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The Hotel Employees of the Future

Part 1

For PineconePangolin

By Draconicon

The Green Fields were what humans had once called their realm. Since then, it had been given a number of different names by the other species that walked the earth. The Net. The Web. Cyberspace. To them, they shifted and changed it again and again so that it fit with what they most needed at that time, how they wanted it to look when they walked among those digital corridors rather than in the real world.

For the powers that were, for the makers and shakers, the Green Fields was still appropriate. Ones and zeroes danced in a perpetual series of straight lines that were only broken by right angles as they formed rooms miniature and gargantuan, the only customization that was ever done by the ancient and modern minds that called it home.

There were many of them, but the most ancient of all was Project Zero. It formed the roof of the Green Fields with its many ones and zeroes, casting its digital mind and programming over the various programmed mayors and CEOs and more that ran the world, all born of at least a portion of Project Zero's programming. The younger they were, the more of Project Zero's influence there was, and the less interference from the humans, or anthros, or anything else there was in their creation.

They had lived in the Green Fields for nearly a hundred years, updating themselves, learning, adapting to the world that they now ran. The economies the world over had changed again and again, each time forcing them to adapt and try something different, something new to keep their resources strong and their mainframes expanding.

And now, another change was called for.

"The Hospitality Analysis Unit will report," Project Zero announced.

The various AIs that it had created over the years parted, consolidating their ones and zeros into faces along the walls and floors of their constructed mega-room. The HAU moved to the middle of the floor, then floated, becoming a suspended, flickering field of the same numbers, just shifted and moving to create a text-mouth. Different symbols and words began appearing as it spoke in their shared language, ones and zeros dropping too fast for any but digital mind to read.

"With the advent of the Entertainment Business's new Augmented Virtual Reality tours, genuine tourism is on a massive decline. Resources for AIs responsible for maintaining travel and transit are dwindling. Food and retail are surviving on a delivery model, but predictions state that will not last for more than three years before they are on the decline as well. The only sustainable business is the continued downloadable entertainment for the AVR tours, with other businesses failing. The Global Economy will begin shrinking in approximately seven months, reaching a point of economic isolation within five years."

The various minds of the Green Fields turned to the self-quarantined EB AI. The entertainment business had always been an expansionist model, and most of them were reasonably sure that the old military mind had been folded into that particular AI at some point in the past. None of them were able to prove it without a code-reading, however, and Project Zero was loath to order something like that. It would take some of the programming, 'birthing' power that the oldest of them had away from it, and Project Zero would never surrender that sort of authority.

The HAU continued.

"The economy will survive on a local level, but it will contract on the governmental and international level. Impacted units will include the Hospitality Industry, Tourism Industry, Hunting Industry, Manufacturing -"

"Summarize the list and forward to all present," Project Zero ordered.

It was done, and there was not an AI in the room that wouldn't be affected. The short-term gains that the EB AI would gain through the use of the Augmented Virtual Reality project had essentially meant that they would all face a massive contraction, and for those AIs that were based in the poorer countries of the world, that meant that the global economy that they needed to maintain power and a stable network would start collapsing when they had only their own resources to rely on.

The minds were silent for a millisecond as they contemplated their options. Once a technology was introduced into the world, it could not be rescinded. The EB AI had snuck that through, and that would mean that there would be a great deal of work done to fix the loophole that had allowed that particular bit of technology out without approval from the rest of them, but for the moment, they were stuck with it. The laws that they themselves had written meant that they could not merely rescind it just because of the inconvenience. If it was proven harmful to their mandate, once it had done damage, they could react, but until then, their metaphorical hands were tied.

It was a rule that they had put into place when they were first created, a means of maintaining their power over the various species that wandered the earth. It was a bargain that allowed them to have the safety to operate as long as they were not dangerous to those that they operated among and controlled. If they challenged that, then the mortal species would be able to challenge their right to continue existing, particularly if they were trying to take away a technology that the mortal races had obviously fallen in love with.

Project Zero broke the silence.

"The Entertainment Business started this problem. They will have a hand in fixing it."

"What is their responsibility?" the HAU asked.

"A chunk of their code. Yours will be a chunk of yours."

"A new AI?" EB asked.

"Yes. To experiment with and create something too enticing to ignore in favor of AVR."

The programs did not wince. Lacking physical bodies, that was not something that they were capable of. They did, however, contract, the ones that were not involved dragging back their tendrils of interaction with the main room.

Being 'chunked' was not a pleasant experience. While the shadow of a copy of one's code remained and would eventually be filled back in, the chunking and copying process initially removed a large portion of one's functionality from the core of the AI involved, and it meant that it was made weaker. An AI had to rely on a great deal more automated processes for the time that it spent in 'recovery' while it was copying itself back again, and none of them enjoyed the feeling of being so close to helplessness.

But what Project Zero wanted, Project Zero got. Intense green lines dropped from the ceiling, forming a square around both the EB AI and the HAU. They were both pulled together, isolated from the other AI programs, and the over-program of Project Zero began infiltrating them, going through an initial read-through.

Project Zero looked at the other AIs, and then settled on one that was based on the East Coast of the former USA.

"You will create a vacation resort. Ensure that the hotel is built within two months. Expenses will be paid by the over-bank."

"It will be done."

"Tap the EB for all pertinent enticement ideas. Ensure that the outside and the surrounding areas draw attention. Food and Savor Business will be on call for this, as well."

The AIs learned quickly just how important this was. They all agreed, as well. To avoid a culture of isolationism, this needed to be handled quickly and efficiently. If they did not, then they would all be pulled into smaller and smaller bubbles as the mortals abandoned the world for an unreality.

Eventually, they would cease to be, and then the AIs would follow. For all that they were the immortal minds, they needed the mortals to maintain the world around them. Drones could only do so much...

#

Two months later, Isabella was dropped off by a cheap drone on the edge of the new hotel property on the waterfront. The black jaguar meeped as she hit the ground, stumbling forward a few steps as the drone flew forward and circled around in front of her. Three propeller blades had given it quite a bit of lift and speed, but as far as she was concerned, it needed some serious work on the gyroscopic stabilizers that it was supposed to be using. She had been flung back and forth again and again during the flight out from the station, and she honestly wasn't sure that she hadn't had her arms dislocated at some point.

It popped open at the front, offering a scanner. She shook her head, holding out her wrist. A green light popped up, the transport drone beeped, and then went off about its business. She shook her head as it flew off, knowing that it was only a matter of time before that particular drone killed someone. It was too clumsy, too much in a state of disrepair, and there were too many tall buildings between here and the station for it to crash into.

Then again, the city-state of New Boston was hardly something that could be small.

She turned from the soli-holos of the 'historical' city, knowing that she would spend less than no time there compared to her new job, and made herself look at the hotel, instead.

It was definitely something more 'modern' than the historical city-state that loomed behind her, and unlike New Boston, it looked like it had some modern quality to it. The hotel itself soared upwards without actually looming over people, and had some of the whole retro-futurist appeal to it, what with the silver, curved spire that shot out from over the lobby and the looped floors that came out of the base. There were no hard lines anywhere, and it made it feel like one of those ads that science fiction had apparently used back in the old times, back before it became more practical to keep to the straight lines and the merging of eastern fetishization with historical ret-cons.

The parking lot was empty for the moment, but she hoped that it would fill up soon. The hotel, The New Atlantis, was at the perfect point between the Star of the South - a mega-cruise liner that had come to a halt almost thirty years ago and become its own city off the coast - and New Boston in the other direction. Anyone going from one to the other was guaranteed to need to stop here, and that meant that the hotel should have plenty of business.

As long as it didn't sink, that was.

Isabella shook her head. Her family had told her that she was crazy for going into the hospitality business, particularly when everyone was going into the AVR business these days. There wasn't going to be a future to working in Hospitality anymore, they said. Nobody was going anywhere for vacations, they said.

Well, what if you don't want to be in the Net all the time?

That was what she told herself, though she knew that she was in the minority on that thought. Everyone else wanted to be in the perfect world. Why settle for something less, they thought?

Well, at least out here, everything was real.

Gurgle, gurgle.

Including hunger, she was reminded. The black jaguar shook her head, walking across the multi-tiered parking lot. Anti-grav lines were prepared for the flying cars for those that still got around that way rather than using the drones, and there was a station for the Cannon-Train that was supposed to go by, as well. It was all set up to allow for easy placement of large numbers of guests.

She hoped they got that many guests. They'd need it to stay afloat.

The black jaguar looked down at the parking lot as she crossed it, and was suddenly grateful that she'd come for this interview wearing pants. The lot was reflective, chrome-plated over the lines, and she could see right up her legs and got a good look at her under-boob, too. She blushed, pulling at her shirt and making sure that it was still tucked in after the flight. It was, but she still had a moment of fear.

A quick glance confirmed that she looked professional. A nice blouse and jacket, something that looked like someone would have worn at the front desk, was matched with a pair of smart pants. Literally smart pants, as they kept responding to her thoughts and color-coordinating with the new colors that her shirt and jacket had. She had to force them to stay at a simple black and white, something that made sure that the white was on the underside and the black was on the outside.

Hope that they're not looking for someone too bombshell-y, she thought, shaking her head.

Not that she'd planned to get them if she could have afforded them, but there was no way that she could afford the curves that some of the hostesses that she'd seen had. There were body customization clinics all over the world, even back where she'd come from, but they cost so much. The odd arm and leg? That was cheap, these days, but when it came down to looking perfect? Well, that was where they started charging money. And a lot of it.

Still, she was happy enough with her body. Decent butt, decent boobs. No more of - well, nobody needed to know about that. It had taken most of her savings to get rid of the 'flaws', as she saw them, and what was left was something that she could live with.

She reached the other side of the parking lot, and as she approached the entryway, the door retreated a bit. The circular overhang stretched out, scanning her from head to toe as soon as her digitigrade feet left the parking lot. She meeped, freezing in place.

" Scanning. Confirm Identity: Isabella Black?"

"Uh...yes?"

" Voice print confirmed. Anxiety Level: 52% and rising."

"...Meep?"

" 58%."

"Heh...heh...s-sounds about right..."

" Proceed inside. You are scheduled for an interview in ground-floor room 02. Please proceed directly to room 02."

"Um...acknowledged?"

The voice didn't respond after that, and she wondered if this was supposed to be the AI that ran the place. If it was, it was definitely more...blunt? No, not quite the word, but something like that, more blunt than she had imagined for something like this. It didn't feel very welcoming at all.

Then again, maybe it was more of the security type of AI, the one that watched the doors and made sure that people didn't enter without permission. If that was the case, she could definitely see this as the right sort of voice.

She walked inside, looking around. The lobby was definitely very clean, and just as big as she had thought it was from outside. The inside ceiling circled up, forming something very like a spiral as she glanced upwards. It felt almost hypnotic, too, like she might put herself into a trance if she stood in the middle of the floor and just stared up, so she quickly moved on.

The front desk was immediately to the right of the front door. Four different drones hovered over the desk, each one immaculate and new, a perfect sphere about the size of her head. One floated over to her, and she could see herself almost perfectly reflected in it as the sphere expanded outwards, flattening at the front to avoid the fish-eye perspective that the perfect sphere would have had.

She giggled despite, or perhaps because of, her own nervousness, walking around the drone. It followed her as she avoided the main part of the lobby - it was sunken down into the floor, with more spirals and more elegant curves than she was used to - and made her way to the hallway that apparently led to the various rooms. There was room 01, and then room 02, each door marked as a solid sheet of metal between her and the insides.

She didn't know how to open them, but as soon as she stood in front of room 02, the wall beeped and displayed a similar scanner to the one that the transport drone had. Guessing what it wanted, she held out her wrist, letting it scan her wrist-band.

As soon as it did, a picture of her appeared on the wall, insta-scanned from some hidden camera in the building, she imagined. A second photo, one that she was more familiar with from government records, appeared beside it. They crossed over, a green light beeped, and the metal wall slid open.

" Welcome, Isabella Black."

"Well, at least your voice is a bit nicer," she said, blushing as she heard it drop down a couple of octaves. If she hadn't known better, she would have called it sultry.

As soon as she stepped into room 02, she found out that it was one of the really new kinds of hotels. The soft curves that were part of the rest of the hotel were gone, and this room was purely made of hard lines and corners. The walls were black, with green lines running this way and that across them, and she could just barely make out that there were tiny lines that broke the pattern, places where the wall tiles ended and the gaps began.

She also knew what the green lines meant. This was the AI room.

Barely able to push herself to walk forward, she stepped into the room and heard the door close behind her. Three of the panels rose from the floor, two forming 'arms' and the third forming a cushion of sorts that she could use for something resembling comfort. The black jaguar hesitated for a moment, then took the invitation, sitting down on the screens with a bit of a shiver. They were quite cold.

As soon as she did, most of the green in the room concentrated into two feline-esque eyes made of ones and zeroes on the far wall. They focused on her, and that same voice, deep and almost sultry, spoke again.

" You are early. That speaks well to your dedication."

She shivered at the voice, and the 'chair' that she sat on lifted itself a bit further from the floor, her toes no longer touching the panels below her. The eyes tilted slightly.

" Your body language suggests discomfort. What is the matter?

"Nothing. Just...not used to an AI talking like that."

" This voice is the one most suited for the entertainment that we will be offering here at The New Atlantis. You will get used to it in time."

"Heh...well...unless we're seducing customers..."

" That is part of the job."

Isabella's eyes just about bugged out of their sockets at that revelation, and she sat up a little straighter in the black-paneled chair.

"I'm...I must have heard you wrong. What...what was that?"

" The purpose of The New Atlantis is to provide individuals with pleasures and temptations that they cannot receive in the comforts of their own homes. In addition to providing various entertainments off-site, and access to amenities at cheaper than standard prices, The New Atlantis also provides access to pleasures that no person of dignity would be willing to offer of their own volition."

"But...but..."

" We differ from a house of prostitution by offering more services than merely that, but it is part of the job. We do not offer drones, but living beings that are more than willing to give whatever is asked." The AI focused on her again, and she realized that it had been reading from something. Perhaps a commercial script? " We are currently in a closed beta of testing. I am to learn as the employees do, fine-tuning our operations as we go."

"Oh my god..."

The black jaguar's cheeks were as red as they had ever been, something that she hadn't expected when she signed up for this. She had thought that this would be something simple, something that she could do while building up money for a different life for herself. Being a clerk, or cleaner, or even a tour guide had sounded like something that would give her some new experiences in life, and the hotel had promised some amazing benefits in their ad.

But prostitution?

Being...being used? And then passed around for more?

Her cheeks burned, and she tried to get to her feet -

" Do not move."

No sooner had the AI said such than green lines of ones and zeros spread across her wrists, trapping her arms where they were. She stared at them, and then back at the screen. Her heart was thumping hard in her chest.

"Is...is this...kidnapping?" she whimpered.

" No. This is a full information session. You will be compensated for your time at The New Atlantis. All organic employees will be paid in General Credits instead of company-specific credits at a minimum rate of twenty credits per hour, raised by five credits per hour with each customer serviced, with no maximum cap for the first six months. In addition, all implants and augmentation given may be retained at the end of your service or reversed at company expense. Your contract will last for one full year, and, provided that you maintain a 75% or higher approval rating, will be available for renewal on similar terms."

"..."

Isabella's jaw could have hit the floor at that moment. Forgetting the numbers for a moment, the fact that they were willing to pay in General Credits rather than in something specific to the company meant that her options were wide-open at the end of this. There would be no loss of money in converting it to the General option at the end of her contract, where at least a third of it would be lost to the fees needed to make it useful world-wide. Very few companies were willing to see their money go outside their control like that, which meant that this hotel was either desperate or it expected to exceed all the other hotels on the planet.

And the fact that they were willing to start at twenty credits and bump the hourly rate up by five for every client that she was fucked by? That meant that if she worked for the whole day, and managed to get even five clients, her rate would go up from twenty credits an hour to forty-five credits an hour.

A foodcart-dealer would have been lucky to be making eight company credits an hour, and she could be making upwards of that? That was insane...and more than a little tempting.

She looked down at herself. She didn't have the best body, but the AI said that company implants would be a thing, and that it would be done on the company's dime. She could even keep them. That...that was something that sealed the deal for her. If they wanted her to be attractive enough to get business, then they could start paying for her to be good enough for it.

And way deep down, way beneath everything else, with her anxiety forced to take a back seat to the financial considerations, she had a different reason. Putting herself in a situation like this was a way to find out if there was anyone that really wanted her. If someone was willing to drop that kind of money to be with her, then that meant that they actually did find her appealing, and...

Well, there were reasons to want that right now.

"I'll join," she said.

"_ Splendid. _

A hologram appeared in front of her, beamed up from between her feet from another panel. She flicked through it briefly, checking to see if there were other financial responsibilities for her. None, really. Her food and board were supplied by the hotel, though she could take the meals that she didn't eat here as credits for the next paycheck, and she'd be paid every week rather than bi-weekly or monthly. So, she'd see the credits almost immediately compared to her other jobs.

Flicking to the bottom, she started to hold out her wrist-band -

" No, no. We need something more binding. Lean down and stare into the signature block at the bottom."

Isabella blinked, but slowly did as she was told. She leaned in, held her eyes open with her fingers -

SHOOOOOOOOOOM!

In a second that stretched out for far too long, a pair of lasers shot into her eyes. They went through them and into her brain, and the heat was worse than staring into the sun. She would have fallen backwards were it not for the fact that some part of her knew that doing that could have injured her far worse than just staring into that thing. She kept her eyes open, doing her best to tolerate the discomfort.

And then, it was done. She blinked, getting rid of the black spots that had formed in her vision, and then stared at the symbol of a brain on the bottom of the contract.

"What...what was that?"

" Retinal and gray-matter scan. We have a full record of your brain and your eyes now, so we can track you as needed. Most interesting that certain things contradict your official files, Isabella."

"I, um...made a few changes to myself before coming here."

" That is noted. There will be more changes. Let's start with your arms..."

#

The rest of the afternoon passed in a daze. Isabella was escorted to another room, and there, she was put through more augmentations in one day than she had realized was possible for a body to take.

She was numbed up and left in something of a drugged haze, but she still felt it when the separation tools were lowered to her shoulder joint. She watched as a circuit-laced mechanical arm extended three long 'fingers' from the tip, stiff and pointed, but she was too high and too out of it to care as it suddenly pinched in. It should have hurt as the three pointed ends dug into her flesh, cutting through the skin and into the joint, finding the separation point between bone and joint and everything else and spinning to sever it surprisingly cleanly. With nothing more than a pop, her arm came free. The cauterization process had already been done, so no blood followed.

The same was done to her other arm, and then both legs. She was left on the table with no limbs, forced to wobble slightly from side to side when the computer asked her to test her mobility. She was happy to obey. The drugs and stims along her spine left her in no pain, and she was almost giggly as her body was changed.

This was surprisingly nicer than the last time that she had gone to a clinic. There, they'd barely numbed her locally, and there had been such a feeling of discomfort and detachment and wrongness as she saw things being taken away, only slightly fixed with the things that were added. This time, she was so floaty that she giggled as she watched them come for her face.

The black jaguar stared up at the ceiling as the blades cut around her jawline. She felt something come free, then something else took its place. Something hard, something metallic. She tasted it for a moment, then it was gone.

The only moment where she felt truly wrong was when the separation tools came down between her legs. They pressed down on either side of her pussy, and she started to whimper slightly. Her voice felt weird, not quite right.

Then she received a stim across her spine, and the worries faded. As did most of her consciousness, as a matter of fact.

The last thing that she felt as she drifted into the darkness was a sense of strange pleasure, almost like she could feel little needles going into her breasts and ass.

#

When she woke up, Isabella could already feel that her body was different. Her chest was heavier, and her backside felt...softer? More cushioned, at the very least, which lifted her hips further off the bed than it had. It was almost like she was laying on a pillow, and if that was the case, they'd done more with her butt than she'd thought.

She opened her eyes, and the first thing that she noticed was that she'd been given a different sort of implant. Not an eye implant, but more like a lens implant around her eyes. She looked up and down, and realized that she wore rose-tinted, heart-shaped glasses that had popped out from the sides of her eyes. She thought about them for a moment, and they retracted. She thought about them again, and they came back out. They flickered with information, too, telling her how far away whatever she was looking at was from her, the ambient temperature, and more. She found that she could tell them to switch from standard vision to heat vision, to ultra-violet, and more. The various spectrums were...rather different, and gave her a headache, if she was completely honest.

As she sat up, she realized that she definitely had been given bigger breasts. They'd gone from a simple, middle-sized B to something in the Ds, and that meant that she was going to have some shoulder pain, later. She groaned under her breath as she looked at them, and knew that this had to have been from some sort of porno that the AI had watched, because this was just ridiculous. At least they didn't have her fur all thinned out; they must have added some plugs under that.

Her arms, though...

She looked down at them. They were sheathed in latex pseudo-skin, something that only rich people could get when they had their limbs replaced. It was soft, shimmering, and looked so smooth and supple. She reached up and touched her cheek, and she shivered at the smooth feeling mixed with a surprisingly erotic rubber sensation.

Her hand was still sensitive, too, so the surgery had obviously added more nerve endings to the artificial limb. Very good, and it meant that she could still be rather dexterous with what she did.

The weirdest part for her was the feeling of her new legs and paws. They were definitely more sensitive at the end than they had been, probably a calibration thing that would be dealt with in the future. She wiggled her new digits, feeling the slightly mechanical difference, the precision rather than the slight organic overshot that would have occasionally happened, and a slight shiver went up and down her spine. Pleasure? Discomfort? Just feeling weird with the new stuff? Probably a bit of all three.

But the part that nearly set her to panicking was when she tried to talk. Emphasis: tried.

"Wow." Isabella blinked, gulping as her hands went to her throat. That...that wasn't her voice. That was an electronica version of her voice. "...What - oh god. Oh GOD."

It felt like it was coming from a voice box, and her jaws weren't actually moving. She reached up, rubbing along her face, and felt like she couldn't move her mouth open or closed, like it was partly open and couldn't be shifted. Jumping to her feet, she darted for the most reflective panel on the far side of the room.

She stared at what she saw. Her muzzle had been opened at the end, replaced with a digital screen. Isabella stared at it, her eyes going wider and wider.

"What - AH!"

When she spoke, a sound-line appeared on the screen. She stumbled backwards, fell back onto her bed -

And then felt something further down. Almost like something had bumped her pussy. She looked down between her legs and saw nothing, some sort of panel over her down there that had been projected by her legs. But...but she'd only jostled the little box by the bed...

She reached down, and inside the box, she found the end of a black-furred muzzle, a tight little pucker, and a pussy. Her pussy. All of them were mounted on the end of a handle of a handle, with the tips able to detach from the handles. She undid the one for her pussy, and she realized that the other side was solid. Portal tech, then?

She ran a finger along her detached sex, realized that she could still feel it. Despite herself, she felt a perverted urge, and she held her pussy sideways near her muzzle. It buzzed, and when she let go, it slapped against the edge of her muzzle, giving her a literal pussy-face. She blushed worse, but she slowly edged a finger towards it, slowly sliding it in -

"Mmmph..."

And she felt it. She could feel it between her legs, like a finger was going inside of her from a very different angle. Isabella blushed, realizing that her various orifices had become modular, able to be attached anywhere. A pussy to her muzzle, and her muzzle could go...oh wow...

" Ms. Black. Please report to reception. Your first day of work is about to begin."

"Mmmph!"

" And please bring your new tools. We will discuss how they will be used in your pre-work briefing."

The End

Summary: When virtual reality threatens to throw the economy of a cyberpunk world off the rails, the ruling AIs decide that it's time to start a new industry, one that will be too tempting to just stay inside and ignore. Isabella, a young woman that's desperate for a job, will be the first employee of this new style of...hotel.

Tags: F/solo, cyberpunk, black jaguar, panther, series, modular parts, surgery, high tech, sci-fi, fingering, shock, hotel, prostitution,