Segment 1: Capassiptivity

Rolling, lush, infinitely stretching carpets of grass, vertiginous forests teeming

with biodiverse wildlife woven into a pulsing, stable pattern of preying and being
preyed on, oceans with incomprehensible depths in whose darkness surreal life
was embroiled in a constant struggle for survival, pure, clean white plains too
cold for the survival of most, only sparsely inhabited by the occasional polar bear;
all of these—and many more—are constructs of the imagination. Every child
knows that such things couldn't possibly exist in the real world—the world of
pipes, of gears, of electronic circuits, of interlocking pneumatic muscles. The
mere notion strikes the average lucid adult's fleshcomputer as frankly ridiculous.

One such individual was Dido, though whether the descriptor "lucid" was
attributable to her was not exactly certain. It depended on various factors such as
the time of day, the constellation of astral vector graphs, and the opioid
concentration in her blood, just to name a few. She had been (emphasis on ​had​)
a hard worker, contributing several thousand Megacoulomb to her
accommodating deity, workplace and home, TAL-15, across her 13 Years of Toil.
Age in this society was measured not by when one was born, but when one's
duties as a Contributor began.

Her eyes were darting between various displays and contraptions that
(supposedly) fulfilled various complex duties, with near sufficient precision. The
coders of these widgets had to have been human-disguised apes (if such
creatures actually existed), she conjectured. So obtuse was the user interface
that random guesses were her best bet for figuring out the meaning of many of
the components. In fact, she sardonically whipped out her MCD, started up a
random number generator, and demonstrated her frustration to her non-existent
audience by utilizing its results for the actual determination process. She caught
herself getting a little too caught up in plans of illustrating the virtues of
trepanation to aforementioned simians using a live example.

Shake head > Divert attention to activities not involving the carving of holes into
alive human(oid)s' skulls > Pretend to know what you're doing by pressing
buttons indiscriminately, yet with a seriousness deserving of a role in a movie
scene featuring characters panickedly actuating all kinds of "avert disaster"
button combinations, hoping for one of them to work.

"Doing good work as always, I see." A cloaked figure with unknown name who
shall henceforth be referred to by his onweb handle "BigStrongBoss96"
menacingly snaked his way around the office in an almost comically villainous
way, observing with great mental numbness the activities of his subordinate. He
always pretended to have the slightest clue of what Dido was doing, yet never
noticed she didn't have either. To the even vaguely analytical eye, it was clear
this workplace was better fit for training one's acting ability than one's mechanical
doodad operation skills.

Dido pretended to not despise him, utilizing a cleverly timed "smile", then felt too
appalled by her already critical limit reaching Obsequiousness to respond to his
observation. "Ouch uhh, fuck", she whimpered toward his backside, faking a
sudden bout of tendinitis. "Can I please leave earlier today?" "The system won't
operate itself", he replied, blissfully unaware of the pointlessness of Dido's entire
job since certain automatizing features were introduced in the latest version of
TAL-15-M. "However, the health of one of my most loyal, hard-working and
honest employees is a priority to me, even if not a particularly high one still. So,
yes, you can go for today, see you tomorrow at 0700h, maybe an hour or two
earlier to make up for the lost time today."

She almost managed to emit a verbal sign of gratitude but instead had to resort
to a purely gesticular one for the lack of Obsequiousness Points <OP>. As
quickly as she could without breaking the facade, she hurried toward the door.

Jemmeromoremory woke up in a cold sweat, among other (for the sake of the
audience's well-being omitted) substances. Tortuous snakes of lined up beer
cans decorated the room, giving the impression of a work of abstract art, or a
meticulously arranged treasure map, presumably by the type of person who'd try
to prove the government was mind controlling sadomasochistic robo-iguanas into
abducting innocent children by creating theoretical mathematical models
simulating such scenarios, using the arrangement of empty cans of beer as a
way to brainstorm. Oh right, that is precisely not only the type, but the exact
person Jem (abbreviated for convenience) was.

He made a spastic truncal motion, blabbered a few disordered words and rolled
his starved body out of bed. But before his body could reach the floor, he
extended his limbs downward so as to not disturb his fine-tuned beer can snake
diagram by arduously and with all his feeble strength propping himself up like
some kind of humanoid upside-down-headed spider. Seemingly used to this, he
almost elegantly bounced himself into an upright posture without disturbing his
maze of undoubtable truth. Then pranced across to the Dressing Sluice and got
ready for work, i.e. hastily adorned his programming uniform, consisting of
programming shirt, programming tie, programming jacket, programming skirt, and
last but certainly not least, programming socks.

As he exited the door, he felt a cold shiver overcome his exposed thighs. Not just
because it was cold, but because that of course was a common sign of an
ominous premonition, typically of temptation.

A soft voice greeted him from his right.

'This needs to end', Dido thought to herself. As a fan of cyberpunk fiction, she'd
frequently considered trying to enact some kind of probably not very realistic
escape from the system type of thing. Who knows, worst that could happen
would be being trapped in some sort of brainwash prison facility for rest of her
life, being mindbroken through numerous torture methods, or perhaps drugs, or
some kind of fancy electronic device. She got little carried away. This did sound
like a pretty horrifying scenario. Well, she was sure such a thing would never
happen to such a cunning, stealthy and clever individual as herself, much less a
main character. Unless it was one of ​those​ stories.

She would find some kind of way out of any pickle. Undoubtedly. She merely had
to inspect the breadth of possibilities. Maybe glitch in the system. Or an
accidentally left-open door. Or a sexually manipulable employee. When the
situation got serious enough, she was confident she wouldn't hesitate to use any
means necessary.
On her way home, she collected ideas for her upcoming absconditure.

Cold metal gripped Rinniumrin's slim biceps. The -1 YoT-old screamed and
thrashed in resistance to her iguanic captor but to no avail. Its grip only tightened
further, just slightly overstepping her pain tolerance. "Mmmm, you like that?", its
robotic vocal cords generated. "This must feel ​reallllyy​ good, does it nottt?"
"N-no.. ow.. it doesn't", Rin winced. "WhyYyYy?" "N-not everyone.. ah.. can...
ouch... share your deviant feti—" The towering animatronic reptile loosened its
grip enough for her to fall to the ground. "Excuse me then. I am sorry. I did not
know one could not be titillated by such arousing acts of power play", it emitted.
"However, this does not mean you can simply escape. All of the doors are
securely locked and only a staff member or an expert hacker could change that."

"Where even am I? What is this place? Did you take me here?"

"I was instructed to not reveal the location of this facility. However, I can tell you
that, firstly, you are currently situated in an experimental facility for testing of
certain social behaviors and secondly, that, yes, I did, in fact, take you, our
carefully, if somewhat inconveniently, since you are not particularly subservient,
chosen, new test subject, here."

Rin sensed that something was wrong with the machine's programming, its now
entangled sentence-building algorithm being an indicator. "You can open the
doors too, right?"
"Yes, of course, since, after all, I am, officially, an employee, if a robotic one, at
this facility."

Her brain was blasting with strategies and scenarios, though her lack of
awareness of her situation stifled her ability to think far enough ahead to have
any concrete ideas.

"Why, I ask, do you, now, not, for the, perhaps sensible, sake of, if only a little,
relaxing a bit, sit down, on this, certainly comfortable-looking, seating
accommodation, over here?"

She glanced over to the only object in this sterile, flawless, white room, an
equally sterile, flawless, white couch. She could barely make it out in the
perfectly even and almost blindingly bright lighting.

She felt a faint shiver overcome her calves. An ominous sign predicting
manipulation, usually.