Zodiac v1.01: Quality Control

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Viridian
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Joined: Wed Apr 15, 2009 10:03 am

Zodiac v1.01: Quality Control

Postby Viridian » Tue Nov 01, 2016 4:09 pm

Zodiac v1.01: Quality Control
By Viridian

Ada’s heart thumped relentlessly. Her body was covered in sweat despite the cold night air. Her blouse was so ripped up that she was practically wearing strips of cloth over her bra. Her skirt, now a few flaps of denim, now barely covered her crotch, revealing her bare legs and boots. The rain drizzled, forming puddles where she sat. She had to keep moving. She checked that her pistol was fully loaded. Just one more magazine.

She needed to find shelter. Maybe not a safe house – the warmth, food and supplies would have been welcome, but she knew that the most dangerous threat was not the monsters, but other people. That’s what zombie survival guides taught. Stay away from supermarkets and gun stores. They attract people. People can’t be trusted.

She moved quickly but stealthily, following the alleys and walls when she could, ducking into corners and scanning the streets, keeping her hands relaxed but ready. She didn’t need to engage the zombies that were mindless walking the streets. She didn’t need that kind of attention. She heard gunshots somewhere, a few blocks away. Someone was desperate. Noise attracted the monsters. This was her chance to make a move. She dashed across the street, slipped through the apartment doors and climbed the stairs. She had to make sure it was clear before setting up camp. At least she could gain a vantage point from the higher floors. She approached the darkened hallway and leaned against the wall, pointing her gun down the narrow space. She could hear something in the next room. She made sure her safety was off.

A hand suddenly pierced the wall beside her head and grabbed her around the neck. Another hand burst through and held her torso. She was dragged through the crumbling wall and hurled into the room, falling over a coffee table and dropping her gun. The beast leapt onto her. She delivered a perfectly-timed kick that knocked it aside. She reached for the gun, but the beast got to her first, pulling at her torn clothes. She allowed the top and bra to snap off, lunging for the gun, twisting around and firing several shots at the dark shape. She kept on pulling the trigger. The beast collapsed. Her gun was empty.

She crawled away, unarmed and half-naked. As she reached the hallway, she was pinned down by something. A boot. She sensed the barrel of a gun pointed at her head. She had drawn attention. “What do we have here?” a deep voice asked.

She turned around, displaying her bare breasts at the survivor. The rain and her heavy breathing accentuated her ample chest, and the rogue survivor liked what he was seeing. He helped Ada up. There was a long way to go, but she was sure that he would receive her gratitude.

* * *

Felix sat at his workstation. He had been sick for the week and the emails had piled up. It would’ve been a lot worse, but Ada was a capable assistant. He had never worked with anyone like her – professional, and powerful, but focused on the product. What made her unique, however, was her willingness to get the dirty work done herself. Ada entered the lab, smiled, and placed the earpiece on the desk.

“How was it?” Felix asked.

“It was pretty hot,” she replied. She excused herself and made for the women’s bathroom.

Short, brutal, honest. That was Ada. That was what the company needed. It had been a huge risk. Everything. The research and development. The product testing. The technology. The market. They had dared to break into a market that hadn’t yet existed. Sure, there was Google Glass and Oculus Rift, but this was something completely mind-blowing – and literally, in some cases. Felix looked at the giant promo poster displayed in the lab – a reminder of their corporate goal. Zodiac: Live Among The Stars. Explore the space inside your mind. The marketers captured the galactic scale of their project and tapped into the popular imagination to launch their product. And it was a success. He picked up Ada’s earpiece. Billions had been spent to create this. The metallic, futuristic-looking earpiece was, on its own, a bit of colourful moulded plastic with a circuit-board. What made it unbelievable was what it connected to.

Virtual reality. It had be touted as the next big thing for decades, but no technology ever came close to achieving it. The Zodiac did. No fragile overlays or fake objects. The Zodiac was placed over the ear, transmitting electronic signals that put the user into a state similar to REM sleep. The Zodiac then played the user’s choice of program, creating the environment and scenario directly into the subconscious and allowing the user to experience it like a lucid dream.

And it worked. The first programs were, appropriately, space exploration simulators. Then the company launched more products, and eventually began outsourcing development to a select number of entertainment companies, seeking to break into the gaming market, and that was what brought in the profit. No controller needed. Live the game. The Zodiac had its place in every household.

But what really got the Zodiac into the target niche was a clever move from Felix. It was a bold proposal, and management had every right to ignore the idea. But, someone up there had good business sense. His suggestion had a historical basis: trends in technology were dictated not by the gaming or entertainment industry, but by the pornography industry. That was the case with VHS tapes, and the internet. Sooner or later, the adult entertainment market would begin looking at new virtual reality technologies to deliver new experiences, and the Zodiac was the perfect device with its proven capabilities and unparalleled immersion.

Rather than wait until some independent coder created the first app, Felix pushed the company to begin their own R&D. At first the board was reluctant to openly develop adult products, but Felix suggested creating a development branch that was not directly promoted by Zodiac, but worked directly with product engineers to facilitate faster development. This branch, codenamed “Blackhole”, was led by Felix with the goal of creating apps for the adult entertainment market.

That’s where Ada came in. She was on the design and development team at Zodiac and applied for the lead development role at Blackhole. A young genius, only just entering her 30’s, Ada was different from other members of the Blackhole team. Not least of all: she was the only female. She understood that while the market was mostly males, she knew that there was a virtually untapped market for products aimed at women. Sexually repressed and unwilling to admit it, women would find solace in using the Zodiac for “personal” experiences. As Ada put bluntly: tap into female fantasies and the company will triple their revenue.

Ada made sure that everything created by Blackhole was good enough. Men were easy to please. Show some tits, and the experience is complete. Women needed something more engaging. More emotion. More action. Something that they would never experience in real life. It had to be sexy. Ada liked sexy. She was already a looker in real life – black shoulder-length hair, smooth Asian skin and cute glasses – but she could live out her imagination as someone else inside the Zodiac. And if she couldn’t do that, the program was put back into the development cycle until it met her standards.

Ada returned from the bathroom, freshened up and with a guilty glint in her eye. Putting it aside, the two team members sat at the centre desk and walked through the evaluation forms. Ada noted everything down. “Environment design was bland, but well executed. No glitches experienced. Gunplay was fun. Felt honestly terrifying. Sex appeal was great. A bit more development on the characters and you’ve got something.” Ada signed off her sheet. “Women love this sort of thing. Believe me.”

“Getting stripped by zombies?”

“No. The whole experience. Being chased. Finding people you can’t quite trust. That’s the sexy part.”

Felix made an exaggerated shrug. “Beats me. That’s why you’re the expert.” Felix looked through the timelines on his spreadsheet. “We’re a little behind schedule. Feel like another test?”

Normally doing continuous testing was not recommended – the technology wasn’t understood well enough to understand the effects of prolonged use. Time was a different matter when inside the Zodiac, but devices were hard-coded to wake the user after a maximum of one hour. “What’s this one about?” Ada asked, picking up her Zodiac earpiece. Felix uploaded the data into the device from his workstation.

“You’ll love this one. It’s an undercover cop thing.”

“Was never into it,” Ada replied. “But I’m sure there’s something more interesting than snooping around.”

“You’ll see,” said Felix. “Enjoy.”

* * *

The scenario was one of the instant-action ones, which Ada loved. As much as plot and complexity were important in hitting the right buttons, using the Zodiac was like a game – sometimes you just wanted to get straight to the cool bits. She was an undercover cop – one who had already been caught. She was suspended from the ceiling by a chain with her wrists tied together. She was wearing a very low-cut black evening gown that covered very little, completely revealing her sides and legs. She was braless, and soon to be pantyless too. One of the thugs was sliding her thong down her legs. He tossed it aside and began to nuzzle into her crotch, sending her into a spasm of uncontrolled pleasure.

This was more scripted than usual. She recognised a prompt that told her to struggle against the ropes. She could feel the knots loosen, but she was fighting against the intensity down below. Though she wanted to enjoy the danger a bit more, she was a bit too efficient at getting free and she fell onto her captor. She rolled to the side. The thug was already on top of her, but she responded to the reflex prompts on time, kicking him in the abdomen and toppling him head over heels. He came at her again, and she evaded. She was always a perfectionist and got a thrill from getting things right on the first attempt. Her movements were flawless, and after several passes, the bull-headed thug was out cold.

Ada had worked up some sweat, but she knew that this was only the beginning. The stage was designed well, with subtle hints in the background and walls that indicated which way to go. She had been captured in some kind of cave, and she could hear the sea close by. Maybe she was on an island. The passage led to a ladder, which she climbed. There was a sentry watching the hole, but he was relieving himself in the bushes. Ada scrambled, sticking close to the dark trees, and moved until she approached a small house with a light in the window. Sensing that this was where she was meant to go, she crept closer. She could see the shadows of two men inside. She stopped and listened.

“The drug should be taking effect,” one of them said. “If we can keep Harry from getting his hands on her, we’ll see what our guinea pig will do. From our previous tests, our increase dosage will feel like someone’s fucking her inside out. She’ll be desperate for some dick. Then she’ll be yours and mine.”

Then, right on cue, Ada doubled over.

“Unnnngh!”

She was barely able to stifle her moan. Her boobs felt sore, as if an invisible pair of hands were squeezing her nipples, sending her into a spasm of ecstasy. At the same time, her legs opened, revealing her swollen, dripping pussy. One hand went to her breast to massage it, the other slid right into her moist vagina. What had they done to her? She was insanely horny, and having her bits so easy to access made it unbearably tempting to push herself to a climax. But what if it didn’t end?

“Hey, hey!”

Shit, the sentry! Ada was barely able to keep steady on her feet. Using the cover of darkness, she slipped away again. The guard alerted the two men in the cabin. Ada slipped into the woods. Although she had a head start, her progress was impeded by her erratic spasms of pleasure. She couldn’t stop, not even for a moment of relief. She had to push on. Forgetting about stealth, she ran through the undergrowth.

Next moment, she couldn’t move her legs. She looked down to find them buried up to her thighs in thick, soft mud. She tried jerking her legs free, but they wouldn’t budge. The clearing quaked and she slipped deeper. No! Quicksand! She used her arms to pull one leg free, but it was no use. She was trapped and sinking quickly. Not only that, the sand was exciting her sensitive nerves, and with her crotch inches away from the approaching quicksand, she was on the edge again. This time, she couldn’t contain her arousal. She gritted her teeth and closed her eyes, and it still felt like she as screaming at the top of her lungs. This, of course, drew attention. Her three pursuers stood at the edge of the pit, watching her, strangely quiet. They were enjoying the show. It only got more intense when the mud shifted and she sank to her waist. The sudden drop overwhelmed her, and her body twisted back and forth, feeling the sand caress her pussy, teasing every inch of her skin. Her hands were out of control, pinching her nipples in a paradoxical manner, trying to ease the tension but only making herself more turned on. Then, when the quicksand claimed her breasts, she completely lost all semblance of control. Everything felt like it was trying to fuck her brains out. She orgasmed again and again and again. It just wouldn’t end.

It did end, eventually. She didn’t know how many times she orgasmed, but she woke up covered in sweat. In reality, she had also orgasmed numerous times. Her panties were soaked with her cum and she felt exhausted. The visions in the Zodiac had more than translated into the real world. Once she took a moment to regain her senses, she realised that the game wasn’t over. She had reached the one-hour lockout time. She took the earpiece off and returned to the office.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “I figured you were enjoying yourself, so I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“I was that loud?” Ada asked, blushing. She was a lively one, but she did have some modesty. They both expected this in their secretive work, so neither of them made a big fuss about these moments. “That was incredible. I loved the scenario. Getting chased around by the bad guys while wearing a skimpy dress – sexy. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has those fantasies. The sex drug – far out, that felt real. And the quicksand – who would’ve thought it was such as a big turn-on? I thought it would’ve been a buzzkill.”

“Quicksand?” Felix stopped writing. “Strange. The developer notes don’t mention quicksand in the scenario. Sounds a little niche to me, but I guess it makes sense. They must’ve left it out in the documentation.” Felix shut his workstation down. “Alright, let’s get some rest. We’ve got some more work to do tomorrow.”

* * *

Even after a cold shower, Ada still felt horny. She had been through so much in her Zodiac trial that she had missed out on feeling it in reality, and living alone without a partner, she needed satisfaction. Though she knew she shouldn’t spend too much time in the Zodiac, she needed something to relieve her tension. Her personal Zodiac was a commercial model, unlinked to the Blackhole Project, so she only had the publicly available applications. She picked one of her favourite relaxation scenarios: the tropical beach.

Being a family-orientated product, the Zodiac did not allow for nudity. The closest was a selection of skimpy outfits in certain areas, and app zones such as the beach were popular hubs for online interaction. It was the closest thing to actually being with someone in the virtual world, and the live translator allowed one to understand any user from around the world. Her public avatar was loosely based off her own appearance: glasses, long silky black hair, and a modest figure. She picked a thin flowery summer dress and a straw hat. The white loading zone transitioned into the exotic fantasy beach. She heard the birds first, and then the waves. Her eyes adjusted to the brightness of the virtual world. Thousands of people enjoyed these social hubs, though for intimacy the zones were limited to a few dozen in each instance. Ada sat by the bar, sipping on a drink and looking out at the expanse of sea and sand ahead of her. A man in a red aloha shirt smiled and sat next to her.

“Hello,” he said tentatively. He kept his smile, his avatar displaying its perfect white teeth. His face was mildly tanned, with a ragged brown beard. “Do you come here often?”

“You could say so,” Ada replied. The Zodiac system allowed users to scan others for profile information. Patrick S., from Chicago. The occupation fields were blank. The awkward silence suggested that Patrick was also scanning her profile. Strange how the Zodiac mimicked real life. It was a phenomenon that the developers had failed to break, and a large number of users preferred to remain as anonymous “lurkers”. Ada adjusted the straps on her dress, showing off as much cleavage as the program would allow in this area. She figured she might as well pique his interest the old-fashioned way. “Shall we go for a walk?”

“Of course, Ada,” Patrick replied, smiling again.

There was no intent behind this invitation. Most Zodiac users just wanted people to hang out with. The parameters of the Zodiac programs restricted any intimate contact, and the simulator did not process any of the physiological reactions to virtual stimuli. It wasn’t a dating tool (though that was in the development phase, according to internal gossip). So, it was just a gentle stroll down the beach. They followed a boardwalk down to the open sand, where they walked barefoot along the water’s edge.

“You’re a quiet one,” Ada said, noticing that Patrick had walked alongside her with no sign of starting conversation.

“I’m a little shy around women,” he replied.

“Pretty ones?” Ada asked, dropping a hint.

“Everyone.” Patrick gazed ahead. “I thought the Zodiac would help bring me closer to other people, but you know, it seems to drive me further away. It’s like…everyone’s already got people to hang out with, you know? Kind of like real life.”

Exactly like real life, Ada thought. But she was an employee of Zodiac, and she had to keep her opinions to herself.

“So why do you use the Zodiac?” Patrick asked.

“Oh, just seeing people, I guess.” Zodiac employees were discouraged from revealing their connection to the company. That was the kind of attention that you didn’t need.

“Must be fun, meeting people,” Patrick mused.

“To be honest,” Ada continued, “I spend most of my time in the solo experience.” The Zodiac had an “offline” mode for those who wanted to enjoy the apps without interacting with other people. Focus groups showed that despite the huge drive for multiplayer experiences, a large segment of the market didn’t want to use the Zodiac to connect with other people and wanted to treat it like a gaming console.

“But you’re in the public server,” Patrick replied, seemingly reading Ada’s pondering mind.

“I don’t know. Maybe I like being alone around other people. If that makes sense.”

“Oh. Like being a closet exhibitionist?”

“That’s a strange comparison, but…yes, in a way. How about you…”

Ada looked around. He was gone. This was a normal occurrence in the Zodiac. There were still connectivity issues, and users simply dropped from whatever area they were in. Or maybe it was Ada that had disconnected, leaving her in a solo instance. She glanced around at the procedurally generated beach – a marvel of programming that meant that no experiences were truly identical. She shrugged and wriggled her toes in the soft sand, watching her feet dig into the golden sediment. Then she noticed something odd.

She was naked.

She was alone, so her immediate embarrassment dissipated, replaced by confusion. Her intimate understanding of the Zodiac told her that nudity was not even meant to be an option. Avatar glitches normally reverted to a default clothing set, but here her clothes had completely vanished, as if she had chosen nudity. Her light brown nipples were firmly erect, and her shaven pussy lips were open for all to see, if any were watching. This encounter worried her.

Then she noticed something else. While she had been distracted with her sudden loss of clothing, she had been continually sinking into the sand. Now she was up to her knees. The beach app simulated a few things, but quicksand was NOT one of them. The feeling of the warm beach sand creeping up her bare thighs…actually felt relaxing, like a soft massage. A shudder ran through her body. She remembered her encounter with the quicksand in her Blackhole testing. She began to feel hot. Her fingers wandered towards her crotch. The sensation was too…real. She had been through this dilemma many times in her Blackhole hours. She wanted to pleasure herself, but she had to go through the testing checklists in the given time frame. Now, she had the freedom to enjoy the situation.

Sure, may as well.

Her pussy lips were moist and warm, allowing her fingers to slide in naturally, sending an immediate pulse of pure pleasure through her virtual body. She stroked herself, rocking her body back and forth as it was consumed by the moving sand, until it too joined in with her play, kissing her labia and caressing her buttocks. It was so sudden and alien, she jerked her hand free, gasping in virtual ecstasy. She had never orgasmed this quickly before. She sighed, allowing herself to sink to her hips. The sand continued to tickle her crotch, giving her another shudder of excitement. This was as a good as real life, she thought. But it wasn’t real. It was just another Blackhole app.

Wait, this wasn’t Blackhole. It was Zodiac. She was on her personal Zodiac connected to the public server. None of this was possible in Zodiac’s virtual world – not the nudity, and certainly not the masturbation. The quicksand gurgled around her waist. This wasn’t part of the beach app either.

That was enough glitches for one day. When her entire day job revolved around finding glitches, she really didn’t want to log more. She executed the quit command.

Nothing happened.

The quicksand sucked her down to her ribs.

She tried again, but with the same result. She waited, then tried again. Sometimes, lag would prevent a user from leaving the Zodiac immediately, but this was typically no more than ten seconds. However, it was not unknown for users to become unable to voluntarily leave their own virtual realm, in which case it was like being unable to wake from a dream. The fail-safe for these circumstances was an automatic lock-out that sent a signal to the user’s brain after 60 minutes had elapsed in real life so that they would wake. Unfortunately, like in dreams, time was warped in the Zodiac, so there was no way for a user to see how long they had actually been inside, though the time would never exceed the hard-coded one-hour. Users could configure alarms for shorter periods, but Ada had disabled these as a matter of convenience using her developer access – she had to spend longer periods in the Zodiac, so she didn’t need an alarm every 15 minutes. It was like hitting the snooze button over and over.

One final attempt at disconnecting failed. She sighed. She had to wait for the hour to run out, however long that was. Normally this would not be an unpleasant experience, but stuck in a solo instance on a secluded beach meant there was nothing much to do.

And there was the fact that she was trapped in quicksand.

The sand cupped her breasts like a living bra. She shuddered as it slowly inched over her mounds, oozing into her cleavage. The sand was beginning to get too intimate with her bosom, so she pushed down on the sand with her hands, lifting her chest free. Then her hands broke through the sand’s surface, and she slipped back down. Her breasts rested on the sand once more, being pushed up before, within seconds, they were consumed in unison. Her arms were pinned by her sides, and she could do nothing but watch her hard nipples pop under the surface. Soon, all that was left above the surface was her head and shoulders. That’s where she stopped. Unmoving, partly because she had reached a floating point, but also an innate fear of going under. The sand stopped moving, encasing her in its grip, keeping her there. She stayed that way for what felt like an eternity.

Then the lock-out signal kicked in.

* * *

“Thank the stars that’s over,” Felix sighed. “For now, at least.”

It was always tough to get their agenda across to the Zodiac managers. Of course, money was a driving factor – spend money to make money. But doing it covertly through the Blackhole project was a risk, one that could turn the publicly available Zodiac device into a banned product worldwide and plunge the company into ruin. Felix hadn’t quite figured out how to integrate the Blackhole products. His original model was an alternate portal separate from the main Zodiac server, so that the same device can be used to access Blackhole, but the Blackhole apps were isolated from Zodiac. This did not please the Zodiac management. They wanted to keep their product untainted, and any hint of adult material on Zodiac was an absolute no. But the potential revenue was too good to pass, and Felix had made his point: if they didn’t take the opportunity to establish themselves as the pioneer developer for adult content, someone else would take it from underneath them, and sweep the Zodiac market too.

Felix kept his thoughts to himself. Ada was napping in the passenger seat. Felix was used to her feeling fatigued – the testing sessions were long and she was the only woman on the team, so she had the extra load of playtesting for her entire demographic. Felix didn’t envy her. Today, however, felt different.

“Are you alright, Ada?” Felix asked as they returned to the Blackhole office. “You look really, really out of it. How about you take the rest of the day off? We can catch up on Monday.”

“Felix, have there been any bug reports on users being unable to log out?” Ada asked, ignoring his suggestion.

“Uh, just the usual. Pretty rare, mostly lag, and the lock-out kicks in. Why? Was there something in the previous product test?”

“No.” Ada drifted off, her silence unnerving even for Felix.

Ada collected the documentation for the apps they had lined up for testing. She’d get through at least one, maybe two before she had to clock off. But first, she wanted to check something. She took off her jacket and let her hair down. It had been a horrible morning. She had overslept and turned up nearly an hour late. She hadn’t had time to do her makeup or even find her bra. She had spent all morning in a stuffy jacket trying to stay awake. Now she tossed her jacket aside and undid the upper buttons on her blouse, allowing herself to feel relaxed and comfortable in the relative privacy of the test room. She attached the Zodiac earpiece and closed her eyes.

Jenny of the Jungle. Even the cheap knockoffs had found its way onto Zodiac and, by extension, Blackhole. But this was the sort of product that was bound to make money: cheap thrills, like a one-night stand. Ada had already reviewed the app and found it to be a cheesy, under-developed soft porn scenario, but she chose to return to the app to see if her suspicions were correct.

The scenario involved a plane crash. The protagonist of the game, Jenny, was your typical busty brunette who had to find a way to survive in the jungle, and the player was a man (or woman) who also survived the crash. It was more akin to a puzzle game or an item-finding game than a true adventure, with basic prompts to progress through the story. Being a Blackhole app, the player was able to interact with the environment and Jenny in other ways not appropriate for the public version already available on Zodiac.

Ada got her bearings and examined her own character, modelled loosely off her Zodiac avatar. Her clothes were tattered: her khaki blouse was shredded to the point where it barely covered her breasts, and her skirt barely existent. Ada actually liked this simple, if not overly used outfits. It fit the closet exhibitionist inside her. She was reclined in the co-pilot’s seat. Beside her was Jenny, who was just regaining consciousness. In the Zodiac version, she would have been wearing a khaki blouse and tight shorts. In the Blackhole version, she had lost most of her blouse, exposing her full, soft breasts. She was struggling with the seatbelt.

“Hey,” she called out. “Hey, find something to cut me out!”

The opening section of this game was a tutorial, designed to help new players orientate themselves with the environment and become used to the (soon to be) repetitive nature of finding the right item for the right purpose. She had been through this half a dozen times before. The item needed in this case was a survival knife, which was located in a knapsack in the back of the cabin. She retrieved it promptly. She paused as she stood over Jenny.

“Help!” she called out.

Ada placed the knife down and grabbed Jenny’s boobs. She squeezed the soft mounds, pinching hard at Jenny’s nipples.

“Help!” Jenny repeated.

The program was not designed for this and her responses were limited, but this was what they had in mind. The majority of the target audience were happy to enjoy this simple experience, something that could never be done in real life. It was part of Zodiac’s – and Blackhole’s – objective: to provide an environment where the impossible would be possible. After months of product testing, Ada began to wish that someone would be as rough with her as she was with Jenny. Whether that would be a Blackhole reality was something she had to wait and see.

Once she was done playing with the reactionless Jenny, she cut the straps, prompting Jenny’s next (cheesy) line. “We’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got a sinking feeling about this.”

They emerged from the broken fuselage and surveyed the area. The (now obvious) pun from Jenny was made even more obvious: the plane had crashed into a swamp. Being the clueless protagonist that the player had to rescue from peril, Jenny hopped onto the partially buried wing and walked over the soggy brown mud, making it several steps before stopping.

“Come on!” she called out, not noticing that her boots were disappearing into the mushy soil. She made a show of it, putting her hands on her hips and pouting – this particular version of Jenny not coded to react to her partial nakedness, resulting in her breasts jutting toward Ada. “What are you waiting for? We’ve got to move.” That was the cue. The player could see her slowly descending into the mud, her legs being swallowed by the slurping mire. “Oh no! It’s quicksand!” The cries and the struggling were tantalising enough, but now with her boobs jiggling around, it was as much eye candy as anyone could ask for. “Ugh, find a rope, quick!”

Ada sat on the wing and watched passively. She took her boots off and felt the rich-smelling earth ooze between her toes. She had been through this a dozen times before. It was a timed segment. The rope was a little harder to find, but the player had plenty of time to retrieve it and rescue the hapless woman, but Ada wasn’t here for that. She watched as Jenny struggled, sinking to her thighs, and then to her hips, repeating the same line over and over again. When she was up to her waist, her pleas changed. “Hurry! I’m getting too deep!” This was meant to be the prompt for the player to follow the prescribed series of actions. Instead, Ada stepped into the quicksand without the rope, walking over to Jenny. Each step made her sink deeper until she was also up to her crotch. “No!” Jenny called out. “We need the rope!”

The scenario was now locked into a game-over situation, where the player now had to wait out the last moments. This was the thrill that Ada really looked forward to. With the quicksand encircling their waists, she grabbed hold of Jenny and kissed her, forcing their bare chests to rub against each other. Jenny became passive, no longer screaming obvious cues. The quicksand reached their breasts, swallowing them in one gulp, leaving only their heads and shoulders exposed.

“Oh no, we’re going to die!” Jenny cried out. “What do we do?”

Ada flicked her hair back nonchalantly. “Execute log out command.”

The area faded to white, and Ada opened her eyes. She was once again reclined in her soft chair in the familiar Blackhole test room. The clock indicated that only fifteen minutes had passed.

There was a knock on the door, and Felix entered. He took one look at Ada and immediately swung the door shut again. “Sorry, did I disturb you?”

Ada’s movement while in the Zodiac had made her braless breasts fall out of her shirt. Ada quickly fixed her immodest appearance before Felix returned.

“I got a call from Germany,” he said. “We have a situation. One of the Zodiac testers, Helene, isn’t responding to exit commands.”

“Helene?” Ada raised her eyebrow quizzically. “I thought I was the only female tester.”

“Apparently the Zodiac EU branch had their own ideas and launched their own covert research project. Unfortunately, we’re so secret, they thought they were onto something new. Now they’ve made a mess of things. Blackhole has a rigorous quality control program, as you know. Zodiac EU doesn’t have that experience, and they’ve been testing programs from…dodgy sources. The temptation of big profits from the adult market was too much, it seems. Now one of their testers is locked in.”

‘Locked in’ was the ultimate fearmongering term the media – and product rivals – used to criticise Zodiac. The VR experience was too real. People thought it would replace sleep and cause psychological problems. The fantasy of being trapped inside the device and being unable to wake up was unfounded and publicly dismissed by the company. That was, however, the catalyst to the implementation of the one-hour lock-out time: to make sure that nothing like it could possibly happen.

“They disabled the lock-out,” said Felix, sensing Ada’s thoughts. “Yeah, it’s pretty stupid. I told you they had no clue what they were doing. When you’re testing something that should belong on the dark web, you’ve got to keep safeguards.”

“So what can we do?”

“Fortunately, unlike our test servers, the EU branch maintains an online link to their testers. Technically they’re all private, invisible instances, but we have administrator override. EU contacted the global branch who got in touch with me. They need our expertise to investigate. I’m connecting you to Helene’s instance. Do what you can. It’s not our fault, but we’re all part of Zodiac, and we all lose if this is a real problem.”

Ada attached the Zodiac back over her ear. “Then let’s fix this problem.”

* * *

Normally Ada received a design brief on the products she tested. However, as she had been thrown into this one as an emergency measure, she had no idea what she was getting into. It made her feel nervous and excited. It was an authentic adventure, and the setting did not disappoint. It wasn’t a cheesy jungle girl rip-off or a typical action/drama flick. The first thing that flashed into the simulation was a crack of lightning that made Ada’s hair stand up. Her hair and clothes were damp from the light rain. Ahead of her was an old track leading to an illuminated doorway. She ran towards the light, her eyes gradually adjusting enough to see that it was a large mansion. The path was flanked by gnarly branches, and she could have sworn they were reaching out to her. She swung the heavy door open and slipped inside before, with an ominous creak, the door slammed shut.

Ada could now make sense of the simulation. The interior of the mansion was dimly lit with lanterns, with certain rooms brighter than others. The whole interior was run-down, with cracked floorboards, cobwebs along the ceiling and flaking wallpaper. The smell was damp. In flickering light, Ada could see that she was wearing a tight figure-hugging sweater and a pleated miniskirt with tall socks and brown shoes, reminding her of a certain television character. If she was assessing the scenario, she would already be giving it ticks. It was genuinely spooky. There were no corny lines of dialogue, superficial tutorials or nonsensical button prompts. She was lost and alone in an empty mansion.

The lights drew her eyes to a large painting hanging in the hallway. Framed in gold, the painting depicted a middle-aged man with well-groomed hair and a stylish short moustache and beard. His eyes gazed emptily towards the sky with noble dignity. In his arms was a half-naked mistress; her hand reached for his crotch while his hands fondled her breasts. Various garments were tossed around her feet. The bottom of the frame showed only the words: “The Count”. Ada was mesmerised by the details of the painting, especially in how the nobleman was groping the young lady. She could almost feel the Count’s presence in the hallway, looking over her shoulder, his cold breath freezing her body, wisps of air brushing over her neck, invisible fingers creeping over her chest, and another draft lifting up her skirt. Ada snapped out her trance and pulled her skirt back down. Another icy draft blew through the hallway. This one felt different. Then Ada realised that her panties had somehow vanished, and her skirt only just barely covered her now-exposed crotch. Despite the cold, she shivered with a warm excitement. She didn’t know what to expect next.

A warm light flickered through one of the doorways, revealing an open fireplace. It guided her into the drawing room, away from the chilly hallway. She stood by the fire and felt the blood return to her hands and legs. Finding an old soft chair behind her, she sat down. Without warning, something grabbed at her ankles. Her wrists were also held down fast. She screamed. She was pinned down by skinny, pale hands that seemed to have appeared from the chair itself. She tried to wriggle free, but the bony fingers clamped down on her limbs while more hands joined in. One held her head in place. Two more hands appeared around her torso, and in perfect unison, grabbed her breasts. Caught off guard, she moaned and squirmed; the ghostly hands groping relentless at her ample bosom. Outside of her view, another hand emerged between her legs.

The sudden intrusion made her yell. She had no chance to resist. The phantom hands had every part of her body covered - grasping, caressing, fondling. She felt the fingers stroke her clitoris, increasing the intensity as it inserted itself into her pussy, curling its fingertip and stroking her in just the right spot. She arched her back in ecstasy and tried to break free, but more hands grabbed her thighs to hold her down, forcing her hips back into the chair, and the fingers thrust deeper – two, then three. It was getting too much. She had never felt anything like this before, not in any VR scenario. She expected sexual arousal, but this was so real it felt genuinely horrifying, and that fear made the excitement even more intense. She wanted to orgasm, but the hands knew what they were doing. They kept on stopping when she was about to cum, keeping her on the edge, working on another part of her body to keep her stimulated but not enough to satisfying her craving urges.

A moment of silence followed, and everything became relaxed. The hand that was fingering her pussy retreated, and all other hands disappeared, leaving Ada gasping and covered in sweat. Before she could finish the job herself, she heard someone walking behind her.

“Are you all right?”

Ada turned to find a tall woman. Her golden hair was tied back in ponytail. She was completely naked, showing no inhibitions about her perfect round breasts being on full display, nor her cleanly shaven crotch. Then again, in the VR world, you technically aren’t naked. Any embarrassment stemmed from the user’s subconscious. That was a study that would happen one day.

“I’m okay,” Ada replied, standing up shakily. “Just caught off guard. Helene, is it?”

“How did you know my name?”

Ada realised that Helene wasn’t expecting anyone to intrude on her simulation. “Oh, I’m not an NPC. My name is Ada. I’m with the Zodiac team.”

Awkward silence. Helene was obviously scanning Ada’s profile. “Oh, I see. That’s unusual. I didn’t think Erik would have found someone else to join me.”

“Actually, I’m here to find out what was happening with you. You’ve been logged into the Zodiac for…six hours.”

“Six?!” Helene gasped. “But…how? I…I mean, I was just about to…oh no.” She sighed. “I guess I was enjoying myself too much. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know that the lock-out was needed so…”

“It’s okay, I’ve done this sort of thing before. We just need to execute the exit command.”

Helene shook her head. “Actually, that doesn’t work in this simulation.”

“What?” Ada stared at Helene. “All Blackh- I mean, Zodiac apps have an inbuilt function to leave at any time.”

“Not this one. We let the developer switch the function off for certain parts of the game so that the player would get a true erotic horror experience. It’s more exciting when you’re really trapped, you know? Though, I guess that kind of backfired.”

“What is this place anyway?”

“Ah, you haven’t seen the brief? Well, it’s a really cool idea. I mean, if you’re into this kind of thing. It’s a haunted house, and it’s occupied by the ghost of the Count. The backstory is that he was a hypersexual maniac who captured women and used them to satisfy his sexual fantasies. The townspeople took up arms and sealed him in his mansion. Now he comes to prey on hapless young women who stumble upon this house, teasing them, drawing them deeper into his mansion, stripping them of their clothes and their dignity.”

“Uh huh,” Ada nodded. “That’s…actually pretty sexy. So, how do we get out?”

“Ah, that’s easy. Anything inside the house is a dead zone, so to leave the game, you have to go outside. It’s pretty simple.”

“That sounds like a terrible design idea,” Ada sighed. Before she could continue, she felt a cold hand reached for her buttocks. At the same time, Helene’s breasts were grabbed by invisible hands. The women shrieked and slapped away at the wisps of smoke.

“Right, that reminds me,” Helene said, looking at the ominous shapes in the smoke. “The spirits in the house are driven by flesh and pleasure. The more naked you are, and the more turned on you are, the harder they go for you. I guess I learned that the hard way. That might be why I’ve been trapped here without realising it. Say, could I borrow your sweater? I know you’re not wearing much, but I can at least ward off these horny hands if I can cover up with something.”

Ada nodded and began to take off her sweater. In fact, she had nothing on underneath, and her breasts jiggled free. Just as she was about to hand it over, a sharp wind blew through the room, and a smoky hand grabbed the sweater and threw it into the fire.

“No!” Ada yelled, now covering her chest. “What do we do?”

“Run!” Helene yelled.

Ada dashed out and tried to head down the hallway, but Helene pulled her back. “No! The vines will trap you.” Ada looked at the door to see it covered in roots and vines, stretching out towards her. Helene had been through nearly every part of the mansion in her time here and new the hazards well. Groping hands, living ropes, and other things that she’d rather not mention. The mansion was a maze, but Helene seemed to know her way. The floorboards creaked and the paintings seemed to watch them as they hurried through the mansion. They reached the rear-most room of the mansion, with only a door between them and the back garden. Then, all doors around them slammed shut and clicked. They were trapped. The only way out was through the back door, but the lock turned out to be a puzzle.

“Damn,” Helene muttered, frustrated at how close they were. “I’m terrible at these puzzles.”

Ada, however, was more than used to them. She took one glance and recognise that it was a magic square-type puzzle, with the numbers on the mechanism having to add up to the same figure. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll get this open.”

“I’m not sure if we have a few minutes,” Helene replied. She pointed towards a vent in the corner of the room. It had been slowly filling the room with a mysterious, smoky gas, which was beginning to form a fog along the floor. “I’ve seen that before. It’s the Count’s O-gas. It has aphrodisiac qualities that make you aroused until you can’t stop masturbating. I was nearly trapped in a room with it.”

“Well is there something we can do about it?” Ada asked. “I’m not going to get this puzzle done if I’m fingering myself.”

“I need your skirt. We could block the vent, but that won’t seal it completely.”

“That’s all I’ve got left,” Ada replied, slipping it off.

Now they were both naked. She returned to the puzzle while Helene worked on the vent. This would normally be a routine activity, but she was beginning to feel light-headed. Her legs felt shaky, and her nipples felt more sensitive than usual. The wisps of O-gas surrounded her, brushing over her skin and into her nostrils. She held her breath, hoping that she could slow the effects. Helene stood back, watching helplessly as Ada fumbled with the lock. Helene’s hands now had a mind of their own, passing over her breasts and crotch, massaging herself. Helene put up a token resistance, but the room was nearly full of O-gas and she was succumbing to its mind-altering stimulation. “Ada, hurry…”

“Nearly…” Ada cursed. The numbers just weren’t lining up. She reset the puzzle and tried again. This time she had to get it. The blocks clicked into place; her focus allowing her to turn the wheels with rote precision, even with the gas turning her thoughts away. Just a few more turns and…

“Oh!”

Helene’s hands were clasped over Ada’s breasts. The sudden proximity and delicate touch shocked Ada out of her concentration, and her resistance to the gas dissipated. She took hold of Helene’s wrists, but Helene’s gentle caresses made her body shiver with unwanted arousal. Weakly, Ada pulled herself back to the lock, ignoring Helene’s fondling. Each turn now felt torturous, as Helene’s hands worked at her breasts, then tracing a finger down her stomach towards her pussy, finding the gap between her legs damp and inviting. Ada closed her eyes and moaned as Helene skipped her fingers inside, stroking her with calm, deliberate motions. Helene’s breasts were pressed against Ada’s back, where she was moving up and down, stimulating herself from Ada’s warm body. The fabric in the vent had since fallen out, and the gas was nearly up to their necks. Ada could no longer see the mechanism. Helene turned Ada around and pushed her against the door, forcing herself onto her. She locked her lips over Ada’s and explored her mouth with her tongue. Ada pushed back meekly, but her energy was spent in blocking out the creeping arousal. Now Helene had control, and her hands felt around her waist towards her buttons, finding a way into her crack. Helene’s hand brushed against something.

Click.

Helene’s movements accidentally turned the mechanism’s wheel and, by fortune, completed the puzzle Ada had been working on. The door swung open and the gas quickly escaped. The cold outdoor air wakened their senses, and the two women immediately slipped through the door into the garden.

“We did it!” Helene yelled. “Thank god. I could’ve been trapped in there for days if you hadn’t turned up.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to turn off your default settings again,” Ada replied, rubbing her sore breasts. “Now let’s get out of here before we have second thoughts.”

“Right. Execute exit command.”

Helene’s avatar stood still. Ada watched. “Uh, you still there?”

“Huh? I…I am? I mean…wait, am I lagging?”

There was a momentary flash of white. This was not uncommon and most users would dismiss it as a glitch. Ada, however, had seen it before, and she felt something very familiar – a sinking feeling.

“Helene! Our feet!”

Helene looked down. The garden soil had transformed into a spongy bog, and they were up their knees. “What? Mud? Quick- oh my god, quicksand? But, we’re outside the mansion! How…”

“Helene, I can’t explain why, but we can’t get out while we’re stuck in this pit.” Ada tried to hold still, but the unstable soil made it impossible to keep her balance. The women arched their bodies back and forth trying to find equilibrium, but each movement only drove them deeper. “Ugh, we’ve got to get out!”

“You’ve been in this before?” Helene asked. “This is a glitch? How did you get out?”

“I waited until the lock-out time activated,” Ada replied. “But your lock-out time has been disabled.” Ada looked around. She was closer to the edge of the bog. If she acted now, she could work her way out. “Don’t move, I have an idea.”

“Easy for you to say,” Helene said, watching helpless as she sank to her thighs.

Ada took one big step towards the edge. Her leg plunged all the way in. Before she was pulled in, she threw herself forward, landing on her belly and chest. The mud gurgled and bubbled, recoiling from her sudden movement, before quickly moulding around her naked body. She shivered. The O-gas had not fully worn off, and the quicksand’s slimy texture sent her erogenous zones into pleasure overdrive. He gritted her teeth and crawled forward. She was aiming for the nearby tree root, but each movement cost her more of her body. The wriggling and squirming forced the mud to caresses her breasts, and each time she paused for breath, her lower body settled deeper, and the mud oozed around her butt cheeks. It was a slow and arduous process, fighting with both her body and mind (at least, the virtual part of them). Her body shook she doubled over, the orgasm hitting her with unexpected intensity. She began to slip back into the bog, but her hand reached the root and slid free of the gulping mud.

“Ada!” Helene shouted. She was already up to her waist.

Ada was already onto it. She rolled onto solid ground and got up onto her feet. She had already spied a bunch of vines hanging off the tree and pulled one free. She tossed one end to Helene. Helene had not yet sunk to the point where struggling was difficult, and within a few minutes her hips were above the surface and she was able to begin trudging through the mud. Helene looked at her rescuer, but her eyes widened.

Before she could call out, Ada was swept off her feet. The vines had come alive and had already wrapped themselves around her feet. Driven by the desperate spirit of the Count, the vines attacked her naked body. She tried to brush them aside, but the vines divided into smaller branches, encircling her body before beginning the squeeze. Her arm was pinned against her chest, leaving her unable to break free. Her struggles only made the vines tighten. If things weren’t already bad, one of the vines opened up, releasing a glowing orange pollen that made her eyes blurry. She couldn’t avoid inhaling the dust, and the effects were made clear. Her body began to heat up, and she felt herself losing control as the possessed vines ravaged her.

Before the vines could do any worse, she gritted her teeth and pushed herself off the ground. This only made her more entangled, but she managed to roll back into the bog, landing on her back. This was part of her plan.

“Grab the vines!” she yelled between gasps. “Climb out!”

“But…”

“Just do it!”

More vines reached for Ada, pulling her into the bog. Her legs and hips disappeared, and her breasts following moments later. She fought to keep her head and shoulders up. She could see Helene reluctantly pulling herself towards the edge of the garden bog, using the vines as her lifeline. Just as Ada’s shoulders disappeared, Helene pulled herself free. Her feet came out with a loud slurp.

“Helene!” Ada yelled, spitting out mud. “Exit command!”

“What about you?” Helene yelled back.

“DO IT!”

The mud covered Ada’s ears. She couldn’t hear Helene’s last words. In the moment before the mud covered her face, she saw Helene’s avatar flicker. She was out. Ada took her last breath and her head went under. Everything became black.

* * *

Felix sat at his desk, smiling. He had a good reason to be happy. The Blackhole Project was finally getting recognition from the Zodiac management. It was still a covert operation within the business, but test markets had borne exceptional results. It was still not publicly available, but services were beginning to connect to Zodiac servers, and more people were beginning to experience a whole new universe with the Zodiac. Not only that, the debacle of the Zodiac EU team actually served to highlight the importance of proper research and testing, and there was no better qualified manager than Felix. Zodiac redirected its assets from the Zodiac EU test team to his US-based operation, and now he gained a new tester. He met her at the airport, inducted her first with the official Zodiac team at the main office, and then gave her the clearance to work in the Blackhole branch.

“I’m excited to work with you, Helene,” he said. “I hear you’ve been deeply immersed in our systems.”

“It’s my pleasure, really,” Helene replied with a blush. They both knew that she was testing. Felix handpicked her for the job after the observations and notes he took.

Felix pulled the car into the parking lot and escorted Helene up to the sixth floor. “The company apartments are here. Unlike your operation in Germany, our company works under stricter policies, so we keep all our employees here. You’re well looked after, I assure you. Plus, you’ll be sharing a room with a very experience team member. I believe you’ve met before.”

The door swung open. She was in a bathrobe, but felt no shame about being immodest to her new guest and roommate.

“Helene,” she said, extending her hand.

“Ada,” Helene replied, accepting the gesture.

“I’ll leave you two to get re-acquainted,” Felix said, smiling again. He put the bags down and returned to the office. The women sat down and chattered over a cup of tea.

“We haven’t spoken since the incident,” Helene started, breaking the ice. “I guess I should thank you. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel meeting you in person after all that.”

“It’s just business,” Ada shrugged. “I’ve been through months of it. You get the hang of it pretty quickly. I knew that my lock-out time was about to activate, so I was safe from the quicksand. I was hoping you would figure out my plan. It was quite a thrill, really. I’ve never seen anything like the mansion. The European devs really have some talent.”

“One thing bothers me though,” Helene continued. “We were outside the mansion in a clear zone. Why couldn’t I log out of Zodiac?”

Ada sighed. She opened her laptop and showed her an email – not from Felix, but from the top: Zodiac internal security. “That wasn’t the first time I’ve come across it. Now it’s a known issue. It’s a glitch, and a potentially serious one. Our job for the next few months is to dig deeper and find out what’s causing it.” She smiled and raised her cup. “Here’s to my new project partner.”

Helene tapped her cup against Ada’s. “Live among the stars.”
Viridian @ deviantART: http://viridianqs.deviantart.com/

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Conspiracy101
Posts: 723
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Re: Zodiac v1.01: Quality Control

Postby Conspiracy101 » Wed Nov 02, 2016 3:20 pm

That was definitely something else. Your description throughout the story made me think a lot about Assassins Creed rather than a simple virtual reality type experience. Well done!
"Some times fear has the appropriate response"

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DJlurker
Posts: 1468
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Re: Zodiac v1.01: Quality Control

Postby DJlurker » Wed Nov 02, 2016 8:41 pm

Nicely written story, but... being immersed that deep in virtual reality, being unable to escape back into actual reality... it kinda spooks me, 'cause it's almost like shades of The Matrix... :cry: :?

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quagmire_uk
Posts: 1441
Joined: Wed Apr 15, 2009 11:04 am

Re: Zodiac v1.01: Quality Control

Postby quagmire_uk » Thu Nov 03, 2016 2:28 am

Wow, excellent story! Sexy and thrilling. :)

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nachtjaeger
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Re: Zodiac v1.01: Quality Control

Postby nachtjaeger » Mon Nov 07, 2016 4:53 am

Absolutely excellent! Really swept me up into the story, and the character. :D
This space for rent- advertise your product or service here!

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PM2K
Always Remembered
Posts: 10386
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Location: Eastern Ontario

Re: Zodiac v1.01: Quality Control

Postby PM2K » Tue Nov 08, 2016 5:56 am

Very cool indeed. :D

klib21
Posts: 271
Joined: Thu Apr 16, 2009 5:50 am

Re: Zodiac v1.01: Quality Control

Postby klib21 » Fri Nov 18, 2016 9:46 am

Love this world, I suggest a Zodiac v1.02!

Rusty Shackleford
Posts: 166
Joined: Wed Jul 08, 2009 3:06 am

Re: Zodiac v1.01: Quality Control

Postby Rusty Shackleford » Thu Dec 22, 2016 4:28 am

Very clever and entertaining story. That VR world is excellent for setting up all sorts of scenarios. Nice.

hawkmaster91
Posts: 60
Joined: Wed May 04, 2011 5:39 am

Re: Zodiac v1.01: Quality Control

Postby hawkmaster91 » Tue Jul 18, 2017 4:50 am

Very erotic, this turned me on the most of any of the stories I have read

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kerri zhong
Posts: 32
Joined: Tue Aug 22, 2017 6:38 am

Re: Zodiac v1.01: Quality Control

Postby kerri zhong » Tue Dec 19, 2017 2:51 am

how bout a sequel?


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