Satyr Play 03 Pt. 01

"Wait, you're saying the application has access to the hardware's system-level commands?" Yasmin asked with a frown.

"Only for the actual transmission and receipt of data packets through the network interfaces. The app is responsible for managing the flow of data through these cards. If there are unaccounted data bits in the stream, that's something the application will identify and act upon," Henry indicated.

"That's not feasible! It would add way too much lag to the interfaces!" Laurence Franklin insisted.

Henry grinned at the group. "Does this mean we've reached the demonstration portion of the presentation?"

The three techs were all frowning but eager to see Henry's outrageous claims go up in smoke.

Henry walked the group over to the test rig. "This is a blade server I purchased and configured for running the firewall application. The specs for this are in the data packages I've prepared for you. This configuration is optimized for the demands of the application. You can't scrimp on the hardware requirements as you're going to run this machine hard. It needs lungs to breathe and legs to run."

The three techs stared at Henry for his odd choice of words, then flipped to the specs page to see just how loaded the machine was. Eyebrows went up, but it wasn't outrageous. They quickly scanned the page to see how Henry had configured the rest of the specs.

Robert looked up with a frown. "There are more powerful computers available to manage the load you're going to be throwing at these processors--"

"But none have the sweet spot for the kind of computation my app will demand of these processors. The app is coded to take advantage of the capabilities of these processors. Let's install the app and see what this baby can do."

"It's not a Ferrari. It's a computer!" Maurice scoffed.

Henry looked to the man. "Today's fastest sports cars wouldn't be possible without machines like these to design them on. That said, I like to think the same meticulous handcrafted care that went into creating the first Ferraris goes into my code. So, thanks for pointing that out."

"If you're going to spend an hour installing an application, perhaps we can leave you techs here while we speak with Camila about the contract," Wallace suggested.

"The install takes seven minutes. There are four steps. You can see it on page ten. A biometric ID is required. Someone on your team will need to be it, the person in charge of all configuration changes. It's suggested you have at least three people authorized for this access for redundancy. You can add their biometric ID by repeating step three but be aware, the more IDs you add, the more chance for human failure you may encounter. Pick your most trusted individuals; again, we suggest a maximum of three, and restrict access to them."

He looked to the Director of the NSA. "Mr. Granger, would you care to do the honors of installing the firewall?"

The man's eyebrows went up as Henry held out a USB stick to him. "You think I can do it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Come on, Wallace, show us how much of a nerd you can be!" Maurice said with a snide grin, ignoring the weary looks from the three tech leads present.

The Director glared at the other man and accepted the stick while the techs stood back to see history in the making.

Henry held the instructions open for the man, and to the Director's surprise, the application was up and running within eight minutes. Henry displayed the firewall server's performance specs by projecting the status screen on the boardroom's wall.

"Our test setup has a basic web server on the other side of your firewall. There's just one page, and here is the address. Now the techs get to try to break through your firewall to get to the webserver," Henry said in challenge.

The three tech specialists grinned as they brought out their laptops and connected them to the network. Henry gave them the addresses of the firewall and the webserver.

Over the next thirty-five minutes, all three tried every tool they had at their disposal to get past the firewall, but they all got trapped in the labyrinth. They were keeping their bosses updated with each tactic they used.

"Are we allowed to bring in external support to crack this?" Yasmin asked.

"Sure," Henry said. Yasmin immediately used her cell to contact her team and started rattling off instructions for them to begin testing as well.

He looked to the NSA Director. "It's my understanding you have a powerful code-cracker system at your headquarters. You want to have your people try to hit the firewall directly? We can watch the performance numbers to see how our server copes with your big iron smashing away at it while the FBI team tries their attack. I'm really curious to see how it will deal with the multi-prong assault!"

He caught Camila's raised eyebrow but just smiled.

Wallace looked reluctant but nodded to Robert, who called up his team to get them to point the big server array at VRL's single blade firewall test server. Henry watched the graphs projected on the wall and saw the FBI team's attempts nudge the numbers higher. He smiled as he saw the result of the Cracker come online as the numbers were climbing and climbing until almost all of the processor power was maxed out.

"Why don't we add in your email address so the server can let you know how it's doing," Henry suggested to the Director. The man nodded, and Henry showed him how to find the configuration page to enter the reporting address. They saved their result, and moments later, Wallace saw an email appear on his cell from the firewall server. It indicated it was under attack and listed the Source IP's of its attackers.

"How is it able to send out a message while we're saturating your connection with attacks?" Robert asked incredulously.

Henry nodded. "Email is tiny, and the firewall server won't completely over saturate. I've configured it to reserve some resources for local activity. Don't you hate it when you can't type in even a simple command as there are no resources left? Additionally, we have a three ISP connection, so you're only saturating one of them. How to do that is also outlined in the documentation."

"We're tying up one of the live connections to our website?" Camila asked in concern.

"Well, these guys are, but our customers won't have noticed yet," Henry assured her.

The boardroom doors opened, and Roy walked in with a scowl on his face. "Oh-oh. Looks like Roy got a message saying we're under attack too," Henry said with a small smile.

"Mr. Gable. What's this about an attack?" Roy asked.

"Sorry, Mr. Duncan. I told these fellows to hammer on the test server. That's tying up one of our connections. I should have let you know in advance. My apologies," Henry said contritely.

Roy made an annoyed noise, glared at the gathered interlopers, then turned on his heel and left.

Henry faced the wide eyes of the visitors. "That was our head of security. He gets alerts of all forms of attacks."

"He's very good at his job," Camila added with a slight smile. She got nods for that.

Henry grinned and rubbed his hands together as he looked to the techs. "Where were we?"

-=-

Camila leaned back in her chair with a broad satisfied smile on her lips. She was happy to see a similar smile on Henry's face. He was leaning back in the guest chair before her desk, glowing from the success of his demonstration.

"Did you hear that jerk Maurice try to recruit me at the end of the demo? What a putz!" Henry chuckled.

"Don't kid yourself, Henry. They all wanted you on their team. Even with the documentation in their hands, none of their tech leads were comprehending how you made it work," Camila insisted.

Henry waved a hand dismissively. "They're smart people. They'll get it, eventually." He yawned as his eyes closed.

"You said you were going home after the demo," she said softly.

"Change of plans. I have a date. Going to Siobhan's place at seven. I have to stick around and leave from here," he said calmly.

Camila smiled and stood. She walked around her desk and patted Henry's shoulder to get him to open his eyes. "You should still get some rest. Stretch out on my sofa and sleep there. I'll wake you with time for a shower, and I'll have the car service take you there and home."

"Oh! That would be great! Thanks!" Henry heaved himself to his feet with Camila's help, then walked over to drop himself down on her couch. She tugged off his shoes and sat on the sofa down by his feet.

"If you like, I could help you relax," she said, looking at him hopefully as she bit her lush lower lip. Part of his anatomy woke up, and she caught the motion against his pants. Her smile grew as he did.

"That would be nice too," he smiled.

He almost chuckled at the joy on her face as she expertly undid his pants and had them and his underwear down to his thighs in seconds.

"Ooo Henry, this is my new favorite reward for a successful business deal!" she cooed.

His brows went up as he watched her wet her lips with the tip of her pink tongue.

Then he sucked in a sharp breath as she pressed her plush lips to the head of his cock. When she brought her tongue into play, he might have whimpered a little. He wasn't too proud to admit she could drive him mad with pleasure and have him begging for release in seconds.

Camila knew he needed rest more than play, so she refrained from extending her pleasure and brought him to a glorious and explosive release deep in her throat in only five minutes.

She felt her cells gobbling up the energy, but there wasn't much room for more. When she realized she'd reached her limit and was at risk of overloading, she reluctantly pulled her mouth clear and collected the remaining surges of cum in her palm, milking him with her other hand. She stared at the pearly white liquid, so full of life and Wild Magic. It took every ounce of willpower to not suck it into her mouth and swallow it. As it was, the energy was soaking into her skin.

She stood and rushed into her washroom to wash it down the sink. Her instincts screamed at her for wasting it, but she was already feeling a little light-headed. She needed to burn off some of this before she went to her dinner appointment tonight. Arriving to this particular meeting fully charged was a smart move but overcharged and spaced out would be disastrous.

Camila changed her glamor into her workout clothes before walking out of her washroom. She saw Henry had tidied himself up and was snoring softly. She paused to watch him for a moment and felt that odd tugging in her heart again. She gave her head a shake and went to her desk to call Sigrid.

"Hey, are you available now to join me in the gym?" she asked when Sigrid picked up.

"Now? Let me check," the Head of HR said as she checked her calendar. "Yeah, I can spare an hour. I'll meet you down there."

Down there meant the basement where Roy's security personnel had a gym. Once they built the boardroom, they realized they had sufficient space for this additional purpose. The team and a few executives were given access to it. No Humans were allowed inside. They'd be able to push themselves beyond Human capabilities, and she had energy to burn! It felt like she was walking an inch above the floor.

Camila gave Henry another fond look and added a trench coat over her skin tight workout clothes. She might meet some staff members on her way down in the elevator. No sense in driving them to distraction.

The security team in the gym was another thing. A little teasing was good for the soul.

Chapter 12

Lorelei opened her eyes and stared at her living room ceiling, convinced she had somehow slipped into purgatory.

Her life felt empty and stagnant. Even painting was bringing her no joy.

When she thought back to when this began, she had to accept it was just before she sent Emily away. Her manipulation of people around her was like a slow-acting poison on her soul. She just felt more and more isolated.

She knew the cause. Her fear of this Hidden Races Council kept her from connecting with others, and she was sick of living in fear!

Finding the Council was proving to be almost impossible. Stumbling across non-humans was too infrequent, and the risk was too high. The Vampire couple seemed friendly, but they had no involvement with the people she needed to talk to. She didn't know who she could trust.

She sat up on her couch and looked at her favorite painting. Today, even it brought her no peace.

With a sigh, she turned her thoughts to more mundane things like day to day living.

Her paintings brought in good money, but that might not last, so she needed to ensure the money she had was working for her. She started up her laptop and logged into her bank's website to check her accounts and investments. Her accounts had the expected amounts, but she froze when she saw her investments. They weren't growing! She was losing money! What the hell?!?

She grabbed her cell, called the branch she dealt with, and made her way through the phone maze to speak with her investment manager.

"Mike Collins speaking." He sounded happy, at least.

"Mike, this is Lorelei Reichenbach. There seems to be some problems with my investment account. Its value dropped, and significantly."

"Heh! Well, that doesn't sound good! What's your account ID? I'll take a look." The man's bubbly attitude was starting to get on her nerves.

She read off the ID, and he mumbled to himself as she heard his hunting and pecking on his keyboard. Then a sigh.

"I see the issue. Those investment packages were reclassified by the US Treasury department. We had to reprocess them, and they incurred fees during that process. As this reduced their value below the new minimum levels, the accounts were downgraded, requiring additional fees. All of this was explained in the letter HQ sent out to all affected investors. You would have received it last week-- I see the flag on your account indicating you did," he explained.

Lorelei knew she hadn't received any such notice. "I didn't receive it."

"Yet our records indicate we sent it," Mike immediately replied. She knew he'd played this game with all of his affected clients.

Suddenly it was all too much. As much as she wanted to sing a song to Mike to help him discover the joy of forcing his bank forms up his ass, she kept her lips closed as she took deep breaths.

"Mike. Move the funds from my investments into my savings account."

There was a pause as he would lose a commission if she dropped his investments. She hummed a little obedience tune. "I-I can do that. There's a fee--"

"Waive the fee, Mike."

His voice took on a whining tone. "I'll have to pay the fee personally."

"Mike, you're the one who sold me the bad investment package. Don't you feel any responsibility at all?"

"Nnnooo," he sniveled.

"Waive the fee."

More silence then a sullen response. "Okay, your money is in your savings account."

"Thank you, Mike." She hummed her forget-me refrain and hung up.

It was only then that she remembered the call was recorded. She shook her head as there was nothing she could do about it now.

What she needed to do was find a better place to manage her investments. She went online and did some searches for reliable, secure, conscientious investment management. There was so much out there. She added criteria for a local office as she wanted to speak face to face with someone. That didn't really narrow her options too much. She knew she didn't want some mainstream corporate giant as she was tired of being a number.

She sat pondering the sheer number of options she had and felt the weight of the decision weighing on her. She had to push forward, or nothing would happen.

Doing a search on where the investment houses were clustered in Lower Manhattan, she spotted one on the edge of a neighborhood she enjoyed spending time in. Good shops, good restaurants, and lovely streets for wandering in. It seemed like a dumb reason for picking an investment house, but it cost her nothing to click on the red pin.

VRL. She'd never heard of it. She opened the link to the website in a new browser tab so she wouldn't lose her search results if this turned out to be a dud.

She was pleased by the clean, simple design of the website. There was a natural flow to the navigation of the pages, and that resonated with her. Someone working on this design was a kindred spirit. She smiled to herself then she tried to push the warm fuzzies aside. She read through the firm's offerings, and they seemed open to dealing with individuals and businesses. They even had a section describing their recent investment in state-of-the-art security. That appealed to her.

Lorelei wrote down the name, number, and address as VRL was definitely a contender.

She went back to her search results page and checked out six more websites.

When she was done, she'd narrowed it down to three contenders. While VRL was sticking in her mind as her first choice, she wanted alternatives. She picked up her cell and started making calls. She wanted to set up appointments to speak to them.

Once more, the contact at VRL's made her feel comfortable with their friendly, easy-going attitude. On her second call, her list's newest investment house came across as a little more mercenary. The final call was to the most well-known investment house, but they had difficulty granting her an appointment the following day. They finally told her they would squeeze her in. This didn't leave her with a warm and fuzzy feeling.

Now she had a plan to visit all three tomorrow and had appointments at all three. VRL would be last.

She understood getting control over her financial future wasn't the answer to her issues... but it was a start.

Chapter 13

Henry actually felt a lot better as he sat in the back of the black SUV Camila had arranged for him. She'd woken him, and they shared a shower together. Apparently, she'd gone for a workout to burn off the excess energy after their little playtime. She'd overdone it, and he massaged the knots from her muscles as best he could in the shower. As she purred about her, once again, loose muscles, she told him he had a career as a masseuse if the whole computer thing didn't pan out.

More impressive to him was the fact that he'd actually managed to take a shower with a gorgeous, naked Succubus and not have sex! That was quite the achievement! He was very proud of his improved self-control.

Henry had to glamor some clothes for himself as the ones he'd worn to work had gotten a little sticky from their earlier fun. Not that he had any grounds to complain.

As they pulled up to her building, he saw it was an older, three-story structure but well maintained. It had character and was surrounded by similar apartments. He'd noted a subway entrance just up the street, so that was convenient. He didn't know how long he'd be, so once they stopped, he let the driver know he'd find his own way home. The artificial man just nodded and headed back to VRL.

He'd stopped along the route to pick up a bottle of wine. The shop owner had suggested a crisp white like a Pinot Grigio to pair with the seafood pasta, so that's what he had. He hoped Siobhan liked it. He'd be restricting himself to one glass.

She buzzed him into her building, and he took the stairs just inside the door to reach the top floor.

She opened the door before he knocked and dazzled him with a happy smile when she spotted the wine in his hands.

"Henry! How thoughtful!" she said as she accepted the bottle.

He smiled and leaned forward to give her a kiss on the cheek, but she managed to turn to catch his lips with hers for a brief kiss.

Smiling mischievously, she ushered him inside. He slipped his shoes off and glanced around. It wasn't a large space, but it was tastefully decorated, warm, and welcoming. He could see Siobhan's affinity with nature in her choices of colors and textures throughout the apartment. Rich earth tones, fresh green, and deep blues were found in the comfortable-looking wood furniture, the cushions, and the window treatments. Small, flickering digital candles were placed randomly all around the combined dining and living room.