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The Pen Testing Crew

Chapter 2

By StripedKittyScribe

---

Systemic Feedback isn't your typical crew of cyberpunks. Almost all of them are former corpo-employees who went independent after a couple of them were downsized. Feedback leads his crew doing things that keep them hiding in plain sight. Besides, how else are you going to get the corpo-drones to pay you to break into their companies?

This story may contain characters that are gender-non-conforming and have physical adaptations that match this. It may further contain group sex of essentially any and all permutations, violence, crimes, and non-consensual/dubious consensual sex. Please do not consume this work of fiction if you are not of the age of majority in your jurisdiction.

---

Mimi stumbled into the apartment, groaning. Shi made it to the couch and fell forward onto it, bouncing once as the cushion took hir weight.

Hir family looked on, bemused. The three were sitting at the breakfast table, dirty plates in front of them and mostly full cups of caff.

Bonus tipped the coffee pot, freshening his cup. "I know that you said that shi was fine and hir augs were all working, which meant that shi was safe. You sure about that, perrito?"

Mimi extended a hand up over the sofa's backrest, then extended hir middle finger.

"I don't know, Bonus. I think shi might be dead."

The finger waved back and forth.

"Yeah I'm with you two," Spring added after noisily slurping at her coffee. "I think shi's either dead and a zombie bunny, or shi got replaced by a near-perfect copy that didn't have enough time to get hir voice print right. Normally, our Mimi would have said something by now."

Shi added a vertical component to the horizontal motion, then as much as hir shoulder would allow, shi put some z-axis motion in just to further emphasize hir point.

Feedback took a much more refined sip of his own coffee. "It's a shame that Mimi's not here. Syrah sent her regards and flirtations."

Both hands shot up into the air, weaving around with middle fingers extended. That got a round of laughter from the table.

"Come on, conejita," Bonus called. "You need something to eat besides pussy or dick, and we have things to talk about."

Mimi finally pushed hirself up so that shi could peer over the back rest, glowering with bloodshot eyes. Hir ears were laid back over hir shoulders, and shi looked like shi hadn't gotten a single bit of sleep. "Unless this is something that means the end of the family, the world, or Impulse's career, I'm not doing anything until I get a shower, complete with hunky bathroom attendants."

Spring held her hand over her chest, eyes widening. "Gasp. GASP! I am left out. Maligned! Overlooked! Abandoned!" She threw her head back, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead. "Sob! I shall never recover!"

Mimi reached for one of the throw pillows, and flung it at Spring. "Bitch."

Spring caught it easily, and returned the volley. "Slut."

Feedback stepped in and grabbed the cushion on its return flight from Mimi, saying, "Alright, alright, enough. This is kind of serious, though it's not world-ending. Mimi if you need a shower, go get one, I'll have breakfast and coffee ready for you when you get back. And no, you don't get Spring or Bonus to join you. This genuinely is kind of serious."

Mimi grumbled as shi pushed hirself back from the couch to stand, and then made hir way toward the bedroom, leaving a trail of clothes on hir way to the shower.

Bonus stood and started clearing dishes from the table. "I honestly wouldn't mind going in there and helping hir but we all know that would just drag the shower out."

Feedback shook his head as he stood and moved into the kitchen, pulling the fridge open and setting out a few items to make Mimi hir favorite breakfast. "Sometimes shi's a real pain in the ass. And other times, shi's even worse."

Spring laughed as she stretched her arms over her head, making her brown coat ripple in the light. "Oh, come off it, you adore hir and everyone knows it. Hell, shi has you wrapped around hir little finger more often than not."

The light banter carried on as more coffee was made, and another omelet was prepared. Mimi came out of the bedroom with a towel over hir shoulders, stroking it along hir ears as she grumbled about a lack of 'appropriate assistance'. The smell of coffee prepared the way shi liked it and hir favorite omelet perked hir up however. Shi dropped into hir chair and drained half of the cup in a single pull.

The others winced. For them, coffee was an acceptable source of caffeine. For Mimi, it was a vital biochemical.

Shi lived on it. If shi didn't have at least four cups before noon, shi got cranky. Shi almost inhaled the breakfast food, and then leaned back into hir chair. "So. I have news. And before you ask, it has nothing to do with the party. Or at least, not the fun stuff at the party. But you guys sound like you have something so let's start there."

Feedback and Bonus explained the job that Syrah had proposed to them, leaving out the more lurid details of what they'd found when they walked into the office.

Mimi chewed hir lip before shi reached under hir ear and pulled the chip that Impulse had given hir, and tossed it on the table. Shi explained that Impulse knew about it and had asked Systemic Feedback to look into it and 'fix' the problem somehow. Shi'd put the images of the device up on the screen alongside the one that Bonus had put up. It was the same thing that the opposing interests were interested in.

Bonus looked over at Spring. "I'm guessing that you don't really understand this, no?"

Spring shook her head. "It's way too deep into the wetware for me to know anything other than it's intricate. Kinda wish that Cross were still here. She'd know what to make of this."

Feedback looked around the table at everyone, then tapped a finger onto the table. "Alright. First question. Non binding. Are we going to get involved?"

Everyone looked at everyone else, then nodded.

Feedback took a breath in, then let it out. "And we don't really know what this thing can actually do, so we're not sure what we're going to do about it. But we know we're going to do something." He tapped a finger more as he thought. "Alright. No matter what we do, we're going in. Which means that we need to start the preliminary work. Bonus, go talk with Cross. Show this to her, see what you can get out of her. Mimi, start up a standard initial probe. Spring, work on doing a tech-and-check of all our gear, then stand by to fab anything that we may need. I'll head over and scope the place out, maybe even pitch our services to them. Give us an added pay source and even more 'legitimate' excuse to be there. Post updates to the group chat. I know that we don't really like doing back to back jobs, but look at the bright side."

Bonus snorted. "Si, perrito. We're getting work."

Spring stood up, stretching her arms over her head once more. "If we keep this pace up we're going to need to start looking for other people to hire. But we're not letting anyone else into the family. I can barely keep up with you fuckers as it is." With that, she turned and stalked off to the bedroom so that she could change clothes and head to her workshop.

Mimi bounced on hir toes, tank top and shorts on instead of just being nude. Shi was perfectly happy wandering around the apartment in just hir fur but everyone had made a rule. Shi gave Bonus and Feedback each a kiss on their cheek. Then shi went into hir Vault, and shut the door. Flipping a switch that would activate the light outside that said 'Genius At Work', shi stripped down to hir fur, and started working hirself into hir dive rig. This was going to be interesting. Shi hadn't done any kind of a penetration test on a sex toy maker since last year.

Bonus and Feedback both went to the closet at the same time, and both changed into different outfits. Bonus took less time, since his more basic outfit took less preparation and time to 'get right'. "I'll never understand why you like that, perrito."

Feedback chuckled as he started to work the necktie into a simple knot. "It's because I make it look so good." Which was true. Feedback had an athletic build that worked well with the corpo-suits, and he knew how to coordinate the colors well with his golden fur. The thing about him was that he just wore it so naturally, in a way that Bonus never would.

The skunk leaned in and stole a fast kiss, then said, "You do look good. I just don't want you getting in trouble out there. You keep those pretty blue eyes moving. Don't get distracted." He gave his lover a swat on the backside, then slipped out and went to go see someone that they used to do a lot more work with.

Cross was someone who they had a complicated relationship with. She was still on friendly terms with their crew. Mostly. She didn't get along well with Mimi, but that was a personality thing. No, the real reason that things were so complicated was that her husband, their combat specialist, wanted to take a more hard line with the corporations. He and Feedback hadn't exactly come to blows. That would have resulted in a visit to the morgue for everyone but the canine, who wouldn't have ever checked out. Block would have utterly destroyed the smaller canine.

Block could destroy just about anything he wanted to. The problem was that he tended to want to destroy a lot of things that Bonus and his family didn't necessarily want to destroy. They'd split on almost-amicable terms, and they had a lot looser of a collaboration than previously. Anyone in Systemic Feedback would provide a bit of assistance to either Cross or Block, no charge. It sometimes went the other way, but not usually.

Cross was in her clinic, and thankfully it wasn't one of her 'free care' days. She'd run diagnostic care on people who had either basic medical issues or problems with their wetware, and only charge them the cost of the parts if they couldn't afford anything more, one day a week. She was, of course, flooded on those days, and he wouldn't be able to see her without interrupting her work.

She was between appointments when he arrived, and she smiled as she gave him a warm hug. "Bonus, you don't show up nearly enough," she said, holding him at arm's length to look him over.

It gave him a chance to look her over in response, and appreciate her full figure. Cross was a raccoon, and she had a bit more curves than most people on the street did. It came from being a doctor and having access to more calories than most people did, to be sure. But she also didn't do much in the way of physical work. 'That's what I keep Block around for,' she would always say.

Her gray-and-black fur was soft and neatly brushed, keeping her brown eyes one of the few points of color on her body that wasn't clothing. She was in a set of scrubs and a lab coat, though she shrugged the coat off after shutting the door. "So, you didn't send over any kind of a list of augs, so you're not here for an upgrade. You didn't call ahead to see if Block was here, so this isn't a purely 'social' visit. You didn't come in leaking all over my floor, so this isn't an emergency. What's up?" She crossed her arms over her breasts and perched herself on the edge of an examination table."

Bonus grinned, a bit embarrassed. "Well. It is professional, though if Block isn't around, I wouldn't be opposed to it turning social afterward, Mascarilla. He take a job out of the city again?"

She nodded, and blushed a bit. "He took a job with Bolt, and they've been out of touch for a week or so. Not due back for another couple of days, so I'm not worried. Their augs are still pinging so I know they're safe. It's just that this is a long one."

Bonus 'ah'd, and nodded his understanding before he pulled his jacket open and reached into one of the inner pockets where she could see it. "I have something that I'd like you to take a look at. We got wind of this and we're not really sure what to make of it." He motioned toward the screen on the wall, "Permiso?" He waited for her to nod, and then slipped the chip into the screen's port and brought it up for her to see. "You want me to tell you anything or just let you go in cold?"

Cross 'mm'd and waved him to be quiet, while she looked things over. She flicked back and forth between the various screens, reports, and everything else on the device, frowning slightly as she did so. The frown only grew worse. "Well this is... sub-optimal," she concluded.

Bonus just leaned against the wall. He knew her, she would explain when she gathered her thoughts.

"Alright. So this is one of those things that could be really, really good for a very few reasons, and could be really, really bad, and for a lot of reasons. I won't go into why it's brilliant work, even though it is." She approached the screen and focused on the 'toy' itself. "This is, as you probably have guessed, an insertable. What you haven't guessed, is that it's not supposed to ever be removed. My guess is that it gets pushed up into the nasal cavity, or slid down the esophageal tube by something like a sounding rod. It's very unclear just how they intend to do that, but it's also tiny. There's no sense of scale here on any of the drawings, you'd have to dig through the papers to get that. But we're talking small gravel, rather than marbles."

Bonus couldn't help but wince.

She continued. "It sends out a ton of signals, through various methods, mostly because it doesn't really have any processing power itself. It just acts as a relay toward whatever system it's pointed at on the outside. Think of a reader screen; it doesn't have all of the data on it, it just pulls from the server. This thing does some very delicate work, and fucks the nervous system around in some weird ways." She motioned for him to hold his hands out, then placed her hands on top of his. "You feel warmth, right?"

He nodded.

"That's your nerves sending signals. The impulse travels along your internal wiring, and tells your brain 'soft warm thing pressing against your hands'. This thing," she pointed at the screen, "somehow intercepts those signals, runs them through some sort of algorithm that's stored on the central system, and then passes them on completely altered. I could slap you and you'd feel pleasure. I could suck you off and you'd feel agony. I could cut your skin and you wouldn't feel anything."

Bonus shook his head, "No, that's not what we were told this was. This is a sex toy. A weird sex toy, but a sex toy."

Cross gave a sad smile. "That's the intended use. Either dampen or increase pleasure. Make things last a bit longer. Give the user more control over just how intense things get, how quickly. And if that were the only way this could be used, I'd think it was interesting, but mostly harmless. You could set up a session spanking someone and they'd cream all over themselves even if they're not a masochist. Would be great for porn, speaking strictly in a 'make it easier to do' sort of way. But as it stands right now, there's no real upper bound, nor are there limits to where it gets stopped."

She tapped another section of it. "That's just one of the risks of using bod-mods, though. You start messing with natural systems and things get messy. The real danger, at least as far as the lower classes would be concerned, is that this would be extremely easy to abuse either by hackers or by legitimate system users. Imagine if someone like Mimi got this, and you're having the most intense sex in your life with hir. Shi's right there. Shi's squealing and begging you, and then all of a sudden hir whole nervous system just stops feeding hir the pleasure from the act. It could be ransomware, it could be malware, it could be anything. Shi just all of a sudden can't feel anything." Cross pointed at the screen. "As of right now, that's both theoretically and technically possible."

*

Mimi floated in the writhing chaos that was the net. Shi grinned to hirself. This was almost more home to hir than the apartment was. Shi was a ghost right now, hovering around the server that represented EroTech. You never could underestimate just how valuable simply watching something could be.

Shi'd started the day off with a basic 'wait and see' strategy. None of hir own bots, nothing but sitting up in the ether and watching how the external server security dealt with the thousands of probes that every corp got, every day.

You could always tell at least a little bit of something about the security suite; who wrote it, how they handled things, what you could expect to see on the inside. Some people threw up something like an iron wall, and probes just bounced off of it, unable to get in. Some people threw a sort of net up, trapping the probes and learning from them after they got just barely into the system. Some people had active defenses that attacked anything that came close.

This server... just let everything in. Which was, in a word, a novel approach. The probes never came back out, so it wasn't the most insane approach that Mimi had ever seen. Surely there was some sort of inoculation or something else going on. Maybe a code-scanning, or record and capture. Not a tactic shi would use, but it wasn't the worst idea ever. Even if one part of the code would have resulted in it being caught, it could have other clever parts that shi could use. If shi'd captured those probes, that was. If shi ever started running a server that people attacked, that is.

Still, shi'd learned a fair bit about what was going on just from hir observation, and now it was time for hir to start doing something a bit more direct. Shi formed a box with hir hands, and drew them outward, designating a spot for hir control window to come up in. "Let's see, a couple of crawlers, a couple of trailers, a flier, and... oh, let's toss a rumbler in just for kicks and giggles," shi said as she tapped a few selections, then set them up and let them run. It would take most of the day for hir to really see results, but this was what penetration TESTING was for.

*

Feedback stood from the table, and brushed his hands across his jacket, neatly buttoning it. "A pleasure, ladies and gentlemen. Please know that Systemic Feedback is at your call." He shook hands all around, and it didn't take his experience with 'suits' to know that they wouldn't be calling. An infant could have read this room. They weren't going to even consider slating his crew for a penetration test. If anything, they were annoyed that he'd taken their time away from them.

As he walked out of the building, he took the time to observe. Not record, doubtless they would have sensors and other things to detect active and unregistered augs operating. He didn't need to record or take snapshots, though. Feedback had an excellent memory, and even more important than that, he knew what to look for, where to look for it, and what it meant when he did or didn't find what he was looking for.

Whoever set this place up knew what they were doing. There were holes, and he could already find a few ideas lurking in the corners and blind spots. It would make their eventual job here easier. Even if there was going to be a bit more of a connection to Systemic Feedback due to his visit, it wouldn't necessarily be enough to get anyone coming after them. Especially if Syrah was right and the company was in trouble anyway. It wasn't like there was a city law enforcement to come after them, just corpo-squads. And if the corp was gone, then no squad.

He stood outside of the building, and moved to take a seat on one of the concrete structures. While there, he started putting things in his folder that was linked to the group chat. Camera locations, angles, floor diagrams, and a few other things. They'd be making use of them. Eventually.

What he hadn't expected was for a shadow to fall across his frame. He looked up, expecting to see one of the EroTech security guards telling him to move along, or that he wasn't welcome. What he saw instead was someone that he didn't instantly recognize. He didn't even instantly recognize the species, and had to ping one of the free library servers to come up with it. Fossa. Big sucker, too. That may have been why he took so long to recognize it. He was about to ask if there was something he could do for the fossa, when his visitor made his meta-data public.

"I am here representing someone that has recently been in contact with you." Roger "Longshot" Patricks. Affiliation: Nymphatech. "She is concerned that you may have tipped our hand by approaching the board."

Feedback remained sitting, leaning back to face the large weaselkin. Were fossa weaselkin? "I understood that we were given free reign to approach this project," he said. "I took no actions that would bring risk to anything. Trying to gain new business for Systemic Feedback is what I do, and EroTech is a perfectly legitimate potential customer." Unstated was that it would have provided added cover. But the fact that this 'Longshot' was here checking up on them was interesting. And not in a good way. "I don't think that you have any reason for concern."

Longshot crossed his arms over his broad chest, and then scowled down. "Any further actions you take should be discussed beforehand." With that, he turned and stalked off.

Feedback watched, and learned. Some people wore suits reluctantly. Some people wore them without any reluctance or hesitation. Some were comfortable, some not. And some wore them like they got in the way. Longshot was the last sort. He wasn't wearing it casually. Feedback wore it naturally. Even Bonus looked at least somewhat comfortable. Longshot looked like he was treating the suit as if he were angry that it wasn't armor and a weapons platform. He stayed there for a few seconds before he flicked his eyes to bring his aug control up. "We may have a problem."

*

Bonus brushed his hand through his hair, and then took a deep breath. "No gusto," he said, and then gave a weak smile over to Cross. "I don't know what we should do about this."

Cross gave a weak smile, and then pushed off of the table she was leaning on to cross the room and drape her arms around his neck. "Hey. You'll be alright. All of you. I know that I just made it sound like everything is hopeless. But you're gonna do the right thing. Even if we don't know what that is just yet." She gave him a kiss on his cheek, and then moved so that she kissed his lips.

Bonus settled his hands on her hips, and drew her forward so that she rested against him. "What happened to us, mm? We were so close."

Cross chuckled, and then nibbled under his jaw. "We started in the same place. We just didn't take the same set of turns. And that's okay. You don't need me. Block does."

Bonus trailed his hands along her hips, and then up to her shoulder blades. "I still need you."

Cross flushed a bit, but didn't pull away. "True. You just don't need me the same way he does." She laid her cheek on his chest. "I don't need you the same way I need him."

Bonus tucked a hand under her chin, and kissed her mouth. "I see you, Mascarilla."

She snorted, and kissed him again, pulling him down by the back of his head. "I don't want you to see me, El Stripe-o."

He laughed at that, and then kissed her again. "You never get tired of that, do you." His hand came up to squeeze her bust.

Cross brushed his jacket off of his shoulders, and then started pulling at his shirt. "Nope. It doesn't matter if you're Bonus, or Aaron, or El Raya Blanca. You're always my El Stripe-o."

Neither of them needed to 'explore' the other. They knew from long years in each other's company what the other liked, and how. Cross had been his first lover. Gentle, but insistent. And he had been more than just an eager student. Playing 'doctor' had been anything but a joke at first.

She ran her fingers across his bare chest, tracing the lines of scars that she'd healed, and pressed her bare breasts against his form. Cross didn't get 'tender' from Block. He loved her, she knew. And he hadn't ever hurt her, nor would he ever. But he just couldn't get 'gentle'. Not like her El Stripe-o.

Bonus didn't get this particular flavor of companionship from either Mimi or Spring. Mimi was far too frenetic of a lover. Fun, wild even, and attentive, in her own way. Spring wanted it hard and fast. She'd grown up just as rough as Bonus did, she simply never left it behind like he did.

They kissed, brushing each other's clothing off, only taking the time to remove a hand from the other's body long enough to pull it from a sleeve or to reposition for a responding caress.

Cross was a big girl, as tall as he was and full of all sorts of delightful curves for his fingers to wander. And yet for all that she 'could take it', like her Block gave it to her, there were times that she didn't want to.

Bonus kissed her over and over again, moaning softly as her fingers traced his shaft. There was just something about the older woman that pushed him, and while he wouldn't ever dare call her madre or even mami, there was no avoiding that sort of component to their relationship.

She pulled him back, her brown eyes sparkling with mischief and desire as she drew him toward one of the couches.

He fell forward, arm around her back to hold her and lower her somewhat into the cushion even as he covered her body with his own. Sliding along her, rocking slowly enough to keep the mood playful, they simply looked into each other's eyes.

She couldn't say who was more surprised at his entrance. It hadn't been intended, or even planned quite yet. It simply happened as his tip fell at just the right angle, and then slid down rather than up. Her breath caught as he moved further in, both arms around his shoulders.

He touched her face, her hair, and her hips as gently as he ever had, holding her with the kind of touch that one usually reserves for a treasure. It wasn't that she was the sexiest woman alive. Neither of them had any kind of illusion about whether she was beautiful or perfect by most standards. None of that mattered. She was his Mascarilla, and he was her El Stripe-o.

Words weren't needed. Not only were words not needed, but they would have ruined the moment. He didn't tell her how good she felt. How wet. How hot. How her breasts were the most wonderful cushions against his chest and shoulders.

She didn't tell him how thick or long he was. How he was caressing her just the way she needed, inside and out. She didn't tell him that he was handsome, or that he felt right on top of her.

It simply was. Two friends, two lovers, tangled with each other, seeking and sharing comfort and respect for who they were; for each other, for themselves, and for others.

It wasn't the kind of act that lent itself to speed. It wasn't even the kind of act that lent itself to a passionate physical release. Bonus' hips slid forward, and held there, his arms coiled around her shoulders, drawing her up against him as he pressed his muzzle in against the nape of her neck.

She held him close as he stopped. She held him as she felt him take long, slow breaths. She trailed her fingers along his ears and the back of his neck as she rubbed his cheek with hers. When he started to move once more, she reached down to hold his hips, and then draw him to stay in place, seated fully inside. Some time later, when she felt his breathing shift, and felt the tension leak out of his muscles, she didn't complain.

He'd fallen asleep in her arms before. Sometimes after spilling. Sometimes after pulling out. But never without having both given and received.

She had appointments later in the day. And she would have to wake him a little before those so that she could be presentable. Doubtless she'd have to use her other examination rooms. But that could wait. She'd fallen asleep with him on top of her before, too. Alarms on her tablet would sound when she needed to get moving. For the time being, she was right where she needed to be.

*

Spring set the last of the gear on the table, and then sighed. Hands on her hips, she glowered at the neatly racked tools and equipment that she'd just finished going over. The cameras were starting to show their age, and one of the stealth suites was starting to leak EM like a faulty reactor.

She brought up the building diagrams that Mimi had been able to pull out of records, and then the diagram that Feedback had thrown into the group chat. Like the rest of them, she had enough practice that she could already see a few ways in, and could guess at what their plan of attack would involve.

Spring started putting her own commentary into the group chat. "Looks like Mimi's going to be getting that new deck add-on shi's been asking for. Feedback, you're probably going to want a new camera, though it can probably wait. Bonus is going to need one now though. We're not pulling off an elevator job without replacing the TR-500. I don't trust it to remain concealed right now. If we're looking at a stealth job with setup then we're going to need a new scanning suite. I have no goddamn clue what happened with the last one, but the wiring is fucked."

She made a few other notes, keeping the rest of them up to date about what their immediate needs were, and what was coming up that she wouldn't be able to repair soon. Feedback was good about budgeting. She wasn't swimming in the best of everything, but she wasn't dying of thirst, either.

Last, she sent a message directly to Bonus about a few things that he'd need to pick up from Cross. When it wasn't marked instantly as 'read', she smiled. No one had any illusions about the skunk's relationship with their doctor friend. And they'd all been together long enough that they were comfortable with him being that intimate with the older raccoon woman. There was something there that went way back in Bonus' past.

Spring didn't have anything like that. At least, not here. She had history, of course, but not in this city. All of her past was on the other coast, and she liked it that way. She just wanted to have her family, and work, and everything else was a meaningless detail. Such as the fact that, technically speaking, it was Bonus' turn to make supper. But he would be home late.

She left her workshop room and padded into the kitchen. Bonus was an alright cook. He tended to make things too spicy for her tastes, even if they were otherwise savory. She started opening cabinets, taking inventory, and then settled on a large number of small dishes meant to be eaten with flatbread. She didn't get to cook like this very often.

*

When everyone returned and Mimi had been pulled out of her net-diving haze, they talked about what had happened, and outlined their plan of attack. No one had an idea what to actually do about the tech, though. Cross had confirmed one of Bonus and Feedback's fears; this was new, but also not so new that it wouldn't be developed independently within a few years. Which meant that stopping it outright was basically impossible.

Spring floated the idea that maybe they could get the tech and re-wire the hardware or firmware so that it wouldn't have the dangerous vulnerabilities.

Mimi suggested that they give an altered version of it over to Impulse, and the original to Syrah. That way a better version could come out on the market, and they'd still have fulfilled their contract.

Bonus' idea was just to hand the tech over to Syrah, and then start a whisper campaign that would kill the product at launch.

Feedback pushed himself back from the table, thinking. "None of that really matters unless we can get our hands on blueprints and specs. And we have a bigger problem. I don't know that we're going to have time to do any alterations. I'm not sure if Syrah sent someone to keep an eye on us or if this is just someone who's trying to get brownie points without her noticing, or even worse if she's been caught by someone else at Nymphatech and they're either wanting this, or they're wanting to shut her down hard and we're just collateral damage. Either way, we're going to need to really rethink our escape route. What if..."

---

This story is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to any characters, living, dead or imaginary is purely a coincidence. All characters are a product of the author's imagination and copyright to them, unless noted guest appearances of other copyrighted characters are listed in this notice. Comments may be left (and are encouraged!) on the author's FurAffinity page. If you liked this story, and wish to support the author, please visit their Patreon.

This story is a work of fiction. Any immoral acts included in this story are a fantasy and should not be taken as encouragement to perform or endorsement of these acts by the author. Specifically, because apparently it needs to be said; anything other than expressed consent for any sexual encounter by a legal unimpaired sentient adult is wrong, immoral, and evil. Unwilling subjugation of sentients who have committed no crime is wrong, immoral, and evil.