for perhaps the dozenth time that day. The first half of the day had been a blur as she had met with several of the senior department members, liking some more than others to be sure, and walking around the campus to make sure she remembered the layout correctly. She had, but with her first class looming ahead of her, she was nearly in a panic, and wanted to take no chances. Somehow taking flight in experimental powered armor and dropping into a combat zone with a bunch of gun-toting maids was a lot easier to deal with than the prospect of teaching a class filled with students her own age or even older. Would they take her seriously? Would they even listen to her? Would they laugh her out of the building?
Pushing away the memories of her initially poor American college experiences thanks to her advanced placement, Emi focused instead on making sure all of her presentation materials were in order. They were as she had left them; nothing had changed in that regard since she’d checked them ten minutes before.
She looked at the clock on her laptop. Only fifteen minutes left until class started. She took a deep breath, blew it out slowly, and gathered her materials into her laptop case. She had to get going.
Her phone buzzed as she picked it up to put it down into her laptop case. Emi glanced at the screen, seeing that the message was from Becky. The ‘OMG!’ that started the text drew Emi’s interest, so she slung her laptop case over her shoulder and pulled up the message after she exited her office and locked up.
‘OMG! This lady is such a bitch! She hates me and I don’t even know her!’
‘Uh-oh…maybe she’s just being hard on you the first day? Trying to break you in?’
‘It’s like I pissed in her cereal or something. Such a stick up her ass!’
Emi kept her eyes forward as she exited the offices, making sure she wasn’t going to bump into anyone, and hit the stairs going down. ‘Maybe she’s just feeling threatened? You are one of those prodigy types-’
Before Emi could hit send, another message popped up. ‘Think I pissed her off more when I found a laptop her fat ass sat down on.’
Then another. ‘See, they got me in this junk room and told me to catalogue everything that’s fixable and broke to shit.’
And another… ‘And then I had to rewire a couple workstations back to the server. Then I had to walk someone through basic stuff, like tech support crap.’
Emi sighed, watching another half dozen messages streaming down her screen, then a seventh, and two more together, several of them about ‘McBride’, apparently the one that had Becky so heated up. She cleared her original message and saw yet another come up, mentioning something about missing all the good stuff going on outside the office. ‘Hey, hey, you’re thought-streaming again! Slow down for us non-cyber-enlightened types 😉’
‘Crap. Sorry. It just happens so easy now. How’s your day going?’
‘Heading to first class now. Near panic. Would rather be facing off a horde of gun-toting maids again.’
‘Same. I’m already halfway through this stuff in the office. Hope they give me something juicy to work on soon.’
Emi walked across the campus towards the building that housed the lecture hall she had been assigned now, passing by one of the fountain squares, weaving through the crowd of students heading to their next classes. Though she was dressed in a more business-like outfit, she could just as easily have been one of them; in fact, nobody seemed to pay her any mind at all. ‘I don’t think they’re going to take me seriously. If I were dressed down a little bit, I’d blend in with the students.’
‘You’ll blow them away! Once you start talking about robots, they’ll know you’re more than just a cute mecha nut. If not, just give me their email addresses; i’ll sign’em all up on all the nasty mailing lists.’
‘LOL. Better not, but thanks for the offer. I don’t even know how I’m going to start the class. I have this intro written up, but I think it might be too boring…’
‘They’re there to learn. We aren’t that much older than most of them…well, I’m not; college kids can’t have changed that much since we graduated. Be topical. Hype up that “mysterious robot hero” maybe. 😀’
Emi’s cheeks heated a bit as she hurried across the wide, tree-lined walkway to the Science and Technology Center, and caught the door before it shut all the way from the students who had just entered. ‘Isn’t that a little dangerous?’
‘Nah! As long as you don’t come right out and say what shouldn’t be said, you’ll be fine. Any self-respecting robotics expert would have been pouring over every detail they could get their hands on anyway. And they have been from what I’ve seen.’
Emi followed a few students upstairs to the second floor, and saw that they had entered room 211…her classroom. She paused at the end of the hall, taking a deep breath. ‘I’m going in. If you see a chewed up body on the couch this evening, it’s just me.’
‘You’ll do just fine! If it helps, just imagine that they’re all wearing maid outfits and armed with automatic weapons. Shoot, gotta go anway; McBride’s riding my ass again. Hit me up when your class is done!’
‘Roger that.’ Emi sighed, making sure her phone was set to silent mode before stuffing it down into her laptop case. She had a few minutes yet, but still had to get her laptop set up. Best to just get it over with…She took another breath to steady herself, watching as another handful of students showed up early for the class.
Emi followed them, one of them holding the door for her as she came up behind. “Thanks,” she said quickly, getting a grin and a nod from the young man. He started toward the stairs that led to the auditorium-style seating, turned to see if she were still following, and seemed surprised when he spotted her taking out her laptop at the desk in the front of the room. Even before Emi had the computer fully powered on, she could hear some whispers about her, wondering if she was really Professor Koike or just an assistant.
Great, the doubt was already starting. “Way to instill confidence, Emi!” she thought, pressing her lips together as she confirmed everything was coming up on the widescreen display the laptop was connected to as it was supposed to. More students filed in as the start time neared. Were there more students here now than she was supposed to have? The seats seemed awfully full. She pulled up her staff portal and logged in, accessed the class registry…and there were eighteen more names registered than when she had checked it yesterday. “Guess there were some last-minute additions…oh crap…”
A few more students filtered through the doors as the clock neared the top of the hour. Taking Becky’s suggestion, Emi briefly tried to imagine a classroom full of angry maids with big guns aiming at her and visualized her armor between her and the bullets that were about to be lobbed her way. It did make her lips turn into a slight grin, but she still would have been less nervous had it been for real.
Deciding that it would be better to get started before she worked herself into a panic attack or just stood there with a dumb grin on her face, she checked the clock once more, saw that it was time for class, and cleared her throat, clicking the wireless microphone on. “Konnichi wa!” she started, smiling in what she hoped was a pleasant way that didn’t make her look like some kind of psycho. “Good afternoon, everyone! I am Doctor Koike, and would like to welcome you to the Introduction to Robotics class!” She really hoped she didn’t sound like too much of a genki girl…
She began by doing a roll call, trying to match faces and names, and noted that she actually had a full class. ‘At least for now; they’ll probably all run away before the next one…’ she thought with a sudden urge to laugh hysterically. Managing to get that particular urge under control, Emi pulled up her presentation…but paused, thinking back to Becky’s suggestion. Instead she opened her web browser and pulled up some videos, queuing them up to start playing in a moment. “So, I see that several of you have just joined the class since yesterday. That is very encouraging. If you would, a show of hands…how many of you have joined us since the appearance of the heroine calling herself ‘Mecha Musume’?” She hit play, keeping the volume muted, on one of the highlight reels Becky had released to the net, making it look like onlookers with cell phones had filmed the whole thing. Over half the students raised their hands. Well, that was interesting… After Emi nodded, one hand lingered in the air, a girl her own age by the look of her, blonde, shapely, cute, with a bigger young man sitting next to her, probably a boyfriend. “You have a question, Miss…Garner?”
She nodded. “Like, how do you know it’s a she and not a robot? Do robots even have gender?”
Emi nodded in response. “Not a bad question, actually. At this time, nobody actually knows for certain if Mecha Musume is male or female; we are only basing that on the use of the chosen name, which implies femininity.” Emi paused, looking at the video for a moment, then back to her class. “Robotic gender specifications are still up in the air, I suppose, but the actual designs of them could be masculine or feminine, or gender neutral. But in this case, it is almost a certainty that Mecha Musume is actually wearing powered armor, and not a robot. Does anyone perhaps have an idea as to why?”
There was a series of whispers, but a hand shot up almost immediately, a young man with tousled brown hair and greasy skin, a few fresh pimples showing. Emi nodded and pointed to him. “Yes, Mister Bloomenthal?”
The young man sniffed, speaking in a nasally voice. “The way it moves, of course. Nothing in any of the videos we’ve seen shows motion that is outside the human range.”
“A fair assessment,” Emi replied. “But if it were a robot that was designed to mimic human movements, would it not have the same limitations?”
He looked down his nose at Emi. “Only if whoever made it didn’t know what they were doing. If you’re going to design a combat robot and put it up against humans, you’d want to pull out all the stops, make it able to move in ways that’d make it difficult for humans to deal with, give it a full 360 degree rotation at the waist when it punches for instance.”
While he wasn’t wrong in his assessment, Emi didn’t like Mr. Blomenthal’s tone. Still, she maintained her friendly grin and nodded. “Again, a fair point. Were there any other indicators as to whether Mecha Musume is a human in armor?”
“The hesitation,” Bloomenthal replied immediately. “A kill bot wouldn’t have hesitated when it landed to take out the targets. And it showed mercy.”
“But what if it was programmed not to kill, though?” asked another student, a Mr. Washington, he was a bit skinnier than Bloomenthal, and with darker hair and eyes, but a similar complexion. “Heroes don’t kill, and if someone built a robot to be a hero, then they’d want it to be merciful too. AI has come a long way, you know.”
Bloomenthal snorted. “Sure, whatever.” Bloomenthal said, waving his hand dismissively. “As to the original question, It’s not a robot. It’s a human wearing armor. The armor plates aren’t mounted on a static frame; when it moves you can see them shifting, just like with real combat armor. The military have been working on stuff like this for a while now, and their stuff looks really similar, but a decade or two behind. The visor screams human too; look at the shape of it; it’s meant to allow a wide field of vision for two eyes; a robot could just have multiple cameras all over. Then there’s that screw up when it fired its cannon.”
“Screw up?” Emi asked, hoping her voice hadn’t betrayed the sudden sense of panic she felt. How had he known she hadn’t tested the rifle properly?!
Bloomenthal crossed his arms. “Most people probably didn’t see it, but when it stowed the cannon, it missed the mounting point on the first try, had to adjust and get it aligned to the mount properly. A robot wouldn’t have made that mistake.”
There were some whispers, and Emi brought the section of video up that showed the rear angle of the encounter, and though it was quick and easily missed, you could clearly see her aligning the rifle too low, then adjusting upward, when it was slowed down. Had her armor been a robot, it could have simply meant the rifle had caused damage when fired, or it had been jarred from the harsh landing, but she let it slide. “Very good observation, Mr. Bloomenthal. Another question to the class…what does the design of the armor itself indicate about the person wearing it?”
Bloomenthal answered without giving anyone a chance, or raising his hand. “That whoever built it has no design sense.”
That just rubbed Emi the wrong way. “Would you care to elaborate, Mr. Bloomenthal?” she asked, doing her best to keep her tone neutral.
He snorted again. “Just look at it. It’s bulky, over-built, and doesn’t have any kind of aesthetic appeal. The lines could be a lot smoother, less angles and more curves. The backpack is junk; looks like something from the early NASA space exploration days. And it’s lacking proper weapons for anti-personnel operations. That cannon is for demolition, not stopping people. At least not the way a hero would anyway,” he added, looking smuggly toward Mr. Washington.
Emi bit back a snarl. How dare he say that! He wasn’t wrong, exactly, but he didn’t have to say it in such a smart-ass tone!
“Maybe it’s just in its prototype stage,” said Washington, frowning at Bloomenthal. “We haven’t seen Mecha Musume before, so this was probably a systems test, and maybe she just happened to catch the crime in progress. You can’t just design something and expect it to work right the first time. You have to get through the prototype stage and run tests on stuff like that, right? I bet the next time we see her, we’ll see some improvements.”
Emi was starting to like Mr. Washington. “Fair points to both of you,” she said, cutting off any more discussion for the moment. “Given the current state of robotics, it’s safe to say that Mecha Musume’s armor is far more advanced than anything else we are currently aware of, but that the design has flaws that need to be addressed. Perhaps once we have more footage to go on, we can reassess at a later time. Now, as to the goals of this class…I can’t say that you’ll be building your own armors by the end of it. That’s in the Master’s level program.” That earned a few laughs as Emi switched to her presentation and began going over the syllabus. “We’ll be starting off with a basic overview of robotic theory…”
By the time her hour had ended and class was dismissed, Emi was feeling a lot better about herself. She wasn’t a nervous wreck, and despite Bloomenthal’s words about Mecha Musume’s armor, she actually felt pretty confident about what she was doing now. She had an hour before her next class, and decided that she was calm enough to actually eat lunch, or her stomach was just insisting louder than it had before.
Taking her phone out again, she saw that she had over a dozen messages from Becky. Was she throught-streaming again? Emi brought up the screen, and saw a half dozen messages and several video links.
“The maid gang is back! Robbing a bank! I don’t see Pinkie or short-stuff; this is a whole new bunch!”
“They’ve all got criminal records, nothing too serious, but now they can add felony gun charges, assault, etc to their records.”
“Shadow Lynx is on the scene! She got there fast! Making short work of them!”
“She’s a bit stuck up, but MMMMM, that ass! All that leather and that whip…I’d just about do something illegal to get that kind of attention.”
“And it’s done. All that’s left is the clean up now. Kinda sad we didn’t get to continue what we started with those girls.”
Grinning and shaking her head at Becky’s lustful text, Emi tapped the first video link, noting that it led directly to Shadow Lynx’s channel; that must have been uploaded within minutes of the robbery ending. Watching as she headed toward her office, Emi didn’t see any recognizable faces in the maid uniforms, but there were at least another dozen of the gun-toting women. How big was this gang? She also saw that Shadow Lynx was handling them a lot more easily than she and Becky had, and had made it look easy; then again, there didn’t seem to be a knife-wielding ninja maid or one with an explosives fetish, either. The whole fight couldn’t have taken more than a couple minutes, though maybe that was just the editing drawing it out. Some scenes seemed to have been shot from multiple angles, too.
She watched the other vids as she crossed the campus toward the cafeteria, and while she waited in line for her lunch, then finally replied once she had a plate and a drink in front of her.
“Kinda bummed we didn’t get a chance on them too. We could’ve done just as good of a job.”
“Any idea where they’re getting their guns? Who is in charge?”
Emi tapped the edge of her phone thoughtfully, snatched a few bites of her lunch, and noticed Becky hadn’t responded yet. She was probably dealing with that agent who was giving her a hard time. She started typing again.
“Survived my first class without too much trouble. Think I’m not going to like one of the students, though; something about him tells me he’s going to argue with me a lot. And he doesn’t like my designs.”
“Eating lunch now; we’ll go over this more this evening. Got another class in a little bit. Hope that your senior agent isn’t giving you too much trouble.”
A couple minutes passed, and Emi’s phone buzzed, then again. Pulling up the screen, she saw a series of gifs had started flowing down her message screen, all of them variations on someone choking someone else. “Oh my,” Emi said to herself, cutting into the stream of images with a message of her own. “What happened?”
“McBitch is making me redo all these computers! Thinks I didn’t give due diligence even though half of them are either working or ready to be junked!”
“Glad your class went well though. Knew you could do it! Don’t care what those stuck up tenured types say, you’ve got’em licked in the robotics department.”
“What does that student know anyways? He’s in an entry level class, can’t know that much.”
Emi grinned. “Knows more than most, but yes, still in entry level class. It is a prerequisite for advanced courses, though. Maybe he’ll change his tone after the next outing?”
“We’ll have to make it a good show for sure. Hope more maids show up, though. Hate to think Shadow Lynx got’em all before we had another chance at them.”
“Surely there can’t be that many more gun-toting maids out there.” Emi typed, sending a second message. “I’m going to finish up lunch and get ready for my next class; try not to strangle McBride on your first day.”
“I ain’t promising nothin’ ;P You may have to bail me out tonight, lol. Later babe! Be thinking about you in those sexy heels and tight rubber to get me through the afternoon!”
“Better make sure you behave, otherwise it’s the naughty hood for you, and you’ll be in a whole different kind of jail when you get home.” Emi replied, feeling her lips curl into a grin, quickly typing a follow up. “I’ll bring out the chastity gear and throw away the keys; no fun plugs either!”
“…I might just be too distracted to consider assault now. Luv u so much! Back to work like a good girl!”
Emi chuckled, setting her phone aside. Becky would be thinking about that the rest of the day now. Though she hadn’t made plans for anything kinky, rather, more work on her armor, maybe both of them could stand to work off a little work-day frustrations this evening. Seeing Becky squirm around the workshop trying to bypass the chastity gear would be pretty fun to watch…
Back in the saddle with a new chapter and a new host! I wanted to get this next chapter out there now that I’ve gotten a little bit ahead, though I’ll probably be putting out some short stories regardless in the near future.
This chapter is more of an interlude to set up some future elements, but I’d say we’re moving into the home stretch now. Got some more action-packed chapters coming up as we build toward a climax.
Thanks to everyone for sticking around and continuing to check out my stories. Would love to hear any feedback you might have! Hit me up here or over on DeviantArt, or on my Discord server!
