Rebecca grabbed her cup noodles from the microwave, and tried not to drop them in response to the slight pain from the heat. She walked over to her Master’s thesis which she was proud to say was halfway done. She tried to ignore the late hour on the clock as she started typing again, between slurps of noodles.

Rebecca was recognized as an up-and-coming genius in the math world, with people sometimes saying she was the next Euler or Ramanujan. So it came as a surprise, when the equations and concepts that had come so easily to her before started to look like another language.

What was happening? Was she just getting tired? Why did her head feel so funny?

She looked at the long ignored clock, and saw that it was 2:00 AM. That was late, but she had pulled late nights for years and it had never caused her to so completely lose her edge. Then she blinked, and realized she was having trouble reading the analog wall clock. How did those work again? The big hand pointed to the minute? Or was it the hour?

It was all starting to become so confusing.

Oh well, none of that mattered. She knew it was late, but she had to push onwards no matter what.

She scrolled a few paragraphs up, trying to reorient herself, but it was hopeless. Her brain couldn’t make sense of all of the symbols and when she tried to read the surrounding words there were a lot of tough words that she couldn’t make heads nor tales of.

Rebecca started to panic. What was wrong with her? This wasn’t just tiredness, this was something else.

As if in response to her worry, her phone started ringing. She saw it was from an unknown number. She usually ignored those, but she couldn’t remember why. She answered the phone.

“Hello?” she said.

“Hello, Rebecca,” a distorted voice said in response. “We’ve encrypted your academic knowledge and as we speak even more is being encrypted. Unless you pay us $5000 worth of cryptocurrency, your memories are going to stay encrypted forever.”

As strange as it was, Rebecca started to feel less worried. She wasn’t suddenly sick or something, somebody was doing this to her and they could be reasoned with.

“I’d totally pay you $5000 or whatever,” Rebecca said. “But I’m a broke college student. I’ve got, like, zero money. I could pay you, like, $200.”

There was a pause, then the voice said. “That’s not our problem. Find a way to get $5000 and we’ll restore your memories. We’ll be in touch in a week.”

The line went dead.

Rebecca looked a her phone, and tried not to give up right there.

Someone had messed with her head, and now unless she could get her hand on $5000 dollars, she’d be stuck as a total dummy forever! Rebecca didn’t even know that something like this was possible, though she considered that maybe that was one of the things they had made her forget.

Rebecca needed to figure out how to get out of this mess, but right now she was exhausted and her head was strangely empty, so she decided to just go to sleep for now. Hopefully, she would think better in the morning.

Rebecca tried to make coffee the next morning as she waited for her roommate to wake up, but she couldn’t quite remember how to do it. She had the water, and the coffee beans and the coffee maker gathered in front of her, but she couldn’t remember exactly how to combine them into coffee.

When her roommate entered the room, Rebecca was desperate.

“Lily, please you’ve got to, like, help me!” Rebecca said. “Some mean nasty people did something to my brain, and now I can’t remember a bunch of stuff. Can you make this coffee for me?”

Lily looked at Rebecca for a few seconds, before her lips curled into a smile.

“You got hit by one of those new ransomware attacks!” Lily said, a bit too happily. “Oh geez, this is too rich. Weren’t you just making fun of my mom for falling victim to one of them? I seem to recall you saying that she ‘Must have been an idiot before they got to her’ since she was able to fall victim to it in the first place.”

“I don’t remember saying that,” Rebecca said. “But I’m really sorry if I made you angry or anything.”

Lily shook her head. “Oh, I’m not angry. I’m just so happy that little miss genius is being taken down a peg or two. I’m going to like this.”

Rebecca looked at her coffee ingredients, and bounced a little in frustration. “You can make fun of me all you want, but please, help me make my coffee at least. I’ve got to figure out how to make $5000 dollars in a week, and I can’t do that if I’m totally ex-, exha-, um, if I’m totally tired.”

Lily crossed her arms. “Okay, I’ll help you, if you can answer a math problem for me. You’re good at math right? What’s 22 times 7?”

Rebecca had a look of desperation in her eyes. “I can’t do a hard problem like that!”

“Then I guess you’ll have to make coffee yourself.”

Rebecca stood and stared at the ingredients for a little longer. She knew that the coffee flavor needed to end up in the big glass thingy. (The coffee jar? No, that didn’t sound right.) So maybe step one was put the coffee beans in that?

She frowned after pouring the beans into the big glass thing. It didn’t look right, but she couldn’t put her finger on why.

Did water go in the glass thing now?

She poured water inside. Now she had beans and water in the big glass thing, but it didn’t look right. This was just big chunks of coffee beans in cold water. It had to get warm somehow, right?

Rebecca put the glass thingy into the microwave, but just as she was about to start it, Lily pulled her hand away.

“Give it to me,” Lily said, finally taking pity on her. “I’ll make it for you.” Watching Rebecca be so clueless had been more than enough entertainment for the morning.

Rebecca thanked Lily profusely, as Lily made the coffee. She could tell that Lily was gloating inwardly the whole time.

The two roommates sat down.

“God, you really are stupid now, aren’t you?” Lily said. “My mom could at least still make coffee when the ransom guys got to her.”

Rebecca crossed her arms. “I’m not stupid, you big meanie! I just can’t remember a bunch of stuff anymore.”

Lily shook her head. “They must have gotten you good.”

“Yeah!” Rebecca said. “And I need my smart girl brain back, so please help me get $5000 dollars by next week.”

Lily shook her head. “I don’t have that kind of cash. Could you ask your parents?”

Rebecca put her finger to her mouth and thought. “No,” she said sadly. “My parents are both super poor, I was the first one in the family to go to college.”

“Well,” Lily said. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. After all, me and my mom were able to.”

And with that, Lily turned up her nose and left Rebecca alone at the kitchen table. Rebecca started to panic now.

She had no idea how to come up with $5000!

It was a lot of money, and the ransom guys had taken the thing she was best at away from her! All of her smart girl knowledge was *poof* gone. How did they expect her to make money?

Rebecca knew she would have to call in sick today, but she had trouble using her phone. Thankfully, after 5 minutes of clicking around, she figured out how to send a text to her mentor.

> Hey, my head feels yucky today, so I can’t do class. Sorry!

Rebecca tried to think about the ways people made money.

Jobs?

But what kind of job could she do in her current state? Something that didn’t require a lot of knowledge, but what?

Rebecca had no idea!

She finally bowed her head in shame, and knocked on Lily’s door.

“What’s up, Becky?” Lily said.

Rebecca looked angry at the hated nickname. Lily knew how much she hated it - it just sounded too casual, too ditzy, and she had always worried people wouldn’t respect her with a name like Becky. But right now, Rebecca needed Lily’s help, so she swallowed her pride, and forced herself to smile.

“I’m really sorry about what I said about your mom back then,” Rebecca said. “I can’t remember what I said anymore, but I’m sure I was being a total meanie, and I’m sorry about that. Please just help me get out of this - I can’t stay stupid like this forever.”

Lily’s expression softened. “I guess I accept your apology. But I’ll want a more specific apology when you get your brains back.”

“Deal!” Rebecca said. “Can you please help me?”

Lily sighed. “I’ll try to do what I can, but like I said, I don’t have $5000, Becky”

Rebecca tried to push past her visceral reaction to that name. She *needed* Lily’s help.

“Well, I was thinking,” Rebecca said. “And I realized something important: people get money from jobs, right? Is there some sort of job I could do where you don’t need to be very smart, but people will still give you a lot of money?”

Lily shook her head. “Of course not? Do you think anyone would have money problems if jobs like that existed?”

Rebecca grabbed Lily by the shoulders. “Come on! There has to be some job, right? I can’t be stuck like this forever, Lily.”

Lily looked down at Rebecca’s cleavage, which she now had an excellent view of.

“You know, I suppose there is a job you might be able to do,” Lily said. “Have you ever considered camgirling?”

* * *

Lily had been kind enough to help Rebecca get set up on a camgirling site. Rebecca was a little annoyed that Lily had insisted on making her name “Becky Bimbo” on the site. But Lily had tried to explain that it might help her stand out from the crowd.

“Okay, take off your top, Becky” Lily said, holding up Rebecca’s phone in camera mode.

Rebecca frowned. Was she going to call her that the whole time?

“Like this?” Rebecca asked, pulling her shirt off.

“That’s it!” Lily said. “Try to do a few poses.”

Rebecca did a few different poses, before Lily told her to take her bra off as well.

“Okay…” Rebecca said, slowly removing her bra.

She was feeling kind of cold standing there completely topless, and she started to feel her nipples harden a bit.

“So let me get this straight again,” Rebecca said. “All I have to do is upload these pictures, and what… people will just pay to see me?”

Lily paused. “Oh my god, they really did do a number on you! Can you really not understand why people might want pictures of you like this?”

Rebecca looked down at herself. “No, why?”

Lily laughed. “So, do you see any reason why you shouldn’t leave the apartment dressed like this right now, Becky?”

Rebecca blushed. She could tell Lily was making fun of her. “Well, I guess it would be pretty cold, right? I would probably want to get a coat at least.” Rebecca puffed her chest out pridefully - she wasn’t completely stupid! She could think through the reasons why things were bad, even if she couldn’t remember them anymore.

Lily got a mischievous grin. “You got me there, Becky. The only problem with going out like this is that you would be cold.”

Lily walked over to the closet, and pulled out a coat.

“Here, put this on,” Lily said. “We should take some pictures outside.”

Rebecca nodded, and followed Lily outside.

“Unzip it a little in the front, that’s it!” Lily said.

Rebecca did as she was told, and felt the crisp cool air. It so cold standing out there in nothing but a coat! The coat was warming her up a bit, but her br-, uh, boobies were getting goosebumps in the cold air.

“Perfect,” Lily said. “Now turn that way, that’s it!”

They continued like that for a few minutes, before the first classes of the day finished up, and students started walking around campus.

A few boys saw Rebecca wearing nothing but an opened jacket showing off her cleavage underneath, and stopped to gawk at her.

“Um… is it okay if these guys are here?” Rebecca asked.

“Yeah,” Lily said dismissively. “They won’t bother you.”

Rebecca thought she recognized one of the guys.

“Oh my gosh,” Rebecca said. “You’re in the course I run! Hi, Jeremy.”

“Rebecca?” the boy said incredulously.

The boy standing next to him hit him on the shoulder. “Dude, you didn’t tell me that your TA was a whore. Why did you hold out on us?”

Jeremy shook his head. “I didn’t know, man.”

Rebecca gave the boys a look of confusion. “What’s a whore?”

Jeremy stepped forward, and looked at her chest. “It’s someone who has sex with you in exchange for money,” he said. “Are you feeling alright today?”

“I’m kind of chilly,” Rebecca said thoughtfully. “But otherwise I’m super duper!”

When the photo shoot had finished up, Rebecca asked Lily if she had heard about the “whore” thing.

“Do people really do that?” Rebecca asked. “Get paid to have sex or whatever?”

Lily shifted uneasily. “Look, Rebecca. Putting your pictures up online is one thing, but you shouldn’t just be having sex with strangers-”

“Why not?” Rebecca asked. “Sex is fun! It sounds like an easy way to make money.”

Lily bit her lip. She had been having fun humiliating Rebecca without her knowledge, but this…

“Aren’t you concerned about all of the consequences of having sex?” Lily asked.

“Like what?” Rebecca asked.

Lily shook her head. “Just… hold off on that for now. Let’s see how your OnyFans does.”

* * *

After a day, the results were in. Lily saw that Rebecca had managed to make $1100 from all of her pictures and videos.

“Well, how did I do?” Rebecca asked. “Did I make enough?”

Lily felt a strange envy rising in her heart. When her own mom had had some of her mind ransomed, Lily had had to start working two jobs in addition to her academic work in order to pay it off. It had taken her three months to restore her mom, and the whole time Rebecca had acted like a total bitch to her - absolutely no sympathy, saying her mom probably clicked on a link she shouldn't have, or visited a website she should have known better than to visit.

But somehow, just because she was pretty, Rebecca was going to have the easy path forward. She was just going to make everything back.

It didn’t sit right with Lily. It wasn’t fair!

“I’m sorry Becky! You didn’t make nearly enough,” Lily said. “You’re going to need to make a *lot* more money than you did in order to make enough to buy your smarts back.”

Rebecca looked like she was going to cry. “But how am I going to do that? It’s, like, totally impossible.”

“Well,” Lily said. “You’re a smart girl. I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

She crossed her arms, and left Rebecca alone in the living room.

Rebecca felt despair filling her. She was never going to be a smart girl again!

She needed money, and she needed it fast.

Then she remembered what she had learned about whores the previous day. Maybe she could do that?

She walked slowly into Lily’s room. “Lily, I know you don’t want to help me, but please. I googled ‘How to be a whore’ and I couldn’t find a job application. I don’t know how to even start?”

Lily gave a wry smile. “Well, why don’t you start asking guys if they want to sleep with you for cash?”

Rebecca looked at Lily with admiration. “Oh, duh! You’re so smart! But, like, how much do I charge?”

Lily thought of her poor mother, and sighed. “You should charge them $10, Becky.”

“Don’t call me Becky!” she angrily replied. “It makes me sound like dumb or whatever.”

“But you are dumb, aren’t you?” Lily said.

“Like, oh yeaahhh,” Becky said, accepting her new name. “So, like, you really think $10 enough. How fast is that going to get me to $5000?”

“Fast enough,” Lily said dismissively.

Becky smiled. For the first time in her life, things were looking up! Lily was such a good friend.

* * *

Becky approached one of the guys on campus.

“Hey, do you want to have sex with me, mister?” she said uncertainly. “It’ll only cost $10.”

“Rebecca, is that you?” the young man asked, recognizing her as one of his TAs.

“It’s Becky now,” she said smiling. “I’m not smart enough to be Rebecca.”

“Is that so?” he said.

“Yep, some big meanies got into my brain, and now I don’t have a smart girl brain no more,” she said. “So I’m getting a job as a whore to pay back the meanies.”

“Wow, really?” the guy said. A part of him felt a little bad about seriously considering her offer. Should he really take advantage of his sexy former TA?

“Yeppers,” Becky said.

He looked at her skimpy outfit, and made his decision.

Soon, the two of them were going to Becky’s apartment just off campus, and Becky gave him the time of his life.

Becky never knew making $10 could be so much fun! When the guy finally put his hot sticky cum in her, she was convinced that this job would be a breeze. She’d be a smart girl in no time!

* * *

A week later, a phone call roused Becky in the middle of the night.

“Hello, Becky here. Do you want me to fuck you? It’s only $10.”

“We’re not clients, we’re the ransomers.”

Becky’s brow furrowed. “You meanies! Well, the jokes on you because I’ve been working all week, and I’ve got like $500 dollars. So you’ve gotta make me smart again, right?”

There was a pause at the other end.

“Um, we asked you for $5000. No $500.”

Becky giggled. “Oh, wow. I feel like, so stupid right now. You totally did say $5000, didn’t you? When I hear big numbers, they just poof out of my head, you know?”

“Well, we’ll be checking in on your progress every week. Let us know when you have the money.”

* * *

Epilogue.

Eventually, Becky did make enough money. There were a few bumps along the road, like when she had made $3000, and Lily had convinced her that she’d make money a lot faster if she used all that money to make her boobies bigger, but eventually she had done it. After fucking a mountain of guys (and enjoying every minute of it), she had $5000.

She waited for the weekly call from the meanies. But it never came.

Eventually, the news arrived that the largest brain ransomware cartel in the world had been busted, and would soon be tried in court. But then, everyone associated with the case was turned into drooling morons and the members of the cartel escaped police custody, and nobody knew where they had disappeared to.

Lily told Becky that that meant her smart girl brain was never coming back. But Becky knew Lily was her BFF, and Lily proved it when she said that she’d let Becky switch to camgirling, and let the meager income she got from that cover her rent.

Becky was so happy that the rest of her days would be spent making men horny. Who cared about math anyways?