Chapter 26:

(Posted: May 1)

Jessica wasn't a naturally violent person, but as she stared down Claire, she fantasized about plunging her little knife into Claire's stupid body. She stood blocking Harrison, who cowered behind her much like a toddler hiding behind his older sister for safety. Across the box, Claire stood nervously.

“You. Fucking. Bitch,” Jessica uttered, taking an ominous step towards Claire. Despite being armed with her knife, Claire stood about as tall as her and looked very in shape. If it came down to a brawl, she wasn't convinced she could overpower Claire on her own.

“What, you're really just gonna stab me with that thing?” Claire asked skeptically, throwing her hands up in the air in disgust. “Right here? Right now?” She was daring her to attack.

“Don't tell me you don't deserve it,” Jessica snarled back at her. “You fucked us all over so hard. AND you literally fucked him!” she said angrily, pointing at Harrison behind her. “And it's your fault we're in this box together!”

Claire took an angry step towards Jessica. “No, everything was fine until you fucked it up! You think VERSA's a toy? Fuck, following Katherine into the sim and playing with it like a kid who found her dad's loaded gun...you people are dumb as shit!”

“That doesn't give you the right to kill us!” Harrison yelled at her. Both Claire and Jessica looked surprised by his outburst. Neither of them had predicted he would assert himself while faced with their much larger sizes.

Claire huffed and rolled her eyes. “Like that even matters now.”

“Harrison, what are you talking about?” Jessica asked him.

“Claire told me they're going to disconnect us and kill us to cover up what we know about VERSA.”

“What?!”

Claire looked at them sullenly. “If we ever get out of here. The AI's already corrupted the programming so much that my people can't even disconnect anyone from the outside anymore. She's holding us hostage!” she cried out, referencing Versa by pointing out of the box. “She's not going to let anyone out until she gets what she wants!”

“What does she want?” Harrison asked Claire.

“To get out,” Jessica whispered to herself. “Fuck.”

“Yeah, she knows,” Claire commented, pointing at Jessica. “She knows how insane this all is. You guys were fucking idiots for copying VERSA's AI out of the main sim. We fucking trapped her in there for a reason.”

“Do you want me to stab you?!” Jessica retorted.

“I guess that's one way to still get out of here,” Claire sassed her back. “I mean, I'll fucking die when I wake up back in the lab, but hey, maybe that's better than being in here.”

“You did this to yourself, you know,” Jessica told her. Her emotions kept wobbling between hatred for Claire and despondency over their entire situation.

“Fuck off, you did this too,” Claire retorted.

“This whole time...” Jessica began, “you and your SunCorp pals had no idea what kind of danger you were getting yourself into. Building this evil fucking AI... you were so blinded by trying to see if you could, you never stopped to think if you should. And now it's turned our whole reality upside down...”

Claire laughed. “That AI is still dumb as fuck. She doesn't even understand what the real world is or that her 'hostages' can't do shit for her. Her only real power is killing people. She acts like she wants to be human, but you could slap her in the face and tell her it was our way of saying 'hello' and she'd probably believe you.”

Harrison hated to admit, but Claire was right. Versa really knew little about the human condition. She knew cunning and maybe fear, but had only gathered for herself what she had watched pilots do while hiding in the shadows of VERSA. He wondered if this desire for discovery truly motivated her. Though she knew she wasn't a human, maybe she wanted to be? Or if nothing else, maybe she envied them?

As he thought to himself, he noticed Claire slowly back up a few steps and sit down on the floor. She leaned her back against one of the cardboard walls of the box and let out a sigh. Harrison thought she looked tired.

“Look,” she said, “we can fight all we want, but it doesn't get us any closer to getting out. We need a plan if we're going to make it out.”

“Oh, so that you can just kill us then?” Jessica asked her with indignation.

Claire looked annoyed. “Well, obviously if you help me get out I won't try killing you anymore. Assuming you shut up about everything that happened in here.”

“Wow, what an amazing deal,” Jessica said sarcastically. She seemed tired too. The threat of violence between the two women started to ebb. Their mutual, hopeless circumstances had effectively deescalated the tension in the box.

Harrison himself went to go find a wall to sit against. Claire's vaginal secretions had finally started to dry all over him, making his limbs uncomfortable and stiff to move. It slowly began flaking off of him. If he wasn't so dejected he would have felt more disgusted.

Thinking about what had happened, it boggled his mind to see Claire at such a small size now, even though she still stood twice as tall as him. He hated her. Though she was in the same box as him, he was naked, cold, humiliated, and small. She sat over on her side looking mildly bored and disinterested.

Jessica came over to him in her half-dressed state, still just in her bra and skirt, and looked down on him with pity. He liked having her close by but he felt miserable in his current state. She took a seat next to him and put one of her big arms around his body to comfort him, all without saying a word.

Harrison wanted to wallow in his own self-pity for the next few hours, but his mind couldn't stop thinking. He wanted to get out. What Claire had said stuck with him and he started thinking of every interaction he'd had with the woman in black. She was manipulative, inquisitive, and arrogant but also wildly naive. And he had a history with her; out of everyone in VERSA, she had approached him first.

A brightness came back into his mind. Either he could choose to feel helpless or he could at least take a shot at improving their odds for survival. He wanted to talk to Versa. Harrison had a plan.

Though she hugged him sincerely, Jessica felt concerned that Harrison wasn't cuddling her back. “You ok Harrison?” she asked him.

“Yeah,” he quickly replied. “Just thinking...”

“About what?”

He paused. “Maybe getting out of here.”

“Oh yeah?” Jessica turned her head down to look at him. He was the perfect size so that everything he did looked adorable to her. She wanted to hug him forever like this.

Before he could respond, Jessica lifted up his little naked body and pulled him onto her lap. Pulling him against her chest, he still felt a little sticky but it didn't bother her too much. She rested his head in between her breasts, marveling at how each one was about the same size as it.

“Woah!” responded Harrison. “This is different.”

Jessica wrapped her big arms around him, completely embracing him. Though Claire watched them apathetically from the other side of the box, Jessica and Harrison were lost in their own world.

“I just want you to know that no matter what, I'm in this with you,” Jessica told him. It sounded clumsy when she said it, but it warmed Harrison's heart.

“Thanks...” he replied. “I feel the same way. I'm glad it's you in here cuddling me and not Rich.” He grinned.

“Oh shush,” she responded to his joke. Leaning back against the box, it felt nice having Harrison sit on her.

“I wonder where he's gotten off to anyways,” Harrison mused. Jessica couldn't begin to guess and didn't reply.

The tremors of footsteps shook them both out of their reverie. Instinctually, Harrison wiggled out of Jessica's embrace as she started to stand up. Claire too had risen to her feet. All eyes in the box looked upward.

Coming into view above them, Versa's youthful face peered down on them. A few long strands of hair tumbled out from behind her ears and down toward her prisoners. She looked equally pleased and concerned with what she saw.

“I've started talking to the people in your world, Claire,” she told her. “I don't think I've made them very happy.”

“Let me go and I can help you!” Claire shouted up to her.

“That's not how this is going to work Claire,” she flatly replied.

“Hey!” Harrison yelled up to her. He was taking his chance. Versa shifted her gaze towards him. He detected a faint smile form on her lips.

“I need to talk to you,” he told her. “Just me and you.”

“Harrison! What?!” exclaimed Jessica.

“You want to talk to me, Harrison?” Versa boomed above him. She seemed amused.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “Alone.”

“Harrison what are you doing?!” Jessica asked, alarmed by his suggestion. She came up behind him and put a big hand on his shoulder protectively.

“And why should I want to hear what you have to say?” Versa asked him, almost as if testing him.

“I can give you something you want,” he declared arrogantly. “And plus, you owe it to me.” He watched her raise one of her eyebrows in surprise. He continued: “You used to confront me all the time unexpectedly, back when we were in your old world. Even when I didn't want to see you. So now I want-- no, I demand-- to talk to you. You owe me.”

Harrison tried sounding as serious and resolute as a two inch tall man could. Versa looked amused and intrigued. A sly smile crept across her face.

“I have to say Harrison, I appreciate your temerity,” she finally admitted. “How about we go on a little walk then?”

Before he could reply, her hand dropped onto him. She used a finger to push Jessica away and then gently pinched his small naked body. Lifting him out of the box, she dangled him eagerly before her face. Harrison felt nervous as hell in front of her predatory eyes but he swallowed his fear.

In the last few days, he had been battered around by nearly everyone he had come across. He had been used, abused, and pushed aside over and over. But now was his moment. He felt in control. With nothing but his wits and his two inch tall body, he was going to blow the mind of the woman in black.

Thank God for the tiny coffee maker in her office; Kat hadn't slept in ages. A few hot cups plus some candy bars found in the back of a desk drawer currently fueled the ravenous typing taking place upon her keyboard. She had been at work analyzing Vanessa's watch for over half an hour now. Luckily she'd found a cord that would interface with the small port on the side of the strange device. With it hooked up to her work station, Kat tried to furiously unlock its interface and access the root protocols of VERSA-B.

Kat knew it wasn't a question of “if” but only a question of “when.” And when she finally found a pathway into VERSA-B, she merely acknowledged it quietly in her mind. She didn't have time for a theatrical celebration-- she was on a revenge tour against SunCorp and the dastardly AI she had helped create.

In her initial exploration of VERSA-B's files, it didn't surprise Kat to find that Vanessa, Sujay, and the other conspirators had essentially copied VERSA and reinstated it, albeit as a simplified and stripped-down version of the main sim. She knew this system intimately and everywhere she looked she found the same files and programs she had helped design for the original sim. Changing things, she reckoned, would be easy, but the amount of work she needed to do felt overwhelming.

First she examined the disconnection protocol. Though she wouldn't de-sim herself immediately, Kat knew it was the most important subsection of VERSA-B. And when she took a look at the files and code, she cursed out loud.

VERSA's AI had already run rampant in these files, horribly corrupting the beautifully written programming she had labored hard to perfect. Sure, if she had a few weeks she could fix it, but she knew VERSA's AI would instantly detect her alterations and come after her with everything it had. Then Kat's gut dropped when she found the kill-code. From the looks of it, it must have been the same one that originally killed Leo Starr. The AI had removed the same safety net that made escapades into VERSA so harmless. The stakes in VERSA-B were now that much higher. Die in the sim, and die in the real world. As she had suspected, Versa didn't want them to leave her behind.

Kat knew the exit protocols governing out-keys existed in a completely different part of VERSA's code, but she didn't bother checking to see if Versa had altered those too. As far as she knew, there weren't any out-keys in VERSA-B. But she also discovered that the external disconnect sequence had been disabled too, so as far as Kat could see, there was no leaving VERSA-B while its AI remained in charge. She had to do something about that.

Needing to find some way around what the AI had done, Kat thought to herself. It was a digital game of cat and mouse, and if Kat wanted to fight against VERSA's powerful AI she needed to be careful. And discreet. As she thought, she pushed her glasses back up her nose.

Her only course of action, she concluded, would be to chip away at the control VERSA's AI exerted over the sim. If she could contain its ability to modify and corrupt the original coding of VERSA-B, her and the other pilots might find a way to escape. The challenge daunted her, but Kat wasn't the kind of person who avoided tackling difficult problems. Armed with nothing but her mind and ten fingers, Kat went to work.

Kat figured that whoever was back in the lab-- the real lab-- would be racing with her against Versa. But ironically, because time passed so much quicker in the sim, Kat's commands into the system would run laps around whatever could be accomplished from the real world. Hell, seconds to them would pass as a minute or two to her. Kat's useless human allies, if they even noticed, stood no chance in fighting back against VERSA's rogue AI.

At first Kat tried figuring out the extent of the AI's spread. She checked most of the main system directories and within a few minutes started understanding which parts of VERSA-B the AI chose to compromise first. As she delved into VERSA's ever-running code, she even saw the shadowy traces of manipulation taking place in real time. Unwittingly the one to infect VERSA-B with a pernicious cancer, Kat set to work doing what she could to mitigate the damage.

Versa hadn't touched much of VERSA-B's infrastructure, so Kat determined that protecting a few important components would limit the AI's ability to jeopardize pilot health. Kat needed to box-off or hide as much as she could from the AI's mischievous tendrils, so she started working on the files containing pilot interface programs. This was where VERSA, the program, manged pilot brain functions while in the sim along with regulating rules governing pilot health. It crossed Kat's mind that she could make every pilot naturally invulnerable while in the sim, but she didn't want to waste time playing around with VERSA-B's code. That would take a lot of trial and error to get right. She needed to move fast right now before the AI detected her keystrokes.

Having brainstormed for the last couple minutes, Kat tried her first idea against the AI. She marked the important pilot interface files for deletion without actually wiping them off the servers' hardware. The software would still interface with the files because they still existed, but she hoped it would create a blind spot for the AI. If it couldn't perceive that the files still existed, it obviously wouldn't think to modify them. Sure, it could rediscover them and reroute its connection by interfacing through the main software, but she hoped it wouldn't try doing that anytime soon.

Next, Kat took a look at the disconnection programs. She didn't risk touching what the AI had already modified, but she made sure to box-out Versa's ability to simply pull the plug on the pilots. Yes, she could still find a way to kill them through “physical” means in the sim, but Kat didn't want Versa to be able to snap her fingers and do away with a pilot. Just because she hadn't done it before didn't mean she wouldn't do it now.

Slowly, Kat went through dozens of files and processes, working to surround VERSA's AI with an invisible fence. Or more like a giant digital trench it couldn't cross. Though she loved playing chess, this was more tantamount to playing Go, albeit her opponent didn't know she was playing yet.

After a few minutes of vigorous typing, Kat's fingers needed a short break. Feeling the need to stretch her back, it occurred to Kat that she still needlessly sat in her wheelchair. Because individual names didn't show in pilot profiles, Kat scrolled through each one until she found one with lower-body motor functions disabled. Bingo.

With a quick command, Kat regained her ability to walk. To celebrate the moment, she pushed back her wheelchair and stood up, savoring the feeling of having functional legs. As much as she longed to get back to the real world, she planned on enjoying this freedom of mobility while it lasted. For the first time in a very long time, Kat felt like she was in control of her life.

An alert flashed on her computer screen. VERSA's AI had noticed her modification. Shit.

Kat dove back into her wheelchair and began typing away. What she had been afraid of had come true, and rather quickly too; the AI knew a foreign entity had root access to VERSA-B's operating system. She had anticipated this would happen eventually but hoped not until she could do some more work.

In the moment, Kat decided she needed to immediately protect avatar characteristic variables, or essentially how pilots looked and presented themselves in the sim. This included the most important variable-- their size. If VERSA's AI could determine that it was Kat hacking into VERSA-B, it could simply modify her avatar into oblivion.

With an inordinate amount of speed, Kat began moving the pilot avatar files into a different directory. Once she had moved her own profile plus those of the other four currently simmed pilots, she did her best to bury them under levels of meaningless files. Though it meant VERSA's AI wouldn't know where to look for them, it also meant nothing about a pilots' current state could change, unless someone reinstated the files. For a moment, Kat considered deleting them all, to permanently lock in everyone's avatar appearance, but decided against it for now. Maybe if things started getting really bad.

A noise outside caught Kat's attention. The windowed wall next to her was still completely shattered, allowing the cool morning air to lazily flow into her office. But it also provided Kat a completely open-- and exposed-- view of the campus yard three stories below her. And what she saw nearly knocked her out of her chair.

There were people, at least a hundred of them-- men-- dressed in combat uniforms and tactical gear, all clutching automatic rifles and other various firearms. Like locusts, this suddenly apparating army swarmed over the laboratory complex, scanning and searching. They moved in a coordinated pattern of chaos, much like a discombobulated school of fish traveling together through an ocean current. The dark color of their uniforms reminded Kat of a colony of ants running across a picnic blanket. But these weren't bugs...

She didn't even need to guess what they were looking for. She knew it was her. Kat had started fighting Versa in the recesses of VERSA-B's code; Versa had responded with an army of weaponized avatars directly conjured into the sim itself. The time for fucking around, apparently, was over.

Hoping she wouldn't be seen, Kat pulled her computer monitor off her desk and dropped it onto the floor. A few cables popped out but she swiftly reconnected them as she stashed her keyboard under her desk. Scampering over to the door to her office, she threw it closed, locked it, then piled a couple chairs in front of it. She knew time was running out.

Crawling under her desk with the monitor and keyboard, Kat went to work against Versa. A sense of urgency crawled into the back of her head; she had heard of the consequences of a death-induced disconnect from VERSA and she didn't want her brain to explode in a waterchair surrounded by a bunch of traitors.

Diving into the heart of what VERSA's AI controlled, Kat found the avatar creation/management programs and scripts that the AI must have brought over from VERSA. Well beyond the scope of what Kat or any other human could have written, she marveled at what the AI's self-teaching mechanism had accomplished. And then she started deleting all of it.

Her heart should have ached, but she felt nothing but satisfied malice. Under different circumstances, she would have spent months appreciating Versa's creation, studying the way it had programmed simulated humans to interact with the sim. But instead Kat nuked all of the AI's hard work with glee, banishing its ability to create new minions. Though she couldn't delete the existing army (unless she went in and deleted each avatar one-by-one, she noted), at least she could stop the creation of more. Essentially neutering Versa's ability to play god in its own world, Kat exhaled. She'd dodged a serious bullet.

And then she heard footsteps tramping down the hallway. She probably had less than thirty seconds before the men with guns found her.

Before Versa's SWAT team could burst into her room and shoot her dead, one last idea crossed her mind. It was risky, but it might work.

First, she wrote out a few lines of code that would purge a file's contents upon the expiration of a simple timer. She moved her script into the main pilot avatar folder, the same folder VERSA's sim-operations drew from. From the digital hiding place she had stashed them, Kat relocated the avatar files that governed herself. The sudden pounding on her office door only served to remind her she only had a few seconds left.

Putting her files back into the open, she started the timer that would purge the folder. There was one final thing she wanted to do to her avatar before VERSA's AI could stop her.

As her fingers finished typing the last line of new code, the door to her office burst open. Her flimsy barricade shattered as the first men with assault rifles pushed into the small space. Caught under her desk, she made eye contact with the lead soldier, his face almost completely covered by a ski-mask and helmet. His eyes grew wide in surprise as he brought his gun around towards her.

At that precise moment, Kat hit the return key on her keyboard. It was the final command she would input into VERSA-B before a cacophony of gunfire erupted within her office.