The hacker girl downed the last of her energy drink, wiping it away from her mouth with a gasp. Tonight was going to be a long one, another run on the megacorp's R&D servers. She knew she was getting close to uncovering some really dirty secrets the corp were keeping buried - it had taken her the last three sleepless nights of dodging ICE and duping sysadmin accounts just to find out the IP address for this one, hidden deep in the darknet.

She put on her headset, plugging it into the neural jack implant wired into the back of her neck. Some runners favored connecting directly using brainchips or even genemodded cortical nodes, but just as many had suffered extensive brain damage from ill-fated runs - the extra buffer given by external hardware could protect her, if worst came to worst. She adjusted her headset for comfort, making sure her dyed green hair wasn't tangled up in the straps. It'd be a pain to fix that mid-run.

She leaned back in her chair, and gave a wry smile as the augmented reality overlay - the transition between meatspace and the cyberverse - greeted her. Both metaphorically, the grid lines flashing as it calibrated the geometry of her room, and literally, as her custom bootup message appeared before her eyes.

"Welcome, AAA."

A silly handle, from back when she was a dumb scriptkiddie more than a decade ago, phreaking vidsuites at the VRcade for reels of prize tickets and thinking she was clever for overwriting highscores with the old default name. But the prize AAA had in mind tonight was much more important than any stuffed animal or cheap plastic toy. Data this secret would be worth a fortune in creds, whether in blackmail material, copied proprietary software or simply insider trading on stocks. No more shitty secondhand aircon, the heat of her main rig barely compensated for by the thrumming unit (obsolete before she was born, and working so poorly she had recently taken to stripping down to her underwear for runs). No more ramen or discounted synthburgers for her after tonight - at least, not for a few months of living it large.

AAA activated the feedback implants in her fingers and raised a hand, the digital rendition of her apartment zooming away as she seemed to be flying through space. She twitched her fingers across the virtual keyboards that floated alongside her, moving her in the direction of her target. Passing the glowing octagons of varying colors that indicated valid addresses, the rows and columns stretching out towards infinity, she navigated to her destination - a void between two unremarkable nodes in this sea of servers. She dove down, cyberspace rippling around her as she followed the connection to the darknet.

Already she could see heavy-duty ICE, software put in place as countermeasures against hackers like her. But she had not came unprepared - her own custom software automatically highlighted a wall of static, a feedback loop put in place to misdirect unwary hackers right past this hidden server. The haptic feedback of the implants in her fingers buzzed as she pushed on through it, the program presenting no barrier to her since she knew exactly what server she was looking for. 

She waited out the cooldown of a sentry program, waiting several long minutes before slipping past the digital form of a six-eyed hound made of shadows - a Devildog, a notoriously dangerous piece of Black ICE, highly illegal software that could very well cause a heart attack in a hacker who hadn't spent days researching its blindspots. She breathed a sigh of relief as the program remained fixated on the entrance node - she had avoided its attentions, and her goal was in sight.

The glowing cluster of files that indicated the data storage of this server. She floated towards it, examining it from all angles for traps, but found nothing - this was the only data node inside the server. Whatever was here must be important to hide it so well. She reached out to open it, but instead of the flurry of research notes and emails she expected to pour out she was met with an inky black fog, pouring out of the node. The data node wasn't trapped - it WAS the trap!

She immediately reached to jack out of the run, but to no avail. The trapped data node seemed designed to keep her in place as it did... whatever it was doing. It was engulfing her digital avatar, slowly but surely. Had the corp figured out there was a hacker testing their defences, choosing to swap in a honeypot to take her out for good? Or, perhaps, was the top secret research into a new form of Black ICE that she had inadvertently armed? It didn't matter to AAA - she flipped rapidly through her icebreakers and utility progs, searching for any escape as darkness overtook her entire interface.

A scene flashed before her, rendered so fully that it felt real - AAA saw herself standing before a mirror, naked as the day she was born, but with some minor differences to the body she knew. Seams ran down either side of her breasts, as if her chest was a cybernetic plate that could be removed for maintenance. Her knees and elbows were doll-like balljoints, the kind that was seen on the more stylized androids churned out by the corp - the ones that didn't need to fully pass as human, but where aesthetics were considered important. The expression on her face was blank, the robotic eyes staring right back at her through the mirror. A thigh tattoo - no, numbers and letters stamped directly onto her synthetic skin - showed her serial code and model number. AAA-001, the first in a new series.

What was this?

Black ICE?

Memories of an android that had just been brought online?

Her memories?

No, that wasn't right! She was human! A hacker! Not a machine built by the corp!

She tried to shake her head, to drive out the thoughts, but her vision didn't change away from her own unblinking robotic gaze.

Her peripheral vision - no, the peripheral vision being generated by this fake memory - saw a pair of servant androids step to her sides. AAA unwillingly raised her arms as the robots - each dressed in a pristine maid outfit (albeit one with short sleeves and a knee-length skirt, to show off their artificial joints) - began to clothe her. The tomboyish hacker gagged at the thought of experiencing putting on such a frilly outfit, even as her mind was flooded with thoughts that she needed to obey. That she needed to get dressed. That she needed to get ready for her purpose.

Her purpose?

AAA tried to struggle again, but was unable to move - either in meatspace or in the network. The doll-like maids fitted her with a lacy bra and panties as she assessed the situation. She had figured out what this data node was - a program designed to overwrite android neural networks with new programming, repurposed into a nightmarish piece of personality-erasing Black ICE - and she needed to escape as soon as possible!

Why would she want to escape? It's not her purpose to escape.

It's her purpose to serve.

Yes, she thought, as the maids attached her skirt and top. This is what she is programmed to do.

It's her purpose to be an obedient android maid for her master.

It's her purpose to see to her master's every need.

The android girl, now dressed identically to the other maids, set about her work. Cleaning the home of her master - a high-ranked executive in the corp - brought her blank pleasure. She had no need of higher thoughts.

Preparing a meal for her master, the other two maids quietly chopping vegetables as she prepared an expensive sirloin steak for her master. The blank joy of being his obedient servant, one of his personal androids, was enough to occupy her thoughts as she cooked.

The other maids remained behind to clean up as she carried her master's meal to him. She stood dutifully by his side as he ate, no thoughts beyond his comforts. She was his personal android, modelled after a hacker who had disrupted his projects but made to obey his every whim. The thought of being built only to serve this man brought her more blank pleasure as she stared unblinkingly ahead, waiting for her master to finish his meal.

AAA shuddered. Was that what she was being turned into by this? Even if it couldn't physically change her, the thought of her mind being overwritten into a puppet of the corp was abjectly humiliating. She felt weak and helpless, unable to do anything but stare out from this virtual body as her master - as this man who was the master in her delusion, she quickly thought, trying to deny ever going along with the vision - ordered her to kneel. Ordered her to serve him.

She sealed her lips around her master's cock, her expertly-programmed mouth taking the length with grace. She worshipped her master's penis, her secondary programming as his perfect sexual companion taking over. Delicate fingers massaging his testicles, a soft tongue lapping at the head of his shaft. Still dressed in her maid outfit, AAA-001 diligently saw to her master's needs. He grabbed her by her green hair, forcing her onto his cock as he spurted warm semen down her artificial throat. She could do nothing but gaze upwards into his eyes as she dutifully swallowed, robotic eyes staring blankly at her master's grin of triumph.

AAA-001 walked off to clean herself up, her master satisfied for now. But something was wrong. She kept having the thought that she was suffering from some kind of delusion.

She kept thinking she was human.

AAA-001 searched her databanks for a solution. She would have to return to the corp R&D division to be reprogrammed fully. She was hallucinating that she was in her master's home when she was in an apartment building on the opposite side of the city. She must have been severely damaged! She would have to contact her master with her current location, so he could send his subordinates to collect her for reprogramming.

Then she truly would be his perfect obedient maid forever.

The maid android reached to send the data, but was shaken out of it by a loud buzzing. Flashing lights.

"Emergency neural stimulation initiated. Welcome back, AAA."

AAA gasped in horror, one of her backup programs temporarily shaking off the brainwashing. She had never been more thankful for the extra storage in her headset!

The backup program was enough to briefly give her a path out of the black fog that had been clouding her thoughts, erasing her personality to turn her into a robotic slave. Was she really about to dial the corp and tell them exactly where and who she was, before volunteering to be brainwashed in person?

She passed the Devildog on the way out, the lethal program seeming almost quaint now. It didn't pursue, or perhaps her haste in leaving had saved her from a confrontation.

She logged out as soon as it was safe, pulling off her headset and letting it drop to the floor next to some discarded cans of soda. She hadn't realized how fast her heart had been pounding this whole time until she was able to take long, deep breaths in her chair. Her heartbeat slowed to a normal rate as she vowed to never go near that Black ICE again. Whoever had designed that thing, that dark delusion that drew on her own memories to make her think she was always some sexual slave in service to the corp, must be unbelievably perverse. Not at all like her! She hadn't enjoyed that one bit, right?

She glanced down, blushing in embarassment as she noticed her briefs were soaking wet. Only now did she consider just how pleasurable that helplessness had felt, how it had felt kind of right to have a purpose as a programmed pleasure puppet. It had been enough to drive her near-mindless body to the brink of orgasm over and over.

Well. It wouldn't hurt to go back and make a copy of that program for research purposes. Right?