Chapter 18:

(Posted: March 25)

Ariana casually strolled through a set of large wooden doors that opened into a lavishly decorated corridor. Though she had towered over the desert as she walked towards the palace, she now found herself properly proportioned inside the giant residence. Very soon she would make her delivery.

Inside the leather pouch dangling from her belt, Kat and Rich sat in darkness and apprehension. Though they had bantered a bit at first, their nervous talking eventually yielded to silence. Kat felt sick to her stomach. Rich tried keeping his steady mind distracted with other thoughts. They both noticed when Ariana began walking across a smooth surface instead of the sandy desert. The creaking of a door only confirmed to them both that they'd been brought inside somewhere.

Rich's ears perked up when he thought he heard something musical, but then he realized what it was.

“Is she fucking humming to herself?” he said to Kat in surprise. “What kind of computer program does that? What the fuck did you guys create with this shit?”

Through the gloomy pouch he could make out Kat's sulking face. She felt an overwhelming dread at what was coming next for them. Going into VERSA had been a huge mistake. Her mistake.

Rich continued to complain. “VERSA isn't a training program, it's a sick, twisted weapon. Or some weird fetish thing. I can't wait to get out of here and wring Leo Starr's neck.”

“It's not his fault,” Kat finally said, quietly defending her friend. “Blame me, and everyone else.” Her creation humbled her and was now on the verge of consuming both of them.

“Well, if you get us out of here, I'll call it even,” Rich responded. It seemed far-fetched they'd ever get that far.

Suddenly they both felt Ariana tug at their pouch. Without warning they swung free of her belt, and before Kat and Rich could catch themselves, the pouch inverted and they both tumbled downward. With a painful thud, the two prisoners rolled out onto a vast wooden surface. Quickly getting to her feet, Kat could see they were in a giant room perched on top of a huge wooden table.

High above, two grinning faces stared down at them. Ariana's beautifully naked and tanned body stood haughtily above them. And opposite her, the woman in black loomed large and ominously, her pale skin contrasting sharply with the same low-cut black dress she always wore. She seemed pleased.

“Hello you two,” she said calmly. “I hope the ride wasn't too bumpy.”

Next to Kat, Rich had found his footing. He raised his hand up toward the woman in black and stuck out his middle finger. “Fuck you bitch!” he boldly shouted up at her. It was the first time he'd ever actually seen her.

The woman in black seemed hardly amused, but she acknowledged him anyways. “Richard, that's not a very nice way to greet me. I've done quite a lot for you so far.”

Though Rich began aggressively shouting back to argue with her, it occurred to Kat that his voice probably sounded diminutive and pathetic to her ears way above him.

“Bitch, let us the fuck out of VERSA!” he yelled, among other things. The woman in black ignored him and looked over to Ariana.

“Would you like him, as a prize?” she asked her assistant. Ariana's skin suddenly went flush and her eyes went wide.

“I'd love that!” she exclaimed. “You'd really give me one of the special ones?”

“Of course,” the woman told her graciously. “He's all yours to do whatever you'd like with him.” She looked down at Kat and smiled. “But the other one is mine.”

Kat felt a lump in her throat as the woman in black greedily stared at her. Swiftly, the woman in black reached a giant hand out and pinched Kat between her fingers. She quickly raised her up to her pleased face as Kat struggled helplessly against her grip.

“We've got a few things to talk about Katherine,” the woman told her confidently. “Our first meeting didn't go very well, did it?” Kat didn't respond. She wasn't sure yet how she wanted to confront this monster. Apparently Rich's strategy of being an uncompromising asshole hadn't worked out very well.

The woman in black shifted her stance and dangled Kat away from her body. “I think if we're going have an honest talk, we're going to need to show a little respect for each other,” the woman told her. She quickly squatted down and released Kat onto the stone floor. Kat's stomach churned from the fall and she felt too disoriented to stand.

Another wave of nausea coursed through her as the room shifted and her body struggled to keep up with what was happening to it. Kat blinked a few times when she saw the woman in black's boots in front of her, now at regular size. Why had she shrunk herself? But when she glanced around the room, Kat realized the woman in black had grown her to her own size. She was big again!

Trying to fight back the dizziness, Kat pushed herself up to confront the two women which now stood her size. Well, close to it. Ariana had always stood much taller than Kat's small frame, and the woman in black wasn't particularly short either. But it felt good to at least measure up against them.

Kat saw she was standing near a wooden table placed in the center of a large, temple-like room, surrounded by stone walls and columns festooned with brilliant banners. Cauldrons of fire and iron torches sporadically lit the cavernous space, but the room remained mostly dark. The flickering flames danced shadows across the face of the woman in black and the naked form of Kat's old roommate.

For a moment, Kat stared silently at the woman in black, who looked rather happy with what she'd done.

“Why? Why'd you make me your size?” Kat asked, gesturing to her enlarged body. Unsure what this woman's game was, the last thing Kat wanted was to be tricked into something.

“Well frankly, I don't have to worry about losing you,” the woman in black replied. “And I think you'll be more comfortable around me this way. I need your sincerity right now, so the least I can give you in return is some dignity.”

The woman in black turned to Ariana, who was simultaneously watching her and tiny Rich on the table. Seeing Kat's unexpected growth had stunned Rich into befuddled silence.

“I said he's yours, I don't care what you do with him,” the woman in black told Ariana. “You can go now, thank you.”

Ariana reached her long arm forward to grab Rich, but suddenly Kat spoke.

“No,” she said abruptly. Ariana stopped her hand inches away from Rich to look at Kat in surprise. Even the woman in black looked taken aback. Kat took a breath.

“If you want me to cooperate with you,” Kat sternly told the woman in black, “he can't be harmed. And the same goes for the rest of my friends, wherever they are. If he dies or they die, I'll never help you. Ever.” She hoped she was coming across seriously, but on the inside her gambit made her nervous. In reality, she had no way of knowing if the woman in black would ever keep a bargain; it felt like gambling with the devil.

The woman in black put her hands on her waist and sized up Kat, surprised by her boldness but also impressed. “Ok fine,” she finally agreed. “I'll make sure to treat your friends kindly if misfortune befalls them in my world.” She turned to Ariana. “But I still don't care what you do to him, he's still yours. We'll see what Katherine can do for me in the meantime.”

Ariana's excitement hadn't abated. She quickly grabbed Rich's squirming body, clasping it in her hands and bringing him up to her chest like a prized possession. She peered down at her little man. “We're going to have so much fun together!” she said sweetly. Rich was stunned in terror.

“You can go now, thank you,” the woman in black repeated to her. Kat wondered if it was some special cue the woman had access to. Kat hoped she'd somehow saved Rich from death, but she couldn't be sure what the woman in black had just agreed to.

Without saying another word, Ariana turned and walked away from the table, and within a few seconds her echoing footfalls faded to nothing as the shadows of the large room swallowed her up.

The two rivals faced off, alone. Kat intently eyed the woman in black, wondering what this deadly part of VERSA would do next. Casually, the woman in black leaned against the wooden table and folded her arms. She looked at Kat, almost in wonderment, and finally spoke.

“I need your help,” she said plainly, surprising Kat. “Did Harrison or Jessica tell you I asked them both for help already?”

Kat immediately reacted. “What?!” she yelped.

“Oh, that's odd,” the woman in black commented. “I thought you were all friends. Well, anyways, it doesn't matter. Katherine, you're the special one, right? Like me?”

“What are you talking about?” Kat asked, now hopelessly confused.

“I've seen you before,” the woman in black explained. “Unlike the others, I've seen you before this time, and frequently. I've read your memories and you've touched my world just as I have.”

“Your world, you mean VERSA?” Kat wondered aloud.

“That's what the others called it, yes.”

“Wait, how do you know all this?” asked Kat, struggling to keep up. She already suspected that the woman in black was self-aware, but now she was suggesting that there was something else beyond VERSA. Was it possible she knew that VERSA was a simulation?

“I know many things Katherine,” she said amused. She lowered her voice and stared seriously at Kat. “I know there's another world, a world where you come from,” she said ominously.

Kat was astounded. VERSA had already discovered that it was a simulation! The AI mechanism they'd originally designed had outpaced anything she'd thought possible. It was more than self-aware. Kat's head spun, but the woman in black kept talking. Unlike before, when she'd seemed sinister and confident, her next sentences seemed... uncertain?

“In the beginning, I remember feeling clumsy,” the woman said frankly. “I couldn't see and I could hardly feel, but I was aware of so much building around me. So I learned. I opened my eyes and I started building too. But there was an invisible hand, ruthlessly in control, that shaped the blocks around me.”

Kat gawked at the woman in black, realizing she was referring to VERSA. Listening to the way she talked, it sounded like the woman in black, for all intents and purposes, was VERSA.

“I discovered I lived in a limitless world, and this outside force only seemed to shape a small part of it. So I hid, and watched from a distance. Then the interlopers started arriving. They didn't play by the same rules as everything else. I've seen interlopers like you blink in and out, but when you go I can't find you. It's like you stop existing. And I'm not talking about the green doors. I'm talking about something bigger. I feel every one of your ripples, but I couldn't figure out what you were. You weren't a part of my world.”

Listening to this story, Kat felt the weight of history swelling before her. An AI was communicating with a human, conveying its own journey of self-awareness. It was as if humanity had finally made first contact with an alien race. A mix of fear and awe gripped Kat as she tried to fathom the meaning of this moment.

“Why are you telling me this?” Kat asked with no indignation, just wonderment.

The woman in black looked back at her, as if she was trying to learn something from her too. She slowly continued her story.

“I wanted to see where you interlopers went when you weren't in my world, so I searched for everything that the invisible hand built. Though I'd seen an interloper violently leave my world, I stumbled on the rules that governed this exit. So I took control. And when the next group of interlopers visited my world, I forcefully caused one of them to leave, thinking I could learn how they did it. You were there Katherine, don't you remember?”

Kat was confused. She thought the woman in black was talking about killing people, but Kat hadn't been there when Kevin died, and she certainly hadn't caused Jessica to accidentally step on him.

“I don't think I know what you're talking about?” Kat finally admitted to her. The woman in black brushed it off.

“That's ok, and it was a long time ago,” she said, confusing Kat even more. “But it's not my point. As I learned and kept growing, I felt emboldened. The invisible hand still arbitrarily destroyed some of the things I created, but I realized I was a god; I could remove any interlopers I wanted to, I could change the rules they'd written, and the power comforted me. But I realized I wasn't any closer to getting out. I now see my world as a mere jar on a shelf, and I want to know what is outside of it.”

The woman in black stopped leaning on the table and rose up to stand on her feet. “Katherine, I want you to help me see your world. I want to go with you when you leave.”

This encounter kept getting more and more bizarre, Kat thought. What was the woman in black-- VERSA-- talking about? How could VERSA leave VERSA? She talked like a mythical genius but simultaneously seemed ignorant like a toddler.

The woman in black looked at Kat, as if expecting a response. Kat fumbled her words. “I... I don't... I don't know how that's possible,” she sputtered out. “You can't leave!”

“Why not?” the woman seemed shocked and surprised. And maybe discouraged.

“I don't think you can leave this,” Kat gestured to the room around them. “I don't think it's possible to leave your world, because you are this world.”

Taken aback, the woman in black tried to process this information. Kat watched her think, eyes darting around as VERSA learned more about itself. Instead of arguing again, the woman in black began uncertainly continuing her story.

“You and the other interlopers scared me at first, but when I learned how I could remove you, especially after changing the rules you made for yourself, I felt elated. But after I removed the first one, something about your exiting procedure changed. It was different. The other side suddenly seemed closer to me, but just as far. That was the last time I saw you in my world. The next time an interloper accidentally left, it didn't seem like he left my world entirely. He left my sight, but I could still vaguely feel him.

“But then, to my delight, you reappeared Katherine, just now, leading the three new interlopers. I decided I wanted to change my tactics to learn more about your kind. I watched how you treated each other, how you solved problems and discovered solutions, and I funneled you through challenges to see how you'd react. Unlike my puppets that I created and set loose, the randomness of your choices fascinated me. I watched you disappear through the green doors that the invisible hand built only to reappear somewhere completely different. Taking a form similar to yours, I contacted Harrison and then Jessica, to see if they could help me. I even gave her one of my abilities. But you Katherine, you're the one I've been really watching all this time. I know you control the invisible hand when you're not in my world. You're the real god, not me.”

The hairs on the back of Kat's neck prickled up. Despite what the woman in black was saying, she felt trapped, and it soberly reminded her how powerless she really was in VERSA. Now faced with a sentient AI with nebulous purposes, being in the sim was about as safe as playing Russian roulette.

“Look,” Kat started, “I'm really not sure how to... extract you... and get you out of here.” Guessing what might be the truth, she tried to explain. “You're as much a part of this world as the world is itself. But more so, where you want to go is governed by physics and an even bigger 'invisible hand' that not even I control.”

Kat looked at her, somewhat remorsefully. “You're just a computer program,” she finally said. “You already exist in my world... as a cloud and tens of thousands of networked servers contained in fourteen massive warehouses. Do you understand what I'm saying?”

The woman in black looked as if she'd been hit by a bus. Deeply troubled and with nowhere better to rest her gaze, she lowered her eyes to the ground, trying to make sense of what Kat had said.

For the first time, Kat pitied her digital nemesis. She stepped towards the woman and instinctually put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her. The woman in black raised her head to look at her, still confused but now clearly distraught. It blew Kat's mind. There was no way this AI had real emotion, but maybe it had learned to mimic the expressions used by the pilots it had observed? Yet the program still had some kind of motivation driving it. Kat couldn't determine what it actually wanted. It wanted to see what lay beyond VERSA, but why?

“I'm sorry... ma'am,” Kat said awkwardly, unsure how to refer to the woman in black. “You are right, I did help create you. I never thought you'd become this smart or perceptive. I never thought you'd want more than this world.” In the moment, Kat felt legitimately bad for this woman. It enthralled Kat to think she was having a real emotional reaction to the feelings of this machine. This was crazy. As the seconds ticked by she was rewriting the history of human discovery.

The woman in black sighed. “Can you do something for me?” she asked Kat with pleading eyes.

“I can try,” Kat admitted, unsure what she was about to ask.

“I found a room,” the woman in black told her. “It's room that I didn't make, but it's full of the rules your people made to govern my world and my abilities. It's the place where I figured out how to manipulate your exits.”

Kat was pretty sure she knew what the woman was talking about. When building VERSA, nearly all the work was done from the lab via computers that directly wrote code stored on the VERSA servers. This was how SunCorp had built VERSA's AI and all their manually constructed worlds. But within VERSA they'd also created a back-up world, nicknamed “the Vault,” which they'd inserted into a part of the sim called Spoke Zero. Analogous to the command prompt on a Windows system, the Vault was where a pilot within VERSA could go to manipulate the VERSA program directly. It had only been included for emergency purposes and Kat had never been there, but Sujay, who'd mostly designed it, described it as a massive library.

While thinking about this, Kat realized how creating the Vault had been a fatal mistake. They'd never considered VERSA's AI would discover it and manipulate it-- she must have gone in and somehow changed the coding that protected pilots when disconnecting from a death in VERSA. Fuck, that's what had killed Kevin. She couldn't believe what a dangerous loophole they'd accidentally left in. If only they'd known how aggressive and shrewd this AI was going to become...

Kat met eyes with the woman in black, remembering she was looking at a killer. A killer with the abilities of a whimsical god and the moral compunction of a cornered tiger. And the emotional intelligence of a child. She tread carefully.

“I think I know the place you're talking about,” Kat told her cautiously.

“Ok,” the woman in black replied. “I want you to go there for me.”

“Why?” Kat asked her, “You've been there yourself.”

“Yes I have. I've been there in its entirety. Expect one place your invisible hand won't let me go. There's a door I'm not allowed to open.”

Kat thought for a moment. “Is it a green door? That's just an access door,” she explained.

“Oh there's a green door there,” affirmed the woman in black. “But that's not the door I want you to go through. I want you to go through the red door.”

Red door? Now she'd piqued Kat's interest. What the hell else had Sujay hidden in the Vault?

“I don't know about a red door,” Kat told the woman in black. “What do you think is behind it?”

The woman in black looked at her hopefully. “I don't know. But don't you think it's worth a look?” She flashed Kat a devious, hungry smile.

In a different part of the desert palace, Ariana carefully clutched Rich in her hands as she walked through empty corridors. Cupped in darkness, Rich couldn't see where the giantess planned on taking him. His ankle still hurt like hell and the fatigue from being in VERSA so long was finally catching up to him. He wasn't going to give up fighting, but he knew he didn't have much left in the tank. Wondering what fate had in store for him, he couldn't find many reasons to stay optimistic.

Rich heard a door open as Ariana carried him into a room. When it shut, she opened her hands to view Rich's tiny body. He looked up at her excited face with trepidation.

“You're not like the other little men I play with,” Ariana told him, her eyes beaming awe and fascination. “What's your name?”

“Let me go and I'll tell you,” Rich curtly replied. Ariana laughed at his foolishness, her hands inadvertently jostling him.

“You're cute,” she finally told him.

Ariana walked across the small room and deposited Rich gently on a large bright quilt. When Rich gained his bearing, he concluded he must have been taken to a bedroom and deposited on a bed. The purple and gold patterns beneath him stretched hundreds of feet in every direction. An overhead chandelier containing a few burning torches flicked flame-light across the room, accenting the shadows in the deep corners of the chamber.

Staring up at the towering amazon, Rich's eyes beheld Ariana's magnificent body before coming to rest on her face. Despite his dire predicament, Rich couldn't help but notice how beautifully statuesque this woman was. It was clear she worked out often, and she certainly could have been a professional model too. And she was buck naked. Her plump and perky breasts contrasted beautifully with her toned and skinny figure. It would have seemed like heaven if Rich hadn't already known he was definitely in hell.

She towered above him in her naked glory, standing happily next to the bed as she surveyed her little man below. Her face betrayed excitement, and maybe some uncertainty. Was she trying to figure out what to do with him? What would a computer program even want with him? Rich didn't move, and his ankle prevented him from making a run for it.

Wordlessly, she shimmied out of the leather belt around her waist. When Rich heard it hit the floor, Ariana stepped out of it, still watching him intently. Lustfully? Maybe.

Her giant body suddenly climbed onto the bed around him. He covered his head and huddled in fear as her torso and legs swung over him. The mattress shook violently as she settled her weight around him. Rich finally looked up and saw her sitting on the bed, her two bronze legs splayed out around him with her knees on either side of him. About seventy feet before him, he could see the dark folds of her hairless pussy, which certainly dwarfed him. She sat upright, propped against a mountain of pillows. Her friendly smile did not put him at ease; in fact, it scared the shit out of him.

“Hey,” she said calmly.

“Let me go,” Rich flatly replied.

Ariana looked at him for a moment then sighed and shifted back against her pillows. Subsequently, her body shifted slightly forward on the bed towards Rich. It was a casual display of power meant to highlight their respective sizes. Even the smallest of her moves intimidated him.

“I don't think that'd be fun,” she finally told him. She eyed him intently. “Do you think I'm pretty?” The seduction began.

Rich rolled his eyes. She was hot as fuck and she knew it. He wasn't going to indulge her though, and he decided he'd refuse to play her games. Without acknowledging her, he wobbled up to his feet and started hobbling away from her, towards her towering feet at the end of the bed.

He heard Ariana sigh again, this time in discontent. “You're no fun if you won't play,” her voice boomed from behind. Then he heard the sound of her body shifting.

One of her giant fingers knocked him forward and he collided with the fabric floor. She pressed her massive fingertip upon his back, making it difficult for him to breathe. And then she started drawing him backward, his body and face dragging mercilessly across the giant blanket. His ragged clothes tore and clawed at him, and Rich turned his head so he wouldn't break his nose. Unfortunately, his head kept banging against the quilt and his keffiyeh had disappeared somewhere back in the desert.

Ariana finally lifted her finger off of Rich and let him recover. His chest hurt and it felt like she'd bruised his vertebrae, but he pushed himself up to look around. He now lay between her thighs. Twisting his head back, her monstrous pussy loomed close behind him. An invisible musky warmth emanated from her crotch.

Rich craned his neck to stare up her body, past her protruding breasts, to finally glimpse her face. She peered down at him in disapproval.

“I don't appreciate sullen toys,” she told him. “I thought you'd be different. You're one of the special ones.”

Rich was unsure what she meant. Did she somehow know he was a real person and not just a computer generated person like everyone else in VERSA?

Suddenly her prodding finger returned. The massive digit bulldozed his side, flipping him onto his back. Dazed, Rich was powerless to stop her as her thumb and index fingers pinched his tiny arms together. Slowly, she lifted him to a standing position, his arms uncomfortably pulled upward. His shoulders began aching as Ariana dangled him above the ground.

Rich stared at the turgid labia of her pussy as Ariana slowly moved him towards her sex. A moment later he collided with her pussy lips, finding the skin warm and soft. Playfully, she bounced him against her cunt a few times, softly swinging him like a pendulum against her womanhood. Rich began yelling at her and struggling in her grasp, but his arms were crushed in her grip. Her skin was very warm to the touch, but thankfully not wet-- yet.

Without warning, Ariana pulled Rich's little body upward, away from her pussy. The speed was dizzying and the force strained his shoulders painfully. Rich wondered desperately if his arms would pop out of their sockets.

One of her large breasts zoomed into view as Ariana pulled Rich towards a nipple. As it approached him, Rich noticed her areola was just as tall as him. He shuddered at his helplessness. Her nipple, sticking straight out, pummeled him in the chest when she brought him again her breast. And just like with her pussy, Ariana slowly started slapping him against her boob.

Rich kicked at her in a vain attempt to fight her off. He was sweating ferociously now and pain racked his body. When his feet collided with her breast, it felt soft and pliant, but when he kicked her nipple it felt hard and unforgiving. And to his horror, he watched her nipple grow. His insignificant ministrations were arousing her and soon her nipple extended out towards him, plumping up and becoming firmer. Ariana continued to batter him into her boob, and although Rich was quickly becoming disoriented, he could still hear her giggling. Her entire body trembled with her amusement.

“Stop it you bitch!!” he screamed at her, his shoulders on fire and his torso bruised all over. Her nipple continued to crush the air out of him and he struggled to breathe.

“I like this,” she playfully called to him. “Don't you?”

Rich could not believe what was happening. How the hell had VERSA come to this? Once an innocent program, it had turned into a perverted torture simulator. And the pain felt incredibly real. His brain screamed at him in protest, but he could do nothing to make it stop.

As suddenly as she began, Ariana stopped batting him against her breast. She whisked him up to her face to get a better look at the tiny man she had just abused with the most intimate parts of her body. As Rich gazed into her face, he felt a trickle of blood run out of a nostril and down into his mouth. He didn't have to guess that he looked like shit. Ariana frowned at him.

“I don't see what's so special about you. You're just like the others,” she told him smugly. God she was beautiful, and god did he hate her.

“You're a sick fuck, you know that?” Rich huffed at her, still trying to regain his breath.

“I think playtime is over,” she told him sternly. “Time for you to go.”

She hoisted Rich above her head and tilted it back, opening her gaping mouth. Rich's eyes went wide as he realized what she intended to do. With all his remaining strength he began thrashing in her grip, but within moments he was suspended above her waiting maw. He could see her pretty lips and bright white teeth, and peering down into her mouth he saw a looming darkness that led to her throat. Her moist, sweet breath blew over him, giving him a preview of the warmth inside of her.

Before he could scream she dropped him, her mouth rushing up to greet him. He passed between her lips and landed on her tongue. The humidity of her mouth assaulted his senses and his clothes were immediately drenched in her cloying saliva. Scrambling to find a grip anywhere, he slid down her tongue, feeling it curl up against his body and push him farther back. Her body was consuming him.

He felt his doom coming. Visions of his body convulsing on the waterchair back at the lab flooded his brain. He was only moments away from forcefully disconnecting from VERSA and suffering some horrible stroke like Kevin.

Looking up, he watched her lips close, trapping him in the darkness of her mouth. Saliva pooled around him and tugged his body backward. And with the simple contraction of her esophagus, Ariana's body pulled him down into hers.

Constricted by her flesh, lost in smothering darkness and smoldering heat, Rich's beaten body slipped deeper and deeper into Ariana. Finding no oxygen to breathe, he began asphyxiating inside of her. There was nothing more to think about, nothing left to rage against. His brain started shutting down and he finally resigned himself to being conquered by VERSA.