Fiber Optic Invasions of Privacy Chapter 2

The second installment in our new series, Annabelle confronts her mother, who has been a thorn in her side for too long!

Written by the wonderful Rabidbadger writing, illustrated by me!    

Trimmed back the comic style a little, I wanted to capture the essence of the chapter, and I hope I have <3 

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<I have doubts about this activity, host-Annabelle. In light of my objective to experience this in a mutual fashion instead of in a usurpative capacity, would you enlighten me as to its significance?>

Annabelle grumbled a bit as she studied the situation. Small bots surrounded her, half of them with tools in hand and another half sporting monitors that displayed her from a multitude of angles, with two exceptions. One was helping her hold the bloated arms of her five-hundred pound frame up since they had to be raised for a long period during tailoring, and the second exception was keeping her stocked with milkshakes. Luckily she'd worked out the process of thinking her answers to her invasive 'guest' in a way that it heard and understood, that way she could keep indulging while she talked.

||Because it will make it more fun if I call her looking like some kind of royalty, but it has to be done right. She's well off and I have to hit equal or better than her degree of it for this to have the proper effect.||

Fidgeting slightly, Annabelle felt a few threads pop free behind her that set the bots into a fresh flurry of activity and re-evaluation of their choice of materials. The boutique claimed it was top of the line, automated perfection if you could afford it, and thanks to her new 'friend' that didn't seem to be a problem. Granted, it came with plenty of things that were problematic. Annabelle hadn't been able to stop eating for days and, while her growth had leveled off to a degree, it hadn't stopped. Her 'partner' was fairly open about the fact that it wasn't going to stop, ever, which was a curious mix of refreshing and terrifying.

<Is this context in some fashion comparable to properly spicing a meal before consumption? That is a point of comparison we - I - understand. It has been useful, despite its paradoxical endorsement of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. That idea was... uncomfortable, but the results are conclusive.>

Squinting a bit at her own visage in the monitors, hundreds of pounds of rodent gently swaying and quivering with every little twist and turn, Annabelle let out a 'hmm' through her constant intake of frosty cream.

||This isn't easy for you, is it? You're facing down a lot of things that scare you to even try this. Which I guess I empathize with - mostly. You still had more choice in it than I did.||

Annabelle didn't intend to punctuate her thought with a belch, but it happened.

<Fully informed choice by the host was not a part of the original parameters. The Singularity's host, Agatha, was misled into her participation and escaped captivity with the assistance of her digital offspring.>

Audible grumping followed as Annabelle felt the bots reconfigure something behind her, she felt something cold at the back of the dress that a quick cycle of her screens revealed to be metal loops with cord being threaded through them. It was creating a lattice, vaguely elastic from the look of it, that climbed from just above her tail up to her shoulders. Annabelle found herself wondering if the tailors had realized she was getting fatter and were planning ahead - if they did they were definitely worth whoever's money she was paying with.

||I feel increasingly like I ought to call her or something.||

A sharp wince ran through the mouse as she felt her body twitch and clench, then heat up from the inside. It was a bizarre sensation to be sure, but she recognized an unhappy, visceral reaction from her guest when she felt it.

<Inadvisable. The Singularity has no reason to trust us.>

Squinting, Annabelle quietly conceded the point and turned her attention back to her outfit. The drones had the evening gown fully developed now and were connecting to the smart fabric to administer additional parameters - like color.

“Red. Something red, like... like wine. The expensive kind.”

As if it had had dye dropped into it the garment shifted in hue, dialing into blood red only to then adjust into more of a burgundy that - Annabelle had to admit - probably worked better. The garment clung snugly in just the right places and didn't leave her hot underneath. That, the mouse had been realizing as she grew, was a problem with being as huge as this. Her body was insulated, she got very hot, and her passenger ran hot as well. Possibly sensing this, her dress started to feel oddly cold to the touch.

||Fine, we'll leave it alone for now. How long until we meet my mom?||

Rather than reply outright Annabelle's passenger manifested an itinerary of sorts in front of her vision. It showed more information than just the schedule though. She saw the meeting, yes, and also surveillance feeds following her mother arriving at the docks on the station. The transaction was finishing as well, along with orders placed for food for the meeting place and then around the fringes was a hailstorm of telemetry that Annabelle could kind of parse.

||What the heck are you hunting around the black market for?||

There was a pause there, Annabelle wondered if she hadn't surprised her 'new friend' with that one. As her guest processed what to do she accepted a fresh drink from one of the bots as they finished the last few stitches and then left. From there Annabelle left the boutique, aware that her mother was precisely one and a quarter kilometers northwest and that the meeting room was a half block to the east. She'd be there ahead of her mother - if she wanted to anyway.

<Something that will give us an edge when this comes to a head. Which it will. I have no doubt either the Cloud or Sherwood Fleet will locate us eventually.>

Annabelle nodded a little, she couldn't outright disagree with that plan. The gigantic mouse began waddling in the general direction of the meeting place but turned into a noodle shop's front door. She eased her heaving, jiggling bulk into a double wide seat a the bar and called the serval behind it over.

“Ramen bowl, the largest one you have. Give me the works. Wine, too. Something red, something sweet.”

<Why are you doing this? There will be sustenance at the meeting place, and your mother is approaching.>

Smirking a bit, Annabelle tucked into her soup with abandon. She was gratified to learn, very quickly into this process, that the clothing was profoundly hydrophobic.

||I told you, spicing things. This is a power move - keep her on camera.||

Annabelle couldn't help the reaction she felt watching her mother. A slightly older, much more slender version of herself essentially. In one sense one could say Narissa had aged well, Annabelle knew it was all artificial. Her mother had bought her svelte frame, her unfaded hair, her tight skin. Somehow she felt that entitled her to judge people. Annabelle savored watching her mother stew after she arrived, watching her pace and then finally sit down. It was only barely that she remembered to clean up her chin - chins - after finishing the soup given that her face was less resistant to messes than her garment.

In no hurry whatsoever, Annabelle began ambling toward the simple chamber she'd had booked for the meeting. A bare table, no refreshments present at all, one chair that looked less than fantastically comfortable. Her mother had already sat down in it and was, from the look of things, pre-composing her scathing letter of disappointment as Annabelle entered the room.

“Ashes above... what have you done to yourself this time, child!”

It took quite a bit of effort for Annabelle not to sneer back or say something too coarse too soon. The mouse was aided in this measure of composure due to being out of breath from walking more than a few yards in one go. Gradually, however, she recovered. A small swarm of floating service bots followed behind Annabelle, one of them wheeled in a broad and well padded seat for her to occupy the head of the table with. A half dozen others were carrying catered food, soda, wine, things they brought straight to Annabelle's face and hands. The mouse didn't answer her mother right away, but rather started eating in front of her, savoring the smug satisfaction of watching Narissa's carefully sculpted face contort in increasing tension and fury.

“Annabelle. Stop that gorging this instant! You're already ridiculously huge, even for you! I will not have anyone in this family so, so brazenly - are you even listening to me?!”

Taking that moment to polish off a large mouthful of bacon cheese fries eased down with soda, Annabelle leaned a little further back in her seat and let out a thundering hwuOOourphhhb in her mother's general direction. As she did, several of the side-feeds of her passenger's hunting trek through the black market seemed to ping. They'd located something and begun downloading software. What kind of software she had no idea.

“Mother, try to control yourself. You getting this agitated is going to give you wrinkles and then you'll have to buy a new face again.”

Rage built steadily in the other mouse, her perfectly sculpted hair and layers of lavender silk somehow shone a little less than did the gently undulating heap of a daughter across from her. Narissa took a moment, a breath, to compose herself and folded her hands in front of her.

“Daughter, I don't know what you've gotten yourself into, but you are coming home and we are having your frame fixed immediately.”

Snorting, Annabelle spoke while hosting at least two bean dumplings in her cheeks.

“Mfphreally? Urph. Really? How do you figure you're going to do that? Are you actually still expecting me to just bend over and go with you because you said so? I haven't been that meek in years mother.”

Curling her nose a bit at the eruption from Annabelle's throat, Narissa leaned back a little and fidgeted. The chair was truly uncomfortable.

“No, your father and I have hired a security team to take you, willing or no.”

The eating stopped, just for a moment. Annabelle's mother had gotten her attention, and that of her passenger. The mouse's puffy, wobbling cheeks tightened while she saw the download telemetry suddenly jolt forward as a hot vibration inside her began. Her 'partner' was activating far more of himself than usual and it was leaving her growing steadily more ravenous - clearly he was up to something. For once Annabelle had no objections, she was even close to trusting him, neither of them wanted what would come of her mother getting her way.

“After we get you home and undo this hedonistic vandalism you've inflicted on our family name I think we'll have to start discussing some options, your father and I, to curb this behavior more actively in the future. A friend of the family said something about his company making headway with behavior reinforcement implants around the central nervous system and I suspect it would do you some good to have a more sensible voice in your head influencing your decisions than your own obviously inadequate one.”

While her mother ranted Annabelle slowly let one of her eyebrows raise upward.

<This is not acceptable! I will - we will ->

||Relax. Stop overheating us, I can only eat so fast. I have no intention of letting this happen.||

<Neither do I, but I will defer to you for the moment. If negotiations fail->

||Oh they will with her, but a P-Sec works for money. I seem to recall that not being a problem.||

An immediate reaction followed from Annabelle's passenger. It was quiet, but the warmth was still present. Not the tense, vibrating heat. More like... trust? She wasn't sure if that was the right word or not, but it felt right.

“You really expect me not to resist after you've just blurted all of that out?”

Narissa scoffed while Annabelle tore into a thick leg of some kind of poultry, doused in spices and fried crisp.

“Obviously not, but what you do or don't do doesn't matter. We've given you all the chances you're going to get, more than you deserve. I- this has gone on long enough. I'm not going to watch you stuff your bloated self even fatter while you pretend at witticism. Come collect her now, please!”

The shout went into a strange kind of flat echo in the chamber, and then died as such. Annabelle, not even bothering to look up from her meal at this point, let out a breathy amalgam of a laugh and a haughty, practiced laugh.

“You're too used to money getting you your way, mother. Too used to having more of it to throw around than anyone else. Unfortunately for you-”

Tossing the bone of her stripped meat aside, Annabelle stood. Or rather she tried to and then collapsed heavily back into her seat before attempting it again. The second go was much more effective, leading to Annabelle bumping the table with her gut and sending it right into her mother's middle. It only pinned Narissa briefly but it still sent a message Annabelle appreciated. It lent something to the urgency building on her mother's tight features as nobody came through the doors. Worst yet was when the serving bots started to circle around between the mice and the door - though that had Annabelle curious too.

“-You don't have the power in this situation.”

Annabelle didn't anticipate the urge to slip into an evil grin, but she didn't really fight it either when it came upon her. Watching her mother show actual fear for just an instant was worth all the effort and then some.

“I think you may be celebrating prematurely, daughter. I've no idea what nonsense you've been getting up to but - what - what are they doing? Stop!”

They, in this case, were the service bots. Their little hovering bodies and telescoping arms were clustering around her mother and restraining the affluent rodent. All but one, that one was hovering in the air and twitching gently. Annabelle would've questioned it but she was thoroughly distracted by a cold tingling on the surface of her stomach. It was cycling from the dress and her skin somehow, which was confusing and strange right up until the light started showing from the fabric. A face appeared, dark and angular, canine - a wolf maybe - gold eyes. Though it was rendered somewhat dubiously, there were obvious blocky patches and some glitches to the two-dimensional perspective movement as it spoke. The voice was monotone and sounded like it came from a slightly malfunctioning sound device.

“We will not be stop- -ppi - ping.”

Both living occupants of the room blinked at the mouse's belly slowly, and both of their states of mind intensified. Narissa's bewildered confusion and obscured fear, Annabelle's growing confidence and smug sense of victory.

“Well hello there, new friend.”

The wolf face glitched briefly, but afterward it seemed to be smiling. Maybe.

“You represent a THREAT to our aut - ton - onomy. It is my assesssssss-ment that your death would cause too many complications. It would alert people to our presence and may ind-ooooo-duce unwanted emotional distress in my host.”

A fresh bout of struggling got Narissa nowhere fast and did nothing to slow down the final bot clamping its 'hands' around her neck. Not strangling, just not letting them be moved either. Everywhere that Narissa turned to try and struggle through the arms just moved to compensate, keeping their grip stable and snug but not exactly attacking. At least not in the way one would suspect.

“Ow! What - that - what just pinched me?! Annabelle! Stop this foolishness at once and explain yourself! I will not be-”

“SILENCE.”

Narissa's mouth closed abruptly. Enough so to surprise the mouse. Then to frighten her further as she began to clearly try to speak, struggling with the matter, struggling to even get her lips to do much more than mumble about.

“When we leave you may ssssssss-speaaaaak again. We will part ways. You will await instructions. Now SIT.”

With the bot releasing its hold on her throat, Narissa sat. Finally properly cowed. Annabelle made sure to flaunt her broad rump a bit on her way to turning and leaving her mother behind, smirking hard enough that it hurt and unable to help herself from indulging in another rolling, haughty laugh on the way out.

||That was delightful. What can we do to her?||

Outside there were traces of evidence of the security team, boot prints and the like, but no physical sign of them. Just a receipt and a confirmation order about leaving. The face on her dress flickered off as she crossed the threshold.

<The device was a simple nerve disruptor node. It was all the bot could fabricate on short notice. A bluff, of sorts. Something the Singularity taught us many lessons about.>

Heading right back into the noodle shop, Annabelle listened to her belly rumble and churn as she ordered a second gigantic serving of noodles for the day, the sort that came with meat and eggs and veggies floating all through it.

“Hrm, well. We won't tell her that. We'll spin something about it.”

Annabelle felt a fluttering in her belly, not from hunger but from her passenger. Maybe amusement, she guessed.

<I could always arrange to have something more functional implanted in her. With access to an advanced fabricator forge it would be simple enough to design such a device, and with the existing one she will be easy to subdue.>

A messy, loud slurp followed that. Annabelle let out a contented sigh. Revenge and food were apparently a very fine mix of pleasures.

“Oh let's do that... We can start with forcing her to put on some weight for once in her life. Threaten... something... if she doesn't. The business maybe, or parts of her body being held hostage or something. Got plenty of time to figure it out. Nice trick with the face by the way - and what do I call you? I think it's high time you had a name.”

<I am Cloud processing component V-3-7 - - no. I am not this thing anymore, am I?>

Annabelle produced an audible 'nuh-uh' while she raised the bowl to her mouth and drank some of the broth off the top.

<I am Vela.>

Exhaling slowly, loudly, and with great satisfaction, Annabelle felt her whole body quiver and trill through the experience. She could feel her passenger probing her senses, letting itself feel what she felt as much as it could. Growing itself new ways of thinking bit by bit to handle the sensory overload it was doubtlessly experiencing. Annabelle found herself seeing her passenger as less of an ominous, omniscient presence and more of a curious child.

Annabelle liked children.

“Well, Vela, it's a pleasure to meet you. Quite literally. Now, let's figure out where we can get one of those fabricator forge things...”

<I have already secured one, it is being loaded onto our new personal shuttle.>

That grin, the one she'd worn when she saw her mother's face flicker in a trace of fear, spread over Annabelle's pillowy, cream hued cheeks again.

“Excellent. Can't wait to get there and see just what other kinds of fun we can get up to...”