Reconnect

 Interruptions on the ICN network was very rare, and planned outages
announced far in advance. Pilar sent a query to find out what possibly
could be on the blink.

 While Pilar was an average kinkster in her own society, the nanobots she
had in her body had made improvements to the neural connections in the
brain, so beside having the ability to access an encyclopedic knowledge 
on just about every item and subject at all times, her intelligence had also
been augmented by auxiliary processors.

 So she did very well understand the cause when she received the
information how a flare on their primary star had disrupted, not the actual
communication portal, but the supporting electronics.

 A few moments passed, and as the circuits came back online a low density
carrier became available, Pilar sent a text message to Moira; 
“Our simulation got cut off.”

 “Oh there you are! I just noted your avatar had gotten unresponsive so
I cancelled everything here. Is the problem in my end?” came the reply.

 “No it's here, our Primary is having one unusually powerful flare.” 

 “That's unfortunate, is it still possible to use voice?”

 “I think so.” Pilar replied. 

  It took a moment before she could hear Moira's voice over the ICN.
 “Wow simply wow is all I can say, I constantly did my worst and really
thought you would cut out on your own accord.”

 “A heavy trip, I loved every second of it! I am quite a masochist, 
am I not?” Pilar said with bubbly happiness and giggled.

 “It was wonderful on every level, my most twisted ideas made real!” 
replied Moira.

 “But what was the idea behind including those men in the plot?”
 “I liked the perspective being utterly helpless all the time. But feel
rather lucky we got cut off before you had entered any male to the
simulation, it would have been thoroughly squicky to be manhandled
by a smelly male body!”

 Moira replied with a thoughtful tone. “I was quite certain that you
would be very mentally battered from my assault, so I had planned
the script so that you would meet more persons in the last sequence.” 

 “For that part, I had made convincing avatars. Making a point by forcing
you to see things from a completely different angle. True, I was hoping
you'd be disgusted.” Moira sounded ambivalent when she added the
question: “Don't you have a disgust fetish also?”

 “Er yes, but not quite in that way.” Pilar hesitated a moment before adding.
 “I almost want to tell you not to try anything like that again. But I see
your point and what you tried to accomplish. So despite my misgivings,
you're in charge and should decide. And I humbly thank you for your effort.” 

Now that their mutual simulation had been set up to include other people
for the first time Pilar added a question on how things had been arranged.
 “Wait a sec, you said 'avatar', do you mean those guys you mentioned 
were all made up?”

 “Actually, we did have a couple of actual persons viewing, and oddly
enough also one AI who took an interest, for what reason I cannot fathom.
Perhaps a bodyless one, the only pleasure those guys get is from watching.”

  “Ah-huh,” Pilar said. Since she long ago have found the more advanced AI's
to be inscrutable, and made a decision not waste endless time speculating. 
“The idea of having human viewers added some humiliation I guess.”
 Pilar thought for a brief moment and added the question; “Just a few?” 

  “Yes, in my neck of the woods there's not many who indulge themselves
with a hobby like ours. They're a diligent bunch of bores, focused on work.”
Moira chuckled before continuing: “The handful of viewers we had were 
scattered around all kind of places and worlds.” 

 “I paid a virtual visit to say hello to on one of those who had contributed 
a few creative ideas; I found him watching on 4C from a big sofa while
wearing a brain interface headset.”

  “Four? What was the last tier, tactile?” 

 Moira made a pause in surprise before replying; “Heavens no, just smell.
It might have improved the illusion of being on location.” 

 “I see, that's ok I guess, I would have found it slightly odd if you had
broadcast our emotions or touch on any channel.” 

  “I certainly did not, impossible to say if anyone simulated that part
locally. But I did not send such a channel to anyone. It could be done 
in sim anyway, what make guys like those interested is original
settings and how things are setup.”

  “With me as the punching bag.” Joked Pilar. “I am happy to learn that
you didn't, and in case some guy simulated the rest, it's none of my
business as it would not be any part of me anyway. They're free to
wank off as much as they like to sim.”

 “The guy I checked out didn't wank at all actually, he used direct
stimulation of the pleasure center.”

 “I am relieved, that's all clean and don't give me any yuck feelings
whatsoever. And if I had someone cum on remote. It's still kinky!” 
She smiled reassuringly to show there were no hard feelings about
the arrangements Moira had made. Then realised it was a wasted
effort in this unusual situation of communicating by voice only.

 So she added a joke to make her point clear. “You better take
notes now; Next time you add more filth for the wankers!”

 This had Moira chortle. “I have to agree that it happen that voyeurs
sometime give me the creeps also, they never do anything creative 
on their own, only leech on us who are active in virtual space.”

 “But yeah, what's the difference, to experience things in real or sim?”
While Pilar teased Moira with this comment, she regretted it instantly
since she already knew they were separated by a huge distance.
Her misgivings made even stronger when she heard Moira's reply.
 
 “Under the circumstances I live under, sim's is the only option anyway.” 

Moira found that she nearly had slipped into personal matters she
considered to be too early to talk about at this point, so she hurriedly
brought the discussion back to the main subject: “We did bite a large
chunk in that virtual session, it was the longest sim we've ever done.”

 Trough ICN, the interstellar network, people could communicate, trade
information and exchange experiences almost in real time. In this time
and age there were no need for slow typing or mouse movements.

 So both writing text and even speech was more often done silently via
one implant in the mind.
While actions and reactions of robots, androids of with a gaming character
could be commanded, faster than the blink of one eye. This while
electronic implants who supported the mind could process vast amounts
of information much faster than if they had experienced it trough their
ordinary senses.

 The users could therefore experience a large number of events in a
compressed time-frame. So that hours became days, and a day would
seem like a week.
While the processors implanted in the brain could obtain much higher
speeds, the limitation was in the users mind, how fast the biological
brain could receive and process the experience.

 Those who had planned and constructed this marvel of advanced
technology could not possibly have imagined that the network one day 
would be well suited for simulating BDSM practices, as the submissive
was passive at most times of a session, the latency was often not noticeable.

 But the last session have lasted a very long subjective time. This was entirely
outside what Pilar thought possible, which made her very curious on how it
had been achieved.

 “I really wondered about the time elapsed. We can get quite a 
compressed perspective in a simulation, but I got the feeling this
one  lasted for many weeks!”

 Pilar could hear quite some pride in Moira's voice as she replied.
“Oh I did some artistic programming. By feeding one side channel
of information directly to your memory, while a second channel
accessed the parts that make you dream. This way I created an
illusion that we've spent a much longer time together.” 

 “I knew that your main interest is for the more far out things.”
“So I used a multi tier approach, where you got the first part of the
simulation like our first dates, as already experienced memories
only, all that was in your past. No actual time was used for periods
when nothing happened.”
 “So any time you were left in the box you got fast forwarded to my
next appearance.” 

 “A chromatin engram left you with the impression that you've been
locked inside for several hours or more.” Moira made a short impasse. 
“In reality the session was nearly continuous action from beginning
to end - though I did leave some routine tasks to an avatar. As I had
to take a power nap now and then.”

 “While I got a few naps in the box I assume.” Asked Pilar.
Moira only hummed in response.

 “A wonderful idea.” said Pilar somewhat lamely, “I'm still somewhat
stunned from the amazing session.” Which was the truth as she 
suffered a small lingering disorientation from the abrupt change of
perspective while her mind still tried to catch up with the memories
of her accumulated intense experiences.  

 The weirdest part was that she felt naked without the collar on her
neck or the cuffs on wrists and ankles.

 She shrugged those concerns away by asking a question "It's no
risk of overload? Like getting friction burns on the brain is it?"

 Moira went silent, wondering if her play partner actually did suffer
some side effect by asking such an odd question. But then realised
Pilar had been joking and replied mockingly.

 “I am certain a delinquent like you already have gotten quite some
burns on your cortex from the various drugs you tried over the years,
have you not?”

 “Actually, I don't do any drugs at all. Such would prevent me from
experiencing things to the fullest, including what we been trough
just now! And you?”

  “No drugs for me either, the body…” Moira broke off, realising she
almost had revealed too much about herself by stating 'I inhibit right
now'. But made no correction and continued by adding: “…could be 
damaged also in other ways from drug abuse, not just the neocortex.”

 “I am glad to learn that you're not a substance abuser, I need to feel
safe also in virtual space, not risking that the other person would
lose control or do something crazy.”

 Pilar felt she needed to learn more about how Moira had created
the illusion of such a long timespan in the virtual session, so she 
asked: 
“Could you send over the scripts and hacks you used? I would like
to have a closer look.”

  “Absolutely, I send them right away.” Moira said, and did not
seem to suspect that Pilar had spotted something potentially fishy.

 Now that she had a opportunity and means to learn more about
how the virtual experience had been tweaked. Pilar felt there were 
a number of details she needed to get a close look at as soon as
possible, so she made an excuse by saying: “Now I have to say
goodbye for this time, I really need to rest now so that I can get
back to work tomorrow.”

 “Thank you for your reluctant participation, that made it even better than
what I imagined.” Replied Moira and disconnected.

 In this age and time, nearly every person had nanobots augmenting their
health and longevity. In addition, most also added secondary processors.
 This provided direct access to all kind of information regardless of location,
the infosphere of old Earth had grown immensely now that many other
worlds had been included.

 While Pilar felt a need to wash herself before she could deal with matters in
the real world, she spent a moment to send out query bots to study and
compile a summary about the protocols that had been used. She started
this inquest, part out of curiosity, but also to find out how such tweaking
had bypassed her Firewall without triggering a warning.

 Now when this had been set in motion to wrap that matter up. Pilar pulled
a cable out of the socket, removed her brain stimulation cap and took a deep
breath and sat still for some moments, before she stepped up to take a shower. 

 She did not have time to finish before the bots reported back, as they had
found that nothing had been tampered with besides the events and her
experience in the simulation. She still found it worrying that the tweaks
had circumvented all safeguards without a warning. 
So while she still stood naked drying under infrared lights, she wasted no time
but immediately composed a message with her implant link with a brief
description for those who handled security matters.

 Diplomatically adding that they might consider adding a patch to the 
next wetware update to prevent and filter any unauthorized misuse 
trough these side channels.

 The problem was how to get their attention to read it soon, instead of
having it filter trough several levels of AI's and clerks.

 The problem was how to get their attention to read it soon, instead of
having it filter trough several levels of AI's and clerks.
She needed something that had the personnel take notice and take prompt
action.
Pilar was grinning wildly when she added the subject header: 'Your security
protocols is no more than a welcome mat with the keys put underneath!'

But the session and this intense search for answers also had her suffer from
information overflow. She needed to rest her mind, so she set the threshold
very high, not to be disturbed by anyone but Moira, unless there was a
supernova.... in her own basement.

 After Pilar had changed into clean clothes, she started to write a thank you
message to Moira for providing such a great experience, and asked if she
would have time to meet again next weekend.

 As a suggestion for future sessions she added a number of notes pointing
out that the spiked headbox might be medieval, cannibals unlikely to have
existed after the ancient 17'th or 18'th centuries, while the laptop computer 
seen in the dungeon belonged in the 21'th century.

 She ended the message on a positive note by suggesting that Moira could
do better if she paid attention to details that not mixed historical epochs.

 Moira received the message and sent a reply that she were happy for the
creative input and would be delighted to do some minor changes so her
settings would have less anachronisms next time, adding that she had a
clear idea on what they might try next.  
Pilar smiled when she read the reply.  But told herself. “While she's certainly 
is both kinky, enthusiastic and resourceful. From now on there'll be no more 
mindfucks without a working warning system!”