Chapter Text
Cyber-Maid
Part I ‑ "A Fresh Start"
By: Jesse Racine AKA Samson
Original Date Written: February 3, 2021
Aria stepped out of the hovering taxicab with a shiver, drawing her long, brown leather trench coat tighter around herself, cinching the belt as the door behind her slid itself back down with a pneumatic hiss of finality. Her phone, perhaps the last thing of material value she still possessed, buzzed in her pocket as the robotic taxi driver automatically charged her for the ride, siphoning off some of what little funds she still held to her name. As he pulled away, the cold breeze picked up, pulling itself down the neon-lit street in a brief wind tunnel, billowing her hair about her shoulders and whipping around the lapels of her coat. She looked up, trying to ignore the overpowering scents of burnt rubber, the spiced food cooked at various street stalls, and all the alcohol-saturated vomit from the nearby alleyways.
Here it was: Harknall Tower, home of the titular Harknall family, her new place of employment.
When Aria had left Utopia-12 and said good riddance to that polluted hellhole, she’d only been able to take the essentials: her daughter Pearl, what little universal credits she still had in her bank account, enough clothes to keep from becoming an unwilling nudist, and enough food to prevent immediate starvation. Of course, she’d been naïve: if the corporate propaganda had lied about U-12, why would it have been any more honest about the true state of Yanice? What opportunities there’d been, if there truly had ever been any to speak of, had already long been sucked dry by invading tech giants and the now nouveau riche who’d capitalized on the initial gold rush. She couldn’t have been more desperate; she didn’t want to resort to violence, but if it meant keeping her teenaged daughter from starving, or worse, resorting to one of many awful ways to get money on this planet, Aria would do just about anything.
And so, she’d answered the Harknall family’s open advertisement for members of their cleaning service. Even captains of industry needed their toilets scrubbed, Aria supposed.
Her glossy black wedges clicking the concrete sidewalk with every step, she made her way towards the corporate megatower, only one of many behemoths spearing into the sky above the rippling cityscape of Yanice Center, capital of it’s namesake. The rain that’d halted during her ride over left the pitted concrete filled with puddles, each neon-reflecting mirror a risk of soggy shoes. The light pollution was absurd – far as she knew, it was pushing nine at night, but the competitive marketing kept the neon lit and the streets aglow alongside them, the world so bright it may as well have been day but for the gloomier pockets in corners and crevices.
The guards at the megatower’s entrance, the few who were actually physically standing there as opposed to monitoring surveillance from the safety of their security offices, had all been keeping their eyes on her from the moment the taxi had pulled up. Aria kept one hand on the lapels of her trench coat, trying to help secure it shut against the wind, while the other ran through her hair, trying to clear her bangs and sweep some locks behind her ears on the way over. While she was still around fifteen to twenty feet out from the enormous front entrance to the tower lobby, all lit up through the innumerable glass panels from the bright internal confines, one of the rifle-toting guards called out “Business hours are over, lady, turn back around and leave the premises.”
Aria halted, eyes locked on the man’s gun before rising to his uniform emblem, then finally his helmet’s faceplate. She was more than a little wary of his colours: a neat, black bodysuit plated over the chest, back, and extremities with navy blue polymer, the blue spliced through with fainter stripes of gray. She’d never personally dealt with anybody in Werner before, but she knew from reputation that testing anybody in the PMC wasn’t a bright idea. Although she naturally wanted to see the man when she called back to him, she wasn’t about to risk raising her hand to shield her eyes from the lobby lights for a better look at him; raise her arm just a little too quickly, he might make a move.
Instead, she felt her face itch with nervous adrenaline as she answered “Sorry, I’m here for a job orientation! I’m not too late, am I? I was scheduled for eight-thirty, but there was a mix-up with the cab driver-”
“Business hours are six-thirty AM to nine PM, it’s now nine-oh-seven. Sorry, lady,” he answered, firmly yet with rather overt boredom.
Aria paused for a second, mouth hanging open. Damn it, she was later than she thought. She couldn’t just turn back around, though, this job might’ve been one of the only chances she’d get. Still, she’d have to be careful; a bored PMC was a PMC waiting for an excuse. “Please,” she eventually blurted out, “just ask them if they’ll see me anyway, I can’t tell you how much I need this job! The Harknalls want cleaners and I’m a hard worker!”
The speaker for the four guards was clearly already getting a little impatient. “Lady, I don’t know you from Eve, don’t make me bore the cops with a corporate trespassing call. Turn around and…”
The man trailed off, the way his posture subtly stiffened hard not to notice against the bright backdrop making a stark silhouette out of his body. After a couple seconds, he visibly relaxed, seemingly speaking to himself as he quietly said “…Yes, madam…Yes, it is…Yes, from the sounds of it…” There was a moment or two of silence, the other three guards slowly converging a little closer together, evidently spurred on by whatever was being spoken by the voice they could collectively hear. The posture of that first guard relaxed even further, the man even more at ease by whatever he’d heard. “Of course, madam. Right away.”
He gave Aria a wave closer, gesturing her on towards the doors. “Looks like you’re in luck,” he remarked, “they’re still interested in the interview. Head on through to the elevator, security will clear you for the right floor. They’re already expecting you.”
“Interview? I thought I’d already passed my interview,” Aria suggested, confusion tinged with hope.
“You passed the preliminary background check,” the guard quite curtly explained. “They still decide whether or not you get it after a face-to-face.”
Aria inwardly sighed, chest steadily rising before dropping. Of course, made sense. All the personal questions she’d answered online, they’d only been for clearance. Her eagerness had blinded her to that reality. Appropriately cleared to proceed, Aria continued approaching, feeling considerably more relaxed once two of the other three guards moved closer towards the grand steel and glass doors, passed their wrists before electronic readers set just next to them, and unlocked them on enough of a time delay for her to walk through. As she made for the double doors and watched them slide aside at upwards diagonals, she could feel every guard’s eyes on her, spotting the mouthpiece’s head turn to follow her in her peripheral vision. She glanced over, barely having time to spot the electronic green pinpricks underneath his helmet’s visor before she’d chosen not to risk antagonizing him, locking her eyes on the lobby ahead.
Walking through the monstrously big chamber was a surreal experience for Aria, fresh like she was from a couple years in the slums of U-12. The atrium was impossibly high, stretching maybe four or five stories above her head to the sloped glass panes freely beaming the lobby lights into the sky, while the railed walkways of four separate administrative levels loomed around the perimeter. The floors were a buffed white tiling, the walls were cut apart into contrasting sections of bone white and royal purple, and holographic screens played the company’s promotional loops on large swaths of the free real estate the walls presented.
Some of the loops were of affiliate companies and their respective products, but naturally most of it went to Harknall Solutions, advertising the company’s wide catalogue of recreational, medical, and military biomechanical technologies. The company had their own branded cyberware, too, of course: brain implants, cutting edge prosthetics, retina implants with in-vision facial recognition, detachable and interchangeable memory chips, you name it. Like the jingle went…If you’ve got a problem, tech or human, Harknall has your Solution.
Aria’s head tilted back further and further, the woman unable to keep her eyes from climbing the vast tower through the atrium canopy. Megatowers like these weren’t just opulent palaces for the often multi-trillionaire CEOs of these companies, of the Board Members and all their extended families, but upscale housing complexes for all the company workers, too, all the most valuable brains and muscles. They housed the research and development labs, the fabrication factories, the storage halls, the company healthcare providers and brand name stores, even the company water purification and food processing; everything that might be needed to be self-sufficient. It was part mall, part apartment building, and part self-sustained corporate economy, all overseen by Thomas Harknall and his wife, Jaquelyn.
If Aria were being honest, part of her excitement in getting the job involved the possibility, however faint, that one of these endless company-reserved apartments might be extended to even the lowliest of workers, but even just the paycheck would be enough. Some money, any money, was better than the nothing she had going on, right now. Looking around, she knew: if she got in with these guys, even as something as lowly as a personal maid, she’d be made. Everything in the lobby felt so still, though, as if the world were on a sterilized pause around her…Even though business hours were over, people still lived here, didn’t they?
She found it a little eery, truth be told, not seeing a single soul about the lobby…Not even a greeter, she noticed. As she passed the vacated receptionist’s desk and neared the set of elevator doors on the far side of the lobby, deciding the lobby must’ve been the most boring place in the building in order to explain the emptiness, she could hear one of the holograms along the wall, in a breathy female voice no less, call out a personalized advertisement: “Aria, don’t you think it’s time to embrace a newer, better you? Visit one of the clinics of Harknall Solutions and book your consultation today…!”
One of the eight sets of elevator doors retracted, pulling itself open for her to enter. Aria accepted the invitation security had kindly presented her with, stepping into the wide, oval-shaped compartment. Seconds after she’d entered, the doors had slid shut behind her, and instead of getting the chance to try and input a floor request with the elevator VI, security remotely entered her destination for her: 849, no doubt the floor just beneath the penthouse. After a momentary pause, the elevator began to climb at a faster pace than Aria had anticipated, the inertia negators built into the structure eliminating even the tiniest lurch from the sudden ascension.
Within a second or two, the elevator had risen free from the lobby, entirely, and Aria was treated to a gorgeous view of the city through the glass walls of the oval chamber, intercut at steady intervals with flashes of support beams crossing the tube acting as an elevator shaft. The cityscape was ominous, foreboding, but somehow beautiful and inviting at the same time: where there wasn’t a melting vortex of neon in every colour of the rainbow, complete with the names of companies in various languages and holographic displays of women dancing in slow motion, there were monolithic skyscrapers and similarly enormous megatowers, their exteriors all a matte black but for the spotlights their lobbies beamed into the sky and the twinkles circling their rooftop perimeters, leaving each looking like some primordial god worshipped at the feet by torch-bearing Neanderthals.
Aria finally loosened the belt to her trench coat as she watched the world fall away further and further from beneath her feet, letting the leather garment ease a little more open. Look at her: thirty-six years old and hardly even looking it, virtually destitute and doing her best not to feel like it, horrified by her own desperation as a single mother and trying hard not to think about it. After quitting her first housekeeping position, she’d never wanted to so much as consider taking on another, especially not for the ultra-rich and, no doubt, ultra-unappreciative, but a child followed by three short years on the run had made for a lengthy fall from grace. Still, none of the exact particulars of her personal life or her strict financial motivations were things the Harknalls needed to know about, in fact, they’d likely only do great harm to her chances of landing the position.
She’d dressed the best she could, gussied herself up to impress the corporate figurehead who’d be handling the interview process. She’d styled her hair, given it a bit of a waviness halfway down her long, otherwise straight head of satiny brown locks, her bangs still messily brushed behind her ears to clear her face, unwittingly giving her look a bit more of a naïvely innocent flair in the process. She’d put on some water-resistant, non-running makeup, a downplayed red for her lipstick and a little bit of black eyeshadow to help make the amber in her eyes pop a little more, but no more than that. After all, she were only applying to a housekeeping and janitorial position, not a secretarial position; looking good was obligatory for the job interview, but she didn’t have to make herself out to be some hot piece of eye candy for the boss to drool all over.
Her earrings were a couple of small silver hoops, while her most obvious cybernetic augmentation, her chip panel, lay unobtrusive just above her right ear. Shaped a bit like a magatama bead and formed from an alloy not dissimilar to stainless steel, it was a few inches long from one end to the other and only about two inches wide, allowing it to follow the curve of her ear for a comfortable fit. She’d gotten it years ago for a number of reasons; hell, the pharmaceutical companies had deemed them so invaluable to day-to-day life and made them so readily affordable, yesterday’s best models for the elites had overnight become the following decade’s most useful device for the layman. The utilities were endless, new programs were being concocted every day – really, the only downside was having to shave the side of your head for the surgeon/technician to get the thing in there, but once Aria’d grown her hair back out over it, you’d never know she had it.
She was a pretty woman, no doubt about it. She’d always had looks on her side, for better or for worse: a dimpled chin, a slender nose, thick eyelashes, big, beautiful eyes, thick and pouty lips, and an aloof countenance, the woman having never found any trouble keeping her heart off her sleeve and presenting an air of mystique. On top of that detachment and the bizarrely magnetic quality she’d always found it’d given her, she’d had a beautiful figure, in her youth: breasts a hand-filling C-cup, a tight, toned waistline, and a fair pair of hips, she’d had a somewhat slender, if definitely noticeable, hourglass to her silhouette. Alas, natural childbearing had taken the classical tolls upon her body: a little bit of extra weight and thickness elegantly distributed to all the right places, rounding out her tummy, pumping her breasts up to high Ds, plumping up her thighs, and rounding out her seat cushions. She’d never been able to lose the weight, but in all honesty, she’d never tried too hard. Truth be told, much of her thought she looked better for it.
Underneath the trench coat, she had on a black, V-necked sweater showing off just the beginnings of some cleavage, but more importantly than that, the pendant she wore around her neck, a chrome Ouroboros with eyes of polished jet. A black pair of dress pants complemented her sweater and wedges both, and while in better times she would’ve worn her old pair of black leather gloves to help keep the chill away, just three weeks prior she’d been forced to pawn them off. It would’ve hurt to part with them, if she hadn’t steadily become familiar with the financial compromise…Not to mention if her stomach hadn’t been quite so empty, at the time. She’d taken comfort in the thought that, maybe one day, she might be able to purchase the same sort of pair if not a better one, but all that may have hinged upon whether or not she got this damn job. She needed to impress, whatever the cost.
Ding!
“Floor eight hundred and forty-nine,” the elevator VI’s voice softly announced, the doors a moment later sliding open. Aria perked up, hurrying to turn around from the elevator window and face the space beyond. Across the expansive greeting hall, she spotted the secretary look up from her wide, ornate desk, a pleasant smile splitting her fetching features like a blue moon crescent. Aria gave the littlest wave with a single rolling curl of her fingers, unable to keep herself from looking around at the phantasmagorical lobby: floor and walls all made of a beautiful white marble, a single long, narrow rug running from the elevator doors all the way up to the secretary’s desk like a purple scar, and narrow columns in the ancient Greek style running parallel to the rug at steady intervals, each climbing clear to the ceiling high above.
Enormous sections of the left and right-side walls in the main body of the hall had been consumed by aquariums filled with beautifully colourful fish Aria had never seen, before. The aquarium lights combined with the overall dimmed illumination of the lobby made for a dream-like environment, rippling shadows placidly passing back and forth between the hall’s columns, the more concrete silhouettes of the fish passing across the floor like clouds through the sky. Trying not to look too impressed or stunned, muting the sense of awe inspired in her after a few years in dingy urban hovels, Aria made for the secretary’s desk not too quickly, not too slowly, aware of looking too desperate or nonchalant. The secretary quietly typed something into her computer’s holographic keyboard display, fingers expertly poking into the glowing keys while her fingertip implants gave her tactile feedback.
Tearing her eyes off of the enormous work of art covering the wall behind the secretary’s desk, an abstract, impressionist antique, Aria came close enough to speak, again catching the secretary’s eyes.
“Hi, there,” she greeted in a friendly tone, smiling broadly. “My name’s Aria Tungin, I was scheduled for an interview around eight-thirty?”
“Yes, of course,” the secretary answered, beaming back just as warmly as she rose from her chair. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, miss Tungin. We were beginning to think you might’ve been cancelling on the interview!”
Aria cranked up the emphatic remorse to eleven, face all apologies. “I’m so sorry I’m late, there was a mix-up with my taxi driver, he tried taking me to your downtown offices-”
The secretary briefly glanced skyward, politely interjecting “Mm, of course. Takeshi’s Taxis have a bad habit of that, we hear about it all the time. You were refunded the distance, I hope?”
Aria’s eyes widened. “Oh, yes, believe you me, I made sure to sit there and file my complaint. I wasn’t interested in paying an extra fifty-five credits just because the robotic driver got confused on which place was which, hah hah!”
The secretary grinned for a moment, displaying two perfect rows of snow-white teeth. “Wonderful! Well, I’m sure mister Harknall is happy to hear you’ve arrived. We’re still prepared to do your interview, if you’d like to get started.” Extending her arm across her desk, the teched-up secretary demurely introduced herself: “My name’s Joanna, by the way, I’m Thomas Harknall’s Executive Assistant and Lead Human Resources Coordinator. I’ll be conducting your interview, tonight, if you haven’t already puzzled that out.”
Aria didn’t hesitate to take the woman’s offered hand by just her fingers, giving her a dainty handshake. “Of course, I’d love to. Let’s start straight away,” she answered, trying not to let her eyes wander across the woman’s dress, her figure or her augments.
Not only was Joanna sporting an iridescent purple bob cut, cyan lipstick so bright it almost glowed, and an eye-catchingly curvaceous figure, but the tight, black dress she wore, little more than a fabric tube going from collarbones to thighs with crosshatched strings all the way down either side of her, didn’t leave much to the imagination, and that meant more than just her hourglass. Her implant work was clearly extensive: a chip panel bigger than Aria’s, big enough to extend onto some of her forehead and visibly loaded near to capacity with cerebral plug-ins, hand implants over the fingers and wrists for seamless usage of holographic interfaces, subtle seams in her flesh across her clavicles and shoulders indicative of who even knew what sort of cybernetics, but her pupils stood out against her eyes, too, subtly lit up with a faint blue sheen. Her patron company had only afforded her the very best, it seemed.
“Please, feel free to take a seat,” Joanna commented, barely gesturing towards the two chairs placed before her desk. Aria didn’t hesitate to take her up on the invitation as Joanna, too, retook her seat, gently sighing through her nose as she quickly typed something into her terminal. A faint sweat broke out across the small of Aria’s back. Here we go, lads; it’s time to impress, now or never.
Joanna looked over her terminal screen for a few moments, threading her hands together over her desk. Eventually, she looked across her desk and met Aria’s eyes, starting off with “So, to begin with: I’d like to divulge that the main reason why you’re sitting here, tonight, is that you, unlike the vast majority of applicants, passed a deep background check with the proper authorities. You don’t have a criminal record, nor do you display any tendencies Harknall Solutions considers worrisome in applicants.”
“Well, that’s good,” Aria innocently answered, trying not to smile too excitedly.
Joanna barely dipped her head in a bit of acknowledgement. “Our expectations are high, but not unreasonable. Harknall Tower maintains only a modest crew of maintenance and housecleaning personnel, and we’re proud to say we offer salaries and benefits highly competitive with even our most staunch rivals. Much of the upkeep is handled by our Robotics branch, but we’ve always acknowledged that, no matter how exceptionally a cleaning robot may perform, there are many advantages to human workers. Organic caretakers and housekeeping offer the human touch that so many synthetics fail to display.”
“We understand many, even in this day and age, are more comfortable in the presence of another human than in that of a robot. We offer the many resident employees of Harknall Tower the choice of either/or, and luckily enough for the fortunate few to be given the position, counted among the number of residents more comfortable amongst humans than with robots is the Harknall family, itself.”
Aria’s heart began to thump, a little. Did this sound like what she thought it sounded like?
Joanna raised her eyebrows, for a moment. “Of course, it’s not just anyone that the Harknalls allow to enter their private domicile. We’ve had a few minor issues with corporate espionage in the past, not to mention theft; our screening process was greatly tightened, as a result. Now, while I understand you applied to the more generalized housekeeping position, I thought I might extend to you the opportunity to apply for the Premier Staff, as well.”
Aria blinked, hard. Trying to swallow as subtly as possible, she asked “And…That’s the housekeeping crew that’s allowed around the family?”
Joanna nodded again, again just the once.
Aria raised an eyebrow. “And will applying for the Premier Staff invalidate my chances of entering the more generalized housekeeping crew?”
Joanna gently shrugged with her eyebrows. “Not at all! It’s simply an added consideration we thought to extend to you. We understand you’re fresh from off-world, in fact, the more we’ve looked into your situation and background, the more convinced we’ve become that you might be acceptable for the position. If, however, it is decided that you wouldn’t be a good fit for the Premier Staff, well, the more generalized workforce’s lowered expectations may change things. Strictly speaking, you’ve everything to gain and nothing to lose by applying for the additional position. The wages are higher, as are the benefits. The privacy agreement is more extensive, but…”
Joanna smiled, serenely. “…Well, I see no reason why it’d complicate matters, for you.”
Aria briefly arched an eyebrow, one corner of her mouth rising higher than the other in a brief half-grin. “Well, why not? I’ve nothing to lose, right?”
Half a second later, a small, spherical machine flew out from underneath Joanna’s desk, perhaps the size of an apple and made of a glossy, silverish metal. Aria kept still as it steadily came within three feet of her, the face of it opening in segments like a camera aperture. Through the opening, a blue light illuminated her face, recording her facial movements as biometric data while a hologram of a sound wave extended from it’s side.
Joanna blinked slowly, passively. “Indeed. Repeat after me, miss Tungin, if you’d kindly: I, Aria Tungin, do hereby acknowledge and accept the standard legal Privacy Policy and Non-disclosure Agreement of Harknall Solutions as was formally indicated during the application procedure. I acknowledge and accept that this verbal agreement and subsequent recording of both my facial biometric data and voice is legally binding and as valid as a physical signature. Everything discussed during my employment interview up until the time I leave Harknall Solutions property will be kept in the strictest of confidence in perpetuity under penalty of legal action.”
Aria dutifully repeated the woman’s statement, looking into the machine’s glowing eye and watching as the holographic sound wave rippled and spiked with the tone of her voice. Once she’d finished, the machine’s aperture had slid shut, the device quickly disappearing back under the secretary’s desk. Joanna adjusted herself in her seat, smiling widely as she proceeded: “Perfect, just perfect. Now that the less tasteful business is out of the way, let’s move on to the questions. First off: what made you want to apply for a position with Harknall Solutions?”
The money, of course. Desperation and money. Aria already had a bullshit answer prepared, however, the woman ready to lay it on thick: “Well, when I came to Yanice I knew I needed to find work, but I didn’t want to work for just anybody. I did some research and, after careful consideration, decided that Harknall Solutions was the best fit for me. I like your vision of transhumanist advances, I like your products, and I thought that I’d make a perfect member of your team with what I can bring to the table.”
Joanna wrote out Aria’s answer into her terminal as she said it, typing with an almost unnerving speed, eyes never straying far from the applicant’s face. “And what is it that you can bring to the table, miss Tungin?”
Aria briefly raised her eyebrows, head lightly tilting to the side for a moment. “Well, I’m an extremely hard worker,” she earnestly insisted. “I’m loyal, dedicated, and a fast learner. I’m intelligent, well-spoken, listen to authority and take direction with ease, can cooperate with a team, but don’t always need to be told what to do. If I see something that needs doing, I won’t wait to be told to do it, I’ll take the initiative and fix the issue, myself, before it becomes noticeable. I have a couple years of experience in housekeeping roles, and I’ve been a team leader in the past.”
“Yes, you indicated during the pre-screening process that you have prior experience with housekeeping,” Joanna asked. “Would you mind elaborating a little?”
“Before moving to Utopia-12, I spent five and a half years working as a senior housekeeper for the Lord Tyrell Hotel & Spa on Jupiter Prime,” Aria truthfully explained. “I helped coordinate a team of housekeepers for management.”
“Impressive,” Joanna placidly remarked, eyes briefly dipping to her terminal screen. “And how much do you prioritize family, Aria?”
Aria hesitated, just for a second. Her mouth barely inched open, head slightly turning to the side. “…Family means everything to me,” she answered, otherwise maintaining her composure.
“That’s good to hear,” Joanna replied, “because we here at Harknall Solutions like to think of ourselves as a family, a global family, each and every member and associate a part of the collective vision. If you share that value, you may just fit with us. Now: how do you feel about transcending human limitations? Do you possess any alterations, modifications, augments, implants, genetic enhancements, or anything else that creates a difference in you from the standard human, and if so, please detail each one, as well as who manufactured them.”
Aria cracked a little smile. She avoided her truthful answer on the subject, offering up what she knew the corporate woman wanted to hear: “I don’t think humans are naturally going to evolve into much of a better form. I think the ultimate end result of our intelligence as a species is the ability to self-determinate our own evolution on an individual scale, each person free to make their own choices on their body, mind, and whatever capabilities best suit them. And, yes, I do have an augment, I got a chip panel about three years ago. It’s a Gemini Amp III, an earlier model that you guys made, actually.”
Something about her answer made Joanna give a pleased smile. “And what plug-ins are you running with your Gemini,” she asked.
Aria barely raised her eyebrows. “Oh, uh…Well, a memory bank, for starters. It’s nothing special, the standard one I got was all the space I really needed. I have an eloquence modifier, too, so that it’s easier for me to always speak with my full vocabulary and manners, if I so choose to. I have a CAPOI chip, just in case people try to influence me through non-natural pheromones. The first two were designed by Ophelia Progress, while the CAPOI was, of course, created by Seraphim Industries.”
Joanna stopped typing. Raising an eyebrow, she seemed almost reluctant to ask: “And would you ever consider a behaviour modifying plug-in, a proprietary obedience enforcer? It’s required of all Premier Staff, and it’s as unobtrusive as we could make it.”
Aria hesitated, again. After a moment of consideration, she asked “…And, what sort of behaviour does it modify, exactly?”
“Well, primarily, it ensures a total inability to physically commit theft while on Harknall Solutions property,” Joanna nonchalantly explained, “as well as ensures that the proper manners are always followed while in the presence of the Harknall family, unless expressly given permission to do otherwise. It also ensures that data encrypted with Solutions algorithms cannot be stored in a chip panel plug-in, as well as protects employees from outside interference or cerebral cracking attempts. If the possessor of the behaviour chip is physically attacked, it can automatically request aid from Yanice law enforcement as well as broadcasting your precise location.” With a wide smile, Joanna added “So, you see? It’s both for your protection as well as ours.”
Aria thought, and perhaps she thought for a moment too long. Joanna continued.
“It’s perfectly safe and in no way prevents you from resigning from your position; don’t worry, we’re looking for trustworthy employees, not drones. You’ll hardly even notice it’s there, and in the event you resign or, heaven forbid, find your contract terminated, it’s simple for us to remove, for you. It’s also mandatory for Premier Staff…As I mentioned earlier.”
Aria nodded a couple times, lightly. Just think of the money, think of the money, think of the goddamn money. Think of Pearl and all that fuckin’ dosh. “I wouldn’t be opposed to it,” she finally conceded.
Joanna suddenly grinned, typing in a short burst before halting. “Wonderful, I think that settles things, then. Based on your past experience and responses, I think you’d make an excellent member of the Premier Staff, if you’re interested. When would you be available to begin orientation?...Unless, of course, you have any further questions for us, in turn?”
Aria broke out into a big, noticeably relieved smile, her composure cracking, for once. Hoping she didn’t sound the least bit flustered or breathless, she suggested “Well, uh…Tomorrow, I suppose. If, ah, if that’s alright? I could come a little earlier than my start time to acclimate to the behaviour chip, if need be.”
Raising her eyebrows, a passive smile lingering on her face, Joanna let her eyes drop to her terminal as she began typing. “Certainly, we’re ready to begin tomorrow if you’d like. Allow me to just enter you into the schedule, and…”
Joanna trailed off as a set of doors Aria had never really noticed before, behind Joanna’s desk and far off in the left-side corner furthest from the elevator, slid open with a little electronic beeping. Both secretary and applicant looked over, and even though she’d only seen their faces in a couple galactic news reports, Aria knew in an instant who she was looking at: the goddamn CEO and his COO wife, Thomas and Jaquelyn Harknall. When Joanna began to rise from her seat, Aria practically bolted out of her chair to mirror her, another nervous sweat breaking out across her back as, in her mind, the pressure to succeed and risk of failing both suddenly spiked. She can’t put her foot in her mouth!
“Mister and missus Harknall,” Joanna acknowledged, barely dipping her head and shoulders in something of a subtle bow. “I was just finishing up with the last applicant. Are you leaving for your evening appointment, then?”
The two senior members of the Harknall family couldn’t have come across more confident or self-assured, more laidback and in charge; this was their domain, and in it, they held supreme power and authority. Thomas walked with a subtle swagger to his step, a jaunty little bounce, while his wife, Jaquelyn, moved like some sort of modern-day Cleopatra, nose and chin subtly raised at the world as she drifted through it in slow, sweeping steps. The patriarch and CEO, Thomas, gave a quick look from Joanna to Aria, back to Joanna, then finally settling on Aria as he pleasantly joked “Yes, Jo, we’re finally ready…And thank God, too, the delays were beginning to wear. So, dare I ask if anything’s changed in the thirty or so seconds since you told me she was a perfect fit?”
When his smile split into a grin, Aria couldn’t help but mirror it with a soft chuckle. Hopefully not, sir!
“Not at all, in fact, she was just agreeing to the position requirements,” Joanna explained with a smile, “and she was ready to begin tomorrow. Of course, only with your approval, naturally.”
When Thomas and Jaquelyn came to a stop some odd feet away from Aria, openly looking her over and scrutinizing her, the single mother couldn’t help but do the same to them in turn, although she did her best to make her glances subtle. The two of them couldn’t have been greater examples of corporate prestige and opulent excess; the money it would’ve cost for either of their outfits, alone, no doubt could’ve fed a small family for the next decade or more, for Christ’s sake. The patriarch was an older man, probably somewhere in his mid forties, with a tall frame, hair slicked back, and a bushy beard across his face, both still largely black but sprinkled throughout with grays for a natural salt n’ pepper look Aria couldn’t help finding handsome. His shoulders were broad, he looked fairly toned with muscle mass, and to Aria’s eventual realization and bemusement, he didn’t actually appear to have any augments of his own. If he did, they mustn’t have been surface-level.
The man was in full black tie dress: his dinner jacket and bowtie were impeccable, both made out of a glossy sort of fabric that betrayed a hexagonal pattern when exposed to light, while his undershirt was a searing white so pure, it nearly bounced light back off of it. His cufflinks glinted like stars from the size of the diamonds set into them, and the chain of the pocket watch in his breast pocket stood out against the jacket material like a sterling silver restraint. His shoes, black and polished to a sparkle, must’ve been some sort of leather, and the subtle scaling Aria thought she could see led her to believe it’d come from a reptile, no doubt some species native to Yanice. All in all, he fit the dapper look of a proud, cultured, fashion-conscious leader to a tee, at least in Aria’s mind. She could’ve easily seen him standing at a podium instead of sitting in a boardroom, leading a nation instead of a company. If she were being honest with herself, he…Kind of turned her on, really.
As for the wife, however…Well, Aria would’ve put it this way: seeing the woman in person was even more stunning than seeing her on television, especially given what she was wearing. In short, Jaquelyn’s particular tastes in augmentations and implants were…Exceedingly apparent.
In more verbose terms, the woman had the body and luxurious fashion sense of a goddess. Like her husband, she’d dressed beautifully for the night, mostly black satin and silk. Like him, her tight, form-fitting dress and fluffy white shawl probably could’ve paid off a small nation’s debt. Covered in a subtle marquise pattern, the sleeveless dress had a low neckline for a tasteful amount of cleavage her shawl could cover up at any time if she so desired, not to mention a split up either side of the material halfway up her thighs, freeing her up to move while simultaneously showcasing her long legs, nylons and, if the fabric moved too much, even the attached clips and straps to her garter belt. Her silver heels were borderline stilettos, and Aria could even recognize the brand: Icarus Wings, a fashion company that primarily specialized in anti-gravity tech. With that kind of junk in your heels, no caution was necessary; you weren’t going to lose your footing.
However, it wasn’t her fashion sense that really caught Aria’s eye, it never had been, not since the first time she’d ever seen the woman on television. What’d always made Jaquelyn stand out so much, to everyone Aria would’ve bet money on, was that the woman had obviously taken full advantage of their company’s technological advances. It only made sense, really - if you have the power of the gods in your hands, the ability to quickly and painlessly reshape your own body into whatever form you might desire, what’s the primary goal the majority of people would strive for? Beauty, of course, alongside sex appeal. What else? Whether they’d care to admit it or not, acquiring desirability and previously unseen levels of sexual influence over people might’ve been the very first thing the majority of people would yearn for, and Jaquelyn had clearly been no exception to the theory. Her figure was…Well, in a word, enormous.
Her breasts were monumental, either globe visibly bigger than her own head, together forming a bust of positively stupefying proportions. Aria couldn’t even begin to hazard a guess at the woman’s cup size; when she’d first seen her on television, her eyes had bugged out before she’d begun cracking up into stunned laughter, joking to herself that the woman must’ve been an M, N, or even fucking O-cup. Although her chest definitely looked a little on the heavy side, they couldn’t have been anywhere near as heavy as the real thing should’ve been – although they covered enough real estate over her ribs to swell out not too far above her navel, they hardly truly sagged at all, the things so goddamn perky for their back-breaking size that space exploration companies could’ve studied them to better understand low-gravity environments. For fuck’s sake, the bouncing, jiggling, and jelly-rippling was out of this world. Talk about whew.
It wasn’t just her bust, either, that turned heads and crashed cars. The woman had a rather narrow waist, not to mention wildly flared hips that swelled back out in the absolute pinnacle, the very textbook definition, of a waspish hourglass, the woman’s child-bearing hips leading down into a pair of beautifully thick thighs, no doubt blessing the company matriarch with a manslaying derriere cushiony enough to devour underwear and hands alike. Combine the figure with a long, luscious head of platinum purple hair done up into a bejewelled bun, amethyst earrings, perfect makeup all in lilac, high cheekbones and beestung dick-sucking lips, and you had…Ahem, well, you had a woman who definitely looked the part of excessive wealth and vanity. Beyond that, she bore some faint seams across the flesh of her bared arms, no doubt markers of some semi-subtle internal implants, but to what purpose, Aria could only guess.
Aria absorbed and processed all of this in about the same span of time it took for the two corporate leaders to take her in, appraise her superficially, consider the information Joanna had passed along, and come to a decisive decision. Thomas spoke first, a brief surge in his smile as he lightheartedly remarked “Well, I don’t see why not. Sweetheart?”
Jaquelyn gave a little shrug with her eyebrows, briefly hopping them up in consideration. A pensive look on her face, her head remained as still as a statue’s as she again let her eyes roam up and down Aria’s silhouette before, with a somewhat dry tone that couldn’t help betraying an unconvinced apathy, saying “Yes, why not? From the sounds of things, she has the experience as well as the determination.” Looking back over at her husband, she smiled and added “Besides, we wanted to see the Rose Gardens tomorrow, didn’t we? If she begins tomorrow, we can be freer with our schedule.”
The reminder of the apparent appointment seemed to settle the question. Thomas glanced at Jaquelyn, mirrored her smile, looked back over at Aria, took a step forward, and extended an arm, offering a hand. “Welcome aboard,” he quite simply said.
Aria could’ve fainted, could’ve sighed so hard she deflated. Oh thank God, she’d gotten it! Hah hah, she’d gotten it! Grinning, crossing the rest of the distance until she could take him up on the offer and shake her new boss’ hand, Aria eagerly answered “Thank you, you won’t regret this, sir.”
“I don’t think I will, either,” Thomas answered, smiling broadly.
“And if we do, well, everything’s fixable,” Jaquelyn remarked, affecting an upbeat tone.
As they were letting go of each other’s hands, Thomas nodded at Joanna and, with a hint of weary finality, warmly offered “Well, Jo, I think that about settles it, for tonight. Unless you have something important you’d like to handle, I’d say you’re set to go home, for the night. Why not see…Oh.”
He trailed off as the door they’d come from slid open once again, the man’s ears pricking up as he and his wife slowly looked over. “Finally,” Jaquelyn muttered under her breath.
When Aria spotted another woman start walking out towards them through the doorway, hands still running through and fluffing up her hair, her eyes briefly bugged out before she’d caught herself. Joanna’s eyes widened just about as subtly, averting themselves in an instant, shooting towards the floor in a trained gesture of harmlessness, submissiveness.
“Okay, let’s go, I’m ready,” the newcomer woman asserted, a somewhat impatient bite to her otherwise bored tone.
“Like hell you are, Angeline,” Thomas immediately blurted out, “look at you!”
Aria gulped. Oh, believe you me, everyone is. This was the daughter, then? She’d heard the name, before, in a couple small news stories and minor scandals, but she’d never actually seen a picture of her, anywhere. Now, she had to wonder why. This girl should’ve had the media in a frenzy!
The new woman glanced down at herself, looking back up at him with an expression of patent confusion that steadily morphed into clear frustration. With a quick sigh, she huffed out “Oh, what’s wrong with this one, now?”
Aria could’ve taken a couple guesses. Might have something to do with your tits and ass hanging out, there, honey. Are you an heiress or a hooker?
The young newcomer, evidently miss Angeline Harknall, the one and only child sired into the Harknall dynasty, couldn’t have possibly looked any trashier to contrast her parents’ high society fashion. If Thomas and Jaquelyn were going for “black tie event,” Angeline would’ve been going for “cyber-bimbo rave,” more skin on display than even her mother. For starters, Angeline couldn’t have been any older than twenty at the absolute maximum – as far as Aria was concerned, the girl looked young enough to be her own daughter, for crying out loud. Keeping that in mind made it all the more scandalous what she’d try to go out wearing; did the girl have absolutely no shame, at all? Well, considering some of the stories Aria had heard…Maybe not.
Her face was gorgeous, the familial resemblance to her beautiful mother rather noticeable. Still, all things considered, it was the…“Dress” she had on that was more immediately eye-catching. She’d slipped into something that Aria would never have allowed her own daughter to wear, hell, she probably would’ve taken it from Pearl and thrown it out if she’d so much as discovered it vacuum-sealed in her closet. It was the epitome of “slutting it up at the bar,” of “cruising for cock at the club,” and everyone in the room knew it. The hot pink dress Angeline had slipped into didn’t even fully reach her collarbones, only the skinniest of spaghetti straps reaching over her shoulders. Down below, the dress barely even managed to get past her crotch, and considering how transparent the thing was, it doubly exposed, leaving – and this was a pretty fair assessment, Aria felt – absolutely goddamn nothing to the imagination.
In sweeping, diagonal swaths all across the dress, dominating the majority of the dress’ surface area, were sections that almost entirely lacked material, simply the thinnest of fabric cords stretching from solid section to section for exceedingly see-through windows to the creamy skin beneath. The dress showed off more than it covered, more a body decoration and fashion statement than literally anything else; a declaration of self-confidence, promiscuity, sworn scorn for decency, who even knew what the girl’d been going for. For Christ’s sake, not only could you see, with crystal clarity, her matching hot pink thong and utter lack of a bra, but the dress only really covered one of her nipples – the other one, you could see half her areola!
Of course, it wasn’t as if the dress was the only thing worthy of staring at: Angeline, herself, was a stunner fit to rival her mother: long, thick, bleached blonde hair straight as a rail as it fell over her shoulders, eyes a vivid green with sclera a silverish sheen, the same sort of ridiculously perky bust somewhat more conservative at an absurdly big H or I-cup, a tight, toned waistline with subtle abs her see-through dress couldn’t help but put on display, the same sort of amazing hips and thighs as her mother, long, silky-smooth legs, and more overt cybernetic enhancements: not only was her left arm plated with a platinum-like metal from her fingertips to her elbow, but a few subtle, symmetrical seams crossed over her abdomen as well as her throat, indicative of some sort of internal work.
Throw in her stark black makeup, her eyes ringed like a raccoon’s with heavy black eyeshadow, eyeliner, and mascara, not to mention the added touch of midnight black lipstick, a dusting of crimson blush, and a Monroe piercing above her lip for that added bit of oomph, and you had a scandal waiting to drop stock prices. Beyond that slutty dress, the thong wedged up her thick ass like dental floss, and the same sort of anti-gravity stilettos her mother had on – done up in glittering pink, of course, to colour coordinate with the rest of Angeline’s outfit – the girl was letting it all out. Wasn’t she a little…Cold?
“Don’t play dumb, young lady,” Thomas sternly snapped, staring at his daughter as his wife’s expression became a tight, cringing grimace, the woman raising a hand to the side of her face to help shield her eyes as she turned her head away. The disapproval was fucking palpable.
“Joanna, you can go home, now,” Jaquelyn curtly said, quite clearly more an instruction than a suggestion. “If you’d kindly see miss Tungin out, while you’re at it?”
“Of course, missus Harknall,” Joanna obediently answered, the holographic display and keyboard to her terminal fading away as the secretary promptly stepped away from her desk. Giving Aria a look of subtle tension, she prodded her along with “Come along, miss Tungin, it’s time to make our exit for the night.”
“Go back upstairs and change into something even one quarter acceptable for public viewing,” Thomas ordered, arm shooting out for a pointing at the door she’d come from. As soon as he’d turned back around to look in Aria’s direction, offering her a sincere apology Aria barely even heard, the newly-accepted maid watched the heiress’ face twist into a bit of a scowl, lip just about curling up…A move, of course, neither parent could see, turned away as they were. Furthermore, neither could see the way Angeline then directly met Aria’s gaze, a quick, almost aggressive wink crossing an eye before her metallic hand had shifted some dress material, accidentally causing a big, pink nipple to slide into one of the transparent sections of her dress.
Aria’s face instantly started turning scarlet, mouth dropping open as her eyes widened. She…She’d done that on purpose! Had the girl seriously just flashed her?!
One corner of Angeline’s mouth sharply rose in a little smirk before she – with a sigh, subtle, noticeable but hardly defiant – turned, began to leave, and wearily breathed out “Yes, daddy.”
“And don’t take another half-hour, for Christ’s sake,” Jaquelyn slowly, tiredly groaned, glancing skyward.
Aria turned to follow Joanna as soon as she’d taken her by the shoulder. The two of them, silent all the way to the elevator, stepped inside and allowed security to designate their floors, neither saying a word to each other. Joanna didn’t look nearly as thrown for a loop as Aria did; between the high of landing the job and the bizarre low of getting a targeted nip-slip from an heiress, Aria didn’t know what to feel. She did, however, know what to think, what to ask herself…
What in the ever-loving fuck had she just gotten herself into, here?
~~End of Ch. 1~~