By Taurus

Part 8 – Zeroth Dangerous Threshold

Matt was, for once, entirely stunned.

“Sir?”

As if bewitched, Luke moved past his locker of personal items as if he forgot what clothes were, and sat like a dog next to Matt, who was working hard to record his testing results, until Luke did something unprecedented.

Having folded up his fingers, Luke, with his right hand like a paw, reached past Matt’s armrest and lightly patted his crotch.

Okay, what the fuck should he do now?

As Luke inched closer, the more Matt felt uneasy.

They were working partners and dinner date friends at best – Matt was not quite ready for the full fellatio treatment yet.

That said, there was that look in Luke’s eyes, like a puppy’s all-powerful gaze that can compel anyone to do their bidding and sate their desires.

Matt had always thought that what he wanted was out of reach – a pipe dream, completely impractical in all its aspects – but now he saw a golden opportunity. There was one chance to pull this off, and declining to take it would mean forgoing it forever.

“Sir…”

“Oh well…

“Come here, boy.”

Rather gleefully, Luke knelt between Matt’s legs and began giving him a blowjob. He had never done so in real life before, but the simulations had taught him everything he needed to know – relax the jaw and throat, close the eyes, and forget about the world.

Bizarre vocabulary seemed to permeate his thoughts, like how Matt’s dick was “tasty,” and how he felt his actions were “crucial.”

He “wanted more time.”

“Hey, hey,” Matt cooed as he gently moved Luke away from his dick – not that Luke was lousy, just that Matt needed a break.

“Boy, I -”

Matt interrupted himself, secretly exasperated at the fact that he had gotten so comfortable with treating Luke as his bitch boy.

Yes, “bitch boy”. No point in mincing words here.

“…I need to work.”

“But I want more time,” Luke said innocently, perhaps unaware of the fact that he was speaking in a tone more fit for mourning a spouse.

“No, boy,” Matt said with some conviction in his rejection, and gestured to a small bed in a neighbouring room. “You will go take a nap.”

“Yes sir.”

***

“Valiance. Bring up the blueprints for the broadcast device. Apply my latest revisions – set 19.”

Designs for a sleek device the size of a CCTV camera appeared on Matt’s tablet. Parts such as the “redesigned antenna,” “additional energy banks,” and “shielded networking conduits” were highlighted in gold and automatically captioned. A list titled “Discarded Modules” contained the bullet point “local interfacing managers”.

“Viability?”

“The required energy cells are of prototypical design. Mass procurement may be difficult, however, two of your contacts have a high probability of being capable of producing a limited quantity of the cells. In addition, discarding local interfacing manager modules may result in critical loss of processing power.

“Please resolve.”

Matt took a few moments to contemplate his work – Valiance was not wrong with their points of critique.

Valiance was never wrong.

That said, he himself was rarely wrong too.

“I’m only trying to build three examples – the energy cell procurement issue does not concern me. As for the performance issue, I have plans to integrate AIs – specifically Vantage, Vacuity, and you, Valiance – into its functions. You will dedicate processing power to manage broadcast uplink and simulation information. This device will therefore only be used in this facility.

“Reevaluate with updated parameters.”

“No issues.”

With a sigh of relief, Matt reclined slightly in his chair, pouring himself a glass of beer. Nine sleepless years he had worked on this project for, and now it would finally bear fruit.

Before he switched off his devices, however, he addressed another of his AIs.

“Vacuity. Execute Fate Protocol with delay factor of 7 days.”

***

“Subject L encountered memory gremlins during incarceration simulation. After being loaded into sub-programs adx-outdoors and adx-labour, L’s neural activity began showing errors.

“Error category 1: memory loops. L had incorrectly identified dinner with lunch. The lunch segment was also reprised due to subconscious recall during simulated sleep. It is currently unclear whether this was true dreaming or pseudo-dreaming. A likely hypothesis is that L had confused simulation with reality; motifs of the feeding system and operator identity were deliberately designed to resemble reality.

“Solutions are inelegant. High reality resemblance potentially causes degrading of reality/simulation awareness. Low reality resemblance may cause decoherence during simulation actual.

“Establishing a Zeroth Dangerous Threshold is necessary for neural integrity. This Threshold defines the least permitted neural work done -”

“Sir?”

[0.207s, imitation of infantile mumbling, unprocessed audio]

[End]

***

“Our operatives just got this recording. As it seems to be a work-in-progress, it hasn’t been archived and it’s not protected by the full suite of security measures yet.

“Finally, because that last bit wasn’t spoken, it wasn’t run through the usual encryption process – I think we have an ID – Hans Lynch.”

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