Otaku Infection, Chapter 1:
Incubation Period
Across the
great
“Felin, I asked for a report on the status of the Otaku virus, not a grandiose, overblown prelude.”
“Ah, the Otaku virus. I was getting to that,” the black-and-white-furred feline said, shuffling the papers she held in her hands. “Yes, the beginning of the report… it should be here… somewhere, I believe…”
Jaynin sighed, leaning back in his chair and shaking his head in exasperation. “A progress report generally doesn’t include several pages of a speech, Felin. Please, can you make your reports more concise in the future?”
Felin’s ears twitched and drooped. “Yes, sir. I’ll try not to do it next time.”
“Thank you, Felin… Jelex, put the Game Boy away.”
“Mmm?” The blonde-haired elven girl looked up, trying to be casual as she folded the Game Boy up and stuck it in the pocket on her denim skirt. She brushed her black, midriff-exposing tank top and shoulder pads that bore her name, then straightened the black fingerless gloves she wore and tried to show a little more interest. “Ah, fine. I’m listening.”
“Yes, I know you were,” Jaynin said, raising his eyebrow. “So tell me what Felin said just now.”
“Hey, that’s not fair! You didn’t say that there was going to be a quiz!” Jelex complained.
“’Yes, the beginning of the report… it should be here… somewhere, I believe…’” the third girl said, a light smirk on her face as she opened one eye and turned her head slightly to look sideways at Jelex.
“Hey, that’s not fair either, Syia!” Jelex said, turning to face her. “You used your psychic-mind-reading power thing. You cheat.”
“I did not ‘cheat’,” Syia replied, adjusting her glasses and bringing her yellow eyes to bear on Jelex. Folding her arms beneath her rather generous breasts, she leaned in and shook her long blue hair slightly. “I was doing something which you claim your ears are able to do very well and that is called ‘listening’.”
“I was too listening!” Jelex said, bouncing on her toes and turning fully to face Syia, almost nose to nose with the other girl.
“You were listening to your Game Boy,” Felin sniffed, ruffling the papers in her hands and delicately leafing through the pages of the report. “If you two will quit making noise and allow me to continue…?”
“Please continue, Felin,” Jaynin said, tuning out the continuing verbal sparring between Jelex and Syia and listening to Felin read her report.
“The Otaku Virus alpha-strain has been successfully completed. Beta- and gamma-strains are still in development, although beta-strain should be completed within a few weeks.” Felin turned the page, shooting a glare back at the two arguing girls, which they both promptly ignored. “Otaku Virus-alpha combines the characteristics of a computer virus and biological virus. Essentially, when released into a media mainframe, it splices in a very special series of electromagnetic emissions to be released over a period of time, transmitted to the brain through the optical nerve. These emissions are actually mimicking the brain’s own electrical impulses, and upon the reception of the impulses, will command the synapses to begin reconfiguring themselves to suit our purposes… allowing reactions and actions normally not possible in an ordinary human.”
“Say that again?” Jelex asked, reading the report over Felin’s shoulder and snatching the page out of her hands, scratching her head and turning the page this way and that.
“It means that people will become affected simply by watching television,” Syia replied.
“Oh, really? Then why didn’t you just say that?” Jelex asked, tossing the page back at Felin and shrugging, going into a series of stretches.
“Because the report is supposed to include a detailed description of the workings of the Otaku Virus,” Felin replied, with something of an exasperated tone. “Yes, in layman’s terms, what Syia said is correct. However, with the alpha-strain, the effectiveness is proportional to the number of impulses received. In short,” she went on, shooting a glance at Jelex, “the longer people are watching television and receiving these impulses, the more affected they will be.”
“I get it. So someone who sits in front of their TV all day watchin’ anime will knock themselves out nosebleeding if Syia flashes them?” Jelex grinned, giving Syia’s generous chest a pat.
Syia narrowed her eyes, using one finger to push Jelex’s hand away. “Likely, yes. Or, a more useful scenario would be that I would employ my influence over a fanboy to perform a useful task towards occupation.”
“You know, not all fanboys like girls with huge boobs and glasses,” Jelex said, grinning and stretching her back until it popped. “Some guys like a girl who could put up a fight, kick ‘em around a little, you know, a tough girl.”
“The hope is that you will all have fanboys and possibly fangirls,” Jaynin interjected, standing up with a flourish of his flowing scarf. “The Otaku Virus alpha-strain’s main objective is to create sympathy and sway the minds of the people toward our cause. One week after the release of the virus, we will commence with the limited objective of taking over a single city, to test our capability.”
“Very well,” Felin said. “Which landmass will be our first target?”
“Seeing as this is still experimental… and we are venturing with our weakest weapon, we need to pick a target with a population that is likely to be affected and may harbor sympathetic feelings toward us already…”
“That means our first target is…” Syia mused.
“Our first target is a really cliché first target, but what the hell!” Jelex grinned ear to ear.
“Cliché,
maybe, but its characteristics militate in our favor.” Jaynin pressed a
button
on the arm of his throne and a computerized map of the world displayed
on the
large screen which descended from the ceiling to his left. “The first
target
city will be
“Absolutely,” Felin replied, the pride in her creation obvious in how her ears perked up and her tail curled over her shoulder. “Their detection systems look for programs with malicious intent against the system. Our virus will easily disguise itself and make it into the broadcasting mainframe. There, it will self-replicate and attach itself to every broadcast signal transmitted. You can rest assured there will be no problems.”
“Very
well.” The computerized world map zoomed and panned until a 3-D
representation
of
“Yes, sir!” the three girls replied, seriousness stamped on all of their features.
Jaynin paced back and forth in front of his throne, speechifying. “The success or failure of our entire operation depends highly on how efficiently you accomplish this first goal…” Although all three girls watched and pretended to pay attention, Syia and Felin traded a glance and a slight grin before both of them prodded Jelex in her exposed midriff, causing her to let out a whoop and giggle, clutching her sides.
Jaynin stopped in his speech and sighed. “Never mind, I know you three aren’t paying attention. Just get going and do a good job, ok?”
“I’m on it!” Jelex replied, laughing and running for the door, barely beating the other two outside.
For a minute Jaynin waited in his throne room, looking at the computerized screen which would update the progress of conquest. Then he sighed, sat down, and pulled out his own Game Boy. “This might take a while…”
* * *
That week,
the unsuspecting citizens of
Of course,
the effects were not universal, nor were they particularly equal in
effect.
Those who were glued to their television sets watching anime and other
television programs were of course more affected, whereas those who
spent more
time working and less time watching were less affected.
Jelex and
Syia disembarked from their flight, having arrived first in
With a wink at Jelex, Syia got to work. “Oh… excuse me!” the busty girl said, affecting a shy manner and speaking softly, catching the attention of the airport security guard she had spoken to.
“Y-yes, Miss?” the guard asked, making an obvious effort to keep his eyes on hers.
“Would you… tell me where the airport’s main office is, please?” Syia blinked and smiled in a charming manner, bouncing just enough to give herself a lift, so to speak.
“I… ah… but, normal citizens aren’t permitted in there, it’s… restricted,” the guard replied, a blush crossing the bridge of his nose and brightening his cheeks.
“You can tell me, I’m just curious,” Syia said earnestly, leaning in closer to the guard. Although he was taller than she, the guard got the impression she was looking down at him, partially because he was trying to bend away from her, very mindful of how close her chest was getting.
“Really, I c-can’t tell you that,” he stammered, falling backwards into a chair. Syia saw her opportunity and pounced, sitting herself in his lap and smiling gently, inwardly grinning at trapping her prey. “M-Miss, what are you d-doing, I can’t just…”
“Please, won’t you just direct me to the main office?” Syia placed a soft hand on his chest, leaning in still closer to him.”
“I… I… I… ah… it’s… that way!” With a tripping tongue and warm cheeks, the guard’s resistance to Syia’s charms crumbled and he pointed a trembling finger towards the end of one corridor.
“Thank you so much,” Syia said, giggling shyly after she gave him a quick peck on the cheek, then walking slowly back over to Jelex, who was drawing stares for her odd attire.
“Took you long enough, everyone’s treating me like some kind of prostitute,” Jelex complained. “You’d think these people would never have seen a bare stomach or a skirt before.”
“You have to learn to use that against them,” Syia said with a shrug, shaking her long blue hair to fall straight down her back. “Come on, the office is this way. You cover me while I disable the security and let Felin patch into the system.”
“I know what to do,” Jelex said with a cocky grin. “Lemme at ‘em.” She cracked her knuckles and grinned. “I hope one of ‘em tries to fight back. I could use some exercise.”
“We’re trying to not raise the alarm just yet, not until Felin controls the security. So don’t let them pull the alarm.”
“I know. You ready?” Jelex asked, as they reached the main control room, which said ‘EMPLOYEES ONLY’ in big, bold letters. Syia nodded and began to concentrate, forming her mental energy into waves of physical force and manipulating the lock to open itself, then standing aside as Jelex kicked the door with much more force than necessary, causing it to slam against the wall inside.
“All right, suckers, hands in the air, no going for the alarms, we’re takin’ over this airport!” Jelex grinned, as most of the employees looked up from their terminals, mouths slightly agape with surprise, but the quicker-witted among them reached for the alarm buttons which were liberally sprinkled about the room. “I said no alarms, got that?” she repeated, taking a rapid step forward and grabbing the wrist of the nearest such operator, while copies of her hands seemed to mysteriously spring from the terminals around the room and grasp wrists in a like manner. This of course caused much horrified gasping around the room as Syia stepped in and shut the door behind her, locking it once again.
“You. You are the supervisor, correct?” Syia accosted the person who appeared to be a supervisor, a woman. “Tell me the system access code.”
“Never! I would never besmirch my honor by cooperating with terrorists such as yourselves,” the woman spat, glowering at Syia as she tried in vain to release her wrists from the hands that held them. “You can’t hold us here forever, soon there will be a shift change and…” the supervisor bit her lip, gasping in sudden shock as Syia took her chin in hand and twisted her face gently yet inexorably to face Syia.
“You needn’t tell me, just so long as you have it in your mind…” Syia’s yellow eyes glowed and changed color, becoming a light, pale blue. What the supervisor didn’t realize as she gaped and struggled in fear was that Syia’s eye-glowing meant nothing, its only purpose being to intimidate and lower the woman’s mental defenses while the real work went on unnoticed. Syia searched the other woman’s mind, skirting about and scanning the sense of the information, filtering out memories, thoughts of home and plans for the weekend, the usual river of information running through any human brain. To search blindly would be to render the entire exercise useless; Syia would be able to guess the passcode randomly before she found it searching through every single thought inside this woman’s head. Instead, she looked for the group of thoughts which were concerned with the workplace, and one in particular that was hazy almost, as if it was trying to be hidden… With a sudden movement Syia let the supervisor go and smiled, her eyes returning to their normal yellow color.
“Jelex, keep an eye on the door while I bring Felin here.” Syia punched in the passcode at the supervisor’s terminal, then concentrated.
“Sure thing. I think someone noticed us kick the door in.” Jelex peered around the door, which she had closed so it was only cracked open, hopefully not noticeable at a casual glance. “There’s a group of people looking and pointing at this door…” Just like that, a keening wail split the general murmur of the airport, along with red flashing lights in the corridors. “The hell? What just – damn it!”
“Give up now,” the supervisor said, a wary grin on her face, the tops of her stockings exposed in a rather embarrassing manner because she had managed to impossibly stretch her leg in such a manner as to get enough leverage to press one of the alarm buttons with her toe. “Surrender yourselves quietly and it will mitigate your sentence at trial.”
“Trial, hell! It’s time to kick ass!” Jelex flung the door open and bellowed, “Bring it on!”
Meanwhile, Syia’s concentration had caused the air to shimmer before her, looking almost like a rippling effect as if someone had tossed a rock into the middle of a pond. From that rippling Felin suddenly appeared, ears twitching and mouth quirking with the loud noise of the klaxons. “What happened?”
“Looks like the supervisor is a devotee of yoga,” Syia said with a shrug, pointing to the woman who was now staring agape with the rest of her staff at the cat-girl who had appeared from thin air. “Can you still hack into the system and gain control?”
“If you accessed it before the alarms went off, then yes, I can.” Felin sat in the supervisor’s abandoned seat and tapped the hands growing from the console. Jelex looked back and nodded, and the pair of hands restraining the supervisor disappeared as Felin’s tail quickly wound around her middle, trapping her arms to her sides and sitting her next to her terminal on the floor. “Good, the access is still open. Let’s get started.
“Enable remote connection… connect to remote host at jupiter2.cc.otainfe.com… enter username F-E-L-I-N, connect through port 222… connect!” Felin hit the enter key with a flourish, hands balled and body tense, praying the operation would be successful, allowing her to connect to the elaborate mainframe system she had back in her laboratory… with the immense computing power, she hoped, the low-level security would be decoded almost instantaneously and the higher-level protections simply brute-forced through flooding… “Yes! It worked! All right, let’s shut off that alarm.”
“Much better,” Jelex said, looking over to Syia and grinning as the other girl joined her outside of the main office. “You ready?”
Syia shrugged and winked. “I am.” As they both turned back to face the long hallway from which the airport security would surely be coming down, the first squad of navy-uniformed policemen burst around the corner, kneeling and all drawing their pistols.
“You are under arrest!” one of them barked. “Surrender now and put your hands in the air! Put your hands in the air and do not resist!”
“Like this?” Jelex asked, casually folding her hands behind her head, interlacing her fingers and stretching her back. “My hands are in the air, now what?”
The security guard looked slightly baffled, as if unsure whether Jelex was mocking him or complying, but he snapped a reply. “Walk slowly towards us, keeping your hands in the air, and we will not harm you. Resist and we may be forced to employ physical force.”
“Isn’t that a shame,” Syia said. “In fact, that was the very same thing we were going to say. We’re not looking to kill anyone, so if you cooperate and are loyal, you’ll not be harmed either. Who knows, if your cooperation with us is long and steadfast, you may rise within the ranks of our organization.” Syia chuckled, raising her right hand and twitching her fingers a bit, yanking all of the officers’ guns out of their hands to the chorus of surprised gasping. “I don’t think you’ll be needing these, by the way,” she said, a knowing smile playing about her lips as the weapons floated, quivering in midair for a moment, before letting them all fall with the bolts and triggers twisted, rendering the weapons useless.
“Now, if you want to fight still, that’s my job,” Jelex said, her knee-high boots echoing on the linoleum-tiled floor of the airport, flexing her fingers and smacking her fist into her palm as she walked towards the group of half-dozen startled officers. The officers traded nervous glances at one another, then back to Jelex…
* * *
“You’d think these guys would learn,” Jelex said with a sigh, although that sigh belied her energy as she drummed her fingers on her thigh. “This was the fourth squad they sent?”
“The largest so far,” Syia replied, seeing the security guards that Jelex had smacked around a bit flee, leaving the terminal completely devoid of a security presence. Felin, who was monitoring their progress on the security cameras, had closed the steel security shutters behind them as they secured the expansive airport.
“I think that was the last of the contingent here at the airport,” Felin’s voice boomed out over the airport’s PA system. “But from the security cameras outside, I can see that the city police have barricaded the only road in, and they seem to be waiting for reinforcements. One tactical assault team has already arrived, and I can’t imagine they’ll wait too long before they come in.”
“We should take the fight outside,” Jelex said, grinning. “What’s a little body armor and riot shielding? I can take ‘em, no problem.” She danced on her toes, throwing punches at the air.
“Jelex, you and Syia should come back to the main office. If you go out through the main doors, they’ll be expecting you and you’ll be cut to shreds. There’s an access shaft to the roof, you’ll be able to combat them with the advantage of high ground from there.”
“How do you expect me to fight from a rooftop?” Jelex complained.
“You’ll be providing cover for Syia while she works,” Felin explained, opening the doors for them as they made their way back to the main office. “We figure that right now we need to buy some time and secure this facility for ourselves, so out next attack should be psychological. Syia, that’s where you come in.”
“Leave it to me,” Syia said, adjusting her glasses and letting a faint grin touch her lips. “I know exactly what to do to them. Where is this roof access shaft, Felin?”
* * *
“Hmm.”
Jaynin watched his 3-D representation of the city of
“I would say no,” Felin replied. “Alpha-strain was the weakest form, and opponents with training to keep their mind in focus such as the police officers we now face are unlikely to suffer any effects from the virus. In this case, our goal is to have a base of supportive population to help in administering the city once the conquest is complete. At the current stage of the virus, it will be of little use in trying to sway determined security forces.”
“I see. Continue the operation, then. Has Syia teleported any of your construction droids yet?”
“One of them, sir,” Felin reported. “Right now I have it currently upgrading and strengthening the computer mainframe for administration of the airport. The next droid will hopefully begin on constructing fortifications and defenses, allowing us to establish a stronger base from which to work.”
“Very well, thank you for your progress update.” Jaynin turned away from the map and drank from a glass of water set on a table near his throne, deep in thought.
“Sir? May I ask a question?”
“Go ahead, Felin.” Jaynin’s gaze was unfocused, his thoughts not currently in the room in which he sat.
“Can we expect any kind of reinforcement within any time in the near future?”
Jaynin chuckled, steepling his fingers and tapping them against one another as he answered. “I’m working on that, Felin. I hope I will be able to report to you with good news sometime soon. Are you having problems with securing the site? I can come and visit if you are in need of some extra firepower for the time being.”
“Not at all,” Felin answered. “In fact, resistance has been very weak and scattered.”
“You’re… sure that you don’t need me to come?”
“Positive.”
“Absolutely positive?”
Felin sighed. “Yes, absolutely positive.”
“Oh, all
right then. Continue onward.” Jaynin heard his receiver click as Felin
cut the
connection. For a moment, he was silent. “Man, I am so bored…” Jaynin
pressed a
button on his throne, causing a game system to pop out of the table
nearby.
Putting a game in the system, he turned it on, and the map of