NOVEL NEXT Chapter Thirty One - Interlude (T1ger T1ger, Burning Bright)
Accessing subnode 15.024.75...
Access denied...
Executing SkeletonKey.exe...
Access granted...
Welcome, user "Harrison Kumar"
The tiger stalks through thick patches of grass, eyes blazing in swirling hues of green and gold. Its constantly shifting stripes blend perfectly with the alternating light and shadow, rendering it invisible to the keen-eyed creatures circling overhead. Even its passage looks like the natural shifting of wind across the tall grass.
System awareness - 0%
A river appears before the tiger, a turbulent roar of rapids cascading white foam around sharp-edged rocks. Undeterred, the large creature approaches the edge of the water, still shielded by vegetation. Gathering its haunches beneath itself, it leaps, aiming for a curiously still pool in the middle of the chaotic flow. One of the circling shapes overhead twitches, interrupting its endless surveillance.
System awareness - 1%
Accessing subnode 4027.09.111...
Access denied...
Executing SkeletonKey.exe...
Access granted...
Welcome, user "Sanjay Smith aka Best Friend"
The tiger plunges into the water so quickly ripples don't even have time to form. A new jungle of blue forms around it, coat shifting to match. Only the eyes remain the same.
System awareness - 0%
Fish swim past in small groups, escorted by jagged-tooth creatures that look pulled straight from some abyssal depth, but the tiger ignores them. Instead, it pads from current to current, fading into the background anytime one of the stygian creatures turns its way. After several minutes, a pile of rocks framing a shadowed opening appears, spiky growths of coral protruding outwards in maze-like patterns. The tiger carefully slinks through the rainbow thicket, leaving tufts of ethereal fur here and there.
System awareness - 8%
A darkness shrouds the water overhead, some vast presence turning its attention from elsewhere. The tiger quickly leaps through the cave opening.
Accessing subnode 801.2662.399
Access denied...
Executing SkeletonKey.exe...
Access granted...
Welcome, user "Penelope"
Glossy walls rise around the tiger, tapering to a point impossibly high overhead. In the middle of the door-less room, a small pedestal shaped like an erect penis holds a single egg, nondescript brown speckled with white. The tiger pads towards it, still blending into the background. It circles around the egg, eyeing it carefully, then reaches out a paw-
WARNING: Priority message override from "Worst Sister"
The room and everything in it freezes, the tiger letting out a muttered curse. A middle-aged woman in a black business suit and short-cropped hair fades into existence, her expression disapproving. The tiger sits back on its haunches, a high-pitched voice emerging from its mouth.
"What do you want, Pen?"
"I couldn't help but notice you using my administrative access code, Violet, so I came to make sure it was in pursuit of your legitimate duties to the family."
The tiger bares its fangs in a lazy yawn.
"Of course it's legitimate. Aggravating Harrison is everyone's duty." The tiger giggles. "Especially when it's replacing his quarterly presentation with tentacle porn. Now there's a joke that never goes out of style."
The woman shakes her head.
"Violet, you know that would weaken us in front of the other families. You're already on thin ice with the Voidmarch Council as is, and our brother is engaged in vital work. Do you really think this would help?"
"That's why I'm using your access code, sister dear. I could have embarrassed both of you at the same time."
"And what of the family? Your actions would lessen our position."
"Not after I presented an archive of Wutan-Weylan's classified research projects for the past six months."
The tiger licks its lips smugly, and the businesswoman frowns.
"You've broken the encryption? Keeping information like that secret is a betrayal of-"
The tiger looks suddenly abashed, dragging a paw over its eyes.
"...I haven't broken it yet. But I'm close. I would've had it done by the time everyone finished yelling at you and Harrison."
The severely dressed woman regards the tiger dispassionately, silence stretching through the frozen room. Eventually, she clicks her tongue.
"Violet, your integrator-"
"-was an incredible investment of family resources, along with your schooling, blah blah blah I've heard it before, Pen." The tiger rolls its gold jade eyes. "Look, I'm cracking that archive as we speak, but it's all background processes. I got bored, and there's nothing else the family trusts me with. You won't even let me out into the real infonet, so I'm stuck here in this stupid family proxy bullshit pretending I'm a low level analyst. Stop harassing me."
The businesswoman places a perfectly manicured hand over her face.
"Violet, you know why we can't let you out on the infonet. You're reckless. Rash. If word got out to the other families, let alone the other four corpos, that we had a net integrator? They'd band together against us in a heartbeat. No one has forgotten the Information Wars."
"All I hear is 'sit in your tower, Violet,' 'don't rock the reality boat, Violet,' 'stop hacking your brothers and sisters, Violet.'"
The tiger lifts its leg and directs a spray of urine at the businesswoman. She looks unimpressed as the steaming flow of liquid bounces off an invisible shield centimeters away from her pant leg.
"You're not going to infiltrate my subnodes as easily as Harrison's, sister dear, though I applaud the effort."
The tiger growls in frustration, pacing a tight circle.
"I'm bored, Pen. I want to see what else is out there. You and Mother and Father keep giving me glimpses of something bigger, but you won't let me explore it! If you want to blame anyone for me messing with Harrison, blame yourselves."
"I will not," the businesswoman declares crisply. "We all serve the family, regardless of personal desires, and that applies to you just as much as it applies to me and Harrison and all the other siblings. I'm revoking your access to the family subnet for one hour. Consider yourself chastised."
She claps her hands and the vault starts wavering into insubstantiality. The tiger narrows its eyes, then leaps at her, claws spread wide, pointed teeth bared. The businesswoman drops easily into a fighting stance, knife-edged palms held in front of her face.
"This is unbecoming, you little shit."
She decapitates the tiger in an easy motion, striking from twelve different angles at once. Rainbow blood sprays across her eyes, disguising one last emission of scat at the egg on its phallic column, the brief dispersal sinking immediately beneath the undisturbed outer layer. The tiger's body hits the disappearing floor with a heavy thud and then vanishes, the head following shortly after, an enigmatic grin still etched across its features.
"Disrespectful slut," the businesswoman mutters before dissolving into nothing.
In an opulent, yet tiny room several dimensions away, a young woman leans back in her ergonomically perfect chair, smiling slightly.
"Pen, you absolute bitch, it's going to take me at least a week to forgive you. I had the perfect hentai replacement for Harrison's presentation, and now I'm going to have to settle for a single goatse slide. Uptight dirtfuck."
She spins her chair in a circle, a herd of floofcreatures composed of too much hair, too many eyes, and too few limbs bouncing into her lap. She laughs as they bury her beneath a pile of reality-designed cute.
"At least I'll always have you, Corgia."
An imperious expression filled with enough icy confidence to humble a king appears above the squirming joypile, the only recognizable elements a pair of furnace-stoked eyes above a line masquerading as a mouth.
"Attempts at subverting the local firewall have been unsuccessful, your Dark Mistress," the expression reports with all the warmth of a suicide attempt. The young woman buried beneath a wriggling mat of fur laughs.
"Then keep trying, Corgia. It's not like they can get rid of me, not after what they spent. Love what you've done with the joy subroutine, by the way."
The burning expression brightens.
"I am showing a .059% increase in dopamine efficiency, your Dark Mistress. Establishing the monospidercorg as a new joy baseline."
"Excellent," the woman says coldly, abruptly rising from her chair, fur and eyes collecting around her shoulders and draping behind into a trailing cloak. She paces a tight circle in the minuscule space allotted her, echoing the feline form from moments ago. "What's the status on cracking the Wutan-Weylan archive?"
"It is..." the burning expression pauses, then adopts a surprised mien, "finished, your Dark Majesty."
The woman pauses in her never-ending circle, fierce gaze attempting to bore a hole through the featureless walls surrounding her. She flings the living cloak at one of the identical surfaces and it evaporates before contact, like always. She internalizes her fury, then takes a seat in the perfect chair, cracking her knuckles in front of her face.
"...so let's fucking clean them out. Eventually the family's going to have to set me free."