Chapter 17: Ransomware

“Finally.” said Delta. “Took you long enough to get here.”

Her voice was feminine, but had a distinctly ‘big’ volume to it. Martin could tell she wanted to sound like herself while conveying power at the same time. It made some sense given that she seemed to be around 200ft tall.

He paid the woman little mind at the moment though, instead looking around to get a hold on his environment: nothing. It was a big and empty realm. The two of them floated in a white void. He couldn’t move around; it was as though he was stuck in zero-g.

“What’s going on? Who are you?” asked Martin.

Delta took her time for a moment. Much as her impatient self hated it, she had to appear as though she held all the cards: that she didn’t need his cooperation. Before Martin, the taut tan tummy lightly moved with her idle breaths twice before she spoke. He used the pause to scan his eyes over the stranger’s body.

“My name’s Delta, and technically we’re in your realm, though I made some changes to help concentrate.”

She went with her real name. Risky, but a power-play. She knew she was on some file somewhere in some government database. Delta didn’t change her body either sans the circuit-patterned hair and yellow-eyes she had in Paradise.

‘Could this woman be responsible for all this? Could she have my wife?’, thought Martin.

“Concentrate? Concentrate on what? And where’s Molly?”, he asked.

“Concentrate on programming a new headclip firmware update of course. Your lovely wife was keeping me company all the while.”

Martin shook his head. “Firmware update, what are you even talking about? Also show me my wife, now!”

Delta wagged her finger on high. “Now then, I don’t think you’re in the position to be giving demands.”

Martin shouted back. “Just cause you’ve found a way to shrink me doesn’t mean you can order me or anyone else-”

Delta interrupted.

“No you’re not shrunk, I’m just big. Hard to tell in a void, but it matters. There’s a distinct difference. If you’re a centiinch tall, my toe could be just as deadly as a particularly large bug. If you’re into vulnerability that’s nice for you, but I’d rather not be on the same threat level as a common home-beetle. Here, let me change the realm back real quick.”

The giant woman’s wrinkled palm moved underneath Martin’s dangling legs. A moment later and the realm reset. A blue sky appeared over head and green grass made a new ground. Another instant later and gravity returned. He fell to the soft warm surface of her palm, and felt a quake as Delta’s bare feet ceased their hovering to thud against the earth. He looked over the edge of her hand and saw a quaint and familiar cabin positioned precariously close to her toes.

This was indeed the joint-realm for him and his wife. She wasn’t lying about Molly. He stood up in her hand.

“Ok ok, you’re big, whatever. Show me my wife. If you hurt her I-”

“Very nice realm you have here Martin.”

Delta moved her foot above the cabin. The structure groaned as her toes pressed at the roof. She moved her foot forward and back to massage her sole against the roof of little virtual home.

“Show me her!” yelled Martin.

Delta waited. She kept pressing at the cabin; he didn’t know Molly wasn’t in there. She waited for that word.

“Please, just let me know she’s ok.”

There it was. Delta pressed down with her foot and flattened the virtual building to splinters. Martin seemed a bit horrified till she spoke.

“Molly’s really a lovely host you know? She made an excellent meal~”

Delta brought Martin close to her stomach. She cupped her palm around him while the other hand’s finger pressed the side of his head to her skin. Among the occasional gurgle, he heard faint screams and fell over backwards in shock.

“W-what? What did you do to her? How did-”

“Ah, you wanted to see her right? Well, take a look~”

Delta willed the area around her tummy to grow translucent. Before Martin's eyes that light-brown skin of the woman turned almost entirely invisible. He saw right through it to the inside of the giant woman’s stomach. Inside that fleshy chamber, coated in acid and covered with burns, was his wife in agony. The wrinkled walls rippled in a churn that knocked her over into a puddle of digestive juices. She let out another screech.

“Molly!”

Martin rushed to Delta’s translucent skin and pounded on it. She giggled.

“Hey, stop that. It tickles. Besides, your little ‘window’ there is only one way.” said the circuit-haired woman. “Not sure if she can hear you too well. Of course, she probably hears me at least~”

Martin was in shock, and Delta took the moment to speak.

“Not sure how freaky you and your wife’s interests are, but speaking on myself I just adore vore. Eating someone alive is just, mmf~ The power aspects of it: to be above people so much as to treat them like food. That’s not even to mention the sadistic appeals. I swallowed her at this size. She was just small enough to be gulped down with ease. You’re wife’s quite the fighter Martin, she squirmed all the way down my throat.”

Delta ran a finger down the front of her neck for emphasis, then continued.

“She kept at it even with a bit of peristalsis broke her kneecaps. Just like that, my throat’s automatic functions--something I don’t even think about--shattered her bones. And of course, few things are more painful than melting alive I imagine. All those sizzling acids searing flesh: simply delightful. Isn’t that right, Molly?”

Delta quickly swayed her hips side to side. The blonde woman visible in her stomach bounced around in the tumult. The motion shook some more drops of digestive juices from the slimy walls onto her head and on the front of her mostly dissolved blouse.

Martin cried out. “Stop! Stop this at once you monster.”

Delta drummed her fingers against her stomach. Inside, Molly looked terrified at the noise. “Monster, that’s another good point. All that undulating flesh: the noises and the fluids. The slimy mucus lining of my throat and gut. I certainly look like one on the inside.

“You horrid little woman, let her out this-”

Delta pressed at Martin’s left leg with her thumb, crushing it. “Ah-ah-ah, don’t call me ‘little’. It can be a bit of a turn off. You feel that, though? That pain? I’ve found a way to make that happen here in Paradise. It should be exactly like the real thing.”

Delta fixed his injury with a thought, and the pain ceased.

“So you’re responsible for all this? Did you find some kind of exploit? Is that how you’ve done all this?”, said Martin.

“Correct. I have complete control over Paradise code. That’s how I sent that message to you--pretending to be your wife. I thought about having her send the message herself, but I was worried you had some sort of code phrases for being in danger. I just tortured her till she gave up your ‘pet names’ for one another and spoofed the sender.”

Martin moved back to Delta’s stomach. His wife was on her last legs in there. She crawled towards the stomach wall and pressed herself against that part of the organ. He watched as her body went limp.

Then, a moment later, she appeared good as new back in Delta’s stomach. As Molly’s whimpers began again, the giant hacker spoke.

“You really shouldn’t have taken so long to answer. I’ve digested her a fair number of times by now. I increased the time-dilation factor as much as I could. An hour out there is 32 in here. You might’ve prevented some future suffering if you arrived earlier.”

She saw the horror build on Martin’s face, and continued speaking.

“Every 2 minutes you wasted was a little over an hour of me waiting with your wife simmering in my gut.”

“Stop this. Stop this and let her go!”, said Martin.

“I’ll treat her a bit better once you help me, Martin.” said Delta.

“What is it you want?”

“Remember that headclip firmware update I was talking about? I want you to distribute it. The Minister of Technology is able to do so unilaterally via a console at the Newer York HQ: I read so in an archive. Major changes should be run by the Council of Representatives first, but that’s not in any way enforced.”

“And what exactly is the contents of this update?” said Martin.

“Does it matter? You should do anything to help the love of your life.”

Before Martin could reply his body fell over in a lurch. Delta rose her hand up to her face. He saw those yellow irised eyes of her staring down at him. Her breath enveloped him with every word.

“You do love her right? I saw your gaze when you first arrived here. While your eyes trailed along my immense form, you hastily glanced past my tits and crotch. You felt guilty ogling another woman. That’s real and true love right there. So, why let her suffer? She’s been through so much pain already. Listen~”

Delta inhaled through her nose then opened her mouth wide to blast him with a humid and lusty gale. The blast of hot air carried more than just the usual, albeit giant, sound. Martin heard in that wind countless screams layered onto each other: pleas, whimpers. They were sounds of suffering, and the voice was unmistakably his wife’s.

Delta slowly closed her lips and gave them a quick lick. She shivered. “Mmm, I saved the data from all the time Molly and I have spent together thus far. That was all of it, layered together. Do you really want her to go through all that some more?”

Martin was livid. Veins pulsed at his neck. He shouted, tie disheveled.

“You won’t get away with this! They’ll kill you. A strike team will-”

Delta clacked her tongue. “Martin, you know how Paradise works. A consciousness isn’t copied on entry, it’s expanded while the body is suppressed.”

That was true.

“I don’t need my body anymore. I’ve discovered a way to store my consciousness in Paradise permanently. Even if you kill me, I’ll still exist here.”

That was a lie, for now at least. It’s why she needed her firmware update distributed.

Martin paused. She could tell he believed it. Delta wore the masks of deceit well. She fooled him just like those two idiots at the convenience store the other real-world day.

He perked up a bit. “The Anniversary shut down! It’s in two days. Paradise will be turned off. We’ll just fix the changes. You’ll be logged out, captured.”

Delta lowered him slowly back towards her stomach. He turned from her bosom. Once back at her ‘stomach-window’, she spoke again.

“You got me there, but that’s two real world days from now. With 32 hours in here being 1 out there, that means I’ll have about 64 days of time in Paradise. That’s more than enough time to break your wife’s mind: to break everyone’s mind.”

“Everyone? What do you mean?”

“I’ll show you. Come on~”

Delta warped with Martin back into the Nexus. She stood in a destroyed and flattened Central Square. The city was still a mess from earlier. He looked down by her feet to all the people frozen and unable to move.

“Don’t you want to help them too, Martin?”, she said. She raised a foot over one of the frozen people and squished him down flat. Martin turned away from the sight, but he still heard the sounds of cracking bones and a crushed body.

The black-haired man turned back when it was over, and squinted to see the faces of fear on the frozen forms ahead and beneath Delta. The circuit-haired woman shot those masses a smile before warping back to the Canmore joint realm.

She held Martin to her stomach with the three of them back in private.

“There could always be an earlier shutdown. People know something’s amiss.”, he said.

Delta rolled her eyes. “We both know any shutdown needs majority approval from the Council of Representatives. That’s impossible with over half of them stuck in here.”

Martin knew she was right about the law there. The shutdown terminal didn’t activate without prior approval. He shook his head side to side.

“No, I can’t. I can’t give you more control. I don’t know what’s in that update, but it can’t be good for the United State of Humanity. I have a civic duty as a Minister.”

Delta did a mock pout. “Awww~” she tapped her stomach again. By now Molly was thoroughly soaked in acids. Her dress had begun to tore; the blonde’s skin was red. Once again, her bunned hair slipped free and scraggled by her neck, soaked wet with slime and juices.

“Did you hear that Molly? Martin’s too busy at work to help you? Guess you have to *suffer*”

Martin gasped as he saw tentacles latch out from the walls of Delta’s stomach. They ensnared his wife and pulled her against the fleshy walls. Mucus splashed as one of the appendages slipped down his wife’s throat. He saw her thrash in intense pain.

“Stop!” yelled Martin.

“Tragically I can’t control your wife’s senses, or alter her mind. Bodies, however, are in my purview. I don’t need to set her pain levels to max when I can just whip up a special enzyme to do so.”

His wife started to get cocooned up against Delta’s stomach wall. The mucus of the gut pooled over the blonde to encase her in a transparent shell of sorts. It filled with a yellow liquid, and he saw his wife’s skin begin to blister and crack beneath it. She couldn’t even scream with the appendage down her throat.

Delta continued. “A human could go their entire lives without experiencing even a fraction of that level of pain. I’m just a woman who wants to live out my fantasies. She doesn’t need to spend two whole months like this.”

Delta’s tone went stern.

“But, I’ll stop at nothing to get what I want, do you understand? You can bring her relief Martin. Just promise to distribute my custom firmware.”

Martin screamed. “Alright! Alright I’ll do it, but you have to let her out of there.”

Delta smirked.

“No.”

“What?!? Then why would I help you?”

“I’ll keep her like this till the deed’s done. If you knew she was safe in here, you might change your mind and decide to wait things out. If you know she’s in a constant state of intense pain, you’ll act fast. You’ll need a timer to keep you focused. Keep you away from doubts.”

“You evil woman.” said Martin. She seemed to enjoy that and let out some curt pleased utterance.

“Mmf, you know I’m right though.”, she said.

Delta smirked, then continued. “So, accept my update and I’ll let you back out. I’ll know when it’s done and you and your wife can hold each other again.”

“Do you promise?”, said Martin.

“Sure.”, said Delta.

Martin got a prompt on his Holodisplay. He realized he no longer had a special status in Paradise, but his mind was far from the exploit details. He saw the prompt for a file transfer and hit accept. Delta noticed and spoke.

“The firmware code is encrypted, and will self-decrypt when stuck in the distribution terminal. I don’t expect errors, but if something goes wrong you can always log back in to chat with me.” said Delta. She smirked.

The transfer completed, and Martin saw Molly disappear from view as Delta willed her flesh back to its normal opaque-self. She slipped her palm from beneath Martin, and he floated instead of falling. She crouched down to his level.

“You better act fast Martin. Every minute out there is a long time in here.”

The minister grit his teeth. She winked and logged him out of Paradise.

Delta exhaled. If everything went as expected, then all she had to do now was wait.