Catgirls Can Do It! (Build-A-Catgirl Book 2)

by Simon Archer

  I started detaching myself from the traveling signal as I hurtled towards the wall. I made certain my tech neuron was still securely attached to me. My calculations told me I would use at least twenty-five percent of its power to get through the wall. A surge of excitement sped through my consciousness and got increasingly more intense, the closer I got. I started to feel the backflow of energy from other signals bouncing off the firewall and shattering. Although I hadn’t been surfing before, I imagined that it would’ve felt similar. It was exhilarating. I was almost there. I had to time my disconnection from the traveling signal just right so I could use the firewall’s surge to slam myself through the thin section I’d seen. I waited until I was completely enveloped with the purple glow that surrounded the wall before jumping off my signal. I detached and launched myself backward, away from the firewall, as hard as I could. I needed the signal to hit the wall first.

  Jumping backward slowed me enough to see the traveling signal I’d been on shoot out ahead of me and crash into the firewall. The wall bowed in slightly under impact as it started demolishing the signal. Bits of orange scattered all around me at such speeds they were barely visible, even to me. The resistance from the crumbling signal started to decrease, and the firewall started to surge back out. I saw the thin section, now directly in front of me, spread even thinner as the wall pushed out. I set myself for impact and collided with my intended spot less than a nano-second from the wall reaching its full extension.

  I immediately started hooking energy threads around the individual fibers in the wall to make sure I wasn’t thrown off. I had to change the pattern of my energy so that when I was broken apart into thousands of pieces as I went through the wall, I would recombine on the other side. I wove myself around thousands of fibers before the wall hit full extension. When it started to return to its normal, resting state, I could feel the fibers start pressing back together. I had transferred just enough of my energy to the other side of the fibers that the change in environmental pressure from one side of the wall to the other, started pulling me through. I released a twenty-five percent power surge from my tech neuron to speed up the process and ensure that all of me was pushed through. If the fibers locked together too tightly, there was the possibility that bits and pieces of me could be cut off. I made it completely through just as the fibers locked behind me.

  I no longer had any inertia, so I was floating right next to the firewall once I’d made it through. I took a brief moment to examine the wall and make certain I had not been detected. If I had, it would only look like a power spike in the wall, but I still preferred to be completely undetectable. When I was satisfied that my hack was successful, I started looking for another traveling signal. It took no time to find one. In fact, there were thirty-times as many signals on Japan’s side of the firewall. There were so many that the space looked slightly gray from the overlapping opaque signals. That made the traveling signals easy to spot, though. I started heading towards the first orange strip that I saw.

  Once I was attached to a new signal, I made it to Mirai’s secure network in an instant. The private firewall I encountered there was a cinch to pass through, and I found myself in the midst of all Mirai’s databases. It was time to get to work. I started searching for evidence relating to Mirai’s intentions regarding their contracts with Omnicorp. My biggest concern was to only look at data that was already public. Anything that had been sent out on unsecured networks, or blatantly allowed public access.

  I started with the personnel files. I found a public list of employees. Once I’d finished with them, I switched to contracts. I couldn’t delve into those files without breaking data-mining laws, so I moved on. After contracts, I moved on to supply chain data but found nothing pertinent. Financials were next. Mirai was financially stable and very profitable, in fact. They were environmentally conscious, which I was not expecting, but it saved them millions on materials. There was no evidence of a materials supply shortage or shortcuts being taken with the manufacture or shipping of their products. When I was finished with financials, I moved to communications. I paused only to release a small, five percent burst of energy from my tech neuron in order to restore the energy that I was expending by doing the searches.

  When I dove into my search inside Mirai’s communications database, I quickly became impressed with their organizational capabilities. All of their correspondence was categorized, cataloged, and marked with levels of import. Each high-level employee had their own file system that wasn’t connected to any of the others, allowing for communications to be viewed only by them. I started with files from the heads of the Marketing and Public relations departments and found nothing of consequence out in the open. I quickly moved on to correspondence from the CEO and founder of the company, Isamu Sato.

  At first, his email server appeared to be the same as the other high-level employees, but once I started opening public, unrestricted messages, I would occasionally see one where there was a telltale change in the CEO’s signature. The tail of the ‘u’ in Isamu was slightly elongated in some of the messages. After the third signature I saw like that, I stopped my search to go back and examined the odd letter. I found that a link was attached to it. I followed the link and found myself on a hidden server that was completely separate from the main communications one.

  The volume of messages was much smaller on the secret server, but they were the ones I was most interested in. All communications with Omnicorp had been stored there. I paused to scan my memory of data mining laws. I was on a secret server, but I’d gotten here following a publically found link. I didn’t want to breach the law, so I stuck to examining outwardly visible information. I was sincerely impressed with the way Mirai had tucked the information away and wanted to know why they had done so. I started scanning the email message titles and attachment names, beginning with the very first one ever sent between companies. I read one after another, in chronological order, a small bit of the relationship between Omincorp and Mirai unfolded before me.

  Most of the titles on the emails indicated standard communication between the two companies in regard to one providing materials for the other. They had been doing business together for ten years, which was longer than cat girls had been around. That meant that Mirai had always been Omnicorp’s only nano-glass supplier. Also, because they had formed their relationship before CGs were released, it brought to light exactly why there hadn’t been any knock-off nano-glass products making it to market. Not many, outside those in the employ of the two companies, and the cat girls themselves, really knew what nano-glass was. To the untrained eye, the cord used inside cat girls looked solid, not like it was made up of thousands of the tiny nano-glass wires.

  I continued my examination of the open information the messages provided at lightning speed. I hadn’t detected a security measure on the link I used to get onto the secret server, but I didn’t want to stay there any longer than necessary, just in case. I wasn’t finding any signs of hostility or discontent between the companies. I made it to the messages from two years prior to the current date and then noticed a small change. The change wasn’t in the title wording, or tone, of the correspondence, it was in the timestamps.

  Very suddenly, two years ago, Isamu started increasing the average response time to Omnicorp messages. For years the messages were all replied to within forty-eight hours at max. Suddenly the response time increased to three days. In one year’s worth of messages, Isamu had gone from a two day response time to a two-week response window. Even up to that point, though, the tone and topics were the same. It wasn’t until I started reading message titles from within the past eight months that I caught the shift in tone.

  Omnicorp sent Isamu a message regarding him not replying to them in what they felt was an appropriate time frame. Isamu waited an extra week to reply to that email. When he did, he titled the message ‘Shift in priority from glass production to returning emails.’ Omnicorp’s response was like that of a whipped puppy, and they apo
logized.

  After that message, there was significantly less correspondence between the companies. Eventually, Isamu all but stopped responding to Omnicorp. There was never any evidence of why the rift occurred. I started seeing new contract messages sent from Omnicorp that Isamu never even opened. Omnicorp requested negotiations for the renewal of their supplier contract multiple times before the message titles changed topic.

  What seemed like a very random message, sent by Isamu about six months ago, notified that Mirai was experiencing some supply chain changes, and then a second one seemed to notify Omnicorp of a change in supply rate.

  That was the last message Isamu sent to Omnicorp.

  While I knew Clark would be pleased to see that Mirai was pulling away from Omnicorp, there was one question I knew he’d want answered. Was it Mirai’s common business practice to just abandon their contracts?

  I sped through reading the last of the unanswered email titles from Omnicorp. By the time I reached the most recent, sent earlier that morning, the subject lines of the messages had all basically become the same, Omnicorp begging for correspondence.

  The very last email Isamu received sent me in a different direction. It referenced video conferences and ‘consequences for lack of adequate participation.’ It was a failed attempt at strong-arming a supplier who knew all too well that Omnicorp had nowhere else to get the nano-glass they needed, but it did steer me in the direction of video conferencing files. I started searching for video files and found a batch of them organized by date. Omnicorp and Mirai had been video conferencing one time per week for the past ten years. Not one single week was missed.

  I went straight to the videos recorded in the last six months and started scanning the openly accessible information. Each week, Isamu showed up. The consistency of the files was enough to reassure me that Isamu was an honest businessman and ran his company with integrity but could be a force to be reckoned with if offended. I did not find evidence of what had offended him initially, however.

  After I’d scanned the last video conference title and timestamp, I made the decision to go ahead and drop the message on the secret server. Relations between Omnicorp and Mirai seemed stressed enough that the possibility of them severing ties was plausible. That was the indication Clark told me to look out for when deciding to leave the message, and I had satisfied those requirements.

  I backed out of the video file storage area and went onto Isamu’s email server. I located an email that Isamu had started drafting three years prior but had never finished. Without opening the message, I attached a simple bit of code that would show different content than what he had typed in the body of the email. Then I changed the subject line to read ‘Where glass cracks, there is a space.’ When the email showed up in his inbox, it would show that Isamu had sent it to himself.

  That should be a big enough flag to make him look into it. When he did, he would only have thirty-seconds of viewing time before the code I put in the message would make the email revert back to its original text and retreat back to the drafts file. I set the message timer to send the message in exactly three minutes. I wanted to be on the other side of the world before the email was delivered.

  After setting the timer, I followed the link back to the original email server and started retracing my path back to the open network. I paused only to release some energy from my tech neuron, and then I got on the first traveling signal I saw that was headed out of the country.

  I was in for a much smoother ride on my return trip. Japan’s firewall was designed to keep foreign signals out, not keep their own signals from leaving. As I approached the firewall, it started stretching itself thin right where the signal I was on was going to hit it. Right before the signal would’ve collided with the wall, the space with thinning fibers opened up. A massive suction pulled the signal, with me on it, through the firewall which immediately closed behind me.

  My return trip to the VSG network was faster than I’d anticipated. The speed and strength of the signal I rode out of Japan were far greater than the one I rode in on. I was happy to get back to my home network, however. Once I was back inside VSG’s network, I returned to my own firewall and squeezed through. It would take me sixty-seconds to regenerate the power I’d need to reboot the systems inside my dormant body.

  I went to work immediately. I used what I had left of the power in my tech neuron to jump-start the process and sat back. My neuro-net started coming to life as the energy spread across it, and systems started coming back online. It glowed a dull yellow at first and then started getting brighter. Soon, it was at full illumination, and power signals started moving along its connections.

  A surge of energy went through me, and I opened my eyes.

  5

  I was relaxing with my eyes closed, holding Kennedi’s hand across our loungers, when I heard Ellie shift in her seat. I opened my eyes and looked at her. Sure enough, she was moving, and her eyes were open. I glanced at my watch and saw that she had only been gone for less than five minutes. I sat up and pushed the footrest of my lounger down so I could stand up. Kennedi didn’t move, though, and she pulled me back into my chair as I tried to stand.

  “Do you need me sitting for some reason?” I asked her impatiently. She grinned at me and shook her head.

  “I don’t need you to, but there is no reason to stand just yet,” she told me. “Ellie’s systems are rebooted, but she’ll need to complete the storage process for the information she’s brought back with her. It will be at least another sixty seconds before we should have her start reporting.” Kennedi winked at me and tugged at my arm to get me lean over and kiss her.

  I obliged. She had such wildly soft, full lips. Saying no to having them anywhere on me was a difficult task for me. After I pulled away and smiled at her, I sat back in my lounger and tried to get my impatience in check. I had a million questions for Ellie, and even though I only had to wait another forty-five seconds, I felt like I was going to burst with curiosity. My eyes were locked on Ellie until she finally unfolded her legs out from under herself and turned toward Kennedi and me.

  “Your message has been delivered,” she said. The volume of her voice grew from barely audible to loudly excited within that one sentence. I jumped up and went to sit beside her on the loveseat.

  “What did you find out?” I had to know. Kennedi sat forward in her chair, and Ellie’s purple-blue eyes widened as her excitement grew.

  “There is definitely something broken in Mirai’s relationship with Omnicorp,” she started. “I scanned every file they had, and then I found a secret communications server where Isamu Sato keeps all his correspondence with them. Isamu started delaying communication with Omni about two years ago. Then, eight months ago, the few messages Isamu did send were short-tempered. Six months ago, Isamu notified Omni that nano-glass production was slowing but didn’t give any real reasoning for it. He never sent them another message that I could find.” Ellie shifted in her seat to face me completely.

  “The last time the companies had contact was six months ago?” I was shocked. I’d never imagined that any company walking out on an existing contract.

  “No,” Ellie told us. “There were video conferences held once per week. They’ve been going on the entire span of the contract. Isamu was showing up for his contractual duties on the conferences, but it got to the point where he would simply report what he was required to and wouldn’t even address direct questions outside of that scope.” I tried to imagine how awkward those video meetings must’ve been.

  “So, Isamu didn’t abandon his obligations?” I needed to know what kind of morality I’d be dealing with, and my stomach was starting to tighten. Ellie had said she dropped the message I’d sent. “And you sent the message?”

  “No, he didn’t abandon the contract,” Ellie reiterated for me. “I left the message because it was clear there were a rift and no evidence of bad business practice. I was concerned at first, just like you are now, but after everything I saw, I a
m confident Mirai is a solid company to work with.”

  I sat back on the loveseat and stared at Ellie, trying to pull just one question out of the tangle of questions whizzing through my mind. Finally, I asked, “Did you find any reason for the slowing of nano-glass production in the financial or supply chain information?”

  Ellie shook her head. “No. I did not see a reason for production to slow other than Isamu simply making it that way. He did, once again, keep the change within contractual guidelines.”

  “When does their contract expire?” This was information that could possibly determine what the next year of my life would look like.

  A slow smile crept across Ellie’s face. “It expires in six months, and Isamu has refused to entertain renegotiation communications.”

  Kennedi, who hadn’t been part of the conversation up to that point, broke her silence. “How long before Isamu gets the message you left?”

  “I set delivery for three minutes after my departure,” Ellie said. “So, as of four minutes ago, Isamu could see it at any time.”

  I suddenly got nervous. “Is there any way to retract the message at a later date?”

  “You won’t need to,” Ellie reassured me. “I sent it using an existing draft that Isamu started years ago. The message will revert to its original draft thirty seconds after it detects being seen.” I was seriously impressed with Ellie’s delivery method and foresight.

  Right as I was about to tell her so, there was a soft knock at the door, and it opened. Macy popped her head in and smiled. “Clark, there is a call for you.”