Chris pulled off the AVM (Aural-Visual-Movement) from his person.   Not as fancy
as a neural interface, but it always did in a pinch.  It's what most people who
couldn't afford anything fancy used nowadays.

He couldn't believe it.  That was his friend there and someone made him into a
her.  What a drop dead gorgeous buxom blonde haired bomshell, too! Why if that
wasn't Rob he might...  Well, maybe not.

He sat down at Rob's terminal to see exactly what had happened. According to the
polygraph record, it was some flurry of activity. He opened up a comm window to
speak to Rob, who was still in the very dark bedroom pacing about and looking
nervous.

"What, want me to dance for you now?"

Chris laughed.  "Yeah right!  Hey look uh, just -what- were you doing that made
the polygraph light up like that?"

Rob stammered, and those little fingers of his figited.  "Well, uh..."

"What?"

"I sort of... well, sort of played with myself."

"You what?  Why'd you do that?  I thought you said you didn't like it."

Rob snapped.  "I don't!  I mean well... right after it happened, something went
screwy.  Uh, it kinda made me do it."

Chris frowned and shook his head.  "Huh.  Well let me see what I can do ok?  Just
sit tight... and uh, don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Rob flipped Chris off as the window closed.

Chris decided he should start on the logs the computer kept.  Maybe he'd find
what was going on there.

"Computer, login Chris-178639.   Punch up brain wave charts for Robert Morgan
Park and compare with the latest log."

There was a bit of a discrepancy in Rob's brain wave patterns.  There were
supposed to be safegaurds to prevent things like this from happening.  There
hadn't been any reports of brain damage occuring from jacking in for years now. 
It was supposed to be safe but here was his friend in danger of losing his mind
most literally.

He rushed over to the chamber and pushed the release button, but there was
absolutely no responce from the machine.  In a panic, he kept pressing the button
repeatedly until the thought occured to him that a manual override might help.

"Computer, initiate shutdown of the terminal chamber and disconnect power to it."

All he got was an annoying error beep.  He sat back down at the terminal and
looked for some other way to get his friend out.  He tried overriding the
chamber's locked out functions from the computer, again and again. Each time he
was greeted by an annoying error beep.   On the last try a rather funny looking
message popped up.

MAYBE IF MISSY HAD SOME FUN IT WOULD ALL WORK OUT.  -HHWG!

Huh?  What the hell was this?  Someone was trying to be cute.

"Computer, scan for viruses."

It took the computer a few minutes to respond.

"Neural interface control systems, neural emulation systems and local neural
network have been comprimised.  Cannot reboot."

Chris had no idea what to do now.  He put on the AVM interface again and
reappeared before Rob, who was sitting there in that body, with a bedsheet
wrapped around it.   He looked tense.

"Why are you back here?  I told you get me out!"

"Uh, Rob uh... there's a problem."

"What kind of problem?  You can't get me out?"

"It's worse than that.  Uh, some kinda virus infected your system.  I can't even
get it to reboot."

Rob was so taken by this news he forgot the sheet wrapped around his drop dead
gorgeous buxom blonde haired body was being held in place by his arm.  Chris got
a pretty good view of this body Rob now inhabited virtually. Whoever these people
were who made this virus, they certainly were able and willing.  She definately
was gorgeous.  Any real woman with a face like that could charm the pants off a
guy.  She was buxom, too.  A chest like that most woman usually pay for.  And
blonde hair, lots of it!  She looked... sexy, and beautiful, and Rob was right
now trapped in that body.  Rob grumbled as he wrapped his body back up.

"Fuck!  Well what do I now?  I can't stay in here forever!  My body will atrophy!
 I'll go crazy!  Chris, do something!"

"Ok!  Ok!  Just calm down!  First thing we do is call emergency, ok?"

Rob nodded slowly, trying to calm down.  "Ok.  But they really can't do much. 
I'm gonna need someone who can get me the hell off of this thing!"

Chris sighed.   He was at a loss.  Rescue could force the door open and literally
pull the plug on the chamber, but that might cause such a shock to Rob that he
might not survive.  All this technology around him and a damn little virus can do
all this.  A little program.  A little program that disoeys all the rules.  A
program.

Chris snapped his fingers and beamed at Rob, who looked confused to say the
least.

"I think I know the guy!"



*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *



Jenny knocked on the door.   There was no answer.  She knocked on it again, but
to no avail.   He was definately too wrapped up in whatever he was doing this
time.   She pressed the intercom button and shouted.

"Annnndeeeeee!  Andy Summers open the goddamned door!"

Andrew Jeremiah Summers: world's biggest flake, she thought.  They'd been friends
since junior high school.  Back then he was a bit of a geek, what with coming up
with odd and unsual ways of doing ordinary things. It was her friend Chris who'd
introduced her to him way back then. Apparently he had a crush on her but didn't
have the brevity to come to her and admit it, and since Chris was his friend too,
he had asked Chris to help.  That was a long time ago now.  After an on and off
romance in high school, which desolved  less than a year into college, now
they're just friends.  He was just too weird she thought.  It's a good thing he
was smart and finished engineering school or else he'd never be able to hold down
any job.

After a few more minutes of waiting there at the front porch, Jenny was about to
give up and leave when the intercom finnally sprang to life again.

"Oh!  God I almost forgot!  Hold on I'll open then door!"

Now that was strange.  Who's voice was that?  Did Andy finnally get a real life
and got a real girlfriend?  This was definately interesting.   Andy never seemed
to have time for many friends except for her and a few others, and he'd invited
her over today to show her something new he'd gotten or something.   So what, was
he going to show her his new girlfriend?   He did have a bit of maturing to do,
didn't he?

"Andy is that you?"

She heard the double door's many latches unlock.   He lived in a very well to do
neighborhood --it's a wonder no one there ever complained about his eccentric
behavior, go fig-- so why he felt the need to keep so much security around his
house was a mystery.   Finnally she heard the manual latches being pulled.  The
door was swinging open.   She stood there ready to lecture her friend again on
certain courteseys such as remembering when you've invited someone over.   What
she saw when the door opened however was enough to almost make her loose her
balance in shock.

It certainly didn't look like Andy, and if it was his girlfriend, she must have
been from another planet or something.  Standing in the threshhold right in front
of her was a rather voluptious fox lady, wearing not much more than a very skimpy
bikini.  She looked like something you'd expect to see in virtual reality, but
there she was standing there real as life, her long blonde and bouncy hair
flowing in the gentle breeze between the hot and humid outside and the cool air
conditioned inside, her black tipped ears twitching and perked in the direction
of Jenny, and her similarly tipped tail swishing back and forth.   Jenny thought
she'd finnally lost her sanity as she took too many steps back and stumbled on
the step.   She would have fallen on the pavement too if the fox lady hadn't
reacted quickly and grabbed her.

Jenny stared into the fox lady's face in disbelief.  "Uh, you're not Andy's
girlfriend... are you?"

The fox lady smirked as she helped Jenny back up.  She definately felt real
enough.   The fur felt geniune, and the body felt warm and fleshy, not hard like
it was some plastic special effect.   She knew there'd been some radical advances
in genetic engineering in the last few years, but this was too much.

"Huh?  Oh my god!  I totally forgot I was still in this thing!"

The fox lady felt herself as she gasped in reaction.  Apparently she was almost
as surprised as Jenny was.   She felt her ears and stroked her hair and tail and
started chuckling.

"Heh.  Gosh Jenny.  I'm sorry.  It's me," the fox lady grinned.

Jenny peered at the voluptious perky vulpinoid apparent in half doubt.

"Andy?"

The fox lady giggled and nodded.

"Yeah!  Amazing, isn't it?   It's like so totally different!  Come on, I'll show
you!"

The fox lady swiveled around, waving her arm to motion Jenny inside as she
bounced back into the house.  Jenny walked in cautiously.   Maybe she was still
at home asleep and this was all a dream.  She said she was Andy, and she new Andy
had a penchant for trying new and different things, but this? This was all just
too much weird for one day.

The cute fox lady sauntered over towards the basement door, and as she opened it,
beckoned Jenny to follow.  As the fox lady made her way down the stairs, Jenny
crept down them, looking around her as if someone was about to pop out of the
woodwork and yell 'Surprise!' or maybe something worse. Her vulpinoid host wasted
no time.  By the time Jenny had made it down the stairs, the fox lady was sitting
at Andy's terminal.   The unit was on, and the polygraph showed someone was in
his chamber.  She turned around and sure enough, it was occupied; the unit was in
operation.   Still, she crossed her arms in a skeptical posture as she turned
back towards the fox lady.

"So uh... where did you get that... thing?"

"Hold on, lemme get out of it first," the fox lady said.

The lady fox stood back up, and saunterd over to a corner of the room. As she
stood there, she suddenly became motionless and lifeless.  As if her soul had
just left her body and now she was nothing but a hunk of flesh and fur.   A few
moments later Jenny swiveled around again towards the sensory deprivation chamber
as she heard its door's latch unlock, and saw the door swing open.

Andy crawled out from the chamber, with some cables still connected to him, and
completely disheveled.  It looked like he was coming out of hibernation after a
long winter.  It took him a while to stand on his own real feet and proclaim,
"Ta-da!"

Jenny frowned.  "You scared the shit outta me!  I thought I was having a bad trip
or something you dickhead!"

Andy laughed at Jenny and in an apparent fit of anger, she went over to him and
whapped him one on the shoulder.  He winced and howled and made like she'd really
hurt him though it didn't hurt him much at all. Their pretended aggression faded
pretty quickly though when they gave each other a hug.

"Really I am sorry I scared ya.   I'm glad you could make it!"

"Yeah well... what is that thing anyway," Jenny said as she motioned to indicate
the now frozen fox lady.

"That, my darling, is the latest in bleeding edge cybernetic technology! They
lent it to me to test.  That thing could fool your friends, your grandma and your
dog into believing it's a living breathing organism! Ain't it just great?!?"

Jenny nodded in complete agreement.  It definately fooled her.   There were a few
things that stood out in her mind though.

"It's cute, Andy, but I gotta ask.  Why a fox lady?"

Andy shrugged.  "Why not?  They said they could make it just about anything I
asked for so that seemed like something that'd be really cool!  Hey, you wanna
try it?"

Jenny made a frown at Andy and shook her head.  "Uh, no thanks."

She walked over to the lifeless body.   It still felt warm, though not as warm as
before.  Its arm was limp in her grasp.  It was downright spooky. It looked,
felt, damn it even smelled like it was real.

"Cool, huh?   It can emulate every biological function.  Sweat, or panting here I
guess, eye moisture, saliva.  Hell, even its uh, well you get the idea!"

Jenny turned to give Andy a stare as he grinned back at her foolishly. She nodded
to him, though she sighed and shook her head to herself.   Andy was a weird one
alright.   Next thing you know he'll state that emulating her period would be
cool.