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Corporate Espionage

There were some universal truths, regardless of species, gender, time zone or epoch. Meetings were an evil that could not be escaped. Certainly, implants did make it a lot easier in this day and age. Nobody knew if you were having a second conversation inside your head or if you were actually browsing the net or streaming porn, assuming they weren’t snooping on everyone’s ether traffic, of course. Even a military-grade VPN wasn’t a guarantee of anonymity in these…well, the phrase ‘Orwellian’ was painfully overused and he certainly never envisioned a world quite like this.

She shifted her weight, learning back in the chair, steepling her fingers as she attempted to at least look like she was paying attention. Sales figures. Projections. Quarterly targets. How mundane. How boring. Still, she had found other ways to make her life more exciting, hadn’t she? Ways like the activity she was quietly engaged in while everyone else was paying attention to the figures scrolling across the holo in front of them.

Tucked in the corner of her vision, almost imperceptible, was a tiny little timer. Amid all the other clutter that normally filled her HUD there was nothing at all remarkable about it, not if you didn’t know what it meant. It was counting down the time remaining till she had finished illicitly transferring the details of the latest R&D project to her own private server, nestled in a remote part of the net. She already had four different buyers lined up for it, snapping and snarling at each other as they attempted to outbid each other.

Her tongue darted out over her ruby-red lips, letting a hint of a smile curve them. She had been doing this long enough to have acquired a certain reputation. Or at least, her persona had. Nobody knew who she really was, of course. She could hardly engage in corporate espionage if her name and face were out there for any idiot with a gun and a grudge to track down. All people knew was that if they needed something spirited out from behind layers of corporate firewalls, I.C.E. and armed guards then the Sparrow would make it happen.

Her current mark was barely remarkable, a small weapons manufacturer who had somehow lucked into hiring an AI wunderkind that had catapulted their smart weapons decades ahead of anything else on the market. Really it was their own fault for not vetting new hires more intently than they did. They had to assume that other corps would want that tech. It wasn’t on HER that they didn’t take the time to dig deeper into this persona’s background. Honestly, it was so easy that it almost took the fun out of it. Still, a quick glance at the latest offers filling up her inbox made up for that. She might even retire after this. She had to stifle a laugh, hiding it as a quick clearing of her throat. Like she would ever give this up. Not till she was long in the tooth and her brain was mush. No, right now she was at the top of her game. She was young, ambitious, clever, and resourceful. She was the apex predator in this room, and this company’s secrets were her prey.

The meeting eventually closed without her opening her mouth to say a single word beyond “hello”, but then she was the new hire, the FNG to borrow military parlance. She was there to nod, listen, and provide eye-candy for the upper management. She played the part well, her long black hair teased into gentle curls draped over her shoulders, blouse tight enough to enhance her modest endowments. The top button left strategically open to tease a hint of cleavage, slits in the skirt just high enough to suggest that if she bent over just SO you might get a peek at her panties.

Showing the expected amount of deference, she waited for the higher-ups to file out before she rose from her seat. A flick of her eyes brought the HUD back into view and a frown creased her brow. The transfer still wasn’t complete, something was throttling it. Okay, no need to panic just yet. Small company, their infrastructure was far from cutting edge. Something else must be taking priority over her and that meant she just had to be a little more patient. She gathered up her jacket, swinging it over her shoulder as she headed for the nearest toilet. She slipped inside, making sure the cubicles were unoccupied before she locked herself inside one.

Swearing under her breath she checked her link again. Access to the files was still okay, but for some reason the traffic to the outside world was moving at a snail’s pace. It was still going to complete but rather than minutes she was looking at almost another hour or more before she could disconnect and that made it more likely that someone might notice what was going on. She chewed on her bottom lip, weighing her options. She could bail. Sever the link, take what she had and just accept a lower price for it. But it was so close, so tantalisingly close to being done. The security here wasn’t that intense and she had a reputation to uphold. She was the Sparrow. She DELIVERED.

The door to the bathroom slid open and she froze in place, reaching over to doublecheck her cubicle was locked. There was no reason to think she had been discovered, but suspicion was a valuable trait in her line of work. She peered down at the gap beneath the door, seeing a shadow moving outside. “Cleaner,” a female voice called. “Is anyone in here? I need a few minutes to mop the floors, check the supplies.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose, stifling a curse. Just her luck. Okay, no big deal, she could go and sit in her car outside, it was close enough that she could still have a strong signal. “Just a minute,” she replied as she fussed around with the toilet, hitting the button to flush. “I’ll be right out.”

She opened the door, mouth opening to speak, but before she could finish the intake of breath something crashed into her, sending her staggering back into the cubicle, her head smacking into the wall hard enough to make her see stars, the world spinning around her. Her vision went blank, her implants briefly knocked offline, static flooding her vision as they began their reboot. She opened her mouth to cry out, to protest, only to find a cool, smooth hand clamped over her mouth to muffle her cries.

She tried to lash out, to kick, to punch, but there was something around her arms, something pinning them to her sides, something….there was something wrapped around her. She could feel it pressing down on her body, something thick and heavy trapping her arms and pinning her legs, leaving her able to do little more than squirm and twitch.

“Now, darling,” the same voice whispered in her ear. “I’m going to take my hand away from your mouth. You can try to scream if you like, but if you do then I’m afraid I’ll need to be far more forceful with you than I have been, and really neither of us wants this. Nod your head if you understand.”

She nodded jerkily, breath rasping through her nostrils, her vision still blank save for a single small “Signal Interrupted” message in the corner of her eye. Why was it taking so long for her vision to return? She hadn’t hit her head that hard. The hand was removed from her mouth and she took a shuddering breath, trying to keep the fear from her voice. “I have money. Whatever they’re paying you, I can double it. Triple. All you have to do is let me walk out of here.”

“Mmm. No. I’m afraid not, darling. Just like you I have a certain reputation to uphold. And really, what kind of snake would I be if I let a sparrow escape me?”

Light and vision flooded back in even as her heart sank at those words. Static swam through her optics until they cleared, and she came face to face with her captor. She’d heard of them, of course, everyone had, but she’d never met one till now.

The voice belonged to a viper, a huge one with a humanoid upper body. She was even dressed in a form-fitting business jacket and blouse that were straining to hold a pair of heavy mammalian breasts in check, but beneath the waist her body extended into the long, powerful coils of a snake. Coils that were wrapped tightly around her and no matter how much she squirmed she couldn’t get them to budge an inch. The snake smiled, lipless mouth curling upwards, flashing a hint of the slick, pink flesh within, forked tongue darting out to taste the air inches from her nose.

“D-Don’t know what you mean,” Sparrow managed to croak. “My name’s Evelyn. I work in-HRK.”

The coils around her chest had suddenly tightened with enough force to push the air right out of her lungs, cutting off any further protest. The viper leaned close, turning her head to fix one unblinking reptilian eye on her. “If you lie, things will be so much worse,” she promised. “And considering what you have just been found doing, to say nothing of all the other very, very angry Corporate clients you’ve left in your wake, things are quite bad enough for you, little sparrow.”

The coils loosened enough for her to reply and there was only one question in her head. “How?”

The predator smiled, lips curving to reveal a hint of long, curved fang. “The problem with people like you, darling, is that you get cocky. You get sloppy. You leave traces, traces that an enterprising serpent like myself can follow. Oh, not in your code, that’s quite immaculate, my compliments by the way, but in your infiltration techniques, your social engineering. You try so hard to be unremarkable, but nobody is THAT banal. Everyone leaves traces, darling, even someone trying so very hard be a nobody.“

The viper was working as she spoke, first searching through her pockets, removing her ID badge, her security tags and phone, anything that she might use to call for help or launch an attack. She waited, waited till the snake’s eyes turned downward to make sure there was nothing hiding in her trousers and took her chance.

She HEAVED her body upwards with all her strength, jamming her feet down against the floor as she activated her rarely used implants. Combat augments surged strength through her body, the startled snake too slow to try and secure her newly combative prey, coils loosening enough for her to slip from their embrace. For a moment she was free! She yanked the stall door open, her single intent to escape. Fuck the job, fuck the payday, fuck the contract, right now she had to get out, get to where she had room to move, to dodge and run.

There was a sudden sharp, stinging pain in her thigh.

She made it another step before the bright red warning messages started flashing in her eyes. The world swam like she was underwater and her legs buckled beneath her. She sank to her knees, twitching, arms hanging limp by her sides, head jerking erratically. She couldn’t move, could barely find the strength to breathe, could barely see anything as her vision blurred and shifted, the error messages warning her of a creeping, systemic corruption, some nanomachine disrupting her system, paralyzing her.

“Oh, now that was very nice, darling,” the snake purred as she slithered from the stall, absently dusting herself down and tugging her jacket back into place on her shoulders. “Very nice indeed. You took advantage of my over-confidence, and I will admit I had NO idea you were augmented. Most resourceful, I must say, but ultimately fruitless. Still...”

She hummed softly to herself, tapping a finger to her chin, “I suppose I can’t very well walk out of here with you slung over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. No, you see my instructions were quite clear that you were to be returned alive and so that leads us smoothly into Plan B. Would you like to know what Plan B is, darling?”

The paralyzed woman could do little more than gurgle, drool seeping from her chin as she slumped against the wall of the bathroom, slowly beginning to slide down towards the floor as what little strength she had left was drained away.

“No?” the viper cooed, “Well, that’s alright, I had been planning to tell you anyway. You see, Plan B is where I eat you. I tuck you away inside my stomach and deliver you to my employers perhaps a little worse for wear, but entirely intact. Maybe just a LITTLE acid-singed, but no augment is perfect.”

She leaned in to wipe away some of the saliva that hung from the corner of the woman’s mouth, inspecting her closely, forked tongue darting out to brush against her skin, making sure that there was no response, no fight left in her. “I really must thank my ripperdoc when I see him next. His augments to my venom are everything he promised they would be. I’d give you his name, but I don’t think you’ll really be in a position to send much business his way anytime soon. “

The woman tried to make her mouth move, but her tongue was numb and fuzzy and refused to move. She tried to activate her augments once more, to summon one last, desperate bid for escape, but all she received were the same errors. The snake couldn’t be serious, right? People didn’t eat other people. Not even when one of those people was, well, not entirely human. It just didn’t happen. Right?

She kept telling herself that even as the snake lowered her to the floor so she was laid out on her back. She repeated it like a mantra, a charm that would somehow protect her from what was about to happen.

And then the snake lifted her unresisting legs, pulled her shoes off, and fed the woman’s feet into her mouth and she knew that this was real. So very, very real. She tried to wriggle her toes, arch her hips, move her legs, something, anything…but all she managed to do was drain what little strength she had left to her. A frantic, strangled whine escaped her lips as she felt cool, slimy flesh slipping over her toes. The worst part of it all, though? It was the look she could just about make out on the snake’s face as her mouth closed over those helpless feet. She was so smug.

Her head rolled, thumping against the floor. She didn’t have the strength to lift it anymore. All she could do was lie there, breathing soft and ragged as that horrible new sensation slipped over her ankles and up along her legs. Muscles gripped her now, recurved teeth digging into clothing and flesh to make sure she stood no chance of being able to wriggle backwards to escape that hungry, drooling maw that was slowly consuming her whole. Past her knees.

She’d seen videos of snakes feeding when she was a kid, watched as their jaws unhinged, their bodies bulging around the sometimes still wriggling prey. She had never once imagined it would be her turn, that she would be the one helpless and paralyzed. Up and over her hips now, slowing a little as the snake worked around where her body grew thicker. She could feel that forked tongue caressing playfully between her legs, but it didn’t linger. At least she was spared that one final indignity. She managed to gather the strength to lift her head and immediately wished she hadn’t.

The viper’s jaws were, indeed, gaped impossibly wide, glistening, drooling pink flesh soaking her clothes and skin, lubricating her descent. She could see the viper’s neck bulging around her legs, her toes already lost somewhere inside that torso. She became near hyper-aware of the oddest little sensations and details. The sharp, artificial pine scent of the disinfectant they used to clean the floors, the cool wash of the snake’s breath against her groin, the subtle throbbing of her pulse through the slippery walls of flesh that were engulfing her and the soft, slick noises of that maw slowly sliding over her helpless body.

Her hands were inside that mouth now, but still all she could do was spastically twitch her fingers in some last, futile attempt to change her fate, dragging them over those teeth and the saliva-coated flesh. The snake’s body was so cool compared to her own, she could feel her own body heat being concentrated in the tight tube of that gullet, sweat beading on her forehead, replacing the cold sweat of fear. It was so fast. How was it so fast? How was it making the act of swallowing a full-grown woman seem as simple a task as drinking a glass of water? She again flashed back to those old videos, how quickly a mouse vanished down the throat of a python and here she was…nothing more than a helpless bird.

Her lips curled in an angry, defiant snarl. She wouldn’t beg. She couldn’t, but even if she could, she wouldn’t beg. She knew the viper wasn’t planning to kill her, so there was still a chance, a hope she could somehow talk or fight her way out of whatever was waiting for her when she was finally set free. She just had to be patient. She was the Sparrow, and this wasn’t going to be how her story ended.

Over her breasts now, the snake pausing, chewing thoughtfully, massaging and teasing those soft curves, the look in her eyes openly mocking now. She couldn’t escape those eyes anymore. She was nothing but a bulge in the snake’s body, she could see it out of the corner of her eye, see the coil stretching to accommodate her. Despite herself her breathing quickened, a soft, plaintive noise escaping her throat as the reality of being eaten alive threatened to overwhelm her resolve.

Shoulders now. How did those jaws stretch so far? How? It was almost obscene how stretched and distorted the viper’s features were, how her neck bulged and swelled, rippling with each slow, patient swallow that dragged her inwards, her entire body squeezed now, smothered beneath the viper’s scaled flesh. The bathroom ceiling began to disappear, obscured by the wet, pink roof of the snake’s mouth. She tried to turn her head, coughing, spitting as her mouth was filled with drool, trying to get one last look at the outside world before those jaws sealed shut.

Darkness enfolded her as she was forced down into the viper’s gullet, the soft flesh covering her face, almost smothering her, giving her barely enough room to catch a mouthful of fetid air. She had held out some faint hope that her own countermeasure programs would find some way to defeat this strange pathogen that had paralyzed her but the relentless string of error messages continued unabated. Down and down, deeper and deeper into the snake’s body, slimy flesh clinging to every inch of her body, no light filtering through, nothing but the low, wet gurgles and squelches of the body that now surrounded her own.

There was a tingling sensation in her ankles and fingers. For a moment she thought maybe it was her strength returning, pins and needles as nerves awakened from their forced slumber, but the sensation began to spread unevenly, in patches here and there. It took her a moment to realise it was only where her bare flesh was exposed. Oh. Oh god. She knew what it was. She tried to scream but all she could manage was a whimper as the snake’s digestive juices began to work on her.

Apate lifted her head, straining towards the ceiling, letting gravity come to her assistance in getting the annoying woman safely tucked away. She yawned widely, resetting her jaws with two soft popping sounds, wriggling her lower jaw from side to side till she was content everything was back in line. She turned to watch the faintly twitching bulge in her lower body, a satisfied smile on her face. “It would be so easy…” she mused. “An augment failure, entirely unexpected. So sorry that your little corporate spy came to a nasty, sticky end.” She sighed loudly. “But a contract is a contract.”

She mentally flicked the switch deep within her body that ensured that the digestive process would proceed no further than it already had, leaving her prey a little singed in places, but entirely whole and alive. She could have done that to begin with but, honestly, she couldn’t help having just a little more fun tormenting the woman.

She pushed her way out of the cubicle, pausing just enough to make sure that any signs of struggle were put right, not that there was much to see. She took another moment to straighten her blouse and jacket, smoothing her hands over her head and down along her bust, fixing the buttons that had popped free while she was swallowing the woman. Housekeeping completed she patted the heavy bulge in her coils. “Silly Sparrow,” she chuckled. “As if you were ever going to be able to escape a snake.”