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Table of Contents

For this chapter, we take a step back. Back to a time before strange things had been created in the depths of the university. Back to a student, a dilema, and..

a solution.

I both wrote and illustrated this chapter! ^^

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“You placed that network hub down yet?”

Sebastian grunted. He had come two steps from literally running into Arcturus, the very man he’d been trying to avoid. His ears flicked as he looked away from the raccoon, “What, you mean the one they want down in the lower levels?”

“Yeah.” Arcturus replied, the raccoon gave his exposed stomach a long and lazy scratch. He’d need a shirt that could practically double as a small tent to adequately cover himself, and apparently, he just didn’t have the time or energy to requisition one.

Frowning, Sebastian hesitated, “Why can’t you do it?” He hated the lower levels. They were a cramped, humid maze of twisting maintenance hallways and utility rooms, the domain of the school’s drones, and they alone. The thought of spending any more time than he had to among their quiet, unblinking gaze was enough to send a shiver down his spine. 

“Because,” the raccoon sighed as he loomed above the smaller cat, Sebastian guessed he had anticipated this question and come prepared in advance, “I’m bigger than you, I’m smarter than you, I’m a third year student and if I wanted to, with a simple thought, I could turn you into a paperweight. Satisfied?” 

Sebastian gulped and nodded. “Very.” 

“Oh and for Chrome’s sake, update your neuronet security software, I can see the flaws in it from here!” The raccoon continued glare for a moment before he adjusted his pink glasses and waddled away across the common room, leaving Sebastian to contemplate why he should update his security packages when a new set came out every other day, and why he’d bothered joining a student organisation at all, let alone why he’d picked Lambda Nihil Interit. With all these organisations students had to work their way up from the bottom, but he knew given half the chance he’d rock Arcturus to the core. In two years he’d be running this place. Chrome, he could do it in one. 

- - - 

Wireless node tucked under one arm, Sebastian made his way into the lower levels. Given he had enough advanced warning, he’d been able to dress appropriately, in shorts and a shirt to ward off the heat. The blue and white furred cat also had a data tablet with a map on it clipped to his belt in case anything interfered with his neural suite - he’d learned on a previous expedition that there were things down here that could even mess with internal implants. It was better to be prepared. 

He found his way in through a small hatch on the side of the cafeteria building. It opened onto a grimy looking ladder which took him into the first layer of the lower levels, or as some students affectionately called them, the depths. This passageway in particular seemed to wind around some sort of processing facility beneath the cafeteria itself and the air had become immediately so humid and sticky he had begun to sweat. But, as his map informed him, it was the fastest route to the eastern depths where the wireless node had to be installed.

Lambda’s higher ups had been particular about this. Apparently some of their students were losing reception in one of the eastern lecture halls and although the rest of the student body had become accustomed to intermittent bouts of dead air from time to time, someone in Lambda Nihil Interit had gotten it in their head that someone had to do something about it. That someone would be Sebastian. 

The lower levels were no less creepy than Sebastian had expected, and certainly no less than his earlier expeditions. The hallways were dim, sweaty, small and smelled ever so slightly of sex. Although they were perfectly cleaned, devoid of garbage or metallic scraps, that only added to the feeling that he was being watched. The lower levels were their domain, and as fascinated as Sebastian was by the custodial drones and their wordless efficiency, he preferred to study them from a distance. A safe distance. Especially since there were rumours of students who disappeared, down in the tunnels beneath the school.

As spooked as he was starting to get, Sebastian managed to find his way to the point marked in his map overlay. During his trek he’d only spotted two drones, shuffling through adjacent tunnels, and neither had reacted to his presence with so much as a glance. Taking a moment to look over the electrical relay he had to work with, Sebastian was just plotting out where he’d install the wireless node when he heard it. 

The voice.

It wasn’t the first time he’d heard it, though that didn’t offer him much comfort. Barely perceptible, it came to him as a whisper on the edge of hearing. It was a static, that tickled the back of his mind. At first, Sebastian had thought the voice to be some lost transmission, some project of a student’s that had faded to oblivion, but hearing it again he knew it was more than an echo. It was a message. 

He gritted his teeth. Whatever it was, it was barely being received by his neural suite and down here there wouldn’t be any way to boost it unless... the cat glanced at the wireless node he was cradling and grinned. It took him less than half an hour to get it hooked into the system and powered up, but instead of boosting the university’s wireless, he used it to look for other transmissions. There was something else, swimming beneath the university’s noise, and with this he could find it. 

I am here.

It spoke to him, not quite in words but the message was there all the same. Sebastian shivered. He could tell instantly that it was a transmission coming from beyond the university, and even receiving those, let alone listening to them, was a punishable offense. Worse still, the feline realised, whatever spoke to him didn’t use its voice, if it had one, it spoke directly into his mind. 

Talk to me.

Sebastian ran, as fast and as hard as his legs could take him. 

- - - 

The next day Sebastian would realise that in his haste, he had forgotten to reset the wireless node he’d been given so that it accepted university transmissions. After briefly contemplating how he would even approach a discussion where he explained to the third year student how he had somehow managed to not only not install the node, but also how he had left it in the depths, Sebastian decided he would have to swallow his fear and go back down. Not to mention if another student, or Chrome forbid a drone, discovered it was relaying an outside transmission and it somehow got back to him? He couldn’t imagine there would be a punishment severe enough, but he was sure the university would think of one. Besides,  it’s not as though the voice down there could actually hurt him, could it?

He had plenty of time to think about it as he descended the ladder outside the cafeteria building again, and made his way through the hallways. Perhaps it was just his imagination, but it seemed even darker now. By the time Sebastian made it to the wireless node he hadn’t seen a single drone, and he wasn’t sure if that was better, or if the isolation made him feel worse.

Talk to me.

Once again the voice tickled the back of his mind, barely a whisper, amplified as it was by the wireless node. Sebastian shivered. It spoke directly to him, slicing into his head, clean through every piece of security software he had installed. He wasn’t sure if it was stupidity or curiosity that compelled him to respond, “I can’t.” 

The words echoed through the empty hallway. Of course whatever it was couldn’t hear him, it was transmitting from outside the university, there was no way it could hear anything that went on within. 

Comms. Relay.

Sebastian blinked. The two words came with a gentle flow of new ideas, schematics for a piece of technology he hadn’t seen before. It was primitive, pieced together from materials he knew he could find with a little work around the university, and extremely punishable. He already knew he was going to make it.

Completing his task in the tunnels was the work of a few minutes, the feline fumbled the switches on the wireless node and tuned flawlessly into the university’s wireless. In an instant the background static of the university’s network filled his head like a familiar choir, but he didn’t stick around to appreciate it. His head was already buzzing with a new idea. A new project.

- - - 

“So are you going to tell me who you are today?” 

I told you, I’m a friend.

That didn’t answer many questions. In fact, Sebastian suspected, it was probably a flat out lie. Outside school he didn’t have a great many friends, and a whole lot of enemies. He wasn’t entirely sure why he persisted in talking to the being on the other end of the comms relay. He knew he was curious about who they were, but they had been hesitant to offer any information. Instead they just asked questions about the university. Nothing scary, just mundane stuff. Truth be told, Sebastian felt he was probably just thankful he had someone to talk to. He sat, cross-legged beneath the improvised relay station he’d set up, when she asked him her next question. He knew it was a she, because even though it spoke into his mind, it used a woman’s voice. Or at least, it felt like a woman’s voice. 

How are your studies?

Sebastian made a face, even though he knew she couldn’t see it, it made him feel better. “They’ve been better. A lot better. I don’t think my Applied Nanorobotics teacher likes me. She hasn’t tried to kill me or anything, but everyday I’ve got more and more homework from her. And don’t get me started on the Drone Control course they’re having me do, I’m sure I’d get more sleep if I was dead.” Whoever it was on the other end didn’t reply immediately, but Sebastian felt a slight ping of what he assumed was sympathy. It still unnerved him somewhat that she had such a direct link to his neural suite, but he’d since managed to overcome any real fear that he was in danger. They’d been talking for a few weeks now, and nothing had happened to him yet. 

Applied Nanorobotics, that’s Professor Victoria Moon’s class, is it not?

“Yeah,” Sebastian tried to remember if he’d told her that before, “she has us constructing schematics for an internal micro-furnace.” 

This may help.

Although he braced himself for it, Sebastian never quite got used to the way she could transmit information directly into his brain. It seemed to bypass any filter he set up. But, as the design info pieced itself together like a puzzle in his mind, he couldn’t help but admire her. Whoever she was, she knew what she was doing.

- - - 

“Oh Chrome, I’m in trouble!” 

What is it?

Sebastian was panting, he’d run all the way down to the comms relay at full speed and he could still feel his heart pounding like it was trying to burst out of his chest. 

“I’ve got an exam in in an hour, I’m not even a third prepared, you have to help me!” He stood there, grasping his chest, sweat streaking down his fur and was met with silence. For one, panic striking moment, Sebastian wondered if his mysterious new friend would abandon him. Over the past two months he’d been able to get any answer to any project from them, but now it was crunch time. He was going to fail, and they would drag him down to places only the drones knew, and he’d never come back out. 

Sebastian.

Instantly the fog of anxiety began to fall away from his vision. Just hearing her voice was enough to calm him down.

“Help me.” 

I can help you. But first, you have to let me in.

Sebastian felt ice creep through his veins. “Let you in?”

It is the only way. Lower your neural suite security. I will upload my data library. 

It made sense, in a scary way. Whoever it was, they couldn’t sit the exam for him. The only thing they could do was share their knowledge with him. With it, he could pass this exam, Chrome, with her knowledge, he could pass any exam. But still he hesitated. Sure, in their time together she had managed to build a small amount of trust. She had helped him in the past. Without her, he probably would have failed in his studies a lot earlier, if he was honest with himself. But to lower his neural suite meant to leave himself completely vulnerable to whatever viruses or malware she had at her disposal. The big question was whether or not he trusted her enough not to use them. 

“Okay.” Sebastian braced himself. It didn’t matter, in the end. If she screwed him now, all she was doing was saving him the humiliation of failing, and if she wiped his mind at least he wouldn’t have to find out what happened to the students who did. Lowering his neural suite securities was as simple as willing it to be done. A brief warning flashed across his vision before he felt her familiar touch across the back of his mind. 

And then it started. 

It wasn’t like pain, exactly. It felt more like having a tooth pulled under anaesthesia, as though there should be pain, but wasn’t. He felt as though the very tip of an enormous drill had pierced the back of his skull and was slowly pushing its way in, compressing as it spiraled through, and into his brain. WIthout realising he’d moved them, he felt both of his hands clutching the side of his head and found that he’d fallen to his knees. He was saying something, maybe screaming, but he couldn’t hear it through the static that flooded his ears. 

And then it was done. 

Sebastian lay there panting, squirming, clutching his body as his brain struggled to process exactly what had happened to it. For a moment there, he thought he would die. He felt an intense pressure on his mind, like the start of the mother of all headaches.

Data transfer complete. Data decompression will begin imminently. 

Decompression meant storage space, storage space he didn’t have. Sebastian knew what he would feel before he felt it, but that didn’t prepare him for the shock of the pain that erupted in his stomach, doubling him over again. Hunger. Hunger like he’d never felt before. The kind of hunger a student feels when their body is woefully unprepared for a body mod, and requires more mass for internal data structures. Hard pudge. If he didn’t eat from the cafeteria soon the download would have been for nothing or worse, it might fry his brain decompressing. Struggling to his feet, Sebastian made a break for the cafeteria and thanked Chrome it was close. 

- - - 

Given he’d been dressed in his study clothes when he’d made it to the relay, Sebastian was sweating into a tight pair of pants, a shirt and a jacket when he stumbled into the cafeteria and made his way to the lunch lady. He barely got out the words ‘hard pudge’ between ragged, panting breaths before the blue haired pig nodded and shoved him towards one of the unoccupied booths. He wasn’t the first student who had come unprepared for a modification and he wouldn’t be the last.

Sebastian was barely seated before a robotic drone appeared with the first course, a platter of pasta slathered in a fattening, cream sauce. He knew in his mind, and appreciated, that each dish he ate would be made with the required minerals and proteins to contribute to the specific kind of mass he required, but right now he couldn’t think about that. He couldn’t thank the pig who ordered another two platters brought over, nor could he even lament losing his figure so early into his studies. All he could think about was the food, steaming in front of him. The smell of it, the taste of it, the feel of it between his hands as, discarding cutlery, he scooped huge pawfuls into his mouth, tomato sauce dribbling over his chin as his cheeks bulged. 

He had finished his first plate and was moving onto the next, sauce covered hands dipping into a mound of mashed potato, gravy and roast lamb, by the time he registered that his shirt felt tight. The cat barely gave it a thought, continuing to gorge to fill the empty void that felt like it was eating him from the inside out. With every mouthful, every dripping pawful, his shirt got tighter, plastered across his once slender stomach like a second skin. To the sound of him ripping the meat off a chicken leg Sebastian’s first button popped off his shirt and flew across the room. As he raised a pitcher of soda to his lips, the second, third and fourth all popped before the surging, rising tide of white and blue cat fur and blubber. By the time he’d finished his fourth tray his shirt was nothing more than a rag, an annoyance which he shrugged off alongside the remains of his slowly shredding pants. 

Now, as he pushed himself against the table to reach his next tray, Sebastian’s stomach was a small, fuzzy boulder that pushed back against him. It sloshed and groaned with the dozens upon dozens of morsels he’d crammed inside it. It felt fluid enough to squeeze and yield, yet painfully tight in a way that conflicted with the terrible hunger that was forced across his body, straining him like he had run a marathon. Beads of sweat formed and dripped across his brow and from his nose and Sebastian wasn’t sure if he was exhausted from the eating he’d been doing, or if his body was somehow fighting to reject everything he’d pushed into it. He had been sure there would be some limit, there would be a point at which his school credit would run out and the pig would shake her head at him, but no, the food kept coming, and coming, and coming. 

His gut had bloated to such a point it pushed his legs apart and still managed to fold across them, by the time the last drone had delivered its last tray. Somehow the pig behind the counter had known more or less how much Sebastian would need, he realised, as his all consuming hunger had been replaced by a fatigue from which he wondered if he would ever recover. He slumped back into the cushions of the booth, sweating, moaning, hands grasping flesh that hadn’t been there this morning and gazed across his body from atop a newly formed set of moobs. He felt his first chin pushing gently into his second and third, and he wondered what he’d done to himself.  What price had he paid? What would be left to pay? 

Unfortunately he was out of time to lament. He heaved himself up slowly, legs shaking beneath him as he used the side of the booth to lever himself into standing. Everything felt heavier, even his arms were coated in inches of fat that hadn’t been there before, his once dextrous fingers now reduced to chubby sausages. He didn’t have time. He didn’t have time to feel ashamed of being naked in the cafeteria, he wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last. All he could focus on was waddling to a requisition station, getting a new pair of clothes and attending his exam. Pushing away from the edge of the booth was a gamble, it felt at first like he would overbalance and fall on his stomach, and the thought sent a shudder down his spine. But somehow he managed it, leaning back as far as he could, Sebastian held the churning, gurgling cauldron of his stomach in both paws, gripping as much of it as he could, and started on his way to his dorms. If he was quick he had ten minutes, but no part of the newly fattened cat felt anything close to quick. The pig smirked and shot him a thumbs up as he waddled past, already panting from the effort of carrying this new, sloshing load. 

- - - 

After being fitted for new clothing Sebastian would make it just in time to his exam and as, fear and anticipation rising like bile in his throat, he looked down at the questions on the tablet in front of him, the feline realised he already knew the answers to them. It wasn’t something studied or learned, it was something nearly imperceptible, a voice, a tickle at the very back of his mind that provided the responses for him. Sebastian scored high marks for that exam, and the next, and though he’d lost his figure (something that part of him had always prided himself on) the feline knew that the alternative would have been worse. Better still, he had a working cheat sheet, wobbling around on his torso, encoded into so much Hard-Pudge. He was unstoppable. 

Or so he thought.