Belly Literary Universe (part 2)

Kelri's Gain Part 75: Irrefusable

"Oh? Something else?" Kelri asked Miranda looking around at the steel and black leather furniture around her to hide her discomfort.

"You've proven yourself an ally - or at the very least that you represent our values." Miranda said with a smirk. She leaned forward, then used both her hands to heft her belly for a moment, to make it more comfortable.

"Does this come with a reward?" Kelri joked dryly.

"Of a sort. We know what you want. I mean, you've basically told us. Begged us. You want to know who the Secret Advisor is. Really who he is, besides a hacker and manipulator. I will arrange a meeting."

"Oh?" Kelri said, trying to hide her surprise and excitement. "And how do I know you're telling the truth? He's led me on before to advance his goals. Stealing data. You know," Kelri said, trying to prevent herself from falling into wishful thinking.

"You don't," Miranda laughed. "But I'm not telling you or setting it up here and now. We need something."

"Right. Always another mission," Kelri said as her mood soured.

"I think you'll understand the stakes in a moment. This is not a small ask, and you're free to decline. But it's the kind of thing that ties you inextricably to our organization. You'd be a member of the 'smoke filled room'. If it turns out we're some spy organization acting on behalf of Balkan Technocracy, then if you rat us out, you'll go down with us. That's not who we are at all, but you get the picture."

"So what you want me to do is illegal."

"Yes, though less so than stealing data."

"If not stealing, then what is it?" Kelri asked cynically. "Assassination? You want me to smother someone with my belly?"

Miranda laughed. "If you want, but that is not the mission."

"Then just tell me what you want me to do."

"Jacob! Bring the thing," Miranda shouted toward the glass backed trickling waterfall.

Miranda turned back to Kelri and continued. "As you've noticed our Cozca app has a lot of information on people..."

"Yeah, that's actually really creepy."

"And it's one of the ways we operate - stay hidden - make plans. We have a wide array of sophisticated neural net bots to trawl and collate information. Make deductions. We need an upgrade."

Kelri cocked her head. "My programming skills are not that sophisticated."

"No. Of course not. We've recompiled the base functionality of the Cozca app and its components a few times. We're overdue. The problem is that we need a quantum computer to compile the program. A powerful one."

"What? Why?"

"Very sophisticated code. Cozca stands at the top and in the background by being ahead of technology trends. We use complex quantum algorithms to process specially gathered data. The nuts and bolts of it are difficult to understand. I don't even understand it. I have engineers doing it for us. But it needs a powerful quantum computer to properly get packaged up."

"Fine. So what does this do beside gather and process data. What are your plans for it."

"More of the same. But it's part of a major advancement of our plan. Cozca, or a part of it, is going public. We're going to make a huge publicity push with celebrities on our side, media, and tech to support it. The Cozca app will be a dating app like any other - able to connect people and create the most synchronous relationships of any service ever designed. The way we detected you, and your possible fetish? Imagine that technology turned to the general market. We can predict sexual compatibility. Personality compatibility. Worldview compatibility. But to do that our service needs to go mobile. Decentralized. Especially if anyone picks up on how it works? They can't tie it to servers."

Kelri thought for a moment. "So, you're decentralizing your servers to everyone's phones..."

"In a way, yes. A distributed cloud."

"So if i were to go along. What is it I need to do? I don't have a powerful quantum computer."

At that point jacob walked into the room, bowling his head slightly, presenting a suitcase to Miranda.

Miranda laid it flat atop her belly, and clicked it open. She pulled out a usb drive and handed it to Kelri. "You do have a super powerful Quantum supercomputer. It's in the facility next to where you work. Your job is to smuggle it in, and plug it into one of the Quantum computer's monitoring terminals. The last time we remoted in to make the changes, but after that breach the department cut off the connections to the outside world."

Kelri looked at the usb drive. An old looking one. Name brand.

"Bypassing the security measure isn't strictly speaking legal, but it's not like you're stealing anything besides processing time on the super computer."

"Why do you think I can do this? I'm a programmer. Administrator. Not exactly the sneaky type. And I'm not a super hacker, like the Secret Advisor. Why not just brute force your way in, or socially engineer your way in?"

"What do you think this is aside from extremely detailed social engineering?" Miranda asked. "But you're an administrator for the department of Data Aggregation and Storage. You interact with the guys who do the actual processing all the time. You've been making changes as the new boss, so it only makes sense for you to request a tour of the other facility. Nothing shady at all. So all you need to do is get the usb drive through security. And to do that? You've been making friends... It's going to be a team effort."

"Veera wanting to get fat... The clothes... your support of me getting a promotion... This was always the goal... Some kind of fat world which you get to control. You change the world, so that once things flip, you're the ones best positioned to take advantage of it..."

"It's not just about that... Cozca does care about advancing this lifestyle for hedonistic and acceptance reasons, but it would be dumb to not take advantage of it at the same time."

"What about the theft of all that medical data?"

Miranda shrugged. "The Secret Advisor and I are not the same person. He has his own goals separate from mine. I couldn't tell you why he had that data."

"So it doesn't have anything to do with Cozca?"

"Maybe it does? But i don't know. He's the one behind the most advanced of our technology. When you meet him you can ask him."

"And he's agreed to all this? I break in, and he'll spill the beans? All of them?"

Miranda nodded. "He is aware of the arrangement."

Kelri sighed. Even if she was lying, Miranda wasn't about to admit it here. The deal was on the table, the delivery in her hands. "So it's a reverse heist..." She said, giving into the plan.

"Indeed. It's the perfect mission. Tests your loyalty, ability, and it advances our mission. You want to know who Pai is? Who the Secret Advisor is? This is our cost."

Kelri sighed... "I guess if that's the price. I'll give it some thought."

"Before you do, you'll need the information we've gathered..."

***