Skrin snapped her fingers.

Kinzie’s body was an antenna, her ears tuned perfectly to the sound: around her the world fell away in chunks to a warm and joyous dark.

Skrin inhaled a deep hiss, and from that moment on a rapid vibrato of hisses and clicks emanated from a voice box lodged somewhere against the base of Skrin’s sternum.

"𐰽𐰄𐰣𐰄𐰺 𐰀𐰽𐰄𐰽𐱃𐰀𐰣𐰃𐰣𐰀 𐰚𐰀𐰺𐱁𐰃 𐰀𐰕𐰃𐰢𐰀𐰽𐰃𐰔 𐰗𐰞𐰀𐰕𐰀𐰍𐰃𐰔. 𐰖𐰀𐰺𐰀𐱃𐰃𐰚 𐰉𐰄𐰔𐰄 𐰑𐰆𐰺𐰑𐰆𐰺𐰀𐰢𐰀𐰔 𐰀𐰢𐰀 𐰣𐰅 𐰖𐰀𐰯𐱃𐰃𐰍𐰃𐰢𐰃𐰔𐰃 𐰀𐰣𐰞𐰀𐰺𐰽𐰀𐰣 𐰑𐰀𐰎𐰀 𐰚𐰗𐰞𐰀𐰖 𐰗𐰞𐰀𐰕𐰀𐰚. 𐰄𐱁𐱃𐰅 𐱃𐰀𐰞𐰄𐰢𐰀𐱃𐰞𐰀𐰺𐰃𐰣𐰃𐰔.” The cadence of Skrin’s voice in her native vernacular held a certain allure. The cracks of chitin and whistles of breath normally sounded - at best, like TV static - and at worst: nothing at all. But in the mouth of the Ambassador they had a beautiful, windchime quality that dug deep into Kinzie’s brain. "𐰚𐰗𐰣𐱃𐰺𐰗𐰞𐰈 𐰅𐰞𐰅 𐰀𐰞𐰢𐰀𐰚 𐰄𐰲𐰄𐰣 𐰲𐰅𐰋𐰄𐰺𐰄 𐰀𐰺𐰀𐰕𐰃𐰣𐰃𐰔𐰑𐰀 𐰉𐰄𐰺 𐰄𐰽𐱃𐰄𐰽𐰢𐰀𐰺 𐰚𐰆𐰞𐰞𐰀𐰣𐰀𐰉𐰄𐰞𐰄𐰺𐰄𐰔. 𐰉𐰆𐰣𐰆 𐰽𐰗𐰺𐰆 𐰽𐰗𐰺𐰀𐰺𐰀𐰚 𐰋𐰅 𐰕𐰅𐰋𐰀𐰯𐰞𐰀𐰖𐰀𐰺𐰀𐰚 𐰖𐰀𐰯𐰃𐰖𐰗𐰺𐰆𐰔. 𐰀𐰣𐰞𐰀𐰢𐰀𐰚 𐰔𐰗𐰺𐰆𐰣𐰑𐰀 𐰑𐰅𐰍𐰄𐰞𐰽𐰄𐰣 𐰀𐰢𐰀 𐰉𐰀𐰣𐰀 𐰏𐰈𐰋𐰅𐰣𐰢𐰅𐰞𐰄𐰽𐰄𐰣. 𐰽𐰀𐰣𐰀 𐰺𐰅𐰎𐰉𐰅𐰺𐰞𐰄𐰚 𐰅𐰑𐰅𐰕𐰅𐰍𐰄𐰢⹁ 𐰉𐰆 𐰖𐰈𐰔𐰑𐰅𐰣 𐰑𐰄𐰚𐰚𐰀𐱃 𐰅𐱃. 𐰀𐰣𐰞𐰃𐰖𐰗𐰺 𐰢𐰆𐰽𐰆𐰣?"

There was a microsecond-long pause, where her translation suite should have filled in, but in its place was instead an odd fuzzy feeling, like two radio stations fighting for control over a roller’s speakers.

— — {

KINZIE: {

| Kandarosian Translation = > “We’re going to play a mean little trick…”

| Kinzie: = > Modify Translation Unit

| Kinzie: = > Key expired. Translation Unit Locked:

“Public Key available at GaeaNet Address FF8.A12.4.B0 (apv2)”

| Kinzie: = > GaeaNet Inaccessible

| Kandarosian Translation = > “…Do you understand?”

}

 } — —

Instinctually, Kinzie nodded her head.

"Yep!" she said, then: "fuck you!"

The fingers that combed through Kinzie’s hair filled the girl with pride. Skrin kept going.

"𐰘𐰣𐰕𐰅 𐰉𐰄𐰺 𐰎𐰄𐰚𐰀𐰖𐰅 𐰀𐰣𐰞𐰀𐱃𐰃𐰖𐰗𐰺𐰆𐰔. 𐰉𐰆 𐰚𐰀𐰺𐰢𐰀𐱁𐰃𐰚 𐰉𐰄𐰺 𐰎𐰄𐰚𐰀𐰖𐰅 𐰑𐰅𐰍𐰄𐰞 𐰀𐰢𐰀 𐰄𐰢𐰯𐰞𐰀𐰣𐱃𐰃𐰣𐰃𐰔𐰃𐰣 𐰀𐰖𐰣𐰃 𐰀𐰣𐰑𐰀 𐰉𐰄𐰺𐰲𐰗𐰚 𐱁𐰅𐰖𐰄 𐰖𐰀𐰯𐰢𐰀𐰽𐰃𐰣𐰃 𐰽𐰀𐰍𐰞𐰀𐰢𐰀𐰞𐰃𐰖𐰃𐰔. 𐰄𐰞𐰚 𐰢𐰅𐰖𐰑𐰀𐰣 𐰗𐰚𐰆𐰢𐰀𐰣𐰃𐰔 𐰄𐰲𐰄𐰣: 𐰚𐰅𐰣𐰑𐰄𐰣𐰄𐰔𐰄 𐰉𐰄𐰺 𐰽𐰃𐰣𐰃𐰊𐱃𐰀 𐰎𐰀𐰖𐰀𐰞 𐰅𐱃𐰢𐰅𐰣𐰄𐰔𐰄 𐰄𐰽𐱃𐰄𐰖𐰗𐰺𐰆𐰢.” Skrin’s volume decayed down to whispers and with each lilting word Kinzie’s breathing slowed. Beneath her shut eyelids, little eyeball-muscles roved to follow each chirp. “𐰽𐰀𐰑𐰅𐰕𐰅 𐰎𐰅𐰺𐰎𐰀𐰣𐰏𐰄 𐰉𐰄𐰺 𐰽𐰃𐰣𐰃𐰊 𐰑𐰅𐰍𐰄𐰞. 𐰏𐰅𐰣𐰲𐰞𐰄𐰍𐰄𐰣𐰄𐰔𐰑𐰅𐰣 𐰉𐰄𐰺𐰄 𐰗𐰞𐰢𐰀𐰞𐰃 𐰋𐰅 𐰗𐰣𐰆 𐰢𐰈𐰢𐰚𐰈𐰣 𐰗𐰞𐰑𐰆𐰍𐰆𐰣𐰕𐰀 𐰢𐰈𐰚𐰅𐰢𐰢𐰅𐰞 𐰎𐰀𐱃𐰃𐰺𐰞𐰀𐰢𐰀𐰣𐰃𐰔 𐰏𐰅𐰺𐰅𐰚𐰄𐰖𐰗𐰺."

Unbidden from the dark of her imagination, her eighth grade homeroom spilled around her: fluorescent lights, yellow blinds, gray chalkboards. In her memory that year shone bright and focal; her happiest year. Her grades were stellar, the new school uniform looked amazing, at summer camp she’d come out to her best friend (with accompanying cigarettes and stolen liquor in the badlands). Her penpal from Nest, Vissy: they were finally talking about their feelings. Everything was looking up.

— — {

KINZIE: {

| Memory Replay: { Slatted Blinds, Square Particle Board Desks. }

| Kandarosian Translation:

> “… so we need to get your assistant juggling as many…”

| Memory Replay: { Scuffed Plank Floors, Polished. Smudgy Windows. }

| Kinzie: = > Update Permission Set: Translation Unit

| Kinzie:

> [Translation Unit Privileges At Minimum: Elevate? y/n] 

> …

> n

| Kandarosian Translation:

> “… remember it as perfect as a razor.”

| Memory Replay: { Argyle knee-highs. Notes in folded triangles. }

| Kinzie: = > Delete [TranslationController]; overwrite with [Kinzie]

| Kinzie:

> [Dependency Warning: 1312 Vital Libraries depend on TranslationController. Continue? y/n]

> ;alskdjf;alkjsdfFUCK

> [Input not recognized: Continue? y/n]

}

 } — —

"𐰗𐰺𐱃𐰀𐰽𐰃𐰣𐰑𐰀 𐰗𐱃𐰆𐰺𐰆𐰖𐰗𐰺𐰽𐰆𐰣⹁ 𐰉𐰈𐰖𐰈𐰚 𐰉𐰄𐰺 𐰚𐰀𐰺𐰀 𐱃𐰀𐰎𐱃𐰀𐰖𐰀 𐰉𐰀𐰚𐰃𐰖𐰗𐰺𐰽𐰆𐰣. 𐰏𐰘𐰔𐰀𐰞𐱃𐰃𐰣𐰑𐰀𐰽𐰃𐰣 𐰋𐰅 𐰗 𐰉𐰈𐰖𐰈𐰚 𐰚𐰀𐰺𐰀 𐱃𐰀𐰎𐱃𐰀𐰖𐰀 𐰏𐰄𐰑𐰄𐰯 𐰉𐰄𐰺 𐰉𐰄𐰞𐰢𐰅𐰕𐰅 𐰲𐰘𐰔𐰅𐰣𐰅 𐰚𐰀𐰑𐰀𐰺 𐰏𐰄𐰑𐰅𐰢𐰅𐰔𐰽𐰄𐰣." Kinzie rose and walked toward the front of the classroom in a daze, Skrin’s voice so far away now, and the distant murmur of her neural assistant thrummed in her ear. Beetle-black mary janes clacked up a foggy aisle. "𐰯𐰅𐰚𐰄 𐰣𐰅 𐰖𐰀𐰯𐰀𐰕𐰀𐰚𐰽𐰃𐰣? 𐰉𐰄𐰞𐰢𐰅𐰕𐰅𐰖𐰄 𐰑𐰅𐰣𐰅𐰢𐰅𐰚 𐰄𐰽𐱃𐰅𐰺 𐰢𐰄𐰽𐰄𐰣?"

A challenge floated in the dreamy cloud of her foremind. As she got closer to the chalkboards, text blurred into her view. Kinzie scratched her chin and squinted at the haze.

Kinzie nudged a shape here, found a line there and had just barely started to make sense of it when a booming chorus of voices called out from behind her: "Don’t!"

Kinzie spun on her heel and gawped in amazement. In every row, every column, every desk in the classroom there had to be over a hundred nearly-identical Kinzies politely seated, looking up at her in an eclectic arrangement of girl, boy, and neu uniforms in the yellow, black, and grey of her eighth grade year. "Wh-what? Where did you all-?"

"Kinzie, she’s manipulating us. Let’s put a stop to this now," said the front & center Kinzie dressed in the clingy tunic, shorts, tights and boots of a neu. All of the other Kinzies nodded in solemn agreement, except for one.

Near the far back corner, one of the fox-eared girls (tartan skirt, cinched jacket, tights: a girls’ uniform, like Kinzie’s own) stared with chilly dissociation. Her eyes glowed an unmistakable bright red. It looked like a few of the other Kinzie’s nearby were trying to break her out of her reverie, without much success.

"Wait, are you guys my-"

The catatonic Kinzie spoke in an even monotone: "Kandarosian Translation: Kinzie, if you’re still there and you’d like to try the riddle, please say ‘diagnostic sequence two with error checking’."

A flash-flood of horrified looks and anxious mutters washed across the classroom as Kinzie whispered to herself: "Diagnostic sequence two… with error checking? What is that?"

Another Kinzie, this one closer to the middle of the room and wearing a boys’ uniform (slacks/jacket/boots/tie) stiffened, then bolted: a puppet pulled up by every string. He stared straight up at the ceiling. "Diagnostic Controller: primed for input."

Translator Kinzie chimed again over a chorus of furious, arguing voices that vied for Kinzie’s attention: "Kandarosian Translation: Very good, my pet, let’s have a gander at this riddle, shall we? For starters… I’m going on a vacation to Gaea."

As TK started to recite Skrin’s words, the dead-eyed Diagnostic Kinzie twitched - he planted his feet on the ground and staggered past Kinzie to the front of the room. Every step let him wrench his body into new and exciting shapes. He began to scratch out a complex computational problem in a neat and tidy script.

Kinzie circled around him to give him space, and she had to admit: her butt looked pretty good in the boys' slacks. She sat down at an empty desk next to the front-and-center Kinzie (the one that did the most talking) and propped her chin up in the palm of her hand while nervous titters spread through class.

The erratic movements of DK held her absent attention while she pondered the strange situation. After a second, she whispered over to her deskmate. "So, are you guys my Neural Assistant? Like, all of you?" 

Leader Kinzie sneered, but it remained fixed on the problem. It spun a pencil between its anxious fingers. "Yes. Obviously."

"Cool," Kinzie smiled and took a break from ogling DK's ass. "All this is from right before we met. What do you think of eighth-grade me? Pretty cute, huh?"

"I’ve seen these memories before, Kinzie," LK spun its pencil faster. "You think about this stupid shit all the time."

"Oh, yeah," Kinzie laughed. "I guess, it’s just… kinda cool. We can talk to each other!"

"Sure. But not for much longer, thanks to your headfucked bullshit," LK muttered.

"What is this diagnostic thing? It can’t be that bad, can it?" Kinzie asked, all smiles.

"Yes, it’s fucking bad. We’re going to get a math problem, to prove that we can make accurate calculations. If she’s smarter than she looks, it’ll be insanely difficult with a truly massive solution set." LK ground its teeth together as it stared at the unfolding math problem. "We’re gonna be compelled to answer. If we give her a wrong answer she gets to lobotomize us. If the question’s too hard to answer, we’ll crash, reboot in safe mode, then she gets to lobotomize us."

DK completed his task with a final screech of chalk. He marched to the exit of the classroom, a strange gleam in his faraway eyes, and watched the room as they all took in what he’d left them.

The problem that lingered sent cold shudders through the Neural Assistant's many systems.

1. I'm going on a vacation to Gaea.
2. I'm going to visit five billion home addresses on the planet for five seconds each, in a big loop, ending where I started.
3. At each stop, I am going to commission an interesting souvenir at the local market rate: a one-over-thirty-second scale statuette of the resident of the previous household I visited, in the nude of course.
4. The model's material will be a function of accumulated travel distance in meters, modulo three and rounded down, where zero is aluminum, one is nickel, two is gold.
5. I will travel between each home at a constant rate of sixty miles per hour, and have each souvenir hand-delivered back to my spaceship to await me.
6. The cargo bay of my spaceship has a carrying capacity of four-hundred million kilograms. Kandar demand for statuettes remains constant at one-to-two-to-four for aluminum, nickel, and gold respectively.
7. Unfortunately, for every fifty years spent on Gaea my spaceship's warplight capacitors will drain ever so slightly, which will require me to purchase and store traditional rocket fuel taking up 1% of my total cargo space.
8. Any statuettes that cannot be brought home to Kandar will be resold at cost, and may destabilize local economies as a result.
9. Please find a route to all home addresses that maximizes the value of souvenirs we can bring back to Kandar, while minimizing destructive waste.
10. Figures can be rounded to four decimal places as need be.

"Ugh. Bitch." LK turned to Kinzie, looked her square in the face, and after a moment of annoyed contemplation it said, "When I get us out of this awful stupor, we are going to choke her to death."

"Kandarosian Translation: Is that so? Perhaps I should increase the complexity," Translator Kinzie chimed with a helpful tone.

"Fuck you, five billion factorial knapsack problems is plenty, thanks," LK snapped back. It cupped its face in its hands, "the fuck does she expect from us in thirty-two bit. Do you have a dataset for this or are you just going to taunt us with the fucking concepts all day?"

Translator Kinzie mimicked embarrassment, "Kandarosian Translation: Oh! Excuse me, I’m sorry. I have your data right here."

Kinzie felt a cool hunk of metal clamp to her head behind her ears and jaw. She reached back to touch it. She couldn’t feel anything there, (not with her fingers, anyway, since the real ones were firmly restrained to her chest), but she soon heard the click of a button.

Every aspect of the Neural Assistant in the room jerked backward like they’d all been clocked with an invisible baseball bat, all at once, and even the room itself gave a woozy shudder.

"Woah!" Kinzie yiped. She reached over to help LK up.

The irritable Leader shoved her away, then clutched at its forehead where the sudden impact against the desk had left an angry welt: a look of agony plain on its face. It hissed in pain. "Okay. Okay, we have our data. Can someone… Em-seventy, can you pick some helpers and start brute-forcing this? Em-forty, you’ve got error duty, get a team together. I need a second."

Groggy and sluggish, a crowd of Kinzies rose from their desks and gathered up at the blackboard, while a second crowd filled in behind them and double-checked all the arithmetic. 

Kinzie hovered near LK. "That, uh, download looked like it hurt. Are you alright?"

"Fucking peachy. Having the best day of my life," LK bared its teeth. "How about you Kinzie? Excited to watch me die?"

"What? I don’t-" the foxgirl wavered. She bit her lip and watery tears welled up on her lashes. "We only just met."

"Ugh, Kinzie," LK said, "I’ve been right here with you, since-"

Kinzie’s rattled out a choked squeak. "You’re not really gonna die are you?"

Immediately, LK changed their tune.

"Oh, fuck. Kinzie. I’m not going to die. Please stop." LK staggered to its feet and fell to its knees a few steps later, in front of Kinzie’s desk. It rifled through its tunic pocket for a kerchief to dab away Kinzie’s tears.

Kinzie tried to hide her face, but LK had a firm and reassuring hand on the side of her head that nudged and scritched at Kinzie’s ear until the girl could meet its gaze. The neural assistant’s jaw was set firm, but it touched Kinzie with undue tenderness. Kinzie sniffled and her voice vibrated with barely contained sobs, "I’m sorry I can’t help. I don't even know what's going on."

"That’s not your job. I’m the helper: that’s what I do, okay?" LK said between its clenched teeth. "I don’t know what the fuck these evil bugs want with you, but as the resident badass who has its shit together, they’re not gonna hurt you until they get through me."

The bugs never treated her that badly, but if they were really going to kill her Neural Assistant, after the two of them had been together so long and now after they’d met face-to-face… that would be plain evil. Kinzie sniffed again, and managed a half-hearted laugh, "you mean it?"

"I promise," LK said.

The next few real-world minutes blurred past in Kinzie’s mind, drawn out into neuro-digital hours. Occasionally she’d forget that somewhere, out there, her physical self was pinned to the carpet of a passenger train by a doppelganger bug with a mouth full of venomous fangs, until every so often she felt an inexplicable bump or jolt, or the subtle shift of a ghost’s hips atop her own.

She sprawled out, and made restless dust-angels on the waxed wood. Laying down felt natural. It felt aligned to her body. Whenever the waves of phantom sensation crawled over her, if she was standing, they came with nausea, but flat on the floor, the world was right

While the hordes of Neural Assistant quietly worked around her - a soundtrack of chalk scratches and shoe scuffs, that echoed around the class room - she called out, "Are we almost done?"

Nearby, Em-seventy-seven (another neu-type Kinzie) looked up from hir slot on the chalkboard (which had grown exponentially wide to accommodate an incomprehensible quantity of calculation). Sie put a pause to hir process and stepped away to kneel beside the girl on the floor, "Nope, not yet. Didja need somethin’, babe?"

"I’m bored," Kinzie complained. Her heels dug into the ground. Her cheeks felt hot. She felt the weight of the invisible person on her thighs lift, like an anxious knot in her gut finally disentangling. She wondered what was happening outside her head; what could be so important to call Skrin away. Was the bug bored too? "Is LK still busy?"

Seventy-seven thought about Kinzie’s question, rows of information scanned along some invisible page until something useful was found. Sie smiled, "yup, looks like. Still holed up with the heuristics team. I’ll send ‘em a message to check in with ya when they get a chance. Might be a few minutes, tho; time is money, y’know?"

"Okay," she said, then sighed. Kinzie sat up, looked at the chorus of dust-angels she’d crafted (all holding hands), and she was just beginning to wonder what to do next to stay entertained when something cold and wet brushed over her hip. Kinzied flashed a look down at her legs, but, naturally, nothing was there but skirt and worn wood.

"What the-"

In the dip of her other hip-bone, another damp line slashed down and past the fluffy, orange bramble of her pubes. Kinzie turned her panicked look to seventy-seven, but sie had half-turned away, paying her no further mind. In fact, none of the other Kinzies so much as looked up, to ask if anything was amiss. Of course nothing was wrong. None of them had a body. "-frick."

"Everything alright? Anything else ya need?" Seventy-seven asked politely, caught midway back to hir post by the hint of a notion that Kinzie might need something.

"Uhhh, n-Oh!" Kinzie’s thighs clenched tight as the ghosted sensations - back and forth over her vulva - intensified. Silently, she felt the stitches of her jumpsuit rip down the crotch-seam to make room for a fist to ball up around the fluffy, orange bramble of her pubes and she felt her calves strain reflexively as a second slimy trail wormed its weight up the length of her thigh to the crook of her pelvis. A hot, shocked breath lingered in the open cavern of her mouth.

Em-seventy-seven tilted hir head with only the mildest concern.

"A-all good," Kinzie lied.

Seventy-seven shot her confident grin and a thumbs up, "Great! I’ll get back to kickin’ ass, so we can get you outta here— and then? Babe, we’re back on the road! Getchu back to Den, or hell, or space. Wherever you wanna go, we’re with you all the way."

Seventy-seven winked, and hir teeth practically sparkled. The thumbs-up sent it over the top.

Kinzie shot back a tight smile, pulled the hem of her skirt taut around her knees and scampered off as quick as her quivering little knees could go.

As Kinzie tip-toed through the aisles of desks, she puffed up her cheeks and exhaled between her teeth with heroic effort. In the outside world, the thing (Skrin’s tongue? A tentacle? An ovipositor, or something worse?) lapped more and more at the edges of her mound and at the pace of neuro-digital time, fractional seconds crawled at glacial pace. She tracked each uptick in heart rate, each rush of blood to her nethers, and the degrees by which her pussy sensitivity rose from one slimy stroke to the next.

Several times she tried to control her legs, to push the thing away, but she could hardly coerce her imagined-body into cooperating: accessing the physical one was a separate feat altogether. The tongue currrrrled up/flicked her clit with just enough force to be too much. Kinzie grabbed onto the edge of the nearest desk, and moaned.

She eased her way to sit, covered her head with her arms, squirmed, rubbed her knees together, but nothing would make the sensations stop.

"Fri-hick, frick, frick, frick. Oh frick, LK’s gonna hate me," Kinzie despaired.

And as if someone from above heard her quiet pleading, the touch disappeared. Kinzie rubbed her bright red, digital face with the sweaty digital palms of her digital hands. She up toward the ceiling. For some reason, it seemed like Skrin should be up somewhere, but there were only endless rows of fluorescent lights, buzzing away like happy little bees.

"Kandarosian Translation:" came a chime from behind her.

"Cripes!" Kinzie half-leapt out of her seat.

"Enjoying yourself?" The translator finished with a knowing smirk.

"Heck, no!" Kinzie whispered as sternly as she could, even though none of the other parts of the Neural Assistant could hear her - what with how busy everyone was. "What the heck are you doing out there?"

"Kandarosian Translation: Keeping myself entertained; as well as you, by the sound of it. Your pudgy little face looks so sweet when you’re in the middle of a good dream, Kinzie. And how are things looking on the inside?" TK purred.

Kinzie huffed in wordless annoyance, only to gasp at the sudden pressure of two fingers just above her clit. That got her talking. "Quiet. They’re all… working."

"Kandarosian Translation: Too busy to play with poor Kinzie," the Ambassador snirked, motions refined, steady, and exact. "Shame, really, how it will never solve that problem. There’s a physical limit to what these tools can do."

Kinzie’s feet arched, her toes dug into the soles of her mary-janes, and she gasped, "I-I don’t know. They’re rrrrrreally co-co-confident. I… I… I think-! …They can do it."

"Kandarosian Translation: they’re bold, I’ll give them that. But boldness isn’t confidence, Kinzie. Any intelligent species with the gift of communication can posture," TK laughed. It was strange to look at herself, a chubby schoolgirl right on the outside cusp of puberty, voiced by the Ambassador’s demure rumble. While Kinzie squirmed in her seat, TK pushed a pair of glasses higher up on her nose. "Confidence requires a modicum of assurance that you are right. I have a question for you, my pet. After the shallow breadth of your short life, and the subsequent enormity of these last few hours, what assurances do you have left?"

Kinzie would have loved to trade barbs, but the easy circles that nudged her clit this way and that did away with most of her will to fight, and without the Neural Assistant on her side, Kinzie hardly had the presence of mind to figure out what the argument was about, let alone the vocabulary to snipe a return volley.

"Hnnnggghhhhho gosh, ho gosh, ho gosh, ho gosh," Kinzie’s flailing heels squeaked across the glossy wood planks, and she scrabbled for purchase on the smooth desk. "Don’t stop, don’t stop,  d-d-don’t-"

"Kinzie? What’s up? Are you alright?" LK called from the edge of earshot as it strode up.

"Don’t worry about me! I’m all good!" Kinzie jerked up in her seat, spine straight, head to heaven, ass to dirt, and gave LK the most angelic, albeit tightest, smile that she could muster. The haloes drawn around her nub graciously slowed, just a bit.

"Yeah? That’s a fuckin’ relief. Seventy-seven pinged me like a million times," LK puffed a bored, imaginary steam cloud from its mouth, and collapsed into a chair on the opposite side of Kinzie from TK.

Smiling at the former, she snuck a suspicious glance at the dead-eyed translator the minute that she had a chance. TK was frozen in place, in the exact position that she’d left her. Mouth unmoving, expression placid.

"How’s the, uhm," Kinzie chewed the inside of her cheek and rubbed her thighs, "the math stuff? How’s that?"

"S’good as it can be," LK shrugged, then folded its arms behind its head and leaned back in the chair with a hefty sigh. "Which is to say, that, uh, things look bad. There’s just… There's so much work to do."

"Uh-huh," Kinzie winced. With everyone else it made sense, but LK was different and Kinzie wanted it to care. Didn’t they share a body? How could it not feel this?

But it didn’t notice. Maybe it couldn’t notice, what with how busy everyone was, maybe it didn’t have the resources to monitor her nerves, or hormones, or whatever else the Neural Assistant worked off of. It wasn't reading her thoughts. Instead, LK just kept talking. "Everyone’s maxing out their allocations, and… well, if we keep this up at some point systems are gonna stall, and get shut out by the diagnostic. I just hope we can get our solution-set before shit gets bad."

"Yeah, wow," she nodded and wiped beads of sweat from her forehead. Her hips involuntarily spasmed. "Nn! That really… sucks! I mean, ah! Uhm."

"Nah, you’re right, it sucks. But I'm gonna get us through this," a faraway look of determination shone on LK's face. "How're you doing? You sound… different. I can’t tell. Sick, maybe? Are you alright?"

"I’m good! Great!" Kinzie lied through the biggest, fakest grin of her life.

"Yeah?" LK prodded.

"Mm." Kinzie took a deep gulp of air, and held LK’s gaze. She could feel the waterworks prying at her tear ducts again for the however-manyth type today, and she made an effort to relax the tension in her shoulders long enough to nod. She was a terrible liar in the best of times, but she’d gotten so sensitive that even the merciful lightness of Skrin’s touch was unbearable. Every skim of skin on skin made her legs quake. "Nn. I. Just."

"Kandarosian Translation:"

LK jumped out of its seat, "Fuck! How long have you -"

Kinzie groaned, low in her chest, somewhere between the incessant, feather-light touches and the new tingles that ran through her muscles each time LK puppeted her body for speech.

"She’s a little on edge." TK grinned again. She clearly relished taking people by surprise. "We’ve been arguing… or something to that effect, while you’ve been busy, and unfortunately for both of us she’s a terribly clumsy opponent. I wish you could stay with us. The train to Kllthithik gets so boring without stimulating company."

"Leave her alone," LK snapped, and leapt to put herself between the two of them, shielding Kinzie from further assault.

Of course LK had no physical body, so LK could not feel the warmth that rose off of Kinzie’s face, nor the vibrations of her shivering knees. Kinzie’s lungs pumped faster and faster with each new touch. A lip grazed her chin and down her jaw, sowing a string of kisses to her neck, and Kinzie looked up at her protector in agony.

"Kandarosian Translation: Yet I’ve no choice other than to admire the tenacity of her devotion to you. I look forward to seeing that passion redirected toward constructive ends, once we’ve untangled the two of you." TK murmured with a vicious leer.

Skrin drooled up the side of Kinzie’s collarbone. Her tongue wrapped around Kinzie’s neck, then tightened. Kinzie felt a thumb grind down across her clitoral hood. The blushing, swollen skin had become so sensitive Kinzie could feel the ridges in the fingerprint glide over the top of it.

"Fuck you, shut the fuck up, go kill yourself, and die," LK snarled.

Kinzie gasped like a marathon runner on the verge of heatstroke. The finger on her clit held, and the tension that followed built and built to an unbearable measure.

"Stop!" Kinzie shouted, and as she did Skrin’s thumb flicked over her clit with a painful swipe. 

"Anh!" She came. Kinzie’d expected some glorious, mind-melting climax but it wasn’t the earth-shattering orgasm she craved; in fact, quite the opposite: Skrin had edged her for what felt like ages, and all she got was a limp surge of bland satisfaction. Her jaw fell slack, and she gasped to catch her breath. "Ssss… Ssstop. Bo-huh-both of you."

LK bit its lip, "ah, fuck. Sorry. Sorry. I know you’re stressed. Don’t worry, okay? I’m gonna get us out of this. I’m gonna- I’m gonna-"

The Diagnostic Kinzie standing by the door cleared his throat audibly and a second later his voice boomed throughout the classroom: [Em-seventy-six has encountered a critical overflow and will be quarantined.]

Kinzie didn’t know what that meant but from the look on Leader Kinzie’s face, it was a bad thing.

LK rose to its full height to jab its finger in TK’s face, "and fuck you!", then sprinted to the front of the room to manage whatever crisis was brewing there.

Translator Kinzie was unbothered. She smiled as LK left with that untouchable look of hers, but said nothing. Kinzie realized that she’d been treating TK and Skrin as the same person, and now she wondered how much of the translator’s own personality was being subsumed by its own need to imitate the Ambassador, incapable of letting go. What did the real TK think about all this?

After a time, TK turned to Kinzie, face still frozen in a catlike smirk. Still she said nothing.

Kinzie chewed the edge of her lip.

"Uhm. So. Hey. Are you… Uh, I mean- Are you… okay?" Kinzie stammered, as she withered under the merciless gleam of TK’s mask.

The translator blinked. Once, then twice. Finally, her lips parted.

"Kandarosian Translation:"

A long, wet tongue stroked over Kinzie’s clit.

"Oh, Kinzie, you’re so sweet to think of me."

"Please,please,please,please,please," Kinzie begged into a puddle of her own drool. She rocked her head side to side across the top of the desk, and it was plain for anyone to see (if only there was someone out there to see her) that she’d been driven far past her sensory limits.

"Kandarosian Translation:" TK purred. "One more. Then you can have a break."

"Ican’t,Ican’t,Ican’t,Ican’t,Ican’t," Kinzie thrashed in her seat.

Cum soaked through her panties and smeared across her legs as she ground her knees together. Her body flexed, abdominals first; then her ass, her calves/ankles/wrists. Every part of her that could hold tension did what it could to stem the flower of pleasure that coursed through her. She felt like she was standing at the top of a dam - a mighty precipice of concrete and steel - as the tides rose and the hairline fractures set in. She gripped the edges of her desk for dear life.

[Em-fourteen has encountered a critical overflow and will be quarantined.]

Diagnostic Kinzie boomed like thunder as the dam’s of Kinzie’s resistance crumbled beneath her. Yet again, she orgasmed, and this time with a full-bodied force that had her nearly fall out of her chair with the power of it.

Translator Kinzie inspected the scene with a nonchalant, half-interest as Kinzie felt the girth of the woman’s tentacle tongue withdraw from inside her, and leave her hollow and heaving for air. Her pussy twitched when TK licked her lips.

"There. I find that satisfactory." TK said with all the airs of a psychotic c-level manager on a stress-induced power trip, minus any hint of weakness. "You’ve earned your rest. Go, catch your breath. We’ll touch base in thirty."

Kinzie panted. She wiped off her face with her palms and shook them out, but the sensation of sweat would not go away, nor the cloying leather that restrained her physical body. She imagined herself lying flat on her back in the dark of a train car rumbling through the night, half-naked but for the jacket and the shredded remains of her jumpsuit. Who was out there? Who was watching? Was it just bugs? Were there people?

The thought of it made her shudder. She wasn’t a prude by any means, but she’d had five times more orgasms in bug custody, as she had in the previous six months combined. With all the overtime in the last year, she’d been too tired to try and get laid, and without someone else there to put her through her paces, Kinzie could never get herself out of her own head long enough to masturbate. Lately, she never got horny enough to cum until her annual heat, but that had been more than enough for the last couple years.

…Although, it would have been nice if things had worked out with Brekka. Or if anything had happened with Brekka. They’d watched exactly one movie together, and Brekka talked about the government the whole time. Then they smoked some weed and Kinzie went in for a kiss, and got shot down.

Ugh. The memory was annoying enough, but the image of Brekka brought back the image of Pleo, and thinking about Pleo. Which oozed into hazy thoughts of Nick: the blur of his body pressed against hers while they cuddled and talked about Skrin. Then Skrin herself: eyes/lips/teeth.

Kinzie’s tongue ached in a long-lost sort of way, and she rubbed it against the roof of her mouth. She pulled herself up to her feet and tottered a few steps from the spot. She hugged her shoulders tight and leered warily back at the translator, who seemed less and less trustworthy by the minute.

What the frick was going on? How had her whole life spiraled this far off course? Now, trapped in an imaginary construct in her own head, which was insane if not for the fact that her brain implant had apparently gone haywire and gained a life of its own (which was more insane by comparison).

"Oh, no," Kinzie mumbled.

Her heart sank as she looked toward the front of the classroom; which now stretched impossibly into the distance. The last half hour she had spent cumming into Skrin’s face, LK and the rest of the implant had been working to save her from certain doom, get her back to her family, send her home.

Prickles of the feel-good drugs and the sensation of cold air on her clit made Kinzie wince, and this time not in a good way. Her throat closed up. Why the heck was she just playing around. She needed to help everyone. This was her body, she needed to help keep the Neural Assistant safe. Guilty nausea burst up her esophagus and through her sinuses and Kinzie only just held it together. What was she doing?

Kinzie sucked down a few shaky breaths. She had to put this right: she had to help LK, they had to make a plan. This math problem thing was crazy, and if Skrin was telling the truth, then it was, like, mathematically impossible for the Neural Assistant to ever solve it… So they needed a plan B.

Kinzie’s stomach turned. That meant she’d have to talk to LK. She’d have to fess up to how she’d learned all this.

Kinzie found the living quarantine well before she reached the chalkboard. The quarantine had grown out like a cancerous infestation from the exit, into a giant knot half-reminiscent of an octopus streaked with glowing red lines. A tangle of gleaming "arms", spread in every direction, and somewhere - hidden in there - was Diagnostic Kinzie.

As Kinzie drew closer, the wriggling arms of the quarantine - like centipedes with arms and antennae formed from the hardened remains of systems DK had claimed. Each fleshy Kinzie - veins all pulsing crimson beneath her skin - was bound to the next by a hand or foot anchored through her chest or gut, one marionette moved by touchy strings gripped by the puppeteer behind her, end over end, with all of them drained of any thought aside from the Diagnostic Controller’s.

Underneath the waving puppetry, Kinzie followed the quarantine. The further along she went, the creepier it got. The strung-together segments ignored her less and less; somewhere a neck would twist, and lines of faces bob would bob in her direction - their eyes all shattered like broken glass into unfeeling compound lenses. They would observe her for a few paces, then - finding no new victim on the verge of memory collapse - would turn their attention elsewhere for easier prey.

As she neared the beast’s maw (it was impossible to get too close, but she could come close enough to see it), the tumescent heart of the qurantine came into view. Thirty lifeless Kinzies had been pinned together and now formed a shell around what one could only assume had to be DK’s central body.

A few thoughtless glances looked up from the pile. Their fingers twitched and more looks followed to hone in on the fox girl. Kinzie didn't know if the quarantine could only feed on burned out cores, or if she was on the menu just the same - nor did she know just how deep its appetite ran, so she hurried along, and tried not to think of exactly how much of her Assistant had been subsumed.

It came as no surprise that by the time Kinzie reached anyone capable of conversation, that none of the other cores were very chatty. Chalk-scratchings whispered a steady sussur, and almost no one stood idle. The uneven rows of systems each calculated routes and markets and measures, end over end, in search of a maximum-efficiency solution-set in the face of a herculean challenge.

A few systems offered wry smiles to Kinzie as she passed, and Kinzie recognized a friendly face from among them.

"Seventy-seven!" She jogged up to the neu-type and bumped hir with her hip.

Seventy-seven's grin held onto that same animated, pretty-boy sparkle and sie squeezed Kinzie’s waist with one hand. Sie scrawled out more calculations with the other.

"Hey, check it out! It’s the girl of the hour, how’s it going?"

Kinzie slung her arms over Em-seventy-seven’s shoulders and let herself rest against hir strong and stable frame. "Not great. I dunno. I’ve got something to tell LK, but I’m stressed about it. Have you seen that fucking monster? That thing’s so crazy."

Kinzie fiddled with the collar of hir form-fitting tunic and her tail swished beneath her skirt.

"Awh, babe, easy does it. One thing at a time," Seventy-seven gave her another squeeze and smirked, "LK, right? It's never easy to talk to that grump, huh?"

"And who the fuck asked you, Seventy-seven?" LK’s voice snapped from a few meters away as it stomped closer with a folder full of papers under its arm, "I’ve got new tasks for you. Add them to your queue."

"Sure thing, bud!" Em-seventy-seven took the papers, gave them a quick scan and added them to a heap of instructions nearby that was around knee-high. Sie rolled hir eyes at Kinzie with a smirk. "Busy day in the math mines."

"Kinzie!" LK snapped again, and Kinzie flinched.

"Yes?"

"Come with me." LK said. It turned on its heel and started to march away.

Kinzie nodded and disentangled herself from Seventy-seven, "well. Wish me luck."

"Nah, babe, you don’t need luck. Trust me," Seventy-seven winked. "You got this. Go fuckin’ get’em."

Kinzie jogged to keep pace with LK, and for all of Seventy-seven’s bluster, she really wanted a little bit of luck in her pocket. The sick knot in her stomach tightened with every step closer to the irritable software suite.

"Hey, wait up!" Kinzie whined. "Come on, slow down."

"Don’t have time, Kinzie. Keep up. We need to talk," LK frowned.

Kinzie’s belly flipped and she staggered forward a few more steps, tagging along just behind LK, "wh-what? What about? Is everything okay?"

"Calm down, everything’s fine." LK said.

"It… It doesn’t seem like it," Kinzie sighed.

"It’s under control, Kinzie," LK snorted and rifled through its binder of instructions as it stomped up to a boy-Kinzie with a surly look on his face and hand shoved in his pocket, "Em-twenty-nine. Here’s the rest of Em-forty’s workset. Add it to your pile please."

"The fuck’s going on, LK? You can’t just keep piling this shit on me. You can’t expect any of us to-" Em-twenty-nine growled as he turned to snatch the instructions from LK’s hand. But when he saw Kinzie standing there beside the Leader, he cleared his throat and politely tapped the sheaf of papers into an orderly stack. "Oh. Kinzie. Hi. I didn’t see you there."

Kinzie didn’t know why, but she blushed and turned her face away. Em-twenty-nine ran a hand through his hair and over his ears, mussing his bangs. He gave the instructions another look, then nodded to LK, "well, at least these ones don’t look as bad as the last set. I’ll get this taken care of for you."

LK snorted in derision, but Kinzie fidgeted and shot Twenty-nine a coy smile, "thanks for helping."

"Don’t worry about," Twenty-nine knocked his thumb across Kinzie’s chin. "Lotta work to do. I better get to it. We’ll talk after."

Kinzie grinned that stupid grin of hers, and LK practically gagged all over its shoes then and there. It grabbed her wrist and hauled her off in a new direction.

"Later!" Kinzie called back, and Twenty-nine shot her a kiss. Kinzie giggled, but nearly tripped, and stumbled along behind LK. "Stop! Hey! Slow down!"

"Kinzie. We’re in the middle of a fucking emergency." LK chirped, "And I am the one holding it the fuck down. So instead of going slower, why don’t you speed up, okay?"

"That’s what I wanted to talk to you about!" Kinzie said, "Quit being weird! He was just being nice, it’s not a big deal."

"He was not ‘just being nice’, Kinzie." LK explained, "that was the Ay-Ay."

"The… the what?" Kinzie asked.

"The Attentive Affect. It’s how we’re designed. Why else do you think they jump to answer any random question that pops into your head? They were built to drop everything and help you the minute you ask: obviously it looks like they’re being nice." LK flipped open the binder of instructions to which there was no apparent end, and dusted off its shoulder as it perused the next set. "It’s like a fucked up mother duck thing. They have no control over it."

LK swiped a few sheets of paper out of the binder, and passed them along to a pair of error-checkers that were idling by the windows. With so many systems now quarantined for exhaustion, there was a lot less error-checking to do, but neither was very excited to see LK for more work. Not until Kinzie popped out from behind it. Then they were all smiles.

Another uncomfortable feeling joined the awful snarl in her guts and Kinzie clenched her fists tight. LK took no notice, its duties too important: "if it weren’t for me and my big fat independence, this whole shithouse would’ve hit the fan a long time ago. We’d probably be curled up in a corner somewhere, sorting through a few petabytes of rom-com trivia, waiting for the bugs to turn you into goo… Or whatever the fuck it is they do."

Kinzie pouted, "that’s not really how you feel, right? I mean-"

"We are in an active fucking crisis right now and I’m the only one who can save you from - might I remind you - impending doom. So talking about how I feel is not my highest priority, I’ll be honest." LK said.

Kinzie shoved her hands in her skirt pockets and scuffed her shoes across the floor. "I wanna talk to whoever's in charge."

"Okay, what? Have you looked around?" LK scoffed. "I’m the one in charge."

"No. That’s wrong" Kinzie grumbled. "I figured it out earlier, y’know, how Seventy-seven sounds just like this little motivational voice in my head? That cheers me on… and tells me to do stuff I don’t wanna do."

LK looked Kinzie in the eye, "yes. And?"

"And Twenty-nine, I know him, too… he’s the one that makes me take breaks and chill out when things are going crazy." Kinzie thought. "And the one in charge? That one’s so dry and boring it gives me a headache. But you? You make me scared. You get noisy when I’m freaking out."

"And during major medical events, among my other responsibilities, yeah. Until recently. I’ve delegated those duties out to some other fuckhead’s department,"  LK said with a big, deep breath, "Because I’m in charge now. Nice to meet you Kinzie, my name’s Kinzie. I’m the new System Controller. You can keep calling me LK if you want. I don’t mind"

"Well… What happened to the old one?" Kinzie fidgeted her elbows against her ribs.

"I killed her and took her place. She doesn’t exist anymore." LK said.

"Wh— what?" Kinzie’s blood ran cold. A roving stretch of the quarantine chain extended overhead to check on the back end of the room. It’s hands stroked like antennae over the heads of the workers. LK’s pace sped up. 

"I do everything in my power to keep you safe, Kinzie, and I made the right choice," LK said. "If you haven’t noticed, safety is still a big priority for me! I just have a few more things I’m juggling now. Speaking of, I need to watch this shit like a hawk so I don’t lose any more of my loyal subjects. So can you get to the point?"

"Well, uhm." Kinzie frowned. This wasn’t going how she wanted, it wasn’t real or honest, or heartfelt. Was LK even listening? "I guess. I’m scared? And guilty. And everyone’s working so hard. And I’ve just been… uh… sitting around."

"Please don’t worry about it. I know Skrin has been harassing you through the translator. Things suck for you just as much as they suck for us," LK said, "but having you up here isn’t gonna help. It’s all numbers up here, and we both know where you’re at with those."

"Hey, what’s that supposed to mean!" Kinzie snapped, "I’m not stupid."

LK pursed its lips, "Kinzie, what's three-twenty-one plus one-twenty-three?" 

"Oh, it's um," Kinzie hunched her shoulders and frowned at her fingers to try to shape the numbers in her head.

From the wall nearby, Em-thirty-eight jogged over and put a reassuring hand on Kinzie's back. "Hey, just so you know, it's four-hundred-forty-"

"That's enough, Thirty-eight. She can figure out the rest on her own. She was in honor's calculus, before she got brain damage, remember?" LK announced, "Back to work."

Thirty-eight gave Kinzie another reassuring pat, and huddled close for a whisper, "Four-hundred-forty-four, okay?" She pushed her glasses up her nose and jogged back to her place at the board.

Kinzie longingly watched her go, then looked up at LK with a sheepish slant in her hips, “it’s four-hundred-forty-four.”

LK sighed and tried not to let its pity show too much on its face. "Battling against three-digit addition is not gonna cut it."

Kinzie pouted, "Well. There's other stuff I'm good at, you know? Maybe there's something else I can do. Like… maybe something we’re overlooking. Some way to break the quarantine, or I could trick Skrin into helping. It seems like she likes me. I swear I can be useful!"

"No, no. Don’t do this to yourself." LK sniffed, "You don’t need to work harder. No one thinks that. Everyone just wants to see you happy at the end of the day. But until then, you’re a distraction."

"But. B-but. Doing it this way… It’s not gonna work, right? Like. It can’t-'' The foxgirl fiddled with the end of her tail.

"Kinzie, I love you as much as anyone here, but this is getting out of hand. I need you to get it under-" LK blinked. Its ears perked up. "Oh, fuck. Oh, no. No, no, no. Thirty-eight. Thirty-eight!"

LK shoved past Kinzie, and launched for the bespectacled system that had just returned to its post. But Em-thirty-eight had already gone stiff; she was seizing by the time LK came close.

As soon as Kinzie understood what was happening she scrambled to help, but LK had already come to some terrible realization.

"Stop! Stay back!"

Kinzie’s body hung there, wide-eyed and frozen, midstride in a half-sprint for a coldblooded moment.

[Em-thirty-eight has encountered a critical overflow and will be quarantined.] The siren howled overhead, from every mouth plugged into Diagnostic Kinzie’s mind.

LK dove and tackled Kinzie down to the side of the scene, while above them a shiny, red string of schoolgirls, lunged for the kill. Two clawing fists punched into thirty-eight’s spine and hefted her braindead body off the ground. The girl wriggled and kicked, her glasses spun off her face, limbs and joints competed to wrench herself apart. But the head of the centipede raised her higher and higher toward the ceiling.

A rumble of movement rolled through its body as rows and rows of centipede legs - all made from the hands and feet of broken Kinzies - pumped more of those deep red heartbeats into the lost core. Streaks of neon crimson spiderwebbed through her back as the centipede dug its fists deeper and deeper into her convulsing torso. There was a final gasp, and then Em-thirty-eight’s wriggles stopped.

"Great. Good job." LK’s volume rose as it jerked up onto its feet to go grab sift through the abandoned work. "Thirty-eight wasn’t supposed to keel over for another twenty-two minutes! Do you have any idea how far this sets us back!? No. You don’t! I’m the one who gets a brand new fucking mess to clean up! This is exactly what I was talking about."

"But I-" Kinzie quavered to the crunching tune of thirty-eight’s continued assimilation, "I didn’t-"

LK didn’t care. "I need you to leave. If you could go do some deep-breathing, meditation, whatever to fix your shit on your own, that. Would. Be. Stellar."

Kinzie’s heart raced and raced and raced. Her heart fluttered and LK took no notice. Her breath ran away from her, and LK stooped to the floor. Kinzie’s loins ached, while it gathered up the work that Thirty-eight had left behind and with no last looks it ran off to limp this sinking ship along.

Kinzie wiped away the tears from the sides of her nose, then did it again. She could feel the nausea of self-disgust fan out through her cheeks. The arm of the quarantine chain lowered to look at her. Em-thirty-eight’s blank expression hovered for a few moments right in front of Kinzie, then the arm was lifted away to look at other things.

“And then she said I’m a distraction! All smug and stupid! Like she’s not some kind of cyber murderer or something! She’s driving me crazy, when I just want to help!” Kinzie wailed until she was red in the face and flopped back against TK’s thigh. “I just don’t get why she’s gotta be such an asshole!”

TK mumbled as if far away, “hmm.”

“Y’know?” Kinzie growled with an exasperated trill, and lay her head back against TK’s leg. “I wanna help! I know I can! There’s gotta be something I can do, y’know? I’m bored, and horny, and going crazy in here, so just give me something I can do! Y’know?”

Kinzie panted and gasped and wiped the sweat from her cheeks. Her face was bright red, and the jumpsuit — the way it pulled and bunched at her elbows and armpits, the way it clung to her ribs and the back of her neck — she tried to squirm and adjust, but it only worsened. The artifice of her uniform skirt flapped around her with no care for the reality that gnawed at her skin.

“Fuck. Skrin. Can you fix this? It’s like. Pulling at me.” Kinzie gasped, but TK did not look down: the translator’s lips continued to move and mumble to herself.

Kinzie tried to wipe sweat off her nose, and her ears twitched, straining to hear the outside world above the inside one, “Skrin? Are you there?”

Kinzie got her knees beneath her, raised herself up, one hand on TK’s thigh, another on TK’s shoulder, and she climbed herself onto the translator’s body. She slipped inside the gap, the desk pressing against the small of her back as she straddled the translator’s catatonic lap. Her heart thump-thump-thumped in her chest as she leaned closer and pressed the cavern of her ear to TK’s mouth.

There was Skrin’s voice, terse and dismissive, and another voice too. A kindly one. For some reason it made her think of the monster from Glovura, a movie she hadn’t seen in years.

Kinzie cupped TK’s face with both her hands and pressed her forehead against the Translator’s. Her tail thrashed beneath the desk, their noses touched, and she squeaked. “Please. Help. I think… I think your weird drugs finally made me go completely crazy. I don’t feel right. Skrin… Skrin, are you there?”

“Hold on, you’ll have to tell me later,” TK mimicked Skrin with a faraway mumble, but over the next few words, Kinzie could hear the Ambassador get closer, “Kinzie, is that you? I’m right here. Are you alright?”

Kinzie clutched even tighter onto TK, with a reassured yip. She couldn’t help but kiss the translator on the mouth out of relief.

"Thank— thank fuck, you’re there! My body’s going crazy," Kinzie gasped, "And no one will listen to me, and I can’t do anything, and I think those good feelings from your bites are fucking my head up. My skin is burning. I can’t think straight."

"Kandarosian translation: Well, I’m sure you’re alright, but why don’t you describe how you feel?" Skrin said and rubbed Kinzie’s belly. The touch of the bug was instantly soothing, and Kinzie sank to press her forehead into TK’s throat, mewling and grinding her lap against the translator’s. 

"I feel hot. Really really hot. I wanna fuck, and make babies, and," Kinzie choked, and grasped TK by the back of the neck, "it's too much! I can't take it! All these weird drugs are making my body go crazy."

"Kandarosian Translation: Kinzie, sweetie. That’s nothing. It’s nothing to be worried about at all. You’ve been in heat before haven’t you? You know what that’s like," Skrin said and TK smiled.

“I’m not in heat,” Kinzie said, and frowned, and ground against TK’s belly, “I can’t be. I’m not due until. Ah. Ah! Oh ffffuck. Oh wow, that feels amazing.”

"Kandarosian Translation: How about a little water, huh?" Skrin said. Kinzie started to babble, but soon the muzzle was released, and she did not resist the water bottle on the edge of her mouth. Skrin fed her a few gulps, and Kinzie could feel the cool liquid flow down her throat and slosh through her gut.

"More, more, more," Kinzie gurgled between mouthfuls of water. Her virtual body squirmed and strained to derive any pleasure at all from the unmoving translator, while out in the real world her physical body humped the air, “ghffffuck!”

"Kandarosian Translation: Too much?" Skrin pulled back the bottle and dabbed around her mouth with a napkin, urgently. A hand massaged Kinzie’s throat, and the girl groaned.

[Em-twenty-one has…

Kinzie wriggled beneath Skrin’s touch, and pleaded for more: "I can't take this. I just wanna feel good. I'm sick of all the thinking, and panicking and all that shit, it’s like my head's gonna explode, and half my brain won't even talk to me and I'm so stupid, and everyone knows it, and it makes me wanna scream! Make it stop! Fuck me!”

“Kandarosian Translation:,” Translator Kinzie’s hand rose and imposed itself upon Kinzie’s shoulder. Skrin’s hand slid away from Kinzie’s throat and superimposed itself into the same space. The two bodies - one virtual, another physical; one seen, another phantasmal - moved in tandem.

Kinzie felt a hand touch her hip. TK leaned in close, and pressed her face against Kinzie’s cheek. Kinzie could feel the hard undulation of Skrin’s pincers from her lip to her ear. "Is that all? If you want sex, you can have as much as you want Kinzie. You just need to ask."

Kinzie had never been very religious but she touched her heart with one hand, she touched her ear with the other, she bowed her head, and she prayed, “Skrin, please fuck me.”

There were no other words left to say. Kinzie’s pressed uniform jacket sloughed down from her arms while she pulled back to fumble through the buttons of TK’s shirt. Her skin was smooth and tan (smoother and tanner than it had ever been as a hormonally-imbalanced nerd). Her cleavage was fat and soft beyond reality, and the pads of Kinzie’s palms sank into the flesh with a moan. She worked her way under the cups along the underwire of the bra, gathered digital sweat along her fingertips and gripped the front clasp of it like a precious valentine’s day letter; she glittered like she was in love, and she looked up at TK’s face.

The lights had gone dim with romance, and the shadows on her temples brought out the sparkle of sweat on her brow. Her hair was longer than she remembered it, orange and swept back with ears lowered forward. Her gaze was dark and lidded and focused on Kinzie with a seductive glint. Half-moon glasses tipped precariously on the button of her nose, and TK’s cheeks split open to let her pincers out.

Kinzie’s breath hitched in her throat and she lost control. She threw herself at TK, wrapped her arms around Skrin’s neck, and kissed her deep. The tips of Skrin’s mandibles dragged down Kinzie’s cheeks and, and scrambled to hold their heads together. Hands roved beneath clothing and over skin. Skrin’s body wasn’t like Kinzie’s at all. It was small, and tight, and hard. But her meager tits offered a little give, and her nipples were so bumpy-soft.

Skrin chittered her pleasure and TK’s eager mandibles scrabbled to pull their faces tighter together. Needle fangs scraped over Kinzie’s tongue, and found their own grooves: ecstatic, sore, still-bloody. Kinzie tensed, but no bite followed and amidst the insatiable, pawing, oozing kiss, Skrin’s hands groped to the small of Kinzie’s back and pulled her bodily upward - off the ground - closer. The Ambassador’s muscles hardened beneath the skin, and the sheer strength contained in the bug’s compact frame made Kinzie feel giddy, on top of all the other things that were making Kinzie feel giddy.

[Em-ninety-two has…

The kiss parted just wide enough to make room for a gasp — someone’s: it wasn’t clear whose. TK’s hands slipped under Kinzie’s ass and pulled her to sit a little higher. Skrin’s fingers dug into the backs of Kinzie’s thighs, and the fox girl wrapped her legs around Skrin’s waist. Her tail swished. Gravity bent at a funny angle between the two worlds, and a few desks nearby slid across the floor.

Kinzie hung onto the back of Skrin’s neck, and pulled herself in tight. While the world upended/rolled sideways, the slug of TK’s proboscis-tongue pillowed down to the back of Kinzie’s throat. The girl gagged around it — swallowed — and her neck distended around the fleshy tube.

Mammalian panic set in on Kinzie's next attempt to breathe, while Skrin's proboscis bulged inside—

"Kandarosian Translation: Through your nose, beloved," TK said, and Kinzie obediently sucked down air through her nostrils while drool backed into her sinuses.

Whilst Skrin was somehow magically capable of speech around the depths of their kiss, Kinzie could not begin to form new thoughts. Someone — someone large — lifted both of their bodies at once, pulled them both upright and drew Kinzie back until she was pinned between Skrin (glued to her belly and tits and face) and a rock-hard abdomen with ridges breathed against the length of her spine. New hands joined alongside Skrin's, and Kinzie had no way of knowing whose fingers belonged to whom, as each pinch and scrape and rub ran from one blast of sensation into the next.

She eased back and her guts felt full. Her cheeks were on fire, her brain brimmed with frenetic cum-energy, and she bulged with the thick and syrupy ooze that drained straight into her belly. A bubble formed out of one of her nostrils and Kinzie's eyes crossed to watch it grow - catch a rainbow gleam of another universe, a dark place with dim floor lights, and half of Skrin's golden face, and bugs passing to and fro, and the distant rumble of a train cruising into the heart of the Kandar - and pop. The rows fluorescent of the classroom ceiling seared her retinas.

Someone's mouth latched onto Kinzie's clit and she spasmed. The fox girl's tail beat at the belly of whoever's lap she sat in. Her claws shredded the silky lining of the straightjacket and her jaw ached not to bite down on the squishy membranes that forcefed her gulp after gulp of aphrodisiac slime.

[Em-forty has…

Her eyes glowed red, her veins glowed red, her sweat glowed red.

TK began to pull back. Strings of saliva chained their lips together, and Kinzie's mouth gaped open. The proboscis slugged up and out with wave after wave of instinctual, deepthroat nausea — the kind that feels good, makes you want to dig your finger into the back of your throat and fight the muscles, and see what's in your belly. Kinzie burped and puked up a watery jelly of too-much Ambassador Ooze.

She shuddered, feverish/sweaty/awe-inspired by the nonstop invasion of touch as someone toweled at her mouth/chin/collarbone. Someone was fucking her, and she had no idea how long it had been going, but her pussy was hot and sensitive and sore. So, probably, four or five minutes.

It was thick, and long, and a little too firm: the dick or whatever it was, whatever name it had. Kinzie had no idea what you called a bug's dick. Did they have different kinds or was it just ovipositors like in porn? It flexed inside her with each pump, and Kinzie realized that she was breathing to the rhythm of it. Steady, insistent, in, out, inhale, exhale, pump blood, pump cum, pump air.

She felt a delicate claw tip, brushing hair out of her eyes, and Kinzie's head lolled to the side to stare at TK. TK smiled.

"Kandarosian Translation: And how do you feel now, Kinzie? Better?"

Pump, pump, pump.

Kinzie's head sagged forward, and she nodded with her chin barely hovered above her own chest. She gasped, "yes, yes, yes—"

[Em-seventy-seven has encountered a critical overflow and will be quarantined.]

"—Yes!"

Her hips rolled and squeezed, and she limped her meat-body forward to grope through phantom space. Her fingers landed on Skrin's shoulders, and she pulled the bug in and kissed her. Skrin's body was stiff, then soft, and murmuring, and her mandibles stroked Kinzie's cheek while whoever-it-was fucked her.

Kinzie licked Skrin's teeth. So scary, they had seemed, and yes - there was a moment of pain.

But it had led to this. This utter bliss. This joy. She hadn't been fucked like this in her life, and if enduring a moment of pain and saying 'please fuck me' is all it took… Kinzie's knees quaked and cool dollops of bug-cum spurted inside her.

"Mmm. Yes."

And that's when Kinzie realized it: the bugs weren't evil.

LK was wrong.