Takumi’s Project

On the following workday with Takumi, he sent for her without prior instructions. Cillian knocked at her door at the break of dawn. Rei answered in the oversized manga T-shirt she used as a nightgown. The attire made Cillian lift an eyebrow, but he explained seemingly unmoved that Takumi wished to see her immediately. She got ready in a hurry, dressing in the black tailored dress he had sent her previously.

This time they entered Kuroda Plaza through the grand entrance of the main building. Rei watched the sea of blazers and all the suited tailored people with awe as they crossed through the huge foyer arriving at a bank of brass elevators. After a retinal scan, Cillian led them into a black elevator among the golden ones. The seamless ride up felt different this time. He let her to a huge boardroom. The air in the room was charged not with seduction, but with a new, clinical purpose. The space was set up differently than Takumi’s own office. A low, modern conference table dominated the center, surrounded by chairs. A large holographic display glowed softly, showing complex data streams and corporate logos.

Takumi stood before the window, but he turned with a businessman’s smile, not a predator’s grin, “Rei. Good. Flexibility and punctuality are crucial in any business.” He send Cillian away with a nod and gestured to the table, “Sit. We have a new project to discuss – and you have a key role to play in it.” Rei sat, her black dress feeling too tight and short amidst the corporate atmosphere, “A new project?”

“A diversification,” he said smoothly, steepling his fingers, “My division is developing a new product line. A premium Synapse Dive experience. We’re calling it Eidolon.” The name hung in the air, ancient and haunting, “It will be the pinnacle of digital escapism. Hyper-realistic and fully customizable. It will adapt to the user’s deepest desires.” He paused, letting the concept sink in, “For the launch, we need a face. A presence. Someone with… undeniable charm and elegance. Someone who can embody the fantasy.” His grey eyes settled on her, appraisingly, “I want that to be you.” Rei’s mind raced. A model? A face?

“What would that entail?”, she asked, pouring them both some tea from the pot on the table. “Training, first and foremost,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “You need to learn how to move in a boardroom, to stand beside me not as a hostess from a club, but as a representative of Kuroda Global’s vision. Poise. Obedience. The art of being seen and not heard unless you are spoken to”, he leaned forward slightly, “It is a different kind of power, Rei, more subtle, more potent – and it comes with a higher salary, access to an advanced specialized education and increased comprehension of the corporation. Things that could be very beneficial to you.”

The offer was tantalizing, layered. Power, knowledge, a step up from being a leased tool. But the hook was barbed. “There is, of course, a prerequisite,” Takumi continued, his tone shifting to mild, bureaucratic necessity, “To ensure any necessary digital assets for marketing, we require a full biometric and neural scan. Standard procedure for anyone working at this clearance level. The technology we are developing is currently entirely confidential.” Rei’s instinct screamed. A full scan? Body, voice, brain waves? That was far more than a simple photoshoot. “Is all that really necessary – what for?” she asked, momentarily forgetting to weigh her words carefully.

Takumi’s smile was thinly-patient, condescending, “To ensure security, for one; to create access protocols for example. And, if we decide to use your likeness in any promotional material for Eidolon, we’ll need a digital copy. It’s all very standard.” He waved a dismissive hand, “You can’t expect to learn the secrets of the corporate world without giving a few of your own in return, can you? Trust goes both ways.”

The words were a lecture in manipulation. He made it sound like a logical, minor trade-off. He was grooming her, and he was doing it by appealing to her ambition, her desire to learn, to be more than what she was allowed presently. Rei nodded slowly, complying. “Excellent. Let’s head to the lab immediately, there is no time like the present!”, Takumi stated and led her by the elbow to the elevator, before she could reply.

Immersion

The lab’s main room was a testament to sterilized science, a stark contrast to the elegance of the Kuroda offices. Gleaming white surfaces, humming machinery, and the faint, sanitary scent of antiseptic. In the center of the room stood a cylindrical pod, filled with a viscous, clear liquid that shimmered under the bright lights.

Takumi stood by the observation window at the back of the room, arms crossed, a silent, imposing overseer. The scientist running the lab was called Doctor Kaoru Sato, a slight man with unruly hair that constantly fell in front of his eyes. He moved with a twitchy, efficient energy, his focus entirely on the banks of monitors displaying cascading data streams, not on the human subject in the room. “Posture capture first,” Kaoru muttered, more to himself than to anyone else, “Stand on the marked platform, please. Arms slightly out. And… walk, then hold. Walk.” Rei complied. A ring of lights descended from the ceiling, spinning around her in a silent, blinding whirl. She could feel the heat of lasers mapping every contour, every pore, every minute shift of muscle beneath her skin. It was unnerving, a violation of a thousand tiny privacies.

“Good. Good. Vocal resonance next. Please read from the prompt”, Kauro said excitedly as a screen lit up with a bland paragraph about weather patterns. Rei read it aloud, her voice echoing strangely in the acoustically treated room. The machines recorded every inflection, every breath, the unique timbre of her laughter when prompted via a series of silly pictures popping up suddenly.

Then came the neural scans. A cap of fine wires was fitted to her head, its cold nodes pressing against her scalp. Images flashed on a screen, violent, serene, erotic, mundane, absurd, while sensors measured the minute electrical storms in her brain. She saw Takumi watching from the window, his expression one of focused, clinical interest. He wasn’t looking at her; he was evaluating her graph’s data.

The final stage was the most invasive. Kaoru approached with a breathing apparatus, “The immersion bath is necessary for a full-spectrum bio-signature capture,” Doctor Kaoru explained in a flat, monotone voice, “It will measure micro-expressions, subcutaneous blood flow, galvanic skin response under simulated stress and pleasure paradigms. The gel is a proprietary conductive medium. Please disrobe and enter the pod.”

Rei’s eyes flicked to Takumi. His gaze was expectant, offering no reprieve. This was the price of entry. Hands trembling slightly, she undid the fastenings of the black dress, letting it pool at her feet. She removed the lingerie, noting Takumi’s attention momentarily on her instead of the data displayed. At last, she stood naked under the harsh lights, feeling more exposed than ever. This wasn’t about desire; it was about dissection.

She stepped into the cool, thick liquid, sinking into the pod slowly. Kaoru handed her the breathing apparatus, “Secure the nose and mouthpiece. The gel will fully immerse you. Remain as natural as possible.” She put the device over her nose and in her mouth, took a deep breath, confirming it worked and then sank beneath the surface.

The world vanished into a silent, shimmering blur. The gel closed around her like a second skin and pressed against all of her with a weird, intimate pressure. She could feel subtle currents moving through it, taking their measurements. A frantic drumbeat of anxiety threatened to disrupt her breathing, which the machines were undoubtedly recording. She forced herself to relax, imagining herself at home in the apartment, then in Karasu’s bedroom, in his arms. Gradually calm washed over her.

In the beginning the bath was only cold and impossibly heavy, as Rei sank deeper into the cylinder. Her gasps became muffled by the breathing apparatus, turning them into mechanical hisses. The shimmering liquid clung to her lashes, seeped into the fine spaces between her fingers, cradled her in its suffocating embrace.

Then the procedure began in earnest. Currents flowed harder within the pod, circling her at first, then closing in with sharp and invasive precision. Her skin prickled as microcurrents rippled through the conductive gel, forcing her muscles to twitch, contract and release without her command. Pain shot through her thigh, then heat bloomed across her chest in the next moment, a deliberate manipulation of her body’s most private responses. She tried to calm herself despite her rising terror. Breathe. Act natural. But the pod wasn’t asking; it was taking.

A sudden sting at the base of her skull made her vision white out, her nerves ablaze, and just as she clenched her fists against it, the sensation shifted. Soft. Gentle. A languid warmth rolled over her abdomen, creeping lower, until she bit down on the mouthpiece to keep from shuddering. The machine wanted every reaction; flinch, gasp, tremor, data.

The pain returned, needles of ice lancing up her spine, followed by the dizzying surge of forced pleasure that left her head spinning. She clenched her jaw, nails digging crescents into her palms, refusing to break during the humiliating invasion of her body’s most intimate reactions. But her body betrayed her, shivering, arching faintly, twitching under the clinical assault of sensations.

Minutes stretched into eternities until, slowly, the gel began to drain. The pod’s walls shuddered as the thick liquid receded, leaving her skin slick and gleaming, clinging to her like a translucent second layer. Rei hugged her arms around herself, trembling despite her effort to remain composed. The last of the gel gurgled away through hidden drains until she was left sitting, bare, in the cold basin of the cylinder.

A hiss broke the silence, the sound of a door opening at the base of the pod. Rei rose and stumbled forward, legs weak, every nerve still alive with phantom echoes of what the machine had forced through her. The air outside felt shallow after the suffocating gel, and though she forced herself upright, her body betrayed her with a visible tremor.

Kaoru’s voice floated from somewhere behind the glass, detached and satisfied, “Full-spectrum capture complete.” Takumi’s silhouette did not move. Rei clenched her fists, trying to still her shaking, trying to hold onto something of herself. She had endured, but she had never felt so stripped, so utterly invaded.

Dr. Kaoru waved her forward by the door at the base of the cylinder. She stepped out, wiping the slick gel from her eyes. Kaoru offered her a robe, his attention already back on his screens. “Fascinating,” he murmured, typing furiously, “The amygdala response to the threat and pleasure stimuli were particularly vivid. Excellent data.” As Rei wrapped the robe closer around her, her skin prickled with unease. Takumi finally stepped away from the observation area and approached. “A thorough process,” he said, his tone approving.

While Kaoru was preoccupied with the data download and Takumi checked his commlink fleetingly, Rei saw her chance. She moved closer to the scientist, her voice a whisper meant only for him,“Dr. Kaoru… these scans. Did you have to go through them too?” Kaoru didn’t look up from his screen, “Oh, yes. My baseline was valuable. To compare with better-suited data.” Rei’s blood ran cold. Was she the better-suited data? Before she could ask what exactly that meant, Takumi’s voice cut through the room.

“Is there a problem, Doctor Kaoru? The readings are within parameters, I trust? We are on a schedule”, his tone was pleasant, but it carried an edge that allowed no delay. Kaoru jumped slightly, “No, no problem, Executive Takumi. All parameters are optimal. The data set is… exceptional”, he finally looked at Rei, but his gaze was distant, seeing a collection of perfect numbers, not a person, “We are done here.”

Takumi gave a satisfied nod. “Excellent. Rei, I’ve prepared a change of clothes for you, go to the changing rooms to the right, shower and get dressed. I have a meeting with Bio-Optics in thirty minutes. You have 15 minutes”, he turned and walked out, already moving on to the next item on his agenda.

Left alone with the whirring machines and the distracted scientist, she considered asking Kaoru more questions, but he was violently scribbling notes and scrolling through graphs on the monitor at his desk. Exhaling deeply, Rei picked up her dress and headed for the changing rooms. On her way she looked at the pod and at the banks of servers now storing every physical and neurological secret she possessed, a shudder returning. Takumi’s words about standard procedure and security clearances lay in ruins around her. This was for Eidolon. He was building a digital simulation, and he had just recorded all of her for it. The possible consequences of it were so immense, so cold, it left her numb.