WARNING SYSTEM BREACH screamed in silent pixels around curved LCD walls of the command enclosure. Tsugumi glanced back and forth in panic, frantically entering commands on her virtual cat's paw keyboard to trace the source of the attack. While she was distracted reading the diagnostics in front of her, the wall of panels behind her dissolved into static. The white noise swarmed into an indistinct humanoid shape, and then the humanoid shape focused into a more distinct five-and-a-half-foot-tall hourglass figure. The hourglass became three-dimensional as it slowly stepped out from the screen.
Ada's holographic avatar moseyed up behind Tsugumi's tail. Her scanlined simulated figure was wearing a bodysuit similar to Tsugumi's along with a feedback helmet that covered most of her face. Her long brown hair was her only easily identifying feature, hanging down her back in long digital waves. She could craft her avatar to look however she liked, but most of the time she just comfortable appearing as herself. She was safely stationed in her own hub somewhere deep in the halls of GHQ and broadcasting her immaterial virtual being into Tsugumi's hub.
Tsugumi glimpsed over her shoulder when she sensed something was wrong. The holographic projection of Ada reached out her hands and began to feel the back and the sides of Tsugumi's head. The Antibodies had sent her to deal with this rebel hacker with her usual style of underhanded tactics, and she just needed to find a good spot where she could interface. Tsugumi remained frozen in suspense and uncertainty the whole time, only gathering her wits to shout things like "Who are you?", "What are you doing?", and "Don't touch that!" Ada ignored all the protests as her transparent fingers tinkered through Tsugumi's raven hair.
No, she wouldn't be able to get her signal through Tsugumi's ears. Too much electrical interference from that silly-looking headset. Maybe she could get in a little lower…
Ada followed the hidden zipper all the way down the back of Tsugumi's bodysuit, coyly sliding the end of her ghostly index finger over the dark curves and ridges. The conductive motion-tracking material was sealed like a vacuum to Tsugumi's figure, so Ada couldn't find an easy way into the spinal column, either. That just left one other possibility.
Ada's transparent hologram crouched to the base of the chamber so she was eye level with the back of Tsugumi's hips. Large round hills with smooth gray LED-laced peaks filled her line of vision from where she was looking. She moved out from behind Tsugumi's lower back so she could get a more complete view of Tsugumi's side. She tightened the glove on her holographic left hand and started performing a blind search for Tsugumi's access terminals through the thin spandex seam that traveled between her legs.
This poor kitty had a bug that could only be cured with a suppository.
Ada clenched her fingers into a fist and swung her arm in an uppercut that phased into Tsugumi's body. She stuck her arm almost to her elbow into Tsugumi's organic neural net and kept it there, reaching up into Tsugumi's lower anatomy like glowing vapor while never disturbing a single thread on her bodysuit. Tsugumi showed her fangs and gasped with a sharp "Guh!" as she was overwhelmed by the numb and snowy feeling suddenly permeating through her pelvis. Ada's hologram muttered a small "Heheheh" and pet Tsugumi's tailbone with her right hand.
The doctor was in.
Ada shifted her eyes away from Tsugumi's hip as she adjusted her left elbow, navigating the inner mainframe by touch alone. She didn't have much trouble locating Tsugumi's two track balls loaded with genetic data. She found these mildly interesting, but they weren't the main resources she was going after.
Ada moved her fist a little more and felt herself phasing into the core terminal. Her fingers flexed rapidly and typed sequences on the membrane touchpad formed by Tsugumi's inner anatomy. Ada pressed her ear against the gray spandex creases covering her enemy's waist and listened closely to her tiny squeaks, her high-pitched grunts, and her confused growls. The layout and the particular features of the U(ter)I were always a little bit different in each female agent Ada dealt with, but the basic concepts were universal and could work on almost anyone.
Tsugumi's central processing unit was no match for someone who knew more than just a thing or two about running an exploit through a root directory. She was being reprogrammed from the bottom up and from the inside out. The small noises she made as Ada's fingers constantly wiggled and manipulated worked like a progress bar that told the invading operator how her upload was coming along. The panels circling around the chamber changed to a panoramic collage of Tsugumi's front, sides, and rear all gazing near her waistline while her vital statistics went berserk.
Tsugumi flinched in her digital bodysuit every time another electrical signal rocked up from her gut and spread to her brain. In her nineteen years of interacting with holographic constructs, she could confidently say she had never been this up close and personal with one. The sensations sparking through her head made it impossible for her to keep her focus. The magnified views of her own body surrounding her left her disoriented and a little bit nauseous. She stared up at the blank ceiling and squeezed her eyes shut to stay semi-lucid.
Ada finished the last sequence of finger taps for cracking Tsugumi's mind and tweaking her personality to behave the way the Antibodies wanted. Tsugumi abruptly stopped her flinching and stood still with her head hanging forward and her long black hair covering her face. She blinked and slowly curved her lips into a devious smile as her senses rebooted. Her eyes pulsed with a soft digital green glow. She swished her rear submissively to one side while half of Ada's holographic arm was still stuck somewhere up her thighs. She verified her revisions were complete by glimpsing down from her shoulder and quietly saying "Thanks, doc."
Ada drew her left fist out of Tsugumi's lower junction and shook the dull fuzzy feeling out of her forearm. She rose up from her crouched position and playfully scratched Tsugumi behind the pointed plastic ears on her headset with the same holographic arm that had invaded her.
Tsugumi silently went back to working on her virtual paw pad as if nothing odd had happened. Ada's projection turned away and flattened back into the screen panels behind Tsugumi, disappearing into a cloud of white noise as her voice chuckled with electrical distortion.
Tsugumi stirred out of her dreams in the middle of the night as if she were on a timer. She sat on the edge of her bed rubbing her eyes and brushing her long raven hair with her fingers so it looked relatively tidy. She stood up on her bare feet and leaned forward as she straightened her short black camisole around her hips. She stretched the shimmering material as far as it could go so it covered her better. She was like an artist putting on her smock, or a butcher adjusting her apron.
She slinked toward her bedroom dresser with light but rigid footsteps as if she were guided by some automated logic. Her hands rummaged through the top drawer, digging around the underwear, the socks, the stockings, and the other assorted girly things. When her hands finally surfaced again, she was holding a loaded Glock with a silencer.
Tsugumi turned like a tank turret and cheerfully walked out of her darkened room.
Shu woke up to blinding white light as someone slowly opened the apartment door. Sitting up and squinting, he saw a short black silhouette standing in the bright doorway. The apparition steadily came closer, closer, and closer toward his bed, until he could see it was Tsugumi looking worse for wear.
Her expression was devilish and demented. Splotches of blood covered her naked legs, arms, and the sides of her face, with more dark stains hiding in the shimmering black ripples of her negligee. She was aiming the rectangular end of a gun barrel between his eyes. It almost looked comical in her small programmer's hands, but now there was nothing to laugh about. She'd been going around making sure the other members of Funeral Parlor lived up to their name.
As Tsugumi leaned closer to him to steady her aim, he could see the sinister digital glow haunting her eyes.
"Sorry, Shu," she said with an eerie cheerful grin. "I have to take us offline."
Her index fingers squeezed the trigger together. Shu's vision became a black screen of death.
Author's note: I wrote a Tsugumi fanfic that's more like another variation on one of my Rin fanfics. That's kinda weird.
