Chapter 1: Moving Deadlines

Ada bit her bottom lip as she adjusted her gold framed glasses. They still felt crooked even after the fifth of such adjustments. The mirror taunted her, and she had no retort for it. All she could do was attempt to adjust them again, still finding herself unsatisfied.

“You’ve had plenty of meetings like this before. You’ll do fine.” Behind crooked lenses, Ada’s light brown eyes were as uncertain as her voice sounded.  “They hired you for a reason. You’re capable. You’re competent. You just need to project confidence…!”

Taking a deep breath, Ada did her best to push her worries aside. A wide smile forced itself across her face as she reached up to tie her blonde hair back into the professional bun she wore all day at the office. For just a split second she was the very image of composure. The very next moment a knock on the door had her letting out a loud, embarrassing squeak before desperately grasping at the bathroom sink.

“Ada! Are you almost done in there? I need to get ready for work, too!”

“Yeah! Just give me a minute, Sofia! I’m almost done!” Ada’s pale cheeks burned a deep crimson. “Sorry, I just slept really poorly last night!”

New worries were the last thing that Ada needed. Being overheard talking to herself in the bathroom mirror did nothing to help settle her nerves. Once she captured all of the stray hairs that escaped her bun, Ada opened the door to find Sofia directly outside.

Few people would call Ada especially tall, but her average height had her towering over the shorter Sofia. Sofia’s dark blue hair fell around her face, framing it perfectly. Her dark blue eyes peered up at her roommate with one raised eyebrow. “You doing alright?” The freckles dotting across her face had the unfortunate side effect of making Sofia look far younger and cuter than she liked even though both women were solidly in their mid 20’s.

“Yeah…! Just an important meeting I really need to nail today, that’s all… Bathroom’s all yours…!” Ada forced her smile wider as she moved out of Sofia’s way, careful to not steal a glance down the blue-haired woman’s top.

Being taller than her when she goes around wearing dipping necklines with a body like that… Ada sighed. It’s not my fault I want to stare at curves like those. She might not be the bustiest woman I know or anything like that, but gosh if I could just reach out and squeeze her however I wanted it would be so much fun…

“Good luck in your big meeting!” Sofia closed the door behind her, leaving Ada with a final glance at the exposed small of her back and the way her jeans clung tight around her ass.

“Yeah… thanks…!” Ada swallowed hard before she forced herself to move on with her day.

My roommate is too hot for her own good, but that’s fine. I get to see her every day. That’s pretty great, right? It’s not like I’m harboring barely-contained lust for a friend I’ve had since high school. That would just be silly. Forcing her smile wider, Ada checked to make sure she had everything she needed before she moved out of their shared apartment. Getting an unrequited crush on a straight girl isn’t a thing that really happens. It’s just a physical thing. Get over it already!

Once the door was locked behind her, Ada reluctantly moved towards her meeting.

“Ah, Ada! Thank you for being prompt… Please take a seat.” Cassandra Venter offered her a cool, professional smile. Her fingers were tented, elbows resting on her desk. Not a strand of her black hair was out of place, and her three-piece-suit was crisp and perfectly tailored. “Do you have a status report?”

“Yes, Miss Venter!” Ada was still anxiously settling down into the chair opposite her boss’s desk, careful to not embarrass herself by sitting awkwardly on her lab coat. “Right now the software is nearly ready to go. There are a few bugs to work out—nothing serious, just the sort of thing that always crops up at this stage of development—and the hardware is nearly ready to go! Barring anything unexpected, we should be ready next month, well ahead of the initial private release date.”

Cassandra grinned, giving Ada an approving nod. “Good. Unfortunately, it seems that another of our teams has encountered an… unfortunate setback. We need your product ready next week.”

“Next week?!” Ada’s eyes bulged out of her head, her glasses nearly falling from her face as she quickly leaned forward. “We’re making excellent progress, Miss Venter, but—”

“Ada… Miss Carey…” Cassandra spoke softly, but it took so little to effectively silence the engineer. “Your work has proven to be very impressive. You deliver excellent results under pressure. I don’t need it to be perfect, but I need a new product to move in a week. Understood…?”

Her mouth hung open for a moment too long. A dark eyebrow rose.

“I… I guess I can…” Ada ran through the logistics in her mind, her eyes quickly darting around to look anywhere but towards her boss. “If we… If we don’t care about… If we… That… That might be possible… But… Uhm… Wh…what if I can’t deliver…?”

Cassandra sighed, leaning back in her seat. “It would be most unfortunate. I’ve been impressed by your work, but you were hired explicitly to rise to occasions like this one. If you can’t show the initiative, and ingenuity to accomplish this task? You may need to consider alternate career opportunities. I trust you understand it’s hardly personal. Your department will, time to time, need to pick up the slack. I need you to show me that you can handle the pressure. Can you do that, Ada? Can you rise to the challenge? Or was hiring you a mistake?”

Ada stared blankly ahead at Cassandra.

It hasn’t… It needs testing on an actual subject… Where am I going to get my hands on a test subject in such short notice…? Her eyes wandered down to Cassandra’s desk, catching a glimpse at how her crisp suit emphasized her shape without overstating it. Her blouse looked so smooth, and so soft for such a hard woman. I knew this was a risky position when I took it, but being dropped by Venter Biotech… I’ll never get work in this industry again…

“Was it a mistake, Ada?”

“No, Miss Venter.” Ada slowly shook her head, rising quickly from her chair. “Next week. I… I’ll have it ready for you.”

“I knew I could count on you. I’ll let you get back to work. You have a busy week ahead of you.” Cassandra’s tone was swarm and encouraging, almost as if she hadn’t just threatened the rest of Ada’s life with an unreasonable request. Her blue eyes showed no compassion, only delight and businesslike detachment. “Impress me, miss Carey. I’m confident you can.”

“Th…thank you, Miss Venter… Next week.” Clearing her throat, Ada gave her a nod and a forced smile before slinking out of the office in a cold sweat.

Late into the night well after the building was largely empty, Ada was still hard at work. “That should be the last bug with the software ironed out… The chip seems like it’s responding properly to the commands now… A bit of a hack job, but it should be stable enough for a 1.0 release…

“But I won’t know the hardware is working until I test it…” Ada chewed on her lip. All of the tests came back positive. There was no reason to believe it wasn’t fully functional and ready to go.

If I tell Cassandra that everything is ready to go and it doesn’t work, and it’s never had a trial run… I won’t just be fired. Ada gulped. No one would care why she was forced to cut corners. All of the blame would fall on her head if something went wrong. Tech like this working properly is one thing, but… what if it kills someone…? It shouldn’t. It’s all based on very sound science, and the prototype was synthesized properly, so there shouldn’t be any risk at all, but… I need to test it…

Her brown eyes moved over to the small chip hanging suspended. Its surface was barely the size of Ada’s thumbnail. Its golden pins glistened in the dim light of her lab.

We don’t have any interns to spare. There’s no way we could get someone in a week from any reputable programs, and I can’t risk anything else… Her eyes widened. Unless… Her teeth closed around her lip again as she looked to the small carrying case she’d designed for the prototype. It was so small, so innocuous. It would be the perfect test, to see how effective it was, to make sure it’s an easy installation…

Moving quickly as if to outpace her doubts, Ada retrieved the chip from the larger testing apparatus, and once it was in the smaller carrying case she quickly hurried out of her lab.

“Working late again?” Sofia was sitting on the couch in their living room, right where Ada expected her to be. She always leaned forward when watching something she enjoyed, and her blue hair was short enough that with the t-shirt she wore, plenty of her neck was exposed. “You know even if you’re salaried there are laws about being overworked. I think. It’s not healthy, anyway.”

“No… no it’s not. But don’t worry about it! I’m fine!” Ada laughed. There was a manic edge to her laugh, but not concerning enough to make Sofia look away from the television. “You just enjoy your show. I’m going to probably pass out early… I have a lot of work to do…”

Sofia nodded, taking a long time to reply as she waited for the character on screen to stop talking. “Sounds smart. You should take it easy. Do what you need to do for you, y’know?”

Oh, don’t worry… That’s exactly what I have in mind… It took a concentrated effort for Ada to resist audibly giggling. I knew that taking care of myself was what you’d want…

“Mm-hm! So, don’t mind me…! Have a great night!” Ada giggled as she moved into the kitchen. Sofia called after her with some vaguely encouraging sound that Ada only half heard. She pulled out a bottle of her favorite energy drink, popped off the cap, and took a long swig.

If she was going to be up all night, she was going to need a little bit of a boost.

Once the bottle was empty, she reached into her lab coat and pulled out the small plastic case. Two inches across in either direction, and only a few millimeters wide, it looked completely harmless and innocuous. Even the small green-and-gold piece of tech inside barely looked large enough to perform anything but the simplest of tasks.

You were right earlier. It’s not a crush. It’s not even infatuation. If you can even come this far then it’s never been about her. It’s about what you want. Ada popped open the small case, delicately lifting the chip between her thumb and forefinger. This is about taking what you need. This is about taking advantage of a bad situation. You’ve tested it every possible way you can. The worst that could happen is it doesn’t work. The app is working. Just do it. She told you to!

Pushing away the last of her concerns, Ada made her way quietly behind the unsuspecting Sofia. If she even noticed anyone was behind her, she made no sign of it. She continued to stare right ahead, faintly laughing at whatever was happening on the television.

Ada didn’t hesitate. Once she was directly behind Sofia she adjusted the chip back against her thumb, and plunged her hand forward. Sofia only reacted once the gold pins of the chip pierced her skin. Her cry was sharp and loud, her hands both reaching back to her neck as Ada’s pulled away.

“Ow! What the fuck did you just do to my neck?!” Sofia’s fingers twitched. The metal was inside of her.

Ada’s phone was already in her other hand. “This.”

“What do you mean thi—” Sofia fell silent. Her eyes opened wide. Her mouth hung open. She slumped forward, and her hands fell away from her neck. Sofia continued to breathe, but the light in her eyes was gone.

“I mean this… I need to reinitialize the wetware... like… so…!” Ada giggled as she tapped again at her phone. A bar slowly filled with green, and every time it lurched another pixel along the screen of Ada’s phone Sofia’s eyes, her lips, and her thighs twitched. “The final will have a nicer exterior, but for now… I can do… this…”

Reaching into her lab coat again Ada retrieved a small square shaped bandage and pushed it into place just over the small green chip. Smoothing the edges along the skin of Sofia’s neck, Ada purred as she watched her roommate squirm in place. Her nails teased at the sides of her neck, and even slid through her hair in ways Ada had wanted for so long. Sofia’s hair, even dyed, was so fluffy and soft. Touching her in such an intimate way, feeling through her hair and along the curve of her ears, it was enough to make Ada’s eyes roll back into her head with a low moan.

“You’ve had no idea, Sofia…” Ada’s lips pressed to her roommate’s ear before she whispered inside. Her voice was low and soft, and as she spoke her hips rolled against the back of the couch. “How much I’ve wanted you… how much I’ve needed you… and now you’re helpless to my little project… I never thought I’d have an excuse, or a reason, to bring my work home… but here we are.

“I need these results, Sofia…” Ada’s nails clawed down from her roommate’s hair, feeling over her shoulders. Sofia didn’t even moan, only continuing to tense and shake as the bar filled more and more. Nails roamed over her arms before finally moving to her chest, roaming across her breasts before lifting and squeezing. It was a tight grasp, a grasp that if Sofia were awake would have made her cry out again. Instead she barely even clenched. “And you’re going to make sure I succeed! You’re such a good roommate, and so sexy… I’m going to love testing out all of the chip’s functionality on you… and you will, too…”

Ada’s skin tingled. Her thighs rubbed together tight. Her eyes were glassy, filled with need as they darted between her slumped roommate, and the surface of her phone.

Just a matter of moments…! Once the chip finishes initializing… Her body, her mind… Every part of her that matters… All of it will belong to me. The engineer whimpered, muffling her sounds by sucking at the smooth skin of her roommate’s neck. Who says bringing your work home can’t be fun…?

Nails pinched and twisted at Sofia’s clothed nipples. Somehow the complete lack of a response only made it sexier. Her nipples stiffened, but she didn’t let out even the softest of cries. She did nothing but yield her body to Ada’s every eager touch.

“It’s almost done, roomie… Then we’re going to test all of these functions…” Ada twisted harder, nibbling and tugging at Sofia’s ear. “I only have a week to make sure you’re good to go so we’re going to need to make every hour count. The override seems to work, so even if there are any flaws to work out…? You’re going to end this week as mine, Sofia.”

Sofia had nothing to say as the bar finally reached one-hundred percent.