FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Several chairs clicked as they were sat on, the springs and cushions shifting under the weight of their new occupants. They stood in shadow, barely seen even among themselves. A table divided them from each other, a vast circle that took up the entire center of the room. Each of them sat at one of three compass points, east, west, and north.

The southern side of the table was taken up with a massive holo-projector. Normally, it projected different products and figures, sales and inventory of various different locations and centers across the world. Today, it played a record of one of the recent Hacker Battles that they tracked across the country. They had no problem with the Hacker Battles, regardless of some of the illegality that the underground ones pursued. For them, it was just another way for taxes and profits to come into their coffers.

They were more concerned with the people involved in this particular Battle. The female tigress had been an unknown before the battle, but files had been found on her. Tatyana, an immigrant from across the sea. An inventor, working with various electronics and circuits to make new machines to improve the lives of the population of Compwer, her local city. Nothing particularly outstanding yet, but her file had markers that requested she be watched from then on.

The files had been proven right, as she won the battle. Her opponent had been one of their agents, a wolf named Patrick. Though he was an arrogant asshole, he had been one of the best freelancers that they had at their disposal to deal with things that they didn't want to be directly attached to. Most effective, until he had gone up against the tigress.

One of the silhouettes reached out, turning off the projector before it could get into the more adult activities of the post-victory time slot. "It seems that we need to deal with this...Tatyana."

"Indeed," the northern silhouette responded. "To think that someone could have dealt with Patrick so easily. We must tighten our screening process."

"And we will," the eastern one said. "But for now, she must be taken out of the picture before she digs any deeper."

"Has she yet?" asked the western one.

"Not yet. But it's only a matter of time with people like her," East said.

They went silent for a moment, and then North raised his remote. He pressed a few buttons, and three profiles came up on the projector. Different agents, one a stallion, another a raven, and the third an orca. "We will send three this time."

Neither East or West protested, though their silhouettes slouched in a momentary wince. Three operatives would be expensive, no matter who they were. The three that North had picked were among the most expensive in their arsenal, and would likely take a good chunk out of their projected budget. But for dealing with the tigress, and making sure that there was a little revenge for what had happened to their freelancer, it was worth trying.

"We are agreed then," North said. He pressed another button, and the projector pulled out. The projected globe shimmered, several magnifications presented before a building came up on screen. The logo was familiar - one of their many front businesses - and the three of them nodded. "She has already scheduled a meeting with several of our manufacturing managers. We will replace them with our agents, and they will deal with her while she makes her presentation in cyberspace."

"And when she is beaten?" West asked.

"No one will recognize her," North said.

#

Tatyana grinned as she walked across the parking lot for the front door of Virtual Enterprises, barely hearing the footsteps of Ivan behind her. The possum was muttering something under his breath, but the tigress barely was aware he was talking. She was in too good of a mood to want to listen to his darker, pessimistic opinions.

Virtual Enterprises. They were the pioneers of all the virtual technology out there. The most well known were the cyberpods that took hackers into the cyberworlds for the Hacker Battles, but they were also big players in the different computer industries, and there were rumors abounding that they did a lot of secret research work, and sometimes even worked with the government. They had money coming out their keyboards, some said, and considering that their regional headquarters was the largest building in the city by a fair margin, the rumors were probably true.

And she was here to present her newest invention. Tatyana had worked on this for over a year, continuing to improve it even while she had prepared to fight against Patrick. And now, she was finally able to come to the company that could make her dream of putting it out to the public a reality.

The light field at the base of the building shimmered as they stepped through it, stopping the wind and dust from the outdoors from getting through. A few lines of light followed them, scanning their persons for threats, before turning off and withdrawing.

She paused as she looked over the lobby, shaking her head in amazement. It was lit well with a mix of blue and yellow light, casting a strange shade of illumination over the floor and the people inside. The light reflected off of clothes and skin and fur in a different way, making everyone look mechanical to some degree or another. Several people were at the front desk, talking to the cyborg secretaries, and others were seated in different seats. The ones that could afford it had their arms or their heads hooked up to a connector cable coming out of the chair, listening to different updates and surfing around different entertainment offerings, while those that couldn't just killed time as best they could.

"I can't help but feel a little nervous at this, Ms. Tatyana."

The tigress sighed softly. "Why are you so nervous about this, Ivan?" she asked, turning her head to look at the possum. "It's just a meeting with their manufacturing people. What's there to worry about?"

He shrugged. "I don't know, ma'am," Ivan said. "It's just a feeling that I can't shake. If I were to listen to my feelings right now, I would be running out of the screen and back onto the streets, no questions asked."

She shook her head. Ivan had always been a more cautious possum than most. He had been with her for a long time, first as a family friend, then as a guardian, a teacher, and finally her personal physician. That last had just been for the Hacker Battle with that wolf some time back, but he had still kept the title. Some sort of personal vanity, she supposed. "Look, you trusted me when I said that I was going to come out the winner when I fought Patrick in that Battle. Why don't you trust me to take care of myself now?"

"Because, Ms. Tatyana, I knew just how good you were in that fight. You have never talked with the people here. You have never dealt with them before. It is not familiar ground for you." Ivan looked at the desk, and at the cyborg employees. "I just don't feel right here."

Sighing in annoyance, Tatyana reached out and patted his arm. "Please, Ivan, can't you be a little happy for me here? It's the first thing that I've been able to push hard enough to get an interview. And this thing is big." She held up the box that held her invention, the thing barely large enough to fill one palm. "This thing is going to change the virtual industry. They have to realize that; why else would they have contacted us so quickly to get us in here?"

He sighed, and he closed his eyes. Tatyana knew that he would follow along regardless of his worries, simply because of his attachment to her, so she turned away before he could answer her.

One of the secretaries, a vixen, looked up at her, a mix of electronic blue and natural green crossing her eyes. "Is there something I can do for you, ma'am?" she asked. The only sign of her modifications in her voice was a slight electronic hum that flowed under her words.

Ignoring it, Tatyana said, "I am Tatyana, and I have an appointment with your manufacturing officers today. I think I should be in the system."

"Allow me to check, please," the secretary said. Her body went still and her eyes entirely blue as she checked the system. Tatyana could see small, faint numbers and letters floating across the vixen's eyes as the data was scanned, and couldn't help but watch out of fascination. The technology available to the public was amazing enough to her, and it was advancing all the time. However, there was nothing on the general market that matched what some companies did to give their employees an advantage. The wireless connection that the secretaries had to the databases was a relatively new development, and the tigress couldn't wait until she could find something similar on the markets for herself.

After a few more seconds, the vixen's eyes cleared. "Ah, yes, Tatyana. You are to meet with Misters Gray, Sammon, and Rett on the two hundred and first floor. They have cleared the use of a cyberworld for you to be able to make your presentation, and have a medic on standby if you need a medical aide to make the transition into the cyberworld."

"Thank you very much, though a medic will not be necessary," she said. She smiled wider. They must be more eager than she thought to see this thing, if they were putting up the resources to clear a full cyberworld for her to make a demonstration for them.

As they turned away, she heard Ivan muttering again, and she gritted her teeth. "Ivan, it doesn't mean anything," she muttered.

"A full cyberworld, ma'am? They could have done as well with a single server, or less than that, if they merely wished a demonstration," the possum said, his voice quiet enough to keep from spreading. "You know it as well as me."

The thing was, she did, and though she tried to dismiss Ivan's words as just his usual paranoid ideas, her mind started looking at the situation from another angle. Her invention could have been demonstrated in the real world as well as it might in the virtual world, though perhaps not so dramatically, and without the financial drain on the company that it would require to clear an entire cyberworld for a demonstration. True, Virtual Enterprises could afford the couple hundred thousand that it would take to pay off the different companies to allow it to remain free for an hour or two, but it was more money than she'd heard of any company spending to test out a concept of a project when they didn't have to.

They stepped into the lifts at the end of the lobby. A rotating disk of metal projected a floor of solid light beneath them, and they floated upwards. A second disk formed above them, allowing the air pressure around them to remain stable and keep them from feeling the currents of air and pressure around them.

The whole way up, Tatyana pondered the call that she'd received. It had sounded eager enough, but was it too eager? Was there something behind this whole thing? An idea to steal her invention from her before she could put it out, have her own name on it when it was marketed to those that might use it? If the company did that, then they could rake it more profits without having to cut her in on it, that was for sure.

It was the only reason she could think of for their behavior. So, she would just have to do something that they didn't expect.

Grabbing Ivan, she pulled his shirt out of his pants. Ignoring his startled yelp, she pushed her hands inside of his shirt, feeling around until she found a pocket, and slid her invention into it. She pulled his shirt back down, tucking it in quickly, before turning back to the building side.

Patting his shirt a few times, Ivan did the same. "May I ask just what that was about, Ms. Tatyana?"

"I'm hoping that you're wrong about something being off here, but you must be contagious," she said. "Now I'm worried too, and the only thing I can think of that they might try is to steal my invention and try to sell it, market it, themselves. Well, I'm not going to let them do that. So, you'll hold onto it for a while, just in case they try and get it off of me while we're talking."

"And the bulge that this causes in my shirt?" he asked.

"We'll just tell them that you have a tumor or something," she said with a shake of her head. "People higher up never want to look at that."

The lift beeped softly as they reached their floor. Some metal sheets moved out of the way, and they stepped through the opening.

Tatyana had to admit, she was impressed. The entire floor seemed to be one large meeting room. A square table sat in the middle, with two doors leading to the east and west side of the room. Several pods - cyberpods, she recognized them as - were laid against the south side of the room, with cords running from them to a holo-projector at the center of the table. Another holo-projector lit up the south side of the room, showing off various statistics for the business, as well as what looked like a few stock prices.

She barely had the chance to see them before the larger projector was turned off. She looked at the table again, realizing that the people she was supposed to meet were already at the table and waiting for her. Tatyana suppressed a blush and hurried over to the table. "Your pardon, I didn't know you were here," she said.

"Quite alright." There were three men in suits gathered to wait for her, and the one to speak was a raven. He gestured to himself. "I am Mr. Gray, and these are my associates, Misters Sammon - " he paused, gesturing to the orca that stood behind him, "-and Rett," he said, gesturing to the stallion on the other side. "Along with myself, they will be judging your product based on what we see in the cyberworld presentation."

The tigress nodded her head. With the exception of the stallion, she stood as tall or taller than the group, and she shook hands with each of them. They squeezed her hand tightly in the process, and by the time that she was done with all three, her hand was a little sore from the tightness of their grips. She noticed that their suits concealed a good bit of muscle as they sat down, particularly with the orca. Rather interesting, she thought.

"Well, let's not waste time here," the raven said. He gestured to the possum. "I assume that this is your medic?" he asked.

"I am," Ivan said before she could answer. "Will I be required to assist the rest of you as well?"

"No, no, you don't have to worry about that." Sammon shook his head with a small smile on his face. "She will conduct the demonstration in the cyberworld, and we will watch her from here. Of course, she will need to wait until she is told to start, otherwise we might miss something as we get ready to listen." He looked at her for a moment, and she nodded to show that she understood.

Ivan nodded, and the two of them walked over to the cyberpods at the end of the room. Tatyana paused, looking back at the suited males, and they turned their backs for her. With a little sigh of relief, she started taking off her clothing, folding it into small squares and handing it over to Ivan one piece at a time. When she was down to her underwear, she sighed. "I will never get used to this," she muttered under her breath.

A small button opened the cyberpod, a whoosh of air sounding as the pressure seal was broken. She slowly climbed into the pod, looking up at her old friend. "Okay," she told the worried looking possum. "Start hooking me up."

"Yes, ma'am," he said. Ivan's hands made quick work of the different cords and connectors that filled the pod, identifying them quickly and putting them into the appropriate input slot implant on her body. Some were connected to her legs, and others into her arms. There was one that was not connected, that would go into the back of her head, but that had to wait until the end, until she was just about to go into the cyberworld.

A few fur-adapted sticky pads were placed on her forehead and temples, as well as over her chest - the blush that cross Ivan's face as he had to touch her breasts and bra made her smile a bit - and along her abdomen, all ready to provide life sign readings as well as brain waves. Ivan tugged them lightly a few times, just to test their adhesiveness, and he nodded in approval when they refused to come off.

He sighed. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he whispered as he leaned down on the side of the cyberpod.

"Yes, I am," she said in a tone that brooked no argument. "Now finish connecting me so that I can make my presentation." She paused, looking back at the men with their backs turned to her. "And watch out for Mr. Rett. He seems a little too quiet for my tastes."

"Very well, ma'am," Ivan said with a nod.

He pressed a button on the side of the cyberpod, and Tatyana shivered as the cold touch of semi-solid gel started to fill the pod around her. It started at her feet and was rapidly working its way upwards. It was breathable, due to the high oxygen content in it, but it would also keep her from thrashing around inside of the tube, keeping her from hurting either herself or the equipment that was in the thing with her. It was the same in every cyberpod that Virtual Enterprises made, she reminded herself. There was nothing to be worried about.

As it continued to rise, Ivan reached behind her head, grabbing the last connector cord. After she nodded to his questioning glance, he slid it into the back of her head. She heard and felt it click into place.

And then everything went black, save for a beeping, loading tone in her head as she was uploaded into the cyberworld.

#

Ivan shook his head as he watched Tatyana close her eyes, closing the pod as he stepped back from it. She'd be in the virtual world in a minute or so. Probably less, considering that the company probably had some dedicated special server, high speed connections, and other things that weren't so available to the average person on the street.

No sooner had he stepped back from the pod than he was grabbed. Both his arms were grabbed tight, and he was yanked back. "Get him locked up. Now," the raven said, already in the process of taking off his suit. "I want him locked in the closet in two minutes, and make sure that he can't call out for anyone's attention. I don't want any interruptions."

Well, so much for Rett being the one to watch, Ivan thought to himself as he was pulled backwards. He struggled against the stallion and orca's grip, but they were strong, massively so, and their arms felt like steel bars wrapped around him as they tugged him back. The possum pushed against them nevertheless, getting more frantic the further he was pulled away from the cyberpod that Tatyana was in.

In desperation for any kind of answer, he looked up at the two muscled males pulling him away. "What are you doing? Who are you? I know you're not Virtual Enterprises people."

"You don't need to know," the stallion said.

They dragged him back towards the door on the east side of the room. The orca pulled it open, and the stallion threw him inside. Before he could so much as pull himself to his feet, the door slammed behind him, and he heard the click of a key in the lock. Nevertheless, he pulled himself to his feet and tugged at the knob, turning it futilely and shoving at the door in a frantic attempt to get free.

Nothing worked, of course, not that Ivan expected it to. All he could do was watch from his makeshift prison, looking through the little force field in the door, watching the world through a blue lens as the 'manufacturing officials' stripped out of their suits, hooking each other up to the three other cyberpods that waited.

They were quicker than he had thought they'd be, and the possum shook his head as he watched the pods seal behind them. There was someone else working on the controls to seal them from a distance. And they were helping these people get into the cyberworld, where Ms. Tatyana was waiting to put on a display for them.

He had to get out of here. There was no way that she could handle three people at once.

#

The cyberworld was as familiar as ever around her, a steady black that was everywhere. Even the platform on which she stood was made of the same blackness, though it was slightly lighter, and more firm than the rest of the world.

The only light came from her wrist console, and the tigress had to force herself to keep from reaching for it to add more to the world. She wanted to make sure that she didn't give the executives back in the real world any reason to reject her product if at all possible, and she felt that starting before they gave her the word would be more than enough reason for them to put her project on hold indefinitely.

Turning her head to what she assumed was the ceiling - with gravity being subjective in this place, it could very well be the floor, with her hanging upside down - she wondered what was taking the executives and Ivan so long to tell her to get started. It wasn't like a professional to make another wait.

Something was wrong.

Seconds ticked by, and finally, she couldn't help herself. She reached for her wrist console, pushing a few buttons to access the world code.

No sooner had she opened up an access point to it than several little flashes of light announced the arrival of a few other people into the cyberworld. Tatyana stopped, mid-command, and watched as the raven, stallion, and orca stepped out of the light flashes. Instead of the suits that they had been wearing, they wore jumpsuits similar to what the world had put on her. They also all had wrist consoles on, and Mr. Sammon was already typing away on his.

"What's going on here?" Tatyana asked, trying to keep her voice even rather than let it get away from her as her nerves started to build.

"Tatyana. We are under orders from the government to level a punishment on you for what you did to one Patrick," Mr. Gray said. "If you will remain still, we will process you so that you may remain relatively coherent, and able to live a reasonable life. Resist, and we will ensure that this is not so pleasant for you."

Process her? The tigress turned at the sound of something moving. A tendril was already rising out of her platform, one that sent a chill through her as she recognized it. This was the sort that one used to reprogram someone at the end of a Hacker Battle. "Oh, no..." she whispered to herself, taking a few steps away from it, shaking her head. "Oh, no no no no. What are you doing?"

"We are delivering the judgment of our superiors," the raven said as the orca lowered his wrist console. The tendril floated closer to the tigress. "Do not resist. This will be over quickly, if you will surrender yourself to this judgment."

She looked at them. Government, superiors, judgment; none of it meant a thing to her. She had done nothing wrong in her prior acts, and if they were going to try and reprogram her for defending herself and others from Patrick, then there was only one conclusion to draw for who they must be.

Enemies.

Her fingers flew to her wrist console. With the access point to the world code already open, she was able to finish off her command. Tiles of darkness flew from the walls, forming a platform in mid-air rapidly. She leaped on it before it was half formed, and it started flying her away while it was still forming itself together.

"I will take that as a no," Mr. Gray said. He turned his head to the stallion. "Mr. Rett? Bring her back."

The stallion nodded, his blunt fingers tapping out commands strings of his own into the console on his wrist.

Tatyana had managed to move a fair distance away from the entrance platform before her floating one came to a screeching halt. She almost went over the edge, catching herself on the edge with one hand. The source of the halt was obvious; a cord of tiles connected it to the original platform, and as she looked further back, she saw that the chain was attached to a winding wheel. It started to turn, and she felt her platform being tugged back.

"Not good," the tigress muttered under her breath. The chain was pulling her fast, and it wouldn't take long before it was brought back to the agents. She could not let herself be taken.

So she dropped from the platform. The cyberworld should have plenty of room to work with, so, she should have time to make a new platform.

That was, if she didn't get captured by the agents machinations on the way.

Constructed creatures leaped off of the edge of their platform, and she saw them fly towards her with clumsy but effective wings. She cursed under her breath, her fingers dancing on her console. Platform, no, too easy to snare. Creature of her own? No, she didn't have that kind of skill. The feeling of the virtual wind rushing past her got fiercer and fiercer as she wracked her mind for something she could use.

Jetpack. The thought burst into her mind, and she grinned. A few little taps later, another piece of the world flew at her from behind. It attached itself to her back, and she grabbed hold of the controls. She met the eyes of the constructs flying towards her, and smirked. "Catch me if you can," Tatyana muttered.

She gunned the throttle of the jetpack and went flying upwards, shooting over the creatures as they tried to rush her. They would be right on her tail, she knew, but at least now she had a little more maneuverability.

Rising above the first platform, she saw that the agents were not pleased. The horse was typing out another command on his console, and Tatyana was pretty sure what he was going to do. So, she waited, hovering in place, just out of easy reach. The howls of the flying constructs behind her got louder as they got closer, but she forced herself to remain still.

Another chain shot out from the platform, but before it could reach her, she let herself drop. The jetpack turned off as she fell down again, and one of the creatures leaped into the space she'd occupied. The chain penetrated the digital construct, and the tigress grinned as she watched it break apart into various pixels and panels, falling back into the world code from whence it came.

It was a good start, she had to admit, but there were still at least two more constructs around. They were big things, twice her size and easily big enough to rip her to shreds if they were commanded to. She watched them, their big leathery wings flapping them around as they maneuvered themselves around her.

This was going to be a problem. The jetpack gave her a way to get around, but as long as she was using it, there was no way that she could use her console. It was just a dead weight on her wrist. And if she couldn't use her console, she couldn't fight back, and eventually, the agents would be able to hack into her jetpack and make it useless. There was a little security that she'd put around it, but that wouldn't last forever.

She needed a stable ground so she could start working on her counter-attack.

"This would be a lot easier if I hadn't given Ivan that thing," Tatyana muttered under her breath, watching the creatures as they moved around to her sides, flanking her. "Alright...here goes nothing."

Just as they looked like they were about to fly directly at her, she turned the jetpack to full throttle. It shoved her forward so fast that she winced at the g-forces, but she didn't let up, directing herself directly at the slightly bigger construct. It paused in shock as she flew at it, and the frozen moment was all she needed to be able to get her idea to work.

Slipping out of her jetpack at the last moment, she rammed the thick in the mouth, and leaped onto its back as it chewed at the jetpack. It wasn't a killing shot, she was pretty sure, so she had a few seconds to work. "Come on, come on," Tatyana muttered as she pressed her console against the creature's back. The direct connection opened up the program making up the shape and the commands of the construct, something that she couldn't have gotten at range.

She heard the other construct flying around behind her, and she started to sweat as she rapidly started deleting and editing different parts of this construct's program. It was fading and flickering before her with every change she made, and she was forced to take it slower than she liked to keep from falling through it in a moment of insubstantiality, and with every second that passed, she could hear the other construct getting closer.

"Come on, come on...work for Tatyana," she muttered. One more command string...just....

The shriek of the other construct, just behind her, told her she was out of time. She turned to see it flying right at her with mouth open, and she shook her head. "Oh, damn it!" she growled under her breath.

Pulling her hand back, leaving the construct only partially edited, she jumped into the abyss again, her fingers flying over her console as she tried to think of another plan.

#

Shaking his head as the door finally opened, Ivan walked through as he put his tools away again. "They never check for mechanical tools," he muttered under his breath. In this age of electronic and virtual technology, nobody ever took into account that there were people that had to maintain the hardware and the physical components, and just what else those tools could do.

He would think of the blindness of the executives later, and thank them for it at a later date. Right now, he needed to see what was going on with the tigress.

As the executives had said, the cyberworld was displayed via holo-projector in the middle of the room. The possum leaned on the table as he watched the whole thing unfold. He watched as Tatyana created a jetpack for herself, and managed to deal with one of the dinosaur-like constructs that were chasing her around. He saw her try to hack one of them, and then leap into the darkness of the cyberworld once more when she couldn't do it fast enough.

He even saw what she couldn't see, what her opponents were doing on their platform. They were cool, calm, their faces not showing any of the frustration or annoyance that Patrick had shown during their bout. These people were professionals, Ivan knew. Who they were, that remained a mystery, but they were far more professional than Patrick had been. And they were using that to their advantage, not getting their feathers ruffled or their heads hot as they worked the world around them.

They had lined the top of their platform with all sorts of defenses, and not all of them were created weapons or creatures. Other things, hidden programs, different codes that he didn't understand; all designed to trigger if the tigress got too close to the top of the platform.

"I've got to get her out of there," he muttered under his breath. Circling the table, he felt around the tabletop, sensitive fingers tapping on different parts, feeling for any irregularity in the wood, some crack or seam or something that was out of place.

Eventually, at the side of the table where the head of the meeting would likely sit, he found it. There was a small split in the wood, just enough for a person to maybe hide something. Ivan gave it a little tug, and another projector emerged. He recognized that it wasn't a holo-projector, but something a bit better. A solid light projector, and if he wasn't mistaken...

It turned on, giving him a keyboard. "Yes, that will work nicely," Ivan muttered.

Now he just needed to figure out how the interface worked...and if he could get her invention to her. It might not be enough by itself, but she needed every edge that she could get.

A monitor appeared, showing him a list of various commands, and he scrolled down them to "Communication." Further options gave him the user ID's of the people in the cyberworld. The three executives weren't familiar, but he knew which one was Tatyana, and he selected her.

Unfortunately, there were no options for speaking with her. Well, here was hoping that text would work.

#

As the tigress pulled herself onto another platform, she watched the last surviving construct. It hovered over her, a wing slightly torn by one of her defenses, but not enough to bring her down. It circled her, as if waiting for the perfect moment to dive down at her and capture her. The other one had tried to grab her in its talons, but it had given her the opening to get rid of it. This one didn't look like it was going to make that mistake.

Trying to wrack her brain for more ideas, she was suddenly interrupted by a beep from within her head. It sounded almost like a notification of mail on her home network, and her response was so ingrained that she said, "Open mail" before she could stop herself.

A text played in her head, read out by a monotone text-to-voice program. "Tatyana. At executive desk. Watching fight. Can communicate, will try to help. Upper platform trapped. How can I help? Ivan."

So, Ivan had managed to get to a console outside. That might very well be something to tip the fight to her advantage, as long as the agents on the platform didn't lock him out of the network before he could help. Her fingers flickered over her wrist console in response. "Ivan, find a part of your screen that asks for commands for the world. Type up the following command, and enter it when I tell you," she said. A few more typed letters and numbers, and she sent the message off. She just hoped that he'd get it as easily as she'd gotten his message.

The creature looked at her curiously, and she wondered if the agents were seeing through the eyes of their constructs. It might be possible; she wasn't an expert hacker, nor an expert programmer, and she didn't know all of the tricks. Well, if they were looking at her, they were going to get a surprise.

The platform up there was trapped, but what good would traps do when the people who armed them weren't there to be protected? "Execute the command...NOW" she sent, dropping down and wrapping her arms around her small platform.

The creature immediately descended towards her...until the world flipped over.

#

Ivan stared at the projector as the entire cyberworld just flipped over, rotating a complete one hundred eighty degrees. Tatyana's platform, formerly near the bottom of the cyberworld, now stood at the top, and she was hanging onto the bottom of it for dear life.

The executives, on the other hand, were turned upside down without the slightest warning, and he could see them falling towards the other end of the cyberworld. He knew that it wasn't going to be enough to stop them, but it might buy Tatyana a little time. "Good, that seems to work. What now?" the possum sent.

He saw that he got a return message almost immediately, but he couldn't open it. Noises at the lift, sounds of people in the shaft, distracted him. The possum turned to look. The metal sheets were still closed, but not for long. The signs of the elevator light were slowly filling the area, and that meant security or someone else that would make this more difficult.

Ivan left the console, running towards the lift doors and pulling out his tools as he did so. Tatyana would have to wait a bit, as much as he hated to leave her; as much help as he could be at the console, he would be of more help making sure that someone didn't come in here and cause more problems. Now he just needed to figure out how to keep the lift doors from opening until the fight was over.

#

The tigress grinned as she pulled herself on top of the platform, shaking her head at the suddenly disoriented construct. It was completely clueless of what had just happened. All the values inside of its core programming was flipped around, as formerly positive values became negative, and negative became positive. It froze in place, flickering with static for a few seconds before it blew itself apart.

"Well, that's one threat dealt with," Tatyana muttered. It had been a gamble, but it had worked out better than she had hoped. Still, that only got rid of the constructed threats. She still had to deal with the three that were constructing them.

Opening the mail program again, she gave Ivan another program to use in the command prompt, hoping that it would work out as well as this one did. They would only have a limited time to work with it, and she wanted to use it for as long as she could.

Peering over her platform, she could see that the agents were already recovering. One had given himself another construct to ride, while the other two were riding platforms the way that she had at the start. The calm expressions on their faces had shifted to something more akin to annoyance, though in the stallion's case, that annoyance was verging on anger. Of the three of them, the raven was the only one still looking fairly calm.

Well, she was going to change that in a hurry. She might have ideas for the world code that Ivan had to actually enact, but that didn't mean that she didn't have ideas that she couldn't use on her own.

Letting them get within a few platform lengths of her position, Tatyana suddenly ran a few of the programs that she had been holding back. Little viruses squirmed out from her platform, scittering out towards them like a swarm of insects, and looking not too different from them. That was a special touch that she was kind of proud of, considering just how hard it was to put a good shape around a program at times.

The raven and the orca were quick to throw up their defenses, walls of fiery code blazing around them and throwing back the virus bugs, but the stallion wasn't quite so lucky or quick. He'd barely reached down to his console before the viruses landed on his construct. Burrowing into it on contact, they started turning the construct different colors. It turned purple, green, blue, violet, before finally going black. The eyes turned green, and it suddenly turned away from the tigress, having a new target inside of it.

She doubted that the raven knew what hit him. The construct moved so fast that it managed to get him from the side before he could turn to face it, and it sealed its mouth around his wrist, covering up his console so that he couldn't even fight against it on his own.

Mr. Gray beat his fist against the construct's beak, but it continued to crush his feathery arm. "One of you, get this thing off of me!" he shouted, his calm breaking at the very real threat of losing his hand in the cyberworld, as well as his console.

Both the orca and the stallion were doing all they could, but it wasn't working fast enough. The orca was forced to stay behind his firewall, which limited what he could do outside of it, and the stallion was still fighting the virus that had infected his construct. All in all, it was a pretty hopeless situation for the raven, and Tatyana couldn't help but pause a moment to feel a little smug about how well this little idea had worked out.

Finally, the beak snapped through the raven's wrist. It disappeared shortly after, the stallion having removed the program, but it was too late for Mr. Gray. His console dropped into the blackness, falling further and further away from them, and all of them knew that there was no way for them to get it back. Not when it was already lost in the darkness.

No blood or bone showed from the bite. In the virtual world, wounds of this nature did not get that graphic or detailed unless the user involved wanted them to. However, the pain would still be felt, and Tatyana was pretty darn sure that the pain was pretty intense for the raven at the moment.

But she wasn't done yet. She still had another trick. Keeping the viruses buzzing around the three, watching them weaken the firewall of the raven that could no longer maintain his, she started to throw out more programs. Platforms, panels, walls that rushed out from the borders of the cyberworld, each one designed to separate the different agents from each other.

It was only somewhat successful. For each panel that she managed to bring down, the orca and the stallion managed to block it with one of theirs. When she managed to split them apart, they did something that broke down her panels and allowed them to join back up again. Each time she thought that she might have walled off one of them from their fellows, put them in a cage, they managed to break out of it, and she was forced to deal with the backlash.

And it was getting harder and harder to get access to the world code. They were sealing off the access points while still fending off her efforts, she realized. Each time she got a use out of one access point, they sealed it off after just one use. And she couldn't reach their access points while fighting them, either, as it would leave her open to more attacks.

Her only consolation came when the raven's firewall finally failed. Her viruses flooded over him, covering him in seconds and leaving him screaming. He went silent after about five seconds, held in a purple stasis field as the viruses froze him in place, keeping him from doing anything until the end of the cyberworld session.

Of course, that was a mixed blessing. Now that they didn't have to defend their fellow anymore, the agents could focus more of their attention towards her. Her attacks and attempts to lock them down, formerly feeling like they were actually effective in some measure, suddenly were slapped away. None of the barriers she tried to put down around them got more than halfway to their target destination before they were slapped away; none of her coded traps could be laid down before they were dismantled.

They were on the attack as well, and soon she could no longer afford to attack them anymore, too desperately flinging aside their programs, deleting portions of their code before it could reach and affect her. They were pushing her back, no matter how hard she fought against them, and there was nothing she could do about it.

"Ivan, what are you doing?" she muttered under her breath. "Now would be a VERY good time!"

"Your real world comrade can't help you anymore," the orca said.

"We have locked him out of the system," the stallion added.

Great. Just great. Tatyana shook her head, her platform moving away from the two agents, but it was only a holding action as they advanced a little faster, and she pushed herself, trying to think of something that would keep her mind in one piece.

#

Half-melted metal was crude, but it was the only thing that seemed to be good enough to keep the metal sheets from opening. Ivan wasn't proud of his work, but he did admit that it was the best he could do in this situation, as he stepped back from the lift doors.

Fists pounded on the other side, and he could see slight flashes of metal that looked like weaponry. It had been security, alright, and if they had come through, Tatyana would have been finished. They were shouting for him to open the door so they could take him into custody, as if he was really that stupid.

Reaching up to his head, Ivan tapped a few points under his fur, disabling a few of his implants. It was only a matter of time before the security personnel tried to work on getting in through manipulating what implants he had, but it would be a lot harder for them to do that if they were switched off. Harder for him to do some things, too, but it was a relatively favorable trade-off.

Returning to the console, the possum cursed softly when he saw that he was completely locked out. He could view the projection, but any command or communications between himself and the cyberworld were cut off.

He looked up at the holo-projector. Things were not going well for Tatyana, it was clear. One of the executives were gone, he saw, and he winced at the read-out saying that he was infected. He'd have a hard time getting those out of his system when he emerged from the cyberworld, that was for sure.

The other two, however, were rapidly advancing on Ms. Tatyana. She was fighting them with a surprising array of programs, but they were slowly closing off all of her access points to the world code, removing her source for the code to use, modify, and add to the world. She only had a few of them left, and when they were gone, she was going to be helpless before these people.

There was only one thing left he could do.

Ivan opened his shirt again, pulling out the package she'd given him earlier and opening it. Within was a smaller console like the ones that they were wearing in the cyberworld. It was a prototype, admittedly, but it worked, more powerful than the other ones that they had in there. Not to mention that it could punch through most of the firewalls and security programs that were out there. Tatyana had developed it initially to get an edge against Patrick in their fight, but then let it slide when she decided she'd beat him on her own merits, and would prove that she didn't need toys to win.

Somehow, he doubted she'd have the some protests here. Already, the last access point had been removed, and the tigress had fallen to her knees. The executives were carrying her down to the larger platform, and he could see several tendrils rising out of the platform already, as they got ready to re-program her.

Shaking his head, he left the projector behind, and walked over to the last cyberpod. He'd never uploaded himself into the cyberworld before, but this was a time for desperate measures. He just hoped that he wasn't going to get himself killed while he delivered this thing to Tatyana. He'd have put it on her wrist directly, but with her pod sealed, there was no way to open it to get it to her.

Laying himself into the pod, Ivan slowly started connecting the different cords to his body. The ports were rusty, a bit dusty, but they still worked as he felt the connection sparks flicker in him. It was a little uncomfortable, and awkward, but he ignored them as he put one after another where they belonged.

His fingers shook the whole time, and he had to fight to keep from leaping out of the cyberpod. Every part of his being wanted to get out of here, to not do this, to run. But one thing kept him there. One thing kept him from running to the door and surrendering.

It was Tatyana that needed his help. And he would not let her down.

Fumbling blindly with the gel button, the possum finally found it, and pressed it. As the cold gel started to surround his lower body, he looked up at the projection again. Tatyana was forced to her knees, and the two executives were standing close to her as the tendril pushed into her head. "I'm coming, ma'am," Ivan muttered, jamming the last connector cable into the back of his head.

#

She struggled as much as she could against the orca and the stallion, but they were just too strong for her. They almost carried her as they reached the main platform, dragging her feet along the panels that it was made of, and then forcing her to her knees in the middle. The stallion tapped a few commands into his console, and a few metallic tentacles wrapped around her legs, holding her down in a kneeling position. Another came up and held her hands bound behind her back, keeping her pinned in place and unable to struggle.

"Mr. Gray told you that you could get through this without so much trouble if you had just surrendered," the stallion, Mr. Rett, said. "But you know what? I'm glad you struggled. I wanted to make sure that you got a lesson for what you did with Patrick, and now I get the chance to do it."

"You know Patrick was an idiot," Mr. Sammon said. The orca shook his head. "Hell, there were times when I was tempted to deck him for all that trash he talked."

"She didn't deck him, though." The stallion leaned down, grabbing her by the chin and squeezing, his grip sufficient to make her wince at the pressure to her jaw. "This little pussy cat decided to take away his edge. She made him into a loser. A nothing. A little tail-raising piece of trash. And now, I'm going to do the same damn thing to her. Except worse."

The stallion leaned in closer, his nostrils flaring, his lips right in front of her face. "I'm going to make you want it. I'm going to turn you into such a raging slut, a cheap little whore, that nobody will ever want to do anything but ram you full of cock and cum ever again. At least Patrick had the chance to isolate himself before he went out doing all sorts of things that would ruin his rep further than you ever did. But you?" The horse's lips turned up. "You're going to be running out, begging for anything that you can get to fill you up. You will not care about your inventions, your lab. Nothing. All you'll care about is more sex. Try and interfere with our interests after that."

"You realize just how ridiculous you sound?" the orca asked.

"What, you thinking that's too harsh? That it wouldn't do what we're ordered to do?" Mr. Rett asked, not taking his eyes off of her.

"Oh, it'll do it. It just sounds like something out of a porno or something," he said with a shrug. "I'm guessing you already had a program written for this?"

"Started writing it as soon as I heard what she'd done."

The horse let go of her face, and Tatyana shook her head rapidly, trying to ease the ache in her jaws. The horse had gripped her face hard enough to cause a great deal of discomfort, and she wouldn't have been surprised to have felt something snapping if he'd held for too much longer.

But her mind was more on the threats that he had given her, and everything else that he had said. Not that the thought of becoming what he'd described didn't frighten her - it did, if only for the knowledge that she would be taken away from what she loved - but because of the other thing heh ad said. 'Try and interfere in our interests after that', the horse had said. Whose interests? Who were they working for?

She didn't get the chance to ask what he was talking about. The little beep went off from the horse's wrist console, and she heard the sound of the other tendril rising out of the platform. She could just see it as she turned her head to look, and she shuddered at the sight of it. It was so small, barely more than a connection cord that one might use to listen to music in headphones in the older days, but it was going to change her life in seconds.

As it lined up behind her head, the stallion grabbed hold of her. His hands groped her breasts through her jumpsuit, kneading them and squeezing them in a way that made her gasp in shock and indignation. She glared at him as he squeezed them, but it didn't make him so much as falter. It might have even made him more excited.

His hands grabbed her, squeezed her, but he didn't seem satisfied with doing it through her clothes. He grabbed hold of her jumpsuit again, holding the material in his hands for a second before pulling on his sharply. The tentacles held her tightly, and his strength was mammoth. Between the two, the suit didn't have a chance, and ripped loudly, revealing everything she didn't have had on underneath.

The horse's blunt fingers returned to her bare breasts, kneading them and squeezing them. He stroked down to her nipples, pinching them with enough force to make her yelp in pain, and he tugged them out from her chest, lifting her breast up and stretching it from his tugging. Each second they were being pulled was a mix of pain and unwilling pleasure, and she glared at him, her mouth wide open in discomfort, rage, and shock.

"Don't worry, cat," the orca said at her side, his arms folded and a small smile on his face. "You'll start enjoying this soon enough, if I know Rett's programming."

The cord connected with the back of her head with a hard snapping sound, filling the port back there that she had in the cyberworld. Instantly she felt the code downloading into her mind. It was a semi-familiar feeling, something that she had felt several times in the past when she needed to take a shortcut to learn something. Those downloads had been mostly beneficial though, and the knowledge hadn't been trying to ram itself into her brain the way that the horse looked like he wanted to ram himself into one of her holes.

It pressed onto her brain, and against her will, she could feel it affecting her. She imagined the numbers pressing against her brain, sinking into the little gaps and swirls of it. Already she could feel herself changing, the grip on her breast feeling less painful. Or, rather, still just as painful, but she got pleasure from the pain as well. Before she could stop herself, she thrust her chest out towards the stallion, as if offering her chest to him.

No, she shrieked in her head, NO! But it was inexorable, the changes already flooding into her without the download even completing itself yet. Her libido was pushing higher and higher, and the rest of her mind was fleeing from it. She could feel it taking over her mind, and as it increased, she felt her body growing more aroused, more needy for the very things that the stallion had mentioned, cock, and cum.

Her thighs were wet, she realized. The program was working, forcing her body to higher and higher levels of arousal, and it was getting physically obvious. The scientific part of her mind could admire the sheer efficiency of the program and how it was uploaded to her mind, but the rest of her - non-corrupted - mind screamed against it, fighting it.

It was a losing fight, and she could feel a flood of green numbers and letters flowing over her mind, even tinting her vision green as it worked to re-program her mind.

Of course, it didn't help her when the horse suddenly let go of her breast, grabbing hold of her thighs and pushing them further apart. One, then two of his thick fingers plunged between her legs, shoving inside of her wet pussy. She gasped, and it shamed her just how much pleasure that touch brought to her. Every slight movement of his fingers drove her to want more, and her fight against the programming faltered, allowing it to progress faster. It pushed at her defenses, and she only just managed to slow it down again, resisting, slowing the change, but unable to stop it.

The stallion only laughed at her, his fingers plunging into her, three now. How could she take that without hurting herself, she wondered, but then she realized. The program was not just changing her mind. It was not limited, not in the way that the Hacker Battles ones could be. It was not limited to a single change. This was a multitude o changes forced upon her, and one of them was an elasticity that she had not imagined possible for her pussy.

The horse seemed to love it, and he pulled his drenched fingers out of her. Most of her mind protested against her departure, but the small bit that was still left breathed a sigh of relief. It had almost been too much.

He held his slick fingers to her face. "Lick them, slut," he muttered to her.

Against her will - so she told herself - she leaned forward. She stuck her tongue out, shakily, hesitantly, as she tried to fight it. But her body refused her any dignity, pulling her forward more and making her lick all of her juices from the fingers, even sucking them into her mouth to get them fully cleaned the way that the horse wanted her to do. It was utterly humiliating, and she was surprised that she still had enough control to actually blush from what she was being made to do.

Wiping his hand off on his jumpsuit, Mr. Rett reached for his console again, pressing a few new buttons. "Heh, looks like she's almost made into a new person, Mr. Sammon." He finished his command string, and the crotch of his jumpsuit disappeared. A cock flopped out, striking Tatyana in the face, and it was big enough that she actually flinched at the impact.

She stared at it. It was huge, immense - magnificent, said most of her mind - and it was barely sticking out of his sheath. She saw it rising slowly, the thick shaft slowly getting longer. The wrinkles fell away from it as it was filled with blood, growing upwards. The tip grew wider, flaring out, and she winced at just how badly her mouth watered to feel the thing stretching her jaws open wide. She didn't want it, she told herself, but her body told her that she most definitely did.

"I'd wait for the program to finish, Rett," the orca said.

"It's already more than 65% uploaded, Sammon," the horse said with a shake of his head. "And I'm not going to wait any longer to give this little bitch what she wants...what she deserves," he said.

Tatyana barely heard them, too busy staring at his cock right in front of her face. It was massive, immense, and her body wanted it inside of her so badly. The tip had to be almost twice as wide as the rest of the shaft, almost four inches wide. Suddenly, she was very thankful for her new elasticity, for that would have made her bleed like nothing else if sh ehad taken it without it. The length was nothing to sneeze at, either, measuring a couple of inches longer than a foot, perhaps even as much as sixteen inches.

The need and heat between her legs made her moan, and she couldn't help but stick her tongue out for the cock. The changes in her mind disgusted her, but the need was there, whether she liked it or not. It made her crave the cock, the cum in the balls, and she couldn't stop it. She felt the wetness of tears flowing down her cheeks, and she closed her eyes as the orca walked around her, his smooth hand rubbing down her bare back, settling on her ass.

The tip of the horse's cock rubbed her cheek as the orca rubbed her ass. "Well, open up, pussy," Rett said, and against her will, Tatyana's body followed his orders.

#

He almost fell over when he landed on the platform, the upload finished. Ivan grunted as he got his feet back, whipping his head around to find Tatyana and the other two. What he saw he could hardly believe.

Tatyana was on her knees, her arms bound behind her back as her face was forced down on top of the horse executive's cock. It throbbed visibly in her mouth, and he stared open mouthed at just how eagerly Tatyana was sucking on it, sliding about halfway down in on her own before she was forced further, her body gagging despite the eagerness that it showed to get the cock inside of her.

From behind, he could see that the orca had managed to get his shaft inside of her as well, though from his angle he couldn't tell where. However, he knew that it was going to stop right now.

Shaking off his shock, he dropped his hand down to the wrist console. It was smaller than he was used to, but he knew the commands and programs by heart. Before the horse or the orca could do more than look at him, he'd gotten a program going. The blocks on the other access points of the code were overwhelmed in seconds, and another program grabbed hold of them from behind, chains wrapping around their waists and pulling them away from the tigress. A third, final program stopped the download from the tendril and pulled it back from her head.

He ran over to her, removing the console from his wrist and putting it around hers. Unlike the bulky one that she had been using, this one was barely the size of half of her palm. "Here, the prototype," he managed to say to her, trying to ignore the smell of male and female musk that seemed to cling to her.

CRACK!

CRACK!

The possum turned to see that the naked males had already broken free of his clumsy program, and were advancing on him. "Whoever you are, you just stepped into a world of trouble," the horse said.

Ivan groaned softly, shaking his head a few times. He backpedaled, putting his hands out in front of him. "Please...please don't...." He didn't know what he was begging for them not to do, but he knew that they would do something unpleasant. "I just..."

"You just interrupted an official operation," the orca said. "The penalties for interrupting an official operation are very steep. And not something that you will enjoy."

The ground shifted under him, and Ivan whimpered as he was grabbed, tendrils of metal wrapped around his legs. It ripped through his clothes, and then slammed him down against the ground. He gasped in pain, and again, when it was repeated, slamming against the platform hard enough that he felt like his bones were rattling around inside of his skin.

Standing over him, the two males looked at him with annoyance, and some degree of anger. And for some reason, he couldn't help but feel a bit of pride at that. The fact that little old him had managed to annoy the two powerful hackers as much as he had...well, it was something to be proud of. Not something that was worth very much, considering that they were looking like they were getting ready to put him out of his existence, but it was something.

The horse leaned down, grabbing hold of his chin. "I was thinking that maybe we might have a little fun with you, like that boss of yours behind us. But now that I think about it, I just want to end you. You were the one that spun the whole world around on us, weren't you?"

Ivan could do nothing but nod at that.

"Well, I think that is enough for me. You are going to die."

"No....he's not."

All three of them turned - well, the two unbound males turned, Ivan could only lift his head - to Tatyana. She had gotten to her feet, and though she was panting hard, and had an immense and embarrassing amount of pussy juice running down her legs, she was standing up and rapidly keying in commands to her new console. "You...are not going to kill him...and you are not...going to change me."

"And how are you going to stop us from doing either of those things, you slut?" the horse sneered. "You can't even access the world code anymore. We sealed it all up."

"You did....but I just unsealed it." All around them, the black walls of the cyberworld turned into rapidly streaming green numbers and letters, rushing about.

Ivan stared in amazement. He couldn't tell what half of it meant, but the entire world code was there, including in the tentacles that were holding him down, and in the platform. Even the unconscious raven on a separate platform was lit up in green, showing the viruses that had become part of him.

Tatyana took a shaky step forward. "You should have...interviewed me first," she said with a small smile. "You would have seen what I brought. This." She lifted her wrist. "The newest in computer technology. Quadruple the upload and download speed and power of anything else currently in development, and quintuple the processing power. It got past your security in seconds.

"And now, I'm going to show you...what an inventor can do....when you threaten her friend."

Numbers and letters shot off of the wall, lancing off towards the two males with deadly speed. They tried to stop it, reaching for their consoles, but the commands were sent and reinforced too fast for them to stop them, nor modify them. The whips of green wrapped around them, grabbing them and flinging them out into space.

More grabbed them as they flew, bashing them against the walls of the cyberworld once, twice, before throwing them out again.

Roaring mouths of numbers; blades of letters; terrors beyond imaginings were created by the vengeful tigress as she continued to throw the two males around the room. She glared at them, following them around the room with unblinking eyes.

The only times that the two males got any relief was when the tigress's body betrayed her. Several times Ivan watched her stop typing, one of her hands dripping down below her waist and rubbing at her shiny, wet pussy. She whimpered in annoyance rather than pleasure when she did that, and used her free hand to drag it away to get back to her programming.

Finally, she slammed them back down on the main platform again. The two of them were battered, bruised, and out of breath, and neither had the energy to lift a finger as she wrapped metal plates around them, not bothering with tentacles. She walked over to them, removing their consoles and throwing them off of the platform. Both of them went wide eyed in fear after that, but she ignored them, turning to walk towards Ivan.

The possum could see every drop that came off of her pussy as she walked to him, either running down her legs or dripping directly to the floor. He could see the pleasure on her face, as well as the displeasure that came with it. She was fighting it, he realized, not wanting to feel it even as her body forced her to feel every bit of it.

He did his best to look just at her face, but when she looked down at her console to remove his bindings, he couldn't help but look over her body. It was different, compared to what he had seen that night after Patrick had been beaten. The program he'd stopped going into her brain had done some changes, he realized. Her breasts had grown, inflated from the former slightly over A cup to just under a C. Probably they would have grown bigger still if he hadn't stopped it. And some of her muscle and fat had been removed from her abdomen and her thighs, leaving her looking ridiculously skinny. He hoped that it was only in the virtual world that this had changed, and not in the real world.

Her hand on his shoulder shook him free from his thoughts, and he looked away with a blush as he stood up. "I'm sorry...I couldn't be quicker. I tried...I really - "

"You were quick enough, Ivan," she said. She patted his shoulder. "Now...I'm going to send you back to the real world. When you get there, I want you to do your best to make sure that we aren't interrupted for about an hour. That's how long it's going to take me to get this damn program purged out of my head. And for the sake of all that is good, PLEASE turn off the holo-projector if there is anyone else in the room. I don't want them to see what I'm about to do."

He was tempted to ask her what she meant, but after what she had just gone through, he didn't want to push her further. Instead, he nodded his head, looking away from her so that she could at least have some modesty.

"And...you might want to take care of that when you get back," she said, pointing down significantly before keying in the command to send him back to his body.

#

Ivan blushed when he returned to his body, shaking his hands rapidly through the goo that surrounded him until he had cleared enough of a space to get a breath. "That...was...embarrassing," the possum muttered to himself as he gradually unplugged himself. Every cord that disconnected from him made him flinch at the feeling of being separated from the machine, but he made himself do it anyway.

When he stepped out of the cyberpod, he was preceded by his erection as he walked to the console by the holo-projector. With the metal sheets holding strong, he didn't have much worry about people interrupting them. Well, unless they came up from the floor or down from the ceiling, but they'd have to go through several floors to do that, and he doubted that they would want to bother doing that for one little intruder. At least, not yet.

But he didn't know how long that would last. And Ms. Tatyana had said that he needed to give her at least an hour, so that was what he was going to do. And if he couldn't keep anyone out of the room - he would try, but just in case he couldn't - then he didn't want to let anyone see what was happening in the cyberworld.

He leaned over the solid light keyboard and monitor again, tapping a few commands into the machine. The world might not be something he could affect, but...

The holo-projector winked out after he hit the enter button. Now she would have complete privacy.

#

The tigress turned to her opponents after she sent Ivan back to the real world. She knew that he cared for her. She cared for him as well. For that reason, she didn't want him to see what she was going to do here.

Her groin burned with need, and it took a great deal of willpower for her to walk back across the platform to the two bound males without moaning. Her fingers twitched, and she brought her hands up, holding each other, fingers interlaced so that they couldn't go down to her groin. Being naked before these agents was bad enough. She was not going to debase herself by fingering herself before them now.

Despite her desire to not look like a slut, she was ever so conscious of the liquid running down her legs, the thick streams of juices from her pussy running along her thighs and around her knees, eventually reaching the floor below. She could feel it soaking into her fur, making her footsteps a little bit slicker. Every little detail made it all that much harder to not reach down and touch herself, but she forced herself on, tightening her fingers.

The horse and orca looked at her in a mix of fear and arousal, their cocks pointing upwards still. "What...what are you going to do?" Mr. Rett asked.

"I am going to find out what you know," Tatyana said. She cracked her knuckles softly, shaking her head at them. "Then I'm going to do to you what you were going to do to me. And then, if I can keep from losing my temper, I'll put you into a timed coma, where you will wake up in a certain amount of months. I would greatly suggest that you don't make me lose my temper in this case. Do you understand me?"

Both nodded, and she squatted down between them. Her arm nearly moved to grab hold of one cock, and she had to reach out and stop it, yanking it back to herself. A smug flicker passed over the horse's face before he squelched it, but the tigress saw it.

A tap to her console, and one of the tentacles holding him down shifted, pressing against his anus. He went wide eyed, and Tatyana growled at him. "You made me what I am right now. I wouldn't think twice about ramming this up you so hard that you'd be bleeding for the rest of the day. So don't push me. I already have enough reasons to ruin your lives."

"If I might...might ask," the orca spoke up. He paused when she turned to him, and then continued. "I know my colleague's programs. How are you fighting the partial installation in your mind?"

"If I tell you, then the weakness in the program will be fixed. No comment." She looked at them. "My turn to ask the questions. Mr. Rett, you already have a punishment ready if you start giving me trouble, but mark me, it's the least of your worries if you push me. Mr. Sammon, stay civil and honest, and you'll get through this....how did your raven colleague put it...quickly."

After she was sure that they both understood her, she sat down, crossing her legs. Even in that brief move, she could not stop herself from letting out a little moan. Her juices ran down her pussy lips, slowly starting to form a puddle under her. She knew that it wouldn't be long before she was drenched, so she spoke quickly. "First, who do you work for?"

"The government," Mr. Sammon said.

She narrowed her eyes, and he continued. "What I mean is, a specific part of the government. I don't have a business card or anything, but they work to make sure that things advance the way that they want them to. They don't like people that rock the boat, and they employ people like myself and my colleagues to ensure that those people that might rock the boat are taken care of. Most of the time they prefer freelancers, though, like Patrick, so that it's a little harder to trace things back to them."

Tatyana nodded her head slowly, unable to keep her fingers from rubbing along her thighs, though at least for now she was able to keep them from going any further upwards. "I see," she muttered, her breath coming a bit faster despite all of her efforts for self control. "How high...how high up do these superiors of yours, your employers, go?"

"The highest," Mr. Rett said, a little chuckle passing his lips before Tatyana warningly nudged his anus with the tentacle. "I'm being honest here...they are the highest in the government."

"The Authority?"

"Heh...the Authority wished they were so high," the stallion said. "You have no idea what you're dealing with her, woman. The storm that you have started is not going to blow over just by dealing with the three of us. There are more. Many more. And they will come for you, now that you've shown just what you can do."

All of this might be true, but it didn't mean that Tatyana was in the mood to hear it. With a few clicks of her fingers against her wrist, the metal tentacle rammed forward. The look on the horse's face as his ass was invaded was a mix of shock and pain, but he wasn't allowed to scream. Another rose from the platform, blocking his mouth to keep him from speaking, shrieking or making any noise at all.

She leaned forward, feeling her juices dripping off of her as she did. She knew that some of it was falling on the horse, and she knew that the orca would have a view that she would normally deny almost everyone, but at this point, she barely cared. Pointing a finger in the horse's face, she whispered, "I warned you. Repeatedly. Do. Not. Fuck. With. Me." She bared her claws, grabbing hold of his chin the way that he had hers only a few minutes earlier, squeezing just enough to sink her claws into his flesh. "You earned everything I'm doing to you, and more. Now, if you value whatever you have left, you will stop screwing around."

When she felt his whimpers building in his throat, she pulled her hand back, slowly pulling the tentacle out of his mouth as well. He gasped, shaking his head. His eyes were no longer so smug, fearful rather than confident. Whatever faith that he had in his employers to get back at her, it wasn't enough to overcome the fear he had of what she would do to him first.

Pulling back and just avoiding sitting in her own juices again, Tatyana looked between them again. "Now....the second and more important question. Where can I find them?"

The question had them looking to each other, but the tigress was in no mood to wait. Growling and baring her teeth, she leaned forward, grabbing them by their balls. "Tell me, or I find a way to rip these off in the real world as well as here!"

"Binary City!" the horse cried out, whimpering softly. "They're in Binary City, that's all I know!"

"That's...correct," the orca confirmed with a nod. "That's the only place we've ever met them. Binary City."

Binary City. Tatyana absently squeezed and fondled the males' balls as she thought about that, her fingers doing what her body wanted rather than her mind wanted. Binary City was almost three hundred miles away from Compwer, and was the bigger of the two cities. A lot of corporations made their homes there, as well as a fair bit of government offices. It would be like hunting for a single rat in a massive maze.

But it was also the only way that she could find out who was coming after her like this. "Binary City." She nodded her head. "I'll remember that."

"Is that...is that all?" Mr. Rett asked. "Are you going to put us out now?"

"Not yet," the tigress said. Her body was crying out for some relief, and no matter how distasteful she found the matter, she knew that she'd have to sate at least a part of it before she fixed herself up. And she couldn't leave the cyberworld to do it later, after helping herself to someone she trusted. Once one left the cyberworld, changes made inside of it became a lot harder to reverse.

She finally let her hands slip up to the cocks, slowly stroking them. Her body moved almost without her consent, and it was only the need to focus that made her allow her hands free reign. "First, I'm going to do to you what you did to me. But you're not going to get any satisfaction from it."

"Um, if it's not speaking out of turn," Mr. Sammon said, his shaft twitching softly as it leaked pre along her hand, "I am feeling some satisfaction as we speak."

"Perhaps, but you will not finish," she said. "You might not see it, but there is a function built into these tentacles that works on your bodies here. As long as they're in contact, they will prevent your climax functions from completing. Meaning, I am the only one who will get any frustration relieved. Now, both of you, no more talking."

The tigress could barely hold back as she pulled herself on top of the orca, closing her eyes as she rubbed herself against his cock. Even the tip teased her pussy terribly, stoking her libido to the point where she wanted to drop herself down on him instantly. She felt like she was feeling her first heat again, her lust out of control, but even that had been mild compared to how this felt. She needed this. And she needed it now.

Juices squirted from her pussy as she slid the massive cock inside of herself, feeling it spreading her open. The elasticity helped her again, allowing it inside without hurting her, and she groaned to herself. "Mmmm....so much better than when you were trying to rape my ass," she whispered.

She bucked hard against him, her eyes closed. With her mind changed as it was, it only took a few moments to reach her first orgasm, coating the orca's crotch with her juices.

But that was only the first, and when she opened her eyes to look at them, both males shuddered at the monster they had created.

#

The possum paced back and forth in front of Tatyana's cyberpod. It was still, but she was not. He could see her shuddering past the gel shield around her, could see the effects of the program that the horse and the orca had put into her making her look aroused. He shook his head at the sight, and turned away before he could go back to remembering what he had seen.

It had been hard to see her like that. He knew that she hadn't chosen to do anything like that with them, and that it had been the program that they were uploading into her head, and it had nearly broken his heart to see someone doing that to Ms. Tatyana. The sight had been enough to tempt him to try and take revenge on the two enemies, but common sense had been strong enough to make him take the console to her immediately, and let her handle them. He didn't know enough, and would have only made the situation worse.

But the anger was still there, and only his worry for Tatyana kept him from going over to the other pods and working some sort of sabotage on them. Whatever she did to them wouldn't be enough for what they had done. And it would only take a little tinkering to make their pods fail. Only a little...slip...with his tools.

A sudden whoosh interrupted his thoughts of revenge, and he hurried to the side of Tatyana's cyberpod as it opened up. He helped the lid up, and brushed the gel off of her rapidly. His fingers found the connector cords, and gently helped her get them off of her body before helping her out of the tube.

She staggered softly, and despite himself, he couldn't help but pick up the stink of sex on her. She absolutely reeked of it, and it had an embarrassing effect on him. He turned his head from her, handing her the clothes she'd put aside earlier, and kept his back to her as she dressed. "What will happen to them?" he asked.

"Well, when we get out of here, and the security people get up here to find them, then they'll be in a coma for a period of six months," Tatyana said. He heard her pull her clothes together, zippers zipping and buttons clicking together. "That should give us enough time to get to Binary City and find out what's going on here."

"Binary City?" he asked. 'Are you serious?"

"If we want to keep from having any more surprises like this, old friend, yes. I'm decent now," she said.

He turned, and shook his head a little bit in surprise. Her clothing, normally pulled up all the way to the collar and modest, was worn differently. More than that, he could see that her undergarments were still in hand, rather than on her body. "What - "

"I couldn't purge all of the program. There is still something of the slut they tried to make me into in my head, and it...hates...this stuff," she said, looking at the underwear in her hands. "And it doesn't like being covered up. This was the best that I could do."

Considering that more than half of her breasts were showing, and somehow the whole thing was tight enough to be almost skintight below the waist, it wasn't much. However, Ivan supposed it was enough to cover enough to satisfy modesty, though it definitely tantalized him the way that she looked now. "I"m sorry that you couldn't remove it all. I should have been quicker."

"You were quick enough," she said, smiling and patting his shoulder. "If you hadn't gotten in when you did, I would have been nothing more than a sex crazed nympho, and then we would have been in trouble. Thank you for saving me when you did." She smiled, patting his shoulder again. "Now, let's get out of here. I assume that the lift is clear."

"Ah, yes....about that..."